But the surprise came when we went to town for lunch, and I found out that the river that flowed into the Yangtze at that point was called the Wu. I hadn’t realized before, because the industrial park takes a different name, but sure enough, our client confirmed this point: we were in the riverside town of Fuling.

If you have read the classic China book “River Town”, you know why I was so thrilled. If you have not, then go and get it now. Since you are reading my blog, chances are you are one of those crazy Westerners that seek to understand the Chinese. This books explains them all for you, and in the process it gives you a rare glimpse into the life of inland China. It is fascinating, especially if you don’t live in the country already.

The Book

I am taking this chance to do a little review of River Town, so I can start to catch up with my old plans of running a book reviews section. Considering this book is relatively old and already well known, I will just stick to the main points and try to keep this post reasonable.

The story is very simple, it tells the experiences and feelings of the author during his 2 year stay as Peace Corps in Fuling, a third tier town on the Yangtze.  Nothing really happens, except that it is inland China in the 90s, and everything happens. The book is enjoyable from the beginning, almost every page right to the end.

Here are the key points as promised:

- Very enjoyable natural writing, with vivid descriptions of the places and the people. One of the best examples I know of literature meeting anthropology. Memorable is the description of the Fuling streets and their “stick-stick soldiers” in the initial chapters.

- The author is a fine observer, and he has the advantage of direct access to his students, who write down for him their opinions about a variety of subjects. One of the main highlights of the book is the contrast between the Fuling and the Western mentality, expressed on the background of the classics of English literature.

- For the sake of balance, some points I liked less: towards the end the  book looses some strength (not surprising, after the great first half). The scientific detachment of the author can become a bit exasperating, and sometimes it feels like the anthropologist has taken over the writer. The last dramatic scene with the mob doesn’t help to fix this, and I couldn’t help feeling that it was an unnecessary addition. But then, that is only my opinion, and I was never in Fuling in the 90s.

The River Town

From what I have seen today, the town of Fuling is doing pretty well, changing so fast that it is almost impossible to recognize it in the descriptions of the book. For one thing, it took us less than an hour to get there from the center of Chongqing, which qualifies it as a close suburb. This is in great contrast with the backwater river town of the 90s.

Now the Fulingers are going to have some World class production facilities, and a good part of the population will be working there, with thousands more coming from all over China. It feels strange to realize suddenly that I have become myself one of the characters (although a very secondary one) in the story of the transformation of Fuling.

There seems to be only one thing eternal in China, and that is the masses of the working people, the “laobaixing”. Sure enough, the stick-stick soldiers are still there and in good shape, running up and down the stairs with massive loads hanging from their bamboo poles. For them, nothing has changed.

The place feels like all the energies of China concentrated in one tiny peninsula. The result is not beautiful, perhaps, but it is intense.  By dinner time, my colleague was disappointed that we’d failed to spot any picturable monument, so I asked a taxi driver to show us the views.  He took us to this breathtaking spot on a nearby mountain called “One Tree” (一棵树):

Below, in the middle of the Yangtze, lies the city of Chongqing, and this view was in itself worth the visit. It is the best skyline I have seen in China.

It is not he buildings themselves, they can hardly compare with the towers of Pudong. It is something to do with the round perfection of the scene, the glowing isle on the Yangtze,  and the sudden revelation that there is some higher order in the dusty chaos below.

My colleague summarized it in a single phrase, that can be more or less translated to English: “She was beautiful from far, but far from beautiful” .

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]]> http://chinayouren-free.com/2009/11/11/2479/feed 0 http://chinayouren-free.com/2009/08/06/2237 http://chinayouren-free.com/2009/08/06/2237#comments Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:54:44 +0000 Julen Madariaga http://chinayouren-free.com/2009/08/06/2237

I was not there and I do not know more than what is in the press. But in the light of the available information, I think it’s worth it to have another look at the events, and see what we make of it. Refer to the NYT diagram linked on the illustration, this paper is hardly suspect of pro-CPC, and the information included (from witness accounts) is about as detailed as has been published concerning the events of 5th May.

