09.29.08
Posted in Food, Health, Industry, Media/Internet, Politics, Technology at 09:16 by Nator
ODB recently asked why the Chinese spacewalk was getting so much coverage. As usual, a quick look at the China Daily homepage provides the answer:
Aside from the Miss Switzerland pageant, it was clearly the top story of the weekend!
I was curious about the ”763 batches of Chinese milk found chemical free” link, however, so I searched the site for the keyword “milk”. Turns out there has been a lot of news about milk in the past couple of weeks. It’s all terribly complicated, and I’m still sorting out the facts. But these articles, all taken from China Daily and Xinhua, have been particularly helpful:
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09.23.08
Posted in Law and Order, Manners, Media/Internet, The Second Tier, Wuhan at 14:33 by Nator
chinaSMACK is one of my favorite new China blogs. It translates some of the hot topics in China’s online forums and bulletin boards, complete with pictures, video, and numerous reader comments translated from the original Chinese posts. The author seems to favor the more lurid stories, such as a confrontation in Wuhan between a Wuhan bus driver and several passengers. Check out the video (the attack begins at about 1m25s):
There is a follow-up post which examines the possibility that the bus driver insulted the girls in the video:
Last week, video footage from Wuhan bus line 519 showed two Northeastern men from Heilongjiang Province ruthlessly beating and kicking the female bus driver. Chinese across the country were outraged, many calling Northeastern Chinese violent animals. But, some Chinese wondered if the video showed the whole truth, noticing that parts of the video recording was cut out.
Soon, other posters claiming to have been on the bus when the beating happened told a different story about what really happened that day between the Wuhan bus driver, the two Northeastern girls, and the two Northeastern young men who eventually beat her.
A couple things from the translated user comments struck me. First, they reveal the strong regional attitudes and stereotypes (Wuhanese as rude; Northeastern girls in other cities as prostitutes) that rarely are reported in English language news about China. Second, many of the users quoted seem to think that, if the bus driver did insult the girls, then it was either acceptable or at least understandable that she was repeatedly and viciously kicked in the head.
Finally, some commenters argued that the attacked must have been justified because no one else stepped in to stop it:
If it was really like how it was reported, that the female bus driver was completely justified and in the weaker position, that the young men attacked her, why did none of the many people on the bus come out and prevent/stop it? Not even anyone to say a word? The answer is obvious, that although the driver was weaker, she was unreasonable, and even her words and performance made the other passengers on the bus feel dissatisfied, such as being tough or viciously cursing people. Of course, it also possible the other passengers were just different and wanted to avoid causing trouble for themselves.
Personally, I think the final sentence is closer to the truth. In eight years of observing fights in China, I have seen crowds gather to watch even the hint of a fight, but I have never seen anyone step in and try to break up a seriously violent fight.
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09.22.08
Posted in Manners, The Second Tier, Wuhan at 17:09 by Nator
A new Wuhan blog entitled wo zai wuchang has appeared recently. It’s written by an American teaching English at Huazhong Normal University. Aside from a few minor details, the author’s comments and observations are remarkably similar to my own when I first arrived back in 1997. This passage from the September 2 post captures the first-week-in-Wuhan experience perfectly:
The ride from the airport to the university completely blew my mind. I guess I was expecting Wuhan to be similar to Beijing or Xi’an but it isn’t at all. I can’t say I’ve ever been to a more third world city before - everything looks like it’s falling apart. Even entering campus was a shock. I was feeling completely out of place and slightly regretful; however, life can change after a good night’s sleep and a shower. Wuhan seemed better but still not what I was expecting. The girl who picked me up from the airport came by my room to show me around campus and by accident we found out I had to go get an medical examination done with the rest of the new international kids. For everyone’s information, NO ONE wants to get a medical examination in China EVER. It was probably one of the most frustrating events in my life. Total I had to get a chest x-ray, eye test, ECG exam, sonogram, blood drawn, vaccination, and some sort of test to see if you’ve ever had surgery before. There were probably 200 people there for the same things and about 9 doctors total. This entire process took 7 hours. As you may know, there are no such things as lines in China. Things got dramatic every once in a while. While waiting in the epic ECG line about 10 Chinese men cut this Chinese woman and I. She yelled and yelled at them in Chinese and it got pretty out of hand. They ended up shoving her and her daughter around and pushed passed her. I was shocked. To make the hospital experience even more frustrating is the fact that no one in Wuhan except for a small population knows English. Doctors were yelling orders to me all day and I couldn’t understand a single one. I feel lucky that my exam even got finished. I know my parents probably don’t want to hear this but I wonder if any of that equipment was even sterile (save the needles). The hospital was pretty gross. There were cigarettes all over the floor.
