Hiranyaksha
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I think you should apologize to Bihari govt school teachers for comparing them to Chinese.
Barbaric Paper Dragon People's Republic of China: Idiotic Musings.
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Damn mlecchas also copied the Yin Yang symbol from their betters. 
Why Do the Chinese Copy So Much?
BY DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW JULY 25, 2012 11:39 AMJuly 25, 2012 11:39 am
An imitation of the medieval square of Halstatt, Austria, erected in Guangong province, China. (With authentic Austrian brass band, mayor and family.)
Why Do the Chinese Copy So Much?
BY DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW JULY 25, 2012 11:39 AMJuly 25, 2012 11:39 am
- PAGE TWO
Posts written by the IHT’s Page Two columnists.
As news spread in Austria and around the world that a copy of the medieval town’s market square, a church and other important buildings had been erected in Boluo, Guangdong province (part of a bigger development designed to attract wealthy buyers to expensive villas built by Minmetals Land), a debate began in media and in private conversations: Was it OK for the Chinese to do this? And why do they copy so much, anyway?
As I report in my latest Page Two column, the Chinese didn’t ask permission: five Chinese architects walked around incognito, photographing the town, then returned to Boluo where the town square was copied at high speed.
And it’s not just a question of architecture and iPads.
In China, academic journals are riddled with plagiarism. A professor in China tells National Public Radio that about 30 percent of submissions to the Journal of Zhejiang University-Science was drawn from heavily plagiarized research.
In China, rip-offs of all sorts are common. But the practice has a dangerous side: unlicensed or fake medicines — for example — or foods and chemicals, can, and do, kill.
Yet copying, whether a painting or a literary work, has a long tradition in China. It was a way of learning, of showing admiration and respect, as this report about from Taiwan’s National Palace Museum shows.
Perhaps the language is a reason why: you cannot learn Chinese unless you spend years memorizing thousands of characters needed to achieve literacy, unless you copy, single-mindedly, unquestioningly. Some linguists and cultural historians believe so much mental energy and brain space is taken up by rote learning of the language, that little is left over for innovative thinking.
In an article in Austria’s Der Standard newspaper last week (in German), readers weighed in with their opinions about the Halstatt imitation.
The title of the article, “All Soul is Missing” said much. But some readers adopted a more relative perspective.
“Oh well, our parliament is also a fake version of Greek culture,” wrote benutzerstandard.
KomaPoster wrote: “What are Austrians proud of? Schönbrunn,” their palace in Vienna. “A copy of fancy French buildings!”
Zinsenfeger thought that comparison was too crude: “Study the subtle differences between something that is an example (as a source of inspiration) and a copy.”
Cristoph Smaul had a bit of fun: “So? We’ll build a copy of the Great Wall.”
Imax wrote: “China is adopting the achievements of Western civilization, at least as far as information and technology go. They are learning like crazy and you learn through imitation, too.”
Gilgamesh wrote: “Red China has been copying foreign achievements for decades.” He continued, “What they are absolutely incompetent at, however, as far as copying goes, is democracy and human rights.”
That may be a crucial difference in this case.
According to Hallstatt’s mayor, Alexander Scheutz, it was thanks to Austria’s post-war democratic system and an independent citizens movement that Hallstatt was preserved at all for China to copy over 50 years later.
Citizens challenged and stopped a government planned demolition.
China does not permit civil society movements of the kind that once saved Hallstatt from the wrecking ball, a fate that has befallen thousands of picturesque towns in China.
In 1959, a proposal was made by state officials to drive a broad road through Hallstatt along the lake, to enable vehicular traffic.
“Many houses would have had to be knocked down for the road,” Mr. Scheutz wrote in an email.
Hallstätters said, “No.”
“There was an ‘uprising’ and a citizens movement,” wrote Mr. Scheutz.
“There was a citizens’ vote, many negotiations and talks, and a decision was taken to build a tunnel,” which today runs through the mountain at the back of town, a decision Mr. Scheutz described as “better, but much more expensive.”
mayfair
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@lcafanboy, The Monkey sign is probably from Japan. The writing is Japanese, not Chinese.
Willy2
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So how did ancient Chinese achieve those jaw dropping success ???? CCP like clg student need to submit assignment( catching west in super-power race) next day so they copy whatever they got
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So about language. I believe they cannot translate a word phonetically into Chinese as we can do with all Indian languages. There has to be a character that corresponds to the meaning of that word. Mlleccha should have copied the script from a civilized race rather than emulate cavemen barbarians.
So how did ancient Chinese achieve those jaw dropping success ???? CCP like clg student need to submit assignment( catching west in super-power race) next day so they copy whatever they got
Willy2
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And then waste another 1000 years to adopt them , if it's realistic CCP would copy that too
Yes, thats a big problem for them , but their language is like living fossil and really fascinate me , I believe in Indian subcontinent similar type of language were used until sages develop modern script in this part of world.
Like the IVC seals , those are proto-indian script before sanskrit-brahmi develop
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Translate: Weak beta Chinaman is worried about masculine Blacks breeding their women and subduing the Chinks. Very low energy Han race 
In March, amid the pomp of China’s annual rubber-stamp parliament meetings in Beijing, a politician proudly shared with reporters his proposal on how to “solve the problem of the black population in Guangdong.” The province is widely known in China to have many African migrants.
“Africans bring many security risks,” Pan Qinglin told local media (link in Chinese). As a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the nation’s top political advisory body, he urged the government to “strictly control the African people living in Guangdong and other places.”
Pan, who lives in Tianjin near Beijing—and nowhere near Guangdong—held his proposal aloft for reporters to see. It read in part (links in Chinese):
“Black brothers often travel in droves; they are out at night out on the streets, nightclubs, and remote areas. They engage in drug trafficking, harassment of women, and fighting, which seriously disturbs law and order in Guangzhou… Africans have a high rate of AIDS and the Ebola virus that can be transmitted via body fluids… If their population [keeps growing], China will change from a nation-state to an immigration country, from a yellow country to a black-and-yellow country.”
On social media, the Chinese response has been overwhelmingly supportive, with many commenters echoing Pan’s fears. In a forumdedicated to discussions about black people in Guangdong on Baidu Tieba—an online community focused on internet search results—many participants agreed that China was facing a “black invasion.” One commenter called on Chinese people (link in Chinese) not to let “thousands of years of Chinese blood become polluted.”
The stream of racist vitriol online makes the infamous Chinese TV adfor Qiaobi laundry detergent, which went viral last year, seem mild in comparison. The ad featured a Asian woman stuffing a black man into a washing machine to turn him into a pale-skinned Asian man.
Not about reality
Of course, while a growing number of Africans work and study in China—the African continent’s largest trading partner—the notion that black people are “taking over” the world’s most populous nation is nonsense. Estimates for the number of sub-Saharan Africans in Guangzhou (nicknamed “Chocolate City” in Chinese) range from 150,000 long-term residents, according to 2014 government statistics, to as high as 300,000—figures complicated by the number of Africans coming in and out of the country as well as those who overstay their visas.
Many of them partner with Chinese firms to run factories, warehouses, and export operations. Others are leaving China and telling their compatriots not to go due to financial challenges and racism.
“Guangdong has come to be imagined to embody this racial crisis of some kind of ‘black invasion,'” said Kevin Carrico, a lecturer at Macquarie University in Australia who studies race and nationalism in China. “But this is not about actually existing realities.” He continued:
“It isn’t so much that they dislike black residents as they dislike what they imagine about black residents. The types of discourses you see on social media sites are quite repetitive—black men raping Chinese women, black men having consensual sex with Chinese women and then leaving them, blacks as drug users and thieves destroying Chinese neighborhoods. People are living in a society that is changing rapidly. ‘The blacks’ has become a projection point for all these anxieties in society.”
The past year or so has seen heated debate among black people living in China about what locals think of them. In interviews with Quartz, black residents referred to online comments and racist ads as more extreme examples, but said they are symptomatic of broader underlying attitudes.
Senegalese journalist Madeleine Thiam in Beijing. (Madeleine Thiam)
Madeleine Thiam and Christelle Mbaya, Senegalese journalists in Beijing, said they are saddened but not shocked when they are discriminated against in China.
“Sometimes people pinch their noses as I walk by, as if they think I smell. On the subway, people often leave empty seats next to me or change seats when I sit down,” said Thiam. “Women have come up to rub my skin, asking if it is ‘dirt’ and if I’ve had a shower.”
Yet on a recent coffee break most passersby politely admired the fashionable women as if they were going down a catwalk.
One Chinese man, gazing at Thiam in her purple lace blouse and a yellow dress flaring around her hips, let out an admiring “wow” as the elevator doors opened to a third-floor café. Servers greeted their regulars with warm smiles and asked them in English, “How are you?”
Racism or ignorance?
Such experiences speak to the duality of life for black people in China. They may be athletes, entrepreneurs, traders, designers, or graduate students. Some are married to locals and speak fluent Chinese. Yet despite positive experiences and economic opportunities, many are questioning why they live in a place where they often feel unwelcome.
They grapple with the question: Is it racism or ignorance? And how do you distinguish the two?
Paolo Cesar, an African-Brazilian who has worked as a musician in Shanghai for 18 years and has a Chinese wife, said music has been a great way for him to connect with audiences and make local friends. However, his mixed-race son often comes home unhappy because of bullying at school. Despite speaking fluent Mandarin, his classmates do not accept him as Chinese. They like to shout out, “He’s so dark!”
The global success of black public figures, such as politicians, actors, and athletes, appears to have a limited effect on Chinese attitudes.
“After people heard my accent, they would often yell out ‘Obama!,’ in recognition that I was black American,” said Jayne Jeje, a marketing consultant from Maryland who has worked all over mainland China and now lives in Hong Kong. “Their perception was that I was somehow better than a black person from Africa because of my Americanness. Part of this is rooted in… mistaken beliefs of American wealth and power versus stereotypes of African poverty and suffering.”
In response to international criticism of racism against blacks in China, some commentators have argued that the racism is not as serious as it is in other countries. Hong Kong columnist Alex Lo wrote in the South China Morning Post that criticism from Americans is “rich coming from a country that was founded on black slavery… China has racial problems. But murderous racism against blacks isn’t one of them.”
