Credit: MARK RALSTON (AFP/Getty Images)

How Dare We Feel Sorry For Ourselves…

Richard Burger’s personal blog, The Peking Duck (recently blocked by the GFW), may not be a large blog but it’s definitely one of the oldest English-language blogs about China with a small but loyal readership. Anyone who is remotely someone in the ever-incestuous English China blogosphere either know him or know of his writing, and generally think he’s a swell guy even over strong and passionate differences. While I myself have had very strong disagreements wth him recently, I’ve historically tended to nod my head whenever he shares his thoughts. Richard is returning to the States soon, and his recent posts have reflected a certain reflective mood I’m sure he’s going through. Here’s an excerpt to a particularly good post he wrote in the last week titled “The Begger“:

All of these thoughts of disgust and distaste took place in a fraction of a second. I heard the voice screaming the single word, Xie xie! Xie xie! As the barker inched toward me. I vowed not to turn around. That’s what they want, especially if you’re a laowai – looking at them gives them that window to grab your heart and your wallet. I just listened in annoyance and kept focused on my dictionary.

But then the beggar was too close for me to ignore her. Soon she was right alongside of me, still crying out, “Xie xie! Xie xie!” And she then crossed the line, invading my personal space – she shook my arm, forcing me to turn around to tell her to her face to please back off.

It was in that instant that my heart stopped, my mind dissolved and I felt one of those deep shivers that went straight to my soul. For the beggar was not a beggar at all. The beggar was a woman, somewhere between 40 and 50 years old, and she was leading by the hand a severely retarded young man, maybe 17 years old, a spastic whose arms were flailing as he walked. The woman was shouting “Xie xie, xie xie!” to thank people for getting out of the way so that the boy could pass without his arms hitting anyone. She was not begging me for anything, she was thanking me for allowing her to pass and exit the bus with her boy. (I don’t know if this was her son or grandson, but I do know her devotion to him was total and unstoppable.)

If the above story is too sentimental and happy, and you need something more aggravating and disappointing, here’s one of Richard’s more negative but equally poignant China memories, though it technically doesn’t belong in this week’s Weekly Review: Laowai!

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. You too have experienced panhandling and begging in China, whether on the streets or in the subways.
2. Reminders of our humanity are always good reminders, especially if we’ve lost a bit of our humanity living in what we feel to be a rather inhuman place where rather inhuman things happen all too inhumanly often.

The Seven Habits Of Highly Ineffective Expats

Steven Covey would be proud. The Lost Laowai has another fun and easy-to-digest post this past week sure to be applicable to make China expats or even short-term visitors (study abroad students, interns, etc.). The title above says it all, this post is about seven bad habits foreigners living in China tend to fall into. Here’s one:

Habit #1
Comparisons

“It’s not like this back home”
“In [insert home country back home] it’s like….”

If you’ve never heard this whine then you must not be talking to many foreigners, and if you’ve never said this then you must not talk to anyone period. For a number of people nothing here can ever be as good as it is back home, wherever that may be.

Obviously, the coffee here is not going to be as good as it is in the West. Clearly the Chinese are not experts at making hamburgers and french fries. The public transport is very clearly going to be much, much more crowded here than back home. Yes, the streets are probably dirtier here than a street in the suburbs.

These are the charms that keep China interesting, and very different from home. You will not be able to get a cup of tea back home like you can here, no Western chain will be able to satisfy your fried rice cravings, and just where are you going to spit when you have to back home?

I will never claim to be innocent of this ugly habit, but there has to be a time and place where you need to accept China for what it is, a wildly different place. While some things are better at home, there are definitely things that are better here. It is important to try to keep that in context, especially when you are experiencing the worst this nation has to offer.

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. You make unfair comparisons between China and wherever you’re from or wherever you’ve had it better.
2. You routinely think about when you’re “going home” or “taking a vacation from China”.
3. You frequent the same places over and over again and many of them are foreign.
4. You find yourself in a country other than China whenever you have days off.
5. You drink a lot. Or others think you drink a lot. Even if you deny it.
6. You have an Ayi, and you purposefully live like a sloth because you have an Ayi.
7. You think you know China, understand China, get China.

