Shanghai Diaries - June 05 [Adult Content]

I feel exactly the same here in UK, as a Chinese living in UK for more 7 years. With all those taxing, overpricing, drinking, partying and sometimes showing you the middle finger, I simplily don't like my life here. I guess it also depands on what people you meet, what place you choice to go to. Of course, there are a lot of things good about the West as well. At the end of a day, I just see myself as a bridge betwwen the West and the East.

P.S. The 'control' you are talking about is nothing comparing to what they are really capable of. I would just call it reinforce/tighten the rules which exist long time ago. And I agree with that, 100%.

As a foreigner, you break the law you are out, as simple as that. Same everywhere else in the world.

P.S.2 Good show. Keep it up.

That's a really good point - and it means a lot to me that I (hopefully) didn't come across offensively.

And you're right - this is *nothing* compared to what could be done.

But don't you think there has been an over-exertion of power these past few months? I mean, telling travelers that their hard drives can be checked for anti-political content?

Again - I am most interested in how you view this, and appreciate the kind words.

I'm finding it difficult to express my thoughts on this coherently but I keep asking myself a couple of things.

1) To what degree is this control being exercised in order to keep the ordinary Chinese from knowing about what the outside world think of China?

2) And how on earth do the Chinese authorities expect to avoid criticism from the western media?

It just boggles my mind.

ETA: But I guess that's why I find China so fascinating.

Very solid and truthful blog, probably the best one yet about Shanghai and its culture. It's a bit embarrassing yet relieved to hear someone who is not from China to post something like this, even though I don't consider myself a "local" but with a quirky diverse background that does tie me to Shanghai I do have to admit its something that I would have done exactly what you have did Aric. As they say, "one man can make a difference" but in this society of Shanghai, it can be extremely difficult or overwhelming to even try, but I still think not giving up and doing my part in trying to brush off some of my thoughts and perspective mostly to the "Face" of people as you have mentioned is whats a top priority especially for Shanghai and how its being developed and the reputation that its being known for and the people who live and make this city. Its hard if you are trying to change things especially in this situation, can be deported or even threatened for western views that can be perceived as negative but on a deeper level I think its best if there were some personal changes in the way people treat others here, especially the locals, got lots of stories on that but I'll let the professional (Aric) do it. Great news as always.

This is night and day compared to the experience I had in Seoul. I really enjoyed Korean society and other than the unbearable heat and humidity I thought it was pretty easy to live and work in that city as an outsider. And the Korean movies they showed in the cineplex were often better than the American ones! Maybe you could get a transfer to Seoul.

Aric, this was a real eye opener. I agree with your points about living there, but something that puzzled me was... why would expats want the Olympics to fail? Wouldn't that just make your life harder by causing a backlash and a harsh reaction to all foreigners living in the country?

"It doesn't make it wrong, but it is tough to live here." That's a very fair and true statement.

I doubt if government will allow the games to "fail", even it it means making it something that Kim Jong-il would be proud of.

I'm sure out of 1.3 billion people, a few could be found to fill the stands.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.2008...

I am so so disappointed in how things are falling out. The damage that is being done to China's reputation is subtle (or not so subtle).

On one hand, they've disrupted the lives of people who are investing more than cash into China. For China, these people represent better PR than any number of Confucius Institute ever could.
http://mutantjedi.blogspot.com/2008/05/unofficial-ambas...

And they're disrupting people who are investing cash into China. Business is going to think long and hard about investing in China when labor is cheaper in India and access to inspecting factories is easier. You'd think in the light of the toy scandals, Beijing would recognize that it needs to be at least seen to be proactive.

And they're disrupting their own people. We've seen the stories about the government moving people to build for the games. National pride and the promise of economic boon were the consolation prizes. Well... now they can't even fill their hotels. Without a flood of tourism, local businesses are going to be more than a little disappointed. It will cost the Chinese business community a lot of money.

People have prepared for the games. They have expectations. Even if the government fills the stands with smiling extras and they get the video footage they covet, everybody will know that they are as naked as the fabled emperor.

Shameless self-promotion: http://mutantjedi.blogspot.com/2008/06/will-games-fail....

lunetta,

1. extreme - seriously. I can't tell you the number of people I had to educate about 'T-Square' when I spent a year up in Beijing. I'm sure you've heard all about 'The Great Firewall' and more. More interesting than this is the fact that *they* have almost 2 billion people convinced its for their good.

