After 4 months of blogging, I had my first enforced break and have been away from my computer for 5 days. I didn’t really miss it much – a few pangs now and then, some minor guilt about people expecting replies to comments, but mostly I just really enjoyed being with my family.

In my last post, I said I wanted to get back to my stated topic, web development. However, before I do so, I am going to take the opportunity to write about our holiday and Chinese hospitality.

For those of you who don’t know, I live in China. There’s a lot I’d like to write about China, so I may come back to this topic in future. I may start a separate blog for my China writings, but for now I’ll include them here.

Chinese National Day Golden Week

October 1st is Chinese National Day and marks the start of a Golden Week holiday. We normally just stay at home during Golden Week holidays because travelling is a nightmare.

It is estimated that 120 million people travelled during this holiday. Trying to book flights / trains / hotels etc is difficult. If you’re successful, you’re in for an uncomfortable experience – people will be crammed into every available space. To top it off, the prices are two to three times higher than normal.

It’s not just travelling that’s a problem. Most of China’s 1.3 billion people are on holiday, so the shops / streets / tourist attractions are jam-packed with people. And I mean jam-packed. All in all, it’s normally better to relax at home and leave travel and tourism for a quieter period.

This holiday we decided to venture out and accept the invitation of a good friend. Fortunately, we weren’t travelling by public transport. We were travelling by private car and enjoying some famous Chinese hospitality.

Chinese Hospitality

Our friend invited us to spend the holiday with his family. When you receive an invitation such as this, you’ll learn that Chinese hospitality is fantastic, although at times it can be overbearing for Westerners.

They made us feel as though we were part of the family, provided us with accommodation and food, and tried to keep us entertained. One night they even gave up their own bed for us. Our friend’s family is quite well off, but I’ve found this kind of hospitality throughout China, regardless of wealth.

So what did we do? Mostly we just relaxed with his family and ate (more on that below). We also went on several outings, including a day in Tianjin.

One night we stayed in the Zhengan Palace Hotel in Grand Epoch City, which is a huge luxury resort. It is truly epic in scale and combines a modern facility with classic Chinese architecture. There’s a golf course and a variety of other sports and activities. Luxury resorts are not really my scene, but it was well worth the look.

For trivia buffs and soccer fans, Real Madrid stayed here in 2005. Michael Owen, David Beckham and Zinedine Zidane feature in the hotel’s pamphlet, in that order. We also saw a German camera crew setting up to shoot a movie, but I have no idea what it’s called.

Banquets, Banquets, Banquets

Everyday, for lunch and dinner, there was a banquet. The food was delicious! If you’ve never tried real Chinese food, I can assure you it is far superior to the food you get in Chinese restaurants in the West. For those not familiar with Chinese dining, each person does not have an individual meal. Instead, many dishes are placed in the centre of the table and you help yourself to a little of everything.

There is a strong drinking culture amongst the men, with toasting throughout the meal. Normally the drink is baijiu (a lethal spirit), although red wine or beer may be used instead. Often the toaster will say ganbei, which literally means dry glass. For some reason, most Chinese think Cheers means the same thing. Either way, you’re expected to drain your glass.

I’ve often heard people complaining about having to drink too much or eat dishes they didn’t like. I fell into this trap myself early on during my time in China. I’ve since learned it’s fine to say no, or that you don’t like something.

With food, the host may pressure you a little more (it’s considered polite for the host to offer), but they will normally accept this. However, there are right ways and wrong ways to say no. Sometimes, it is better to say yes, then just not eat it. Actually saying no can lead to a loss of face for your host. You may find that it’s harder to get the host to accept no when it comes to drinking, as it is considered a courtesy for the host to get you to drink.

For a Westerner being pressured to do something you don’t want to do can be very annoying. We expect that if we say we don’t like something, the host will respect our wishes and not raise it again. At times it takes all my patience to remember that I’m dealing with a different culture here and that the reason they keep asking is that they are being courteous by their standards. If they don’t ask, they don’t care about me.

I’ve lived in China for 3 years in total, but I’m still learning how to deal with this. I think I was a little rude to our hosts at times, but hopefully I made up for it with the arm wrestling competition!