V Is For Vendetta

When I said that a lot of people were outraged by the whole Green Dam and CCTV attacking Google thing, I wasn’t joking. Some Chinese netizens have taken upon themselves to become Guy Fawkes, spreading something of an open-letter titled “Declaration of the Anonymous Netizens 2009” (Chinese version, the deftly-translated English version can be found here). Here’s a preview sure to titilate:

To the Internet censors of China,

We are the Anonymous Netizens. We have seen your moves on the Internet. You have deprived your netizens of the freedom of speech. You have come to see technology as your mortal enemy. You have clouded and distorted the truth in collaboration with Party mouthpieces. You have hired commentators to create the “public opinion” you wanted to see. All these are etched into our collective memory. More recently, you forced the installation of Green Dam on the entire population and smothered Google with vicious slander. It is now clear as day: what you want is the complete control and censorship of the Internet. We hereby declare that we, the Anonymous Netizens, are going to launch our attack worldwide on your censorship system starting on July 1st, 2009.

July 1st, eh? Mark your calendars. If anything does happen, I hope it’s a lot more interesting than the proposed boycott.

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. Who doesn’t dig the Guy Fawkes mask?
2. Just in case you forgot that there’s a plurality of opinion amongst Chinese netizens, and people.
3. Who doesn’t get excited by sweeping declarations? Stick it to The Man, man!

Michael Jackson Has Left The Building

The King of Pop passed away this past week. As many Americans learned of the news late evening Thursday, the Chinese learned of the news as they woke up and approached their Friday workday. chinaSMACK translated a bunch of Chinese netizen comments Friday to show us how Chinese people were reacting to news of Jackson’s death (some critical, most sentimental and respectful), Danwei showed us how many Chinese newspapers honored the singer with front-page coverage on Saturday, and shameless shanzhai-copycat Chinahush also translated some more Chinese netizen comments Sunday. Samples:

Pathetic countrymen, it is just a single foreign entertainment star. At most, it is regrettable, but is this worth all of you being so miserable? Truly making a fuss over nothing.

He was a music genius…but when he betrayed his own skin color and bleached his skin white, when he started hating his own race and changed his face so much that he no longer looked like himself, he became a monster/freak…Were it not for this, I believe he would have had a better life.

In university there was a girl who was passionately in love with Michael. Whenever she heard anyone say he was “abnormal/perverted/deviant” she would get angry and fight with them. It was from that girl that I slowly came to realize his charm! Now when I look at his stuff from 20 years ago I still get excited and thrilled! He is not just a king to me but also a a symbol of my youth!

MJ passed away~~ makes me feel very old. The superstar of a generation.

He doesn’t know that in China there is a group of fans who are infatuated with him, who will go crazy for him, who will always support him…once again: Goodbye, we love you.

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. Michael Jackson.
2. Wow, the Chinese also liked Michael Jackson?! Didn’t know we had that in common…
3. Wow, the Chinese can also be haters?! Didn’t know we had that in common…

Do Cool Stuff With Cool Chinese People

Because everyone who does parkour, biking, skateboarding, dancing, and rock climbing are automatically “cool.” Okay, the biking not so much, especially in China, unless its super aggro-mountain-jumping biking because then that’s kinda cool in a nation of bicyclists. As expected, we’ve got another Adam Schokora Fifty-5 entry for this week’s Weekly Review and this time he’s offering a list of websites for Chinese “alternative sports enthusiasts”. If you’re good with Chinese and looking to meet some like-minded locals for…I dunno…jumping between building ledges together, Adam’s links may be a good starting point for you:

:: online communities in China can link people together based on common interests. Sometimes, these interests are located online — gaming, net lit, online video, tech — but often times people are involved in offline pursuits that they wish to share with their netizen friends. Some communities / discussion forums are national in nature and connect people from across the country. Others are more locally-focused and serve as online outposts of a groups that meet frequently in the real world. Although each of the following activities takes place offline, practitioners meet online to plan events, share videos, seek help with techniques, or shoot the breeze with other people interested in the same thing.

