These pages contain my thoughts on life in East Asia — Taiwan above all — on the people I meet here and the things I experience. I was always a closet Orientalist. I want exotic countries to be exotic. After all, what else is the point of them? Since I’ve read Edward Said, however, I’ve learned to be ashamed of this approach to the world. So, I promise, I’ll hold off on the exotica. In particular, there won’t be many references to mangoes. Too many mangoes are a sure sign of travel writing gone wrong.
But there will also be observations on other themes — my family, Europe, Sweden and the UK. Life in academia, politics, and reports on things that I’m writing and thinking.
On July 18th, 2008, I was diagnosed with cancer of the lymph node. The story is ongoing. My diary of what happened next is here.
My friend Jeff sent me these pretty striking statistics on the US economy since 2000. This is of course what any reasonable election in any reasonable country should be about. What’s particularly striking to me is that productivity during the Bush years has gone up by 19% whereas median income has gone down by 1%. Back in the olden days this used to be called “exploitation.” Remember: you work harder and better all the time, but someone else is reaping the profits.
The below gives more wage data, but from a longer time series. Incomes do indeed go up over time, but not nearly as much as Americans tend to believe. The gain over thirty years is only $4,000 — but between 1973 and 1993 there is no net gain at all. And look at how badly the Bush family has served Americans: during Bush Iwages were in a free-fall and during Bush II wages first fell dramatically and then stagnated. Compare this with the wage surge during the Clinton administration.
My friend Tsungyi took me to a book publisher today. They are bringing out a Chinese version of my blogging book. Great fun. I always wanted to be translated — and into Chinese too! Now 1.5 billion people can read my book! Unfortunately, however, they won’t. In Taiwan the only books that sell are self-help books and porn for middle-management — “Make Money the Google Way.” Unfortunately my book is helping no selves and it contains no money-making advice.
The business idea of the publisher seems to be to live off “translation awards” granted by the government to publishers who bring out foreign books in Chinese translation. I guess they want to encourage the translation of works in foreign languages (I think there is a similar government-run program in Sweden). They already sent 800 pounds to Anthem Press, the book’s publisher in London. And Tsungyi, who is translating it, gets paid per word. Funnily enough, nothing I write ever makes me any money.
In related developments, my friend Tim McCarthy reports that he’ll once again be using my book for the course he teaches at the Kennedy School at Harvard. “The students really like it.” Great.
Sarah Palin, surely, is a mole planted by the Democrats. Yesterday her 17 year-old, unwed, daughter turned out to be five months pregnant. Suddenly the Christian Rights decided that “It’s OK, it shows how much the Palins value children.” Next week, no doubt, Palin’s son will turn out to be gay. “That’s OK,” the Christian Right will say, “we are all equally loved by God.” A few days before the presidential election those porn photos of Sarah will finally emerge. “That’s OK,” the Christian Right will insist. “Pornography is a great morale booster for our troops in Iraq. We are so proud to have a Vice-President who can provide it.”
In this way, little by little, the hypocrisy of the Republicans will be revealed. Eventually they will be forced to retreat from their social conservative agenda. Before long Republican voters will realize that the Democrats were right all along and Obama will win the election in a landslide. All Americans will join hands with each other and with the rest of the world. Peace and happiness will finally be brought to our fractured planet. Thank you Sarah!
Sept 4 update: I just discovered this picture. Unfortunately it’s a fake.
Really, how can this beauty-pageant winner and self-declared “hockey mum” be a serious candidate for vice president of the US? Are the Republicans just having a laugh? Surely no Hilary supporter will switch to the Republicans as a result of putting this anti-abortion advocate on the ticket. And she hates polar bears too, and she wants “creationism” to be taught in schools.
Unfortunately, American politics is not just a matter for Americans. If McCain croaks during his tenure — not unlikely — Sarah Palin will be the most powerful person on the planet. This is a woman who until recently was mayor of a small Alaskan town. She only got a passport last year for a trip abroad. Your average British Ibiza tourist has more “foreign policy experience.” If Americans want to elect leaders who run America incompetently that’s their choice, but why should the rest of us have to suffer?
If this is how leaders are selected in a democracy, democracy works badly. Compare China — or Singapore — where a non-entity like Palin never would come anywhere near the reigns of power. Btw, why is it that Republicans always rise so quickly above their level of competence? (Dan Quayle, George W. Bush, and now this woman).
