About China blogosphere, travel, and entrepreneurship

A small city now 45 minutes of bullet train away from Shanghai(was 2 hours a few years ago), Wuxi is and has been one of the brightest spots of tourism in all of China for the past ten years due to the film sets and the beautiful Tai Hu( Lake Tai). Of the “Three Heavens” outside of Shanghai: Wuxi, Suzhou, and Hang Zhou, Wuxi is more frequented due to the popular studio sets of many Chinese television series such as “Romance of the Three Kingdom”.

Three Kingdoms City - The title of all the films/tv series shot here are listed on wooden boards with each respective title.

After they built the sets a few years ago, they have also named one of the huge studio sets Three Kingdoms City. Although there are other sets next to the Three Kingdoms City, I’d have to say none are as exciting and magnificent. If you go visit during the day, be sure to catch the 1:30pm martial arts show held in the round Shaolin temple located in the center of the attraction. Each film set costs about 100 RMB to get in, there are a few around the area, but I’d skip out on the other ones and just go to Three Kingdoms City. They are all mainly the same; you seen one, you’ve seen all.

I don't even remember where this was, LOL, can't tell you how to get here, sorry!

Traveling tip: If you are ever visiting Shanghai and want to get away from the city for a weekend, visit these cities in the following order: Hang Zhou, Suzhou, Wuxi.

Traveling tip #2: Do NOT fall for overpriced ripoff tours like this one. $191/person for a one day trip is ridiculous.

YOU HAVE TO TRY THIS!!! 30 or 50rmb to rent this and take a picture! Bring own digital camera otherwise they charge you more!

How do I get there? If you decide to take a tour, it might be costly than going on your own(they charge locals and foreigners different prices for these tours due to language-barrier. Foreigners will most likely pay 4x the price of a local) But at least you don’t have to organize anything and worry about getting lost.

Wedding Crashers, well, a fake one...

WWJD? I’m a pretty adventurous cat, so I love to go out and explore, this is what I would do:

1. Get a map first and find out addresses of the spots I’d want to visit(from tourist guide pamplets available in your hotel room or internet sites. If your hotel has no tour guides, then you must be in a really ghetto part of town)

2. Buy a train ticket and go to that city.

3. Once there, take a taxi to the addresses (Make sure you get in a  legitimate looking taxi with a working meter or else you’ll get jacked without knowing it)

4. Once you get to the front gates of the attractions, buy tickets, and also get out 50-100 RMB bill ready to give out to walking guides looking for business. A lot of them can speak English, and they might cost more, but 50-100 RMB should be sufficient; unless there’s some new union or inflation in China I don’t know about. What SHOULD be included in that fee is a full day of walking around showing you around, showing you a nice restaurant to eat some local cuisine(invite them to eat with you even if they politely say no; common courtesy), and finding you a hotel if you need.

This isn't exactly England with the tall guards; THIS CHINA FOOLS!

Traveling Tip #3: DO NOT miss out on the world famous “Wuxi Spareribs” (pronounced Woo She Pie Goo). Ask a taxi driver and he’ll know where to take you.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…

The historical moment is 16:43 Sep. 27 2008.

Chinese Spaceman Zhai Zhigan: Walking out of Spaceship

Chinese spaceman Zhai zhigang is saying “Hello” to the World

Video from Youku.

George Godula, Founder of Web2Asia

George talks about how companies and businesses must adapt to local culture and customs when branching out into China. How do Chinese marketing strategies differ from those in Europe and the U.S.? George offers some insightful advice about tapping into Chinese digital and mobile markets.

Interview Transcript Summary:

Can we get a brief introduction to who you are and how long you’ve been here?

I’m from Austria, Europe, I’ve been in China for 2 1/2 years. I was originally sent here by an international direct marketing agency MHDirect to setup their Asian headquarters in Shanghai. We were doing business into China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, coordinating from here. This particular company is taking care of direct marketing services, and also outsourcing for e-commerce. When we first moved here, we had an increasing number of customers asking us to distribute digital products only; so they had no e-commerce products and were just selling online products on their websites. So this made us split the two companies and we have MHDirect, which we have subsidiaries in Europe, India, China, and Chicago, taking care of traditional direct-marketing but also EDM, new media, and Web2Asia is a new division that takes care of internet and mobile products. What we do is we help Western technology companies to expand into China, Japan, and Korea. We do the whole business development for them, localize their product, translate it, and then do ongoing marketing, customer support. They don’t have to send stuff here, or commit long-term capital, we’ll do that for them.

Is there a specific sector, what is your target? What is your ideal company?

For Web2Asia , if you take a look at the three country markets we serve: Japan, China, and Korea, China from the industry side is mostly mobile. For China, we have to say, anything that has interesting innovative technology, but also has potential to work in a different culture. We have to differentiate between content and technology, and it’s very hard to transfer content to other parts of the world, but the technology can be transferred, and can get it to local needs and local culture. The second part is also the investor; we do invest in companies here because we believe there is potential here. If we believe that they have a revenue streak or business model that’s can work here in China, we will tell them. For example, if there’s a company that only relies on advertisement income, I will tell them that it might not work here in China. If they have something that’s built on micro-payments or can be adapted to it, instead of having a monthly subscription fee in Europe or the United States, why not change the business model and break it down to micro-payment model where people can tweak their avator with mobile payment, that makes sense in China and I think that’s the fun part of China. The technology allows in combination the business model to adapt to the Chinese case, and is able to generate revenue streams immediately.

