27
Apr 2005
Re-enabling the comments…
I just found out a little while ago that my blog’s comment script is not working. (From my little sister, of all people!) I had no idea it wasn’t working. I’ve been too busy with work these past few days to notice that kind of thing, although I did notice the comments had died down quite a bit.
It looks like maybe my host disabled the script (Roddy says they tend to do that, without warning).
I e-mailed them and they had it working again within 10 minutes. Not bad service, that.
The question is… why did the script stop working? If my host disabled it, why? If it was because of excessive load, what caused it? Does this have anything to do with the angry comments I got with regards to my very old post about the evils of an old version of Messenger Plus?? (I deleted their stupid comments and closed the comments to that post — I’m not really interested in their comments, considering they were all supporters of the new Messenger Plus, while my post was about the version I installed in 2003.) Bizarre.
[Update: Yes, my host disabled it, and yes, it was because of excessive load. They wouldn’t give me details, but they suspect spammers. The thing is, I only got 4 spam comments in the period right before the script was disabled. Does that mean MT Blacklist was doing its job, but there was still a tremendous strain on the server?]
24
Apr 2005Suzhou: any good?
I spent Friday and Saturday in Suzhou with Carl and his parents. Carl took his parents for sightseeing, and since I’d never been, decided to tag along.
Suzhou has always been paired with Hangzhou in my mind, due to the famous Chinese saying:
> 上有天堂，下有苏杭。
> Above there is Heaven,
> Below, Suzhou and Hangzhou.
Living in Hangzhou, I had this verse cited to me countless times. Hangzhou was not quite Heaven, but it was a pretty nice city as Chinese cities go. I was always just a little curious to see how Suzhou compared. I finally had my chance.
My first impressions were not good. The touts at the train station in Suzhou are particularly aggressive and annoying. These touts learn a few phrases of English just so they can rip off unwary foreigners. After finally convincing them we REALLY had no interest in their services, we got in the taxi line. It was extremely long.
Then we had trouble finding the hotel we wanted to stay at. That may very well be the Lonely Planet’s fault; who knows. We ended up getting off somewhere and walking for quite a while. We walked through Suzhou University’s campus, which was quite nice. Very green campus, with interesting circle-inspired architecture. Eventually we decided on a hotel right off Suzhou’s shopping/bar street (十全街).
The first touristy place we went to was the maze-like “Garden of the Master of the Nets” (网师园), which was supposed to be the most famous of Suzhou’s legendary gardens. The admission was 30 rmb. Wow, what a let-down. Not interesting, not beautiful. Not even very green. I guess maybe I’m bringing in my own Western ideals of what a “garden” should be, which does not necessarily jive with China’s version throughout its history, but so what? We didn’t like it. Carl, always looking for the good in things, made the comment, “this place would be good for playing paintball.”
That afternoon we sipped freshly harvested Suzhou green tea and played 五子棋 (traditional Chinese “Connect 5” boardgame) while having a nice chat in a teahouse.
That evening Carl and I checked out the bar scene on 十全街. The bars all seemed to be hostess bars or dead. All the bars we came to would be either (a) absolutely lifeless and uninviting, or (b) filled with provocatively dressed girls that tried to pull us in as we passed. I guess that’s just how 十全街 is. We saw a lot of foreigners on that street. A staggeringly large amount.
Carl and I settled on Venice Bar, killed some time there, and then later went to meet up with Matt (of Chabuduo). We chatted at his place for a while with him and his charming young bride Wang Ying, and then we headed out to a nice pub Matt knew (which, thankfully, was not on 十全街!). We had a good bilingual conversation there (Matt, as expected, speaks some good Chinese), put away a few beers, and then headed back into town for a late-night snack of 麻辣烫 (a kind of DIY spicy soup, or “the poor man’s hotpot,” as I think of it). I passed on the 麻辣烫, which for some reason disappointed the others. I’m just not a big fan of it. Then we said bye to Matt and Wang Ying and promised to meet again, probably in Shanghai next time.
