My readers here on CNReviews have probably noticed that I haven’t blogged in quite some time. One of them probably wonders what happened. The other is probably hoping I’m actually dead.

Actually, I’m still around, as most of my hard-earned enemies and trolls rue whenever I pop up making the odd comment or 20 on my favorite garden of low-hanging fruit, chinaSMACK.

Oh boy, some of you are going to chafe at that one.

Heh, good.

However, the main reason I haven’t been posting much here on CNR is because I’ve been busy organizing a crack team of royal ass-kickers excellent bloggers and developing a new China blog.

But before I introduce this new blog, I want to publicly thank Elliott and CNR for having me here.

Kai and CNR, sitting in a tree…

I’ve been contributing posts to CNR for almost exactly two years now and last April, I had taken over as the main blogger and a part-time lead editor of sorts. Elliott and I had re-envisioned CNR and then rebooted it with a new design. At the time, we were getting ~30k visits a month. Today, CNR is enjoying 50k+ visits a month, which is not bad, considering that we haven’t updated recently nor have we been updating regularly over the past few months.

Even so, we had made the mistake of positioning CNR to be too much too soon, a harsh reality that set in over the subsequent months. Elliott spawned his third child and it, along with his day job, prevented him from blogging much about China. Min, through whom I first met Elliott, had retired into becoming a full-time quant, deciding that she wasn’t too keen on English blogging. As for me, as time went on, I realized that most of my posts revolved around socio-political commentary about contentious, divisive issues involving China and the Chinese. Yet CNR was to be more than just my personal opinions and rhetoric on cross-cultural politics and perceptions. The more I posted, the more my personal interests skewed what CNR professed to offer and deliver.

We had planned to scout and recruit other writers to join our little party, and over the past year, we’ve been blessed with contributions by Baoru, mollie, the BloggerInsight team (Ying, Lucas, and Kai Lukoff), Elizabeth, Aimee Barnes, voodikon,  and finally C. Custer. Unfortunately, we never managed to develop and keep the right team of people to adequately cover the many broad fields we so over-enthusiastically committed ourselves to.

And then…?

Several months ago, faced with this cognitive dissonance, I began rethinking my relationship with blogging on CNR. I had always wanted to build a reasonably “successful” blog.  By “successful”, all that meant was that the blog would be notable for something. I had also always wanted to accomplish this with a team of like-minded individuals, a group of people who would push each other, challenging each other to become better, all towards the goal of developing a notable blog. Why a blog, as opposed to, say, “curing world hunger?” Because a blog fulfills my personal interest in writing commentary, reacting, responding, and influencing the world I live in and the people I share this world with, even if it’s a wee tiny bit.

How very democratic of me, right?

I decided that CNR wasn’t the right platform for me to pursue my goals, despite my immense purely heterosexual love for Elliott. Even if I redesigned and rebooted it to be focused on the socio-political commentary I wanted to spend most of my free time writing, I would always be annoyed with the domain name. While CNReviews or “China Reviews” is perfectly fine for a blog broadly covering “People, Business, and Life in China”, but it doesn’t quite convey “socio-political commentary”. Blogging under CNR is like wearing boxers that are 10 times too large.

I’m Asian, I know my genetic limitations.

As such, I sought out fellow bloggers that shared my interest in writing socio-political commentary about issues facing and involving modern China. They also had to occupy a similar position as me on the ideological spectrum. They couldn’t be unrepentant “panda huggers”, nor unrepentant “panda bashers”. If they were, we’d end up clawing at each other’s faces too much to really cooperate. A good sense of humor wouldn’t hurt either.

Fortunately, I’ve been following the English-language China blogosphere for quite some time, and have come to know and admire quite a few people. So, I set some large steel traps where I knew they’d frequent and then waited in the bushes for the tell-tale clank of triumph.

Within days, I had caught me a Custer and an Abrams. While the Abrams is a bit more mangier than the younger Custer, both are fantastic specimens of bloggers who regularly and consistently publish critical, incisive, and nuanced commentary about modern China issues. After they agreed not to run away, I let them out of the traps and attached the collars.

CNR, compared to many other well-known small English-language China blogs, is pretty successful given the amount of traffic we pull, even when we’re sitting around twiddling our thumbs doing absolutely nothing. Of course, we’re no chinaSMACK or Shanghaiist, nor Danwei. Hell, we’re not even an ESWN. All blogs I — and we — admire and respect.

But 50,000+ visits a month is pretty decent for a small blog like CNR, and it suggests we’ve done something right. Therefore, giving up this built-in traffic up is hard, but it only makes sense for my captives and I to start a brand new blog, from square one, fresh, with a clean sheet.

And that’s exactly what we’ve done.

Entering the already crowded “English-language China blogosphere”, is china/divide, a daily updated group blog publishing social and political commentary on news and issues involving modern China written by Charles Custer, Stan Abrams, and your’s truly. We’re like the Three Amigos, except I’m not white bread. And, if everything goes according to plan, we won’t remain at three.

The first post is by Stan, titled “Goat Meat, Loose Women, and the Imperfect China Dialogue“, and it delivers. Of course, over the next few days, Custer and I will also rear our ugly heads, and henceforth, china/divide will be the place to read what much of what we think, and then proceed to disagree and hate us for it.

Please, do come and take a look.

