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A new look for the Beijing Morning Post

suggest@danwei.org (Joel Martinsen) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:27:21 +0700

Beijing Morning Post
November 20, 2009

The Beijing Morning Post, a daily published by the Beijing Daily Group, underwent a major redesign this week, switching from broadsheet to tabloid format and thoroughly overhauling its content.

Established on July 20, 1998, the Beijing Morning Post was the capital's first commercial morning paper and became the first to print in full color. But in today's newspaper landscape, it has to contend with the much more visible and influential Beijing Youth Daily and The Beijing News without the security of an exclusive distribution deal like the one the Beijing Daily Messenger has with the subway system.

The switch to a smaller format is reportedly intended to make the paper easier for commuters to read.

On today's front page is a photo of Zhang Hui greeting the public after winning his lawsuit against a traffic law enforcement squad in Shanghai's Minhang District Court.

On September 8, Zhang thought he was doing a good deed by giving a ride to a man complaining of stomach pains who flagged him down at the side of the road, but he ended up being slapped with a 10,000 yuan fine for operating an unregistered taxi. Zhang's ordeal turned the attention of the online and offline media onto the local squads' practice of offering rewards to civilians who turned in illegal cabs. Many critics found that the techniques used constituted entrapment.

Although the authorities retracted the fine on October 26, Zhang pressed on with his lawsuit to help other victims gain justice.

Zhang's victory means that the Minhang district traffic enforcement squad will pay his 50-yuan filing fee.

Links and Sources

Beijing Morning Post (Chinese): November 17, November 18
Beijing Morning Post via QQ (Chinese): Redesign for Beijing Morning
China Daily: 'Taxi' entrapment was illegal, court rules

Tags: Beijing Morning Post, redesign, Zhang Hui

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The case of the missing Obama front page

suggest@danwei.org (Jeremy Goldkorn) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:39:59 +0700

Southern Weekly
November 19, 2009

The Southern Weekly, one of China's more aggressively investigative newspapers, was the only print media outlet to get an interview with Obama. Central government controlled Xinhua and CCTV did not get one-on-one interviews with the American president.

The interview was published in this week's issue which came out today.

You can read a translation into English of the interview on Daily Telegraph Shanghai correspondent Malcolm's Moore's blog.

This afternoon, several journalists and news assistants at foreign media organizations reported on Twitter that their copies of the paper arrived today without the front page, on the back of which was the Obama interview. As Malcolm Moore points out, the interview "appears to have been carefully checked by the Propaganda ministry. Nothing controversial was published."

So who removed the front pages from the news bureaux' subscription copies, and why?

Who knows, but well-known Chinese journalist and blogger Michael Anti noted "Media, if you wanna understand complexity of Southern Weekend's Obama interview, pls translate this tweet"

Obama interview

Rendered into English (with some help from Anti), the tweet in question by shifeike is:

Analysis of the results of Southern Weekly's intimate contact with Obama: The Central Publicity (neé Propaganda) Department is furious, state media is jealous, Southern Weekly is wild with joy, the Guangdong Party secretary is nervous, Southern Weekly editor Xiang Xi cried hard to get a new big chance, [former editor of Caijing Hu] Shuli is depressed.   

The front page is also notable for the large in-house advertisement at the bottom that reads:

"It's not every issue we have an exclusive interview, but you can come here every week to understand China".

Update: The Wall Street Journal's Jason Dean has more about the missing front page.

Update (2009.11.20): Obama wrote a short note to the newspaper:

To the Southern Weekly and its readers ——

I look forward to continuing the ties between our two countries, and congratulate you for contributing to the analysis and flow of vital policy information. An educated citizenry is the key to an effective government, and a free press contributes to that well-informed citizenry.

Was it intended to be printed alongside the interview, in one spots occupied by the bottom-page ads? (JM)

Links and Sources

Southern Weekly (Chinese): Obama interview
Malcolm Moore's blog on Daily Telegraph: Barack Obama's exclusive interview with the Chinese media

Tags: Barack Obama, Southern Weekly

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All Obama all the time

suggest@danwei.org (Joel Martinsen) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:20:45 +0700

People's Daily
November 18, 2009

US President Barack Obama's visit to China was the only news worth reporting today, at least according to the front page of the People's Daily (and the Guangming Daily, which shared the same layout).

Today's front page headlines:

· President Hu Jintao hosts ceremony to welcome US President Obama to China
· Hu Jintao meets with US President Obama
· Hu and Obama meet the press
· China and US issue joint statement
· President Hu hosts banquet to welcome President Obama
· Wu Bangguo meets with US President Obama

Four accompanying photos illustrate the two presidents' activities.

These and other exciting stories from today's People's Daily can be found on the paper's English-language website.

Tags: Barack Obama, Hu Jintao, People's Daily

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2012: a disaster movie not suitable for children

suggest@danwei.org (Joel Martinsen) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:38:20 +0700

Chengdu Evening News
November 17, 2009

Today's Chengdu Evening News aims to stir up some controversy with a feature on the new disaster movie 2012, which opened last week.

"Should 2012 be stopped?" asks the headline at the bottom of the page.

Hong Jiantao (洪剑涛), an actor best known for his role in a sitcom about military cooks, had such a strong reaction to the film that he called for it to be pulled from screens. He posted the following to his blog at 6:21 in the morning of November 14:

When I finished watching the movie I regretted it, particularly for the additional mistake of bringing a child with me. This is a movie cooked up out of ancient rumors, so let's not discuss whether or not is finely crafted or impressive! Let's speak only of its social influence: it really is far too shocking. I've read reports over the past few days saying that the movie caused a panic — and even suicides — in some places it was shown. I didn't believe it, and thought all that was simply commercial hype. But ever since 9:30 last night when I finished watching the film, I haven't been able to get to sleep. I'll nod off for a few moments but then I'm startled awake by my dreams, which consist entirely of horrifying scenes. Overseas, this film would definitely be given a restricted rating, but our cinemas have not done that. Instead, they've been shouting all the way to the box office. They don't stop any children from watching. I'm an insider in this line of work, and I know full well that it's just a story and that everything on the screen is created on a computer, but I could still not help being convinced that disaster was really about to strike. Really, you absolutely cannot take children with you to watch this movie. A teenage girl sitting behind me was so scared she started crying, and my own palms were slick with a cold sweat. I advise the departments in charge of film to strictly limit the age of audiences who watch the film, and they ought to warn audience members with weak hearts to avoid going. Future generations should not have to face the future with hopelessness and decadence for the sake of a miniscule speck of profit. And the treatment of China in the film, both scenes and dialogue, were not friendly, and could even be seen as mocking. I home that my words may be echoed by netizens in general and reach the attention of the those in charge of film administration.

Although China's portrayal in 2012 has generally been seen as positive, the decision to make the country's citizens and military instrumental in a plan to salvage the remnants of humanity has also been interpreted as a cynical ploy on the part of the film-makers for a large box office in China.

Additionally, some critics have pointed out that China's role in the plot is to provide massive amounts of manpower in the form of unskilled laborers who not qualified to be saved on the arks they themselves help to build.