The next day the only thing we did of mention before coming back was visit “The Humble Administrator’s Garden” (拙政园), which charged a steep 70 rmb admission. Wow, what a difference from the “Garden of the Master of the Nets”! It was sprawling, very green, had interesting landscaping, and flowers were in bloom everywhere. Carl and I spent a pleasant hour and a half there before the tourist crowds got to be too much and we headed back to Shanghai.
If I had to compare Hangzhou and Suzhou, I’d have to say that Hangzhou would win, hands down. Suzhou may be greener than your average Chinese city, but it certainly isn’t doing much about its pollution problem. The canal that ran by our hotel (which is in a major commercial area, mind you) absolutely reeked, and at one point we saw the green murky water bubbling. Furthermore, Suzhou’s attractions are its gardens, but those are walled off and isolated from the rest of the city, plus admission can be pretty steep. Hangzhou, on the other hand, makes West Lake its public tourism focus, and, indeed, the center of its city planning. The bulk of Hangzhou’s touristy spots radiate outward from West Lake, and the parks are free. Hangzhou has its problems, but it’s on the right track. In any case, it’s closer to “Heaven” than Suzhou. If not for the promise shown in “The Humble Administrator’s Garden,” I probably wouldn’t even recommend Suzhou as a sightseeing destination. And if I did recommend it, it would have to be a spring trip. Even so, I feel no compulsion to see the rest of Suzhou’s gardens.
Conclusion: best two things about Suzhou (that Hangzhou hasn’t got): Matt and “The Humble Administrator’s Garden.”
22
Apr 2005Dezhou 2
“Paji looooi!” the vendors cried as I stepped from the train. Hazy memories from almost a year ago quickly came back into focus. I was in Dezhou again.
My company had sent me for the second time to the mid-sized Shandong city for a day of teacher training. It’s a 14 hour train ride to Dezhou, and the train leaves Shanghai at 8pm, which puts arrival at 10am. The only problem was the training was scheduled to begin at 8am. The solution? I arrived a whole day early. I originally thought I’d be either taken sightseeing or allowed time to myself to study. That was really overly optimistic of me.
I was given a soft sleeper ticket, which meant a nicer bed and a more private sleeping chamber. Unfortunately I wound up with three men who snored like banshees. (“Banshee” may seem like a strange choice of words, but you really should have heard them. One seemed to have some weird lung condition, and another was really more moaning than snoring. It was very creepy.) Still, I managed to pass 13 of the 14 hours prone in my bunk, never coming down once. Time passes by much faster when you’re as good at sleeping as I am.
The afternoon of the first day was spent making last-minute trips to random kindergartens. It scored our agent gratitude from the schools, as most of the children had never seen a real live foreigner before. My task? “Teach them something.” “Play with them.” It didn’t really matter what I did anyway. My victory was ensured by my mere presence. Still, we had a good time, and I daresay the kids may have learned something from me.
I think the hardest part about company trips is the dinners. Almost every night it’s another big formal event at a fancy-schmancy restaurant with multiple guests of honor. Of course, I have to talk to these people, tell them “no, my Chinese is really quite terrible,” how long I’ve been in China, that I like Chinese food, and what the difference is between China and the USA. I’m supposed to flatter them shamelessly, but I never do that. I just play my foreigner card (read: different culture, incomplete mastery of the language) and try not to gag as everyone fawns all over each other.
And then there’s the liquor. There are always many, many toasts. You can’t start eating until the first toast has been made, and the last toast signals the end of the meal. If I’m lucky the alcohol is beer or red wine, but every now and then I’m forced to drink the vile baijiu. Shandong is one place where the people are especially insistent about the baijiu imbibing.
The first night I managed to talk my way out of baijiu (they get more forgiving when you’re willing to down a cup of beer for every sip of baijiu they take), but I thought I was going to lose it when one guy brought up the issue of Japan. He was obviously looking for a “yeah, we hate those Japanese bastards!” out of everyone, but before he could get it, one of my co-workers helpfully offered, “hey, you know John speaks Japanese. He even studied there for a year.” Then all eyes were on me. Great.
“You studied in Japan?” he asked me.
“Yeah.”
“So, what do you think of the Japanese? No, wait… What do you think of Japan as compared to China?”
“Well, do you mean the countries or the people?”
“The people.”
I hesitated slightly. “They’re both good.”
