Month: March 2014

Out of action

March 30, 2014

It’s no fun being forced to miss work for more than a day or two, as I’ve had to do. I came down with a nasty illness last week that has made me miss several days of work and pay an exorbitant amount for medical treatment and medicine at an international clinic. You’ve probably heard about sticker shock well this was bill shock. I swear I will not get sick again, or at least the next time, I will go to a local clinic and brave whatever chaos or crowds there is. The weird thing is that I had been feeling tired and having mild but annoying headaches in the past two weeks and then just like that I developed a facial rash and an itch in my eye that turned into swelling. When the rash started to spread and redden, the eye swelling got bad enough it made my coworker ask me if somebody hit me and the headache savage enough to feel as my skull was being shattered, I knew it was time to go to the doctor. For a couple of days, just to go to the clinic and the supermarket, I went out with bandages on my face and my cap pulled low whilst steadfastly avoiding looking at people, getting a brief taste of how it must feel to be a fugitive  or a shady character in a movie.

The Malaysia Airlines missing plane saga continues, with the relatives of Chinese passengers traveling to Malaysia to try to force some answers from authorities there, including the prime minister himself. Even though Malaysia officially announced the plane crashed into the ocean without any survivors, many Chinese relatives are not satisfied with this answer and demand actual proof. It’s tough because the Malaysians made this judgement based on calculations using satellite data, and an ongoing search has still not yielded any debris from the plane. I’m of two minds on this – I sympathize with the relatives because Malaysia hasn’t been very forthright in the past few weeks, for instance waiting a whole week to tell the world it had known the plane had changed course. However I think the relatives have been resorting to some unreasonable tactics such as marching on the Malaysian embassy in Beijing en masse, angrily confronting Malaysian officials, and then arriving in Malaysia with a large China flag. I’m not sure there’s no official encouragement with these actions, and this article states some unflattering details about China’s efforts during the search. It’s unfortunate that regional rivalries and mistrust have come to the fore during what seemed like a purposeful multilateral venture, but also that China’s limitations, both in physical capabilities and relationships, are being seen.

Taiwan legislation occupation continues

March 27, 2014

As the protesters continue to occupy Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan (legislature), the leaders have modified their demands from demanding a line-by-line review of the cross-strait trade pact to scrapping it completely. The leaders might also be set to meet president Ma Ying-jeou who extended an offer to them a few days ago. Meanwhile the police’s forced eviction of protesters who invaded the Executive Yuan Sunday has stunned some people due to the forceful way it was done.  It’s not surprising given how naive some Taiwanese are, because sustained protests are often met with force around the world, whether it be in the US or India or Europe. Taiwan’s authorities have already been lenient with the Legislative Yuan occupation, so perhaps they decided it was necessary to draw a line with the Executive Yuan attempt.

The bigger question is what is the ultimate motivation driving the (mostly student) protesters. If you guessed anti-China concerns, you’d be right. The cross-strait trade pact will lead to closer economic ties, with mainland investors allowed to directly start and run businesses in Taiwan in dozens of sectors (as well as vice versa). There are  many concerns, among them fears that mainland companies can come in and overwhelm smaller Taiwan businesses, that mainland businessmen will immigrate in large numbers, that economic dominance by mainland businesses would lead to the reduction of political rights. Some of these are groundless, while there’s the larger issue of why mainland companies would focus on Taiwan, whose population of 23 million, even if relatively wealthy, is still less than most of China’s provinces (Beijing and Shanghai both have over 15 million each). Therein lies the problem – the reasons against depend on various and nebulous reasoning and possibilities, and is guided by anti-China paranoia.

I previously said I admit the protesters (those who occupied the Legislative Yuan and the peaceful ones outside) showed some courage, especially as unlike a lot of their compatriots, they got off their asses and showed they care a bit about politics and the world around them. Their anger at the KMT’s attempt to rush through the trade pact (which owed a bit to the DPP’s refusals to engage in constructive debate in the legislature) and their attempts to distance themselves from the DPP are also understandable and laudable. If this is about trying to improve Taiwan’s democracy and stop the bullshit politics between the main parties, I think it’s a credible attempt. But going back to the main undercurrent of anti-mainland concerns, it is terribly misleading.