The Final Word

We had a great holiday and enjoyed some great Chinese hospitality. Now, its back to everyday life… If you have had any experience with Chinese hospitality I’d like to hear about your experiences.

Although I originally bought the jobsinchina.com domain to build a job listing site, for various reasons that plan was abandoned. The site launched as blog in January 2008, when I was living in China and wanted to write about my experiences living there.

By November 2009, I’d hooked up with NewChinaCareer and they provided job listings on this site, right through to November 2010, when their site disappeared without warning.

Since November 2010, there haven’t been any new jobs listed on Jobs In China, a situation I wanted to rectify. I therefore went ahead and created the ability for jobs to be listed directly on the site, no third parties needed.

I have some big plans for the functionality, using the latest features of WordPress – but first things first. I need to get employers to start posting jobs here. I have a steady stream of people looking for jobs, but not many posting jobs (actually none at the time of writing!).

So over the next few weeks, I hope to get in touch with some employers and get them to start using the site, so that it can finally become what I wanted it to be when I registered the domain all the way back in 2004: A place to put employers and job seekers in touch.

One of my best ‘finds’ this year has been the Sinica podcast. At last – a podcast discussing current affairs in China in an objective fashion, with hosts that clearly understand China.

For the first 18 or so episodes, I’ve agreed with everything they’ve said. Well not every single thing – there have been moments when I’ve said "Hang on, what about … ?" to my mp3 player. In each case however, one of the hosts subsequently chipped in and raised my point. As a result, I’ve developed a healthy respect for both the hosts and the show.

With the recent episode discussing China Apologists (or Panda Huggers), I found myself not quite agreeing with the host for the first time – so here are my thoughts on the issue. The discussion centered around an article written by Shaun Rein and ‘responses’ on The Peking Duck and A Modern Lei Feng. I’m not going to rehash these articles, but they form the background to this rather rambling post on the topic.

Definition Of A China Apologist

First, what is a China Apologist? Where is the line that, once crossed, sees someone who is Pro China become a China Apologist?

The podcast hosts discussed a variety of indicators, but they didn’t agree on an exact definition. What they did agree is that it’s a complex and subjective issue – one person’s definition can be very different from another’s.

Still, from the discussion around the criteria, I made a frightening discovery – I suspect many would consider me a China Apologist!

Help I Think I’m An China Apologist!

Let me present the evidence against me.

First, check out my Speilberg Wrong To Withdraw From Beijing Olympics post. I mention Guantanamo bay amongst other things, which is one of the markers laid down by Kaiser. I do put in the disclaimer "There’s no doubt that China does have issues – some big ones", but then ruin it with "but so does every country".

Second, I’ve been known to defend the Chinese government in conversation, saying things like "You’ve got to remember that they are governing a country with 1.3 billion people, a huge gap between rich and poor, a raft of social issues, local government that does it’s own thing, etc – it’s not easy to maintain stability". I do put the standard disclaimer that the country has some huge issues, but I don’t push it – there’s enough written about the huge issues elsewhere.

Finally, I failed the Google Test. My reaction wasn’t "Yay Google". It was "Way to go Google, now you’ve forced China to push back even if they don’t want to". I don’t quite see how anyone who understands China could expect Google to actually achieve anything by their move.

Oh shit, now I’m being condescending – that seals it, I’m a Panda Hugger. But you know what, if that’s the case, then I’m not ashamed of it! Or to borrow a line from Jeremy Goldkorn: "Fuck you all"!

Now that I’ve destroyed the PG rating of my site, I’m going to explain why I think a dash of Apologism isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

First, A Disclaimer

The podcast hosts are all well known in China circles. I’m not well known or influential, nor do I know others who are. While there’s probably a reasonable overlap in our experiences of China, for the most part my experiences were in a different sphere:

• I wasn’t really part of an expat community.
• I didn’t live in one of the major cities (although I was only a couple of hours away, that seems to be a big difference).
• I wasn’t involved in the news or media industries as many of the podcast hosts are, I was teaching (English and ICT).
• I’m married to a Chinese national and we have kids, which greatly affected my experiences in China.

