Better Remember To Bring A Tote Bag...

...Next Time I'm In Uganda

And I thought we had it bad in Beijing when they switched to the no free plastic bags policy last year

Any person caught using plastic bags in Uganda from early 2010 will be jailed for three years or be fined an equivalent of 1,500 dollars, press reports said Saturday, quoting government environment lawyers. The penalties fall under the country's revised law on the waste management act, which will be put into effect in January by the state-owned National Environment Management Organization (NEMA), The New Vision quoted the organization's lawyer, Christine Akello as saying.
Uganda's finance minister announced a ban on the sale or use of plastic bags during the reading of the East African country's national budget on Thursday and ordered all factories manufacturing the plastic bags to wind up business.
Discarded plastic bags - too thin to be reused - are a major polluter in many African cities, where they clog up rivers and pile up in mountains.
Government further said that taxes of up to 120 per-cent will be levied on imported plastic materials currently on transit into the country. (EarthTimes)

Beijing's Sky Is Crying

...Over Our Departure!

At around noon the sky seemed like it couldn’t hold all the tears anymore and started to cry. Maybe in an attempt to show us and remind us how it feels like to live in a country when it can be very dark in the middle of the day (in the winter because in the summer we’ll barely see a dark sky) Beijing was plunged into darkness.

The Sky is Falling - Part II (almost to the day, 2 years later)

The meteorological Bureau of Beijing said that the capital city is experiencing its longest period of rainfall. [...]
The humidity in the city exceeded 95 percent. Visibility in some areas in the city was lower than 300 meters in the morning [...]
The city's average rainfall was 14 millimeters in the 24 hours. The heaviest rain was in the northeast part of Beijing, which had 68 millimeters.

Fruits

Will miss that too…

山竹 (ShanZhu), 荔枝 (LiZhi), 杨梅 (YangMei) Mangosteen, Lychee, Red Beyberry

So Many Things To Do...

...So Little Time

D/J -20. I can believe in 3 weeks we’ll have to say good bye to Beijing. Until then I’m a busy bee, multi-tasking even more than usual!

What should I do first?

Pride But...

...No Parade

If the 2008 Olympic Games was Beijing's coming-out party, last week it was finally Shanghai's turn. The city of 20 million held the country's first ever gay pride festival.

Shanghai Pride featured seven days of film screenings, plays and panel discussions capped, on June 13, by a blowout bash. There were drag shows, drumming and (symbolic) same-sex weddings. But there was no parade. Public gatherings are verboten, and organizers decided it wasn't worth the risk.

Though references to same-sex pairings dot the Chinese literary cannon, the People's Republic has taken a hard line on homosexuality. Sodomy was decriminalized in 1997, but it was not until 2001 that the Chinese Psychiatric Association ruled homosexuality was not, in fact, a mental illness. For the majority of China's estimated 30 million homosexuals, discrimination, isolation and stigma persist.

The government's hands-off approach is sometimes called the Triple No Policy: no approval, no disapproval, no promotion. It is the Chinese equivalent of "don't ask don't tell," an opaque tactic that critics claim leaves both activists and ordinary people caught in an invisible web of rules that dictate when and how you can and -- or can't -- be gay.

It's a start

Censor...

...Chip

After July 1st, all international companies selling personal computers inside of China will be required to preinstall government software that will block access to "harmful" content. It claims that the "Green Dam" software is designed to specifically keep porn from kids, but given the government's history of blocking browser access to a wide range of content, critics aren't so sure.

Information technology industry organizations have appealed to China to drop the initiative. Testing by independent software engineers has found that besides protecting children from pornographic content, Green Dam is also capable of filtering and blocking political content, and carries serious security risks for those who install it

And since nothing replace human “touch”

The city will seek to employ at least 10,000 “internet volunteers” before the end of this year to monitor “harmful” websites and content, said an official at the municipal authority’s information office.
Chinese local governments and Communist party branches often pay web commentators to influence online opinion. But it is unusual for officials to admit the practice and the big recruitment drive gives a rare view of the resources China uses to try to control the internet.

As civil servants, many low-class officials are designated to do a part-time job in work time. Which is rumored as "5 mao party".

They are asked to spend some time on internet everyday. Their jobs are to post or reply in popular forums, in order to control the direction of the public voice. Rumor has it that these civil servants will get 0.5 RMB per post, so they are vividly called "5 mao party" or wumaodang (5 mao = 0.5 rmb or 5 cents). By some estimates, these commentary teams now comprise as many as 280,000 members nationwide.

Internet Black Holes

Notification regarding requirements for pre-installing green filtering software on computers

In order to build a green, healthy, and harmonious online environment, and to avoid the effects on and the poisoning of our youth's minds by harmful information on the internet, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), Civilization Office of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee, and Ministry of Finance, in accordance with the Government Procurement Law, have used CCP financial capital to purchase one-year exclusive rights to use “Green Dam Youth Escort” Green Online Filtering Software (hereinafter referred to as “Green Dam Youth Escort”) along with related services so that the whole society may use it free of charge. After comprehensive testing and pilot use, the software has been shown to effectively filter harmful content in text and graphics on the Internet and has already satisfied the conditions for pre-installation by computer manufacturers.

– Ministry of Industry and Information Technology

According to the Epoch Times, hackers in China had accessed the keyword library and administrative codes, revealing only 2,700 keywords relating to pornography, and over 6,500 politically sensitive keywords. Chinese users of the software have apparently found that it injects a DLL file into Internet Explorer that prohibits the usage of FreeGate, one of the programs commonly used to bypass the Golden Shield Project.
According to tests conducted by a group of IT professionals in Hong Kong in June 2009, the software not only filters incoming contents, but also monitors the activity of the computer user. An example is that if the computer's user types "June f0urth M@ssacre" with the Notepad or Microsoft Word application, the application will be shutdown automatically without any notice. It is alleged that the Green Dam software also initiates unknown outbound internet connections which might be used to report activities carried out on the computer
The Green Dam Youth Escort recognizes pornographic images by analyzing skin-colored regions (hence the ban of pictures of pigs). However the software is incapable of recognizing pictures of nudity featuring black- or red-skinned characters but sensitive enough to images with large patches of yellow that it censors promotional images of the film Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties. (Wikipedia)
The software runs only on Microsoft Windows, so Mac and Linux users are ignored
.

Green Dam Girl

It's That Time Of...

...The Month Year Again

When I woke up this morning it was raining like it never rained before in Beijing or at least like it wasn’t a “natural” rain. I couldn’t figure out why they would have wanted rain at this time of the year (no national holiday in the next few days, no long period of drought…). Then it all became clear when I step out of our apartment complex which is located next to a famous school (School n°55) and I saw the hordes of parents waiting patiently outside the gates. But of course it’s Gaokao time. Construction sites near school were asked to be quiet, cars have been diverted and since it was way too hot in the past couple of days something needed to be done to lower the temperature.

Kao means test, and gao, which means high, indicates the test's perceived level of difficulty—and its ability to intimidate. It is China's SAT—if the SAT lasted two days, covered everything learned since kindergarten, and had the power to determine one's entire professional trajectory.
Students become aware of the gaokao, the sole criterion for university admission, at an early age. Pressures and preparations begin accordingly. All schooling, especially middle- and high-school curricula, is oriented toward gaokao readiness. Students often joke that it takes 12 years to study for the test. The results of the exam determine the student’s entrance to college, or not, their future major, and which university they can attend.

In Beijing, the prompt students were given was “I have a pair of invisible wings” (我有一双隐形的翅膀), a line that comes from a popular song sung by Angela Chang (张韶涵). Students were required to write at least 800 characters in any form of writing apart from poetry.

Apparently cheating on the gaokao is not an option: The penalties [for cheating] are severe: a student convicted of peeking at a neighbor's paper is never allowed to take the gaokao again, and his name is entered in a public database for prospective employers' perusal.

Stressed the parents? no!!

D@Lai L@ma received In France…

...…By Paris' Mayor

Well I guess France will have to send more people to smooth things with China. Not sure we have any more former Presidents available!

