A guerilla chicken campaign at Harvard? [photo]
I was walking home through the Harvard campus tonight and found the above sticker, which was notable because (1) such things seem to get taken down quickly, (2) I rarely see Chinese bulletins adorning American light posts, and (3) I had NO idea why this man wanted me to 多吃鸡肉吧 (eat more chicken).
I put the image on Twitter and asked what it could mean, and Le Wang quickly pointed out that it might be a Chinese version of the Chik-fil-A slogan “eat mor chikin.” I’m going to go with that for now, because, as my classmate Ella points out, it’s a bit absurd to obsess about the meaning of a random campus posting.
Last thought: Is there a similarity between this man on the sticker and the imagery of KFC’s Colonel Sanders?
(Click image for full size.)
UPDATE: I think we may have our answer! Alice Xin Liu has noticed that the face looks a lot like Mr. Lee of Mr. Lee California Beef Noodle King, a major Chinese chain. Why Mr. Lee would be rooting for chicken is still beyond me.
A reasoned response to China hysteria
Nina Hachigian, a former National Security Council adviser during the late ’90s, writes a conspicuously reasonable-sounding response to the U.S. media’s increasingly alarmist reporting on the United States–China relationship.
The early stages of the U.S.-China relationship during the Obama administration have not played out according to the usual script. The president did not promise on the campaign trail to be “tough” on China—a position he would have been forced to abandon within a few months just as Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton did. In the midst of an unprecedented financial crisis, the Obama administration instead came to office wanting to preserve the stability of the U.S.-China relationship while also placing a new emphasis on joint global problem solving.
This is not appeasement. This is common respect and pragmatism born of looking down the road at a whole host of challenges where the only way forward is to cooperate with China. It is also part of a larger administration effort to mend fences around the world by listening and extending basic courtesy, both of which cost nothing.
She also outlines some of the accomplishments of Obama’s China policy so far, including progress on climate cooperation (despite the ongoing blame-game over whether China caused a failure in Copenhagen, where no one expected a full-scale deal in the first place). China and the U.S. have worked together at the U.N. on North Korea and Iran.
Hachigian notes that “China’s reaction to all of these actions—so far at least—is well within historical norms, especially given that Tibet and Taiwan touch at the core of Chinese anxieties about territorial unity and foreign intervention.”
It’s nice to see this kind of talk on China coming out of my former employer, the Center for American Progress, but I would have liked it even if I had no affection for the institution.
A strange photograph
U.S. President Barack Obama and PRC Premier Wen Jiabao were photographed in Copenhagen. Where the heck are they?
Pleco dictionary for iPhone OS drops with free version
More than a year and a half ago, I wrote about rumors that the undisputed master of portable Chinese–English dictionary software was considering a version for iPhone OS. Earlier this month, Pleco finally released its iPhone version (iTunes link), with a free basic version and free upgrades for customers who purchased Windows Mobile and Palm OS versions.
I had bought one version for Windows Mobile on my old HTC Touch while living in Beijing, but had depended on DianHua (free) and HippoDict (pretty good but not free) since switching to iPhone in the United States. Last summer while studying in Beijing I switched back to the HTC for Pleco. No more!
In the free version, you get some basic dictionaries that work far better than others I’ve seen. In the paid versions, you get Pleco’s new iPhone-specific handwriting recognition, which is far better than Apple’s. What you lose on the transfer from Windows Mobile, however, is access to the Oxford dictionary, which Pleco says costs perhaps more than it is worth, and the stroke order diagrams, which they’ve replaced with others.
Significantly, the Pleco handwriting recognition module for iPhone seems to do well with “cursive” writing, something you can’t say for the native writing recognition. It seems to be even better than the Windows Mobile version. The app also includes a built-in store that includes more Chinese–English dictionaries (both free and paid) and the Xiandai Hanyu Guifan Cidian, a Chinese–Chinese dictionary which runs for $39.99.
Here’s what Pleco’s Michael Love had to say in April 2008:
We’re not thrilled about Apple locking down distribution and charging developers a 30 percent commission to sell iPhone software, but we really like the platform and think it has enough potential to be worth the hefty fees.
The iPod Touch is actually more exciting to us, in some respects, than the iPhone, since it doesn’t force you to change your cell phone carrier and can be found almost anywhere.
It’s next to impossible to buy a cell phone-less Palm or Windows Mobile handheld in many parts of the world nowadays, but the iPod Touch is all over the place, so for those people who are willing to buy a handheld just to run Pleco, it would be a better option than they’ve had in quite a while.
For a demo, see the video below:
Young Japanese bureaucrats on China: Friend or Opportunity
This is a blind item based on something a classmate in a Japanese ministry said. But it’s an interesting thought.