It’s no secret that Taiwan businesses operate and prosper on the mainland, as well as dominate certain sectors. Further to that, Taiwan professionals work, actors and musicians act and perform (some mainlanders struck back at certain Taiwan celebs), students study, and retirees are buying homes on the mainland. Taiwan has benefited from close ties with the mainland for a long time now, and there’s a certain amount of ignorance and hypocrisy to be so emotional about mainlanders being able to come to Taiwan to run businesses.

Going back to anti-China paranoia, it’s striking that a few Hong Kongers see fit to lend their paranoiac and xenophobic support to Taiwan.

The DPP, Taiwan’s main opposition party, shows yet again a pitiful example of how it contributes to Taiwan democracy. Go to the bottom for the best part:

“Before the interpellation started, DPP Legislator Chen Tan-sun (陳唐山) walked up to MOI Minister Chen Wei-zen, Wang and Lee, and said that he was recently denied entry to the Legislature by police, and that he was forced to scale the wall in order to get in.

“What have the police been doing? What have you been doing as minister?” the lawmaker asked.

“The public can discern right from wrong,” the minister said, to which the legislator replied, “You can eat shit.”

Taiwan’s legislature occupation and its issues

March 24, 2014

I wrote this over the weekend about the ongoing legislature occupation, but then last night, things got worse when other protesters rushed the Executive Yuan and tried to occupy it, before being kicked out by police. The protest seems to be evolving into unruliness and disorder, and if it stays this way, the authorities won’t be able to stand by.

Something crazy has been going on in Taiwan since last week. Several hundred college students rushed into the legislature last Tuesday, forcing legislators to stop proceedings, and have been occupying it 24 hours since then. Up to now, they’re still there inside the legislature. Why? The main reason was to stop the rushing through a bill that would open up sectors in Taiwan to the mainland and vice versa. The ruling party was trying to speed the bill through the review process, without doing a detailed review that they’d initially agreed to,  to be voted on which would have seen it passed. Rallies have taken place outside the legislation, while the police gather outside, somewhat helpless. Even my Facebook feed has been taken up with links and posts about this event due to Taiwan friends. It seems to be turning into something really big, though of course invading and occupying the legislature is major in itself.

This took me by surprise especially as young people in Taiwan aren’t exactly the most politically active or aware. I’d even say Taiwan youngsters are probably among the most leisurely, sheltered, and narrow-minded in the world. I have to admit that these students’ action was quite ballsy, though foolish, and displayed a passion and awareness of politics, quite unlike the vast majority of their peers.

That said, I have little sympathy, whether for the protesters or the public. The truth is, I really have little hope or belief in Taiwan, but for this post, I’ll try to stick to the issue at hand and leave my extraneous biases for another time.

First, I think the action is foolhardy. I understand the strong opposition to the bill, and the improper way the ruling party tried to rush the bill to the voting stage. The way in which the students chose to stop the proceedings and try to press their demands is unreasonable, but if it was done for a set and short length of time, understandable. The problem is that the students have continued to occupy the legislature, whilst making greater demands that go beyond the original one of asking for the line-by-line review. It damages the very democracy that the students claim to uphold, by using physical force (rushing and occupying the legislature in numbers) and disrupting official processes by elected legislators in the very chamber that they work.
The length of the occupation demonstrates more the weakness of the authorities and the police rather than any strength of the students. In most other countries in the world, beatings, arrests and jail would have already been administered if students had dared to do this.

I also think it’s too little, too late. The ongoing occupation might have finally stirred up discussion and action by a lot of Taiwan people, allowing them to demonstrate in rallies or put up supportive posts on Facebook and other social media, but ultimately the malaise and apathy in Taiwan has been going on for a long time. The reasons why Taiwan’s economy has gotten so weak and has lost ground on its neighbors are varied, of which the mainland is just one factor. However, behind the direct reason for the occupation is an overarching issue.