And of course racial tensions occur elsewhere, sometimes with ethnic Chinese as the victims. In France this week, Chinese protesters gathered in northeast Paris to protest the shooting of a Chinese man by police. Many complain of racism directed against them, and also of being targeted by gangs (video) of North African descent.
Looking deeper into history, evidence suggests a preference for slaves from East Africa in ancient China. African slavery in the country peaked during the Tang (618 to 907) and Song (960 to 1279) dynasties.
More recently, violence broke out after the Chinese government started providing scholarships allowing African students to study in the country in the 1960s. Many Chinese students resented the stipends Africans received, with tensions culminating in riots in Nanjing in the late 1980s. The riots began with angry Chinese students surrounding African students’ dormitories in Hehai University and pelting them with rocks and bottles for seven hours, with crowds later marching through the streets shouting anti-African slogans.
In the past few years, loathing among some Chinese toward foreign men who date local women has led to a recent rise in violent attacksagainst foreigners.
Staying optimistic
Yet most respondents Quartz interviewed remain optimistic. Vladimir Emilien, a 26-year-old African-American actor and former varsity athlete, said that for him, learning Chinese was crucial to better interactions with locals. Emilien volunteered last year as a coach teaching Beijing youth the finer points of American football. He said that once he was able to have more complex conversations in Chinese, he was struck by the thoughtful questions locals would ask.
Go deep. (Vladimir Emilien)
“They’d say, What do you think about Chinese perception of black people? How does that make you feel?’ So they are aware that there is a lot of negativity around blacks and against Africa as a very poor place.”
Emilien hopes that more interactions between Chinese and black individuals will smooth out misunderstandings. But others say that improving relations requires more than black people learning the language, since that shifts responsibility away from the Chinese.
“The government has never done anything serious to clean up racist ideas created and populated by the [turn-of-the-20th-century] intellectuals and politicians that constructed a global racial hierarchy in which the whites were on the top, Chinese the second, and blacks the bottom,” said Cheng Yinghong, a history professor at Delaware State University who researches nationalism and discourse of race in China.
Instead of addressing discrimination, the Chinese government has focused on promoting cultural exchanges while pursuing economic partnerships with African countries. However, many have pointed out that relationships appear unbalanced, with China taking Africa’s limited natural resources in exchange for infrastructure investment.
“Racism is racism, period, and although some people would say that in different places it is more explicit, nuanced, or implicit, as long as there are victims we have to call it racism and deal with it,” said Adams Bodomo, a professor of African studies focused on cross-cultural communication at the University of Vienna. “China can’t be the second-largest economy in the world and not expect to deal with these issues.”
In March, amid the pomp of China’s annual rubber-stamp parliament meetings in Beijing, a politician proudly shared with reporters his proposal on how to “solve the problem of the black population in Guangdong.” The province is widely known in China to have many African migrants.
“Africans bring many security risks,” Pan Qinglin told local media (link in Chinese). As a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the nation’s top political advisory body, he urged the government to “strictly control the African people living in Guangdong and other places.”
Pan, who lives in Tianjin near Beijing—and nowhere near Guangdong—held his proposal aloft for reporters to see. It read in part (links in Chinese):
“Black brothers often travel in droves; they are out at night out on the streets, nightclubs, and remote areas. They engage in drug trafficking, harassment of women, and fighting, which seriously disturbs law and order in Guangzhou… Africans have a high rate of AIDS and the Ebola virus that can be transmitted via body fluids… If their population [keeps growing], China will change from a nation-state to an immigration country, from a yellow country to a black-and-yellow country.”
On social media, the Chinese response has been overwhelmingly supportive, with many commenters echoing Pan’s fears. In a forumdedicated to discussions about black people in Guangdong on Baidu Tieba—an online community focused on internet search results—many participants agreed that China was facing a “black invasion.” One commenter called on Chinese people (link in Chinese) not to let “thousands of years of Chinese blood become polluted.”
The stream of racist vitriol online makes the infamous Chinese TV adfor Qiaobi laundry detergent, which went viral last year, seem mild in comparison. The ad featured a Asian woman stuffing a black man into a washing machine to turn him into a pale-skinned Asian man.
Not about reality
Of course, while a growing number of Africans work and study in China—the African continent’s largest trading partner—the notion that black people are “taking over” the world’s most populous nation is nonsense. Estimates for the number of sub-Saharan Africans in Guangzhou (nicknamed “Chocolate City” in Chinese) range from 150,000 long-term residents, according to 2014 government statistics, to as high as 300,000—figures complicated by the number of Africans coming in and out of the country as well as those who overstay their visas.
Many of them partner with Chinese firms to run factories, warehouses, and export operations. Others are leaving China and telling their compatriots not to go due to financial challenges and racism.
“Guangdong has come to be imagined to embody this racial crisis of some kind of ‘black invasion,'” said Kevin Carrico, a lecturer at Macquarie University in Australia who studies race and nationalism in China. “But this is not about actually existing realities.” He continued:
“It isn’t so much that they dislike black residents as they dislike what they imagine about black residents. The types of discourses you see on social media sites are quite repetitive—black men raping Chinese women, black men having consensual sex with Chinese women and then leaving them, blacks as drug users and thieves destroying Chinese neighborhoods. People are living in a society that is changing rapidly. ‘The blacks’ has become a projection point for all these anxieties in society.”
The past year or so has seen heated debate among black people living in China about what locals think of them. In interviews with Quartz, black residents referred to online comments and racist ads as more extreme examples, but said they are symptomatic of broader underlying attitudes.
Senegalese journalist Madeleine Thiam in Beijing. (Madeleine Thiam)
Madeleine Thiam and Christelle Mbaya, Senegalese journalists in Beijing, said they are saddened but not shocked when they are discriminated against in China.
“Sometimes people pinch their noses as I walk by, as if they think I smell. On the subway, people often leave empty seats next to me or change seats when I sit down,” said Thiam. “Women have come up to rub my skin, asking if it is ‘dirt’ and if I’ve had a shower.”
Yet on a recent coffee break most passersby politely admired the fashionable women as if they were going down a catwalk.
One Chinese man, gazing at Thiam in her purple lace blouse and a yellow dress flaring around her hips, let out an admiring “wow” as the elevator doors opened to a third-floor café. Servers greeted their regulars with warm smiles and asked them in English, “How are you?”
Racism or ignorance?
Such experiences speak to the duality of life for black people in China. They may be athletes, entrepreneurs, traders, designers, or graduate students. Some are married to locals and speak fluent Chinese. Yet despite positive experiences and economic opportunities, many are questioning why they live in a place where they often feel unwelcome.
They grapple with the question: Is it racism or ignorance? And how do you distinguish the two?
Paolo Cesar, an African-Brazilian who has worked as a musician in Shanghai for 18 years and has a Chinese wife, said music has been a great way for him to connect with audiences and make local friends. However, his mixed-race son often comes home unhappy because of bullying at school. Despite speaking fluent Mandarin, his classmates do not accept him as Chinese. They like to shout out, “He’s so dark!”
The global success of black public figures, such as politicians, actors, and athletes, appears to have a limited effect on Chinese attitudes.
“After people heard my accent, they would often yell out ‘Obama!,’ in recognition that I was black American,” said Jayne Jeje, a marketing consultant from Maryland who has worked all over mainland China and now lives in Hong Kong. “Their perception was that I was somehow better than a black person from Africa because of my Americanness. Part of this is rooted in… mistaken beliefs of American wealth and power versus stereotypes of African poverty and suffering.”
In response to international criticism of racism against blacks in China, some commentators have argued that the racism is not as serious as it is in other countries. Hong Kong columnist Alex Lo wrote in the South China Morning Post that criticism from Americans is “rich coming from a country that was founded on black slavery… China has racial problems. But murderous racism against blacks isn’t one of them.”
And of course racial tensions occur elsewhere, sometimes with ethnic Chinese as the victims. In France this week, Chinese protesters gathered in northeast Paris to protest the shooting of a Chinese man by police. Many complain of racism directed against them, and also of being targeted by gangs (video) of North African descent.
Looking deeper into history, evidence suggests a preference for slaves from East Africa in ancient China. African slavery in the country peaked during the Tang (618 to 907) and Song (960 to 1279) dynasties.
More recently, violence broke out after the Chinese government started providing scholarships allowing African students to study in the country in the 1960s. Many Chinese students resented the stipends Africans received, with tensions culminating in riots in Nanjing in the late 1980s. The riots began with angry Chinese students surrounding African students’ dormitories in Hehai University and pelting them with rocks and bottles for seven hours, with crowds later marching through the streets shouting anti-African slogans.
In the past few years, loathing among some Chinese toward foreign men who date local women has led to a recent rise in violent attacksagainst foreigners.
Staying optimistic
Yet most respondents Quartz interviewed remain optimistic. Vladimir Emilien, a 26-year-old African-American actor and former varsity athlete, said that for him, learning Chinese was crucial to better interactions with locals. Emilien volunteered last year as a coach teaching Beijing youth the finer points of American football. He said that once he was able to have more complex conversations in Chinese, he was struck by the thoughtful questions locals would ask.
Go deep. (Vladimir Emilien)
“They’d say, What do you think about Chinese perception of black people? How does that make you feel?’ So they are aware that there is a lot of negativity around blacks and against Africa as a very poor place.”
Emilien hopes that more interactions between Chinese and black individuals will smooth out misunderstandings. But others say that improving relations requires more than black people learning the language, since that shifts responsibility away from the Chinese.
“The government has never done anything serious to clean up racist ideas created and populated by the [turn-of-the-20th-century] intellectuals and politicians that constructed a global racial hierarchy in which the whites were on the top, Chinese the second, and blacks the bottom,” said Cheng Yinghong, a history professor at Delaware State University who researches nationalism and discourse of race in China.
Instead of addressing discrimination, the Chinese government has focused on promoting cultural exchanges while pursuing economic partnerships with African countries. However, many have pointed out that relationships appear unbalanced, with China taking Africa’s limited natural resources in exchange for infrastructure investment.
