China Meiguo

Academy Award winning actor Christian Bale has been stirring up some controversy in China and in the West recently. Bale stars in the Chinese film The Flowers of War (金陵十三钗) which was just released in Chinese movie theaters last week (and will have a limited theater release in the U.S. as well). The film's story takes place in 1937 in the Chinese city of Nanjing (formerly known as Nanking) which was invaded by Japan during the Sino-Japanese War. 


In some Western media, Bale has been criticized for appearing in an allegedly Chinese propaganda-oriented film (for its anti-Japanese perspective). I haven't seen the film yet, but knowing about the historical events portrayed in the film, its certainly understandable for it to be anti-Japanese.  Japanese soldiers committed massive atrocities including the rape, torture and murder of civilians which collectively became known as the Nanking Massacre or the Rape of Nanking. In the video clip below, Chinese director Zhang Yimou claims that The Flowers of War is not propaganda.

The Chinese film industry has been experiencing serious growth in recent years as new movie theaters are being built throughout much of the country and people are spending their hard-earned RMB on tickets. As 2011 draws to a close, it seems certain that box office revenue for the year will exceed U.S. $2 billion, the highest ever in China. China's year-end box office revenue in 2010 was $1.62 billion (RMB 10.2 billion). By early December, 2011 revenues were over $1.89 billion) and there are several new Chinese and foreign blockbusters debuting in theaters which virtually guarantees that the $2 billion milestone will be reached. The Flowers of War, a late 2011 release produced by Zhang Yimou and starring Academy Award winner Christian Bale is likely to significantly increase December 2011 box office revenues.

I just returned yesterday from a trip to Wuyi Mountains (武夷山) that the Fujian provincial government held for foreign teachers working at universities in Fujian (福建). This trip was very well organized and, in addition to a meeting, we got to hike Wuyi Mountain, take a river rafting cruise, see some music and dance performances by university students, learn all about the famous tea grown in the mountain area, and of course (albeit reluctantly) sing karaoke-style at banquet dinners (always mandatory in China). 


However, one of the biggest highlights was a visit to a local kindergarten where the young students acted as guides (one for each of us) and others instructed us on the etiquette of serving tea. I was quite impressed with these kids and their tea pouring skills. If I was doing this, half of the hot water would probably end up on the table and I'd likely have first degree burns as souvenirs. Here's a slideshow of photos from the Kindergarten visit and I'll post some others from the trip in future.

For people that don't know much about China (and don't want to bother reading books, etc.), here's an animated video that gives a very good short summary. In just 10 minutes, the video manages to cover Chinese history, language, economy, food, traditions and culture. It even manages to mention some of the modern problems China is facing including the many contradictions, corruption, and the little emperor syndrome (resulting from China's one-child policy).

I came across a post on Xujun Eberlein's Inside-Out China blog which I think gives a great example of cheating in modern Chinese society. The post, entitled Who Is the Guilty Party?, is actually an English translation of a Chinese writer's description of a problem encounted when buying a house - the previous owner had been scamming the electricity company and the new owner found out that correcting the crime was much harder and more expensive than continuing it (even though the new owner wanted to do the right thing).

Of course, cheating in various forms exists almost everwhere in the world, but it does seem to be a very ingrained part of Chinese society. Maybe this is partly due the the fact that Chinese society, despite all its recent modernization, is still built on an ancient culture in which personal relationships (known as guanxi; 关系) take precedence over everything else. The ethical rule that stealing is wrong (and legal rule that follows from it) has little practical value in a society where you can get away with many things if you know the right person. The Western concept of the rule of law is a very alien concept to such a society. Whether its cheating on your electricity bill, cheating on college exams, buying and selling counterfeit products, illegally viewing and downloading music and movies or any number of other inethical and/or illegal behaviors, you do it as long as you can get away with it and because everyone else does it.

I'm probably a bit lucky working for a Chinese university, in that I'm insulated from a lot of the inethical situations I'd likely encounter and (like the poor homebuyer in the blog post's story) feel very uncomfortable with otherwise.

