Trick or Treat

“Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself,” that’s a famous line from Roosevelt’s first presidential speech. People wanted him, in comparison to hapless Hoover, to succeed so much that FDR had to hire many additional workers to handle mails from well-wishers.

The election will be over tonight. In the process, Palin went from the most popular governor in the country to be edified on SNL and a Tina Fey double. Republicans complained so much about media bias, it would probably put Chinese grievance in shame. That will be over also for her, win, or in the most likely case, lose.

We don’t yet know what Obama is going to do, although we know his promises add up to 85 pages. Energy policy will probably be the first to gather enough political will to pass, although coal industry is already trembling in fear. Many Chinese are enamored with him, the way they saw a young, handsome, and energetic politician in Clinton, bill, that is. But his China policy is harder to differentiate. We only know he leans against more free trade, that he opposes NAFTA. Somehow, these issues were not even debated, not on the level of “lipstick on a pig” at least.[Speaking of trade policy, it used to be that American workers are more productive than others, so free-trade naturally favors the U.S., but that edge is rapidly waning, so does the appetite for free-trade. This election, more than anything, is a referendum on American people's acceptance in The U.S. new reality in the world. They don't worry about "the world leader" anymore than "give me the bread today". I wonder what Krugman thinks, since he was a strong proponant for free-trade in his more academic years.]

Oh, we also know that when slightly annoyed, while McCain has that it’s-so-ridiculous-it’s-laughable look, Obama has a more solemn what-the-heck-he’s-talking-about look. As FDR could testify, personality plays a large part in a president’s initial success.

The season of well-wish should not wait for January. Some will ask the “trick-or-treat” question, but the Hallowing is already over.

P.s. Here’s another paragraph in the same FDR speech that is as interesting to read this time around:

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

Sweet Organic Yogurt

My organic yogurt tastes sweet.

It makes me curious since I can’t seem to find sugar in its listed ingredients. Upon further investigation though, I find the curiously worded “evaporated cane juice”. “That’s sugar” – my third grade science education saves me from puzzlingly over this myth for the rest of my life.

But I feel almost guilty. We are not suppose to think through these things. We like our yogurt organic and low-fat, we like sweet taste to help our happy digestion, but we don’t like the word “sugar” on our otherwise healthy yogurt. “Evaporated cane juice”, the geeky sound of it makes us feel so much better.

In Chinese idioms, there was a fable about “three in the morning, four for the evening”. Once was a man who raised monkeys, he became poorer and had to bargain to cut their food. “I’d promise each of y9u three chestnuts in the morning and four for the evening.” The monkeys were angry, “How can you treat us so poor!”. “Then how about four in the morning and three in the evening?” the man re-offered. “That’s much better”, the monkeys were satisfied with his concession and jumped off triumphantly.

The modern day version of the story in the U.S. is probably presidential election. I don’t know Barack Obama would keep his promises without raising taxes, nor do I know how McCain would balance his budget by cutting Pork Barrel Projects. No matter, all we care is whether Palin sounds stupid in interviews or eloquent in debates, or what “pro-America” really means. With Peggy Noonan weighting with mighty wordsmithship, is there any doubt this is more of a battle of words than anything else? Inside-out China lead to to an interesting article about verbage, but I see us more of prisoners of words. The challenge of the art is how to tell us we are in trouble without saying the word “trouble”, or in McCains case, how to reassure the fundamental is sound without uttering the word “sound”. Modern Homo Sapiens are not that different from old-time primates.

Certains words are to be avoided. While I’d love to be in that room to see the drama, no one in the media would utter nationalization or sociolization outright. If we were to sustain bailouts and revamps without otherwise changing our economic habit or raising our own taxes, we will sure shedding some of our burden to the next generation. But we don’t want to hear that, we prefer to call it economic “smoothing”. The chinese, being an old civilization surely understand the power of words, how else can you find naked capitalism basking under the glory of socialism? In a new market de-regulation, the China Security Overseeing Commitee calls the newly allowed short selling “security financing” (融券）. My suspicion is that “shorting” would sound too much capitalist and unpleasant.

Give us our sweet yogurt, but never say sugar. You are in business.

Cows on the Street

What do China’s milk incident and America’s financial turmoil on Wall Street have in common?