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. You do cool stuff and you’re looking to make some cool local friends to do that cool stuff with.
2. Because you’re cool.

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!

Post from: CN Reviews

Beggars, Expat Habits, Netizen Revolution, Jackson, & Parkour

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!

Post from: CN Reviews

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

Reports flooding in from around the internet have confirmed that Twitter, Flickr, Hotmail (see update below), Live, and Bing (Microsoft’s new search engine) have joined YouTube, Blogspot, and WordPress.com (amongst countless others) in being blocked from internet users in China. Wikipedia remains unblocked …though I might have just jinxed it by saying so.

If you’re looking for ways around the blocks, Ryan at Lost Laowai, has two recommendations:

If you don’t have a good VPN, be sure to check out Hotspot Shield (free, but slow), or personalVPN/Witopia (minimal yearly fee, but fast). A VPN creates a secure tunnel that will allow you to view the Internet as if you were in the country the VPN is hosted in (US, UK, etc.). I have used services such as Tor in the past, but couldn’t stand the slow speed. I bit the bullet and signed up with WiTopia about a year ago and couldn’t be happier. I have no experience with Hotspot Shield, but have heard it is decent in a pinch.

Chinese blog Very Yellow, Very Violent also threw up a temporary solution for accessing Twitter:

临时访问Twitter的解决方案，将:

168.143.162.100 twitter.com www.twitter.com

这段加到 hosts 文件，Windows 在 C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc 目录下，Linux/Mac 在 /etc/hosts

It suggests adding that line to your hosts file, at the above locations in Windows and Linux/Mac. Unfortunately, having tried it, I don’t think it works. Anyone else try it?

If you’re looking for more options, however, be sure NOT to listen to the sage guidance offered by Mashable:

As far as solutions for evading the block go, you can find some advice here and here.

Right, like anyone currently blocked is able to use Twitter Search to search for tweets about VPNs and Hot Spot Shield. Smart. Good job, Mashable.

As we reported about two weeks ago, however, you can check out some of the options offered by Shanghaiist:

1. Find a good proxy page. Coobai and G-Proxy are good for most sites, but if you’re itching to hit up YouTube, give Coolkidsonly or YouTube Proxy a try. Just plug in the address and continue surfing.
2. GLadder. ONLY FOR FIREFOX USERS. Install it in your browser and click the little ladder button to turn it on. Works off a customizable site list, so you won’t be redirected through a proxy when you try to reach non-banned sites.
3. Anchorfree. It has some pop-ups, adds an ad banner to every page and it’ll sometimes redirect you without warning, but for the most part, it’s easy and painfree. Download, install and you’re up and running.
4. TOR (The Onion Router). At times a little clumsy and slow, but completely ad-free. Again, all you have to do is download and install.
5. GAppProxy. Google comes to the rescue once again. This isn’t the most straightforward fix, but it’s reliable and hassle-free once you figure it out. Download the GAppProxy here, then follow these instructions to build yourself a proxy server on the Google App Engine.

Many people are wondering if MSN Messenger is next to be blocked yet given how many Chinese people (especially in the offices) use it, blocking it sounds unfathomable. Then again, Hotmail is blocked, so maybe all bets are off.

Whatever the case, even many Chinese are scratching their heads in consternation wondering just how “immature” and “shameless” the Chinese central government responsible for these blocks can be. Those Chinese who are aware of the big anniversary coming up in the next two days (the carnage began on the night of the 3rd) point out that the vast majority of China’s youth are ignorant of the event as it is, so why bother blocking so many websites?