What kind of advice would you offer the novice player who is interested in the Chinese market before they come in?

In general, in every business, the key is people, it’s all about people, and that’s all about trust and also the hardest part. Whether it’s a trusted partner or employee, if you have trust, that’s half of the deal already. I think by now there are a lot of institutions, be it professional companies or state-owned institutions, that help foreign companies to find these partners here, it can a private owned company, or the U.S. Chamber of commerce, basically that’s the first thing you need to do; finding the right people. They consult you on how to get started. The other thing that is especially important for U.S. Americans is to accept that China is different, It is really really different. I’m not saying Europeans do not do that; they also have a hard time understanding that things work in a different way here. But Europeans are more use to adapting to different cultures, you have to speak a different language if you cross a border, and you realize that people are different there. In the U.S., you are more built on one huge market where everyone speaks the same language. It’s a really hard time for many companies because they realize you just cannot do the same thing here that you can do in the U.S. or in Europe. That mental process is a very important step to be successful here, and respect local culture, adapt to local culture, adapt to local business means. I think these two things:having good people, and the willingness to take a deep look into the culture and adapt to it, then you are almost done.

Where can people go to learn more information about your company?

Web2Asia , we also have a blog there, we do interviews with entrepreneurs who are interested in coming to China or already here. Our 2^nd company, the direct-marketing company is a german company called MHDirect.

Year 2008 is the 30th anniversary of the introduction of Reform and Opening-up Policy (改革开放政策, Gǎigé Kāifàng Zhèngcè) in China, as well as the One-Child Policy.  Year 1978 was a most significant milestone year in the history of economy for P.R. China.

<South China People Weekly> (南方人物周刊) by South China Weekend (南方周末) has a serial reports called <Reform 30 Years: Everything is from 1978 > (《改革30年：一切从1978开始》) which are very interesting to follow. The recent report  <历数三十年阶层跃动：改变命运的九次机遇> (Counting the changes of classes in 30 years: 9 Opportunities to Change Fates) uses 9 “keywords” to summarize the must significant changes in the past 30 years.  I think these 9 terms are must-known for people want to learn and understand China and Chinese people.

1. 高考 (Gāo Kǎo) : literally means “high exam”. A contraction for “advanced education entrance examination”. The university admission had been suspended for 10 years during the Cultural Revolution from 1967-1976. 1977 was the year for Chinese talents to change their fates when  Gāo Kǎo restarted.   In 2008, the colleges admission rate has reached a record high: ranging from 33%  to 76.8% for different provinces.

2. 倒爷 (Dǎo Yé): were referred speculators who took advantage of a price policy reform in 1979.  There was a “double-prices” system: planned price and market price during the reform. People always found the price difference between the two systems and thus they can perform “倒” (Dǎo) -  buy low and sell high. There was a saying ” 0.9 billion out of 1 billion people is ‘daoing’, the left 0.1 billion are looking for something to ‘dao’. “倒爷” was not a famed class back then, but they helped to break the ice of planned economy.

3. 打工潮 (Dǎ Gōng Cháo):  The government allowed farmers to “reside” in cities and towns in 1984. Since then, thousands of millions farmers have migrated from remote farms/villages in inner China to the coastal cities from late 1980s to early 1990.  I believe the term “打工” (Dǎ Gōng) is from Cantonese which means “to work for an employer instead of being a boss”.  打工潮 means a wave that farmers (most are young people) left hometown to work in the cities. The people are called “打工仔“ (Dǎ Gōng Zǎi, young male) or ”打工妹” (Dǎ Gōng Mèi, young female).  They are the most importance source of labor in China’s economy.

4. 裁军 (Cái Jūn): means disarment. There have been 10 disarments since the country was foundǎě. The largest scale one - a million disarment - was in 1985.

5. 炒股 (Cháo Gǔ): “炒 (Cháo)” means “stir fry” and “股 (Gǔ)” means “stocks”. “炒股“ together means “to keep buying and selling stocks, like stir-frying the stocks”. 1990 was the year that Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange were founded. The first generation of “股民” (Gǔ Mín, stock holder) were less educated in value investment or long term investment. They are an emerging group who would learn a painful lesson in the stock market or made their fortune overnight.

6. 下海 (Xià Hǎi): literally means “walking down to the ocean”. It was a phenomena that government officers quit their “iron-bowl” jobs and started to do business, encouraging by Xiaoping Deng’s South Talks in 1992. The term is a metaphor that  to leave a government job is like to risk walking into an ocean where danger and fortune were unknown.  It was estimated that 100,000 officers have Xià Hǎi.

7. 留学 (Liú Xúe): means “studying abroad”. More and more people who studied abroad have become returnees (海归，Hai Gui) and make great contribution to the technology innovation since 1990s.

8. 新经济 (Xīn Jīng Jì): means “new economy”. The representative of “new economy“ was the class of young entrepreneurs emerging with Internet and dot com booms.

