China Vs. My Husband

Well, not my husband! This poor Chinese lady tells her heart-wrenching story in today's Post. Her husband was taken away by the Chinese authorities on charges of "intentionally destroying property" and "assembling a crowd to disturb traffic" and tortured. Torture tactics used on him and three others would easily trump the American ones. Talk about "either you are with us or against us." Sick.
China Vs. My Husband - washingtonpost.com

Dirty Dishes and Global warming

Limiting Climate Change: The Neglected Obstacle

Inconsideration is human. You see that when the US and China refuse to clean up their mess with a 'hey, it doesn't bother us!' Apparently a touch of global warming would be welcome from Chinese point of view as it would be favorable to their agricultural industry! India and Africa, the article says will be the most hard-hit.

This perhaps, is a sadly sobering reminder that nation states and their leaders can be just as inconsiderate as people we encounter in the mundane. Just this morning, I stumbled into the kitchen, still half-asleep, to make my cup of tea. With the soft groan of the AC in the background, the kitchen sink that was overflowing with my roommates' dirty dishes greeted me rather loudly. Inconsiderate, I thought as I loaded the dishwasher.

Very soon, the gurgle of the dishwasher drowned the groan of the AC. Before long, I was rewarding myself with the cup of tea and planning out the day ahead.

Will India and Africa have to clean up other people's dirty dishes? Oh wait, haven't we done that already!

Very, very isolated

Smack in the middle of the country, geographically. But so far from the mainstream every other way - economically, socially, politically. Here's half a million people living in the middle of nowhere of China. I was surprised to read that (a) Islam is thriving and (b) in many towns in this area, not a single Chinese or Chinese-speaking people lives!

China, like every other big country, is a study in contrasts. Seems like we are yet to figure out how to take the whole country forward, and not just the big bling-bling cities. In fact, you don't have to go to middle of the mountains in China to see poverty like that. About a mile from Washington, DC, if you head in a south easterly direction, you will be transported to a whole new planet. Or hop on a plane from DC to Bombay; walk out of the airport. You'll see the infamous slums of Bombay.

Deep in China, a Poor and Pious Muslim Enclave - New York Times

Unequal growth in China

The wagging fingers of western we-know-it-all media has started talking about unequal growth in China; about how a large segment of the population is not seeing the benefits of the country's hugely impressive growth rates. Seems like the powers that be in the Chinese government (like who else has power there, I wonder) has decided to do something about this deepening divide.
China's Premier Promises Protections for Farmers

China series: To release or not to release

Turns out they - the Chinese government - didn't release the film "Memoirs of a Geisha" in their country. The publicity surrounding the film's release here in the New Age Empire, I thought, was excessive. After all that jazz, the critics have come out with a "yeaaaah...we were waiting for... this?!"

At the risk of being politically incorrect, I'll say this about the trailers I saw. The movie is about Japenese geishas ("skilled workers" in Japanese; "high-class prostitutes" in Chinese) played by Chinese film stars, made in English. All this transcultarism and language hybridization results in dialogue delivery that can at best, be described as robotic. I don't if it was the white face make-up or their discomfort with English, but their words lacked any emotions. I haven't seen the movie, and my comments are based on a 4 minute trailer.

Anyway, to get back to the censorship story, LA times says,

"CHINA'S DECISION TO BLOCK the release of the film "Memoirs of a Geisha" has nothing to do with the film's political content, which is nil. Nor is it related to the fact that Hollywood has mangled a story about a rarefied Asian icon from a bygone era, the geisha. Beijing's reasons for censorship are even more distasteful: racial prejudice and cultural competition between China and Japan."

An elephant's memoirs - Los Angeles Times

Korea's generic boy band boy

Like we didn't have enough Justin Timberlakes and Backstreet-what're-their-names-boys, here's an addition to the list: from Korea no less!
Not surprising I suppose. I have heard the white boy- boy bands have a HUGE following in places like Japan, Korea and such.
The Ambassador - New York Times

A Date With Tradition

Given the hooplah surrounding China and India, I thought I'd keep track of its coverage in the American media. Here's the first in that series:
The Asian Americans are lobbying (I know that's a dirty word these days!) to get Chinese new year on the American holiday calendar.
A quote from the article: "The Italian Americans have Columbus Day, the Irish have St. Patrick's Day and African Americans have Martin Luther King Jr. Day," said Lau, 60, a manager at the Environmental Protection Agency who lives in Columbia. "But the Asian American community has nothing. It's like we're not real Americans."
A Date With Tradition

Kristof: India v. China

This is bound to raise a eyebrows. Kristof, writing in his column today, compares India and China. I know, I know. So does everybody else these days. Must be the season of the 'other'. There's talk about outsourcing to the back offices in India; laments about loss of manufacturing jobs to China; praises for the gay themed movies (Brokeback mountain won the big prize at Golden Globes yesterday!).

Kristof gets many things right: Indian emphasis on education, a Prime Minister who knows what needs to be done. In characteristic style, he is blunt: "And while China has been exceptionally shrewd in upgrading its infrastructure, India has been pathetic. India's economic future is marred by its third-rate roads and ports.... The bottom line is that the once-great nation of India is reawakening from several centuries of torpor, and facing less risk of a political cataclysm than China. India is poised to again be a great world power. But over all, my bet is that China will still grow faster and win the race of the century. I'm going to tell my kids to keep studying Chinese, rather than switch to Hindi. "