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Insight to Chinese minds?

July 29th, 2010 by Johanna | No Comments | Filed in China, Media, Reflections

At work, we get these really awful opinion submissions. They are awful for mainly two reasons:

1) Illogical application or interpretation of presented evidence (not to mention, questionable selection of evidence for argument)

2) Absence of a clearly stated opinion that isn’t a generic “the government should do more to promote x” or “there should be equality in x area of society.”

Part of the problem may well be caused by differences in writing styles — it would appear that Chinese writing is not based on clear and logical flow of information and analysis — as well as things getting lost in translation.

When I probe my colleagues about what something means and how it possibly makes sense or why it’s even in the article — when it makes no reference to the original topic — they often admit that they couldn’t make sense of the author’s argument, either. So, I had this epiphany: A lot of these bizarre “opinions” and “arguments” for them are similar to lectures my father have given me! He’d start off on what I assume to be the topic, related to whatever transgression I might have made, provide anecdotal “evidence” that may or may not be true, go off on tangents here and there and include something that I think is supposed to be a metaphor. In the end, I’m thoroughly confused and, well, unconvinced.

Taiwan at the WTTC’s annual conference

May 26th, 2010 by Johanna | No Comments | Filed in China, Media, Stories, Work

Summits are not my thing. Even as much as I love travelling, the World Travel and Tourism Council’s annual get-together in Beijing these few days is just a bit dry and (save for a few interesting reports) unenlightening. Where’s anything about eco-tourism? Voluntourism? They did talk a lot about sustainability and doing environmentally-friendly things (especially questioning the airline industry), but what about non-traditional travel that really tries to reinvent the meaning of tourism?

Anyway, two things that did amuse me to no end:

  • Newsweek, one of the summit’s sponsors, had a booth with issues of its May 24 and 31 double issue on global travel. In it is an article about Taiwan that described it as an “island nation.” Some poor worker had gone through literally hundreds, if not thousands, of copies with a Sharpie and blotted out “nation” in all of them.
  • During one panel discussion, moderator Erin Burnett of CNBC introduced herself as a big fan of travel, saying she has a goal of visiting 100 countries before proudly stating that she had visited her 65th one earlier in the week (or last week). Then she said that country was Taiwan. A very brief pause followed as the audience silently and collectively gasped, while Burnett immediately realized her faux pas: “…which sort of counts on my list,” she tried to clarify.

Freedom of speech

February 2nd, 2010 by Johanna | No Comments | Filed in China, Media, USA! USA!

Stanley Fish has a good blog post at the Times, where he discusses two approaches to the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United v. Federal Election commission. Basically, the SC ruled 5-4 to overturn bans on corporate political spending, including McCain-Feingold. The case revisited the issue of the free speech rights of corporations — namely, if they have the same rights as US citizens, whom the First Amendment protects. (If you’ve seen The Corporation, you know the corporation is a strange entity with an identity crisis.) Where you stand on this issue may inform your argument of whether it may sometimes be appropriate to limit speech of corporations, especially if you think the First Amendment shouldn’t apply to them. But the corporate angle aside, the SC has realized that it is indeed sometimes appropriate to limit speech: hate speech, speech that incites violence, pornography — restrictions on these kinds of speech have all been upheld. To use a cliche, you can’t shout “fire” in a crowded theater when there isn’t one. The SC has recognized the dangers of speech and the consequences unrestricted speech could bring. One of those consequences lies at the heart of this case: Unrestricted free speech could actually restrict free speech.

Stevens is worried — no, he is certain — that the form of speech Kennedy celebrates will corrupt the free flow of information so crucial to the health of a democratic society. “[T]he distinctive potential of corporations to corrupt the electoral process [has] long been recognized.” [...] Behind such strong statements is a twin fear: (1) the fear that big money will not only talk (the metaphor that converts campaign expenditures into speech and therefore into a matter that merits First Amendment scrutiny), but will buy votes and influence, and (2) the fear that corporations and unions, with their huge treasuries, will crowd out smaller voices by purchasing all the air time and print space.

So do we limit the speech rights of certain people (or corporations) to protect the speech rights of others (in this case, a greater number of people)? Is this even a legitimate fear? The majority thought not:

The question of where that discussion might take the country is of less interest than the overriding interest in assuring that it is full and free, that is, open to all and with no exclusions based on a calculation of either the motives or the likely actions of individual or corporate speakers. In this area, the majority insists, the state cannot act paternally. Voters are adults who must be “free to obtain information from diverse sources”; they are not to be schooled by a government that would protect them from sources it distrusts.

Instead of a paternalistic government deciding for us what kind of information can reach us, the SC throws its faith behind the mysterious marketplace of ideas and lets market forces become the arbiter of what we know. And yet, by deciding to invest in the marketplace of idea, isn’t the government still filtering the information we get?