The overarching issue is the mainland, specifically fear and worries about the mainland in Taiwan. Despite growing economic, logistical and tourism ties in recent ties, there’s been continuous resentment and fear by many Taiwanese about the mainland, such as being united with the mainland. Despite some of it being colored by irrational thoughts, paranoia and prejudice, these negative feelings have built up. Regarding this pact, the fact that Taiwan’s economy hasn’t been doing very well in the last few years has resulted in many Taiwanese fearing that an influx of mainland investment and businesses would swamp and hollow out the local economy. I’d have thought the opposite would be true. While I agree Taiwan businesses, especially small businesses, should be protected to an extent, I think the cross-strait act allows both for more opportunity, for Taiwan companies in the mainland, and for the domestic economy to be boosted.

Many Taiwanese have benefited significantly from doing business on the mainland. Taiwan corporations dominate certain sectors whether it be tech manufacturing (Hong Hai) or drinks and snacks (Tsing Yi). Lots of Taiwan companies and factories dot the landscape in the Pearl and Yangtze River deltas, China’s most developed regions. In addition, besides businessmen, lots of Taiwanese celebrities, academics, professionals, artists and even English-language teachers work and live on the mainland.

Those Taiwan students occupying the legislature and their supporters should really consider this fact. Taiwan has long exploited and benefited from economic ties with the mainland, on the mainland. Why shouldn’t these ties be more two-way?

Troubles arise over the missing flight

March 22, 2014

It’s coming close to two weeks and the missing Malaysia Airlines plane is still missing. There’ve been more developments during this week, such as Malaysia announcing that the plane was definitely hijacked (which is just a theory despite what they said) and that it flew west from Malaysia, away from its intended flight path. The most recent development is an ongoing search for large pieces of debris that were spotted in the Indian Ocean west of Australia.

The disappearance has been a big puzzle to much of the public and heartbreak for the families of the missing, not to mention a boon to the media and so-called experts and analysts. It’s also a sign that despite all the high-tech devices and the Internet and news and connectivity that we constantly surround ourselves with, it doesn’t mean beans at times. I also feel the same way about the situation in the Ukraine with Russia having basically annexed Crimea right in front of the world, and other crises in Venezuela and Syria. It feels weird and surreal to be able to read and watch so much news about a crisis as it’s happening and yet none of this has an effect on Russia, which has acted with such impunity. The US has responded with sanctions against Russia, which seems like a puny response but probably the most practical option given a military war isn’t appealing (at least to the West).

I’d lauded the multilateral cooperation on the search as a positive thing, but the opposite seems to be true as well. The lack of competence, cooperation, and trust has aggravated regional and neighborly tensions. This is in spite of the fact that Malaysia and its neighbors are members of ASEAN, the longstanding Southeast Asian regional body. China, as a big nation and regional power, should be taking a major part in the search, as most of the missing passengers are Chinese, but then again, few of its neighbors truly trust China, and China doesn’t necessarily have the outright capability to send naval and air search so far out beyond its shores. It’s also unfortunately a sign that Asia isn’t quite the future power sphere that many folks in media, academic and political circles claim it is.

The lack of trust on the mainland, even for little things

March 19, 2014

This hasn’t been the best of weeks, though it did start well with Arsenal beating Spurs in a tough game where they scored within 3 minutes and held that lead until the end (English Premier League football). There’s been a few annoyances, but I’m trying to handle them as best as I could. Anyways, here’s my opinion on a problem in society here, which for me is Beijing, but which can probably be applied to elsewhere in mainland China. It was meant to be an opinion piece, but it wasn’t published.

I recently saw a few striking photos online. A guy was standing next to a woman who’d fallen on the street off of her e-bike and taking her picture. However, he wasn’t being callous or voyeuristic. He was making a record that she’d fallen in an accident which he had nothing to do with, before helping her up. And who could blame him – there’ve a spate of incidents nationwide where people have fallen in public and then turned around and blamed the very ones who helped them, even extorting them. So far thankfully I’ve never experienced anything as extreme, but I’ve had a few mishaps where I realized just how little trust there was in society.

Before I came to China, I was well aware that sometimes you have to watch out for scams and trickery. What surprised me was the lack of trust in everyday life. I learned this the hard way because apparently, I’m a liar and shifty in some local people’s eyes.