The newspaper report quotes a few sentences from a blog post by Tan Fei, a well-known film critic. Tan laughed off Hong's warning about the dangers of 2012 and put his own spin on the portrayal of the PRC:

Going to watch 2012 because it's positive about China is a little bit simple and naive, and it depreciates the People's Currency. All films that China screens promote the country, so why don't you go buy a ticket to one of them? Is it the domestic vs. foreign distinction? A foreigner may have given you a tiny compliment, but don't smile till your face falls off. That's the "love for kind words from foreigners" type. But it's not the only one. I saw on the blog of an actor named Hong Jiantao a call to stop screening 2012. He's a "fragile nerves" type. Take a look at Hong's rationale: everyone gets scared, their heartbeat quickens, and a teenage girl starts crying. Since China doesn't have a film ratings system, Hong decides to unilaterally classify 2012 as unsuitable for children. This all sounds very nice, and could help hospitals by reducing the number of coronary care patients, but it's actually a double standard. Are Curse of the Golden Flower, City of Life and Death, The Message, and Wheat, with their indiscriminate killing and torture, unsuitable for children, or is 2012? When those movies were screened, lots of children were uncomfortable and cried, so why didn't Hong stand up and say something? The fright from 2012 is basically that of a roller coaster, not the bungee jump that actor Hong describes. So before taking it off screens, you've first got to stop all roller coasters in amusement parks.

Tan concludes:

2012 is making money off of global disaster, and as a citizen of a socialist country, I oppose this purely mercantilist approach. But in this society, there are far too many technologically inferior commercial products who want to make money off of us. 2012 at least offers us many interesting things, leads to a lot of ideas, and extends a good deal of goodwill in exchange for our money, and for this we ought to be a bit more forgiving.

Links and Sources

Chengdu Evening News (Chinese): Should 2012 be pulled for frightening a young girl to tears?
Hong Jiantao's blog (Chinese): I advise putting a halt to 2012
Tan Fei's blog (Chinese): 2012's got its own reasons
Further reading: ESWN translates an Apple Daily piece on the pro-China leanings of the movie

Tags: 2012, Chengdu Evening News, movie ratings, movies

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In New York: Contemporary heroes from China's music scene

suggest@danwei.org (Alice Xin Liu) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:30:17 +0700

Carsick Cars taken from Sound Kapital. Credit: Matthew Niederhauser

This postcard from New York (via Beijing) was contributed by Nick Frisch

Last week, New York witnessed an astonishing wave of Chinese music – or two overlapping waves, to be precise. Best-known to Danwei readers might be D-22 club staples Carsick Cars, PK 14, and Xiao He. They kicked off their inaugural tour of the US playing two book launches in New York on Wednesday and Thursday (full disclosure: your correspondent authored a chapter in one of the books). By Friday night, indie New York was buzzing and the bands packed venues in Brooklyn and lower Manhattan before taking their tour national.

At the über-hipster Glasslands venue in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg, one bearded, bespectacled bouncer looked positively astonished: “I’ve never seen a crowd like this. There’s a line out the door!” Another source of astonishment: “Wow! There are Chinese kids with tight pants and guitars who play music like our music!” Indeed; though Glasslands was certainly the hipsterati’s spot to see and be seen last Friday, it wasn’t immediately apparent that the crowd’s appreciation rose beyond the “Woah! Dude! Novelty! Cachet! China’s hip!” level.

PK14 taken from Sound Kapital. Credit: Matthew Niederhauser

More’s the pity: following the always-entertaining, always-gruff Xiao He, PK 14 turned in a terrific set. Carsick Cars, darlings and avatars of the Beijing scene, came off a bit lackluster compared to some recent D-22 and Yugong Yishan shows. But you wouldn’t have known it from the chatter in the crowd: scenesters know a hot trend when they see one, and lavished more praise than was really called for. But Jeffray Zhang and his band finished strong: their signature closing anthem “Zhongnanhai” brought forth a shower of unlit cigarettes to the stage, a sure sign of Beijing rock savants in the crowd.

Meanwhile, in the higher-toned confines of Carnegie Hall (full disclosure, again: this writer was in town working for them), that prestigious institution was wrapping up its “Ancient Paths, Modern Voices” China festival, which concluded Tuesday night. The program represented several generations of artists who learned their craft at Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music. The legendary “class of 1978,” named for the year they started at the just-reopened school, included big names like Tan Dun, Chen Qigang (of Olympic ceremony fame), Chen Yi, and Zhou Long. Of more recent Central Conservatory vintage was Lang Lang, who played Rachmaninov’s 2nd Piano Concerto during Tuesday night’s festival finale. And at the youngest extreme, Li Shaosheng – born in 1988 – had a piece premiered in Alice Tully Hall under Carnegie’s aegis. Carnegie’s PR machine worked overtime, scoring several glowing reviews from the New York Times.

Carnegie Hall decked out with Chinese lanterns

The week’s only letdown: your correspondent, blessed with several extra tickets, wasn’t able to find mutually convenient times to bring any Carnegie musicians to Beijing rock shows, or Beijing rockers over to Carnegie. This is all the more disappointing as Beijing represents crossover possibilities that once seemed so distant in New York City, where for many postwar decades musicians were bitterly divided between the academy-based, audience-hostile uptown faction and the rock-composition oriented downtown faction. Beijing’s academic musicians and experimental-rocker types often take great pains to distance themselves from the opposing camp – noise musician Yan Jun, for instance, rails against the academy, while many CCoM musicians profess a deep and true ignorance of Beijing’s music scene – but the truth is that they are never more than a degree or two of separation apart.

Carsick Cars’ Zhang, for instance, composed a chamber piece for the Beijing New Music Ensemble. CCoM-trained qin player Wu Na regularly works with Beijing’s grittier, anti-establishment experimental musicians. Fittingly, there has been some recent talk of Zhang possibly writing music for Bang on a Can, the New York ensemble that made a splash in 1980s when they started inviting musicians from the city’s fighting factions to perform at the same concerts. Even more fittingly, Bang on a Can visited Beijing last month. After their marquee show in the swanky Poly Theater as part of the Beijing Music Festival, they showed up for a surprise show at D-22.

So China’s classical-rock gap remained wider in New York City than it is in Beijing, at least for now. But hope always remains: given the rapturous reception both received, though, it might not be too long before New York sees another wave of Chinese music, with Beijing as its most prolific source.

Links and Sources

Matthew Niederhauser photography: Beijing Live; D22 Portraits
Time Out magazine New York: Beijing’s experimental rock scene arrives in New York City
New York Times Weekly Popcast: P.K. 14 and Carsick Cars

Tags: bands, Lang Lang, Nick Frisch, rock music, Sound Kapital

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Tian Zhuangzhuang: The film world as mafia and commerical models of film

suggest@danwei.org (Alice Xin Liu) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:40:32 +0700

Tian Zhuangzhuang's earlier films, including The Horse Thief (盗马贼), On Hunting Ground (猎场札撒) were well received and put him in the category of "ethnic minority" film directors. However, after making The Blue Kite (蓝风筝), which dealt with the Cultural Revolution era, he was forced to stop making films for ten years. He headed back to the Beijing Film Academy, his Alma mater, where he remains a professor.

Tian's new film, The Warrior and the Wolf (狼灾记) is based on a short story by Japanese writer Yasushi Inoue (井上靖), part of the collection Tunhuang, named after China's western region.

Yasushi Inoue wrote from a deep interest in China and its ancient history, creating fiction that stemmed from his knowledge of the country. He also participated in national level Sino-Japanese events. Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien (侯孝贤) suggested The Warrior and the Wolf to Tian Zhuangzhuang, but it took ten years to complete his thought processes on the film; it wasn't political like The Blue Kite, but it was erotic. The protagonists, a war general of the Warring States period, and an ethnic minority widow, engage in seven days of sexual passion until they turn into wolves.

Time Weekly interviewed Tian and wrote about the film before its release last month and ran an interview with Tian, in which he talked about the commercial aspect of film in China and the film industry as a kind of mafia.

Not only was The Warrior and the Wolf discussed, but so was Tian's position as one of the least commercial directors in China and whether this was undermined by his new film.

The interview is translated below.

