Black and White Cat

Information, Tutu and Tibet

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Ten days ago, when Lian Yue rejected suppression of information on Tibet, he had broad support from his readers. Here’s Danwei’s translation of his post:

Information Theory of Tibet

1. Any power which tries to withhold information should be regarded as a bad power.
2. Any power that keeps people from getting information should be regarded as a bad power.
3. Any information released by a power that has monopoly over releasing information should be regarded as a lie.
4. A power that tries to distort and withhold information should be responsible for the consequences.
5. A power that keeps people from getting information does not have the credibility to tell people what is true and what is false.
6. Information being suppressed is the only cause of the worsening situation and deepening disagreement, because each side can say whatever they want and none of it is provable.
7. Extreme nationalism is passionate and irrational. It is nourished by the suppression of information. Tibetan supremacist, Han supremacist, anti-Japanese sentiment and anti-Taiwan sentiment run rampant in an environment where information is suppressed.
8. Mainland China is a place where [people with] extreme feelings are the biggest supporters of power, and these people and feelings prevent power from reforming itself.
9. Only freedom of information expression can dissolve extreme sentiments. Trying to withhold dangerous information is the most dangerous way to act.

Therefore, one important way to solve the problem is to give the media freedom to interview in Tibet.

Another post by Lian Yue a few days ago was less popular:

Tutu’s proposal on Tibet

Archbishop Tutu has issued a statement of mediation. Much of what he says will perhaps make many people unhappy, very unhappy. However, when someone like this, who is not very likely to harbor malice against China, says things so divergent from what you imagine, perhaps it is time to take a look at your own problems. If the world has really misunderstood you for decades, at the same time as you criticize the world, you should also consider what it is that makes us so easily misunderstood.

Statement on Tibet and China

I wish to express my solidarity with the people of Tibet during this critical time in their history. To my dear friend His Holiness the Dalai Lama, let me say: I stand with you. You define non-violence and compassion and goodness. I was in an Easter retreat when the recent tragic events unfolded in Tibet. I learned that China has stated you caused violence. Clearly China does not know you, but they should. I call on China’s government to know His Holiness the Dalai Lama, as so many have come to know, during these long decades years in exile. Listen to His Holiness’ pleas for restraint and calm and no further violence against this civilian population of monastics and lay people.

I urge China to enter into a substantive and meaningful dialogue with this man of peace, the Dalai Lama. China is uniquely positioned to impact and affect our world. Certainly the leaders of China know this or they would not have bid for the Olympics. Killing, imprisonment and torture are not a sport: the innocents must be released and given free and fair trials.

I urge my esteemed friend Louise Arbour, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Tibet and be given access to assess, and report to the international community, the events which led to this international outcry for justice. The High Commissioner should be allowed to travel with journalists, and other observers, who may speak truth to power and level the playing field so that, indeed, this episode — these decades of struggle — may attain a peaceful resolution. This will help not only Tibet. It will help China.

And China, poised to receive the world during the forthcoming Olympic Games needs to make sure the eyes of the world will see that China has changed, that China is willing to be a responsible partner in international global affairs. Finally, China must stop naming, blaming and verbally abusing one whose life has been devoted to non violence, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, a Nobel peace laureate.

The first reader’s response to this post received the most number of votes:

If China let people who think like you run the country, things could only get worse!

In 1989, I was still a child. When I saw students everywhere carrying big tape recorders playing Voice of America broadcasts and mobilizing crowds, I admired them a lot. But time has allowed me to understand what is right. Time will also test whether or not you are right.

Human civilization is very complex. Let time tell what is right and what is wrong!

Lian Yue, if you have talent then please start from the basics. There’s no way the Chinese government will allow someone like you to go into politics. But national relations and relationships between people are based on much the same things. Try setting up a business - it can big or small! See if you can do well and how many people you can provide a livelihood for.

One step at a time
Give 100 people a living.
Give 1,000 people a living..
Give 10,000 people a living…
Even more and more…..

If you can do this, a great many people will support your ideals. Talking to much is useless. Thinking too much is useless. Try it out and see.

In short, I really hate you. Honestly.

Right now 143 people have voted in support of this comment, 76 against. There was, however, this response from another reader:

“There’s no way the Chinese government will allow someone like you to go into politics.”

This sentence is quite interesting. Is it the people who will or will not allow ** to go into politics, or the government who will or will not allow Lian Yue to go into politics? We can tell a lot from this judgement about a person’s way of thinking.