My first experience was at a hotel I stayed in during my first several weeks in Beijing. One day, I came back and realized I’d forgotten my key inside my room. I went to the receptionist, who lent me the hotel master key. After I opened my room, I went downstairs to the receptionist and returned the hotel key. After returning to my room, I found that it hadn’t been cleaned so I called the front desk.

As soon as I started speaking, the receptionist said I hadn’t returned the key to her. I was stunned, and insisted I had. “I just gave it back to you a few minutes ago,” I said. “No, you didn’t give it back,” she replied bluntly. After several minutes of this back and forth, I went downstairs where we continued to argue. Luckily I spotted the manager, who quickly found the master key behind the counter. Instead of an apology, the receptionist claimed the key had been returned by another staffer who’d gotten it from me upstairs!

My second notable experience was during a messy situation with my previous apartment that involved a seriously disreputable agency. The affair came to an end when the landlady decided to sell the apartment. I agreed to move out at a certain date, but coincidentally I had to go to Hong Kong the weekend before. I met with the landlady and the new owner right before my trip, and told them I was returning next week and would move out. I thought everything would be ok.

Yet when I returned to Beijing, I got a text from my landlady who said she’d been trying to contact me. She had even visited my place the day I left to discuss something. The next morning, the new owner also called me, saying he heard from the landlady that they couldn’t find me. “That’s because I was in Hong Kong like I told you,” I said.

It just showed they were either ignorant about geography or didn’t believe me when I said I was going to be away from China for the weekend.

In return, I’ve also been guilty of being suspicious.

The messy situation above unraveled when I first met my landlady in my hallway after coming home from work one night. She’d been waiting for hours and told me how the agency had duped her and had been renting out her apartment without her permission for over two years. She seemed to be telling the truth and even brought her property ownership certificate and ID later. Yet during the whole time, I couldn’t help wondering whether this was all an elaborate ploy. I had all kinds of paranoid scenarios in my mind about the agency hiring this person to pretend to be the landlady, and then, whether the landlady and the agency had planned this whole drama just to get me to move out quickly.

Dishonesty is bad in itself, but what’s worse is its effect. People lose trust and become quick to accuse and be suspicious. Not just in major situations, but in minor, ordinary or everyday situations like the ones I described above. If you can’t even borrow a key in a hotel without being accused of taking it or be believed when you tell people you’ll be out of town for the weekend, it’s no wonder that people are often guarded and suspicious.

If even born-and-bred locals have trouble coping with the dishonesty here, how can non-natives deal with it? All I can try is not to be consumed by suspicion but always be cautious. And don’t take things personally, because whatever shady misfortune happens to you, it’s probably happened to many locals as well.

River of Smoke- book review

March 18, 2014

It took me a long time, but I finally finished Amitav Ghosh’s River of Smoke, the second book in his Ibis trilogy. This trilogy follows a group of characters on a journey from India to Mauritius to China in the leadup to the Opium War. River of Smoke was quite hefty, being a little less than 600 pages, but it was more a combination of laziness and being distracted that resulted in me taking months to read it. It focuses on several characters, including a distinguished Indian opium magnate, and several fellows who escaped a ship (from the first book) and made their way to Guangdong, China, right before the Opium War. It starts off a bit slow, and meanders for a while as it alternates between several main characters, which makes it confusing at time. The book is rich in the descriptions of the opium trade in Guangdong, as well as the physical environment and lifestyle of the British, American and Indian merchants living in the foreign compound, getting rich from importing opium whilst being self-righteous and callous about the effect of their trade on the Chinese and China’s laws. There’s a bit of Cantonese Chinglish dialogue, following convention from the first book where there was a lot of dialogue in the sort of mixed dialect the sailors of that time spoke.

The novel picks up though in the second half as things get more tense, due to the arrival of a new governor, the moral and resolute Lin Zexu, to clamp down on the burgeoning and destructive opium trade. Lin soon does so, besieging and striking fear into the British and American merchants who facilitate the opium imports, and ultimately forcing them to give up a vast total of their illicit cargo which he then destroys. Unfortunately this gives the British the ideal reason to make war on China, which led to the Opium War, that will very likely be in the third novel.