“Faith” in the marketplace of ideas may not be the best term to use. As Fish points out, Oliver Wendell Holmes acknowledged that consequences could be quite bad — but oh well. Still, some part of me thinks that for most anyone who advocates an open and free marketplace, he will need, at his very core, to believe that people will choose what’s good and right, or at the very least, that whatever does happen is what’s good and right. It’s a very passive approach.

…Unlike another country I am reminded of. If you want to talk about paternal governments, the Chinese government seems to take the complete opposite view: no faith in the goodness of the marketplace, and by extension, humanity, but plenty in the goodness of the government. It hinders speech willy-nilly at random points. Two recent — and more humorous — examples come to mind, the “illegal flower tribute,” which became the Internet catchphrase du jour following the 2010 Google Incident, and Han Han’s accidental (but still illegal) “Party Central” reference.

Being in a country so diametrically opposed to the ideas I was brought up to champion is making me more inclined to concede to the principled view and let speech go unfettered. Sure, there is a ton of misinformation and vile spewage in the marketplace of ideas, but most of the time you can find something trustworthy. Not so in China: Ask three different people, whom you would think were reliable sources, and you’ll get three different answers, all of which are right and wrong at the same time. Communication is unclear here, and I suspect the government’s own murky laws governing speech has something to do with it.

China’s disappearing middle class

January 22nd, 2010 by Johanna | No Comments | Filed in China, Media

China Newsweek’s last issue focused on China’s “disappearing” middle class. Leave it to China to mis-characterize or misinterpret a particularly strange phenomenon — the rise in the cost of living in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

The gist of it goes like this: The middle class — which includes small business owners, business/financial people, journalists — is struggling to survive in Beijing, where housing prices are jumping 50 percent in a matter of months. They are spending almost their entire monthly household income on rent or to pay off their apartments, the down payments of which they had to use their parents’ entire life’s savings to pay for. They have little money left for discretionary spending, so no more movies or shopping sprees. It is also harder for recent college graduates (who are expected to become middle-class residents) to become middle class.

Middle-class citizens can no longer afford to buy homes in big cities like Beijing, even after saving for forever, so the middle class must be disappearing! This extraordinary leap in logic can be partially explained by the Chinese obsession with homeownership. Sure, it’s a “goal” and a measure of success in the States, as well, but in China, it’s practically the end-all, be-all. On top of that, the Chinese think the ultimate measure of success is a life in the big city — no other city will do.

Oddly enough, a family moves to Hefei, the capital of Anhui Province, and by all measures, their lifestyle seems satisfactory: decent home, friends, quality goods. But the husband still feels “awkward” about it. Why? Hefei is a “secondary” city — and with terminology like that, no one is going to feel good about living there.

So basically, the Chinese put huge pressure on themselves to buy apartments in the big cities, and the huge demand is making housing prices unaffordable. They want homes in the city so badly that they’re literally spending every last mao they have to buy one and then cry that they can’t do or buy anything that middle-class people are supposed to be able to do or buy.

If they were Americans, they’d just do and buy it anyway on credit and rack up a huge debt. But at least they wouldn’t have this identity crisis where they don’t even think of themselves as middle-class anymore.

These Chinese, they don’t know how good they have it. Try living in Brooklyn! The financial crisis has made living there reminiscent of the Holocaust!

Google and spending in China

January 13th, 2010 by Johanna | No Comments | Filed in China, Media, Reflections

Two things of interest today:

  • There’s a Google-CCP battle brewing. Google will no longer censor itself to appease the Chinese government after discovering hackers from somewhere in China accessed the Gmail accounts of some human rights activists. It’s good to see a major company giving the finger to China. Working together is great and all, but China acts like a big spoiled baby too much. The Western media have jumped all over this story, but China’s state-run presses (CCTV, Xinhua, our very own China.org.cn) have kept mum about it.
  • Credit Suisse’s annual survey on Chinese consumption habits showed that the Chinese are earning more and saving less. Besides the scary implications of having to satisfy the wants of 1.5 billion people, will buying more things make the Chinese more individualistic? After all, buying is all about making choices and expressing ourselves through those choices. Would this wrangle the Chinese free of their traditional communal uniformity?

Things that must not be said

January 7th, 2010 by Johanna | No Comments | Filed in China, Media

It’s rather obvious, but should you see a sentence with vague implications like this one

Environmental protection measures will surely have some impacts on the province’s GDP growth.

it means it’s something bad. In this case, the “impact” that environmental protection will have is slowing the GDP growth, but no one in China will (or can) say that on record. It makes you wonder why they say anything at all.

Pictures are worth a thousand words, but why stop there?

December 25th, 2009 by Johanna | No Comments | Filed in China, Media, Reflections

Pictures are powerful. Besides having high artistic value, a good photo will say a lot about a particular event, time or place. In other words, it will tell a story.