9. 海选 (Hǎi Xuǎn): literally means “select from the sea”. The term became popular along with a Chinese version of “American Idol” reality competition show. The idol in China is called Super Girl (超女, Chāo Nǚ) and the show is a girl’s only singing competition. Li Yuchun (李宇春) was the first Super Girl whose fate was changed by all people voting for the first time in China.

Stories behind each of these terms can be a book, and I am not going to expand them here. Try to learn these words if you will, and brag about them with your Chinese friends. I guarantee great discussions will be followed if you bring up any of them. (Tip: Generation 90s might have very limited knowledge of above topics.)

It’s just about two months before the Chinese Blogger Conference 2008 is reality — I’m already thinking of making a second trip back (last year was my first). Since that 2007 conf in Beijing (which was really close to where I lived), the Chinese Internet has changed quite a bit.

Ten months. Maybe not the best time for a Year in Review. Or maybe, a Year-Minus-Two-Months in Review. (They told me to lay off slashes in conversation, but they never said anything about dashes)…

Start of the Year: The Whales That Failed To Tweet

At the start of the year, it was obvious that Twitter was on the way up. Even if it was the Chinese Twitter, Jiwai.de, that had stolen the spotlight at the Chinese Blogger Conference in 2007, Twitter took significant leads in 2008 as its popularity continued to explode.

Of particular note was when @christinelu “did her magic” to get @goldkorn (of @danwei fame) tweeting. This was not the kind of thing a mere mortal could do. In the meantime, we got, by way of Twitter, news about Beijing gearing up for the Games, the occasional “must-check-this-out” link, but also, to some extents, more sightings of the infamous or even, at that, notorious Twitter whale. You know — the thing that comes up when Twitter’s on its last legs.

Sightings of the whale became disturbingly regular in April and May 2007, as even my occasional Subway tweets were fed to the whale. The semi-crippling of Twitter for WWDC 2008, it seemed, got Twitter through the worst (@TechCrunch was watching you), and apparently, since early summer 2008, we’ve seen less and less of the whale.

(Now that I posted this, though, we’re sure to see the thing back. I should have never posted this…)

Lhasa Riots + Clipped Photos = CNN Gets Taken To Task

When violence broke out in Lhasa, fellow tweeters were immediately informed of this. The Chinese media, for the first time, broke with precedent and showed “controversial content” that previously could not be shown — such as (in particular) the Tibetan flag and actual violent scenes.

Chinese central television continued to blame what they called the “Dalai Lama clique” for the unrest. Yet in an interesting twist to the story, Netizens discovered that western media organizations (notably CNN) appeared to have clipped photos to distort the facts. An anti-cnn.com site went up and was all the rage. People posted those pics across Facebook and took CNN to task. Jack Cafferty apparently insulting the Chinese — either the government or the people — proved to be the last straw, making both civilians and the Chinese government furious.

This was not the way to get into action in the final 100 days to the Olympics. Smear campaign, bad timing, whatever; even in “far-away” Beijing, things turned out to be not all that “harmonious”.

May 12, 2008: When The Earth Shook

The whole situation in Tibet was spiralling out of control. It looked like things couldn’t get worse.

Turns out it did.

At 14:28 on May 12, 2008, a massive, 7.9-magnitude shook Wenchuan, Sichuan, first burying schools, then causing a whole series of aftershocks. The death toll climbed to 70,000 (missing 17,000+). This was the worst quake since Tangshan, and the fact that the epicenter was pretty close to the ground made the whole thing a lot worse.

The Net was immediately abuzz with pictures of frogs crossing the street. In an interesting spin, local media reportedly reported (pardon the pun) that these frogs, scrambling for their lives, appeared to be “normal”. A cover-up, it seemed, may have been underway before the earth shook. YouTube also showed movies of what could have very well been earthquake lights.

The reaction from Zhongnanhai was almost instantaneous. Wen Jiabao rushed to the region, followed by Hu Jintao a few days later. In memory of those who died in the quake, and for the first time in PRC history (due to natural disasters), flags were lowered to half-mast from May 19 through to May 21, 2008, during the national period of mourning.

The Chinese Web immediately reacted to all this. Web sites in China went grey or black-and-white during the three days of mourning. Even sites like the Beijing Subway fan forum went grey; network maps, once a joyous mix of orange, green and aqua, went grey. Entertainment sites were sealed for 72 hours.

The Twittersphere observed three minutes of silence from 14:28 through to 14:31 as the Internet world appeared to stand still. Search engines recorded a massive drop in search requests during these three minutes. The effects of the quake and its aftermath were felt across the nation, and across the Internet. Even before and after the three minutes, Chinese tweeters turned themselves grey, or black-and-white; yours truly went totally black.

Outside in the “real world”, cars stood still and horns and sirens sounded at 14:28. Radio announcers were full of emotion — the kind that jerked tears from many a listener. People who were totally unaffected by the quake burst spontaneously into tears as the sheer force of a nation coming to a complete full stop at 14:28, to the sound of wailing sirens and car horns, was too much to bear. Even the platform TV screen on the Beijing Subway’s Line 5 service, which used to announce when the next train was about to come, went black. Flags across the PRC were at half-staff. Newspapers turned totally black to mourn those who lost their lives in this tragic quake. Museum guides prefaced every tour with a note of the quake.