A lot, actually. For starters, we are in a era of having to pay for someone else’s responsibilities. The well behaved financial companies would have to pay for overly aggressive firms; if Washington’s proposed bail-out, amounting to hundreds of billions of promised money, was to carry out, taxpayers are expected to pay for the greed of the money managing industry. The government would in effect control a huge stake in the financial industry, and in turn control a large chunk of the economy. Who says the U.S. is capitalist and China is socialist again? In China, well behaved milk producers are suffering the same as corrupt and negligent firms turn public confidence toward mil product to historical low. Diary farmers are also in a bind. As government rush to sort out the mess, for now, their daily output are only to be trusted to feed the flowers and plants.

Let’s play the blame game. Washington blames greed on the Street. Traders blame stupid quants giving the wrong model. Quants blame business people feed their computer with the wrong data, and business people naturally blame banks. As banks blame on hapless people like you and me, you blame on your stupid neighbor who brought houses he couldn’t really afford. The folk would undoubtedly point back to politicians in Washington. Oh, Merry go around. On the other side of the globe, consumers want to slaughter the diary giants. The diary producers would point fingers at farmers. After all, that’s a easy target and it has always been first instinct of firms and officials caught red-handed to blame on them. The farmers would blame on the market and milk collectors that squeezed their profit, or everybody else who made their lives equally hard. Or, as the joke goes, they would blame on the cows, and let cows blame on grass feeds.

But you get the sense something systematically is wrong, in both cases. Oh, you can always point to greed for an answer – that’s always there, but you also get the sense that the game wasn’t set up right.

I read somewhere that mainstream Chinese economists – “mainstream” is a negative word in China when associated with experts – argue that China has established a bright, ideal system of localized competition, provinces, counties, and municipals competing against each other with their own industries and resources. That sounds fine and dandy, like a theory, at first glance; until you realize it involve the madness of competition of political power in the market place. Firm behavior when backed by local governments are like throwing two boxers into the ring with no judges. They would scratch and scrawl, taking turns to be judge themselves. When competition intensifies, they could literally choke babies – see the milk incident, and until then would central authority step in for a fix. Speaking of central authorities in China, they are finding out the new realities quick. Their usual ways to fix and control are lagging in this information age, so they always find a step behind the public’s expectations.

The same can be said of the government in Washington.

After the dust settles, the too-big-to-fail firms on the Street will live on, the too-much-government-asset-to-fail dairy producers of China will have a happy new life. The market was up Friday, but don’t mistake cows as bulls. If the Wall Street were raising cows, the situation would be described in Chinese joke parlance as “The cows remained calm,” a joke with similar connotation of wacky Iraq minister in denial.

The Election and Baby formula

The presidential election has attracted many eyeballs, including many from China. To many Chinese, it’s a political show, not unlike Chinese contest of Supergirl. To be a good onlooker, basic terminology is a must. So many learn Republicans are conservative and “right”, Democrats are liberal and “left”. But, they may not realize, by Chinese standard, both parties are conservative.

People on the GOP side may charge the liberals with cynicism; conversely, people on the left may charge conservatives of hypocrisy. And their policies and view about the role of government may differ. But Americans are united by American value that is largely based on Cristian value. However people on the left detest “religious right”, or the first African American, Barrack Obama, my be elected TPOUS, the simple fact is no non-religious (i.e. Christian) person can be expected to win the presidency.

To many Americans, it is unthinkable to place the greatest power of the country in the hands of non-believers. The prospects of evil with power are simply too frightening. All the check and balances of a modern nation can potentially fail, the belief, and character of the man will become the last and ultimate defense against the prospect of horror. (Not that Bush has registered a high score, but that’s another matter.) Therefore, American presidential contest inevitably will have elements of characters contest, with “just-like-me” mixed in. Some on the left don’t understand what makes people vote Republican? As this excellent essay explains, it is the moral simplicity that people prefer.

If China were to install an American style presidential election, I imagine China would split right along the Beijing latitude line, with coastal provinces to the east being the “red state”, preferring a freer economic policy, and inland provinces to the west being the “blue state”, preferring more government welfare to neoclassical policy – quite different from the American demography. Social moral issues like stem cell research and abortion would never enter the main debate.

I’m about to enter the main point of this blog post. Before I do that, I’d like to point to an online poll I just encountered when perusing SINA. The poll asks, “how do you consider the various naked/nudity incidents?” – nudity, as a way to catch attention, has been encroaching from the online world to Chinese daily lives. To my slight surprise, the top choice is “It’s nothing but a result of an open society”, followed by “getting naked is the freedom of who possesses the body”. “It’s morally wrong and need to be curbed” is in the last place. Moral judgment aside – morality itself has no right or wong, it shows China has become more socially liberal than the U.S. This also reminds me I usually detest Chinese websites, even big internet gateways. A lot of content would be crammed into tight page space, with suggestive pictures and popups to the taste of no-eighteen-and-under spreaded here and there. It seems eye-catching, and the money behind it, is the only criteria of those websites.