It all started with a protest in People’s Square, followed by a concentration along Liberation Road, which was met around 6.30 by the People’s Armed Police. Up to here everything is “normal” in the logic of street rioting: there were clashes and probably some victims from both sides. But Liberation Rd. is very central, many people live there and surely the NYT would have found at least a witness to mention it if hundreds of people had been killed or made prisoner at this point.

But it is afterwards, especially after 8, along the axes of Tuanjie and Dawan Roads, that the events are not normal by any standard of social disorder. Street riots, like other forms of violence, can have collateral damage, but this is not the case. The police was not there, the Han mobs couldn’t have been organized in such a short time, and the only way to explain those deaths is that it was a deliberate large scale massacre of civilian residents and passers by. This is consistent with what was written in other accounts by various newspapers.

The initial count of 123* Han casualties that has been more or less accepted by all sides as minimum is an astonishing figure for actions that happened mostly in the space of 5 hours and in such a reduced area. Looking at other riots in the region, including Xinjiang, Tibet or other Chinese areas, we see this ratio is completely out of range. This was not the heat of the fight in a political riot. It was cold-blooded persecution, the kind of actions that can only be the work of fanatics.

Who was behind the events

In its August 2 issue, the Hong Kong newsweekly Yazhou Zhoukan interviewed Heyrat Niyaz, a Uyghur journalist, blogger, and AIDS activist, the kind of person who is unlikely to be partial to the CPC. Heyrat speaks about the Islamic Liberation Party, Hizb-ut-Tahrir al-Islami, a pan-islamic international political party which is formally peaceful, but which has been accused in the past of inciting violence in Europe. This organization has spread very quickly in Xinjiang in the last decade.

As a witness in Urumqi, Niyaz notes the strong Kashgar accents of many of the protesters and the religious slogans that were heard in the protests. This brings to mind all the times the CPC has spoken of the menace of an Islamist group called ETIM, which might actually exist or not. In any case, some radical groups do exist, as was clearly seen from attacks like this one last year, where 16 policemen were coldly knifed and bombed after being run over.

I will not accuse any group without proof, as I would be guilty myself of the same “solid block” thinking I criticized yesterday. But what we have seen up to now should make any honest observer curious, and it certainly warrants further investigation in the field of radical islamism in Xinjiang. In a region bordered by countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, it is not at all unthinkable that frustrated youths take example of their counterparts across the border and find an escape in a perverted version of religion.

Response

The Chinese government has handled the crisis relatively well, given the circumstances. Actually, the main objection one could make is the opposite of what most Western readers like to imagine: on Sunday 5th more force should have been used to avoid the murders.

If you think of it, you might agree that the CPC leaders are not precisely idealistic dreamers. When they let the foreign reporters into a place it is because they know they have nothing to lose, and this time they must have been pretty confident that they were not to blame. Also we have to admit that, even when in front of journalists, it is unusual in most armies in the World to exhibit so much discipline and restraint as the Chinese did in the aftermath of indiscriminate racist attacks against their own people.

A large part of the Western media were confused by this attitude, which perhaps explains why they left so early. Indeed, it is some food for thought and it can make some weaker spirits shrink, to consider that for the second time in a row (after the Sichuan disaster) China proves that, sometimes, an authoritarian regime can do things better than a democracy. It takes some solid convictions and some understanding of ones own ideals to be able to look at the World without the mould of good and evil.

In any case, there is little doubt – the Western media has given me no reason to think otherwise – that the Chinese double approach of media control and moderate police action has produced the best results during the crisis. It goes without saying that this only works as a short term formula to curb down the violence, and that much more will need to be done from now on to really solve the problems in Xinjiang. More about long term solutions in the next posts.

Rebiya Kadeer

I will not waste time here to discredit Rebiya Kadeer, because from the beginning she discredits herself. She has provided no basis at all for most of the information she gave to the media, and some of her claims are so absurdly wrong that it actually makes me think she has to be innocent: someone who’s made it in business can’t possibly be such a bad liar. The only explanation is that she is totally clueless.