China opposes Paris mayor awarding Dalai Lama (Xinhua)

BEIJING - China protested the awarding of "honorary citizen" to the Dalai Lama by Paris mayor, saying it posed "grave interference in Sino-French relations".
"We feel strongly disgruntled and is resolutely opposed to Paris' award for the Dalai Lama, regardless of China's opposition," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang.
Earlier reports said that Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe on Sunday met with the Dalai Lama and conferred him a certificate of "honorary citizenship" at a ceremony in Paris.
"This was another overt provocation against Chinese people after Paris' city council voted last year to give the Dalai Lama 'honorary citizenship'," Qin told a regular press conference.
"Such a move stirs a strong indignation among the Chinese people," Qin said, noting that inevitably, it would severely undermine the cooperation between Paris and related Chinese cities, and gravely disturb China-France relations. […]
The China-France relationship was confronted with severe difficulties not long ago due to Tibet-related issues, and now the relationship got back on the track of healthy growth under the joint efforts of peoples with insight from both sides, Qin said.
"We hope France would join with China in cherishing the hard-won achievements in bilateral ties, carefully fulfill related agreements between the two sides, make efforts to remove all disturbances, and promote the healthy and stable development of the relationship," Qin said.
Qin urged Paris to stop interfering in China's internal affairs, and immediately correct its wrongdoing. […]

The Chinese government has a hard time understanding that the Mayor of Paris and the French President are not from the same political party and do not have to agree. It is inconceivable for the Chinese to understand the concept of a Mayor of a (major) city doing something against the President of the country.

Would You Like...

...To Dance?

Doesn’t the world know that Beijingers protect themselves from the summer and cannot go anywhere without their umbrellas?

The Umbrellas Gang

It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad!
Check out the videos here

I asked the cameraman of CBC if they got the same umbrella treatment and he said that they went earlier with a photographer so they didn’t but their paper were checked which took more time than usual and when he cheekily asked if today (June 4th) was a special day because of all the passports checking, the policeman replied that for Chinese people is like any other day but outsiders were making it a special day!

May 35th Or VIIIXVIIV

The Iconic Photos of the T@nk M@n...

Yesterday was May 35th (as some Chinese like to call it in order the bypass the censorship) and it’s the 20th anniversary of VIII-IX-VI-IV (another way of writing those infamous 4 numbers).

“It all started with a man in a white shirt who walked into the street and raised his right hand no higher than a New Yorker hailing a taxi,” James Barron wrote the following day in The New York Times. The picture appeared on the front page of this newspaper as well as in countless other publications around the world.

To this day, the identity and fate of the man in the picture remains unclear. A riveting documentary, “The T@nk M@n” by PBS Frontline in 2006 explored his fate. Yet still no one knows for certain who he is or what exactly happened to him. The image is largely blocked on the Internet in China. Despite its iconic status and historical significance elsewhere, most young people there do not recognize the photograph.

Few images are more recognizable or more evocative. Known simply as “tank man,” it is one of the most famous photographs in recent history. There was not just one “nk M@n” photo. Four photographers captured the encounter that day from the Beijing Hotel, overlooking Changan Avenue (the Avenue of Eternal Peace), their lives forever linked by a single moment in time. (photo from NYTimes)

Stuart, Arthur, Jeff and Charlie

And a never published one:

Terri

... And Daring The Censorship

In late February, Zhang posted without comment a Roman-numeral T-shirt design that's now making the rounds of other blogs as well as the foreign media.

VIII= 8 ; IX=9 ; VI=6 ; IV=4

Blogger's T-shirt gesture breaks taboo on Ti@n@nmen rebellion (Timesonline)

References to the 1989 army crackdown on student demonstrators in Ti@n@nmen Square are taboo in China. If mentioned at all, the protests are described as a “counter-revolutionary rebellion”. […]
His T-shirt reads VIIIIXVIIV. The photos are accompanied by a hint that reads: “Here’s a clue – these are four numbers.” […] “This year this kind of T-shirt is very much in fashion. The design is very beautiful (those who don’t understand should do some careful thinking, those who understand shouldn’t say a word)." […]
Chinese refer to the day when the People’s Liberation Army swept into Beijing to end weeks of demonstrations led by students encamped in Tiananmen Square with the loss of hundreds of lives simply as “6/4” or June 4. […]

Interview of Zhang Facai here

It also happened that yesterday was the day of site maintenance in china
Earlier this week the government blocked access to a number of popular western websites, in what was widely seen as way of controlling access to information about the events at Tiananmen Square. Among the sites that were screened out were photo-sharing website Flickr, Microsoft’s Hotmail email service and the popular online messaging site Twitter.

