Sep 12
9
Japan: Precision Walking
Sep 12
8
Movie Review: 2 Days In New York
Before I even start this review, I have to make one thing clear: I’m a big fan of both Julie Delpy and Chris Rock. Putting them together caught my interest right away. That, and the fact that the movie was written and directed by Delpy made me curious as to what she would create. There’s a certain charm she has where I can never NOT like her, regardless of what she does. Chris Rock? All he has to do is stand there and I’m ready to laugh.
The always radiant Julie Delpy
This is a screwball comedy in the vein of a Woody Allen flick, very New York, with a liberal, artiste sensibility to the storyline. There’s a bit of a back story; back in 2007 Julie Delpy had written, starred and directed a film called 2 Days in Paris where she tells the story of a relationship on the rocks where her then boyfriend meets her parents and things do steadily downhill from there. I haven’t seen that film but her baby with that boyfriend is now a little boy, her life has moved on and she’s now living with Chris Rock’s character Mingus, who is both a writer for the Village Voice (where he met Delpy’s character Marion) and a DJ at the local NPR radio station, along with her son and his daughter by their ex’s. He’s the sane and stable voice in this movie, the hinge around which everyone else revolves. Marion is about to give a show where she will not only exhibit and sell her photographs but also sell her soul to the highest bidder as a form of performance art. Her father Jeannot (played by her real father, Albert Delpy) and sister Rose are arriving from Paris to be in on her big day. Unfortunately, her sister brings along her deadbeat boyfriend and things degenerate from there.
Mingus and Jeannot sweating it out before their Thai Massage.
The deadbeat boyfriend is one of Marion’s numerous previous boyfriends. She and her sister have a never-ending rivalry over men, morals, opinions and life in general. When they get into it, it’s like they’re in high school once again. Is her sister actually flirting with Mingus or is she just doing it to needle her sister? What happens when Mingus takes her father for a Thai massage? How do they handle her sister’s boyfriend scoring some weed in their apartment? Marion’s quickly made up excuse of a brain tumor to get out of a difficult situation with her snobby neighbor in the elevator backfires when her surgeon husband comes over to help and can’t stop looking at Rose in a T-shirt and nothing else. It’s a comedy of awkward situations and when Mingus can take no more, he retreats into his home office and converses with a giant cardboard cutout of Barack Obama.
This is what caught their neighbor’s attention.
Events build to a climax at Marion’s art exhibit. Everything that can go wrong, does. She has second thoughts about the soul she sold. Even though she is an avowed atheist, maybe she’s not quite as atheistic as she thought. But in the end, it all works out. I thought one of the best scenes in the movie was when Mingus was at the end of his rope and had a chat with Mr. Obama’s cutout about his relationship with Marion. Sometimes all you need is a good listener!
Mingus, Marion and Mr. Obama
This isn’t a formulaic Hollywood movie and Ms. Delpy takes a lot of chances with situations and dialogue. Some work and some do not but overall, it’s worth seeing and different from the normal cinema fare. If you frequent your local art cinema, you’ll probably enjoy it. If you prefer comic book movies, fast car chases and fart jokes, it’s probably not for you. But if you want to get out of a movie rut and take a chance on something original, you might find this flick worth seeing.
Posted in Movie Reviews USA by .
Just as I was skeptical towards a previously reviewed book about North Korea, “The Aquariums in Pyongyang,” in B.R. Myers “The Cleanest Race” I instead thought that I had found the Rosetta Stone to understand the basic driving forces behind the leadership of the Kim family. Confounding Chinese, American and Japanese experts alike, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is still going strong, or at least going forward under the leadership of their young general Kim Jong-un.
B.R. Myers is a literary critic and contributing editor for the Atlantic, as well as a professor of international studies at Dongseo University in Busan. Fluent in Korean and well-versed in Korean culture, he puts forth a novel way of understanding North Korea where the country’s ideology has more in common with Japanese fascism, which it inherited from the colonial occupation that ended in 1945, than Marxism-Leninism. According to Myers, even attempts at understanding the ideology through cultural means by, for example, Confucianism, is doomed to fail; stressing the feminine character of the North Korean pantheon and its evocation of maternal metaphors, we are told that the real raison d’être for the current leadership is the idea that the Korean people is childishly innocent and unable to fend for itself in an evil, surrounding world, unless it’s protected by a strong leader and the motherly embrace of the party. This protection doesn’t just include a strong military, but also the purity of a Korean race that has not been contaminated by the filth of the rest of the world.