2. this is the rub - they can't. as mentioned in today's show, I got those images simply walking around and am anything but a seasoned journalist/filmmaker. I do know that it's all about getting the story that no one else does *meaning* that the Olympics will be why they come, but a good reporter is going outside of the main area to find a story - and the one's they find will be anything but good.

stefan_boston - thanks man. I don't need to say anything because you have been, and again, are here. I don't consider myself to be the 'pro' by any means, but it's been something that's been on my mind for a while and as mentioned, I asked quite a few others who [off the record] agreed with me. appreciate it though, will give you a bell when I'm back in town next week.

chris 3443 - thanks man, and I hope you're right, but as you can see, 'face' seems to be more important that making money. I think what we're seeing is that now, the money's already coming in, so 'control' can be exercised more than before. will check out your vids as soon as I'm done posting.

greenscreencinema - that's good to hear. my sister lived there for a while and always talked about the xenophobia she experienced...but it might be a 'Queen' thing, us being loud, Southern and out-spoken that lands us in the position in the first place. then again, you do have Park Chan-wook, you lucky bastards.

sd_steve - they want them to fail because of the hardships they encounter here. call it a twisted sense of vigilante or whatever you will; but there's something rewarding about knowing that the country that gives you so much headache fails - this isn't a China specific problem, I'm sure Yanks living in Athens felt the same way; just not on such an extreme level.

mutantjedi - you self-promote all you want, some really good points. yes, as mentioned, once the first few days of the construction has worn out, people will start wondering what was there before, and then once they ask around, will find out it was families. while I was in Beijing last, I went to go find the amazing family I lived with for a month in the 'hutong' and found that their house, along with community, had been torn down to make room for the Games.
I really don't think this is going to turn out well for the P.R.C., and that sucks, as my business and life are here, but 'naked as the fabled emperor' is one of the best comparisons I've heard yet.

On the 'shameless self-promotion' part, I'll include one of my first published pieces, a family being thrown out of their home here in Shanghai:

http://www.bootsnall.com/articles/05-08/er-shi-jiu-ri-2...

...can't thank ya'll enough for the support and great feedback and thoughts - keep 'em coming!

Woh, looks pretty brutal just getting onto the bus. I can't imagine pushing an old lady out of the way so I can secure a seat.

I read that article a while back. I had it in mind while I was writing my comment. I added the link to my blog entry - thanks.

soap.

this is interesting...and one of the more important lessons I learned here.

yes - the pushing is unbelievably annoying, until you hear about how this [supposedly] originated. see, back in the day, there weren't buses every 15 minutes like we know, there was about one every few hours, meaning that if you didn't get in, you weren't getting home. so you can understand why and how this came about. is it right? no, of course not; but it's more than often the older generation who are the offenders.

which is why it's so frustrating here at times - it's one thing rolling your eyes at it, but another when you know the reasons...I don't know which bothers me more, ha ha.

i did not feel anything had really changed like any other third world country as i remember visting when iwas a young man you have to grease the palms basically the populice don't have shit ,but the ability to make your life miserable by screwing with the paperwork. i am sure it is annoying

I think seeing it or knowing why things happen here doesn't disturb me as you have to change the lifestyle and mindset when you come here, to visit or even to live/work. It's like in the Eminem movie 8 Mile, "You ever think about not living at this level (mid), but instead living at another level (low or way below)", I don't remember the exact quote or how it goes but I think it correlates to having lower expectation and also if someone has been living a sheltered life and never knew what or how the world outside of ones comfortable environment is it can definitely change a person, for the good or for the worse. But needless to say, I personally think its a positive thing to be introduced to, shock the system, know how the rest of the world works, If I had one sentence to tell a new visitor or expat who is going to live in Shanghai specifically, the first and only quote comes to mind is: "Dorothy we ain't in Kansas anymore."

Tourists come, spend, gawk and leave.
Expats hole up in their expat world and most don't involve themselves in Chinese culture and language.

F visa people often involve themselves in the local Chinese culture as they don't have the resources of an expat so they can't hole up in the serviced apartments and high end restaurants. The F visa people become fairly culturally and linguisticly fluent and can offer the outside world a more realistic commentary on what China really is. Therefore it is time for the F visa people to go away.