Socials Through The First Half of 2008

Yet despite the tensions in Tibet and the tremors in Sichuan, the Chinese Web 2.0 world continued — and feasted through the first six months. Yours truly, along with @sioksiok, co-hosted a number of Beijing Tweetups (and they’re about to make a comeback). The tweetups were incredibly good opportunities to get to meet the people behind the tweeting, to share a few good pics and laughs, and just, all in all, to have a good time. Some people, though, started tweeting during the tweetups — which could be little short of just an amazing practise.

Also of note was the CHINICT meeting in May 2008, which brought together noted Web 2.0 bigs in the Chinese blogosphere. The meetup co-organized by sites and groups including CN Reviews at the Loong Bar, in particular, proved to be a fantastic chance to meet Web 2.0 key leaders and players. Also, meeting people while subscribing to their Twitter feeds turned out to be a good thing (on a personal note, though, it’s just “too bad” that yours truly turns out to be too prolific, thereby drowning out the conversation).

You know what? There’s too much that happened in the ten months leading to this year’s Chinese Blogger Conference. We smell a sequel.

Several days ago, ESWN posted a translation of a Tianya post titled “What is the reason China’s younger generation is losing confidence in the Western media?”

More than a decade ago, a Chinese diplomat gave a speech in which he narrated a story. At a certain UN meeting, the British representative condemned China for not being sufficiently democratic as usual. The Chinese representative retorted, “Your country has been promoting democracy in Africa for more than a century, but how is it doing now?” The British representative shut up …

This is one example of the western nations promoting their values. They have many methods, including hard and soft methods. The hard methods involve the United States and Great Britain pushing democracy in the Middle East, but all they got was a quagmire. The soft methods involve the western media using their international speech rights to say awful things about countries which do not have western-style democracy. China appears to be the constant target of the western media. This is understandable, because Chinese-style democracy is different from the western style and China has blazed its own trail. The easiest to say that your stuff is good by sayingthat the stuff from the other side is bad. The western media are very good at that and they can pull these types of reports out of thin air. If you want to go back further in time, there was the front page story in TIME magazine in 1997. If you want something closer in time, there are all those stories about the Olympic torch relays earlier this year.

If there are no western tourists coming to China and no Chinese studying overseas, the western media could say whatever they want and they own the international speech rights. If you cannot see for yourself, you have to trust them. But times are different, as more and more western visitors come to China and more and more Chinese tourists travel overseas.

According to the statistics, only 280,000 persons traveled from China to overseas between 1949 and 1978. That would be fewer than 10,000 persons per annum. In 2007 alone, 40 million Chinese citizens traveled overseas, while 56 million foreigners came to China.

The western tourists are perplexed because China is completely unlike what their own media are reporting. The overseas Chinese students are perplexed because very few western media reports have anything good to say about China. Why?

The western media which own the international speech rights think that this is the only way to show off the superiority of western values. But they are mistaken. Those who have seen the real China realized that they had been deceived by the western media. Meanwhile, the hypocrisy of the western media are made known to the Chinese people going abroad and they become ever more patriotic. Even if the majority of western media were to switch positions today, they are merely reflecting the true state of affairs because the western tourists have seen too much and the television broadcasts are live. However, the western media will inevitably revert to true form.

Some western media may be perplexed by the fact that they used to be able to report whatever they want without meeting any protests from China. How is it that any negative comment that they now make will draw a lot of protests?

This is because the customarily arrogant western media may not have realized that they had lost China! They are losing the admiration and trust of the Chinese youth. Over the past three decades, the Chinese government has led the country to an astonishing economic growth, and many citizens have benefited from it. The Chinese who travel overseas during this period are the rapidly rising middle class and the intelligentsia. When they see the good things in China being badmouthed in the western media, what else is this but hypocrisy?

Ultimately, the Chinese people want to achieve prosperity and national power through democratization. But the western media seem to only want democracy for the sake of democracy and they don’t care what happens to China afterwards.

The Chinese form of democracy guarantees first and foremost the right to survive and develop. But the western media wants to promote its own form of democracy according to its own ideas. They don’t care what happens to a country afterwards. For example, the United States went into Iraq to promote democracy. When things don’t work out, they bail out. What does democracy in Iraq matter to the United States? In the past, Great Britain and France have promoted democracy in Africa, until the continent became the Third World within the Third World? What does democracy in Africa matter to Great Britain and France?

The promotion of these double standards has only exposed their hypocrisy in front of the Chinese and foreign people. This is something that the western media did not imagine. If they want to keep up with the times, they should correct their mistakes. Since they are the media, truth should come first. In reply to a question a few days ago about the suspension of a Chinese journalist in Germany, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said that the media ought to observe the basic rules — to report in an objective and fair manner. This is easier said than done for the western media.

