The Good, Bad, & Ugly Of Trains, Youth, Politics, Dissidents & CCTV

Weekly Review: Oof, big week. Here are nine interesting blog posts from the past week that will help you imagine China’s train rides, fear Chinese extremists, learn more about them post-90s kids again, admire nail houses, be evil or become a government official…or both, laugh at American ignorance, look at China’s dissidents in another light, shake your head at CCTV, and ride Adam Schokora piggyback over the GFW.

Riding China’s Trains

Jalal from the Lost Laowai Blog recounts his good, bad, and ugly experiences riding a long-distance Chinese train from Shanghai to Hubei. Short-distance trains are often a very cost-efficient alternative to flying in China, but the long-distance, sleeper, multi-day trips can be incredibly brutal, especially if you’re a poor college kid going back to your hometown during Chinese New Year and all you can afford is standing room only for your 48 hour ride…with everyone else in China. An excerpt:

I remembered why I sometimes enjoy long train rides. Of course, with a hard seat ticket anything over 8 hours becomes a test of mental and physical toughness; but journeys in the sleeper carriages can be a great opportunity to socialize, practice your Chinese, people-watch, or just kick back and catch up on some reading. Of course, you might run into a couple of clowns, like I did on the way to Hubei, but you takes the rough with the smooth, right?

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. You’ve always been curious about taking the train instead of the plane in China.
2. You’re wondering if Jalal’s experiences remind you of your own.

Anti-Democracy Sentiment In Action

Allie Shi over at Shanghaiist indulged those of us who love hearing what Chinese netizens have to say about anything by translating a bunch of their reactions to the Iranian election controversy. The comments selected are sure to prickle quite a few hairs though:

“现在选举演变成几十年所未有的对抗和骚乱，不知道自由派做何感想？ ——————用军队干呀！敢对抗，杀死他几十万人算个球！反正伊朗人多！军队的枪是干什么的？真是傻瓜。”
“The Iranian presidential election evolved after decades but now is triggering so many protests and riots; I am not sure how the liberal wings of the party would think? Use the army. Whoever fights against the government should be killed. There are so many people in Iran so killing several hundreds of thousands is not a big deal. What does the army do? Foolish (Iranian government).”

“支持内贾德。他是世界上仅有的三个敢于对美国说不的国家领导人之一。他是有骨气有勇气的领导人。”
“I support Ahmadinejad. He is one of the only three leaders of the countries who say no to America. He is a brave and dignified country leader.”"

戈尔输给小步什的时候，小步什也是作弊的，但戈尔比较理性，能以国家安定为重，宣布失败。穆萨维他们有美国支持，但没有大多数伊朗人的支持，输了还不心甘。 ”
“When Bush was elected as the American president, he cheated too. But Al Gore was rational and admitted that he lost because of national stabilization. Mousavi has America as his biggest backer but not many Iranian supporters. He should admitted that he lost.”

Yikes, eh? Quick, go find some other Chinese…

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. You’ve been watching the Iran election fallout.
2. You’re not sure if democracy always works either.
3. You’re part of the 50 cent gang.
4. You’re a masochist who secretly enjoys reading fenqing comments.

Interview With CEO of Chinese Post-90s Generation SNS 360quan.com

And it’s a white guy! Alice with Danwei, the department store that achors the mall of China blogs, posted an interview with Dan Brody talking about China’s post-90s internet culture. Dan Brody is CEO of 360quan.com, “the smallest of the first tier SNS sites, and biggest of the second tier.” Their social networking service/site is focused on China’s youth, particularly those infamously born in the 1990s often stereotyped for their loose morals, goth/emo/punk leanings, and proclivity towards taking exaggerated photos of themselves…and then photoshopping them to be even more exaggerated. Here’s part of the interview:

Danwei: Is 360quan.com unique?
DB: There’s obviously lots of other social networking sites, but each has it’s own niche. For instance, Douban.com is more cultural, and Kaixin001.com is for white-collar office workers － but that’s basically all about branding. All large websites in China have basically the same demographics. For instance, bands and music never accounted for MySpace’s traffic in the US; 90% of their traffic is still just regular people talking to each other. And Xiaonei.com is supposedly just for students, but they have more members than there are students in China.

