Archive for the 'China News' Category

Good news for socially-inept guys in China!

孙智谦 on 15 Feb 2008

Total dork
 
Dorks of China, rejoice! According to a survey sponsored by China Matchmaker and the Chinese Academy of Marriage and Family, as long as you don’t mind marrying a woman over the ripe old age of 30, you’ve got a pretty good field to choose from. Stats from the article:
  • Of the men surveyed, about 65 percent said that they wanted to marry a woman between the ages of 25 and 28
  • Only about 25 percent of men surveyed said they’d even reluctantly marry a 30-year-old woman
  • And when a woman reaches 35 years old, only 12.5 percent of the guys surveyed would accept her as a wife

On the other hand…

  • One third of the women surveyed said they’d be willing to marry a man as old as 35 years old
  • And about 15 percent of the women surveyed said they’d marry a guy in his forties.
So there you have it, my socially-awkward Chinese friends. No matter what your age is, you’ve got a pretty good chance of being able to find a woman to marry you once all the rich, good-looking, socially-aware guys have had their pick. Unfortunately for you, Chinese men still largely outnumber Chinese women. So you’d better quit playing WoW and get busy wooing some woman before the dork down the street gets her first.
 
Link to article
 

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The state of 科幻 (SciFi) in China

孙智谦 on 16 Jan 2008

Science Fiction World Magazine Cover
 
I’m a big fan of SciFi. And I’m a big fan of Chinese. So logically, I’ve always wondered about Chinese SciFi, how much of it existed, what it was like, etc…but I’ve never really taken the time to look anything up about it for whatever reason. Thanks to this post on RedKemp.com, I don’t have to. It’s pretty well laid out for me.
 
According to RedKemp, SciFi all but went away when the Communist Party took over, but it’s had a revival as of late, and some people are even saying China’s in the midst of a “golden age” of SciFi. That’s pretty exciting news to me. It’s always interesting to see other cultures’ takes on popular SciFi themes in general, so anything combining SciFi and the culture that I find the most fascinating is a winner to me. RedKemp does a pretty good job of rounding up info on SciFi in China, so I won’t comment any further. I’ll just link to some of the same things they link to for the lazy readers, including myself.
 
 

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China predicting a mini baby boom in ‘08

孙智谦 on 13 Dec 2007

Woman with .8 children
A Chinese woman walks down the road with her 0.92nd child on her back.
 
China’s about to have a miniature baby boom next year according to a China Daily article. In 1973 the Chinese government introduced its family planning policy, which allowed only one child per household, and dealt heavy fines on families that dared to break the rule. But most of the children born before that year are now of an age where if they’re not already married, they will be soon. And that means they’ll want to have a child. On top of that, in 1984 the Chinese government loosened the ban on multiple children a bit, allowing rural couples to have a second child if their first was a girl. Those kids are around marrying age, too. And a recent survey showed that 80% of couples that plan to have a baby would like to have both a boy and a girl, and 41 percent of couples living in urban areas whose first child is a girl want to have another one and hope it’s a boy. So, yeah, there’s potential for a lot of kids to be born next year.
 
According to the China Daily article, Chinese families currently have an average of 1.8 children per household. I thought was kind of strange, so I contacted an old friend of mine who lives in Beijing, Wang Da Tou, and got her opinion of the numbers. Below are her comments.

“Actually, I just gave birth to my 1.8th child back in July. At first, I was a bit uncomfortable because I’ve always enjoyed staring into my first child’s beautiful eyes, but since this child is a .8 child, I can’t do that. But I eventually became more comfortable with it and now look at it as a good thing. I’m just glad that he’ll never need glasses, he’ll never have allergies, and he’ll never need hearing aids, because he has no body above his shoulders. Feeding him is problematic since he has no mouth, so I’m a bit jealous of my neighbor, who has 1.92 children. But I’m thankful for what I do have…”
 
There you have it, the indomitable Chinese spirit!
 
Link to article
 

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Beauty Queens or, things I’m not really impressed by

孙智谦 on 12 Dec 2007

Miss World 2007, China's Zhang Zilin
 
I’ve been living under a rock lately when it comes to Asian news, so I missed the fact that Miss China was named “Miss World” on December 1st. Cool. Good for her!
 