This comment currently has 36 votes for, 3 against.

Filed in Tibet, China | Comments (1)

Truth and lies - Tibet and Iraq

Friday, March 21, 2008

There is some anger being expressed by Chinese citizens about foreign media reporting on the Tibet protests and violence. To a certain extent it is justified. Showing pictures of Nepali security forces beating Tibetan protesters and labeling those pictures as Chinese violence is at best sloppy, at worst a lie. And I keep wondering why so many writers can only bring themselves to say that Tibetan protesters have “attacked” Han civilians. Is “killed” too hard a word to write?

But Chinese criticism might be more credible if the same anger was expressed about the totally one-sided reporting by Chinese media. Foreign media might make some mistakes. That happens. It might have some biases. That happens too. But Chinese media is complete in its bias and censorship - there are no exceptions to this when it comes to Tibet and Xinjiang. I would also feel more sympathy if those same Chinese media - and Chinese citizens - showed more willingness to understand the real desires and grievances of Tibetans and other minorities. Instead, the majority voice is one of Han chauvinism similar to that of the British in India. There’s even the “we built them a railway and they’re so ungrateful” argument.

The Tibetan protests erupted on the anniversary of the 1959 uprising. There was another anniversary this week - the fifth anniversary of the US-British invasion of Iraq. That is where far more anger should be directed. Anger about the killing and anger about the lies. Watching the BBC just now, I learned that “tens of thousands” of Iraqis have been killed. In 2006, the best estimate for Iraqi deaths was 650,000. Now, the number could be more than a million. The BBC’s “tens of thousands” sounds very much like the Sudanese government’s claim that 8,000 people have died in Darfur. What should we make of that?

Filed in Tibet, Other things, China | Comments (9)

Ethnic harmony - or not

Thursday, March 20, 2008

It’s been quite some time since Yahoo mercifully closed down its news discussion boards. Especially at times of crisis, whether real or perceived, they could make you lose almost all faith in humanity. Below is a translation of one Chinese person’s reaction, posted on Woeser’s blog, to the same phenomenon in China. Text in square brackets is mine, and does not appear in the original Chinese post.

Family relations established through rape
By a lonely Han

For days on end, events in Tibet have been the hottest news in China and abroad. Today, the Chinese mainstream media news site Sina.com carried another Xinhua article with the headline “The Dalai clique destroys social stability in Tibet; it is doomed to fail.” It goes without saying that the article was full of vocabulary like “a small handful, an extremely small number, organized, premeditated, meticulously plotted and directed, there is sufficient evidence to prove, exercised enormous restraint.” Anyone who has lived in China for more than 20 years will probably know these words well enough to recite them. There is nothing new about them.

What did draw attention was the readers’ comments at the end of the article. Thanks to the Internet, we can now hear the voice of “the people” straight away. This time, “the people” and the “central government” maintained a high degree of unanimity, singing in unison “the Dalai clique” and “rioters” (this name is also very familiar, much like 19 years ago when every student and resident of Beijing at Tiananmen had this nickname). But these voices sound very shrill and brutal. Here are some representative quotes for the benefit of the reader:

– “To dare to split China this year, that’s really asking for trouble, like throwing an egg against a rock, courting destruction. I advise the central government to punish them without mercy. Those who deserve execution should be executed. Those who deserve life imprisonment should be sentenced to life in prison. (This netizen’s comment is reasonable, restrained, analytical and has a definite legal awareness. He doesn’t call for all of them to be executed - some can just be sentenced to life.)

– “Kill all the terrorists who attempt to separate Tibet!” (This netizen’s language is very frank. From his slogan, we can see he has the air of a bandit and he presumably drinks quite a lot. It’s a shame he was born in the modern age, otherwise there would have been 109 heroes on Mount Liang [a reference to the classic Outlaws of the Marsh])

– “The people of Guangdong resolutely support striking the Dalai clique!!!!!!!!” (A call from the south. Guangdong has responded quickly. Within such a short time it has formed a resolution and elected representatives. What I don’t know is by what procedure did this dear friend qualify to represent the people of Guangdong. Aren’t all the People’s Congress representatives meeting in Beijing?)