We position ourselves as the post-90s generation, very hip trendy and new, and we have strong branding on this by finding cool kids on the website — kids who play parkour, graffiti artists, punks — and promoting them. That’s our branding, but by definition cool people can never be the majority of our users, because cool people are only a small percentage of any social group. The people who use our website are the same people who use other large websites in China. What each website does is to feature and promote a group of people who are most interesting for them to associate with their brand.

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. Great insights into Chinese youth culture.
2. Great insider insights into the Chinese SNS business and market.

Nail Houses In China (and around the world)

Nail houses are not the same as hair salons, though those of us with quick and dirty minds might occasionally confuse the two given the right context. Nail houses refer to those stubborn homeowners or tenants who refuse to sell or vacate their property to a developer that has already purchased and leveled the surrounding buildings to build something new (and hopefully more profitable). They’re called “nail houses” because, well, they stick out like a nail. *badabing!* This post comes from a non-China blog called Deputy Dog, but nonetheless features 3 nail houses from China (2 from America, 1 from Japan) with some great pictures:

perhaps the most famous nail house in history was situated on a huge mound of dirt in chonqing until april 2007, at which point it was demolished by exhausted developers after battling for 3 years and eventually parting with ¥1m. the house’s owner, mrs wu ping, was the only person from 241 properties who refused to leave when asked in 2004 in order to make way for a new shopping centre. she really dug her heels in and the story quickly spread around the world by way of the intertubes. there’s an interesting interview with mrs wu here. following some searching, see what i believe to be the site of wu ping’s old house here on google schnapps.

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. Everyone loves a rebel, especially in the face of evil monolithic greedy capitalist land developers! Especially if the latter are Chinese! *shakes fist*
2. Oooooh, nifty pictures.

8 Successful Tips On Being A Successful Government Official

More hair-raising this week comes courtesy of Fool’s Mountain, where they post a translation of a letter written by a Jiangsu government official to his son containing 8 pieces of advice for joining the world of politics that would make Machiavelli (the Italian, not the rapper) proud:

1. Don’t seek truth, and don’t search for the essence of things.

Leave these tasks to intellectuals. The credo you have to firmly keep in mind: “as long as it is advantageous to oneself, it is correct.” If you have difficulty to grasp this, then follow this simplified principle: “whatever the higher-ups promoting is correct.”

2. Not only you have to be a liar, but also you have to be a virtuoso liar.

You should build a habit of telling lies. No, actually you should treat it as a mission with the goal that you are able to believe your own lies. Prostitution and politicians are very similar professions. The difference is that being an official is to sell one’s mouth. Remember, your mouth does not belong to you anymore once you become an official. You have to say according to what you need, not what you think.

Plus six more gems. If there is anything morally redeemable in this, it is the final non-enumerated bit of advice:

These are the principles of being an official. Think carefully now, if you can do all of these, your will have a smooth sailing career. Not up to the task? It’s high time to switch to another profession.

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. You’re a politician/government offiicial, or looking forward to a career in politics/officialdom.
2. You’re a marketer/salesman, or looking forward to a career in marketing/sales.

Europe As Center Of The World

Jottings from the Granite Studio is a favorite for many English China bloggers in our small little admittedly incestuous English China blogosphere. By “incestuous”, it isn’t that we all know each other (and engage in depravities), but we all know of each others’ writing. Jeremiah is a history teacher in Beijing, China and “a PhD Candidate at a large public research university in Northern California” (Go Bears?) who regularly posts some really great stuff on China. This past week, he decided to take to task an op-ed column written by a student from a university in the American South, highlighting the all too common perception most people have of China, particularly those who have never been to China (and some who have, and even continue to live here):

The Chinese mentality is nothing new. If one delves deep into the history books, they can find that the Chinese have possessed such a thought process since their earliest days. They were, and remain, “The Middle Kingdom” or “The Central Nation.” (In fairness, the Europeans have often thought of themselves as “The Middle Earth,” but they at least have the geography to back it up.)

