blogging - ESWN has an RSS-feed

Hurray: EastSouthWestNorth, one of the more interesting sources of translations from China, has an RSS-feed. It took some time and some pressure, but access to this source is now much easier. Look here for more information on RSS.

blogging – Watch watchingchina.com

A new aggregator on China in the blogosphere. I still have to see what it will be adding to the existing ones, but a bit of competition keeps everybody awake. Will be checking who has this message faster, Living in China or Watching China.

blogger - Power to the People - FP

Nice catch, Andrea! She was the first to point me in the direction of an article about blogging in the magazine Foreign Policy. Unfortunately, I have to rely on Andrea's transcript, since capacity problems stand between me and the original article.
"Increasingly, journalists and pundits take their cues about “what matters” in the world from weblogs." it says. "And for readers worldwide, blogs can act as the “man on the street,” supplying unfiltered eyewitness accounts about foreign countries. This facet is an especially valuable service, given the decline in the number of foreign correspondents since the 1990s. Blogs may even provide expert analysis and summaries of foreign-language texts, such as newspaper articles and government studies, that reporters and pundits would not otherwise access or understand."
The article mentions both Living in China and Wang Jianshuo's weblog.

blogging - Meetup Shanghai expands



New members are coming in, after the Shanghai Webloggers' Meetup had its first real meeting last month. This month, on the 10th we have our now traditional monthly meeting, with professor Andrew Lih from HKU telling us about the leatest developments on grass root journalism, including podcasting.
On November 15th we join the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents' Club as superblogger Dan Gillmor will speak about his book 'We The Media'. It will be followed by a panel where Dan, local experts, and an audience of experts will exchange thoughts on what this might all mean for media in China and Asia.

Hospitality – Fast changing Shanghai

For a string of events I’m cruising through the city these days, visiting hotels and bars. It was a long overdue confrontation with the fast changes Shanghai is undergoing. I had already accepted that I would run into so many new hotels that opened their doors without telling me and have no problem whatsoever to fill up their rooms.
But also the bar-scene is expanding and changing. The Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club has to leave its regular meeting place at Sasha’s because management wants to set up a private club on our third floor. So I had to look for new third floors, were we can meet. Malone’s has a nice third floor, but one of the oldest bars in Shanghai – counting already a respectable ten years – is going to rebuild everything. “Why don’t you try The Mint, down Tongren Lu, manager Paul of Malone’s suggested.
I could not recall that bar, but saw it had replaced the former La Belle, where I had different functions. Inside this bar, for the sexy people – equipped with huge beds – I discovered why this tasteful bar had to change its name. ‘La Belle’ would be a hard sell during the ‘boys only’ events. They could have called it ‘Le Beau’, the male variation of ‘La Belle’, but this was even better. Just imagine Chinese official of the Ministry of Culture might even read French.

media - maturing state-media cause confusion about US policy

The upheaval surrounding an article in the China Daily, one day before the US elections, where state-councillor Qian Qichen describes US president Bush as an arrogant man who tries to rule the world is a nice case study how much can go wrong in reading the transforming Chinese media.
Today the official spokesman denied the article reflected the official government position on the US. The quotes has been used earlier last month in a weekly of the Communist Party School. Now both the upset US-officials and their Chinese counterparts both have to learn how to deal with media that do their work. Qian Qichen obvious feels that Bush is an arrogant man who tries to rule the world, and that is an opinion worth to be noted. Journalists write that up and when anybody should have a problem, it should be mr. Qian. Or not?

elections - Only miracle can save Kerry

I have left Malones and follow the last phase only on the internet and things do not look good for Kerry. While the distance 225-249 is not that huge, Ohio with 20 seats indicates a majority for Bush. Onlye when nothing goes wrong in any of the other states, Kerry still stands a chance. Better resume my normal business here.

elections - Bush closes in on Kerry

The first depressed democrates are already leaving Malones, as Bush gets closer to a victory, or better put: Kerry might get very few chances left to win the presidency. When Bush wins Ohio, his is in, when he loses Ohio, it will be closer, but might still win.

elections - Close race might not conclude today

US media increasingly indicate that the presidential race is so close, there might be more time needed to get a clear result. In Malones the cheers are moving up from the republican ground floor to the democratic second floor, as state like California announce their results.

elections - Tension rises as Ohio become key state

Lunch is almost over in Malones and the attention goes back to the election broadcast again. Ohio is becoming a crucial state, and we might stay a later. Bush wins Florida, and that is a setback for Kerry.

elections - No surprises yet



An busy crowd at Malones, Democrats watching how the Bush-states get listed. (Photo: Stephen Casales)

elections - Malones election battle ground

While a growing number of Democrats have taken over the second floor of Malones, cheers on the wrong moments came from downstairs. A smaller but noisier crowd of republicans have taken over the first floor, concentrating the US elections in one bar in Shanghai.
No surprises at the screen right yet, Bush is leading, but in the states he also had in 2000.