– “President Hu, do what ever you need to do!!! The common people all support you!!! Resolutely strike these bastards!!! (So genuine! So sincere! This sounds like a woman, sucking up just after Comrade Jintao was reelected president of the nation. With people like this behind him, is there anything the president will not dare to do?)

– “The state spends so much money supporting the monks and they turn round and do this!” (This friend certainly feels very aggrieved and distressed, but he or she does not have a very good understanding of state policy on religion. The government has never paid monks’ salaries. Any monks that do receive money from the government are almost all government informers. They can’t “turn round and do this.”)

– “I support the state striking hard against Tibetan separatists! I support the state striking hard against Tibetan separatists! I support the state striking hard against Tibetan separatists! I support the state striking hard against Tibetan separatists! I support the state striking hard against Tibetan separatists! I support the state striking hard against Tibetan separatists! ….” (This guy yelled his slogan 55 times. I counted each one. He really is very sincere, it’s a shame he has such a meager vocabulary.)

– “Kill them for me!” (Brief and to the point, imperious, like an officer commanding troops at the front line. But who is he commanding? People should be wary of following a person who has such simplistic methods for dealing with problems. It could put your life at risk.)

…………..

OK, enough of the quotes. That’s already too many. Sina.com posted this article at 2:21am on March 17, 2008. As I write this short piece at about 2pm, there are already 26,625 comments! At least 99% of them express similar passionate opinions.

This is a very interesting phenomenon.

Mainlanders have also had their fill of government bullying, scarcely less than the Tibetans (the number of abnormal deaths since 1949 is proof of that). Mainlanders also curse the government. But in the face of other ethnic groups, these Han seem to forget that they too have been bullied by the government, and become part of the government “family.” It seems the government is their guardian angel, and they consciously serve as defenders of the government.

This phenomenon continually troubled me. Then I gave this kind of relationship a specialist name: relationships by rape - “Family relations established through rape.” I don’t know if it’s appropriate or not and I haven’t consulted with relevant anthropologists. For the moment, it is the term I will use. To borrow the form of a sentence by Lu Xun: For actually the earth had no kinship to begin with, but when many people had been raped, kinship was made. [Lu Xun’s original words were: “For actually the earth had no roads to begin with, but when many men pass one way, a road is made.” From My Old Home] Are we not trying to make our Tibetan compatriots the same as us, forming this kind of “kinship” with the government?

Finally, I would like to remind those friends who are filled with popular emotion to calm down and ask themselves:

How do we judge what is and what is not from a news source and the evidence it provides? Is this source and evidence reliable?

Why can we only see news from one side, and what exactly is the real truth？

What is the basis for equality and mutual respect among ethnic groups?

Should all ethnic groups have the right to self-determination?

Does each ethnic group, ensuring its own integrity, have the right to choose its own method of attaining happiness?

What is the difference between invasion and aid?

Doesn’t the phrase Chinese race* in itself imply “cultural imperialism”?

[*中华民族. I have never really been able to determine what this phrase really means. The overwhelming majority of Chinese nouns do not have a plural or singular form. So 中华民族 could mean one singular “Chinese race” - something that does not exist - or it could be plural, meaning “Chinese ethnic groups.”]

***

Riots in Lhasa and proxies that work

Sunday, March 16, 2008

I was half way through translating a personal account of the situation in Lhasa by a Han Chinese resident when the inevitable happened - ESWN finished it first. Right now, his post is inaccessible on the mainland because of three keywords that trigger the net nanny: J*khang, Ram*che and P*tala (* = o). This is a strong keyword block - I know of no web-based proxy that can circumvent it. Other bloggers and commenters might like to bear that in mind to prevent their posts being unreadable here. [*This is no longer the case. See update below]

Since the block is a strong one and Youtube has also been harmonized, now is perhaps the time to mention two of the serious proxies that get through to everything, including BBC news video, can handle Youtube and enable you to watch Google videos.

1) The first is maddeningly slow (though one enthusiast assures me it works quickly on his computer) but you need it if you want to download the faster second option. Tor works in Firefox. Once you’ve installed the program on your computer, you will see a red notice at the bottom right of your brower saying “Tor Disabled.” To turn the proxy on, click once on that notice and it will turn into a green “Tor Enabled.” You can now read or watch anything you want, but slowly. Tor also offers high-quality anonymity and privacy, but only if you read, understand and act on the instructions. For most of us that is not necessary since we simply want to get past the blocks.

