Driving in a taxi from the airport, I marveled at how much like "home" Beijing has come to seem. Even the apartment, despite layers of dust and coal grit, felt like an old friend. The dumplings, gongbao jiding (Kungpao chicken), and vegetable stir-fry delivered for 28 yuan from our favorite neighborhood restaurant were just as tasty as I had remembered.
Unfortunately, I've come down with a sore throat and will be lying low today.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Hong Kong
All fall, I ate as little Chinese food as possible in order to prepare for my next six-month stint in China. A week in Hong Kong, and I'm already craving a big salad (preferably with currants, crumbled cheese, and candied walnuts). Not that the dim sum hasn't been delicious. But my palate is proving more stubborn than my circadian rhythms.
The first few days were made much more enjoyable by Josephine's visit from Taiwan. In under 48 hours, we visited the Peak, rode the Star Ferry, saw the light show, rode the mid-level escalators, feared for our lives on a double decker-bus, ate dim sum twice, took high tea at the Mandarin Oriental and dinner at the Peninsula, ferried to an outlying island and caught a gauzy sunset over the fishing village, ordered scallops and prawns from the tank and licked the garlicky juices from our fingers. Altogether a wonderful whirlwind visit.
Photo of an intrepid bicyclist, out of place on Hong Kong's orderly streets.
The first few days were made much more enjoyable by Josephine's visit from Taiwan. In under 48 hours, we visited the Peak, rode the Star Ferry, saw the light show, rode the mid-level escalators, feared for our lives on a double decker-bus, ate dim sum twice, took high tea at the Mandarin Oriental and dinner at the Peninsula, ferried to an outlying island and caught a gauzy sunset over the fishing village, ordered scallops and prawns from the tank and licked the garlicky juices from our fingers. Altogether a wonderful whirlwind visit.
Photo of an intrepid bicyclist, out of place on Hong Kong's orderly streets.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Winter Cabbage
Crowding People’s Market for Cabbage: The Price Is Right
By JIM YARDLEY BEIJING, Dec. 18 — At 5:45 in the morning the cabbage line outside the Old Drum Tower Outer Street New People’s Produce Market is nearly two hours old. First in line is a 72-year-old woman named Mrs. Wang, who awoke at 3, arrived at 4 and would wait until 8:30 for a single head of winter cabbage. Free.
Doug Kanter for The New York Times
Beijing’s winter produce markets are overrun with a bumper crop of cabbage this year, so a worker at the Old Drum Tower Outer Street New People’s Produce Market hands them out free, one to a customer, as a promotion.
Doug Kanter for The New York Times
The line begins forming early in the morning.
Cabbage, or bai cai, costs about 4 cents a head, so Mrs. Wang’s prize was not quite a free refrigerator. She did not mind. Nor did another retired matron who passed the time singing patriotic tunes and a shaky but enthusiastic English rendition of “Baa Baa Black Sheep.” And neither did two elderly combatants who shouted at each another in unprintable Chinese for inexplicable reasons.
“They are just fighting because they have nothing better to do,” explained Mrs. Wang, who declined to provide her first name. “We all know each other. We’re all old neighbors.”
Cabbage and old people are civic institutions in Beijing. Winter brings them together. For generations cabbage has arrived in markets by November, and Beijingers have hoarded it as an insurance policy to last them until spring, depending on the outdoor refrigeration of rooftops or windowsills. Cabbage and turnips were the staples that saw people through the uncertain harvests and aching poverty of the Mao era.
But Beijing’s winter markets are now overrun with enough fruits, vegetables and meats that cabbage, if still widely used, has become as unglamorous as old people — except to old people.
The predawn line outside the Old Drum Tower market represents a marriage of convenience: market managers give away cabbage to attract hordes of fixed-income old people in hopes that the spectacle will attract the curiosity of younger, more affluent morning commuters.
“It’s a win-win situation,” said Zhang Pinsheng, 68, a retired teacher. “The market doesn’t have to spend money on advertising, and we don’t have to spend money on cabbage.”
They do have to wait in freezing predawn temperatures to collect a chunk of greenery of almost no value — or, for that matter, of almost no taste without sauce.
This year farmers grew so much cabbage that prices dipped to record lows in November, with markets charging only a few pennies a head. Even so, when the Old Drum Tower market introduced its cabbage promotion in late November, the daily line soon stretched under two overpasses and past a new luxury hotel.