As for CNR, given that I will be spending most of time and energies on china/divide, I’m formally saying “so long, and thanks for all the fish.” Ironically, and much to his consternation, just as Elliott’s starts a stint in Shanghai and may have more time to regularly blog on CNR, I’m seemingly abandoning him. I wouldn’t quite put it that way though. I can’t make any promises, but I don’t think this is the goodbye forever between CNR and myself, and I may guest post here in the future, especially if the subject-matter falls under CNR’s umbrella more than china/divide‘s.

But then again, which one of you actually enjoyed my non-socio-political commentary posts anyway?

See you in the divide.

Kudos to Kai Pan for all the work he did in laying out his argument. The winner, however, is Chinayouren.

Bastard! *shakes fist*

Richard also summarizes:

“Freedom of choice” sounds wonderful. It sounds a little less wonderful when it’s “freedom of manipulated choice.”

…except the thrust of my argument is that “no choice and no freedom” sounds a whole lot less wonderful than “freedom of manipulated choice”.

Fortunately, Richard also left a comment going into detail with his disagreement, which I’ll quote below and respond to. Before doing so, I do want to state very plainly that I’ve been a fan of The Peking Duck for a long time. I usually agree with Richard’s point of view and I generally respect him, even if we have and have had some very strong disagreements (mostly over rhetoric).

Here we go with Richard’s comment:

I have to disagree. First, since the results are manipulated and the deck well stacked, it won’t leave such a terrible void in most Chinese people’s lives.

Agree it won’t leave such a “terrible void” in “most” Chinese lives, just the market share of Chinese internet users Google commanded, which I personally feel is a significant amount of people. I’m worried for those people and any Chinese netizen that could’ve been a future Google convert. Unfortunately, I really don’t think many people are thinking much about them or what they want.

The market will fill that void soon enough if it’s so gaping.

I agree the market will fill it if it’s so gaping. Yet given how “well stacked” the deck is, I personally feel Google is better equipped and positioned to deliver more to the Chinese internet user even in such a hostile, unfair, stacked-deck environment. It’s not that I don’t expect someone to fill the void, it’s that I have more confidence in Google doing it better and thus offering significantly more value to the Chinese netizen.

Second, if google does indeed end up leaving China (a big if) it will do far more than merely cause Westerners some brief self-satisfaction. It will create a serious dilemma for other companies doing business with China and will force the world to rethink what it means to cooperate with China.

I agree that Google leaving China will do more than just give some Westerners some brief self-satisfaction. I just don’t think it’ll result in as much dilemma and rethinking Richard thinks it will. Foreign companies have been working in and with China long before Google agreed to self-censorship. I respectfully think Richard is overestimating the relevance of Google’s departure to the vast majority of industries and businesses. I’m not saying it won’t cause ripple effects. It will. I just don’t think it’s going to be as revolutionary in the business world as Richard (and many other journalists, commentators, and pundits) think it will be.

Richard also says Google leaving China is “a big if”. I actually suspect likewise, but right now we still have Google saying it is going to uncensor Google.cn, possibly to probably playing a game of chicken with the Chinese government censors, seeing who will flinch first. If and when Google uncensors Google.cn, I’m curious as to what people, especially Richard, think will happen next. Will it get blocked but Google.com won’t? Or will it get blocked and then so will Google.com? We’re all making educated and reasoned predictions here, but I’m trying to figure out what will happen in the context of how it hurts the Chinese internet users.

I’m not saying that these are necessarily good things, but they would almost certainly happen. It would create all sorts of issues among China’s educated classes, whose support China counts on.

I agree that Google’s departure will create issues among China’s educated classes. Unfortunately, I think they can be mollified so long as the most practical tools Google offers, that may be so integrated into their professional lives so much that it would be a monumentally painful loss if they could not longer access and use them, remains accessible. And this wouldn’t be web search. This would be Google Apps like GMail, Google Docs, etc.

There would have to be considerable loss of face for China as well, though it’s hard to say how much they care about that.

I agree that there will be a considerable loss of face for China. But is that what we’re after? To embarrass China? To make it lose face? Without a question, I believe China has done many–too many–shameful and embarrassing things. It deserves what it gets. But this isn’t China forcing Google to leave. It’s Google forcing China to force it to leave by reneging on an agreement. The only argument against that is to say China is now breaking its part of the agreement and making it so uncomfortable for Google that Google has to leave, which I can accept if Google tells us just what it is. Until then, it’s more like a girlfriend threatening to leave until she gets something her boyfriend isn’t willing to give but she previously was fine with. Again, she’s free to change her mind, but what about their pooch (the Chinese internet users)? What happens to the dog?

So while it would be a shame for the Chinese who use google to be deprived of a choice, no matter how manipulated and bastardized it may be, the greater effect would be on China’s reputation both among its own citizens and among the global community China has been eagerly courting. It would be a painful step backwards. Compared to this full-frontal assault on China’s reputation, the “self-satisfaction” that may be felt by some Westerners can only be described as trivial.

I’m not comfortable with the attitude of using this as a “full-frontal assault” on China’s reputation. I think there’s a huge amount of “self-satisfaction” underpinning even the desire to do so. It’s retribution for all perceived slights, disagreements, and frustrations. I understand the inevitability, even necessity, of geo-political hardball, but cheering this on over how much face China is going to lose and how much trouble it will cause the Chinese government amongst not just the international community but also its own people is a little disturbing. This is the attitude that fuels China’s argument that foreigners are trying to destabilize it, trying to keep it down.

