Chinese people not allowed to root for home team

On the Shanghai Daily:

'Go China' banners banned for Olympics

Source: Xinhua/Shanghai Daily | 2008-7-15 |

---

Policemen inspect a vehicle at a checkpoint in Beijing yesterday. Police have launched inspections using sniffer dogs and metal detectors as part of the security for the Olympic city. More in photo gallery

---

"GO China" banners will not be allowed into Olympic Games venues in Beijing. Nor will soft drink containers, musical instruments or whistles which all join a list of prohibited items.

The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games has decided that banners like "Go China" are against the principles of fairness that are part of the Olympics.
...
Li Yong, a BOCOG volunteer department staff, said people with banners would be stopped by the security checks at the entrances of the venues. Spectators should cheer for both Chinese and foreign athletes, Li said.

Last month, 800,000 Chinese volunteers began practising cheer routines for the Games.

They have practised a uniform four-stage cheer with easy-to-learn slogans. The volunteers will stand when national anthems are played and will help remove rubbish at the end of events.

The slang commonly used by Beijing natives, a unique local verbal abuse, is definitely banned.

The rules forbid banners and flags larger than two meters by one meter. Also banned are the flags of non-participating countries, flash photography, drunkenness, nudity, gambling, sit-ins, demonstrations, guns, ammunition, crossbows, daggers and goods thought to be flammable, caustic or radioactive.

Apparently foreigners aren't the only ones who are feeling the brunt of the BOCOG's paranoia--the Chinese Volk, who has been basting in fuzzy feelings of patriotism for the past year or more, cannot even wave banners for their own country at the Olympic Games because it's "against the principles of fairness that are part of the Olympics." Hmm. I'm sure in Sydney or Athens they didn't ban the Aussies or the Greeks from cheering for the home team...but then again, the BOCOG's sense of judgment overall seems pretty dodgy to begin with.

You'd have thought that what with all the recent nationalistic ballyhooing, the Chinese government would have encouraged this kind of 爱国精神. Apparently, a large banner displaying 中国加油！is tantamount to drunkenness or lewd behavior.

Perhaps the slogan of choice for Chinese cheerers should be 中国矛盾.

天涯歌女

Finally figured out the name of the song Jiazhi sings in "Lust, Caution":

天涯呀海角
觅呀觅知音
小妹妹唱歌
郎奏琴
郎呀咱们俩是一条心
爱呀爱呀郎呀
咱们俩是一条心
家山呀北望
泪呀泪沾襟
小妹妹想郎
直到今
郎呀患难之交恩爱深
爱呀爱呀郎呀
患难之交恩爱深
人生呀
谁不惜呀惜青春
小妹妹似线郎似针
郎呀穿在一起不离分
爱呀爱呀郎呀
穿在一起不离分

Obama in Berlin

Two of my favorite things coming together: Barack Obama will be speaking in my favorite city, Berlin in front of the Brandenburg Gate. According to this report from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany's grand coalition is pretty torn about this visit. The conservatives think this is just his chance for a great photo-op; the social democrats welcome him as the second coming of JFK. Despite arguments about whether or not it is appropriate for a candidate for the American presidency to be received by foreign dignitaries, Angela Merkel is said to be looking forward to his visit on July 24. Mal sehen!

Jonathan Franzen on China

Jonathan Franzen comments on his visit to China here on the New Yorker.com. His visit to China was prompted by his characteristic writerly curiosity but also dovetailed with his well-documented obsession with birds. He had a plastic toy puffin that had become somewhat of a beloved object around the house, that was, like most plastic chotchkes, made in China, and decided to visit the birthplace of this bird. What he found there among birding aficionados and factory owners both confirmed and counfounded his beliefs about China: polluted, dynamic, chaotic, exciting, and utterly bewildering.

The audio interview started out being rather cringe-worthy, more due to the reporter's completely puerile volley of questions than Jonathan Franzen's responses. "Are there environmentalists in China? and do they take a different form?" What, like beady-eyed hobgoblins?? Franzen rather fairly answered that the key point to remember about the pollution in China is that the Chinese are the primary sufferers of its drastic environmental calamities, and America--or American greed--is entirely complicit.

One thing he said really resonated with me, and that was the palpable perception that global node of excitement had passed from America to China. "Back in the 80s, when I was reading Don DeLillo, and being in supermodern areas in the US, when the Simpsons came on and the sophistication and irony, and that sense of excitement--it's that excitement that's in China now. It does feel new to see the lethargy and the tiredness of the United States in contrast..." He even described New York as a "staid" place, which, based on my recent visit, I must say I agree with.