Following that original post were dozens of comments in agreement:

作者：声声夺人 回复日期：2008-9-9　20:45:28

楼主说的很对
其实根源在他们自己
他们的新闻都是假的
自然失去我们中国人的信任！

What the original poster said is so true.
Actually, the root of the problem is themselves.
Their news is all fake [inaccurate],
naturally losing the confidence of the Chinese people.

作者：加密之心 回复日期：2008-9-9　20:46:51

我从来不相信西方媒体
所以自然没有西方媒体失去我这一说
那些垃圾新闻机构
都是反-=华势=-力的帮凶！

I never trust Western media
so I can say the Western media did not lose my trust.
Those garbage news agencies
are all accomplices of anti-China forces!

作者：人间美丽 回复日期：2008-9-9　20:48:42

我一般只看国内的新闻
因为外国人不了解
难免戴上有色眼镜
支持楼主！

I usually only watch domestic news
because foreigners do not understand
and inevitably wear colored glasses.
I support the OP!

Now, I know what you’re thinking…and it’s pretty much what I’m thinking.

But let’s take a look at what some other Chinese posters on Tianya were thinking:

作者：公子为 回复日期：2008-9-9　20:59:10

奇怪！
西方媒體怎會失去中國年輕一代的信任呢？
你能看到西方媒體嗎？
反正我是看不到。

Weird!
How can the Western news media lose the trust of China’s younger generation?
Can you see the Western news media?
I know I can’t.

作者：不知道风向 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:08:16

咱看过西方媒体吗？连凤凰台都看不全，总是莫名其妙出广告。

Have we watched Western news media before? We can’t even watch Phoenix TV in its entirety, always strangely cutting to commercials.

作者：做玻璃砸弹弓 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:15:36

楼主说的很对
其实根源在他们自己
他们的新闻都是假的
自然失去我们中国人的信任！
————————————————
是呀，哪有我们新闻联播真实啊，
我们新闻联播第一句都是：今天是某年某月某日农历某月某日，从不出错，太真实了。

What the original poster said is so true.
Actually, the root of the problem is themselves.
Their news is all fake [inaccurate],
naturally losing the confidence of the Chinese people.
————————————————
Yeah, no where as true [accurate] as our news networks,
Our news networks always begin with the sentence: Today is what year, what month, what day and what month, what day of the Lunar New Year. Never wrong, exceedingly [accurate].

作者：干死楼主全家 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:19:38

不好意思，作为中国年轻一代，还不知道信任为何物。
也不知道什么是媒体，只知道CCTV。。

Sorry, but as part of China’s younger generation, I still do know what trust/confidence is.
I also do not know what is news media, I only know CCTV…

作者：sccdzm1188cn2 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:20:56

声声夺人
注册日期： 2008-9-7 14:27:00
最新上站： 2008-9-7 14:29:00
加密之心
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人间美丽
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不是诺夫
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半条野狗
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东山植树
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有人有意
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撒旦协力
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故事之王
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萧衡遍野
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==========================
快来看庞大的四字4+1毛队伍啊，靠，发了３次都发不出

[List of users, their registration dates/times, and their last activity on the website. It shows that many of the "replies" supporting the OP came from accounts that were recently registered in rapid succession]
==========================
Quick, come look at the enormous amount of Wu Mao Dang [50 Cent Party], shit, it took me 3 tries to post!

作者：几许悠 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:24:25

楼主能看到西方媒体吗?我咋看不到了.

The OP can see western news media? I can’t see anything.

作者：stackhouse1201 回复日期：2008-9-9　21:25:04

哇靠，恶心透顶的five 毛

Holy shit, the Wu Mao Dang [50 Cent Party] is too disgusting.

To be sure, many Chinese are still quite wary about the Western media, especially following the coverage of the T!betan riots earlier this year. Most educated people around the world definitely acknowledge that biases do exist in Western media, for many reasons and of which some of which are understandable while others are not. Moreover, we also know that bad news sells in the West and hearing the Chinese demand that Western media do more “balanced” reporting by including more positives about China just isn’t going to happen.

Westerners often scoff at the Chinese for having the audacity to criticize Western media. Just look at how blatantly propagandist and biased the Chinese media can be. But, to their credit, many Chinese are fully aware that their own domestic media is far from objective even as they chastise Western media. To them, it isn’t about Chinese media being better or Western media being better, it is simply about pointing out the fact that when one side is wrong, they’re wrong.

For those of us observing the often heated dialogue between the critics and defenders of China, we sometimes forget that the Chinese are not a homogeneous band of stark raving protesters, internet vigilantes, and comment trolls. True, the Chinese often don’t help themselves by reverting to defensiveness whenever a foreigner is part of any discussion on China’s problems, but we do have to admit that them doing so isn’t wholly incomprehensible.

There is ample diversity of opinion and thought amongst the Chinese even if that expression is sometimes controlled and threatened by the central government. Unfortunately, most Western observers are incapable of reading the Chinese required to venture onto the major Chinese-language internet forums like Tianya. If they could, they would certainly see much that would upset them, even disturb them, but they would also hopefully see much to reassure and encourage them from comments like those above, made by Chinese who are not only rational and reasonable but also blessed with well-tuned propaganda bullshit meters and incisive wit.