But what bugs me is how just because someone is attractive and is a “sweet innocent beauty” that has “the demure look”, people act like she’s a goddess or the savior of the world or something. Case in point, check out this excerpt from the article:

Xuan Wucheng, Zhang’s former college classmate, says he received dozens of messages from friends and acquaintances the day after Zhang’s triumph, which typically read: “Do you know the news? Your classmate was crowned Miss World. You are so lucky to have once shared the same classroom with her.”
C’mon, people, she’s a regular person who happens to be attractive enough and have a good enough personality to charm some judges into crowning her with an honorary title. How does that make anybody “lucky to have once shared the same classroom with her”? Let me know when she solves all the world’s problems. Then I’ll be impressed and consider myself lucky to have seen her picture even. Until then, I’ll be over here making fun of something in the news…and wishing she were my girlfriend. [insert ironic smile here]
 
Link to article
 

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NBC Nightly News report on the Chinese language; Chinese Pod is featured!

孙智谦 on 30 Oct 2007

 
100 million people learning Chinese
 
It’s apparently the “in thing” in America to learn Chinese. It must be if big news networks are running stories about it during their prime time slots. The NBC Nightly News article is actually pretty good. It starts off mentioning how how much times have changed, how schools have gone from offering French and Spanish classes to offering Mandarin classes as well. I wish I had that option when I was in high school; I can’t guarantee I would’ve taken Chinese, but it would’ve been pretty nice to have the option, at least. Maybe I wouldn’t have wasted so many years of my time studying French, a language I have absolutely no use for in my adult life. And maybe when I started learning Chinese over four years ago, more of the tools that exist today would’ve been ready for me back then. Meh, I’m whining. Moving on…The report goes on to say that Mandarin is becoming the “must-know language of the future” and that it’s even being taught in elementary schools. It also says that China has begun setting up Mandarin-learning institutes in over 30 countries with the goal of tripling the number of Mandarin students to 100 million within three years. That’s a pretty ambitious goal; but China’s a huge country with its fingers in everything in the world, so it may not be unattainable, especially when you take into account Chinese Pod’s download statistics: they quit counting the number of downloads when they hit 20 million. And while Chinese Pod caters to adults, there are certainly lots of other Chinese instruction products that cater to kids: software, games, television shows, you name it. Nickelodeon even has a show called Ni Hao, Kai-Lan that introduces toddlers to the language. So even in places where no formal classes are offered, everybody from your young nephew to your old uncle has access to some form of instruction in Chinese directed at their age group.
 
The question of whether Chinese will replace English as the international language is brought up in the report as well. As is typical of big network news shows, they don’t show his full comment in its original context, so we don’t know what he was really talking about, but it does seem like Chinese Pod’s co-founder Ken Carroll is referring to this question when he comments on Chinese’s lack of an alphabet being an issue. Sure, there are romanization systems out there to help people with learning to pronounce Chinese, and it’s definitely possible to write entire sentences in Pinyin or other romanization systems, but the ridiculous number of homonyms in the language makes it rather confusing at times. Still, China’s a huge player on the world scene, and more and more people and organizations are becoming more and more involved with the big red giant, so who knows what people may come up with to make it more foreigner-friendly. I wonder how much longer it’ll be before companies start replacing Spanish with Chinese in the “qualified applicants must be able to speak…” areas of their job postings. I’d better get back to studying now.
 
I tried to embed the video of the report here, but the code for embedding it won’t work with my blog. No matter. You can just click the link below to go to the Praxis Languages page and watch it. Congrats on the mention (and free publicity), Chinese Pod!
 
Click here to jump to the video of the report.
 

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Trying to guess the sound of Jay Chou’s new album

孙智谦 on 09 Oct 2007

Jay Chou's On The Run promotional poster
Please tell me this album won’t stink as bad as this promotional poster does.
 
Jay Chou is an entertainment juggernaut in Asia. He composes music, produces, acts, writes, directs…you name it, he probably does it. And up to this point, he’s for the most part delivered high-quality stuff. But I’m a little worried about his newest album, On The Run, which is scheduled to be released on November 2nd. Why am I worried? Just look at the promotional poster above…it’s got a cowboy theme. Please, for the love of all that is good, somebody tell me this is not going to be a country album.
 