Myers’ analysis has been more thorough than most of these before him. He has spent eight years studying something he refers to as “the Text,” a large set of North Korean books, pamphlets and teaching material produced and read inside the country. The reason it has ended up in South Korea, according to the author, is that North Korea see it as a source of income, perhaps think that it will influence than South, and anyway do not expect any foreign experts to read it. While Myers might at times be gloating a bit too much about the lack of Korean knowledge in the West, I certainly agree with him that it’s important to understand the difference between the image the country shows to the world (through its English-speaking services of KCNA) and material meant for domestic consumption. This isn’t just true for North Korea but also for other countries often (over-)analyzed in the Western press, like China. It’s refreshing to read direct descriptions of domestic material in this way, and the author presents the idea that this is the real ideology leading the country, hidden from the world and completely different from the official fare of Juche (self-reliance) and even Marxism-Leninism.
“The Cleanest Race” contains fairly up-to-date descriptions on how “the Text” describes new leader Kim Jong-un
So far, so good. Myers translates quite a bit of material, makes many interesting points and for this alone, the book is highly recommendable. However, when reading through the book I saw some problematic gaps in the arguments that made me wonder if he’s sometimes cherry-picking his evidence, or is so sure of the correctness of his ideas that he doesn’t see other interpretations. We’re constantly told that North Korea is a very different beast from Eastern Europe or the Soviet Union, as it espouses xenophobia and racism, isolates its residents completely, denies the intellectualism of Marxism-Leninism in favor of emotionalism, and even no longer has a Confucianist heritage since its founding father wrote epic poems about his own son and spoke to him politely. What’s more, the main point about Korea’s history under colonialism as one of willful compliance then becomes a complete mystery in the next chapter when we’re told about the anti-Japanese sentiment after the war. Here I feel left out as a reader, and it was this discrepancy that made me wonder about the rest of the claims he makes.
When reading through all of this, it sometimes seems to me that Myers has too rosy a view of the former communist states, or is so concentrated on the differences as being essential in nature, rather than taking totalitarian tactics to their extreme end. One need look no further than Albania or Romania to see countries in isolation with personality cults and teaching their citizens that they were surrounded by an intensely hostile world. Marxism-Leninism in practice never appreciated intellectuality, and certainly the Cultural Revolution in China was a paean to pure, revolutionary emotion.
Despite this, I believe Myers has found an important factor in North Korean thinking that merits attention. That imperial thinking in Japan has affected the Korean peninsula and created national myths (like adopting Mt. Paektu after the model of Mt. Fuji as a sacred landmark of the nation, or modeling the Kim Il-Sung cult on that of Hirohito) has been well-argued for. Reading this book doesn’t dispel my idea, though, that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea truly was created out of a number of different cultural and ideological elements like Marxism-Leninism, Confucianism and Japanese imperialism, and then changed for machiavellian purposes as its leaders saw fit. I just don’t see how the former two could just disappear or fail to influence all of a sudden. The main merit of the book is to expose the underbelly of the country’s ideology as racial, but it doesn’t dispel the other parts. Other authors have also mentioned many of these discrepancies without drawing the same conclusions Myers do. Still, it is no doubt that he has found an important component in the make-up of the country that has hardly been discussed before.
Aug 12
31
Golden Nugget Of My HR Briefing …
… at Macau University is that as a government employee I am not allowed to step foot in a casino. Not once, not ever — a caution that came with the reminder that there are cameras in the casinos.
I can enter hotel and restaurant areas of places such as this monstrosity named the Lisboa Hotel and Casino, but cannot even walk through the casino floor.
As a former journalist for daily newspapers, I’ve learned that all you can hope for is that your story is an accurate reflection of what happens on a given day. It’s a snapshot, that’s all. By tomorrow, everything may have changed completely.
I’m constantly fascinated by both the everydayness, and the you-don’t-see-that-every-dayness of China, and specifically my current location in Macau. So I take pictures, and post them. One picture a day. No more, no less.
Please check out my blog: http://chinaenglish.wordpress.com/
Posted in Macau by .
We’re getting to that time every four years when the United States has their presidential election. Both parties have chosen their nominees, not officially but that will happen soon at the conventions. I thought I’d take as objective a look as I possibly could at each candidate, not so much for our American readers as for the rest of the world who I am sure are having a difficult time understanding the two candidates, or at least the new guy on the block.
