Quote of the day

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“I believe that Chinese peacekeepers will win the glory for the motherland with their own strenuous efforts and successfully implement rescue and peacekeeping missions in Haiti.”

Hu Yunwang, director of the 5th anti-riot police force in Haiti in 2007, to Sina.com. He is being deployed there again to help with peacekeeping efforts in the earthquake aftermath.

In China, EVERYTHING is about China and how to bring glory to the Motherland, even in the wake of tragedy half the world away.

If China were a person, it could be psychoanalyzed as such: China suffers from an inferiority complex that has stunted its emotional and psychological development. Thus, it acts like a baby and shows an appalling lack of maturity in how it conducts its public relations.

China makes up for its insecurity by bragging about how great it is — because if you say it enough, surely people will catch on. It is always bragging about its economic development. After Copenhagen, the Chinese media bragged about China’s role in its “success”. Now, after the Haiti earthquake, they are bragging about their peacekeeping forces.

The quote above is from a (horrible) story I had to polish today, in which Hu seemed to mainly talk about what he will be doing in Haiti and the political and social conditions that might present challenges to his mission. It was tacked on at the end, out of nowhere (as Chinese writers are wont to do). To be fair, the reporter may have prompted Hu to say it, so Hu could have a heart. As for the Chinese as a whole, my faith in them is shattering.

Google and spending in China

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Two things of interest today:

  • There’s a Google-CCP battle brewing. Google will no longer censor itself to appease the Chinese government after discovering hackers from somewhere in China accessed the Gmail accounts of some human rights activists. It’s good to see a major company giving the finger to China. Working together is great and all, but China acts like a big spoiled baby too much. The Western media have jumped all over this story, but China’s state-run presses (CCTV, Xinhua, our very own China.org.cn) have kept mum about it.
  • Credit Suisse’s annual survey on Chinese consumption habits showed that the Chinese are earning more and saving less. Besides the scary implications of having to satisfy the wants of 1.5 billion people, will buying more things make the Chinese more individualistic? After all, buying is all about making choices and expressing ourselves through those choices. Would this wrangle the Chinese free of their traditional communal uniformity?

More on snow

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Last week, I was wondering where the snow was. Shortly after I posted, the snow cometh. And it didn’t stop coming for almost an entire day. And then I learned how awful snow is. Consider:

  • My birthday, last Monday, was probably one of the coldest day on record for Beijing — it was definitely the coldest day of my life. That night (early Tuesday morning), it dipped down to minus 16 degrees Celsius, the coldest temperature in almost 30 years.
  • The clouds dumped about 30 centimeters (almost a foot) of snow on Beijing, the most in almost 60 years. This completely crippled transportation — I have never seen the streets so empty here. It was nearly impossible to get a taxi. We probably waited close to an hour before getting one at a hotel. It did, however, make my morning commute relatively smooth.
  • What China lacks in technology, it makes up for in manpower. This may have never been more obvious. About 300,000 workers were mobilized in Beijing to shovel and sweep (only in China) snow from the streets and sidewalks. Also, sand (?!) was dumped on the roads to make them less slippery. It works, but it also makes everything gross and muddy.

Needless to say, I’m not a big fan of snow anymore. For once, I am glad it didn’t snow, as it was forecasted to yesterday. I kind of wonder if the government had something to do with it. (The Chinese government loves messing with the clouds. They caused the snow on Halloween.) Instead, temperatures are warming up! It might rise above freezing this week! What a twist!

Wondering if the snow is going to remain on the sidewalks and ground all winter…

Things that must not be said

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It’s rather obvious, but should you see a sentence with vague implications like this one

Environmental protection measures will surely have some impacts on the province’s GDP growth.

it means it’s something bad. In this case, the “impact” that environmental protection will have is slowing the GDP growth, but no one in China will (or can) say that on record. It makes you wonder why they say anything at all.

International Food: Mochi ice cream

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It was a Japan-filled day. I went to the Xidan Muji today to check out their housewares. It was a little pricey for things I wasn’t even looking for, but I thought I’d buy a notebook and fun pen. Still, it wasn’t a total loss of a day. Look what I found on the sixth floor of Joy City:

OMGyummy.
OMGyummy.

It’s mochi ice cream! I’m so happy they’ve hit China. It was pretty hard to find them back in the States. The little kiosk that was selling them was crowded with curious Chinese people inquiring about them. They were cheap, too! — 5 to 6 kuai each depending on the flavor. I got my favorites, green tea and red bean, and the box of six cost only 33 kuai. (As you can see, I already ate one.) Other flavors include chocolate, yogurt and blueberry cream.