NGO - Struggle for Shangri-la faces setback

The central government has approved four out of 13 dams in a possibly devastating plan to generate hydro-electricity in the south-west of the country, the South China Morning Post writes, according to the China Study Group.
The battle might not yet been over in was is expected to be a major David-Goliath battle between major power suppliers and environmental groups.

elections - Online from Malones

Greetings from the temporary HQ of the Democrats abroad in Malones at Tongren Rd. A map at the wall, CNN and (far away) Fox News and a wireless connection. About 50 people had breakfast here and results are coming in. Bush just won North Carolina and leads 102 seats against Kerry 77. nBut exit polls look slightly favorable for Kerry.

Media – CNN Hong Kong scraps 30 jobs

 

Cutting media jobs in Hong Kong has become more contagious than SARS this week. After the Far Economic Review (80), TVB (28) now also CNN Hong Kong will cut ten positions for producers and twenty of freelancers, the South China Morning Post reports today.

The dismissals at CNN are part of a worldwide cost cutting operation that will also involves jobs in London and Atlanta. How many jobs will be lost in this region because of the reduction of the BBC labor force with  6,000 is not yet clear. The BBC announced earlier this week they would get rid of a quarter of their total staff.

 

 

media - Ban on Han-Hui clashes

Despite worldwide coverage a ban has been proclaimed on the clashes between Han and Hui in Henan province, reports the China Digital News. Banning news seems so very much past century.

blogging - The 'Back-to-Jerusalem' threat




Jeff Rigsby describes himself in his new blog as a 'reluctant' blogger at his new blog. Why? Because bloggers cannot write piece like this one on the front page of the New York Times about this amazing 'Back-to-Jerusalem' organization, that must have been missed by the symbolic Chinese internet censorship.
Jeff: "What is BTJ? In a nutshell: huge numbers of Chinese Christians are convinced that the church here has a divine calling to complete Jesus' mission to humanity by converting the Muslim world. The "Back to Jerusalem vision" traces its origins back to the early twentieth century, but it lay dormant for decades as Maoism walled the Chinese off from the rest of the planet. Now that China is internationalizing with a vengeance, we should expect to see thousands of Chinese evangelicals make their mark outside the country's borders, with consequences that are hard to foresee but won't keep this a sleeper story forever."
Yesterday I was contemplating on ways to reframe the China story. This might just be another China story, that can influence its future. One thing is certain, without Jeff's new blog I might have missed this story althogether.

Reframing the China story – the WTO column

(soon in Chinabiz)
Traditionally media use a few techniques to sell their stories to you, the audience. Although, technique is not always the right word, since much of this process happens unconsciously. One of them is the framing of a story. By repeating a story line and story patterns over and over again, people – including ourselves – start to believe it. Like the water drop that can break a stone.
By telling stories that associate migrants with crime, we start to believe that migrants are more criminal than non-migrants. The truth is often different. Migrants just get caught more often and offer the media a nice story that is seemingly believable for their audiences.
Africa is a poor country where nothing can go right, is another story line, which stops media from publishing anything that could even smell like a success in Africa. Special segments in media take care of events that do not fit the way we frame stories: they are presented as stories that are different from ‘normal’ stories, are there to entertain you, but will never change the main way how the main stories are being framed: those strange events are put apart.

China was traditionally framed as a poor, backward country where a communist government would use any kind of force to suppress its citizens, especially those who wanted freedom and democracy. For some people that picture still survives in its full glory. They want to send second hand computers to the Chinese, while we of course only want the latest technology. And they think that the internet is not a tool to improve personal freedom, but a tool for repression.
Only last month I entered into a discussion with an institute of a famous US university that wanted to investigate the so-called firewall, that officially should keep the Chinese internet isolated from the rest of the world. In my life on the internet I had just downgraded the firewall from a minor nuisance to virtual non-existent. That did not right away fit their agenda.
The discussion about poverty in China has been replaced by the question of the growing gap between rich and poor in China, and its effects. When you compare China with India, you see a much wider gap, compared to China no inclination to do anything about it, but since it is a tradition in India, it might be less of a problem. A different way of framing the same problem.