Fun thought: I wonder when those naughty pictures she took as a 20 something will be discovered? After all, most beauty queen wanna-bes did a trial shoot for a porn mag in a desperate attempt to launch their careers. Those photos are out there somewhere.
We were watching the Democratic Convention on YouTube this year. This is not something Taiwanese TV is very interested in. All the speeches were magnificent: Michelle Obama, Ted Kennedy, Al Gore, the Clintons! How very wise of the Clintons, btw, to swallow their pride and give a whole-hearted endorsement of the winner. And then of course there was Obama himself. What to say? It was surely one of the best political speeches I’ve ever heard. He delivered both eloquent uplift and plenty of bread and butter.
I’ve occasionally been known to make jokes that can be construed as anti-American. I figure being married to an American and having four American children kind of provides me with a license. And there is no doubt that America has tremendous problems — the housing crisis, health care, education, inequality (and don’t get me started on foreign policy).
What is also true, however, is that America has great people. Great, great, people. And somehow or another, when times are rough, there always seems to be a great American ready to step up to the challenge. Today that man is Barack Obama. He is the man of the moment in exactly the same way as Roosevelt in the 1930s. I honestly believe he will sort out a lot of America’s problems. And I know the world will finally have an American leader we all can look up to.
Someone made an entry for me in Swedish Wikipedia. (I suspect it’s my cousin Hans, he is very web-savvy). Of course I’ve toyed with the idea of creating my own entry. Who hasn’t? If nothing else it would have been interesting to see if “Erik Ringmar” survives the sometimes surprisingly repressive Wikipedia editors. Still, it’s pathetic to have to create your own entry. How vainglorious can you be? It’s much better if a cousin does it for you. (And it will still be interesting to see if they’ll delete me).
In the olden days it was a real honor to be included in Who’s Who? My two uncles — Richard and Torgil — were included in the Swedish version (Richard was a singer and a banker; Torgil, a high-level civil servant), but my father, Lennart — an architect working for a small, northern, town — never was. I remember him making some wry remarks regarding the selection procedures of the editors …
Of course Who’s Who? was a stupid, elitist, institution. Wikipedia is, despite the in-house censors, much better. Anyone can create their own entry. But if you — like me — are too embarrassed to, leave a comment here and I’ll create one for you.
The Taiwanese TV coverage of the Olympics is actually totally abysmal. A couple of different stations carry the event, but none has spent any money on the production. They don’t have a proper studio, no invited guests or background reports on the participants. In the day-time they show a random schedule of synchronized diving and pingpong. Yawn! And in the evening they think nothing of breaking off a very exciting gold duel in women’s pole-vaulting in favor of the same old soap opera they show every other day of the year. Ahrrg!
Still, I’ll miss the Olympics when it’s over. I’m not really such a sports fan, but I like events that attract everyone’s attention around the world. The Olympics allows you to leave your private lives for a while and participate — even if it’s just as a spectator — in a shared experience. Collective experiences are always larger than life. I like larger than life.
“Chinese Taipei,” 中華台北, is what they call Taiwan in the Olympic Games, and this is its pathetic looking flag. The Beijing government considers Taiwan to be a part of the People’s Republic of China and as a result Taiwanese athletes can’t compete under its country’s official name. How totally embarrassing. It’s like Swedish athletes competing for a country called “Swedish Stockholm,” or Brits for “English London.”
It matters a great deal how we are recognized by others. If we are to establish a proper identity we need to be recognized by others in terms that we recognize ourselves. (I wrote a book about this!) If not, we will never quite know who we are. Taiwan, very obviously, does not know who or what it is. Ironically, the current KMT government agrees with Beijing that Taiwan is a part of China, but for them it’s still part of “The Republic of China,” the regime kicked out by Mao in 1949.
Actually, the Chinese characters imply a concession of sorts by Beijing. 中華台北, zhonghua taibei, sounds an awful lot better than the alternative 中國台北, zhongguo taibei. Zhonghua refers to China understood as a cultural unit whereas zhongguo refers to the Chinese state. It’s much better, that is, to be called “Chinese Taipei” than “China’s Taipei.”