Click on the picture for one example of her latest claims.

More than anything, Kadeer gives the impression that she is desperate for TV time. She knows her time of fame is running to an end, and she is forced to place ever stronger claims, raising the stakes at each go to attract the tired audiences. As blogger twofish reflected, if she really cared about the future of Xinjiang, she might have grabbed this chance to send a message of peace and try to connect with the rest of the Chinese at a time when they were brutally attacked, earning perhaps the respect of the moderates.

But how has someone like Kadeer, a successful businesswoman in her time, imprisoned and then released by the CPC, ended up as de facto representative of the Uyghur people? Kadeer was called to play a role, and she plays it just fine. It is a role that has been written by the CPC, and by the Western media, and by the audiences and by the American NED, who is funding her. The story was written long before she arrived, a well proven plot that works with the public and will make everyone happy. It is all over again the Dalai Lama saga, and thanks to the copy-paste now the scriptwriters can relax and enjoy their Summer holidays.

Except, of course, that Rebiya Kadeer is no Dalai Lama, and neither her deeds nor her standing among the Uyghur justifiy any such comparison.

The Important Question

And now down to what many consider the crucial question: is Kadeer in contact or even financing the extremist groups who arranged the killings, or is she, as I suspect, totally ignorant of the reality on the ground? I don’t think we will ever find out. It is difficult to believe that the NED, funded by the American Congress, would sponsor anyone connected with terrorism; but if by mistake they did, I am sure they will take good care to hide all the proofs.

Note that, either way, the NED doesn’t come out very well from this story. Sponsoring an opportunist who jumps at the chance to get a name for herself while she coldly observes the killings of dozens is hardly in line with the objectives of a National Endowment for Democracy.

But really, is all this so important? I don’t think so. Kadeer will not last, and whether she is guilty or not, the peanuts that the NED pays her do not really change anything. Kadeer with her accommodated expatriate Uyghurs of the WUC cannot possibly control the operations of a terrorist group on the ground. And, as an inspirational role, I doubt it very much that she – a woman, twice married, business and PC background – could ever work for young islamist radicals. She will most certainly not turn into the new bin Laden.

No, the real questions for China and for the World are others:

Who was really behind the killings of 5th July? How will the prisoners be judged? How are the interethnic policies of the CPC failing? How is this failure feeding the bases of some violent groups? What is the connection of these groups with islamist terrorism and what is the probability of Al-Qaeda joining the party? And why is China the only Security Council country that hasn’t received a large-scale attack from islamists, in spite of the years-long Uyghur conflict?

And finally, where are the people that are supposed to be answering all these questions?

*See my comment below for the basis of this number.

Panic spreads fast in the crowds. In the emergency stairs people screamed and treaded on each other as they desperately prodded at their cell phones. The crammed staircase felt like it would fall on us any moment. It is a sense of utter helplessness of man against the forces of nature. It feels terrifying and it feels unfair. 

Ten minutes later the building was empty, and thousands of employees were safely reassembled on the People’s Square. It was a sunny day in Shanghai.  We smoked cigarettes and, to get over our nervousness, we turned to joking about the reaction of our client. Only later the messages started coming in, and we understood we had just had a slight taste of the tragedy that took place 1,000 miles to the West.

Chinayouren’s thoughts today are with the brave people of Sichuan.

On the internet, the best and most tasteful homage to the victims I have seen today is the one on the taobao site. You have to be used to the exuberant front pages of  the Chinese internet to fully appreciate the impression. Only a little candle on the right side of the logo is in yellow colour, but you will have to follow the link to see it, as animations didn’t come out in the picture.

I go back to this because I am surprised there hasn’t been much said about the internet chats that for the first time have been organized with legislators participating in the NPC-CPCC Annual Sessions. Where has all this gone?  Not even the Chinese language internet seems to be very interested, judging by the search 网络民主.  It is obvious that without a strong push of the propaganda machinery the “internet friends” don’tpay much attention to these initiatives.