That might be playing into China’s hand.

The most amusing thing in the Google crisis is all the commentators crying about the loss of Google.cn and its negative consequences for the freedom of the Chinese.

No.

Wrong.

At least for this English-language China blogger.

I don’t believe that a censored Google.cn is far better than no Google.cn, much less cry about it.

I believe that Google in China is better than no Google in China. I cry about the loss of Google in China and its negative consequences for the freedom of the Chinese. It isn’t about the loss of Google.cn itself. There are several reasons, which I’ll get to in a second.

Evil is Search Engine Manipulation with Google’s name on it

But first, Uln’s argument is that the loss of Google.cn is a good thing for Chinese users because Google.cn engages in search engine manipulation (SEM). In other words, while the “engine” underneath Google.cn is the same as Google.com, the results shown are different, manipulated under agreement with the Chinese government censors to hide results the Chinese government finds objectionable and doesn’t want its populace to see. An internet user in China using Google.com would be able to see all the results but might get blocked when he or she tries to click on a result that leads to a blocked website. The user would be reminded of the government’s censorship. However, an internet user in China using Google.cn would see only manipulated results, effectively hiding both the information and the censorship. That Google.cn explicitly notifies users when results are manipulated is dismissed by Uln as being largely inconsequential because users begin to ignore it or it is often placed below the list of results.

These are all valid criticisms of Google.cn and, by extension, Google itself. Uln argues that this compromises the integrity of the Google brand name and value proposition (do no evil, we provide information, etc.) thereby betraying the trust of its Chinese users who see the Google name slapped on Google.cn as meaning something about the information Google.cn will provide. Uln writes:

When you type a “sensitive” term and G.cn removes all the results except the People’s Daily and Xinhua, Google’s responsibility is double: not only it supports those often objectible views on the first page, but it also implicitly states that it is the ONLY opinion existing in the World.

And the worse is, the Chinese who believed that would be right to do so, because Google’s well known principles clearly specify their commitment to give all the information available  in a democratic way.

G.cn is a shame for Google and it is probably the single most evil page on the Chinese internet (because it manipulates just like Baidu, but lends the brand name of Google to the manipulation).

But is a loss of Google.cn a good thing?

No.

Google.cn is Choice

Google.cn represents choice. It gives Chinese internet users another option for searching the web other than Baidu. Yes, there is Yahoo and there is Bing but neither of them are remotely as big as Google.cn, even if Google.cn is second place to Baidu. It gives Chinese internet users access to Google’s internet indexing and search methodology and algorithms. Even as Google.cn suffers the same manipulation of potentially displayed search results as Baidu, it provides different ordering and ranking of displayed search results.

This different ordering and ranking is precisely one of the main reasons why Google beat Yahoo and other search engines (MSN Search, Ask.com, etc.) elsewhere in the world. Google’s search engine returned better sorted and more relevant search results to users. Why continue finding your answers in the 3rd or 5th Yahoo search result when Google gave it to you in its first result? People started using Google because it delivered what they were looking for more efficiently.

That’s what a good search engine is about, providing the best search results for any given user inputted query, and Google is a good search engine.

Yes, having incomplete search results due to government-mandated self-censorship is bad, but Chinese users are not searching for potentially censored or blocked material all day long on Google.cn. They, you know, use it to do other fairly mundane things that don’t get the Chinese government censors’ panties in a twist. They look up news on celebrities, research product information, find the latest scores to last night’s NBA game, etc. etc. etc. Google.cn provides a valuable service to its users in China because it still helps them find the information they are looking for using qualitatively different and valuable methodology and algorithms than Baidu.

Google.cn gives Chinese internet users a choice.

Choice is freedom.

Losing Google.cn is a loss of choice.

Less choice is less freedom.

Therefore, loss of Google.cn is arguably a negative consequence for the freedom of the Chinese. It may even be something worth crying about.

The reason why “a censored google.cn is better than no google.cn” is exactly this. Google.cn still provides different results of value in the vast majority of Chinese web searches. This was very much part of the whole utilitarian argument that Google gave for agreeing to market and censor Google.cn in the first place. Even with the same scrubbed search results as Baidu, Google still has some competitive advantage worth offering to Chinese netizens through Google.cn.

No, the competitive advantage isn't only Chinese-specific Google logos.

Without Google.cn, its users will switch to Google.com, which is better anyway

Uln argues that…

Google.com is a Search Engine that is:

1- Exactly as good quality as Google.cn (identical index)
2- Without the manipulation of Google.cn
3- AND much less censored than Google.cn

…which is definitely true.

So, like Uln, some people may be asking why Chinese users use the self-censored Google.cn instead of the freely accessible Google.com? Uln answers:

And the only reason why Chinese don’t use it is that Google.cn sounds more Chinese to them, and they just don’t care enough.

No, it isn’t because Google.cn sounds more Chinese to them, it is because Google.cn is more Chinese to them.

I don’t think there’s enough emphasis given to display language being a major reason why people prefer Google.cn over Google.com. The vast majority of Chinese internet users instantly feel intimidated and overwhelmed by any website that is not written in Chinese. This is a big reason why Chinese people say “Google.cn is for the Chinese”. We can’t underestimate the importance of first impressions.

“But you can change the interface language of Google.com to Simplified Chinese…”

Never underestimate the importance of first impressions.

