After several days in the sticks, we drive through a county seat in western Sichuan province. Pass a scene we've come across many many times before -- huge throng of people crowding the street around what appears to be a traffic accident.
Scene 1: the throng itself
Scene 2: dramatis personae emerge. The more-aggrieved party is the young woman on the right in white T-shirt, with arms crossed. (Click for larger shot.) She was riding the blue motorbike, when (apparently) the green taxi make a sudden turn in front of her and she plowed into its side.
The taxi driver, partly visible, is the man she is looking daggers at, who is also looking at her. And a white van marked Gong An, "public security," has just rolled up.
My wife and I are keeping calm until the Olympics by heading out into the hinterland, mostly to places beyond internet and email coverage. Further reports by August 3rd or 4th.
Trouble in paradise: VMware Fusion + MBAir + Firefox
I've mentioned previously my admiration for Firefox 3, VMware Fusion, and the MacBook Air -- the last with some limits, since its elegantly stripped-down design makes it great for traveling but too limited (in disk space and ports) to be a "main" computer.
These three elements are very good individually and even better together, with one exception. Since the release of Firefox 3, I've found that running it at the same time I'm running Windows programs under Fusion, on the MBAir, frequently leads to a video-corruption problem that makes the screen look like this:
It doesn't happen if I'm using Firefox without Fusion, or using Fusion without (native Mac) Firefox. Unfortunately, Firefox and Fusion (which allows you to run any Windows program) are two programs I use all the time. When they're running at the same time and I am switching from one to another, sooner or later I will have this problem. It doesn't cause lost data, but it means a tedious chore of closing down and backing out of programs when you can't see what's on the screen. The menu bars still are visible, and work, but you have to guess-remember what the on-screen dialogue box is saying as you close each program.
VMware claims this is an (acknowledged) Apple video bug in the MBAir, and that Apple will some day fix it. I haven't asked Apple's side of the story. I mention it just for the record, as the one and only serious instability issue I've had with the MBAir, and as part of the continuing quest for de-bugging our technological lives.
This means something. I just don't know what (Eclipse Aviation)
After the jump, text of a press release just out from Eclipse Aviation, timed for the mammoth EAA Oshkosh AirVenture show, announcing that the company has received a new infusion of capital -- and that Vern Raburn, whose role in founding the company I described in Free Flight and whose airplanes I described in this recent Atlantic article, is out as CEO.
Rumors of something like this have been brewing for a long time. Good for aviation, bad for aviation, good or bad for Eclipse, I don't know and am not in a position to find out at the moment. But here is the press release, FYI. Good wishes to Vern, good wishes to the company, let's see where this leads.
View southward from Guomao area, 8am, July 28, 2008. Eight days into large-scale factory and traffic shutdown. Eleven days from start of the Olympics
Who knows how much of this is morning mist and so on. Once again this is just for the record as pre-Olympic chronicle.
The next time we'll have a chance to check will be one week from now, when there will be four days to go. In the hinterland in the meantime.
Update: Lead story on China Daily website, state-controlled voice to the outside world, reassuringly reports that the government has noticed that things aren't working out so well with its air cleanup plan and is preparing more drastic measures:
..the recent hot and sultry weather, with occasional breeze, and the
still high emission level, have raised fresh concerns over the weather
during the Games. ["Weather" is the normal euphemism for air pollution.]
The city has not experienced a "blue day", that is, healthy air
quality in the past four days. The air pollution index (API) has stayed
above 100, the national standard for good air quality. Yesterday's API
in the city was between 103 and 124. [A reading of 100 would be unbearably polluted in most European or North American cities. Over the last year a striking number of readings have come in right at 99.]
Among the measures being considered, apparently, is not an even/odd license plate system but an "exact digit only" system. On a date ending in 9, like July 29, only licenses ending in 9 could drive, and so on. In theory this could cut traffic by 90%.