Everything at this university is completely unorganized and frustrating. I feel that no one knows what’s going on and if they do they don’t know when and if they have an idea of when it’s only a rumor. I’m sure once classes start everything will fall into place.
Be sure to check out the pictures as well.
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08.28.08
Posted in Law and Order, Politics, Wuhan at 15:01 by Nator
This article about Ghanaians in China popped up in my Google news alert yesterday. It contains some letters from Ghanians currently stuck in China, including this one from someone currently in Wuhan:
There are a lot of Ghanaians who are stranded here in China.
Most of them have no food to eat let alone job to do. Especially in Guangzhou many Ghanaians are behind bars for overstaying their visas. . . .
Most of the people here cannot even locate their passport, the reason being either they have been cheated by agents who promise to renew it and could not, so making away with the passport and the money or giving out to a friend to use and could not locate the friend again. . . .
I am writing from Wuhan a province in China. My passport has expired for a year now and I want to go home but I cannot. There is no work for me to do too, I have been hiding here for almost three months without a job.
I have posted before about the experiences of an American black man in China, but I rarely see much about Africans here. The girls at Pizza Buffet! did a podcast about Guangzhou earlier this year, and that was the first time I had heard about the large number of Africans living in Guangzhou, many illegally.
A few weeks ago SHTig and I were discussing immigration to and from China–for the last couple hundred years, there has been a lot of the latter but almost none of the former. Aside from North Korean refugees, the only other people coming to China in search of a better life are the Africans.
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08.27.08
Posted in Beijing, Food, McDonald's in China, Olympics at 13:46 by Nator
A classic moment today at my local McDonald’s: A young girl was eating an early lunch at about 11:30 am with an older guy, probably her grandfather. Gramps wasn’t hungry, but he was definitely thirsty, as he took several large swigs from his bottle of Red Star erguotou (in the classic green flask). He even gave her the drunken finger-point, wagging it in front of her face as he loudly passed along some sage advice. Alas, I didn’t bring my camera.
Merchandising note: The Olympics theme has already been pushed out in favor of a series of ads and toys for Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
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08.11.08
Posted in Beijing, Industry, Olympics, The Second Tier, Wuhan at 18:14 by Nator
The rest of the country continues to sacrifice for Beijing’s Olympic party. Yesterday SHTig and I visited one of the nicest (and largest) office towers in Beijing. The entire building was frigid–on a Sunday, when perhaps a few dozen people were inside. Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports on electricity rationing in Wuhan:
The provincial government decided to cut power supplies to the capital city of Wuhan by 34 percent, the city of Huangshi by 31 percent and Huanggang by 16 percent, the local economic commission said in a statement posted on its Web site.
China, facing its sixth year of electricity shortages, mothballed 3 percent of its coal-fired generating capacity as of July 25 after fuel supplies dwindled, State Grid Corp. of China said last week. Coal stockpiles at Hubei’s power plants have fallen below the “caution line” of 750,000 metric tons, the provincial government said.
“Insufficient coal supplies forced the closure of an increasing number of power plants in the province,” the commission said. “We decided to start rationing power supplies from Aug. 5 in order to ensure basic power demand for the summer and Olympics are met.”
Unfortunately for Wuhan and the rest of China, the current shortage is not being caused by the Olympics alone, but is rather part of a much greater problem:
State Grid said last week 46 percent of the power stations on its network have coal stockpiles below the “caution line” or seven days of consumption. More than 1 billion people rely on State Grid for their power.
The Three Gorges hydropower station in Hubei had a daily output of 440 million kilowatt-hours yesterday [August 5 or 6], or 5 percent of the nation’s total consumption, the Xinhua News Agency reported today.
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Posted in Beijing, Media/Internet, Olympics, Technology at 13:18 by Nator
There was one pretty cool shot during the opening ceremonies last Friday that looked like it had been filmed from a helicopter flying from the Forbidden City straight north up Beijing’s central axis to the Olympic Village, then sped up to give a 10-second aerial view of the city’s skyline. I remember thinking 1) I had never seen such a shot for Beijing before, and 2) it looked computer generated, which would seem to be a lot more trouble than just doing it the old-fashioned way.
A story in the Telegraph explains that part of what I watched was faked:
As the ceremony got under way with a dramatic, drummed countdown, viewers watching at home and on giant screens inside the Bird’s Nest National Stadium watched as a series of giant footprints outlined in fireworks processed gloriously above the city from Tiananmen Square.
What they did not realise was that what they were watching was in fact computer graphics, meticulously created over a period of months and inserted into the coverage electronically at exactly the right moment.
The fireworks were there for real, outside the stadium. But those responsible for filming the extravaganza decided in advance it would be impossible to capture all 29 footprints from the air.
