Fool’s Mountain: Blogging for China

Wang Yung-Ching

Wang Yung-Ching, founder of Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics Group, has passed away at the age of 91 while on a business trip to the United States. Wang died unexpectedly in his sleep at his daughter’s home in New Jersey.

Known affectionately as the “Midas of Management” in Taiwan, Wang started his business by selling rice in 1932. From that humble beginning, Wang would become the richest man in Taiwan with a personal fortune (last year) of U.S. $6.8 billion. Wang’s rags-to-rich’s story, coupled with his frugal, unassuming, hardworking lifestyle, makes him one of the most inspirational figures in Taiwan in a generation.

Wang began building his business conglomerate in the early 1950s - when the Japanese had just left the island. His conglomerate would help to transform Taiwan’s biotechnology, petrochemical processing and electronic components production industries into leaders of the world. Continue reading »

It’s common knowledge that when it comes to racial remarks, Chinese people (and perhaps Asians in general) are not the most politically correct people in the world.  We’ve had extended discussions about “racism” in China (see, e.g., Chocolate City post by Buxi).  Recently, I came across an interesting article in Times Magazine (in relation to the U.S. Presidential politics) regarding racism in Asia.  Unfortunately, I believe the author falls into many pitfalls that many Westerners make when it comes to Asian racism. Continue reading »

Whatever your views on the proper role of government in societal, cultural, and economic affairs, few would argue against the government’s role (if not duty) in helping to confront the myriad environmental problems facing modern industrialized societies. Continue reading »

Prologue: On my last trip back to China I brought back some reprints of Republican-era books. The following musings are based on my hasty reading notes.

Abstract: The Chinese society functions well when the stuff of its elite works. The American society functions well when the stuff of its elite works and is embraced by its masses (which is far from automatic). The challenge for the Chinese society is that historically the stuff of its elite (e.g., Confucianism, Legalism and revolutionary socialism) has often failed to work. The challenge for the American society is that the stuff of its elite (e.g., science, education and secular humanism) is often rejected by its masses. Continue reading »

With all the arguments generated by our discussion on cross-strait politics, we need to start a topic that both sides can agree on.  One thing I think we can all agree is that Chinese Cuisine is an important aspect of Chinese Culture.  The only question is: which side of the strait has the better cuisine? Continue reading »

I felt honored to be invited as one of the authors for this site which seems to have a lot of healthy debate. I know that in the past, A Chinese blogger by the name Anti (安替) also started some effort to translate Chinese articles into English to let English-readers have a firsthand understanding of what the Chinese minds are pondering about. Continue reading »

Without too much fanfare in the West, the 2008 Beijing Paralympics has ended almost as fast as the main Olympics events had rushed onto the world stage.  It’s hard to imagine that in a little over 1 month - the whole hoopla that is the Beijing Olympics has officially ended Continue reading »

I had meant to post this sooner, but a quick Mid-Autumn Festival vacation trip got in the way. Admin previously provided me with several passages written by ksjqjy, the host of the Minkaohan forum, and I thought I would post some of them which dealt with religion, given the the timely relevance to Ramadan. Continue reading »

A Mr. Li sent this essay to the BBC and dared them to publish it. They did. Much thanks to EastSouthWestNorth for providing this English translation (See their post for additional translated reader comments.) Continue reading »

This post was submitted by Joel.

America has the Bald Eagle, a powerful symbol of might, individuality, and freedom — even if Benjamin Franklin thought it was a bird of “bad moral character” inferior to the Wild Turkey.

What does China have as a national bird? Well, it doesn’t yet.

The house sparrow, so common in China, and named one of the four vermin during the 1950’s (and killed en masse), has received a plurality of votes among ten birds in an unofficial online poll for China’s national bird. This has stirred up a conversation online about what constitutes a national bird, and more interestingly, about the national character and outlook of the common Chinese people.
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The recent political turmoils have received relatively scant coverage in the Western Press.  Nevertheless, many of us here at Foolsmountain think the events in Thailand are important and interesting because they touch upon so many interesting issues - including the rule of law, democracy, class warfare, public education, and the role of military - all of which are also pertinent to China. Continue reading »

Below is a report about Olympic gymnast Jian Yuyung’s humble beginning. I found it while trying to substantiate which year Jiang, one of the gymnasts accused of being underage, entered local gymnastics program in Liozhou (appearantly 1994 when she was ONE YEAR OLD - if the allegation she was born in 1993 is true): Continue reading »

This post was submitted by Charles Liu.

Here’s a bit from a famous poem by a famous colonial-era British author. I’ll put the original and then an updated version, since his English is old and a little hard to understand. It’s from “The Ballad of East and West,” by Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). Continue reading »

This post was submitted by Joel.

“C’mon baby, go ahead ‘n’ liiiie to me!”
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This post was submitted by Joel.

Two of the most commented threads over the last week relate to Tibet.  Even a neutral posting on the administration of the website has also somehow “devolved” into a debate over Tibet.

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According to an article from the Wall Street Journal two weeks ago, China will face three major problems in the coming years.  The problems involve: the nation’s changing demographics, the increasing strain on energy and environmental resources, and widening social inequalities between the rich and poor.

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For about two decades straight, day-and-night, 24/7, China has been the world’s construction ground, with architectural marvels and giant infrastructure springing up at a swift rate and on an enormous scale. The Beijing Olympics set some ungodly tight deadlines on a few of these projects, but with sheer drive, massive manpower, capital investment, and the directive planning power of the state, nearly all of these mega projects have been completed in a matter of years — unheard of anywhere else in the world.

The world may know about pieces like the Bird’s Nest, the Qinghai-Tibet railroad, and the Three Gorges Dam, but here are some others that have been delivered around China in the past 5 years.

1. Beijing Capital International Airport Terminal 3, biggest building in the world:

Here’s a pretty good discovery channel documentary on its construction process, and alludes to some of the land issues we encounter in a fast-developing China.
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For all the talk about democracy leading up to the Olympics, perhaps it is time - in the wake of the Olympics - to take a step back and ponder about what democracy really is.

An interesting article appeared in the New Yorker earlier this month about the process of politics. Digging under the hood of democratic politics, it tries to explore two strains of forces that in real life can be di-opposed: rough and tumble democracy v. good governance and social policy.

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A few weeks ago, accusations and charges of fakery in the Opening Ceremony flew in the Western media like hotcakes when it was discovered that two Chinese girls had participated in performance of the “Hymn to the Motherland” in the Opening Ceremony.  We had a discussion here a few weeks ago.

Well - a few days ago, it was found out that the Australians also faked - not just one signer - but the entire orchestra!  I thought this would make for an entertaining read.

We don’t need to get into the politics again…  but I just wanted to follow up in case some of you missed the story…

This is a happy China story that also happens to have some fun cultural elements in it.

When we moved into this neighbourhood a year and a half ago, we’d just begun language school and could hardly communicate at all (now we’re fluent in Chinglish). We picked this neighbourhood because it has a great outdoor community atmosphere and it seemed to be average (economically) for Tianjin: not the poorest hutong (some of which recently got bulldozed) but also not a newer development. It’s mostly danwei apartments. Continue reading »

This post was submitted by Joel.