Time Weekly: You have constantly talked about your “changing directions” but the actors and the storyline of The Warrior and The Wolf feels a little like a commercial film, how do you see this drop between the production and the audience?
Tian Zhuangzhuang: The ideas of the person making the films and those watching the films are different, the former is about making films in a very professional way. Filmmakers have to keep their individuality as much as possible within the confines of the profession, examples are Zhang Yimou’s Hero and Jia Zhangke’s Still Life, these two films are completely different, but both directors were very professional, so investors will approve, and the market will also approve. If Jia Zhangke used the budget for House of Flying Daggers to make Still Life then it’s obvious that the money is dirty money, but if Zhang Yimou used the money for Still Life to make House of Flying Daggers, I think he'd only be able to make a knock-off version. The profession of an investor is to find the best combination for attracting an audience, complete the film within the budget and then realize anticipations in the market. So Old Jiang (Jiang Zhiqiang 江志强) set out the team and actors for The Warrior and the Wolf from the position of an investor; he has his own ideas.

TW: You once said that “whatever the subject matter, if I do it I can't make it commercial.” Won’t investors get nervous?
Tian: Actually I was too simple in my discussions about commercialism, I was simplifying too much. Commercialism is something that can be professionalized, and this
kind of “professionalization” can have many, many forms. If you dissected Hollywood's commercial films, it depicts emotions, history, and inspiration. If we analyzed carefully it’s easy to see that there aren’t too many commercial factors there, and there isn’t a lot of technical skill, for example, in The Bridges of Madison Country, Pulp Fiction: how could they be counted as commercial films? They’re so against the norm! There aren’t any huge stars, or a structure, but why did so many people watch it? Why did it sell so well?

TW: At the moment we are beginning to copy the commercial model found in Hollywood, for example in Kungfu Cyborg and Sophie’s Revenge.
Tian: Kungfu Cyborg claims a lot from films like Transformers, Spiderman, The Terminator in terms of production, structure, story. But no matter how good it is at claiming this it won’t be a good movie. It isn’t because Chinese filmmakers aren’t good, but because it’s not what the Chinese mainstream markets want. Why? On Transformers, the Transformers cartoon entered the Chinese market twenty years ago, after a while, Transformers toys were released, and an Optimus Prime toy cost around 180 yuan. In the end the China version started to appear… After Transformers brought so much to China, the film arrived after a very long time. In these twenty years it has already concerned so many people, how many people are still chasing after them? A friend of mine is a successful businessman, he’s really into Bumblebee, when he heard the film had Bumblebee he wanted to see Transformers straight away.

TW: Is it because the history of the film market has been short that there are so few films like this one?
Tian: I don’t think the market of Chinese mainland cinema has completely formed, even now. When there isn’t even a bit of law, what kind of market can it have? Isn’t this speaking nonsense? Only after there is law, can the production and selling of products be guaranteed, otherwise you can get a product to halt at any point, you can stop the selling of a product at any point. If there was law, then from the beginning I can register, then produce, and in this process decide what kind of movie to make according to the requirements of the market. And as I go through a quality authentication process I have the right to survive. Instead no-one will, after spending one more ten million yuan, say, “Sorry, it won’t sell,” making everything done in vain: this isn’t reasonable. I think this law thing is too big and we're the ones who can control it, maybe in China you’ll talk about it for a hundred years but still it won’t be clear.

TW: At the same time as accelerating the market-orientation of film, the artistic masters that people recognize as accomplished will become fewer and fewer.
Tian: Intellectuals hope that at some stage a master will appear, they even hope to discover a master, or be in the same generation as a master: this is actually really interesting. Masters are like accountants, the sums which are wrong have to be canceled. When everything is waiting to be improved is when a great master should emerge to tidy the ideas, just as Chairman Mao did. But right we're at a time when a master isn't needed, because everything follows a process. From liberation up until now, if a good maker can appear in this high level process, that’s be very strange. Perhaps you wouldn’t agree, but I think that since the fifties, there have been many good films, but mainland films that can really be passed down, I don’t think there are that many.

TW: In the last few years, have there been any mainland films that you’ve really liked?
Tian: It’s really hard to find, there really hasn’t been any that I’ve thought were really great and could be used in a textbook. There are some that I think are OK, but there are also a lot of impurities in the films.

TW: Do Mandarin films that have won international awards over the past few years count?
Tian: Do you think international film festivals now are the same as before? I think after the 8th session of some festival, everything changes, after it changes president it changes, if you count all the films in the Cannes festival, in every six or seven years something amazing would emerge. You don’t even want to look at Venice or Berlin, it’s all the same. So don’t take film festivals seriously, I think festivals are a stage for popularizing films, it becomes about popularizing a group of films, in reality all the international film festivals are just about making an inventory of the films from each country in the world.

TW: Your Blue Kite, Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine, Zhang Yimou’s To Live, Jia Zhangke’s Xiao Wu: aren’t these classics?
Tian: They’re still not good enough. A classic film is judged from the point of view of historical value, another is the judged from the story's refinement. Some of these films could be glorious at a certain period in history, but after eight or ten years you might spot some problems. For example, at the time when Yellow Earth was at its most popular, somebody wrote a review and said when he watched it a third time he suddenly denied the beliefs that he had about the film the first time, because the first time he watched it he was completely bowled over by its innovative form, but when he watched it a second and third time, he calmed down and saw many problems to do with the film. Many films in China have a certain potential, but that’s only a “Zisha teapot.” From the realms of philosophy, a timeless “master” films that is noted down in history has not been achieved here yet. Including Xiao Wu, it’s also the “Zisha teapot” of that era, but it’s not the epitome. Wang Xiaoshuai’s The Days, Gu Changwei’s Peacock are the same. The real master films, the power that it gives off, fuck, isn’t something that you can recover from in three or five days, you can’t watch that kind of film all the time, it’s bad for you health. You have to eat well, drink plenty, and then find some time to watch one; you won’t be able to stand it if you watched every day.

TW: A little while ago, Wang Xiaoshuai said that it was as if the whole Sixth Generation has been ditched by the market. What do you think?
Tian: There is a problem of choice here: if the director has chosen to join the hundred million yuan box office club, he needs a good producer and a good system that’s backing him, because they'll have to spend a lot of money to cooperate, then you will float to the top; otherwise choose something that is important to a few people, but once you have chosen then you can’t say to the market, "Why aren’t you showing my films," because you have already abandoned the principles of the market; another situation is that you put one feet here and the other over there. If both these boats are sailing parallel then it can take you along for a while, but if it separates, then you're going to fall. Of course this is largely related to the system for film in China and the film industry, if we’re being more precise then you have to more self-regulated. It’s enough for you to try your best, and not have so many complaints. If in this life you want to live in a nice house, and have clouds of beautiful girls follow you, then use film to make money, and don’t take yourself so seriously. If you don’t want to use money to make money, then don’t complain that no-one will invest in your film. You can find a DV and go film something, you can record you great ideas, after eight or ten years perhaps someone will discover that you were a great master and that we didn’t discover.

TW: It would be impossible for someone to want to make a good film, think about how to attract people to come and see it, and make sure money is still in their pocket.
Tian: I heard a little while back, someone talked about fights at the Shanghai Film Festival, this and that. I'm not blaming anyone but I think everyone chooses their position well. We're already at the top of a mountain, but then think that someone else’s mountain is higher. If you really don’t think yours is very good then take a stroll to theirs, when you come back you’ll see that your mountain has disappeared, or that it’s full of people, and you can never come down again. I don’t like people in the circle being competitive like this, the easiest principle is this: one chopstick is easily broken, but a bunch of chopsticks is not easily broken.