Journalists pass by in droves here in Shanghai and see that wealth is climbing fast, and personal freedom is unprecedented. They often are amazed, write it up, but find it very hard when they are back home not to fall back in the traditional way they used to frame the China story: backward and repressive. Stories about China’s jump into research and development, away from backyard production facilities do not fit in it. And when China claim to close 1,600 internet cafes, lazy Western media repeat the Chinese state media, because it fits neatly into the way we always framed China.
I do not want journalists to write a different kind of stories, but we should carefully consider how we frame those stories. The old way of framing is firmly outdated, a new one is not clearly in place. The influence of the government is disappearing very fast on major areas in the society, and bit by bit a civil society emerges to replace that vacuum. We should give a voice to those emerging players in the civil society, and not ignore them because they do not fit into our traditional way of framing China.
In the economy you see huge differences in how players get used to their new roles. The Chinese chambers of commerce are very far ahead in developing themselves as independent non-governmental organizations. The trade unions have not even started to think about it, but major changes are lying ahead.
I feel that we journalists should watch that civil society much closer, and use them more often as an angle for our stories. The painting is still ok, but it is time to change the framework.

Fons Tuinstra

events - Colonel Jin Xing, a unique destiny



The Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club is showing the documentary Colonel Jin Xing, a unique destiny by Sylvie Levey and Pascal Vasselin. It is the moving story of a PLA Colonel, China's first transexual who emerged as the now famous dancer in Shanghai. I have seen it before, and will go again on November 11, 7:00 PM, 50 rmb for members, 100 for non-members. RSVP and ask for more details by mailing to Elyn.

events - US elections in Shanghai

For those who do not want to watch the results of the presidential elections in Shanghai along at home, but need some extra emotional support, they have different opportunities to share their feelings at the morning of November 3.
Amcham is hosting an event at the Portmann Ritz-Carlton, 100 rmb for members and 150 rmb for non-members, from eight to one. A cheaper get-together is organized by the Democrats abroad just around the corner in Malone's at Tongren Rd, starting at nine o'clock. No charge, although it might get busy when the lunch crowd moves in.
Will see whether there is wireless available, and perhaps do some blogging from Malones.

media - Danwei on Mark Kitto's return

For the second time today Danwei is required reading. They link to the new project of Mark Kitto, a new travel magazine, Voyage China. Mark was ousted in an evil coup at his brain child That's Shanghai, that eventually might lead to its downfall. "You can't keep a former Welsh Guardsman down," writes Danwei.

media - FEER death by a thousand cuts

Philip Bowring writes Asian media history by summerizing the mismanagement by Dow Jones of the famous Far Eastern Economic Review. Danwei reproduces the full piece that was first published in the unlinkable South China Morning Post. Bowring, who was a FEER-editor before Dow Jones took over, says that: "The magazine lost its way because people in New York thought they understood what the readers wanted more than those who were on the ground in Asia."

Culture too – Moralistic stories at the sex museum

Since we were in Tongli, we also visit the famous sex museum of professor Liu Hongxia, another one who has been driven out of Shanghai and found a hospitable welcome in Tongli. The housing of the museum is excellent, an old women’s school. It was my first visit and I thought the rather conservative tone of the professor was rather funny, but then he had had tough times in Shanghai.
For example, he called the concubines ‘home-prostitutes’, and left no possibility unused to tell us that we moved to a monogamist society and that was culture. Personally I know a few people who have not reached the highest cultural levels here.
Gay sex was also hidden in an almost hidden corner of the museum, focusing on ‘abnormal’ sex. Indeed, the rest was pretty straight forward, apart from a rhinoceros doing a strait job.
Guess it is already a big thing to have this sex museum in Shanghai. Maybe I should ask Jeffrey Wong to wrap up the Amsterdam sex museum and ship it to Tongli too.

culture – Jeffrey Wong saves Chinese houses in Tongli

Today I went with a delegation of the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club and Jeffrey Wong, chairman of the heritage village for art and culture in Tongli, part of Suzhou. Jeffrey (64) made his capital in textile and is now trying to do something useful with it. He buys up buildings are being demolished, and puts them in a warehouse in Tongli. Already over 150 buildings are there, including the Jingan Temple from Shanghai, that has been replaced by a concrete monster.
Initially he set up shop in the Qingpu district in Shanghai, but got overtaken by another development, had to pick up his houses and moved earlier this year to Tongli, where the government proved to be more hospitable.
The terrain that has been picked for the reconstruction of the buildings is rather swampy, but Jeffrey estimates that he can have rebuilt China here in fifteen to twenty years. The site of the SFCC will have pictures very soon.
Together with the beautiful town of Tongli and some other attractions this promises to become a very attractive part of Jiangsu province for tourism.
The plan is to change the village into a place where artists can work, free of charge.