Hell, people even cite “google” being hard to spell for Chinese people as being a reason why Google is behind Baidu. Ever wonder why Google owns g.cn?

I feel there’s a tenuous compromise between the CCP censors and Google right now that allows Google.com to remain freely accessible despite it not providing the same manipulated search results as Google.cn. This is as long as the majority of Chinese internet users willingly head for Google.cn, as long as they see Google.cn as being tailored specifically for them, the Chinese. It’s like the GFW still allowing proxies to work so long as it achieves its mission with blocking the vast majority. The CCP information control scheme is not about preventing everyone from knowing certain things, it’s about preventing too many people from knowing certain things.

If Google.cn is no more and this leads former Google.cn users to simply migrate to Baidu, then maybe — just maybe — Google.com will remain freely accessible in China. However, if it results in too many former Google.cn users subsequently adopting and using Google.com, the CCP will indeed worry.

So a question then is how much will Google push the envelope with an unblocked Google.com. After all, Google will still have a business necessity and plan for capturing Chinese internet users, right? Even if Google does nothing to appeal to mainland Chinese users, leaving it the way it is, it could still get blocked if too many mainland users flock to it. If Google, however, intentionally seeks to make Google.com user-friendly enough to bring in substantial Chinese people to search and get its non-manipulated results, then it will be seen as a threat to the Chinese government’s efforts to control information and thus it will definitely face the possibility of being blocked outright.

And when that happens, Uln’s conclusion here…

Most probably the disappearance of G.cn will push the present G.cn users to switch to G.com, and the outcome will be increased freedom in the Chinese internet.

…will definitely look short-sighted and naive.

His argument isn’t hard to understand, though. Uln argues that this forced migration from a shut-down Google.cn to Google.com is a good thing because Google.com at least offers non-manipulated search results. Even if the Chinese users still can’t click through to the blocked websites due to the GFW, at least they can see and read the search result excerpts and, more importantly, know that such information exists out there. They would at least be aware of the existence of those dissenters and dissenting opinions that the Chinese government ideally doesn’t even want them to be aware of. That’s more freedom, right? That’s good, right?

That’s more freedom, right? That’s good, right?

Yeah, that’s good. It’s better than nothing.

Yeah, except until the Chinese government realizes that, blocks Google.com, and it indeed becomes nothing.

Nothing for the Chinese internet user. No Google.cn, no Google.com, no Google search methodology and algorithms. Only Baidu.

No choice.

No freedom.

Of course, Uln acknowledges such near the end of his post:

On the other hand, some commenters are already saying that I am too optimistic, and that the CCP will quickly come to the same conclusion I have come and block Google.com.

Without Google.com, the Chinese will learn of the Great Firewall and how to get around it, which is better anyway

But Uln continues:

The good news is that EVEN if they do block Google.com, the situation will still be better than today. The Chinese Google users will start to miss the G, and they will start to use web proxies to access Google.com, expanding their use and making the Chinese net population more conscious of the GFW and of the ways to cross it.

I’m not so sold on that situation still being better than the situation today. It is extremely optimistic, almost unreasonably so, to think a blocking of Google.com will by itself, or through the former Google users, make the general Chinese internet populace more conscious of the GFW and of the tools that could be used to cross it. Remember, most of the Chinese internet doesn’t use Google. It wouldn’t be a loss for most Chinese netizens because it wouldn’t directly affect their internet lives. If they aren’t inconvenienced in a practical manner, how can we expect a meaningful expansion of GFW-consciousness or use of GFW-circumventing tools?

Are we really hoping former Google.cn and then Google.com Chinese users are going to be freedom fighters? That they’ll become internet freedom and anti-censorship activists, handing out information on proxies and VPNs to the masses, enlightening them all?

For web searches, Baidu is the easy alternative. The one stickiness point will be Google productivity tools like Google Apps and, most notably, GMail. It will probably be easier to use a proxy or VPN than to accept losing one’s e-mail account, and this is definitely more so for companies and organizations. Yes, we’ll get a lot of these people but they’re likely and already plenty aware of the GFW, of proxies and VPNs. The real coup is not in these people expanding their use of proxies and VPNs or hoping they’ll help the general Chinese net population become “more conscious of the GFW and of the ways to cross it”, it is in them being inconvenienced so much that they demand the government unblock Google.com.

Yet, even then, it may only go as far as so they can use their productivity tools, not necessarily Google’s web search.

So where’s the “increased freedom in the Chinese internet” in that?

How is that situation really better than now?

Because a few more people will learn about the GFW and fewer still will bother to find out how to use proxies and VPNs? All this at the expense of broader daily practical choice and productivity for all the existing Chinese Google users and future would-be Google converts?

Some people surely see this trade-off as being worth-it, as being acceptable, as being desirable.

Me? I’m not so sure.

Why Google.cn is Evil and should leave China

That’s the title of Uln’s post.

It’s also a straw man.

This was never about whether or not Google.cn would or should leave China. It was about whether or not Google would or should leave China. I hope everyone caught onto the difference from the beginning. Everything is hinging on whether or not Google.cn is what allows Google, and also Google.com, to remain in China. We cannot approach answering this question without considering Google being blocked from China entirely if it doesn’t play ball with the Chinese government on Google.cn. If Google refuses to play ball on Google.cn, by uncensoring it or just shutting it down, we have to consider what may happen to Google.com. We should even expect the worst. In fact, that’s what we do best when it comes to Chinese government censorship, right? Why are we even entertaining that Google.com will remain unscathed and freely accessible in mainland China at all?

