Never knowing why, this blog was completely blocked for several weeks, not being to access it from anywhere really, until I came back home. Paranoia hits again. Censored? Doesn’t sound very credible. Probably they just blocked entire Blogsome. Will tidy this thing up and see what I can do about it, still many stories to tell…
With roughly half a million foreigners in this town, the expat scene in Beijing rarely feels bigger than an average European small town. Same faces appear again and again, and new faces often turns out to be connected to you some way or the other.
Just this weekend a complete stranger turned up at our party at home. After asking around for half an hour for "Kevin" it slowly dawned on him and us, that he 1) didn’t know anyone in the room, and 2) that he was really supposed to go to another party in a very similar looking house across the street. Another minute of chatting, and the guy turns out to be a colleague of a friend of mine.
They say that with six degrees of separation you end up being connected to David Beckham, Elton John and the king of Thailand. Cut that down to three degrees of separation and you know every single expat in Beijing.
The new aquaintance eventually got going to the party across the street he was actually invited to, but then came back twenty minutes later, complaining that that party was way too boring and that he’d prefer to hang out with us instead. A Beijing moment, indeed.
The heat is rising, the air vibrating and thick with smog. A week of around 37 degrees Celsius and I’m having erotic fantasies about cool lakes, beaches, anything with water really. Instead I got a cold shower hearing about the most recent internet crackdown.
Had a coffee with one of the Beijing Likemind founders who informed me that one of the latest sites to be blocked by Chinese authorities is Flickr. Since a few days back it seems like it’s not possible to view any pictures at all from China. Got home and tried. All that turns up on a search on "Beijing" are black frames filled with white, like this:
Scary. How do they DO these things? How many guys do they have working on this enormous censoring system? Other blogs links this to recent enviromental protests against the building of a big chemical plant. Some of the protesters published pictures of the event on Flickr and it’s Chinese version, bullog.cn, and since then the two sites have been blocked or filtered.
Citizen journalism is apparently not appreciated here.
Mrs. Wang is a friend and colleague of mine in her late 40s who wouldn’t hurt a fly. But when she got crappy service at a car mechanic shop, she posted a long complaint and a warning to other car owners in a discussion forum on the web. Some sympathy posts and a pissed off car mechanic later, Mrs. Wang belonged to a new breed of powerful consumers in China, gladly sharing their shopping experiences on the net.
Mrs. Wang’s revenge sprang to mind earlier this week as I listened to Ola Spannar from Springtime, the Swedish PR and communications company. He gave a talk on his upcoming book about the Internet in China and the culture of using bulletin boards (BBS) - discussion forums to check out and chat about products and companies. China is estimated to have around 50 million BBS users, compared to 20 million bloggers.
In one of the latest issues of Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER) you can read how the bulletin board is the most important part of any China-based website. In a country where all information is under government control, people are starved for information from their peers, information they find more authentic and trustworthy.
He’s right that this is something to watch out for. You don’t have to look far to see where the Internet savvy upper middle class in China turns for consumer information. Here in Beijing, the restaurant at IKEA got flooded with people after a man living in the area posted on his neighbourhood chat forum that the extremely cheap Gongbaojiding chicken (4 Y) “was not bad”. At the time I ran into one of the IKEA managers at a party who was getting concerned that the restaurant areas in the second largest IKEA store in the world were perhaps too small. Then again, Chinese companies already know this. FEER reports that as a rule new sites in China “manufacture BBS traffic by hiring rooms full of students to post or else by buying traffic from other sites and posting it as their own”. This in the end might leave the Chinese consumer surfing the net as bewildered as when buying a Gucci wallet. Fake or real?
Mrs. Wang who revenged herself on the car mechanic, had consulted the same bulletin board a couple of months earlier when deciding which car to buy.
Looks like good advice can be as counterfeit as Prada slippers in the local market.
These days the fruit vendors are displaying a tempting mix of strawberries, watermelons, mangoes and litchis. Eating them however is a pleasure mixed with anxiety, if not downright fear. Last week the death sentence of the former head of China’s top food and drug safety was a reminder of how food safety in this country is a work in progress, to put it mildly.
The death sentence followed after a string of scandals: poisonous toothpaste and pet food exported to the States, as well as a cough medicine killing a 100 people in Panama.
I’m getting used to a slight paranoia whenever I eat something, and so are the Chinese. Didn’t this apple have a strange, chemical taste to it? And what about this egg, who told me that the chickens are fed with weird things to make the yolks more yellow?
Three Chinese friends, independently of each other, gave me the very same advice. Funny thing is that they all leant over the table, lowered their voices and wheezed their lines like Russian agents in a Bond movie.
Friend: Listen… Don’t eat the strawberries.
Me: But they taste so good!
