Taipei rings in 2013 with style...
The Fairbank Report...(如意報告)
**NB: Signed articles represent the opinions of the respective
authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of THE FAIRBANK REPORT/RUYI BAOGAO (如 意 報 告).
31 December 2012
27 December 2012
26 December 2012
BREAKING: GEORGE H.W. BUSH'S CONDITION WORSENS; MAY NOT MAKE IT INTO THE NEW YEAR
WE PRAY FOR FORMER PRESIDENT BUSH (41) AS HE MAKES HIS FINAL JOURNEY INTO THE SUNSET...
23 December 2012
A Perfect Diaochan (貂 蟬)
Photo from: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/diao-chan
Diaochan (貂 蟬) is one of the four classical Chinese beauties. According to Romance of the Three Kingdoms, she was so beautiful that no man could resist her. It was this incredible beauty that was used to entangle General Lu Bu and his foster father Dong Zhuo in a love triangle that eventually led to patricide. For a fuller treatment, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaochan .
The model above is one of many Asian "cosplay girls" who make themselves look like Japanese manga characters, many of which are based on classical Chinese literature.
19 December 2012
16 December 2012
Being so much too good for earth, Heaven vows to keep them
Grace McDonnell, age 7, one of 20 children massacred in the Connecticut school shooting.
An Epitaph on S.P.
A Child of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel
Weep with me, all you that read
This little story:
And know, for whom a tear you shed
Death's self is sorry.
'Twas a child, that so did thrive
In grace and feature,
As heaven and nature seem'd to strive
Which own'd the creature.
Years he number'd scarce thirteen
When fates turn'd cruel,
Yet three fill'd zodiacs had he been
The stage's jewel;
And did act (what now we moan)
Old men so duly,
As, sooth, the Parcæ thought him one,
He play'd so truly.
So, by error, to his fate
They all consented;
But viewing him since (alas, too late)
They have repented;
And have sought (to give new birth)
In baths to steep him;
But being so much too good for earth,
Heaven vows to keep him.
15 December 2012
10 December 2012
THE EAST IS RED HOT!
Source: NPR.org, 12/10/2012
By the year 2030, for the first time in history, a majority of the world's population will be out of poverty. Middle classes will be the most important social and economic sector. Asia will enjoy the global power status it last had in the Middle Ages, while the 350-year rise of the West will be largely reversed. Global leadership may be shared, and the world is likely to be democratizing.
But the planet may also be racked by wars over food and water, with the environment threatened by climate change. Individuals, equipped with new lethal and disruptive technologies, will be capable of causing widespread harm. Global economic crises could well be recurring.
It all depends on how events develop over the next decade, according to a new report, Global Trends 2030 [PDF], prepared by the National Intelligence Council, comprising the 17 U.S. government intelligence agencies.
"We are at a critical juncture in human history, which could lead to widely contrasting futures," writes Christopher Kojm, the NIC chairman, in his introduction to the report.
The intelligence agencies update their Global Trends reporting every four years, in part to guide incoming presidential administrations. The new report identifies some new "mega-trends," including individual empowerment and the diffusion of global power, as well as highlighting issues that were covered in previous reports, such as growing conflict over access to food, water and energy sources.
A 'Radically Transformed' World
Among the demographic trends described in the report are the aging of the world population, more migration and increased urbanization.
"The world of 2030 will be radically transformed from our world today," Kojm said, introducing the report.
The report's authors note that the breadth of global change is comparable to the French Revolution and the dawning of the Industrial Age in the late 18th century, but unfolding at a far more dramatic pace. Whereas it took Britain more than 150 years to double per capita income, India and China are set to undergo the same transformation in a tenth of the time, with 100 times more people.
"By 2030," the report says, "Asia will be well on its way to returning to being the world's powerhouse, just as it was before 1500."
The report notes that Asian countries by that date will surpass the United States and Europe combined in overall power indices, including the size of their economies, populations and militaries, as well as in the extent of their technological investment.
A Multipolar World
Global political leadership, however, is likely to be diffused, with no single country or alliance playing a dominant role.
"A growing number of diverse state and nonstate actors, as well as subnational actors, such as cities, will play important governance roles," the report says. "The increasing number of players needed to solve major transnational challenges — and their discordant values — will complicate decisionmaking."
Much of the 2030 report highlights potentially positive developments, anticipating a healthier, more educated and more prosperous global population and a trend toward greater democracy. The report also warns about resource conflicts, the danger of nuclear war and global political gridlock. But its writers have nevertheless faced some criticism for an overly "optimistic" perspective, says Matthew Burrows, director of the NIC Long Range Analysis Unit and the principal author of the report.
"I got some comments from government officials who think we should have put more accent on even more negative scenarios and a lot more on a World War III scenario," Burrows says.
Diminished Threat From Terrorism
The report does identify some "Black Swan" possibilities that could cause large-scale disruption, such as a severe pandemic or the collapse of the European Union, but Burrows says his team of analysts figured a World War III scenario was not plausible.
Terrorism is likely to persist, according to the NIC analysts, but it will probably be less lethal, producing fewer civilian casualties and more economic disruption. Speaking at a news conference where he released the report, NIC Chairman Kojm said his analysts believe that radical Islam will have largely "exhausted" itself as a driver of terrorism by 2030.
The introduction of new media and technologies, however, may mean that individuals will be more capable of doing harm on their own or on behalf of others.
"With more access to lethal and disruptive technologies," Kojm said, "individuals who are experts in such areas as cybersystems might sell their services to the highest bidder."
The emphasis on individual empowerment was not highlighted in earlier NIC reports. The geopolitical shift from West to East did get attention previously, but Burrows said in hindsight it could have been given greater emphasis.
"We knew China was rising," Burrows says. "We underestimated the speed with which it was happening."
A Less Organized World
The NIC analysts may also have been caught a bit off guard by the Arab Spring, with the collapse of authoritarian governments from Egypt to Tunisia and the uprising in Syria. As with China's ascendancy, the democratization of Middle Eastern and North African countries was anticipated in the previous Global Trends report, but over a longer period of time.
