• [094]  Hong Kong Media Coverage of Lebanon (07/31/2006)  (Oiwan Lam at InMediaHK)

(in translation)  Today I got on Wisenews and I did not find a single news report on the local anti-war protest.  Did you know about it?  More than 100 Hong Kong people, including locals, Lebanese, Indonesians, Filipinos, Americans, Japanese, Indians, with different religious backgrounds (Muslims and Christians) marched in Central/Admiralty yesterday.  You probably don't know because none of the newspapers mentioned it.

In the grand scheme of things, it was less important for the newspapers to cover the demonstration than to inform the public and lead opinion.  Here is an excerpt from Lu Feng's editorial in Apple Daily (Hong Kong) and this means much more than a short story on the demonstration.  Why?  Because this was the flagship editorial statement from a newspaper with a circulation of 350,000.

(in translation)  As I watched the rescuers bring out one after another dust-covered, lifeless children from the collapsed buildings, I only felt sorrow in my heart.  What did these Lebanese children do wrong?  Why must the Israeli warplanes and bombs insist on killing them?

According to the IDF, they had warned the residents to leave the villages in southern Lebanon.  Since Hezbollah was firing rockets from this area, Hezbollah and the local residents are responsible for this incident.

This manner of blaming the victims is shocking and revolting!  Everybody knows that the Lebanese residents want to leave the battle zone in southern Lebvanon, but they cannot.  Ever since the IDF invaded Lebanon more than two weeks ago, more than 700,000 Lebanese persons have been displaced.  It is impossible for this huge number of refuges to leave southern Lebanon and find safe haven elsewhere.  Most of them stay in the war zone and hope to get by from day to day.  They hide in the few buildings and hope that they can be spared the Israeli artillery shells and bombs.  But the Israeli attack was too intense and many Lebanese did not survive, including many Lebanese children who were buried in the debris or killed by the firepower.  Do these Lebanese who have nowhere to go really deserve to die?  Are they really responsible for their own deaths as the IDF says?

Actually, even if the refuges leave the war zone, they may not be safe even though they have gotten away from the places with the most intensive fighting.  It does not mean that they can live in peace, because the Israeli firepower does not distinguish between military and civilian targets.  The Israeli will not hold back for women and children, not even for UN peacekeepers.  Isn't that true?  The UN observers in Lebanon communicated with the Israeli authorities many times to make sure that their post would not be attacked and Israel promised them as such, but that was an empty promise; multiple Israeli shells hit the observersation post, causing the deaths of four UN observer and many other injuries.  If the UN facilities which represent the international commuinty could be a target of attack, then where can the Lebanese civilians and children escape to? 

... At the G8 meeting, US President George W. Bush said in private: "(they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over."  Perhaps the international commuinty ought to say something like: "(they) need to do is get US to get Israel to stop doing the shit and it's over."

• [093]  That Devil of a Teacher (07/31/2006)  (Sing Tao)  The latest serial drama on Hong Kong's TVB is creating quite a stir.  When the Japanese import "The Queen's Classroom" (女王的教室) debuted on Sunday, it had 1.6 million viewers and broke the record for a foreign series at that time slot.
   
  The central character in the series is a ruthless and emotionless female teacher, who began the first day in class by telling the students: "Stupid and lazy people will suffer unjust treatment their whole lives; smart and dilligent people will receive countless privileges (愚昧與懶惰的人，將終生為不公平的待遇而感到痛苦﹔聰明與努力的人，將獲得無數特權。)"  
  
  In order to ensure that the students get the best examination results, the teacher resorted to tactics such as physical punishment, threats, invasion of privacy, etc.  She forbade the students to use the restrooms during class and canceled summer vacation.  The newspaper also said that she employed Cultural Revolution-style criticisms -- the class was divided into sections that reported on each other and she used the First Emperor of Qin's method of collective guilt by punishing the entire section if one member makes a mistake.

• [092]  An Empirical Example of Bridge Blogging (07/31/2006)
  - Hong Kong blogger Learned Friend posted her experience of an encounter with twenty students between the ages of 9 and 15, specifically with respect to their attitudes towards other social groups (mainlanders, Filipinas, Indians)
  - That Chinese-language post was translated by the EastSouthWestNorth blogger into English: With Parents Like These, It Follows That ...
  - An Indian blog Sepia Mutiny picked up this English-language translation in the post Hindi-Hong Kong-Bhai-Bhai and generated many comments.  The overall tone was less accusatory about Chinese prejudices than self-reflections.
   
  That is what bridge blogs are good for ...

• [091]  Drug Smugglers (07/31/2006)  (Metropolis Times via Wenxue City)  Yesterday at 12:30pm, the Number 2 Narcotics Squad received a tip that nine Xinjiang women were flying from Manshi into Kunming with drugs.  At 12:55pm, the squad was told that the airplane would arrive at 1:02pm and so they decided to wait for the suspects at the baggage collection area.  But none of the passengers that they saw fit the description.  However, the police also found out that more than 20 Xinjiang women were on another plane heading to Guangzhou from Manshi with an intermediate stop in Kunming.  Those passengers were now in an airport waiting lounge.  The police raced over there and found 26 women, some pregnant, plus four children.
  
  Upon searching, 25 of the women were found to be carrying drugs on their persons and the remaining woman was shifty in her answers under police questioning (she had no luggage and she had only several dozen RMB plus an expensive, non-working mobile phone).  Therefore, all the women brought back to the police station.  This drug smuggling case involves the largest number of people in one case as far as anyone can remember.
  

• [090]  A Photographer in Gaza (07/30/2006)  From Scout Tufankjian in Slate: A Photographer in Gaza, this is so raw, blunt and honest that I ought to save it:

All and all, I have it pretty easy here. My hotel has a generator that runs 24-7, while most Gazans have electricity only a few hours a day, if that. The IDF bombed the main power station a few weeks ago, and it looks like it might take years to fix. My hotel even has wireless Internet and hasn't yet run out of food, which is served on a terrace overlooking the Mediterranean. (Gaza has the sweetest strawberries in the world.) More important, I can leave whenever I want to, something most Palestinians can't do. If I decide that I want to see the opening night of my boyfriend's play, or catch a Red Sox game or attend my mother's 60th birthday party at a Connecticut casino, I can.

But most of the time, I'm happy to stay. The nights are not as much fun as they were before the foreign press corps picked up and left en masse for Lebanon and Haifa, but I enjoy my days more now that the streets are not clogged with other reporters. Although international attention has shifted to Lebanon, the violence here continues unabated, so there's plenty to do. And the Gazans generally treat me with warmth and courtesy. They see the foreign press as a lifeline—a chance to tell the world their story. Almost everybody believes that the world will listen.

I have my doubts. Polaris, my agency, sends me plenty of e-mails reassuring me that my pictures are not being sent out into a void, but the outside world doesn't seem all that interested in making the shelling stop. My politics are pretty simple. Killing people is bad. Killing civilians is worse. Killing children is an obscenity—whether it's the Katyusha rockets that killed two kids playing in their yard in Nazareth or the 6-year-old girl killed in her house in Shajiya. But no one in charge of this conflict has much to gain by stopping it. With each new atrocity, the extremists on both sides gain greater strength. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has never been more popular in Israel, and Palestinians are hunkering down behind Hamas.

I asked one of my best friends, a local AP photographer, how he was doing and he said, "Work is good. The situation is kharra (shit)." That pretty much sums up life here. It's the essential contradiction of what I do. If my kid were killed, I wouldn't want some grimy little snapper sticking her lens in my face, but I do that to people every day. I don't beat myself up for it, either. I'm here to work, not to watch or to hold their hand and experience their pain. And it's my job to show that the shelling leaves real people, crying real tears, over their really dead sons and daughters.

• [089]  A German View of Chinese Bloggers (07/30/2006)  (Deutsche Welle)  Last week, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung began a series of articles on the Internet in China.  The first article was about Chinese bloggers, who have three unique characteristics:

First, most Chinese bloggers do not write anonymously.  On the contrary, they want to wear the shining cloak of scandals to gain public attention and elevate their standings.  Many bloggers accomplish fame through their blogs and then they become official media workers.  Second, the study of the blogs of 175 bloggers showed that none of them covered political or social issues.  Third, most blogs are comments or interpretations of officially sanctioned contents and there are no investigative news or participatory social reports.  The power of the fourth estate is missing in the Internet.

The 16 million bloggers are not subversive.  Therefore, it was not surprising that at the National People's Congress in April this year, there was an open discussion as to whether national chairman Hu Jintao and all People's Congress representatives should have their own blogs.  In China, blogs are not developing from the bottom up.  Instead, it is a political organization that is turned upside down from above.

• [088]  The Nightmare Continues for Chao Chien-ming (07/30/2006)  The PR sideshow continues as the media clearly do not like President Chen Shui-bian's son-in-law Chao Chien-ming.  That means everything that he does is magnified in a negative light.  The following is about a court appearance as reported in Apple Daily.
   
