Archive for October, 2009

Oct312009

Posted By
Glen

On Tyranny

“For we have a right to choose the society most acceptable to us”

– John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Before I came to China I was asked a series of questions which seemed normal at the time but now seem completely laughable. They included “Is there a curfew?”, “Are there police everywhere?”, and “You’ll be careful, right?”. Clearly my friends and family had seen the tanks in Tienanmen, and heard Richard Gere’s thoughts about Tibet. So I don’t blame them for their concern, it is touching. But it is also on the complete opposite end of how my experiences in China have been so far.

Oct202009

11Comments

Posted By
Jalal

What’s up Doc?

A favourite thread for the ‘China ranter’, surely, is the enormous gulf between rich and poor in this society supposedly forged through class struggle; and the inequality this imposes. It wouldn’t be a huge leap of faith to guess that another area that draws criticism among expat ranters and others is the health care system [...]

Oct192009

16Comments

Posted By
Glen

Searching for Real China

Last night I was watching the season premiere of 30 Rock. In the episode Jack says that their television show has lost touch with “Real America” to which Liz responds “all of America is real” . This comment is of course ignored as most of the rest of the episode is spending trying to reconnect with the heartland of America, including a part where Jenna signs a country song for NBC’s Tennis coverage that says “Kiss my ass New York, it’s tennis night”.

Sure their shirking of major cities in favour of a rural demographic was mostly done in jest, but it really rings true to how we treat China. How many people do you hear refer to Shanghai or Tianjing as not “REAL China”, or mention some small town in Anhui or Hunan as a great example of “REAL China”?

In my short time here I have really gotten confused as to what exactly in this country is real, and what is fake. I think that I used to know what constituted “real China” but the more layers I peel off in my search to learn more about this place the more confused I am.

Oct162009

5Comments

Posted By
Rick

On Trusted Laowai Voices

While taking a break from my usual browsing of lolcats and youtube videos, I stumbled across this post by Shaun Rein entitled How to Deal with Piracy in China. I’m not especially familiar with Rein*, but once I ascertained that he was a businessman in China for the long haul, I felt that I could pretty accurately predict where his article was going.

This notion of predictability got me to thinking about something I had read from Paul Denlinger a few days back:

Oct152009

33Comments

Posted By
Steven

The Great Firewall: longer, higher, meaner

Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and more: all blocked in China

The already unfortunate situation of internet censorship in China – imposed by the so-called Great Firewall – has been slowly getting worse this year, making a mockery of claims that the Olympics would open up China in terms of allowing a greater spread of communication and discussion. This year the Great Firewall has metamorphosed from a paranoid bug into a malignant disease, a raging cancer, blighting creativity, free speech and the flow of ideas.

Just a few months ago I posted here on Lost Laowai about China’s massive web-filtering system, and how it was becoming distinctly anti-social in that it was targeting social-networking and web 2.0 sites, such as Facebook and YouTube, which are characterised by allowing a fast flow of information and ideas.

Bad news: that’s getting worse, and this time there’s no identifiable reason.

Oct122009

14Comments

Posted By
Glen

Giving Thanks To China

Today is a special day in Northern North America, Canadian Thanksgiving. While it is (not surprisingly) less of a big deal for us than it will be in about six weeks for our neighbours to the south, it is still an important day on the calendar. While I won’t be heading to mom’s for a big feast, it doesn’t mean that I’m not thankful for several things. And since this is a blog centred around life in China, I thought that I would take a minute or two to make a list of things that I would like to thank China for. I would love to here what any of you out there in Comment Land have to add to this list.

So in no particular order, I would like to give Chin a big thanks for….

Oct122009

NoComments

Posted By
Ryan

350 Day of Climate Action coming to China

On October 24, 2009, relatively small groups of people around the world will create an action that helps to raise awareness about the 350 International Day of Climate Action, and with a long list of events taking part across the country, China’s no exception. If you’re like me and are wondering what the heck the [...]

Oct052009

3Comments

Posted By
Ryan

Oli, the world’s first Blogstar, really.

Long-time China expat blogger Oli, of djod.co.uk, is taking on the task of becoming “the world’s first Blogstar” via a rather zany new webcast called (appropriately enough) Blogstar.tv. The just released first episode, Window to the West, follows Oli on his search to secure more Chinese visitors to his blog. Anyone looking for seriousness need [...]

Oct022009

14Comments

Posted By
Ryan

Absolutely amazing PRC 60th anniversary parade video

I spent several hours over the course of the last couple days compiling a retrospective look on 60 years of the People’s Republic of China, and after getting 1949 to 2003 down in a draft, I realized I didn’t want the site to go the way of the still blocked Peking Duck and Danwei, and so have scraped it for now. Sigh.

However, I should give it up to the PRC for putting on a hell of a parade. I only managed to catch a bit of it yesterday via the CCTV link I posted the day before. Between browser conflicts and choppy streaming (even in China), it was a bit too much to bear. However, what I did see seemed damn impressive.

This was all the more confirmed when watching news shooter Dan Chung’s well-crafted, and fantastically visual video of the event: