China Hand 2

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Taiwan Relations

On a recent broadcast of CCTV 9's Dialogue current affairs program viewers might have been left with the impression that the US is now so supportive of China, and opposed to Taiwan President Chen Shuibian's referendum on re-entry to the US, that it might not support Taiwan if the referendum went ahead and China was 'provoked' into military action as a result.

Even a reporter calling live from Taiwan, probably a KMT member, gave the impression a large enough number of Taiwan people believed this and so may be deterred from supporting the referendum.

While this might be a desirable outcome for the US and China, it would be dangerous to make this an operating assumption to guide government policy for either country. Even if the Bush government ignored its obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act, Taiwan has so successfully promoted itself in the US as a shining model of freedom and democracy whilst China is still under the yoke of the Communist Party, that it would be politically impossible for the US to ignore any military action by the PRC.

Remember that US people strongly supported Bush's mission to liberate the Iraqi people, a people with no tradition of democracy, and no apparent desire (in retrospect) for one.

An attack on a free democratic people by a communist country would necessitate immediate and overwhelming opposition or the people of America would take the street. The Congress and Senate would certainly be up in arms demanding action to support an old ally with close emotional ties built brilliantly by Mdm Chiang Kai Shek over the war years and then subsequently in exile in Taiwan.

China should not deceive itself that the US us capable of a pragmatic response in such a situation.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Christmas in Suzhou

Christmas music has been playing incessantly at the shops and the restaurants - almost without exception the staff don Father Christmas red hats with white trimming. Christmas trees are set up all over the city, the latest one being in the commercial area near the school dormitories which is managed by the Suzhou Industrial Park authorities. children in Chinese cities demand Christmas presents and parents who refuse would be in a lot of trouble from the spoiled 'little Emperors'. But there is no national holiday.

Just recently the government added three holidays Qing ming Festival (ancester grave sweeping) , Duanwu Festival (Dragon Boat Racing) and Mid Autumn (Harvest) Festival - most kids these days couldn't tell you much about them and wouldn't know the traditional way to celebrate them. But they have been celebrating Christmas - at least the commercial aspects for a couple of decades and yet the government digs up these obscure festivals to try and make the place a bit more Chinese while ignoring the only one that seem to matter. But that's China.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Insecurity in China: The End of an Era

A small incident in our development last week led to a revelation which may lead to increasing insecurity in the future for us denizens of 'gated communities' with uniformed guards ling the entry of all unregistered people.

Australians, and some Americans, still living in small friendly communities where they may go out without even closing the doors, are largely contemptuous of this lifestyle, which, oddly here in China, we regard to be luxurious.

My wife was passing a small restaurant in the 'gardens' (nearly all these high rise havens are called gardens in Chinese) when she saw a noisy conflict between the guards and some outsiders. The argument quickly escalated into a fight and my wife quickly passed on to escape the melee.

Enquiring of a friend later, himself an ex-guard, we found out the whole story. A guest at the restaurant had carelessly parked his car blocking an exit for some of the guests. The guards asked him to move it and he refused. He became obstreperous and when the guards tried to remove him he called on his mobile for support. His friends turned up, by now outside the restaurant, and as a result of the confrontation the guards, now in full number set upon the threatening group with their batons.

Such events are rare in China and in my experience they are caused not so much by lowly criminal gang members (of which there are also plenty in China) but by children of higher level leaders, contemptuous of the police and security guards due to their high level contacts.

This was no big deal. But a revelation made in the course of this discussion did cause some consternation. It turned out that the guards these days in our development are no longer ex soldiers, demobilized from the PLA. They are simply young boys recruited directly from villages. Oh yes they still have uniforms, stand formally at attention, and do drill as they did before but they lack the fundamentals of the previous guards - military training and discipline.

How has this come about you might ask? Well it goes back to the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) when China built up a massive land army of five million in order to protect China's vast borders and at the same time to make the infrastructure, roads, bridges and rail needed to get troops to and part of the country in good time.

After the Cultural Revolution, the excesses of which were followed by de facto martial law until the beginnings of the Reform and Opening Up (GaigeKaifang), Deng Xiaoping changed the thinking of the PLA from more troops, less administration, to less troops, more advanced technology and began to demobilise on a massive scale. All the PLA construction corps were changed into construction SOEs, state owned enterprises, but that still left huge numbers of regular army which, demobilised, could become centres of dissatisfaction. So the government, noting the trend to modern gated communities with large security guard establishments, made a regulation that all security guards must be ex-PLA.

And so it has been, for us fearful denizens, a source of comfort that our guards at least have full military training and discipline. Young, fresh faced and boyish they were in their green sandshoes, as all regular PLA soldiers seem to be, but at the sight of an unauthorized intruder their steely resolve and swift, co-ordinated action satisfied us that we were well protected from the undeserving poor. But it seems the supply of demobilised regular soldiers is drying up. Or perhaps they are better educated now and get managerial jobs in logistics. Whatever the reason is China's standing army seems stable now at around 2.5 million and the mass demobilisation has come to an end.

Is it a co-incidence? My wife has been greeting me with stories of burglaries, and even kidnaps of children (the most dreaded happening in China) in neighbouring developments for the past couple of weeks since we found out. The sense of security is fading a bit and each time we pass the guard house we notice the slightly dishevelled way they wear their uniform, or the complacent salute (yes we get saluted!)or the slouch when standing up. Recently we came home late and the guard was sitting down in front of a huge heater. 'Fat lot of good he'd be' we thought.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Lament for the Past

"Ay yah" she sighed as our school bus passed into Suzhou's industrial park. "You know there is a saying that when the Suzhou harvest is bountiful, all China can eat rice. But now look at Suzhou! Just factories. What will China eat now?".

She was right of course - you only have to look at the old Chinese character for "Su" - The character for rice and the character for fish together under the grass radical. A crystal clear image a rice paddy - the rice stalks poking out above the water and the fish swimming underneath. Suzhou was indeed famed as the food basket of China. But it has all gone now. The industrious peasants have been herded into housing estates and offered menial labour jobs cleaning the roads of dirt fallen from construction trucks, planting the thousands of full-grown trees which line the new estate roads, making the colourful brick footpaths and weeding the hectares of green lawn which temporarility cover development sites. When they run out of work for them they simply tear down something and do it all over again.

"Well" I opined glibly. "That's the price of progress! You can't be a fully modern country until everyone is working in a factory, and office or a shop. "Do we have to follow America?" she asked rhetorically. "It's not following America" I said, "It's just the way of a modern economy since the industrial revolution. Only when peasants come out of the fields and leave them to modern agricultural industry managers that you can generate wealth efficiently", I said labouring over the standard economic rationist platitudes.

"You know Alfred, in my town, the mayor has refused all attempts to set up industry. He won't permit any industrialization!" I was surprised of course and asked naively "So where does the money come from?". "Oh there isn't any" she replied "Our town is very poor. We are known as the place of ten thousand fields". This was said with no regret at all. Indeed a degree of satisfaction permeated it. My colleague is a party member, one who is still proud to hold that honour. Strange to think that Mao's ideal of rural socialism still lives on amongst the younger generation here in modern China. People who believe it is better to be poor and happy than rich and discontent. Something I can't relate to at all. But then I'm an economic rationalist.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Suzhou Hong Kong Club Inaugural Dinner

Four tables of Hong Kong 'expat' families got together at the Hong Kong Zen Restaurant last Saturday evening for the first get-together of Hong Kong Belongers. They decided to call it the Hong Kong Club (???????) which is common overseas.

The idea of overseas Chinese getting together by themselves is a very old one. They form belongers associations for each xiang, or township, they come from. They have in common the local dialect, and it is the desire to speak that dialect with others that drives such associations.

Similarly at every university which accepts overseas students there are usually two Chinese student clubs. A club consisting of Chinese from all over the world including Mainland China who had in common their ability to speak Mandarin Chinese, and a Hong Kong Students Club who could not speak Mandarin but only Cantonese.

Earlier on, Hong Kong's position as a rich, free- trade port governed under a benevolent British colonial system meant that the Hong Kong students tended to take airs, assuming a level of sophistication they did not often find in overseas, or mainland students of the time. But with the advent of rich mainland students, usually the children of high officials, they've been forced to accept a degree of equality.

Hong Kong students lack of Mandarin had been contrived at by local and British officials who mandated the use of Cantonese as the means of instruction in local schools. But many parents, excited by the opportunities for their children both overseas and in Hong Kong, insisted they attend school where English was to be the means of instruction. In few of these schools Mandarin was taught. Generally only schools run by ex-Kuomintang officials taught Mandarin.

In his early years when conspiracy theories were a great comfort to China Hand, he believed the British contrived at this policy as being a handy way to isolate locals from their mainland counterparts, but it surely goes back to pre-Revolutionary days and is just as likely due to local intellectuals' prejudice that Cantonese was far superior to Mandarin. Indeed after the 1911 Revolution, which installed Sun Yatsen temporarily as National President, there was great pressure by Southerners to make Cantonese the national language!

