Fool’s Mountain: Blogging for China

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.

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.

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.

This article is a comprehensive look at a few young Chinese nationalists, both inside and outside of China.  I recommend it completely.  If the facts and people presented in this article became recognizable in the West, this blog would (almost) have no reason to exist.  Thanks to FOARP (I believe) for recommending this in an earlier thread.

Despite all of the predictions of doom and concern, I believe the Olympics are already a success.  The WSJ reports world and business leaders are crowding China’s red carpet in an unprecedented way:

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An advertising campaign commissioned by the human rights group Amnesty International has raised flames of anger throughout China. For previous discussions, see ESWN and Danwei.

Wall Street Journal has more details on the backlash, reporting:

Weeks before the Olympics put Beijing and the Games’ corporate backers on the world stage, an advertising heavyweight has stumbled over the divide between how some view China and how the nation views itself…. Word of the human-rights campaign is now spreading through China, and TBWA and Amnesty International are disavowing the ads.

Chinese bloggers, spurred by a report in state-run media of the Amnesty campaign last week, are now calling for a boycott of all TBWA ads, among other measures.

And many in China are indeed very angry. But there are other voices as well; below is a translated internet post from Xinmin Net: (原文):

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Shanghaiist highlighted some interesting news: “selling Chinese-made American flags within Minnesota is a crime punishable by up to 90 days in jail and/or a US$1,000 fine.” What’s going to be the next, penalizing a bare lapel?

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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Ah, wonderful article published in Time. Of course, I’m biased as her perspectives very much mirror mine. If only we could convince Ms. Liu to submit an article for us once in a while… I’m tempted to paste the entire article here, I find it that compelling. Instead, you can read it here: Time - True Pride.

Money quotes:

Just a few weeks ago, the west’s view of china was dominated by thuggish torch guards, hypersensitive nationalists and a repressive government. But since the earthquake in Sichuan, the immense state-led rescue effort and the outpouring of charity from the Chinese people has taken center stage. Has the country really changed that much? Not really. The two phenomena on display — nationalism and compassion — are related facets of the vast, multidimensional nation that China is. When it comes to my homeland, I feel them both.

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- written by Tang Buxi, May 7th 2008

The debate over the Internet lynch mob’s attack of Wang Qianyuan continues. Roland at ESWN brings us this exchange between one of Grace Wang’s supporters at Duke and members of the Chinese community. Grace Wang’s self-stated goal was to help the two sides “communicate”, but the final results show that hasn’t happened.

Unfortunately, many in the West continue to conflate the Internet mob’s behavior with Chinese nationalism at large. The truth is, the two are not directly related. As a proud Chinese nationalist who “defended” the Olympic Torch, I too am absolutely appalled by the Chinese Internet mob.

As far as Wang Qianyuan’s rough treatment being used to criticize those of us who love China… enough is enough. If the verbal attack on Wang Qianyuan suggests something is wrong with Chinese nationalism, then what does the physical attack on Jin Jing in Paris suggest? That something is fundamentally wrong with French liberalism?

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Written by Tang Buxi - May 6th, 2008

The LA Times follows in the footsteps of the New York Times in publishing an article discussing Chinese nationalism. See the LA Times article here , and previous NY Times editorial here.

These articles do insert some much-needed balance into the Western understanding of Chinese nationalism. The LA Times article is especially notable for offering a view that most Chinese would agree is mostly balanced. However, even in the excellent LA Times article, it seems the journalist buys into a persistent Western myth.

Myth: Chinese nationalism was recently created by the Communist Party.

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