Thursday, January 22, 2009
Birmingham Royal Ballet: Beauty and the Beast
Birmingham Royal Ballet: Beauty and the Beast
Originally uploaded by photog37
© Jeremy Breningstall | Zuma Press
Members of the Birmingham Royal Ballet rehearse for a performance of "Beauty and the Beast" at the Shanghai Grand Theatre, Shanghai, China (Jan. 21, 2009). The ballet company will be performing in Shanghai through January 24.
China censors Obama’s inaugural speech
China censors Obama’s inaugural speech: "Visitors to Sina.com, the country’s biggest news portal, lauded the speech as a ‘masterpiece’ in an online poll. But in the translated versions of the address, Sina and other web sites omitted a paragraph observers understood as aimed at China: ”To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”"
Bookmark this on Delicious
Bookmark this on Delicious
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Barack Obama's Inaugural Address: Selected Quotations
Here are a few excerpts from the Inaugural Address that stood to this listener:
"Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short, for they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose and necessity to courage."
"The nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous."
"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations."
"And so, to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more."
"To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their society's ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy."
"Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short, for they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose and necessity to courage."
"The nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous."
"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations."
"And so, to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more."
"To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their society's ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy."
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Welcome Barack Obama
I am so, so thankful Barack Obama will be taking the oath of office in a few years and the eight awful years of the Bush Administration will be coming to a messy close. My cousin is out there scouting out a spot on the Mall right now. I plan on spending the moment at the Glamour Bar in Shanghai, sipping an "Obamatini."
Monday, January 19, 2009
Jue Festival
juefestival_001
Originally uploaded by photog37
Jue Festival pictures, gallery now open for viewing on the Flickr site (follow photo link to access album).
Atomic Bombshells in Shanghai
atomicbombshells_050
Originally uploaded by photog37
The burlesque group Atomic Bombshells returned to Shanghai Jan. 16-17, 2009. Full album is available for viewing on the Flickr site.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Gwen from Tempe: shaking up Shanghai
I'd like to use this moment to give kudos to Gwen from Tempe, the new LGBeat columnist at City Weekend Shanghai, for bringing something sincerely lacking from virtually the entire English language press here: edgy prose with a bite, i.e., keeping the shit interesting. Take this week's column on Year of the Ox. The cross-dressing author's angle on the New Year: cost-saving tips, from changing clothes with sexual partners to cohabitating and becoming a lesbian. So the summary doesn't do it justice. Check out the article. It's funny stuff.
My personal favorite Gwen write-up was (her?) Nov. 20, 2008 column on the nouveau riche. Gwen makes every line in the article count and it's sassy as hell. Will tease you with a pull-quote:
Case in point, last month I trotted off to Zhejiang Province for a spot of polo, dressed to the nines and anticipating a great day of drinks and divots. It was a gray, rainy day, so a couple of girls and I sought shelter by crashing the Cartier tent, and it's just as well that we did because the guests were bored to death. They had long given up pretending to understand polo when we arrived like a phalanx of legs, pinks and frilly hats. Finally there were fillies worth following. The burly skinhead security guard was having none of it though, as he pointed to the back door and said, “Get out, freak.” Well, I never I might come in rear doors, but I certainly do not exit from them. So I straddled the white picket fence and sashayed across the paddock spraining my ankle in a divot en route. Shame on Cartier!
Full column here.
My personal favorite Gwen write-up was (her?) Nov. 20, 2008 column on the nouveau riche. Gwen makes every line in the article count and it's sassy as hell. Will tease you with a pull-quote:
Case in point, last month I trotted off to Zhejiang Province for a spot of polo, dressed to the nines and anticipating a great day of drinks and divots. It was a gray, rainy day, so a couple of girls and I sought shelter by crashing the Cartier tent, and it's just as well that we did because the guests were bored to death. They had long given up pretending to understand polo when we arrived like a phalanx of legs, pinks and frilly hats. Finally there were fillies worth following. The burly skinhead security guard was having none of it though, as he pointed to the back door and said, “Get out, freak.” Well, I never I might come in rear doors, but I certainly do not exit from them. So I straddled the white picket fence and sashayed across the paddock spraining my ankle in a divot en route. Shame on Cartier!
Full column here.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Zhang Yimou - Person of the Year 2008 Runnerup- TIME
I'm a big fan of China (political ideology aside) and Zhang Yimou's early work, but I really don't get TIME's selection of Zhang as
a runner-up for the 2008 Person of the Year (forgive the delay in this posting, I just came across the article).
