distant ruminations

Wow, I just noticed Cui Jian’s getting a lot of love in 新京报/The Beijing News today.

First is this article, reproduced, inexplicably, with a different headline and buggered up “related news” here, and another article, reproduced under the “related news” section of the first article, here.

It’s all part of their “30 years of reform and opening up” series, which seems to almost dominate their China news section, and today they proclaim:

第81期：中国摇滚乐诞生中国摇滚乐诞生中国摇滚乐诞生

The 81st period: Chinese rock is born Chinese rock is born Chinese rock is born

Got that?

崔健从“一无所有”开始

Cui Jian began with “Nothing to my name”

 Well, if TBN’s photo is to be believed, he managed to find a guitar, a Qing Dynasty-style shirt, and a red cloth to blindfold himself with:

1986年5月9日，一个人穿了一件颇像大清帝国时期的长褂子，身背一把破吉他，两裤脚一高一低地蹦上北京工人体育馆的舞台。这是一场《让世界充满爱》的大型流行音乐演唱会。

9 May, 1986, a man wearing a long coat reminiscent of the Qing empire period, a battered guitar on his back, one trouser leg higher than the other, jumped on to the stage of Beijing Workers Gymnasium. This was a “Let the world be filled with love” large-scale pop music concert.

台下观众还没明白发生了什么，音乐开始响起。

The audience still hadn’t understood what happened when the music started.

“我曾经问个不休/你何时跟我走……”

“I have asked you endlessly/When will you go with me?“

台下变得静悄悄。十分钟后，歌曲结束，在热烈的欢呼和掌声中，崔健诞生了。

The audience when silent. Ten minutes letter, the song was ended, and in the warm cheers and applause, Cui Jian was born.

中国的摇滚乐，诞生了。

Chinese rock was born.

如今回想当年，崔健说：“当时改革开放刚刚起步，被压抑了十年的人们，已经有了太多情绪堆积在心里，需要一个出口来宣泄、表达，但不知道怎么找。我们作为第一代唱摇滚的，恰好打开了这个出口，所以就引起了大家的注意。”

        If we think back to that year, Cui Jian says: “Back then reform and opening up had only just started, people who had been repressed for ten years already had too much pent-up emotion,  they needed an outlet to vent, express themselves, but didn’t know how to find it. We were the first generation to sing rock, as it turns out, we opened that outlet, and so grabbed everybody’s attention.”

It goes on to take a look back at Cui Jian’s early career, including a 1985 pop song competition he and his band were knocked out of in the first round, but sorry, I’ve got to go to lunch now. Read it yourself.

新京报/The Beijing News’ Jiang Yanxin reports that Beijing is about to start a new programme of relocating rural residents from areas prone to mud and rock flows:

两万农民将搬离泥石流易发区

20,000 rural residents to be moved from areas prone to mud and rock flows

北京启动新一轮山区农民搬迁工程，今年搬离居民每人补贴1.3万元

Beijing will begin a new project to relocate rural residents of mountainous areas,  residents relocated this year receive a subsidy of 13,000 yuan per person.

今年年内，北京将有5165名农民搬离居住地，政府将按照每人1.3万元的标准发放搬迁补贴。昨日，北京市新一轮山区农民搬迁工程启动会议召开。到2012年，北京将有两万多名农民搬离泥石流易发区和生存条件恶劣的居住地区。

This year Beijing will relocate 5165 rural residents, and the government will provide a relocation subsidy according to a standard of 13,000 yuan per person. Yesterday, the opening ceremony of Beijing Municipality’s new mountain districts rural residents relocation programme was held. Up till 2012, Beijing will relocate over 20,000 rural residents from areas prone to mud and rock flows or with poor living conditions.

据北京市农委主任王孝东介绍，新一轮山区搬迁的范围主要是山区泥石流易发区和生存条件恶劣的地区，涉及7个山区区县59个乡镇、283个行政村、20972名农民，搬迁工程时限从2008年到2012年。

According to Beijing Municipal Rural Affairs Committe chairman Wang Xiaodong, the principle range of the new mountain districts relocation is areas areas prone to mud and rock flows and areas with poor living conditions, and will involve 59 townships, 283 administrative villages, and 20,972 rural residents of seven mountainous districts and counties, and the timeframe of the relocation project will be from 2008 to 2012.

从2004年起，北京首次启动山区采空区泥石流易发区农民搬迁工程，2007年年底完成。全市共有3万余名生活在采空区、强泥石流易发区的农民搬离了危险区。

Beijing started its first project to move rural residents from mountainous areas mined-out or prone to mud and rock flows, completing it at the end of 2007. The whole municipality had over 30,000 people living in mined-out areas or areas prone to mud and rock flows who were relocated out of the danger zone.

采空区? Best answer I could get was from Baidu Zhidao, and there was another search result on Baidu which seemed to back up the “mined-out area” meaning. Bloody nciku crapped out on me half way through a translation again last night, and is almost, but only almost working again this morning.

Yanqing is in the news again, with two articles under the “districts and counties” section of 京报网. One I’ve decided not to bother with. I don’t want to bang my head against officialese. No thanks, not after the last couple of weeks of busy-ness, I don’t need that. But this one shows us how great Yanqing’s environment is:

延庆生态好 獾猪进县城

Yanqing’s ecology is good. Hog badger enters the county town.

And because nciku is inaccessible again and my dictionary doesn’t have 獾猪, I’m just going to have to trust Danwei for that…. except that Danwei has it as “猪獾”… oh dear. The pictures look like the same animal, though. Compare:

Danwei’s picture ripped from Steve Jackson’s Badger Pages:

and 京报网’s picture:

京报网’s Zhang Xinhua and Zhang Yehui report:

日前,延庆县园林工人在距县城的绿化带内,成功救助了一只北京市二级野生保护动物——獾猪。

The other day, Yanqing County parks and forest workers succeeded in rescuing a Beijing Municipality grade two protected wild animal within the county town’s green belt- a hog badger.

当时,园林工人在回家的路上,发现一名老人正在从绿化带内的树丛中逮獾猪。园林队负责人梁卫民迅速停车,带领队员王贵萍、张晔辉等前往共同救助。经辨认确 定为北京市二级野生保护动物獾猪,随后,他们马上电话联系了野生动物保护协会的工作人员,并共同将獾猪送到八达岭野生动物园。

At the time, as the parks and forest workers were on their way home, the came across an old person in the process of catching a hog badger from a thicket in the green belt. Liang Weimin, the person in charge of the parks and forest team, quickly stopped the car and took team members Wang Guiping and Zhang Yehui with him to rescue the animal. Having confirmed it was a Beijing Municipality grade two protected wild animal, a hog badger, they immediately phoned a worker at the Wild Animal Protection Association and together took the hog badger to the Badaling Wild Animal Park.

八达岭野生动物园工作人员介绍说,獾猪进入县城,一方面可能是迷路了,另一方面也说明延庆县城区的植被具备了野生动物的生存条件,生态环境好了,人们保护野生动物意识加强了,人与动物能够和谐相处,所以才有獾猪出没。

A worker at the Badaling Wild Animal Park said that a hog badger entering the county town, on one hand could be because it lost its way, but on the other hand shows that the vegetation in the Yanqing County town area has the conditions for the survival of wildlife, the ecological environment has improved, people’s awareness of the protection of wild animals has strengthened, people and animals can get along harmoniously, and therefore a hog badger can wander around.

All that fuss about a hog badger. Well, most of my time in Yanqing has been spent much further out from the county town at the base of the mountain range that forms the northern edge of the Yanqing basin a stone’s throw (almost literally) from a forest protection zone (the mountain range) and not far from the Songshan nature reserve. In all that time, the wildlife I have seen up there has been: One snake. One hare or rabbit or something similar. Two pheasants (not counting the pheasant killed by a cat then brought home for dinner by Ba who happened to be passing by as the cat killed it while he was taking the sheep out to graze one afternoon. By all accounts the cat was most upset to have expended so much energy to catch a pheasant, only to have the pheasant stolen by a shepherd. Poor cat (no, I am not sympathising with the cat)- I only saw that pheasant after it had been cooked). Half a dozen crows. The various “magpies with Chinese characteristics” (they look very similar to Kiwi magpies, but they don’t sing the same way, and don’t get so insanely territorial- or at least, I’ve never heard of anyone being menaced by them, let alone attacked) and other assorted birds that hang around the fields. Oh, and a few lizards. That’s it. The wildest life I have ever seen in the county town would be myself and the three other Kiwis who I have taken there (my parents and Roubaozi). So, much as I would rather not admit this about my beloved Yanqing, seeing something as seemingly insignificant as a hog badger in the county town is a Very Good Sign.

Update: lzh tells me her father and uncles used to hunt hog badgers and that their meat is very tasty. That may explain why they’re now a “Beijing Municipality grade two protected wild animal.