Still, it is embarrassing. Our TV station took a commercial break when the Taiwanese athletes marched into the stadium during the Opening Ceremony. Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe they decided to spare Taiwanese viewers the humiliation.
Did you watch the Olympic Opening Ceremony last night? I’m not much of a sports fan, but these kinds of events are fun. The Zhang Yimou designed extravaganza looked a lot like his films: romantic, nostalgic, and extraordinarily beautiful. I’m amazed how the Chinese dare to give such a lot of responsibility (and money) to one individual director. Only the French do the same. Everywhere else the vision of the individual creator is always ruined by nervous, veto-wielding, committees.
Interestingly, there were no references to Communism in the show. The 2008 Olympics is surely the rebirth of a new, post-Communist — if not necessarily more democratic — China.
Interestingly, Bush dared to show his face at a gathering of people he has spent the last 8 years antagonizing. Apparently it didn’t worry him that some of the athletes have a very steady aim indeed.
London will obviously never be able to put on a similar show in 2012. The Brits can’t take these kinds of ceremonies seriously. They lack the passion and the vision. The Millennium Dome fiasco in 2000 provides plenty of evidence. Besides, the technology will inevitably fail. Surely British Gas will forget to turn on the gas for the Olympic flame …
Instead London has to put on a show which plays to British strengths. Something funny, ironic, or just plain weird. They should let the Monty Python (or the League of Gentlemen) direct it. And as grand finale they could set fire to London mayor, Boris Johnson’s, hair.
Today is the deadline for Diane’s dissertation. She’s been at it for 10 years. Almost as long as we’ve known each other. And the kids have never had a mother who isn’t typing away at what in our house is known as the blahonga (from the expression “blahonga, blahonga, blahonga,” frequently used during sermons by the village preacher in the Swedish cult cartoon series Assar).
Much of my advice to prospective PhD students — “don’t do it! don’t do it!” — comes from observing what Diane’s been going through. She’s worn out three supervisors in the process — one very lecherous, one half-dead and then completely dead, one friendly enough but also a total coward.
So far this summer, the kids have been sitting at home watching their mother type. But we’re going on a mini-vacation tomorrow (to eastern and southern Taiwan) and Diane is not allowed to bring the computer.
The US isn’t, it turns out, the best country in the world. It’s only at 12th place (and 42nd in terms of life expectancy). This according to a “human development index” devised by Nobel prize winning economist Amartya Sen. And what country is number 1? Well, Sweden of course. Where else?
In one of the lectures I give on political economy, I develop a similar point. With welfare and health care and education and support for families and children, Sweden is indeed Paradise on Earth. The only thing about paradise, however, is that it’s so damn boring. You get fed up playing harp all day long. Who wants to live there? I’m far happier here in chaotic, and less than perfect, East Asia.
Btw, isn’t it fishy that the Swedes gave Amartya Sen a Nobel Prize for discovering that Sweden is the best country in the world?
I’m going back to the doctor again. I have a strange lump on my neck, a swollen lymph node. I look like a snake with a half-digested mouse half-way down the gullet. The symptoms appeared right after my pneumonia in the spring and it’s most likely the result of an over-worked immune system. Friday last week the doctor put a needle in my throat and took out three small samples that he’s been cultivating. Yes, they are testing it for cancer too. “Malignant tumors” and all that. Of course I’m worried.
I had a lot of health issues this past half-year: a heart scare, pneumonia, and now this. It wouldn’t be so bad if I felt more robust, stronger. Maybe it’s living abroad in a strange, far-away, country that makes me feel so vulnerable. Every slip of the feet feels like a fall; every little thing that goes wrong is a premonition of doom.
Yes, I’m being dramatic. It runs in the family. Swedes are more dramatic than people think. I’ll keep you updated.
This blog just passed the landmark of 20,00 visitors (since I started counting properly in November last year). I’m amazed and humbled by your continued custom. Even on a slow day there are some 75 readers and on busy days there are over 150. I obviously can’t promise anything regarding the quality of future posts, but I’ll try to keep the quantity flowing. It’s still great fun to write.
I just read this interview with Robert Reich in the NY Times. What a great guy he is! And what a shame he wasn’t made Director of the LSE instead of that stupid businessman Howard Davies.