My presumption without working in TIME's editorial office is that his selection went something like this: TIME felt someone from China should be a runner-up in 2008. But who? Then they ran down a list of names from China the average American will recognize and it came to about 10, most of them movie stars.
If anyone should have been recognized for 2008, it should have been the Chinese athletes, collectively. Their success in the gold medal count stands out as an accurate reflection of China's recent ascendance.
TIME'S article is oddly written by Steven Spielberg (who better than to write an accolade to the wonder of Zhang's Olympic Ceremony achievement than the man who withdrew from directing the ceremony over China's guns-for-oil trade in Sudan?). Spielberg dedicates a good part of the article's space toward discussion of Zhang's early years when he was truly an influential filmmaker.
Certainly, Zhang's perseverance through the Cultural Revolution and his early achievements in artistic directing are worthy of much admiration. I would have to concur with Spielberg in describing Raise the Red Lantern as Zhang's "magnum opus." I am also a fan the Chinese director's sentimental human interest stories, especially The Story of Qiu Ju, Not One Less and Happy Times. To Live–contrary to Zhang's Wikipedia entry as it now stands–was Zhang's "first epic," and it is a grand and moving film. His early films Red Sorghum and Ju Dou were gritty, depressing arthouse fair, but sensibly crafted.
Zhang's latest work, though, has been complete shit. Hero was a totalitarian apology that borrowed heavily from the style of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, whose commercial success I presume Zhang was seeking to emulate (and indeed, Hero was a significant blockbuster in China, with heavy backing from the formerly antagonistic Chinese authorities). Spielberg forgets to add CP propagandist to the items listed in his biography.
Hero was followed up by House of Flying Daggers, starring Zhang Ziyi, the second of directory Zhang's two great muses (after Gong Li, the star of countless Zhang films). Zhang Ziyi is a capable and talented actress and the film contained fine action sequences and cinematographic strokes–but the plot was hopelessly muddled and never truly came together. Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, Zhang's 2006 movie, has received little attention–I live in China, but I never heard of the film until researching this blog entry (I was aware that Zhang had done a film that supposedly returns to his early film styles–but no one I know has mentioned seeing the film and it has had no broad cultural resonance).
Zhang Yimou's most recent film, Curse of the Golden Flower (and this film truly is a curse) was ever-present at the time of its release–but it was noted more for the bosom-busting attire worn by Gong Li and the presence of Taiwanese crooner Jay Chou than cinematic achievement. The film is generally agreed to be a bust, pardon the pun, and I would have to say it's even worse–it's like watching a bad video game from the mid-80's, only one that drags on for several hours and in which you don't get to play. It's kitsch, and not cult kind of kitsch, more like Ronald McDonald kind of kitsch...
Well.
Lets get on to 2008 and the Olympic Ceremony (with only a few diversions left to ponder).
First, I have to disclose some bias on where I spent the Opening Ceremony. I was not one of those with Party (capital P) or corporate connections who made it into the Bird's Nest stadium, where the ceremony took place. Nor was I one of the people who paid hundreds of dollars to the people who had connections to get a ticket. I was one of the many thousands of people standing outside–unable to even catch a good glimpse of the fireworks because of police barricades that literally bisected the entire city in half and unable to partake informally in the celebrations because large public gatherings were not permitted during the Olympics unless they took place inside a stadium.
I did walk several miles in a sweltering mid-August heat to access transportation back to a friend's apartment (taxis and buses were completely logjammed anywhere near the Olympic Village) and catch the second half of the ceremony on TV. Later, I watched a pirated DVD of the early parts of the ceremony.
Now I suppose I should present in more detail my problem with TIME calling Zhang an anywhere-near "Person of the Year."
Person of the Year, as I perceive their criteria, is a designation for persons of great influence. China as a nation no doubt has had tremendous influence in the last year.
When historians look back on 2008, there is no doubt that they will identify Henry Paulson, another of the runner-ups, as man with influence–America's fiscal mismanagement has had reverberations across the globe and Paulson has been front-and-center on the Bush Administration's stumbling efforts to keep a lid on the mess.
The selection of Nicolas Sarkozy I'm a bit puzzled by. I don't want to dismiss it outright because my knowledge of European politics is embarrassingly slim, but I was not particularly convinced by the Tony Blair article, which mostly noted that Sarkozy is easy to get along with.
