Happy New Year and an Announcement
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Happy New Year of the Tiger!
Traditionally the Chinese celebrate the New Year for 15 days – until the first full moon of the New Year – also called 元宵节 (yuan xiao jie). Yuan xiao jie occurs this Sunday (2/28). As this year’s New Year season winds down, I hope everyone has had a Great Time celebrating!
As the years and seasons come and go, I am reminded yet again of how time stops for no one, how precious it is to be alive, and how in being alive we all carry certain responsibilities to ourselves, our family, and to each other as fellow human beings.
Anyways, I’m rambling, because this is probably going to be my last official post here on Foolsmountain. Over the last couple of years, Foolsmountain has provided an invaluable place for people from all over the world to exchange ideas about China – in English. I’ve benefited tremendously from the wisdom and energy of everyone on this board.
Over the last couple of years, we have also seen the astonishing rise of China on the International stage. A cursory search of the Internet shows hundreds if not thousands of blogs in English relating to China!
What is missing though, in my view, is still the existence of a blog about China that articulates the Chinese perspective in a way that is engaging to audience in the West. What is also missing is that for more than a year now, Foolsmountain has been blocked in China – reducing the possibility for Chinese in China to participate.
So some of us have decided to set up a sibling blog to Foolsmountain where we both go backward as well as forward. We go backward in the sense that we are setting off to create (or re-create as the case may be) a new blog dedicated to presenting a Chinese perspective – i.e. to blogging for China (the original name of Foolsmountain was blog4china.org). We go forward in the sense that we will often be purposefully overlooking some of the ideological heated differences today between the East and West and focus instead on exploring a world assuming China continues to get stronger, more confident, and more influential.
Of course, inheriting the heritage of Foolsmountain, the new blog will continue to welcome competing perspectives, especially those that are well thought-out and well articulated. But the thrust of the blog will be on presenting a Chines perspective – whether they be original writings in English or translations of articles written originally in Chinese. DeWang will be joining me as a founding editor, but we recognize that our abilities and views are limited, and will be looking for others to join us in the future.
The url for the new blog is blog.hiddenharmonies.org. We are still getting started, but when people have time, over the next few weeks or so, please give us a visit when you get the chance. I intend to check in here once in a while, but given the time constraint we all have, I probably will not be able to spend too much time here.
On the other hand, LC and I have been collaborating for so long, I am sure we will find other ways to cooperate in the future. In other words, despite my rambling above, I would not bet too strongly against me completely disappearing from here!
Anyways – here’s a toast to everyone for the time we’ve spent together – for a new and prosperous New Year – for good health – for everyone to live meaningful, purposeful lives!
There are currently 1 comments highlighted: 63930.
February 28th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
Sorry to see you leaving but I am sure everyone will continue to support you as always. Keep up your great work!
February 28th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Hi Allen, have been enjoying and learning from your posts. Hope you continue to contribute.
Most of us defend China and I do not understand why the site has been blocked in China. Most of us are interested to bring China’s ideas to the outside world and vice versa.
Many Chinese apostles outside this site do not really defend/help China with strong language but with less convincing opinions as this site. For that, this site has been doing a great job for China.
February 28th, 2010 at 11:00 pm
Allen, I have always enjoyed your comments and I find them informative, intelligent and stimulating but above all balanced.
Stay around, you are very much appreciated.
It has become quite clear that there is a need for a united Chinese diaspora where Chinese worlwide pool their resources together to make a better China. For the simple reason that if the Chinese won’t do it, no one else will. We certainly cannot trust the West to do it. And we all know how the West treats the Chinese when China is weak.
March 1st, 2010 at 6:08 am
Good luck guys.
March 1st, 2010 at 7:31 am
Thought I reiterate Allen’s point that Hidden Harmonies is very much a sibling blog to Fool’s Mountain. All the key contributors on both places intend to continue to keep in touch.
The new blog was born on 2/14th. Happy Chinese New Year All!
http://blog.hiddenharmonies.org/2010/02/welcome-to-hidden-harmonies/
March 2nd, 2010 at 12:55 am
Might want to add HH to the China blog link list on the right.
March 6th, 2010 at 6:40 pm
Gave a lot of thoughts, and have been hesitant to say this — who am I to give others advice? But here comes my gratuitous 2 cents anyway:
* Running a blog is hard.
* It’s even harder to run a successful blog. Foolsmountain’s Google page rank is currently at 6/10, which is below only China Law Blog in the English-language China-centric blogsphere, that I know of. It’s pretty amazing given its short history. Personally contribute the success to:
– the fine participants. The page rank brings traffic and more participants.