I find it a little funny that Chinese people haven’t heard about these little balls of heaven. Japan isn’t that far off their coast, and it’s actually derived from a popular southern Chinese snack called muah chee (mochi is probably the Japanese bastardization of the Chinese name. Chinese mochi is pronounced like muah-jee.) Chinese mochi are balls of chewy glutinous rice flour coated in dried coconut shavings and filled with super finely chopped toasted sesame and sugar (or peanuts and sugar or red beans).

In other Joh’s-favorite-foreign-snacks news, Krispy Kreme has also hit China! But in Shanghai, though =(

Christmas traditions from around the world

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I read Gawker. It’s kind of my guilty pleasure. Today it reminded me of two Christmas phenomenons that are right up my alley:

There are still 11 hours of Christmas back home, so I’m still celebrating.

Pictures are worth a thousand words, but why stop there?

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Pictures are powerful. Besides having high artistic value, a good photo will say a lot about a particular event, time or place. In other words, it will tell a story.

But news photos are always accompanied by cutlines. Why? From the Poynter Institute:

Photos tend to communicate in an impressionistic way; they are rarely as precise or clear as verbal communication. They beg for confirmation in words.

The Chinese media are atrociously bad at delivering good cutlines. Admittedly, I’m super weak at writing heds and cutlines myself, but I don’t think China has understood there is an art behind them yet. Perhaps it can be attributed to the repression of knowledge by the Chinese government; the Chinese simply aren’t accustomed to get more information and more details, details, details. Whatever it is, it has produced a lot of redundant and un-newsworthy junk.

Here are some basic guidelines to good cutlines, and infractions by Chinese media.

  • Add value to the picture with specific information. Don’t simply describe the action in the photo, particularly if it is obvious.

An old man stands in his grocery store. (This is the original; my attempt to make it better isn’t really any better.)

Japan’s Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama touches his nose during a news conference in Tokyo December 24, 2009.

A couple dance at the party.

  • Avoid making judgments. “An unhappy citizen watches the protest…” Can you be sure that he is unhappy? Or is he hurting. Or just not photogenic. If you must be judgmental, be sure you seek the truth.

Tourists enjoy themselves on the 22nd Taiyangdao Island International Snow Sculpture Expo in Harbin, capital of northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, Dec. 24, 2009.

  • Don’t let cutlines recapitulate information in the head or deck or summary. By extension, they shouldn’t recapitulate information in another photo.

Workers water flowers hanging on street lamps near a church. [1] [2]

U.S. President Barack Obama, accompanied by First Lady Michelle Obama and First Daughters Malia and Sasha, walks towards Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington D.C. Dec. 24, 2009. [1] [2] [3]

It can also be argued that the real problem is alack of good photos. It is nearly impossible to write a good cutline for most of these examples.

Tips can be found here, here and here.

First foreign Christmas off to an un-Christmasy start

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This year, I get to celebrate Christmas a whole 13 hours earlier! But all that excitement was negated by the perils of the Beijing work commute.

1) It’s 12 degrees outside, with a very brutal wind blowing, which makes it feel like -7 degrees.

2) I ended up having to wait in this -7-degree wind for 20 minutes for the bus.

3) For absolutely no reason other than the sheer inability of Beijing drivers to drive non-haphazardly and in way that would ensure a smoother flow of traffic, it took 45 minutes for the bus to go three stops down Xisanhuan Beilu, or about 3 kilometers.

As a result, I am frozen and 45 minutes late* for work. Still, it’s Christmas, and I’m determined to make merry. Turning on the Christmas music now and opening my lone present.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

(NB: Work starts at 8:30 a.m. I leave the apartment by 7:45, and the bus ride usually takes less than 20 minutes.)

I love my dad

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A Christmas Eve conversation over instant messaging:

Daddy (9:44:51 PM) god idea
Daddy (9:44:56 PM) good
Daddy (9:45:24 PM) god is good also
Me  (9:45:38 PM) it’s his son’s birthday tomorrow
Daddy (9:45:38 PM) either one good
Daddy (9:45:55 PM no
Daddy (9:46:52 PM) I don’t know when, but sure not is tomorrow
Daddy (9:47:06 PM) 12-25 is man made
Daddy (9:48:08 PM) Jew even say Jesus not born yet
Me (9:50:05 PM) haha
Me (9:50:11 PM) i heard his real birthday is in march
Daddy (9:50:37 PM) something like that