2) The second, faster option only works in Internet Explorer. I’m not going to name it in full. I’ll refer to it here as U. If you want it, it’s the first result for this search (look for the word Download on the U page). Don’t even bother Googling it on the mainland unless you are using a powerful proxy like Tor. Unlike Tor, U is an executable file that you save onto your computer, but do not have to install. If you decide you do not want it anymore, delete the file. As with option #1, you can read anything or watch anything, though it often messes up Youtube - if that happens, close down IE and U and try again.

If you choose option #2, you should be aware that it is a creation of FLG and financed by the US government. Bear that in mind when deciding whether you want it on any particular computer. Both these proxies function only in one browser. So if you use Tor in Firefox, you can carry on browsing in Internet Explorer while you are waiting for the page/file to download.

***

Back to the Lhasa riots. At the moment, the authorities appear to have acted with restraint, though that might change. Because of that initial restraint, I found these words from a report by the BBC’s James Reynolds surprising:

Gordon Brown said that he’s very concerned about what’s happening in Tibet. But at the moment there’s no talk of Britain boycotting China’s Olympics this summer in Beijing.

Why, exactly, would the British government talk of an Olympic boycott when it was Tibetan rioters who were beating and killing non-Tibetans in Lhasa? Yes, it can be argued that the riots are reaction to decades of occupation (an idea that most Chinese would strongly reject) but that occupation existed before the riots. If it was not a reason to boycott the Olympics before, why would it be now?

It may emerge that the security forces have shot and killed protesters, but so far the killing and violence seems to have been carried out by the rioters, not the police or military.

In the third picture, the man lying on the ground, possibly dead, appears to be a firefighter. And what was the man with the machete in the first picture planning to do with it? Traveler/blogger Kadfly has this to say:

Yes, the Chinese government bears a huge amount of blame for this situation. But the protests yesterday were NOT peaceful. The original protests from the past few days may have been, but all of the eyewitnesses in this room agree the protesters yesterday went from attacking Chinese police to attacking innocent people very, very quickly. They appeared to target Muslim and Han Chinese individuals and businesses first but many Tibetans were also caught in the crossfire.

He also links to video of a man being attacked. Kadfly’s video on Rapidshare is an extremely large file, but someone has posted at least part of it on Youtube.

From an eyewitness account in The Guardian by a foreigner living in Lhasa:

“Oh my God. Oh no. That’s crazy. One hundred people are trying to stone one man. A man was trying to cross the street with his motorcycle - they were trying to stone him but it’s so crowded I can’t see whether they got him or not.

…

“The residents are very angry. They are throwing stones at anyone who is Han [Chinese] or from other minorities like the Hui, who are Muslims. It seems like it’s ethnic - like they want to kill anyone not Tibetan.

…

“I saw three people assaulting a man - I was 50 metres away, but I think he was Chinese. They kicked him and then one man had a knife and used it. He was lying on the floor and the man put the knife in his back, like he wanted to see he was dead.”

Given the highly emotive nature of this subject, the comments thread at Peking Duck is remarkably civilized, with an exchange of different opinions that largely refrains from personal insults. See also ESWN on the problem of finding the truth when two sides engage in often misleading propaganda.

Finally, here’s a translation of a government notice giving rioters until midnight on Monday to turn themselves in, published in the Tibet Daily on Saturday:

Announcement

Since March 10, 2008, lawless monks and nuns have continually made trouble, doing their utmost to create social turmoil. This was a meticulously planned attempt by the Dalai clique to split Tibet from the motherland, and a political conspiracy to destroy stability, harmony and normal productive life of people of all ethnic groups in Tibet. In particular, on March 14, some lawbreakers used organized and premeditated violent methods including beating, smashing, looting, burning and killing. They set fire to schools, hospitals children’s centers, shops and residents’ homes, violently attacked party and government organs and enterprises, smashed and burned cars, looted goods, murdered innocent ordinary people, and besieged and beat law enforcement personnel. These actions violated the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China and constitute criminal offenses. In order to urge the criminals organizing, planning and taking part in beating, smashing, looting, burning and killing to stop their criminal activities, turn themselves in to the police, and encourage the vast mass of the people to actively inform on the criminals, the following special notice is issued:

1. Those who voluntarily turn themselves in to public security and judicial organs before midnight on March 17 may receive light or lighter punishment according to law. Those who turn themselves in and inform on other criminals may avoid punishment according to law. Those who refuse to turn themselves in after that date will be severely punished according to law.