  Previously, in The Seven Men In Black, Chao Chien-ming was accompanied into court by some men dressed in black looking like gangsters from a movie.  This time, there were no more men in black.  Instead, more than 130 police officers were deployed, once again leading to charges of special privileges.
  
   
  Previously, in The Chin of the President's Son-ln-Law, an issue was made about how Chao Chien-ming tends to tilt his chin upwards at a 45-degree angle in a pose that might be construed as haughty and arrogant.  His lawyer's explanation was that this was a physical problem with Chao.
  
  Here is the detailed report: During the court session, Chao drank from his own mineral water bottle a total of nine times.  He frequently used his 45-degree head pose to look around the court.  About halfway through the session, he raised his left hand and put it on the back of the wooden bench and leaned backwards while shaking his right leg and using his right hand to tug at the beard underneath his chin or scratching an itch on his face.  Prior to arriving at the court, a television SNG (Satellite News Gathering) vehicle following Chao in his tax cab caught sight of him passing and staring pensively at the luxury mansion that he was reported to be interested to buy at more than NT$100 million.
   
  (United Daily News)  On this occasion, Chao Chien-ming did not bring his Mont Blanc pen but he brought a Nokia PDA with which he looked at the pictures of his newborn son.
   
  In other words, everything that Chao does is wrong.

• [087]  Blog Recommendations (07/29/2006)  (Wilson (Weisong Chen) Blog; Testing Space)  Hong Kong Economic Journal's columnist 孔少林 recommended the following Hong Kong blogs on Friday in p.28 of the newspaper.

聞見思錄： 博客觀事入微，資料十足，文筆流暢，照片醒神，在本港博落界知名度頗高。
 
东南西北：博客宋以朗事廣被傳媒報道，不贅；兩個字︰「佩服」。
 
香港仔公园：本地博落界另一知名人物，對香港事有態度。「香港仔」是指博客來自香港仔。
 
港燦筆記：本欄曾經介紹我喜愛的本地博客。燦兄觀事敏感度強，分析力強，文字溝通能力強，應該是各大報章羅致對象。
 
阿麦书房部落：除了北角「森記」，銅鑼灣「阿麥書房」是我近年喜愛光顧，洋溢「書意」的書局。博客莊國棟是有心人，有心人寫的東西大都好看。

稿紙之外:一直喜愛馬家輝的文字，原來他的拍攝功力也不弱。

大學怪談:教育是一個我陌生的課題，有態度的教育工作者帶我進入多事領域。
 
中环博客：「中環博客」專欄已成為《AM 730》主打，廣受中環人注視。《AM 730》各位朋友︰首個目標已在望，努力！
 
国金外望：難兄難弟，客套話不多說，日後自己保重。

As this was the final edition of his popular column 原是物語, this can be said to be a significant moment.

• [086]  Destroying The Evidence - Part 2 (07/29/2006)  (Apple Daily)  At 10pm at night, the police inspected a beauty salon and found a locked room.  After knocking on the door for three minutes, someone finally opened the door.  In the room was a topless man and a fully clothed service worker who wore no underwear.  The police officer asked the man: "Did you complete the transaction? How much was it?"  The man said dispiritedly: "I did not finish yet.  I just managed to put on the condom.  We had agreed on a price of NT$3,600."  The police officer asked: "Where is the condom?"  The man moved his mouth to point to the female service worker's mouth and said nothing. 
   
  The police officer observed that the female service worker kept her mouth tightly shut and said nothing.  So he believed that the condom was in her mouth.  He demanded that she opened her mouth for inspection, but she refused.  He tried to pry her mouth open, but she resisted mightily and then she made a hard swallowing effort and there was nothing in her mouth.  All those present were stunned.  The female service worker was then brought down to the police station "to assist in the investigation."

• [085]  Head Bangers of Hong Kong (07/29/2006)  At the Comics Festival of Hong Kong, "80,000 people break their heads" trying to get in on the first day.
  
  I'll let you ponder why 80,000 came out to the Comics Festival (55,000 already by 5pm) whereas 55,000 (or 28,000 according to another version) came out to march for universal suffrage on July 1st this year (July 1st March Estimates and The Parachutist's Adventure in Hong Kong).
   
  As for the rest of the people of Hong Kong, a significant number of them may be up somewhere in Shenzhen, according to this Oriental Daily story:  The recent wave of police crackdown in the Shenzhen villages of Three Sha's, One Shui (Shangsha, Xiasha, Shazui, Shuiwei 上 沙, 下 沙, 沙 嘴, 水 圍) with hundreds of people arrested each night has caused the traditional 'entertainment' business to collapse as the working girls are packing up and heading home.  In order to retain business, the new gimmick is to have 13- and 14-year old female students on summer vacation to stand in the streets and provide company for as little as 120 RMB.  As a result, pedestrian traffic in the areas has picked up again.  Of course, sexual intercourse with young girls 14 or younger can result in jail time between 5 to 15 years in mainland China plus fines.  If the act is against the girl's will, the death penalty may be invoked.  Is plaisir d'amour worth it?
  

• [Administrative Note]  (07/29/2006)  My old service provider (Yahoo!) stinks in terms of customer services and pricing, but at least they did not go down very often.  My current service provider (Dreamhost) has more attractive pricing and offerings, but they go down more often than I would like.  On July 22, "At least a portion of our datacenter seems to have lost power very briefly. We have technicians driving to the datacenter now to see exactly what the situation is. If your site is down, we should have it taken care of shortly."  On July 28, 'There has apparently been another power outage at the datacenter. One of the generators caught fire and they were taken offline. We’re waiting for more information and we’ll post here as soon as we hear anything."  What gives?
   
  Related Link: ESWN outage  Andrew Lih

• [084]  Savantas (07/29/2006)  Here is the brief Ming Pao statement on the name of Regina Ip's Savantas think tank:

(in translation)  There are different sayings about the meaning of 'Savantas', including one that is completely opposite.  A reader recently consulted Joint Publishing Press' New French-Chinese Dictionary and found that the former meaning of Savantas refers to "people who pretend that they are learned, or people who barely understand, or people who pretend to be experts."

According to the explanation of Regina Ip, Savantas is derived from the French word 'savant' for learned people and added with 'as' (as in the Latin words veritas, caritas, pietas) to express the knowledge and wisdom of the think them.  The vice executive manager Gerald Henry of Alliance Française said that the French language has the word 'savant' which means a knowledgeable person but not 'savantas.'

Here is the official explanation on the website of Savantas:

The name "Savantas" was built by combining the French word "savant", meaning a person of great learning, with the suffix of many Latin nouns (for example veritas, caritas, pietas), to signify our accent on knowledge and wisdom.

But after sifting through the evidence, I am not convinced about this alleged opposite meaning for 'savantas.'  I have not seen the primary evidence cited in the Ming Pao report (namely, the New French-Chinese Dictionary).  But why would I need a French-Chinese dictionary if I want to find the meaning of a French word?

The best researched resources come from 戴珍 at InMediaHK and InMediaHK.  But it is still not totally convincing.  Here is the partial translation from the first essay:

... All those learned people who value knowledge and wisdom never thought that 'savantas' which is combined from French and Latin was still a French word that means 'faux savant' (or 'fake scholar') ... 

But if I were to look up the synonyms, then 'savantas' is listed with 'faux savant,' 'poseur' and other negative words as well as 'maître,' 'savant' and other positive words.  So the use of the word will have to depend on the context.

For supporting evidence, 戴珍 has a citation from Molière's Les Fâcheux:

Et des gens comme vous doivent fuir l'entretien
De tous ces savantas qui ne sont bons à rien.

(in English)
And people like you should get away from the conversation
Of all these savantas who are good at nothing. 

This is unconvincing because it is no different from Richard Nixon's vice-president Spiro Agnew's characterization of the Vietnam War student radical protestors as "effete intellectual snobs," which should not equate all intellectuals as being "effete" and "snobs" forever afterwards.  In Molière's play, 'savantas' could have easily been replaced by 'savants,' 'intellectuals,' or 'sages' without skipping a beat.

But, in the end, what is in a name anyway?  For me, the real puzzlement in all this is just why the contest for Chief Executive is limited to current or former government officials (Donald Tsang, Anson Chan, Regina Ip, Henry Tang, Arthur Li etc) while anyone else without those kinds of credential need not apply.  And it also seems that prior government experience will qualify someone, no matter what the actual performance was.  How else can I explain the re-emergence of Ms. Regina "Damaged Goods" Ip?

P.S.  I have cast out the brick and the jade is here from the Kalos Kagathos blog (in Chinese); plus 小狼: 法語1分鐘：SAVANTAS

• [083]  Taiwan Looks At The Beijing Olympics (07/28/2006)  (United Daily Press) (Survey of 812 adults (394 refusals) on July 8; telephone survey based upon random sampling from the phone directory and then randomixing the last two digits).

- 66% of respondents know that the 2008 Olympics will be held in Beijing

- 14% are proud that Beijing is the host; 2% are disgusted; 66% have no special feelings; 17% no opinion.

- 34% are proud of mainland Chinese gold medalists; 2% feel negative about them; 51% have no special feelings; 11% no opinion.

- 46% think the Olympics will greatly help the mainland economy; 24% think it will help somewhat.

- 39% think the gap in international standing between mainland and Taiwan will grow as a result of the Beijing Olympics; 5% think the gap will shrink; 28% think that there won't be any big changes; 27% no opinion.

- 18% think mainland and Taiwan will come close as a result of the Beijing Olympics; 5% think that they will go further apart; 45% think that there is no impact; 32% have no opinion.

- overall, 20% think that the Beijing Olympics will be good for Taiwan; 20% think it will be bad; 42% think no material impact; 22% no opinion.

• [082]  The Full Monty, Chinese Style (07/28/2006) (Tianya Club)  Mind you, this particular item shows up as a front-page recommendation of one of the most popular forums in China.

(in translation)  There was a movie titled The Full Monty in which certain American unemployed workers resorted to strip-dancing to make a living.  I am not interested in male strip-dancers and so I have not seen that movie.  Reportedly, that movie is full of vulgar capitalist jokes and blind optimism, treating the serious issue of unemployment as farce -- over here, we would have asked Liu Huan to sing gloriously: "We only have to start over again."

Recently, I personally witnessed a Full Monty incident for ten people unrelated to unemployment.  It was like this: Somewhere in Shandong, a blind rights activist has been charged with some  unusual crimes and placed under detention for six months already.  Recently, the court trial was to begin and a certain group of people wanted to attend the trial and offer support.

On the night before the trial, the group arrived around midnight and were immediately tailed by unidentified persons.  When they went to the courthouse early in the morning, they were followed by cars without license numbers.  When they arrived at the courthouse, they took out their video cameras to film.  Immediately, a group of people who identified themselves as "civilians" came up to seize the equipment  Our videocameras, cameras and mobile phones were seized.  110 arrived forty minutes later, whereupon the "civilians" who took our equipment were untouched while we were taken down to the police station.  While we were waiting for 110 to arrive, some local citizens told us that the "civlians" were really local police officers.  While waiting at the police station, I spotted one of the "civilian" now wearing a police uniform.  The most funny thing was that the unlicensed vehicles which followed us around were parked in the courtyyard of the police station ...

The local police officers politely took our statements and released us.  We then proceeded to the village in which the blind man lived.  That was when the Fully Monty incident took place.

In order to show our support, we wore specially printed t-shirts with the head of the blind man in front (I did not wear one because there wasn't one whose size was large enough for me).  At the entrance to the village, we were intercepted by forty to fifty people.  Under the direction of several people, they snatched our t-shirts so that we were bare-backed.  Then someone said that they wanted to overturn our cars.  So they were pushing hard while we watched on the side.  Suddenly someone ordered: "Stop pushing!  Let them leave quicly!"  So we smiled and got into the cars.  Even though each car was packed with bare-topped men, we were not angry as we only found this funny.

There was another episode that I must mention.  When we got to a place, I thought that I had lost my direction.  So I told someone in our car to get out and ask the people in the unlicensed car behind us to lead the way to the expressway entrance so that we can go back to Beijing.  They were very happy and immediately complied.  They escorted us all the way out of the local jurisdiction.

This whole incident has a lot of significant aspects.  Some people were struck by how the local powers behaved like underworld gangsters.  What kind of world is this?  But my personal views are different.

You have to know that this incident appears to be a case in which we were robbed and we spilled a few drops of blood.  But those "civilians" were quite restrained.  They did not show any sign of being ready to punch with their fists, which means that they have been sternly warned to be careful about employing violence.  Even when they made the Full Monty show of us, they were quite constrained as they focused only on the t-shirts.  Of course, we did not fight back and we did not talk talk back.

The restraint against violence and the use of plainclothes while on duty actually signaled that the authorities have imposed self-restraints.  In my usual terminology, this means that they have castrated themselves.

This change means that the authorities have basically abandoned the use of public powers and symbols (such as police uniforms) to oppress people in whatever manner that they see fit.  By abandoning this approach, they have admitted that they are morally defeated.  From doing these things under the sunshine, they now have to work like underground moles.

... The establishment of legal processes, rule of law and human rights basically follows this path: civilian resistance -> violent oppression -> more resistance -> open oppression to hidden oppression -> social progress.  Following the self-castration of the authorities due to social pressure, the space is gettling larger and the degree of progress is bigger.  From this viewpoint, this Full Monty show had been quite worthwhile.

• [081]  Destroying The Evidence - Part 1 (07/28/2006)  (Oriental Daily; no link)  38-year-old male named Choi used his camera-capable mobile phone to take an upskirt photograph of a 16-year-old girl yesterday in the MTR around 5pm.  Another citizens observed his actions, followed him and notified the notice.  When the police officer demanded to inspect the mobile phone, Choi quickly took out the SIM card and swallowed it.  The police officer took Choi back to the police station to "assist in the investigation."
   
• [080]  Senior Citizen Abuse Time (07/28/2006)  (Ming Pao; Ming Pao)  It is the time of the year (Ghost Festival) when charity organizations distribute Peace Rice (平安米) to senior citizens in Hong Kong.  Since someone died last year during one of these mini-riots, these events are receiving more attention now.
   
  Yesterday, the distribution point was at Carpenter Road Park, Kowloon City.  Starting from 3am, senior citizens began to join the queue.  Early in the morning, there was a yellow-alert rain storm in which the nearly 1,000 people already present were drenched.
  
  At 9am, the organizers began to distribute the chips with which the the rice can be claimed later.  During that time, some people attempted to join the line again after getting their chips and were recognized and yelled at.  Although the rice distribution would begin until 3pm, some people were worried and staked out their positions again.  When the rice distribution began, some people saw that the rice package had been reduced from the previous 5 kilograms to 1 kilogram (worth less than HK$10).  A total of 2,400 packages were distributed.
   
  
  Grandma Liu came from Sze Wan Shan at 5am and got into the A1 zone to be among the first ones to receive the rice.  After almost 10 hours in the line, she was unhappy with what she got: "I was in the line the whole day and I only got this small bag of rice.  It is not even enough to feed a cat! (排了一整天，才得到這麼一小包米，餵貓仔都不夠啦﹗)" and "I was in the line for many hours.  This is worse than being a beggar! (排左咁多個鐘，仲慘過做乞丐)."  Then she threw the package on the ground and the reporter had to pick it up for her.
   
  More excitement came when the organizers brought out some unannounced gifts (Peace Noodles) and tossed them into the crowd.  Here are the photos of the ensuing mini-riot/wrestling match.
  
  Could this have been done better?  Possibly.  The Kowloon City Civil Affairs Bureau commissioner was present and said that he was satisfied (but he refused to give an evaluation).  Meanwhile, one senior citizen knew who to blame: "The worst is xxx (最衰都係××)" where xxx is the name of a Legislator that the newspaper did not name.

• [079]  About This Section (07/27/2006)  I have contemplated dumping the Brief Comments section on several occasions, but it is still alive.  But what is the idea?  After all, this is driving people crazy when they want to link to a specific item because the readers will be forced to accept all the comments of the month.  So let me tell you what this is really about.  In Jimmy Lai's essay Facts and Prejudices, he asserts that "People in Hong Kong don't care about what happens in Taiwan, and vice versa."  Now I happen to think that there ought to be more communication among mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.  If I placed everything as blog posts with clearly delineated regions through the RSS feed, I suspect my readers will selectively filter for what their interests are and ignore all else.  I consider that to be unforunate.  The present format of the Brief Comments section prevents that.  It forces you to come here and read through each item, which is short enough for you to grasp the central idea behind each item.  As you scroll down and read each item, you will retain something about what is going on in places that wouldn't interest you on a standalone basis.  This is the reason why you are being tortured ...

• [078]  Super Girl = Spiritual Pollution (07/27/2006)  (Huash.com via Wenxue City)  At the Guangzhou 20->10 elimination round of the Super Girl contest, the contestant Sun Yixin (孙艺心) pulled up her skirt to expose her white underpants, and this action raised a storm.  Here are the photos:
  
  What do you think?  Should the death penalty be imposed?  Please note that Sun Yixin's explanation was that she was originally scheduled to appear in white leather shorts but the director made her wear a camouflage skirt on the outside.  Unfortunately, this created the wrong impression that she was yanking up her skirt to display her white underwear.  Now she risks being PK'd by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT).

• [077]  "I've Got No Culture" (07/27/2006)  (Ming Pao via 一知半解)  The following is excerpted from the statement of Pang Chi-ming, the owner of Subculture Press which had a booth at the Hong Kong Book Fair. 