I’m not going to say there are only two possibilities. Life can surprise us at times. But requiring Google to censor its Google.cn search results was always, at heart, about the Chinese government’s insecurities with letting its citizens know too much information it fears will bring chaos to their order. It was not about dicking with Google just because it could. How reasonable is it to even suggest that access to an unrestricted Google.com can persist in mainland China, behind the Great Firewall, without a restricted Google.cn running cover?

Uln declares:

In fact, I maintain that Google.cn is the most evil product to ever have existed in the Chinese internet, and the World will be a better place without it.

No, I strongly disagree. I think it offered Chinese internet users valuable choice in most practical matters. Yes, I wish it could do so without manipulated search results but life is not black and white and sometimes we have to make the best of what we can control. You have to be in a game to win it.

No, I don’t think “the World” will be a better place without Google.cn. I think certain people in “the World” will rejoice for about a week and then continue on living their merry lives, using Google as they always have, and not really care one way or another that nearly 400 million internet users in China no longer have a user-friendly version of Google at their disposal. So no, “the World” will not be a better place, just temporarily more smug.

China, on the other hand, will definitely be a worse place without it and Chinese internet users will definitely be worse off for it.

Recommended Reading:

• “Google China cyber espionage saga” from ZDNet’s Zero Day (h/t ESWN)

As 2010′s first show in the non-profit, volunteer-run island6 Arts Center located in Shanghai’s 50 Moganshan Lu art district, “Fakirs” opens on January 16th at 8pm and will explore visual research on paranormal studies. Circus acrobats, magicians, illusionists and artists will perform feasts of magic to animate the evening.

More exhibition info can be obtained at the island6 official website »

Date & Time

Opening Party:

8:00 P.M. January 16, 2010

Exhibition:

From January 16, 2010 to March 05, 2010

Address

2nd Floor, Building 6, 50 Mo Gan Shan Rd.,

Shanghai, 200060, China

中国上海莫干山路50号6号楼2楼

Cost

Free

I thought Beijing would look like this...

So the hard sleeper train ride on my way here was just fine…

Beijing’s Accent, Pollution, and Subway Welcomes Me

At a farmer-friendly 7:00am, the announcer declared day and soon the flat-screen television in our cabin turned on and video entertainment programming began, none of which I paid any attention to as I hoped to catch a few more winks before arriving in Beijing. It wasn’t until later that I realized there were two switches in each cabin that could turn the lights and speaker (which, again, was right by my head in the top bunk) off and on.

Argh.

We pulled into Beijing…without me really knowing it was Beijing. Other than the time telling me we should be arriving, I couldn’t see shit out the window. Visibility was awful, as fog obscured the Beijing cityscape leading up to the Beijing Railway Station. Coming from Shanghai, I had the expectation that Beijing, like other Chinese mega-metropolises, would greet me with plenty of high-rises. Where were they? Or was the fog simply hiding them all away from me? Frankly, I thought I was still in the countryside.

...but it looked more like this, except with 2x more smog and 2x less visibility. What's that? That's Tiananmen Square in the distance? You sure its not a field of crops or something?

So this is Beijing, eh?

The temperature for Beijing during my brief stay was forecasted to range from an ass-freezing 6 degrees down to a nut-shriveling -3 degrees Celsius. Oh sure, this is nothing compared to many places in the world, usually places where vodka or baijiu is the normal source of hydration, but I’m someone who thinks Southern California winters are damn cold. Being on the top bunk, I reasoned I had to let everyone get off the train first before I could hop down and reattach my winter body-armor. A conductor, in his quaint Beijing accent was already telling people to get ready to disembark before the train had even stopped, so imagine his bemused impatience when he came around finding me alone in the train car hurriedly bundling myself up: “哥们儿，你怎么儿还没儿下儿车儿啊儿儿儿？” (Bro, how come you haven’t gotten off yet?). There were probably a lot more retroflex “Rs” than that, but wow, a real Beijing accent!

How cute!

As veritably the last passenger to get off the train, I made my way through the Beijing Railway Station and out to the Line 2 Metro Subway, which I opted to take instead of a taxi to meet up with Elliott. First thing I noticed as I walked out of the station was that, sure enough, Beijing has much fewer tall building density than Shanghai. Whereas towering structures with small footprints squeeze themselves into downtown Shanghai to block out the sky, Beijing greeted me with large tracts of low-rises and hutongs. Of course, to be an ass about it, one of the first things I would utter would be: “Hm, quaint place. Needs more skyscrapers and Shanghainese though.”

Not me, do you see any winter body armor on this guy?

But speaking of quaint, Beijing’s subway is flat-rate. That means going anywhere on the subway, no matter how close or how far, will only cost 2 RMB. While this is much more than what it used to be even just recently, compared to the 3-7 RMB fares in Shanghai, this is a freaking bargain.

I love Beijing!