If getting naked is a harmless moral issue, then the tinted baby formula issue is life or death issue.

I was telling my friend of the tinted baby formula story. She had a hard time to believe social functionaries would all break down to prevent much a thing from happening. It was harder for her to imagine melamine pollution was originated from someone trying to enhance the protein reading in food, all for some extra money, or someone would try to hush the story. Her eyes almost welled up. She can tolerate the corruption of money grabbing, but not this. But that’s what happens when social conscientious being replaced by a money-first value system. Someone would have slipped melamine into glutton protein, and with a money-weaken monitoring system it eventually found its way to the baby formula. The ultimate deterrence should comes from sever legal punishment of an established legal system, or the moral belief of the economic agent. Unfortunately, China hasn’t perfected the former, but the latter seemed to be already shattered.

There are many debates about China’s economic future. But my biggest concern isn’t what they teach in economics classes, it’s whether and how China can regain her core social values. The failure would pose the biggest risk toward China’s economic future. My friend, like myself, is no Christian, but she can now better understand why nonbeliever would find a hard time into the White House, given the historical role of Christian religion in providing the core American social values.

Behind the Juicy Story

Who would have thought juice would make headline story. An potentially important news that slipped through last few days was that Coke is bidding the takeover of HuiYuan, a dominant Chinese juice make for $2.4B, potentially making it the biggest takeover bid of Chinese firms to date. The outcome of this take over bid will have much to say about the direction of Chinese global economic policy. Internet opinions, especially those have promoted for domestic name brands, have seen plenty of displeasure of yet another multinational takeover. Do not discount the importance of beverages either; America has been through an similar episode of foreign bid, by a Belgium beer maker, of maker of Budweiser. That deal ended in veil. Chinese fruit juice groups were considering joint opposition to the deal, arguing the proposed takeover, which if successful would give Coke a dominant share of the market, would put them at a competitive disadvantage and threaten their survival. Market awaits to see if the deal can get pass regulator overhang. But, what is the deeper revelation of this juicy story? The coming takeover touches a nerve of the public, not only the business communities, because foreign capital has permeated many Chinese businesses, many of which, the public believe, have been sold under value. A criticizer would point to high dividend payouts, higher than the IPO take-home of Chinese state banks. Complicating matter is that China is a transition economy from a socialist system, and a lot of the assets sold was accumulated while other parts of the economy was making sacrifice. So, possibly of “sell-out” is always on people’s mind. Yet, such takeover scenarios are inevitable. In particular, current economic structure precisely dictated that, even when Americans are mounting historical deficit against the Chinese. The comparative advantage of the American economy is no longer in manufacturing. In stead, it’s more and more in corporate financing, even when its financial markets are in turmoil at home. On the Chinese side, the financiers, mainly banks, have their own bigger moral hazard problem; and for firms, the prospect of property right protection would be higher with foreign capital involvement. It thus creates incentives to sell assets to U.S. capitals seemingly undervalue. Therefore you get the current financial structure. Capital flows from China to the U.S. for low-risk, un-intermediated investments, mainly government bonds, keeping the interest low. Capitals then flow back to China for intermediated investments, snatching up assets. So, for China, the biggest concern is the American inflation; and for American investments, the biggest concern is Chinese growth. It is a convenient and attractive setup for both sides right now. The real test comes when Chinese economic growth gets stalled, thus amplifying the asset risk. There is a lot of riding, of both sides, on the Chinese economy.

Post Olympics Entertainment

The fun of Olympics dwindles, along with mid-night TV watching. Propaganda from China is being replaced by propaganda from Denver. My brother, having attended games, now hold definitive bragging rights against me. So, I’m left to find my own post Olympic entertainment.

The press doesn’t disappoint in providing entertaining material. Thomas Boswell provides a laugh or two by ruing over his Olympic experience and trying to find a negative thesis. Beijing must have done something right if Mr Boswell has only a small laundry list to complain on: Security personnel not allowing him to jump over tapes for the short cut; buses ferrying media persons for being too punctuate; people saying hello even without best command of English. He then uses his imaginative skills to parley all these experienced into his grand thesis, that’s worthy of a chuckle. Oh, and everybody smiled, it’s just too perfect. Mr Boswell would make a good psy-fi director – mindless robotic drones beaming smiles everywhere, while a plot against humanity brews.

Time UK doesn’t miss the train in providing good laugh. I’m not sure I can qualify to pride myself as wide-eyed, but Martin Samuel’s column leaves me clueless. The success of the games is attributed to the oppressing makes the oppressed “march in unison, drum, smile, dance, mime, jump through hoops if necessary”. Aside from the mystery of volunteer hostess ” stripped naked for the judges” that is promoted (does it pass the smell test?), the article comments:

Nothing can be decided by an oppressed people… What happens next in China is no more determined by its citizens than the destiny of Iraq was in the hands of Iraqis.

For a minute, I think Royal Marine would be in Tianjin harbor in 24 hours to liberate the Chinese people. Then I wake up to the reality of 21st century, not 1800s.

Actually, the two gentlemen have made some good points, but the clueless-ness nevertheless betrays them and reduced the articles to good entertainment. Judging from comments online, few take them seriously. I only wish my brother and friends in Beijing wouldn’t get a bigger chuckle than me. That would be unfair.

Autopsy of a Media Storm

A story about double-act of singing on the opening ceremony was making rounds in the media and blogsphere. In pursuit of theatricals perfection, directors combined Lin Miaoke’s stage appearance and Yang Peiyi’s singing voice.

Most of the reports in the western media seemed to be based on an interview of the music director by the Chinese media. transcript shows

陈其钢：“对。也可以说这是最后一分钟的不得已的选择。因为我们经历了若干次审查，都是相当严格的。我们听过一次林妙可的录音，在现场放的，是在联排的时候。然后有各方面的人，尤其是中央政治局的领导，在听的时候，给我们提出了意见，说必须要改变。这是没有办法的”

which indicated Lin’s voice was not good enough and had to be mimed by another voice. Whether he was telling the whole story was another matter.

While some reports got that fact straight, others totally missed boat. Chicago Tribune for example, reported as: “one member of China’s Politburo revealed Miaoke had lip-synched the song, after the original singer, Yang Peiyi, was told she was not good-looking enough.” Chen, who revealed news, was not political leader. the Tribune might not realize it was in conflict with its next line: “Chen Qigang, the ceremony’s music director, had been asked last minute by the Politburo official to replace Peiyi with Miaoke, according to an interview with Beijing Radio.”

Nevertheless, the “not quite” headline of “girl kicked out of ceremony performance at the last minute” because of “chubby face” and “Bucket/crooked tooth” had became the main theme of the story. I am not sure where journalists got the crooked tooth part. It sounded like their own interpretation by looking at the picture.

Time UK emphasized that theme by using headline of China banned child singer with crooked teeth from singing at opening ceremony. “Chubby-cheeked with crooked teeth, she was substituted at the eleventh hour by Communist Party officials desperate to present the best possible image of Chinese youth to a curious world. ” it asserted.

Whether Lin’s voice being subbed in the 11th minute or Yang being substituted, fact remained Yang did not get on the stage except her voice. Who said good looks and stage presence weren’t “talent”? Jessica Simpson would probably agree.

Fake, is the predominant word used in headlines across UK press. Headlines such as China ‘faked’ awesome Olympic opening ceremony was already in place when it was revealed parts of the “footprint” show was not shot in real time. Maybe the Brits didn’t know that was not made of secret. NBC mentioned it during the broadcast. Past TV productions, such as fire in the studio fireplace during the 2002 Salt Lake Games, was also generated digitally.

Fake might be an uneasy word, but perfection was always an illusion. Lest we forgot.

Guardian hedged their report by pointing the source to a translation by the China Digital Times website.

“We had been through several inspections – they were all very strict. When we rehearsed at the spot, there were spectators from various divisions, especially a leader from the Politburo, who gave us his opinion: It must change,” said Chen.

In deed, by leaving out details such as it was Miaoke’s voice they were listening at the rehearsal, that translation could lead to confusion conclusions. That’s what you got by sending reporters who are not versed in the local language.

Whatever the source, British media finally found their controversial story about the opening ceremony. BBC called it the second “fake” story about the opening ceremony, and asked openly for comments whether this has damaged the image of the Beijing Olympic games. Its own tone was made apparent in its editing choice of comment to appear on the main page – a Beijinger comments: “If the stories are true, it is absolutely disgraceful and I am ashamed as a Chinese citizen.”

It’s understandable that British got extra mile from this story. London after all has to host the game in four years. As Telegraph put it:”it might now be easier for London to end the ‘arms race’ that requires every staging of the Games to be more spectacular than the last. “

In fact, the media storm was not broken first in the west hemisphere, Chinese media and blogs were seethed about the story first when the interview was first published. There was something about China and fake that struck a cord in people’s mind. Some English language reports even cited Chinese message board writings in the initial confusing hours. Yes, that what journalism reduced to.

The stand-in singing is a result of complex social value system we have today. There is China’s overwhelming desire for perfection; there is this film director who is famous for meticulousness in aesthetics; there is Eastern culture of “face value”, there is also this today’s “looks” obsessed culture – American or British or Chinese. Think of Audrey Hepburn singing to the voice of Marni Nixon. Although it should be pointed out that both girls get credit on both the ticket of the ceremony and DVD that is released, the concern of influence of adults value system – and what kind of system should it be – on the two girls is genuine and legitimate. Personally, I think the directors miscalculated the social amplification and should have simply used best vocal. That being said, some of the directions and tones of this media storm are not surprising. After all, controversies are relatively scarce on these Games, how else can the media be fed on.

How about those games

(1) To translate or not to translate
Maybe the Olympics should be hosted by Babel, before the tower-building was stopped, that is. Ring Blog reports:

Normal interview rhythms are being disrupted by the translation of every question and answer to Chinese.
….
The translations irritated some reporters working on tight newspaper deadlines in the United States. One asked why the questions and answers had to be translated when they were all in English. Two minutes later, a question was asked in Chinese, reminding everyone of why there are translations in the first place.

Arrogance, that’s what being in a dominant culture could do to you. And the media people wonder why people don’t like them that much. Question at hand: do people of the hosting country deserve the privilege to know what is being asked of athletes and what the answer is? Despite the effort in promoting English, there are a lot of people in China who don’t understand English well.

(2)
The country that Chinese audience gives most sympathy to in those games is Iraq, the oil rich but war torn nation. After almost missing the Olympics, they received a big cheer in the opening night. Their rowing team appeared to have no team uniform (see picture) and used a patch work of wore out personal T-shirts.

(3)
China has begin her full chase for the gold. But the most I am interested in seeing, is how Chinese media and public treat those who lose. In the past, the media has not been very enthusiastic towards those who failed to clutch the gold, and even not too kind to those who were suppose to medal but crumbled under pressure. Early indication is that the mentality is much more forgiving this time around.

(4)
The most exciting competition so far: 4×100 men’s freestyle relay that resulted in a gold for America. The most nerve racking but inspiring competition so far: Men’s team Gymnastics in which Chinese team vindicated themselves with a gold.

Olympics Opening Ceremony: Live

- 8:08pm 08/08/2008 Beijing
8:08am 08/08/2008 Eastern Standard Time
- TV, TV, get a TV
- Crap, I don’t realize this is a NBC country, which means 8:08pm 08/08/2008 doesn’t arrive until prime time. Nothing ever happens until NBC says so.
- 8:15, how can I forget the country up north? Wherever America fails, there’s Canada to the rescue. Thanks god for CBC.
- The great inventions, paper, printing, etc. Yeah, I should have known those would be on the show. Shocking…not.
- Zhang Yimou and China are a match made in heaven, his grandiose style of art rendering requires a lot of man-power, and China has a lot of…man power.
- The synchronized human keyboard is… impressive. The reciting Confucius Disciple…menacing (I’m sorry).
- Did I just see Curse of the Golden Flower?
- Oh, the fireworks. How I love them.
- Liu Huan and Sarah Brightman! Wait, what are they singing? Is that Chinese or English? I thought I understood both, now it seems I understand neither.
- Dignitaries on the stand are waving fans to relieve themselves from the heat. The place being the Bird’s Nest, it probably can hatch eggs into little birds right about now.

- Switching to web cast now. It’s surprisingly hard to find a live stream. Good jobs IOC in cracking down. But thanks to channel surfing, we CAN NOT BE DENIED.
- Parade of Nations is on. Some of the outfits of the teams make the so called “egg and tomato” outfit of Chinese team that so many Chinese were scolding of look beautiful.
- What’s up with the background music? It’s a combination of all kinds of traditional Chinese music. I hear the mellow Spring rivers and flower night, and I hear trumpet section usually reserved for marriage parade. There are Scottish flutes blending in also. Strange to say the least.
- The Japanese are actually holding Chinese flags. Is that because they are worried about being booed? You have to give it to the Japanese, they are always so methodological about dealing with problems.
- Do I hear Chinese Taipei and Zhonghua Taibei (in Chinese)? It’s a compromise. But it passes quickly, I don’t give it much a thought.
- More testament to the man power in China, There is a huge ring of cheer leading girls, volunteers I guess, lines up the runways. or should I say girl power?
They are dancing in sync to the music. I’m wondering how they find the rhythm, because there is no rhythm to speak of in the music. They will be doing this for two hours. It must be tiring.
- One of the best benefit of watching Parade of Nations is to watch the close-up shots of beautiful athletes. The TV director clearly understands that.
Seeing the Brazilian flag bearer alone probably gets my casual viewing’s worth back.
- The anchor says of a random flag bearer from a Muslim country (of which I don’t remember the name) : “She ran with a full body suit and scarf.” WOW!
- I just want to yell “Manu, Manu” (Ginobili)

- Now the ring of girls change to waving arms standing still. Finally they can’t keep up.
- Sarkozy is in the house. Wasn’t he saying he would not attend? I am actually hoping to see his wife.
- Both Russian and USA teams receive a big cheer from the stand.
- The Swedish team wears outfit that resembles Chinese Qi Dress(旗袍). I’m not sure that belongs to their ethnic clothing or is a tribute to the host. It’s kind of cool.
- The girls now can’t even keep the waving arms up, they change to clapping.
- Finally, the Chinese “egg and tomato” team arrives. A huge roar breaks out in the stadium. Yao Ming, the flag bearer, is accompanied by a 9 year old from ShiChuan. The child reportedly saved 2 lives in the recent earthquake. Nice gesture to show the Chinese haven’t forget about the earthquake.

- The final riddle unfolds. Li Ning, an gold medalist and successful businessman of his namesake brand, flys up and runs along the wall of an unfolding scroll, Kong Fu style, around the stadium. The flame is alight! That’s probably the highlight of the night…urgh morning. More fireworks are in order.
- Let the games begin.

[update] I just saw the freaking drum performance on NBC with better picture and more comfort. It’s awe inspiring. At the same time, it invoked images of ancient dynasties, precise , cheerful, powerful, and a bit intimidating. It was very Chinese – spectacle made possible by the will of people. The Hymn to My Country that followed was touching.

Hundred Years

[Chinese Version]

China calls the coming Olympics “a hundred year’s dream”. To the Chinese, Olympics is clearly not only a sports gala and party festival. Incidentally, I’ve recently watched Matching to a Republic, a TV series of historical drama. With fifty nine episodes, and 40 plus hours spent on, it probably deserves some of my comments on the historical road China traversed.

Many of the trajectories of present day China can be traced back to hundred years ago. There isn’t much new under the bright sun.

(1)
Let’s start from a scene in a later episode. Sun Yat-sen, who was regarded as the founding father of Republic of China, tried to reorganize his party into a revolution party after he failed the Second-Revolution. At the time, the then president of the new republic, Yuan Shikai, was about to crown himself the emperor of a constitutional monarchy. Of the 11 governors declared as Nationalist Party member, only two supported his agenda in force. Attractive political ideals were no match for practical position in powers. Sun realized the paradox, that he needed more centralized power to achieve his political dream, a real republic. Political construction might get by with loose organization, but a revolution that didn’t have enough public base required authority. He began to encourage political purity and personal loyalty within the party.

Sun didn’t make his political dream a reality. Before him, Emperor Guanxu wanted to reform but lacked real power, Empress Dowager Cixi had the power but didn’t want the radical political reform, at least not while she was still alive. His follower, Chiang, who took a cue from Sun’s realization and took it to another totalitarian level, ran a corrupt government, but at least nominally united China divided by warlords. Mao’s party also understood the secret to survival and what it took to achieve things in China. It promoted ideological purity within party and believed in “Political power grows out of barrels of a gun”. It took only three years for them to win out the civil war. There is no revolution any more today, but the political belief lives on: that you need a degree of central power and authority to get things done in China, where average citizen isn’t informed or active enough of politics. Deng was also such a believer.

Second Revolution wasn’t unique to Sun either. Mao had his own second revolution – the Cultural Revolution. At least part of the motive behind Mao’s second revolution was the same as Sun’s, that he saw his political ideal was in danger, and that his New China was slipping back to the Old China. New bureaucrats were quickly reverting back just like old bureaucrats, and that conflicted with his vision of a strong China. Mao took a page from Sun. To experiment his vision of democracy and people’s power, he encouraged personal idolization of himself and increase his own authoritative power. It degenerated into a disaster. Later elitists inherited the authoritative part but scratched, or postponed democracy part.

The TV drama series stopped short of the Chiang’s era, probably because it was too close for comfort. But Chiang made an unnamed appearance in it. In one episode, a Japanese instructor pointing a finger at mud in a flower pot, said: “This small piece of mud can contain of a large amount of bacteria, hundreds of millions, as many as there any 4 hundred million Chinese.” An angry student went up to the lectern and retorted, “It must contain a hundred million bacteria, as many as the people in Japan.” That man was Chiang.

Ever since Xinhai Revolution, Sun, Chiang, and Mao, their ideology, personal style, and politics were very different, their understandings of the China’s reality and future differ, but they were all nationalist.

(2)
Matching to a Republic as a Chinese production of recent history has some refreshing improvements. Gone are stylized faces and ideological divides. In stead, it depicts historical figures as human and personal touches.

I’ve also witnessed some contemporary historical writing go to another radical extreme. Rewriting and redefining seem to be in fashion. It’s not surprising in the context of the world we live today. Overturning history, whether rightfully so or not, means at least the merit of independent thinking. It attracts attention, usually accompanied by commercial success. If it so happens that Napoleon fought Julius Caesar, or we interpret historical figure with our own modern minds, too bad. Dead people can not explain themselves.

George Washington was a slave owner. He only freed his slaves after both he and his wife died, in his will. But that’s not to say he was not “the greatest man in the world”. Chinese intellectuals at the time especially admired him for not declaring himself the new King of America. In truth, there was little political ground on the American colony for him to crown himself. And why would he anyway？Great leaders are charismatic and of great social conscientious, but they are not living not of their time.

Turning 180 too many times makes us forget where we come from and even where we stand now.

China has a strange tradition of overcorrection. History was dressed up like little school girl according to winds of overcorrection.

(3)
Overcorrection as an ancient political term deserves some interesting investigation. You see, correct as a verb has a natural authoritative, top-down tone to it, like the time God walked into the city of Sodom and decided to correct them, make it just.

To lead a nation as diverse as China, needs tremendous wisdom and courage. To take the shortcut of making a strong nation needs a degree of authority and central power. The problem is that in China, once the power is installed, it does not have the tradition of checking itself. Or that tradition has been lost. With that, came the revolution and subversion, and the more radical solutions in the pass hundred years or so. The question we have to pose to ourselves: does the approach matter even if it is the right thing to do? Where do we place the so called procedure correctness, and where to draw the line?

The central theme in hundred years of China’s political movements is primitively to make the nation stronger. Rights of people come second. Pragmatism has always had market in China. It fits with the tradition of “succeed you becomes the king, fail you becomes the vagabond” well. Political and ideological arenas are no different.

(4)
The modern history of China from hundred years ago started from wars, more precisely, from losing the wars. Since then, general attitude of Chinese toward political system was anxious and goal-oriented, primitively to hope to bring a stronger nation.
An 1876 NYT article said of Chinese “fear of any innovation and reform”. No, it was not describing the religious Tibet, which shall be described as Shangri-La and peace loving etc. Since then, Chinese has made their own conclusion about that piece of history, they flat out concluded: “to be backward is to be beaten.”

The deficiency of politics of which primary goal was to catch up with the world and make the nation stronger – not be mention it was spearheaded by a small population of new elite – was the lack of stability. Only when the population was modernized and learned how to comprise and manage the country through politic could stability be possible. People sometimes are used to all the responsibilities to the leaders and politicians, yet Confucius said: “I reflect upon myself three times a day.”

(5)
The TV drama gave great sympathy to most of the historical figures.

Empress Dowager Cixi was a steady political hand. Her temper might be fickle, but her ability to manage the Qin officials was unmatched. She even had the courage, or foolishness depending on how you see it, to declare war on all major Western powers. However, whatever she did or did not choose to do, she managed the country as if it was her property. Winning the wars would have been nice, but losing wasn’t too much of a disaster either. The burden of war retribution fell on the population, not her highness.

