Blog to Watch: Beijing Sounds – 北京声儿
Via Danwei I just found this blog by a Beijing dialect-obsessed part time language student who calls himself syz. He makes recordings of interesting snippets of conversation and is very honest about the process of learning Mandarin in Beijing.
As a student of the language myself, I’ll definitely be keeping my eye on this site. I’m including here a piece of his transcribed conversation with some people who keep birds. Check the post for audio. Keep up with the blog here.
Friend:
zhèi zhǒng — shìbushì zhǐshì zhèizhǒng niǎo — háiyǒu biéde niǎo [unclear]
这种–是不是只是这种鸟–还有别的鸟
This kind — is it only this kind of bird — are there other birdsTrainer:
hǎo duō zhǒng dōu néng wánr
好多种都能玩儿
Lots of kinds of birds can play thisjiǎn chēng jiù shì là zuǐ
简称就是蜡嘴
The abbreviated name is là zuǐ (là zuǐ lit. means “candle beak” — not sure what this is in English).Friend:
ā jiǎn chēng là zuǐ, jiǎn chēng là zuǐ.
啊, 简称蜡嘴, 简称蜡嘴
Oh, the abbreviated name is là zuǐ, the abbreviated name is là zuǐ.
Transpacifica’s New Blogging Project: Sinobyte at CNET
They said this day would never come.
Perhaps the biggest fight I’ve ever picked in the blogosphere was when I wrote an opinion piece while a writing intern at Editor & Publisher in 2005 arguing that newspapers should get over blogging and put more energy into innovation. It ran under the provocative headline “Forget Blogs,” and declared, “Blogs are a horrible way to deliver journalism. Forget them.” You can imagine the kind of reception this got from bloggers.
The argument was a bit more subtle, and I think it has stood the test of two and a half years. I was trying to convince editors and publishers to put more resources into non-blog online content. And many newspapers have. Many people know about innovations made by The New York Times, but fewer keep track of the minor successes of hundreds of smaller newspapers using non-blog online media to do journalism. Bravo!
I was a blogger then, and obviously am now. I just thought big media companies should be able to put together more engaging media than I can in my spare time. This doesn’t entirely eliminate the irony that now, as a freelance writer and freelance student living in Beijing, I’m launching a blog that will be my most consistent work. In a real sense, a guy who argued that blogs aren’t all that has become a professional blogger.
So here it is. As part of the CNET Blog Network, I am now the author of Sinobyte, which will follow technology in China and Asia from my perspective as a student of media, politics, and society. All I have there so far is an introductory page, but check back later this week for an account of an impending trip to a mobile phone market and several other interesting developments that have been churning in early 2008. Subscribe to Sinobyte’s RSS feed here.
What does this mean for Transpacifica? Not much. I’ll still be writing here on transpacific relations and political and social issues in Asia. But I won’t be writing so much about the Chinese internet here. That work, and much more, will from now on show up on Sinobyte. Enjoy!
links for 2008-01-07
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William Long pointed out that what she said was basically wrong as it was impossible to see “very violent and very indecent” information in China internet because of the control
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…This is the proof that the world has become more integrated.”
Cai Yuanpei, 1914
Ikenberry: The U.S. Built a World Order China Can Love
For a while now, G. John Ikenberry’s article in the January/February issue of Foreign Affairs has been on the reading lists of those who watch Chinese–U.S. relations. Its title does not lack for gravity—”The Rise of China and the Future of the West: Can the Liberal System Survive?”—but its argument is perhaps a bit less uncertain. “The United States’ ‘unipolar moment’ will inevitably end,” he writes. “If the defining struggle of the twenty-first century is between China and the United States, China will have the advantage. If the defining struggle is between China and a revived Western system, the West will triumph.”
After this pithy formulation, the possibility of the “West” not surviving is not given much space. Ikenberry argues that the international institutions in the era of U.S. dominance are fundamentally different from other orders that have been challenged by rising powers. The United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions, and the security pacts that enlace the earth, are portrayed as too open to be overthrown. He writes: “[I]f a country wants to be a world power, it has no choice but to join the World Trade Organization (WTO). The road to global power, in effect, runs through the Western order and its multilateral economic institutions.”
And that’s what Ikenberry thinks China is trying to do. For the full argument, give the article a quick read.