Indeed, one would imagine that doing so would only clue the ignorant masses that something was amiss, further spurring their curiosity to find out just what’s got the government’s giant knickers in a bunch. If nothing else, these blocks might annoy the foreigner population that regularly use these websites enough to inspire them to campaign even more fervently to their surrounding Chinese the information that has been veiled from their eyes and minds. Wouldn’t all this potentially offset whatever gains the government could receive from such blocks?

Eh, maybe not. At best, shrug.

Here’s to crossing our fingers and hoping things get better a couple days from now.

June 3rd UPDATE: Very Yellow, Very Violent has a new post with some easy options to get on Twitter:

1. 使用前一个帖子的改hosts方案
2. 使用本站自架的twitter平台 http://hen.huang.hen.bao.li/twitter/
3. 使用 http://hellotxt.com/ 等第三方 twitter 平台
4. 在自己的海外服务器上安装dabr (就是本站用的系统)，Linux主机上只需

svn checkout http://dabr.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ twitter
mv twitter/config.sample.php twitter/config.php

蚂蚁雄兵干死GFW!

I’ve tested #2 and the website for #3 works.

June 3rd, 12:40pm UPDATE: Jason Zhan from IN2marcom updates us in the comments below that Microsoft’s popular free e-mail service Hotmail is once again available in Shanghai (and perhaps the rest of China?). If I had to guess, I’d say enough Chinese people relying on Hotmail for business purposes bitched for the government to unblock it.

June 3rd 11:30pm UPDATE: Just had great Indian food with the ever-lovable Kaiser Kuo who is here visiting Shanghai and realized how incredibly wrong I was about Hotmail in China. While I knew that many more Chinese netizens use other services such as QQ, Sina, 163/Netease, etc., I had assumed that a decent amount of Chinese netizens use Hotmail, given that it was the quintessential first-mover success story of free e-mail. Kaiser enlightened me to how mistaken I was, reminding me that while Hotmail was a first-mover, it had entered China when the internet user population was still quite small. More importantly, while many Chinese do indeed have Hotmail accounts, they were largely used only to register for MSN Messenger, and not really as their primary e-mail account. Kaiser didn’t even have to finish that sentence for “DUH” to materialize over my head. Ugh, what a brainfart on my part.

June 8th 3:30pm UPDATE: Twitter and Flickr seem to be unblocked and accessible again.

Post from: CN Reviews

China’s Great Firewall Blocks Twitter, Flickr, Hotmail, Live, Bing

Today’s Chinese Youth: New Citizen New Chinese, New Geek, New Entertainment, and New Life

China Youthology has an interesting paper with the self-explanatory title: “China Youth Trends and Business Implications“. It was actually released about a month ago but I only ran across it through a recent review of the report by Rich at All Roads Lead to China. For those of you who complained about me linking to the Cryptohippie.com electronic police state report last week, I hereby disclaim that this report also serves the interests of the people who prepared it, that being China Youthology, a marketing, communications, and product design consultancy.

What kind of trends?

The trends we are talking about are not what fashion magazines want to feature. They are not about hunting the latest style and taste, but exploring the deep-rooted changes in values and lifestyles. These changes we discuss here became noticeable in 2008, and we believe they are going to continue to manifest and grow over the next couple of years.

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. Well, it may not matter to you, but if you’re interested in trying to better understand China’s young generation, this report might offer you some insights.
2. If you’re in a business that targets Chinese young consumers, you’ll definitely want to look over this report to see if it will help you better access and resonate with those consumers.

American Ambassador and Governor Talks About China

The Huffington Post recently featured a post containing the experiences and thoughts former Vermont governor and American ambassador Madeleine M. Kunin’s gathered from a visit to Beijing. For many who more familiar and experienced with China and the Chinese, it will be incredibly difficult not to scoff at the stereotypical observations, touristy factoids, and canned insights Kunin makes. In fact, despite what appears to be a conscious effort to repress them, her ethnocentric consternation and judgments are also be annoyingly noticeable, with her poignancy seemingly recycled from the mainstream Western media’s popular narratives about China: “guanxi”, pale skin, the Great Wall, Tiananmen, Mao, the preference for sons, the new greed of capitalism, religious oppression, etc.