I think the jury is still out on whether Sarah Palin, the third runner-up, will have lingering influence–God I hope not. Her brand of folksy, no-nothing, common Joe brand of evangelical-Christian politics are hardly new–there is a man named George W. Bush who is walking out the White House door in a few days who ran on, and governed with, the same platform for the last eight years. Palin has been a big media story for the last six months, but if she isn't elected to national office in the future the water cooler stories about her hunting habits and Midwestern/Alaskan accent and pregnancy secrets and so on will be the minor sphere of niche historians.
The "Person of the Year," or runner-up, doesn't need to be nice person, either historically (as TIME has used the title) or in my estimation. Vladimir Putin is a thug masquerading as a politician, but I have no objection to TIME selecting him as its 2007 Person of the Year because I think the direction he has put Russia on will have lingering impact for many years to come, even beyond whatever years he has remaining as Russia's leader, officially or unofficially.
Barack Obama's selection as this year's "Person of the Year" is also undoubtedly a valid choice–he is not only the first black president in a country that began with slavery and segregation, but also a radical departure politically and philosophically from his immediate predecessor, Mr. Bush. Both men are arrogant in their own way–but Obama chooses to back up his self-reliance with wide consultations and old-fashioned book-learning, whereas Bush relied more on gut instinct, faith and a small consortium of secretive associates with heavy personal agendas. Obama now inherits a country in fiscal and ideological crisis, not to mention two wars, and how he handles that task will be as important to America as FDR's oversight of the New Deal, Ronald Reagan's approach to the Cold War, and other significant moments in history (I don't think FDR personally ended the Depression, nor do I think Reagan "won" the Cold War, but I do think the decisions both made at crucial times helped to gently steer the nation away from more dire situations that other leaders may not have been able to avoid)...
Getting back to the main subject: I have to be quite honest when say I am surprised by the decision to call Zhang's Opening Ceremony influential. Maybe I'm only in some fringe minority when I say this, but here is one problem I have with the 2008 Opening Ceremony: I I found it kind of boring. Yes, there were thousands of people participating in carefully orchestrated movement's, ala North Korea's Mass Games. But there was no life in it, no vibrancy. I've seen more life in a child running through a fountain on a sunny day. For me, watching the Opening Ceremony dancers was akin to watching someone try and do a tango wearing a Tin Man suit–the outfit may be heavy and expensive, but does it really represent the moment?
To a certain extent, it did. Beijing was pretty staid during the Olympics. Migrant workers were encouraged to leave the city, students were booted out, many foreigners were denied visas, DVD and nightclubs were temporarily shuttered, and a polite but pervasive police presence was spread across the city. I've been to university athletic competitions in China that had more spirit than the Olympics, with its half-empty stadiums, yellow shirt "volunteer fans," dismal concession food (Snickers and sausage? That's how you want to represent Chinese cuisine to the world?). So if boring and overhyped is what you want label the Olympics, then Zhang would be a not-inaccurate representation.
Just one problem. The Olympics did have one cool aspect: awesome performances by athletes from all over the world. Michael Phelps domination in swimming will certainly be remembered and discussed and shown on TV time and time again. China didn't have a signature face like that in these Olympics, but it did have a lot of stellar performances– enough to totally dominate the gold medal tally. The flagbearer for the Chinese team was Yao Ming, who could have been labeled a Person of the Year a few years ago for the basketball frenzy he unleashed on the world's most populous country. But in this recent Olympics, China's national basketball team was still decidedly mediocre and Yao was unable to lift them to medal status, making him a poor choice for a 2008 Person of the Year.
Liu Xiang, China's face of the Olympics and the subject of a monster New York Times Play Magazine article right before the Games, withdrew abruptly, walking out of the stadium only moments before his first heat was supposed to begin. So he has no 12 or 13 seconds of fame to be remembered by.
Guo Jingjing, on the other hand, is an advertising beacon (like Yao and Liu), consistent gold medal-winner, and she did perform to expectation in the game– but her personality is surly and unexciting, and she's not very well known abroad, far away from the South China gossip pages.
So who is there to represent China's Olympic Year? (A year in which China has been on top of the news generally, whether for the tragedy in Sichuan, food safety crises, or its rising strength in the world economy).
Hu Jintao is the nation's chief executive, but he is a faceless bureaucrat who rose to power, in my estimation, by not ruffling anyone's feathers. His theories of scientific development or whatnot are not coherent enough (or sufficiently implemented) for presentation as a template for the future of China.
Choosing a dissident as Person of the Year would feel ennobling, but it would also be a faulty–China's dissidents haven't had much influence in recent years, despite the heavy and constant attention they're given in the Western media.
In a recent Hong Kong poll, the sex-scandaled Edison Chen was designated as runner-up for Person of the Year (after Barack Obama). If notoriety were a criterion, that might be a good choice–but I don't think Chen will prove to have been significant for more than a brief period of lurid national fascination. Chen is China's Paris Hilton, only with more acting credibility. Unfortunately for the Canadian-born singer and pop star, he took his computer in for repairs at the wrong store and someone delved into his personal self-starring pornography collection. Chen and his (now-humiliated starlets) are hardly the first porn that's been seen in China, a country where the pirated DVD market isn't limited to copies of Shrek and Toy Story, local protestations of chastity to the contrary. So he may have been much discussed, but hardly representative of a new trend...
With those dismissals, I still feel there are many individuals in China who would have made a better candidate for the designation than Zhang Yimou, an aging starlet with a dress (the artiste) that no longer fits him.
The Opening Ceremony was not art, it was extravagance, and the two should never be confused (in this sense, Spielberg was a logical choice to write the TIME story on Zhang, seeing as his films have often confused the two).
The Opening Ceremony may or may not have been watched by three billion people (making it the Super Bowl multiplied), but I don't know how many of them it made a lasting impression on, other than Roger Ebert (who apparently was enraptured).
China has a rich history, worthy of recognition at a time like the Olympics, but I found the symbolism invoked by the Opening Ceremony more contrived than convincing. Maybe others felt differently, I don't know.
In any case, my personal feeling is that Zhang was a bit of a lazy choice, another celebrity name in TIME's celebrity-heavy 2008 Person of the Year roster (lets be honest: Sarkozy would not have been as close to the top of the list were it not for his wife switch, nor would Palin have been as prominent if she wasn't a former beauty pageant candidate. After all, Dan Quayle, Palin's intellectual peer, wasn't selected for any Person of the Year write-ups in 1988–and his ticket won).
If TIME wanted to make an easy choice, they should have awarded Person of the Year to The Chinese Athlete (generally). After all, China has risen from a country with no Olympic team a few decades back to a team to be feared in many, if not most, events. If it's China's moment, why not recognize it?
One more thought-provoking alternative–again, assuming a China selection (of course there are other worthy possibilities from countries across the globe)–would have been to select a volunteer from the Sichuan earthquake. Yes, there is no single volunteer that had a "world impact"... but the moving story of one volunteer (and there were many) could have been used to represent the many local who responded with assistance in the wake of the earthquake. These volunteers represent a tide, civic consciousness, whose legacy might very well endure long after Yimou's ceremony (with it's lip-syncing children, New Age music, and faux minority costuming) is rightfully buried at the bottom of the DVD bin.
Civic consciousness is China's future.
a runner-up for the 2008 Person of the Year (forgive the delay in this posting, I just came across the article).
My presumption without working in TIME's editorial office is that his selection went something like this: TIME felt someone from China should be a runner-up in 2008. But who? Then they ran down a list of names from China the average American will recognize and it came to about 10, most of them movie stars.
If anyone should have been recognized for 2008, it should have been the Chinese athletes, collectively. Their success in the gold medal count stands out as an accurate reflection of China's recent ascendance.
TIME'S article is oddly written by Steven Spielberg (who better than to write an accolade to the wonder of Zhang's Olympic Ceremony achievement than the man who withdrew from directing the ceremony over China's guns-for-oil trade in Sudan?). Spielberg dedicates a good part of the article's space toward discussion of Zhang's early years when he was truly an influential filmmaker.
Certainly, Zhang's perseverance through the Cultural Revolution and his early achievements in artistic directing are worthy of much admiration. I would have to concur with Spielberg in describing Raise the Red Lantern as Zhang's "magnum opus." I am also a fan the Chinese director's sentimental human interest stories, especially The Story of Qiu Ju, Not One Less and Happy Times. To Live–contrary to Zhang's Wikipedia entry as it now stands–was Zhang's "first epic," and it is a grand and moving film. His early films Red Sorghum and Ju Dou were gritty, depressing arthouse fair, but sensibly crafted.