Considering the past, implacable "everything will be fine" / "pollution? what pollution?" official stance, this is welcome news. So too are airport conditions, as we have just experienced them. On a weekday mid-morning at Beijing Airport's Terminal Three, no big crowds outside the entry doors (unlike a week ago), smooth and efficient security checks, generally an easy flow.
We'll take all these as promising omens for the Olympics -- which, as mentioned earlier, is what everyone should want.
Why we want the Olympics to succeed
After the jump, a message from a reader who makes very vividly a point that I've been trying to convey for quite a while. Namely, that it is in no one's interest for the Beijing Olympics to be jinxed, troubled, or in any other way "unsuccessful."
I know that some people outside China have a kind of schadenfreude wish that the pollution, or the mishandling of protests, or the logistics, or something else will backfire on the organizers of the Olympics and stand as a protest for whatever is objectionable in government policy. This is related to the previous idea that it would make sense to boycott the opening ceremonies or the Games themselves.
Unt-uh. As my correspondent points out, the only thing that will happen if these Olympics somehow go bad is a concerted focusing of blame, inside China, on the foreigners who want to "hurt the feelings of the Chinese people" and hold China down. Outsiders who think that a pollution emergency or a spiraling protest would focus domestic blame on the Chinese government are dreaming. No kidding, everyone should want these games to work well, including with the air.
Letter is in response to this post, and comes after the jump.
1) Whole different way of thinking about buying books:
Sitting on the airplane at Newark airport Friday afternoon, getting ready for the 13-hour flight to Beijing. People are still trudging aboard, still OK to talk on the phone, chatting with a friend who mentions a great new book he's sure I'll want to read. While talking with him, I take out the Kindle that I got three days earlier, search the Kindle online store, find and buy the book, have it delivered to the Kindle to read during the flight -- all within about two minutes total. Huge reduction in the gap between "thought that a book might be interesting" and "paying money for that book." Works only for books in the Kindle catalogue, of course. Implications not so good for book stores but positive for the overall industry of selling ideas / thoughts / writing, I would think.
2) And about not buying books:
Giant supply of books for free download, in Kindle and other eBook formats, here and here, among other sites. They're mainly out-of-copyright classics, from Ulysses to War and Peace to Huckleberry Finn to Persuasion to Looking Backward to The Oregon Trail to Anne of Green Gables to the Complete Works of Shakespeare (and many by PG Wodehouse). Plus a few new ones. Small donations solicited here. In most cases you download to your computer and transfer to Kindle via USB cable, which is extremely easy.
3) And about the process of reading:
Spent six or seven hours of the flight reading on the Kindle. Perfectly pleasant and legible. Only one inconvenience relative to " real" books -- harder to flip ahead or back several pages at a time. (You scroll page by page, or else go to the table of contents.) And a kind of mental-picture adjustment: it's easier to insert bookmarks or placeholders, or seach for a specific word in the text; harder to have a remembered visual image of a certain passage as it fits on a certain place on a page. Not good for books where pictures, illustrations, maps, production quality matter a lot. Very, very good for reading Word .DOC files or .PDFs that I would otherwise have to read on the computer.
My theory: television didn't eliminate radio, telephones didn't eliminate personal conversations, eBooks won't eliminate real books. People always find more ways to communicate, and this will be another way. Very good for some kinds of information, not so much for others. A welcome new addition to the mix.
July 26, 2008
Sunday morning Beijing
8 am, July 27, 2008, looking south, twelve days until the opening ceremonies, one week into the big shutdown of factories in nearby provinces and traffic in Beijing.
I'm not sure how much of this is "mist," how much is simple moisture, how much is whatever else it might be, or how the scene might look this afternoon. This is just for the ongoing record, of what athletes like those I saw arriving at the airport yesterday might see when opening the curtains to look out the window today.
Three hours later: If anything, it looks worse at 11am. I really would love to hear the conversations, which must be going on, between the International Olympic Committee and the host organizers: "Now, you've been telling us for seven years that the air was going to be fine, and... these next ten days really are going to do the trick? Really, for sure? Just thinking out loud now, what if they don't? What's our Plan B?"