“If they were going to give away fish or eggs, the line would stretch all the way to Qianmen,” a neighborhood several miles away, said Li Bao, a vendor at the market. “People would start lining up at midnight.”
The incentive for the hundreds of people who come each day is a blend of need, habit, boredom and a desire for companionship. Several people described lives on the margins. Some were retired; others lost their jobs in the changing economy; others depended on minuscule urban pensions. Mrs. Wang said she did not watch television in her apartment, because “the TV uses electricity.”
Mr. Zhang, the retired teacher, said the free cabbage “doesn’t really solve the basic problems you have, but it can help a little.”
“You aren’t going to get rich collecting free cabbage,” he said. “My life is pretty average. We don’t worry about food or clothes. You’re never really full, but you are never going to go hungry.”
Inflation has ticked upward in recent months, and the rising cost of some foods, as well as cooking oil, has brought some anxiety. Recently, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao visited an elderly Beijing woman to offer a public reassurance that the government would fight rising prices.
Cabbage, often used as filling for the steamed dumpling so popular in Beijing, seems mostly immune to inflation, though, and some people admitted that the line here was as much a social event as an economic necessity.
Many retirees in Beijing have limited resources and unlimited time to fill, so they congregate in city parks to practice tai chi or ballroom dancing, or just to talk. Another popular pastime is admonishing parents, including strangers, whose children are deemed to be insufficiently clothed — say, less than five layers — in wintertime.
But a few hours in line can also provide entertainment for people inured to hardship and tedium by a few decades of Communism. “It doesn’t matter if I get a cabbage,” said one man, who like several people declined to give his name. “It’s a nice day and I’ve got nothing to do.”
Another woman with a toothy smile and a pink coat agreed. “We have nothing better to do,” she said. “We go for a walk in the morning. We get in line, and we pick up some cabbage.”
Zhang Hongwei, 27, one of the managers at the market, said the cabbage promotion would last two months. He said that most people in line were not buying other vegetables but that their presence “is good advertising and attracting others.”
“If they weren’t here they would just be walking around in parks,” he said. “And it is a tradition in Beijing to store cabbage in the winter. They need to get their cabbage.”
A certain regimen oversees the process. Regulars arrive early, occasionally shoo newcomers into a single-file line and snatch up the laminated tickets handed out by the market to ensure order. Many people bring cushions for comfortable sitting. Line breakers are barked down.
The magic moment comes promptly at 8:30. On this recent day, a manager began collecting the tickets. Another clerk popped open the rear hood of a white van to reveal green stacks of cabbage. Distribution was methodical — perhaps to drag out the advertising as commuters rushed into a nearby subway stop.
Mrs. Wang collected her cabbage with a satisfied smile. She stuffed it into a plastic bag and walked quickly down the sidewalk, oblivious to the cold.
“To be a little cold for a cabbage is not a big deal,” she said. “Cabbage is delicious.”
Ye Gaskells Ball
One of my favorite places to waltz, polka, and generally get gussied up: Ye Gaskells Ball in Oakland, CA.
Thanks to Matt Rollefson for the photos.
Thanks to Matt Rollefson for the photos.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
I'm a proud parent
of FACES (Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford), which has continued to grow tremendously since I handed over the reins in 2003. Here's the Stanford Daily article about FACES that ran on Thursday:
Campus to host FACES conference
October 26, 2006
By Emma Vaughn
As U.S.-Sino relations grow in importance in the global community, the Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford (FACES) is actively working to promote diplomacy and friendship between the nations’ younger generations.
With three chapters in China and host more than 50 delegates from around the world, FACES is a student-run program dedicated to fostering grass-roots diplomacy and improving ties between Chinese and American students.
“It is basically like having an NGO based at Stanford,” said 2003 graduate Jessica Weiss, who founded FACES in 2001. “Yes, it’s run by students, but it has a strong air of professional organization.”
The capstone efforts of FACES are two projects that brings together American and Chinese student-delegates to discuss U.S.-Sino relations with some of the field’s leading experts.
Shanghai will host the first of these weeklong conferences Nov. 8, and Stanford will hold a second conference in April.
“The annual conferences are really what make FACES different,” said Xiaodong Chen, a graduate student in Management Science and Engineering and Chinese delegate to FACES. “They are of the highest quality in terms of the speaker’s credentials and international influence. They also include a highly selective application process, which guarantees the brightest minds from both countries. The staff are extremely dedicated, hardworking and helpful.”