– Buxi, who also goes by “CC Tang”, “heech” in other places, did a brain dump. He is one of the most articulate and intelligent Chinese in the English forums that I know of.
– 2008 — the torch relays, the earthquake, and the Olympic Games.
* It will be hard to get your blog up to the same Google page rank. Even if you get there, the way you run the blog will likely get it blocked in China — unless the GFW is torn down. It’s not about how “for” China you are, it’s about certain keywords, and how often they are repeated.
March 6th, 2010 at 8:44 pm
Hi jxie,
Thx for sharing that. Your knowledge of Chinese history is amazing. If you are giving this topic a lot of thought – it could only mean one thing – one day you might just end up in the same league as Buxi. I know you can. 🙂
March 6th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
@jxie #7,
Imagine some other jxie some time in the future writing about how hard it is to start a blog and then pointing to HH as a special case started by special people like jxie, DeWang, Allen, among others! 😉
History is always waiting to be made… That’s one of the great things about life – as long as we are alive and willing, an infinite variety of possibilities await us!
March 7th, 2010 at 3:53 am
dewang & Allen,
Love your energy and optimism. No doubt in the mankind history, good things have been made with energy and optimism.
Buxi was a very persistent member in many forums, even in those whose intellectually inferior moderators have no qualms of deleting his posts/comments — that part really amazed me. Despite his need of “raising a young family”, he managed to put up 132 posts in a short period of time here. He probably really had a lot to say, and finally got everything off his chest…
Inevitably like all of us, life gets in the way. Family, business and all other types of priorities take higher precedence. Personally am more comfortable of putting up a guest post once in a blue moon, and a few comments now and then. Would definitely keep an eye on your new blog though…
March 7th, 2010 at 9:47 am
I have a question: Do it really cost that much to raise a Child in China today? Because I read a lot of journal online about how much it cost and how people become “child slaves” to their children. And I don’t recall my mom spend nearly as much as they say on these journals, my mom spend a lot of money on me only when I got into college. I just feel a lot of people spend a lot of money base on some crazy journal on what it good for their child.
Thank You
Weining
March 8th, 2010 at 10:21 am
today’s edition of oriental daily malaysia (www2.orientaldaily.com.my) has a big story on China’s 独 二 代。2nd generation of one-child family, which details the problems of the one-child policy for the country’s future + the high cost of raising children today.
March 8th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
Dewang and Allen, I too thought about what happens when HH getting GFW’d in future. Start another blog? Hate to say this, duplicating FM blogposts may have the unintended consquence of detracting from FM.
(Love to see someone post about this OT subject. Reporting on China’s one-child policy have always made me shake my head. It seems our POV/narrative of this remain stuck in the cold-war era frame of mind. China made a decision to manage it’s population, and yes there were a lot of problems in its early inception with quotas, draconian enforcement, cruel medical practice under todays standard. But imagine China hadn’t done that, what would the world look like today?
What we don’t talk about (IMHO such honesty is against our unspoken policy to demonize China) is China’s population managemnt policy have long moved away from that, advocacy based, defacto 2-child policy. All but one of my cusins have more than 1 child. One of them gladly paid $30,000 RMB social responsibility assessment (based on his income level) to have a 3rd child. Beyond anecdotal personal accounts, there are UN reports on the subject.
Sure there may still be indivicual cases we go out of our way to highlight, but those are the exception rather than the norm.)
March 9th, 2010 at 11:31 pm
@Charles,
Your concern about HH and FM overlapping is noted. A number of you have made this point to Allen and me. FM as a “platform” is an experiment. Admin, Allen, and I thought HH is a worthwhile experiment as well for the reasons Allen has given in this article.
Our community is still small, and the channel between HH and FM are completely open. We are pleased to see Nimrod’s new post, and we encourage the FM community to continue to be active. The two blogs have bifurcated since mid Feb 2010.
March 10th, 2010 at 10:26 am
The problem isn’t Fool’s Mountain. It’s wordpress. I think most wordpress-based blogs are blocked in China.
March 11th, 2010 at 5:59 am
I don’t think FM was blocked until later. One thing I did learn from FM is the filtering really does harm China’s interest in terms of prohibiting meaningful discussion, even the ones for China. More harm than benefit? I guess that’s where the debate is.
March 11th, 2010 at 6:12 am
@Charles #16,
Perhaps LC will have a better answer, but I believe FM was blocked soon after the 2008 Olympics.