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The most irmpotant reason why China may not invest in the..."
Foreign baby in China essentials: IMPORTED BABY FORMULA (
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I am going to have a baby in china , are there USA..."
Steve Jobs, Apple, China and Us [updated] (
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The American CEOs I mentioned are less..."
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I understand that, but look what Erica wrote: “paying too..."
Affordable gadgets vs. Chinese workers’ rights (
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Mike Daisey, who is featured in the CBS News article..."
Happy Lantern Festival 2011 from Tianjin, China! (
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Chinese take-out
Good good study, day day up!
Pronounced: guó bǎo
Literally: National Security/National Treasure
Means: The two terms are homophones, and "national treasure" often means "panda". A writer at Seeing Red in China explains the rest: "how panda becomes the symbol for Chinese security thugs: Chinese national security (more like secret police) is called 国保 (guó bǎo) for short, and it’s pronounced exactly the same as 国宝, national treasure. Netizens sometimes refer 国保 as 国宝, jokingly, hence Panda, China’s national treasure. Kungfu Panda movies provided the basis for Panda to be a martial character."
With the recent confrontation between Batman actor Christian Bale and some infamous Chinese security thugs, online Chinese are been passing around "Pandaman vs. Batman" jokes, and photoshopping "Pandaman" into all kinds of scenarios, including movie posters and images from other security embarrassments and scandals. See here, here and here for more.
- 2011/12/19
InterWǎng Debris
Recent China internet debris.
Affordable gadgets vs. Chinese workers' rights
Three recent news articles (and one response) return the spotlight to the mammoth electronics factories in China that make most of our favourite electronics, pointing out what everybody knows and no one wants to think about:
Happy Chinese workers spell the end of affordable tech (ZDNet)
"Human and worker rights reforms in China would have serious negative consequences for the efficiency and cost of the gadget supply chain.
[...]
"Foxconn’s client list reads like a celebrity tech roster that includes Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Intel, Lenovo, IBM, Cisco/Linksys, Netgear, Microsoft, Sharp, Sony, Motorola, Asus, Acer and Vizio... tablet runners and e-reader champions Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Yes, your Kindles and Nooks are also made by the very same companies with the same awful working conditions that make products for Apple."
The dark side of shiny Apple products (CBS News)
"...our most popular electronic devices are largely made by hand ... MANY hands, as it turns out ... hands that often are very over-worked, or so industry's critics contend."
[...]
""I met workers who were 12. Do you really think Apple doesn't know?"
"But what was news were the suicides..."
In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad (NYT)
and
BSR: New York Times’ Apple-Foxconn article contains untruths, inaccuracies, and misleading info (Mac Daily News)
- 2012/02/06
Those aren't Chinese New Year's fireworks; they're "recreational munitions"
From Nankai Rob's Chinese New Year 2012 post "Spring Festival Time. . .Lock and Load":
"...parties are held on a scale so massive that Caligula would have nodded in approval, and enough recreational munitions are set off to make the Battle of Waterloo feel like a suburban bar mitzvah. You’ll notice my careful word choice here: “recreational munitions” rather than “fireworks.” “Fireworks” as a term carries with it more celebratory, even innocent connotations, but you can’t define Chinese celebratory fireworks by the intent behind them. Certainly they’re set off with great excitement and joy, but you can, after all, also lob a grenade into a dumpster with great excitement and joy, and most of what is being set off these days qualifies for inclusion in the dumpster-grenade category. So: recreational munitions."
For more about the genuinely stunning Chinese New Year fireworks phenomenon with photos and video, see:
Happy Chinese New Year!
- 2012/01/22
Tension rising with Mainland students in American universities
Interesting observations at China Law Blog about how Mainland Chinese students studying in the USA -- in contrast to Chinese from other countries -- are apparently generating a lot of anger among the American students: Chinese Students In America. It's Bad Out There.
It seems that Mainland Chinese attitudes toward education don't play well among their American classmates. For example:
"They cheat all the time. It is pretty unbelievable how often I have seen them cheating. I am always complaining to my professors about this, but they usually just act like they are too important to deign to deal with something like this. Just come watch a test being adminstered and it will be obvious. They are allowed to get away with it because they pay the foreign tuition rate."
"One student told me of how all the students not from China agreed not to speak one day to see what would happen. There was no class discussion and the teacher asked them not to do it again."
- 2012/01/11
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Ah… a perfect case of how cultures influence varying perceptions, where the West from an objective, cause-effect perspective, the East from one that is more holistic (in some cases, even superstitious).
We have one Taiwanese friend who grew up in Taibei but went to an international school, then went to the U.S. for university and married an American. Americans think she’s an American from her English and the way she acts around Americans, but she totally prefers the Chinese style of caring for pregnant women/new mothers.
It’s not only the month following the birth. Even during pregnancy, they culturally deal with things a whole different way. I am married to a Chinese man, we are expecting a child in September and I knew about the “sitting the month” before and am obliged to take part or otherwise be pestered about it for the rest of my life if I get any ailment in old age. I just didnt know that it would start the moment I got pregnant. I would say I am pretty independent person and I am healthy and feel I can do things no problem, things that need to be done, like gardening which includes lifting some bags of mulch and dirt, sodding our yard, etc. He told one of his Chinese co-workers what I had been up to and she said that a Chinese pregnant lady would have miscarried 10 times by now. But oh well, I am learning to submit and compromise a lot these last 6 months. I still do things around the house that needs to be done but I avoid places I don’t have to go, don’t go out to eat and try to avoid the swine flu and don’t get on any airplanes. And he doesnt complain or tell his mother the whole truth of what I have been doing.
In China they do deal with these things differently. His cousins wife got pregnant, quit her job, and moved back to the countryside to be taken care of by her parents and the in-laws. Good thing I am here instead of there, I would have a lot more people telling me what I can or cannot do!
Joel & Jessica, – talk to your grandmothers – you will find that it was common all over the Western world back in the 1930′s and 40′s for doctors to reccomend that women stay in bed for a month after giving birth.
Of course not all of them did it, but my Gram followed that advice for her first child, and then said, “Nope, not doing it again,” and didn’t.
Here’s what that aforementioned bi-cultural friend says:
Haven’t asked her yet about the shower thing, though.
Haha! My wife (Chinese) and I haven’t conceived yet, but it’s on the horizon and I can only imagine what going through these “cultural differences” will be like.
Terribly sorry to hear your baby is in ICU. As a six-weeks premie myself, my thoughts go out to her.
If you’re wife is exceptionally good-humoured and tolerant, I bet you both could write a hilarious and informative book from the experience.