“Racism is racism, period, and although some people would say that in different places it is more explicit, nuanced, or implicit, as long as there are victims we have to call it racism and deal with it,” said Adams Bodomo, a professor of African studies focused on cross-cultural communication at the University of Vienna. “China can’t be the second-largest economy in the world and not expect to deal with these issues.”
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Rice ******s+original ******s=?????Translate: Weak beta Chinaman is worried about masculine Blacks breeding their women and subduing the Chinks. Very low energy Han race
In March, amid the pomp of China’s annual rubber-stamp parliament meetings in Beijing, a politician proudly shared with reporters his proposal on how to “solve the problem of the black population in Guangdong.” The province is widely known in China to have many African migrants.
“Africans bring many security risks,” Pan Qinglin told local media (link in Chinese). As a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the nation’s top political advisory body, he urged the government to “strictly control the African people living in Guangdong and other places.”
Pan, who lives in Tianjin near Beijing—and nowhere near Guangdong—held his proposal aloft for reporters to see. It read in part (links in Chinese):
“Black brothers often travel in droves; they are out at night out on the streets, nightclubs, and remote areas. They engage in drug trafficking, harassment of women, and fighting, which seriously disturbs law and order in Guangzhou… Africans have a high rate of AIDS and the Ebola virus that can be transmitted via body fluids… If their population [keeps growing], China will change from a nation-state to an immigration country, from a yellow country to a black-and-yellow country.”
On social media, the Chinese response has been overwhelmingly supportive, with many commenters echoing Pan’s fears. In a forumdedicated to discussions about black people in Guangdong on Baidu Tieba—an online community focused on internet search results—many participants agreed that China was facing a “black invasion.” One commenter called on Chinese people (link in Chinese) not to let “thousands of years of Chinese blood become polluted.”
The stream of racist vitriol online makes the infamous Chinese TV adfor Qiaobi laundry detergent, which went viral last year, seem mild in comparison. The ad featured a Asian woman stuffing a black man into a washing machine to turn him into a pale-skinned Asian man.
Not about reality
Of course, while a growing number of Africans work and study in China—the African continent’s largest trading partner—the notion that black people are “taking over” the world’s most populous nation is nonsense. Estimates for the number of sub-Saharan Africans in Guangzhou (nicknamed “Chocolate City” in Chinese) range from 150,000 long-term residents, according to 2014 government statistics, to as high as 300,000—figures complicated by the number of Africans coming in and out of the country as well as those who overstay their visas.
Many of them partner with Chinese firms to run factories, warehouses, and export operations. Others are leaving China and telling their compatriots not to go due to financial challenges and racism.
“Guangdong has come to be imagined to embody this racial crisis of some kind of ‘black invasion,'” said Kevin Carrico, a lecturer at Macquarie University in Australia who studies race and nationalism in China. “But this is not about actually existing realities.” He continued:
“It isn’t so much that they dislike black residents as they dislike what they imagine about black residents. The types of discourses you see on social media sites are quite repetitive—black men raping Chinese women, black men having consensual sex with Chinese women and then leaving them, blacks as drug users and thieves destroying Chinese neighborhoods. People are living in a society that is changing rapidly. ‘The blacks’ has become a projection point for all these anxieties in society.”
The past year or so has seen heated debate among black people living in China about what locals think of them. In interviews with Quartz, black residents referred to online comments and racist ads as more extreme examples, but said they are symptomatic of broader underlying attitudes.
Senegalese journalist Madeleine Thiam in Beijing. (Madeleine Thiam)
Madeleine Thiam and Christelle Mbaya, Senegalese journalists in Beijing, said they are saddened but not shocked when they are discriminated against in China.
“Sometimes people pinch their noses as I walk by, as if they think I smell. On the subway, people often leave empty seats next to me or change seats when I sit down,” said Thiam. “Women have come up to rub my skin, asking if it is ‘dirt’ and if I’ve had a shower.”
Yet on a recent coffee break most passersby politely admired the fashionable women as if they were going down a catwalk.
One Chinese man, gazing at Thiam in her purple lace blouse and a yellow dress flaring around her hips, let out an admiring “wow” as the elevator doors opened to a third-floor café. Servers greeted their regulars with warm smiles and asked them in English, “How are you?”
Racism or ignorance?
Such experiences speak to the duality of life for black people in China. They may be athletes, entrepreneurs, traders, designers, or graduate students. Some are married to locals and speak fluent Chinese. Yet despite positive experiences and economic opportunities, many are questioning why they live in a place where they often feel unwelcome.
They grapple with the question: Is it racism or ignorance? And how do you distinguish the two?
Paolo Cesar, an African-Brazilian who has worked as a musician in Shanghai for 18 years and has a Chinese wife, said music has been a great way for him to connect with audiences and make local friends. However, his mixed-race son often comes home unhappy because of bullying at school. Despite speaking fluent Mandarin, his classmates do not accept him as Chinese. They like to shout out, “He’s so dark!”
The global success of black public figures, such as politicians, actors, and athletes, appears to have a limited effect on Chinese attitudes.
“After people heard my accent, they would often yell out ‘Obama!,’ in recognition that I was black American,” said Jayne Jeje, a marketing consultant from Maryland who has worked all over mainland China and now lives in Hong Kong. “Their perception was that I was somehow better than a black person from Africa because of my Americanness. Part of this is rooted in… mistaken beliefs of American wealth and power versus stereotypes of African poverty and suffering.”
In response to international criticism of racism against blacks in China, some commentators have argued that the racism is not as serious as it is in other countries. Hong Kong columnist Alex Lo wrote in the South China Morning Post that criticism from Americans is “rich coming from a country that was founded on black slavery… China has racial problems. But murderous racism against blacks isn’t one of them.”
And of course racial tensions occur elsewhere, sometimes with ethnic Chinese as the victims. In France this week, Chinese protesters gathered in northeast Paris to protest the shooting of a Chinese man by police. Many complain of racism directed against them, and also of being targeted by gangs (video) of North African descent.
Looking deeper into history, evidence suggests a preference for slaves from East Africa in ancient China. African slavery in the country peaked during the Tang (618 to 907) and Song (960 to 1279) dynasties.
More recently, violence broke out after the Chinese government started providing scholarships allowing African students to study in the country in the 1960s. Many Chinese students resented the stipends Africans received, with tensions culminating in riots in Nanjing in the late 1980s. The riots began with angry Chinese students surrounding African students’ dormitories in Hehai University and pelting them with rocks and bottles for seven hours, with crowds later marching through the streets shouting anti-African slogans.
In the past few years, loathing among some Chinese toward foreign men who date local women has led to a recent rise in violent attacksagainst foreigners.
Staying optimistic
Yet most respondents Quartz interviewed remain optimistic. Vladimir Emilien, a 26-year-old African-American actor and former varsity athlete, said that for him, learning Chinese was crucial to better interactions with locals. Emilien volunteered last year as a coach teaching Beijing youth the finer points of American football. He said that once he was able to have more complex conversations in Chinese, he was struck by the thoughtful questions locals would ask.
Go deep. (Vladimir Emilien)
“They’d say, What do you think about Chinese perception of black people? How does that make you feel?’ So they are aware that there is a lot of negativity around blacks and against Africa as a very poor place.”
Emilien hopes that more interactions between Chinese and black individuals will smooth out misunderstandings. But others say that improving relations requires more than black people learning the language, since that shifts responsibility away from the Chinese.
“The government has never done anything serious to clean up racist ideas created and populated by the [turn-of-the-20th-century] intellectuals and politicians that constructed a global racial hierarchy in which the whites were on the top, Chinese the second, and blacks the bottom,” said Cheng Yinghong, a history professor at Delaware State University who researches nationalism and discourse of race in China.
Instead of addressing discrimination, the Chinese government has focused on promoting cultural exchanges while pursuing economic partnerships with African countries. However, many have pointed out that relationships appear unbalanced, with China taking Africa’s limited natural resources in exchange for infrastructure investment.
“Racism is racism, period, and although some people would say that in different places it is more explicit, nuanced, or implicit, as long as there are victims we have to call it racism and deal with it,” said Adams Bodomo, a professor of African studies focused on cross-cultural communication at the University of Vienna. “China can’t be the second-largest economy in the world and not expect to deal with these issues.”
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Yes, anything that gives us less demented midget hans running around is a spectacular success. I would similarily endorse a People's Famine Policy as well.
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China's One-Child Policy's Unexpected Issue: Infertility - Forbes
Jack Perkowski , CONTRIBUTOR
Washington, arrived in the United States last Saturday on the United Airlines flight from Beijing to Newark. The events surrounding Chen’s escape from house arrest, his arrival at the U.S. embassy in Beijing, and the subsequent negotiations that led to his departure for the United States once again shined the global spotlight on China’s one-child policy.
Last December, however, the country’s controversial policy fell under a Chinese spotlight when it was learned that an unnamed couple in Guangzhou, by using in vitro fertilization (IVF) and two surrogate mothers, had secretly had eight babies — four boys and four girls — over a two-month period. After the couple learned that they could not have children naturally, they spent £100,200 on IVF and employed two surrogate mothers as a fallback measure. But the mother successfully had triplets herself, then the two surrogates had five more between them, it was reported in the state media.
While the wealthy couple exposed themselves to huge fines for such an open violation of the rules against multiple offspring, their actions focused everyone’s attention on the policy, and a growing problem in China — infertility. More than 40 million people in China are suffering from infertility, and the number is increasing, a recent epidemiology study concluded. When a couple having regular intercourse cannot conceive within a year, they are diagnosed with infertility, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Huang Hefeng, director of the Zhejiang province reproductive medical center, said that factors like heavy workloads, stress, environmental pollution and unhealthy lifestyles are known to be related to a rising infertility level in China. The WHO expects infertility and sterility to be the third-most serious disease worldwide in the 21st century, after cancer and cardiovascular diseases.
To combat infertility and to help women become pregnant, assisted reproductive technology (ART) has been used in the United States since 1981, most commonly through IVF, the transfer of fertilized human eggs into a woman’s uterus. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 154,417 ART cycles were performed at 443 reporting clinics in the United States during 2010, resulting in 47,102 live births (deliveries of one or more living infants) and 61,561 infants. Although the use of ART is still relatively rare as compared to the potential demand, its use has doubled over the past decade. Today, over 1 percent of all infants born in the U.S. every year are conceived using ART.