Btw, corporations can keep their expats in line as well as the Chinese gov't, so the expats just shut up, sing and collect those big paychecks for doing not a whole heck of anything besides consume (which is what Beijing wants).

hey mate, i'm a chinese guy who is currently studying in australia. i came here when i was 16 years old. so if anybody here think all chinese have been brain washed by chinese gov, maybe i'm the one who is different. as what i said i came to australia when i was 16 years old and now i have live here for almost 6 years, i think i understand the western thinking and share more western values. but u know what? after i came abroad i feel more understand of my country and i feel western guys really have so many misunderstanding of china!

firstly, australia is different from what i thought, when u walk along the street, there do have people show their middle finger to u just because u r asian. i have a few friends have been attacted by the local people, no matter u believe this or not ,but this is the truth. i think being atttact is much more serious than u c some chinese people shit in the street! but we still think(both aussie and chinese) australian's discrimination problems r much less serious than the other western countries. i never say lives in australia r tough and i never feel dispointed for australia. instead of that i really love this country because i believe there do have people nice here!

secondly, let;s go back to the dulocracy period. i believe in that period there do have lots of people kill people. i believe u watched the movie"brave heart"! in that movie the king of the country own every virgin;s first night. the king rape every virgin girls. as a western guy,, do u feel shame for that? because it is sort of ur history! lol, u must feel i'm an idiot when i ask u this question. of course u wont feel shame of that period because it is part of the history and that is just part of the process for u guys can have the human rights today and can live in a peaceful world today! so please think about china in the same way! china is developing! why we call china a developing country instead of a developed country? it's because china still have lots of problems need to change and need to improve. just like ur ancestor rape women, there r some chinese rude! so do u think u should have the idea to let olympic fall just because some chinese shit in the street and the chinese gov cant satisfied u? then we should kill all western guys because ur ancestor rape women! (is this ur logic?) of course not! i like white guys, black guys and i feel there r so many things we should learn from western guys: like: no shitting in the street. but maybe not the idea to destroy their olympic game!
i always tell my friends that what i feel about the western guy is: western guys r more magnanimous! but maybe u dont belong to this group people!

third: u r not a conscientious guy and u cant take the responsibilities of what u said! u said: there is no guys more want the olympic in china fall than the foreigners in china!!! i think this only reprent ur thinking but not other foreingers. go and ask chris! he has live in china for several years and ask him what he think about china's olympic game! maybe u will say he is not from canada after u listen to his thinkings.

forth: when u guys blaming china, blaming chinese policies. blaming chinese gov, blaming chinese lives. what i wanna to ask u is what kind of rights u have here to blame us?! have u ever feel shame when u blaming us? because when u say our media lies, ur media lies more. when u say we chinese dont have human rights, at the same time u even wanna to destroy our plympic game! r u giving us human rights?! when u blaming chinese lives r tough, my friends have being attacted by western guys in australia!
u guys said we f**ked tibet! so now i;m begging u guys. could u please just find one, even one, at least one evidence to say that we killed tibetans in this year!!! ur media showed u lots of pics to say that we chinese act violent to tibetans! but do please open ur eyes and look at these photos! the polices in the photos r indians, Nepali!!!!!!!!! however, u people still believe they r chinese! do indians look like us? or some of u r really nuts!!!!!!
u always say we dont have human rights! ok, i agree with u that we dont have same much human rights as u guys. but one thing u should think about is: if we really hate our gov and really hate our situation now, even u guys keep silent, we chinses will have revolution to destroy our gov! but the fact is different, when u ask human rights for us, we even hate u! not because we dont want human rights but because some of u r using human rights issues to make some other issues. ur politicians r smart, they r not purelly ask human rights for us!

u at least came to china! so when u go back to ur country i would like u to ask ur people how they think about china and i believe lots of them will think chinese r still have plaits and all of us r farmers, we stupid, never be educated and of course our country is communism! ( pls think about what looks communism in china?!) so we chinese always be judged by these people! these peopel always ask human rights for us! we thank u, u r really well-known!

u say chinese lives r tough, but we r changing. we give western world a chance to understand us and i dont know whether u r going to give us a chance to change or just simply destroy us! u said u wanna beijing olympic game fall and we forgive u and i believe most chinese wanna london olympic game success even they accroach our hong kong for 100 years!