"We were thinking about over 15 years," Burrows says. "We wrote that [last report] in 2008, so [we expected democratization] between 2008 and 2025. I think the lesson in a lot of these areas is that the developments come a lot faster."
Perhaps the most challenging aspect of this new global era will be that it's likely to be less organized. Global leadership will flow not to the strongest but to those who are most skilled at diplomacy and best able to mobilize international support. Under the "megatrends" category, the Global Trend authors predict that "power will shift to networks and coalitions in a multipolar world."
Should no group of countries prove capable of that cooperative leadership, the world could suffer, according to Burrows.
"You probably don't want to live in [that world]," Burrows says, "simply because of the challenges. Everything from proliferation to the global economy to the environment and resource issues, the responsibility to protect. All of those issues are not likely to fare very well in that world.You need some sort of management to keep a lot of these issues going in the right direction."
25 November 2012
Renmin Jiefangjun Wanshui
China's PLA Navy successfully lands fighter jets on the Liaoning, its first carrier.
23 November 2012
Giving the Man the Finger
There's even a name for the buildings that remain standing as their owners resist development. They are called "nail houses" because the homeowners refuse to be hammered down.
Nail house families occasionally have resorted to violence. Some homeowners have even set themselves on fire in protests. Often, they keep 24-hour vigils because developers will shy away from bulldozing homes when people are inside.
Xiayangzhang village chief Chen Xuecai said in a telephone interview Friday that city planners decided that Luo's village of 1,600 had to be moved for a new business district anchored by the train station. Chen said most families agreed to government-offered compensation in 2007.
Luo, 67, and a handful of neighbors in other parts of the new district are holding out for more.
"We want a new house on a two-unit lot with simple interior decoration," Luo told local reporters Thursday in video footage forwarded to The Associated Press.
Luo had just completed his house at a cost of about 600,000 yuan ($95,000) when the government first approached him with their standard offer of 220,000 ($35,000) to move out — which he refused, Chen said. The offer has since gone up to 260,000 yuan ($41,000).
"The Luo family is not rich," Chen said, acknowledging that they can ill afford such a big loss on their home. "But the policy is what it is."
The new road to the railroad station was completed in recent weeks, and has not yet been opened for traffic.
What is unusual in Luo's case is that his house has been allowed to stand for so long. It is common for local authorities in China to take extreme measures, such as cutting off utilities or moving in to demolish when residents are out for the day.
Luo told local reporters his electricity and water are still flowing, and that he and his wife sleep in separate parts of the home to deter any partial demolition.
Deputy village chief Luo Xuehua — a cousin to the duck farmer — said he didn't expect the dispute to go on much longer. He said he expects Luo Baogen to reach an agreement with the government soon, though he said the homeowner's demands are unrealistic.
"We cannot just give whatever he demands," Luo Xuehua said. "That's impossible."
19 November 2012
Saluting Fairbank Report Readers from Russia
The second largest number of visitors to the Fairbank Report this week comes from Russia. Thank you!
16 November 2012
ROSEMARY'S BABY
From: http://firsttoknow.com/man-sues-wife-and-wins-for-birthing-ugly-baby/
Sounds like an old wives tale, right? Unfortunately, it’s the true story behind the saga lives of Jian Feng and his now ex-wife who remains unnamed. After their baby girl was born, Feng demanded a DNA test to prove his wife had cheated on him with another man and the baby wasn’t his. But, when the test results came back and proved Feng was in fact the biological father, he made the choice every father makes—to apologize and accept his daughter as is.
Oh, wait. That’s not what he did. He decided to sue his wife to prove his ugly child was all her fault genetically. You would think any judge would have laughed this case right out of court, but again, not what happened.
Feng’s wife admitted that before she met her husband-to-be she had $100,000 worth of cosmetic surgery performed in South Korea. This backed up Feng’s claim of “false pretenses” that by not revealing her plastic surgery to him before the marriage, she tricked him. The judge sided with Feng and ordered the wife to pay him $120,000.
With all this craziness it’s easy to forget about the most innocent victim in the case, the baby girl who did not ask to be brought into the world, and has no control over what she looks like. Hopefully, she can be raised by a mother thankful that she got to see the “ugliness” behind her husband’s handsome exterior and now has the opportunity to find someone else to love them both for inner beauty.
13 November 2012
Ugly Sluts That Brought Down General Patraeus
(By the way, this is the 1,200th entry of the Fairbank Report/Ruyi Baogao since its inception in September 2005).
Photo source: http://thelasttradition.blogspot.com/ Jill Kelly -- "honorary consul general"
Photo source: http://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-david-petraeus-paula-broadwell-2012-11
Paula Broadwell -- "intelligence specialist"
Paula Broadwell -- "intelligence specialist"
11 November 2012
10 November 2012
GREECE IS THE WORD...
WITH MASSIVE DEBT, INCREASED ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS, OPEN BORDERS, AND RISING ENTITLEMENT MENTALITY, THE USA IS GREECE... YEP, GREECE IS THE WORD!
07 November 2012
LA County Bans Bareback Porn
Measure B passed on November 6. So bareback porn is out in Los Angeles County.
Deja Vu: Markets Crashed on O's "Re-election"
- SP500
- 1,394.53
- -33.86
- -2.37%
Flashback: Dow dropped 5% the day after O's election in 2008
05 November 2008
Market Reaction: Dow Dropped 500 points (over 5%) on Obama's Election
Filed by Michael Henchard.
Investors voted with their feet today as fear spread that the Barack Hussein Obama regime will raise taxes and increase spending over and above the already high baseline established under putative Republican George W. Bush.
With control of all levers of the federal government, the Democrats are poised to carry out some shock and awe of their own. They will shock the economy by raising taxes and awe economists with such reckless hijinxes.
Investors voted with their feet today as fear spread that the Barack Hussein Obama regime will raise taxes and increase spending over and above the already high baseline established under putative Republican George W. Bush.