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With a population more than four times that of the U.S., it is still in the early days for ART in China, where it is estimated that more than 10 million Chinese couples need ART procedures. With rising awareness of the issue, an increasing number of relatively well-off Chinese who cannot have a child are turning to all types of infertility therapies, particularly technically demanding and expensive ART procedures. Despite an average cost of 100,000 yuan ($15,873) or more for an ART operation, demand still cannot be met, and many couples are on a waiting list. By the end of 2007, China’s Ministry of Health (MOH) had only approved the establishment of 102 reproductive centers in the country.
Compared to the United States, where reproductive centers tend to be owned and operated by individuals, MOH has required reproductive centers in China to be affiliated with a hospital, virtually all of which are state run. Faced with increasing demand for ART procedures, however, China’s MOH has recently said that it would now grant licenses to clinics owned and operated by qualified, private individuals. With such a large amount of unsatisfied demand, the opportunity for well-run reproductive centers in China is huge, and the private sector will now be able to access this market.
When people ask if it is too late to come to China, I always answer that, on the contrary, it is still early. While China is already the second-largest economy in the world, it is still in an embryonic stage of development. Everywhere one looks, there are product, technology and service gaps to be filled, each of which represents a new business opportunity for someone with the ability to recognize that the gap exists and the vision to develop and implement a strategy for filling it. Some of these gaps may be filled by Chinese companies or entrepreneurs, but others may be filled by Western companies or entrepreneurs. One way or another, though, they will all ultimately be filled, creating many big businesses in the process.
What are those gaps? Health care is a big one — everything from products, technology and health-related services. Historically, China’s health care industry has been tightly controlled by the state, but rising income levels are resulting in rapidly growing demand for better health care that utilizes the world’s most advanced technology and know-how. China’s health care industry is one of the last to open up to foreign and private investment and technology, but make no mistake, it is opening up. Privately owned and operated reproductive centers are just the latest example of this trend.
Jack Perkowski , CONTRIBUTOR
Washington, arrived in the United States last Saturday on the United Airlines flight from Beijing to Newark. The events surrounding Chen’s escape from house arrest, his arrival at the U.S. embassy in Beijing, and the subsequent negotiations that led to his departure for the United States once again shined the global spotlight on China’s one-child policy.
Last December, however, the country’s controversial policy fell under a Chinese spotlight when it was learned that an unnamed couple in Guangzhou, by using in vitro fertilization (IVF) and two surrogate mothers, had secretly had eight babies — four boys and four girls — over a two-month period. After the couple learned that they could not have children naturally, they spent £100,200 on IVF and employed two surrogate mothers as a fallback measure. But the mother successfully had triplets herself, then the two surrogates had five more between them, it was reported in the state media.
While the wealthy couple exposed themselves to huge fines for such an open violation of the rules against multiple offspring, their actions focused everyone’s attention on the policy, and a growing problem in China — infertility. More than 40 million people in China are suffering from infertility, and the number is increasing, a recent epidemiology study concluded. When a couple having regular intercourse cannot conceive within a year, they are diagnosed with infertility, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Huang Hefeng, director of the Zhejiang province reproductive medical center, said that factors like heavy workloads, stress, environmental pollution and unhealthy lifestyles are known to be related to a rising infertility level in China. The WHO expects infertility and sterility to be the third-most serious disease worldwide in the 21st century, after cancer and cardiovascular diseases.
To combat infertility and to help women become pregnant, assisted reproductive technology (ART) has been used in the United States since 1981, most commonly through IVF, the transfer of fertilized human eggs into a woman’s uterus. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 154,417 ART cycles were performed at 443 reporting clinics in the United States during 2010, resulting in 47,102 live births (deliveries of one or more living infants) and 61,561 infants. Although the use of ART is still relatively rare as compared to the potential demand, its use has doubled over the past decade. Today, over 1 percent of all infants born in the U.S. every year are conceived using ART.
ADVERTISING
With a population more than four times that of the U.S., it is still in the early days for ART in China, where it is estimated that more than 10 million Chinese couples need ART procedures. With rising awareness of the issue, an increasing number of relatively well-off Chinese who cannot have a child are turning to all types of infertility therapies, particularly technically demanding and expensive ART procedures. Despite an average cost of 100,000 yuan ($15,873) or more for an ART operation, demand still cannot be met, and many couples are on a waiting list. By the end of 2007, China’s Ministry of Health (MOH) had only approved the establishment of 102 reproductive centers in the country.
Compared to the United States, where reproductive centers tend to be owned and operated by individuals, MOH has required reproductive centers in China to be affiliated with a hospital, virtually all of which are state run. Faced with increasing demand for ART procedures, however, China’s MOH has recently said that it would now grant licenses to clinics owned and operated by qualified, private individuals. With such a large amount of unsatisfied demand, the opportunity for well-run reproductive centers in China is huge, and the private sector will now be able to access this market.
When people ask if it is too late to come to China, I always answer that, on the contrary, it is still early. While China is already the second-largest economy in the world, it is still in an embryonic stage of development. Everywhere one looks, there are product, technology and service gaps to be filled, each of which represents a new business opportunity for someone with the ability to recognize that the gap exists and the vision to develop and implement a strategy for filling it. Some of these gaps may be filled by Chinese companies or entrepreneurs, but others may be filled by Western companies or entrepreneurs. One way or another, though, they will all ultimately be filled, creating many big businesses in the process.
What are those gaps? Health care is a big one — everything from products, technology and health-related services. Historically, China’s health care industry has been tightly controlled by the state, but rising income levels are resulting in rapidly growing demand for better health care that utilizes the world’s most advanced technology and know-how. China’s health care industry is one of the last to open up to foreign and private investment and technology, but make no mistake, it is opening up. Privately owned and operated reproductive centers are just the latest example of this trend.
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The Communist Party is redefining what it means to be Chinese
And is glossing over its own history of mauling Chinese culture
Print edition | China
Aug 17th 2017| JINAN
https://www.economist.com/node/21726748/comments
CHILDREN sit with straight backs chanting in loud voices from the Dizi Gui, a classic Chinese text about obedience. At the end of class they bow low to an image of Confucius, hands clasped as if in prayer. A statue of the ancient sage watches over the playground, too: “Study the Dizi Gui, be a good Chinese,” reads a red banner. At the Zhengde summer camp in Jinan, in the eastern province of Shandong, children as young as five spend their day reciting verses, learning tai chi and watching cartoons with moral messages. Phones are banned “to prevent contamination of the mind”, says Yi Shugui, the headmaster, a former management consultant. At similar summer schools across China children learn calligraphy, traditional Chinese crafts and how to play ancient instruments. China is undergoing a cultural renaissance, much of it government-sponsored.
For most of its history the Communist Party wanted to smash China’s past, not celebrate it. During the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s it sought to overturn the “four olds”: old customs, old culture, old habits and old ideas. Temples, mansions and tombstones were ravaged, along with any artefacts or people associated with the bourgeois way of life. Small wonder that Communist ideology lost its appeal. The blistering pace of change in recent decades has kindled an anxiety that China is suffering from moral decay and a concomitant yearning for a revival of ancient values. The government is harnessing those feelings, using ancient rites and customs to spread favoured values.
Latest updates
Since coming to power in 2012 Xi Jinping, the president, has intensified efforts to build what he refers to as “cultural confidence”. In an extraordinary denial of its legacy, the Communist Party has taken to presenting itself as “the faithful heir” of traditional Chinese culture. “Our civilisation has developed in an unbroken line from ancient to modern times,” Mr Xi declared in 2012. In January the government sought to codify its attempts to “preserve” traditional culture by outlining a vast array of policies that local and national officials should advance.
Individual elements of the policy to promote “the integration of leisure life and traditional cultural development” sound rather benign. Taken together, however, they constitute an attempt to infuse daily life with a sanitised and government-sanctioned version of Chinese culture. The intention, as in so much that Mr Xi does, is to secure the enduring power of the Communist Party.
The agenda touches every aspect of life. The white paper calls for an emphasis on “our festivals”, so local and national holidays are being celebrated with new vigour. Some people are proposing that China should pick its own Mother’s Day, rather than copy the American date (China already has a native version of Valentine’s Day). State media are boosting the use of Chinese medicine when people fall ill, wearing Han robes when they get married, and keeping fit by practising tai chi and other ancient sports (a recent viral video lauds “Kung Fu Granny”, a 94-year-old who reckons she owes her longevity partly to such activities). The party is trying to bend popular culture to its agenda, too. On August 5th it announced plans to replace prime-time entertainment and reality TV shows that “hype” pop stars with programmes of higher “moral” content. Examples include a much-plugged quiz show about classical poetry and another in which children compete to write complicated Chinese characters.
The great call
Every part of society is being pressed into the effort. Zhengde is emblematic of a wider plan to influence Chinese youth, what the People’s Daily refers to as a “soul-casting project”, by introducing new school textbooks and degree programmes relating to ancient culture. Employers are encouraged to take their staff on study trips and provide classes on culture. Even the People’s Liberation Army has been told to seek courage from a lion-hearted hero of ancient China. So, either by directive or a desire to please officialdom, every art form is being given a Chinese twist: “King of Glory”, a popular game for mobile phones, features a famous eighth-century poet, Li Bai, albeit as an assassin, not a calling there is any evidence he pursued. A well-known Peking opera has been reinvented in jazz form to appeal to new audiences.
There is an economic logic to such policies, since they protect some Chinese firms from foreign competition and promote new sources of consumption. Last year Mr Xi urged a group of writers and artists to “draw energy from the treasure vault of Chinese culture”. Publishers have been asked to limit imports of foreign children’s books, thereby making way for home-grown comics and picture books that promote “Chinese values”.
In an effort to cut poverty and create new rural jobs, all manner of crafts have been revived or invented, including creating sculptures from peach stones and yams, weaving bamboo and, in one place, making miniature souvenir coffins. In April the government expressed the intention to develop cultural industries into a “pillar” of the economy. China’s ancient heritage stands at the centre of its sales pitch to the world, too: becoming “a socialist cultural superpower” is now an official national goal.