2. Those who protect and shelter criminals, when verified, will be severely punished according to law.

3. Citizens who actively inform on criminals and criminal acts will receive personal protection, commendation and rewards.

March 15, 2008 Tibet Daily

[Update, April 9] This update is a bit overdue. For readers in China, it’s unnecessary, since we already know what we can and cannot access on the Internet without a proxy. But I should mention for the sake of overseas readers that the extraordinarily heavy-handed blocking has eased considerably.

Filed in Tibet, China | Comments (7)

I have a bad case of diarrhea

Friday, March 14, 2008

An unusual way to learn English:

Could this have been made anywhere but Japan?

Filed in Other things | Comments (1)

Blog note

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Since I’m such an irregular blogger, it doesn’t make much sense to announce that I won’t have internet access for about a week, so there won’t be any more posts until I’m back. But I’ll say it anyway for the sake of the few poor souls who do (misguidedly) keep checking in to see if there’s anything new. I’m also putting the comments on moderation-only until I get back to keep out the spam that occasionally gets through the filter.

My temporary absence from work means I will mercifully be spared most of the scientific harmoniousness of the Two Sessions.

Filed in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Meet the world - and totally misrepresent it

Monday, February 25, 2008

There’s a very impressive collection of flags that has been circulating for some time, showing various interesting and disturbing facts about each of the countries involved. I saw it for the first time last night at ProState in Flames. A quick Google search identifies Icaro Doria, a young Brazilian designer, as one of the creators of the series called Meet the World. Doria says he and four others created it as part of an ad campaign for the Portuguese news magazine Grande Reportagem.

The flags spread around the world in an email chain letter that wrongly identified a non-existent Norwegian diplomat as the creator. The series has also become popular on blogs.

Doria says of the original ad campaign:

The idea was to bring across the concept that the magazine offers profound journalism about topics of real importance to the world of today.
….
We started to research relevant, global, and current facts and, thus, came up with the idea to put new meanings to the colours of the flags. We used real data taken from the websites of Amnesty International and the UNO.

And then, presumably, they threw all the data away and just made things up. The Chinese version that’s going around contains a note disputing the “facts” portrayed by the Chinese flag. And that made me wonder - what about the other flags?

It turns out that most of them are either totally wrong, or questionable or exaggerations. And that begs the question: when a serious news magazine runs an ad campaign, do the facts presented in the ad need to be true, or can you just invent them?

Here are the flags, along with my comments:

Angola

It’s hard to know what exactly this flag is trying to tell us. One interpretation might be that half of Angola’s population is HIV-positive, half is infected with malaria and an overwhelming majority has no access to medical care. Another interpretation might be that roughly the same unspecified number of people in Angola have either HIV or malaria (or both) and the overwhelming majority of this unspecified number of people has no access to medical care. Both of these possible interpretations are wrong.

According to the World Health Organization (pdf), “by the end of 2004, an estimated 400 000 adults and children were living with HIV/AIDS in Angola, and the adult prevalence was estimated to be about 2.6%.” That is nothing like the 50% suggested by the flag. (A later report gives a lower figure for people with HIV/AIDS - an estimated 320,000 in 2005) The first WHO report cited here says “only 30% of the population has access to health services,” a shockingly low figure, but considerably higher than the flag indicates. On the other hand, the report estimates that 52,000 people needed antiretroviral therapy, but only 2,700 were receiving it.

The WHO says malaria (pdf) “is by far the highest cause of morbidity and mortality in Angola, with varying levels of endemicity throughout the country and epidemic potential in five provinces.” There were 1,409,328 reported cases of malaria in 2002, nearly five times the estimated number of people with HIV. However, the real figure for malaria could be considerably higher than this.

Brazil

The United Nations’ definition of extreme poverty is living on less than $1 a day (adjusted for purchasing power parity). This flag suggests that more than three quarters of Brazil’s population lives on less than a third of that. Brazil’s 2004 report to the United Nations on progress towards the Millennium Development Goals gives a dramatically different figure:

In 1990, year of reference for the MDGs, 8.8% of Brazilians lived under this per capita income line. Therefore, the target would be to reduce this percentage to 4.4% in 25 years. However, after only one decade, this proportion had reached 4.7%,only 0.3 percentage point away from reaching the target.