As a result, only the last, visible from the camera stands inside the Bird’s Nest was captured on film…
Gao Xiaolong, head of the visual effects team for the ceremony, said it had taken almost a year to create the 55-second sequence. Meticulous efforts were made to ensure the sequence was as unnoticeable as possible: they sought advice from the Beijing meteorological office as to how to recreate the hazy effects of Beijing’s smog at night, and inserted a slight camera shake effect to simulate the idea that it was filmed from a helicopter.
I’m not actually sure if this was the same moment I noticed; what I saw (or thought I saw) was a computer-generated aerial view of much of Beijing’s skyline (i.e. the buildings and roads looked faked). I understand the logic behind the decision to go with computer-generated effects and don’t have a problem with it. Regardless, it is interesting to note the attitude and motivations behind this decision.
A lot of the lazier reporting on China portrays the country as a place where the government controls every facet of life. While the government may try to do so, China more often feels like a place out of control than under control. At no time is this more apparent than during Chinese New Year, when fireworks are going off all around and the city looks and sounds like a war zone. The contrast between that happy chaos and the nervousness surrounding the Olympics is striking.
ODB ADDS: Funny. As I was watching the ceremony and the firework part, I was thinking to myself: “These fireworks should be going off right over my head… but I can’t see or hear anything…”.
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08.09.08
Posted in Beijing, Traffic and Infrastructure, Travel/Tourism at 23:16 by Nator
Just added this informative blog on Beijing’s subway system, Beijing A to B, to our blogroll. Enjoy!
There is a sister site devoted to Beijing’s roads. That one seems much less interesting. What can they say besides “They’re all jammed”? I’d recommend Beijing’s traffic station instead.
Both sites are related to the folks at Beijingology.
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Posted in Beijing, Chinese Nationalism, Media/Internet, Olympics, Politics, Sports, Technology, The Wenchuan Earthquake, USA at 13:49 by Nator
“Finally” was a word that stuck out a lot in last night’s opening ceremonies. The announcers said it over and over, talking about the long wait for the Oympics. And after slogging through four hours last night (aside from a short nap during Rogge’s speech), I woke up this morning a bit more relaxed, knowing that the big event was finally here and had started without any major problems.
Even thought the first thing I did after I woke was turn on the Slingbox and watch the NBC broadcast, I couldn’t get that excited about this year’s ceremonies. Having lived in Beijing for most of the last seven years, I have definitely become a bit sick of the endless preparations and was just looking forward to being finished with the whole thing. I’m also not as impressed by certain features of the ceremony that are fairly common in China–large crowds moving in unison, for example.
Knowing all this, I was still surprised to hear Bob Costas say that this event should ”retire the trophy” for opening ceremonies and to read Pat Forde’s glowing praise on ESPN.com (though I did agree with most of his article on opening ceremony fashion). Granted, both of them viewed the spectacle in person, and perhaps many of the best moments just didn’t translate well onto TV. But isn’t TV what really matters? Even in Beijing, 99% of the audience probably watched it on a TV or outdoor screen.
Below are a few of my specific reactions to various parts of the ceremonies:
Surprised: That NBC didn’t bother showing the opening ceremonies live. Highlights were available everywhere online immediately after the event finished, and I imagine that many casual viewers in the US simply watched a couple minutes at work and didn’t bother with the four-hour evening event. I had NBC on via Slingbox all evening, and they just showed The Today Show as usual. They even had a couple hosts talking live from a dark Beijing, while the event was going on somewhere nearby.
Impressed: By the giant screen that ran all the way around the top of the stadium and showed various images during the ceremony–a clever touch, though from the TV broadcast it was often hard to make out what was being shown on the screen….The people flying around, suspended by wires, early on (though not later on–see below for more on that)….The two dancers who painted swirls on the ground with their feet and ands–it was simple yet effective; and it had the China element without hitting viewers over the head….The Olympic rings logo that started flat on the ground, then slowly peeled upward to float vertically in the air….The opening string of fireworks, and the swirling flame racing up to light the the cauldron.
Underwhelmed: The opening drum-light sequence. It looked like they were using flourescent lights, many of which flickered for a few seconds before coming on. And they didn’t really do anything with the lights except to stage confusing countdown with the kind of graphics normally found on ODB’s calculator wristwatch. The countdown started at “60″ but we thought it might have said “GO”. Then they went to 50, 40, 30, 20, 10, 9, 8 (by this time the crowd had finally figured out what was going on and started yelling out the numbers) and down to zero. But the time between the jumps of 1 and of 10 was exactly the same–just odd.