Richard B. Levin, president of Yale University and a featured speaker at the Shanghai conference, said that organizations like FACES will have a large impact on the global community.
“The security of the planet will require that the future leaders of China and the United States have a bond of mutual understanding,” Levin told The Daily. “By bringing together college students from leading universities with a serious interest in U.S.-China relations, FACES is contributing in an important way to the education of future leaders and, thereby, to international security.”
Delegates to the conference are chosen from a pool of nearly 600 students and come from both American universities such as Harvard, Brown, Duke, Yale and also from Chinese universities like Peking, Tsinghua and the University of Hong Kong.
The goal of these conferences is to bring students in contact with business executives, policymakers and educational figures who can talk about China’s increasing economic and political influence. Previous conference speakers have included William Perry, President Bill Clinton’s defense secretary who also works at Stanford, Zbigniew Brzesinksi, President Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor, and Robert Kapp, former president of the U.S.-China Business Council.
“What differentiates FACES is its tight-knit and very active alumni network,” said FACES Co-president Kabir Chadha, a senior. “There are reunions in different continents literally happening every week, and email forums are awash with different threads of discussion, ranging from discussing the repercussions of North Korea’s nuclear tests to seeking advice when moving into a new city. The FACES experience gives you access to lifelong friends.”
In addition to the conferences, FACES holds several smaller projects throughout the year, including a student-initiated course, educational panels and an annual China Fair.
“FACES is not just organizing amazing conferences across the Pacific Ocean — it is bringing those talented people together and providing them with a fantastic platform to show their ideas,” said Christine Fung, President of the Fudan chapter of FACES. “It also welcomes students from countries other than the U. S. or China.”
The program first began in the fall of 2001 during a period of tension following the collision of a U.S. plane with a Chinese fighter jet. Weiss, a junior at the time, hoped to use this crisis as a backdrop to create greater Sino-American understanding on campus.
“I wanted to use this idea to promote open communication between both sides,” Weiss said. “I hoped to establish a sort of grass-roots for friendship that would be resilient to the politics of the time.”
In the last year, FACES, which used to be under the jurisdiction of the Office of Student Affairs (OSA), has moved into the Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS).
“The reason that they are affiliating with us now is that they need a greater programmatic structure for their fundraising,” said Lydia Chen, associate director of CEAS. “They want more than what the student organizations are allowed to do. We love them and are very proud of them.”
Campus to host FACES conference
October 26, 2006
By Emma Vaughn
As U.S.-Sino relations grow in importance in the global community, the Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford (FACES) is actively working to promote diplomacy and friendship between the nations’ younger generations.
With three chapters in China and host more than 50 delegates from around the world, FACES is a student-run program dedicated to fostering grass-roots diplomacy and improving ties between Chinese and American students.
“It is basically like having an NGO based at Stanford,” said 2003 graduate Jessica Weiss, who founded FACES in 2001. “Yes, it’s run by students, but it has a strong air of professional organization.”
The capstone efforts of FACES are two projects that brings together American and Chinese student-delegates to discuss U.S.-Sino relations with some of the field’s leading experts.
Shanghai will host the first of these weeklong conferences Nov. 8, and Stanford will hold a second conference in April.
“The annual conferences are really what make FACES different,” said Xiaodong Chen, a graduate student in Management Science and Engineering and Chinese delegate to FACES. “They are of the highest quality in terms of the speaker’s credentials and international influence. They also include a highly selective application process, which guarantees the brightest minds from both countries. The staff are extremely dedicated, hardworking and helpful.”
Richard B. Levin, president of Yale University and a featured speaker at the Shanghai conference, said that organizations like FACES will have a large impact on the global community.
“The security of the planet will require that the future leaders of China and the United States have a bond of mutual understanding,” Levin told The Daily. “By bringing together college students from leading universities with a serious interest in U.S.-China relations, FACES is contributing in an important way to the education of future leaders and, thereby, to international security.”
Delegates to the conference are chosen from a pool of nearly 600 students and come from both American universities such as Harvard, Brown, Duke, Yale and also from Chinese universities like Peking, Tsinghua and the University of Hong Kong.