With control of all levers of the federal government, the Democrats are poised to carry out some shock and awe of their own. They will shock the economy by raising taxes and awe economists with such reckless hijinxes.
06 November 2012
FRAUD...FRAUD...FRAUD
CHICAGO-STYLE FRAUDULENT POLITICS DAMAGED AMERICAN DEMOCRACY...
DEAD PEOPLE VOTED
ILLEGAL ALIENS VOTED
DEAD PEOPLE VOTED
ILLEGAL ALIENS VOTED
Celebrating the Chinese Communist Party's 18th National Congress (11/8/2012) in Beijing
中国共产党第十八次全国代表大会
Zhōngguó
FINAL, FINAL FAIRBANK GROUP POLL RESULTS
EMBARGOED UNTIL 07.30 PST
THE FINAL FAIRBANK REPORT PRESIDENTIAL POLL SHOWS MITT ROMNEY LEADING PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA 55% TO 44%.
SO THE MSM HAVE LIED TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WHEN THEY SAY THE ELECTION IS CLOSE. NOT EVEN ANYWHERE NEAR CLOSE.
THE FINAL FAIRBANK REPORT PRESIDENTIAL POLL SHOWS MITT ROMNEY LEADING PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA 55% TO 44%.
SO THE MSM HAVE LIED TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WHEN THEY SAY THE ELECTION IS CLOSE. NOT EVEN ANYWHERE NEAR CLOSE.
05 November 2012
03 November 2012
WEEKEND SHOCK: HILLARY ENDORSES ROMNEY!!!!!!
Mitt Romney has been making a pitch for bipartisanship in the closing days of the race, and this morning rolled out an endorsement from Hillary Clinton's former Senate state director, Gigi Georges:
(Also on POLITICO: Hillary doesn't rule out staying on)
Read more about: Hillary Clinton
SOURCE: http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/11/former-hillary-aide-backs-romney-148251.html#comments
“For most of my life, I’ve been an active Democrat. I am proud to have worked for President Bill Clinton and then-Senator Hillary Clinton, and, during that time, I saw firsthand what can be accomplished by strong, bipartisan leadership. I know what it means to work across the aisle on issues that are important to the American people. And that’s why I am supporting Mitt Romney. Governor Romney has a plan to restore the prosperity this country deserves and expects. He will work with people of good will no matter what their party, and he will pursue the policies that are in the best interest of our country, no matter who proposes them. That’s what President Obama promised to do four years ago. But like so many of his promises, bipartisan cooperation is just another one he has broken. We can’t have four more years of failed policies and two parties that can’t work together. We need the change Mitt Romney is offering.”For people in New York politics, Georges, who now lives in Boston, is a familiar name and face - she was also the executive director of the state Democracy Party when Clinton was in office. Romney's been talking up Hillary Clinton for months on and off on the trail, and the final effort to appeal to some of her voters in places like Ohio has continued.
(Also on POLITICO: Hillary doesn't rule out staying on)
Read more about: Hillary Clinton
SOURCE: http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/11/former-hillary-aide-backs-romney-148251.html#comments
02 November 2012
Kim Jong-un's Wife (Ri Solju) is Pregnant with Child
The video below released by North Korean TV shows a plump Ri Solju. Clearly, she's pregnant...You heard it first here at the Fairbank Report.
31 October 2012
"Bronco Bamma" Made Toddler Cry
In the immortal words of Rodney King, can't we all get along? Of course, for the sake of the children...
28 October 2012
26 October 2012
Kim Jong-un Style!
Party animal North Korean official spared rope, executed by mortar
20 hrs agoSource: http://now.msn.com/kim-chol-north-korean-army-official-executed-by-mortar
23 October 2012
22 October 2012
20 October 2012
Featured Country of the Week: Republic of Korea
Today, the second highest number of Fairbank Report readers come from South Korea. Thank you!
14 October 2012
Internet Pretty Boy Goes to Cal State L.A.
21 October 2011
Today's Asian Kids Are So Epic!
"Cute"
While some netizens have accused him of being gay, he's just a "pretty boy" who has classical
Update: His name is "Calvin Her." Yep, he's a Her. LOL!
09 October 2012
06 October 2012
Epic Vietnamese Classic -- "Nang Chieu" -- Afternoon Sun
The Chinese version is known as
越南情歌 (yuenan qingge, Vietnamese Love Song)
Japanese version
BUT DO NOTE THAT THIS IS ORIGINALLY VIETNAMESE...
Sino-Vietnamese Relationship
Source: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/ID26Ae02.html
Page 1 of 2
Why Vietnam loves and hates ChinaBy Andrew Forbes
For more than 2,000 years, Vietnam's development as a nation has been marked by one fixed and immutable factor - the proximity of China. The relationship between the two countries is in many ways a family affair, with all the closeness of shared values and bitterness of close rivalries.
No country in Southeast Asia is culturally closer to China than Vietnam, and no other country in the region has spent so long fending off Chinese domination, often at a terrible cost in lives, economic development and political compromise.
China has been Vietnam's blessing and Vietnam's curse. It remains an intrusive cultural godfather, the giant to the north that is "always there". Almost a thousand years of Chinese occupation, between the Han conquest of Nam Viet in the 2nd century BC and the reassertion of Vietnamese independence as Dai Viet in AD 967, marked the Vietnamese so deeply that they became, in effect, an outpost of Chinese civilization in Southeast Asia.
While the other countries of Indochina are Theravada Buddhist, sharing cultural links with South Asia, Vietnam derived its predominant religion - a mix of Mahayana Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism popularly known as tam giao or "Three Religions"- from China. Until the introduction of romanized quoc ngu script in the 17th century, Vietnamese scholars wrote in Chinese characters or in chu nho, a Vietnamese derivative of Chinese characters.
Over the centuries, Vietnam developed as a smaller version of the Middle Kingdom, a centralized, hierarchical state ruled by an all-powerful emperor living in a Forbidden City based on its namesake in Beijing and administered by a highly educated Confucian bureaucracy.