Anytime an incumbent runs against a challenger, the election involves someone with a known record going against someone whose appeal can only be based on the promise of office than an actual track record. I thought the best way to present each candidate was to list both good and bad decisions and policies that they’ve championed in the past or are currently pushing as an agenda. So here goes, and I hope I don’t offend too many people since politics is always tricky, no matter how you present it. What I count as successes are bills that Obama was able to pass, though some might disagree as to whether those bills were worth passing.
Barack H. Obama – Democrat and Current President of the United States
Successes
- Detroit Auto Company Bailout
- The Death of Osama bin Laden
- Dodd-Frank Act (overhauled financial regulation)
- Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)
- Pulled the troops out of Iraq
- Seeing the Libyan revolution succeed without sending in American troops
- Seeing the Egyptian revolution succeed without sending in American troops
- The opening of Myanmar (Burma) to reform and interaction with the western world
- Reformed federal aid for college students
- Repealed “Don’t ask, don’t tell” (pertaining to gays in the military)
- Increased enforcement of equal-pay laws
- Crack down on Iran and North Korea
Failures
- Tax on largest financial institutions to help pay for TARP
- Decrease unemployment substantially in first term
- Passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill
- Doubling exports in first term
- Improve home values and increase mortgage refinancing
- Hold regular meetings with Republican members of Congress
- Bring the troops home from Afghanistan
- Reform immigration laws
- Use trillion dollar spending bill to build infrastructure and create jobs
These were the major issues that Obama worked or did not work on during his first term. I’d like to single out a few specific examples.
- Auto Bailout – I think any sitting president would have bailed out Detroit, regardless of party affiliation. You simply do not let your heavy industry disappear. However, ‘would have’ isn’t the same as ‘did’ so Obama gets all the credit here.
- Both Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Ladin are no longer threats to the United States. That was the objective post-911. Mission accomplished.
- I don’t have a problem with the Affordable Care Act’s coverage, I have a problem with its financial viability. If Medicaid/Medicare isn’t reformed, in 20 years it’ll suck up 100% of the budget. That means nothing for education, the military, social security, social programs, nothing. Obama hasn’t even begun to face this problem. The Simpson/Bowles Plan came up with solutions and Obama ran away from it as quickly as he could. Nothing has been proposed that even begins to address this issue, the most important problem besides unemployment facing the country.
- Overall, I think most of Obama’s foreign policy positions have been right on the money. I attribute most of this to the able administration of Hillary Clinton in the State Department. She intends to resign at the end of this year. That worries me.
- A disaster foreign policy position? The troop surge in Afghanistan. The number of American deaths skyrocketed since the surge. The reasons we entered Afghanistan no longer exist. Our troops should have been pulled out of there a long time ago. Not doing so shows a lack of guts on Obama’s side, playing safe rather than protecting the lives of our soldiers.
- The last point I’ll address concerning Obama was his American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in ’09. I had no problem with a spending bill in the middle of a major recession. This can stimulate the economy provided the money is wisely spent. Unfortunately, the money was not wisely spent, it was mostly dribbled out as political payments to various constituencies. How do I know this? Because a county by county account of the spending was put on the net so I went to my county, San Diego, to see what was spent where. I’ve lived here for over 20 years so I know most of the companies in the county and I can tell you for a fact that it was $75K here, $150K there, no infrastructure and no real planning. The money could have completely rebuilt the national electrical grid, making it both green and flexible. Part could have been used to move air traffic control to a GPS system. Large, necessary infrastructure improvements could have been funded, the same improvements that are being pushed in a new round of investments proposed for the coming term. But none of that happened.
I think Obama has been chasing votes more than making coherent policy, especially over the last year. Each policy decision seems to appeal to a certain voting block rather than addressing the needs of the nation. Lately, this is my biggest gripe with his administration.
Willard Mitt Romney – Republican, Former Governor of Massachusetts & Candidate for President of the United States
Successes
- Successful CEO Of Bain Capital, a top private equity firm
- Governor of Massachusetts from 2003-2007
- President and CEO of Salt Lake City Olympics
- As governor, turned a $3 billion deficit into a $650 million surplus by the time he left office
- Passed Massachusetts Health Reform Law
Failures
- Lost the 1994 Massachusetts Senatorial Race
- Faces accusations of being a ‘flip-flop’ artist on various issues
- Has an inability to relate to people
- Lacks empathy
- Is more of a problem solver without a strong political ideology
- Refuses to release past tax returns
- Suspected of avoiding taxes by using offshore bank accounts and other tax dodges
- He’s very rich
Because Romney is not an incumbent, he is not running so much on his record as offering an alternative to Obama and his record. An incumbent president is normally re-elected based on what he has accomplished but so far, Obama’s strategy is not to run on his record but to paint Romney as a danger to various constituencies as a reason not to vote for him. With the Republicans consistently shooting themselves in the foot, so far this strategy is working out quite well. Here are a few points concerning Romney I’d like to highlight.