This article is based on my experience in China. I accept that parts it may not match with others’ experience of China.

Also, importantly, I’m a blogger, not a journalist. I make the distinction, although there is a real blurring of the lines these days. I have different standards to uphold: It means I can get away with making generalizations and presenting opinion, rather than focusing on the factual details.

And, well, okay, maybe I more than just hugged the Panda. I’m not just defending China, I’m protecting my kids. I don’t want to have to explain to them why the media in their father’s homeland is so critical of their mother’s homeland. I want there to be an increase in understanding of China by the West, so that my kids will have an easier life.

Shaun Rein’s Response

Shaun gave an audio postcard in the podcast, defending his position and arguing that he’s not a China Apologist. I’m not going to go over his defence in detail, but it’s worth a quick mention. I don’t agree with everything Shaun said, especially the detail. For example, I can’t agree with his statement on real poverty having been eradicated.

I know when I first came to China, I was struck by how many of the people I met, although genuinely poor, were actually happier than us materialistic Westerners. And although living in squalid conditions, they all seemed to have enough food.

However, the illusion of people being happy in poverty disappears when you know people who can’t get the medical treatment they need because they can’t afford it. How many people die because they can’t afford basic medical treatment? Whether that’s a problem with the medical system rather than real poverty isn’t something I’m interested in arguing about – if that’s happening, then there’s a problem.

Anyway, although I don’t agree with the details of Shaun’s defense, I do agree with the broader issues that he outlines:

• Credit to the government where it’s due
• The big stick won’t lead to reform
• Things are slowly improving

I believe these are all true, but I’m going to briefly explore the second of these, as it’s the one that most encourages my Apologist tendencies.

The Big Stick

Let me digress for a moment:

Back in 2002, when I’d only been in China for several months, a new foreign teacher arrived at our school in Guangdong. We took him down to one of our favourite restaurants for dinner. While we were eating, some Chinese men were smoking at the table next to us. Our new companion leant across, tapped one of the men on the shoulder and said something like "Would you mind not smoking. Don’t you know it can kill you?". He said this in English. The reaction from the Chinese men? They looked at him briefly, then ignored him and continued smoking.

After a couple of minutes, our companion tapped the man on the shoulder again and berated him again. Did it work? No, he was ignored even harder. Yes, I do mean ignored even harder. The men weren’t sure what to make of him, but they sure weren’t going to do anything that even acknowledged him.

So what does this have to do with the current discussion on Apologists?

For those of you who want to tap China on the shoulder and tell them to stop it, do you really think it’s going to work? If so, do you understand China at all?

Oops, I’m generalizing and being condescending again. Actually, I accept that the people on the podcast know many aspects of China better than me – but come on, I mean when has this approach ever really worked in China? Okay, it does work occasionally, but:

• not on really important issues;
• if it does work, you normally pay for it later; and
• it’s just not the best way to get things done in China.

Not to mention that I find it incredibly rude. When I see this behaviour (and I see it all the time towards China), then I feel an urge to jump in and help the person, or in this case country, that’s under attack, even if I don’t agree with that they’re doing.

I understand people’s desires to make China more accountable, to help it improve, but I don’t think shouting at them is going to change anything – and it may be actually be detrimental in many cases.

There are better ways to deal with China: to work quietly behind the scenes, show them the benefits of change, etc. Okay, I’m aware that these are generalizations and I’m not in a position to actually do this – whereas I am in a position to shout at them, but I genuinely don’t think that’s going to help at all.

The Main Point: Who Are You Talking To?

So we’re nearing my main point. Forget all my other arguments if you like. This is the big one, the one I wanted to hear discussed on the podcast:

Who is your audience? Who are you talking to?

Let’s take Forbes, which is who Shaun Rein writes for. I obviously don’t have access to the web analytics data for Shaun’s articles, but I would suspect that the number of readers is ordered something like this:

1. People in North America = by far the largest group
2. People in other English speaking countries (UK, Australia, NZ)
3. People in non English speaking countries in Europe
4. People in China:
   • The expat community (by far the largest sub group)
   • The Chinese people

Oh, I’m sure that the Chinese government monitors what the Western media says and will pick up on articles criticising them. But as I mentioned before, I don’t think that’s going to help much.