[in translation]  I have been in publishing for eighteen years.  Finally, I got my first "banned book."  At this year's Hong Kong Book Fair, the new book "Dirty Old Books" at our booth was ordered off by an official from the Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority ...

"Dirty Old Book" contains the study results of a Hong Kong cultural researcher who spent more than three years on local adult magazines from the 1960's and 1970's.  The book noted the historical development of erotic magazines, the social development of control, the needs of the readers and hence the cultural tastes and quality of Hong Kong.  Basically, this is a cultural study.

The author cited numerous cases, which had to illustrated by the photos that appeared in the old magazines.  For example, "the covers did not always use pretty girls, but they sometimes used scary middle-aged women," "the first appearance of uncovered nipples" and "the unprofessional poses of the local models."  We covered up these photographs by using blurs first and then flowery patterns on top -- we did not mean to circumvent the law and we only want to make sure that people recognize that we were not selling pornography.

... The official who banned the "Dirty Old Book" at the book fair said that female bodies were shown in the book with only the sensitive spots being covered.  This was not good enough for him, and so the book had to be removed!

As I stared at this official, I was reminded of what Chip Tsao said: "The peculiarity of Hong Kong's inspection system is such that the kids here will someday be shocked when they see a the nude body of a real female because she has are no square spots!"

As I was explaining to the official about the position and intent of the book, he interrupted me and articulated clearly: "You don't have to say anything else.  I've got no culture ... (「你唔使講咁多，我係無文化嘅……)."

Wow!  Which place in this world would apppoint someone with no culture to handle cultural matters??  Well, Hong Kong does that!

• [076]  Susanna Cheung Speaks Out (07/27/2006)  (InMediaHK; My Word Is My Weapon, My Practice Is My Revolution)  Hong Kong reporter Susanna Cheung Chui-yung (張翠容) wrote an opinion piece last week for the Hong Kong Economic Times to criticize the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.  The following response was posted on Cheung's personal blog (True Notes 1).

[in translation]  I did not expect that after I expressed some personal thoughts on the war in Lebanon last week, I would be lucky to draw the attention of the Israeli consul general in Hong Kong.

I did not intend to offend anyone, but the non-stop assault against the civilian infrastructure of another nation, the destruction of civilian homes and the displacement of innocent civilians from their homes truly pained my conscience.  My instinctive feeling was that this was conducting terroristic attacks in the name of anti-terrorism!?  Or should this be called humanitarian intervention or friendly fire?

First of all, this war began when Hizbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers from inside Israel near the border in the hope of making a swap for Lebanese political prisoners.  These types of border clash can be mediated and negotiated through the international community, or at least the problem can be restricted without large-scale warfare.  According to reports, the bombardment of the first few days were not directed against the Hizbollah military forces but instead against civilians.  This has to lead people to speculate whether Israel's true goal is to use the opportunity to destroy a defenseless small county with utter indifference to the lives of the innocent civilians?

The international community and media have no sense of right or wrong.  When the Israeli said that they would begin a land war in southern Lebanon, the media such as CNN described the invasion as "entering South Lebanon."  These types of word games are intended to mislead the public.

Oh!  What kind of world do we live in?

Although Hong Kong is tiny, it is still a cosmpolitan city.  We held the WTO conference here last year and we claim to embrace globalization.  Although I know that I am just a small Hong Kong reporter without much influence, I must make a statement on matters of right and wrong.  From afar in El Salvador, I check the Hong Kong newspaper websites.  The reports on the war in Lebanon are no longer international headlines, as everybody continues to chase after Mrs. Chan or other trivia.

I hope that Hong Kong society does not become numb and ignorant!  Starting a war will not bring security and happiness to Israel, as Israeli citizens are also being attacked.  Why should those lovely Israeli children become victims for no apparent reason?  It is the good citizens from both sides who are being held hostage by the extremist politicians!

(True Notes 2)  For clarification:

The Israeli Consulate did not literately request the Hong Kong Economic Times to stop me from writing anything ridiculing them. I think the inmedia has misunderstood the incident. Before? Yes. But not Hong Kong Economic Times. It is Hong Kong Economic Journal. They asked the HKEJ not to give me a platform for my articles. Since I still write for both the newspapers, it is obvious that my freedom of expression has been respected. I feel grateful to the chief editors of HKEJ and HKET, and I enjoy writing for them.

2. Anti-Isreal? In what way? I also critize China and Hong Kong . Am I anti-China or anti-Hong Kong?¨How convenient it is to give someone this label which by itself is a tool to create sterotyping and conceal the truth.  Please do not fall into this trap. 

Addendum:  Lost In Translation?

• [075]  Sidekick Breaks Through (07/27/2006)  In issue #855 (July 27, 2006) of Next Magazine, Hong Kong blogger Sidekick gets two-thirds of page 48.  
  
  The introduction: "Sidekick can be said to be a veteran in the Hong Kong blogosphere.  Although her blog age is only just over two years old, her blog "feats" are formidable with more than 430,000 visitors already and more than 700 subscriptions (1/4 from mainland China and Taiwan)."  Here is her most recent encounter with the Great Internet Firewall:

[in translation]  ... But in Sidekick's "glorious history," the best bit was when her blog was blocked on the mainland last year.  Sidekick built her own blog in March last year.  After publishing essays on June 4th and July 1st, her blog was blocked by the Great Internet Firewall so that mainland netizens cannot visit it anymore.  "The mainland firewall will automatically censor sensitive words such as "June 4th" or "July 1st" or the names of national leaders.  If  your blog has no mainland visitors, it is unlikely to be be blocked.  But since I frequently leave comments on mainland blogs and I know many mainland bloggers, I was banned," Sidekick said.

But Sidekick has figured out a countermeasure.  "This year on June 4th, I captured all the words and made them into pictures which I posted on the blog.  This got around the firewall (editor: currently, the mainland firewall can only check words but not pictures.  This is the blindspot of the software) and I am lucky that nothing has happened so far."

The remaining one-third of the page goes to another famous Hong Kong blogger 知日部屋, who focuses on Japan under the slogan: "Instead of idolizing or hating Japan, it is better to get to know it."  That is another one of those exceptional blogs that the outside world does not know enough about.

• [074]  Jimmy Lai Finds EastSouthWestNorth (07/27/2006)  In issue #855 (July 27, 2006) of Next Magazine (pages 142-143), Jimmy Lai begins his column with a quote from the EastSouthWestNorth blog as forwarded to him by the Next Magazine publisher Yeung Wei-hong.  Here is the quote:

[Administrative Note]  (07/13/2006)   It is travel day again (16-hour direct fight from New York City to Hong Kong).  Blogging should return to normalcy after that.  This trip is a reminder that if I hold a regular day job in New York City, then this blog could not exist as it stands because I would not have the time and I could not feel the pulse of the people and place. 

Why did I say that?  I was thinking about that last day before I left.  That morning, I got out of the apartment and I took the Third Avenue bus to go to the office.  I was very delighted that the Metro-card reader on the bus was broken and I got a free ride.  I got into the office and it was an all-day rush to make sure that everything was taken care of before I leave.  I copied all the computer files that I will need from the network onto my USB drive.  I spoke to everyone to make sure that everything is covered.  At the end of the day, I hurried over to a sister company because they needed some advice on their methodology.  There was a thunderstorm outside so I had to dash quickly.  We talked for a couple of hours and my throat was getting dry from all the talking.  Then I went out with three former colleagues to have dinner in Chinatown.  It was a big meal but relatively cheap.  By the time I got home, it was 10:30pm and I was in no mood or shape to worry about Anson Chan vs. Regina Ip, or the developments in the case against President Chen Shui-bian's son-in-law, or the new Chinese media law on suddenly breaking incidents.  Those things were too remote and disconnected from my reality at that moment.  No, I went to bed instead.  To keep the blog up, I thought that I will have to live and breathe China.

Jimmy Lai's essay goes on to some other things that should be of great interest and I hope to translate the essay shortly.  Specifically, he points out the reason why pan-Asian media have been disappearing is that the notion of Asia is remote and detached for most Asians (that is, people in Hong Kong really don't care too much about what happens in Cambodia and so on), and this was obviously related to the quoted statement of mine above.  The most important media nowadays are local media.

Jimmy Lai's essay becomes very interesting with respect to what happened in a meeting right before I picked up the magazine.  Among other things, we were talking about Jimmy Lai's essay Blogs and Newspapers.  But more importantly, we were also talking about a different model for pan-Asian new media which will overcome the detachment and remoteness of the mainstream media.  And this will not be empty talk as we intend to implement this model very soon.

• [073]  Grounds for Divorce (07/26/2006)  (Apple Daily)  I thought I have seen it all until this one.  In 1999, female Chang met male Ke, who was confined to a wheelchair.  Chang found Ke to be witty and progressive and decided to marry him over the objections of her family.  Since Ke was confined to the wheelchair, the wedding received media coverage at the time as the couple kissed during a ceremony presided by then Kaohsiung mayor Frank Tse.
   
  Chang recently filed for divorce on these grounds:
  - Ke had lied about his hospital job since he actually ran a lottery store (although he would actually play lottery himself)
  - Ke has the habit of spitting everywhere including the floor, wall and bedsheets at home, and so Chang was busy all day with the cleaning
  - Ke wants to keep Chang awake at night and uses his elbow to nudge her all night.  When Chang was pregnant and very tired, she went to the park one night because it was the only way that she could get a good sleep
  - Ke has to be attended to when he needs to relieve himself, or else he would either urinate on the spot or he threatens to eat his own feces (威脅要吃大便).  Their friends at the church would not visit them at home due to the stench.
  - In 2002, with the mediation of friends, Ke signed a promissory note that he won't nag his wife or disturb her sleep, or continue his filthy habits, or waste money or tell ties.  But he did not keep those promises.
  - At a subway station, Ke hit his own head until the pregnant Chang got down on her knees in public
  
  The judge has granted a divorce in this case.

• [072]  The Writing On The Wall  (07/26/2006)  (Apple Daily)  Photo of a wall in Tainan showing President Chen Shui-bian's son-in-law Chao Chien-ming playing monopoly.
  

• [071]  The Number of Deaths in the Tangshan Earthquake (07/26/2006) (China Times)  When the Tangshan earthquake happened, nobody knew the true number of deaths.  Three years later, Xinhua reporter Xu Xuejiang attended a national conference on earthquake and learned that the true number was 240,000 or so.  Xu wrote a report and submitted it to the conference secretary general for approval for the purpose of publishing the truth and squash all the rumors.  After some persuasion, the secretary general consented.
   
  After the report was published, the Earthquake Department called up Xinhua and complained that this contravened the spirit of the Central Government, especially with the deletion of "interference of the system of actions" as being the reason for the scope of the disaster.  At the time of the disaster, the Central Government was controlled by the Gang of Four and they had concealed the scope of the disaster while blaming things on factionalism for political motives.  After reviewing the matter, the Xinhua editorial staff supported Xu.
   
  Xu Xuejiang said that it was absurd and risible to report good news and hide bad news, to the point of hiding casualty figures.  The lesson from the delay in reporting the Tangshan figures should have been learned.  In 2003, SARS broke out and the government once again hid the truth and created huge discontent.  Xu said that old habits are hard to break quickly, as many department and local cadres are still stuck with the idea of covering up the truth for certain reasons.  Therefore, the Tangshan lesson should be brought up to remind people.
   
  P.S. "30年前的7月28日3时42分，一场大地震摧毁了唐山。震后的一组统计数字为：丧生者242769人，重伤者164851人，70多万人受轻伤，15886户家庭解体，7000多个家庭断户绝烟，3817人成为截瘫患者，25061人肢体残疾，3675位老人成为孤寡老人，4204个 10岁以下的孩子没有了双亲。"

• [070]  The Beijing Olympics (07/26/2006)  (United Daily News) 古都的蛻變─龍應台看北京奧運 by Lung Ying-tai.  

(in translation) ... The transformation of the ancient capital is a very important matter.  Yet one after another strange-looking building appeared in the name of 'modernity' while totally ignoring the organic relationship between the buildings and the humanistic surroundings.  The people in the "surrounding area" and the experts who care about the "surrounding area" had no influence on the policy decisions.  The 'arbitrariness' and opulence of such a huge but soulless engineering project occurred due to the opaqueness of the decision-making process, the secretiveness of the budget and the absence of monitoring.  To invest all of the nation's efforts into a sports meet that lasts 16 days while sacrificing all the other urgent programs is because the concept of 'nation' supersedes all other values.  As to the costs and benefits of this effort, or the long-term interests of society, or the sacrificing of the interests of certain groups, these things cannot be doubted or criticized, because China is still a country in which basic policies cannot be doubted or criticized ...

The author of the Internet essay "The Olympic Gold Medal Trap" used this formula to estimate the costs: in 2004, China won 32 gold medals at the Athens Olympics.  How much did each gold medal cost?  At the 1988 Olympic games in Seoul, the Chinese sports authorities had a budget of 1 billion RMB.  At the 1992 Barcelona games, the budget increased to 3 billion RMB.  At the 2000 Sydney games, the budget was up to 5 billion RMB.   By extrapolation, China probably had to spend 20 billion RMB over the four years leading up to the Athens games.  If the final result was 32 gold medals, then each one costs around 700 million RMB.  "This is the most expensive gold medal in the world."

The author asked: "When the overseas Chinese started Project Hope to build Hope elementary schools in the impoverished areas, it only cost around 200,000 RMB to build a school.  If it costs 700 million RMB for a gold medal, then that sum could have been used to build 3,500 Hope schools.  If each school accommodates 100 students, then the money could have helped 35 million school children to become literate.  If the 20 billion RMB spend for the Athens game were used for education, there would be 100,000 Hope schools for 10 million children.  If you were in the leadership position in charge of the 20 billion RMB, would you choose 30 Olympic gold medals or education for 10 million children?"

This formula is obviously terribly flawed, but the underlying problem is quite true.  How did the 32 gold medals come about for China?  What is the price?  Up to now, the Chinese sports system is based upon a national economic plan in which money is invested for elite training methods.  The government used taxpayers' money to run various levels of schools and almost all the medalists come from this system. ...

What the people of Taiwan can learn from the Beijing Olympics is that the global vista and vision of the Chinese come from their dedication and persistence and their seriousness and commitment on building up the infrastructure.  But, sorry, this is not about Taiwan applying for the 2020 Olympic Games or sending 20 children to learn soccer in Brazil.  That type of "Great Wall" aesthetics is not what Taiwan needs.  In this regard, it is the smallness, backwardness and focus on the grassroots common folks in Taiwan that should give food for careful thought by the grand Beijing.

• [069]  Missing In English  (SCMP)  75-year-old admits selling sex to make ends meet.  Chandra Wong.  July 25, 2006.

A 75-year-old woman on welfare was driven to provide sexual services for $20 because she could not get by on her dole payments, a magistrate was told.  Wu Wei-geen, who earlier pleaded guilty to soliciting for an immoral purpose on March 20, yesterday refused to accept a probation report that recommended she receive psychiatric and psychological treatment.  Wu told Chief Magistrate Patrick Li Hon-leung that she knew her actions were wrong, but committed the crime to help make ends meet. She insisted she did not need any medical attention.

From the Chinese-language newspapers, here is what Wu actually told the chief magistrate:

- (Ming Pao)  "大家中國人，你放過我吧，我這麼老﹗" (We're both Chinese.  You spare me.  I'm so old.)

- (Apple Daily) "我 尊 重 你 都 希 望 你 尊 重 我 ， 中 國 人 要 幫 中 國 人" (I respect you so I hope you respect me too.  The Chinese must help each other)
- (Apple Daily) "我 唔 睇 精 神 心 理 醫 生 ， 我 都 有 人 權" (I am not seeing a psychiatrist.  I have my human rights)
- (Apple Daily)  "英 女 皇 先 至 有 精 神 病 ， 佢 伊 拉 克 殺 咁 多 人" (The Queen of England is the one with a mental disease.  She killed so many people in Iraq)
- (Sing Tao) "我同你講人權，英女皇殺好多伊拉克人，英女皇先有精神病，你幫英國人，你受賄﹗"  (I'm talking to you about human rights.  The Queen of England has killed a lot of Iraqis.  She is the one who is mentally ill.  You are helping the Englishmen.  You were bribed."
- (Sing Tao)  "我無精神病，你唔好冤枉我﹗英女皇殺好多伊拉克人，你幫英國人同我作對﹗" ( I am not mentally ill.  You must not treat me unjustly.  The Queen of England has killed a lot of Iraqis.  You are helping the Englishmen against me)
- (Sing Pao)  "亞曾（特首曾蔭權）做多善事，想辦法幫窮人" ((Chief Executive Donald) Tsang should do more good things and try to help the poor)

• [068]  Donald Tsang vs. Anson Chan (07/25/2006)  

  According to the Chinese University of Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific studies poll of 820 respondents:

  (SCMP) Those backing Mr Tsang for a second term fell from 75.7 per cent to 67 per cent over the past month. Those opposed rose 2.9 points to 14.4 per cent. About 19 per cent said they did not know. Although Mr Tsang still enjoyed relatively high public support to serve another term, the level of this backing continued to drop, the institute said.  Support for his re-election dropped even further, down 3.3 percentage points from May to 53.6 per cent this month if Mrs Chan joined the race.  But Mrs Chan's support fell by 2.7 percentage points to 24.5 per cent. Those who said they "don't know" doubled to 14.6 per cent, the institute said.