Both countries are deeply conscious of the cultural ties that bind them together, and each is still deeply suspicious of the other. During the long centuries of Chinese occupation, the Vietnamese enthusiastically embraced many aspects of Chinese civilization, while at the same time fighting with an extraordinary vigor to maintain their cultural identity and regain their national independence.
During the Tang Dynasty (6th-9th centuries AD), Vietnamese guerrillas fighting the Chinese sang a martial song that emphasized their separate identity in the clearest of terms:
Fight to keep our hair long,
Fight to keep our teeth black,
Fight to show that the heroic southern country can never be defeated.
For their part, the Chinese recognized the Vietnamese as a kindred people, to be offered the benefits of higher Chinese civilization and, ultimately, the rare privilege of being absorbed into the Chinese polity.
On the other hand, as near family, they were to be punished especially severely if they rejected Chinese standards or rebelled against Chinese control. This was made very clear in a remarkable message sent by the Song Emperor Taizong to King Le Hoan in AD 979, just over a decade after Vietnam first reasserted its independence.
Like a stern headmaster, Taizong appealed to Le Hoan to see reason and return to the Chinese fold: "Although your seas have pearls, we will throw them into the rivers, and though your mountains produce gold, we will throw it into the dust. We do not covet your valuables. You fly and leap like savages, we have horse-drawn carriages. You drink through your noses, we have rice and wine. Let us change your customs. You cut your hair, we wear hats; when you talk, you sound like birds. We have examinations and books. Let us teach you the knowledge of the proper laws ... Do you not want to escape from the savagery of the outer islands and gaze upon the house of civilization? Do you want to discard your garments of leaves and grass and wear flowered robes embroidered with mountains and dragons? Have you understood?"
In fact Le Hoan understood Taizong very well and, like his modern successors, knew exactly what he wanted from China - access to its culture and civilization without coming under its political control or jeopardizing Vietnamese freedom in any way. This attitude infuriated Taizong, as it would generations of Chinese to come.
In 1407, the Ming Empire managed to reassert Chinese control over its stubbornly independent southern neighbor, and Emperor Yongle - no doubt, to his mind, in the best interests of the Vietnamese - imposed a policy of enforced Sinicization. Predictably enough, Vietnam rejected this "kindness" and fought back, expelling the Chinese yet again in 1428.
Yongle was apoplectic when he learned of their rebellion. Vietnam was not just another tributary state, he insisted, but a former province that had once enjoyed the benefits of Chinese civilization
and yet had wantonly rejected this privilege. In view of this close association - Yongle used the term mi mi or "intimately related" - Vietnam's rebellion was particularly heinous and deserved the fiercest of punishments.
China on top
Sometimes a strongly sexual imagery creeps into this "intimate relationship", with Vietnam, the weaker partner, a victim of
Chinese violation. In AD 248, the Vietnamese heroine Lady Triu, who led a popular uprising against the Chinese occupation, proclaimed: "I want to ride the great winds, strike the sharks on the high seas, drive out the invaders, reconquer the nation, burst the bonds of slavery and never bow to become anyone's concubine."
Her defiant choice of words was more than just symbolic. Vietnam has long been a source of women for the Chinese sex trade. In Tang times, the Chinese poet Yuan Chen wrote appreciatively of "slave girls of Viet, sleek, of buttery flesh", while today the booming market for Vietnamese women in Taiwan infuriates and humiliates many Vietnamese men.
It's instructive, then, that in his 1987 novel Fired Gold Vietnamese author Nguyen Huy Thiep writes, "The most significant characteristics of this country are its smallness and weakness. She is like a virgin girl raped by Chinese civilization. The girl concurrently enjoys, despises and is humiliated by the rape."
This Chinese belief that Vietnam is not just another nation, but rather a member of the family - almost Chinese, aware of the blessings of Chinese civilization, but somehow stubbornly refusing, century after century, to become Chinese - has persisted down to the present day.
During the Second Indochina War, Chinese propaganda stressed that Vietnam and China were "as close as the lips and the teeth". After the US defeat, however, Vietnam once again showed its independence, allying itself with the Soviet Union, in 1978-79, invading neighboring Cambodia and overthrowing China's main ally in Southeast Asia, the Khmer Rouge.
Once again Chinese fury knew no bounds, and Beijing determined to teach the "ungrateful" Vietnamese a lesson. Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader, openly denounced the Vietnamese as "the hooligans of the East". According to one Thai diplomat: "The moment the topic of Vietnam came up, you could see something change in Deng Xiaoping.
"His hatred was just visceral. He spat forcefully into his spittoon and called the Vietnamese 'dogs'." Acting on Deng's orders, the Chinese army invaded Vietnam in 1979, capturing five northern provincial capitals before systematically demolishing them and withdrawing to China after administering a symbolic "lesson".
But who taught a lesson to whom? Beijing sought to force Hanoi to withdraw its frontline forces from Cambodia, but the Vietnamese didn't engage these forces in the struggle, choosing instead to confront the Chinese with irregulars and provincial militia. Casualties were about equal, and China lost considerable face, as well as international respect, as a result of its invasion.
Over the millennia, actions like this have taught the Vietnamese a recurring lesson about China. It's there, it's big, and it won't go away, so appease it without yielding whenever possible, and fight it with every resource available whenever necessary.
Just as Chinese rulers have seen the Vietnamese as ingrates and hooligans, so the Vietnamese have seen the Chinese as arrogant and aggressive, a power to be emulated at all times, mollified in times of peace, and fiercely resisted in times of war.
In 1946, 1,700 years after Lady Triu's declaration, another great Vietnamese patriot, Ho Chi Minh, warned his Viet Minh colleagues in forceful terms against using Chinese Nationalist troops in the north as a buffer against the return of the French: "You fools! Don't you realize what it means if the Chinese remain? Don't you remember your history?
"The last time the Chinese came, they stayed a thousand years. The French are foreigners. They are weak. Colonialism is dying. The white man is finished in Asia. But if the Chinese stay now, they will never go. As for me, I prefer to sniff French shit for five years than to eat Chinese shit for the rest of my life."