The goal of these conferences is to bring students in contact with business executives, policymakers and educational figures who can talk about China’s increasing economic and political influence. Previous conference speakers have included William Perry, President Bill Clinton’s defense secretary who also works at Stanford, Zbigniew Brzesinksi, President Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor, and Robert Kapp, former president of the U.S.-China Business Council.
“What differentiates FACES is its tight-knit and very active alumni network,” said FACES Co-president Kabir Chadha, a senior. “There are reunions in different continents literally happening every week, and email forums are awash with different threads of discussion, ranging from discussing the repercussions of North Korea’s nuclear tests to seeking advice when moving into a new city. The FACES experience gives you access to lifelong friends.”
In addition to the conferences, FACES holds several smaller projects throughout the year, including a student-initiated course, educational panels and an annual China Fair.
“FACES is not just organizing amazing conferences across the Pacific Ocean — it is bringing those talented people together and providing them with a fantastic platform to show their ideas,” said Christine Fung, President of the Fudan chapter of FACES. “It also welcomes students from countries other than the U. S. or China.”
The program first began in the fall of 2001 during a period of tension following the collision of a U.S. plane with a Chinese fighter jet. Weiss, a junior at the time, hoped to use this crisis as a backdrop to create greater Sino-American understanding on campus.
“I wanted to use this idea to promote open communication between both sides,” Weiss said. “I hoped to establish a sort of grass-roots for friendship that would be resilient to the politics of the time.”
In the last year, FACES, which used to be under the jurisdiction of the Office of Student Affairs (OSA), has moved into the Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS).
“The reason that they are affiliating with us now is that they need a greater programmatic structure for their fundraising,” said Lydia Chen, associate director of CEAS. “They want more than what the student organizations are allowed to do. We love them and are very proud of them.”
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Squash victory!
I joined the UCSD recreational squash ladder a few weeks ago. Today, I won a match, moving me up two spots to #14. We'll see how long that lasts...
Ladder Rankings:
| Juan-Jose Rebaza | 1 info | |
| Alberto Malinow | 2 info | |
| Andrew Bell | 3 info | |
| Will Cooper | 4 info | c |
| Kobe Bogaert | 5 info | c |
| Evan Fuller | 6 info | c |
| Paul Norton | 7 info | c |
| Jeffrey Rangan | 8 info | c |
| Arnaud` Van Der Haegen | 9 info | c |
| Nazeeh Shaheen | 10info | |
| Narayana Santhanam | 11 info | |
| Ajit Nott | 12 info | c |
| Karthik Bhasyam | 13 info | c |
| Jessica Weiss | 14 info | |
| Paul Taylor | 15 info | |
| Sanmay Das | 16 info | c |
| Alison Rush | 17 info | c |
| Yuvraj Agarwal | 18 info |
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
NYT: One Eye on the Road and One on the Litter Box
I enjoyed this a lot, and am posting it at the risk of making this blog completely cat-centric...
IT is a good idea, when traveling, to choose one’s fellow passengers carefully. Unfortunately, this is not always possible. When I set out for six weeks in south-central Kentucky recently, hauling a trailer full of furniture, my wife, Nancy, as always, sat in the front seat, wrestling with several maps. But in the back seat were two new faces — furry, wide-eyed, and expressing, very vocally, even more anxiety than the couple up front. Soda and Sweetzie, our two cats (who had no place else to go for the six weeks), were warming up for a performance that would last 1,500 miles, round trip, and set new standards for misery in travel.
John S. Dykes
John S. Dykes
Day 1
11:30 A.M. Soda and Sweetzie are installed in back seat of Honda Civic, stuffed into separate carriers because they cannot abide each other. Both mew piteously. I position a clean oversize litter box in back window of car, which has never seemed so small. We roll forth from Astoria toward the Queensboro Bridge
11:45 A.M. Mewing has just started to abate when a sudden stop causes litter box to lurch forward and dump an avalanche of grit on both cats. Soda, a sweet-natured and dainty creature, lets out a howl of cosmic protest. Sweetzie, a huge tortoiseshell cat of smoldering intensity, volatile moods and tangled neuroses, produces a demonic sound new to us. Careful preparation for trip, involving administration of Rescue Remedy (New Age tranquilizing drops) and Benadryl smushed into bits of raw steak, has not produced the desired behavior modification.
12:30 P.M. A rising aroma makes it clear that Sweetzie, like many soldiers experiencing incoming artillery fire for the first time, has had an extreme fear reaction to the sounds of the tunnel or, perhaps, the litter shower.
