Posts

Entering "Enemy" Territory

So it seems these days when Chinese walks around in the streets of Tokyo. Of course, unless we open our mouths, no one would know, but public opinion is public opinion after all...just seeing the guy next to you on the commuter train reading a newspaper article titled "China's Ambitions to Take Over the East Sea" can't possibly be very pleasing for myself and millions of other Chinese who are in this country. And then comes the news that Japan rejects Chinese demands for apology and in exchange issues a demand for financial reparations. I really wonder if the government is heeding the call of the people on this particular issue, on both sides. There are few bilateral economic relationships as close and interrelated as the one between Japan and China, with goods and personnel constantly crossing the borders. As much as citizens on both sides have certain negative images about each other, no one, even on the extreme right, can deny the existing benefits of economic c

Learning to "Age Gracefully"...

Finally, today, I sent my grandmother back to Nanjing, ending my pretty much self-imposed three-week house arrest. Watching my grandmother behave in public for one last time (in a long long while, at least) as we head our way by train, it still makes me think how older people behave in China. Maybe a lot of what I say here is peculiar to my grandmother, but basically, all the social vices we perceive that Chinese people have are incredibly prevalent among elders. For instance, cutting in line is normal (quite humiliating for me to watch when my grandmother does it because I can't follow her in that particular act). Also, for her, words like "Excuse me," "Thank you," and "Please" are never to be used in public toward strangers (even customer service people)...and, smiling toward others is just not something to be done logically. Ironically, when foreigners first think of Chinese elders, bearded wise smiling old men (like Confucius) are probably the

China vs Japan Boat Row: the Financial Side

There has a lot of attention on Japan holding Chinese fishermen and Japan selling Yen to devalue it against USD, but everyone thought the two news are completely unrelated to each other...until now. There has been new reports (more like rumors) saying that the Chinese are beginning to throw its massive 2.5 trillion USD foreign reserves into buying Japanese government bonds, in such a scale that the CCP is actually selling off many of its USD assets to make the purchases. If the rumors can be proved correct, its potentially a huge financial assault on Japan amid political confrontation. The economics is this: when the Chinese sell off USD-denoted assets, the demand of USD decreases, causing its value to decrease. At the same time, buying Japanese government bonds requires the Chinese to first buy huge amounts of cash in yen (using USD or RMB), causing the demand and value of yen to increase (USD and RMB to devalue as they are put in the market in place of Yen). Together, the two mov

The Danger of Being Wealthy

Recently, a rich girl in Korea showing off her wealth and luxury goods on a local TV station got the whole country pissed off. When it turned out that the TV station told the (averaged middle class) girl to make up the whole thing to get higher rating for the show, criticism and financial punishment for the TV station was logically and swiftly called for. The fact that the TV station is capable of thinking up something like this and the success in attracting (mostly negative) attention to the said TV show goes to show the sensitivity normal people have regarding an outright display of social inequality. Of course, this kind of wealth display is not new or rare. Internet forums in China practically gets new pics of some rich boy or girls' personal "accessories" every single day, attracting fiery comments from netizens. The fact that these young boys and girls are from wealthy families and did not work for any of their wealth only increases the negative sentiments towar

Isn't a Coal Miner just a Coal Miner Anywhere?!

So it seems I have believed for a long time. The manual labor job that probably has one of the highest date rates, the coal miner is the ultimate blue-collar job. In China, thousands of them die every year, only to be replaced by thousands more who come from the countryside for a quick buck (and a quick death). The lack of regulation in the mining industry (not just coal) means that laws cannot protect the workers and can't be used to improve their conditions. Popular belief (not just here but also everywhere) think that no matter how "safe" laws make the mines, mining is a dangerous, boring job without any prospects for brighter future. But the ongoing media coverage on rescuing 30-some Chilean coal workers trapped underneath a collapsed mine tunnel for a few months shows that maybe to simply consider coal miners are hapless and unfortunate pawns of gigantic mining companies is becoming a thing of the past, at least in certain parts of the world. There seem to be da

The Outcome and the Consequences of Microsoft vs. Google

Living under the shadows of Internet censorship, here in China we are used to the fact that foreign websites are inaccessible and foreign Internet companies are treated as if they are all secretly working as cyber-spies for the American government. But when it comes to Microsoft and Google, two of the world's probably best known companies involved with the Internet, the attitude of the Chinese government have been quite different. While Google has been in a constant fight to get itself greater market share over Baidu, Microsoft's MSN has seen strong growth in instant messaging despite strong domestic competition. At the same time, while Bill Gates is quite an honored personality here in China, the higher ends of Google has not seen strong following in either the Chinese government or the public. As the Chinese Internet market heads to its destiny as the world's largest, Microsoft versus, one of the most peculiar yet influential rivalry in the human civilization increasin