?
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing on July 16, 2007
One of the oddities of this neighbourhood- or at least that part of it outside my window and over the wall that is open to the general public- I suspect our little (irrtatingly) walled-off for BeiGongDa folks only section wouldn’t allow such things or people- is that one of the peddlers who plies the neighbourhood wanders through the lanes calling out “Ay! Mañana!”
Alright, probably if I found the peddler in question and asked him what exactly he was calling and if he then told me in a normal voice instead of his calling out for business voice I’d probably discover he was actually saying something quite normal and sensible. Trouble is, I’ve never actually seen the guy, only heard him. There are a lot of trees in this area.
erm
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing on July 16, 2007
The three days I spent last week on the history of Yanqing left me worn out. Well, first of all, I’m not used to spending so much time reading Chinese, let alone translating. And then…. I dunno, but by Thursday I was shattered. Anyway, I still have stuff to work on. There’s a nice, huge, long piece about Guyaju that I haven’t even started to read, and that will have to somehow be worked into that page on the history of Yanqing. And then I have to start on Shanxi…. Well, I already have some stuff on Shanxi to sort through, including a huge big piece on the Great Scholar Tree in Hongdong County, Linfen City. Yes, that Hongdong. You wouldn’t know it from the news coverage over the last month, but there is more to Hongdong, and Linfen, and Shanxi than coal, illegal brick kilns, and slavery. A lot more. So anyway, I guess I should get started on this stuff. After lunch.
interviews
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing on July 15, 2007
Just spent the morning interviewing prospective students for this programme I’ll be working on at BeiGongDa. The usual story, and kind of exhausting in its own way. It’s like being a machine on an assembly line: Take the student in, crunch it up, spit it out, produce a record. Fortunately, though, I managed to avoid the horror stories. Somehow they all wound up being interviewed by my future colleagues. Did get one really brilliant student, though, and several others who were pretty good. The rest were generally about what I expected the average to be.
The trouble with programmes like this is they attract the rejects and washouts- kids from wealthy families who couldn’t get in to a Chinese university. Some of them are just plain thick as pigshit, but there are also many bright kids who, for whatever reason, completely buggered up the GaoKao. Fortunately, though, the boss has set some reasonable entry standards and seems to be enforcing them, so judging by what I saw today, classes aren’t going to be too bad. Maybe even quite good.
Another thing that I don’t like about this kind of thing is interviewing students who clearly would be far better off if their parents would let them develop in their own way. I interviewed several artists and musicians, including one who could tell me, even though her English was quite weak, that Picasso was her favourite painter and managed to give a vague reason why. Unfortunately her English wasn’t quite up to developing the topic. But still, with most 18, 19 or 20 year olds I’ve dealt with here, discussion of music or the arts never really gets past Jay Chow or Harry Potter, and it’s always nice to come across somebody who would be capable of taking the discussion further and deeper if either their English were up to the task or I was allowed to switch into Chinese. But anyway, these artists and musicians were here interviewing for a degree in Information Technology, and quite frankly, I didn’t find their stated reasons for applying for this programme entirely convincing. Maybe that’s my own bias showing, but then again, one of them told me he didn’t play in a band because his parents wouldn’t let him.
I’ve also finally met all of my future colleagues, and they seem alright. Well, apparently we still need one more (so if you’re wanting to teach English to university students in Beijing, leave a comment), but I’ve finally met all those we have now. You know, I’m almost looking forward to having to work again. It feels like I’m about to start something approaching a real job.
4 billion fake ciggies
Well, fake cigarettes is hardly news. But what I liked about this article is the last sentence:
Zhang was upbeat about China’s tobacco production, saying it would grow steadily in the next consecutive ten years, but made no comment about the health issues related to smoking.
Beautiful.
note to self
Note to self: In the summer heat, dead organic matter rots very quickly.
another wow
I have to say I have not been particularly impressed by journalist blogs. Well, some of them are very good and some I do read every day, but still, as a species, I’ve found the journalist blogs to be rather average. But every now and then a journalist blog up and surprises you. Today’s surprise comes from Richard Spencer, who I should say I rate as a good journalist blogger, and his article about discovering temples in rural Sichuan on his summer holiday. It’s a good read. And I particularly like the ending:
That’s all really. I entered town through a Muslim Hui street. Shops selling Tibetan-style coats and others selling training shoes and mobile phones sat side by side on the main drag. A Tibetan monk wandered past. So did my family.
Nicely done. Also of note is his encounter with a man wielding a sickle and some interesting opinions.
Wow.