Good one. Whilst looking for employment/filmwork oversees I was looking into China and talked to several friends from there. Some still living there others who had been in the states most of their lives. I told them that I was interested in working out there and everyone of them while having love for their countries, told me to STAY AWAY... NOT A GOOD IDEA... NOT WORTH THE STRESS. I listened and because of this POD I'm glad I did.

The thing was tough when you left your mom to the kidgarden. The things was tougher when you have to leave home to feed yourself. Blar.. blar...
The Chinese screw nut tighter because of Olympic. The illegal alien (most from Mexican and Central America) in Southern States life were tougher after 911. blar. blar...
Are you like it when you step on a gum? hand out your arm for the groffiti when you see it everywhere in the side way, wall, pole and truck? ...blar. blar...
The Chinese Visa office will issue us a visa in notime if you pay extra, or wait if you want (or you're poor). Our Visa office Examine all visitors in microscope. Chinese need the language teacher, They're hiring the cheap guy(at least over 80% are not trained) to do, because they're not worthy(or cheap too). Our journalists are reporting the news as headline when downtown L.A.( or Chicago) have no shooting on that day. blar.. blar...
Respect your host, so they may respect you. Are we going to always act as an ugly American everywhere? Or we never ever learn the lesson? Look what happen with French, Japanese, Korean, Singaporean blar..blar....

Thanks again for the real eye witness news. Am learning a lot about main land China/Beijing.

Well all I got to add is every country, any country all have immigration laws. It's no different then any other country. I know your saying it's China. Oh!! yes, without people like you China would never be like it is today. It's all the JV's and x-pats making China move out of 3rd world stats.

All we hear is yada yada is bad about China. The answer is don't bother stay in your own country then you won't have to complain and gripe.

Look at the articles, all about the French man that did nothing wrong and got jailed and deported. If he was in the U.S. he'd be arrested too, deported no if he was American.

Yes, everyone likes China because it's inexpensive, and your probably not paying taxes, so your doing something illegal anyway. But it's China!! know what your going to say that. Why should they enforce the law now. Well they are stepping out of the 3rd world country stats so more laws will be enforced.

Oh!! yes smoking hash is 95% all over the world. The foreigner arrested for that said, oh! I didn't know it's illegal.

Also you should check out the new laws they are going to enforce even on foreigners. A booklet came out about 2 months ago.

So doing the I didn't know I need a permit to run a business or have one for my motor bike because I am a foreigner will not work. Stop complaining, live with it !!

Hi. I've been living in China for the past 3 years (on a combination of all the three visas you mentioned at one point or other, currently a Z) and would have to agree with you that the people who want the games to fail the most are the foreigners living there. I've lived in several different cities (not Shanghai or Beijing though) and can say that it's true, it's the people like us that want the games to fail.

I love my life in China, I have many great friends that are both local and foreign, have a good job and a lot of freedom to do whatever and honestly I've fallen in love with this country. There are the hardships that foreigners in other countries will also face and some others that they may not but honestly I don't let any of it bother me. What does bother me is that many people that I talk to and many of the things that I read which are written by someone Chinese will allude to all of China's success being 100% because of China and no one else. Every time something happens that's negative in China they just tell the international community to go away and how China can do no wrong and democracy is evil. I'm also tired of people telling me how things go in the outside world when they've never been there.

They tend to neglect that they got where they are today in huge part to the massive amounts of money foreign companies were pouring into China (especially Japan, they overlook that). They continue to advance because of all the money they make doing business with foreign countries. Without the west to trade with they would have a very different economy. Sure we benefit from it too, but the things I read and the people I talk to mostly share this opinion. Yes China has made huge improvements but they certainly didn't do it alone. They had a lot of help.

I think a huge part of it is (and I hate to say this) that people want China to fail at the Olympics to shut the country up and take them off of their pedestal. In a sense to put them back in their place. Not as an inferior nation like many Chinese feel they are considered by the west but as an equal member of a global community. We're tired of hearing about how the west is evil and China can do no wrong from people who have never left the country. We're tired of "5000 years of history = no one can ever criticize us" and all this other stuff. I think the westerners here just want China to shut up for a minute a realize that they are nothing special, just another country like everyone else. Yes China we know how powerful you have become but you're not above everyone else.

It's not that we want them to be ruined by the games, just become a little more humble and rest assured there are other countries that should take this advice as well. Hope my thoughts were coherent enough for you all as I'm quite tired.