Anyway we had had a very pleasant dinner and of course all were perfectly fluent in Mandarin as is becoming common these days in Hong Kong with Mandarin now compulsory for all students. Hong Kong's isolation from the mainland is being battered down by a daily flow of officials, tourists and immigrants for whom Mandarin is a first language. Fifty percent of professionals in Hong Kong do mainland related work and locals are reluctantly accepting that they will have to look in China for positions of real opportunity for the future although their strong preference still is for the unique Hong Kong lifestyle.

Freedom of the Blogsphere

Sad to say the curtains have come down again on Blogspot.com in China. It is no longer available to China based readers so I am indebted again to my online mentor, Dr John Ray of Dissecting Leftism (his mirror here) for mirroring this site here.

I don't think it is due to subversive activities online, I rather tend to believe it is the officials' reaction to the immature and often racist ravings of the newly graduated (mostly American) teachers who come here for a 'working holiday' and find they don't like work and certainly can't put up with levels of comfort below luxury despite the usually generous and overwhelming Chinese hospitality. So they close it down for a while. But usually the logic of keeping it open prevails and it is freed again. Let's hope so.

Six Powers Update

Well North Korea has its paltry $25 million and has promised an immediate (i.e. within 60 days) close down of its nuclear plant. Cynics have suggested that as an old and out-of-date plant they lose nothing, they're probably setting up a new own somewhere else. Needless to day the cost of decommissioning an nuclear plant is probably well in excess of $25 million but the Koreans do get a deliveries of heating oil to help them through their nuclear winter. Inspectors from the IAEC are already on their way if not in place. Does this mean 'peace in our time' in North Asia? Will Kim Jong Il prove to be another Deng Xiaoping delivering another, albeit much smaller market to the global festival of consumerism? Will North Korea become just another destination for US pension fund flight capital and Koreans start buying their own cars and apartments as in China? I doubt it.

If you followed the implicit logic of the last dispatch you may expect another major crisis to arise before the elapse of the 60 days. It can either come from the US, ratcheting up pressure on Kim, sure he must go the way of the USSR before long, or from Kim deciding the region is ready to make even more concessions, i.e. send more oil, money and nuclear power plants in order to make Asia-Pacific even more so.

I'm sure you wont have to wait too long.

Sunday, June 03, 2007

When I came to China in September 1978, I had studied modern Chinese history fairly extensively and even written a dissertation on the Cultural Revolution and so knew roughly what to expect. Most of my fellow students at the Beijing Language Institute had mostly studied Chinese only and so knew the conventional wisdom that China was a totalitarian state in which people's lives were totally regulated and controlled by an all power, all seeing state.

I knew enough about China to know that what Beijing said tended to be diluted to a large degree by the time it got down to the local village level far away from Beijing. Nevertheless you could not help but be impressed by the communication system that ensured that where ever you went in China, the village cadres were up-to-date with all the rhetoric, especially given that at the time China had a total of 3 million fixed telephones and of course no mobiles.

One look at the village however told you that nothing much had happened since 1949 despite land reform, cooperatives, collectivization, communization, roll-back to production brigades and private plots, socialist education movement in the countryside, cultural revolution, restoration of private plots again and then finally the production contract system of Deng's reform.

The idea that, even in the communist period, Chinese people uniformly acted in total accord with directives from Beijing can be dismissed as communist propaganda. Despite that it must have been with great fear and foreboding that many in Beijing witnessed the devolution of power from Beijing to the provinces in the early years of the 80's. In a tribute to the communist party's belief in the market and the local people to guide their economic destinies, they let go of all but macroeconomic powers and the omnipresent influence of the party.

The local party cadres realised that so long as they delivered the right increase in GDP they had a lot of freedom and most took advantage of it. Investing in a southern provinces became an extended negotiation during which many basic legal requirements such as customs rates, taxation rates, minimum wages rates, etc were all negotiable. The unwary investor suffered however, particularly Americans bringing in advanced technology. All too often they found that they were losing a lot of machinery and raw materials to a plant, often opened nearby, producing identical products at cheaper prices.

On appealing to the provincial leaders both civic and communist, they found they were all major shareholders in the deal and had no interest in closing them down. On appealing to even the very highest powers in the land they found they were powerless outside Beijing. So long as they were delivering on their GDP figures and keeping employment up, and perhaps sharing part of their ill-gotten gains, the local government officials and party cadres were immune from pressure from above.

Beijing has tolerated this situation for over two decades as it fulfilled the basic criteria - the cat caught enough mice. Two urgent problems now severely threaten this system. First of all the massive pollution this system has spawned which has destroyed the air and water and threatens the lives of the very people producing and enjoying the goods and services. The second is the sudden discovery that all the bogus products flooding the Chinese markets are finding their way relentlessly into the export markets and destroying a credibility which had been deftly crafted with shoes, clothing and electronic products. China's exports of food and medical products are not inconsiderable and if in less than a year they find the international market closed to them they will face a crisis of falling exports they simply can afford.

The threat of internal unrest is always uppermost in China's leader's minds and the only antidote to the venality and avarice of local leaders is a constant source of new jobs. Given Chinese dependency on export, and foreign investment lead growth, any threat to their hard won foreign markets and capital sources is terrifying.

The focus of China's wrath at present is on the former minister of health who gladly accepted bribes to approve poor and even dangerous medical products. Multiply his greed by the large group of other ministers one assumes are doing the same thing and the shine begins to fade from the Chinese economic miracle. The dilemma for the party now is to rein in the out-of-control leaders, or how to call back the horses from the stable. Or as the great economic manager of the socialist economy, Chen Yun, might have said, how to get the canary back into the cage.

Suddenly, when China needs an efficient, selfless, and incorruptible bureaucracy, it is nowhere to be found. Did it ever exist? You can find both local and overseas Chinese who aver it did in the communist period. But close reading of the documents during those days indicated even Mao's frustration that you could 'buy' a party cadre for just a packet of cigarettes. If your child have been sent down to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution, a present of a gold watch the fellow in charge would soon fetch him back. For foreigners doing business in China in those days, this was invisible. China presented a corruption free face to the world. One famous Australian businessman whose father had been doing business in China since the 60's told me that until 1980, he had never been approached for a 'kick-back' in all his time in China, but then gradually it increased and became common. Few in the eighties sold anything of substance without it including an extensive study trip to Western countries for the buying company or department. Such trips often ended in Hong Kong where all picked up colour TV's and video players. The other favourite was assistance getting a Western education for the children of the buyers.

Beijing will flail about rhetorically trying to get it's bureaucracy free of corruption, arresting more, and meting out draconian punishments, but there is only one effective solution which they all know, and none have the power and influence, or perhaps even the desire to bring about despite it being clearly in the national interest - placing the members and leaders of the communist party under the rule of law. It will never happen!

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Loose Change Standing in the Way of World Peace?

Christopher Hill, the indefatigable US negotiator on the Six Party Peace Talks dealing with North Korea's nuclear aspirations, has arrived again in Beijing to try and revive the stalled talks. The last round of talks ended suddenly when North Korea walked out saying that as the US had promised to release the $25 million held in the Delta Bank account in Macau, they would wait for it to be delivered and then begin the process of dismantling the nuclear plant designed to produce weapons quality uranium. The meeting, including North Korea, had made a resolution that this would occur within six weeks, and all were left with the impression that payment of the $25 million was now just a formality. Indeed the Chinese side indicated they had opened an account in the Beijing Bank of China, to facilitate receiving the money from the Macau Bank. The US side left disingenuously indicating that they had removed all impediments to the payment.

Six weeks have well and truly passed, and the money has not been paid, and the North Koreans have done nothing to begin dismantling the offending plant. One might imagine there was a flurry of behind-the-scenes activity designed to get that $25 million freed and back to North Korea. But nothing appears to have been done. The Americans, again disingenuously have said it is a complicated matter. But no-one has explained why.

So here we have the entire world, but especially the six 'littoral' states of China, South Korea, Russia, Japan and the US, endangered by one of the greatest rogue states of history, promising to 'defend itself' with nuclear missiles unless it gets its $25 million back and no-one appears willing to help.

Twenty-five million dollars! What a huge amount. The amount put aside by a typical corrupt senior party member in China, or awarded out of profits to the shareholding family members by South Korean Chaebols, or skimmed by a Japanese cabinet member in his housing allowance, or spent by a US billionaire on a trip into space, or by a Russian billionaire for a motor racing team.

But to any of the governments involved? $25 million is loose change. Very small loose change. The US budget is over $3 trillion. They give $25 million to a few large farmers so they can swamp the world market with subsidised goods. The Japanese will easily spend such an absurdly small amount on whale meat consumption research. The South Koreans will slip as much to a struggling car factory to keep it going for another few months. The Russians will spend as much for some icons for the Russian Orthodox Church. in China a small provincial town will spend as much building itself a grand palace for the municipal offices.

