Suspicious Internet issues

Since a week and a half ago, my building has been have some "interesting" Internet issues. If you've been in contact with me this past week, it's likely I told you or even experienced firsthand how unstable my connection has been.

At times, the Internet connection would just shut itself down completely. Other times, the Internet connection was fine (it was even fast), but all I could go on were the major Chinese websites, such as Tabao, Baidu and Youku, but no international websites whatsoever. Even more perplexingly, there were even times where it seemed completely normal (for China).

It has been so fickle, that I have come up with my own eight-level system of classifying my Internet connectivity based on what programs can connect and what websites I can log on to. (I won't bore you you with the actual eight levels I came up with though.)

Obviously, the most annoying thing about not having a reliable Internet connection was not being able to get into my e-mail. Though Gmail has been blocked several times before, normally I had other ways to access it. However, last week proved to be a real challenge.

So far this week (knock on wood), the Internet seems a bit better. It's still rather slow and finicky when I try to gone on some international websites and particularly Gmail, but I can deal with it. Hopefully it stays this way. That's all I ask for.

For some more information on the Internet issues currently facing Internet users in China, take a look at the below article form the China Digital Times. Pay special attention to the latter half of the article, since that's what largely seems to be what's happening in my my case.

Unfortunately, I could only give you a screen print of the article, so it maybe a bit blurry. Click on the image to enlarge & read.

Click to enlarge
Article courtesy of the China Digital Times

For more information, there seem to be many other articles on the topic currently on the China Digital Times. I'd normally post the links myself, however my Internet seems to go down for several minutes each time I try to log on to the CDT website.

That's not obviously suspicious at all. Ha.

Sidenote: In attempt to inform students about what is going on with our Internet connections, BNU actually posted notices in the international student dorms. Normally, notices are only posted in Chinese (after all, you are here to study Chinese), but this time it's actually in Chinese, Korea and English. In the notice it informs students that the connectivity issues are beyond the scope of BNU's tech support and that we should always comply with China's Internet laws and not visit illegal websites. Clearly BNU wanted to get the word out to all students regardless of our the level of our Chinese comprehension and discourage us from bypassing the Great Firewall.

The Chinese National Museum

As I briefly mentioned in my last post about Labor Day here in China, I had last Friday off in honor of the holiday. Since traveling in China during national holidays seems to more of a lesson futility due to the large crowds of tourists everywhere, I decided to stay in Beijing and visit some places I wanted to see before I leave. Included on that list, was the newly-reopened Chinese National Museum (中国国家博物馆).

After undergoing over three years of renovations, the National Museum recently re-opened after years of arguing and revisions. Historically, the current site of the National Museum was home to two separate museums, the Museum of Chinese History and the Museum of the Chinese Revolution; they were combined in 2003 to make up the Chinese National Museum. In an effort to boost China's (specifically, Beijing's) international standing, the Chinese government decided it was time to renovate and bring the museum up to par (or at least, what they felt like was up to par).

The original plan was to have the museum completely redone, renovated and opened for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, however due to years of arguing and disagreement over the museum's content and endless revisions on the interior design, was not finished in time. Nor was it finished in time for it's second hoped-for end date, which was supposed to coincide the 60th Anniversary of Communist rule on October 1, 2009. Finally, the National Museum reopened just this past March after years and years of delay.

Since 2008, China's museums have gradually begun waiving their entrance fee, in hopes of attracting more visitors. While I appreciate free museum admission as much as anyone, in the case of the National Museum, this seems to have backfired.

China, why must you make my life difficult?

Fine China. Block Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Blogger and other random sites you deem as a "threat." I don't agree with you, but I'm in your country, I'll play by your rules.

But, don't block my e-mail. That's unnecessary. Or make it practically impossible to load. That's just obnoxious.

Good thing there are ways around the Great Firewall.

Now from the DPRK...

Before I came to China, I never realized that occasionally CCTV (the Chinese government's broadcasting network) would show news clips and B-roll from North Korea, or as it prefers to be called, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Although, in hindsight, it makes some sense considering China's (precarious) relationship with North Korea.

The stories featuring North Korean media sources are a rare occurence. The first time I saw it was at the end of September during North Korea's large national meeting, at which Kim Jong Il made his youngest son a four-star general. Most of this footage seemed to be staged B-roll sent out as a part of a press release.

The second time was during the South-North Korean tension over Yeonpyeong Island this past November. During the 'crisis,' CCTV (at least the English CCTV) covered the story from both sides. CCTV showed footage from news broadcasts on the situation from both South and North Korea as well as short sound bites from both average North and South Koreans about their reaction to the crisis.

While the footage of the South Korean newscast appeared the same as any other country's newscast, the North Korean newscast was strikingly different. Unlike most newscasts that feature an anchor reading the news often with some accompanying footage of some sort, the North Korean broadcast appeared to just have an anchor who seemed to be yelling the news to the camera with no other visual aids. Overall, very different from any other newscast I've seen.

As for the opinions of the 'average North Korean' featured in the news story, I think it's safe to assume the interview with the two 'average North Koreans' were carefully staged, crafted and government-approved before being sent out to foreign news agencies.

Regardless, I find the fact that I get any news, even government-sanctioned news, about North Koreans from North Korea directly fascinating. It's definitely not something I could ever see back in the States.

