These photos of the men who build the glittering skyscrapers of Shenzhen and how they do it — buildings they will likely never enter that will house businesses they will likely never patronize — illustrate the growing disparity of today’s China.
The China Beat scores again with another article on the recent ethnic violence that cuts through the fat of a lot of other commentary: “What Urumchi experienced was what Americans, recalling our own troubled history, might call a race riot.” Read the whole thing here: The Urumchi Unrest Revisited
Related: Better-than-average understanding of China’s recent ethnic violence
Even if you’ve never been to China, you’ve maybe had homestays, or seen all the Korean and Chinese “academies” for after-school English, or at least seen Asian students sweep all the academic awards and high school and college graduation ceremonies (when we graduated, a student from the Mainland that no one even knew was attending our school took all the awards). Now, according to The People’s Daily,
A student-made computer animated short, depicting every child’s urge to be free from the overwhelming pressure by teachers and parents to succeed in school, has brought tears to many college students’ eyes, bringing back memories of sufferings past.
There’s no dialogue, so you don’t need to know Chinese for this film to give you a little better insight into the Chinese student experience:
This is a story about mental pressure. In this story, the kids are constantly forced to bury themselves into their endless homework by those giant monsters behind them. The children’s brains are filled with water that can be heated by tension. If a kid is overstressed, the water in their brain would boil and produce steam, which becomes the food of the greedy monsters and the energy of the whole city. Thus,those poor children repeat their lives day after day, serving as the powerplant of their world, spending their childhood in tragic misery……
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From Albert at LaowaiChinese.net: “For those of you who’ve ever wondered why Chinese kids snicker up their sleeves when you say “250,” this post will illuminate the numerous numerical euphemisms in Chinese. You’ll also see why phone numbers with a lot of 8s are more expensive than phone numbers chock-full of 4s.”
From Wave of suicide sweeps China’s graduate class: “For Miss Liu, the daughter of poor farmers, a degree was to be her passport out of a life of poverty, a way to escape working in the fields, or toiling as a humble migrant worker in a far-off factory in southern China.
But her dream of making the huge leap from farm girl to college graduate will never become reality. [...] Miss Liu brought her studies and her life to a premature end by drowning herself in a ditch full of freezing, filthy water. ” Excerpts from her diary here.
From Danwei:
A group of more than 150 steel furnaces stretching two kilometers across a hillside was recently discovered in Gansu Province.The furnaces date from the Great Leap Forward, when the entire country was mobilized to turn scrap iron into steel using small-scale furnaces, with the aim of doubling the national output. The project was a total disaster and the furnaces were abandoned two years later.
And Frog in a Well:
Great Leap Forward era backyard iron furnaces have been unearthed [via] and there is discussion about whether to preserve them as historical evidence, even a cultural heritage.
Both articles provide interesting additional links.
California officially apologizes for its racist laws of the past against Chinese, some of which weren’t repealed until as late as 1940. I wonder what this kind of big official apology sounds like to Mainlanders.
While we were in Canada having our baby, some Mandarin school classmates of ours stayed in China to have theirs (I think they’re finishing up their second year of full time language study). I asked them in an e-mail about anything we ought to know before we bring Lilia back to Tianjin in September, and their reply is… I’m not sure how to feel about this yet! Some of it I expected, but other parts (like #3 & #5) — wow. Here are some excerpts (I added the headings and rearranged the order a bit):
1. Benefits
Having a baby in China has its challenges but such a great experience. Our son has opened so many doors for us in getting to know people and the culture here in ways we did not expect. It is so wonderful to see him bringing joy and delight to people also and to see faces smile when they see him. We don’t mind photos taken of him either.
(Photos? Ha, you mean, like this?)