For young Japanese bureaucrats on the security side, China is a potential threat. For young bureaucrats on the economic side, China is a potential friend, its growing economy an opportunity.
Chinese at Harvard celebrate the PRC’s 60th anniversary
I just returned from a still in-progress celebration and parade-watching party at the Harvard Kennedy School for the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on October 1. This followed a presentation earlier in the day by the marketing director of Tsingdao Beer, who outlined some of that company’s strategies that have helped it grow quite a bit in the Chinese and international markets.
I have little to say, since I’ve headed home to get to work this evening. But it was an interesting event, including the flags and decorations in the Kennedy School Forum, the PRC national anthem, speeches by PRC government dignitaries, and of course at this time of year, moon cakes:
Chinese classmates of mine expressed surprise at the number of Chinese people attending from the various Harvard schools and others in the area. I guess I wasn’t surprised there were so many, but had never seen such a large gathering of Chinese in the United States. It felt like the inverse of some U.S. embassy or political parties I attended while in Beijing. This time, I was the one out of place in my country of birth.
Another non-Chinese in our midst, HKS Professor Tony Saich, drew applause and laughter by beginning his remarks in Chinese, and peppered his talk with phrases better said in the original. One such phrase was 六十而耳顺, part of a Confucian saying on the phases of life. One translation has it as “at sixty, I obeyed.”* This is not a translation without controversy. A friend puts it in on-the-spot translation as “at sixty, all that I heard was to my liking.” Still another version, the Wenlin dictionary, suggests “at sixty, I achieved understanding.”
The last is closest to what Saich intended. At least from this Confucian perspective in Saich’s interpretation, a sixtieth birthday signals a time in life when one can see the lay of the land, understand previous successes and mistakes, and take stock of one’s self. That, he said, is a pretty good way to look at the PRC today.
* from Analects 2:4 in William Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom’s Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd Ed., Vol. 1, New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. pp. 46–47.
Language skills lacking in the U.S. foreign service?
Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy reports that government auditors found language skills among foreign service officers to be far more rare than they would hope. On China, he quotes from the unreleased Government Accountability Office report:
In China, officials told us that the officers in China with insufficient language skills get only half the story on issues of interest, as they receive only the official party line and are unable to communicate with researchers and academics, many of whom do not speak English.
The deficiencies are large in war zones, and the article notes serious shortfalls in Iraq and Afghanistan. The only specific data in this article on Chinese posts groups Chinese with Arabic as important languages:
“Deficiencies in what GAO calls ’supercritical’ languages, such as Arabic and Chinese, were 39 percent.”
The officers I have met in China seem to be in the 61 percent, but the quote above indicates that someone at least in the embassy thinks the 39 percent blocks the staff from doing the best job possible. From me, one vote for more language study (yes, I need it too), and a dream for leaps forward in machine translation.
The other quote from the report on China, which I leave without comment:
In Shenyang, a Chinese city close to the border with North Korea, the consul general told us that reporting about issues along the border had suffered because of language shortfalls.
Two things China and the U.S. can celebrate
Economic prosperity and basketball. Those are two things neither the United States nor China could seem to live without these days. This by way of mentioning the White House Flickr feed, which is pretty cool. Here, “Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan, center, holds the autographed basketball given to him by President Barack Obama following their Oval Office meeting Tuesday, July 28, 2009, to discuss the outcomes of the first U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue. Looking on at left is Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo.”
California apologizes to Chinese Americans; U.S. Congress next?
Chinese migrants in California faced discrimination, violence, and forced expulsion from their homes on many occasions beginning in the mid-19th century. One historian’s account found almost 200 “roundups,” in which Chinese were pushed out of jobs, homes, and cities by those who resented the competition for jobs or mining spoils, or simply didn’t like Chinese people.* A lot of people are not around to hear the state of California apologize.
From Ling Woo Liu in Time Magazine:
On July 17, the California legislature quietly approved a landmark bill to apologize to the state’s Chinese-American community for racist laws enacted as far back as the mid–19th century Gold Rush, which attracted about 25,000 Chinese from 1849 to 1852. The laws, some of which were not repealed until the 1940s, barred Chinese from owning land or property, marrying whites, working in the public sector and testifying against whites in court. The new bill also recognizes the contributions Chinese immigrants have made to the state, particularly their work on the Transcontinental Railroad.
The website of Assemblymember Paul Fong (D-Cupertino), who sponsored the measure, reports that Gov. Schwarzenegger approved the apology measure on July 20. And Fong’s efforts are not to stop in California. Liu writes that Fong will seek a U.S. Congressional resolution apologizing for the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Full text of the resolution available here.
* Pfaelzer, Jean. Driven Out: The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans. New York: Random House, 2007. p. xxv.