1 P.M. I pull into the first available McDonald’s parking lot, grab a stack of napkins and try to clean out Sweetzie’s carrier. It is a big job. The deeper I reach into the carrier, the more Sweetzie feels cornered. She mounts a slashing attack, leaving bloody stripes up and down my arm, then does an imitation of Linda Blair’s voice in “The Exorcist.” Lingering fragrance suggests more work needs to be done.
2:15 P.M. Incessant cries of the damned cause me to open the cat carriers. Soda moves into new, improvised litter box on floor (baking pan acquired at dollar store along the road), and takes a jubilant dust bath. Sweetzie finds her way to a fleece cat bed on floor behind front passenger seat and hunkers down, eyes glowing with an insane luminescence. Peace descends.
6:23 P.M. We pull into a pet-friendly motel in Hagerstown, Md. Research on several Internet sites yielded a number of these oases dotted across the country. A surcharge of $10 over the standard room rate gets us all in. Soda, an enthusiastic eater, reacts ecstatically to bento box that I arrange on a tray, with frilled paper caps from the motel’s water glasses as decorative dishes. (Hair on back stands up.) Sweetzie dives under a bed and remains motionless for the next 12 hours. Any food offered causes her to recoil and unsheathe claws. I sleep restlessly, unable to envision a blood-free scenario for putting her back in the carrier, although I have now refreshed it with a bottle of Evian and innumerable paper towels.
Day 2
8 A.M. Nancy pushes food tray at Sweetzie, causing her to flee from under bed and into my arms. Seemingly broken in spirit, she allows her limp form to be poured into the carrier. Soda, stupefied by high-calorie cat treats, also submits passively.
9:15 A.M. Both cats, released from carriers, return to their places on the floor and settle quietly, convincing me that I have discovered the secret to problem-free feline travel. This is a rash conclusion.
3:10 P.M. Arrive at destination. Civic cannot pull trailer up steep driveway. Cats remain calm, even as smell of burning tires and sound of cursing driver fills car interior. I carry both cats up driveway, arrive gasping for breath. Realize that both cats badly need to lose weight.
Return Trip, Day 1
11:30 A.M. Confident that all concerned are now old hands, I put cats in back seat, place litter box on floor and prepare for a serene, scenic drive back to New York. Soda settles into litter box. Sweetzie takes up position on fleece bed. A few peeps, then silence.
7:15 P.M. Check into different pet-friendly motel in Hagerstown. This one has a working television and a receptionist who does not hide in the back room talking on his cellphone to friends as guests crowd the front desk. Things look good.
7:30 P.M. Sweetzie dismayed by platform beds, which afford no hiding place. Soda thrilled at king-size format, ideal for lounging.
7:35 P.M. Sweetzie missing.
7:45 P.M. Sweetzie found, wedged into a two-inch crack between bed headboard and wall.
Return Trip, Day 2
3:15 A.M. Sweetzie, perhaps disturbed by employee slipping bill under door, begins yowling and pacing the room restlessly. She rejects food, water and neck massages. I roll up towels and put them against the bottom of the door to block sound and light. Sweetzie tears furiously at towels, pushes nose under door and lets loose at louder volume. No telling how tattooed guest with pit bull in next room might take this.
4:30 A.M. We leave motel in haste.
5 A.M. Sweetzie, nerves shattered, prowls the car, looking for an exit. Briefly takes up residence on brake pedal, then tries to press herself forward against the windshield, cutting off my view of highway. Ungodly wailing and lamentation. Cats also upset.
6:43 A.M. Sweetzie realizes that Soda has stolen her spot on the cat bed. More prowling and yowling. Soda is unmoved. Their mutual loathing adds to tense atmosphere in car.
7 A.M. After brief, eerie silence, we slip in a book on tape: Alan Furst’s “Foreign Correspondent.” Something about Alfred Molina’s voice sets Sweetzie off. We turn up the volume. Sweetzie responds in kind. As she claws her way past my left shoulder, I briefly consider lowering the window and giving her a nudge onto the highway.
8:30 A.M. Soda, responding to Sweetzie’s mood, begins prowling the car. She is easily bought off with five or six Deli Slices, a new-fangled calorie-bomb cat treat that appears to be as addictive as crack cocaine.