Zhang's latest work, though, has been complete shit. Hero was a totalitarian apology that borrowed heavily from the style of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, whose commercial success I presume Zhang was seeking to emulate (and indeed, Hero was a significant blockbuster in China, with heavy backing from the formerly antagonistic Chinese authorities). Spielberg forgets to add CP propagandist to the items listed in his biography.
Hero was followed up by House of Flying Daggers, starring Zhang Ziyi, the second of directory Zhang's two great muses (after Gong Li, the star of countless Zhang films). Zhang Ziyi is a capable and talented actress and the film contained fine action sequences and cinematographic strokes–but the plot was hopelessly muddled and never truly came together. Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, Zhang's 2006 movie, has received little attention–I live in China, but I never heard of the film until researching this blog entry (I was aware that Zhang had done a film that supposedly returns to his early film styles–but no one I know has mentioned seeing the film and it has had no broad cultural resonance).
Zhang Yimou's most recent film, Curse of the Golden Flower (and this film truly is a curse) was ever-present at the time of its release–but it was noted more for the bosom-busting attire worn by Gong Li and the presence of Taiwanese crooner Jay Chou than cinematic achievement. The film is generally agreed to be a bust, pardon the pun, and I would have to say it's even worse–it's like watching a bad video game from the mid-80's, only one that drags on for several hours and in which you don't get to play. It's kitsch, and not cult kind of kitsch, more like Ronald McDonald kind of kitsch...
Well.
Lets get on to 2008 and the Olympic Ceremony (with only a few diversions left to ponder).
First, I have to disclose some bias on where I spent the Opening Ceremony. I was not one of those with Party (capital P) or corporate connections who made it into the Bird's Nest stadium, where the ceremony took place. Nor was I one of the people who paid hundreds of dollars to the people who had connections to get a ticket. I was one of the many thousands of people standing outside–unable to even catch a good glimpse of the fireworks because of police barricades that literally bisected the entire city in half and unable to partake informally in the celebrations because large public gatherings were not permitted during the Olympics unless they took place inside a stadium.
I did walk several miles in a sweltering mid-August heat to access transportation back to a friend's apartment (taxis and buses were completely logjammed anywhere near the Olympic Village) and catch the second half of the ceremony on TV. Later, I watched a pirated DVD of the early parts of the ceremony.
Now I suppose I should present in more detail my problem with TIME calling Zhang an anywhere-near "Person of the Year."
Person of the Year, as I perceive their criteria, is a designation for persons of great influence. China as a nation no doubt has had tremendous influence in the last year.
When historians look back on 2008, there is no doubt that they will identify Henry Paulson, another of the runner-ups, as man with influence–America's fiscal mismanagement has had reverberations across the globe and Paulson has been front-and-center on the Bush Administration's stumbling efforts to keep a lid on the mess.
The selection of Nicolas Sarkozy I'm a bit puzzled by. I don't want to dismiss it outright because my knowledge of European politics is embarrassingly slim, but I was not particularly convinced by the Tony Blair article, which mostly noted that Sarkozy is easy to get along with.
I think the jury is still out on whether Sarah Palin, the third runner-up, will have lingering influence–God I hope not. Her brand of folksy, no-nothing, common Joe brand of evangelical-Christian politics are hardly new–there is a man named George W. Bush who is walking out the White House door in a few days who ran on, and governed with, the same platform for the last eight years. Palin has been a big media story for the last six months, but if she isn't elected to national office in the future the water cooler stories about her hunting habits and Midwestern/Alaskan accent and pregnancy secrets and so on will be the minor sphere of niche historians.
The "Person of the Year," or runner-up, doesn't need to be nice person, either historically (as TIME has used the title) or in my estimation. Vladimir Putin is a thug masquerading as a politician, but I have no objection to TIME selecting him as its 2007 Person of the Year because I think the direction he has put Russia on will have lingering impact for many years to come, even beyond whatever years he has remaining as Russia's leader, officially or unofficially.