  At the Hong Kong Media Workers Forum, the following was posted: "(in translation) Chinese University of Hong Kong public opinion poll: If "Sneaky Tsang" and "Unfaithful Chan" were to run for the Chief Executive at the same time, who would you support?  Tsang was supported by more than 50%, but 3% less than in the previous poll.  Chan had been getting more exposure lately but her support fell instead into the 20's and 2% less than in the previous poll.  While it was logical for Tsang to have come down due to the negative criticisms, it was suprising for the very active Anson Chan to fall down!  The Apple Daily column can continue to masturbate as the Anson Chan bubble burst on July 1st and her public support has been falling for a formal bankruptcy."
   
  Now I really don't care about the above.  Rather, I was amused by the following response to the post: "屌臭你全家!土共左仔!你老母含家仆你個爛臭街咁撚多野講我指撚住你個尻頭話尻緊你個撚樣丫！仲望喎你條懵尻!!屌你老豆呀,屌你老母呀,屌你仚家呀,屌你個仆街屳家富貴!!!屌到你屎眼合唔埋個西又反撚曬!!!頂你個胃,你就有胃出血,該你死!!都唔能知你係乜鳩  -- 水!你地d仆街仔出來仲就死鳩撚晒喎!!!!仆你個臭能街正一死淨種毛又無條又要扮撚哂野死低ｂ白痴仆街仔ｏｎ撚鳩痴撚線食蕉啦你打你老母屌西 .食撚屎啦你老母!!屌臭你呀!!!戇鳩鳩!!!俾我堉你六七你全家." 
   
  I choose not to translate this long stream of obscenities.  I will only note that this is a serious flaw of the forum format, as the original argument is usually brief and the response is gainsay by invectives.  This particular saying is not even interesting because it has appeared multiple times already and is merely being recycled by copy-and-paste.  However, this is what passes as public discourse on a forum for professional media workers.  This is not to say that this forum is useless.  In fact, the forum is very useful but one has to filter out a lot of irksome noises.
   

• [067]  Gold Finger (07/25/2006)  In mainland China, "金手指" (gold finger) is the term for simultaneous transcribers (see Hao86) who are in heavy demand at conferences because they can transcribe the speeches and discussions by flicking their fingers on a real-time basis.  In Hong Kong, "金手指" (gold finger) is the term for "informant, informer, tattler, tattletale, rat, tipster, canary, fink, snitcher, squealer, stoolie, stool pigeon."  In Hong Kong sub-culture, triad gangsters are idolized and a "gold finger" is a despised figure.
  
   
  (SCMP via AsiaMedia)  Teen spies expose web pirates.  By Vivienne Chow.  July 20, 2006.

Teenage internet spies recruited by copyright enforcers have tracked down 1,200 "seeds" -- data sources used for illegal downloading using the BitTorrent system -- since they started work under a pilot scheme in February.

Commissioner of Customs and Excise Timothy Tong Hin-ming said the work of the 800 youngsters had enabled all but 1 per cent of the illicit files to be removed or invalidated. The rest were being investigated.  Mr Tong announced the figures as he launched an expanded Youth Ambassador Against Internet Piracy Scheme, under which 200,000 youngsters aged between nine and 25 would become "gold fingers" on the lookout for potential BitTorrent seeds of copyright works, including movies and music.

The spies come from 11 youth uniformed organisations such as the Scouts. Each will be given a password to log on to a customs webpage when they spot a seed.

 (New York Times)  Dare Violate a Copyright in Hong Kong? A Boy Scout May Be Watching Online.  By Keith Bradser.  July 18, 2006.

Emily Lau, a pro-democracy lawmaker, said that the government should release more details of the program to the public for debate before proceeding, and should be particularly wary of having children report offenders to law enforcement.  “Public education I support, but to get young kids to do the reporting?” she said. “I feel uneasy about it.”

Christine Loh, the chief executive of Civic Exchange, a policy research group, said the government program would have to be managed with particular care because of its faint echoes of the Cultural Revolution in mainland China, when children were encouraged to inform on their parents and other relatives.

Well, here is the first casualty of this Cultural Revolution.  (The Sun)  An anonymous forum poster asserted that a Youth Ambassador named Su set up her personal blog to offer free downloads of pirated material.  Thus, she was enabling and entrapping others to commit crimes by running her own illegal site.  That post generated a huge response from the public who called her "two-faced person (雙面人)" and "public criminal (公眾犯人)" and doubly guilty for knowingly breaking the law.  Here is a screenshot of the exposé on her (via 知日部屋).

• [066]  The Missing Sentence (07/25/2006)  It should be tautological that whatever was censored in newspapers will be unknown by definition.  But that was once upon a time and today we have blogs.  The following was posted by Southern Metropolis Daily columnist Lian Yue at this personal MSN Space blog (Lian Yue's Eighth Continent).  In the published article, the paragraph in bold was deleted.  However, Lian Yue went ahead and published what he wrote in its entirety on his immensely popular blog.

(in translation)  The public service examinations are presently hotly contested in China and nobody can deny the high standing of public servants.  But there are also people who are saying the opposite.  According to recently released statistics released by Xinhua, the average income of Chinese public servants is 15,487 RMB which is slightly lower than the 16,024 RMB of all urban Chinese employees.  

On July 17, Hangzhou Daily News published a news report that led to a strong opinion response: According to a research study led by Zhao Guoqiu, the director of a certain hospital in Hangzhou, public servants feel more isolated and insecure than the masses.  Therefore, the study recommends that society should offer a reasonable psychological support system for public servants, so that they can "hold a lawyer in the left hand and a psychiatrist in the right hand."  All the media reports emphasized this conclusion -- public servants not only receive lower pay, but they can be damaged easily and therefore public service jobs have few takers.  Of course, this is vastly different from the public perception.

Thus, some observers drew this conclusion: at this critical moment for the reform of wages for public servants, the purpose of these press releases is to provide a rational basis for wage increases.  Therefore, these types of news about the "dire situation" of public servants will continue to come out in the form of numbers and expert opinions.  These comments may seem to denigrate public service work, but they will actually help out immensely.  Indeed, if they don't get more pay, they won't have the money to hold a lawyer in the left hand and a psychiatrist in the right hand.

Lian Yue also noted that when his essay was published at NetEase, it drew almost 4,000 comments.  As of July 24, NetEase has deleted the essay and the comments.  Lian Yue commented: "It seems that somebody was unhappy."

P.S.  There was another deletion in the last paragraph: "For the sake of national interests and progress, I hope that the public servant wage reform would result in a wage reduction, even if it is only 10 RMB per month.  This small sum will inform the public that the public service system is not just a system of special privileges in which wages only go up and never down.  It will be worthwhile."

• [065]  MBA Techniques for Managing Mistresses (07/24/2006)  (The Sun via ChineseNewsNet)  Former deputy secretary of Xuancheng city (Anhui province) Yang Feng (楊楓) was recently put on trial for receiving more than 700,000 RMB in bribes.  During the trial, it was revealed that Yang kept eight mistresses whom he managed using modern corporate management skills (namely, he appointed a "top mistress" to supervise all others), but his scheme collapsed when his "manager" turned him in.
   
  According to mainland's Family magazine, Yang Feng became deputy mayor of Xuancheng city in 2001.  His wife was living in another city, but he did not lack female companionship.  In March 2003, Yang went to Beijing to study in an MBA program for senior cadres in Beijing and got to know a 32-year-old woman named Zhou.  At a dinner, Yang Feng said that he was a scholar who did not like to entertain and was very much in love with his wife.  When Yang returned to Xuancheng, he received a special deliverly package in which a letter enclosing rose petals from Zhou declared her love for such a righteous man.  So Zhou became Yang's mistress.
   
  Later Zhou was enraged when she discovered that Yang already had six other mistresses.  However, Yang said: "In the history of China, which exceptional man did not have multiple mistresses?  However, you are my number one."  Zhou was moved to tears.  Yang also told her: "I only have one body that they fight over.  I will let you manage those women and you can help me resolve any conflicts."
   
  So Yang and Zhou analyzed the various mistresses and used the knowledge of MBA theory and human resource managerments to schedule the mistresses: Zhou was ranked number one, followed by Zhang, Li, Huang, Lin Chen and Liu respectively.  Yang also classified the mistresses according to their preferences: money, looks, power and jealousy.  So Zhou proposed to allot each according to their best abilities: one managed public relations, another managed a company, and so on.
   
  For management purposes, Zhou gave Yang six mobile phone numbers, one per mistress.  Under Zhou's expert management, everything worked out fine. ...
   
  In 2004, Zhou made the mistake of introducing the bar girl Qiu to Yang.  He was infatuated with the pretty and capable Qiu and then neglected Zhou.  When Zhou found out that she was being replaced by Qiu, she went to see Yang and slashed her wrists in front of him.  He ignored her and demanded Zhou to hand back the money that she was managing on his behalf.  Zhou then went to the Anhui provincial party disciplinary committee.  Since she knew all the details of the bribery schemes, this led to the downfall of Yang.
   