10:15 A.M. Arrive home. Return cats to their accustomed environment. Reward Soda with a Deli Slice. Cut off diplomatic relations with Sweetzie. Make inquiries. Does U-Haul rent a pet trailer? If not, all future vacations off.
Monday, October 09, 2006
More kitchen adventures
Mulligatawny soup from Cook's Illustrated "Quick" Recipe Cookbook
My high school cafeteria served this southern Indian soup, and I've never been able to find it since. Its curry flavor is balanced by the addition of a banana, two onions, and a yogurt-cilantro garnish.
Kittenwar
Meimei has joined Kittenwar.com. You can check on how she's doing vis-a-vis thousands of other extremely cute kittens at http://kittenwar.com/kittens/99245/ or at http://kittenwar.com/kittens/99371/. Somehow the site managers approved her twice. I had assumed that my first submission was disqualified because you can't really see her face, so I submitted the second one. Oops!
Friday, October 06, 2006
Ode to Basil
A little over a month ago I bought one of those "pony packs" of basil: six spindly plants, each a few inches tall. A month later, I'm wishing that I had spaced the plants several more inches apart. Each plant is now a few feet tall. Twice a week I snap off leaves just to prevent flowering. The result is something like the pile you see above - and this is AFTER I made two jars of pesto.
The jar on the left is a basil/parmesan/garlic/olive oil pesto. The one on the right is a sun-dried tomato basil pesto.
Yum!
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Friday, July 28, 2006
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Dashanzi exhibition
One of my favorite Chinese teachers invited me to see an exhibit of Cultural Revolution photographs - photographer at left.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Photos from Guilin and Yangshuo
Photos from our trip to Guilin and Yangshuo, Guangxi Province (technically an autonomous region in southwest China)
River cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo
Terraced fields near Longsheng
Local women of the ethnic Zhuang people
River cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo
Terraced fields near Longsheng
Local women of the ethnic Zhuang people
Friday, June 02, 2006
Today, Beijing, tomorrow, Guilin!
Jeremy's parents arrived on Tuesday and after a quick trip to the Great Wall and other sights, the three of them went to Xi'an to see the terracotta soldiers. (I went in 2001 and was underwhelmed.) At my suggestion, we included Guilin on the itinerary for some magnificent scenery - limestone cliffs like you've never seen. Pictures to follow when we return on the 7th.
From the Economist
China
Atomised
Beijing no longer commands instant obedience from China's local authorities
Atomised
Jun 1st 2006 | BEIJING
From The Economist print edition
From The Economist print edition
Beijing no longer commands instant obedience from China's local authorities
 | |
THE Chinese Communist Party is a highly centralised beast, with a power structure little changed from the days of Mao Zedong. Over the next year or so it will be engaged in what official reports describe as one of the biggest shuffles of leaders at every level, with hundreds of thousands due to change their jobs. Nominally, appointments are made by local party committees. In practice top appointments in the provinces have always been made by leaders in Beijing. But that does not mean that Beijing is in complete control.
A good career in the party still depends on following, or at least appearing to follow, the centre's orders. But local leaders calculate that as long as their areas achieve rapid economic growth with minimal unrest, then they have considerable leeway to do as they will. The party no longer really frets about the ideological purity of its leaders. And since the days of Mao each new generation of leaders in Beijing has been increasingly less able to command instant obedience across the country.
To be sure, China is not heading towards a break-up, anarchy or the warlordism of the pre-communist era. The armed forces and the police remain under the party centre's grip. At the provincial leadership level, too, the authority of the centre is secure. Many residents of regions with large numbers of ethnic minorities, especially Tibet and Xinjiang, resent being controlled by Beijing, but their leaders are party loyalists. Provincial leaders, in fact, display far more ideological harmony than was the case in the 1980s or early 1990s. At that time, some were conspicuously conservative or reformist. Ye Xuanping, a popular native leader of Guangdong Province next to Hong Kong, was often reported to be building the region into a personal power base. Worried central leaders moved him to a sinecure in Beijing in 1991.
