For your consideration, I put together a new piece that takes on Web 2.0 services and China.
I wrote it about a week ago in response to the grandstanding of guys like Nicolas Carlson, who yack endlessly about how evil China yet don’t say jack squat about the crap that goes on in their own countries of residence.
A few notes:
- Regarding Miranda, this was in reference to the planet in the scifi film Serenity as well as the decades-old police warning, “your Miranda rights.”
- As far as the magnum opus: the maximum size of a tweet is held to 140 characters. This is due to the 160 character constraints of SMS. A username is limited to 15 characters to allow forwarding or rebroadcasting the message. Modern microblogging is designed to take advantage of updates from cell phones. And while it certainly adds a new dimension to “citizen journalism” I was poking fun of people that see twitter as some extrarevolutionary tool that will topple regimes.
- I have no real animosity against twitter: it’s not bad, but definitely overhyped. However I have no use for it and I live a pretty exciting life compared to most people. It has its niche, but I’d much rather write original content for a website that I either control or have a vested interested in. It pretty much fills the role for Delicious (the social bookmarking site). Also, the vast majority of tweets are just echos, not much in originality.
- And as far as hashes, I only added them at the end as a kind of “yea d-bag, I don’t use twitter, but I know the lingo and know what hash tags are.”
- As far as content, all of the numbers are easily reproducable. Here is a brief article on incarceration rates in the US (wiki entry). Extra credit to those that look up Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and waterboarding.
- And while some of it might be agitprop, this documentary touches on how the CIA was using Tibet as a spring board to reinvade the mainland, much like Taiwan was being used as staging grounds for reinvading the southern provinces. The Lama is merely a tool/relic of the Cold War and should get a real job. See the independent references in the article.
- Other geekerati/culture droppings that didn’t make the cut:
If you looked at those old TIME articles (circa 1933) I posted earlier, the one on Japan says this at the very end:
Undoubtedly Japan’s “inflation boom” distracted her leaders last week from hard and ominous facts which they must sooner or later face. Government expenditures are running 70% ahead of current revenue, a catastrophic spread. Like all booms the current, superficial Japanese prosperity is basically unsound. With Manchuria still full of Chinese bandit-soldiers who are still full of fight, the Empire stands committed to further stupendous military expenditures, consequent further inflation of the yen and the most strenuous testing in 1933 of Japan’s whole fabric, economic, fiscal, political.
No other policy makers have followed the same, misbegotten steps since then, right?
So some people have emailed me about the 20th anniversary of the Tienanmen square protests.
I usually send them Justin Raimondo’s excellent piece written 10 years ago.
If you want a condensed view, I heartily endorse Ron Paul’s bad ass speech given yesterday.
Seriously guys. If you live in America and you don’t protest on the anniversary of the Iraq invasion, yet you get all flustered about China, you are a hypocrite. If you don’t protest during the anniversary of the Branch Davidian siege, you are a hypocrite. If you don’t protest the dozens of other domestic deaths caused each year due to “human rights” abuses in the US, you are a hypocrite. Ruby Ridge?Kent State?
Heck, the cockamamie raid at the mormon YFZ Ranch occurred just last spring, yet you didn’t see busy-body Chinese nationals burning US flags and calling for a boycott of GM or IBM.
And don’t even get started with that Tibet bull crap.
Let us ignore the fact that the Lama voluntarily went to Beijing in 1954 and broke bread with Mao & Co. for several months and signed various agreements. Let us also ignore the fact that the Dalia Lama was in bed with the CIA and MI6 through Operation ST Circus. For more on that see: “A Cold War in Shangri La†by Tenzig Sonam, “Democratic Imperialism†by Michael Barker, “CIA’s Secret War in Tibet†by Joe Bageant, “Tibet, the ‘great game’ and the CIA†by Richard Bennett.
Yea, I said it. He’s a tool who speaks English and is good at winning the hearts and minds of naive people with slick slogans.
In short, if you feel like protesting some grave injustice, be sure you’ve wagged your finger at the local injustices first before tweeting about the savages that live on the other side of the tracks.
- Eco Watercraft electric waverunner makes no sound, burns no fuel, zaps no fish (Engadget)
- Drone Operators Ask Industry For “Open” Systems (National Defense Magazine)
- Robots get real: where are they used (CNet)
- How technology lifts Pixar’s ‘Up’ (CNet)
- Are Dog Breeds Actually Different Species? (Scientific American)
- Japan’s big guns prepare to rejoin global arms industry (Times Online)
And the featured “I can’t believe they said that” blast-from-the past: Japs are Human from Time in 1945. The numbers and POV are otherworldly, illustrating just how much things have changed in 65 years.
… direct flights between mainland China and Taiwan went from zero to 270 each week.
That is zero flights for sixty year.
I remember sitting in an expat bar in Kaohsiung at the beginning of last April listening to the Belgian owner fret over the day that peaceful exchanges took place. He, along with most others, feared that the PRC would invade and blow the island up.
The very opposite has occurred.
Not only has trade expanded, but so have visitors from the mainland. From zero a week to more than 3000 a week (and now with even more liberalization, 7000+). In addition, while Taiwanese-based companies could invest on the mainland (billions have been spent erecting factories), mainlanders can now invest in the island; approximately $1.2 billion from the QFII program is predicted to flow that way this year.
As a consequence, my friends still living on the island have said everyone seems to be less frantic than a year ago. (Of course, warm feelings probably were also helped with this big purchase of LCD monitors.)
To mark the peaceful occasion, here is another photo from the March 2008 election:
This is just outside my apartment and is taken like 10 seconds before the other one I’ve shown (I lived off of Fuguo road, between Boai and Mintzu). Other election photos here and the wiki entry on the event.