Friend: Yeah, well DON’T eat them! (looking over the shoulder)
You know what they DO to them? The flavour. It’s injected. Some times they spray them with god-knows-what.
I feel like I’m in a Stephen King novel where everything safe and familiar suddenly turns into your worst nightmare.
Will a stroll down the aisle in my local supermarket be my last walk?
So how exactly is the Beijing police force supposed to tackle those thousands of (potentially criminal) foreigners expected to invade the city for the Beijing Olympics? Easy, teach them English! According to the Insider’s Guide to Beijing, these are genuine excerpts from the police handbook Olympics Security English. Read, enjoy, and don’t say that the guys aren’t trying their best.
Dialogue: Stopping a Stolen Car
Policeman: I’m afraid we can’t let you go until we clear up this matter.
Foreigner: You’re violating my human right. I protest!
Policeman: No tricks! Don’t move!
Foreigner: What lousy luck!
Policeman: We’ve determined that there is no such man as Jiangwei in Qianmen Hotel. The owner of this car is a man from Beijing, who’s just found his car stolen and reported the case to the police.
Foreigner: How absurd! This is not a stolen car!
Policeman: Come along with us to the Administration Division of Aliens for further questioning.
Pattern Drills:
Police: Are you carrying any (dangerous articles / weapons / contraband / illegal drugs) ?
Foreigner: Of course not.
Police: But this (looks like a bomb / looks like an explosive / looks like cocaine / smells like marijuana).
Dialogue: At the Lost and Found Office
Police: Here is your wallet. Please sign your name of the Report on Lost Article.
Foreigner: All right. It’s really incredible! A lost wallet can be recovered. Only in Beijing can this be possible!
So foreigners, beware! One dirty trick and you’ll end up at the Administration Division of Aliens.
The Office Pet is still there. I was getting some tea and I stared at the poor thing for five minutes. It didn’t move.
This explains why I didn’t spot it any of the other zillion times I went in and out of the kitchen - it is just floating around completely motionless, probably bored into its coma-like state.
Mentioned the poor bastard to a colleague who suddenly got a worried look on her face, saying that she too had thought about fixing a nicer place for it. So maybe I’m not alone.
In fact, perhaps the entire office is genuinely concerned about this turtle in a jar on top of the office fridge.
More disturbing is a new breed of office pets, announcing its presence this morning. Stepping out of the elevator the first thing I see is a cockroach the size of a bloody banana. Lying on its back, I’m not sure if it was dead or just having a rest. I swear, this thing was so huge that I’d not be surprised if it would come to my desk, borrow my phone and order some take away.
He’s probably playing Mahjong with the drivers during lunch breaks.
Had the pleasure of listening to Dr. Jeffrey D. Sachs, considered to be one of the leading economic advisors of his generation, as he gave a short talk on the modest subject "China and the World".
Quite refreshing to hear his thoughts on China’s involvment in Africa, arguing that it’s probably the best thing that happened to Africa in years. Why? Dr Sachs listed three challenges for Africa, where they can learn from China’s experience as a developing country.
Green revolution
Health revolution
Connectivity revolution
All these three fields are based on public investment. China’s development was based on the same three pillars. They turned the agriculture around, provided healthcare and have spent enormous amount of energy to connect all the regions in China. But for China, private investment and globalization was the final boost. Perhaps, Sachs argues, can China now provide this investment in Africa.Dr. Sachs also welcomed China’s involvement in Africa as healthy competition to Europe and the States, who both spent so much time in Africa without really achieving anything. Don’t shoot the messenger, that’s what the man said.
And you gotta listen to a guy who managed to turn a book entitled "The End of Poverty" into a major bestseller.
Reporting in Chinese media reminds me of an eternally optimistic mum, commenting every failure, hardship or disappointment of her children with a cheerful ‘Well! I’m sure it’s all for the best and wasn’t the weather lovely after all?’
Amused myself by comparing the headlines in International Herald Tribune and China Daily after the US-China economic talks. ‘Limited Steps on Opening Chinese’ market vs. ‘Strategic Talks a Complete Success’. Guess which is which?
The Americans are still frustrated over the slow appreciation of the Yuan, claiming that its value is kept artificially low to stimulate Chinese exports and hinder imports to China from the US and Europe. Then again, the Economist argues in its latest issue that a faster appreciation of the Yuan would do more harm than good to the US economy.
For even if Hollywood could sell their DVDs at full price in China, who would be able to afford them? And who would it hit the hardest if WalMart has to raise their prices as the Yuan goes up?
China apparently backs away from a previous proposal to make it obligatory for bloggers to use their real names.
Instead they will promote a "self discipline code" (sic!) to encourage bloggers to register under their real names.
Can’t wait to read that one…
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Aug | ||||||
| 1 | ||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 | ||||||