He leaned forward, intense. “They’re both good?”
“Yes.”
He looked around incredulously at his audience. They all seemed ready to change the topic. Before giving up on his hatefest, though, he just had to make a comment about how he was teaching his nephew to hate the Japanese because they’re an evil race.
That night I went to bed fairly early. One of the last things I noticed before going to bed was the sticker on the telephone: Please remember to inform your family of your safe arrival! Cute. What a nice hotel.
I was awakened briefly at midnight when they called to ask if I needed a girl to service me.
The next morning found me at the hotel’s free breakfast buffet. I’ve never had much appetite for breakfast in general, and never been a fan of Chinese breakfast in particular. I typically just have an egg or something. I’m glad I did a full tour of the dishes offered, however. Whoever translated the Chinese dishes’ names into English decided to chuck tradition out the window and make the dishes’ names into complete sentences. I discovered “It is hot to fry the white flower” (À±³´°×²Ë) and “The green pepper fries the meat” (Çཷ³´Èâ).
Training went fine. I was surprised that Mr. Japanese-hater showed up. He wasn’t a teacher, but he had been invited the night before (merely out of politeness, I thought), and he actually showed.
That evening I was taken to a middle school as a favor for one of the agents who taught there. Although they had been studying English for three years already, none of those kids had ever spoken to a foreigner.
First on the agenda were two short English plays put on by the students. The girls did one about shopping that didn’t seem to have any intelligible plot. The boys, however, decided to do a version of “Stone Soup.” Their take? It took place in post-war Vietnam with a stranded American soldier the guy who made the stone soup. Yeah… I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean either.
After fielding the usual questions, I was expected to play some sort of game with them. I was amazed and delighted that the kids had never played hangman. I had to explain the game to them, but then they got really into it. Their first guy got hanged, but the second one survived. My two phrases? The East is Red and The truth will set you free. I’m rather sure my choices were entirely lost on them.
That night in my hotel room when I went through the hotel’s informational brochure I discovered an interesting special service. “Please dial 50118 and ask the front desk for help you to avoid disturbing the telephone. Have a good time!”
A quick scan of the Chinese revealed what this message meant: “Please dial 50118 and tell the front desk if you do not want to be disturbed by phone calls.”
In plain English, they meant: “Please dial 50118 and tell the front desk if you won’t be needing us to solicit you for sex by phone.” There’s never any direct mention of such hotel services.
I noticed a new, smaller sticker on the telephone as I went to bed that night. It was a telephone number for “health entertainment” (¿µÓé). I guess that’s about as overt as they’re willing to be.
I wasn’t able to leave until the next evening because an extra morning of training had been tacked on to the first day’s. I was promised the afternoon off, though.
At noon I had to schmooze with more “important people” over lunch. Apparently this one guy was super important. I was told flat-out that I should kiss up to him. I managed a “I think you look like a Chinese Tom Cruise” (he actually kinda did). Everyone loved that one. Mr. Important liked me so much that he talked the agents into letting him borrow me for several hours. That’s how I wound up at another school that afternoon for more unprepared “Teach them something” and “Play with them.”
Before getting on the train I had one last dinner in Dezhou. Mr. Japanese-hater insisted on treating me, the agents, and the Chinese trainer to a meal.
He didn’t beat around the bush much. He brought up Japan almost right away. I cut him off to tell him, “Look, I don’t like the Japanese government either. But I don’t believe any race of people is ‘bad.'” He smiled, nodded, and said no more. He was able to meet me halfway on that. So then the beers started rolling in. Big bottles of cold Yanjing. If I hadn’t been pressed for time, I’m sure I would have gotten pretty wasted.
Something weird happened that meal. I actually started to like the guy. He was an interesting character for sure, but what really struck me had nothing to do with politics or prejudices. He was sincere. He was quite possibly the only part of my trip that was 100% real.
Mr. Japanese-hater insisted on seeing me off to the train station along with the agents. I kind of wished I had more time to understand the guy a little better. As I stepped on the train, the last thing I heard out of Dezhou was “Paji looooi!“
19
Apr 2005Chinese ID Cards
Pretty much every Chinese person has a government-issued ID card (身份证). They serve the roles of American social security cards (and sometimes driver’s licenses, for non-driving-related ID purposes). These ID cards are necessary for all kinds of everyday procedures and thus indispensible in daily Chinese life, although in some cases the ID number on the card is all that is needed.