And why didn’t the State Media push it this time? Perhaps they are bored of it already, or perhaps  not everyone was very hot for the idea of “online democracy”. For example,  NPC chairman Wu Bangguo, one of the strong men in the politburo standing committee, who made these encouraging statements yesterday.

In the end, it is not so much about democracy (that’s too big a word for the NPC), but more about trying to give it some sort of role in participatory politics that would allow the legislators to take into account at least some requests of the public. The problem is, this year again, the NPC has given an image of being just a big annoying “Carnival”,  where the guest’s only role was to clap at the words of Mr. Wu.

Did I say the only role? No wait, the deputies  also have the duty of making proposals, and some of them must be pretty talented, judging by their phrases “amazing like thunder”.

ULN takes you for a browse

But follow me for a minute as I browse the Chinese internets, see what interesting things we can find on this subject. A good place to start is izaobao, with their daily roundup of bloggy stories:

以前我很关心两会，因为那时候很傻很天真，认为这两场嘉年华真能改变些国家民族的命运。现在我还是很关心两会，因为总有些的雷人语录，给无趣的生活带来了很多有趣. 这些雷人语录（简称雷语，三表老师原创）自然轻易就占据了媒体网络的头条，因此也带来了另一个问题，大家把太多目光聚集在雷语上，可能就忽视了春风——那些真正有价值有专业水平的提案。我相信我们的代表委员绝不会全都是倪萍奶奶那样的智商水平，其中应该不乏精彩的提案，可是为虾米不公开给大家看呢？以现在的技术手段，应该不是什么难事吧。

I used to pay attention to the NPC-CPCC, because I was stupid and innocent, I used to think these 2 “carnivals” were really going to change the destiny of the Chinese people. Nowadays I still pay attention to them, because there are always “thundering statements”（雷人语录), which bring interest to an otherwise boring life  (… ) this also brings another problem: everyone is paying too much attention to the “thundering  statements” and possibly missing some of the “spring breeze” – that is, those proposals that might have some value and professionalism. I am sure in our NPC-CPCC not all have the IQ of NiPing, there must be some with excellent proposals. But why don’t they do it in public, with the technological means we have today?

And that’s what I ask myself, why not in public? Let’s try to follow some links and find out:

First, this cue of deputy NiPing, it  is not linked here but we will easily google it. There you are, it is a funny story: the typical embarrasing situation where an older lady that could be anybody’s mum tries to use buzz words of the online community, like shanzhai (山寨). The uncoolness she radiated could be sensed all the way from Guangzhou, were finally this blogger saved the World by proving that she had no idea of what she was talking about, even though nobody really knows what this rapidly morphing word means.

Forget NiPing. Let’s follow the links on the Izabao article. One of them goes to our familiar “3 watches” blogger, who attempts to coin or re-coin the term  雷人语录 (thundering statements) into the shorter and perhaps cooler  雷语 (er.. thundering statements). Wondering if the Chinese internet slang really needs any more innovations, we leave this blog  and continue our quest for some Thunder material, wishing “3 watches” luck with the promotion of his new word.

OK, don’t get impatient. We are almost there.  Let’s check on the link to  Sina, which brings us some pretty thundering stuff straight from a newspaper in Chongqing,  the “Chongqing South Journal”

据中新社电 全国“两会”期间，人大代表和政协委员踊跃建言，“炮声”隆隆。不过在“炮声”之外，也有不少代表、委员发表的一些“异类”观点，被网友用时下很流行的一个词“雷人”来形容。

According to China News, the NPC-CPCC is on, and the deputees are enthusiastically advising, with a rumble like a cannon. But apart from the “cannon” activity, there are also some atypical points of view, that the internet friends describe with the buzz word “thundering“

What are these thundering points of view? Something we need to look into more carefully. The article gives 3 interesting examples that we will skim-translate, so that you can get the gist of it:

Thunder N.1 : “For 5 Million, I’d  sure admit you 20 points down”

“谁要是给我五百万，我绝对降他二十分录取”