By presenting himself as the defender of traditional values, Mr Xi hopes to harness the conservative forces in society. He also seeks to divert attention from the party’s own culpability in creating the supposed spiritual vacuum. Traditional values bolster the Communist Party in other ways, too. Promoting the country’s cultural heritage is a safer source of patriotism than anti-Japanese feeling, which the party had been stoking for many years and which backfired in 2012 when demonstrations against Japan turned violent.
The Communist Party has cherry-picked the version of the past that suits it—what it refers to as a “correct” reflection of the ancient values prizing hierarchy, obedience and order. Preaching to a class of 12-18-year-olds at Zhengde, Mr Yi sums up Confucius’s teachings: “Listen to your parents at home, to your teachers at school, to your boss at work and to the state and government in the country—then you will have happiness.” That epitomises Mr Xi’s vision of a “harmonious society” nicely as well.
Inconvenient elements of China’s ancient culture have been left safely behind. Endorsing traditional values does not include a tolerance for religion, for example, which Mr Xi sees as a potential rival for citizens’ loyalty. While he preaches that ancient values are the “soul of the nation”, he has also overseen harsh moves against Tibetan Buddhists and Chinese Muslims. Monasteries throughout China have, in effect, been turned into tourist attractions. Many Buddhist temples charge entry fees and few host regular religious services or provide prayer books. Within weeks of the release of the white paper on preserving traditional culture came another edict forbidding even retired officials in Beijing from engaging in any religious activities. The Communist Party has clearly heeded one lesson from its own history: social movements, be they revolutionary, religious or democratic, may prove hard to contain. Better to control them itself.
And is glossing over its own history of mauling Chinese culture
Print edition | China
Aug 17th 2017| JINAN
https://www.economist.com/node/21726748/comments
CHILDREN sit with straight backs chanting in loud voices from the Dizi Gui, a classic Chinese text about obedience. At the end of class they bow low to an image of Confucius, hands clasped as if in prayer. A statue of the ancient sage watches over the playground, too: “Study the Dizi Gui, be a good Chinese,” reads a red banner. At the Zhengde summer camp in Jinan, in the eastern province of Shandong, children as young as five spend their day reciting verses, learning tai chi and watching cartoons with moral messages. Phones are banned “to prevent contamination of the mind”, says Yi Shugui, the headmaster, a former management consultant. At similar summer schools across China children learn calligraphy, traditional Chinese crafts and how to play ancient instruments. China is undergoing a cultural renaissance, much of it government-sponsored.
For most of its history the Communist Party wanted to smash China’s past, not celebrate it. During the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s it sought to overturn the “four olds”: old customs, old culture, old habits and old ideas. Temples, mansions and tombstones were ravaged, along with any artefacts or people associated with the bourgeois way of life. Small wonder that Communist ideology lost its appeal. The blistering pace of change in recent decades has kindled an anxiety that China is suffering from moral decay and a concomitant yearning for a revival of ancient values. The government is harnessing those feelings, using ancient rites and customs to spread favoured values.
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Since coming to power in 2012 Xi Jinping, the president, has intensified efforts to build what he refers to as “cultural confidence”. In an extraordinary denial of its legacy, the Communist Party has taken to presenting itself as “the faithful heir” of traditional Chinese culture. “Our civilisation has developed in an unbroken line from ancient to modern times,” Mr Xi declared in 2012. In January the government sought to codify its attempts to “preserve” traditional culture by outlining a vast array of policies that local and national officials should advance.
Individual elements of the policy to promote “the integration of leisure life and traditional cultural development” sound rather benign. Taken together, however, they constitute an attempt to infuse daily life with a sanitised and government-sanctioned version of Chinese culture. The intention, as in so much that Mr Xi does, is to secure the enduring power of the Communist Party.
The agenda touches every aspect of life. The white paper calls for an emphasis on “our festivals”, so local and national holidays are being celebrated with new vigour. Some people are proposing that China should pick its own Mother’s Day, rather than copy the American date (China already has a native version of Valentine’s Day). State media are boosting the use of Chinese medicine when people fall ill, wearing Han robes when they get married, and keeping fit by practising tai chi and other ancient sports (a recent viral video lauds “Kung Fu Granny”, a 94-year-old who reckons she owes her longevity partly to such activities). The party is trying to bend popular culture to its agenda, too. On August 5th it announced plans to replace prime-time entertainment and reality TV shows that “hype” pop stars with programmes of higher “moral” content. Examples include a much-plugged quiz show about classical poetry and another in which children compete to write complicated Chinese characters.
The great call
Every part of society is being pressed into the effort. Zhengde is emblematic of a wider plan to influence Chinese youth, what the People’s Daily refers to as a “soul-casting project”, by introducing new school textbooks and degree programmes relating to ancient culture. Employers are encouraged to take their staff on study trips and provide classes on culture. Even the People’s Liberation Army has been told to seek courage from a lion-hearted hero of ancient China. So, either by directive or a desire to please officialdom, every art form is being given a Chinese twist: “King of Glory”, a popular game for mobile phones, features a famous eighth-century poet, Li Bai, albeit as an assassin, not a calling there is any evidence he pursued. A well-known Peking opera has been reinvented in jazz form to appeal to new audiences.
There is an economic logic to such policies, since they protect some Chinese firms from foreign competition and promote new sources of consumption. Last year Mr Xi urged a group of writers and artists to “draw energy from the treasure vault of Chinese culture”. Publishers have been asked to limit imports of foreign children’s books, thereby making way for home-grown comics and picture books that promote “Chinese values”.
In an effort to cut poverty and create new rural jobs, all manner of crafts have been revived or invented, including creating sculptures from peach stones and yams, weaving bamboo and, in one place, making miniature souvenir coffins. In April the government expressed the intention to develop cultural industries into a “pillar” of the economy. China’s ancient heritage stands at the centre of its sales pitch to the world, too: becoming “a socialist cultural superpower” is now an official national goal.
By presenting himself as the defender of traditional values, Mr Xi hopes to harness the conservative forces in society. He also seeks to divert attention from the party’s own culpability in creating the supposed spiritual vacuum. Traditional values bolster the Communist Party in other ways, too. Promoting the country’s cultural heritage is a safer source of patriotism than anti-Japanese feeling, which the party had been stoking for many years and which backfired in 2012 when demonstrations against Japan turned violent.
The Communist Party has cherry-picked the version of the past that suits it—what it refers to as a “correct” reflection of the ancient values prizing hierarchy, obedience and order. Preaching to a class of 12-18-year-olds at Zhengde, Mr Yi sums up Confucius’s teachings: “Listen to your parents at home, to your teachers at school, to your boss at work and to the state and government in the country—then you will have happiness.” That epitomises Mr Xi’s vision of a “harmonious society” nicely as well.
Inconvenient elements of China’s ancient culture have been left safely behind. Endorsing traditional values does not include a tolerance for religion, for example, which Mr Xi sees as a potential rival for citizens’ loyalty. While he preaches that ancient values are the “soul of the nation”, he has also overseen harsh moves against Tibetan Buddhists and Chinese Muslims. Monasteries throughout China have, in effect, been turned into tourist attractions. Many Buddhist temples charge entry fees and few host regular religious services or provide prayer books. Within weeks of the release of the white paper on preserving traditional culture came another edict forbidding even retired officials in Beijing from engaging in any religious activities. The Communist Party has clearly heeded one lesson from its own history: social movements, be they revolutionary, religious or democratic, may prove hard to contain. Better to control them itself.
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Curtailing academic freedom is China’s latest export to the world
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Why China Will Always Be A Shithole
POSTED ON MAY 12, 2015 BY ALAN ZOLTIE
4
As I sit on the 17th floor of my ‘so called’ 5 star hotel in Chang’an China, a not so leafy suburb of Shenzen and DongGuan City, I am struck by the fact that all of the nicely uniformed kids parading up and down like military conscripts in the school yard opposite my window, will have a future in this rat infested, polluted atmosphere we, the rest of the planet, call our personal workshop. The air is dank and filled with grey unyielding carcinogens, as the sun tries to rise yet again above yesterdays industrial production and today’s desire for more of the same. You cannot breath, it’s hard to see further than the quarter-mile of hazy landscape that is set forth in front of nothing but continued and unabated construction, and the sad part about all of this mess is, the closer you look, it only appears to get worse.
In two hours it will be time to leave my tiny oasis and venture out once again into the ‘wild west’, although today isn’t nearly half as bad as it was twenty years ago. Chang’an is considered to be an affluent Chinese city, boasting a golf course, which is as yet unfinished due to legal issues, a Wal-Mart, filled to brimming with exotic delights such as dried sharks fin, magic mushrooms and all kinds of foods that are deserved of one quick inquisitive glance before one is overcome by odors that reek of disgusting vomit and perhaps reminders that life ends as suddenly as it began. Chang’an also contains 12 Apple stores, 6 Nike Towns, and as many Rolex shops as one could possibly fit in a main street that runs almost 800 yards on either side, all of which are fake and neatly stacked with exact copies of their original’s fair. The tree-lined sidewalks are littered with yesterday’s news, broken bottles, vomit and spit and an endless river of used cigarette butts, seemingly cast aside on concrete because the trash cans that occasionally occupy space on that very same street are already filled and brimming with millions more. An air of apprehension is evident, no matter where you walk or drive. It’s a kind of disease, where many adults, stand or squat in their own ‘spaces’, just waiting for something to happen, and it rarely does. And yet out there, on the roads, which are now completely grid locked because everyone wants to own or does own a car, something that’s only happened in the past 3 to 5 years, it’s unimaginable chaos, fueled by impatience, intolerance and a general disregard for any acceptance that the law of the land should be adhered to in any way shape or form. In other words, it’s survival of the fittest and one wrong move and you’re dead. The people here do not care. It’s a fact, sadly expressed by their inability to accept that other citizens are their brothers and sisters, that people have rights, that they are a nation built on togetherness and not on the selfishness of greedy individualism. Everything is unfinished or sadly forgotten, from the high-rise buildings that house tens of thousands of people, all sparkly and very desirable from the outside and mostly shabby and extremely underwhelming on the inside where cracks can be seen from the top to bottom in the construction, rats and mice are an infestation that don’t seem to bother any of the residents and where , to the amazement of anyone visiting from the West, families of 20 are seen to be occupying 1000 sq feet of space, with nothing but ease and an acceptance that one day there will be 21 or 22.
