Kevininfuckinpudong

Happy Army Day, Mutherfuckers! Seems like there were a few people that were not quite in the mood to celebrate yesterday. Who would have guessed, they got dragged away by our friends, the police? Wonder how those policemen's pensions will end up? Maybe one day they'll regret what they did... Hundreds of ex-servicemen marked yesterday's 78th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army by protesting outside a PLA office in Beijing.One witness said he saw many people being taken away by police. The petitioners, who were seeking action over economic woes caused by a lack of social security, gathered as PLA garrisons nationwide held Army Day ceremonies. Yesterday's incident followed a petition in April, when several thousand military veterans gathered at the same office, seeking better treatment from the state. Among those seeking more action in April was Korean war veteran Gan Guozhong, who died last month from a bone disease. Gan, who was unable to afford hospital treatment, spent the last six months of his life bedridden at home. Despite his war service and battlefield injuries, the government did not cover more than 60,000 yuan in medical expenses over the past decade, and his family continues to shoulder the debt. As a veteran, the government assigned him a job in a state-run company in Heilongjiang's Heihe city in 1976 but the company went bankrupt after Gan retired in 1993 and he lost his pension and medical benefits. The pension was resumed in 2000, but not the medical coverage. Gan petitioned state leaders for 10 years and they forwarded some of his letters to the local government. His son Gan Baolin, also a veteran, said no clear-cut policies existed to deal with cases like his father's. Gan Baolin said it was understandable that veterans would go to Beijing to petition. "They once fought for the nation, risking their necks," he said. "Now they are old and society has changed a lot, but they haven't got love or care from society or the government. My father left the world with regrets." If I had a dime for every time I heard some lame-ass "aiguo" patriotic BS here in China, I would be rich, and would not be sitting in my office now, having a cup of coffee and getting ready for a long, long day. But really, how much of this "aiguo" is really "aiguo?" I just read an article last night by Yu Jie criticizing the Chinese-American Nobel Prize Winner Chen Ning Yang, a man prone to "aiguo" outbursts that are usually less than helpful to the people of the country, and more helpful to the leaders. What Yu concluded was that Yang really had no grasp of what real life was like in China for regular people, as he is always a priveleged "foreign guest," and thus all that spews from his mouth is love of an imagined version of China that only exists for the select few. It's more a love of power and a false sense of face than a real love of one's country. Not to pick on this guy, but I wonder what he would have to say about this incident? Also last night, I watched the usual gratuitous Army Day musical celebrations (there were quite a few celebrations on a number of different TV channels). I couldn't help but laugh as they danced and sang songs like "Look at my Rocket!" and "Into the Trenches," etc. But it's also kind of sad, isn't it? Beneath this facade of development and patriotism lie the stories of people like Gan Guozhong, left to cover their own medical bills, while the officials whose power they fought for spend their money buying cars for their 2nd, 3rd, and 4th young girlfriends? Chinese Student FREAK OUT!!!! A not-so-popular defector whose full name I don't want to type out recently attended a conference on China in Melbourne. According to reports, a number of Mainland Chinese students showed up and made quite a scene, yelling, disrupting Chen's speech, calling him a traitor and threatening him. Some students demanded that he stop speaking English, and speak Chinese. I guess speaking English is traitorous, right? Remind me never to speak Chinese again on Chinese TV, only English for me! Anyway, their childish reactions really didn't go over very well. I don't know how to post pictures on this site, but from the pictures I saw, the students disrupting the speech looked like 2-year olds who just got their pacifiers taken away, while the rest of the audience looks completely aghast at their behavior. Here's a "dispatch" from the site: Chen's seminar at Melbourne University suffered some disruption and howling down last Friday. 　　The perpetrators appeared to be mainland Chinese students. I know we are taking them on purely for the cash, and I thought many Australian students might actually benefit from seeing up close how the Chinese system works on creating behaviour to stifle dissent, but do we really need to suffer these children of the appartchiks here in this country? Basically what we saw was a hate session. 　　While it's possible some geniunely wanted to hear CYL, and needed to also mouth the disruptions to keep in good with the party minders, the general behaviour of the mob hardly qualifies them for the status of students at a liberal university. A doctorate student at the university, Antonio Finnane, commented that "it's really very disturbing to see that these international students, even though they are studying in Australia, still have such a hostile view towards freedom of speech." Reading about this incident reminded me a lot of the anti-Japanese protests. Acting like an idiotic nutcase is simply not good press! In the anti-Japan govt-organized riots, the display of an immature and ugly sense of so-called patriotism shocked the world, as images of Chinese screaming and burning down Japanese restaurants hit the covers of newspapers around the world. Now with this defector, the lack of sympathy shown, and even a couple of incidents where threats were made on his life, continue to shock those of us in the world who have not had our minds clouded by the twisted party world-view. Many Chinese have criticized CYL for disgracing the Chinese people, but isn't this kind of irrational and immature behavior even more disgraceful? The sad thing is these people would probably be praised and consider themselves real patriots. But what's so heroic about closing your eyes to new ideas and yelling and threatening those who have a different point of view? Eventually the close-mindedness which passes for mainstream "culture" here is going to backfire. I mean, is this really the face that China and the Chinese people want to present to the world? Mature Diplomacy? An AP report that I saw in the Taipei Times has the following story, which clearly illustrates the maturity level of Chinese diplomacy: "Where frosty relations between China and Japan are concerned, the pen is mightier than the sword. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) appeared to make clear his continuing displeasure with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi when he ignored Koizumi's request to borrow his pen at a signing ceremony yesterday at the East Asia Summit in Malaysia. Wen had already refused to formally meet one-on-one with Koizumi at the summit amid a feud over the Japanese leader's visits to a shrine honoring war dead, including those executed for war crimes committed in China and elsewhere. As leaders of the newly inaugurated East Asia Summit were signing a declaration on the group's establishment, Koizumi, seated next to Wen, leaned over and asked to borrow his pen. Wen ignored him for several seconds until Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, smiling broadly, intervened to repeat the request. Wen then passed the pen to Koizumi with a smile, but the incident was widely noted amid an otherwise uneventful ceremony that concluded the 16-nation summit's formal business." Whew, that must have really been a "diu mianzi" moment when Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had to play kindergarten teacher and request that Wen pass over his pen. I can't think of many other countries in the world whose leaders would act like this. I can imagine that quite a large section of the Chinese net population is slapping each other high fives: "Dude, that was so cool when you didn't lend him a pen! China's rising!" I mean, what's next? At the end of the ceremony, is Wen going to give Koizumi a giant wedgie? Is the People's Daily going to announce that "the Japanese people have cooties, and they are not invited to our birthday party." Gimme a fuckin break! Judging by this behavior, I think I should try to make my point in the simplest terms possible: naughty! What China really needs is a pitcher, instead of some belly-itcher. Case Study in True China Hating I have been called a “China-hater” a number of times in the past few years since I saw through the dishonesty of “People’s China.” However, using the examples of the beating of two different Chinese people, I plan to show that it is those who accuse me who are themselves “China-haters.” First, let’s discuss the case of Lu Banglie who was beaten by hired thugs on the way into the village of Taishi. The Guardian carried a story in which the reporter, obviously in a state of shock, had exaggerated the injuries inflicted upon Lu. Once such exaggeration was discovered, it was time for the usual so-called “China-lovers” to come out and discuss the Western media’s “bias.” “Oh look at the biased Western media, exaggerating the beating!” The Foreign Ministry then got a few punches in saying that foreign reporters often complain that China has no laws, but when there are laws, they are the first to break them (referring, I guess, to the law that you are not supposed to visit or report on Taishi? Quite a law! Seems that Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience is not required reading in the Chinese educational curriculum). The website Letters from China even described “cooking up a news story” as “almost equally as regrettable as” beating someone. Mocking the beating and those who witnessed it, various commenters have suggested that the reporter would have been better off as a creative writer. Thus, the issue of the beating is minimized, almost as if everyone forgot that Lu Banglie was in fact beaten, and that there is no open reporting on the situation in Taishi in no access. Which comes to the forefront here: hatred for the western media, or sympathy for their fellow man? Now, let’s contrast this with the case of Zhao Yan, a tourist from Tianjin beaten near Niagara Falls. Unlike Mr. Lu, her story got extensive coverage in all the Chinese government rags, both English and Chinese. Photos of her swollen face were on display on the Internet, in newspapers, in magazines, and of course, on the beloved 7 o’clock news. Coverage and comments on this issue continue to this day. On the surface, it seems that much more sympathy and care have been extended to Zhao Yan, beaten at the hands of the “American imperialists.” However, on closer inspection, the similarity between the treatment of the two cases becomes clear. One sees that no genuine sympathy or care is extended to the victims of either of the beatings by the Chinese media or Chinese commenters (and their foreign comrades). The victims of the beatings are transformed from people suffering pain into pawns in a political game attempting to justify the current Chinese regime. In the Lu case, the honest mistakes of someone traumatized after witnessing a beating are used as evidence of the bias of the Western “anti-China media.” In the case of Zhao Yan, her bruised face is pasted across every media possible, intimating that “this is how Chinese are treated in America.” And of course, who will stand up to the Western media and the Western powers and demand “China’s respect”? Of course, the saviors in the (xenophobic fascist) Party! Thus, we see the Foreign Ministry commenting on the Guardian’s “irresponsibility,” and we see Li Zhaoxing personally bringing up the Zhao Yan case with Colin Powell (covered very, very extensively in the Chinese-language media). It’s a story that has been told millions of times in the closed Chinese media, ever since the claim that the Tiananmen protests were "schemes by foreign anti-China forces." China will only gain respect from other countries in the world when its government and some of its citizens stop trying to gain political points off of others' suffering, and start to treat humans as humans, rather than political pawns fitting into a distorted “us against them” worldview. A beating is a beating, and it is wrong, no matter who inflicts it, and xenophobic “patriotism” cannot change that. I’d like to end with a story from Ding Zilin, whose son was murdered by the Chinese government in 1989. After appearing in interviews with the international media, she received a number of letters and phone calls from so-called “patriots” calling her “a tool of Western anti-China forces” and a modern-day “traitor to the Chinese people.” As Ding, a mother left unable to mourn the death of her only son, said in response to one letter, “to hell with your blind patriotism!” A life is a life, even if this life falls victim to the Chinese government, and the world will only be able to take China and its defenders seriously when they realize this self-evident truth. The real China-haters are those who brush aside the death or beating of their fellow citizens at the hand of their government, and treat the victims of such horrible occurrences as political pawns rather than human beings.