The Chinese are not idiots. If nothing else, they’re survivors. Unlike many of us who have somewhere to escape to, they often have little choice but to deal with the world they live in, state-sponsored mouthpieces and all.

By the way, Roland Soong @ ESWN is one of my favorite blogs covering China, always providing tons of translated material (along with Jack Kennedy @ GVO and Fauna @ chinaSMACK). I simply wish Roland would set up an RSS feed for his Brief Comments Section, as he posts a ton of good stuff there that I often miss. His RSS feed only seems to contain his less frequently updated material from his Blog Posts section, and I don’t always get a chance to visit his website. If anyone knows something I don’t about that, please let me know.

Getting in touch and staying in touch has never been easier. These days, everyone and their mom has a cell phone, and we worry more about ignoring calls we don’t want to answer than trying to find a way to contact someone when we need to. Coming to China, you’ll probably want to know the basics of how to make yourself available and how to get a hold of those dearest to you:

The Cell Phone

The first thing you need is a cell phone that works in China. You probably already have a cell/mobile phone but you need to check if it is an unlocked, tri-band or quad-band phone that accepts SIM cards. Ideally, you may also want to make sure your cell phone has Chinese language support, because sooner or later, you’ll be getting text messages in Chinese from all your new-found Chinese friends. Or marketers. It doesn’t matter if you can actually read or plan to learn Chinese, you’ll definitely feel much cooler getting Chinese text messages than a bunch of garbled symbols about as inscrutable as Wingdings.

Getting a Cell Phone Back Home

If you’re from “the West” (typically, the Americas or Europe), chances are your phone might have language support for English, French, or Spanish. Great…that’s useless here in China. The good news is that you can usually get a phone with Chinese language support from any place that has a reasonable population of ethnic Chinese people and retail businesses. You can usually find lots of nifty grey-market phones typically unavailable for your market too, but just make sure it provides English and Chinese support and will work in China.

Getting a Cell Phone in China

If you arrive in China and realie your phone doesn’t work, don’t fret, for it is extraordinarily easy to get a working cell phone here. Indeed, shops or stands where you can purchase a cell phone are about as ubiquitous as barber shops. Where to go to get the best deals is beyond the scope of this article so I’ll keep it simple: You can get a no-nonsense working cell phone for less than 100 RMB. In fact, it can get far cheaper, limited only by your pride and self-dignity. Yes, there are older model Nokias, LGs, Samsungs, etc. even at that price, so don’t feel like you need to settle for a unknown Chinese unit, though they’re not all that bad either. The key thing is to have them power it up, make sure it supports the languages you need, play through the menus to see if you like them, and bargain. I’ll kill you if you get ripped off.

Remember, you can always get a nicer, shinier phone later on, once you feel the need to impress your new friends and have gotten acquainted with how to bargain appropriately in China.

The SIM Card

Alright, so you have a phone that works. Now all you need is your own snazzy China cell phone number and that comes with a pre-paid SIM card.

Note: In recent years, many visitors to the Middle Kingdom might have noticed that their cell phones and SIM cards from home still work upon disembarking from their flights. You notice that your mobile phone is connected to a network (on your display it reads “China Mobile” or “CMCC”), that you can receive calls, and that you can even *gasp* make calls. This likely means your mobile carrier back home has some sort of agreement with a local Chinese carrier, extending you coverage when abroad. However, unless you have an international rate plan or you’re insane enough to pay outrageous roaming charges, you’ll opt to get a local number here with a local network.

Buying a SIM Card

Now, there are two major mobile telecommunication companies in China: China Mobile and China Unicom. Of the two, China mobile is by far the larger and offers better coverage while China Unicom is perhaps better known for their CDMA service. I recommend China Mobile.

Pre-paid SIM cards are widely available at most newsstands, cell phone shops, certain convenience stores, and independent resellers (the random guy with a little table set up on the sidewalk). If they sell cell phones, they sell SIM cards, though not necessarily vice versa.

How much a SIM card costs depends on the phone number it is associated with. Lucky numbers are often posted up with higher prices for the superstitious (me? I make my own luck). A random non-lucky number should only cost you approximately 50-60 RMB.

Ask for a SIM card, pick a number, and the person will give you a sealed envelope. Feel free to ask about the rates and limitations before paying. For example, most pre-paid SIM cards cannot initially or directly call outside the country without an international phone card. Most China Mobile pre-paid SIM cards should include about 30-50 RMB worth of credit. It should also include free incoming calls. This feature actually costs a monthly fee - 16 RMB in Shanghai, might be various in different cities [remember to ask to activate this feature]  and can be disabled if you so choose because no one calls you. There is a per minute rate for calls you make and a per message rate for each SMS text message you send. If you’re cool, you’ll quickly learn that text-messaging is big in China.

For my current China Mobile package, the rate is RMB 0.13/min to call out, RMB 0.1/text message or RMB 0.15/message if you are texting cellphones outside of the network.

Your SIM card will come with a card that has a password on it. For many, you will never really need this password but you should keep it anyway, even if just as a souvenir. The password will come in handy if you ever plan on registering your name to your card, which is necessary for many additional services including moving from pre-paid recharge cards to monthly billing plans and letting the Chinese government know that a potentially dangerous foreigner uses that number.