Recently I became interested in the structure of the ID numbers on these cards. I was trying to sign up with an online Chinese bulletin board. I ran into a problem, however, because a Chinese ID number was a mandatory part of registration. I wondered: did the number really need to be valid? Was this important?
I googled 身份证 to determine the appropriate number of digits, and then entered a random number. My application was denied. Invalid ID number. Ah, so they won’t take just any old number.
But, I reasoned, they couldn’t possibly be checking the number I input with a central database of the ID numbers of all Chinese citizens, now, could they? I figured the ID number had information encoded in it, which was checked against the other registration information I provided in my application (such as date of birth).
I googled for an image of a 身份证 and found one. Some basic analysis was all that was required to invent an ID number that the automatic form would accept. Soon after, however, I decided that an account involving a fraudulent ID number could possibly get me into real trouble, and I cancelled my application.
Just recently I came across a related entry on the excellent Chinese blog GiE: 身份证号都代表什么意思？ (what do the digits of an ID number mean?). Here’s a simple summary of the information provided on GiE in Chinese:
– Chinese ID numbers are arranged left to right, composed of 17 ID digits plus 1 validation digit, for a total of 18 digits.
– The first 6 digits are the address code of the owner’s place of legal residence.
– The next 8 digits are the owner’s birthdate: year (4), month (2), day (2).
– The next 3 digits are a “sequential code” for distinguishing people of identical birthdate and birthplace. Odd numbers for males, even numbers for females.
– The final validation digit is based on a formula which, quite honestly, I don’t understand at all. (If you can read the original Chinese and explain it, I’d be very interested.)
The above system applies to new (since 2000, maybe?) 身份证. In the examples below, you can see some changes over the years:
– Issued in 1994. Old-style, only 15 digits.
– Issued in 1995, but with a typo in the date. Old-style, digits obscured.
– Issued in 1998. Old-style, 15 digits.
– Issued in 2001. Old-style, 18 digits.
– Issued in 2002. Old-style, 18 digits.
– Issued post-2000? Old-style and new-style side by side, digits obscured.
– Issued in 2004. New-style, front and back shown, 18 digits.
– Issued post-2000? New-style, digits not visible.
You’ll also notice on these ID cards that 民族 (ethnic group) is listed on the card. Most Chinese people are Han Chinese (汉). You may notice that in the examples above, the last guy is not (although you wouldn’t know looking at him).
I’ve always thought it would be funny to get a fake Chinese ID card (these are easy to acquire, I understand) with my real picture and Chinese name on it, that said I was 汉族 (Han Chinese). But then I doubt the PSB have much of a sense of humor about that kind of thing, so I never went through with it.
Note: I wondered briefly if it was kosher to write about this kind of thing online, but the blog entry on GiE that I linked to was public and written in Chinese, and all the 身份证 pictures I linked to were found through Baidu Image Search, which is known to wholly comply with the Chinese government.
19
Apr 2005Death on Chinese Roads
> China has the world’s highest annual road death toll. Traffic accidents killed nearly 107,000 people last year, the result of skyrocketing car demand, poor roads and bad driving.
Yikes. I don’t doubt it, but this was the first time I came across statistics of this sort. Of course, it would be helpful if the statistics were given more context. China ranks “highest” for a lot of things, given that it is the world’s most populous nation.
And my girlfriend wonders why I’m in no hurry to get my Shanghai driver’s license….
19
Apr 2005Oops
Sinosplice has been offline for the past few days for reasons entirely unrelated to hosting or blocking.
The other night right before I went to bed a thought popped into my head: doesn’t my domain name expire sometime in April? I better check on that.
I did a WHOIS lookup on www.sinosplice.com. Sure enough, it expired the very next day. Furthermore, my registrar was still the much-loathed iPowerweb.com. I vowed to myself last year to transfer my domain name to a new registrar before the year was up. I figured I could make it, because I’m 12 hours ahead.