Obama could really learn from this case-study on how to deal with Cuba!
- Our “Missing” Chromosomes (BoingBoing)
- Irrational exuberance, 1788 BC (Report on Business)
- Collapse of Earliest Known Empire Is Linked to Long, Harsh Drought (NY Times)
- China’s runaway steel train (Report on Business) [$ub required, Google for full-text]
- Revolt stirs among China’s nuclear ghosts (The Times Online)
- China property prices “likely to halve” (Financial Times)
This past Sunday a friend of mine convinced me to wake up early and attend an art competition being held at the college I teach at. About 300 students competed in the wee hours of the morning (it started at 8am).
Here is an example of traditional Chinese calligraphy. The man is an instructor at the college.
The man is apparently a well-known artist in the region. He made this – 登鹳雀楼 (a poem) – specifically for me and even stamped it with his genuine seal.
Here is an example of one of the Impressionist entrants. Hopefully he will keep both of his ears like Renoir instead of Van Gogh.
Because you can’t have too many photos with cute Asian girls. They were dolled up in their Sunday best and played some Chinese instruments including a guzheng.
Pretty impressive, especially when you consider that participants only had an hour or so to whip it together.
Here are some more flowers… aka lotus blossoms.
I heard that the guy who did this won an award. Probably because of the sexy eagle.
Ah ha, here he is, putting the finishing touches on it moments before… with the help of his fellow competitors.
I think this ended up as a tie-dyed peacock. Oh, and she did it all from memory, no tracing or external picture.
This was an interesting entry. The guy used a pen-like brush to write a poem. Also, remember that you write Chinese script from right to left.
Those evil red communists are everywhere! Note: the competition was held beneath the stands of a new basketball court.
Overall I had a good time and was impressed with the output quality, especially considering that 40 years ago, a lot of this was repressed or destroyed… and those that practiced it were sometimes incarcerated.
And not to knock Chinese art, but if realism is more of your thing, be sure to check out the online galleries of Art Renewal Center.
This is perhaps the dorkiest post I’ve ever made. I came across a Big Bird special filmed about 30 years ago in China. It is unsurprisingly called Big Bird in China.
Yea, and I watched it. So you can take away my adult card now.
Anyways, what was funny to me is seeing how the producers basically just rolled film and didn’t seal off the locations. As a consequence, you can visibly see the reactions elicited by ordinary Chinese people. And how would you react if you saw a catoony yellow bird walking downtown?
While much has changed in terms of urban development and standard of living, many Chinese people in smaller cities still have never seen a foreigner and react similarly when they see individuals like me (with different color eyes and hair). Note: I think it was filmed in 1979 but it could be as late as 1983 (so just after Deng opened up China).
I guarantee you’ll learn something from it, at least language wise. And while the segment filmed in the Master of the Nets Garden looks similar to court scenery I took of Nanjing last month, it is actually “down the road” in Suzhou.
One last note. As child-friendly as it may be, I really think stuff like Sesame Street probably is the easiest way to learn a language. I’ve had to use a slew of different materials to teach from at the various schools and language centers I have worked at. Bar none the best resources to teach beginners in my opinion are simple, caricatures that convey ideas in the fewest possible words. But that’s a subject for another time.
Oh and apparently Big Bird also went to Japan. I haven’t watched them, but here are the parts: ABCDEF
No, this post is unfortunately not whether or not the Italians invented noodles or if they borrowed the recipe from Marco Polo.
I am still on vacation and had a chance to watch CCTV 9 last night, the segment was Biz China. I was surprised that they had a 10 minute segment on gold. They interviewed a bunch of stock investors, bankers and authors — all of whom had very positive things to say about gold. And at the very end, they briefly plugged Peter Schiff’s book “Crash Proof.” Ha!
I suppose this is not terribly surprising for a couple of reasons. First, apparently many academics and policy makers have bought and read “Currency Wars” from Song Hongbing (here is a review from The Australian). While I can’t endorse the book (in part because it pushes a conspiratorial angle of things and because it doesn’t encourage a free-floating Yuan), I suppose it’s a positive sign of the openness to new ideas.
The other reason is that economist Robert Mundell is an adviser to Chinese central bankers. And he at least appreciates the positive role gold can play in stabilizing a financial system and supposedly even encouraged China to buy all of the IMFs gold at one point. Last year he was chosen as one of the “top 15 most important foreigners in the past 30 years” by a Chinese committee and has written extensively about gold in the past (including somewhat recently last June).
On a different note, be sure to also check out Robert Wenzel’s post about Schiff and Mish.
And lastly, if you’re ever out here on the mainland, be sure to check out the Harbin Ice Festival. One of my British friends just got back and the pictures are pretty bad ass.
For your consideration, I put together a new piece that takes on Web 2.0 services and China.
So some people have emailed me about the 20th anniversary of the Tienanmen square protests.
Here is an example of traditional Chinese calligraphy. The man is an instructor at the college.
Here is an example of one of the Impressionist entrants. Hopefully he will keep both of his ears like Renoir instead of Van Gogh.
Because you can’t have too many photos with cute Asian girls. They were dolled up in their Sunday best and played some Chinese instruments including a 
Pretty impressive, especially when you consider that participants only had an hour or so to whip it together.
Here are some more flowers… aka lotus blossoms.
Ah ha, here he is, putting the finishing touches on it moments before… with the help of his fellow competitors.
I think this ended up as a tie-dyed peacock. Oh, and she did it all from memory, no tracing or external picture.
This was an interesting entry. The guy used a pen-like brush to write a poem. Also, remember that you write Chinese script from right to left.
Those evil red communists are everywhere! Note: the competition was held beneath the stands of a new basketball court.