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In a rare interview with foreign media, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (the popular “Grandpa Wen”) was interviewed by CNN journalist Fareed Zakaria. Although it’s annoying to listen to the translator’s voice dubbed over Wen’s–hasn’t CNN heard of subtitles?–Zakaria and Wen touch on a variety of issues, from the economy to the Dalai Lama.

At the beginning of the first clip, Zakaria explains that one of his conditions for the interview was that he was allowed to ask any question that he wished. While watching the video, there’s certainly a sense that in his carefully phrased answers, Wen is speaking both to the American and to the domestic audience.

Before watching this video, it’s well worth reading this insightful article by James Fallows on the delicate economic balance between China and the US.

Part One:

Part Two:

Some particular highlights:

• Wen refutes the idea that China is a superpower, because of the large gap between the rural and urban areas
• Wen turns the table on Zakaria and asks if he, Zakaria, agrees with him on China’s role in negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear threat
• Zakaria asks Wen about the famous photo of Wen during the Tian’anmen Square protests (Regarding that photo, Richard Spencer has an excellent analysis of Wen’s place as a “good official” in the Chinese political narrative), Wen diplomatically turns that into a question about democracy
• Citing Adam Smith, Wen reconciles the inherent contradiction in having a market economy within a socialist system
• Zakaria asks about the Great Firewall and if it is possible for an advanced society to develop under this kind of censorship

The transcript of the video is also available.

Fiona Lee is a freelance writer/marketer/blogger based in Beijing. She blogs at quirkyBeijing.com

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.

From The Independent’s slideshow of Olympic photographs.

Now that the Olympics are over, the foreign media and China observers are all quick to speculate about what will happen in the post-Olympic era.

Here’s a brief sampling of what’s being addressed:

- The economy: While many foreign companies are concerned about a possible downturn, Chinese officials point out that Beijing’s economy only accounts for a very small part of the overall boom. However, maintaining the epic pace that marked the Olympics will be a harder job for the Chinese government. Check out this video from Reuters for an analysis from a Beijing-based economist.

- The environment: Although Beijing won high marks for its pollution controls and clear blue skies during the Games, the environment is likely to take second place behind economic growth…again. Beijingers, at least, support continuing the restrictions on motorists and making a more environmentally-friendly city, but the government will be slowly beginning lifting the regulations starting on Thursday.

- Human rights: Despite the high-profile sentences of two elderly women to labor re-education after they applied for protest permits, one Italian expatriate living in Beijing wanted to show the world that it was possible to protest. It wasn’t. The United States sent in a strongly-worded statement to the Chinese goverment about human rights; China’s response from a Foreign Ministry spokesman creatively invokes Abraham Lincoln. The ongoing discussion and debate on China’s human rights record is sure to continue.

In the immediate future, one beneficiary of the Olympics is the Paralympics–with the passion for spectator sports fairly undiminished, tickets for events have been going quickly. One loser? Olympic souvenir collectors, the value of official souvenirs is falling rapidly.

Fiona Lee is a freelance writer/marketer/blogger based in Beijing. She blogs at quirkyBeijing.

Photo originally found on Mop here.

“Add fuel?” “Let’s go?” “Olé! Olé! Olé?” “Come on?” One of the quirkier news stories that has come out of the Beijing Olympics is how to translate the ubiquitous Chinese cheer 加油 (jiāyóu). The New York Times Rings blog wrote about the various contexts that 加油 has been used–ranging from the current usage during the Olympics to the Wenchuan earthquake–and sparking a vibrant comment thread where no one seemed to be able to agree. Even the Chinese news agency Xinhua got into the act, covering the foreign media’s struggles to translate the phrase properly. And an intrepid blogger took it further–why bother stopping at English when you can say 加油 in languages from Luxembourgish to Prussian?

China Daily also examined how China might need new cheers and compared China’s cheering to the organized South Korean effort. Is the simple 加油 really that boring?  (Aug. 23 Update)  The Australian certainly thinks so.

In case you haven’t gotten the hang of it yet, here’s a video on how to cheer the Chinese way from the hilariously straight-faced Two Chinese Characters.

How would you translate 加油? I’ve always had a fondness for “good luck” myself.

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On a related note, the Wall Street Journal writes about a government program called Heart-to-Heart that assigned local Beijing schools to cheer for visiting countries. While Huajiadi Experimental Primary School was thrilled to be picked as one of the cheerleading schools, they were understandably less thrilled when they were assigned to cheer for a traditional archenemy: Japan. Nonetheless, in the spirit of international amity, the school made the best of it. One terrific line at the end of the article makes the point that children might “[associate] Japan with cartoons, not history.”

Ironically, the program was first begun by the Japanese during the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano.

One has to wonder how the school assigned to France, China’s newest international nemesis, felt.

Fiona Lee is a freelance writer/marketer/blogger based in Beijing. She blogs at quirkyBeijing.

Late last month, Beijing Olympic organizers proudly announced that the 6.8 million Olympic tickets were sold out. Yet empty seats are prominently featured on television broadcasts, even for such high-profile events such as competitions where American swimmer Michael Phelps is competing to become the most decorated Olympian in history.

While there are a number of reasons for the lack of interest, what’s embarrassing for organizers is an opportunity for Olympic enthusiasts to still land tickets to the games.

1. Purchase them legitmately from Cosports, the official ticket seller for Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Slovak Republic, United States and the European Union and European Economic Area (EEA). Tickets have been popping up irregularly and even popular events such as basketball and football have had tickets become available for a short time before eager buyers snatch them all up. However, you need to be a citizen of the countries mentioned above ANDａVisa cardholder. There’s also a $30 USD handling charge, but one easy way to get around the high fee is to buy tickets with several friends.

