Fool’s Mountain: Blogging for China

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.

Many discussions involving China and the West end up being a competition: you have this, but we have that.

Here is one very popular competition, passed around in different forms on numerous Chinese internet forums for many years. It’s about the glory of our government buildings. The captions below are translated from the Chinese original:

The city hall in Marion, Iowa. In China, this kind of building would’ve been torn down long ago.

Government offices for the Fangshan District of Beijing. It’s far from the downtown area; a relatively poor mountain area!

Continue reading »

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.

Continue reading »

Some Chinese have spoken of their disillusionment after watching Western press coverage after recent Tibet riots, and others have spoken of how their opinions changed after they have actually *lived* in the United States… but even so, many Chinese have a deep love affair with all things American. For many, the United States government can do no wrong (while the Chinese government can do little right).

In an effort to add some depth to Western knowledge of Chinese voices… here is the translation of a thread celebrating the American government’s support given to China, after the recent earthquake.

Continue reading »