TW: So you chose to go back to university and teach.
Tian: Going to a university was a very personal idea of mine. At that time all the film directors in China, the ones who even had a little influence, didn’t want anything to do with each other, unless they were insulting someone, they didn’t want anything to do with anyone. When they see each other they say hello, and they act really well. In reality they’re not really supportive of one another, and they don’t contact each other very much. Then they live on a mountain themselves, not bothering to improve themselves, supporting a whole group of people, who treat them like God, praising them day and night; this is a bit of a boring gang-formation, it’s like the mafia.

TW: Even though you don't like the film world, but you have helped Wang Xiaoshuai, Jia Zhangke and other Sixth Generation directors to do a lot of work.
Tian: The first reason I went back to teach was I wanted to know what young people were thinking about, because I would be fooling around at university every day with the students; secondly you might get to know some things on the front line of film; thirdly I have been around for so long, I should know the distance between production and teaching. The level in between has become like a ditch, and I have been thinking about whether I could build a bridge.

TW: What is it like being at the front line of teaching?
Tian: Being at the university is really important, as it’s responsible for the popularizing of film, but it's not responsible for the future, especially those studying to be a director. I now hope that there will be more teaching methods, for example they should study planning, assistant director, logging, editing, the software that you need for editing, which means that it would be a problem if you didn’t understand English. I think you should learn these things if you want to be a director, at least when you graduate you’ll have proficiency in a certain skill, and can at least earn some money to live on. If anyone asks if you could keep a log, then you can say that yes, you can, and you know what kind of log sheets Americans use and which ones Chinese people use. You can work, and others will say that they can use you. If you stay in the crew and find some time to write a script, then you might meet a good friend who might get together with you and slowly you might have an opportunity to make it, then you might become a director.

TW: It’s hard nowadays compared to how it used to be and make a film after studying for four years.
Tian: No-one in the world can make a film after studying only for four years, there was only one such example in the Fifth Generation, which cannot be copied. In my time, I made three films in two years, but the society I was living in at that time, I was slicker than my teachers, my social experiences were a lot better than my teachers’, so my judgment on many things, my way of solving them was also more varied and stronger than my teachers. For the fourth generation they need even less time, because they are confused between the emotional and rational, our generation has developed by trying to help support our family, I know how to work, if you gave me a job I can do it really well. If I do it well then next time I’ll still have work to do.

TW: You have to live in a society for a long time before you can become a director?
Tian: I have counted: it takes at least five years. Before Xiaoshuai graduated, Qi Shu wrote to me from Hong Kong to say that the director of The Days was really good, and asked if I could help him. So I asked him to come see me. At the time he was good friends with Lou Ye, and they came to see me together. There was a friend who wanted to make a film, so I asked the two of them to get together a script. They came to live at the hotel at China Film Studios and spent a long time there on the script. When it was ready my friend was bankrupt and didn’t have the money to make the film anymore. If the script was actually realized it would have been a piece of dog shit, completely fabricated. After four or five years, I went back to the China Film Studio, saw that Xiaoshuai was making So Close to Paradise, and Lou Ye was also writing something, afterward he went to Shanghai to make it, and it was called Don't Be Young. That was after five years, what they had was completely different: they had entered and completed a period of internal struggle － you have to be assistant director, do a bit of this and that, then you have the experience to do something. There is, after all, a process.

TW: I remember that in 2002 in an interview you said that in the next five years the Chinese film market was going to get more interesting. It’s been seven years.
Tian: You are a knowledgeable person, if you want some knowledge, you need deep films such as A City of Sadness by Hou Hsiao-Hsien, but thinking about it objectively, I’m not the same as you; I hope that there is a really good film market in China. When we have this market, perhaps we'll have something like A City of Sadness. When I said “a very interesting five years” I meant the period between the two centuries, from adjustments in the leadership of the government, to China’s economy getting stronger, and the gradual revival of Chinese film. Gradually in the Chinese film circles there was a sprout of the market, then afterward during the explosion period in 2005, ticket sells grew by 25% each year, and large scale cinemas started to appear all over the country. In fact, over a dozen years ago we were planning whether we wanted a summer holiday grade of films or a New Year grade, at the beginning of the ‘90s I had already been to different places designing large-scale cinemas.

TW: You’ve done all of this?
Tian: I’ve done everything, including one time I was also initiating a digital center, and talking about why we had to make a high definition Delamu. It wasn’t about wanting to direct the documentary, but more of it was to understand what was going on with digital film. In the end they gave me a Huabiao Award for “Outstanding Digital Film.” It wasn’t because the Film Bureau liked the film itself, but because it had become the standard for digital film, and it was also the first time the government gave me some recognition. Now there is something to talk about with the Film Bureau. The officials only think that my stuff is a bit extreme, but they know my words are kind and I won’t lie to them.

TW: What kind of suggestions have you made to them?
Tian: When Zhao Shigang (赵实刚) first became the head of the Film Bureau, I said to him, whilst you are in office you build student theaters in universities then that's an achievement. The reason is if you can cultivate a huge group of audience from in the university's fourth years, when they graduate all of these university students will become white-collar workers, and they will go and watch films in the cinema. The number will also be doubled because you need to include a boyfriend or a girlfriend. I said that every year SARFT earns six hundred million yuan, which is then given to different crappy organizations; you might as well make a dependable theater. I got the permission for this but couldn’t carry it through. One reason was we got stuck at the source of the films: what films could we use? Use what you call “Outstanding Domestic Films?” I can’t do this even if you killed me. If we wanted to apply for more foreign film quotas, then we also have to consider whether we want to broadcast it commercially. Also another problem is, this might become a really commercial theater. When we began we needed to have 150 theaters simultaneously, without so many we can’t really begin. But with the facilities and the environment, we calculated that the least we would need was 300,000 yuan per cinema. Who has nothing better to do that put 45 million yuan into an initial investment?

TW: When you think of the film market like this then…
Tian: Yes, all things are proceeding in a process of progress and limitation. It’s the same as pushing a huge rock up a mountain: you’ll be very tired, but when you're pushing this rock, perhaps it goes up a bit, then comes down a bit. But in the end it's going up, before you’ve pushed it up to the top of the mountain, the film industry has already disappeared, the whole world’s film industry has already disappeared. But it will become a different form, in your subconscious you have already accepted it, which has transformed from film. So, none of us should worry what the film market will become.

Links and Sources

Time Weekly via iFeng (Chinese): The film world is just like the mafia
Tania Branigan for The Guardian: Film and politics: it's all in the game

Tags: cinemas, commercial films, The Warrior and the Wolf, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Time Weekly

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A return to normal for storm-hit northern China

suggest@danwei.org (Joel Martinsen) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:37:50 +0700

Yanzhao Evening News
November 16, 2009

US President Barack Obama arrived in Shanghai yesterday, and many of today's papers put him on the front page today. One popular image, shown here on the cover of Yanzhao Evening News, shows Obama carrying an umbrella.

Weather continued to be a big story as the northern half of the country recovers from from the storms of the past week.

The paper's top headline shouts that Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei Province, has mostly returned to normal: the second ring road is drivable again and food prices have stabilized.

The good news means that citizens can enjoy snow sculptures and other wintry delights, like this spectacular shot of mountains outside of the city.

Tags: Barack Obama, snow, Yanzhao Evening News

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Snow in Beijing

suggest@danwei.org (Jeremy Goldkorn) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:10:24 +0700

Slow motion and time lapse video from the last snowfall in Chinese capital, by Janek Zdzarski.

Tags: Beijing, snow

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Obama "townhall" meeting in Shanghai live on Net

suggest@danwei.org (Jeremy Goldkorn) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:38:05 +0700

Obama's "townhall" meeting with Shanghai youth will be streamed live on the Internet at the following URLs: whitehouse.gov/live ， america.gov/mgck and apps.facebook.com/whitehouselive.