I know, I know…don’t judge a CD by it’s promo poster, you say. I’m not. Check out this quote from his music company’s website (translated by stitchphil at jay-chou.net):

首波強打「牛仔很忙」，由熱血作詞者黃俊郎與周杰倫共同催生一個新角色：牛仔！這個牛仔很忙，很有正義感， 屬於60年代美國初創時期的古董帥哥，快跟著牛仔的馬後面跑，感受杰倫式的美國鄉村民謠帶來的 暢快淋漓！
The first single ‘Cowboy on the Run’, combines the talent of Jay and a long time partner, Huang Chun Lang to present a new role for Jay: A Cowboy! This busy cowboy is one full of justice, coming from the sixties in America. Just like riding on the back of the horse, the new single promises to take Jay’s take on the American Country ballad to the world.
Cheesy promotional wording aside, country music as a genre brings about as much joy to my ears as someone thumping them for two hours straight, so the phrase “Jay’s take on the American Country ballad” makes me cringe. At the same time, though, it’s Jay, so I have hope that the album won’t totally stink. He’s always done a solid job of mixing influences from different cultures to make his own unique sound, and if anybody can take a genre as obnoxious as country and make it sound pleasing to my ears, it’s definitely Jay.
 
Based on his previous work, I’m thinking the album will be more varied than just his take on country music, anyway. Notice that the quote above also said something about the kind of cowboy Jay is “coming from the sixties in America.” Could this album be a melding of country and sixties-era rock? Time will tell…I’m definitely hoping to hear some piano-driven rock. In his commentary on of a promotional version of his most recent single, 不能说的秘密 (Secret), he says that he was going for a British rock sound with the song and that he hopes to show his fans “a new Jay” with the single. It’s a great song, so if there’s a lot of the same “new Jay” on the new album, I think I’ll be really happy with it.
 
There you have it. My guess as to what the new album will sound like. Despite the references to country music and cowboys, I’m hoping there will be enough variety and classic Jay Chou creativity and talent to make the album repeat-listen-worthy. I’ll definitely be reserving my copy over at YesAsia.com when pre-orders start on October 12th. Just please, Jay, no steel guitar, please, please, please.

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Chinese women beasted…

孙智谦 on 17 Sep 2007

Derrick beasts Matt
 
Well, Brazil totally beasted (to beast = totally dominate) China 4-0 this weekend in World Cup soccer. I can’t say I’m surprised. Disappointed, yes. Surprised, no. Brazil is like a soccer dynasty. I don’t really have much else to say about this that would be said any better than the original article, so I’ll just link to it below so you can get more details if you want them.
 
On a side note, Japan lost to Argentina 1-0 on Friday, and North Korea beat Nigeria 2-0.
 
More in-depth coverage of China’s slaughter by Brazil
 

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The 2007 Women’s World Cup opens in China today

孙智谦 on 12 Sep 2007

Chinese team celebrating their victory
The Chinese women’s team celebrates their victory over Denmark, ironically without a single player “making the V”.
 
I don’t know how I managed to miss it considering I love watching international soccer matches, but the Women’s World Cup is going on right now!　And doubly-irritating is the fact that I managed not to know about China’s hosting it. I’m really slipping.
 
China was supposed to host the World Cup in 2003, but an outbreak of SARS (remember that?) messed things up for them. That year, captain Sun Wen and crew made a valiant effort but lost to Canada in the Quarterfinals and were eliminated. So how’s it going for China so far this year? They’re doing okay. They’ve only played one game, versus Denmark, and they managed to come away with a 3-2 win. Their next match is versus Brazil on September 15th, and they play again on September 19th versus New Zealand.
 
How are the rest of the Asian teams doing? As far as I can tell, only Japan and North Korea qualified for the Women’s World Cup this year, and both of those teams played their first games to a draw, Japan tying England and North Korea tying the USA. If you’re interested in keeping up with the standings, here’s the Wikipedia page for this year’s contest.
 
More in-depth coverage of China’s first match
 

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Captain, check your sticks!

孙智谦 on 22 Aug 2007

Guy eating with chopsticks
Just think, you could be eating your Chinese food with these very same chopsticks!
 