I read somewhere that you and Hillary dated when she was still at Wellesley. To call it a date is an exaggeration. She and I went out to see Antonioni’s “Blow-Up.” The only thing I remember is that she wanted what seemed to me to be an extraordinary amount of butter on her popcorn.
We are back in Taiwan again after a great trip. Despite my affection for this island, I can’t help the feeling that I’m returning to a Chinese backwater. The mainland is where the real action is; where the creative people are creating, the smart people thinking and the rich people making ever more money. Taiwan, by contrast, is a provincial place.
It wasn’t always thus. For decades the people in Taiwan were the lucky ones, the ones who escaped the horrors of Communism. In the 1980s they would go back to the mainland as representatives of success and modernity. They would bring expensive gifts to impress hard-on-their-luck relatives. Slow to catch up on the flip-flopped relationship, Taiwanese are still bringing the same presents, but now they can easily be bought in any Beijing shopping-mall.
There is a particular kind of cultural excitement that comes from living in a happening place. This is why people in London or New York are cool in a way people in Leicester or Hoboken never can be. Yes Beijing, not to mention Shanghai, is a far cooler place than Taipei and far, far cooler than little Xinzhu.
I feel the attraction of the mainland very strongly, but for now anyway there are more important things in life than cultural excitement (such as a steady job with a decent salary, and a good place for our daughters to go to school).
Reading my guidebook more carefully I realized the Buddha statue we visited in Chengde was the “biggest wooden Buddha statue in the world.” It even features in The Guinness Book of Records. What’s this thing about big Buddhas?
The Buddha statue I once went to in Kamakura, Japan, was “the biggest outdoor Buddha in the world.” The Buddha we saw on Langtau Island in Hong Kong last year was the “world’s biggest Buddha on a mountain top.” The sleeping Buddhas in Vat Po in Bangkok is the “largest reclining Buddha.” Meanwhile I thought the Bamyan Buddhas really were the biggest (before the Taliban got to them in 2001).
Why do all Buddhas have to be so big? What about the world’s smallest Buddha? Or the world’s most middle-sized one? After all, isn’t Buddhism supposed to be “the path of moderation”?
The main thing I did in Beijing was to eat. Friends and friends of friends invited me to a constant stream of banquets. A Chinese banquet consists of a large round, 10 person, table where assorted dishes are spinning around on a revolving plate. Ever so often you stop the revolving and pick something up with your chopsticks: a piece of Sichuan chicken, a duck breast from Beijing, a helping of Shanghainese carrot salad or strange, salted, eggs. Yes, it’s all very good and very overwhelming.
Yet the purpose of a Chinese banquet is not nutritional but social. Banquets are there to cement friendships. The way to get invited to one is to make sure that you first invite people to dine at your expense. If you are mutual dining partners, you are mutual friends. Your friendship is based on eating together rather than on personal affinity. As long as you enjoy the food, you don’t even have to enjoy each other’s personal qualities (and often the conversation around the table can be pretty bland).
Compare this with a dinner I had in Beijing with a professor at U of Chicago, James Hevia. The round, spinning, table looked similar enough but the social logic was totally different. Eating with a Westerner is all a matter of making yourself enjoyable, of coming across as pleasant and interesting. The food is just an excuse for self-presentation. Your friendship, if it takes off, is not based on mutual obligations, but on personal compatability. Hevia is a very nice person but he has no plans to visit Taiwan and I don’t have any plans to visit Chicago.
BEIJING, Sunday. I’ve managed to squeeze in three visits to the Yuanmingyuan while I’ve been in Beijing. The Yuanmingyuan was the garden complex where the Chinese emperor spent most of his time. It was a sort of amusement park filled with temples, pagodas, palaces, libraries, lakes, labyrinths, trees, flowers and rockeries. It was also the place where the emperor stored the precious gifts he received as tributes from visiting foreigners. The Yuanmingyuan was “the garden of gardens,” it was a vision of paradise, the best of what Chinese culture could produce. In 1860, French and English troops first looted the place and then burned it all down. I want to understand why.
There are fairly straight-forward answers to this question but also more subtle ones. Most generally put, the question becomes why Europeans ended up behaving like barbarians when their stated aim was to “civilize” the Chinese. There is a close parallel here to the recent Iraq War — and a lot of other wars fought by Europeans and their North American cousins. The Europeans want to save the poor from themselves. Too bad they first have to kill them.