Check out some picture of popular website under maintenance here


What else happened 20 years ago?

WORLD EVENTS OF 1989

• Salman Rushdie publishes "The Satanic Verses". Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issues fatwa against him, declaring that his book is offensive to Islam.
• US planes shoot down two Libyan fighters over in Mediterranean over international waters.
• Mikhail Gorbachev is named leader of the Soviet Union.
• P. W. Botha quits as South Africa's President.
• Deng Xiaoping resigns from China's leadership.
• The Czech Parliament ends Communists' dominant role
• Romanian uprising overthrows Communist government. President Ceausescu and wife executed.
• US troops invade Panama to capture General Manuel Noriega.
• George H. W. Bush (a.k.a. "Bush Senior") becomes the 41st president of the US.
• Cuban troops begin withdrawing from Angola.
• Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan is complete.
• The Ayatollah Khomeini dies.
• Berlin Wall comes down.
• The first of 24 satellites of the Global Positioning System is placed into orbit.
• Last but not least Celine Mandaliti (future Suiter) turned 19!

D/J - 30

...Only One More Month

So I have one more month of Blogging and I’m for once trying really hard to complete something I’ve started and not quit before the end of our life in Beijing. Because it seems like I take on a new hobby each time we move.

It all started in Argentina with a casual mud podge afternoon party, because the girls and I couldn’t only do so much Spanish lesson, shopping, and champagne luncheon (ah those endless luncheon!!!) followed by framing and a little needle points (everybody needle point when they are pregnant, no?). Hobbies frenzy took on a full swing in Scotland with patchwork (made my mother in law really proud), “cartonnage” (creating object with cardboard), book binding, a little Black and White photo development and even carpentry (yes I did!). We did stay almost 5 years in Scotland hence the myriad of different hobbies! In France I didn’t have time to start on a new hobby (we stay only 10 months), girls night out doesn’t count as one does it (Heather, Emily and Missy thanks for keeping me sane!) but I decided instead to go over all the projects I had started over the previous 7 years and tackled the task of finishing the unfinished business. In China I had a try at porcelain painting but mostly it was all about computer: blogging, learning HTML and graphic design but also about photography (you want to have your camera handy every single day, because there will always be something interesting, puzzling to document). I’m in no way as good as my sister-in-law (graphic designer and great photographer) but I’m having fun learning.
As you can see I’m a real butterfly when it comes to hobby. I like the learning process but once I get a grab at it I need a new challenge. My friends here were often joking that I could do everything (I kept saying oh I use to do that, and that…), the only thing I don’t know how to do, is how to knit so they forbade everyone to teach me! Oh I’m also the laminate queen (I know, I know you are just dying with envy!!).

So before this long babbling about my hobbies I was saying that I have only one more month of blogging because let’s face it life in Stavanger won’t feel as exotic as here and you’ll probably get really bored about the posts I could put on the blog!

Day 1: Had to scrub my own toilet AND do the laundry AND think about what to cook for dinner. Exhausting!
Day 2: Trying to make Jeff fold his own socks while ironing 20 loads of laundry. Where is Ayi when you need her?
Day 3: Another blue sky day and not a sight of pollution. How I miss the surprise of finding out if I can see my next door neighbor house every morning!
Day 4: Feel depressed that nobody tried to cut in line at the grocery store.
Day 5: Home sick today. I miss the sound before someone spits just inches from your feet.
Day 6: Could visit every single website I wanted to check and so fast that I don’t know what to do with the rest of the day. At least I could go get a cup of tea and go to the toilet when I was in Beijing between page loadings.
Day 7: Another beautiful picture of Stavanger and surroundings... expect the same from the next 600+ postings
Day 8: see day 1
…

I think that my next project (because I ALWAYS think my life will never be as fulfilling in the next expat’ so I tend to prepare myself) will be to compile my thousands and thousands of photographs to a 1049-picture photo album. And that’s a great challenge for those looooong nights awaiting us in Norway!

Twitter...

