Street vendor selling juzi
I still have vivid memories of Beijing clothing vendors on a street called “Yifu Alley”. After a four year legal battle the vendors from “Silk Market” in Beijing are getting busted for copyright violation from 5 big international firms: Burberry, Gucci, Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Prada. Infuriated, they threaten to beat up the law firm that is forcing them to stop selling these goods.
 Qing dynasty bronze: Rat |
 Qing dynasty bronze: Rabbit There’s something haunting about these two recently auctioned Qing dynasty bronzes, which were looted when Beijing’s Summer Palace was razed by invading French and British forces in 1860. Usually bronzes don’t do much for me, but these two are captivating. Perchance it is their colourful past, or the kerfuffle they have caused. No matter to them, these two should be returned to China whence they came. |
I was once at a lunch with colleagues when a remarkable revelation hit me. No, the meal at our downtown Toronto Ethiopian restaurant Queen of Sheba was not that enlightening. It was that everyone at the table was Chinese.
___Here in Toronto, that alone will not a single eyebrow raise. With five distinct “Chinatowns” here, one may view wide swaths of Toronto with nary a white or non-Chinese face. A packed Chinese mall with the rare Laowai is common, and he might be the janitor. Or lost.
Who says the Chinese cannot be creative? With all the recent talk of copyright infringements due to blatant duplication of other people’s goods, it’s refreshing to see something original, even groundbreaking for a change.
___Chinese Censorship 2.0: How companies censor bloggers is a recent publication by Rebecca MacKinnon, Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre. Her small study’s findings include:
There is much written on the internet about Overseas Chinese (huachao, or huayi), and not so much about Chinese Overseas, as in Mainland Chinese people that visit overseas. I live in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada, a part of North Eastern Toronto. My neighborhood has many Chinese people that visit from mainland China.
___Our Chinese visitors come to stay from 3 months to a couple of years. Most are retired, called here by their married kids to help raise their grandchildren. For the most part, these visitors from China are devoted to their families and add a lot of flavour to Toronto culture. They bring with them traditional Chinese values and thinking from an era of China that may be long gone, or at least buried deep in the past.
TThere is no question that contributing on the web in China is fraught with a level of personal risk not seen in the West. Here, no one really cares what you write, provided it is not racist and does not defame anyone.
___In China, blogs and blog service providers get shut down on a regular basis. No explanations or warnings are given. This is what happened with a large Chinese blog provider Bulldog.cn last month. A blog that has run for one year is considered to be long lived. Search for the most popular blogs in China and you’ll find many that are posted on local blogrolls no longer exist. Here today, gone tomorrow. You’ll find previously vibrant URLS shuttered, all content gone, no comments allowed, no explanation given. It’s all very subtle.
Overwhelming is an understatement when I describe available news on the Internet. Just get on Google’s news section and search for something. If it is anything remotely general, mountains of pages of links will topple out of your monitor and cascade onto your head like a pile of bricks. You then grit your teeth and dig your way out.
In a move after surplusing 4,000 employees in the U.S. and Canada, IBM has created a program called “Project Match”, offering them jobs in various Third world countries. This program was discussed in Informationweek this Monday.
___On the positive side these workers are already surplused, so for IBM to offer them any position anywhere is positive. IBM will help in some relocation and immigration support. While the salaries will be a fraction of their North American wage, these workers can have a great international experience and live a life of luxury, with drivers, maids and gardeners at their beck and call.
I like Google, I really do. It’s my primary search engine. I like their university roots and what they’ve done. There’s no question they have shaped and nurtured the internet in a way no other search engine has done. Searches come back lickety split and Google Scholar is awesome. Their photos and news section are tops.
I can input both English and Chinese (Mandarin, 普通话, 国语) on my computer. Mostly I type English, and every so often I do Chinese. Sometimes I like to torture myself by going to Mainland China and Singapore websites to read Chinese. It’s not often but a little searing pain between the ears helps you appreciate what you have. A reasonable memory for Chinese words. And English.