And yes, I’m sure that some of the Chinese people will read these articles and it may help them form their own opinion. But I’m not convinced that the percentage of Chinese people reading it will be enough to facilitate change.

But whether they are listening or not is not the point. If you’re writing for either the Chinese government or the mainstream Chinese people, you are ignoring your main audience: average Westerners.

Writing For The Average Westerner

Have you ever travelled back home and overheard someone say something totally incorrect about China? How did you feel? Did you correct them or bite your tongue? I bet everyone on the Podcast, indeed every foreigner who’s lived in China, has gone through that at some point. I bet most would like to change the such points of view and spread understanding of China.

So what’s the best way educate the average Westerner about the real China? Through the media – including news sites and blogs.

What sort of opinion of China is the average person going to get if it’s all negative, beating China with a stick? Probably not far from where we are now. Mainstream views in the West are often one sided. For example, go to Yahoo! Answers and do a search for "China job". At the time of writing many of the entries were about people worried about American jobs being lost to China:

I’m not commenting on this particular topic, nor am I saying that these concerns aren’t valid, just demonstrating that the average person in the West has concerns about China: in this case about American jobs being lost to China. What I am saying is that it’s important that people in the West have a balanced understanding of China.

Right now, many people are predisposed to believe the negative about China. That’s mostly what they hear. They don’t have the understanding of China that first hand experience gives. They can only go by what they read and hear. They deserve access to information about the positive side of China.

It’s not the end of the world if people occasionally cross the line in an attempt to present the other side of the argument. It’s not as though people aren’t constantly crossing the line in the other direction all the time. If that’s all people see, then negative views of China will remain in the ascendance.

I know this won’t go down well with people who are frustrated with China and who want to change it. I know it won’t go down well with those who have journalistic integrity to maintain. But remember, you’re not just speaking to China, you’re speaking to the world. Don’t hold back with criticism of China where it’s deserved (as it so often is), but give China some love too where it’s merited, even if it means you cross that line from time to time.

If your main audience is the West, don’t waste time swinging an ineffective big stick that’s not really helping promote change, just reinforcing the divide between China and West (and making you feel good). Put the big stick away and use your influence to try to bring the two cultures closer.

If you can’t do that, then at least don’t jump all over someone who’s trying.

Final Thoughts

So yeah, I hugged the Panda and I’ll keep on hugging it. What’s more, I think more people should hug it as well. Promoting the other side of the argument, increasing understanding – these can’t be bad things.

So what if we slip over the line into being a China Apologist from time to time? That’s not any worse than being too hard on China and presenting a distorted view of China to people in the West, which just permeates misunderstanding between countries.

I’m sure many will think my reasoning is flawed or I’ve missed the point. If so, let me know in the comments!

Foreign Executives have been working in China and Asia for decades. Originally on expatriate contracts, a high number of them have now decided to stay in China. This is either done by renewing their contract, making the transition over to another company or by using their experience and expertise in an Interim role.

The use of Interim Managers is a common business tool in Europe and the USA, but is a fairly new solution in China. There are many different situations where businesses decide to use Interim Managers. China is currently witnessing a sustained period of business restructuring, mergers & acquisitions and rationalisation. This is where experience really does count.

Interim Management Solutions, based in Shanghai, is the leading provider of Interim Management services in China. With the largest database of foreign professionals, they place Interim executives in a variety of different industries all over Asia; from Luxury goods and Retail to machine manufacturing. They are part of the J.M Gemini group; one of the longest running and most successful recruitment agencies in Asia. Business Development Executive, Christopher Hodgson comments:

The current economy in China demands experience. Many of our Interim Managers have over 10 years experience within Multi-national companies. We are seeing a dramatic increase in the demand for highly experienced foreign executives for temporary assignments.