There is one interesting passage worth highlighting. As Ikenberry argues that 20th century international institutions were designed to be open, he notes a difference of opinion between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill on the composition of the U.N. Security Council…
In fact, it was Roosevelt who urged—over the opposition of Winston Churchill—that China be included as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. The then Australian ambassador to the United States wrote in his diary after his first meeting with Roosevelt during the war, “He said that he had numerous discussions with Winston about China and that he felt that Winston was 40 years behind the times on China and he continually referred to the Chinese as ‘Chinks’ and ‘Chinamen’ and he felt that this was very dangerous. He wanted to keep China as a friend because in 40 or 50 years’ time China might easily become a very powerful military nation.”
This issue of Foreign Affairs has other China articles worth checking out too. While it’s the current issue, those pieces are here.
links for 2008-01-05
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Six months ago, the Bush administration quietly eased some restrictions on the export of politically delicate technologies to China. The new approach was intended to help American companies increase sales of high-tech equipment to China despite tight curb
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One country’s motivation is political, the other’s pragmatic. Venezuela is seeking a strategic geopolitical alliance, China a steady supply of energy.
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China has announced tough new rules to crack down on the explosion of audio-visual content on the Internet, reiterating that sex and politically sensitive material will not be tolerated.
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In this episode we explore China’s version of “technonationalism”, a term used to refer to technological development as a government policy.
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Waseda University in Tokyo wants to answer the call. In April, it will launch what it bills as Japan’s “first genuine journalism graduate school,”
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Top China stories from China in Global Voices Online for 2007.
New Banner Image: A Wall Near Shanghai’s Moganshan Lu
Today I’m introducing Transpacifica’s third banner image. This wall near the Moganshan Lu (莫干山路) art district in Shanghai caught my eye. That placard advertising English tutoring is hanging several yards off the ground.
We’re also saying goodbye to the previous image. Here it is full-frame below, in a wallpaper-worthy high resolution version.
Mitt Romney’s China Ad, and the Obama Toys Trip-Up
It’s Iowa caucus day in the U.S. election, so time for a bit of China-election news. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, a candidate for the Republican nomination, promises to “level the playing field” with China in a new ad (below). And Sen. Barack Obama, a Democratic candidate, said he would ban all toy imports from China—and then took it back.
Romney’s ad is more recent than Obama’s toy trouble. Bill Powell at Time’s China Blog, noting that the ad appeared on the eve of today’s Iowa caucuses, cranked up the sarcasm for this one:
Never mind that former Governor Mitt Romney doesn’t exactly say how he’ll “level the playing field” with an economy that’s growing “three times faster than ours” (presumably not by getting Americans to work in factories for a dollar an hour). At least the guy devotes 30 seconds of television time to the second most important foreign policy subject out there. Maybe some crack American political reporter will actually ask him about it.
Or, more likely, not…
As for Obama, I was on the road for two weeks in December and failed to comment on this story. Luckily China Law Blog had some coverage of Obama’s pre-Christmas statement that he “would stop the import of all toys from China.” CLB collected blogger reaction, including from China Venture News, which wrote, “The bottom line though is this: China trade is not a simple “us and them” issue. The companies making toys in Shanghai and Shenzhen for export to America send their profits to New York and are parts of joint ventures that have stockholders in the suburbs of Chicago, Boston, and Topeka.”
The Obama campaign later said that the statement had not been rendered by the press with appropriate context. From Reuters via NYT:
“Now, don’t get me wrong: As president, I’ll work with China to keep harmful toys off our shelves,” he said in Greenfield, Iowa, according to a statement from his campaign for the November 2008 election, . [sic]
On Wednesday, Obama had told voters in New Hampshire: “I would stop the import of all toys from China,” which supplies about 80 percent of U.S. toys.
A spokesman for Obama, Josh Earnest, said the candidate had been referring in New Hampshire to banning “toys that contain more than a trace level of lead, coming from China or anywhere else.”
My Article for TBJ’s New ‘Urbane’ on Beijing’s Ullens Center for Contemporary Art
That’s Beijing‘s design and lifestyle companion known until now as tbjhome became urbane with the January 2008 issue. It also contains my first story for the publication: a look at French architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte’s rework of a 1950s weapons factory for the new Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing’s 798 Art District. Urbane‘s website does not have text online yet, but those interested can read from the photographs below.
