Ways That Are Dark

The real countdown to next year’s Olympic Games in Beijing has begun, and Beijing Olympic officials are trying hard to educate the public about potentially offensive behavior. The question is, can people clean up their bad habits in time for the games? And more importantly, will the government’s plans have any long-lasting influence?

In the article Organizers strive for a ‘civilized’ sheen, CNN interviews a sociology professor from Hong Kong’s Chinese University who says:

Changes to public manners should not be enforced from the top-down. But rather it entails a fundamental change within the mindset of the people — a bottom up phenomenon.

If it is solely a form of political slogan, it will only make the population feel sick and tired.

A Beijing businesswoman interviewed for the article adds:

The government is putting in so much money and effort to elevate the inner quality of its citizens. We see those slogans about being civilized everywhere but there does not seem to be any substance behind the words.

It is impossible to change manners in a year. The whole populace must reach the critical point that the majority will adhere to good mannerisms.

Time will tell what impression Beijingers make on the world in 2008. Until now, the emphasis on good manners has been solely about “saving face,”by not looking uncouth in front of foreign tourists. Nothing has been said about the public bettering their manners for their own sake. The people of Beijing will still have to live with one another long after the games are over.

The Washington Post reports on the growing popularity of Confucianism in China. Confucius Making a Comeback In Money-Driven Modern China finds many reasons for the recent resurgence in popularity. As can be gleamed from the article’s title, the resurgence can be seen as an alternative to corruption and materialism, which have become  driving values in China today. Communist Party leaders like how Confucianism emphasizes respect for authority. Parents like it because it stresses filial piety and obedience.

Is there anything new to be found in digging up ancient values? What real difference is there in sending kids to Confucian schools instead of regular schools? The article writes of one school where “children as young as 3 were memorizing and reciting ancient Chinese classics.” Memorizing and reciting is the basic bread and butter of any school in China, only the mindless doctrine is different.

What the article touches on really well, is that most “Chinese today are hard-pressed to fully describe the philosophy. It has become a grab bag of ideas that people are tailoring to their own needs as they search for a new belief system.” People are selectively choosing and discarding the bits of philosophy that suit their purposes. Confucianism has been seldom appreciated in recent years because it advocates a patriarchal system where men are superior to women. Also casually ignored, is the fact that Confucius himself “was a radical social critic with low opinions of his rulers.” These ideas seem to conveniently be brushed aside.

It seems that the current enthusiasm for this ancient philosophy is just another fad serving the times. Confucianism, above all else, is a belief system that trained millions of Han Chinese over the centuries to be obedient like sheep and accept leadership. The current government is not the first to note the advantages in that.

Until recently, the problem with Chinese goods has not been one of quality. The real problem is that people keep complaining about the quality of goods. What really irks the iron-fisted rulers, is the whistle blower, the one who points the finger at corruption and shoddy manufacturing and demands something be done about it.

This week The Washington Post has an exposé on the consequences and hard times faced by the whistle blowers, who have been trying to warn us of certain dangers for a long time. The article tells the stories of several concerned citizens, who passed on stories about fake medicines, counterfeit vitamin drinks, and drugs with poisonous ingredients. Invariably those who spoke out were arrested, lost their jobs, and were threatened and intimidated.

Read The Washington Post article, Safety Falters As Chinese Quiet Those Who Cry Foul, for yourself.

Correspondent Howard W. French has had his hand on the pulse of China for years. What makes his writing so insightful is not what he says, but what he leaves unsaid. It is always the underlying meaning, the subtext, that reveals the depths of his understanding.

In his recent Letter from China: Mosque siege reveals the Chinese connection, French ties Pakistan’s recent, direct confrontation with radical Islam to Chinese diplomatic relations. He uses the siege at the Red Mosque in Islamabad as an example in the widening reality of Chinese are becoming international targets for radicals. It has been reported by Asian diplomats that Chinese leaders put strong pressure on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to take stronger action. The point being that Pakistan’s instability is hurting Chinese interests in the region.

On June 23, the seminarians entered a Chinese-run health care center, which is often a euphemism for sex parlor, and kidnapped seven Chinese people, including five females whom they believed to be prostitutes…almost no one in the press has printed, even speculatively, what many Chinese themselves presume to be the truth of this matter, that the women kidnapped and later released in Islamabad were sex workers.

After all, there are important myths to protect: One of them is the essential goodness of the Chinese people, and the other, that China does not interfere in other countries’ internal affairs.

Chinese citizens and Chinese interests are fanning out around the globe at a rate that is unequaled in this country’s long history. Wherever they land the Chinese are very often reproducing a Chinese way of life, as Americans did in the postwar era over half a century ago.

But getting to the point, French sums up what exactly it is that Chinese are recreating for themselves when they go abroad.

Among the Chinese, naturally enough, there is good and bad. Along with fresh injections of capital and ingenuity and China’s famous entrepreneurial bustle, the Chinese also often bring an insular clannishness, a driven style of management, an unblushing attitude toward corruption, and as the case in Pakistan suggests, an acceptance of things like brothels, which are common in China but in many other societies are seen as undesirable or are illegal.

The man on the street in China believes that in the eyes of the world that Chinese are perceived as good. Chinese media does a lot to reinforce these myths, leaving the public baffled when something happens to Chinese workers abroad. As their influence continues to expand outwardly, Chinese will be forced to consider previously un-thought of things such as cultural sensitivity. It is one thing to spin a prayer wheel in the wrong direction at a Tibetan monastery, but opening sex-parlors in Islamic countries is only going to incite ire and hatred.

Every time you hear the tired old predictions that China is growing at an interminable rate and will soon over take the United States in many areas, remind yourself that this is just a myth. China is not 30 years behind the United States. The reality is: China is still in the dark ages, they just have cars everywhere.

In retaliation for stopping imports of its tainted goods, China has blocked shipments of pork ribs and other meat products from the U.S.. It may simply be an act of retaliation in the already tense trade relations between the two nations. You can read more on this in the L.A. Times article: China heats up food battle.

For some time food safety hasn’t been a high priority in China. On the same day as the L.A. Times article, CNN reports that Chinese are trucking live rats from rodent infested Hunan Province to restaurants in Guangdong where diners can’t get enough of these savory delights. Please read on.

CNN reports that:

Live rats are being trucked from central China, suffering a plague of a reported 2 billion rodents displaced by a flooded lake, to the south to end up in restaurant dishes, Chinese media reported.

Rat vendors had been doing a roaring trade thanks to strong supply over the last two weeks, the China News Service quoted vendors as saying.

“Recently there have been a lot of rats… Guangzhou people are rich and like to eat exotic things, so business is very good,” it quoted a vendor as saying, referring to the capital of Guangdong province, where people are reputed to eat anything that moves.

Some Guangdong restaurants were promoting “rat banquets”, charging 136 yuan ($18) for one kilogram of rat meat, the newspaper said.

Local governments in Hunan have been grappling with the rats, which had already destroyed 1.6 million hectares (6,200 sq miles) of crops and could spread disease, according to media reports.

Scientists have also blamed China’s massive Three Gorges Dam project and climate change for the Hunan rodents’ flight to dry land.

The complete CNN story is Chinese ‘trucking’ live rats to southern restaurants.

As the Chinese respond to U.S. concerns over food safety in a tit-for-tat measure, remember that a Chinese restaurant would just as soon serve rat meat from a plague infested region as it would imported pork chops. All this in the same week that the government insisted food will be safe for Olympic athletes, and state media uncovered food made in Beijing with cardboard filler instead of meat. It will be a while yet before they catch up to the U.S..