So the extraordinarily dangerous situation of Kim Jong-Il getting his hands on nuclear weapons, which threatens to undermine the strategic balance in north Asia, is held up by $25 million. In Australia, when some eager zealot tries to draw attention to himself by refusing to pay a fine on a point of principal and risk being sent to gaol, an anonymous benefactor will pay the fine and disarm a potentially embarrassing situation. Logic suggests that if the situation is as dangerous as portrayed, and that North Korea sincerely wants to disarm and that the only thing keeping them from it is the paltry sum of $25 million, then someone, Japan, Russia, US, China, or South Korean, might have suggested they put in $5 million each and send it to the North Koreans as a goodwill gesture to get the process re-started. But no-one has.

One conclusion is that the stand-off is not really as dangerous as being portrayed. That North Korea has not, and never has had, a nuclear capability, real or potential, and that they can posture as much as they like, everyone is just going to ignore them. An alternative conclusion is that no-one believes that Korea has any intention of disarming - $25 million or not. But then is the logical reaction no action at all?

Kim Jong-Il's Korea has a totally bankrupt economy. His regime has no credibility anywhere in the world, not even among the overseas rusted-on socialists who still defend Sadaam and yearn for the good old days of Stalin and Mao. Kim's only weapon is his unpredictability and threats to a world which is becoming addicted to peace. Maybe it is best just to ignore him and allow his country to simply run down to a stop - turning the problem into a massive refugee problem for China and South Korea.

Whatever the ultimate outcome it is a puzzling situation, one which suggests there is much more going on than indicated in public.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Growing Pains in China

Suzhou is really two cities. One, the old city, gathered within the old city mote, is largely preserved and such new buildings as do get built, e.g. the New Sofitel Hotel which just recently opened on Ganjiang East Road, are made to conform to the low-rise, white wall, black tile roof style of Suzhou. Even the New Suzhou Museum, designed by U.S. architect I.M.Pei,whose family came from Suzhou several generations ago, conforms to this while accommodating the obligatory triangles we are familiar with in his oeuvre. Only six of the original one hundred and thirteen brilliant gardens have been renovated and opened to the public - the rest have been occupied by local government departments and aren't likely to be relinquished soon. Still there are many attractive areas, parks, walls, even a unique 'water gate' which could be opened both to water and land traffic.

But outside this traditional Chinese city there springs a bolder, brassier, modern city which many say just looks like another Singaporean suburb. On the one side is the Suzhou Industrial Park to the east, proud creation of the Singaporean government, which they abandoned in the face of relentless competition from another industrial created by the Suzhou government to the west of the old city. Some say they had it coming. More than any others, Singaporeans appear to come to China in the belief it is their duty to assist China back into the civilized world. I have often laughingly chided my Singaporean friends that they carry the "White man's burden" with them when they come to China.

As offended as any Westerner by the lack of hygiene, manners, and respect for law, as well as the unbridled corruption, Singaporeans are often seen as too proud, too Western, and inclined to lecture the locals and apply Singaporean ideals to their management. So perhaps the way in which the SIP was set up, to act as a model for industrial development in China, offended the Suzhou officials, who immediately set up a counterpart in the west and heavily undercut the rates being charged by the Singaporean firm.

So the park languished for many years until around 2002 when industrial investment in Shanghai started to be squeezed by high property values and fled to nearby Suzhou. By 2004 annual industrial investment in Suzhou had exceeded that for Shanghai. The SIP began to move and the government began to build up an attractive new town and residential centre. Central to this new city project is Jinji Lake, or Golden Cockerel Lake, an old lake which is the northern half of a lake with a large island in the middle which has been joined up with the mainland. The southern half is called Dushu Lake, or Villa Lake.

In common with the Suzhou canal system of which is it part, Jinji Lake is full of human and industrial pollution and totally unsuitable as leisure place for new city stroller. So the blocked it off, drained it, sealed the bottom, and refilled it with clean water. As it was to be the Centre of the New town, they created a government administrative centre along the eastern shores, and a financial and commercial centre along the west. Being closer to old Suzhou of course, the eastern part filled up first. When China Hand arrived much of the residential construction around the town centre was complete, but the town centre itself, consisting of about ten huge blocks only consisted of two blocks of monumental bank buildings, and a long strip of restaurants. Around the lake's west was a recreation area for walking and picnicking along with a small cluster of new and mostly empty restaurants.

Today the almost abandoned look of the centre and the recreation area has already gone. People

throng the recreation area at the weekend attending a fabulous musical fountain, laser, and fireworks display most evenings. All the restaurant spaces have been taken up and its hard to get a seat there now on the weekend. In addition a new promenade across the south of the lake, completed by the and of 2006, has provided areas for a dozen new, high class restaurants. It is called Li Gong Di, Grandpa Li's Promenade. At night it is lit up like fairy land and is a wonderful sight from the nearby high-rise apartments. Construction has begun in most of the remaining spaces promising huge retail complexes and luxury housing.

As a baby-boomer myself I naturally see echoes of our own experience of post-War development. No-one could have anticipated the way we embraced consumerism, with car and home ownership ending up the entire purpose of being. Nor were our city planners ready for it. The past few decades have tried to build the freeways and car parks needed but it could never be enough.

So similarly in China, in developments which were thought to be for foreigners, they filled up with aspiring nouveau riche locals. The token car park, buried underneath a manicured concrete park and garden, turned out to be just that. When it filled out, cars parked all over the footpaths or parked outside when they could not get in. We are woken every morning by the sound of horns and shouts of anger from car owners trying to drive in both directions along a narrow two-lane road clogged by double parking. The immediate and obvious solution of making the road one way is in the too-hard basket, or perhaps not even considered.

Even a government building completed just this month, which was proudly designed by an Australian firm, was discovered by the newly arriving staff to have only 300 car spaces underneath, not nearly enough for its new, conspicuously consuming, middle class mandarinate.

Moreover a vacant block when we moved in between us and the Renaissance Hotel is now filling up with a huge, block sized, three floor retail complex topped with a commercial office tower as well as a residential tower. While both towers have dedicated car parks, the retail complex does not. What do they expect customers to do? Catch a bus? They must be kidding. Even though it is right next to the anticipated light rail, customers are more likely to go to the new Wal-mart, when it is built, as it surely will have at least some car parking.

Noise from the pumps pouring cement when they do a pour keeps up awake as they are building on two 12 hour shifts around the clock. They have another fifteen floors to go! Meanwhile the dust is everywhere. We have to keep the place locked up which we dislike intensely. Unlike other places however, this seemingly unstoppable juggernaut does not cause the frequent disruptions in power, gas and water. The SIP is on a top priority.

So we don't complain too much. We regard ourselves privileged to be in a place so dynamic, which gives so much hope to the people for a better life to come. A place where people aspire to hi-rise rather than deplore it, where environmental pollution is seen as a necessary evil, even a sign of progress. We look askance at places like Hong Kong where a massive popular (well amongst the rich elites) campaign is being waged to retain Queen's Pier, for its historical connection with the colonial past. It is just a concrete pier with no architectural value whatsoever, but the government is being forced to promise to re-build it somewhere else.

Significantly the heritage people failed to find a single redeeming characteristic in the wharf to the chagrin of the campaigners who really just see the pier as a symbol of the loss of their historic harbour which has been filled in and reclaimed to great profit for nearly a century.

Hence in one country I can see the forces at work which create a massive dynamic for change which brings hope to millions, as well as those which militate against any change and so bring to a halt that which has enriched so many lives, and will ensure the children of that generation struggle to find work. In a life time I have gone through that in Sydney. My home there is in the notorious suburb of Sutherland Shire, surrounded by rivers, and peopled, it seems, entirely by children of the original settlers. When we moved in in 1949, there was only one house on the block. We had to cut down seven large gums just to clear the building site. Building continued for a decade or more before they had to move further south and west of Sutherland.

The old settlers now sternly resist any development, but especially hi-rise, clinging on to their large 750 sq metre blocks. No matter that their children have to commute far outside the suburb to work, and finally to buy a small house, twenty or thirty kilometers into the sprawling west. A large brick pit opposite my family has remained in pristine condition since the brick yards closed down in the 60's. All attempts by the local council to develop it have been stymied by popular opposition to high rise, or even medium rise. The site is on the top of the ridge which runs down from Sutherland railway station to Cronulla beach in the east. I would pay a lot of money for an elevated apartment there facing north as it would have panoramic view of Botany Bay and the Sydney CBD as well as well as being 2 minutes from a train station.

With all too predictable certainty, environmentalists came in and found 'unique' species of Roma's tree frog in the water which filled the pit. This so-called 'endangered species', seems to be indigenous to every country in the world. At one stage it was held up as a reason for not proceeding with the development of the new Hong Kong airport. Several projects have been raised for the 'brick-pit' and failed the 'community consultation' process. Developers have black-banned the 'shire' and started rumours that the locals are rather hirsute on the upside of their feet. Hmmmm - now you mention it.....