Christopher continues

The Managers and executives from Interim Management Solutions have lived through and managed growth, efficiency drives, cost savings and large scale change. Because Interim Managers are highly qualified experts with a proven track record and are available on short notice, the demand for such people in Multi-nationals are enormous.

A typical assignment can last from six months to over two years. An example of this kind of assignment is Interim Manager – John Moor. John is a British citizen and a highly experienced IT Professional, providing IT Project Direction and Management, with over 15 years experience in the IT field of which 3 years working in China (mainly Beijing & Shanghai). He has vast experience with Microsoft Systems and has even managed the relocation of an entire IT division to a new facility in the UK.

His current assignment for Interim Management Solutions is as Director of Information Technology for a textile company based in Nanjing, Jiangsu province. He is now in the 11th month of a 12 month contract where his main KPI was to specify and deliver a new ERP system.

John’s hands-on experience has been invaluable in bringing the company’s IT infrastructure up to the required standards necessary prior to rolling out a successful ERP platform. Being able to adapt and provide solutions not in the original assignment are all part of the skill set of the Interim Manager

Interim Managers are available in a variety of Industries. Dealing with both Foreign and local executives, Interim Management Solutions currently holds the largest database of Interim Managers in China.

For more details visit www.jmgemini.com/ims

Or send your enquiry to ims@jmgemini.com or call (86-21) 6427 9100

As you can see in the photo, the seats are entirely made out of metal (stainless steel from memory), rather than traditional seats with padding.

It was a little uncomfortable to sit on, although given this was in the tropics, the seats were probably cooler than padded seats – it gets pretty damn hot there. Having said that, I’m sure the primary motivation behind the metal seats was more to do with the ease of cleaning.

I’ve been on a lot of buses in China and the vast majority have padded seats very similar to what we have in the West. I’ve only ever seen these buses with metal seats in Guangdong.

You can also notice that in the front half of the bus there’s only one row of seats in each side of the bus and plenty of room to stand. Buses in China can get pretty crowded – although there weren’t many people aboard on the day of the photo.

I was really taken with the countdown display on the traffic lights, showing how many seconds were left before the lights went green. How simple, yet elegant. Why hadn’t I seen this before?

It lets you know exactly how long you have to wait. No sitting there on tenterhooks, waiting for that green light – you can relax a little, which should improve your concentration when you’re actually driving. No being caught out by the light suddenly changing to green – you know exactly when it’s going to happen.

There’s an added benefit: everyone knows how much time they have and, this being China, you get to see all sorts of interesting behavior: people rearranging their load, sending a text message and goodness knows what else.

Of course, this only works with timed traffic lights. Here in Brisbane, the lights have had sensors for 15 years or so: the time a red light shows is variable, so this wouldn’t work. Still, I lived in Denver a year or so before I moved to China and they had a lot of timed traffic lights but no display.

I thought this quite ingenious of the Chinese. Have you seen any other ingenious ‘inventions’ in China?

Christmas is upon us again. This year, I’m in Australia, but I’ll be thinking about Christmas in China, which I’ve been fortunate to experience on a number of occasions.

This photo by Keemz of a Christmas tree in Beijing got me thinking about past Christmases in China:

License

I guess I should say that I’m happy to spend Christmas here in Australia, with my family – and I am – but part of me will miss the experience of spending Christmas in China:

• The camaraderie with other foreign teachers as we celebrate a Western festival in a non Western country and find ways of making it ‘like home’
• The excitement of my students, which hardened Western high school / university students don’t want to match
• The bustle of the shops on Christmas Eve
• The fire works that will go off on Christmas Eve
• The general surrealness of Christmas in China

Of course, I won’t miss:

• The absence of family
• The fact that most people work on Christmas Day (even if I don’t have to)
• That Christmas Day is a non event compared to Christmas Eve
• That there’s no such thing as Boxing Day (although the same goes for the US)

I hope you all have a great Christmas wherever you are.

Disclaimer: This photo was not taken by me. It was shared by a third-party on Flickr, under a Creative Commons license. For details on the license, see the photo's home page on the Flickr website.