A Chinese court recently ruled against Apple Inc. in a dispute over the right to sell computer products bearing the name "iPad" in China. Apple had sued a Taiwan-based technology company, accusing it of infringing its trademark in the iPad name. According to the United States Code (and most countries' trademark laws), a trademark is "any word, name, symbol, or design, or any combination thereof, used in commerce to identify and distinguish the goods of one manufacturer or seller from those of another and to indicate the source of the goods." So, the name iPad for example, can be a trademark that identifies computers or computer-related devices.

If Proview's claim is true and its products sold using the iPad trademark are similar to Apple's iPad device, Apple faces a serious obstacle in continuing to sell iPads in China. Apple products are very popular in China and there is a huge amount of market growth in China that Apple surely wants to continue taking advantage of.

Apple iPads already dominate the market for tablet PCs in China

If Apple is infringing Proview's trademark, it would not only be liable for monetary compensation, but would also be prohibited from using the name iPad in China. Apple would still be able to sell iPads, but would have to do so under a different name. If Proview's trademark claim is legitimate as it seems it may be, I suspect that rather than selling iPads under another name, Apple might ultimately agree to buy the rights to the iPad name from Proview. In fact, Apple previously bought rights from Proview to the iPad name in Taiwan and several other Asian countries in which Proview had registered the trademark, but this purchase did not seem to include mainland China. So it appears that Apple may have to pay big bucks to keep selling iPads as "iPads" in China.

Last night, after spending the day at a conference at my university (Xiamen University of Technology; 厦门理工学院), I attended a dinner banquet at nearby Jimei University. The food was good, the wine was flowing freely, and (as always at any serious party in China) karaoke singing ruled the stage.

The Xiamen Beatles

Long Live Chairman Mao and John Denver in China!

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season, when Americans hit the streets, stores and shopping malls in a materialistic frenzy. A more recent term, Cyber Monday, has also been coined by online marketers for the Monday following Black Friday to encourage people to buy even more online. After reading a news article entitled 150 Counterfeit Websites Shut Down by Feds, I wonder if Cyber Monday might also be referred to as Counterfeit Monday - the day greatest number of fake goods are purchased online.

According to the article, the Feds used Cyber Monday to announce that they've shut down 150 websites selling knock-off or pirated merchandise to bargain-seeking e-shoppers. The sites sold a wide variety of merchandise including movie DVDs, NBA jerseys and Louis Vuitton handbags, two of the most popular pirated brand items worldwide. From the list of domain names seized in this investigation, it seems that any domain name with the word jersey in it is likely to be selling counterfeit NBA and other sports league jerseys.

Fake v. Authentic Louis Vuitton bags: Can you tell the difference? This website tells you how.

I read a China Daily article recently called A Homeland Away From Home which is about Shirley Wood, an 86 year old American woman has lived in China for 65 years. Wood married a Chinese man and moved from Arkansas to China when she was 20 years old (although I imagine Arkansas to China is quite a culture shock at any age). Wood lives in the city of Kaifeng 开封in Henan Province (abd near Zhengzhou 郑州 where I lived last year).
Wood's story is quite unique in several ways. First of all, she moved to China when there were almost no foreigners living in China. Accordingly, she was one of the few foreigners to be present in China in 1949, the founding of the People's Republic of China. Finally, due to the lack of foreign companions until relatively recently in China, she had to become assimilated and live as a Chinese person. Nowadays, there are more foreigners living in China, but they almost always tend to live somewhat isolated (not necessarily physically) from their Chinese neighbors (due largely to language differences and the resulting inability to communicate well). This may be slowly starting to change, but Mrs. Wood has obviously been a China pioneer, well ahead of the times.

Last year I lived in the city of Zhengzhou (郑州) in Henan Province (河南省), the most populous province in China with a total of over 100 million people. Recently, Henan enacted a law that modifies China's one-child policy to allow couples to have a second child if the husband and wife are both from one-child families. A number of other provinces in China had previously done this and it seems that the cumulative effect may be that China now has more of a two-child than a one-child policy.