That said, though, it still remains inexplicable me as to why the New Yorker chose Franzen, chronicler of quintessential Americana, to answer questions on social issues such as the Olympic torch relay. Yet he was incredibly open-minded and even-handed about the Chinese condition, even from his limited view as a foreign visitor. He talked about the necessity of a country long mired in destitution to jumpstart itself into development, and also to contend with the coming demographic crunch. It was refreshing to hear a fair-minded and balanced voice on China from an American author, given the often hysterical pitch of Western reportage.

Mourning begins

14:28pm--the moment of silence to commemorate the victims of the Sichuan earthquake that happened exactly one week ago. After the PA announcement came through on our office loudspeakers (which I hadn't even known existed), a ghostly wailing rose up from the streets outside: cars and trucks holding down their horns for three minutes straight, weaving into a chorus of otherworldly sorrow. I've never heard a sound like this mournful cacophony--this was not so much a moment of silence per se, but minute of national sorrow expressed through the embodiment of China's recent economic prosperity, the motor vehicle. It reminded me strangely of Old Testament descriptions of mourning rituals, where people would wail, rend their clothing and beat their bodies.

I'm looking down on the street now at the alleys near Xintiandi. The migrant workers are standing erect, heads bowed, orange hard hats dipped in respect. The only things that were moving on the street were the treetops swaying in the breeze.

Crazy English

From Evan Osnos' "Letter from China", The New Yorker, April 28 2008 on Li Yang's "Crazy English" teaching camps. I actually laughed for three straight minutes at the following passage.

"Li peered at the students and called them to their feet. They were doctors in their thirties and forties, handpicked by the city’s hospitals to work at the Games. If foreign fans and coaches get sick, these are the doctors they will see. But, like millions of English learners in China, the doctors have little confidence speaking this language that they have spent years studying by textbook. Li, who is thirty-eight, has made his name on an E.S.L. technique that one Chinese newspaper called English as a Shouted Language. Shouting, Li argues, is the way to unleash your “international muscles.” Shouting is the foreign-language secret that just might change your life.

Li stood before the students, his right arm raised in the manner of a tent revivalist, and launched them into English at the top of their lungs. “I!” he thundered. “I!” they thundered back.

“Would!”

“Would!”

“Like!”

“Like!”

“To!”

“To!”

“Take!”

“Take!”

“Your!”

“Your!”

“Tem! Per! Ture!”

“Tem! Per! Ture!”

One by one, the doctors tried it out. “I would like to take your temperature!” a woman in stylish black glasses yelled, followed by a man in a military uniform. As Li went around the room, each voice sounded a bit more confident than the one before. (How a patient might react to such bluster was anyone’s guess.)"

Read the whole article here.

Wang Anyi at the Women's Forum

I was lucky enough to attend the Women's Forum Asia over this past weekend. Apparently it's ranked as one of the top 5 most influential forums globally by the FT, Davos of course being THE most important one. This year they decided to take it to Asia for the first time, and in Shanghai because China's the most dynamic country in the region, etc. etc. The speakers there were o-kay, no-one that I'd say was particularly A-list, but I did get to see Wang Anyi (王安忆) speak about women in Chinese literature. The moderator was Dong Qiang 董強, professor of French literature at Peking University and student of Milan Kundera and Jacques Derrida. Dong himself has contributed greatly to the study of French literature in China and was responsible for translating many works into Chinese; I believe he is part of a circle of writers and artists who came of age toward the end of the Cultural Revolution and expressed their view of a rapidly changing China through their work. Wang, whose work revolves around the Cultural Revolution and whose life was deeply impressed with the scars of that time in Chinese history, is solidly inscribed in the Shanghai circle of authors, and so much of her work winds its way through this city's longtangs and thoroughfares.

Wang is a living legend: she is the chair of the Shanghai Writers' Association and holds a professorship from Fudan University's Chinese department. Her 1995 novel 长恨歌 was just released in English in March. Here's a review of The Song of Everlasting Sorrow from NYT, by Francine Prose.

At the Forum, Wang was incredible: every sentence that came out of her mouth was a measured string of beautifully crafted literary gems. She presented the work of four Chinese women authors, who, in a curious twist of coincidence, were born about ten years apart from each other. Their work sketches out the changing place of women in Chinese society as well as the changing perception of sexuality and relationships.