Yet Ho was an ardent admirer of Chinese civilization, fluent in Mandarin, a skilled calligrapher who wrote Chinese poetry, a close friend and colleague of Chinese leaders Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. Ho wasn't as much anti-Chinese as he was pro-Vietnamese. It was his deep understanding of and respect for China that enabled him to recognize, clearly and definitively, the menace that "a close family relationship" with the giant to the north posed, and continues to pose, for Vietnam's independence and freedom.
It's ironic, then, that as the current Vietnamese leadership strive to develop their economy along increasingly capitalist lines while at the same time retaining their monopoly on state power, the country they most admire and seek to emulate is, as always, the one they most fear.
Andrew Forbes is editor of CPA Media as well as a correspondent in its Thailand bureau. He has recently completed National Geographic Traveler: Shanghai , and the above is an excerpt from his forthcoming book A Phoenix Reborn: Travels in New Vietnam.
(Copyright 2007 Andrew Forbes.)
Page 1 of 2
Why Vietnam loves and hates ChinaBy Andrew Forbes
For more than 2,000 years, Vietnam's development as a nation has been marked by one fixed and immutable factor - the proximity of China. The relationship between the two countries is in many ways a family affair, with all the closeness of shared values and bitterness of close rivalries.
No country in Southeast Asia is culturally closer to China than Vietnam, and no other country in the region has spent so long fending off Chinese domination, often at a terrible cost in lives, economic development and political compromise.
China has been Vietnam's blessing and Vietnam's curse. It remains an intrusive cultural godfather, the giant to the north that is "always there". Almost a thousand years of Chinese occupation, between the Han conquest of Nam Viet in the 2nd century BC and the reassertion of Vietnamese independence as Dai Viet in AD 967, marked the Vietnamese so deeply that they became, in effect, an outpost of Chinese civilization in Southeast Asia.
While the other countries of Indochina are Theravada Buddhist, sharing cultural links with South Asia, Vietnam derived its predominant religion - a mix of Mahayana Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism popularly known as tam giao or "Three Religions"- from China. Until the introduction of romanized quoc ngu script in the 17th century, Vietnamese scholars wrote in Chinese characters or in chu nho, a Vietnamese derivative of Chinese characters.
Over the centuries, Vietnam developed as a smaller version of the Middle Kingdom, a centralized, hierarchical state ruled by an all-powerful emperor living in a Forbidden City based on its namesake in Beijing and administered by a highly educated Confucian bureaucracy.
Both countries are deeply conscious of the cultural ties that bind them together, and each is still deeply suspicious of the other. During the long centuries of Chinese occupation, the Vietnamese enthusiastically embraced many aspects of Chinese civilization, while at the same time fighting with an extraordinary vigor to maintain their cultural identity and regain their national independence.
During the Tang Dynasty (6th-9th centuries AD), Vietnamese guerrillas fighting the Chinese sang a martial song that emphasized their separate identity in the clearest of terms:
Fight to keep our hair long,
Fight to keep our teeth black,
Fight to show that the heroic southern country can never be defeated.
For their part, the Chinese recognized the Vietnamese as a kindred people, to be offered the benefits of higher Chinese civilization and, ultimately, the rare privilege of being absorbed into the Chinese polity.
On the other hand, as near family, they were to be punished especially severely if they rejected Chinese standards or rebelled against Chinese control. This was made very clear in a remarkable message sent by the Song Emperor Taizong to King Le Hoan in AD 979, just over a decade after Vietnam first reasserted its independence.
Like a stern headmaster, Taizong appealed to Le Hoan to see reason and return to the Chinese fold: "Although your seas have pearls, we will throw them into the rivers, and though your mountains produce gold, we will throw it into the dust. We do not covet your valuables. You fly and leap like savages, we have horse-drawn carriages. You drink through your noses, we have rice and wine. Let us change your customs. You cut your hair, we wear hats; when you talk, you sound like birds. We have examinations and books. Let us teach you the knowledge of the proper laws ... Do you not want to escape from the savagery of the outer islands and gaze upon the house of civilization? Do you want to discard your garments of leaves and grass and wear flowered robes embroidered with mountains and dragons? Have you understood?"
In fact Le Hoan understood Taizong very well and, like his modern successors, knew exactly what he wanted from China - access to its culture and civilization without coming under its political control or jeopardizing Vietnamese freedom in any way. This attitude infuriated Taizong, as it would generations of Chinese to come.
In 1407, the Ming Empire managed to reassert Chinese control over its stubbornly independent southern neighbor, and Emperor Yongle - no doubt, to his mind, in the best interests of the Vietnamese - imposed a policy of enforced Sinicization. Predictably enough, Vietnam rejected this "kindness" and fought back, expelling the Chinese yet again in 1428.
Yongle was apoplectic when he learned of their rebellion. Vietnam was not just another tributary state, he insisted, but a former province that had once enjoyed the benefits of Chinese civilization
and yet had wantonly rejected this privilege. In view of this close association - Yongle used the term mi mi or "intimately related" - Vietnam's rebellion was particularly heinous and deserved the fiercest of punishments.
China on top
Sometimes a strongly sexual imagery creeps into this "intimate relationship", with Vietnam, the weaker partner, a victim of
Chinese violation. In AD 248, the Vietnamese heroine Lady Triu, who led a popular uprising against the Chinese occupation, proclaimed: "I want to ride the great winds, strike the sharks on the high seas, drive out the invaders, reconquer the nation, burst the bonds of slavery and never bow to become anyone's concubine."
Her defiant choice of words was more than just symbolic. Vietnam has long been a source of women for the Chinese sex trade. In Tang times, the Chinese poet Yuan Chen wrote appreciatively of "slave girls of Viet, sleek, of buttery flesh", while today the booming market for Vietnamese women in Taiwan infuriates and humiliates many Vietnamese men.
It's instructive, then, that in his 1987 novel Fired Gold Vietnamese author Nguyen Huy Thiep writes, "The most significant characteristics of this country are its smallness and weakness. She is like a virgin girl raped by Chinese civilization. The girl concurrently enjoys, despises and is humiliated by the rape."