For those who aren’t familiar with China and the Chinese, however, it might do you well to go ahead and read Kunin’s piece just to get all those superficial observations  out of the way. They’re still legitimate experiences and thoughts, but its important to know just how shallow and overplayed they all are. Knowing that brings you one step closer to understanding just how much more there is to China and its people and, if you’re interested, knowing what else to look deeper into.

I asked him what the most important thing was for young people today. Without hesitation he said, “To make money.” At the age of 29, he already is distinguishing himself from the younger generation in their teens.

“They are just interested in going to bars, music, sex, material things. They reject things Chinese and do not even like to eat Chinese food.”

Perhaps that is one explanation for why the Pub bar in our hotel was hopping, the Italian restaurant was crowded, and the Asian fusion restaurant where we ate was almost empty.

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. This is about as much and as sophisticated an understanding of China and the Chinese the vast majority of Westerners  have.
2. If you can laugh at this low level of cross-cultural literacy, consider yourself advantaged, but always remember that your understanding of other countries and societies may be just as superficial and unsophisticated. The world is a big place.
3. So be like Kunin, and know when you don’t know enough, when your understanding is only beginning. We all start somewhere.

Tips and Advice on Adjusting to The Fact You’re In China And Not Home

This may not be much of an issue for older, more experienced China hands that have long ago adopted this country and society as home but for the newer expats or short-term visitors to China reading us here at CNR, Glen at the Lost Laowai blog shares six tips on how to deal the expat blues. We often say that how you relate to China is every bit as important as how China relates to you.

Tip #6:  Never Forget:  You Are Not Alone

China is full of expats, and chances are that they are all either going through similar feelings, or have gone through them in the past.  Count on those around you to help you through your tough times, and pay it forward by helping others as best you can.

If you are in an area that is low on expats, or feel like you do not have strong enough connections, there is always the internet.  There are several online communities and forums, like this one, where you can share your experiences and hope for feedback.  While the internet lacks the personal touch of face-to-face talks, it has the added benefit of anonymity and is not limited by simple things like distance.  I think that the best support would come from a mixture of the two, in order to maximize both benefits.

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. You or someone you know is going through the same difficulties adjusting to their new life in a very foreign country, culture, and society.
2. You or someone you know is a migrant worker experience similar difficulties because you’re far away from your hometown where you grew up, struggling in a distant city hoping to make a living and support your family as an outsider…and you read English.

Education and Change in China

The past week has been a big week for posts about education in China, such as a series from James Fallows (10 posts starting from 3 weeks ago), a great old 2007 post on historical exams in Chinese history revisited by Jeremiah at Jottings from the Granite Studio, and an on-going discussion from Chinese English super-blogger Wangjianshuo (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) about the educational options he has for his son, which is quite reminiscent of an old CNR post of a mother asking if she should have her baby in the United States. They all more or less look into the particulars of the education system in China both past and present, its pros and cons, merits and flaws offering perspectives, support, and criticism from people of a variety of backgrounds. While not representative of the discussions taking place, the following excerpt from Wangjianshuo is a good reminder for any situation where people lose perspective and start damning China for never changing in this or that:

Considering the last 30 years, even the last 100-200 years, China changed a lot. However, just because China had closed its door too long, and it is too far away from the international world, today, there are still many things that people don’t understand – some of which, I agree that China should go one step further to join the international community, but most of them, it is the international community who need to accept China.

People have the feeling that China don’t change partly because, China does not change as fast as they want, despite that China already changed a lot.

If you have the time, the comments on Wangjianshuo’s posts are particularly interesting, so don’t miss those.

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. You’ve always wondered how the Chinese can put up with how they learn or educate their children.
2. You live in China, have a child, that child is going to have to go to school here, and you need to know your options.