Continuing comparing everything to Shanghai (hoping to annoy some Beijingers or so), the subway reminds me of a mix between the Shanghai Metro and the Hong Kong MTR. I suppose this isn’t unexpected, given that this is all “China”, but I do think Beijing’s subway hardware might be a bit better than Shanghai’s at this point. At first glance, the older Line 2 stations in Beijing are a bit more run-down compared to the World Expo renovated stations in Shanghai and the unpainted brushed aluminum subway cars simply look older (like Hong Kong or New York) than the glossy-white subway cars of Shanghai. But, Beijing has cheaper flat-rate fares, upholstered subway seating, native English speaking announcers (for the American English announcements), and horribly nifty advertising in the subway tunnels that (I’m trying to figure out how to explain this) “follow” the train as it moves. They’re essentially flashing LEDs that are coordinated with the train. It’s probably a clear sign that our daily lives are indeed being bombarded and intruded upon by advertising but it was hella nifty nonetheless…and not seen in Shanghai, which is obviously and indisputably the benchmark of mainland China cities, right?

Right, so Beijing, so far, doesn’t have as many tall buildings as Shanghai, has a better subway, and I can’t see shit because of the fog. That fog, of course, isn’t just low-hanging water vapor, but a nice low-hanging mixture of polluted water-vapor and carcinogenic particulates. You can tell, because it doesn’t smell like normal fog, and it’s worrisome when you can even “taste” it. That said, I was already familiar with Beijing’s reputation for air pollution, so it wasn’t too shocking. A day of this wouldn’t kill me. It was just a stark contrast to the stunningly beautiful blue-skies days we recently had in Shanghai.

And then Elliott said I “need” to get a cab because where we’d be staying is “a bit ghetto”…

Next: Nanluoguxiang, Sanlitun Village, Johnny Cash Hot Pot, and Spicy Scotch

Honestly, I can't figure out from where or what angle this photo was taken, but it looks great.

So I decided to take the overnight train to Beijing…

Shanghai Railway Station, the New Trains, and their Amenities

Shanghai Railway Station has gotten a lot nicer than I remember it, with some semblance of attempted order now compared to the chaos of before. There’s a dedicated taxi queue and entrance to the station grounds now, and the station itself is undergoing major renovations. It still won’t be as nice as the newer Shanghai South Railway Station (or, I imagine, the many newer train hubs developing throughout Shanghai), but it will be nice.

Sample image of a hard sleeper cabin, minus the curtains, sheets, pillows, blankets, and a privacy wall.

T110 was, also, nice. I opted for the overnight T train instead of the overnight D train because it was much cheaper and I didn’t really care to get into Beijing by 7-8am in the morning. Might as well take my time and sleep longer on the train, right? As hard as the “hard sleeper” ticket sounds, it’s actually not that bad. There are six beds (or berths) per “cabin” in a row of “cabins” per train car. In each “cabin”, there are three bunk beds/berths on each side with a small fold-out table in the middle. Directly outside and in front of the cabin are two additional fold-out chairs with a small table, for those moments when you can’t suffer staying in your bunk and want to sip some tea watching the countryside pan by through the windows.

The lower bunk is the most convenient for several reasons. One, you don’t need to climb up. Two, you pretty much own the fold-out table in the cabin. Three, you can sit up comfortably in your bed without hitting the ceiling or the bunk above you. The flipside is that people have to pass by you to climb up to their beds and for that, there’s a measure of lost privacy and inconvenience.

The top bunk is close enough to the ceiling that you definitely cannot sit up. This doesn’t matter when you’re sleeping, but does mean you’ll end up climbing down to walk around and stretch. Climbing is okay, as there are plenty of sturdy handles and fold-out foot pegs. One of the benefits of the top bunk, at least on the “T” train, is that there’s a recess/shelf for your luggage up there, where it remains mostly out of sight and thus safer from would-be thieves, a common concern with train travel in China. The top bunk also arguably has the most privacy so if you wanted to get your mack on with a new train buddy (or one you brought on the train with you) it’s possible, provided you’re shameless enough to not care what your berth-mates might think.

Ho ho ho.

A “hard sleeper” bed isn’t that hard, as it is padded with a thin mattress, covered with a sheet, and accompanied with a good blanket and pillow. “Soft sleepers” are, obviously, “softer” with a thicker mattress and, depending on the train, less berth-mates (usually only 4 per cabin). Personally, I think a hard-sleeper is good enough for overnight trains. A cheaper hard seat or soft seat ticket just isn’t worth the pain and suffering of sleeping upright.

As my overnight T110 train departed Shanghai, the announcer explained that the train would provide musical entertainment until about 11pm when “night” would be officially declared and the lights would go out throughout the train, like throwing a sheet of cloth over a birdcage. Such announcements were made in Chinese, then repeated in an annoyingly Chinese-accented British English. Not accustomed to sleeping so early, being the strapping young night-owl lad that I am, it took me a long time to fall asleep, trying as I might with Joe Hisaishi’s “Summer” playing on repeat in my iPod. I get really hot (and sweaty, oh baby) when I fall asleep, so I ended up stripping out of all my clothes and Beijing-winter ready long-underwear (yeah baby), trying to doze off comfortably in only my boxers and undershirt.

Oh yeah.

Tomorrow: Beijing’s Accent, Pollution, and Subway Welcomes Me

China is definitely one of those places where the locals sometimes give themselves English names that sound mighty odd for native English speakers. I still remember meeting one East China Normal University student, a pint-sized runt of a lass, who told me her English name was “Creamy”. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. You can be sure I was thinking the same. And that’s just one of my own experiences.

