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In a year that was meant to be prosperous, honorable, and filled with good fortune, China has gotten off to a bad start. Less than six months into 2008, the Middle Kingdom has already experienced significant natural disasters, mounting criticism over Tibet, intense condemnation over Sudan, and endless fallout from last year’s tainted food & drug scandal - completely under the intense and unforgiving scrutiny of the global eye.
All the while, the communist government continues to be on the defensive, reacting to the bad publicity like an angry and confused goldfish fighting off a sea of piranhas.
It’s not that China isn’t used to negativity. It’s been taking relentless smack from the West since the 50’s. But back then, it was okay, because the world was divided into two black and white spheres of influence – communism and capitalism. Depending on which side you talked to, one ideology was immaculate while the other was the reincarnation of Lucifer himself. Rhetorical name calling and back-and-forth viciousness was customary.
Sixty years later, a lot has changed. The world has globalized, flattened, and has become more peaceful and cooperative. China has changed too, embracing capitalism, loosening its grip on freedoms, cleaning up government corruption, and improving infrastructure and social services on a large scale. Anyone who’s been to China recently can see this. And re: human rights - it’s not just about free speech and religion. First and foremost, human rights is about providing people with fundamental necessities to stay alive, and China has done more for its citizens than any other country in terms of alleviating poverty and creating wealth.
Consequently, China’s self-perception has changed. The country and its people now view themselves as progressive, upwardly-mobile, and enthusiastically striving for self-improvement. But there is still a vast gap between how China perceives itself and how the world perceives China.
And that’s why, today, it hurts so much for China that the world is focusing on the bad when there actually is much good to report. From articles I’ve read over the past three years, it seems like the tone of the Chinese government has been of confusion, disappointment, and hurt rather than unyielding anger.
What do I think of the negative scrutiny? I think that criticism in general is very constructive, and is the basis of democratic principles. In America, our bipartisan system and protection of free speech enables all different perspectives – the good and the bad - to flourish. And it’s these critical perspectives that keep our government and society in check. In China however, the government has squashed critical voices within its borders for decades…so if China isn’t going to get doses of astute criticism internally, then it’s a great thing that it’s at least getting it externally.
Having said that, I also think that there’s a fine line between constructive criticism and verbal flogging. Too much criticism is often counter-productive, and I don’t think it’s possible to shame China into submission. Instead, we should focus on peacefully integrating China into the developed world. Whether we like it or not, China will become a major global player. Whether or not China becomes a cooperative player, rather than an alienated, bitter rival, depends on how the outside world treats them now.
3 Comments | Posted in: Current Events, Observations, Politics
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As “reported” yesterday by Ben, there was a magnitude 7.9 earthquake centered in southwestern China on Monday outside of Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province destroying approximately 80 percent of structures in some of the towns and small cities near its epicenter. The latest number of deaths as a result of the quake is about 10,000. No doubt this number will grow. The Los Angeles Times reports that, “In the U.S., anxious Chinese immigrants follow news of quake:”
“[Annie] Wang, who has been in the U.S. for a year, says Los Angeles is home to many Sichuan immigrants. It’s a community that mostly reflects the working-class character of the province. Many came to Southern California to work in restaurants and, like Wang, found jobs in the dozens of foot massage parlors that dot the San Gabriel Valley. Many leaders of the area’s Chinese community scrambled to organize relief efforts as soon as word of the earthquake surfaced. Sue Zhang, the chief organizer behind the Beijing Olympic Rose Parade float this year, said she had been on the phone with community leaders all morning to plan a fundraising event. She hopes to announce a weekend concert soon, with proceeds going to quake victims. She said the community has been galvanized in recent weeks by a string of rallies defending China’s policies and promoting the Beijing Olympic Games.”"
I think all Americans can sympathize with the losses to the latest natural disasters - both in Myanmar/Burma and in China. From watching the news this evening, the Chinese government seems to be doing everything it can to get relief to the area, unlike Myanmar’s government.
Personally, I have had friends and relatives go through many major earthquakes, including the Bay Area’s magnitude 6.9 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake when my cousin was a freshman at Berkeley, two of my college friends surviving the 1995 Kobe, Japan earthquake, another college friend the 1999 7.6 magnitude Istanbul earthquake, and my relatives experiencing the 7.6 magnitude 1999 Taiwan earthquake. I can only imagine Chinese-Americans’ concerns at this moment in time, especially in the more rural and hard-to-reach areas. Thankfully, I have yet to experience a major quake (and hope I never have to).