Barack Obama's selection as this year's "Person of the Year" is also undoubtedly a valid choice–he is not only the first black president in a country that began with slavery and segregation, but also a radical departure politically and philosophically from his immediate predecessor, Mr. Bush. Both men are arrogant in their own way–but Obama chooses to back up his self-reliance with wide consultations and old-fashioned book-learning, whereas Bush relied more on gut instinct, faith and a small consortium of secretive associates with heavy personal agendas. Obama now inherits a country in fiscal and ideological crisis, not to mention two wars, and how he handles that task will be as important to America as FDR's oversight of the New Deal, Ronald Reagan's approach to the Cold War, and other significant moments in history (I don't think FDR personally ended the Depression, nor do I think Reagan "won" the Cold War, but I do think the decisions both made at crucial times helped to gently steer the nation away from more dire situations that other leaders may not have been able to avoid)...
Getting back to the main subject: I have to be quite honest when say I am surprised by the decision to call Zhang's Opening Ceremony influential. Maybe I'm only in some fringe minority when I say this, but here is one problem I have with the 2008 Opening Ceremony: I I found it kind of boring. Yes, there were thousands of people participating in carefully orchestrated movement's, ala North Korea's Mass Games. But there was no life in it, no vibrancy. I've seen more life in a child running through a fountain on a sunny day. For me, watching the Opening Ceremony dancers was akin to watching someone try and do a tango wearing a Tin Man suit–the outfit may be heavy and expensive, but does it really represent the moment?
To a certain extent, it did. Beijing was pretty staid during the Olympics. Migrant workers were encouraged to leave the city, students were booted out, many foreigners were denied visas, DVD and nightclubs were temporarily shuttered, and a polite but pervasive police presence was spread across the city. I've been to university athletic competitions in China that had more spirit than the Olympics, with its half-empty stadiums, yellow shirt "volunteer fans," dismal concession food (Snickers and sausage? That's how you want to represent Chinese cuisine to the world?). So if boring and overhyped is what you want label the Olympics, then Zhang would be a not-inaccurate representation.
Just one problem. The Olympics did have one cool aspect: awesome performances by athletes from all over the world. Michael Phelps domination in swimming will certainly be remembered and discussed and shown on TV time and time again. China didn't have a signature face like that in these Olympics, but it did have a lot of stellar performances– enough to totally dominate the gold medal tally. The flagbearer for the Chinese team was Yao Ming, who could have been labeled a Person of the Year a few years ago for the basketball frenzy he unleashed on the world's most populous country. But in this recent Olympics, China's national basketball team was still decidedly mediocre and Yao was unable to lift them to medal status, making him a poor choice for a 2008 Person of the Year.
Liu Xiang, China's face of the Olympics and the subject of a monster New York Times Play Magazine article right before the Games, withdrew abruptly, walking out of the stadium only moments before his first heat was supposed to begin. So he has no 12 or 13 seconds of fame to be remembered by.
Guo Jingjing, on the other hand, is an advertising beacon (like Yao and Liu), consistent gold medal-winner, and she did perform to expectation in the game– but her personality is surly and unexciting, and she's not very well known abroad, far away from the South China gossip pages.
So who is there to represent China's Olympic Year? (A year in which China has been on top of the news generally, whether for the tragedy in Sichuan, food safety crises, or its rising strength in the world economy).
Hu Jintao is the nation's chief executive, but he is a faceless bureaucrat who rose to power, in my estimation, by not ruffling anyone's feathers. His theories of scientific development or whatnot are not coherent enough (or sufficiently implemented) for presentation as a template for the future of China.
Choosing a dissident as Person of the Year would feel ennobling, but it would also be a faulty–China's dissidents haven't had much influence in recent years, despite the heavy and constant attention they're given in the Western media.
In a recent Hong Kong poll, the sex-scandaled Edison Chen was designated as runner-up for Person of the Year (after Barack Obama). If notoriety were a criterion, that might be a good choice–but I don't think Chen will prove to have been significant for more than a brief period of lurid national fascination. Chen is China's Paris Hilton, only with more acting credibility. Unfortunately for the Canadian-born singer and pop star, he took his computer in for repairs at the wrong store and someone delved into his personal self-starring pornography collection. Chen and his (now-humiliated starlets) are hardly the first porn that's been seen in China, a country where the pirated DVD market isn't limited to copies of Shrek and Toy Story, local protestations of chastity to the contrary. So he may have been much discussed, but hardly representative of a new trend...
With those dismissals, I still feel there are many individuals in China who would have made a better candidate for the designation than Zhang Yimou, an aging starlet with a dress (the artiste) that no longer fits him.
The Opening Ceremony was not art, it was extravagance, and the two should never be confused (in this sense, Spielberg was a logical choice to write the TIME story on Zhang, seeing as his films have often confused the two).