- A challenger does two things, he attacks the incumbent’s record and puts forth a plan to solve the nation’s problems.Romney’s done a lot of attacking Obama’s record but so far has not put out a plan that is financially feasible. Neither candidate trusts the people enough to tell the truth so neither will offer real solutions.
- Romney is a Mormon bishop. Personally, I feel very strongly about the separation between church and state. I would never vote for a bishop from another faith. In fact, I would never vote for a minister or priest. The way I see it, once you decide to go one way, you lose the opportunity to go the other. This is my biggest problem with Romney and might be a deal breaker for me.
- Romney is a problem solver. He actually has a good record as Massachusetts governor, Olympics CEO and Bain Capital CEO, yet he runs away from his record for some reason. As president, he’d probably be pretty good at tackling problems in a bipartisan fashion based on his record in Massachusetts but if an unexpected occurrence happened, be it something to do with a foreign power or a domestic catastrophe, he has no real ideology to fall back on to guide him.
- Romney has accused Obama’s healthcare plan of being socialist, yet it is just the opposite. Under the old system, if a person entered a hospital without insurance, they could not be turned away so in essence, everyone with healthcare was subsidizing them, which is socialized medicine. With mandatory healthcare, they would have to pay for themselves. This is what Romney accomplished in Massachusetts and it proved very popular. Granted, states have different needs than countries and what works in one state might not work in others, but it was certainly nothing to be ashamed of since it worked fine where it was tried. It can certainly work as a starting point to improve Medicaid/Medicare and health insurance in general but so far, Romney’s proposals will do nothing to bring costs under control.
I think Romney has spent too much time trying to appease the Republican right wing and not enough time trying to convince independent Americans who haven’t yet been convinced by his arguments.
So what’s the prognosis for this election? It’s been very close for months, despite massive amounts of negative advertising. I think most Americans change the channel whenever a political commercial comes on, they’re really that bad. Both campaigns have aired commercials that are outright lies concerning each other’s records so you don’t learn much by watching TV. Political commentators these days are so biased towards one party or the other that again, they just parrot their party’s spin. I think both candidates are weak as far as elections go, so it’ll come down to several factors. How is the economy doing near election day? Will any new event push one candidate decisively over the other? Obama is the guy who you can relate to but doesn’t have the competence to do the job. Romney is the guy who you cannot relate to at all but he seems pretty competent. As an independent not enamored with either party, it’s a tough decision for me and one I haven’t yet made.
What are your thoughts? Have you made your decision yet and if so, why? Because this is a political subject, I’ll accept positive comments about either candidate but if your idea of cogent analysis is to trash either guy, it’ll get censored. Those are the ground rules or else this could get out of hand.
Aug 12
26
USA: Minus the Bear
Minus the Bear is an indie band from Seattle, Washington that I’d like to share with everyone. They’re not new and have been recording for over ten years, but they continue to improve with each new CD including their newest, Infinity Overhead. Here is a track from that album, to be released on August 28th.
Though the sound is relaxed, there’s a lot going on in each of their songs. I’ll describe it as complex layers on top of straightforward songs. Per their allmusic biography,
Though the song titles may lead one to believe that they’re a novelty act, Minus the Bear provides polished, shrewdly arranged songs. Finger-tapped guitar riffs mixed with catchy melodies and unexpected time changes keep listeners interested and entertained.
Their first successful album was 2005′s Menos el Oso. This song, Pachuca Sunrise, has a Death Cab for Cutie vibe to it that I like.
In 2007 Minus the Bear released Planet of Ice, with the same layered sound as Menos el Oso but with better musicianship and more complexity and flourishes. This song is called White Mystery.
Their last release was 2010′s Omni where they pushed the electronica part of their sound, especially with this song, My Time.
What I like most about Minus the Bear is that they fit in many categories yet manage to float above all of them. There’s indie, progressive, synth, electronica, layered guitar riffs, drum machines, you name it. They’re certainly unique!