Western ideals and influence, a doctrine that has perhaps woken this once sleepy giant and given it the realization that a materialistic path is for the greater good, a complete fallacy when you see the way the populous of modern day China handles their greed and their thirst for more of what we in the USA would describe as our God given right. The fact of the matter is that you can change the place, but you can never change the culture. Ten years ago most Chinese people believed a jaguar was an animal found in Africa. Now, a Jaguar can be found on virtually every street corner in every town, driven erratically by some farmer or business man, made whole and extremely rich over the past few years during China’s industrial boom time, and now found to be flaunting his or her wealth in the form of what was once considered to be western mythology, a luxury motor vehicle. I had a meeting some weeks past in a place just outside the center of DongGuan city. Underneath the office I was visiting was one of the most incredible sights I have ever seen in my 35 years of visiting China. The DongGuan Bentley dealership, situated inside what could only be described as modern day shithole of construction, bricks and rubble scattered all over the front entrance, litter randomly spread inside a half tiled floor where three brand new silver and gold Bentley motor cars were lined up, each one with a price tag of $555,000! Capitalism gone mad, where capitalism was only a figment of imaginations ensconced in gardening and flower arranging. A condescending opinion of course, but one well founded on experience and situation.
Reflecting back to 1979, the very first time I crossed the border from HK into Shenzen China, I was amazed that a populous so large could be so tolerant. Over the years my amazement has evaporated into disgust at the way people the people of China have changed, not so much from the standpoint of warmth friendliness, but more from their aspect of greed and disillusionment. China is huge, it has 1.6 billion people, and believe me, none of them really want to be living there. Now that America and it’s cohorts have made inroads to a culture that was once sublime, their focus on life is 180 degrees polar opposite of what it was, but yet their culture remains steadfastly stuck in a place none of us care to remember or recall. They are polite, warm, friendly, hospitable people, but they have no regard for cleanliness or most of the other things that we in the west find acceptable in the form of sanitation. Yes, China is growing, built rapidly by a government trying to catch up, but China is dangerous. It’s suffocating the rest of the planet, perhaps not deliberately, but certainly slowly and surely. They have little regard for life that is so precious, perhaps because there are so many who care so little for so few.
POSTED ON MAY 12, 2015 BY ALAN ZOLTIE
4
As I sit on the 17th floor of my ‘so called’ 5 star hotel in Chang’an China, a not so leafy suburb of Shenzen and DongGuan City, I am struck by the fact that all of the nicely uniformed kids parading up and down like military conscripts in the school yard opposite my window, will have a future in this rat infested, polluted atmosphere we, the rest of the planet, call our personal workshop. The air is dank and filled with grey unyielding carcinogens, as the sun tries to rise yet again above yesterdays industrial production and today’s desire for more of the same. You cannot breath, it’s hard to see further than the quarter-mile of hazy landscape that is set forth in front of nothing but continued and unabated construction, and the sad part about all of this mess is, the closer you look, it only appears to get worse.In two hours it will be time to leave my tiny oasis and venture out once again into the ‘wild west’, although today isn’t nearly half as bad as it was twenty years ago. Chang’an is considered to be an affluent Chinese city, boasting a golf course, which is as yet unfinished due to legal issues, a Wal-Mart, filled to brimming with exotic delights such as dried sharks fin, magic mushrooms and all kinds of foods that are deserved of one quick inquisitive glance before one is overcome by odors that reek of disgusting vomit and perhaps reminders that life ends as suddenly as it began. Chang’an also contains 12 Apple stores, 6 Nike Towns, and as many Rolex shops as one could possibly fit in a main street that runs almost 800 yards on either side, all of which are fake and neatly stacked with exact copies of their original’s fair. The tree-lined sidewalks are littered with yesterday’s news, broken bottles, vomit and spit and an endless river of used cigarette butts, seemingly cast aside on concrete because the trash cans that occasionally occupy space on that very same street are already filled and brimming with millions more. An air of apprehension is evident, no matter where you walk or drive. It’s a kind of disease, where many adults, stand or squat in their own ‘spaces’, just waiting for something to happen, and it rarely does. And yet out there, on the roads, which are now completely grid locked because everyone wants to own or does own a car, something that’s only happened in the past 3 to 5 years, it’s unimaginable chaos, fueled by impatience, intolerance and a general disregard for any acceptance that the law of the land should be adhered to in any way shape or form. In other words, it’s survival of the fittest and one wrong move and you’re dead. The people here do not care. It’s a fact, sadly expressed by their inability to accept that other citizens are their brothers and sisters, that people have rights, that they are a nation built on togetherness and not on the selfishness of greedy individualism. Everything is unfinished or sadly forgotten, from the high-rise buildings that house tens of thousands of people, all sparkly and very desirable from the outside and mostly shabby and extremely underwhelming on the inside where cracks can be seen from the top to bottom in the construction, rats and mice are an infestation that don’t seem to bother any of the residents and where , to the amazement of anyone visiting from the West, families of 20 are seen to be occupying 1000 sq feet of space, with nothing but ease and an acceptance that one day there will be 21 or 22.
Western ideals and influence, a doctrine that has perhaps woken this once sleepy giant and given it the realization that a materialistic path is for the greater good, a complete fallacy when you see the way the populous of modern day China handles their greed and their thirst for more of what we in the USA would describe as our God given right. The fact of the matter is that you can change the place, but you can never change the culture. Ten years ago most Chinese people believed a jaguar was an animal found in Africa. Now, a Jaguar can be found on virtually every street corner in every town, driven erratically by some farmer or business man, made whole and extremely rich over the past few years during China’s industrial boom time, and now found to be flaunting his or her wealth in the form of what was once considered to be western mythology, a luxury motor vehicle. I had a meeting some weeks past in a place just outside the center of DongGuan city. Underneath the office I was visiting was one of the most incredible sights I have ever seen in my 35 years of visiting China. The DongGuan Bentley dealership, situated inside what could only be described as modern day shithole of construction, bricks and rubble scattered all over the front entrance, litter randomly spread inside a half tiled floor where three brand new silver and gold Bentley motor cars were lined up, each one with a price tag of $555,000! Capitalism gone mad, where capitalism was only a figment of imaginations ensconced in gardening and flower arranging. A condescending opinion of course, but one well founded on experience and situation.
Reflecting back to 1979, the very first time I crossed the border from HK into Shenzen China, I was amazed that a populous so large could be so tolerant. Over the years my amazement has evaporated into disgust at the way people the people of China have changed, not so much from the standpoint of warmth friendliness, but more from their aspect of greed and disillusionment. China is huge, it has 1.6 billion people, and believe me, none of them really want to be living there. Now that America and it’s cohorts have made inroads to a culture that was once sublime, their focus on life is 180 degrees polar opposite of what it was, but yet their culture remains steadfastly stuck in a place none of us care to remember or recall. They are polite, warm, friendly, hospitable people, but they have no regard for cleanliness or most of the other things that we in the west find acceptable in the form of sanitation. Yes, China is growing, built rapidly by a government trying to catch up, but China is dangerous. It’s suffocating the rest of the planet, perhaps not deliberately, but certainly slowly and surely. They have little regard for life that is so precious, perhaps because there are so many who care so little for so few.
Indian Sniper.001
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- Sep 22, 2016
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This is one of the most hilarious reality in China, and these chipmunks want to take on India 
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/china/...ity-crisis-tries-stop-effeminate-boys-n703461
BEIJING — With enormous economic clout and a powerful military and a strongman president, the image that China projects to the outside world is one of strength and confidence.
At home, however, some believe the nation’s over-protected young boys are becoming physically and emotionally weak — leaving China facing what is being called a "crisis of masculinity."
Children attend a class in Shanghai, China. JOHANNES EISELE / AFP-Getty Images, file
Some commentators in China, where gender identity is much less blurred than in Western culture, suggest it could lead to social problems and even imperil the country’s national security.
A new school textbook that aims to teach boys how to be "masculine" men has been released. Called "Little Men," the book covers the differences between boys and girls, the importance of the father-son relationship as well as the importance of interacting with nature and managing money.
The colorfully illustrated book was first published in December 2016 by Shanghai Educational Publishing House and has been approved for fourth and fifth grade classes across the country, after a trial period in selected schools.
“This course is necessary for boys,” Miao Li, 36, a businessman, told NBC News while waiting to pick up his daughter recently outside a Beijing primary school. “They are so over-protected by the family they don’t do physical activities anymore.”
“Nowadays, girls are becoming more like boys while the boys are becoming more like girls, introvert and shy,” echoed another parent called Huang, a hotel employee.
“The boys are now less masculine than when I was of their age,” said a retired worker named Tian, a grandfather to an 8-year-old boy.
Children gather after class outside of the Beijing Fangcaodi Primary School on Dec. 22. Eric Baculinao / NBC News
Another retiree named Huang, with a 7-year-old grandson, noted that boys are “more fragile emotionally and physically due to too much homework.”
The roots of China’s masculinity crisis can be traced to a number of areas, one of which is the country’s One Child policy, implemented between 1979 and 2015. The policy restricted the number of children families were allowed to have in order to curb the country’s surging population growth. It was replaced with a two-child limit last year.
“The problem is that the family spoils the kid with love and care,” said a hotel management worker surnamed Sheng, mother of a first-grader, suggesting that over-indulgence and parents’ fear of losing their only child has stunted the natural adventurous character of boys.
Discussion about this effect of the One Child policy has been rife in China for years. Commentators have long lamented social phenomena such as so-called “Little Emperor Syndrome” or “Prince Syndrome,” where a life of pampering and constant praise led many Chinese only-children to develop poor social skills and become egocentric and over-reliant on their parents.