欧巴马总统与中国青年面对面: 11月16日，星期一，12:45至14:00。
可通过 whitehouse.gov/live ， america.gov/mgck 或 apps.facebook.com/whitehouselive 观看该活动。

Tags: Obama

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Beijing: Latin teacher wanted

suggest@danwei.org (Jeremy Goldkorn) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 07:47:53 +0700

This is a recruitment advertisement. Please contact the advertiser directly if you are interested. See all job ads.

A librarian at China National Library is seeking a Latin teacher. Please email jhsbook@126.com to apply or for more information.

Tags: jobs, Latin

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To the Chinese media, is Obama "aobama" or "oubama"?

suggest@danwei.org (Joel Martinsen) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:15:35 +0700

Mirror, November 13, 2009

US President Barack Obama will make his first visit to China from November 15-18. To mark the occasion, he's changing his name.

"Obama" is transliterated in the Chinese press as 奥巴马 (àobāmǎ), but a promotional poster distributed yesterday by the US Embassy uses 欧巴马 (ōubāmǎ). Today's Mirror ran a detailed look into the situation:

A Mirror reporter learned from the US Embassy that the use of ōubāmǎ was due to the fact that the transliteration was closer to the English pronunciation than àobāmǎ, which has long been used in the Chinese media.

But on the Embassy's official website, the reporter found that both versions were used in press releases.

But according to Susan Stevenson, press spokesperson for the US Embassy, the US government was standardizing the Chinese translation of the president's name to clear up the current confusion between the two transliterations, and from now on it would use ōubāmǎ exclusively.

The Xinhua News Agency keeps an archive of transliterations, and the Mirror confirmed that, like media organizations across the mainland and in Hong Kong, Xinhua has always rendered Obama as àobāmǎ. But a former polling station volunteer told the newspaper that on Chinese versions of last year's presidential ballot in New York, Obama's name was transliterated as ōubāmǎ.

There are competing Chinese transliterations of "Barack" too, 巴拉克 (bālākè) and 贝拉克 (bèilākè), as the Mirror presents in a somewhat confusing introduction:

Searching for the two versions, this reporter discovered that there is no consensus, even in authoritative media outlets like Xinhua. As is well-known, President Obama has the same name as his father, and "Barack" comes from Swahili, the largest local language in Kenya* and means "blessing from God."

Because the name comes from a local African language, it can be spelled in English as either "Barack" or "Barak." Therefore, both transliterations are possible.

So how should Barack Obama's name be transliterated?

A Mirror reporter spoke to noted ambassador and translator Guo Jiading (current vice-president of the Translators Association of China, former director of the foreign ministry's translation office, and a translator who worked with Zhou Enlai and Dengxiaoping). Guo said that Obama's full name, Barack Hussein Obama, should be pronounced bə'rɑ:k hu:'seɪn oʊ'bɑ:mə. If he were to transliterate it, he would render it as bèilākè hóusàiyīn àobāmǎ (贝拉克·侯赛因·奥巴马). "Xinhua is right. There's no problem there," Guo said.

Rectification of names

The article goes on to discuss how transliterations are decided upon, and under what circumstances they may be changed:

Guo Jiading said that according to standard practice, a name transliteration that has been in use for a while cannot be casually changed; unless Xinhua changes its rendering, the Foreign Ministry will not agree to switch àobāmǎ for ōubāmǎ. He said that the transliteration of Kissinger's name was incorrect — it ought to be 基辛杰 (jīxīnjié) instead of 基辛格 (jīxīngé), but once the mistake was made, it continued to be used.

A Mr. Pan of the English Office in the Translation and Interpretation Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the translation of names of foreign heads of state is not done by the Ministry; rather, they look to the standard Handbook of Translations of English Names, and do not make arbitrary translations or changes.

From Xinhua's general editorial office this morning, this reporter learned that in general, translation of the names of foreign leaders is done by the name translation office of Reference News. When contacted, that office said that they take particular care in translating the names of foreign leaders, and for such an important individual as the US president, the chances are very small of any changes being made once a translation is decided upon.

Yet an employee of the Xinhua Multimedia Database said that if there were a need, Xinhua's general editorial office could issue a notice that would implement the change. The individual said that the principle of "reporting first" meant that many people have multiple translations for their names.

For example, Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, is entered into Xinhua's database as 威廉·盖茨 (wēilián gàicí, "William Gates"), but the version everyone is used to, 比尔·盖茨 (bǐěr gàicí), has not gone away.

A sidebar offers an interesting comparison of the way that names of famous political leaders are transliterated across greater China, from Obama to Bush to JFK to Che Guevara.

Guo Jiading explained that the multiple translations for foreign words are a result of different approaches to translation among the mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, particularly in names.

The mainland's approach is to translate according to English syllables and preserve a distinction between Chinese and foreign, so that people can tell at a glance that someone is a foreigner. For example, 基辛格 (Kissinger) is immediately recognizable as a foreigner, but the Taiwan rendering, 季辛吉 (jìxīnjí), does not make clear whether he is Chinese or foreign. Most Hong Kong and Taiwan renderings of foreign names use Chinese surnames.

The translations also reflect different customs across the three regions. For the name of former US president Clinton (克林顿 kèlíndùn), Taiwan uses the surname 柯 (kē), perhaps because they think that 克 is awkward or doesn't resemble a Chinese surname.

Note: The article calls Swahili a fangyan 方言, the same word used to describe local "dialects" of Chinese.

Links and Sources

Mirror (Chinese): US Embassy: "Aobama" to change to "Oubama" from now on

Tags: Barack Obama, Mirror, names, translation, transliteration

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Beijing after a snowfall

suggest@danwei.org (Joel Martinsen) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:51:11 +0700

Beijing Evening News
November 12, 2009

Beijing saw its third snowfall in twelve days this morning.

Because the snow reached other areas of the country as early as yesterday afternoon, the city's morning newspapers could only feature photos of heavy accumulation elsewhere, leaving the capital's snowfall for the evening editions.

Today's Beijing Evening News ran a front-page photo of a snow-covered bridge in Shichahai neatly framed by a railing.

Snow tends to add to the city's charm, blanketing the eaves of traditional-style buildings and muffling the sounds of traffic, even as it increases gridlock and causes headaches for residents.

After Tuesday's snowfall, Huang Jiwei, a writer who keeps a blog on literature and popular slang, offered up a gallery of photos of the snow-covered city. He prefaced it a quote from the poet Yin Lichuan, "When it snows, the northern capital becomes northern peace," a line that plays on the capital's current and former names: Beijing (北京) vs. Beiping (北平).

Links and Sources

Huang Jiwei's blog (Chinese): Beiping, Yin Lichuan quote (2005)

Tags: Beijing Evening News, snow

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Shanghai: Editor for English language magazine

suggest@danwei.org (Jeremy Goldkorn) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:52:54 +0700

This is a recruitment advertisement. Please contact the advertiser directly if you are interested. See all job ads.

Editor - Shanghai

Shanghai Family, the leading English-language magazine for expatriate families in Shanghai, is looking for an editor to add to our team.

This job can be as big or as focused as you want. You can concentrate on writing, editing, and shaping content, or work more broadly across the team on growing the business in planned ways. Whatever your bliss and ambition, there are a few skills and qualifications you must have:

* 2 to 4 years of independent writing and editing experience publishing in online or print media under regular deadlines.
* A thorough understanding of the needs and interests of expatriate families living in Shanghai.
* The demonstrated ability to develop content ideas and research stories and topics.
* An ability to oversee publication production, including artwork, layout, and printing.
* You must be able to commit to at least one year (10 issues).

