The Point

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Ravenous smokestack

A view crossing the Yangtze River in Sichuan Province, China

The New York Times published a brilliant series of written, audio and video pieces this weekend on the costs of the outrageous pace of China's economic growth. It is poignant to see in bold headlines in an American paper the kinds of problems that surround you every day in China but are still minor heresies to complain loudly about.

Chief among these costs, of course, is the nightmarish levels of pollution and environmental degradation, still climbing. A doctor told me that Chengdu, whose air seems alpine by comparison to Beijing, is still so toxic that just breathing is the equivalent of sucking back a pack a day. Some public response is mounting, but where are the strong and powerful voices pushing for change?


Why are we unable to change the way we live until catastrophe strikes (and sometimes not even then)? Many of these crises are forseeable years, even decades before they happen. Why are we unable to plan ahead for the calculable costs of self-destruction?


This slideshow is worth watching just for the music by (evidently Canadian-born) Rasputina cellist Zoe Keating.

Edit: Every time I get burned by linking to that website. Why do I keep forgetting how quickly their free-ness disappears?

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posted by Christopher at 11:43 a.m. | link | 0 comments

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Out of the West

In case you haven't heard, this Tuesday marked the retirement of one of the best blogs around: The Prairie Wrangler. Olaf, its genuinely witty writer, is retiring from the wide wide world of blogging to pursue the nebulous world of "development in Africa."

If you've never had a chance to read The Prairie Wrangler, start wandering through the archives now. Olaf has an amazing talent for taking conventional wisdom in Canadian politics and turning it on its head. There aren't many bloggers this genuinely readable who are writing about interesting, challenging ideas. I don't think it's a coincidence that he is also one of that rare breed of hard-to-categorise Albertan political observers that don't fit onto a narrow Liberal-Conservative spectrum (and frankly, it's a spectrum that should be taken out back and buried quietly anyway). I personally found myself disagreeing frequently with his perspectives on gender equality battles, the remarkable impotence of Stephane Dion's Liberals, and gullible newsish-types who are willing to swallow any press release that agrees with their prejudices. But I always left with something to think about.

I hope a little bit of that remarkable spirit carries through in my own writing. It's a great legacy you've left us, Olaf. Happy trails.

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posted by Christopher at 7:09 p.m. | link | 0 comments

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Ping this

Check out this article from ultra-cool Tokyo design mag PingMag on their top-10 ad tricks on the Tokyo subway. My favourite? The escalator handrail with scannable codes for your cellphone to tell you all about the shop, restaurant or "place of interest" they describe.

An ad for a loan company disguised as a handrail disguised as a tie (Photo by Maris Mezulis)

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posted by Christopher at 1:48 p.m. | link | 0 comments

Monday, August 20, 2007

We can do it

.
One thing you can do right now - ten seconds - to stand in solidarity with someone who needs it:

Pegah Emambakhsh (thankful for taking that basic Persian class when I try to pronounce that name), an Iranian national, came to the UK in 2005 requesting political asylum on the basis of persecution back home for what the Islamic Republic of Iran sees as the crime of her homosexuality. She risks certain imprisonment and the possibility of execution in Iran if she returns.

Despite repeated appeals, her claim was rejected on August 13th and she was due to be deported shortly afterward. Hours before she was supposed to board her flight, immigration services over there apparently had a change of heart and she was brought back to Yarlswood detention centre, where she is now being held. Evidently this has much to do the growing body of people protesting her deportation and the intervention of a local MP.


Much has been made on other blogs of the particular method of execution which will apparently be invoked: stoning. I don't know if this is because it seems more visceral than a friendly needle in the arm or to stir up some distant collective bells ringing in our brains between (justifiably) much-reviled fundamentalist Islamic governments and stoning. The apparent cause of the rejection of her application for asylum seems to me a particularly stinging slap in the face. I say this very comfortably willing to challenge anyone who'd dare stand up and say one should be "demonstrably" lesbian. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is helpful in this regard, but I've got some fight in me to do it on my own.


Helen Todd has begun an online petition in Pegah's support
here.

Thank you to Arsham Parsi for the tip-off and Spartakus for posting the uncredited photo.

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posted by Christopher at 6:48 p.m. | link | 3 comments

A request

Definitely at cross-purpose to (half-hearted) efforts to eat locally...

If anyone has a recipe for this Hakka dish with papaya and red beans stashed away in a cupboard or jewelry box somewhere, could you let me know? Much appreciated.
posted by Christopher at 2:15 p.m. | link | 0 comments

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Sappy pappy

You should probably know that one of my greatest pleasures in life is listening to Mando-pop superstar Wang Leehom (AKA Leehom, AKA 王力宏, etc etc). In fact, as you're reading this, it would not be unreasonable to imagine me writing this post and shimmying in small movements back and forth to the infectious wonder that is Xin Zhong De Ri Yue, his second-last album. Yes, that was me you recognised in line with 20 000 weeping Chinese girls when it came out, waiting hours and hours to get him to sign my copy at So Show shopping centre.

But like all good Chinese pop stars, Leehom doesn't just make music. No, he also makes movies (one of which, coming out soon, looks like it might actually be worth watching). And does ads for things. A lot of things. For anything bloody company that will flash him a wad of cash and a bit of leg, to be honest.

I've known this as long as I've been listening to him (not decades). I've even got an mp3 of the awful piece of corporate shite he did for McDonald's, Wo Jiu Xihuan. But it still broke my heart when I saw him grinning back at me for the first time a few months ago from Wahaha bottled water. Bottled water? Really? From a man who talks up environmental responsibility and just released his first "green album"?