Lately there’s been a big brouhaha concerning the Senkaku/Diaoyu/Diaoyutai Islands that are claimed by Japan, China and Taiwan. A bunch of activists from Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China landed on the main island, claiming them for China. They were duly arrested by the Japanese authorities and later deported back to China. A few days later, a bunch of Japanese activists landed on the same island claiming them for Japan, who currently administrates the territory. They were detained by the Japanese authorities, questioned and released. Access to these islands, even by Japanese, are restricted by the Japanese government. Since then, riots have sprung up in China with Japanese autos being overturned and wrecked, Japanese restaurants attacked and general anti-Japanese sentiment in several Chinese cities. Suffice to say, tensions have been building for several years between China and Japan concerning these islands.
The reason I bring this up is that if push comes to shove, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) might encounter the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), which is the current name of the Japanese Navy. So, what are the capabilities of the JMSDF? Can it handle a confrontation with the PLAN? How would it rate among the world’s navies?
This is a question that most Japanese citizens could not answer accurately. Recently in The Diplomat website, I saw this article about how Japan sees it’s military. The gist of the article is that, though most Japanese see their military as being small and lacking, in reality it is in the top 10 militaries in the world and that their Navy is particularly sophisticated. It’s one of the world’s largest navies and the second largest navy in Asia.
It’s built around helicopter destroyers, which are more like helicopter aircraft carriers that are also capable of handling F-35 Lightnings and V-22 Ospreys. They currently have four helicopter destroyers, 8 destroyers, 30 frigates, 6 light frigates and 21 submarines. But those are just numbers…
I live in San Diego, which is a Navy town. In various conversations with career naval personnel, one of my questions has always been, “Who do you think is the second best Navy in the world?” I just figured it was the Brits but when I first asked, the answer was “the Japanese”. I continued to hear this no matter who I asked and that’s when I realized that the JMSDF was far more capable than I had imagined.
So it’s pretty interesting to me that the Japanese public doesn’t really understand how professional and capable their Navy is, nor does most of the world’s population. Rather than being built around aircraft carriers, their major emphasis is anti-submarine and minesweeping operations. They accomplish this with the aforementioned helicopter carriers along with their own submarine fleet and patrol planes. It’s a home waters fleet, without the capability of projecting power beyond the Japanese home islands but within those parameters, it is extremely capable.
The PLAN is very aware of these capabilities and that’s why I think the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands situation will be resolved diplomatically. The current confrontation is just posturing on both sides. Obviously, Japan has the advantage since she has administered these islands for many decades but the Chinese claim is not without merit, so some sort of accommodation would serve both sides in the long run. My point in writing this is to highlight the capabilities of the JMSDF so when you do read about the conflict between both sides, you also understand that Japan is not in a position of weakness but rather, is bargaining from a position of maritime strength.
Posted in Japan by .
Aug 12
21
The Ferry To Macau…
… and new adventures.
ChinaEnglish is happy to report that he has left Beijing and is now living and working in the gambling capital of the world.
Shuffle ‘em up and deal!
As a former journalist for daily newspapers, I’ve learned that all you can hope for is that your story is an accurate reflection of what happens on a given day. It’s a snapshot, that’s all. By tomorrow, everything may have changed completely.
I’m constantly fascinated by both the everydayness, and the you-don’t-see-that-every-dayness of China, and specifically my current location in Macau. So I take pictures, and post them. One picture a day. No more, no less.
Please check out my blog: http://chinaenglish.wordpress.com/
Posted in Macau by .
Aug 12
19
Reading The Tea Leaves…
You’ve probably noticed we’ve been mostly absent over the last few months. Both Wukailong and I had been pretty busy with work and personal matters but we should be far more productive in the coming days.
You might also have noticed that this blog has rarely if ever commented about breaking news in China. Two trains crash head on, the next day the news and blogs are filled with instant “expert” reporting. Bo Xilai’s police chief ends up in the US consulate, immediate analysis from “old China hands” near and far. Cheng Guangcheng escapes house arrest and ends up in Beijing, same thing. Meanwhile, we’re silent as the dead of night.
