China Blog

I found an actual good one.

This is an article about how Chinese elite prefer Obama.

And this is another article about the Olympics and anti-China sentiments.

China and Africa

I found an interesting post about an article written by the President of Senegal.

Cool tip for storing fruits and vegetables

Western Coverage of Tibetan Protests

http://www.anti-cnn.com/ exposes some of the mistakes that free and unbiased Western news outlets made about the protests.

Tibet History

Chris Nebe made a documentary about Tibet and China history. It's not actually that well-made, but it's got some good footage and provides good context for the Tibet issue.

Olympics

Warning: this post is probably offensive unless you're mainland Chinese.

The ultimate Olympic sport is how much humiliation can China take? Don't worry. It's lots.

Actually, in 1989 (?) Wang Shuo 王朔, wrote a book with this premise called Please Don't Call Me Human 千万别把我当人.

I've had it with the protesters, though. For a while, I've been trying to be like, oh well, it's a good way to publicize issues and for people to put pressure on the Chinese government. But you know what? No. It's offensive, it's ignorant, it's pretentious, it's bullshit. Most of the protesters don't know what they're talking about; they just want to feel good about themselves by ragging on a country that everyone hates anyways.

What bothers me the most is the hypocrisy of it all. People are just so used to the idea of China abusing human rights that China is practically synonymous with human rights abuse at this point. Of course, Western opinion isn't biased at all given that China has been an enemy for the greater part of the previous century. I'm not saying there aren't problems, but how can you say that China is the biggest human rights abuser and it doesn't deserve to host Olympics and it really 'challenges the conscience of the world.' What about IRAQ? Hello? That sure challenges my conscience. The US just invaded that 5 years ago to "liberate" Iraqis, and I'd even venture to say that they've fucked them up way more than the Han Chinese fucked up Tibetans. What about Guantanamo? Overthrowing governments in Latin America? Plight of Native Americans? Violence and oppression in Africa, which of course has nothing to do with the fact that the 'enlightened' Western nations enslaved and colonized black people. And of course, what about Israel? If people care about human rights so much, why the hell are people not more concerned about Palestinians? But no, they're Muslim and terrorists, and we don't negotiate with terrorists. Oh wait, didn't the US create Al Qaeda in Afghanistan to fight the Russians? SHHHHHH America is a beacon of hope, freedom, and democracy, you unpatriotic communist heathen. Behold, our fair and unbiased media, and our democracy which elected George W Bush, TWICE.

Many of the people who protest think they're being sooo brave. Mouthing off about a country across the ocean that everyone already doesn't like is not courageous! Give me a break. Protesting and working to change things that are wrong in your own community is much more difficult, although perhaps less glorious. For example, calling for the US to close bases it doesn't need. VERY complicated. Calling for Israel to compromise to create a Palestinian state already. Suddenly, you're a Nazi. Working to fix a lame system and oil barons for sustainable energy! Working on climate change issues is human rights!

People think that Chinese people all hate the Chinese government. They're right and wrong. In America, if you complain a lot, people think it means you're unpatriotic. In contrast, Chinese people love to complain about their government. But they are still proud that it's come a long way, and they don't want to see China fall. They still get offended if Westerners criticize China and demand things aggressively. It comes off as being hostile to China's security and economic interests. They all saw how happy the US was when the USSR fell. Chinese people don't want China to become like how Russia is today. The US is already in Japan, Korea, and Afghanistan, and they regularly do reconnaissance tours off the southern coast of China. And of course, the US just invaded Iraq. Chinese people would be hopelessly naive if they weren't worried about US aggression. Hello, during the so-called "Cold War" China fought the US in Viet Nam, Korea, and the KMT during the Communist Revolution. Also, China just went through a century of being too weak to stand up to Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and the US so naturally, they are sensitive to complaints and demands from the West. When the Chinese complain about US meddling, the context is that the US was the main supplier of weapons, money, and even food to the KMT during the Communist Revolution, who subsequently got their asses handed to them anyway, and ran away to Taiwan. America, land of the free, home of the brave rich people, was committed to keeping the KMT in power. If either the Democratic or Republican Parties were strongly supported by a foreign country, say Saudi Arabia, Americans would surely object to how much control that country has over American politics.

I'm JUST SAYING

My Subversive Boss

he got subpoenaed and written about in the new york times. how exciting!

Flag Campaign

Sheeshee had these flags on her desktop.

The flag-campaign is for Revista Grande Reportagem, and the idea is to 'bring across concept that the magazine offers profound journalism about topics of real importance to the world of today.'

Regulation Policy and Law

Sheeshee and I got A's on our regulation of food, drug, pesticides, and radiation policy and law midterm! I am so relieved and happy, but also kind of like, oh my god, other people did worse?

Water Water everywhere except in Alamosa Colorado

There has been a story floating around the news this last week about a small town in Colorado whose water supply was shut down by salmonella. The entire town's drinking supply had to be taken off-line because an unknown source salmonella was making a lot of people sick. They had to use a lot of chlorine to disinfect the water pipes and then water couldn't be used for drinking, eating, or bathing until chlorine levels dropped. Basically you could flush your toilet and that was it. What I find interesting in this story is that every news outlet basically reports it as a human interest story. Oh it is interesting that people are drinking thousands of bottles of water in order to survive, or that people haven't been able to shower in days. It is cute to watch people rough it, but it seems there has been very little appreciation for what most other people in the world do on a daily basis, which is survive without clean water. Another aspect of this I find surprising is the fact that no one is really mentioning that the town's water supply was not even chlorinated to begin with. The lack of pretreatment is the entire reason why a bacterial contamination event was even able to occur. I am not advocating everyone needlessly treat their water out of some irrational fear, but it would seem this fact would be far more integral to the story than an off-hand fact buried in a paragraph somewhere or not mentioned at all.