This Chinese belief that Vietnam is not just another nation, but rather a member of the family - almost Chinese, aware of the blessings of Chinese civilization, but somehow stubbornly refusing, century after century, to become Chinese - has persisted down to the present day.
During the Second Indochina War, Chinese propaganda stressed that Vietnam and China were "as close as the lips and the teeth". After the US defeat, however, Vietnam once again showed its independence, allying itself with the Soviet Union, in 1978-79, invading neighboring Cambodia and overthrowing China's main ally in Southeast Asia, the Khmer Rouge.
Once again Chinese fury knew no bounds, and Beijing determined to teach the "ungrateful" Vietnamese a lesson. Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader, openly denounced the Vietnamese as "the hooligans of the East". According to one Thai diplomat: "The moment the topic of Vietnam came up, you could see something change in Deng Xiaoping.
"His hatred was just visceral. He spat forcefully into his spittoon and called the Vietnamese 'dogs'." Acting on Deng's orders, the Chinese army invaded Vietnam in 1979, capturing five northern provincial capitals before systematically demolishing them and withdrawing to China after administering a symbolic "lesson".
But who taught a lesson to whom? Beijing sought to force Hanoi to withdraw its frontline forces from Cambodia, but the Vietnamese didn't engage these forces in the struggle, choosing instead to confront the Chinese with irregulars and provincial militia. Casualties were about equal, and China lost considerable face, as well as international respect, as a result of its invasion.
Over the millennia, actions like this have taught the Vietnamese a recurring lesson about China. It's there, it's big, and it won't go away, so appease it without yielding whenever possible, and fight it with every resource available whenever necessary.
Just as Chinese rulers have seen the Vietnamese as ingrates and hooligans, so the Vietnamese have seen the Chinese as arrogant and aggressive, a power to be emulated at all times, mollified in times of peace, and fiercely resisted in times of war.
In 1946, 1,700 years after Lady Triu's declaration, another great Vietnamese patriot, Ho Chi Minh, warned his Viet Minh colleagues in forceful terms against using Chinese Nationalist troops in the north as a buffer against the return of the French: "You fools! Don't you realize what it means if the Chinese remain? Don't you remember your history?
"The last time the Chinese came, they stayed a thousand years. The French are foreigners. They are weak. Colonialism is dying. The white man is finished in Asia. But if the Chinese stay now, they will never go. As for me, I prefer to sniff French shit for five years than to eat Chinese shit for the rest of my life."
Yet Ho was an ardent admirer of Chinese civilization, fluent in Mandarin, a skilled calligrapher who wrote Chinese poetry, a close friend and colleague of Chinese leaders Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. Ho wasn't as much anti-Chinese as he was pro-Vietnamese. It was his deep understanding of and respect for China that enabled him to recognize, clearly and definitively, the menace that "a close family relationship" with the giant to the north posed, and continues to pose, for Vietnam's independence and freedom.
It's ironic, then, that as the current Vietnamese leadership strive to develop their economy along increasingly capitalist lines while at the same time retaining their monopoly on state power, the country they most admire and seek to emulate is, as always, the one they most fear.
Andrew Forbes is editor of CPA Media as well as a correspondent in its Thailand bureau. He has recently completed National Geographic Traveler: Shanghai , and the above is an excerpt from his forthcoming book A Phoenix Reborn: Travels in New Vietnam.
(Copyright 2007 Andrew Forbes.)
05 October 2012
Lies, Damned Lies, and Cooked Numbers
So the O administration/campaign must be really desperate. Detrimental data from their internal polls led them to cook the numbers on today's Bureau of Labor Statistics report. The unemployment number mysteriously dropped below 8% -- literally overnight. Chicago-style politics at work.
We don't know which is sadder -- that they cooked the numbers or that they expected us to believe them!
We don't know which is sadder -- that they cooked the numbers or that they expected us to believe them!
03 October 2012
30 September 2012
Our Favourite Girl on 非诚勿扰 Finally Accepted a Lucky Bastard!
Feicheng Wurao -- 非诚勿扰 -- is a wildly popular dating show in Mainland China. Unlike Western dating shows which emphasize prurient sexual innuendos and indeed sex acts on TV, Feicheng Wurao stresses values, innocent fun, and relationship-building. That's why the programme is so popular in China, East Asia, and even in the USA among more serious and mature people.
Anyway, my favourite girl on the programme, Xie Yuyi, finally chose a guy. Miss Xie is tall, has porcelain complexion, a beautiful white smile, and the physique of a goddess. In fact, I have often wondered why she did not choose to become a model.
The guy came specifically for her, and she accepted him. He's a good-looking kid, even if he's somewhat nerdy and tongue-tied!
Interestingly, in the same episode, Miss Xie left her light on for a peasant dude, who was stupid enough to turn her down based on some putative grand scheme to save humanity. I am 90% certain that Peasant Dude was a plant from the Chinese Communist Party. The Party has, in the past, criticized the girls on the programme for being too materialistic and gold-digging.
During her tenure on the programme, Xie Yuyi was pursued by so many good-looking, successful, and wealthy nanjiabings, and she invariably turned every single one of them down.
There were times when I thought Miss Xie was a bit arrogant because she always had this long face when someone whom she did not like had selected her as his chosen dream girl. The fact that she was moved by the peasant dude's life story convinces me that she's not that snobby. That she suggested that the prize money be donated to charity was a good move, at least a good PR gesture.
I will miss you dearly, Xie Yuyi. What a beautiful and lovely creature you are! Hope the nerd treats you well...
29 September 2012
Saluting Local Talent: Sino-Vietnamese Singer Duoanh Duoanh Thai (Cynthia Thai) from Rosemead
Her Chinese is quite bad; her Vietnamese is excellent. Not bad for a chick born and raised in Rosemead, California...(She's the young, cute one!)
中秋節 2012 (9/30/2012)
FAIRBANK FLASHBACK...
