Fool’s Mountain: Blogging for China

It’s been almost four months since Ma Ying-jeou has been sworn into office in Taiwan.  After the first few weeks of euphoria, there hasn’t been that much published about Taiwan in English sources - partly because of the Olympics, and partly because not much concrete has happened. Continue reading »

Several bloggers here have asked that we start a discussion regarding which of the U.S. presidential candidates might be better for China - or at least, better for a solid U.S.-China relationship.  Continue reading »

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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In the comments to an earlier post related to Tibet, I found it striking that, although by different routes, bianxiangbianqiao and wuming and I have reached roughly the same conclusion, viz that there’s no logical reason why Tibet should remain part of China, but, at the same time, it is completely impossible for China to let it become independent, since that would invariably be seen as China giving up 19% of its land area (or even 13%, which is what the TAR is). Particularly so since, as bxbq points out, the boundaries of “Tibet” are quite fuzzy. I could draw a border that I think would be a fair delimitation of “where Tibetans traditionally predominated and still do”, but obviously there would be a lot of people who would disagree with any given attempt. Continue reading »

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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Just saw a China-related Post Secret (I swear it’s not mine! ). Continue reading »

This post was submitted by Joel.

Last night after the women’s gymnastics team final, NBC announcer Bella Caroli commented that the Chinese team cheated with underage athletes, and their passports were doctored by the Chinese government.

After some digging, it seems the age allegation had surfaced some time ago, but was quelled after passports and birth certificates where produced to the satisfaction of the gymnasts federation in charge.

Have not seen much of this since, except the NBC commentator and some 2nd tier reporting from NYT.

The reporter mentioned that there were some government documents on this, so I set out to find them. Here’s what I found while searching the gov.cn domain:
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This post was submitted by Charles Liu.

My wife and I, along with a German, an Aussie, a TCK (third culture kid), and an American watched the Opening Ceremonies on a giant screen in one of Tianjin’s biggest parks. There were thousands of people there, and very few foreigners. We’ve posted pictures, video, and blogged the experience, particularly the crowd’s reactions to different things (Watching the Opening Ceremony with a few thousand Tianjiners!).
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This post was submitted by Joel.

A first-person account of a trip to Beijing: I’m pretty amazed by the hospitality in China, especially how it keeps getting better and better. It’s not just the hospitality, it’s all the little things of general people behavior.

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This post was submitted by xiaotaibei.

Here is a article “Wild dogs of nationalism let off the leash” on Beijing 08 blogs of Sydney Morning Herald by award winning sports writer John Birmingham. The Article starts with

Picture a couple of Falun Gong dudes, or a Tibetan Monk sitting in a cell, waiting for the Games to finish so they can be executed and give up their organs for harvest. Continue reading »

This post was submitted by BMY.

Mainlanders often feel exasperated by constant Western criticism, as if no matter what China does and no matter how much China accomplishes, it’s never good enough in the eyes of Western nations. The poem “Chinese Grievances” (aka “What do you want from us?”) expresses this feeling well. I think what’s shared below will help us better understand this problem.
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This post was submitted by Joel.

Let’s take a relief from serious blogging.

Taiwan’s Terry Gou has pledged to donate 90% of his wealth to charity before his wedding. Continue reading »

This post was submitted by Netizen.

On one of our earlier threads on the misnamed Dalai Lama, there is an excellent on-going exchange of thoughts and positions from two of our posters: one is a Tibetan in exile, the other is Chinese in China.

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As I have stated before, one of the objective of our blog is to build bridges between China and the West, to facilitate communication and understandings between Chinese and non-Chinese. Obviously, a bridge is not fully functional if all lanes on it are one-way. That’s why I think an interactive blog is such a wonderful tool. It offers a platform for us to speak out, but it also provides a channel for us to listen.

It is often said that we have one mouth and two ears for a reason, which is we should listen twice as much as we talk. It is great that our first ear is working well (we have got over 4,000 comments so far), but we want more feedback from our readers. Moreover, sometimes readers may have topics they want to discuss but we have not covered. So, in order to become better listeners and to let readers speak out more, we just added our second ear to this blog-Open submission for everyone.

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There has been a lot of excellent debate about democracy and China in recent days.  Continue reading »

Seems like a simple enough question. Actually… while the question of what it means to be Chinese is very simple, it is all of the numerous, equally valid answers that make the issue complicated. We have to accept that there are different answers for different people.

Here is one answer, translated from a post written by an American-raised Chinese on MITBBS (原贴):

I was eating lunch with a good friend (both a colleague and a classmate) a few days ago. He’s a true Englishman, having lived in England from birth through university. Although he’s now attending school with me in the United States, he naturally does so with the identity of an Englishman. Whereas I, as an ethnic Chinese person raised in the United States, have in his eyes been categorized as an “American”. And I will often correct him by saying “I’m Chinese”. This time, when the topic popped up again, he laughed and asked: “From your point of view, what is a Chinese person?”

I believe “Chinese” has three different meanings.