...Is On THE List

It was just a matter of time. After YouTube, Blogspot and a myriad of other sites being blocked ahead of the multiple anniversaries celebrated this year… Twitter seems to be on the banned list since yesterday, alongside MSN and the new bing.com (wonder what Microsoft did!).

Please don’t take my sunshine Facebook away.

Shush

Another One...

...Bites The Dust

The end of Super Bar Street (星巴路 – Xing Ba Lu)… Apparently the place should be made into yet another mall (because the ones already built are doing so good!) unless it’s for an apartment building, or embassy or… anyhow within a week every shop, restaurants, etc should find another place to do business.

The dreadful "Chai/拆" sign

Children's...

...Day

Today some kindergarten schools were closed in China due to Children's Day, but my kids’ school didn’t close. (well they already had a 4-day weekend courtesy of Dragon Boat festival!)

Jeremy came back from school and told me I should have gone to school today. Being afraid I missed a sports day, swimming gala, music concert, assembly or open day (all happened within the last month) I rush to my computer to check my Google calendar. Either I had forgotten to write why I was supposed to go to school today or Jeremy was mistaken. When I asked him what I missed he just said: Well today it’s Children’s day so you should have gone to school and I should have stayed home.

Wonder if he would have managed to do more than me from my 100+ items on my to-do list!!!

A little background (like always!):
The International Children's Day had its origin in Turkey in 1920 (April 23, 1920) and later in the World Conference for the Well-being of Children in Geneva, Switzerland in 1925. It is not clear as to why June 1 was chosen as the International Children's Day: one theory has it that the Chinese consul-general in San Francisco (USA) gathered a number of Chinese orphans to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival in 1925, which happened to be on June 1 that year, and also coincided with the conference in Geneva. (Wikipedia)

Does It Sound...

...Greek, Chinese or Hebrew To You?

And because the previous post didn’t have enough maps to look at I will give you another one.
Not technically a map (more like a cartogram) but anyhow an interesting mapping of how different nationalities use different languages to express their incomprehension of a word.

When an English speaker doesn’t understand a word of what someone says, he or she states that it’s ‘Greek to me’.

In France we apparently have trouble with a lot of languages since we can refer to Chinese (like most people), Hebrew or Javanese (we are the only one using this language as reference) but we don’t find (like a lot of other country) Greek to be a difficult one (maybe because we study it at school just like Latin – we like “Langues Mortes”*… at least nobody can correct our accent like that). Also I can believe Turks think French is a difficult language… pleeeease!!!!

But the palm goes to the Chinese because the only language they find hard to speak is “Heavenly script” (well at least they are well aware that Chinese is one of the most difficult language!). I’m also surprised that Arabic is not a big point of reference as a difficult language.

The use of Greek as a diffult language comes from the Middle Ages when the monks’ knowledge of Greek was waning, they would write in the margin of texts they could not translate, in Latin: “Graecum est, non legitur” (”This is Greek to me, I can’t read it”).

* “Langues mortes”, “Dead” language is used as a reference to language not spoken anymore such as old Latin, Greek. We also use “Langues Vivantes” (“living” language) as an opposition. So for example when in school you can have a period of “Langues Vivantes” in your schedule where students will go to the class according to the language chosen (English, Spanish, Italian, German…) and a period of “Langues Mortes” (which is usually Latin or Greek)

It's Really Just...

...A Question Of Perspective

How China sees the world:

That's one way...

How the USA sees the world:

... and that's another!

When I received our magazine the Economist and saw the cover with “How China sees the world” it reminded me of another cover so I went on a search and I came upon this really interesting website with all kind of different maps. There’s also a version of how the French sees the World and if you are confused about the kissing thing in France a map also exist

There are a few that are really interesting like the map that compares the population of China’s province (+ Taiwan), autonomous regions and municipalities with those of whole countries. Beijing has the same population of Angola!

Another one I found interesting is a satellite view at night of Korea. With the contrast of lights between North Korea and South Korea you can really see how far apart the two countries are.

A few months ago I talked about how puzzled I was by the way the world maps looked in the States… well I’m not the only one!

And I also ponder about getting this one. I will of course change the city!

But my favorite is definitely this one. Beijing to Grenoble on the same subway line!

Take the red line and it's direct!

One Step Forward...