TO APPLY FOR THIS POSITION:

Please send resume and two or more writing clips to: editor@shfamily.com, with “Editor" in the subject line.

Tags: jobs, magazines, parenting

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Six years of The Beijing News

suggest@danwei.org (Joel Martinsen) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:41:34 +0700

The Beijing News
November 11, 2009

Today's edition of The Beijing News weighs in at a hefty 264 pages.

Launched on November 11, 2003, the newspaper celebrates its sixth anniversary with a 172-page feature on the economic outlook for 2010. Twenty-two economists, from Mao Yushi to Martin Jacques, offer their thoughts on trends for the upcoming year.

A separate section looking back on notable reports from the past six years includes an interview with Dai Zigeng, president of The Beijing News. The first question describes how the newspaper came to be:

Reporter: The Beijing News is six years old. Looking back, what were the circumstances that led to the founding of the paper?
Dai Zigeng: The paper's former incarnation was Life Times, which lasted for five years and not only failed to carry on but ended up owing the printers a lot of money, becoming a burden for the Guangming Daily. At the end of 2002, Xue Changci, the editorial committee member in charge of the paper [now editor in chief of Guangming Daily] looked me up to ask whether the paper could be rescued. I said the possibility existed, but what was really needed was to change the format and do a redesign, and start it over again. Later, I went with them to various places, primarily in search of partner. At the end of June, 2003, I had the unexpected opportunity to be in Guangzhou talking to then general manager of Southern Metropolis Daily Yu Huafeng. At the time, SMD was looking to expand, and we quickly came to an agreement and decided on a preliminary direction.

But many people in the Beijing newspaper sector were not very optimistic about The Beijing News, because at the time the city already had around ten newspapers, and they thought the market was saturated and there was no longer any room to squeeze in. Others were dubious that a paper run according to the Southern Media ideal would fit in in Beijing. Some friends in sponsoring organizations advised that using the financing I had to start an economics or consumer newspaper, or a weekly with detailed market analysis, would have a brighter future.

The Beijing News
November 11, 2003

But we were determined to run a metropolitan newspaper. Our reasoning: first, the quality of the existing metropolitan papers in Beijing was not very high, and was particularly poor in satisfying the reading needs of middle- to high-end populations; second, market competition was not too fierce, nothing like what it was around Guangzhou; third, as a cosmopolitan city, Beijing possessed an advertising market with latent potential; fourth, Southern Media's newspaper philosophy was quite well-suited to jointly-run newspapers — I'd been in Guangzhou for many years and had personally witnessed the Southern Media Group's strategies for advancement and expansion; fifth, Southern Media was talent-rich, something no other outlet could match — they not only could plan and act, but they were willing to fight, and they had rich practical experience; sixth, Guangming Daily could lend the power of its advantageous political position, enhancing the resources and advantages I mentioned previously.

The Beijing News debuted with a cover photo of former US president Bill Clinton embracing "AIDS boy" Song Pengfei, a young man who contracted HIV through a hospital blood transfusion and became a well-known advocate for the rights of persons with HIV.

Today's cover image shows the aftermath of a bus accident at Beijing's Sihui station. A public bus started up unexpectedly, and as the driver tried to bring it under control, it smashed another bus, toppled a sign, and killed a waiting passenger.

Links and Sources

Science: HIV/AIDS in Asia: Song Pengfei
Earlier on Danwei: Let the newspaper wars begin

Tags: anniversaries, The Beijing News

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Beijing: Office manager / research assistant for accredited journalist office

suggest@danwei.org (Jeremy Goldkorn) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:24:05 +0700

This is a recruitment advertisement. Please contact the advertiser directly if you are interested. See all job ads.

Accredited journalist office engaged in writing articles for international publications as well as local production of documentary and talk shows, seeks office manager/research assistant. Your duties will include the below:

Job Description (Responsibilities):
* Coordination and office managerial duties;
* Editing & polishing of German and English articles and letters;
* Research for articles as well as background briefing on talk show guests;
* Schedule management for Bureau Chief;
* Additional duties as necessary.

Requirements:
* Native fluency in German a must and fluent English. Reasonable Mandarin a plus as well.
* Able to learn new skills and knowledge quickly, think independently and be proactive.
* Familiar with Microsoft office formatting, Microsoft Excel and Word is a must.

This is a great full time position for someone looking to work in the journalist/media fields.

Interested parties should send a detailed cover letter explaining their experience and future career goals, plus a CV, to info@cmmintelligence.com.

Tags: jobs

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Shanghai: Digital Marketing Planner

suggest@danwei.org (Jeremy Goldkorn) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:15:09 +0700

This is a recruitment advertisement. Please contact the advertiser directly if you are interested. See all job ads.

Digital Marketing Planner - Shanghai

• Undergraduate degree, preferably in marketing or business
• Self taught, self sustained, self succeeded lover of all things Web 2.0
• Spearhead planning, initiatives, campaigns on building an interactive community and brand participation around Local English language Media
• Expert in developing and maintaining metrics and tracking of social media initiative effectiveness
• Experienced Web Master & fast learner of new information systems
• Fluent English critical, Chinese language looked upon very favorably
• Excellent communication, able to make dynamic & sleek reports & presentations
• Business acumen, strategic thinking, critical thinking
• KPI - demonstrated real growth on digital traffic, User Generated Content, Brand Participation/Social Community

Please send your resume to cv@ringierasia.com

Tags: jobs, new media

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Julia Lovell on translating Lu Xun's complete fiction: "His is an angry, searing vision of China"

suggest@danwei.org (Alice Xin Liu) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:30:11 +0700

Julia Lovell. Photo by Martin Figura

Julia Lovell teaches at the University of London's Birkbeck College in the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology and has translated Serve the People by Yan Lianke and Lust; Caution by Eileen Chang amongst other Chinese literary works.

Lovell's new book of translation is modern fiction forefather Lu Xun's The Real Story of Ah Q and Other Tales of China, published by Penguin.

Soon available in shops in the mainland and abroad, an excerpt of the Preface can be read at the China Beat. Below is a Q&A with the translator (note: Eric Abrahamsen at Paper Republic also interviewed Julia Lovell).

Danwei: What significance do you think Lu Xun's work has for the younger generations of Chinese people today?
Julia Lovell: Plenty, I think. But I would distinguish between two Lu Xuns: between, on the one hand, the heroic revolutionary Lu Xun (invented by Mao), whose works generations of schoolchildren have been forced to memorise (down to the punctuation, I believe); and on the other, a spikier, tirelessly critical, more realistic Lu Xun. I think that Lu Xun’s legacy of cosmopolitanism and intellectual independence – which comes through in a good deal of his dark fiction and polemical essays – is an important and useful reminder of modern China’s traditions of dissent and extraordinary receptiveness to the outside world.

Lu Xun's complete fiction. Photo: Penguin

Danwei: When you were approached to translate the book, did you factor in how it would appeal to English-speaking audiences? Did you think that it could appeal? Once you have translated the work, was there the feeling that you'd helped to bridge the gap between something that was distinctly culturally Chinese (Lu Xun) and a modern, 21st century western audience?
JL: I had the hope, of course, that I could try to explain to contemporary English-speaking readers why Lu Xun is seen as such an important author in China; I think it’s true to say that up until now Lu Xun has been barely known among general Anglophone audiences (I think the situation is different in other European languages, such as Norwegian, which have a more flourishing translation culture than, say, Britain or the US does).