The basic outline of the Yuanmingyuan is still there — the lakes, the canals and the paths — but there are next to no traces of the Chinese buildings. They only ruins are from the Versaille-style palace built for the Emperor by three Jesuit priests in the 18th century. Befittingly, the remains of the European-style building still reminds all visitors of what happened in this place some 150 years ago.
Despite this sad history, the Yuanmingyuan is a delightful place. Chinese people come here in droves to sit on blankets, eat lunch boxes and look at the lotuses that bloom in every lake. It is actually easy to imagine what it must have been like to wander around the garden at the time of its glory.
Greetings from Beijing! I should have written sooner but we’ve kept up a pretty hectic schedule of visits to assorted tourist attractions. The new bird’s nest Olympic stadium is indeed gorgeous, and Chengde, the Xanadu of Kublai Khan fame, is full of Orientalist wonders, including a 1:2 copy of Dalai Lama’s tempel in Llasa. At the Great Wall we were accompanied by no fewer than two high-school marching bands from Ohio, U.S.A., complete with cheer-leaders doing splits and waving pompoms. All very bizarre.
Travelling with Taiwanese people — two of whom born on the mainland — gives the trip a distinct flavor. Every conversation with locals soon turns to topics of cross-straight relations. Everyone wants to know what salaries people make in Taiwan and what’s happening with the new KMT government. We met old relatives lost for 60 years — an occasion for mixing tears, laughter, and plenty of the local fiery brew. The present Chinese leader, Hu Jintao, is OK we all agree, but Mao Zedong was a disaster.
Yes, China is developing and things look very different even from when I last visited four years ago. Prices are now not that different from Taiwan and there are cars everywhere. So far we’ve spent just as much time in traffic jams as in tourist spots. This country better watch it: with only a fraction of the population owning cars there is already a next to total gridlock. Things aren’t helped by the constant police checks — on every highway they are looking for Olympic related bombs.
It seems a certain Olympic fatigue already has set in. The people I talk to — cab drivers mainly — all agree that the Olympics are over-hyped. But no doubt that sentiment will change to euphoria once the Chinese volleyball girls start winning their games.
I’m off to Hong Kong and Beijing today for 10 days. I’m going with my daughter Yrsa and Zhiben, my NCTU colleague, and his daughter and parents. We all want to see the Olympic buildings and eat roasted duck. Trips to Tianjin and Chengde have been planned, as well as some (light) research for my Yuanmingyuan book. I’ll be back with updates (god willing and internet connections permitting).
It turns out we’ll be arriving in HK at the same time as the typhoon which recently killed 800 people in the Phillipines. I’ve been looking at flight information all night hoping for a cancellation. I don’t like it when I’m tossed around by the forces of nature.
I have the most wonderful language teacher — Chen laoshi. We meet for two 90 minute sessions a week. Just me and her in the coffee shop at the NCTU library. While most Chinese people tend to shake their heads and walk away whenever I speak Mandarin, she understands every single word. She never laughs at me. She always encourages me to try again. Man, man shuo — take your time! I understand why so many foreigners end up falling in love with their language teachers. Often they are your only connection to the strange culture that surrounds you.
When I was a teenager in Japan, I relied heavily on ikijibiki, “living dictionaries,” to teach me the language. “Yes,” I would say to this kimono clad female, “I will indeed make love to you again, but first you have to explain this intricate grammatical pattern.” Not surprisingly, my Japanese — what little I remember of it — is still very feminine. Shoganai-yone!
I really don’t miss that teenage lifestyle, but I do miss the opportunity for intimate language exchange. But alas that learning strategy won’t work anymore. I’m a married man. However, I’ve come up with a functional equivalent. The Chinese of my two youngest daughters — Yrsa and Rima — is now pretty good. I talk to them in Mandarin as often as I can, and I’m learning all kinds of great things, although, yes, my Chinese as a result is becoming quite infantilized. Laohu de weiba, Rima tells me, means “the tiger’s tail,” and wo bu gei gen ni hao means “I’m not your friend anymore.” I should try that on a colleague, just to watch their reaction. “NCTU President, sir, wo bu gei gen ni hao.”