Pop out the SIM card and insert it into your phone. Power on and you should be good to go. You can call 10086 at anytime to check your balance, perform some other administrative tasks, or talk to customer service to practice your Chinese. Don’t worry, they have an English language option.

Recharging and Adding Money to Your SIM Card

When you can’t seem to call anyone and, for some reason, people suddenly stop calling you), you’ve probably run out of stored credit for your number. This is when you buy a recharge card.

Again, you can typically find recharge cards just about everywhere SIM cards and cell phones are sold. Almost all convenience stores should have recharge cards even if they don’t sell SIM cards. These recharge cards either look like plastic cards or a small sealed piece of paper, and they generally come in denominations of 50 or 100 RMB.

Look for your recharge card password which is a series of numbers. You may need to scratch off something or just open the sealed piece of paper along the perforated lines. The instructions will tell you to call 138-0013-8000 (I remember it by 138-00-138-000, or by reading the recharge card). Follow the prompts and you’ll be golden. Do everything right and you should get a recorded confirmation of added value at the end, and usually then a nice text message confirming with your new total remaining value.

Dialing in China

One thing some people may quickly notice is that China uses an 8-digit telephone number format, with a 2-digit city code preceding it. The 2-digit city code is only necessary if you’re calling from a number that is outside that city. For example, Shanghai’s city code is 21 and calling Shanghai from outside of Shanghai would require one to dial 21-XXXX-XXXX (2-4-4), with the Xs being the desired number.

Mobile phone numbers follow an 11-digit format (3-4-4). The first 3-digits is something like an area code and most cell phone numbers tend to start with 131, 134, 137, 159, etc. followed by 8 digits that has as many 8s as possible if the owner is Chinese. Those first 3-digits are always necessary when calling a cell phone. If you dial without them, you’ll likely reach a land line and someone you don’t know.

Making International Calls

Dialing abroad should not be too difficult. However, if you got a China Mobile pre-paid SIM card, you cannot immediately make international calls. You either need to register your name to your number and enable it or you need to get what is known as an IP card (Voice Over IP card). As with getting SIM cards and recharge cards, you should know where you can find these. They come in all sorts of lame designs and in all sorts of denominations. The important thing to remember here is that the cost of the IP card should be cheaper than the face value of the card. For example, I typically buy 100 RMB IP cards for only 30 RMB. This is not an absolute, but just be aware of it. Once you have an IP card, just follow the instructions on the card to make an international call. Again, there is usually an English option.

Now that you have the tools and the knowledge to call people for help at any time, go forth and conquer.

Last night at the Beijing Bookworm, British author Lorraine Clissold gave a brief talk on her new book, Why the Chinese Don’t Count Calories.  Something of a riposte to international bestseller Why French Women Don’t Get Fat, this awkwardly titled book joins the growing literature on how traditional cuisines are better than dieting fads.

So just what is healthy about Chinese food?  While it has a reputation for being greasy and fattening in the West, the orange chicken and “beef and broccoli in brown sauce” of Chinese take-away is definitely not part of a traditional Chinese diet.  Instead, Chinese cuisine incorporates a more holistic approach that does away with counting calories and guilt for having ingested too many calories.  One startling fact stood out in her talk–the Chinese actually eat 30% more than Americans, yet remain 20% lighter–something that is supported in The China Study.

While much of the lecture was undoubtedly old news for anyone who was brought up in a Chinese family or just plain common sense, here are some of the more memorable points that Clissold made in her talk on why how their traditional cuisine keeps the Chinese thin:

1.  Strong cultural and culinary identities.  Traditional cuisines pass on the collected food wisdom of a culture from generation to generation, and China is no different.  As scientists begin to learn more about nutrition and how nutrients work in tandem with each other, much of what is passed on in Chinese cuisine is backed up by modern nutrition.   The Chinese also talk about food as being determinative of a regional identity–like the strereotype of Sichuan people having fiery tempers because of all the spicy food they eat.  By way of contrast, in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan makes the point that because Americans do not have a unifying food culture, Americans tend to be particularly vulnerable to savvy food marketers and diet fads (think Atkins, South Beach diet, etc).

2.  Vegetables, vegetables, vegetables! Chinese cuisines tend to make vegetables the star of the show, with meat as a flavouring or compliment. Part of this is because of historical patterns of consumption, until very recently the average Chinese person simply could not afford vast amounts of meat.  Contrast this to an American or British diet which relegates vegetables to limp supporting roles for meat.

3.   Balance is key. Clissold invokes the Chinese concepts of yin and yang. A properly balanced meal includes both yin foods (cooling foods) like cucumbers and lettuce and yang foods (heating foods) like spicy foods and meats.  If you eat too much of either one, then your body will become unbalanced. The Chinese way of eating family-style with shared plates also allow for greater opportunities to balance yin and yang versus a Western-style one-plate meal.

4.  Eat with all five flavors in mind.  On a related note, the five flavors are bitter, sweet, pungent, salty, and sour.  Each of these flavors addresses a specific part of the body.  For instance, a bitter food like bitter melon feeds the heart, while a sour food will nourish the liver.  Again, balance is important–if you eat too much of one flavor then you are only feeding one part of the body.