I’ve previously featured a picture of a Diet Coke can by cogdogblog, which I found on Flickr. Although cogdogblog’s photo is much nicer, I thought I’d post my photo here, mainly so I could tell a related story.

I won’t re-tell the story of how I found Diet Coke – I did that in my original post about cogdogblog’s photo. Instead I’ll move on to a subsequent story.

After a long and desperate search, having finally found a can of Diet Coke, I took the photo above. This was back in 2002, when Diet Coke was almost impossible to get in China.

The reason I took the photo wasn’t for posterity or to put it on the Internet 7 years later. It was to keep on my camera, so I could show it to people at other restaurants / bars / shops and hopefully get a can of Diet Coke as a result.

The first time I tried to use the photo to get a can of Diet Coke was at a Buddhist restaurant at a tourist destination / scenic spot. I took out my camera, found the photo and showed it to the waitress. Her eyes lit up. She said something like “we have, we have” and went racing out the back.

She was back minutes later with an icy cold can of … Coke. Not Diet Coke. Coke.

Something was obviously lost in translation. Actually, I think at that time Diet Coke was so rare that the vast majority of people in China didn’t even know it existed. When presented with the photo, the waitress could tell it was a Coke product, but couldn’t differentiate between Coke and Diet Coke.

At the time, I wasn’t into Coke at all, I really only wanted Diet Coke, so this was major disappointment. The irony is that I no longer drink Diet Coke. I’m a Coke man again!

It’s been a while since I posted a photo I’ve found on Flickr, but when I came across this photo of intertwined padlocks on the Great Wall of China by nuck, it just cried out to be included here.

License

Nuck’s comment on the photo is as follows:

Young couples interlock padlocks on gates dotting the Great Wall in the belief it will bring the strength of the wall to their relationships.

I never knew that! I can’t remember seeing any padlocks on the Great Wall of China, but I guess if I had seen some, I wouldn’t have thought of them as being significant.

It just goes to show that the Chinese are quite superstitious. In cases like this, I like it! It’s both romantic and endearing. There are times when the superstitions are less appealing however (like when I can’t do something because of a superstition!).

Anyway, I liked the concept when I saw the photo, but the clincher was that it was set on the Great Wall of China, a place I’ve visited and a place of such significance for China.

I’ve seen hundreds of photos of the Great Wall, but never one like this. It was unique. Most photos are just shots of the wall stretching into the distance. To see a photo which wasn’t just a photo of the wall, but was a photo of something else which just happened to be on the wall, was truly refreshing.

Likewise, the topic wasn’t something I’d normally associate with the Great Wall. When I think of it, I’m not thinking about customs and superstitions. I’m thinking about the ancient Great Wall of China, the spectacular achievement by the Chinese of long ago (and boy isn’t it something).

I’m wondering how long is the Great Wall of China, how did they build it, why did they build it, how old is it, etc or perhaps just marvelling at the magnificent engineering feat.

The Great Wall of China is really something that’s worthwhile visiting if you get the chance. Just remember to keep an eye out for the padlocks. If you see any, let me know!

Disclaimer: This photo was not taken by me. It was shared by a third-party on Flickr, under a Creative Commons license. For details on the license, see the photo's home page on the Flickr website.

So when the Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters came along, I thought “That’s obviously Chinese, Zhu Zhu probably means pig pig”.

Not wanting to be too sure of myself, I looked up other meanings of Zhu, just in case it meant something else. I didn’t see any other likely candidates. I did find the following translation of guinea pig on a forum on pet names: “tian zhu shu”. Someone else calls them “xiao zhu zhu” on the same entry.

Bingo! The Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters must be Chinese. Okay, hamsters and guinea pigs are slightly different, but that’s too much of a coincidence isn’t it?

Maybe not. Searching for a more concrete link between Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters and the Chinese language proved fruitless. Then I found out that they used to be called Go Go Pets Hamsters and it seems to me that the new name is just some marketing hype. To top it off, it seems Zhu Zhu is pronounced as zoo zoo (which would be zu), rather than jew jew (zhu).

So I guess I was wrong and I was seeing Chinese where there wasn’t any. Fooled by the little electronic pet hamsters…