Trust me, we’re not averse to taking on controversial subjects. The problem with instant analysis is that it’s all guesswork. Chinese culture is all about keeping up appearances regardless of events, so the government or relevant agencies are not going to be forthcoming with details about what happened, it’s just not their way. And there’s the Catch-22, news media from most of the rest of the world is used to providing instant analysis so they have to write something, it’s big and timely news! They know they’re not getting much from the government so they troll for ‘sources’ to provide them with something they can put in their papers or websites. This usually ends up being some superficial and not very well thought out reasoning for what happened when in reality, they have no idea what might have occurred. Let me use last year’s train crash story as an example…
Two trains crash near Wenzhou. The first is stalled by a lightning strike while the second then runs into it, throwing four cars off a viaduct with 40 deaths and almost 200 injuries. The Chinese government went into its usual modus operandi, they began dissembling, burying and removing the wrecked train parts almost immediately after the accident, deeming it a more important priority than continuing the search for possible victims. The propaganda bureau got into the action, issuing orders such as, “All reports regarding the Wenzhou high-speed train accident are to be titled ’7.23 Yong-Wen line major transportation accident… Reporting of the accident is to use ‘in the face of great tragedy, there’s great love’ as the major theme.”
At this point, the Chinese blogosphere got into the action, staying ahead of the censors and demanding a more thorough investigation into both the causes of the accident and the handling of the investigation. Massive amounts of speculation are printed all over the world. And yes, the worst possible procedure to investigate an accident such as this would be tampering with the accident scene but in the political climate of the day, that’s exactly what happened.
Since that time, China has published an account with the results of their investigation. The verdict?
- Missteps by 54 officials
- Serious design flaws in control equipment and improper handling of the lightning strike
- Former railways minister Liu Zhijun is accused of corruption and ”has the main leadership responsibility for the accident”
These are all very vague accusations offering no real specifics as far as what actually happened from a technical point of view, nor would I expect there to be such a report. Lightning strikes are not an uncommon occurrence and would certainly have been taken into consideration during the design. My background is in instrumentation and controls for a variety of industries, so I too have my guesses as to what might have happened based on what I’ve read of the incident. Are my guesses accurate? They might be; I have absolutely no way of knowing but at least they’re based on how those systems actually operate so the odds are better than most of the garbage I read. But for me to print my suspicions would be the height of unprofessionalism since it’s nothing but speculation with no facts to back them up. Yet people with no expertise made all sorts of wild guesses with nothing to back them up. That’s my gripe; when you engage in speculation you’re no better than a bureaucracy that covers up an incident, you’re both creating stories to fit your paradigm of what you’d like the story to be.
This post isn’t meant to be about the railway accident, it’s about a different cultural handling of unfortunate (per their view) incidents. The question I find most interesting is whether the Chinese people are changing their mindset faster than their government and are no longer satisfied with the standard pattern. Based on what I’ve read, I would think so. China today isn’t what it was 20 years ago. That’s not a good or bad thing, it’s just the way it is. Can the government change as quickly as society? Can the government adapt to the evolving world and national views of her people? This has nothing to do with democracy or a different form of government, this is solely about adapting to the needs and desires of the people the government serves.
These are the reasons Wukailong and I have stayed away from ‘current issues’ in the Chinese blogosphere. We’d rather sit back and see what develops before having an opinion, since we both believe that having an uninformed opinion is far worse than having no opinion. These days, the big speculation is about Bo Xilai, Gu Kalai and Wang Lijun. As usual, the real story is all behind the scenes and what the public hears will be the official story, which is the Chinese way. I’m not going to speculate on what really happened since I have no idea but what does interest me is how the situation affects the upcoming leadership change. Now THAT’S worthy of speculation!
Aug 12
17
Buddhism Not a Religion?
Fellow non-believers?
I was reading an opinion piece in the New York Times about the perils of positive thinking, or even the power of negative thinking, when I stumbled upon this part:
Buddhist meditation, too, is arguably all about learning to resist the urge to think positively — to let emotions and sensations arise and pass, regardless of their content.
That’s an unusual description I don’t agree with. Meditation practices come in many forms and focus on just about any kind of mental activity, whether it’s the breath, one’s feelings and emotions, or the center of a lit candle. Even the objective of meditation can differ, from getting less affected by the stream of thoughts (which seems to be what the author has in mind) to cultivating compassion, the latter of which does seem to be a kind of positive thinking.
But the main thrust of this post is common perceptions of buddhism in the West, especially the meme that “Buddhism is not a religion.” Famous anti-religious spokesman Richard Dawkins says in passing in “The God Delusion” (p. 59):
“(…) I shall not be concerned at all with other religions such as Buddhism or Confucianism. Indeed, there is something to be said for treating these not as religion at all but as a ethical systems or philosophies or life.”
