Jun 19
It is often said that to be successful in the Chinese officialdom, you have to acquire a thick face, and a black heart (厚黑, there is an
English book if you want to learn more about
厚黑学) .
Nine years ago, the director of Jiangsu Provincial Department of Construction, Xu Qiyao (徐其耀), was arrested for taking bribes of over 20 million yuan. He also distinguished himself among other corrupted officials by having extramarital affairs with 146 women, including a mother and her daughter. Recently, a letter to his son, allegedly found in his diary during the investigation, is circulating on the internet. In that letter, he demonstrated his theoretic superiority in the application of “thick face, black heart.”
Here is a translation for your enlightenment.
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Jun 16
Written by: Steve | Filed under:General, Letters, News, culture, education, media, politics, q&a, religion, technology | Tags:culture, Falun Gong, government, internet, media, politics, religion, tiananmen, tibet
It seems the western media and Chinese blogosphere agree on one thing; Green Dam is not winning any popularity contests. Today, the Chinese government backed down on the mandatory usage of the software, though it will still come either pre-loaded or be included on a compact disc with all PCs sold on the mainland from July 1st.
There are several problems associated with this software, each one an interesting topic in itself. I’d like to run down the issues associated with its release, one by one.
1) Why the sudden announcement of this invasive software with virtually no implementation time given to the manufacturers?
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Mar 29
A week or so ago, in one of the final classes of the fourth year history seminar on Christianity in China that I am currently taking, the professor, in an apparent effort to coax us into some critical thinking, posed these questions; “Did Christianity become a Chinese religion? And if so, when and how did this happen?” The answers that we came up with in class included when the first Chinese person converted to Christianity, when the first independent churches (meaning churches that were not controlled by foreign missionaries) were established, and when Christianity was indigenized (meaning transformed by existing factors in Chinese culture to create a form of Christianity unique to China).
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This post was submitted by Lime.
Jan 22
The money laundering saga of self-proclaimed son-of-Taiwan Chen Shuibian continues.
On Wednesday, Chen Shuibian’s son Chen Chih-chung and daughter-in-law Huang Jui-ching both pleaded guilty to money laundering charges in exchange for leniency.
According to China Times, the main terms of the plead bargain includes: Continue reading »
This post was submitted by Charles Liu.
Dec 18
No, China will not buy GM, Ford or Chrysler. But there is another way - a scheme of division of labor in which the U.S. will focus on design and innovation while China on manufacturing efficiency.
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This post was submitted by BC.
Sep 19
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.
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Sep 15
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.
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Sep 05
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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Sep 01
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.
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Aug 30
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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Aug 24
Just saw a China-related Post Secret (I swear it’s not mine!
).
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This post was submitted by Joel.
Aug 14
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.
Aug 10
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.
Jul 29
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.
Jul 28
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.
Jul 27
Written by: Joel | Filed under:Analysis, Letters | Tags:China, civilizations, conflict, culture, democracy, economics, exploitation, global, justice, nationalism, oppression, the West
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.
Jul 21
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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