Gweilo's China Briefing: 2003-10-15

Winds of Change.NET Regional Briefings run on Tuesdays & Wednesdays, and sometimes Fridays too. This Regional Briefing focuses on China, courtesy of Conrad of The Gweilo Diaries.

TOP TOPIC

• VodkaPundit and Glenn Reynolds cover China's first manned space flight, while The Gweilo Diaries reveals that China may have already put a man in space... during the Ming dynasty!

Other Topics Today Include: Taiwan's separatist moves; AIDS in Henan; Disturbing trends in Hong Kong; Selfishness in Chinese society; Chinese virginity; Blogging celebrity in Asia; Hemlock's diaries.

• Adam Morris at PRC News and CH at Why Read This discusse the significance of Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bain's seperatist moves in advance of his 2004 relection campaign, although, Morris's views regarding so-called U.S. weakness are, in this blogger's opinion, off the mark.

• The Peking Duck and The Gweilo Diaries look at China's imprisonment of leading health official Ma Shewin for revealing the extent of the AIDS epidemic in Henan province.

• Disturbing trends in Hong Kong's care of the young and old are noted at The Gweilo Diaries.

• Andres Gentry, proprietor of the excellent China blog 'Water,' offers an essay on the narrow selfishness that pervades mainland Chinese society. An excerpt:

"Yesterday (almost like manna from heaven for the purposes of this essay), there was a fire in the apartment block across the street from mine. I was walking back from buying vegetables at a nearby market and saw a gathering crowd and the unmistakeable scent of ash. The fire engines hadn't arrived yet, but I could predict what was going to happen: people would come running to stare, point, and laugh, but certainly not to help.... If you see someone else in pain, stare, amuse yourself, but never ever do something to help because if you help someone then you become responsible for that person and that is completely against your narrow self-interests. This idea is sometimes taken to its logical, but most grotesque end. At accidents that occur at places and times where there are no witnesses, but one of the drivers is injured, the other driver sometimes intentionally hits the other person again to kill him. Why? Because if he stayed alive the other driver would be responsible for his medical bills, but if he's dead then he doesn't have an impact on the other driver's life or pocketbook. Pause and consider the twistedness of that. Then pause again to consider that such stories are common enough to make it onto CCTV."

• JK: Hmm, this actually sheds new light on Team Agonist blogger Sean-Paul's recent China experiences during his Silk Road Journeys. Sean-Paul's reaction was pretty off-the-scale (see also this follow-up), but perhaps Andres' writings will help add some perspective on the whole incident for both Sean-Paul and his readers/critics.

• JK: Sean-Paul deserves criticism, but so does the culture he observed. Unless you're a member of the Holy Postmodern Leftist Church, of course, in which case perspective is the last thing you want and other cultures' immunity to criticism is an article fo faith. Should you find this faith challenged, chastise yourself for reading the scribblings of patriarchal racist lackeys instead of Derrida's holy texts. 3 Chomsky speeches, a Monibot column and alms to Indymedia should suffice for pennance, and help restore perfect belief.

• In Hong Kong, Phil at Flying Chair reports on the sparsity of Chinese virginity.

• Local blogger BWG does a star-turn on CNN, as Asia's first blogging celebrity

• On the lighter side, Hemlock continues to corner the Hong Kong stock market, suggests Jackie Chan as Chief Executive and discovers he suffers from Social Anxiety Disorder.