全国政协委员、北京第四中学校长刘长铭谈起择校问题时说，“择校是个正常现象。有些人的孩子分数差几分，希望用别的方式补偿，花点钱进入一个学校，这也是正常的”。刘长铭说，有些专家认为金钱不能打破分数面前人人平等，这是思想僵化的表现。“谁要是给我五百万，我绝对降他二十分录取。一百万留在自己学校，四百万可以捐给其他学。”

This  is about the problem of access to schools. Deputy and Schoolmaster Liu ChengMing says:  ”It is a normal phenomenon, some people’s children are only missing a few points to get into a school, they wish there was another way to compensate, and there you go: you spend a little bit of money and get in, that is the most normal thing in the World. Some experts say that the money shouldn’t break the equality given by the points, but this is a rigid attitude. If someone gives me 5Million, even with 20 points less for sure I would admit him, then keep 1Million for the school and give 4 to other schools!!

Thunder N.2: Lin JiaXiang is a great Cadre!

“林嘉祥是个好干部。”

去年底，深圳市海事局党组书记林嘉祥涉嫌猥亵女童一事闹得沸沸扬扬，事后，林嘉祥被撤销职务。但在本次“两会”，全国政协委员、交通运输部海事局常务副局长刘功臣却为林嘉祥叫屈。刘功臣说，林嘉祥“是一个很好的干部，谁不会有喝醉酒的时候呢”。他认为，林嘉祥遭遇了网络暴力，“网络是可以杀人的，他就是个倒霉蛋。”

This is about a party secretary in Shenzhen who was suspected of molesting girls and removed from office. NCP deputy and minister of transport etc.  Liu Gongchen said:  “Lin is a great cadre, come on, who hasn’t been drunk sometime”.  And adds: ” the internet can kill people, he is just an unlucky egg!!”

Thunder N.3:  Just give a woman a hen…

“如果给一个女人一只母鸡……”

全国政协委员张晓梅建议，应加大发挥女性的社会优势，倡导女性精神应对经济危机。她举例说:“如果给一个女人一只母鸡，她会节俭下自己的口粮， 饲养它生蛋孵鸡，并在鸡与蛋的循环中，帮持家用，供弟妹上学，继而产生无限生机和力量；如果同样一只母鸡给到一个男人手中，最有可能的结局是炖了被用来当 作下酒菜。”

This CPPCC member Zhang Xiaomei suggested the feminine spirit is the best to deal with the economic crisis. “If you give a woman a hen, she eats sparingly, feeds the chicken until it lays eggs..blahblah.. take the children to Beida with the proceedings and what not. But give the hen to a man, most probably he will eat it. An internet friend commented: then the best against the crisis is sex change surgery.

On to 1515

Whatever, that was a good read and we are beggining to get tired of so much translation, even if it is approximative. Let’s switch to the 1515.cn link, see what we can find there. Finally, we do find some kind of serious analysis here.  Or perhaps not, it is a column posted on Xinhua’s herald.

[...] 前两天和一位政协的领导聊天，他说，你们媒体每年都会问，为何有些政协委员又请假了，追得紧了，自然会对这些老是清假的委员们产生压力，他们以后 就不敢了。我倒是没有这样乐观，因为对一批政协委员来说，这个头衔不是他们自己想要得，而是作为一种荣誉和社会地位主动给与他们的，既然他们从来没有想要 过，那来自外界的压力，又怎样会改变这样的状况  [...] 不过对于那些雷人的议案，公众在批评和议论之余，还应该看到这样一点，毕竟因为提案并不是完全公开，大家能够知道的，只不过是数千份议案 中的很小很小的一部分，因此这些被媒体曝光，或者是代表委员们自己向媒体透露，或者是透过代表委员们自己开设的博客主动向公众阐述的，不能够反映代表委员 们的普遍水平。[ ... ]   好的议案被忽略有几个原因，第一是媒体缺乏信息来源，因为不是每个委员代表都愿意公开自己的提案，很多人愿意低调的实实在在的做 事情，第二则是因为媒和公众本身，媒体觉得不吸引眼球，而这种判断，是因为公众对于严肃的问题缺乏兴趣，这也就让那些雷人的议案传播效应越来越大.