So I immediately signed up with GoDaddy.com (hey, they have cheap domain names!) and initiated the transfer. Unfortunately, these things take time. Especially when dumb slow iPowerweb is involved. So, before the transfer was approved by iPowerweb, the domain name expired and my site went offline. Immediately thereafter I had to go on a business trip to Shandong for three days.
Basically, iPowerweb refused to transfer my domain name unless I renewed it for another outrageous $20. Plus, the way GoDaddy’s system works, I can’t approve the transfer without use of the e-mail address in my WHOIS info. Once my domain name expired, I couldn’t access that e-mail address anymore.
So basically, I still had to pay iPowerweb $20. Lesson learned: initiate domain name transfers early. Also, iPowerweb is EVIL. Seriously. Never use them. They offer a decent deal to lure you in, but once they have you, it’s hard to escape, and their customer service is horrible if you have a problem that falls outside of the problems they run into day in and day out.
I still want my domain name out of iPowerweb’s control ASAP, so Sinosplice may go down again briefly as the domain name is transferred, because I think the nameservers may have to be reconfigured.
Apr 28 Update: Success! My domain transfer has finally gone through.
12
Apr 2005Respectful Characters
Back in the year 2000 when I first started going to Catholic mass in China, I discovered some interesting interplay between the Church and the Chinese language. I’ll mention just one such example here.
Traditionally, God’s name has been capitalized in English, even in pronoun form. Hence you will find, “for He is our salvation,” “Follow Him,” “Do His will,” etc. The pronoun capitalization is intended to show respect.
An obvious problem appears when one attempts to continue this tradition in Chinese translations of the Bible. Chinese does not lend itself to the “capitalization” of just any character (though there may be an exception or two). I found the Chinese solution to be quite interesting.
To understand the solution, however, you need to first understand a few things about Chinese pronouns. The basic pronouns are 我 (I), 你 (you), 他 (he), 她 (she), and 它 (it). You’ll notice that the characters 你 (you) and 他 (he) have the same radical on the left side: 亻. This radical is derived from the character 人 and means “person.” Notice, too, that it is swapped out for a 女 to convert “he” (他) to “she” (她). Although it’s not done on the Mainland so much, the Taiwanese also sometimes like to make a female version of “you” (你) in the same way: 妳.
While the pronoun “you” (你/妳) is directly related to 尔 etymologically, “he/she” (他/她) is not directly linked to 也. Nevertheless, what the above usages seem to establish is that “you” and “he” each have a “core element” (尔 and 也, respectively) which, when combined with the appropriate radical, produce a gender-specific pronoun. (Interestingly, the use of 亻 — derived from 人, which means “person” — for the male element seems to be the reverse of the West’s former use of the word “Man” or “mankind” to mean “humans” or “humankind.” 人 is normally a very inclusive term, used even in the words for “alien” (外星人) and “robot” (机器人), where the English terms “person” or “human” would not apply. Perhaps the Chinese 人, at its core, means something more like “humanoid.”)
What the Chinese have done is make use of these “core pronoun elements” 尔 and 也. Rather than using either a “male” or “female” radical, an entirely different one is chosen (which seems to be in better keeping with a genderless understanding of God). The radical chosen was 礻.
礻 is derived from the character 示, which is generally understood to depict an altar. Karlgren states that 示 “occurs as a signific in characters bearing on religion, rites, etc.” (Wenlin). It seems the perfect choice. The pronoun characters you will see in the Chinese Bible when referring to God, therefore, are 祢 and 祂.
[Note: 祢 is already claimed as a surname pronounced Mí rather than Nǐ, but the Church seems to ignore this discrepancy. It’s also interesting that the Church rejected the use of 您 for God, which is the standard polite form of 你. I guess “polite” isn’t good enough. To me, at least, 祢 seems to simultaneously convey reverance (by radical) as well as intimacy (by pronunciation), but I have no idea how the Chinese feel about it.]I also wondered what had been done with the pronoun “I.” True, God doesn’t speak in first person much in the Bible, but it does happen. Exodus is a good example. The issuing of the Ten Commandments contains a liberal sprinkling of God pronouns “I” and “me”. Just one example:
> I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. You shall not have other gods besides me. (Ex 20:2-3)
So I checked this verse in an online Chinese Bible. No luck. It’s just 我. [Not sure if there could be Chinese Bible version issues here…] I was kinda hoping for 礻+ 我 for consistency. I suppose we don’t see this for two reasons. The main reason is that the character apparently doesn’t exist, and never has, even as a variant form. The other reason is that 我 contains no swappable element such as 亻 or 女. Like the English first person pronoun “I,” which comes capitalized right out of the package, it seems to need no dressing up.