Eighty eight countries on a bicycle, bugger all money, odd jobs he found along the way, and the kindness of strangers. Amazing.
because the Shanxi slave case wasn’t enough
Posted by wangbo in news, ranting, tilting at windmills on July 13, 2007
I need to check CSR Asia more often. Here’s a story dated July 11 about how Wang Xiaofeng discovered an illegal factory in Wuhan. It can’t much the Shanxi slave scandal for sheer horror or scale, but still, it’s not pleasant reading and serves as a reminder there’s a lot more work to be done cleaning up sweat shops and stamping out labour abuse.
That’s the unfortunate thing about scandals. They focus everybody’s attention on one issue for a short time, then the media’s attention is drawn elsewhere and everybody forgets. Meanwhile, the hard work still needs to be done. And unfortunately the real hard work isn’t so ‘sexy’ and takes far too long to keep the media’s attention.
clean, green air pollution
Clean green New Zealand, huh?
Air pollution claims 1100 lives each year. That’s the headline. And it comes with a beautiful photo of Christchurch smog.
Air pollution is a billion-dollar killer claiming nearly 1100 lives in New Zealand each year, a new report says.
The four-year study, by more than 20 leading science and health experts in New Zealand and Australia, found one in 20 people die earlier than they would have because of air pollution. In greater Auckland, the figure is 1 in 16.
It blames open fireplaces in homes and dirty fumes from vehicle exhausts and factories for the toll.
But the report also warns that smaller cities too have dirty air.
“Air pollution levels are quite high in places like Taumarunui, Timaru, Rotorua and Tokoroa,” said a lead author, environmental science consultant Gavin Fisher.
The study showed the most significant pollutant came from inefficient fuel burning that can aggravate or cause respiratory problems.
The article only gets more depressing. One thing it shows up clearly, though, is that New Zealand houses tend to be very poorly heated and insulated. Why do you think so many people rely on burning wood to keep warm in the winter? (and the next person who tries to tell me New Zealand is a tropical country because it’s in the Pacific is going to get such a damn good kick up the arse they’ll fly all the way to the Pacific coast of Antarctica).
what’s the big deal?
So what’s the big deal about Facebook? I remember checking it out a while ago and thinking, Uh, no, I don’t think so. Then today I read this almost glowing review. And then in the comment thread of that review somebody posts a link to this, which links Facebook to various branches of the US government, including the Department of Defence, the DARPA (who?) the Office of Information Awareness (who?) and the Central Intelligence Incomptetence Agency. But apparently Facebook is one of these Big New Things that anybody who is anybody joins and then everybody networks and…. whatever. Anyway, I’m having another look at this Facebook thing to see what the fuss is about.
Update:
Well, so I’m wading through the legalese in the Facebook terms of service, and, as I was warned by that not so positive article about Facebook linked to above, the one that ties Facebook up with the CIA:
When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.
[emphasis mine]
And:
By including a Share Link, Online Content Provider automatically grants, and represents and warrants that it has the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use the Share Service in order to link to, use, copy, publish, stream, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part), summarize, and distribute the content, links and other materials of any kind residing on any web pages on which Online Content Provider places the Share Link.
[no emphasis needed here]
So, basically, Facebook owns everything. Clauses like this in the terms of service do not do much to persuade me to sign up. It doesn’t get any better by pointing out that any personal data I may enter into Facebook will be transferred to and processed within the US, not given the practices of the Bush administration. If they cared so much about their users’ privacy, they’d have all of their servers in Canada and do all the processing of data their. And then having claimed ownership of any and all information, data or whatever else you put on Facebook or on any site of yours on which you post one of their dinky little “share buttons” or whatever they called it, they turn around and, in addition to the usual “anything bad that happens could not possibly be our fault” disclaimer, they say:
The Company is not responsible or liable in any manner for any User Content or Third Party Applications, Software or Content posted on the Site or in connection with the Service, whether posted or caused by users of the Site, by Facebook, by third parties or by any of the equipment or programming associated with or utilized in the Site or the Service. Although we provide rules for user conduct and postings, we do not control and are not responsible for what users post, transmit or share on the Site and are not responsible for any offensive, inappropriate, obscene, unlawful or otherwise objectionable content you may encounter on the Site or in connection with any User Content or Third Party Applications, Software or Content. The Company is not responsible for the conduct, whether online or offline, of any user of the Site or Service.
Right. So you claim ownership of any material anybody posts to your site and any material on any site that has a “share button”, but you refuse to take responsibility for it. That seems mature to me.
You know, the more I read their terms of service, the more Facebook persuades me to not sign up. I don’t think I’m even going to bother with their privacy policy or code of conduct. I think I’ll just remain out of fashion and out-dated and not facebooked for the time being.