Some Republicans are trying to present Barack Obama as having “connections to terrorists.” The real life reference of this fantasy is that Obama for a while served on the board of the same Chicago charity as Bill Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground.
The Weather Underground were university kids who in the 1970s decided to declare war on the American government. They blew up bombs in the Pentagon, in police offices and military installations. They never killed anyone, except two of their own members. Their bombs were pedagogical. They wanted to “bring the war home,” and show Americans what kinds of crimes that were committed in their name. “To live a regular, American, middle-class life, while your country is murdering millions of people,” says Ayers in a documentary I show students every semester, “is itself a kind of violence.”
I don’t like bombs. Nasty people — the IRA, Muslim extremists, nail bombers — were constantly trying to blow us up in London and I didn’t like it one bit. Still it always surprises me why people are so ready to accept government sponsored bombings without any questions. Although I reject the methods, I fully sympathize with the moral outrage which guided Ayers in 1970. I also think his crimes were, and are, lesser than the crimes of the American government. Bush has more blood on his hands.
It’s interesting what happened to the Weather Underground. Half of them are still in prison; the other half are university professors — demonstrating that prisons and universities are the two places where societies keep their misfits. As for Bill Ayers, he is today a professor of Education at the University of illinois (and actually a very respected, and respectable, member of the community).
Yrsa, my 7 year old, and her naughty friends, did a Google picture search for “big, sexy, mama,” and the result, says Yrsa, was “oh my God!“
I’m very upset about this. Back in my days there was no Google and consequently my initiation into the world of grown-ups took a lot longer. I looked for information (and excitement) in my father’s 34 volume Swedish Encyclopedia. It was dry reading. Very dry reading. Kids these days have it so much easier. It’s just not fair! I could have saved years.
It is surely important how you are introduced to sex. I mean, if your first real knowledge is provided by a picture like the one above, surely that will for ever color — ruin — your understanding of the topic. For all the faults of a Google picture search, Yrsa is getting a much better introduction.
Surely the age difference alone will determine the outcome of the American election. Obama is 46, McCain is 71. Americans like to think of themselves as young and forward-looking. How can they ever elect a man who so obviously can’t look forward to anything much?
It is sometimes said that older people, especially women, prefer McCain. That can’t be true. They take a look at their own husbands and ask themselves whether they’d like them to be in charge of the fortunes of the world. Of course not! Not that drooling dotard! They’d much rather vote for their sons.
Actually there should be a constitutional provision which says that no one can be president of the US who doesn’t have at least 10 years reasonable life expectancy after their tenure. Presidents must be around to see the fruits of what they’ve sowed. McCain will be tempted to engage in too much après moi le déluge policies (like bombing Iran). Scary!
I’m very pleased everyone agrees Obama is so young. He will be the first American president who is younger than me. But only by nine months! Actually, being a president and being a professor is quite similar in this respect. You are young until you’re 50, middle aged until 70, and only old after that. Much better than being a fashion model or a figure skater. (Not that I ever really considered those careers …)
Who is this “linreigu” dude who writes things on my blog? Well, it’s me. It’s my Chinese name. Every foreigner who settles in China is given a Chinese name. All Chinese last names consist of one character. The choices for “Ringmar” were “Lin” or “Ma.” We picked the former. “Lin,” or 林, means “small forest” and it’s a picture of two trees. It’s one of the most common last names in China. Yes, that’s right, the last name always comes first.
Finding an equivalent of “Erik” took a bit longer. I was first given “Aiku,” 艾克, which is the standard way in which “Erik” is transliterated. The problem with this name, my colleague pointed out, is that it sounds too much like the name of a foreigner. He suggested 瑞谷, reigu, instead. 瑞 means “auspicious” and it features in 瑞典, which is the Chinese name for “Sweden.” Neat, no? The second character, 谷, or gu, means “valley” and it goes well with 林, my new last name. Sweden, after all, has a lot of forests and valleys. Gu also has a philosophical connotation of scholarly withdrawal and contemplation. Very befitting.
The proper romanization for 瑞谷 is actually “ruigu,” not “reigu.” Still, I use “reigu” since the spelling is closer to “Erik.” Romanization is such a mess here in Taiwan anyway. This explains my email: linreigu@ringmar.net.