I thought that Lu Xun could appeal to English-speaking readers for a few reasons. First of all, for his acute commentary on the era that he lived through - to read Lu Xun is to capture a snapshot of late imperial and early Republican China. (As we all know, this year is a big birthday year for China, and Lu Xun’s scepticism is still a useful antidote to the fizzy hype that came out of the PRC on the 60th anniversary of the Communist revolution.) Secondly, he’s a sharp stylist, with a command of tone (surrrealism, irony, black humour) that gives him an appeal beyond China specialists. Anyone who works on modern Chinese culture encounters Lu Xun – he’s kind of James Joyce and Dickens rolled into one. And I would suggest that anyone who wants to get a handle on modern Chinese literature and culture － and particularly on the sense of crisis that gripped 20th-century writers and thinkers – can’t do better than start with Lu Xun, because his characters and themes have established themselves so firmly in China's national imagination.

But as to whether I managed to convey all this in the translation – I don’t know; I’ll have to see what readers think. My mum told me she quite liked it.

Danwei: In terms of working on his language, parts of the fiction were in classical Chinese ("Nostalgia" for example), and other parts in bai hua (vernacular). How did you create a sense of continuity between the two literary styles, and do you think it would be difficult for readers to transfer between the two?
JL: Where Lu Xun used classical Chinese to make a contrast with the vernacular elsewhere, my translation style for these excerpts became less comfortable, more stilted. There’s a good reason for this in, say, “Diary of a Madman”, where Lu Xun deliberately frames the Madman’s terrible discovery of Chinese cannibalism (written in vernacular) with a mock-pompous classical Chinese preface – the classical Chinese here is meant to sound artificial and mannered, to contrast with the “truth” that the madman has discovered. Lu Xun’s doing something similar in the facetious opening to “The Real Story of Ah-Q”, poking fun at the flatulence of Confucian literary convention. But in “Nostalgia”, I don’t think that Lu Xun was necessarily making a particular political or stylistic point by using classical Chinese – he was using an idiom he was familiar with, and so when translating it I too tried to find a natural-sounding idiom in English.

Danwei: Was it a relief to be done with the book?
JL: I must confess, yes. Of course, it felt like a great privilege to have an excuse to spend so much time rereading Lu Xun, to be reminded why he’s such an important figure in the modern Chinese canon. I think it’s true to say that translation pushes you to study a text more deeply than any other type of reading does. But at the same time, Lu Xun’s is an angry, searing vision of China – where he uses humour, it is decidedly black, and designed to underscore the darkness that he saw about him. Translating him was never relaxing, and some stories (especially those about dying children) I found deeply upsetting every time I returned to them – it was impossible to become blasé about their message. However many times I’d read or polished my translation, Lu Xun’s original vision still unsettled me. After finishing the book, I took a holiday in some truly sappy romantic fiction. At the moment, I’m reading Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City – the misadventures of Mary Ann Singleton in 1970s San Francisco – which I’m finding excellent.

Tags: Julia Lovell, Lu Xun, Penguin, translation

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Shanzhai National Day parade

suggest@danwei.org (Jeremy Goldkorn) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:45:15 +0700

This video is a spoof "shanzhai" or home made version of this year's 60th National Day Parade in Beijing. (In Chinese without English subtitles).

Tags: National Day, October 1

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Beijing Queer Film Festival

suggest@danwei.org (Jeremy Goldkorn) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:21:17 +0700

An interview by Danwei's Jeremy Goldkorn with Yang Yang and Cui Zi'en, two of the organizers of Beijing's fourth Queer Film Festival that took place this summer. Shot and edited by Patrick Carr of Mandarin Film.

Tags: film, gay, Mandarin Film

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Hu Shuli to leave Caijing for Zhongshan University

suggest@danwei.org (Joel Martinsen) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:14:24 +0700

Hu Shuli has resigned as editor-in-chief of the business magazine Caijing (财经).

Rumors surfaced on the Internet this afternoon, and the Wall Street Journal has confirmed the news with various sources. The magazine, which is known for its hard-hitting investigative reporting, recently had a number of senior editors walk out over a reported dispute with the magazine's owners.

Deng Zhixin (@xmarden), an editor of the opinion section at Southern Metropolis Daily, wrote that Hu will take up a position at Zhongshan University (Sun Yat-sen University) in Guangzhou:

In an interview, Zhongshan University emphasized that Hu Shuli had accepted a position as dean of the School of Mass Communication and Design as a full-time, tenured professor, and the invitation letter had been issued a few days ago. Note: the school stressed that it was "full-time".

Blogger Hecaitou, who mentioned the rumors earlier in the day, put up a blog post on Hu's change of careers:

Goodbye, Editor Hu! Hello, Dean Hu!

by Hecaitou

News came at midday saying that Hu Shuli will resign as editor of Caijing magazine and move on to become the dean of the School of Mass Communication and Design at Zhongshan University. I'm sure that the media is going crazy contacting people at the university to confirm the news and scrambling to get it as a lead headline in this evening's or tomorrow's papers. If the news is correct, then I should congratulate my classmates at Zhongshan University. Your new dean is a ferocious characters, not some ivory-tower academician. She's got blood on her blade and her clothing smells of gunpowder.

Hu Shuli is a media person, but she cannot continue in journalism this time, probably thanks to the media. Ever since the high-level changes at Caijing came out, Hu became a focal point of media attention wherever she went. If I recall correctly, she even decisively announced a new workplace, future partners, and a new magazine name. Perhaps all of this was true — in China, there has to be an official denial before we're able to determine the truth of a piece of news. But pushing Hu Shuli into that raging storm is tantamount to treating her resignation like a rivalry or breaking off a friendship, a situation that the new boss would be loath to accept. Comparatively speaking, Hu is stepping back to the academic world, out of the controversy for a few years, is probably a generally acceptable outcome for all concerned. The more the media reports on Hu's new magazine, the further it recedes from her. More than a little ironic.

In Chinese society, crafty use of various powers, precise measurement of the bounds of speech, and sensitive preservation of position allowed Hu Shuli to reach the very edge of the limits of speech. So it will be hard for there to be another Hu Shuli; there will not be a Caixin to succeed Caijing. We are accustomed to seeing legendary individuals in the media, and while this may be good fortune for the individual, it is not beneficial for the media. The existence of legendary individuals means that there is an invisible barrier preventing other news people from writing reports that ought to be reportable. It also means that there exist within a single industry multiple standards and values, that there is imperfect competition within the industry. The presence of these legendary individuals for so many years means that we have not been able to read true journalism for that length of time. Falling short vs. being prevented from even attempting: this is the difference between a hero and a legend.

Hu Shuli's resignation totally kills off the possibility of the style of news that would kill her off. The media has its own life force and free will, and the power that once protected and supported it may in the end turn into an obstructive force. And this test of strengths is no purely capital operation or business transformation; what lies behind is something far more complicated that the norms of an industry can tolerate. A model in which media professionals provide knowledge services in return for limited, conditional cooperation cannot be sustained for very long. Within this model, the passage of time and the accumulation of profit will cause both sides to feel that they've put in an unfair share, and that the opposite side has contributed nothing substantial. There will always come a day to fight over "who has the final say," but the victor was decided upon on the day the partnership was set up. Good business, a professional team, and high-quality news content may make it seem like this was a media outlet operating under a free market system. It looked like it could really continue to develop and become an independent media entity that could possibly go public. At issue: Who started this game? Who decided upon the rules?

Starting today, the media may be losing an editor, but a university is gaining a dean. Some of industry's shortcomings were brought out into the light of day. Now everything is patched up, as if nothing at all has happened. The Bible says that there is nothing new under the sun. At the end of every legend, how much have we really progressed? This is the question I would like to submit.

Update (2009.11.10): Jonathan Ansfield at the New York Times has an in-depth look at the situation that led to Hu's departure.

See also: The Guardian, a Wall Street Journal follow-up, Foreign Policy, the AP, the mainland newspaper The Economic Observer and, for contrast, Xinhua.