Baffled: Several bands took turns playing music during the athletes’ walk-in: a group of Chinese ladies who looked a lot like the 女子十二乐坊 (”Twelve Girls Band“) and played squawky Chinese stuff that I tuned out and that JZ said was commonly heard at Chinese weddings; a group of African(?) drummers, by far the best of the lot; and, inexplicably, some bagpipers, who I never actually saw. I missed NBC’s introduction to this part and didn’t hear any explanation from the Chinese announcers, so I still have no idea why these groups were chosen. It was jarring to hear the switch to a new band every three minutes. And they seemed to have only prepared a song or two each–the bagpipers definitely played at least one well-known bagpiper song (and how many of them are there?) more than once.
Nodding: In agreement at the repeated use of children in the festivities. Not exactly the boldest choice, but surely the among the safest.
Annoyed: At the often frazzled camera work from CCTV. Several times they switched to cameras that weren’t ready–where the cameraman was walking along, getting into position, or not focused on anything. During several sequences, they cut to different shots every second or two, almost like a music video, with no rhyme or reason. A number of views that came without explanation, such as the multiple shots of a certain athete during the “march of nations” without ever telling us who he or she was, or the repeated shots of blue-shirted volunteers/cheerleaders awkwardly dancing and waving as the crowd around them sat in silence. NBC did a much better job, going for longer shots and and generally choosing better angles for most of the scenes. The NBC crew also reacted quickly, switching cameras within seconds to someone whose name had just been mentioned by the announcers. It may have all been scripted, but it felt natural.
Amused: At the difference in the Chinese and US announcers’ handling of the event, especially during the athletes’ walk-in. The Chinese announcers stayed far away from any controversy and introduced each country by listing its strongest events, number of medals won, and other simple (and boring) facts. NBC’s crew, in contrast, used a lot of political background and human interest stories. As China’s athletes entered the stadium, for example, the young boy walking with Yao Ming got more face time than anyone on NBC’s broadcast and allowed Costas and others to talk about China’s population, economic growth, the Wenchuan earthquake, the torch protests, and all sorts of other anecdotes.
Horrified: At the goose-stepping soldiers. I know it’s normal here and in many other countries, but it instantly makes me think of Nazis, and I imagine most other Americans have a similar reaction.
Embarrassed: The birds’ nest and flying dove segment was a hot tranny mess. I’m sure both were very difficult technically and required months of practice. But the ”flapping” of the bird’s wings looked pretty amateur from CCTV’s camera angles, and the human version of the Bird’s Nest stadium made me feel that the hosts were just a little too proud of their new stadium. It’s impressive enough on its own–reproducing it just felt a bit over the top.
Patiently waiting: For audience reaction during the final stages of the torch relay. I didn’t recognize any of the torchbearers, but I expected that the crowd would. Aside from shoe salesman Li Ning, who actually lit the cauldron, however, none of the runners got much applause from the audience.
Giggling: For me, the goofiest part of the evening was the sight of Li Ning flying into the air. Compared to the elegant air dancing in the first part of the show, he looked awkward and clumsy, like some of the poorer flying scenes from the old Superman movies. Except this was a slightly overweight middle-aged guy. The giggling turned into belly-laughing when he started his sideways, slow-motion run. It didn’t help when they had problems aligning his speed with that of a video scroll that was unrolling on the screen behind him. The whole thing caught me completely by surprise, in a bad way. I can’t think of another time when I’ve seen someone of his stature in China do much more than stand politely and perhaps wave to the crowd in a public event….For me, Muhammad Ali’s shaking arm in Atlanta and the flaming arrow in Barcelona were the two most memorable torch lightings.
Overall, there were very few ”gasp inducing scenes” (to borrow Pat Forde’s phrase) for me this year. It seemed that way as well among the crowd in attendance, at least from what I heard and saw on TV (though the NBC broadcast and several other reports I’ve read since indicate otherwise). It was telling that Kobe Bryant got one of the loudest cheers of the night when the camera switched to him for a fews during the walk-in.
What did the rest of you think?
UPDATE: Shanghaiist has a nice collection of reactions to the opening ceremonies from major media outlets and blogs, most of them far more positive than my comments….I wasn’t the only person surprised that NBC didn’t offer a live broadcast of the opening ceremonies….Chad Catacchio has set up a handy feed for the Beijing Olympics on Friendfeed….An American was killed right around the corner today.
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08.06.08
Posted in Laowai, Media/Internet, Shanghai, Travel/Tourism at 14:19 by Nator
I’m a big fan of David Cross, mostly from his work in Mr. Show, and was surprised to find several videos of his travels through China for VBS.tv. The series is called “The Vice Guide to Travel - China”, and Cross is joined by Gavin McInnes. I found three episodes: China, Day in Shanghai, and All American Pies. All are worth checking out. In one episode they watch part of Super Bowl XL between the Steelers and Seahawks, which would mean the trip was filmed in early 2006.
It’s always interesting to see well-known personalities reacting to things the rest of us notice here in China. (I remember seeing a short video of South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone on a similar trip a few years back but can’t find any clips online.)
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