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Third time lucky!

Last Thursday I went to Shanghai to attend a conference of the China Supply Chain Council with my colleague, David Liu. The one-day 'Summit' on Supply Chain Risk was poorly attended with less than forty participants. A previous conference I had attended attracted over one hundred.

It is a reflection of the attitudes of logistics professionals they they assume supply chain risk is the domain of the actuary when in fact it should right up in front of their thoughts. The dramatic experience of several presenters brought home the massive risks of outsourcing all your production to one factory in China. A presenter for the Goodyear company outlined how they got their shipment back to 80% in only 20 days after only one plant in Asia burned down. One of at least eight in the Asia-Pacific region. If you have only one factory you must ask how long will it take to get your shipments back. Not many seemed interested in that question.

Another presenter talked about the problem of corruption amongst purchasing staff citing the major operation one company had to get rid of one particularly clever operator. There were no quick fixes discussed, just constant vigilance and checking of systems to make sure they are not being perverted.

The meeting was held in the new Millennium Hotel in Gubei district, Yan'an West road out towards the old airport and it was a good venue decorated in a subdued art-deco style.

After the meeting we set out to visit Fuzhou Road, People's Square to check out possible textbooks. One the way back we passed through Raffles looking for the under ground entrance but it had been closed for some time. So we went up and crossed the Xizang Road at ground level. While waiting at the side of the road however my pocket was picked and I lost my wallet with a lot of cash and my railway ticket. We did not get far into the metro before I discovered the loss so we went back, reported to the policeman on duty, looked in all the bins around the area, then hurried off to try and get on the train home before it left.

Arriving at Shanghai station David explained that I had lost my ticket and we couldn't buy another as it was the Bullet Train which is always sold out. They immediately looked at me, completely stressed out, sweating with the heat and anxiety, and motioned us to the gates where the attendant was instructed to let me through. As there was no ticket check on the train I just walked in and sat down. I began to relax and forget all the contingency plans to catch a last bus, hire a taxi, etc.

The Bullet train is a very welcome innovation in Chinese travel, reducing the trip from Suzhou to Shanghai to 40 minutes including a stop at Kunshan. It has wide comfortable seat that tilt back for comfort. Of course they are spotlessly clean but for some strange reason the omnipresent attendants of the old tradition don't get much of a look in. Everyone finds their own seats, sorts out confusion themselves and gets on with enjoying the trip. An attendant looks in from time to time but generally does not get engaged. Hot water is available however.

I was feeling very bad about myself as you can imagine. Old hands don't easily get caught out even by the Shanghai tricks. I slept poorly and so when the phone rang at 7:30am I was shocked to hear a strange voice say that he was a street cleaner and had found my wallet (sans cash) in a rubbish bin near People's Square. We tried to get him to deliver it to the police or a nearby friend but he would not. He wanted us to pick it up in People's Square, or he was even happy to bring it to Suzhou if we paid the bus fare. This plus the lack of a phone number made us very paranoid thinking that he had the bank card and meant to force us to take the money out. We made some tentative arrangements for 10am that morning to stall him off and I went straight to the bank to freeze the account.

When he rang back we put a final proposal to him that he deliver the wallet to the lobby of a building where my friend works. We would leave Yuan 200 in cash there in an envelope for him. Reluctantly he accepted and within an hour my friend reported that he had gone down personally and passed over the cash as there was no service desk in the lobby. All my ID documents and bank cards were present! I was greatly relieved. I told my friends that it was the third time I had my wallet stolen in Shanghai albeit, spread over 28 years, it wasn't too bad a record. All who heard of my plight in Shanghai were very sympathetic & helpful. This time at least I got my valuables back.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Is Confucianism a religion?

This question was asked of me by an old friend who opined that it was more of an ethical system than a religion. The following is my reply which I wrote quickly without any reflection. I have made some minor changes for clarity.

Quote

"Your instincts are correct H. Confucianism is actually an amalgam of all the best of Chinese ethical and political thinking as Chinese thinkers seem highly eclectic, drawing freely on rivals, supporters, and even other religions like Buddhism to produce an entire life philosophy which guides conduct for the ruler, the official, the father, even the businessman. Confucius and his fellow philosophers were never the slightest bit interested in metaphysics, nor did they think it the proper subject of philosophy. The rituals of ancestor worship which are essential to Confucianism were seen, even in Confucius as simply being acts which encouraged the younger generation to have respect for their elders. Similarly for the other rites which Confucius promoted. He was quite agnostic on the subject of spirits, including those of ancestors. He was, like all his peers very passionate on the subject of heaven, but this is not to be understood in the popular Christian religious sense, a place in the sky where God lives, but in the sense of the whole of creation, the total forces which affect man."

"Sadly the tendency of businessmen to become too influential in politics lead to business being looked down on in the social hierarchy, rather as it was by the British aristocracy. Rulers will always rely on the rich however to finance their ambitious so they are tolerated. As a result China never became a great mercantile power trading with other nations, but rather like Rome, simply accept tribute as a form of taxation from its suzerains. "

"The fundamental difference between Western and Chinese philosophy is that the former emphasizes the scientific method in order to understand the nature of matter in order to create utility whereas Chinese philosophy despises usefulness and emphasizes only self-cultivation. Once a gentleman becomes cultivated - he solely exists to appreciate nature and has no use for art. Once a ruler understands the way of nature, he rules virtually by doing nothing. "

"Hence the Chinese contempt for Western 'toys' and contraptions. Only their stunning loss in wars, especially that against Japan, convinced them there must some merit in science and artifice. Their many attempts to replicate Western science and industry all failed until Mr Deng said, Let there be markets! And behold - China now has world class scientists and industry. The incredible success of this revolution, following on the total destruction of Chinese, specifically Confucian, values, which began in 1919 and did not stop until the Cultural Revolution, means that China has a young generation of spoiled brats who, like our own children know nothing save international pop culture."

"So begins the critical reexamination of what from the past can be revived to become the 'Chinese characteristics' they have been talking about so long. In essence the question is being asked - What is that makes a Chinese Chinese? If not Confucianism then what? Surprisingly several new mini-series from Korea have presented what they have recognised as Chinese cultural past in terms of medicine, cooking, governance, family relations, and everyone is asking - why couldn't we have done that? The answer is simple - the Koreans never at any stage set out to completely destroy their cultural heritage the way the Chinese did."

"As Australians we know the same phenomenon. The cultural deconstructionists set out to destroy Australian(British derived) culture in order to prepare us for their socialist, multicultural dystopia. Our children are shielded from Australian literature, even literacy in order to facilitate the coup. You well know what happened when all our fellow radical revolutionary students accepted jobs in the public service or academe so many years ago. "I'm going to undermine the system from inside" they said sheepishly. Well the irony is that they did. Completely and beyond saving. Blayney notwithstanding. And you let them!"

Unquote.

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Xitang - Water Town #5

On Saturday we visited our fifth water town - Xitang, just across the border in Zhejiang Province. The Yangtze Delta has six famous water towns, three in Jiangsu: Tongli, Zhou Zhuang, Luzhi, and three in Zhejiang: Wuzhen, Xitang, and Nanxun.
The delta is characterized by an intricate and extensive network of canals and often the housing butts straight onto, and even over the canals with picturesque results.

Since we have been in Suzhou

we have visited all those in Jiangsu, and two in Zhejiang. While there is a sameness in the layouts, each has its own unique character that makes it worth visiting. Inevitably each is commercialized to a large degree but also has its own story and local products - especially snack food. If you tire of the commercial section, there is always a nature looking stretch of canal just around a corner.

Xitang's speciality is a fermented glutinous rice wine and crispy green beans, both sweet and salty. We tried both dutifully. But Xitang has moved with the times and has not

been content to rely on the old to maintain her edge in the competitive tourist market. Do you wonder whatever happened to the much celebrated international beauty pageant, Miss Queen of Tourism? Well we found it in Xitang where it has been held for the past three years. Pictures of Miss Queen of Tourism adorn the walls of the old mansions there. No doubt pictures of Xitang cover the pages of those magazines specializing in be uty pageants but I must say that apart from a few references to the pageant in English China Daily, I had never heard of it.

But Xitang has a much more famous distinction which outshines this sad little beauty pageant like the sun does the moon. It was the location of parts of the film Mission Impossible III and so pictures of Tom Cruise dominate the walls: a bloody Tom Cruise recovering from a stunt gone wrong, action-figure Tom jumping over roof tops, Tom with Chinese kung fu book author Jin Rong (what was he doing there?), and number of cast group shots. China always manages to surprise you with a strange juxtaposition of the old and the ultra-modern.

Sadly as we left I turned and caught a sewer opening up into the canal spewing forth the foulest, blackest stream of sewage you could possibly imagine. No wonder the water in all the water town canals is always so evil looking. A reminder of the puzzling dark side Chinese modern economic miracle.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Luxury Holiday in Koh Samui

China Hand, Mrs China Hand and another expat couple from China spent their Chinese New Year break in a luxury resort in Koh Samui, the popular holiday island in the Gulf of Thailand.