Links and Sources

Wall Street Journal: Editors Resign at China's Caijing Magazine
Hecaitou's blog (Chinese): Goodbye, editor Hu! Hello, dean Hu!
Image from Securities Daily

Tags: Caijing, Hecaitou, Hu Shuli

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China in Africa: the poor and the elites

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:31:12 +0700

On Yale Global:

How do Africans see China after all? Based on 163 interviews and over a decade of living in Africa, I shall argue that both views are wrong and right, depending on to what region of Africa and to which group of Africans one is referring...

...From this small sample, hailing from Angola, Mozambique, South Africa, Namibia, Cape Verde and Zambia it becomes apparent that African elites clearly welcome the Chinese presence, while the people are growing increasing ambivalent.

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The good, the bad, and the boring: Obama in China

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:27:33 +0700

At The China Beat, Maura Cunningham reviews Obama's visit to China with links to the best coverage and commentary.

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Anti-corruption chief: let the Internet fight graft

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:59:34 +0700

In The China Daily:

China's anti-corruption chief He Guoqiang Thursday urged authorities to utilize the public's online comments and postings in the country's ongoing attempt to fight corruption.

He, secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the Communist Party of China (CPC), said channels should be expanded to solicit public opinions and efforts be made to give full play to the positive role that the Internet has had in the fight against corruption...

..."The top officials of the CPC have realized that online opinion is a weapon to curb graft, but it is a tough decision for them to make as the Party had been very cautious about handling information against a Party member," Ye [Duchu, a senior professor with the Central Party School] said.

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Learn from the Jews

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:39:44 +0700

From The Global Times

American Jews are known for their formidable lobbying power in the US. How is this accomplished? What can Chinese learn to launch an effective lobby within US politics? [This] is an interview by Global Times reporter Lu Jingxian with Jack Rosen, chairman of the American Jewish Congress (AJC) and the American Council for World Jewry, on the issue.

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If I build a Potemkin village will they come?

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:43:27 +0700

The Black China Hand gets called upon to provide the appearance of legal support for a Chinese company putting on the appearance of sophistication to score an international contract.

Part 2

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Kidnapping drama ends in Wenzhou: 3 million yuan ransom not paid

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:01:07 +0700

From The China Daily:

A wealthy industrial boss and his family were rescued after a hostage taker was shot dead by police after a 24-hour standoff.

The hostage taker, identified as a migrant worker from Jiangxi province surnamed Lin, had demanded a ransom of 3 million yuan ($439,000).

Early Monday morning, armed with a pistol and two bags of self-made detonators, Lin barged into a private villa in Wenzhou, East China's Zhejiang province.

The villa's owner, Chen Anle, is the boss of Wenzhou Jinsheng Shoes Industry Co Ltd, a key enterprise of Wenzhou's shoe-making industry.

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Labor abuses and supplier responsibility

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:55:55 +0700

For the Global Post, Jonathan Adams and Kathleen E. McLaughlin write about conditions in high-tech factories and explore solutions to the problem of sweatshops:

In our reporting, we heard sincere commitments to deal with these issues by frustrated executives who struggle with these complex economic realities. We also learned of a groundbreaking project to improve conditions at a Taiwan supplier for HP that appeared to have excellent results. Though limited in scope, the project offers some degree of hope that the big electronics brands can do more to fix the problem.

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A Chinese 'kidnapped" and taken to Japan

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:16:06 +0700

The Financial Times writes about Feng Zhenghu (冯正虎), who has been denied admittance into China (on account of his activism):

Mr Feng, a Chinese human rights activist on behalf of individual Chinese complaining of illegal mistreatment at official hands, says Shanghai police, assisted by an ANA employee, physically forced him on to a flight back to Japan after he was barred from returning home for the eighth time.

“I refuse to enter Japan. For a Chinese to be kidnapped and taken to Japan like this is a humiliation for me and a humiliation for China,” he told the Financial Times during an interview in a Narita corridor.

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Just take your Tamiflu and shut up

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:03:46 +0700

Andrew Galbraith in the China Economic Review, revealing what a farce the H1N1 panic has become:

The morning after arriving back in Shanghai from overseas, I felt distinctly unwell. Facing pressing deadlines and a worsening condition, I went to the doctor, who diagnosed me with nothing other than H1N1 – swine flu...

...Officially ... I wasn't diagnosed with H1N1, and the doctor instructed me that – officially – I had never been to see him. He gave me a course of Tamiflu and sent me on my way, with instructions not to leave my apartment for a week. If I noticed no improvement, I would be required to go to a fever clinic, but I was not to say that I had been to see a doctor before. (I'm now out of self-imposed quarantine, and no longer suffering from H1N1.)

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Confusion about government approval of the Hummer deal

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:28:10 +0700

China Hearsay tries to figure out which government agency will take responsibility to approve the Sichuan Tengzhong acquisition of Hummer:

Since NDRC told Xinhua that they were not responsible based on the type of deal, I’m thinking it was indeed the NDRC that Tengzhong first talked to (apparently provincial level, which then consulted with the State-level NDRC). Apparently NDRC, if you will pardon the American football reference, has punted.

Moreover, from what I understand, Tengzhong is neither a listed company nor a State-owned Enterprise, so I’m thinking neither CSRC (securities regulator) nor SASAC (State-owned enterprises and assets) would be in the picture. So how to approach this deal?

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UFOs in Yunnan

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:53:47 +0700

On the sidelines of the 2009 International Astronomy Year and Extraterrestrial Life Forum just concluded in Kunming, GoKunming.com filmed a video interview with organizer Zhang Yifang (张一方), founder of the Kunming UFO Research Association.

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China's largest panel manufacturer to open plant in the States

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:29:46 +0700

The New York Times reports:

Suntech Power, China’s largest solar panel manufacturer, plans to open its first American plant near Phoenix, the company announced on Monday.

The plant is to begin production in the third quarter of 2010 and will initially employ 75 people, probably rising over time to 200, according to Roger Efird, a managing director of Suntech.

Mr. Efird said Suntech had been publicly considering a manufacturing site in the United States for several years. Solar panels are heavy, he said, so as the American market grows, the company decided to place a factory closer to its customers.

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If Iran gets much more dangerous, China will escalate its efforts

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:24:41 +0700

Evan Osnos interviews Shi Yinhong for the New Yorker blog, where he asked questions about the difference stances of the US and China towards Iran's nuclear weapons:

That sounds like China and the United States are not going to share much more than goodwill on this trip. Will China go further than that?
Sometimes expectations can have a gap, but both sides are used to this. I don’t think that President Obama will say, “If China does not agree, then I will be angry about everything else.” The Chinese are used to this, too; on some issues they will go a long way to meet Americans, but on some issues they will stay in the same place.

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The importance of national stability

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:55:05 +0700

The Global Times has a piece on the detainment of advocates surrounding the Sanlu milk scandal.

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Melamine milk activist lauded, arrested by police

suggest@danwei.org (Danwei Picks) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:31:40 +0700

The Global Times reports that Zhao Lianhai, an organizer of victims of last year's melamine milk scandal, has been arrested for "provoking an incident":

The arrest occurred just two hours after Zhao and Wang Gang, the father of a baby stricken by Sanlu's poisoned milk powder, successfully received an official apology from Haidian police.

Zhao and Wang were invited by the Haidian police on Friday to address a previous dispute. Officers, who conducted the controversial detention of Wang, gave the father an apology and paid for Wang's physical examination.

"A police car followed us all the way from my home to the Haidian police headquarters," Zhao said. He even took a picture of the car that followed him.

Two hours after Zhao returned home, Daxing police arrested him.

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