  What would the Harvard University Business School say?

• [064]  Your Head On A Blog Mob's Pike (07/23/2006)  I just have to quote this from Kevin Drum's Political Animal blog.  At issue is why a mob of blogs is dreaded by politicians more than special interest groups such as NARAL or The Club For Growth.

In our daily lives, we fear seemingly random violence (terrorism, kidnappings) more than we fear known threats (car accidents, bathtub drownings), even if the known threats are actually more objectively dangerous. Perhaps that's what's going on here. While a threat from NARAL or the Club for Growth is a known quantity that can be dealt with, no one has quite figured out what sorts of things might set off a blog lynch mob. If you knew, you could craft some clever plan to triangulate around it, but if you don't, you have to watch every word that comes out of your mouth, always in terror that you might say the one thing that gets them screaming for your head on a pike.

Or something like that. I'm just riffing here. But if this is true, it means blogs aren't really a long term threat after all. Someone just has to figure out how to predict their behavior better. And — trust me on this — someone will.

• [063]  The Tangshan Earthquake (07/23/2006)  I regret that I had been in Singapore for the past few days and consequently missed some of the presentations at the Hong Kong Book Fair.  Here is Ming Pao on one of the sessions that I wish I could have attended, even though one extra body would not have changed the last sentence in the report.

(in translation)  "Over the past thirty years, I have not changed how I felt about the great Tangshan earthquake."  In Qing Gang(錢鋼)'s heart, this is still the greatest natural disaster of the 20th cenutry, with more than 200,000 deaths and more than 100,000 injured.  Yesterday at the Book Fair, Qing Gang gave the talk: "Me and My Tangshan -- The Thirtieth Anniverary of the great Tangshan earthquake."  In his memory, each incident may have been trivial and negligible, but the sum total became a lively history weaved with blood and tears.

Qing Gang operated the screen projector.  He looked at each photograph and quietly recalled the situation thirty years ago.  Soon after the earthquake occurred, Qing Gang rushed to Tangshan to assist.  "Before I left, my mother told me to look up the old family friend 'Uncle Jiang' and his family.  But at the time, Tangshan had been leveled and there were no road or direction signs."  Luckily, Qing Gang heard a familar voice in a hospital and it was the Uncle Jiang that he was looking for!

"At the time, Uncle was wearing a torn and filty t-shirt.  I immediately took off my jacket and let him wear it.  Uncle would continue to wear it since."  That happened thirty years ago, but Qing Gang recalled it yesterday with certainty and clarity.

"The military personnel who arrived at the scene began digging with their bare hands until their fingernails fell off."  "The people who were waiting for help could not nothing except to continue to wait ..."  Such were the scenes at the time.  Apart from what the eyes can see, Qing Gang also remembered the smells of rotting corpses and medicines.  "Under the blinding sun, the corpses were rotting.  Tangshan was full of the pungent smell of death."  At the hospital by the river, Qing Gang could smell the medicine even before he reached the entrance ...

Qing Gang's narrated story was shocking, but there were only more than a dozen of so people attending his talk yesterday, of which half of them were local middle school students, plus tourists from Guangzhou.

P.S. A reader asked, Why are middle-school school students and Guangzhou tourists interested in Qian Gang's talk?  Here is the staff biography from the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong.

Qing Gang Best known for his tenure as managing editor of Southern Weekend, China's most progressive newspaper, Qian Gang is regarded as one of China's foremost investigative journalists. Qian was also a co-creator and executive editor of "News Probe," CCTV's pioneering weekly investigative news program with nearly 20 million viewers. Qian collected historical documents for Chinese Boy Students, a book and five-hour documentary series on 120 young Chinese students sent to universities in the United States by the Qing government in the late 19th century. He is also the author of "The Great China Earthquake," an investigative report on the 1976 earthquake at Tangshan in which 250,000 people were killed.

Thus, in Guangzhou, there are still people who admired Qian Gang and his contributions before Southern Weekend was castrated.

Meanwhile, in Hong Kong middle schools, "The Great China Earthquake" is prescribed as a textbook, and is one of the students' first detailed introductions to their mother country.  This choice is obviously criticized by some as presenting a 'negative' image of China.  But there are others (including myself) who disagree vehemently and regard this type of book as much more effective in promoting love for the nation and its people than those 30-second television ads ever will.  That is why I wish I could be there.

• [062]  Police Uncle (07/22/2006)  The deep character flaw of the Hong Kong entertainment industry is the lack of initiative and creativity on a grand-scale.  Yes, it is true that there are some periodic breakthroughs.  But if there is huge hit out of nowhere, then the herd mentality is to stampede and imitate the genre until it is thoroughly exhausted and moribund.  Examples are the martial arts movie era, Japanese television drama series, etc.  In the aftermath of the global hit Bus Uncle, there is now Police Uncle.
   
  This story has hit the front cover of The Sun.  
  
  The principal character is a plainclothes police officer who went to a bar to investigate soccer gambling.  At the beginning, he is heard to curse: "I told you to stand up!  F*ck your mother!! I am not f*cking scared of gangsters! ... F*ck your mother!  If you are smart, you shut up!  You think that you are the boss!  You want to be Wah Dee!"  When the subject still did not cooperate, he yelled: "Maybe you don't have air-conditioning at home and you want to come down to the police station!"  Even after he had the situation under control, he continued to say: "Illegal gambing!  Brazil is f*cking losing the game!  F*ucking lost until they are silly ..."
   
  The quality of this 1:12 video is quite poor, and this really explains why the original Bus Uncle was so exceptional.  Meanwhile, the search for the next XXX Uncle goes on.  Knowing what the popular demand is for this genre, I predict that the next big hit will be cynically staged for commercial exploitation ...  after all, many people even thought Bus Uncle was staged.

• [061]  The Seven Men In Black (07/22/2006)  If you read China Post about the bail hearing for President Chen Shui-bian's son-in-law, you will have no idea what the Chinese-language media are really concerned about.  If you go to Taipei Times, you will get no text but the hint is in this photograph -- it is the man in black on the left.  The man has six other companions not shown in this photograph.  The big question is: Who are the seven men in black?  Enquiring minds want to know.
  
   
  When President Chen Shui-bian's daughter Chen Hsing-yu showed up at the hearing, she was accompanied by four aides assigned by the government for protective services.  She needed them to fight through the media crush.  President Chen Shui-bian's son-in-law Chao Chien-ming is no longer eligible for government aides, and so he would have to fight through the media throng relying on his own devices.  On this day, he showed up with seven men in black!
   
  (Apple Daily)  The seven men dressed in black suits and white shirts with ties formed a phalanx to let Chao Chien-ming get out of his house into his car.  Then the team followed Chao by car while barring the media pursuit cars from coming near.  At the Taipei courthouse, the seven formed a human wall to let Chao enter.  When the hearing was over, the seven men in black surfaced again to escort Chao home.  The intelligence department is concerned that the seven men are gangsters and that will do even further damage to the image of the first famly.
   
  According to an Apple Daily reader, the organizer was a Four Seas Gang leader who owns a hotel and the action was led by one of his lieutentants who brought six hotel workers.
   
  
   
  
   
  Chao Chien-ming's lawyer has an alternate theory: he has no idea who these people are but suspects that someone hired them to smear Chao's reputation and he asks the police to investigate.
   
  P.S.  Later reports identity the men in black as being connected to the Bamboo Union gang, which is known to be fervently anti-Taiwan-independence.  What gives?

• [060]  Newspaper Blogs (07/21/2006)  (Apple Daily (Taiwan), by 陳家煜)

(in translation)  Among Taiwan's traditional media, news reporting and opinion commentary are getting mixed up due to lack of understanding about journalistic professionalism.  This has done great damage to public trust in the media.  Presently, the online newspaper websites are carrying blogs written by the editorial staff.  This will not save the media empire but will destroy any remaining public trust.

The newspaper industry has been encountering hardship recently as the Internet has given a two-pronged attack on the survivability of the newspaper media.  On one hand, young readers are getting their information more often from the Internet.  The print media no longer has the monopoly on information, and the number of their readers have declined instead of growing.  On the other hand, the advertisements that the newspapers depend on have slowly drifted to the cheaper and more convenient Internet.  In the United States, in all cities in which craiglist.org is present, the newspapers lose money because most of the advertisers on craiglist.org did not have to pay and they reach a bigger audience.  These two factors create a vicious cycle in which there are fewer subscribers and fewer paying advertisers.  Things are only going to get worse for the newspapers.