Thirteen days to go
Airport in Beijing: great! Arrive on international flight at Terminal Two (not the spectacular and imposing new Terminal Three) mid Saturday afternoon. No wait at passport station -- very short lines, no one seeming to have unusual delays or trouble with immigration officers, I spend maybe two or three minutes in line total. Baggage started appearing maybe five minutes after that. None of the baggage-sniffing dogs or swarms of inspectors I encountered a few weeks ago.
Air in Beijing: Not so great. Fortunately there are still thirteen days to get it fixed up...
July 25, 2008
The report with two weeks to go
I'll know for myself when I get off the airplane I'm about to get on, but Friday's reports from Beijing, where the Olympic Games begin two weeks from now, are ... challenging. The air is apparently not getting better, despite the big factory-and-traffic shutdown that started five days ago, and may even be getting worse. For panorama of what "worse" might mean, pictures over the last few months here.
Transportation is oddly becoming more snarled, rather than less, in the wake of the even-odd license plate rules designed to get cars off the road. The spiffy new subway lines that have just opened are already overloaded, in part because, as predicted here three weeks ago, they don't have as many subway cars as planned so trains can't run as often. Also, on most big roads a whole lane has been removed from normal use as an "Olympic Lane," so overall congestion has more or less reached previous levels. Taxis are harder to find. A representative note from one of many I received this morning:
Subway line 10 [a new one] is much nicer than the others. But also super-crowded. Every 5 min departures are too infrequent to prevent huge lines. I suspect that the air con is a big draw.
My airport expway/ring road daily commutes are slower than usual - closing the left [for Olympic Lane use] lane totally negates the "savings" of taking cars off road. Day 1 (Monday 8/21) commute, north Chaoyang to Wangfujing, 9+ minutes of cab "wait time" in stalled traffic vs. the usual 2 min! Big diff. Today (Friday) slightly better, but it's inconsistent.
My office looks east on Chang'An Jie [the main, monumental downtown road, comparable to DC's Pennsylvania Avenue] and it's very gray and soupy
And at our own apartment complex, a notice today of the following "Welcome to the Olympics" preparations. Number two certainly gets my attention.
1) If you have any visitor staying with you at anytime, please ensure your visitor must register at the front desk upon arrival.
2) PSB [Public Security Bureau] personnel may conduct surprised [sic] inspection of our property without notification to examine your passport documents including checking your luggage and personal belongings, etc.
3) Please also take note that all foreigners working or living in Beijing are required by the Division of Entry/Exit Admin of BJ Municipal Public Security Bureau to possess a valid passport, ID, and visa and are properly registered with the Hotels or Residences as their place of residence.
So if I am reading #2 correctly, the police can come into our apartment at any time and look around. When I first came to China in the mid-1980s, this kind of thing was taken for granted. It's not at all the way contemporary China has seemed or felt -- until the magic of the Olympics arrived. Let the games begin.
July 23, 2008
I'm not there, so I can't say so first hand, but...
... what I hear from My Sources in Beijing is:
- The air is much worse today, July 24 China time, with fifteen days to go until the opening ceremonies, than it has been in the last two weeks or so, even after the Big Shutdown of factories and traffic that began five days ago;
- Traffic is creeping up again toward pre-shutdown levels, as people apparently figure out ways to deal with the odd/even license plate rules (extra license plates, or whatever); and
- New security checks and bag inspections in the subway stations are leading to big snarls and mob scenes as people try to get down toward the trains, despite the crucial new subway lines that have just opened.
Will see for myself again in two days. I would assume that by the last weekend in July the air will have to be looking pretty good, as the athletes and officials and correspondents flock into town for an event that starts in early August. Let's hope.
I'll try not to become a nerd-bore on this topic too, but: Kindle
Had resisted buying one because I knew that the spiffy wireless-delivery service wouldn't work outside the US, and anyway I didn't have time for yet another gadget.