But the flag may not be referring to purchasing power parity. I don’t know what the actual breakdown of income is in Brazil, so I can’t really comment. Three quarters of the population living on less than $10 per month seems extremely unlikely to me, but if I’m wrong and someone out there knows the answer to this, please let me know in the comments.

Burkina Faso

At a rough estimate, the yellow star in this flag covers about one fortieth of the total area - or 2.5%. So the flag is telling us that only 2.5% of Burkina Faso’s children survive into adulthood. Or, conversely, 97.5% of children die. This is absurd. Equally absurd is the claim that nearly half of all children die before they reach one year old and the same number dies before the age of three. Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries on Earth and has a very hight infant mortality rate. But it’s not even remotely as high as that.

UNICEF’s figures for 2005:

Infant mortality rate (under 1): 96 per 1,000 live births (9.6%)
Under-5 mortality rate: 191 per 1,000 (19.1%)

China

14-year-olds are of junior middle school age. According to the Ministry of Education, the enrollment rate for junior middle schools in 2005 was 96%, with a drop-out rate of 2.62%. The ministry says 69.68% of junior middle school graduates enrolled in senior middle schools. Even allowing for the notorious unreliability of Chinese government statistics, the figures cannot possibly be as wrong as this flag claims.

Colombia

I hesitate to comment on this flag, since commodity prices vary considerably from year to year and I’m worried that I will make some stupid mistake. Nevertheless:

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization says Colombia exported about 1.5 million metric tons of bananas in 2001. That document does not give a dollar value for those exports, but it does give a value for Costa Rica’s banana sales, which works out at about US$250 per ton. That would mean Colombia earned about US$375 million from bananas.

UNCTAD values Colombia’s exports of coffee and coffee substitutes for 2001 at just under US$860 million.

According to one study in 2001, exported Colombian cocaine in 1999 had a street value of US$46 billion and a wholesale value of US$14 billion, but only US$3.5 billion were repatriated.

I’ll leave it to readers to decide what the flag should look like based on these figures.

European Union

According to the CIA World Factbook, in 2004, the European Union consumed 14.57 million barrels of oil per day and produced 2.876 million barrels a day. That’s a ratio of 5:1. So the flag is right in saying that the EU consumes more than it produces, but the proportion it gives is a gross exaggeration.

Somalia

UNICEF says 95% of girls in Somalia are subjected to female genital mutilation. So this flag is a fair representation of the truth.

United States

US public support for and opposition to the war in Iraq has varied over time, but at it is fair to say that at some point in time the two sides have been equal. However, the flag may be hopelessly overoptimistic about the number of Americans who know where Iraq is. In 2006, the National Geographic found that 63% of young American adults between the ages of 18 and 24 could not find Iraq on a map. At least that was better than 2002, during the build-up to war, when 85% were unable to find the country they were about to invade.

***

I have mixed feelings about this series. As an ad campaign it’s supposed to grab the attention and it succeeds in doing that. As a design or a work of art, it’s intended to provoke thought and it succeeds in doing that too for some people. Different people will be prompted to think of different things. In my case the line of thought was: are these facts accurate, and if they are not, then what are the real facts. And this adds more weight to the argument that the campaign was, and still is, effective.

But I wonder how many people have questioned the accuracy of the series at all. Is it good or bad if people believe that most Chinese children don’t go to school?

This reminds of the case of the photo-journalist Liu Weiqiang who has just been sacked by the Daqing Evening News because of his photoshopped picture of Tibetan antelopes and the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. The doctored picture had won an award from CCTV as one of the top ten news photographs of 2006.

Liu justified himself saying it was an artistic work and he had never presented it as a news photograph. But that’s not what Liu told CCTV at the award ceremony, translated here by ESWN:

Li: You take a look at your photograph. It was taken at an uninhabited area at 4,000 or 5,000 meters above sea level. What is the probability that you, the train and the Tibetan antelopes all appeared at the same time and place?

Liu: In the language of photography, this was an instant. It was a very brief moment. The Tibetan antelopes are smart and easily scared. When humans are even far away, they are already fleeing. When I took this photograph, I dug a hole half a meter deep and I put camouflage on top. I hid in the hole covered by camouflage. That was why the Tibetan antelopes came to pass in front of my camera. It took only a several seconds for the Tibetan antelopes to pass in front of me. But I had waited for eight days.