Under these circumstances, the print media businesses around the world look for creative answers.  Some of the traditional families have sold their businesses (for example, the Los Angeles Times was sold to the Chicago Tribune group).  Some of them started multimedia empires, such as the Murdoch empire of newspapers, television, movies and websites.  Some of them entered the Internet business; for example, The Wall Street Journal set themselves up as the largest newspaper in the United States by virtue of its online subscribers.  But no matter what they do, none of them would sell out their public trust like the Taiwan traditional newspapers are doing.  The advantage of the traditional newspapers is that they have established trust for their editorial products over the long term.  A New York Times report is superior to several tens of thousands of nonsensical blog essays because the readers trust the New York Times brand.

Reporters and editors can have their own peculiar ideas and that is their personal business.  But once they write them down inside their newspaper, these represent the position of the newspaper.  In Taiwan media, it is not unusual to see reporters insert their own opinions into their reports, and this is wrong.

Suppose the truth of an event can be different depending on how the reporter writes it.  In the long term, then, will anyone trust any news report anymore?  At the esteemed Wall Street Journal, the publisher writes open letters to the readers through the course of the year and more than half of them emphasize that the newspaper is trying to separate opinion commentary from news reporting.  The mission of news reporting is to provide the true facts whereas opinion commentary is intended to spread ideas.  It is professional media management to separate the two!

The traditional newspaper people in Taiwan had some good principles, but the new generation of managers have these pecuiliar notions that are selling out any remaining public trust.  Reporters and editors are now allowed to write blogs every day in the belief that they can retrieve the lost readership or sell more ads.  But when the readers can see the blog posts with the clearly delineated positions and then they see the news report under the reporter's name, can they still believe that the report is fair and objective?

Worse yet, the reporters' blogs are presented in the name of the newspaper.  Some of them are pro-green and others are pro-blue.  Does this media entity have a position?  If the reporter goes overboard on something, the readers may mistake it for the position of the newspaper and then propagate it.

• [Administrative Note]  I am traveling today to Singapore for the Fourth Chinese Internet Research Conference.  This will be a 'small circle' conference at which I will get to meet people like Rebecca MacKinnon, Isaac Mao and Xiao Qiang in person for the first time.  I will return on Sunday.  Website updates will be unpredictable depending on Internet access and availability of time.
   
  Update: (07/20/2006) I am in Singapore on the Nanyang Technological University campus.  The conference begins tomorrow morning.  The worst part about being away from Hong Kong?  No Apple Daily because my Hong Kong subscription does not cover overseas access!  And I'm not away often enough to justify getting an overseas subscription.

• [059]  You Are What You Watch (07/20/2006)  The following table comes from the Survey & Policy Research Institute (San Jose State University) from a survey of 891 Californian adults interviewed June 26-30.

Statement	Fox News Viewers: Positive	Fox News Viewers: Negative	Non-Fox News Viewers: Positive	Non-Fox News Viewers: Negative
Direction of country	57	33	34	58
Bush approval on Iraq	60	39	21	72
Bush approval on Economy	65	27	27	61
Bush approval on Terrorism	74	23	36	56
Bush Overall Approval	59	29	25	66
Bush tells the truth	64	29	27	63
Iraq war made US safer	54	28	21	48
Iraq war worth it	54	33	25	69

So are the media out there to present objective information in a fair and balanced way?  Or are they out to reinforce pre-existing attitudes and opinions?

• [058]  This Will Not Appear in Taipei Times (07/20/2006)  (Apple Daily (Hong Kong) by Bu Da-Zhong (卜大中), the principal writer for Apple Daily (Taiwan))

(in translation)  Some pro-green scholars cannot stand it anymore and signed a joint public statement to ask President Chen Shui-bian to resign.  This created a resonance that was much more powerful than when the pan-blue camp tried to recall Ah Bian.  On July 17, Ah Bian was supposed to host a dinner at the Grand Hotel with all the DPP and government senior officials in order to relieve the pressure from the pro-green scholars.  But many green legislators elected not to attend because they didn't want to be known as having been patted on the head and pacified (摸 頭 招 安) by Ah Bian.  So Ah Bian had to cancel the event.  It is easy to imagine Ah Bian's embarrassment.

The pro-green scholars' demand for Ah Bian to step down was more powerful than any recall or no-confidence effort by the blue camp and more damaging to the DPP.  The various attempts by the blues to dump Ah Bian were unconvincing.  No matter whether Ah Bian was good or bad, corrupt or clean, the blues would have opposed him anyway.  There are no rights or wrongs and that is why the blues lack trustworthiness and legitimacy.  But now the pro-green scholars have collectively demanded Ah Bian to quit, and it is hard to use those excuses.

All those greens who supported Ah Bian during the election are embarrassed and disappointed and feel that they were let down; they are also scorned at by the blues and feel bad.  But Ah Bian thinks that he can still hijack these people to continue on.  That is why these people are now angry and want Ah Bian to resign.  They hate Ah Bian for being so confident that these pro-green people have nowhere else to go because they cannot turn to the blue camp.  This is a terrible feeling and that is why they have come forward to demand Ah Bian to resign.

Over history, whenever political leaders run into crises, they usually seek to divert attention in order to survive.  A common ploy is to create a crisis from the outside.  But manipulating nationalism is dangerous and can blow up.  The 1982 Falklands War is an example.  At the time, Argentinian regime of Galtieri was shaky with severe economic inflation and social stability.  In order to retain political power, the government inflamed nationalism and attempted to take over the Falkland Islands of the United Kingdom.  This led to a war in which Argentina was defeated badly and Galtieri was ousted.

President Chen is now backed into a corner and he is capable of doing terrible things.  After meeting with the pan-green bosses several days ago, Ah Bian indicated that the constitutional reform and the renaming of Taiwan are among his goals for the next two years.  Why does he want to do these things?  First, this is in exchange for the support from the post-independence bosses; second, this is to consolidate the deep-green base; third, this is to take revenge against the anti-Bian elements by making them angry and hurt; fourth, this is to infuriate China and the United States and create an international crisis which will divert attention away from the corruption cases and the pressure for him to resign.  The price will be horrendous.  Without even having initiated it yet, the stock market index has dropped by 170 points yesterday.

Ah Bian knows that there is no chance that the constitution reform and renaming of Taiwan can get through the Legislature.  The 10% public support for these two items will not allow him to do that, but he still insists on moving forward.  This is a manifestation of the fear of a trapped animal which intends to treat the people as straw dogs.  Still, we can still use our imagination to look ahead.

The constitutional reform and the re-naming of Taiwan seriously go past China's bottom line (because they mean Taiwan independence by law) and it will provoke a severe response from China.  The United States will take this as a betrayal of Ah Bian's formal promises and take action to sanction Taiwan.  The stock market will drop under 3,000 points, the economy will be ruined, society will be in chaos, political storms will be turbulent and the people will be scared.  Then Ah Bian can properly declare a state of emergency, impose martial law, arrest opponents, cancel all elections including the 2008 presidential election ...

Alright, this is where we will stop and we don't want to visualize how China will invade Taiwan by force with the tacit approval of the United States ... the independence bosses and the deep-green supporters of Ah Bian often think in self-reinforcing close-minded groupthink and believe that they are right.  This causes Ah Bian to think that he is absolutely right and then the tragedy gets out of hand.

Too many tragedies in history occur because people are locked into close-minded loops.  Right now, Ah Bian's small close-minded group is moving in that direction.  We must prevent this tragedy from happening before the point of no return and that would be for Ah Bian to resign for the sake of Taiwan.

• [057]  It is Tang Wei (07/20/2006)  (The Standard)  Taiwanese director Ang Lee has cast Cannes best actor winner Tony Leung, Chinese-American pop star Leehom Wang and mainland newcomer Tang Wei in his upcoming spy thriller Lust, Caution, his assistant said.  Lust, Caution, based on a short story by famed Chinese writer Eileen Chang, is about a group of patriotic students who plot to assassinate the intelligence chief in the Japanese-backed Chinese government during the World War II era.  Hong Kong's Leung, who won best actor at Cannes for In the Mood for Love in 2000, plays the intelligence official Mr Yi, while Tang plays the Chinese student Wang Jiazhi, who seduces Yi to pave the way for the assassination.  Central Academy of Drama, majoring in directing, resembles Taiwanese sex symbol Shu Qi. She reportedly took part in a beauty pageant and appeared in a TV series and a TV film.
   
  Little is known, eh?  How about this photo of Tang Wei's model pose for the movie (via Hainet)?
  

• [056]  Baidu vs. Sohu (07/19/2006)  (China Daily, July 14, 2006)  Baidu, the world's biggest Chinese search engine service provider, closed its Enterprise Search Software Department on Monday, dismissing approximately 20 employees, China Business News reported today.  Employees in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen were told on Monday afternoon that they were fired. "We had no idea that our jobs were even in question, and no one explained anything to us," said some of the fired workers still in astonishment.
   
  And then the war began (Guangzhou Daily via MediaChina.net, J