The problem today is more a profusion of township, county and prefectural leaderships whose efforts to propel growth in their regions produce impressive statistics, but often at a heavy social, environmental or macroeconomic cost. In the last two years the government has been worrying that the economy might overheat and has been trying to curb investment in industries whose capacity has been growing too quickly. But local officials have often simply ignored these measures. As Zhang Baoqing, a former deputy minister of education, put it to an official newspaper last year, China's biggest problem is that orders issued in Zhongnanhai, the party headquarters in Beijing, sometimes never leave the compound.
 | |
In March last year, amid growing public complaints about fast-rising house prices, the government issued directives aimed at cooling the market. Shanghai, the main target of these measures, dutifully tightened controls. But house prices in other big cities have climbed rapidly—Beijing's by more than 17% in the first two months of this year compared with the same period a year ago. Beijing's city government is not entirely to blame. Demand is growing as the city prepares to host the Olympic Games in 2008. Interest rates are low. China is reluctant to raise them sharply for fear of putting further pressure on the yuan to appreciate. That could hurt exports and push up unemployment.
But local governments control land supply and have a vested interest in keeping prices high. In 1994 the central government changed the way it shared tax revenues with the provinces, leaving the centre with a much bigger portion. But sub-provincial governments still shoulder the main burden of the provision of health care and schooling (which they do only patchily). Land-related transactions have become a crucial source of local governments' revenue. They are further helped by their ability to persuade state-owned banks—ill-equipped to make sound lending decisions—to grant loans.
In the late 1990s, when China began to privatise urban housing, the central government ordered that the bulk of new housing projects should be low-cost and restricted to middle- and lower-income families. Developers of such housing were to be given big tax benefits. But local governments saw little to be gained. In Beijing only one-tenth of new housing space belongs to this category. Regulations announced this week require local governments to boost the supply of cheap housing. There will not be an enthusiastic response.
Local leaders rarely incur heavy political penalties for failing to carry out the central government's economic directives. Officials in Beijing frequently order clampdowns on the makers of pirated goods. Offending factories are sometimes closed. But local officials who condone such operations as a way of boosting their local economies are seldom punished. Nor are officials who turn a blind eye to polluting industries, unless they cause big accidents or trigger unrest. Transgressions are so widespread that it would be destabilising to launch a crackdown. But just to make sure that career-damaging information does not reach Beijing, local governments often arrest petitioners who travel to the capital to raise complaints.
Central leaders are comforted by the knowledge that direct political challenges to their authority by local governments are extremely rare. Li Fan, an independent consultant in Beijing who advises local governments on election-related issues, says there is strong demand among lower-level officials for political reform. But very few rural townships have pushed experiments with freer elections or more open government beyond the party's guidelines. And none has tolerated organised opposition or open attacks on the party leadership. China's local leaders know where to draw the line.
Friday catblogging!
Finally, I get to participate in Friday catblogging, invented/popularized by Kevin Drum, whose blog I scarcely read except for the cute cat photos.
We adopted a kitten from Animal Rescue Beijing a couple weeks ago. Her name is 美美 (meimei, pronounced may-may) and she's nearly a year old, or so we guess from her size. I was persuaded to adopt her by the kindly lady below, who says she rescued Meimei herself from the streets of Hainan, a tropical island off of China's southern coast. Meimei had apparently been living off scraps of food discarded by people at a street food stand. Her leg has healed completely, so despite her "handicap," she regularly tears up the apartment each night, sleeping during the day (see photo above).
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Beijing Swings!
terpsichorean (turp-si-kuh-REE-uhn, turp-si-KOR-ee-uhn, -KORE-)
The word Terpsichore is the feminine form of terpsichoros (delighting in the dance), a combination of Greek terpein (to delight) and khoros (dance), which is ultimately from Indo-European root gher- (to grasp or to enclose) that's also the source of chorus, carol, choir, garth, court, and garden.]
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To my delight, Beijing has a lively swing & lindy hop scene! Jeremy and I went last Thursday and I went again on Monday. Even though I've been away from swing dancing for a good while, it was wonderful. It was as close to Stanford as I'd seen in a long time - just on a smaller scale, with more Chinese thrown in.
- adjective: Of or relating to dancing.
- noun: A dancer.
The word Terpsichore is the feminine form of terpsichoros (delighting in the dance), a combination of Greek terpein (to delight) and khoros (dance), which is ultimately from Indo-European root gher- (to grasp or to enclose) that's also the source of chorus, carol, choir, garth, court, and garden.]
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To my delight, Beijing has a lively swing & lindy hop scene! Jeremy and I went last Thursday and I went again on Monday. Even though I've been away from swing dancing for a good while, it was wonderful. It was as close to Stanford as I'd seen in a long time - just on a smaller scale, with more Chinese thrown in.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
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