But then again, the situation around bottled water here in North America isn't the same as over in China. Here, unless you have been totally misled about the quality of what's coming out of your tap, you know that you more than likely have access to some of the cleanest, safest water in the world, and for less than pennies per liter. From a tap! In your house! We drink bottled water because it's more convenient than planning ahead to bring some when we go out, because pretty much every alternative at the vending machine is bad for you, and because... well, because it's everywhere.

In China, people usually drink it because they're going to get sick if they drink the tap water without boiling it, because it still has that sheen of luxury to it, and because the other popular alternative for middle class urban families is getting it by the jug for your cooler, which isn't quite as toteable or stylish. But despite Wang Leehom's undeniable marketing appeal, it's still absurdly unaffordable for many millions more than all us Canucks up here gurgling cheerfully.

We have a lot to be thankful for.

This hit me watching Michael Moore's new documentary Sicko with my friend Angela the other day. I honestly did not realise how fortunate we are to have universal health care in Canada. There are a nightmarish litany of agonising choices we will never have to make, crippling debts we will never have to find ourselves in when we get sick, because we have decided, collectively, that it's up to all of us to take care of each other when we do. And I am so grateful for it. (Look! Maybe the Globe and Mail just watched Sicko the other day too. I am imagining a big pajama party. Dozens of journalists in Winnie the Pooh fleece bottoms, with twizzlers, notepads, and Orville Reddenbacher. I am imagining Rex Murphy not amused).

We're racist, ignorant, selfish, and short-sighted in many ways. We have a lot of history to come to terms with, and a lot of problems to overcome ahead of us. But on the whole, I think I'm having a Margaret Wente moment; a genuine appreciation for what battles have been brought to bring us where we are today, to a place where, for the most part, we take care of each other and we get along. I am constantly learning how truly remarkable those things are.

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posted by Christopher at 4:45 p.m. | link | 0 comments

Friday, August 10, 2007

Worth mentioning

I'd like to offer a long-overdue unexplaination for my extended absence: I have spent the semester studying away and over in China. In case that wasn't clear from the picture on the last post of the great big PLA tank being greeted by throngs of Hong Kongers at the 1997 handover to the People's Republic. When we left off, I wasn't sure it'd be a good idea to keep up a blog writing about the things I'd like to while a guest of PRC government. If there does indeed come a time to get thrown in jail for my writing some day, I'd at least like to achieve some basic fluency in the local language of my toothlessly grinning, merciless captors. My Mandarin, sadly, lacks any real grace or wit at the moment.

Which is probably all for the best, because Blogger just happens to be blocked a good deal of the time on the Mainland anyway. Along with the BBC, anything remotely originating in Taiwan, a great fistful of human rights websites, and - on a number of university campuses - our beloved Wikipedia. You don't know what it is to search for information and have no excuse to while away (wile away?) the hours clicking through chronologies of Bill Murray's hairdressers, disco influences on 1980s Hindi music, and Swedish shipwrecks.


More to the point, it is frustrating to live in a country where meaningful debate about broad issues in society is dictated by what a handful of smiling, ideologically-bent old veterans in Beijing allow people to debate about. This is equal parts 11 o'clock news and ingrained dislike for boat rocking. Given the massive upheavals China has gone through over the past century it is perhaps understandable, this nationwide aversion to having (or taking) responsibility decision-making. But there are a few voices putting up an intelligent fight to get the information out to help people make those decisions, and I would really like to bring your attention to one of them.

China Dialogue, whose Chinese name, 中外对话, actually means something closer to "China-Rest of world Dialogue," is a really really brilliant website focussing on the relationships between China's environment, economy, society and politics, and has a really and truly unique way of bringing other countries into the picture too. The tone of the site is very accessible for general laypeople (such as myself), even on the heavy sciencey articles, but the best part, and the most critical, is that it features side-by-side translations of comments and articles in English and Chinese throughout the site, opening a real dialogue between what otherwise might as well be two separate worlds: China and "The rest of us."

I was initially attracted to the site because one of their regular contributors is Ma Jun, author of a book called China's Water Crisis, which I was unable to track down a copy of over there but which is available in English overseas. I stayed because the writers, based out of London and Beijing offices, are frank about China's challenges in a way that is almost never presented in other media. They are not the sort of writers letting out banners over sections of the Great Wall shouting Freedom 2008!.

But this is a website run by people who understand that putting up signs on mountains doesn't do much more good than assauging some Western egos. The sentiment of solidarity behind this kind of protest is great. China does not lack for oppressed minorities, and it's a brave thing to do. But seriously... besides expats reading English-language news through proxy servers, nobody on the Mainland is ever going to hear about that stuff in China. I may be vastly under-estimating the power of the Tibetan grapevine here. But I really think real change starts with information and empowerment, and China Dialogue's got that in spades. You can definitely expect it to come up as a source now and again in the future.

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posted by Christopher at 1:02 a.m. | link | 0 comments

Friday, August 03, 2007

Red Menace


I'm back! Like a proud legion of patriots rightfully retaking the motherland, I've re-invaded The Point and am looking straight into the glaring red dawn of a new era. I wanted to compel you to click the little RSS button on the left to keep up on... the loop..., but it's disappeared for the moment and I'm crap with HTML, so do come back over the next few days, when I may or may not be posting on...
And more! Forgive me for my absence?

Yours,
Christopher
posted by Christopher at 10:22 a.m. | link | 0 comments
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