How the Chinese Relate to America

Another interesting Huffington Post article looks into how the Chinese learn about, understand, and learn from the United States…and why the United States above other countries.

Many other factors certainly contribute to the increasing success of American studies in China. Roberts observes a “near hypnotic popular obsession with the United States.” In a phone interview, she argued that the United States “far overshadows” other countries in the imagination of young Chinese, regardless of their political beliefs: “Even if they hate it, they are still fascinated by it.”

In an additional respect, she suggests that the Chinese want to “use American Studies” to understand their own situation, which she calls “the impulse to use the United States as a prism through which to view aspects of China itself.” She sees this phenomenon “particularly as a way of exploring issues that are in some way controversial.”

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. How the Chinese understand or misunderstand others gives us insight into how we might understand or misunderstand the Chinese.

Bonus! An Updated List Of Ways To Hop The Great Firewall

Not happy that the ban on YouTube still hasn’t been lifted? Geoff Ng at the Shanghaiist has an updated list of free ways to get around the Great Firewall to complement out (probably outdated) lists China Proxy Server Tips: How To Read More Blogs and More China Proxy Server Tips for Isolated Chinese Netizens.

1. Find a good proxy page. Coobai and G-Proxy are good for most pages, but if you’re itching to hit up YouTube, give Coolkidsonly or YouTube Proxy a try. Just plug in the address and continue surfing.
2. GLadder. ONLY FOR FIREFOX USERS. Install it in your browser and click the little ladder button to turn it on. Works off a customizable site list, so you won’t be redirected through a proxy when you try to reach non-banned sites.

Hit up Shanghaiist for the full list!

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. You want to access websites that the Chinese government, for whatever often inexplicable reason, has chosen to prevent you from accessing.
2. You want to thumb your nose and shake your fist at China’s Great Firewall, but up until now didn’t know how.

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!

Post from: CN Reviews

China’s Youth, Typical Tourists, Expat Blues, Education, & USA!

Electronic Police States: America and UK Lumped With China and North Korea

China and North Korea are first and second respectively (as expected) in a recent report about “electronic police states”, while the and United Kingdom and United States come in fifth and sixth. All four are colored oxygenated red as the “most advanced electronic police states.” Er, so what’s an “electronic police state”, you ask?

The two crucial facts about the information gathered under an electronic police state are these:

1. It is criminal evidence, ready for use in a trial.

2. It is gathered universally and silently, and only later organized for use in prosecutions.

In an Electronic Police State, every surveillance camera recording, every email you send, every Internet site you surf, every post you make, every check you write, every credit card swipe, every cell phone ping… are all criminal evidence, and they are held in searchable databases, for a long, long time. Whoever holds this evidence can make you look very, very bad whenever they care enough to do so. You can be prosecuted whenever they feel like it – the evidence is already in their database.

If you’re curious (or just mortified that your home country could be the same color as China), here’s the original PDF report.

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. Helps you realize the possibility that your home country may not be that much better than China.
2. Helps you get angry at the thought that your home country could be compared to China.
3. Better understand the digitally recorded world we all live in and how it could turn on us.

Chinese Cyber Warfare & American Fear-Mongering…and Death Nerds

The ever-hilarious Will Moss (aka Imagethief) dissects a recent Washington Times article about China’s cyber warfare threats to the United States of America, incisively reducing each its highlights to a smoldering pile of sensationalist fear-mongering stupidity.

I should begin by saying, of course the Chinese government is conducting cyber-espionage against the US. They’d be stupid not to. And of course they are concerned with securing their own critical systems against the United States’ equally inevitable cyber-espionage. Again, they’d be stupid not to. And certainly the US government needs to take information security seriously. And so do businesses. And so does your grandmother. Especially if she’s using Windows. All granted.

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. Stops you from being stupid and becoming a victim of sensationalist fear-mongering.
2. Stops you from then voting for neo-cons and eroding cherished civil liberties.
3. Death nerds. Always. Matter.