Dawkins’ quote is open-ended enough for him not to be caught in the act of explicitly saying Buddhism is not a religion, and I would emphatically agree that Confucianism is not religion. However, that there is something to be said for this argument shows that the idea that Buddhism is not a religion holds sway in the West. In countries with a significant belief in Buddhism, though, it’s hard to see how it would not be a religion, with its temples, offerings, metaphysical teachings of reincarnation and karma, among others. (*)
Another curious part of how Buddhism is often understood in contemporary Western culture is that, apart from being a system of pure wisdom, it’s also thought to be a completely peaceful religion. Any religion, however, can be used for both peaceful and bellicose reasons, and one need look no further than Sri Lanka for an example of nationalism and Buddhism mixed up. Naturally, this can happen with any religion. Christianity can be credited with both supporting and opposing slavery, depending on which historical period, sect or proponent we are talking about. The peaceful faith of Aung San Suu Kyi is poles apart from the Zen buddhists who supported the Japanese war effort in WWII. No matter what, Buddhism is capable of supporting the whole spectrum of human behavior, just as Christianity and Islam is.
I personally find the day-to-day religious practice of Buddhism, and the way it has influenced local culture, more interesting than the abstract and wise version described in popular media. Back in 2006, for example, I visited the restive area of Aba (Ngawa in Tibetan) in Sichuan, where lamaism is very common and practiced by Tibetans and quite a few Han. One thing I’ll never forget is the sight of the meditating monk by the roadside. As our caravan of jeeps drove past, he sat there in his wine-red robe, seemingly oblivious to the noise of the traffic. We must have broken his concentration, though, since five minutes later he overtook us on a motorbike.
On another note, I think the reason the whole question of religion has become so important is because it historically played a different role in the West than in many other places. Quite a few Asian countries have historically had coexisting “teachings” but hardly anything like a state religion. Even Japan’s shintoism has existed alongside Buddhism. The whole idea behind the claim that Buddhism is not a religion seems to be that its proponents does not want it to be associated with religious persecution, superstition and dogma as was common in historical Europe. It’s hardly true, though, unless we accept a very narrow definition of religion.
* Whether Buddhist teachings accept karma and reincarnation in the popularly understood way is a question of debate, but it seems to me that the layman understanding of it even in countries where Buddhism is prevalent is of souls migrating to new bodies.
I’ve recently run across a certain type of performer in Japan, the mime/hip hop dance artist. The first individual I saw who practiced this was Takahiro Ueno, and at first I just thought he was a hip hop dancer with a derivative style but as the act progressed, he brought new elements that made the performance memorable. I’m certainly no expert when it comes to Japanese dance so it might have been around before him but he’s the first one I encountered. OK, I’m rambling. Here’s what I’m talking about…
Here’s Takahiro performing at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, NYC back in 2006. The audience was certainly appreciative!
In the same vein, I was introduced to another performer named Kenichi Ebina, who even fits in a Michael Jackson impersonation during this routine. The combination of stylistic influences is really something different from the norm.
Does anyone else have examples of other artists with the same style? I’m no expert when it comes to Japanese dance genres, I just wanted to share these two performers with everyone.
Apr 12
22
Guess The Capital
One complaint I’ve heard a lot lately is that modern cars all look the same. While I don’t really have an opinion about that matter, perhaps it’s true about cities around the world now that a large part of the world is developing fast. I decided to have a look at various cities along the Pacific rim. How many of these do you recognize? Click on any picture for a larger version.
Answers to follow soon!
Apr 12
8
Like The Peach Blossom…
… springtime in Beijing is fleeting, so we should enjoy it while we can.
As a former journalist for daily newspapers, I’ve learned that all you can hope for is that your story is an accurate reflection of what happens on a given day. It’s a snapshot, that’s all. By tomorrow, everything may have changed completely.
I live in Beijing, where change seems to occur at a faster rate than in other places. I’m constantly fascinated by both the everydayness, and the you-don’t-see-that-every-dayness of China. So I take pictures, and post them. One picture a day. No more, no less.
Please check out my blog: http://chinaenglish.wordpress.com/
Apr 12
7
USA: Exit Clov
This week is Taiwan’s annual Spring Scream festival, held in Kenting which is located in the very southern part of the island. Started in 1995, it’s become an annual rite of spring for Taiwanese youths, where they can catch the latest musical acts from a variety of styles. This year, making their first appearance at the festival and the island is the New York City based band, Exit Clov. So why would they want to go all the way to Taiwan for a performance? Let’s take a look at the band and find out.