Yes it was an expensive holiday but well worth it. As one friend reflected the view was worth a million dollars! We didn't pay anywhere near that but you'd have to pay more than

double that to own it!

Our resort, Miskawaan Villas, was on Mae Nam beach, north facing and remote from any other villas or developments so we had the beach to ourselves. It was beach front so after breakfast by the pool we could step out on the newly swept beach and plunge into the inviting, calm, and crystal clear sea. (Picture-> It's just a rolled towel!)

Our villa was one of eight in the complex built a couple of years ago and managed by an affable Kiwi called Mike. It is staffed by five servants including a driver and gardener. The name of the chef and maitre d' was Poi and she cooked Thai food so beautiful we stopped going to the local restaurants and ate at home each night. During the day

driver John would drive us around to all the sights on the Island and we tried the local fare. When we wanted to buy anything he drove us just down the road to the local, well stocked Tesco.

The villas are built on a U-shape with the top facing the sea and closed by the pool. There are four double bedrooms (five in others), a courtyard tropical garden, a luxurious kitchen fitted out with the latest top model Siemens equipment, a meeting room and TV room cum bar. We mostly ate at the outdoor table by the pool as we were blessed with

warm sunny weather on each of the six days there. The bedrooms were very large with satellite TV and wireless internet connection available 24 hours. It was a treat to shower in a large glass lined bathroom opening to a small courtyard (once you got over the embarrassment). Even the bathroom had double sinks.

We were totally pampered as the staff did everything for us except the long relaxing oil massages which were outsourced (but done onsite). I preferred to just read, as did our friends, although there was plenty available to do such as dining, diving, taking sea trips to nearby islands or other spots in Koh Samui. We even tried one of the top restaurants down in Chaweng. Great but not as good as Poi! (Picture-> One of several Thai carvings decoating the courtyard walls)

For us it was a once in a lifetime experience we'll never forget. Our other China hand friends, Klaus & Ulrike agree!

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

New Freedom Mixed Blessing

Only months after the restoration of blogspot.com to the Chinese blogsphere, there has been a new extension of Internet freedom which for China Hand at least is a mixed blessing.

Since I discovered audio-streaming of radio stations in China some five years ago it has been completely impossible to stream any radio station outside China which broadcasts in Chinese. Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, even Chinese community stations around the world - all were systematically blocked. This has not been a great concern to me, but since she joined me in China, my wife has been asking me to get Hong Kong radio stations, just the way I stream the (Australian) ABC or the BBC World Service. The best I have been able to do for her has been to occasionally stream in Sydney's 2CH - a golden oldie's music channel which she does enjoy.

But Chinese channels, outside China that is, were all completely blocked. During the recent Taiwanese earthquake, which severely affected telecommunications in China, especially from the US, Australia and the UK, I was checking around for other sources of news when I got RTHK - the Hong Kong public broadcaster. As they have Chinese channels, they have been completely inaccessible. As they do a morning rebroadcast of the BBC I was momentarily happy. Then I thought to check the Chinese channels and to my surprise Cantonese blared out from my PC's speakers. I called my wife who was overjoyed.

Well you can guess the rest. Telecoms to Australia et al have been restored, but do you think I can get the headphones* from my wife? Even the nightly ritual of watching CCTV English news together I now do alone as my wife reluctantly disconnects the headphones from the speakers in the kitchen so I can listen to the TV while she continues listening to RTHK Radio One in headphone mode. We do converse from time to time but you know how frustrating it is talking to someone with full ear covering headphones!

Oh yes, there is a technical solution. I could set up two computers and put the DSL connection through a router to split the signal so I can listen to the ABC while she listens to RTHK. That would require two FM broadcasting points in the one apartment, something I'm told may not be good for the health.

I'll just have to get my NewsRadio fix at work and buy some good books in my next Hong Kong visit to read during the evenings. Can all this freedom be good for us?

* China Hand has long used the PC to stream radio stations in China, but only since arriving in Suzhou last year has he overcome the problem of not being able to listen in another room without turning the speakers up too loud. He simply bought a set of remote headphones which use an FM signal to send to the headphones anywhere in the apartment, even outside on balconies. A handy output jack fitted in the 'phones allows them to be connected to any audio system in other rooms for FM quality sound. When lying in bed a single ear plug can be used to allow tossing and turning, something impossible with the bulky earphones. A handy solution to insomnia and ABC NewsRadio 24 hours a day without the annoying shortwave distortions. Just the thing for a news junky.

Labels: Internet, media, streaming, telecommunications

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Two Cheers for the Chinese Internet Censor
Well it seems Blogspot.com is back and all us naughty foreign bloggers who venture the occasional ill-tempered and ill-considered remark are able to vent our spleens again. Well let's hope none of us abuse the privilage and strive to be balanced and considered in all our observations.

Speaking of ill-considered remarks China Hand was following the 2nd Cricket match in Australia, known as the Ashes Series, via an online website with ball-by-ball commentary. The last one in England was so exciting I even bought the DVD of the series. Australia lost the series but 4 out of the five matches were high scoring nail-biters. Rare in Test cricket.

I become very annoyed by the flow of comments which frequently included words and expressions totaly unfamiliar to me. The commentators appeared to be both Australian and British which seemed a departure from the usual practice of using Indian or other Sub-continental commentators.

I finally sent an email commenting on my lack of comprehension and suggested they bring back the Sub-continentals for the third test. A spelling mistake and an ommitted word on my part allowed them to reply in kind. I thought it an unjust reply until I saw a comment by Shane Warne after the match. He mentioned that at one stage the Australia team appeared likely to be "Rissoled and rock-and-rolled" by the British team. I give up. It must be me who's out of date with the English language, at least in respect of cricket.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Did I speak too soon?

It would appear that with the departure of Dr Condoleza Rice that the blocking of blogging site blogspot.com has resumed. It would appear my celebrations were premature. There are times when the Chinese government acts like a naughty child, reverting to good behaviour only while his parents are around, and when they are not turning into a little tyrant again. The government makes great ado about relations being on a basis of equality when in fact they don't act like it.

Back in the 1980's, after the two governments had signed the agreements to alllow the return of Hong Kong to China, the Queen was invited for a visit. Again the government acted like a teenager, rushing to clean the city up before 'Mother' arrives and finds what a mess it was in. Each of the buildings along the Bund was given it's first clean up since the departure of the British in 1949.

Dr Rohan Williamson has also departed and his claim that 'the Church'(not Christianity!) could contribute to China's 'Harmonious Society' was featured on the front page of China Daily which usually runs material to titilate the foreign community while having no impact on the vast majority of Chinese who have no access or interest in the English language publications. This is also a practice of the government, having two versions of the news. One for foreigners in English and another, more sanitized version, for the locals. It's as if the Internet did not exist.

Speaking of His Grace's, China Hand was in Beijing in the 80's when a former Archbishop of Canterbury visited. A reception was arranged for the British community and China Hand, the representativbe of a British trading firm was invited. Things were very relaxed at the reception and when His Grace arrived, embassy personnel circulated inviting attendees to join a line and ask him about his visit. I couldn't think of any particulary question I wanted to ask, so when the person in front of me asked "Did you also meet with Catholic Chinese during your visit?", His Grace answered: "Oh yes I did, my visit was ecumenical". Recalling that his grace frequently met with the Pope I blurted out, "And did you have a message for them (the Catholics) from the Pope?". His Grace's face contorted and he choked on his drink and he in turn blurted "Who are you? Are you a reporter? How can you ask me such a question?". His handlers dragged him away coughing and splutering and terminated the Q&A session. I was left as usual rueing my lack of tact.

October 15 2006

SCENIC CHINA

One of Huangshan's Spectacular pines

China Hand, exhausted, steps off the path for a rest

Huangshan's mighty bambo groves

Huangshan's misty peaks

Black Tiger Pine

Mrs China Hand by the Source of the Dragon pool

The colours of Huangshan

Sunrise at Huangshan

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

We Finally visit China's Top Scenic Spot

In twenty eight years in China, my wife and I have seen quite a few places of note. Each one proudly proclaiming to be China's No 1 Tourist Spot. Indeed a feature of China, especially in more rural settings, is the air of hollow boastfulness that surrounds their claims to supremacy in one field or another. Well as we say in China, everyone says their home town is great, so I guess it's understandable.

We certainly have visited places were we were inclined to agree. Jiuzhaigou or Emeishan in Sichuan, Lijiang in Yunnan, Taishan in Shandong, all have a claim to the title. But we've concluded that Huangshan has no equal.

Situated in the south of Anhui province, just five hours southwest of Nanjing by bus, Huangshan (which means Yellow, or Imperial Mountain)is not just a single peak but a whole complex of peaks, each with its own extraordinary beauty. Of course to appreciate Huangshan, you need perfectly clear weather with just a hint of mist to provide some atmosphere. Too much mist however and you can't see anything. Being part of a mountain range means that it rains many days a year, again detracting from the extraordinary vista.

