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Sep 20

Translation:Can you provide an example to refute this senior fellow?

Written by: btbr403 | Filed under:Analysis, culture, General, media, politics | Tags:, ,
212 Comments » newest

admin’s note. The following is a blog post from 多维博客(h/t to Snow). Besides re-posting an article originally published on the Study Times (a weekly publication of the CCP’s Central Party School) in 2008, it drew a vigorous debate among Chinese with nearly 300 comments (I hope that someone could translate them too), many of them are interesting. Although we posted the Chinese version last year and A-gu commented on that, it was until recently that btbr403 volunteered to translate it. DeWang and Allen helped with the translation.

Following is the translation of the original post:

The Study Times of The Central Party School published an article by Zhang Weiwei (he was Deng XiaoPing’s interpreter, and he wrote an opinion piece The allure of the Chinese model ), a senior research fellow at the Modern Asia Research Centre, University of Geneva, Switzerland. He showed his excellent eloquence in the invitation only Marshall Forum on Transatlantic Affairs, saying that he had visited more than 100 countries, but couldn’t find one that achieved modernization via democratization. The European and American scholars present couldn’t find any examples to refute him.
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Apr 17

My Story and the Chinese Dream Behind It

Written by: Nimrod | Filed under:General | Tags:, ,
12 Comments » newest

Bai Yansong (here’s his biography), the famed CCTV anchor, was on a trip to film his travels and observations in the US, when he gave this following speech at Yale University recently. (Here is the original.) It has a “commencement speech” style to it and is of general interest. Here is a translation for your consumption.

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Sep 01

Recently completed mega-construction projects in China

Written by: Nimrod | Filed under:culture, Environment | Tags:, , , ,
59 Comments » newest

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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Jul 26

“China feels very turbulent” – Part 2

Written by: Buxi | Filed under:Analysis | Tags:, , ,
13 Comments » newest

I have enjoyed my few days so far in Beijing, all the feeling of a hexie society.  However, that is only the superficial view of one man.  According to this Tianya post (连接) from a mainland Chinese also overseas, the under-currents are not always so smooth.  Many of those on TIanya, feeling their own discontent with society, applaud this post as being critical but balanced.   For part 1, see here.  NOTE: This is the translation of a Chinese BBS post, and does not necessarily represent my experience, nor my opinions. 

The turbulence in China’s larger social environment, at root, has been caused by imbalanced development in Chinese society.

On the one hand, the laobaixing in China remain the most hard-working and good-natured anywhere.  Just as I described before, waiters making 800 RMB can peacefully coexist with senior white-collar workers making tens of thousands of RMB per month.  I’ve carefully watched their every action, and you can tell that they truly treasure this work despite its poor pay, and you can imagine how much less they must’ve made in their home villages. 

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Jul 26

“China feels very turbulent” – Part 1

Written by: Buxi | Filed under:Analysis | Tags:, , ,
34 Comments » newest

I have enjoyed my few days so far in Beijing, all the feeling of a hexie society.  However, that is only the superficial view of one man.  According to this Tianya post (连接) from a mainland Chinese also overseas, the under-currents are not always so smooth.  Many of those on TIanya, feeling their own discontent with society, applaud this post as being critical but balanced. 

Last year, I ran into my ex-girlfriend on MSN Messenger.  She was pregnant, and without much meaning I reminded her to be careful with her baby’s health.  Just ordinary topics, like a reminder that she should try to breast-feed after birth.  I don’t know why, but she suddenly responded sharply: “Don’t think that our life in China is worse than yours.  Our classmates are all doing great; if we wanted to go overseas and play, we could.  You should just stay in America; there are so many people going overseas these days, even if you came back, you wouldn’t have an advantage.”  She continued, in great detail and color, to brag her happy life with her husband.  I calmly told her, I never felt I had any sort of advantage over you, and China’s future has plenty of hope.

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