Ok, I’m not a Europeanist, but has anyone not named J.R.R. Tolkien ever used the term “Middle Earth” when thinking of Europe?  And exactly what kind of maps do they use at this school to geographically “back up” Europe’s location in the middle of the earth?

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. Scenes of ignorance getting taken down amuse you (as they do me).
2. Middle Earth, yeah!
3. Quotes like “answering questions and questioning answers” and “not letting students become too comfortable in certainties” resonate with you (as they should everyone).

China’s Dissidents Are Self-Serving Attention Whores

Okay, not quite, but Alice Liu from Asia Times Online (via CDT) brings some critical perspective to a lot of Chinese “digital dissidents” (many of whom actually live in China) that many bleeding-heart liberals champion are fond of championing. Her opinions, or the opinions she represents, may divide some of you with activist leanings:

So what drives him to be a citizen journalist? Does he care about the current political situation in China, or is it just means for self-promotion? Probably more of the latter. Zola has been accused by some of accepting money from his interviewees, which he does not deny, saying he needs to raise funds somehow.

Many bloggers from the “me generation” are just like Zola. They may appear rebellious, and committed to exposing scandals, but they do this mainly for self-satisfaction or fame. The majority of these bloggers are not politically adventurous, and most, like Zola, won’t criticize the communist authorities. In short, they are apolitical.

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. As many have argued before, a person’s character and agenda can be just as important as what that person does or says. At the very least, it’ll help you better understand what they may really be doing or saying.
2. Wut?!? Zola is GOD! BLASPHEMER!

CCTV Embarrasses Itself Yet Again

In what may be a continuation of the last few weeks’ ongoing Green Dam debacle, CCTV ran a news piece pointing a big fat (burning?) CCTV finger at Google.cn for providing search results with links to “vulgar content” that is officially prohibited in China. They also featured an interview where some “university student” expounded on how online porn basically turned his classmate into a zombie. The fact that “vulgar content” is quite ubiquitous (sex sells…always) even in the supposedly “sanitized” Chinese internet was not lost upon the legions of Chinese (and foreign) netizens who quickly scratched their chins wondering why Google was singled out when Baidu is just as bad. A small human flesh search then also discovered that the “university student” CCTV featured was actually a CCTV employee. Ouch.

English-language blogs that covered aspects of this story included:

• GVO: CCTV’s propaganda campaign against Google.cn
• Danwei: State media blames Google for porn
• ESWN: CCTV vs Google.cn & <Focus Interview> Interviewed Its Own Intern
• chinaSMACK: Chinese Netizen Reactions To CCTV Attacking Google

The “university student’s”  famous last words:

I feel that the pornographic or obscene information on the Internet is particularly harmful.  The harm becomes especially big when it is linked by Google.  There is a fellow student of mine. He had been somewhat curious about this sort of thing.  So he visited pornographic websites and he ended up being very absent-minded for a while. Then the state began an anti-pornography campaign.  He did not go there for a while and he got better.  Then he found out that when he went through search engines such as Google.cn with many users, he could still reach these kinds of websites.  So he went back to visiting those many linked websites.  He suffered a relapse.

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. Hahahaha…
2. Hahaha…
3. Haha…
4. Ha.

More Ways To Get Around That Blasted GFW

Not a week goes by without Mr. Schokora getting a mention and yet again he gets one most deservedly. He should get a Adam Schokora corner or something. Oh wait, that’s his blog. Anyway, this week’s hella awesome “Friday 5″ post shares tips and tricks on how to circumvent China’s Net Nanny, that royal pain in the ass that stops you from visiting websites the Chinese censors don’t want you visiting. The entire post itself is rendered as an image instead of text, a common trick some bloggers use in hopes of evading text filters.

Adam, if you’re reading this, I’m waiting for your tweet asking me to update this post because you cleaned up this post by, I dunno, adding links via HTML image maps. That would cement your niubi status.

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. Knowledge is power.
2. Power is access.
3. Access is freedom.
4. Freedom is knowledge.

That’s it for this week. Have a link to a blog post that shouldn’t be missed? Be sure to share it with everyone in the comments, and don’t forget to tell us why you recommend it!