FROM OCT. 2015: Young People in Beijing React to End of One-Child Policy 0:52
Some sections of the Chinese media have also suggested that the popularity of effeminate Korean and Japanese actors and pop stars is a factor in the supposedly diminishing masculinity of Chinese youth. Last month, a headline in a prominent English-language Chinese newspaper blamed a “'gender crisis’ on effeminate men in Japanese, Korean culture.”
China’s education system may also have played a role in bringing about the current state of affairs, with some commentators blaming an acute shortage of male teachers in the country, depriving young boys of male role models. Four out of five teaching positions in urban areas of China are held by women.
According to Tiantian Zheng, a professor of anthropology at State University of New York at Cortland, the issue of “masculinity” and the upbringing of boys is being treated as a priority at state level educational policy.
Measures that could result from this include “the establishment of all boys’ middle schools, the textbook you cited ['Little Men'], experts’ psychology clinics and media discourse,” she told NBC News.
In a study published last year, Zheng observed that Chinese experts have called for stronger “gender-difference education,” arguing that “the crisis of masculinity in effeminate men is considered a peril to the security of the nation because it reflects powerlessness, inferiority, feminized passivity, and social deterioration reminiscent of the colonial past when China was defeated by the colonizing West.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/china/...ity-crisis-tries-stop-effeminate-boys-n703461
BEIJING — With enormous economic clout and a powerful military and a strongman president, the image that China projects to the outside world is one of strength and confidence.
At home, however, some believe the nation’s over-protected young boys are becoming physically and emotionally weak — leaving China facing what is being called a "crisis of masculinity."
Children attend a class in Shanghai, China. JOHANNES EISELE / AFP-Getty Images, file
Some commentators in China, where gender identity is much less blurred than in Western culture, suggest it could lead to social problems and even imperil the country’s national security.
A new school textbook that aims to teach boys how to be "masculine" men has been released. Called "Little Men," the book covers the differences between boys and girls, the importance of the father-son relationship as well as the importance of interacting with nature and managing money.
The colorfully illustrated book was first published in December 2016 by Shanghai Educational Publishing House and has been approved for fourth and fifth grade classes across the country, after a trial period in selected schools.
“This course is necessary for boys,” Miao Li, 36, a businessman, told NBC News while waiting to pick up his daughter recently outside a Beijing primary school. “They are so over-protected by the family they don’t do physical activities anymore.”
“Nowadays, girls are becoming more like boys while the boys are becoming more like girls, introvert and shy,” echoed another parent called Huang, a hotel employee.
“The boys are now less masculine than when I was of their age,” said a retired worker named Tian, a grandfather to an 8-year-old boy.
Children gather after class outside of the Beijing Fangcaodi Primary School on Dec. 22. Eric Baculinao / NBC News
Another retiree named Huang, with a 7-year-old grandson, noted that boys are “more fragile emotionally and physically due to too much homework.”
The roots of China’s masculinity crisis can be traced to a number of areas, one of which is the country’s One Child policy, implemented between 1979 and 2015. The policy restricted the number of children families were allowed to have in order to curb the country’s surging population growth. It was replaced with a two-child limit last year.
“The problem is that the family spoils the kid with love and care,” said a hotel management worker surnamed Sheng, mother of a first-grader, suggesting that over-indulgence and parents’ fear of losing their only child has stunted the natural adventurous character of boys.
Discussion about this effect of the One Child policy has been rife in China for years. Commentators have long lamented social phenomena such as so-called “Little Emperor Syndrome” or “Prince Syndrome,” where a life of pampering and constant praise led many Chinese only-children to develop poor social skills and become egocentric and over-reliant on their parents.
FROM OCT. 2015: Young People in Beijing React to End of One-Child Policy 0:52
Some sections of the Chinese media have also suggested that the popularity of effeminate Korean and Japanese actors and pop stars is a factor in the supposedly diminishing masculinity of Chinese youth. Last month, a headline in a prominent English-language Chinese newspaper blamed a “'gender crisis’ on effeminate men in Japanese, Korean culture.”
China’s education system may also have played a role in bringing about the current state of affairs, with some commentators blaming an acute shortage of male teachers in the country, depriving young boys of male role models. Four out of five teaching positions in urban areas of China are held by women.
According to Tiantian Zheng, a professor of anthropology at State University of New York at Cortland, the issue of “masculinity” and the upbringing of boys is being treated as a priority at state level educational policy.
Measures that could result from this include “the establishment of all boys’ middle schools, the textbook you cited ['Little Men'], experts’ psychology clinics and media discourse,” she told NBC News.
In a study published last year, Zheng observed that Chinese experts have called for stronger “gender-difference education,” arguing that “the crisis of masculinity in effeminate men is considered a peril to the security of the nation because it reflects powerlessness, inferiority, feminized passivity, and social deterioration reminiscent of the colonial past when China was defeated by the colonizing West.”
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I told you guys. On a scale of 1 to 10 of feminity, if the average woman is an 8 the average Hans Chinese male is a 10.
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2016
- Messages
- 4,836
- Likes
- 10,862
HOME | NEWS | CHINA
Fears For Safety of Detained Chinese Rights Lawyer 'Missing' Since The Weekend
2017-08-15
Share
Dissident rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng is shown in a file photo.
AFP
Gao Zhisheng, who was under house arrest in the northern province of Shaanxi, hasn't been seen or heard of since Sunday, amid growing fears for his safety.
Dissident rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who has been under house arrest since his release from prison in August 2014, is "missing" from his cave dwelling in a remote village in the northern Chinese province of Shaanxi.
Gao, 53, went missing from his home near Shaanxi's Yulin city, early on Sunday morning, his U.S.-based wife Geng He told RFA.
"We haven't been able to contact my husband for two days now, and we are very worried," Geng said. "I tried calling him at 5:00 a.m. my time on Sunday, and I couldn't get through."
"Eventually, I managed to get in touch with his older brother, who said he went to call him to eat at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday. He said he called several times but there was no answer."
"He eventually went into the room, but there was nobody there," Geng said, adding that the local authorities are out looking for him.
"Police from the local village and from Yulin city are out scouring the hills and countryside for him, which makes me very worried," she said. "I am very scared."
'Emotional collapse'
Geng, who fled to the U.S. with the couple's two children after Gao's last "disappearance" in 2009, said the loss of contact with their father is having a profound impact on them.
"For the past three years, we have only managed sporadic phone calls with him, which at least were a form of reassurance for us as a family and for the kids," she said. "We had come to rely on them."
"Now that I know he has disappeared, I am in a state of emotional collapse."
A Xi'an-based friend of Gao's who asked not to be identified said none of his friends in the city had managed to contact him as of Tuesday afternoon.
"It's very mysterious what is going on this time," the friend said. "If he has been taken away by the state security police, his family should know about it. But suddenly, he's just not there any more."
"His family have no clue. We really don't know what is behind this disappearance," he said. "We shall just have to wait and see."
Links to interview
Gao, once a prominent lawyer feted by the ruling Chinese Communist Party, has been repeatedly denied permission by the Chinese police to see a dentist for treatment after losing several teeth to torture and neglect during his incarceration.
Social media posts suggested his disappearance might be linked to an interview Gao gave recently to Hong Kong's Chengming Magazine, in which he talks about "the destruction of the Communist Party and President Xi Jinping's mission."
Gao has also published a book detailing the torture he endured at the hands of the authorities during his time in prison, and has described being repeatedly tortured when he was secretly jailed at a "military site" during one of many disappearances.
Gao's memoir details the torture he endured at the hands of the authorities during his time in prison, as well as three years of solitary confinement, during which he said he was sustained by his Christian faith and his hope for China.
Activists say his continuing house arrest even after being "released" from jail mirrors the treatment meted out to fellow rights lawyers and activists detained in a nationwide police operation since July 2015.
His friends had previously said he is unlikely to regain any measure of freedom before the ruling Chinese Communist Party's 19th congress later this year.
Gao began to be targeted by the authorities after he defended some of China's most vulnerable people, including Christians, coal miners, and followers of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement.
Reported by Wang Yun for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Hai Nan for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
Fears For Safety of Detained Chinese Rights Lawyer 'Missing' Since The Weekend
2017-08-15
Share
Dissident rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng is shown in a file photo.
AFP
Gao Zhisheng, who was under house arrest in the northern province of Shaanxi, hasn't been seen or heard of since Sunday, amid growing fears for his safety.
Dissident rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who has been under house arrest since his release from prison in August 2014, is "missing" from his cave dwelling in a remote village in the northern Chinese province of Shaanxi.
Gao, 53, went missing from his home near Shaanxi's Yulin city, early on Sunday morning, his U.S.-based wife Geng He told RFA.
"We haven't been able to contact my husband for two days now, and we are very worried," Geng said. "I tried calling him at 5:00 a.m. my time on Sunday, and I couldn't get through."
"Eventually, I managed to get in touch with his older brother, who said he went to call him to eat at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday. He said he called several times but there was no answer."
"He eventually went into the room, but there was nobody there," Geng said, adding that the local authorities are out looking for him.
"Police from the local village and from Yulin city are out scouring the hills and countryside for him, which makes me very worried," she said. "I am very scared."
'Emotional collapse'
Geng, who fled to the U.S. with the couple's two children after Gao's last "disappearance" in 2009, said the loss of contact with their father is having a profound impact on them.
"For the past three years, we have only managed sporadic phone calls with him, which at least were a form of reassurance for us as a family and for the kids," she said. "We had come to rely on them."
"Now that I know he has disappeared, I am in a state of emotional collapse."
A Xi'an-based friend of Gao's who asked not to be identified said none of his friends in the city had managed to contact him as of Tuesday afternoon.
"It's very mysterious what is going on this time," the friend said. "If he has been taken away by the state security police, his family should know about it. But suddenly, he's just not there any more."
"His family have no clue. We really don't know what is behind this disappearance," he said. "We shall just have to wait and see."
Links to interview
Gao, once a prominent lawyer feted by the ruling Chinese Communist Party, has been repeatedly denied permission by the Chinese police to see a dentist for treatment after losing several teeth to torture and neglect during his incarceration.
Social media posts suggested his disappearance might be linked to an interview Gao gave recently to Hong Kong's Chengming Magazine, in which he talks about "the destruction of the Communist Party and President Xi Jinping's mission."