Lee Hongzhang, the last Qin statesman who was called “Bismarck of the East” by the West and once called traitor by the Chinese, devoted his life to China’s diplomatic relation with the world. However, his none-resistant policy was equally costly. He steered clear of the provenances under his governance clear of the military conflict even when the central power in Beijing was been traced out of the city. Once the war was lost, people under his governance couldn’t escape the bitter result either, they would also have to pay war retributions. Frankly, on one hand China was too big for the then imperialists to swallow; on the other, a defeated country has little to bargain for, great diplomatic skill or not. Lee wouldn’t make the slightest difference.

Yuan Shikai, the able politician whose personal ambition drove him to be the hero who ended the Qin monarch, but also doomed him to be one who wanted to become an emperor of his own. But as capable as he was, his Beiyang New Army didn’t register a victory or even a serious fight for the country. In stead, it became a bargaining chip of his own power.

Kang Youwei, the ambitious but impractical reformer who failed, was really the father of all “overseas democratic fighters”.

Chinese like to speak of “grand virtue”, loosely interpreted as fighting for the people, and “personal virtue”. But, grand virtue is sometimes hard to judge, it swings with political and cultural tides. Chinese also often speak of personal political ambition negatively. But ambition isn’t really sinister. The sad tragedy of all these historical figures of the last hundred years was that there wasn’t a system in place to align their personal ambition with the common good of the people.

Luckily, we average folks still have personal virtues to cherish with, especially with the ones close to us.

(6)
The success of the gradualism reform in China was largely praised around the world. Gradualism reform can be traced back to the experience of a hundred years ago. The more radical reform of Wuxu failed, but a more gradual approach later was largely successful.

The world today warily watches China as a “rising power”. Let’s not forget there was a period a hundred years ago the world warily watched China as a possible power, mistakenly we must say, reflectively. The prospect of a large population and vast market was simply attractive, then and now.

The debate started a hundred years ago continued into today: should China make foundation of Chinese wisdom but adopt Western knowledge? Or should China totally westernize, especially in the political areas?

I shall point out this is really a false topic. When enough people opened up to the modern knowledge, when enough people are wealthy and educated enough, when politics is no longer but designed by a small educated elite, people will reach a natural selection. Chinese or Western, does it matter? Moreover, the distinction between Chinese and Western may be water under bridge then. Culture is fluid.

Similarly, Chinese characteristic is a natural mark, not something you proclaim for, or design for. Proclaiming of ___ (feel free to fill in the blank) of Chinese characteristic is always suspicious.

(7)
Speaking of war and treaties, let’s look into a few. The first Sino-Japanese war of Jiawu was largely limited to the navy fights. The central government, the Qin court, was under menace. A treaty was quickly signed. No serious fight was staged. The Battle of Beijing by the eight-nation alliance saw an army of only teens of thousands, with a casualty of less than 2000. Many Chinese forces didn’t fight in the war. The New Army of Beiyang didn’t open a shot, and the South China stayed out of the conflict all together. Although the Boxers, agitators of the conflict, joined the fight, but it’s safe to say no “war of people” happened. To blame the loss of war and unfair treaty all on “to be backward is to be beaten.” seems to be overly simplistic. Fifty years after, facing another advance equipped United Nation army, Chinese forces didn’t loose ground.

It’s not surprising Western powers called the Chinese “loose sand” then. They had a point.

What the new People’s Republic really contributed to the Chinese wasn’t ideological ist, but the new found upward spirit and confidence in the society.

{8}
The Beijing Olympics is said by Beijing and foreign media as a landmark of integrating into the modern world. The process and exploration started more than a hundred years ago.

In fact, the shaping of modern China and its choices are always under the influence of the Western powers, including the worrisome nationalism. People in the West don’t often understand why China can not let go of the memories of more than a hundred years ago. But for Chinese, history from a hundred years ago directly influenced political choices of their nation every step of the way, and thus wired into their current life.

Many people have pointed out Chinese society is often restless. Such restlessness also started a hundred years ago. The history of being the invaded makes people less confident, makes the politics more radical.

If China could have waited the development of the country and its new social class entered the political scene, things might be different. But the international society then didn’t give China patience and time; the wars didn’t give China much time and choices.

Nowadays, the powers make a point not to burden the defeated countries with unbearable debt or too much unfair treatment. That’s an improvement. Lesson learned. But history has no what ifs.

(9)
Now that Beijing Olympics is finally here. For many, “a hundred year’s dream will be complete. Can we get the game start with, and finally get on other businesses?