Similarly, Icaro Doria does not say “it’s a work of art intended to make you think, not a real representation of facts.” Instead he says “We used real data taken from the websites of Amnesty International and the UNO.”

Filed in Other things, China | Comments (3)

Lost in translation: a one-edged double-edged sword

Thursday, January 31, 2008

A few weeks ago Xinhua’s Chinese-language website ran an article with the headline “US NEWSPAPER: THE OLYMPICS - A MOMENT THAT MAKES CHINA PROUD.” It’s essentially a translation of another article in the Christian Science Monitor from a few days earlier: “THE OLYMPICS IN CHINA: A MOMENT FOR PRIDE - AND WORLD SCRUTINY.” When one newspaper or agency reports on something published elsewhere, it’s quite natural for it to be shortened, modified or added to provided these changes are sourced and not presented as a true representation of the original text. Readers in different countries will often want to know different things and focus on different aspects of a story. But how much of that story can be cut before the meaning is completely lost?

The Christian Science Monitor article begins:

The Beijing authorities are obsessed with the 2008 Olympic Games – which don’t begin until August. You cannot turn your head in this city without one of the five “Fuwa” Olympic mascots smiling at you from a billboard, open a newspaper without reading an Olympics-related story, or turn on the television without seeing a proud promotional clip of Olympic venues. But the Games are a double-edged sword, offering China a chance to show off its prowess – and focusing critical attention on its failings, reports staff writer Peter Ford.

This paragraph is largely left intact in the Xinhuanet version, though the phrase “The Beijing authorities are obsessed with…” becomes something more like “Everywhere in Beijing, people are thinking about….” It’s in this paragraph that Xinhua accurately translates the original headline. Here is the rest of the article, along with deletions and changes, in which one edge of the “double-edged sword” seems decidedly lacking in sharpness:

WHAT DOES CHINA GET OUT OF HOSTING THE 2008 OLYMPIC GAMES?

An unprecedented opportunity to shine in the international spotlight for an intense three weeks. The Chinese government is treating the Games as a symbolic end to 150 years of humiliation by outside powers and a confirmation of its status as a global power to be reckoned with. Immensely proud of their 5,000-year-plus civilization, the Chinese also hope to show the rest of the world another side of their country than its economic miracle.

Successful Games would be a powerful antidote to the sort of negative press China has been suffering for the past ~~nine~~ months ~~or so, which has drawn attention to poor food quality and other product safety regulations~~. And whether they are successful or not, the Games have already provided a strong boost to Beijing’s economy.

And when the Games are over, officials are desperately hoping (though they won’t say publicly) that China will have sneaked past the United States to top the gold medal tally. In Athens four years ago, Chinese athletes won 32 golds to America’s 35.

The next heading changes from:

~~HAS THE PROSPECT OF HOSTING THE GAMES WIDENED POLITICAL FREEDOMS IN CHINA OR IMPROVED OTHER ASPECTS OF LIFE?~~

to:

HAS THE PROSPECT OF HOSTING THE GAMES CHANGED CHINESE POLITICS, OR IMPROVED PEOPLE’S LIVES?

And now the deletions and alterations really begin in earnest. (Continued)

Filed in China | Comments (10)

Nini the mutant mascot

Saturday, January 26, 2008

For two years, Beijing Olympic organizers have been telling us that Nini the Fuwa is a swallow:

Every spring and summer, the children of Beijing have flown beautiful kites on the currents of wind that blow through the capital. Among the kite designs, the golden-winged swallow is traditionally one of the most popular. Nini’s figure is drawn from this grand tradition of flying designs. Her golden wings symbolize the infinite sky and spread good-luck as a blessing wherever she flies. Swallow is also pronounced “yan” in Chinese, and Yanjing is what Beijing was called as an ancient capital city. Among Fuwa, Nini is as innocent and joyful as a swallow. She is strong in gymnastics and represents the green Olympic ring.

Now it turns out she’s a different species altogether:

So now we know. Nini is a turtle. Actually, the discovery dates at least as far back as summer 2006, but very few of us noticed.

Moving swiftly on from this disturbing example of genetic engineering, the Yanjing mentioned in the BOCOG quote above was the capital of the state of Yan during the Warring States period. Yan roughly covered the territory that is now northern Hebei province. The character is written the same as yan the swallow, but pronounced with a different tone - 1st tone for the city and the beer that’s named after it; 4th tone for the bird.