2. Rock Star Babies
We knew that we were going to generate a lot more attention with our son but did not expect just how much. People here LOVE babies and foreign babies are a great source of curiosity. It seems that everyone wants to have a look. At the hospital where we gave birth, every nurse came in wanting to look, other patients and their relatives and friends wanted a peep. It happens on the street and in shops, at the local clinic where we get immunisations, in our xiǎoqū (neighbourhood)… pretty much everywhere. He is the little foreigners’ baby and is the only foreign baby in our local area (as far as we can tell) and is pointed out as such with ‘look at his big eyes, white skin’, etc… Because we are a mixed couple, people also want to look to see who he most resembles. For the first four months (he is now just over 5 months) just until recently almost everyone who was Chinese said that he was too small. People have asked to hold him and want to hold his hands or touch his skin… this is tricky.People always ask, “How old is your baby and how heavy are they?” They will no doubt make comments about Lilia’s size and in comparison to other babies. Babies here are FAT, well not all but they adore fat babies and aspire to having a fat one. We have seen very obese looking ones. I have been told because they look cute and also because they seem healthier looking. What they don’t tell you is what goes into the baby. Many if not most feed their babies on formula thinking it is best. When our son was 3 months old, a lady came up to us in a restaurant to tell us that we can now start feeding him sugared water!!! I assume she thought, just like many, that he was too thin. He was definitely not thin, weighing in at 3.8kgs at birth!!!
We ALWAYS get asked… where was your baby born, did you give birth naturally or have a cesarean, do you breastfeed or use formula, do you prefer boys or girls and how many children do you hope to have???
We have chosen to carry him in a sling or the baby bjorn or sometimes if it is too hot we just carry him in our arms. The sling and baby bjorn also creates attention and people either think it is not good for the baby or it is a novel, very convenient way of carrying a baby.
3. Bad Parents!
Things that we would think was ‘normal’ like taking our son out after the month inside was considered wrong! We were constantly told to go home, we even had a couple of complete strangers yell at us and tell us how irresponsible we were. Even though he is almost 6 months, we still get comments but better now. These experiences have made us think twice before leaving the house. Early morning is a good time to go for walks and generally that time is acceptable and we have also gone for walks around after dinner and that is mostly Ok. It is so hot now anyway that we stay indoors a lot…
4. Free Advice
Our son has eczema. This means he often has red patches on his skin especially cheeks and chin. We often have people commenting and telling us what we should do and what to eat and what not to eat, etc… Some have responded with pointing at him and looking in horror. Most often people comment out of concern and we appreciate peoples directness with us. You can tell the difference between people who care and those who don’t.
5. Health Hazards
Having a baby makes you realise just how many people here smoke! It is hard to avoid in restaurants and well pretty much everywhere.
The local Chinese clinic [...] You can get a brief consultation but the clinic is mostly always busy (unless it is raining outside… this we thankfully discovered this week), ventilation poor, noisy and very crowded. If you have a foreign baby this attracts A LOT of attention so everyone crowds around while you are having the consultation, it makes things tricky. Hygiene at the local clinic is below what we would consider ’standard’, nurses don’t use gloves and we have never seen them wash their hands. My parents visited us for a month in May and accompanied us twice. They saw mothers letting their babies wee into the hand basin (which incidentally has a sign all about the importance of hand washing) and were aghast. They pleaded us to never go back!!!
Best to get as much immunisations as you can before returning. We have chosen to get him immunised at the local Chinese clinic which is an experience in itself especially if you have a ‘foreign baby’. We have been told by other foreigners that often the injections are ‘watered down’ so we have opted to get the imported stuff. This may not be true & I don’t want to be spreading untrue rumours. It’s just that our doctor friend told us this was happening where he is in China and we simply didn’t want to take the risk as immunisations wasn’t something to muck around about. We go to the local Chinese clinic and pay extra for the imported stuff. Unfortunately the imported stuff is very expensive.
6. Baby Maintenance & Accessories
You can buy lots of things here. My family sends us some trusted things but overall mostly everything else has been given to us from people here or bought. Tianjin has two very large baby companies with catalogues and internet sites where you can ring and order and have goods delivered the next day. Very convenient especially buying diapers, etc.
Anyone else want to share their foreign-baby-in-China experiences/advice/warnings? Seriously folks, we’re all ears!
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Pronounced: fàng (tā de) gē zi
Literally: loose (his) pigeon
Means: to stand someone up, blow someone off, be a no-show, not show up to meet someone as originally planned.
A friend/professor/grad studies mentor of ours just returned to the States from an education trip to China. After getting detained for swine flu on the way in, he traveled all over and the last few days ended up in the middle of the communications blackout on account of accidentally being in the wrong city at the wrong time. It was his first trip to China, and in an e-mail from Hong Kong on his way out he briefly described his first impressions:
Being in China is like living in the past, present and future all at once.
Have you been to China? Are you in China? How would you finish the sentence, “Being in China is like…”?
Canada:
China:
Taiwan:
The States:
Brazil:
