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3月23日 Pompous PricksIt's one thing to read a thousand times and write at least 15 times in the past year about the Schumer-Graham duo and their notorious bill, but quite another to sit on the press bench and hear them actually talk about it at a press conference in Beijing.
(China Daily Photo)
 They couldn't remembe vice premier Wu Yi's name, whom they had just been meeting half an hour ago, ("one tough lady, she would do well in an American courtroom, I like her a lot" was all they could muster), and two and a half years after raising that sorryass China-bashing bill of theirs, Schumer still couldn't get his pronunciation right ("yuan" with a Y instead of "won" with a W, Chinese instead of Korean currency, your Senatorial High-ness).
"The jury is still out" my ass. To hear them talk, Schumer in his slick baritone and Graham in his southern drawl, about "the bay-est interest of the Una-ited States of Ame-erica", "buka-uz too many people depending on us to get this right", I was so disgusted I didn't even raise my hand to ask a question. What's the point of asking anyway? They're just here for the show
And Graham was audacious enough to talk about their feat at Tsinghua -- they asked the MBA class to share with them "some concerns they have about their own government".
Graham: "If you'd asked that question in an American University, it'd take you two days to leave. We had one young man mention something about housing."
Schumer:"Architecture."
Graham: "Ladies and gentlemen, we have much in common, but we are still worlds apart."
I mean, it's all true, but I swear to Confucius I have never seen such arrogant a-holes in my whole life. And those idoitic MBA (Most Bemoaned A-holes?) students at Tsinghua (who the hell picked those clowns?) Wu Jianmin and his "Chinese Dream"Leading diplomat Wu Jianmin, former Chinese Ambassador to France and current president of the Foreign Affairs College in Beijing, yesterday played host to a pack of Beijing journalists, giving them a sneak preview of a tantalizing concept he is going to propose in two weeks.
At a conference on April 2, the gentle-mannered, articulately-spoken Wu is going to unveil the Chinese Dream -- China's answer to the American Dream in an age when, in Wu's words, "both the world and China are standing at crossroads".
Wu explained to journalists the two parts to the concept -- internationally, he touts China's peace-development-cooperation ("China shares its progress with the world") mantra as what the Chinese Dream would mean to the world. But it's the domestic part that he really went into great detail about. In particular, he voiced grave concerns over the trend of increasing animosity, even violent crimes, against the "new rich" in China (Personally I wouldn't worry about that).
Popular discontent over the widening wealth gap and social inequality could generate enormous political resistance to China's ongoing economic reforms, said Wu. "The 'hate-rich' phenomenon is counterproductive." That is a grave challenge on the home front to the Chinese Dream, by which he seems to mean the emergence domestically of a successful, elite class. (Now I hate that) In order for that dream to prosper, more equality and better care for the disadvantaged is in order, but that shouldn't hinder the success-centered Chinese dream.
Wu asked the journalists' opinions on how to sell the concept and their help with that (not his exact words of course). To me, that concept sounds pretty vague and elusive to an international audience (clearly that's what Wu has in mind, coz domestic media will just gobble up whatever he throws their way with a loud belch), although it could be of some news value if spinned the right way. I find it hard to imagine the wire services putting out headlines like "Former Chinese Ambassador Unveils the Chinese Dream" though. Maybe features-minded papers and magazines would be tempted, but it will take a lot more sincere soul-searching and masterful spinning for that idea to really fly. One guest at the April 2 conference, director Ye Xiaowen of the State Administration of Religious Affairs, could be of hard-news value.
There it is, under my spinning hat I have done my not quite professional part promoting Wu and his "Chinese Dream". The most interesting thing at the informal meeting yesterday was, some senior journalists took that chance to vent venom against censors, saying stuff like "Geez it's sounds like such a great idea but my only worry is those at the P-Department will strike it down." Wu didn't respond directly but his staff indicated Ambassador Wu is not beyond that worry either. That's why he may be packaging the concept as "deeper interpretation" of President Hu's world views. Hopefully Wu's clout could help it work. After all, the Chinese Dream sounds better than most other political slogans flying around these days. 3月22日 Price Tag: Life of a Peking University Student (from the countryside) -- 400,000 yuanFrom the looks of it, this story has the potential of blowing into another huge judicial scandal. The facts are pretty straight -- a real bad-ass student at the Medical School of Peking University -- with a long rap sheet including verbal and physical violence against classmates, harrassing female students, etc, just makes you wonder why such a monster hadn't been kicked out of the most prestigious university in the country -- commits the ultimate crime in June last year, stabbing a fellow student more than 80 times, killing him in a after-class fight over the latter's girlfriend, whom An had harrassed on multiple occasions.
The story has never quite dropped from public scrutiny partly because of the prestige of the university, partly because of its bloody nature.
(Warning: Graphic picture, from Sina. A few readers have voiced discomfort at it.)
 But the verdict of the trial shocked many. An Ran, the murderer, was convicted and given a death sentence -- with a two-year reprieve. That basically means a life sentence. Commentators on Sina seem to be overwhelmingly outraged as to how An Ran could escape death. Given the circumstances of the case, the Chinese society's "blood-for-blood" sense of justice, and judgements in similar criminal cases, a death sentence would have looked certain.
