Pronounced: dīng dīng dāng
Means: “jingle bells”
For example (download mp3):
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It’s custom in China to send people wishes via text message on the biggest holidays, sort of like what Christmas cards used to be in North America. Here’s one I received on Christmas Day from a friend:
Joel! Merry Christmas to you and Jessica and Lilian! Including yours friends and your parents, brother sisters! Merry Christmas to every Americans and Canadians!
And, for the second day of Christmas, here’s a song of hope by Over the Rhine:
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See more about Christmas in China here:
That’s an image of the Facebook friend connections between cities. The more connections, the brighter and whiter the lines. (See an explanation of how they made it is here.) You’ll notice a few conspicuously dark areas: Brazil and Russia have more popular local social network competitors; Africa has less internet users. And then there’s China.
Christmas is the hardest time of the year to be on the other side of the world from family. Living in a FB black hole would only make it that much worse. We have a toddler, my one sister is pregnant and the other just got engaged, in addition to all the usual family fun that happens during Christmas. That’s a lot of family-ness to miss out on. Thankfully, there are ways to access Facebook (and everything else) in spite of China’s ‘harmonious’ internet. These last two weeks we’ve been burning a hole in the internets with all sharing family photos and videos back and forth. Skype, of course, is getting a good workout, too.
I have issues with FB, and if I could start again with it I would do things differently. After all, they are out to get you (they harvest and calculate your information and behaviour patterns to make you easier to manipulate for advertisers and, one day, governments. I only first started using it to stalk my sister’s then-boyfriend). But, I am thankful — very thankful — that it’s so easy to communicate between continents. We almost effortlessly and instantly share pictures, videos, and make video calls. It’s not as good as being together, of course, but we’re definitely grateful!
Merry Christmas 2010!
P.S. — And Merry Christmas from China, too:
P.P.S. — And Merry Christmas from my rock star soon-to-be-brother-in-law:
Any remotely observant person Tianjin or Shanghai will have noticed large, glittering, but empty or mostly-empty commercial and residential buildings. But China also has completely empty, newly-built whole cities. Obviously they’re being harvested by aliens. And here’s a satellite image slide show to demonstrate: Amazing Satellite Images Of The Ghost Cities Of China
The University of Westminster has put their collection of Chinese propaganda posters online, with translations and descriptions. This one’s about “Getting rid of selfishness”:
From MyHealth Beijing: “I think this graph is a great visual reminder for Beijingers who get a bit blasé or burned out from all the pollution hype (and who isn’t?). Our AQI spikes weren’t as high as that 1952 disaster, but certainly we have many days in emergency/hazardous ranges over 300 AQI — and one would expect similar bumps in mortality during those days. And of course that doesn’t include the non-death incidences of heart attacks, angina, asthma exacerbations, bronchitis, pneumonias, etc.”
Yes, Short-Term Pollution Can Hurt — Here’s Graphic Proof
Pronounced:
pīngpīngpāngpāng guānkǒude zīyáliězuǐ shòu
Literally:
the Fang-Baring Beast of Bing-bing Bang-bang Pass
Means:
“The Perilous Poozer of Pompelmoose Pass”
Our Christmas just got a whole lot Chinesier thanks to John at Sinoplice.com. Follow the links to download:
“…they injected a healthy dose of Chinese culture. Just listen to the way Mary talks to baby Jesus, or the way the Israelites argue with Aaron over creating the golden calf. And then of course, there’s the fun of hearing the voice of God in Chinese, or Abraham sounding like an old Chinese man.”
Whatever this post is about, it is most certainly not about Christmas. If you want to read something about Christmas, follow the links:
Hey! This post comes with music! Play this while you read:
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Nothing puts you in the holiday mood like seeing your culture’s biggest holiday reflected back at you by a foreign culture… especially when that culture is Mainland China.
The Pantheon
L to R: a laughing buddha (笑佛), the God of Wealth (财神), Santa Claus.
They’re fat, they’re red, they appear on posters and as statues, they mean people get stuff. In North America he brings “gifts” in a big sack. In China, traditionally, there’s two of him, and he’s more explicit, holding gold bars, coins and other symbols of wealth, sometimes in a big sack. But I honestly don’t see how the money god and laughing buddhas can compete with Santa.
Santa Rules
In addition to our veneer of giving in order to get stuff, we Westerners do it better than the Chinese in another important way. Typically, Chinese restaurant owners just stick up a poster or set up a statue of the God of Wealth and offer it food, wine and incense, hoping for prosperity in return. Laughing buddha figurines are popular as good luck charms, and you can rub the bellies of the big statues for peace and prosperity. But in North America we’re more creative and effective: we brainwash our kids. We get them buzzed with songs and movies and talk about toys before taking them to sit on a real live Santa’s lap. “Santa” asks them two questions: Have you been good? and, What do you want? — in a mall of all places, at the height of the biggest shopping season of the year. The kids get the point so well they don’t even realize it; it metastasizes into their developing psyches and shapes their human experience for the rest of their lives. It doesn’t matter if they grow up and lose their faith in Santa; it’s not about him. They’ve totally absorbed the idea that our biggest cultural celebration of the year revolves around wanting and getting. In other words, our patron saint of consumerism kicks butt on the Chinese money god. And surely no belly-rubbing-for-peace-and-prosperity on a jolly, golden, laughing buddha can compete with a mall Santa.
But seriously, folks…
You might think it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to generalize about Santa Claus, the God of Wealth, and laughing buddhas because they seem so fundamentally different. For example, maybe Santa’s not really a god of wealth but of consumerism. And maybe he’s not really our god of consumerism; no one except for kids attempts to bribe, placate, beseech, or otherwise cajole Santa as a spiritual being into enabling our consumption. He’s more like our idol of consumerism; the man-made physical representation of our unhinged desires to consume that helps us focus and realize those desires. And last but certainly not least, Santa is Not Jesus — maybe that’s his real name. He’s our Jesus-avoidance tool; a soothing, comfortably 100% imaginary mascot, employed as a colourful cheerleader to add lighthearted, saccharin distraction to our otherwise obscene consumption, which doesn’t look quite as bad when Jesus isn’t around. I suspect Santa’s a little bit of each. I’m not saying Santa (or gift-giving) has to be this way — it’s not like Santa’s inherently evil — just that he’s currently functioning like an omnipresent consumption mascot on steroids.
Mainland Chinese, by the way, love Santa Claus. They can’t get enough Santa Claus. He fits with the holidays: he wears red, he’s fat, he’s loaded. He means we get stuff. He’s in every other business in Tianjin around Christmas time, where he occupies the same places on walls and doors that’re sometimes occupied by posters of the money god. And how many people could honestly point him out in a police lineup with laughing buddha and the money god? So you see, we’re not so different after all.
For a look at “Christmas” in China, see:
We both write, but Jessica only writes when I bribe her. See all of her posts here.
Pronounced: Dǎng / Guó
Literally: Party (Communist Party) / State; Nation
Also means: Examples of generic surnames assigned to orphans in China that were recently outlawed in order to help protect orphans from discrimination later in life. See:
- 2012/02/19
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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