Kindergarten kids that might not be from one-child families since the photo was taken in a rural area

An old poster promoting the one-child policy

Most people in the West tend to believe that the one-child policy is a rule that's strictly enforced. However, there are significant exceptions to the rule as well as ways of getting around it. First of all, the policy provides quite a few important exemptions, including couples living in rural areas (still the majority of China's population), ethnic minorities, and parents without any siblings. Additionally, some parts of China such as Hong Kong and Macau (which are mostly self-governed) are not subject to the policy at all. Finally, some provincial governments in mainland China (such as Henan mentioned above and quite a few others) have adopted less restrictive regulations. In fact, its estimated that only about 36% of China's population is subject to the one-child policy.

A few evenings ago I biked into downtown Jimei with another American professor to pick up some groceries. We decided to find a restaurant to have dinnner first and my friend wanted to try a small place purporting to be a Greek restaurant. At the least the sign had the word "Greek" prominently displayed as shown in the picure below. I was sceptical since there probably aren't any Greeks around here and local Chinese wouldn't be likely to know much about Greek food. Nevertheless, the place looked clean and decent so I was willing to give it a try.

Greek restaurant that serves only Chinese food

Authentic Greek food in China

This past weekend at the East Asia Summit in Bali, U.S. President Barack Obama met briefly with China's Premiere Wen Jiabao (温家宝). Although the meeting was brief and somewhat informal, the main concern expressed by Obama was his belief that China should adjust the value of its currency. As the 2012 presidential election in America approaches and the U.S. economy continues to stagnate, Obama has been taking a slightly more critical role of China.

Obama and Wen Jiabao look friendly while meeting in Bali

According to a recent Economist article, "more Chinese people live outside mainland China than French people live in France, with some to be found in almost every country." The article also includes this map showing the top 20 destinations around the world for Chinese as well as Indian migrants.

Although China remained almost totally isolated from most Western influences from the founding of the PRC in 1949 until the early 1980s, this has changed dramatically over the past few decades, especially in terms of Western pop culture. To Westerners' ears, Chinese music tastes can seem extremely strange, but Western pop music has become increasingly prevalent throughout China's big cities and even in some of the remote countryside areas. So it shouldn't be too surprising that the Chinese, like people all over the world, have gone goo goo for Lady Gaga. Young Chinese have also somehow picked up the exclamation Oh My Lady Gaga!, used in place of Oh My God!  to indicate surprise.

Among other things, I've decided to blog about some of the Chinese music that I've discovered that I find appealing, interesting or amusing. So, first up, is an eclectic Chinese singer musician that mixes Chinese folk rock with additional influences such as Uyghur music and Sichuan opera.

Dāo Láng (刀郎) is a Chinese singer who became popular after the release of his 2003 album The First Snows of 2002 (年的第一場雪). The album became a surprise blockbuster, reportedly selling 2.7 million copies, an exceptionally high sales figure in a country where far more pirated than legal copies are sold and considering that his previous album sold only about 2000 copies. First Snows also had almost no planned marketing or promotion to generate sales. Instead, it was played initially in record stores (which still existed in 2003) largely through the efforts of a Chinese record  producer, Song Ke. From record/video stores, the CD spead to clothing stores, beauty salons, etc. throughout China.

I'm currently living in the city of Xiamen 厦门, but spent the previous academic year teaching at a university in Zhengzhou 郑州 in Henan Province in central China. I just came across this photo taken at a coffee shop appropriately named Coffee Time in Zhengzhou that I used to go to ocassionally. I met a friend there who loved the artistic coffee design so much she almost couldn't bear to drink it. 

The campus of the university I'm teaching at (Xiamen University of Technology) is located in an area that, while not too far from Xiamen Island, is a bit isolated. In fact, until they built the campus, the area consisted mostly of small farms. The area is rapidly changing with construction projects taking place constantly. In a year or two, things might look completely different here, but in the meantime, a few small,neighborhood farms remain, some right next to my modern high-rise apartment complex.

One day last week while walking to my apartment from the university, I ran into a few of my neighbors. They were having their lunch along the sidewalk. Nothing too odd about that you might think, except that these neighbors are of the bovine rather than human variety.


Two of my neighbors enjoying a roadside snack

These cows and birds seem to be great friends - one bird often rides on a cow's back

This week's inconsiderate neighbor. Next week's dinner?