No Comments | Posted in: Current Events, Observations, Uncategorized
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I think there is a common stereotype that a lot of Asian cultures have dog as an Asian cuisine. Well, the fact is, there are some select groups and places in China, Vietnam and in Korea that do eat dog. If you ask me, I don’t have a problem with that - meat should be meat except for eating your fellow human being. Though I can see how people in general would find it difficult to ear a domesticated pet. In today’s Wall Street Journal, the newspaper reports that “Seoul Hounds Meat Vendors For Cleaner Chow:”
“…A century ago, when South Korea was a poor, closed and largely agrarian society, dogs were more commonly eaten than other animals. Big animals like ox were valued for their ability to carry loads and people could be penalized for eating them. Dog, which is typically lighter and sweeter-tasting than beef, is also eaten in China and Vietnam. No official estimates exist on the size of South Korea’s dog-meat industry. A 2006 survey by KBS-TV, one of the three main national networks, found that one in three respondents had eaten dog meat. It also found that consumption patterns were no different between people who had dogs as pets and those who didn’t. Only 9% of respondents thought it should be banned.”
Apparently, the Korean government started to ban dog-meat restaurants in the mid-1980s because of worries about the image they would send during the 1988 Olympics the city hosted. Although dog mean is still officially banned within the city of Seoul (and legal outside of the city), you can still find dog being served and can be easily found in the city, though not openly advertised.
The article goes on to describe how restaurant owners would like the dog meat industry to become regulated, giving a legitimacy to the cuisine and increasing the cuisine’s image, popularity and consumption. Personally, I wouldn’t mind at least trying dog at least once (I wonder if it tastes like chicken? 
). Dog food has a whole new meaning to me now! Has anybody out there ever tried dog?
9 Comments | Posted in: Current Events, Food & Drink, Observations
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Every year, KQED and Union Bank of California honor five outstanding local heroes for Asian Pacific American Heritage month (which is every May). This year’s heroes are:
• Regina Clewlow, founder of Engineers for a Sustainable World.
• The Rev. Norman Fong of San Francisco, deputy director of the Chinatown Community Development Center.
• Cathy Inamasu of San Francisco, executive director of Nihonmachi (Japantown) Little Friends.
• Christina Mei-Yue Wong of San Francisco, director of community initiatives for Chinese for Affirmative Action.
• Connie Young Yu, Chinese Historical Society of America.
Congratulations to all the winners - KQED will air short profiles of the honorees as part of its special May programming on the Asian Pacific American experience.
No Comments | Posted in: Observations
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Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences The images, made using functional magnetic resonance imaging, show brain regions with significant activation during a rhyming task. (a and b) The cortical activation associated with rhyme judgment contrasted in normal and dyslexic Chinese readers. (c) Brain regions showing group differences during rhyme judgment.
As you know, I read The Wall Street Journal and New York Times pretty religiously. Well, I came across this really fascinating article in the WSJ on “How the Brain Learns to Read Can Depend on the Language” where the article describes with the advent of brain imaging (functional magnetic resonance imaging), researchers have determined that different parts of the brain are used for different languages, such as Chinese vs. English:
“Until recently, researchers who study reading abilities focused mostly on Western alphabets. English and 218 other languages, from Alsatian to Zulu, share variations of the same Latin character set. But that set is only one of 60 writing systems used among the world’s remaining 6,912 spoken languages. Even so, those studies convinced many scientists and educators that the brain’s response to the written word, regardless of the language, is universal. The new research suggests they’re wrong. The schooling required to read English or Chinese may fine-tune neural circuits in distinctive ways. To learn the ABCs of English, we essentially harness our listening skills to a phonetic code. To become literate in Chinese, however, we must make much heavier use of memory, motor control and visual-perception circuits located toward the front of the brain. Children can master the 6,000 or so Chinese characters used in Mandarin and Cantonese text only by laboriously copying them out over and over again, until each abstract form becomes second nature. “We have to recognize that the writing system in China is different, the demands on the brain are different and the characteristics of dyslexia are different,” said Georgetown University pediatric learning specialist Guinevere Eden, who is incoming president of the International Dyslexia Association.”
There has been a lot of research being done in functional MRI, including a lot related to behavioral economics. I wonder if the way that Chinese-language brains develop different from English-language brains? Literally, some differences in the way that Chinese and Americans think could be “Lost in Translation.”
Of course, this is an easy and perhaps politically incorrect as well as illogical argument to be made as to some of the differences we find between China and the United States. (Not long ago, the former Harvard president Lawrence Summers president made the argument that the underrepresentation of women in engineering and some scientific fields may be due in part to inherent differences in intellectual abilities - that didn’t get him too far - and in fact, probably helped him to “resign” more quickly.)