5.  Eat until you are full, and enjoy your meal.   This seems like a no-brainer, but Clissold is specifically addressing the different attitudes that Chinese and Americans and the British have regarding food.  While Americans and the British food cultures often incorporate guilt and unhealthy cycles of binging and purging, Chinese people just plain enjoy their food.  They talk about food all the time, and a common Chinese greeting is “Have you eaten yet?”  Make eating a pleasurable activity, instead of one that induces guilt.

The end message is that it’s not about dieting, because there is no quick fix to losing weight, but about a lifestyle that is balanced and about pleasure.  It’s not very different from the conclusions made in Why French Women Don’t Get Fat or in The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

The Independent also took a look at Clissold’s book and asked two nutritionists to examine some of its claims.

One irony is that China itself is moving away from its tranditional diet.  As China becomes more industrialized, obesity, cancer and diabetes–the diseases of the Western world–are also on the rise.

Fiona Lee is a freelance writer/marketer/blogger based in Beijing.  She loves MSG and misses good old-fashioned American-style Chinese food. She blogs at quirkyBeijing.

Aw Guo at IfGoGo.com posted on “The invisible man in China,” a collection of photographs from contemporary Chinese artist Liu Bolin (en, zh).  There are a collection of 10 images at IfGoGo.com and many more at the artist’s site.

Invisible man and family in front of the Chinese flag:

Invisible man in front of demolished building:

Invisible man in front of Tiananmen:

(This one may be a bit sensitive!)

More photos at the IfGoGo.com post.

Artist Liu Bolin photo:

It seems that difficult-to-understand, intellectual commentary accompanies contemporary art around the world.  There as an excerpt of a translated article at Liu Bolin’s site.  Maybe this might help you interpret his work better (not sure it does for me…yet):

Chinese society is in her switching period which may be the sharpest one in the history of the worlds. As such as huge state, her rapid changes make great influence on the world and gain a huge echo, these also give a great incitement and inflict heavy damage on morality and mental of individuals in the country. The past is disappearing; no one knows how long the present could be. Fresh things are coming.

…

These photos images works have collected languages of sculptures, paintings, images, constructions, decoration and drama(making up) in historical consciousness and how us a way of breaking away from those configurations. We say to ourselves and repeat, “Not on the scene” of objects when facing to these configurations. The subject has lost its weight and becomes disappeared as light smoke. Also the subject is transparent after it has been pulled up by root—and has been terribly stable. This makes the configurations and methods full of energy but without receiver, that means he could not discriminate the directions and makes the ruin abandoned.

…

The past is disappearing; no one knows how long the present could be. Fresh things are coming. Some of us are as fearful as artists, but mostly we are cheering like children and shouting “How funny” together with the artists.

Contact info for Liu Bolin at his Website.

photo courtesy rich115 on Flickr

I asked my friends on Facebook and also my social-media addicted FriendFeed “friends” whether they felt more negative or positive about China as a result of the Olympics.  Here’s some of the responses:

FriendFeed

Here were a few responses I got on aggregator site FriendFeed (link to the discussion thread here):

Summary:

• Some people were more positive than negative
• Generally impressed with architecture, modernity
• Chinese Olympic cheerleaders in bikinis at the beach volleyball games also help
• Some felt that “the positives and negatives balanced each other out” and theGames “confirmed many of my impressions.”

My feed on FriendFeed is here: http://friendfeed.com/elliottng

Facebook

Here were some responses I got in Facebook:

Some reactions:

• “exactly, utterly the same”
• positive about the ability to pull of an event of this size and scale
• negative about the perceived need for perfection that caused organizers to fake fireworks, to fake minorities with Han children, and to hide the singer with crooked teeth
• impressed by Zhang Yimou (see Southern Weekend interview of Zhang Yimou at China Digital Times: part 1, part 2), but less impressed by the Party
• not surprised by the crackdown on protests and undesirable people
• impressed by the art and architecture…”there is some free thinking going on there”

Exactly, Utterly the Same

“Exactly, utterly the same”: I think this is probably the most powerful insight.  People came in with a set of impressions and feelings.  Some had a more negative feeling about China than others.  The Olympics gave xenophobic, hateful people what they wanted:  intimidating armies of performers, goose-stepping soldiers, demonstration of unrepentant authoritarian power, casual disregard of press freedoms and “the truth.” The Olympics gave critical people what they wanted:  empty protest parks, 70+-year old women sentenced to re-education.  The Olympics also gave supporters of China what they wanted: Gold medal leadership, exceptionally well-run games, friendly volunteers, artistic and architectural achievement.

In summary, the Olympics did not win hearts and minds for China that already had a strongly negative impression of the Chinese Government, or a strain of xenophobia or fear of the Other.  But the Games did create a richer set of images for people who have limited awareness or previous interest in China, or have images of China from 1989, 1993, 1997, or some other time-lagged perception of China.  In that way, it may be a small step forward in helping some people see China for what it is today.

How would your non-Chinese friends answer the question:  “Did the Olympics make you more negative or positive toward China?”

photo courtesy 赤子之心chizi-zhixin on Flickr