Note: Christianity was almost certainly not the first organized religion to make use of “god pronouns” in Chinese. A Google search turns up examples of it in Buddhist literature as well. Being Christian and not Buddhist, I simply discovered their usage in the Bible first.
08
Apr 2005Stage 1 of the Makeovers Complete
I recently redesigned a few pages of Sinosplice:
– The root page is now Flash-less, with tons of text links emphasizing all the non-blog content I’ve got online. (Take a look; there may be some stuff you don’t know about.)
– Chinese Study Book Reviews has been given new life. There are new reviews, more guest reviews, categories, comment function* for each review, RSS feed, etc. Such is the power of CMS technology. Inbound links are appreciated; I’m going to try to make these reviews really helpful.
– A Pictorial Guide to Life in China has been made prettier. This is a pleasant reminder of the days when I cared less about offending my hypersensitive visitors. For now the comment function doesn’t work; I’ll try to get that working sometime next week. [Apr. 12 Update: Comments work now.]
There’s so much I want to do with my website, but that’s all going to have to go on hold for about a month. I just had a meeting with the professor at East China Normal University about how my entrance exams will be administered. Basically I need a decent grasp of everything in the 现代汉语 textbook. Too bad I had been concentrating on a different textbook in my studies until now. And I’ll have to write a timed essay for them. Now that I’ve got more specifics about the exams, I need to stop slacking (read: working on my website) and get it in gear.
* I had been using Haloscan comments before, but I found out that Haloscan deletes your comments after a certain amount of time. In every case where I had used Haloscan for adding comment functionality to a static webpage, comments disappeared after a year or so.
07
Apr 2005New Blog Name
OK, so I thought of a good name for a China blog:
The Document Contains No Data
(Yes, the internet in Shanghai still sucks. Why does Micah have no trouble accessing sites that I can’t access, living 1.1 km away? Ah, Mystical Orient, what a cruel mistress you are….)
07
Apr 2005The Rat Game
Rats don’t really freak me out at all. I recognize them as carriers of disease, so I certainly wouldn’t want any in my building, but I don’t get “disgusted” when I see one like some people.
I live pretty near the Zhongshan Park subway stop. When I walk to the subway, I pass by a large planter with some rather sad-looking bushes and grass (?) in it. The city’s attempt to cultivate this little green oasis inside a long expanse of concrete is mostly a failure, as there’s more dirt than anything in the planter. It is also in this location that I frequently see rats.
They’re your typical brown city rats, I guess. About the size of a good Idaho potato. They like to scurry around in that dirt. There are storm drains nearby, and the Suzhou River with its bustling garbage trafficking is not far to the north. The rats come out the most after it rains.
One day Carl and I started talking about how we always see rats in that one place. Since then I can’t help looking for rats every time I go by. It’s a sort of competition.
Today on the way home I saw three rats at once, all chilling within a few feet of each other. It hadn’t even rained very recently. Beat that, Carl!
06
Apr 2005Not that She
I was reading an entry on Peking Duck about a man who got a harsh lesson in police “justice.” This sentence made me pause:
> She, 39, was coerced into confessing to her murder and badly beaten in prison, the China Daily said.
[I’m going to completely ignore the point of the news story here. If you want to discuss it, you’ll be very welcome on Peking Duck.]Did you find that sentence confusing at all? “She” (舍 or 佘) may be the man’s surname, but in English it’s more commonly the feminine third person singular pronoun. When it comes at the beginning of a sentence, it’s indistinguishable from the Chinese surname written in pinyin. Similarly, “He” (何 or 贺) is a Chinese surname as well. “You” (尤 or 游) can also be a Chinese name. I, We, They, Him, Her, Me, etc. are not Chinese surnames, though, so the fun ends here.