After explaining the origin of the expression ‘Thundering” (雷人）from Japanese cartoons and a few other things, the author speaks about his chat with a CPCC  deputy, who says that media puts a lot of pressure on some members to attend the meetings and stop asking for holidays.

But the situation will not change because many didn’t really choose to be CPCC members, it is just a honour and social status given to them. They have no capability and no willingness to participate. Perhaps we should consider other ways to reward these guys instead of forcing them to seat  in the boring NPC-CPCC every year. There are already enough proposals in the CPCC so perhaps they should just resign.

Among the thousands of proposals that are issued in the NPC-CPCC, the ones that everyone can see are only a tiny part.  They surely don’t represent the general level of the deputies. The media does not publish many proposals of deputies either because many of them don’t want to make statements in public, or just because the proposals are too serious and would not attract the readers, which is precisely the reason why the ‘Thunders” do go public.

Some notes

So there you go, a few different points of view from the chinese blogosphere. Note, these Chinese blogs are not necessarily representative of the mainstream opinions in the Chinese internet, but rather of what is – in my opinion anyway- the intelligent fraction of the Chinese internet.

I hope you have enjoyed the ride. This is my first attempt at bridge blogging proper, if you find it useful let me know and I will try to do more. Otherwise I guess I will stick to commentary in English, where I am more time-effective.

IMPORTANT: the translations above are not meant to be verbatim. Browsing with ULN means that you see what I see and you skip what I skip. I have tried to convey the tone and the message of the originals, but feel free to correct me if you see some translation error.  Chinese readers, now is the time to take revenge for all my mocking of Chinglish signs.

Any thundering comments?

Today was a pretty stressful day in the office, but in between meetings I was able to join a lively discussion on the Fool’s Mountain about the latest Dalai incident.

To wit, the French President said he will meet the DL in Poland during a ceremony in honour of Lech Walesa. China immediately threatened EU with cancelling the 11th EU-China Summit this week, and has indeed cancelled it. BBC tells it here. Also see the reaction of Chinese netizens to Pomfret’s article and the account of Xinhua.

Here are my thoughts as posted on the Mountain (minus rants and comebacks):

Is China using France?

Is China using France strategically, as a wedge to divide EU, following the classic “divide and win” from SunTzu’s Art of War?

Could be, but this is nothing new, all the world powers use this old trick when negotiating with EU. The fact is China will listen or not to EU representatives depending on the power it perceives they have, and depending on China’s own interests. For economic aspects such as tariffs, EU does have power and will be listened. In other fields it can be completely ignored. Points to keep in mind:

1- The EU has a problem with unity, and this has nothing to do with China’s policies.

2- China has a problem to deal with DL, and this has nothing to do with the Sarko meeting.

3- Universal Rule in International Relations: If you need to distract attention bash the French.

4- DL is not a terrorist. Comparing him to bin Laden is low and slanderous.

5- China is crying for nothing: In Europe anyone could speak with the equivalent of DL.

For example, the president of the Basque Country (who actively demands independence from Spain) has met up with authorities of many countries and sends representatives regularly to support Basque industry in Shanghai. No whining from Spain, why? because unlike bin Laden, he does NOT support violence.

What are the consequences of this incident? And the real Reasons?

In fact, there shouldn’t be any serious practical consequence of missing this Summit. The real meeting is the one that will happen in April when the G20 + Obama meet to speak of the Crisis.

This little conflict with the French is just a classic IR trick to create some noise. Perhaps Zhongnanhai have decided that it’s time to rally the people in advance of the social shocks of the Crisis. Or perhaps they are preparing the way for a conflictive period in foreign affairs when China tries to implement protectionist/low RMB policies, strongly opposed by the West.

Chinese leaders are well known for thinking one step ahead. Hopefully I am wrong with this one.

Please comment. No swearwords.