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baysidetina

Listed below are comments made by baysidetina between Thursday, 24th July 2008 and Monday, 4th August 2008.

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The Olympic Gold Standard 9:53pm on 04 Aug 2008 Funny enough the threats to China have increased so much since our economy became more successfully. 8 Years ago we wouldn't have dreamed of all the troubles we have to face these days. Didn't we all think we were going to host a big and fun party?!

Now I only hope the party won't turn into a bigger disaster.

The differenence between the Sydney game and the Beijing one is that nobody wanted to wreck the first party but so many people want to wreck the second one.
The benevolent emperor 6:18pm on 29 Jul 2008 James' affort to try to understand China is surely welcomed.

Speaking of President Hu, can you blame him for something that was not created by him? The current system in China was formed in Mao's time. It is a blend of SU style and 2000 years of traditional Chinese central governmant.

If communists did not win the civil war with KMT, then at best the Chinese political system will be a mixture of western style "democracy" and the 2000 years of traditional Chinese central governmant. Either way, the government will have more ties to the collectivism of the confucious thinking than your individualism mindset.

The whole "local government is corrupted, central government pls help us "drama is so fomiliar for us Chinese. It exists in nearly every ancient novels and dramas I came across.
Take Journey To The West for example: how many times did Monkey ask the Budha or Guanyin, the "central government", to detain local monsters(usually some central govenment member's pet/follower)?
So yes, the Chinese are very used to the thinking that the central government should help them to deal with local bad goveners.
When the central government failed to do the job, the whole society collaps, and someone else will establish a central government that works.

President HU inherited such a very Chinese system. He and his colleages know there are a lot of problems, but he can only accept it and try to modify the system. We have leart our lessons of not to have radical changes.Mao thought he could change the system, but what a mess he made for us.

No I don't want to blame HU, I don't think he created China's current problems. I think he has been dealing with our problems quite successfully and NO CURRENT LEADERS FROM ANYOTHER COUNTRY can do better than him.

AND don't forget we did not love the previous Leaders Jiang Zeming or Li Peng. They were the main source of our everyday jokes because we did not think they were doing their jobs well and we don't think they were loyal to their people. We slagged them so much on the internet that their names eventually got blocked.

A government's popularity depends on whether it is good to the people, that is universal. So the local governments you encountered were no good to their people but the central government of China has been good.

Is it really that hard to understand?
Olympic arrivals 11:48pm on 28 Jul 2008 The city I came from, Hangzhou, is one of the most beautiful cities in China. There area lot of trees in and around the city. However in summer it is also the haziest city I have experienced in China. Does that mean Hangzhou is heavily poluted? I don't believe so.

I think the haze in Hangzhou is probably caused by water vapours from our local lake, West Lake. I don't think

What is the constitution of Beijing's haze? I heard there was a bit of rain in Beijing recently. So I was wondering could it be water vapour too.
Ticket queues 11:45pm on 28 Jul 2008 democracy101

If you and other westerners think James' report has been fair and never in any way offensive to Chinese, I can only say maybe there is a huge culture Gap between Chinese and you guys.

What I see in this blog is that James express in an attitude that most Chinese would feel offended. It is too hard to tell whether such offense is caused by culture differences or personal arrogance.

At least when it is perceived as personal, The UK as a whole is not disliked. You know how Chinese have reacted against France in general since we started to think the French are supporting the "free tibet" moves, don't you?

The bottom line is, the Chinese do not like their internal affair to be judged by you guys. You think you are helping us, but you can't act like a judge that discriminate us and tell us what to do.
Ticket queues 2:47pm on 25 Jul 2008 I just want to thank James for this platform he provided for people who are interested to discuss and debate about various things in China.

Effective communication is the key to world peace. I am glad we are all contributing to it.
New subway 2:08pm on 25 Jul 2008 peace_4_all wrote:

I don't see the need to build skyscraper after skyscraper while the rural areas become poorer and more pollute.