Two Dutch ladies, who have since fled Shanghai back to Europe, have seen fit to document over 200 Chinese people and their inspiration for their adopted English names in a 176-page book that I’m certain would make a great addition to coffee tables everywhere (I’m actually saying this with all sincerity). As described on their website:

Researched, written and photographed by Valerie Blanco and Ellen Feberwee, Dutch travelers and students of international social trends, “In China, My name is…” introduces the reader to dozens of Chinese people and their reasons for selecting their English name. Apple, Henry, Molly, Phoenix and Zat are among the nearly 200 names—some deeply personal, some random, some humorous—discussed in the small-format, 176-page book.

Apple, for example, says she selected her name because she always dresses in green and often turns red with shyness. Young Henry’s name was chosen for him because his Chinese name is Han Rei, Han being an ethnic group and Rei meaning lucky. Molly named herself after the Demi Moore character in the American movie, “Ghost.” Phoenix picked her name because she admires both the bird whose spirit is said to never die and the American city that has a basketball team she likes very much. Zat says that her English name has no meaning at all, but was selected merely because it was “simple and easy to remember.” Zat and several others featured in the book provide additional comments on the trend, and how their friends and family have reacted to their English names.

So why did Valerie and Ellen write this book?

We hope ‘In China, My name is…’ accurately shows some of the cultural changes taking place in China, and the differences between Chinese people and Chinese hopes and dreams….We wanted to share simple stories, touching stories, and perhaps even future developments resulting from a far more open-door policy in China with the rest of the world.

Sounds like my kind of gals.

If you haven’t already heard, the ever-smackable chinaSMACK is running a nifty contest where three lucky commenters will win a free copy of the book (think of your coffee table) by sharing their own stories of the English appellations Chinese people have given themselves. You better hurry, however, as the contest ends this coming Sunday or so. Go share your stories »

Otherwise, “In China, My name is…” can be purchased online through the book’s official website (via Amazon) or at a local book store. For Shanghai and Beijing, you might want to check out Garden Books:

With that in mind, I seized an impromptu last minute opportunity to follow Elliott up to Beijing last Thursday. In fact, I’m drafting this on my laptop riding the D31 high-speed train (pictured below) from Beijing heading back to Shanghai (last Friday), capitalizing on the discovery of an electrical outlet underneath our seats by a sharp-eyed fellow passenger beside me. Alas, we don’t yet live in a world of ubiquitous internet, but at least I have power and a keyboard to type on. It sure as hell beats the notebook (of the dead tree variety) I was scribbling in on my way here.

Oh, where was I? Right, I decided to plop a few hundred RMB down to buy last-minute train tickets to Beijing to join Elliott in having dinner with the ever-lovable Kaiser Kuo and the ever-adorable William Moss (aka Imagethief). We’d be joined with Bill Bishop, whom some China observers will readily identify as, amongst other things, @niubi on Twitter. Being of the same name, I’ve met Kaiser Kuo several times before (our handshakes nearly caused both of us to instantaneously cease to exist). However, I’ve never met the latter two, both of whom I’ve heard and read so much about, so much so that they’ve been accorded a subjective “legendary” status in my microcosm of reality. Having dinner with them promised to be an insight into why the Beijing bloggers are seemingly more tight-knit than us Shanghai bloggers.

I’m navel-gazing, aren’t I?

Shanghai-Beijing: Take the Train or the Plane?

Elliott had a flight up to Beijing but I opted to spend half the cost of roundtrip airfare on roundtrip train tickets and get the whole experience of taking the “overnight train to Beijing”. Traveling by plane obviously takes considerably less time but if you need to be in the other city by morning, the train let’s you get there reasonably fresh after a night of sleep on the train rather than looking ragged after waking up early to catch a plane. If time doesn’t matter and you’re traveling during the day, it boils down to your trade-off between time and money.

Doing everything at the last minute, I was pretty fortunate to actually get train tickets at all, securing a top bunk hard sleeper on the T110 train departing Shanghai Railway Station at 10:04pm to arrive in Beijing Railway Station the next morning at 11:24am. The trains prefixed with a “T” are faster than the old and busted trains that are only identified by four digits, but they’re still not as fast as the “D” trains. Whereas the trip between Shanghai and Beijing on a “D” train takes about 10 hours or so, the “T” train takes about 13, apparently because the latter makes more stops at smaller stops than the former. Dinner with the Beijing Greats would be Thursday night. My itinerary would be to leave Shanghai Wednesday night, arrive in Beijing Thursday noon, powder my nose, have dinner, try to get Kaiser Kuo and Will Moss in trouble, and then catch the 11:05am D31 day-train back to Shanghai on Friday. I’m in the middle of a move from Pudong to my new pad back in Puxi, and I need to get back to pack up and move over the weekend. It would be a very hectic few days.

But it’s the Imagethief, right?

Tomorrow: Shanghai Railway Station, the New Trains, and their Amenities

“…or obtaining political or diplomatic results with China, I think the evidence is the contrary,” criticizes Howard French, associate professor at Columbia University and former senior foreign correspondent for the New York Times, of the premise underlying the negative conclusions the American press have made of United States President Obama’s recent diplomatic visit to China:

…the problem with the way the press has covered this is there’s a kind of implicit premise [that...] is misleading, I think. Maybe disingenuous is even a better word, because it seems to suggest that if Obama had pulled a Khrushchev and banged his shoe on the table on these [human rights] issues and really jumped up and down and made a lot of noise, then this would have achieved a markedly different result for the better. I don’t think there’s any evidence of that. It may have made certain people in this society feel better about themselves, but if the goal is changing behaviors in China or obtaining political or diplomatic results with China, I think the evidence is the contrary.”