But news photos are always accompanied by cutlines. Why? From the Poynter Institute:

Photos tend to communicate in an impressionistic way; they are rarely as precise or clear as verbal communication. They beg for confirmation in words.

The Chinese media are atrociously bad at delivering good cutlines. Admittedly, I’m super weak at writing heds and cutlines myself, but I don’t think China has understood there is an art behind them yet. Perhaps it can be attributed to the repression of knowledge by the Chinese government; the Chinese simply aren’t accustomed to get more information and more details, details, details. Whatever it is, it has produced a lot of redundant and un-newsworthy junk.

Here are some basic guidelines to good cutlines, and infractions by Chinese media.

  • Add value to the picture with specific information. Don’t simply describe the action in the photo, particularly if it is obvious.

An old man stands in his grocery store. (This is the original; my attempt to make it better isn’t really any better.)

Japan’s Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama touches his nose during a news conference in Tokyo December 24, 2009.

A couple dance at the party.

  • Avoid making judgments. “An unhappy citizen watches the protest…” Can you be sure that he is unhappy? Or is he hurting. Or just not photogenic. If you must be judgmental, be sure you seek the truth.

Tourists enjoy themselves on the 22nd Taiyangdao Island International Snow Sculpture Expo in Harbin, capital of northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, Dec. 24, 2009.

  • Don’t let cutlines recapitulate information in the head or deck or summary. By extension, they shouldn’t recapitulate information in another photo.

Workers water flowers hanging on street lamps near a church. [1] [2]

U.S. President Barack Obama, accompanied by First Lady Michelle Obama and First Daughters Malia and Sasha, walks towards Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington D.C. Dec. 24, 2009. [1] [2] [3]

It can also be argued that the real problem is alack of good photos. It is nearly impossible to write a good cutline for most of these examples.

Tips can be found here, here and here.

That darn ambiguous humane quality

December 22nd, 2009 by Johanna | No Comments | Filed in China, Media, Work

Edited this graf today:

Salmon’s cultural awareness and passion make poignant contrast to the indifference of Hainan residents. To protect local culture in Hainan requires enhancing local people’s recognition of the importance of culture and raising their humane quality. Then the international traveling island of Hainan can be founded successfully.

Besides sounding editorial, there was that gem of a sentence in the middle. Perhaps the awkward translation from Chinese to English has something to do with its uncomfortable political incorrectness, but my interpretation of the sentence is that Hainan residents have insufficient levels of “humane quality.” Is that supposed to be humanity? Is the reporter insinuating that Hainan residents are inhumane? Uncivilized barbarians?

Here’s the context: The government is spending lots of money to develop the island province of Hainan, China’s version of Hawaii. (It is not a “traveling island.”) As such, there are all these committees and organizations researching how best to proceed and subsequently reporting their findings. In the process, the often-touchy and easily offended Chinese government, notorious for its banning of any bad reports about it and its actions, has allowed this unflattering detail about its people in the media.

So, important distinction to be made here: Ripping on the government—wrong. Ripping on the people—totally OK.

Chinese reporter guilty of bribery

August 9th, 2009 by Johanna | No Comments | Filed in China, Media

According to American media ethics, good journalists will never accept gifts, money or other sorts of compensation for their work in an attempt to remain unbiased. Thus, I thought it was really qiguai (weird) when my roommate was given 100 yuan for covering a story on kids of government officials. Then a few weeks later, I was sent to cover a press conference and festival opening and given 300 yuan (about $45) from the organizers. It made me more than uncomfortable, but I accepted that this was the Chinese way.

Thus, it was even stranger to read that a reporter from the state-owned CCTV was found guilty of taking bribes from her lover who was the brother of a man under investigation. The Wall Street Journal explained it thus:

China’s criminal law defines the crime of bribery as occurring when “state personnel take advantage of their office to demand money and things from other people” or when they “obtain favors.” In this case, the Shanxi procuratorate’s office successfully argued that Ms. Li was an employee of a government organization, since CCTV is run by the state. However, in practice, it is common for Chinese journalists to receive “red packets” filled with cash for attending press conferences and other corporate events, purportedly to cover their travel expenses.

My cash didn’t come in a hongbao, just a Chinese money envelope. Anyway, I guess in China, it’s OK for the state to bribe reporters. Sometimes I forget how hypocritical and nonsensical China is.

Xinjiang riots are affecting my life

July 7th, 2009 by Johanna | No Comments | Filed in China, Media

After blocking Twitter yesterday, China seems to have blocked access to Facebook and AIM, as well. At least, I can’t get on them. I can’t find any reports of problems with AIM, but I have no idea why I can’t get on it (Chinese people use MSN Messenger, anyway). It went down around the same time as Facebook, and well, the government makes a great scapegoat.

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