The CCTV Building
Beijing, China

You don't always get what you bargain for

For decades, China has coveted the Nobel Peace Prize, in hopes that one day one of their own citizens (while living in China) could claim it as a recipient. To China, winning the Nobel Peace Prize would ultimately prove to the world that China has indeed become a country to reckon with and has finally caught up to, if not surpassed, the Western powers. This year, China's wish was granted, although not in the form they were expecting it. What can I say? You can't always get what you bargain for.

Back in early October, it was announced that the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize would be awarded to Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese dissent currently jailed for subversion of state power, after co-authoring Charter 08, a highly critical political manifesto on the Chinese government. Liu was also a notable figure in the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protests.

To say that China wasn't thrilled upon learning Liu Xiaobo was awarded this year's Nobel Prize would be an understatement. As soon as the announcement was made, China quickly called the Norwegian ambassador to express their anger and publicly  retorted by calling the decision "blasphemy."

Additionally, the story of that the first Chinese man ever had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize was shushed quiet throughout Chinese media outlets. News story concerning the prize form international news outlets, such as CNN or the BBC were also blacked out (CNN and BBC are only available in apartment complexes catered to foreigners and in nice hotels.). Many western news websites featuring stories about the award and Internet searches on "Liu Xiaobo" and "Nobel Peace Prize" were also blocked by the Great Chinese Firewall. Lastly, and perhaps the most creepily, as the news of the decision spread, the Chinese government erased the characters composing the characters of Liu Xiaobo's name out of the SMS (texting) database so that no text messages containing his name could be sent out. Those who succeeded prior to the big erased found their messages blocked and sometimes SIM cards deactivated.

Not surprisingly, this past weekend as the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony was held in Oslo, Norway, many Western news websites were blocked once again.Without using a VPN, I couldn't access CNN.com; although ironically, I could access the NY Times where the "Empty Chair" was one of the leading stories of the weekend. (Since Liu Xiaobo was obviously not allowed to attend the ceremony in Oslo and accept his award, the award was given to an "empty chair," thus all the "Empty Chair" headlines about the Nobel Peace Prize this weekend.)

Chinese pop music

Lately, my huihua (conversation) teacher has been starting each class by playing different Chinese pop music videos. While I'm sure listening to music in foreign languages (along with films and television) is a great way to aide our learning of Mandarin, I must confess from what I've heard of Chinese pop music previously and after coming here to Beijing, I'm not much of a fan.

Perhaps it's just the music I'm being exposed to and that seems to be very popular, but all the songs seem to be slow, dramatic power ballads with music videos featuring even more over-dramatic story lines, e.g. right after a couple moves in together, they discover the girl has some sort of fatal cancer. Call me a cynic, but watching the music videos and listening to the songs make me cringe.

To me, listening to the songs and watching these music videos is much like taking an already super-sweet candy, drenching it in even more sugar syrup and then eating it. There's no way the overly saccharine tast of the candy, or in this case the music, appeals to me. I feel like I'm getting cavities just by listening to it.

Many other people in my class and other people I know in the US seem to like it though, so maybe it's just me. I also do realize that our musical taste is very much influenced by our respective cultures and I do like some sappy, slow longs from time to time (yes, James Blunt, I'm looking at you), but from what I've heard Chinese pop seems to be too much for me.

Of course, I don't profess to have very much knowledge on Chinese popular music. So if you perhaps want to prove me long or know of a Chinese band/singer that may appeal to me, please by all means let me in the comments or via e-mail. I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Jay Chou, a big Chinese pop star from Taiwan.

Sorry, I have no access to YouTube here in China, so I can't embed or link you to a Chinese pop music video. I'm sure if you search on YouTube "Jay Chou" or even "Chinese pop song," plenty of videos will pop up.

Films, girls and sajiao

While perusing ChinaDaily.com the other day, I came across a column written by Qi Zhai entitled, "Time standing still for Chinese-style love affair," in which she examines the central relationships in two different Chinese movies (Street Angel and Under the Hawthorne Tree) made 70 years apart. In her examination of the two films, Qi Zhai realizes that despite that one was made in the 1930s and the other in 2010, the relationship archetypes both films remains the same.

In both these two films (and many others), Qi Zhai points out that the female character in the story is portrayed as very "childlike", while her male counterpart is more of the "eternally cheerful, silently suffering, unbreakably strong type." She goes on further to write that the relationship between both characters remind her much of a father-daughter relationship rather than a relationship between two people of equal maturity.

This portrayal of the ideal female counterpart in a relationship as being a naive, childlike is a large part of why I've never been drawn to to the Chinese and Korean soap operas (and films) that are very popular in China, Korea and abroad. I often find the female leads annoyingly dependent and difficult to relate to.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm hardly the type of girl who relies on others to take care of things for me. I take pride in the fact that I can (mostly) take care of myself. Consequently, I find other people who are overly needy or dependent very trying and seeing characters with such qualities on film or television, cringe-worthy. However, in Chinese culture, this archetype of a naive female and her strong, silent male counterpart is often portrayed as the ideal relationship.

Nothing demonstrates this more than the idea of sajiao ((撒娇), which the Modern Chinese Dictionary defines as, " to deliberately act like a spoiled child in front of someone because of the awareness of the other person's affection."*

Wuzhen

From my understanding of sajiao, it's typically used by the female in relationships in order to invoke the male counterpart to do something for them as a sign of affection. Often times, the girl will act much like a spoiled young girl (as opposed to grown woman) in order to get her male companion to do whatever she wants him to do, even if she can do it perfectly well by herself. The only Western/English equivalent to sajiao that I can think of is the concept of a damsel-in-distress, but even that doesn't seem like an appropriate equailvent.