I should note that of the Chinese surnames She, He, and You, none is pronounced very similarly to its English “counterpart.” The vowel sounds especially are notably different.
Still, this seems like a great setup for wordplay of some sort. It would be a welcome change from the stale Hu/who jokes which have only recently subsided.
Anyone up for the challenge?
04
Apr 2005One character said to the other…
I was recently introduced to a cute collection of Chinese jokes based on the small differences between similar Chinese characters. Some of them can even be appreciated without much knowledge of Chinese. I’ve translated a few of those below.
> 个 said to 人: I can’t keep up with you youngsters, and I can’t get anywhere without my cane.
> 日 said to 曰: Looks like it’s time for someone to go on a diet.
> 比 said to 北: Come on, now, you’re a couple! No more of this ridiculous divorce talk!
> 人 said to 从: You guys still haven’t undergone the separation surgery?
> 木 said to 术: Don’t think you’re so hot just because you have that beauty mark…
> 尺 said to 尽: The results are in, sis. You’re going to have twins!
> 由 said to 甲: Doesn’t practicing One-finger Zen make you really tired?
(Read the full list in the original Chinese.)
02
Apr 2005What is One-Finger Zen?
Recently I came across the term 一指禅 in my Chinese studies. I asked my tutor about it. She said it was a mystical kung fu secret developed by the Shaolin monks. Using this technique, a monk can do a “handstand” using only one finger. Supposedly he can keep this up for several minutes.
An English search for “One-finger Zen,” however, turns up a different story. Unsurprisingly, information about Zen in English is normally about Japanese Zen (rather than “Chinese Zen,” or Chán). I found this story, which I remember hearing in Japan when I studied there:
> Whatever he was asked about Zen, Master Gutei simply stuck up one finger. He had a boy attendant whom a visitor asked, “What kind of teaching does your master give?” The boy held up one finger too. Hearing of this, Gutei cut off the boy’s finger with a knife. As the boy ran away screaming with pain, Gutei called to him. When the boy turned his head, Gutei stuck up one finger. The boy was suddenly enlightened. When Gutei was about to die, he said to the assembled monks, “I received this one-finger Zen from Tenryu; I’ve used it all my life, but I have not exhausted it.” Having said this, he entered nirvana. [full text]
So it appears to be both a badass kung fu trick as well as a full Zen philosophy. I was pleased to discover that the Chinese have yet another interpretation, which was good for a chuckle.
01
Apr 2005Shanghailander!
I learned recently from the Shanghai Wikipedia entry that some people actually use the term “Shanghailander” in all seriousness, meaning “a native of Shanghai” (Google search). Don’t they know about Highlander?? This deserves to be made fun of.
30
Mar 2005Marco Polo Syndrome
In a recent blog entry, Sam of ShenzhenRen discusses what Justin of Shenzhen Zen has coined “Marco Polo Syndrome.” Justin’s definition:
> **MPS: the silent social killer.**
> Symptoms: exaggerated manifestations of superiority and exclusivity fostered by the delusion that the individual was the first and only foreigner to “discover” China. While it’s difficult to fathom how one can still engage in this egregious self-deception while standing under a glowing neon 20-foot visage of Colonel Sanders, it’s apparently not an uncommmon affliction.
> Cure? Apparently none, though foreign friends in Shenzhen also confirmed my findings through their own research.
My comment on ShenzhenRen:
> “Marco Polo Syndrome” — haha, I love it! Whatever it is, I can confirm that the phenomenon is alive and well in Shanghai as well.
> All of the explanations you offered sound plausible. I quickly came to a conclusion after about two years in China: There are two kinds of foreigners in China: freaks and cool people. I think there are more of the former.
> The scary thing is that I have caught myself exhibiting some of the behavior you describe! I’ve never told anyone to “piss off” or anything that extreme, but I’ve certainly ignored other foreigners I pass by. I’m not sure why I do it — I think it’s out of some kind of assumption that all foreigners in Shanghai are dicks. But there’s really no need for me to follow suit and act that way.
> So now I make an effort to at least smile at other foreigners. Usually they ignore me or frown back, but at least I’m not one of them.