The band is driven by Taiwanese American twin sisters Emily and Susan Hsu, who not only share vocal duties but also play violin. On top of that, Emily handles keyboard, Susan plays the guitar, and the rest of the band features Aaron Leeder on guitar, Brett Niederman on bass and John Thayer on drums. Taking their name from Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, Exit Clov has been active since 2003 but as yet unknown to Taiwan audiences. Here is their tour schedule:
Saturday, April 7th: *Spring Scream Festival* – Kenting
Wednesday, April 11th: *Sound Live House* – Taichung
Thursday, April 12: *The Wall* – Taipei
Friday, April 13: *Revolver Club* – Taipei
Saturday, April 14: *Underworld* – Taipei
I love this song
For a taste of their music, you can download their latest single It’s a Cult or simply listen to it as a streaming song. They’ve recently released an album called Island X that you can either stream to your computer or buy for a very reasonable price, either digitally or the physical version. One of the songs on the album was released earlier to raise money for the victims of Typhoon Morakot.
Per their Wiki entry, their sound is described as “kaleidoscopic pop noir”. I’m not sure what that actually means (noir? nothing dark here!) but it sounds catchy. For me, what’s really catchy is their sound which is more upbeat indie with great harmonies, well written songs and they know how to play their instruments. Having lived in Taiwan for a few years, I know how difficult it is to catch a concert that doesn’t feature cutesy musicians singing pop ballads. Well, here’s your chance. If you didn’t catch them at Spring Scream (and even if you did), try to catch one of their remaining four shows. Show good artists that it’s worth their time to tour Taiwan and play beautiful music on a beautiful island.
This is from 2010′s album Memento Mori, which you can purchase at amazon.com It’s called “The Hate”.
Let me know what you think. Comments on bands and musicians are always appreciated. And if you get a chance to catch them live, let us know your opinion of the show.
Zhu Rongji
The “two meetings” in Beijing tend to be fairly uneventful political gatherings. Every once in a while someone makes a definite statement about something that’s been in doubt, and the prime minister is given the opportunity to show his wit at the international press conference. It was during one of these meetings that Zhu Rongji uttered the famous words “不管前面是地雷阵还是万丈深渊,我将一往无前,义无反顾,鞠躬尽瘁,死而后已” (even if there’s a minefield or bottomless abyss in front [of me], I will keep going forward and do my utmost to my last breath). Wu Bangguo took the chance last year to say that China will not become a multi-party democracy of a Western kind [1]. The latter might sound like something Western media would choose to play up, but it made the headlines in Chinese newspapers as well. Finally, this year, Wen Jiabao reiterated, like he’s done on a couple of occasions through the years, that political reform is necessary. I will get into the details of this further down.
Bo Xilai
All of this was put in the shadow by a much more momentous event, the ouster of upcoming Bo Xilai. That this wasn’t just a temporary shuffle was obvious by what happened around it: while premier Wen Jiabao officially criticized the Chongqing authorities and told them to learn from the Wang Lijun case, Li Yuanchao, the head of the Organization Department, personally made his way to Chongqing to deliver the message and note that the Central Committee had made the decision after long deliberation. [2] I have to admit that I found Bo’s misfortune surprising even though some sort of reaction was expected.
Apart from the political program instituted by Bo, that has become known as the “Chongqing model,” his marks can be seen on the cities of Dalian and Chongqing, both of which he headed as mayor. Apart from the clean feel of Dalian and its gorgeous beachside road, it grew phenomenally under Bo’s rule and also became an important technological center in the region. In Chongqing, one of his greatest achievements was the major crackdown on the local mafia and its local supporters.
What struck most people, though, was the quirkiness of Bo’s “new left” politics. Apart from welfare programs, he sported an elaborate image of going back to the classics, sending quotes from Mao in SMS messages to city residents and encouraging people to sing political songs. Bo’s politics was summed up as 唱红打黑 (sing red and strike black – sing socialist songs and crack down on crime) and he quickly became the darling of groups like 乌有之乡 (“The Utopian village,” a website for the maoist and new left). He seemed to have the support of several major players, including Zhou Yongkang, and defied the standard procedures of Chinese politics by seemingly trying to get a popular base to nudge his way into the politburo. It was the latter that attracted a lot of attention abroad. In China, the main fascination with Bo was his revival of red imagery and his obviously populist stance.