21 September 2010
中秋節 Not Chuseok
Every child of three and up knows that Zhongqiu (literally, the
middle of autumn) is a Chinese harvest festival, which has blessed the
Sinitic world, including Vietnam and the Korean Peninsula, with great
joy.
Yet, the Koreans claim it as a "Korean holiday." Calling it "chuseok," Arirang TV translates it as "Korean Thanksgiving." There's no such concept as thanksgiving in the Sinitic world or in the broader Asian world. Thanksgiving is a Western concept, and Thanksgiving Day is purely American.
It's Zhongqiu, and it's Chinese in origin with Korean and Vietnamese variations.
This year Zhongqiu falls on September 22. So happy 中秋節!
Yet, the Koreans claim it as a "Korean holiday." Calling it "chuseok," Arirang TV translates it as "Korean Thanksgiving." There's no such concept as thanksgiving in the Sinitic world or in the broader Asian world. Thanksgiving is a Western concept, and Thanksgiving Day is purely American.
It's Zhongqiu, and it's Chinese in origin with Korean and Vietnamese variations.
This year Zhongqiu falls on September 22. So happy 中秋節!
FREE BO XILAI! DOWN WITH THE CAPITALIST ROADERS WHO HAVE HIJACKED THE CCP!
FROM XINHUA NEWS AGENCY
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| English.news.cn 2012-09-29 13:59:41 |
   
 
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BEIJING, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- The Standing Committee of Chongqing
Municipal People's Congress has decided to remove Bo Xilai from his post
as deputy to the 11th National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, the NPC confirmed on Saturday.
The Credential Committee of the NPC Standing Committee on Friday received a report from the Standing Committee of the Chongqing Municipal People's Congress regarding the decision.
The Credential Committee will submit a report proposing the NPC Standing Committee deliberate the decision.
Bo was expelled from the CPC and removed from public office for severe disciplinary violations after a decision at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on Friday.
The meeting also decided to transfer Bo's suspected law violations and relevant evidence to judicial departments for handling.
Related：
Bo Xilai expelled from CPC, public office
BEIJING, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- Bo Xilai has been expelled from the Communist Party of China (CPC) and removed from public office, according to a decision made at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on Friday.
The meeting also yielded the decision to transfer Bo's suspected law violations and relevant evidence to judicial organs for handling. Full story
Commentary: CPC shows no tolerance for corruption
BEIJING, April 19 (Xinhua) -- Vowing thorough investigations into the Wang Lijun incident, the death of Briton Neil Heywood and Bo Xilai's serious violations, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has shown its dedication to the fight against corruption.
The Party's unequivocal and consistent opposition to corruption and the steady, notable new progress made in fighting corruption and upholding integrity provide an important guarantee for advancing reform, opening up, and socialist modernization. Full story
Bo's probe applauded as demonstration of transparency, resolution
BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- An investigation into ex-senior official Bo Xilai over discipline violations has demonstrated the Communist Party of China's resolution and transparency in self-discipline, officials, scholars and netizens have said.
The CPC Central Committee announced last week that it would suspend Bo's membership in the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau and the CPC Central Committee, as he is suspected of being involved in serious discipline violations. Full story
Commentary: Law and Party disciplines brook no violation
BEIJING, April 14 (Xinhua) -- The recent decision of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee to investigate Bo Xilai's serious discipline violations, and the police reinvestigation of Neil Heywood's death, have garnered wide support from all walks of life in the country.
These moves have been objectively reported by most international media. However, a few overseas media have placed excessive interpretation on the cases and even taking the chance to make inappropriate comments on China's politics. Full story
The Credential Committee of the NPC Standing Committee on Friday received a report from the Standing Committee of the Chongqing Municipal People's Congress regarding the decision.
The Credential Committee will submit a report proposing the NPC Standing Committee deliberate the decision.
Bo was expelled from the CPC and removed from public office for severe disciplinary violations after a decision at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on Friday.
The meeting also decided to transfer Bo's suspected law violations and relevant evidence to judicial departments for handling.
Related：
Bo Xilai expelled from CPC, public office
BEIJING, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- Bo Xilai has been expelled from the Communist Party of China (CPC) and removed from public office, according to a decision made at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on Friday.
The meeting also yielded the decision to transfer Bo's suspected law violations and relevant evidence to judicial organs for handling. Full story
Commentary: CPC shows no tolerance for corruption
BEIJING, April 19 (Xinhua) -- Vowing thorough investigations into the Wang Lijun incident, the death of Briton Neil Heywood and Bo Xilai's serious violations, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has shown its dedication to the fight against corruption.
The Party's unequivocal and consistent opposition to corruption and the steady, notable new progress made in fighting corruption and upholding integrity provide an important guarantee for advancing reform, opening up, and socialist modernization. Full story
Bo's probe applauded as demonstration of transparency, resolution
BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- An investigation into ex-senior official Bo Xilai over discipline violations has demonstrated the Communist Party of China's resolution and transparency in self-discipline, officials, scholars and netizens have said.
The CPC Central Committee announced last week that it would suspend Bo's membership in the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau and the CPC Central Committee, as he is suspected of being involved in serious discipline violations. Full story
Commentary: Law and Party disciplines brook no violation
BEIJING, April 14 (Xinhua) -- The recent decision of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee to investigate Bo Xilai's serious discipline violations, and the police reinvestigation of Neil Heywood's death, have garnered wide support from all walks of life in the country.
These moves have been objectively reported by most international media. However, a few overseas media have placed excessive interpretation on the cases and even taking the chance to make inappropriate comments on China's politics. Full story
27 September 2012
HERE'S HOPING FOSSIL LEE KWAN YEW CHOKE ON S$30K
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Singapore Democrats Dr
Chee Soon Juan went to the Insolvent Persons and Trustees Office (IPTO)
today to remit the $30,000 to settle his case with Mr Lee Kuan Yew and
Mr Goh Chok Tong. He was accompanied by SDP members and supporters. The amount was raised in less than two weeks through the sales of his books as well as donations. The IPTO officials said that upon receiving the money, it will forward the funds to Mr Lee and Mr Goh, and the two former prime ministers will take a formal vote to agree to annul the bankruptcy order. According to Ms Lydia Loh from the IPTO, the Official Assignee will then take the decision to officially annul the bankruptcy order. The entire process will take one to two months. Dear Ms Lydia Loh,  |
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26 September 2012
dumb japs!