A linguistic coincidence:

yan (4th tone) - noun - swallow (bird)

Add a mouth radical:

yan (4th tone) - verb - swallow (eat)

Filed in China | Comments (0)

When Hu Jia wasn’t an ‘enemy of the state’

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

The article translated below was published in the summer of 2001 in the Freezing Point supplement of the China Youth Daily. Not long after that, Hu Jia met Zeng Jinyan. Now he’s under arrest, accused of incitement to subvert state power, but there was a time when Hu Jia wasn’t seen as a threat. There were many articles in China about his environmental campaigning, or at least mentioning him. (Here’s a rare English-language example - on the campaign to save the Tibetan antelope, now one of the Olympic mascots.)

The Freezing Point article has been reposted on a number of blogs - a reminder that Hu Jia is not a symbol. “He’s an old mother’s son, a wife’s husband, a daughter’s father.”

A very different youth
China Youth Daily - Freezing Point
Cai Ping, July 25, 2001

When I heard about Hu Jia, I was full of admiration. I even felt he should be a model for young people to follow. A 27-year-old young man who sought neither fame nor fortune, doing countless things to protect the environment and wearing himself out until he got hepatitis. He had just left the hospital, but often worked until two or three o’clock in the morning. Every day my colleague’s email inbox would contain a large quantity of messages about the work he was doing. The things he cared about and dealt with were extremely diverse and even trivial, but he was extremely passionate about all of them. Full of doubt, I asked my colleague if he was sick. My colleague said yes, he’s got hepatitis. No, I said. I mean sick in the head.

“Because you’re the only one who sent any money”

On the telephone, Hu Jia’s voice is weak. He lives a long way from me, he’s just come out of hospital and he isn’t well, but he insists on cycling over to meet me. In the end we arrange to talk at the newspaper.

Early that morning, I go down to meet him. He’s very fashionable, short, his hair dyed yellow and permed, a string of Buddhist prayer beads on his right wrist and carrying a heavy backpack. His voice is very small and hard to hear, and I often have to ask him to repeat what he has said.

Hu Jia is calm, graceful and courteous. He is surprisingly modest and always seems to be thinking of others. While he is talking to me, people constantly call him on his mobile phone to ask him about some small matter. Each time, he quietly says “sorry” to me, then turns his head and keeps his voice down on the phone, worried that he might disturb other people. I’ve very rarely seen such courtesy in a young person and at first I think he is putting it on.

Hu Jia has no job and he has no income from his environmental work. But he did have a job before. He graduated from the School of Information Technology at the Capital University of Economics and Business and he likes computers. Someone who specialized in this kind of field should find it very easy to find work. When he graduated in 1996, Hu Jia was employed as an editor at Beijing TV. He could easily have developed this as a career. But just at that time the People’s Daily published an article called “The destiny of a Chinese man and an old Japanese to control the desert” which changed his life.

Hu Jia still clearly remembers the time, headline and writer of the report and as he talks about this his calmness cannot conceal his excitement. That a young man should change the course of his life because of one article seems too accidental. But Hu Jia stresses that as a student he was always concerned about the problem of desertification in China, and he and his fellow students calculated how many trees would need to be planted to stop it. “Really,” says Hu Jia “we were too naive then, too simplistic.”

At Spring Festival in 1996, Hu Jia took 100 yuan from his New Year money and sent it to Inner Mongolia – to the people trying to control the desert in the report. He was 23. I find it rather hard to accept that a 23-year-old man was still getting New Year money.

Afterwards, Hu Jia phoned the place and asked if they’d received the money. A girl answered the phone and said with great certainty that they had. Hu Jia thought this was strange. The People’s Daily had so many readers and the article was so well written, it must have caused a flood of phone calls. So how could it be so easy to say the money had arrived? The girl’s answer shocked Hu Jia: “Because you’re the only one who sent any money!” (Continued)

Filed in Hu Jia, China | Comments (7)

Information, Tutu and Tibet

Truth and lies - Tibet and Iraq

Ethnic harmony - or not

Riots in Lhasa and proxies that work

I have a bad case of diarrhea

Blog note

Meet the world - and totally misrepresent it

Lost in translation: a one-edged double-edged sword

Nini the mutant mascot

When Hu Jia wasn’t an ‘enemy of the state’

‹ Home

Search

Contents

Categories

Archives

Blogroll

RSS Feeds

Meta