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Happy Lantern Festival 2011 from Tianjin, China! (
7)
Joel 大江: "
Hi Rachel! These photos and video were taken on the..."
Rachel Harwood: "
We are expats in Teda, and this is our first..."
Steve Jobs, Apple, China and Us (
15)
Max: "
I understand that, but look what Erica wrote: “paying too..."
Max: "
I understand that, but look what Erica wrote:..."
Joel 大江: "
But Apple isn’t exempt from the general point..."
Max: "
See Erica’s comment up there? That’s what..."
Erica: "
I heard on NPR recently that they did a survey and only..."
8 years of college but still learning the hard way (
3)
Joel 大江: "
Glad you like it! I hope it’s helpful."
zhichang: "
I was Googling ‘edible insects’ and..."
Chinese “evil cult” propaganda in our Canadian mailbox (
3)
colleen failey: "
[*That group] is sponsored by the ned which is..."
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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.
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
A brief introduction to Watchman Nee & the Little Flock Movement
You've maybe heard the name "Watchman Nee" before. That's because he founded one of the largest Christian groups in Chinese history before dying in a Chinese labour camp. Here's a summary of a longer article on him and his work, with a link to the PDF of the original article: Watchman Nee and the Little Flock Movement in Maoist China
A basic understanding of the place of Watchman Nee and the Little Flock Movement in Chinese history adds some helpful nuance to understanding the relationships between the Party, Chinese Christianity, the TSPM, and Chinese patriotism and anti-foreignism.
- 2011/12/29
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*sigh*… depressing. I wonder how much of my life is shortened by living in TJ for a year. Maybe I should just be lame and wear a mask all day long. Is TJ still the 3rd most polluted city in the world?
Maybe just returning to TJ from Vancouver makes it seem worse, but I swear it’s actually gotten worse since after the Olympics.
Maybe you can move to Derek’s town. He said it’s nice….
maybe when we come, we can all go and check it out :)
Hey Joel, I just found where my computer was still logged in as you in the comments. I changed it. Is this better?
And, of course, there are many places in China with far worse air pollution than Beijing!
yeah, plus different kinds of pollution are worse in different areas, too. I’ve heard that the air is particularly bad near the major coal producing areas, but in other provinces the water is supposedly worse. When my students bring up an example of a polluted place in China they often mention XJ out west. We’ve all heard of “c@ncer villages”, right?
Tianjin definitely isn’t the worst. But even though we know that and you get used to seeing and smelling the smog when you step outside, anytime I actually stop to think about it it’s still amazing.
[...] Everything you wish you didn’t know about air pollution in China [...]
Still 100% convinced to raise your baby in China?
ha, well, we’ve never been 100% convinced. But we’ve also always planned to move out of Tianjin, so hopefully that will help (TJ isn’t the worst, but it’s still worse than average for air pollution). Hopefully we’ll end up somewhere more human-friendly. and we’re taking measures in the meantime.
I just want to say thank you for such an informative and entertaining website. My husband has just been offered a job in Tianjin and Beijing but after reading about the air pollution and your (quite humourous if not scary) descriptions of it we’ve declined the offer! Thank you once again.
Thanks! Glad it’s helpful. About the air pollution… it’s not that bad every day, but it is unbelievably bad many days, and usually worse than people think when they see it. The last three or four days have maxed out the pollution index at 500, actually, but before that we had a month or more where the worse days were (my guess) not above 300. All that said, we do choose to live here.
Since you’re dealing with a job offer, a recent, short post from China Law Blog, and especially this comment, speaks directly to your situation. I’d hate to scare anyone off of China, but at the same time, I’m not apologizing for helping people make informed decisions.