It doesn’t surprise me that Chinese and English may indeed use different parts of the brain. Personally, I find memorizing characters a lot more difficult than remembering words spelled phonetically…(although Chinese grammar is so much easier - no conjugation of verbs!)
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I’ve found that interestingly enough, the food is… well, coarsely made. I’m not really sure how else to put it, but a lot of it is bigger, the time it’s taken to create the taste isn’t there. Just in general, it’s like the difference between say a burger at a fast food restaurant versus one served at a sit-in restaurant.
But that’s not all. A lot of the foods just aren’t the same, perhaps because the audience differs. It reminds of this one time when I took two of my colleagues to dim sum. They were open to trying the different types of food but in the end they broke down and asked if I could order something they were more used to seeing. The waiter actually asked me in Mandarin if he should bring out the American menu. (Yes, there ARE two different types of menus). From a Cantonese perspective, I would imagine that some people would have trouble swallowing the thought of eating barbeque chicken feet, or thousand year old egg in congee.
There are two different types of fried rice for example. When ordered in a Chinese environment, usually the rice is white and there are usually more vegetables and seems a lot less salty. In more Americanized fried rice, there usually is the tint of soy sauce in the rice itself, pan seared, and a lot more meat and egg. They both taste great, but one differs from the other.
Sorry, hate to break it to those that love it, but there isn’t chop suey, crab rangoon, or even the favorite “fortune cookie“. And I know that last one breaks the heart of one of my good friends to now know that it’s not even Chinese.
Photo Credit: (Slice)
8 Comments | Posted in: Food & Drink, Observations
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It’s May. School’s out and summer’s IN.
Which means one thing – it’s travel season! If you’re Asian, maybe you’re making a pilgrimage to the mothership. Even if you’re not Asian, you still might be headed to Shanghai, Bangkok, or some other place where the plagued U.S. dollar would actually buy more than cheap keychain souvenirs and white bread for breakfast.
But before you embark, here are some things to watch out for when traveling in Asia:
1. Getting ripped off. In Asia, haggling is not merely an art-form, but a life and death battle of epic proportions between customers (you) and the vendors (vultures). When shopping in an atmosphere where it’s customary to bargain down a price, aim to pay 1/3 of the initial asking price if you look Asian, and 1/8 of the asking price if you look non-Asian. THEN you might actually get a good deal.
2. Deciphering translated signs that don’t make sense. If you can’t read the native language, be prepared to rely on some funkily translated signs. Here are some pictures from my recent trip to China to illustrate:
3. Getting mowed down when taking public transportation. Lines are different in the East. Look below (From the Stuff Asian People Like Blog):
The image on the left shows how people line up to take a bus in the West. The right side depicts how people line up to take that same bus in Asia. It’s CHAOS.
So sharpen your elbows, squash any ounce of courtesy you have, and be prepared to kick some ass for a 4-block bus ride… because if you don’t, the granny standing behind you will be the first to beat you down for a seat.
Those are my tips for the time being. Feel free to contribute more.
No Comments | Posted in: Observations
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I was listening to KQED last night and came across the very interesting program discussing Taiwan, “Missiles, Money and the Mainland: The Taiwan Dilemma.” With all the talk about China these days with the Beijing Olympics coming up, it was nice to hear about Taiwan being discussed and its tenuous relationship with the People’s Republic of China:
“For six decades, Taiwan’s political status has been unresolved. In that time, the small island’s economic dynamism has made it a major player in the global market. But its economic success hasn’t translated into political clout on the international stage. As China’s sphere of influence expands, the island it considers a rogue province is losing friends. Taipei’s occasional gestures towards independence have stroked the ire of China, and the US has backed its democratic ally. But with the potential for serious conflict in the Taiwan Strait between nuclear powers, each side is treading carefully.”
You can listen/download the 50+ minute program here (.mp3)
What really caught my ear was when the program discussed when then Taiwan president Lee Teng-hui (Cornell Ph.d.’68) visited Cornell in June 1995 to give a speech during reunion weekend. As a Taiwanese-American and Cornell alum, I was filled with pride that Lee Teng-hui was able to give his speech, “Always in My Heart.” I would have attended reunion weekend had it not been for my brother’s college graduation that same weekend.
The program reminded me that after Lee Teng-hui gave the speech and returned to Taiwan, mainland China started conducting military exercises and firing missiles in the direction of Taiwan. This lead the United States to send in a second aircraft carrier group to pass through the Taiwan Straits to not only reassure the U.S.’s defense of Taiwan but also warn China to tone things done, which it did.
If you’re at all interested in Taiwan, the program is worth listening to.
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