I still don’t automatically turn my head when someone calls out for “Professor Lin!” — but I’m working on it.
NCTU, my university, monitors all downloads via Bittorrent and peer-2-peer networks. All illicit student activity is saved in a big log file which the administration can go through if they care to. They also monitor internet searches for what they suspect is illegal material. The more internet-savvy students don’t use Bittorrent but ftp transfers, but it’s slower and there is less fun material available. They also search in Chinese, rather than English, since it’s more difficult to trace.
And the punishment? Well, people who are caught downloading illegal material are called in for a one-day course on “property rights on the internet.” All of my students seem to have been to the course at least once. “It’s OK,” they say, “you get to bring a friend with you, and they give you a 便當, a lunchbox.” In Taiwan even re-education camp comes with a free lunch.
I, as always, make sure to follow the law. However, that lunchbox sounds tempting.
Today is 端午節, duanwujie, or the Dragon Boat Festival, all over China. We went up to Taipei expecting a major cultural extravaganza. It was fun, but more like an ordinary sports competition, with lots of very sweaty team members. (Much to my surprise I found my two older daughters lingering over where the male paddlers showered their naked upper bodies after the competition …)
There were lots of foreigners present, lured there, no doubt, by their guide books. But most Taiwanese stayed away, preferring instead to celebrate the holiday in accordance with tradition — shopping at Costco’s. Eventually we too gave in to tradition and went off to buy muffins (the guys had put their shirts back on by then …).
The traditional food for the Dragon Boat Festival is 粽子, zongzi, or balls of sticky rice stuffed with different fillings and steamed in bamboo leaves. They are pretty good. Still, it’s mainly something old grandmothers make and give away to their grand children. The grand children, who much rather eat pizza, quickly look for a foreigner to give the zongzi too. Of course it’s very impolite to say no. With all the muffins and the zongzi, we are stuffed.
I’m really, really pleased that Barack Obama got the nomination for the Democratic Party. Do we now dare to start hoping ….??? Imagine, an American president you can respect and look up to. Someone you listen to when he comes on the TV instead of shouting back at like we’ve done for so many years now.
I think everyone in the world should have a vote in American elections. After all, it’s a basic principle of democracy that the people who are affected by a political decision should have the right to elect the person who makes that decision. We are all affected by the decisions American presidents make. We should all have a vote (except the people in Iraq who should have two).
How do you think the world would vote in a show-down between McCain and Obama? My guess is that Obama would win by 96% to 4%. Doesn’t that tell you something important? Surely that Obama would be far, far better at restoring the position of the US in the world.
June 8 update: Simon Jenkins makes almost identitical points to me in today’s Huffington Post, although he suspects Obama might win 99-1. He might be right.
I got this email from the Swedish Trade Mission in Taipei (the people who would be the Swedish Embassy if there were official diplomatic relations between Sweden and Taiwan):
We’d like to invite you to the reception for the Swedish National Day on June 6th. Please send us your reply to taiwan@swedishtrade.sebefore June 02.Please note that children age under 14 will not be admitted to this formal event.Best regards, Swedish Trade Council in Taipei
Now this is insulting and discriminatory. How can Sweden’s official representatives invite Swedes to the celebration of the Swedish National Day and exclude citizens under 14? Imagine a similar invitation that excluded people over 65? How are Swedish traditions to be maintained in the expat community if parents aren’t allowed to bring their children to such events? Besides, what are these activities in which children under 14 can’t participate? Group sex probably (see above).
Of course I’d never go to this kind of an event anyway, and I’d never actually bring my kids to it. Nationalist celebrations make me sick. I could never understand why we should wave flags, drink toasts and congratulate ourselves for not being born Norwegian, Russian or Japanese.
When I was a kid we didn’t have a National Day on June 6th, only a “Swedish flag day.” It was nice to belong to a country that didn’t have an official day of chest-beating and self-glorification. About 15 years ago they instituted this change. Talk about invented traditions! This year I’m going to salute the flag of the Republic of China instead and force my childern to eat fried dumplings!
Here, btw, is a clip of a Swedish diplomatic representative in action (yes, they really do speak like this …):
It is now 147 years, 10 months, and 21 days since the Europeans burned down the Yuanmingyuan. (Lots of people in China have not forgotten -- more here).
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