Second-tier city virgin: Wuhan

Like many people who live outside Mainland China, I'd never been to a second-tier Chinese city. (There's no formal definition, but for a better idea, read an old article about it here). Wuhan, the capital of Hebei province in central China, is one such city.

Outside the Environment Preservation Office/Dept (or something to that effect). How far can you see?

These are sprawling metropolises like first-tier cities (Beijing, Shanghai) with most 'mod cons', skyscrapers and even a subway in the works, but the people are decidedly different. They've had very limited contact with the outside world. Foreigners are scarce, media and education talk about other countries like they're some alien planet that they'll never reach... Propaganda Committee messages are easily distributed in these parts. The most dangerous thing is, they're also becoming filthily rich (and that's not just because this is China's dustbowl). This means they'll make buying decisions on whatever info they can get, which are often half-truths or blatent fabrications. They'll believe stuff like - the air quality's bad because we had fireworks last week. Factories? Exhaust? Shenme? Just give me another ten of those Burberry trenches so I can keep the dust off my Zegna shirt, okay?

Pool by the lake

Most people are leisurely country folk making a living in the city, they don't go mile-a-minute like their first-tier counterparts. You'll see people playing majiang (or mahjong), cards, dancing in the park almost anytime of day. The pic is of some pool tables laid out next to one of the many city's lakes (nice, until you see the rubbish and oil bobbing about in them).

Chinese medicine, massage, fate and coffee. Something for everyone

For some reason there's also a slew of "coffee shops", which of course don't just sell (bad) coffee, some are massage parlours and majiang clubs too. I guess it says something about their laid-back mentality, and maybe a local legend who 'made it' by opening a chain of coffee shops all over the country?

This isn't exactly a coherent post, just some random thoughts on what it's like over there.

River crab (河蟹)

河蟹. 1. noun. Literally, river crab; 2. adj. Cantonese-derived pseudo-Mandarin for 和諧, adj. Harmonious, to be in concordance.

To be 河蟹-ed in social media means to have your post on Sina Weibo (China's own version of Twitter), or similar, deleted by admin, probably because the message touched upon 'sensitive' issues like the June 4 Tian'anmen incident in 1989, like mine.

Soon after I tweeted, I got a direct message from 系统管理员:

您在2010-06-04 16:19:05发表的微博“What if I want to give some...”已被管理员删除。给您带来的不便，深表歉意。

My 'tweet' was actually a retweet of someone else who said remarked that the candle and flower icons/emoticons (used like smileys) we unavailable today, and I added, "what if I want to give someone a flower today?"

That was all it took.

So remind me, how is China the world's next superpower?

Is the Chinese language going to take over the world?

Photo from Flickr/stepsaheadlearners

I came across this article in More Intelligent Life, the Economist's 'Lifestyle' arm, entitled "Should you teach your kids Chinese?". The article in fact addresses a much more specialised question - "In light of "China's rise", will Chinese become the world's lingua franca, and hence, should you jump a step ahead and make sure your kids learn it to get an advantage over everyone else?"

The writer, Robert Lane Greene, an international correspondent for the Economist, basically says no, because it's unlikely that Putonghua will become the world's lingua franca, mainly because of its complicated writing system (characters that even native speakers take years to master).

I agree with the first bit, that it's unlikely that Standard Chinese (or Putonghua, Mandarin - call it what you will) will become the world's lingua franca. I just didn't like the way he says it - "America’s superpower status has made it everyone’s favourite second language." Dude, the world does not revolve around America. The proliferation of English has the British Council to thank too. If we only learnt English through American media we'd all be speaking like the sex-up sluts in B-grade Hollywood movies.

Americans and Euro/Anglo-centric writers and journalists, stop talking like you are the centre of the universe. Firstly I doubt the universe, or our globe at least, really has a centre of 'power', and secondly, just because you got rich more quickly (partly because you went and colonised resource-rich Asian and African nations), it doesn't mean your theories are going to work globally, all the time, or that you should impose your values on us.

Anyway, I digress. Parents have all sorts of reasons for wanting their kids to learn particular languages, arts or skills, and as the principal carer of the child, it's their choice. I agree with Greene that it shouldn't be solely because China is "rising" (by the way, you should think again when you blurt that out at another Manhattan dinner party, and here's one reason why). If you love Chinese culture, or think you'll move there, or that your kid will, then yeah, by all means, go for it, but these are the same reasons why you should be sending your kid to Spanish classes, Taekwondo practice or choir.

As for the Chinese-is-too-difficult-to-write argument, well all I can say is, Arabic looks pretty damned hard too.

Pop will save us

Yesterday Hong Kong singer/actress Gigi Leung showed her support for parents affected by the melamine milk scandal in China by posting a message on her Weibo (micro blog - Sina, i.e. China's own Twitter).

She was soon told by Sina admin to delete the message.

She did, and soon after, she posted:

《墨菲定律》很有趣：别跟傻瓜吵架，不然旁人会搞不清楚，到底谁是傻瓜?
Murphy's Law is so interesting, it says: Don't quarrel with an imbecile, else people might get confused as to who the idiot is.*

内地有内地的规矩...好，我删！但不公平的事还是不想再看到...尤其发生在平民百姓身上。
The mainland has its own rules. Fine, I deleted it! But I really don't want to see such injustice, particularly to the average person.*

Screenshot from her Weibo page

Hong Kongers are notorious for being apolitical, but also extremely susceptible to messages in mass media. Given the extremely low levels of media literacy, messages from pop stars are usually well-received. (Look at all the celebrity endorsed diet ads...)

Already there are people coming out to say how much they admire Gigi because of this incident. So will her little run-in help drill into HKer's heads that China's prevention of free speech could one day be imposed on us?


To read more:

Story from Apple Daily here and here (in Cantonese).

Some blogger/forum commentary:
(so far all in Chinese)...

MO's notebook 3 to 4
鹿米館
阿休 Blog
she.com forums

*my very rough translations - couldn't find the original for that Murphy's Law!