How Failure To Bargain In China Leads To The Apocalypse

After summarizing the three main categories of bargainers that foreigners in China fall into (The Innocent, The Hardliners, The Generous), Glen at the Lost Laowai goes on to explain why failure to bargain well in China is “ethically wrong” and serves neither the interests of foreigners nor the Chinese themselves.

Here we have some clearly intelligent and capable individuals, who could be performing meaningful jobs that benefit their community and help along its development, but instead they are telling me where to buy the best souvenirs because it is more profitable. Surely that can’t be right.

In overpaying, and in a big way, we are creating a market for cheap fixes to problems facing the developed word, as opposed to having them find long term solutions.

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. Save yourself potentially vast sums of money when shopping.
2. Prevent China’s economy from becoming too dependent on foreign ignorance and generosity.

Chinese Netizens Lament How Little Their Lives Are Worth

Source: Brappy.com

Fauna from the ever-pleasant chinaSMACK translates a Chinese netizen’s rant about how China views the value of an individual life.  The rant further compares China to other more developed countries when considering the relatively high sums of wrongful death compensation paid by Taiwanese and Korean companies versus the shockingly low sums paid by Shanxi coal mine overlords and China’s state railway department. The netizen asks: Why is there a maximum compensation amount instead of a minimum? And why are the lives of animals worth more than the lives of Chinese people?

The value of a life is supreme/paramount, intrinsically unable to be measured by money, which is also to say, the value of life should not be a highest limit problem. Life is not merchandise, it should not be haggled over, and even less have a highest limit. Instead, there should be the opposite regulation, which is to have only a lowest limit, and even without one, there should not be an upper limit standard. The 400,000 upper limit, actually is us standardizing the value of our own citizens’ lives, treating Chinese people like merchandise, whose lives have a price tag, and what more is a low price! If this is not us insulting (prostituting) ourselves, then what is it?

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. Gain a better understanding of why life may be cheap in China.
2. Gain a better understanding of Chinese society’s frustrations with, and criticisms of, itself.

That Hangzhou Street Racing Incident

GVO, ESWN, and chinaSMACK all translate various Chinese articles and netizen comments concerning the latest internet outrage over a street-racing rich kid hitting a pedestrian in Hangzhou. China’s infamous human flesh search engines uncover a surprising amount of personal information on both the victim and the racer as the public pressures the police and government to ensure that money does not get in the way of the law this time as it so often does. ESWN, in particular, translates a netizen’s defense of Hu Bin, the driver, arguing that the government should go easy on him because rich people contribute more to the nation.

3. In terms of contribution to the Gross Domestic Product of China as well as Hangzhou, the family of Hu Bin is immeasurably more important than the Tan Family.  Wu Bin is the builder, sponsor and economic supporter that Hangzhou needs.  Meanwhile Tan has just joined the workforce and his contribution is small — in fact, he is using more resources from than he is contributing to Hangzhou.  When we deal with the problem, this should be our first consideration.

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. Feeds your fear of crossing Chinese streets filled with Chinese drivers.
2. Reminds you to stick to the West Lake area in Hangzhou. Elsewhere is certain death.
3. Fear the awesome power of the (cue dramatic music) “human flesh search engines!”
4. See Chinese society’s resentment towards the rich who can buy their way out of trouble.

Bonus! A Useful List of Chinese Bridge Bloggers

If you liked our list of eclectic China blogs or China blogs by women, you might love the post on Chinese bridge bloggers who are writing about a variety of topics in English that Adam over at 56minus1 just published.

Bridge blogs are being written for an audience unable to read Chinese, one that’s possibly unfamiliar with Chinese culture, both online and off, with the goal of mutual understanding and information exchange between countries and cultures.

Why This Should Matter To You:

1. Because you really don’t want all your info and understanding of China to come from foreigners and expats.

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!

Post from: CN Reviews

Police States, Cyber Warfare, Bargaining, Life, & Street Racing