China's Hand's luck came to the fore this time. There are just eighty days a year when Huangshan can be viewed advantageously, and few of those days are perfect. Well we got just two perfect days. Enough to flatten the battery of my Olympus 740C, Susanna's Nikon Coolpix S5, and finally even my new phonecam Samsung SGH-D600. But we got just about everything in. See below for some typical snaps.

Huangshan is so compelling for Chinese people that accommodation and villas begin many miles from the actual peak complex and the nearby town of Tangkou. There is a large amount of accommodation at the foot of the mountains and even a large number at the top. At very intimidating prices however. Don't come to Huangashan unless you have a very large bag of money - an be prepared to spend it all! A room for two at one of the mountain villas? Starts at RMB Yuan 1000 sir! A dormitary room for four with two double bunks and a television? Yuan 250 extra for each person. We shared a room with six double dunks. It was included in the cost of the tour package from Nanjing. Males in one room, females in the other. Clean laundry, clean concrete floors. No windowes, no ventilation, no aircon. The old men in the group lit up cigarettes the moment they got into the room. So soon the floor was littered with butts. They only desisted when I pointed out the lack of ventilation and the impoliteness of the action. They had ignored signs saying no smoking as Chinese men will do.

Arriving in the Huangshan area the first thing I noticed was the milestones. 1549, 1550 - our bus driver confirmed they told the distance to Beijing. It was obvious after all - the quiet reminder of where the power lies. After winding around in hills we pulled off the road at a place called Jade Valley, or Lover's Valley as they like to promote it. A large poster, featuring Chow Yun Fat and Zhang Ziyi, indicated that this part of the Huangshan area had been used to film the bamboo grove fighting sceen in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

After a quick lunch in a typical rural hotel restaurant featuring a lot of wild herbs and vegetables, we were send to our rooms. Clearly it was a honeymoon type place with pictures of half naked women on the walls. Our friends Bosco & Linda, who are evangelical Christians, objected to this.

Once settled in we went off the the afternoon tour of two of the local sites, including the famous bamboo grove. The whole of the Huangshan area is covered with Bamboo groves. Strong, think bamboo which can grow to full height of 10-15 metres. The new shoots were fresh green while the older ones were grey. They grow to about 10-15 cm in diameter. The name is Maozhu, or spear Bamboo. The grove used by Ang Lee to film the famous bamboo grove fight was actually on a mountain side and must have used a lot of very clever angles to make it look like level ground. Later we visited a waterfall which unfortunately did not have a lot of water so there had not been a lot of rain recently in that area. Our guides were local people and very nice - usually quite apologetic for the inflated prices. One lady, once she got our confidence told us she had to refer us to the local teashop after the tour. It was a bit expensive, but if we stayed more than 15 minutes her company would get a certain commission even if we didn't buy anything. So we went.

The tea grown in the Huangshan area, Huangshan Maofeng, is touted as once of China's top ten teas and boasted gold medals at the Panama Grand Exhibition ih 1910 or some such. We tried about five different types and at the end of a decent interval Bosco surpised us all by buying several packets. Excellent gifts for visitors he felt. The bulk purchase ensured a big discount so Susanna also bought a packet of Yilan Xiang tea, good for women and an aid in sleeping. Of course at prices well above the price in the resort shop. But at some places the local women were trying almost to give the stuff away for five yuan a packet which suggested to us that there must be significant variations in quality.

That evening we decided not to have dinner at the hotel restaurant as there appeared to be a lot of private restaurants around of the rural family food types but the homes also had rooms for rent and were recently constructed in excellent quality decoration which Bosco stated was clearly Victorian in style. A small girl only twelve years old was our host and she explained they had ten rooms for rent. The dining room had only two tables but another two could be set up in the large living room. When her father came in Bosco and Susanna negotiated a dinner which again emphasized the use of many wild plants, mushrooms and fungi. The young girl had a big sister who helped her parents. The younger daughter was mostly away at a boarding school. Her English was just ok so we spoke Chinese with her. Outside the home we noticed a new Toyota Crown, of the type now made in Tianjin and speculated that it may belong to our host. Clearly a bit more than a rich peasant in the old marxist terms. The food was simple and good. After the day's exercise we ate heartily and put away a couple of bottles of beer.

Early the next morning we set off for Huangshan itself - some thirty minutes away by car. We changed to a tourist bus there which took us to the Cloud Valley Cable car station. Once there we found that the wait for the cable car was over three hours so there was no decision about waiting as the climb should be no more than three hours.

The last time we attempted such a climb was in 1981 - twenty four years ago when we climbed Taishan in Shandong. Then we walked from the railway station in Tai'an to the top in just nine hours. Old women with apparantly bound feet plodded past us as did coolies with a dozen bricks or so for building. This time we set off just as resolute but with a few more breaks. The 7 kilometer climb took us over the three hours but the guide was waiting for us so we did not miss any of the site seeing at the top. Our friends Linda and Bosco took a couple of hours longer than us and were waiting for us at the hotel when we returned.

It must be said that every view from Huangshan, given the perfect weather, was spectacular! Bare grey rock jutted boldly out from multi-hued shubbery - resplendant reds, yellows, and many shades of green. The massive groves of Maozhu - spear bamboo - whispered long nourished hopes and dreams. Thin cotton strands of mist rushed headlong over the crests of jagged ridges. Gurgling mountain streams bubbled, laughing at our panting exhaustion. The experience is totally overwhelming and cannot be compared to any other in China. Too bad the guides try to over-trivialize the experience with whymsical descrption of rocks looking like a pig writing a letter, two turtles mating e.g.

Truly words cannot portray, nor even still photography satisfy! You will run out of what ever film medium you do take - there is a 100 shots around every corner!

The first night we stayed over in the dormitary as described above. Exhausted we slept until 4am when we rose again to catch the sunrise at Brilliant Peak, some 1800 meters above sea level. A further, very steep three and a half kilometer climb before arriving at a small viewing platform, much too small for the huge Golden Week crowds. Despite being in the van we were well back from the railings and hence while I could see over heads on my tippy toes - Susanna could see nothing. I craned while Susanna gazed at the forest of digital camera viewers over our heads. Ill-informed viewers got impatient and some scuffles broke out. Long thin strands of cloud lit brilliantly golden by the still obscured sun, seemed to roll across the eastern sky like beach waves in the sunset.

But finally, long after our arrival, the dark red disk of the sun burst through the now golden clouds to a huge roar of delight from the crowd. Only Susanna groaned with frustration - she could see nothing. It will taunt her for the rest of her life that she came so far and missed the primary experience in Huangshan. Her chagrin none the less for discovering that our slow friends, Linda & Bosco has been guided to a platform nearby, by local sherpas, completely free of humanity which allowed them to set up their camera tripod and take perfect pictures and video!

From there we went from breakfast and then down to the famous Ying Ke Song - the Guest Welcoming Pine. Chairman Mao made this precipitous pine a very tired cliche by so praising it that every restaurant in China felt compelled to mount a picture of it and display it prominently. Sadly the actual pine is dying and held up by pieces of wire. Suggestions are that some of it is already fake. Still the visitors line up hundreds deep to be photographed with it. From there we go down to the Jade Screen where a cable car is waiting to whisk us to the foot of the mountain again. Thankfully the wait is less than twenty minutes and my shaking legs climb in gratefully. Our Huangshan odyssy is at an end.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Nanjing Revisited

Although I visited Nanjing several times in the 80's I haven't visited much since then. Oh, there was a visit in 1984 when I was taking my parents around China. As usual we did not do through agents but traveled just as I had always done in China as a business person - just by turning up. Things went well in Guilin and Hangzhou as it was a quiet period and we enjoyed the local sights without alarming my rather travel-shy parents. But when we arrived in Shanghai late one night it all broke down.

Shanghai was full - not a hotel room to be had anywhere. A complete disaster! The only solution that presented itself was the late train to Nanjing. And we headed off to the Shanghai station again, arriving in Nanjing at 2:3am. My wife with a one-year old in her arms, and me with two exhausted but stoical parents.

We booked in to the newly built Jinling Hotel which was very comfortable and went out to the usual Zhongshan Ling (the tomb of Dr Sun Yat-sen) and visited the old home of Soong Mei Ling, wife of Chiang Kai-shek, President of the Republic of China who fled to Taiwan in 1949. Anything else we did has escaped my recollection. Nanjing did remain in my memory however as a place which gave us refuge when Shanghai turned us away. I never went back however until this National Day holidays.

My wife booked the fast train and a hotel and our friends Bosco & Linda Ho joined for a well deserved break. Bosco is a chemical engineer setting up a research laboratory for the US water treatment firm, Navco. Linda is a web-site design specialist who has been doing a project for a US real estate firm trying to enter the local market.