2. Online classifieds have been seeing a roaring trade in second-hand tickets.

• English-language classifieds on the Beijinger and the Beijing version of Craigslist are listing tickets, where they are going for everything from face value to ten times the face value. One woman on Craigslist is even selling tickets at face value in return for a little companionship.
• For Chinese speakers, the Chinese clone of Craigslist zhan-tai.com also has many listings. While the sections for the second-hand and sporting events tickets have been temporarily closed, tickets are easily available in the Others 其他商品 section of their classifieds.

3. Buy them from a scalper at the venue. Technically, this is illegal, but the ticket hawkers are flourishing right in front of the police. It may be worth it to arrive at the venue a little bit early and see what is available. While there are reports of tickets being sold for ridiculous amounts of money (1000 RMB for a 50 RMB ticket for a fencing event, according to this International Herald Tribune article), reasonably priced tickets can still be found by savvy bargainers. For instance, blogger Ben Ross has been showing up at various Olympic venues every day, purchasing tickets for as little as 30 RMB for events like women’s handball.

4. Lastly, Paul Pennay at the Beijinger blog highlights some very creative ways that Beijingers can get tickets. He writes:

According to a report in Monday’s Beijing News, one man has probably really pissed off his friends and family by deciding to give away all of the ten tickets he managed to get in the second, third and fourth rounds of Olympic ticketing. Xiong Wei is just a regular guy who has decided to offer his tickets to anyone who agrees to sign a contract that commits them to give up smoking for one year.

So if all else fails, and you’re ready to give up smoking, then perhaps the opportunity to see an event for free will encourage you to go cold turkey.

Good luck!

Fiona Lee is a freelance writer/marketer/blogger based in Beijing. She blogs at quirkyBeijing.

Beijing’s night to remember begins with a race against the clock to the big screen at Wangfujing, a major shopping and tourist mecca. It’s like New Year’s Eve, except that it’s quite humid. The atmosphere is festive and convivial. There are Chinese and foreigners who are decked out in Olympic glory, and others who are waving around their national flags–loads of Chinese and Olympic flags of course, but South Korea and New Zealand’s are also spotted.

40 seconds to 8:00 p.m. and the screen starts counting down. Everyone chants along. We’re so excited that we actually beat the clock and have to slow down.

At 8:00 p.m. the opening ceremony begins, and the crowd roars. The show looks impressive, but we’re about to miss about half an hour of it as we’re late for meeting up with some friends. As we head out against the people surging in, my friend remarks, “I’m not a nationalist, and in fact before I hated the Olympics, but today I’m glad to be Chinese. I’m proud of what China has accomplished.”

We move over to Nanluoguxiang, a trendy hutong area that is also an official Olympic-designated street, and end up at the wine bar Salud. Nanluoguxiang is remarkably quiet on the outside, but inside Salud, a mix of Chinese and foreigners are noisily drinking, cheering, and avidly watching the opening ceremony.

The show goes by without much comment, with spontaneous applause for particularly beautiful feats of pageantry and people shushing each other to hear the official song sung by Liu Han and Sarah Brightman.

It’s the parade of Olympic delegations, ordered by the number of strokes in the first character of a country’s name, that becomes an opportunity for the crowd to express their sentiments. “Chinese Taipei” and Hong Kong get huge cheers. Underdog countries like Afghanistan and Iraq are cheered as fellow countries who have been oppressed by foreign powers. The sports-mad cheer on Argentina and Switzerland. South Korea gets a cheer, but North Korea’s is much bigger.

France’s appearance on the screen causes the biggest sensation: the bar splits into two factions. One faction cheers, the other boos. Then it escalates: the cheering faction shouting “Go France! (法国加油！) while the other calling France a Chinese obscenity that rhymes with shabby. It gets slightly tense, until President Sarkozy comes onto the screen and the crowd can all boo him with a feeling of relief. After all, no one wants to be the person who ruins the Olympic ceremony for the crowd.

The United States sports team is cheered, but President Bush is roundly booed by one and all.

We’re counting down as Zambia exits and the bar explodes into a cheering and stomping frenzy as China’s delegation, headed by Yao Ming and a young survivor of the Sichuan earthquake, appears on the screen. Everyone is shouting “Go China! (中国加油!)” and a middle-aged man with the look of a businessman and a deep voice (he’s the man on the right in the picture above) stands up. He shouts through the crowd, “China!” and the crowd responds “Go! (加油!)” After a few repetitions, he shouts, “Beijing!” and the crowd responds in kind. Then he invokes the earthquake: “Sichuan! （四川！）” “Go!” “Wenchuan!(汶川！)” “Go!”

The call and response is intense and emotional–from the looks on other people’s faces, it has stirred up a complex range of feelings: pride in China’s accomplishments, sorrow and acknowledgment for what it took to get here, but most of all, a feeling that at this pivotal moment, China has truly made it.

We leave shortly after so that we can watch the fireworks from the rooftop of Fish Nation. It’s quieter here, with people decorously clapping as As Li Ning flies across the Bird’s Nest to light the torch. As we are close to the central axis that goes through Beijing, we hear and see fireworks from Tian’anmen Square and another location, possibly Beijing Train Station.

It’s the perfect ending to a great night.

Fiona Lee is a freelance writer/marketer/blogger based in Beijing. She blogs at QuirkyBeijing.