A few months ago, I read The Good Earth, for which Pearl S. Buck won a Pulitzer in 1932. Buck would also win the Nobel literature prize for her books about China. The Good Earth is about the life of a humble Anhui peasant who toils and braves famine, floods, and war, to eventually become a wealthy man. In the process, he almost destroys his household, and inevitably, wealth and profit ensure his children will not follow in his footsteps. The book shows the harshness of life in 20th century China, especially for poor rural farmers, as well as the cruelty and pragmatism prevalent in Chinese society.

Vietnam travel -Mekong Delta daytrip

March 14, 2014

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On my last full day in Ho Chi Minh City, I visited the Mekong Delta on a daytrip. The mighty Mekong is Southeast Asia’s biggest river, running through several countries until it exits into the sea in southern Vietnam in the Mekong Delta.

The tour was cheap, less than US$20 and included transport, trips to a temple and then an island on the delta, activities on said island, and a lunch. It went rather well, and I unexpectedly ended up meeting 3 travel friends from the mainland. The last part of the tour had to be curtailed due to rough waters which I didn’t escape unscathed, as I and another guy got splashed by the brown river water on our boat on the way back.

On the morning, I went and boarded the tourbus outside the tour agency I’d booked the trip with on Pham Ngu Lao Street. The bus then went to pick up other people at their hotels, concluding with a bunch of Indian 50-,60-somethings from Malaysia. They took a while to get on, both because their party was quite numerous and some of them weren’t exactly in the best of shape. They were however in very good spirits and I couldn’t help being amused at the camaraderie and the cheerfulness of these oldsters. At one point, I  talked to one of them and she joked apologetically about their health ailments regarding bad knees and backs etc. It wasn’t a big deal.

The first stop was at a temple. This complex had several large Buddhas- one sitting, one lying sideways, and one standing up, and was a refuge for locals during old times when bandits or pirates used to attack. Then we made a quick restroom stop at the fanciest highway “rest stop” I’ve ever been to. It was like a small resort with thatched roof-covered restaurant and wooden lodges, and nicely-maintained lawn and garden.
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We finally reached the Mekong Delta, arriving at the city of My Tho, the largest in the Delta area. The Mekong was wide and brown with forested islands in the middle, not exactly the grand spectacle I’d expected, but still big nonetheless. On both sides, there were one-story buildings and in the horizon, a large suspension bridge spanned the river. Colorful fishing boats with pointed prows and dotted eyes were moored alongside the shore and we passed a few on the water. We got onto a boat and moved on to an island in the river.
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I have to mention our guide. An articulate and confident guy who spoke good English, as did many Vietnamese guides and hotel staff, and was quick to make jokes and laugh out loud. Initially I thought he seemed a bit too laidback and wasn’t really into his job, but he turned out to be quite cool.

As we approached our destination, he told us about the importance of coconut on the place. Apparently the settlement was started by some crazy guy who worshiped coconut. On that island, “everything is coconut, eat coconut, pray to coconut, get married using coconut, hehehe!” our guide blurted out.

Once on the island, we visited a coconut candy workshop, then a honey workshop and even took a ride on carts pulled by small horses through a neighborhood. On the boat ride, I’d heard some guys speaking what sounded like Mandarin. After a while, I asked one of them if they were from China and he said yes. They were easygoing and younger guys, and just like me, they’d all quit their jobs and were taking some time to explore SE Asia, having made their way down from Hanoi too. We hung together during the trip, and though we parted when we returned to HCMC, it wasn’t the last we would meet.