The above comes from an interview with Mr. French in the Columbia Journalism Review, by way of James Fallows and his excellent coverage on “how badly the mainstream American press distorted the picture of what happened during Barack Obama’s just-ended tour of Asia.” In short, the American media and thus many Americans feel Obama disappointingly failed to accomplish anything in and with China.

Naturally, a part of this is hardcore politics, which I won’t comment much on here, but the reason French’s comment stands out is because of how poignant a reminder it is that so much — not all — of the commentary, suggestions, and demands (mine likely included) critics of China make of China are often exasperatingly divorced from reality. I say this because too often — not always — these efforts are premised upon amplifying the complaints instead of considering feasible solutions to very real challenges. Too often, these efforts seem more about assuaging selfish consciences (and moralities) or sending messages to audiences back home instead of really communicating with the Chinese that actually hold any real power in driving change. It’s more about “look at me, this is what I stand for”. It’s about “we need more outrage and more outside pressure on China”. It’s about “we need to get them to change for us now!”

Thanks to Richard Burger of The Peking Duck (still blocked in China), I just read Joshua Kurlantzick’s recently published “Nonstop party: The surprising persistence of Chinese communism” on The Boston Globe. It’s a lengthy article telling Americans how China and its government has thus far managed to defy the expectations and predictions of American leaders and China-watchers, by simply not imploding and still be around…arguably stronger than ever.

For example, China’s economic rise has led to the growth of a Chinese middle class, but this middle class that many Americans imagined would gradually hanker for greater political freedoms to complement their growing economic freedom has instead largely stood behind the CCP authoritarian government. Why? Because they see the Party as both the entity that gave them their economic prosperity and their best bet for safeguarding those economic gains.

Kurlantzick outlines how China has seemingly successfully managed — even co-opted — the effects of other things such as global integration, ethnic minorities, and increasing technology (in both information and communications), “forcing the world to re-evaluate the stability of authoritarian regimes”, forcing Western countries to realize that countries can “survive” (what about “thrive”?) without making a transition to democracy as they get richer.

Then, after noting (or threatening) that many countries are eying and trying to emulate this new, apparently feasible, and so-called “China model”, Kurlantzick reminds us that this model “contains some serious flaws,” or rather persistent problems: growing income disparity and wealth gap, disaffected rural masses despite economically bullish urbanites, increasingly violent mass incidents, the double-edged volatility of nationalism, and the friction between economic control and economic growth. He’s fair, however, by acknowledging that China “appears to understand its own weaknesses and is prepared to combat them”, trying to direct investment towards those being left behind and reining in excessive, counter-productive nationalism.

All of this is more or less matter-of-fact. I may not necessarily agree with the degree to which Kurlantzick attributes or frames certain things to CCP machinations and control, but overall, he’s offering a lot of clarity on a very complex but immensely important to understand conclusion that The Peking Duck summarizes as:  “China is not about to collapse, democracy is not arriving in the forseeable future, censorship will continue, the CCP isn’t going away and it may still be in power generations from now.”

But then Kurlantzick offers some political advice and guidance on how America can mind China’s business:

An effective American China policy, then, should balance greater acceptance of Beijing’s rising power with a demonstration that, despite China’s rising influence, the US is not going to back off core beliefs, such as human rights advocacy. Washington also must recognize that trade and investment alone will not open up Chinese politics; the US could focus on areas where Beijing, though increasingly sure of itself, remains weak – such as providing technology for Chinese bloggers to get around Internet filters, or highlighting the vast problems of rural Chinese society (both Voice of America and Radio Free Asia have extensive Chinese broadcasts which penetrate rural China).

Washington has walked this line before. In a previous era when many academics believed the Soviet regime would last for decades, American administrations both dealt with Moscow on issues like arms control and pressured it on human rights. And the Soviet Union, perhaps like China today, had internal fissures whose extent went unappreciated. Ultimately, the USSR’s weaknesses overwhelmed it.

Emphases mine. Make no mistake, I’m personally all for freedom of information and society being aware of its problems, but this is, without a doubt, interfering with another country’s internal affairs. These are premeditated and coordinated efforts to influence and affect what goes on in another sovereign nation’s society, with its people, involving its politics.

And I say, “so what?”

Nations have been doing this to each other ever since ideology has existed as a concept. There’s no big surprise that we seek to influence each other both on an individual level and in aggregate as families, towns, cities, states, countries, and geo-political spheres. It’s just the way we function as a species in a shared, now global, society. Ideas and the will to use ideas cannot always be stopped by arbitrary and artificial lines drawn with blood, nationality, or race. We are organisms that seek to control our existence by controlling our environment, and whatever shares that environment with us.

China and the United States, Chinese and American, authoritarian and democratic, nationalism and patriotic dissent, oppression and freedom…these all coexist in a shared environment.

So when China and Chinese complain that Americans (and/or Westerners) are once again trying to subvert their sovereignty or sow discord, they’re not always wrong. We can argue about specific instances and degree, but let’s not delude ourselves into thinking they’re spouting nonsense. It’s true.

Likewise, when America and Americans complain that China and the Chinese are exporting their propaganda and censorship overseas, they’re not necessarily wrong either. Again, we can argue about specific accusations and extent, but let’s not pretend China doesn’t have interests it wants to protect or project.

It’s only fair.