A visitor named Ryan (the same one that comments here sometimes?) replied:
> I think part of the problem in Shenzhen is the fact that most people don’t come here to “see” China (and if they do they’ve come to the WRONG place). We have other motives for living here. I think this leads to (at least) two types of people who exhibit MPS.
> 1) The asshole foreigner is here on business. Perhaps unwillingly. You will often see him at Starbucks and overpriced bars. He may take a fork with him to restaurants. Perhaps he is focused on his job and not interested in meeting new people. Perhaps he realizes that most foreigners in China are backpackers or teachers and feels a natural sense of superiority, preferring to associate only with other people who wear suits.
> 2) The asshole foreigner has been in China a while and has gravitated to Shenzhen in order to make money, support a family, have easy access to HK, etc. I’ve noticed length of time spent in China used as a status symbol. Perhaps they look down on other foreigners, assuming they are new arrivals (as they often are). Perhaps, having been here a while, they have their circle of friends and aren’t interested in having more. Maybe they think they are so native that they aren’t interested in foreigners (this doesn’t describe me, but I do find myself staring at foreigners as much, sometimes more, than the Chinese).
> I used to be a friendly foreigner, but after being snubbed so often I now wait to be acknowledged before I will do the same.
Whatever the explanation, there’s certainly something going on. (Notice that it’s an anagram for another ominous acronym?) Check out Sam’s analysis as well as Justin’s original entry.
28
Mar 2005Adopt a Blog Update
Seeing as how the press has called attention to Adopt a Blog once again, I think it’s time to give an update. The program has been going for about a year now. So what is its status?
A lot of people liked the idea of Adopt a Blog. I got a huge response from people offering server space. This is great, because success of the project depends entirely on the generosity of such people. But the success of the project also depends on something else. *People need to come forward and ask for hosting.* That, for the most part, didn’t happen. As a result, the project did not succeed in getting many blogs hosted at all.
But even if there were a large number of “adopters” as well as “adoptees,” there are still a few other problems:
– Currently, e-mail is the medium of communication for matching “adopters” and “adoptees.” That makes a lot of work for one person, and it’s not the most efficient.
– If the program were to be very successful, I might get blocked. Noooooo, I don’t like that.
– If the program were to be very successful, I’d get a lot more traffic, which would give me bandwidth issues.
Therefore, it is my hope that some benevolent company overseas could champion this cause and host Adopt a Blog on their own servers. They would make themselves look good by supporting free speech online, all for a comparatively small investment. It would also be easy for the company to set up a discussion board, which would be a better way to make matches than e-mail. The company could also have the site translated (I’m sure it would be easy to find people to do it for free) without fear of any backlash.
Sooo… any takers out there?
28
Mar 2005AP
Note to Self: *When you know AP is calling you for an interview at noon, don’t go to bed really, really late, and don’t wake up right before the interview.*
An AP reporter in Beijing called me the other day about a story. It’s not a story I’m covering in this weblog at all; I don’t tend to write about politics. The story has been covered quite well, very early on, by ESWN.
In the AP article I’m quoted as saying, “**I want to move the big eye off me.**” Yeah, I really said that. Leave it up to my groggy mind to make vague references to *Lord of the Rings* with regards to the Chinese government in an AP interview.
The quote seems a little contradictory, though, doesn’t it? If I want less attention, why would I agree to an AP interview?! Well, it’s sort of a calculated risk. I was trying to give Adopt a Blog some publicity in order to get it moved to more devoted hands. And if ESWN doesn’t get blocked for all the things he writes about, I really don’t see why I should worry. Still, I’m paranoid.
So far the AP article has already earned me one new friend. I found this fan mail in my inbox this morning:
> I read about you in the Washington Post today. Tell me, what is wrong with your own culture that you feel it necessary to continue with your obvious European roots to perpetrate your people’s disgusting racist practice of cultural imperialism!?
> I hope that Public Security sends your racist ass right back to Florida! You obviously received a shitty education at Florida and probably spent too much time getting wasted at frat parties.
> Come to NYC’s Chinatown and we will show you how us Chinese here deal with scum like you!
It’s like this guy can see right into my *soul!* Amazing.