The Opening Ceremony may or may not have been watched by three billion people (making it the Super Bowl multiplied), but I don't know how many of them it made a lasting impression on, other than Roger Ebert (who apparently was enraptured).
China has a rich history, worthy of recognition at a time like the Olympics, but I found the symbolism invoked by the Opening Ceremony more contrived than convincing. Maybe others felt differently, I don't know.
In any case, my personal feeling is that Zhang was a bit of a lazy choice, another celebrity name in TIME's celebrity-heavy 2008 Person of the Year roster (lets be honest: Sarkozy would not have been as close to the top of the list were it not for his wife switch, nor would Palin have been as prominent if she wasn't a former beauty pageant candidate. After all, Dan Quayle, Palin's intellectual peer, wasn't selected for any Person of the Year write-ups in 1988–and his ticket won).
If TIME wanted to make an easy choice, they should have awarded Person of the Year to The Chinese Athlete (generally). After all, China has risen from a country with no Olympic team a few decades back to a team to be feared in many, if not most, events. If it's China's moment, why not recognize it?
One more thought-provoking alternative–again, assuming a China selection (of course there are other worthy possibilities from countries across the globe)–would have been to select a volunteer from the Sichuan earthquake. Yes, there is no single volunteer that had a "world impact"... but the moving story of one volunteer (and there were many) could have been used to represent the many local who responded with assistance in the wake of the earthquake. These volunteers represent a tide, civic consciousness, whose legacy might very well endure long after Yimou's ceremony (with it's lip-syncing children, New Age music, and faux minority costuming) is rightfully buried at the bottom of the DVD bin.
Civic consciousness is China's future.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Chaos at the gates: Spring Festival travel season
China's Spring Festival holiday crush is on again. Lines stretch back in the hundreds in Hefei, Shanghai, and everywhere else. There is a solution to this problem: variable scheduling.
When every student and employee in a country of 1.4 billion gets off at the same time, there is inevitably going to be a chaotic bottleneck, regardless of whether China's infrastructure is improved or not (personally, I think their railway system is fairly expansive when compared to, say, the United States).
Universities have the most leeway in shifting their vacation schedules: most schools are off for about a month at the holiday time, giving them a lot of flexibility on when to begin.
In the case of my present school, we are releasing for vacation one week before the Chinese New Year, the exact time when transit is going to be at its absolute apex. Bad idea.
On another note, employees need to be given vacation time outside of Spring Festival and (now lone) three-day National Day "Golden week." While there is of course an extraordinary significance to returning home on the New Year, the pressure would be less if employees had other chances to go home during the year.
Actually, I believe by law permanent employees are now supposed to be receiving paid vacation. This is a paper law and it will be interesting to see if, and when, it is put into practice.
On another note, the booking system in China clearly needs to be revamped. First, serious sting operations need to be put in place to rid scalpers from the holiday frenzy. Second, online booking needs to be introduced (and hopefully with more effectiveness than the hopelessly botched Olympic ticket sales).
When every student and employee in a country of 1.4 billion gets off at the same time, there is inevitably going to be a chaotic bottleneck, regardless of whether China's infrastructure is improved or not (personally, I think their railway system is fairly expansive when compared to, say, the United States).
Universities have the most leeway in shifting their vacation schedules: most schools are off for about a month at the holiday time, giving them a lot of flexibility on when to begin.
In the case of my present school, we are releasing for vacation one week before the Chinese New Year, the exact time when transit is going to be at its absolute apex. Bad idea.
On another note, employees need to be given vacation time outside of Spring Festival and (now lone) three-day National Day "Golden week." While there is of course an extraordinary significance to returning home on the New Year, the pressure would be less if employees had other chances to go home during the year.
Actually, I believe by law permanent employees are now supposed to be receiving paid vacation. This is a paper law and it will be interesting to see if, and when, it is put into practice.
On another note, the booking system in China clearly needs to be revamped. First, serious sting operations need to be put in place to rid scalpers from the holiday frenzy. Second, online booking needs to be introduced (and hopefully with more effectiveness than the hopelessly botched Olympic ticket sales).
Monday, January 12, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Spicy chili recipe
Favorite recipe. Sometimes I add chicken, potatoes, or additional hot peppers. I find that cilantro doesn't go all that well with the mix so I leave it out.
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