We traveled soft class which always provides a degree of comfort as well as not having many standing passengers traveling with their life possessions and smoking, littering, spitting etc. Generally China Rail is an excellent example of a socialist enterprise which works well at the operational level - the trains are cleaned many times during a long journey and they always leave exactly on time. There is a constant supply of hot water as well as meals of various degrees of sophistication.

Getting long term bookings, return tickets of course is another matter. China Rail would no doubt like to reform but it can't. It must carry coal all over China almost free of charge to serve the government's mis-conceived and disastrous cheap energy policy. This means it must always be subsidized by the government and privatization, or even commercialization are out of the question. There are signs however that the government are realizing the policy of cheap energy, which universally results in gross waste of energy and air pollution, may not be working. This may mean the railways will be able to charge closer to market rates for coal carriage and hence allow it to move towards commercialization - and hence modern management using computer booking schemes and so on.

Our first impression of Nanjing was strongly positive as the new Nanjing Railway station rivals some of the best airports in China for impressive modern style and efficiency. Our hotel was very cheap for this peak holiday season at RMB yuan 300 per night - so we looked past the poor quality and obligatory disfunctional plumbing.

China was the world leader in irrigation and river control, but household drainage is a complete mystery as they never had water in the household which wasn't brought in a bucket. Making a ceramic bowl and flushing tank are simple for the world leaders in ceramics, but how to connect them up so they flush effectively, drain all waste and not smell disgustingly is one challenge too far. Even in the most expensive of modern apartments the odours coming from the toilet floor drains can be quite discomforting. The two keys to the problem seem to be the use of very narrow down pipes leading to frequent blockages unless paper is not placed in the bowl (the local practice)and a lack of understanding of the siphon principle which sucks `down the contents with the water.

The weather did not favor us in Nanjing as it rained all the first day. But we beat that problem by grabbing lunch at a nearby hotel and then having a nap for the afternoon. That evening Bosco's cousin, a retired medical doctor from the PLA and her husband, also a medical doctor, joined us for dinner at a Cantonese restaurant in Hunan Road near Food Street. Here the decor was modern and the food excellent. We learned a little of life for Bosco's cousin who returned to China in 1950 from Hong Kong and studied medicine in Xi'an before coming to live in Nanjing. We asked for an email address but they confessed to not having computers. Nor did their children have one. Modernization has not reached all levels of the PLA yet. Well they were retirees - even though they still consulted frequently. Bosco's cousin, despite her long time in China under the discipline of the PLA, spoke Cantonese the whole dinner, even to me. Her husband does not speak Cantonese so most of the time I spoke to him. After dinner they took us down to walk around food street which is very large and pleasant, then back to our hotel.

The next day we did the usual city tour: the jade market at the Nanjing Museum (Chaotian Gong), the Confucius temple, the Taiping Rebellion Museum, a Zen Buddhist Temple (Jian Yuan), the Yuhua Tai, monument to communist martyrs and youth league as well as a display of Nanjing's famous stones; the Donghua Gate of the city walls and the Zhongshan Ling, tomb of modern China's founder Dr Sun Yat-sen. Well we actually didn't get there - for a state one of the tour group booked herself into a fortune teller at the Buddhist temple and so delayed us half an hour - so we were just going to do a photo-op stop - but not even that was possible - some dignitaries decided to visit and so the whole site was shut down under the claim that too many people where there and it had become dangerous. This is not uncommon during Golden Week holidays. So we returned to our hotel.

The theme of many Nanjing tourism sites is the importance of Nanjing as a seat of central government in China. It had been the centre of the state of Wu which covered much of the land south of the Yangtze as well as some north two and a half thousand years ago. It became the centre of the Six Dynasties in the first millenium AD and then lapsed until the Ming Dynasty in the 14th Century decided to locate outside Beijing, the capital of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. Three Ming emperors sat it out in Nanjing before they decided Beijing had better weather and moved back. For a brief period in the middle of the 19th century the pseudo-Christian Taiping Rebels set up a capital in Nanjing,the Taiping Tianguo Ir'rI_1o until they were crushed by Qing Hunan General Zeng Guofan with some (minor) help from the famous British General Gordon. Dr Sun Yat-sen took it as his capital in the Chinese Republic in 1912 but Yuan Shih-Kai in Beijing still undermined his power and stole the presidency away. Still the KMT stayed in Nanjing, renaming Beijing, which means northern capital, in 1927 as Peiping 'r or Northern Peace. Finally, to get away from the seat of power of the KMT Mao set up in Beijing and Nanjing languished as the provincial seat of Jiangsu - totally overshadowed by the mighty metropolis of Shanghai downriver.

That evening we went back to Food Street for dinner and walked the length and breadth looking for inspiration. We looked at the local food restaurant - the Lion Gardens but it was already full. Bosco looked up a lane and saw a sign indicating an Italian restaurant. I was enthused and we went to have a look. It looked good but we still checked out all the other placed in the lane before returning to Jack's Place (????). There is a Jack's Place in Suzhou which had been highly recommended by my Singaporean program coordinator, Lynn. Her group really get around and seem to like the western style restaurants so I thought we should take a chance on the Nanjing iteration.

The recommended dish of the evening was lasange but I went for a pizza and my wife took the ravioli. Bosco had a steak and Linda had a set meal. Due to a mix up I got served Linda's soup and salad which I ate with gusto before the waiter noticed that I had not ordered a set meal. So she then had to serve a soup and salad to Linda as well. This was all handled well and cheerfully and we enjoyed the Sino-Italian ambiance and well trained staff. Later we got talking to Shirley Ding, the owner, who actually owns the Suzhou restaurant as well. She apologized for the food which she said is much better in Suzhou due to an almost hundred percent expatriate patronage. As a result she must prepare very authentic Italian food there, but in Nanjing where the patronage is almost one hundred percent local - she must make compromises with the local taste. I must say we didn't notice it. Shirley is one of those attractive, charming, open, and intelligent Chinese who are very popular with the expatriate community. She is obviously very entrepreneurial, a fast learner and a great manager. I'll be going to Jack's place in Suzhou very soon. I hope Shirley will be there!

Suzhou Manners

I used to think that the people of Fuzhou were the least friendly of anywhere I'd been in China. I visited twice in the 80's and the reception there was far from the usual overwhelming friendliness Chinese businessmen extended to all foreigners. I may have been unfair to them however. I was visiting first on behalf of, and then with a delegation from an Austalian firm interested in a joint venture in Fuzhou to make PVC building materials. My host seemed very standoffish, and did not offer the usual standard of cooperation and courtesy I had come to expect in China.

It was not until some years later that I learned that the firm had already begun joint venture negotiations via their Hong Kong agent and had become dissatisfied with the flow of information via the agent. Without informing me of the history they sent me in to arrange a meeting so they could get a better feeling for their potential partner than the HK agent was prepared to impart.

After my initial contact however the Chinese side contacted the HK agent to see what was going on. Presuming the Aussies were trying to cut him out (not an unreasonable assumption) he asked the Chinese side not to cooperate - hence the cool reception. I never forgot the slight however and never failed to tell people when I had the oppofrtunity, that the people of Fuzhou were the most unfriendly in China.

I may have cause to revise that unfair prejudice. Although I have had a good experience in Suzhou with most of my associations - my wife often complains of the attitude of service people here. Now I know what you're thinking - expat wives do not have a great reputation for getting along with the locals, regardless of where they are. Expat wives are often a particularly embittered race, withdrawn, protesting from their homeland, they have none of the rewards of the expatriate bosses who have the satisfaction of working with willing, intelligent and friendly local employees and the approval of head office when things go well. The business entertainment can also be very enjoyable depending on your appreciation of the local food and customs. Husbands are often away from the home over 12 hours a day including weekends. So the expatriate wives often take out their frustrations on the servants and local service people.

Well my wife is not like that. For a start she is Chinese from Hong Kong, and for seconds she has been living here in China with me since 1980. She appears to have a fine way with local people, fluent in their language (while making it plain she is a native Cantonese speaker)and she doesn't have the airs of social elevation some imagine they gain by marrying a foreigner. She seems to get along well with both government officials and local service people.

Today I went shopping with her to the local supermarket called Bairunfa (oUE>�>)on the city East Inner Ringroad. It is one of several in Suzhou which includes Aushang, Ole, and Metro (wholesale only). They generally follow the Western design priciples but largely stock products suitable for the local market. At one corner of the shop will be a few imported items. Twenty years ago supermarkets were shunned by locals shocked by the high prices. Now such places throng with the teeming masses, espceially on days like today which comes just before the traditional Chinese Autumn Festival (Zhongqiujie). So it was a revelation to see just how impossibly rude and ignorant the shop assistants there were. They didn't just argue with my wife, but with everyone! My wife avers it is the same in all supermarkets here. It is not universal of course, we did find one or two courteous and well informed staff. Sullen service was mostly the norm with gratuitous rudeness being just as exceptional as courtesy.