If you look at developed countries' agriculture population, you may notice that they usually only count for 5% of the whole national population. Around 95% of developed countries' population live in the cities.

In China most people live in the country. The Chinese government realised long time ago that farming can only produce so much wealth. There is no way that they can make a developed country of China's size based on agriculture. So urbanization is part of China's policy, the Urban population has been increasing at a very high speed and most of the new urban population came from the countryside.

If you are interested, look into the process of rural Chinese converting into urban population. You may find plenty of sad stories, but the movement is fasinating nevertheless.
New subway 3:32pm on 24 Jul 2008 People should stop complaining about China for the thousands/ day of new private cars getting on roads. If the Chinese people want to drive and have the money to get a car, why should they give their right up?

If you think the Chinese government do not realise too many cars in the city is a problem, and the new subways in beijing was only made for the Olympics, then, you are wrong. Indeed the Olympics pressured some subway lines to complete faster, but without Olympics the projects will still go.

Check out here for Beijing's subway plan for 2012:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Beijing-Subway-Plan.png
Terrorism threat 3:15pm on 24 Jul 2008 Another example of "lost in translation".
Sometimes the tone of a sentence just does not translate, and I am so frustrated with it.

English speaking people often tell me my English is good but the way I say things is often complicated. Chinese people think I am sharp and straight to the point and very accurate. But when I try to translate my Chinese sharpness and simplicity into English, it just neverever works.

I read the chapters James' Chinese colleage
translated for us. The translation was correct but the tone was terrible. I would not blame him because to get the exact tone the translation will probably become too long.

But James, what do you think about the guidlines? Do you understand them? Do they make sense to you? If you do, can you help us to put them into better English?

At the end of the day, it is your blog, you should be responsible to the quality of these translations, shouldn't you?
National sentiment 02:24am on 24 Jul 2008 169 wangyiwei

Hey I think you are a bit too harsh to Mr. Fairreport, although I do agree with what you siad.

The fact that some of my fellow oversea Chinese can act totally irrationally with the slightest critism towards Chinese (individually or with a bit of generalisation) is truely a pity. They are like a bag of firecrackers ready to explode with aslightest sparkle.

I have seen a few times oversea chinese individuals' exploded in anger over small things. And I guess the reason behind such anger is that we do, unfortunately, often feel being discriminated in our hosting countries. We do, especially mentally, live a harder life abroad than at home, because we are Chinese, and we are different.

Sometimes the fact that I do not fit into many people's expectation of Chinese people, as a surpressed person who are grateful of getting out of a communism regime, also bring me trouble and pressure.

People thought I was brain washed or from a corrupted family. I am not neither, and I have always being proud of myself as an independent thinker. So I do, every now and then, feel insulted by the friendly western people who I met. I am sure many Chinese people visiting James' blog would have my experience.

I hope the people who think we are oversensitive understand that there is actually good reasons for our sometimes over-sensitive reactions, eventhough they are not the most appropriate at times.

I also hope the non-Chinese people using this blog could look at your messages and ask yourselves, could they possibly be insulting? Of course, that is if you do want to communicate, not to give out.
National sentiment 01:44am on 24 Jul 2008 tx1007 post 174

I agree with you that China has not got many (or any) world class private (or state owned) enterprises.

But lets face it, why should a company that focuses on internal market spend too much energy building international reputation if their current market is still expanding?

The export oriented companies are mostly suppliers of outsourcing companies, their history is ususally short, (mostly under 20 years I would imagine), the original managements are mostly not highly educated.

Some enterprises have showed their ambition in internationalisation. However they lack of experties in international marketing and their enterprise culture are not fit for international competition yet. So, so far I haven't seen any Chinese enterprises achieving anywhere close to world-class yet. I don't think they are ready for it to be honest.

However Chinese enterprises time will come. I have no doubt in it, because I have seen so so so many successful Chinese entrepreneurs, in their 30s and 40s, with world class enterprise dreams in their hearts.

Don't be so pessimistic about China, because most people in this country have a much more positive attitute about it.

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