At the coconut candy workshop, our guide personally demonstrated how to make the candy- first he broke a coconut on a stake, then put the broken pieces into a machine that grated it into tiny pieces, then put them into another machine that formed them into a hardened blocks, which were then boiled in a giant metal cauldron (and presumably mixed with sugar or other ingredients). Finally the hardened mixture was laid out into long slabs for workers to break into square pieces and package them. The workers did this on a big table at the side while we all milled around. Besides coconut candy, there was snake wine on sale, which consisted of wine mixed with real snakes or scorpions put inside for a certain period of time (you see this in many restaurants in China too). We got to try small shots.
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We moved from place to place within the island via boat, moving through the swamp-like channels. Lunch was at a restaurant nearby, on which there was a crocodile farm on the premises. There was a stream (not over the crocodiles) traversed by a narrow bamboo bridge that was the flimsiest one I’d ever crossed on. There was also an arena for weddings which had lots of dragon-entwined pillars and an altar.
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At another stop (I can’t remember which), the guide brought out an actual python and let us all take photos of it. I think it was the first time I’d held such a big snake and there were a few nervy moments when the snake kept moving its head towards my face.
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Not me, but one of my new Chinese travel pals, and not his daughter either, she was with a Vietnamese family on the tour.

We ended at an open-air teahouse where we had tea and fruit, and were entertained by a troupe of female singers, including a little girl who did a cute song-and-dance, accompanied by a guy playing a Vietnamese instrument. There was supposed to be a boat ride, but by this time rain was falling and the water was getting a bit choppy so that part of the itinerary was curtailed.
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On the way back, our guide gave us a little speech, where he thanked us for coming and expressed his optimistic patriotism, “In five years’ time, Vietnam will be better and we’ll be number one! Sorry, Thailand!”

The guide came and talked to us for a bit, saying he used to be an engineer and then asking me what I did. When I said I wanted to work in a newspaper, he gave a sympathetic smile and said how in Vietnam, newspapers were fading away. A sad reminder that traditional media’s decline wasn’t just happening in the West.

The trip to the Mekong Delta at My Tho was quite pleasant. For a more full-on Delta experience, you can go on further to other places like Ben Tre, where you can visit sites of Vietnam War battles and even spend a full day or two.

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The ongoing strange, sad saga of missing flight MH370

March 14, 2014

It’s been a crazy week in terms of news for China. There was the mass killing spree by suspected Xinjiang terrorists in Kunming two weeks ago, then the annual two sessions (China’s version of a parliament) started last week. But by now, surely many of you must have heard of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which went missing last Saturday (supposedly) in waters between Malaysia and Vietnam while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. It’s gone from tragic to bizarre to absurd to suspicious. The flight had 239 people on board with over 150 being Chinese, so it’s apparent why it matters so much to China. Nerves are increasingly fraying in Beijing as hundreds of relatives desperately await news of the flight and their missing loved ones. The sudden disappearance of the plane, and the fact it’s still missing after 6 days of searching by dozens of planes and ships from at least 10 nations has been strange, to say the least.

Unfortunately it’s been compounded by a series of strange, confusing or suspicious developments including:
-the fact two travelers boarded the flight using stolen passports (Mario Balotelli was mentioned, really), leading to speculation about terrorists and hijackers, but apparently using stolen passports to fly, especially in SE Asia, isn’t uncommon
-the claims that the plane may have turned westwards, in the opposite direction of its flight path, and that the Malaysian military might have tracked it after it first went missing, which the air force head later denied
-another claim that the plane might have continued to fly for hours after all contact was lost, which Malaysia then denied
-a report about pieces of debris pictured by Chinese satellites, which Malaysia also denied was the plane
-another report that Taiwan received a warning March 4 that Beijing’s airport might be hit by a terrorist attack
-another report that the copilot of the missing flight invited teen girls into the cockpit during a flight two years ago
-the performance of a ritual by a Malaysian shaman at the Kuala Lumpur airport to find the plane (not surprisingly, most Chinese are not amused)

However, here’s a surprisingly levelheaded article explaining why it’s not that farfetched for a plane to disappear.
The US thinks the plane did fly westwards and for several hours after its last reported sighting on radar, so it will start search attempts in the Indian Ocean. It’s fair to say that the chances aren’t good that the plane didn’t crash, but at the least hopefully it will be found soon. Malaysia isn’t looking very good as the search goes on, and as can be seen from the news and the above links, there’ve been a lot of confusion and mixups going on. The only good thing from this tragedy is the multilateral help and cooperation involving several SE Asian nations, China, the US, India and Australia and New Zealand.