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On July 1st, 1921, the Communist Party of China was founded by a group of students and intellectuals in Shanghai; that date has served as the official birth date of the Communist Party since. The 87th birthday for the Communist Party passed in very troubled fashion, however, as China was reminded yet again of the deep corruption and dissatisfaction in various corners of the country. This posting translated below comes from a Party member on the Strong Country forum, and represents his thoughts on the Weng’an (Wengan) riots (连接):

As a member of the Chinese Communist Party, I wanted to say a few things to the Party Central, about the Weng’an (Wengan) incident:

1. There is no Communist Party that fears the people. The magic weapon for the Communist Party’s success during the revolution was trusting in the people, depending on the people, and motivating the people. This will always be the Party’s greatest weapon. The Party should actively dive into the people, and respectfully listen to the voices of the people, rather than simply waiting for problems to erupt before trying to “stabilize” the people. The Chinese Communist Party used to have an unparalleled ability to motivate the people; has this ability or strengthened or weakened? Every Party member should think deeply on this issue.

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Thanks to one our visitors (Traveler, Youzi, 游子), a debate about fundamental issues that divide many Chinese has been brought to our blog (see comment in earlier thread).   In this post, I want to express my opinions on the economy, democracy, and the Chinese government.

I also want to send a few sentences to Mr. Wahaha: please do not so easily “represent” the Chinese or the Chinese government. I don’t know if you’re an oversea student or overseas Chinese, but regardless of China is strong or small, it doesn’t have anything to do with you having greater face and authority in the face of Westerners. Furthermore, China’s economic growth is the result of hard work by Chinese citizens, and not the government’s charity; our lives are improving, because these are the returns from our own work, not because of a government or certain political party has bestowed them on us.

Now, we get to a topic that has nothing to do with Western media and being overseas.  Now we get to a topic that has to do only with being “left” or “right”, being a supporter or opponent of the current Chinese government.  This topic should be kept separate from the topic above.

Let me start by sending a few sentences to you, Traveler: please do not so easily assume that we hope for a strong China because we need “face”.  I will not speak for Wahaha, but many of us are extremely successful, and do not need to borrow face from anyone.  We can silence ourselves on China tomorrow, and we will not suffer for it.  We can cut ourselves off from China tomorrow, and no one in the United States will force us back.  Here’s a bit of advice for you if you ever come to the West, and are embarrassed by an association with the Chinese: if nothing else, we can always pretend to be Japanese.  No one in the West could possibly know the difference

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One of our myriad goals for this blog was to make one simple point: the Chinese debate politics. The Chinese community debate eloquently and foolishly, intelligently and blindly, informed and uninformed, left and right, China and West… the Chinese are not brain-washed robots living in a closed society; we often disagree, often very passionately. To make this point, we talked about the divide between “old and little generals“; we talked about the Chinese that love America; we talked about Tianya, one of the bastions of online debate in China; and we of course had a long series about the deeply divisive issue of Six Four…

Debate is important, because debate is the foundation of true knowledge and true conviction; without opening yourself up to true debate and reconsideration, any knowledge or conviction is suspect. Most in the West have never seen the Chinese debate political issues, so our conclusions are often ignored for exactly the reason. The more that we explain what the Chinese debate about, the more we will gain respect (if not agreement)… and gradually, we can erase Western bias and ignorance. And even more importantly, the better we’ll know what we want from our own country.

Thanks to one our visitors (Traveler, Youzi, 游子), this debate has been brought to our blog (see comment in previous thread).

In terms of the problem with Western media’s “bias”, different Chinese can have different feelings. For overseas Chinese, because they exist in a different cultural environment, it’s easy for them to develop some isolation while interacting with locals. Minorities will often feel more sensitive about mainstream media’s criticisms. In reality, the same reaction can be seen in China’s interior as well. Furthermore, outsiders always feel discriminated against by locals, and the most basic reason is a cultural gap. This sort of discrimination due to the cultural gap is a very common phenomenon, and can only be erased through integration. Clearly, any sort of specific discrimination that causes injury or loss, can be rectified through a lawsuit seeking economic compensation. Therefore, the discrimination due to cultural differences in the West should be resolved by law if effective rule of law exists; cultural problems can only be resolved through cultural interaction.

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Well, we are a little behind the curve here at Fool’s Mountain. An article titled “Down with the Dalai Lama” was published* by the Guardian a few weeks ago, and I was completely ignorant of it until the Chinese translation began to be passed around. (*Was it actually published in print, or is it only available online?)

Here are a few choice snippets from that article:

The Dalai Lama says he wants Tibetan autonomy and political independence. Yet he allows himself to be used as a tool by western powers keen to humiliate China. Between the late 1950s and 1974, he is alleged to have received around $15,000 a month, or $180,000 a year, from the CIA. He has also been, according to the same reporter, “remarkably nepotistic”, promoting his brothers and their wives to positions of extraordinary power in his fiefdom-in-exile in Dharamsala, northern India.

…
He poses as the quirky, giggly, modern monk who once auctioned his Land Rover on eBay for $80,000 and has even done an advert for Apple (quite what skinny white computers have got to do with Buddhism is anybody’s guess). Yet in truth he is a product of the crushing feudalism of archaic, pre-modern Tibet, where an elite of Buddhist monks treated the masses as serfs and ruthlessly punished them if they stepped out of line.

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