The story says that An's family paid the victim's family, who're from the countryside in He Nan province, 400,000 yuan in compensation to settle a civil suit attached to the murder case. It also described An's mother, who defende him in court, pleading in tears for her son's life. The victim's parents have returned to their Henan hometown and haven't appealed the ruling. It doesn't take a journalist to wonder what kind of background An's family comes from, and what else they offered the victim's family to make them go silently away. Indeed, many comments linked the ruling to the widely-reported death sentences a week ago of a billionnaire and his two brothers in a hired-gun murder case. For yet unexplained reasons, their execution had once been stayed, and it was reported that the billionnaire's family had offered his entire fortune (a very suspicious 50 billion yuan) in exchange for his life. But the three brothers met their Budha in the end. So how come this murderous student escapes death?
In the past, media coverage of such ostensibly "unjust" outcomes in highly publicized and controversial cases have led to re-trials or courts reverting their previous rulings. It doesn't happen often, and the victims' family's consent in this case doesn't seem to give rise to that much controversy; but judging from the outcries of Internet commentators the public doesn't like this ruling. It may only take some more follow-up reporting by influential national or local newspapers to make people think twice. 3月21日 Media Liability Insurance? That's a FirstShanghai's Youth Daily(via Sina news) has reported that AIU Insurance Shanghai Branch has offered this insurance, given the "increasing exposure to libel and intellectual property lawsuits" by media outlets and advertising related businesses in today's China, where media companies often have to "resort to exotic innovation or sensationalist news material to rise above competition".
According to the story, the insurance covers legal fees and damages arising from litigation against media companies in libel, negligence, violation of IPR, misdeeds by employees and other cases. Coverage ranges from US$ 1 million to 10 million. No takers yet. And actually, it's not exactly a first in China, although the involvement of an American company, and the reported high coverage makes it more newsy this time.
One thing the insurance company has yet to realize is, although libel suits against media outlets in China are common and much more often ruled in favor of the plaintiffs than in the US, the damages from such cases are also astonishingly low compared to US standards. We are talking about thousand dollar ranges most of the time.
But the more interesting point is, the insurance may also provide compensation for journalists testifying in court, up to 2500 yuan per day. That actually tempts me to give up my job and become a full-time witness in court! 3月16日 CDT Redux3月10日 I Hate Punk Journalist-BloggersI was wondering why the news of CDT getting blocked hasn't caused a big stir in the blogsphere, and I found out from China Herald and ESWN -- the obnoxiou, audacious hoax by clowns like Massage Milk.
I am equally disgusted. From the fan comments at Massage Milk, I gather they are not quite as mad, which means these fans probably aren't journalists. I totally commiserate with victims like Reuters (although they are not blameless here), and I just hate people who mess with fellow journalists in such a very unprofessional way. Same reason I cussed Howard French.
My professor taught me one steel rule about this industry -- never interview or be interviewed by fellow journalists (I've tried hard to follow this, but probably still not hard enough). Don't become news yourself. And I have since developed another principle of my own -- respect your fellow journalists although you wanna get at their throats all the time. If you wanna mess with them, do so professionally, not unprofessionally.
Such incidents are also why I never take these quasi-journalist-bloggers very seriously. I don't give a damn what good journalists they are in real life. They are not serious enough with their blogs. And they knowingly make other journalists look stupid.
3月9日 Bye Bye China Digital TimesFound out today that CDT is blocked here. At least from my office Internet connection. Not only that, the whole Berkeley Journalism School site is inaccessible too.
No idea if this is going to be temporary -- for example, just for the duration of the conferences, or permanent. Hopefully the former not the latter. My only guess is, the Internet censors have FINALLY picked up the scent of CDT. Stupidly slow of them but devastating to so many of us. 3月8日 Same Old Same OldBeen pretty busy lately. I was in a gym on the jogging machine one afternoon a couple of days ago and watching the Foreign Minister's press conference on TV. Saw quite some familiar journalistic faces in there, and I wondered at my own luck not having to cover this. To me, the NPC/CPPCC annual affair is the most tiresome, boring stuff to cover for a journalist. Fortunately I never really have to do much about it. When I saw economist Justin Lin Yifu mobbed by what looked like a hundred journalists waving recorders and shotgun microphones with that look on their faces that said "whatever you say is news to me!", I knew it would be exactly the same old s***. OK, I know I am being extreme -- there is extremely valuable information one can get from these conferences, but I am just incapable of extracting it from all the sound and fury. One very important journalistic skill missing.
 (Photo from a BBS entry at Reporters' Home)
Lawmakers are lawmakers, Chinese or American. When and where they are free to speak their minds, they are hot-headed, power- and attention-hungry. Look at this proposal by famous 80's self-help heroine Zhang Haidi and 15 other CPPCC delegates: foreigners intending to marry Chinese women must present proofs of income and property. I'm all for women's rights, but doesn't this sound a little xenophobic and stupid? What do they think Chinese women are? Isn't the Big Brother/Sister overzealous again? Any chance the CPPCC might take this seriously? You never know. |
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