The placard (see photo above) used by the dumb, right-wing japs actually argues against their cause and supports China/Taiwan's claim over the Diaoyu Islands.
"1895" refers to the (unequal) Treaty of Shimonoseki of 1895 between the Qing government of China and the Meiji government of Japan after the former's devastating defeat in the first Sino-Japanese War (1894-95). Under the terms of the treaty, Japan took possession of Taiwan and Diaoyu Islands from China, and the Qing government gave up its suzerainty over Chaoxian (Chosun) Korea.
When Japan unconditionally surrendered to the Allied powers at the end of World War II in 1945, it agreed to give up all territories taken between 1895 and 1945, the period of Japanese imperialism. Thus, Taiwan was returned to the Republic of China, and Korea became independent (and split into two different countries). Even by the dumb jap right wingers' own logic, Diaoyu, therefore, legally and rightfully belongs to the Chinese nation...
24 September 2012
Breaking: Revolution at FoxConn
Workers at the FoxConn factory in Shenzhen, China, have had enough of the rough treatment at the hands of their capitalist-pig overlords. They revolted last night, at 23.00 local time, and the plant is now temporarily closed.
Bye, bye i-phone 5! Down with Ping-pong Gou! Hold Apple Responsible! Down with FoxConn!
Bye, bye i-phone 5! Down with Ping-pong Gou! Hold Apple Responsible! Down with FoxConn!
21 September 2012
14 September 2012
Fairbank Report: "QE3 is Economic Cipro"
By Bian-lian Huang
Cipro is the strongest anti-biotic medicine on the market, and it comes with nasty side effects, often permanently compromising the patient's immune system.
So goes QE3. By the time the Federal Reserve Bank is "done administering QE3" (the FRB said yesterday that it would sustain QE3 indefinitely), the US will have created $3.5 trillion (12 zeros) out of thin air. The American body economic, like the Cipro patient, would be severely compromised from Dr Bernanke's treatment.
How can one create money -- that is, economic value -- by just willing it? Has agricultural and manufacturing production increased by $3.5 trillion? No! Have we discovered $3.5 trillion worth of gold, silver or petro underneath our feet? No! Have we borrowed from the Chinese $3.5 trillion? No! (And not for lack of trying either!)
Money from thin air kills dollar-denominated assets and hastens the US dollar's demise as the world's reserve currency, which in turn undermines US political and economic power, that is, whatever power we can still muster...
Cipro is the strongest anti-biotic medicine on the market, and it comes with nasty side effects, often permanently compromising the patient's immune system.
So goes QE3. By the time the Federal Reserve Bank is "done administering QE3" (the FRB said yesterday that it would sustain QE3 indefinitely), the US will have created $3.5 trillion (12 zeros) out of thin air. The American body economic, like the Cipro patient, would be severely compromised from Dr Bernanke's treatment.
How can one create money -- that is, economic value -- by just willing it? Has agricultural and manufacturing production increased by $3.5 trillion? No! Have we discovered $3.5 trillion worth of gold, silver or petro underneath our feet? No! Have we borrowed from the Chinese $3.5 trillion? No! (And not for lack of trying either!)
Money from thin air kills dollar-denominated assets and hastens the US dollar's demise as the world's reserve currency, which in turn undermines US political and economic power, that is, whatever power we can still muster...
12 September 2012
10 September 2012
F*CK FOXCONN AGAIN!!!!!!
FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. THESE CAPITALISTS ARE REALLY PERSISTENT. EVEN AFTER ALL THE DIRECTIVES THAT THIS FAIRBANK REPORT ISSUED TO THEM TO CEASE AND DESIST HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS, PING-PONG GUO AND HIS FOXCONN CAPITALIST-PIGS ARE AT IT AGAIN, ABUSING CHILDREN.
AFTER THE FAIRBANK REPORT SUCCESSFULLY FORCED FOXCONN TO RAISE WAGES FOR ITS OPPRESSED EMPLOYEES TWO YEARS AGO, FOXCONN, IN A DIABOLICAL SCHEME TO RECOUP THESE COSTS, HAS FORCED MAINLAND CHINESE STUDENTS TO WORK FOR THEM FOR FREE UNDER THE GUISE OF "INTERNSHIPS." SOME REPORTS EVEN SUGGEST THAT THE "INTERNS" HAVE TO PAY FOXCONN FOR THEIR ROOM AND BOARD!!!
DOWN WITH PING-PONG GUO AND HIS CAPITALIST BEASTS! DOWN WITH APPLE! DOWN WITH STEVE JOBS! DOWN WITH SLAVERY! UP WITH THE PROLETARIAT!
Foxconn interns forced to make the iPhone 5?
Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal by Diana Samuels, Technology Reporter
Date: Monday, September 10, 2012, 10:27am PDT
Source: Apple
Apple is expected to launch its iPhone 5 this week,
but concerns continue to swirl around work conditions at its suppliers'
factories.
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Chinese newspapers are reporting that interns from Chinese vocational schools were forced to work at Foxconn factories to help fill orders related to Apple’s new iPhone.
Foxconn told Bloomberg the interns were free to leave at any time, but the Chinese publications said they couldn’t get the credits they needed to graduate unless they worked at the factory.
09 September 2012
Happy Ending?
Yes, we are using double entendre here. A high-ranking Chinese official and his hot mistress (Is there any other kind?) found dead and naked in delicious sex poz in a locked car. Cause of death: Carbon Monoxide poisoning. What a pleasant way to go...
Warning: Explicit photos of the deceased couple in their compromising position in the link below.
http://www.ministryoftofu.com/2012/08/rumor-that-senior-military-officer-and-mistress-died-of-co-gas-poisoning-while-fornicating-censored-in-china/
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