Gao has also published a book detailing the torture he endured at the hands of the authorities during his time in prison, and has described being repeatedly tortured when he was secretly jailed at a "military site" during one of many disappearances.
Gao's memoir details the torture he endured at the hands of the authorities during his time in prison, as well as three years of solitary confinement, during which he said he was sustained by his Christian faith and his hope for China.
Activists say his continuing house arrest even after being "released" from jail mirrors the treatment meted out to fellow rights lawyers and activists detained in a nationwide police operation since July 2015.
His friends had previously said he is unlikely to regain any measure of freedom before the ruling Chinese Communist Party's 19th congress later this year.
Gao began to be targeted by the authorities after he defended some of China's most vulnerable people, including Christians, coal miners, and followers of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement.
Reported by Wang Yun for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Hai Nan for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
Willy2
Regular Member
- Joined
- Feb 7, 2017
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Don't know where to put ..@LETHALFORCE pls put it in right place
http://www.opindia.com/2017/08/bhutanese-journalist-slams-the-week-for-biased-report-helping-china/
MEDIA
Bhutanese journalist slams Indian magazine for biased report helping China
ByNirwa Mehta
Posted on August 23, 2017
On Tuesday, Tenzing Lamsang, a Bhutanese journalist who is editor-in-chief of the newspaper TheBhutanese, tweeted the cover story of an Indian magazine The Week, and termed it disrespectful (presumably towards Bhutanese people) and distasteful:
View image on Twitter
Follow
Tenzing Lamsang @TenzingLamsang
Distasteful, disrespectful & completely off the mark. Does harm at a delicate time. Commando journalism at its worst http://www.theweek.in/theweek/cover/dangerous-liaison.html …
09:31 - 22 Aug 2017
Twitter Ads information and privacy
The story is on Doklam standoff by The Week comes at a time when India is in a delicate position regarding the Bhutan region strategically located located at the Sikkim-Bhutan-Tibet tri-junction.
The cover story in the magazine, which is titled “Dangerous Liaison” goes on to talk how Bhutan seems to be drifting away from India. The story say that even ‘senior officials’ are in awe of China’s charm, thus suggesting a diplomatic shift.
So is India losing the plot in Doklam? That’s what the cover story suggests, which was trashed by the senior Bhutanese journalist.
Let us see why.
In the article, the reporter Rabi Banerjee reaches out to the Bhutan Prime Minister’s office, seeking an appointment, but he is cautioned that nothing on Doklam will be discussed. Considering the gravity of the situation, it is hardly surprising. Bhutan wants to use only official diplomatic channels to communicate.
But the article quotes an unnamed senior government official, who apparently claimed that Bhutan has refused to make any anti-China statements in India’s support because India had not withdrawn fully from Doklam despite an alleged request from Bhutan to do so.
To know more about “Bhutan’s refusal to stand with India”, the reporter decided to meet the Information Minister of Bhutan, D. N. Dhungyel. This is what happened (quoted from the article):
Since it was Saturday, an official holiday, I went to his residence. The security staff let me in after I told them that I was from India and had come to schedule an appointment with the minister.
Dhungyel was not at home. He came back half an hour later and was surprised to see me. He was incensed when I told him that I wanted to discuss India-Bhutan relations. “How dare you come to my residence and talk on this subject?” asked the minister.
When I told him that the prime minister’s office had advised me to meet him, he wanted to know whether I had sought permission from the Bhutanese embassy in Delhi. It was clear that Dhungyel was afraid of discussing Doklam. “Two big nations are fighting and we are caught in the middle. Shouldn’t we feel scared? Definitely we are. We have decided not to utter a word over the issue. You may want us to talk, but we will not do so, never,” he said.
Before I could finish the tea that his daughter had served, the minister asked me to leave. As I started walking to the gate, dodging two dogs that chased me, I could hear the minister scolding his guards for letting me in.
There are multiple things wrong with this kind of reporting. The Bhutanese government has made it very clear they are not giving any official statement on the Doklam standoff. Why is the need to reach out to the Information Minister, that too at his residence, without any official appointment?
Nonetheless, from the only thing Dhungyel is quoted to have said, it is clear that Bhutan doesn’t want to rub either India or China the wrong way. Sensible thing to do for a tiny nation literally caught between two giants. Yet, the reporter wants to use it as a “proof” of Bhutan’s “refusal” to stand with India, and as a sign of Bhutan and China developing friendship.
The reporter then reaches out to Lyonpo Jigme Zangpo, the speaker of the Bhutanese National Assembly, who the reporter claims is next only to the King in terms of stature and protocol. The speaker too chides the reporter for ‘barging in’ and reiterates that the official response was to not issue any statement.
So two named officials declined to say anything, while one unnamed one claims that Bhutan is not happy with China. This was claimed as senior officials being in awe of China’s charm.
To further the assertion that Bhutan and China are developing friendship, the report in The Week quotes a ‘blogger’ who accuses India of ‘interfering’ between an issue that is between China and Bhutan. The article then quotes some citizens, a Buddhist monk, Bhutanese businessmen etc. and goes on to claim that more people want to have better relations with China.
The article also quotes some citizens preferring India, but the reporter ‘feels’ that such citizens are in ‘minority’.
And this article became the cover story of the magazine, which declared that Bhutan and China were coming closer, as if it was a diplomatic development amidst the Doklam standoff, when all it was in reality was a reporter’s private diary.
Not only was it trashed by the Editor-in-chief of the Bhutanese newspaper, it drew a lot of flak on social media, where people even called it the “hit and run” journalism:
https://twitter.com/nitingokhale
http://www.opindia.com/2017/08/bhutanese-journalist-slams-the-week-for-biased-report-helping-china/
MEDIA
Bhutanese journalist slams Indian magazine for biased report helping China
ByNirwa Mehta
Posted on August 23, 2017
On Tuesday, Tenzing Lamsang, a Bhutanese journalist who is editor-in-chief of the newspaper TheBhutanese, tweeted the cover story of an Indian magazine The Week, and termed it disrespectful (presumably towards Bhutanese people) and distasteful:
View image on Twitter
Follow
Tenzing Lamsang @TenzingLamsangDistasteful, disrespectful & completely off the mark. Does harm at a delicate time. Commando journalism at its worst http://www.theweek.in/theweek/cover/dangerous-liaison.html …
09:31 - 22 Aug 2017
Twitter Ads information and privacy
The story is on Doklam standoff by The Week comes at a time when India is in a delicate position regarding the Bhutan region strategically located located at the Sikkim-Bhutan-Tibet tri-junction.
The cover story in the magazine, which is titled “Dangerous Liaison” goes on to talk how Bhutan seems to be drifting away from India. The story say that even ‘senior officials’ are in awe of China’s charm, thus suggesting a diplomatic shift.
So is India losing the plot in Doklam? That’s what the cover story suggests, which was trashed by the senior Bhutanese journalist.
Let us see why.
In the article, the reporter Rabi Banerjee reaches out to the Bhutan Prime Minister’s office, seeking an appointment, but he is cautioned that nothing on Doklam will be discussed. Considering the gravity of the situation, it is hardly surprising. Bhutan wants to use only official diplomatic channels to communicate.
But the article quotes an unnamed senior government official, who apparently claimed that Bhutan has refused to make any anti-China statements in India’s support because India had not withdrawn fully from Doklam despite an alleged request from Bhutan to do so.
To know more about “Bhutan’s refusal to stand with India”, the reporter decided to meet the Information Minister of Bhutan, D. N. Dhungyel. This is what happened (quoted from the article):
Since it was Saturday, an official holiday, I went to his residence. The security staff let me in after I told them that I was from India and had come to schedule an appointment with the minister.
Dhungyel was not at home. He came back half an hour later and was surprised to see me. He was incensed when I told him that I wanted to discuss India-Bhutan relations. “How dare you come to my residence and talk on this subject?” asked the minister.
When I told him that the prime minister’s office had advised me to meet him, he wanted to know whether I had sought permission from the Bhutanese embassy in Delhi. It was clear that Dhungyel was afraid of discussing Doklam. “Two big nations are fighting and we are caught in the middle. Shouldn’t we feel scared? Definitely we are. We have decided not to utter a word over the issue. You may want us to talk, but we will not do so, never,” he said.
Before I could finish the tea that his daughter had served, the minister asked me to leave. As I started walking to the gate, dodging two dogs that chased me, I could hear the minister scolding his guards for letting me in.
There are multiple things wrong with this kind of reporting. The Bhutanese government has made it very clear they are not giving any official statement on the Doklam standoff. Why is the need to reach out to the Information Minister, that too at his residence, without any official appointment?
Nonetheless, from the only thing Dhungyel is quoted to have said, it is clear that Bhutan doesn’t want to rub either India or China the wrong way. Sensible thing to do for a tiny nation literally caught between two giants. Yet, the reporter wants to use it as a “proof” of Bhutan’s “refusal” to stand with India, and as a sign of Bhutan and China developing friendship.
The reporter then reaches out to Lyonpo Jigme Zangpo, the speaker of the Bhutanese National Assembly, who the reporter claims is next only to the King in terms of stature and protocol. The speaker too chides the reporter for ‘barging in’ and reiterates that the official response was to not issue any statement.
So two named officials declined to say anything, while one unnamed one claims that Bhutan is not happy with China. This was claimed as senior officials being in awe of China’s charm.
To further the assertion that Bhutan and China are developing friendship, the report in The Week quotes a ‘blogger’ who accuses India of ‘interfering’ between an issue that is between China and Bhutan. The article then quotes some citizens, a Buddhist monk, Bhutanese businessmen etc. and goes on to claim that more people want to have better relations with China.
The article also quotes some citizens preferring India, but the reporter ‘feels’ that such citizens are in ‘minority’.
And this article became the cover story of the magazine, which declared that Bhutan and China were coming closer, as if it was a diplomatic development amidst the Doklam standoff, when all it was in reality was a reporter’s private diary.
Not only was it trashed by the Editor-in-chief of the Bhutanese newspaper, it drew a lot of flak on social media, where people even called it the “hit and run” journalism:
https://twitter.com/nitingokhale