...Two Steps Back

Well since it was too late to come for a last visit, you can always blame it on visa issue!

Conspiracy theory

Once again the season of visa renewal anxiety is upon us.

It would appear that the Chinese government is even more antsy this year than last about the possibility of us troublesome foreigners making some embarrassing public show of our namby-pamby liberal-democratic political stance. Last year, the Olympics was the main focus of concern; this year, it is any one of a number of "sensitive" anniversaries.

Yet, curiously enough, there doesn't seem to be a big push to drive the foreigners out of the country right away - prior to 6/4.. No, it would appear that the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the PRC in the first week of October are the thing they're really worried about us spoiling. I heard recently that 'F' Visas (for "business travellers" - although that's what the majority of people are on, because it's so damned difficult to get any other kind), in addition to being difficult or impossible to get within the country (or even in Hong Kong, long the traditional 'last resort' of the visa-challenged, since the visa issuing regime there is usually much more lax than on the mainland [and technically it counts as "overseas"!!]; lately, many people, it seems, have been forced to go properly abroad, often back to their home countries, to obtain a new visa), are no longer being issued for periods extending beyond mid-September; and new visas thereafter are unlikely to be issued until at least mid-October. It seems likely that it will be very difficult to get tourist visas during that period either

No foreigners here (or as few as possible) around the great national celebration?? It's even worse than last year's Olympic crackdown.

Is it just because we might "shame" China in front of the international media by unfurling a "Free Tibet!" banner? Probably. It seems a bit of an excessive response, though.

Our Last Chinese Festival...

Dragon Boat Festival

Celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month of every year, the Dragon Boat Festival (端午节-DuanWu Jie) is one of the country’s oldest festivals, dating back some 2300 years. According to legend, the festival celebrates the patriot, poet and exiled minister Qu Yuan, who drowned himself in grief when his home state of Chu was invaded.
Thousands of years later, people continue to celebrate the holiday by racing dragon boats and eating zongzi, which are a type of rice dumpling originally thrown into the river to keep fish away from Qu’s body.

Won't miss that too much!

So for the second year, Dragon Boat Festival is a national day off. This year it falls on a Thursday and in order for people to have a 3-day off vacation they will have to work on Sunday (to recuperate the lost day of work on Friday) hence working the following week 6 days in a row (Sunday to Friday)… better get some beauty sleep on your vacation.

Bicycles...

...Back In Style

China is the land of bicycles but also more and more of the Electric bikes. Well it seems like France is trying to revive a quirky old French Bike, Le Solex.

The Solex was a funny little motorized cycle that enjoyed immense popularity as cheap transport. Its quirkiest feature was the little petrol engine perched above the front wheel. When it was engaged, a disk on the motor rubbed against the bike wheel, giving it power. They made a noisy buzz while proceeding at a few miles per hour. The Solex was a symbol of the post-war era like the 2CV Citroen or the bulbous Orangina bottle. To use the usual cliché, it was a true Gallic icon. It was ridden by rural shop-keepers and Paris students and it featured in films with Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve and Jacques Tati. Steve McQueen rode one when he was in France making Le Mans in 1971. Between 1946 and 1988 Solex sold more than eight million of the "bicycle that goes by itself," as its 1960s adverts called it."

The new version and the classic old version

D/J -40...

...It's Too Late For A Visit

First of all in a little over a month we’ll be out of here and second for those of you who were planning to finally come see us while on your way to China’s First Adult Theme Park I have to report that’s too late!

China's first adult theme park never able to open

The first sexually explicit theme park to be erected in China will never welcome its first guest. The park was torn down because of criticism from public officials. In particular, the artwork was a bit much for the politicians' sensibilities.

Love Land, as the park was to be called, was scheduled to open in Chongqin in October.

The park would have offered exhibits on sexual history and workshops for guests on how to improve their love lives.

The lack of subtlety, I suspect, made things difficult for Love Land. The sign at the front had a woman's legs – with a red thong just above – straddling the park's name. Over the weekend, city officials ordered the park's destruction, calling it "vulgar, ill-minded and misleading."

Too late

Well at least Auchan (another French supermarket much like Carrefour/Jialefu) is not shy about sexy lingerie

Sexy is back