The large number of people thronging the stores cannot be the cause. In Huizhou there is a similar number of supermarkets locked in bitter competition, and the assistants generally appear well trained and courtious. Nor would anyone accuse the Hakka Cantonese of taking the World Best prize for politeness. So I have to return to my wife's refrain: Suzhou people appear the least pleasant and well manner of anywhere we have been in China. It seems to be a similar pattern in buses, restaurants, the famous gardens and all. Odd for a major tourism centre don't you think?

Monday, September 25, 2006

Time to Celebrate?

After four years of blocking the blogspot.com site in China, it appears there has been a respite. I have been able since yesterday to see my original site rather than the mirror site set up by John Ray of Dissecting Leftism fame.

Of course it could be an abberation. My local carrier may be falling down on the job. It might be a temporary lift of censorship due to the imminent visit of a US VIP. Whatever it is I have been encouraged to update my blog and make a weekly list of my comings and goings where they are of note.

The censoring of Blogspot.com was always a bit of a mystery. It did tend to be the place where a lot of disgruntled English teachers vented their collective spleens. And indeed many were splenetic. Most were fresh graduates having a paid holiday in China, with no, or little qualifications in English teaching. Their main beef seemed to be that things didn't go as easily in China as they do in the good-old US of A. Being young, and knowing no constraint, they really let fly with trenchant criticisms. Many were personal, directed at school leaders, or program developers.

Nothing much different to any blog you'll see. Immoderate, even foul, language. Libal with no limit. Often grossly illiterate. You can see where I'm leading. In a society where criticism is often expressed in elliptical terms, if at all, a lot of sensitivities were trampled on.

The natural reaction may have been to add the website to the huge number of those blocked in China. Either due to ignorance, or lack of concern, the site for uploading the blogs was left unscathed, so the cacophony could still be heard around the world but not in China. A wonderful example of 'head-in-the-sand' thinking.

Anyway it will be worth watching in the next few weeks. All recent signs, such as Xinhua cornering all financial news streams, point towards increasing levels of censorship. If this is a straw in the wind, then it might be a comforting one.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Language Reform

Lets make a new political rule. Lets call it China Hand's Rule on Political Policy. Here it is: Any policy, effectively implemented for long enough, will lead to a new policy which is effectively its negation. That doesn't sound very elegent. I once heard a better formation called the Paradox of Unintended Consequences: A policy, though effectively implemented, may lead to the opposite consequence of those intended.

That doesn't really work for my first test case in which the consequences were exactly as forseen, only now we regret it. In the 1950's, after the People's Repubic had become established and stabilized, the government turned to implement the policies it had promised, such as land reform and nationalization. This was a key policy of the Mao Zedong Communist government, vital to secure the support of the peasantry, who he correctly believed were central to his success.

But other policies had little to do with Mao's socialist vision: for example stabilizing the currency was vital to political stability. Another raft of policies must have come out of the Mirror of Government, the ancient guide to government these young revolutionaries are said to have consulted. Examples are repairing of the Grand Canal running between Beijing and Hanzhou, and repairing the levee banks of the main flood-prone rivers.

One central policy implementation of the 1950's was language reform. All good dynasties in China, in addition to the above measures, are required to assay a new standardization of the language. In a country with over 200 officially recognized dialects and 56 minority languages, there is a vast diversity of pronounciations available for each character. Moreover sloppy or creative scholarship over the years led the 10,000 basic characters to bloat out to 45,000. No great meaning was added by the extra 35,000 characters, many were just wrongly written versions of older characters which had fallen into common usage.

This project was seized upon with great joy by the scholars of Beijing, no doubt irked by the offensive accents of the peasant revolutionaries now dominating their city. After much discussion they published the ubiquitous New China Dictionary (DA_YxT`,)with a final say on tone and pronunciation of each character. The Chinese Phonetic Spelling System (O<''O")was also standardized.

This was very commendable and we are all very grateful that they managed to prevail in the use of Beijing Dialect (the official version) being adopted as the basis for a national language to be called the Common Language, or Putonghua('OI"_o). Grateful that is that Mao did not insist on his own dialect, that of Shaoshan in Hunan, which is somewhat less than music to the ears.

Mao did insist on character reform, or simplification however, and after much acrimonious debate the scholars emerged with a tranch of 800 commonly used characters whose complexity was reduced from average 16 strokes to 8 strokes. Generally the scholars used simple forms already common in China. Ironically the Chinese character for 'hoe', which Mao had used as an example (By the time the peasant cadres had written hoe, the meeting was half over he joked!)was not part of that tranch. A later tranch of 700 in the mid-70's was dropped however as too controversial. (A pity as I spent a lot of time learning them!)

Well Mao now had his standards and set out like a good emperor to ensure they were implemented universally. The New China Dictionary guided pronounciation and for the most part it was fairly successful. Only a few were ignored in normal speech which is a miracle in terms of such a dynamic thing as a language. Phonetic Spelling, known in English as pinyin, was enthusiastically embraced, even in the Open Door period, and signs and brands in pinyin prevailed (producing such comic effects as the word pixie, meaning leather shoes, but looking like something completely different to an Englishg reader.)

Enforcing the use of Putonghua, however was another thing. Having spent a lot of time around Cantonese (particularly those from Hong Kong) I know there is a clear protocol: if there are two or more Cantonese speakers in a room, regardless of the number of non-speakers, they must use Cantonese for all verbal communication. Not so elegent I know - but it is universally observed in Hong Kong and amongst Hong Kong people wherever they go in the world. I guess there might have been similar rules for other dialects too. But Putonghua was made almost universal in schools in China, apart from Guangdong Province. Even in Mao's China, exeption had to be made for the Cantonese!

But even in Guangdong, I now hear parents carefully bring their children up in Mandarin, sorry Putonghua. Again apart from Guangdong, all radio and television broadcasts had to be in Putonghua. The only place dialect was allowed was at home and in performances of the local opera. This was rigidly enforced and now the level of Putonghua usage in China is very high, albeit still not universal.

Just this year however I have noticed a change. The Shanghai Daily ( now complete with ads for local massage parlors!)wrote recently that the local opera - Yueju (Or_O)- was in danger of dying out as few could understand it. Other articles this year have regretted the declining use of Shanghainese dialect due to the influx of newcomers in Shanghai who could not speak Shanghai dialect.

Now the negation! The government has begun to experiment with classes in Shanghai dialect at a few schools. Suddenly we hear the term, 'cultural heritage' being used with great fervour. In Jiangsu all local cities are allowed to have programs in local dialect to promote knowledger of the local culture. The policy was simply too effective. It almost wiped out some local dialects. It's opposite will now prevail. Chinese policy, as it does so often, mirrors the developments in all modernizing countries. Having promoted uniformity until it looked like working, they now preach diversity. Welcome to the new China!

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Recent activity in sweltering Suzhou

Today, despite the 36 deg heat we got into an old intercity bus for the town of Shengze, just an hour away to the south of Suzhou. Shengze is the place where they make all the silk cloth. Otherwise it is just another small town, indistinguishable from all the others except by a large number of flash imported,cars. Many of them two door coupes.

The bus was clean and old fashioned albeit with fixed windows and (ineffective) air conditioning. It wasn't full when we left but we stopped at four small bus stations on the way, picking up and putting down, full most of the time. Shenze is in the city of Wujiang which borders Zhejiang province, tothe south of Jiangsu where we live.

The road runs alongside the old Grand Canal which I must say is a very busy artery, with very large motorized barges full of mostly building materials, sand, gravel, brick, dirt, steel and concrete girders. They move along at about 20 knots I would guess. In some places they are lined up forecastle to aft, in others they are spaced out.

The canal is quite wide allowing the barges to pass each other easily in the opposite direction. As you all know the Grand Canal is said to run from Hangzhou in the south to Beijing in the north. But I must admit I've never seen such big barges around Beijing.

We ate in a small Taiwanese style fast food food place. Bean milk, onion oil cake, Shanghainese dumplings (Xiao long bao), noodles and some sweet buns. Very filling and mostly very tasty. Yes we got the dry msg mouth soon after! The place was relatively clean and not every table had smokers. After a full lunch was wandered down to the silk shops to try and buy some ties for son Ollie who has been promoted to Duty Supervisor at the St George Sailing Club and so works regular hours now, albeit still three evening shifts. He was a dit diffident about applying for the job when it came up but the other supervisors urged him to go for it and his colleagues were supportive. At 23 he might have thought he was a bit young to be taking authority, but everyone seems to be very supportive. He is learning the paperwork and has made the very corrupting discovery that supervisors don't have to run around like blue arsed flies all the time!

Susanna went into a couple of shops and we checked out the ties. Not too bad. Good quality but fairly conservative style. Anyway we got about five ties so he is sure to find one or two he likes. Susanna had good fun negotiating the prices down until the owners where in tears about the massive losses they were making.

Then she had

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Saturday, April 05, 2008

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Monday, December 31, 2007