Today’s unsafe export of Chinese goods comes from Beijing, where a factory has been recycling people’s used chopsticks and then reselling them without disinfecting them at all. Yummy. Beijing News says that officials there have seized about 500,000 pairs of the germy disposable bamboo chopsticks and a machine used to package them. The article says that the factory has been selling about up to 100,000 pairs a day. But the owner of the factory said he had sold the chopsticks for a dirt cheap 0.04 yuan a day and made around 1,000 yuan (that’s $130 US) on any given day when business was good. Not being one to shy away from 5th-grade math, I did a little calculating to check the things, and if my calculations are correct (I didn’t say I’m good at 5th-grade math), he actually sold about 25,000 pairs of dirty chopsticks a day, nowhere near 100,000. Nice math, Reuters! 1000/0.04 = 25,000, not 100,000. Now, it’s not to say that there weren’t days that he did sell 100,000 pairs of chopsticksk, but the way the article is worded, it’s clear they were going for sensationalism and panic. But still, let’s say he’d been doing this for 2 months (60 days) and selling 25,000 pairs a day before he got caught; that’d mean he sold 1.5 million pairs of nasty, already-been-in-someone-else’s-mouth chopsticks. Nasty. Oh, and he had no license to sell the chopsticks in the first place, so who knows how long it had been going on before he got caught. You could’ve used his unsafe chopsticks last month or just last week and not even realized it. You could have some weird oriental disease ravaging your body right now, as you read this, all because you decided to “go native” and use chopsticks at a restaurant. How’s that for a possible panic-inducing statement? Man, I should totally work for Reuters.
 
But it’s gonna get better, right? Probably not soon. According to the article, China “lacks the manpower to enforce food and drug safety regulations at home or for export.” But, hey! They check their imports carefully! That’s good to know. Thanks, China!
 
The article also pointed to one possible cause of the problem, saying, “A lack of business ethics and a spiritual vacuum after China embraced economic reforms in the late 1970s have been blamed for unscrupulous business practices and corruption.” Ya think? A large number of the people in China don’t believe in any higher power, but they do believe in money, so of course they’re going to be morally devoid and corrupt in their business practices. It’s to be expected that a largely godless society would react to total freedom and a lack of safeguards in such a way. It’s imperfect human nature.
 
I feel bad for the Chinese as a whole, though. I’m sure there are plenty of scrupulous business owners in a society of 1.4 billion people, but as the old saying goes, “one bad apple takes two to tango”…or something like that. I wonder when and what the next product recall/outing of corrupt Chinese businessman will be. Whatever it is, I’m not using disposable chopsticks for a while, that’s for sure.
 
Link to article
 

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China’s dollar sales ‘nuclear option’

孙智谦 on 08 Aug 2007

Nuclear Explosion
Ouch.
 
China seems to be wielding some of their soft power in a harder way lately. Beijing is sick of Washington’s efforts to force a yuan revaluation to balance the trade defecit, and they’re doing something about it.
 
What exactly are they doing? Well, China owns $1.33 trillion in foreign reserves, including $900 billion in US bonds, and they’re threatening to unload them, which could effectively nuke the US economy. That would hurt a bit.
 
He Fan at China’s Academy of Social Sciences told China Daily, “China has accumulated a large sum of US dollars. Such a big sum, of which a considerable portion is in US treasury bonds, contributes a great deal to maintaining the position of the dollar as a reserve currency. Russia, Switzerland, and several other countries have reduced the their dollar holdings. China is unlikely to follow suit as long as the yuan’s exchange rate is stable against the dollar. The Chinese central bank will be forced to sell dollars once the yuan appreciated dramatically, which might lead to a mass depreciation of the dollar.” In other words, “push us, and you’ll be really, really sorry.”
 
It’s like a big playground shoving match between two kids that just don’t understand each other and don’t particularly seem to want to. Or, as someone I know put it, “We are Klingons to them, and they to us. We just don’t ‘get’ the other’s culture. At least the Joe Sixpack guys don’t.” It’ll be interesting (interesting in a “oh, crap, I hope that doesn’t happen” sort of way) to see how this whole currency revaluation thing plays out.
 
***Update: Apparently this is just the Chinese government blowing off some steam because almost every analysis I’ve read of this option says that it would probably hurt China a lot as well and that it would probably end up being a good thing for the US economy in the long run since it would get some of the debt out of China’s hands. I’m no economist, so I’ll leave that debate up to other people. I just thought I’d give an update on the story***
 
Link to article
 

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