I eventually spent enough time to learn (duh!) that I could use it wherever I was in the world, with or without wireless delivery. You just download the e-book files to your computer, over the plain old internet, and then transfer them to Kindle with USB cable. So as part of the provisioning run on this quick trip to the U.S. I ordered one and received it yesterday.
First impressions are all of the "beating expectations" variety. Screen nicer to read than I expected. Navigation takes about one minute to learn. Instant-gratification feature more satisfying than expected. You think: I'd like to read that book! A minute later, it's literally in your hands. On my last provisioning run, I wanted to get Joseph O'Neill's celebrated and then-new novel Netherland. But it wasn't in any of the book stores that I passed by, and I didn't have time for "legacy" Amazon shipments. Now I have it, for about $10 versus about $25.
Unexpected and potentially important practical aspect: I'm always getting very long book or article manuscripts to read, usually in .DOC or .PDF files. I don't want to use the paper to print them out, so generally I have to be at a computer to deal with. But I can email them as attachments to a Kindle.com address; then for 10 cents a document, they're resent to my own Kindle in a form I can read and annotate when not at a computer. Have already used this system to queue up a couple of book-length manuscripts I'm supposed to read while on the road in the next week or so.
We'll see how this wears -- in particular how this replicates the intangible satisfactions of reading an actual book. I like holding and reading real books. We'll see how likable these virtual books are on longer exposure.
Main drawback I foresee right now: my wife being distinctly unamused if on our next trip together or next evening at home I end up starting at yet another digital device. This may have to remain a private vice.
Our American media landscape
For reasons too odd to contemplate, a quick, business-related, out-and-back trip from Beijing airport to.... Newark! With stay at an airport hotel designed to make me newly grateful for the environmental pleasures of Beijing. Surrounded on three sides by freeways. On the fourth, by check-cashing storefronts, pawn shops, liquor stores, tattoo parlors, car-auction sites. Kind of disappointed not to see some gun shops in there too.
All the other occupants of the hotel that I have seen are flight crews on Newark layovers. At least it's my aspirational peer group! Get to sit with the grizzled pilots in the bar and talk about "there I was...."-type flying tales and which airline will fold next.
On the first night in the hotel, dragging in late from the PEK-EWR flight, I see... a single copy of the New York Times in the hotel gift shop! I snap it up. Second day, leave in a rush before dawn, back late in the afternoon and see there is still one copy of the NYT left. Snap that up too. Just now, day three (nearing the end of the adventure), on my way in to breakfast I see that again I've had the luck to get the last copy of the paper.
I remark on my good fortune to the woman at the news stand. She says, "Oh, sir, we only get the one."
July 22, 2008
DayJet keeps expanding
Two months ago, the DayJet air-taxi company of Boca Raton, Florida, which I described in this Atlantic article, announced layoffs and a slowing of its expansion plans.
Today DayJet announced that it was expanding again -- very substantially, adding service to 15 cities in the Southeast, for a total of more than 60. Many of them had recently lost their normal airline service, as airlines (which have generally not raised prices as fast as their fuel prices have increased and therefore lose money every time they fly) have cut back. This business model has a future, I contend -- including companies that use not jets but deluxe propeller planes from Cirrus, like SATSAir.
July 21, 2008
The Olympic countdown continues
I am out of China for a few days. Here are two real-time updates from people on the scene about different aspects of the "we are ready!" front. The first is about traffic in Beijing; the second, the visa crackdown and larger tensions created by the government's attempt to impose "zero defects" control on the Olympics.
Traffic: Context here is that traffic now is ruled by "odd-even" license plate rules designed to keep half the cars off the road each day.But on the main roads, one lane is now set aside as an "Olympic lane," for official cars only, so the declogging effect for other traffic is not as great as it might seem.
Yesterday
was the first "workday" of the odd/even license plate regimen and the result
was "not great". We live east of Guo Mao, outside the 5th Ring
Road and usually hit the first morning commute slow-down near
Gaobeidian, just inside the 5th. There is no "Olympic Lane" on
this stretch of expressway, so one might assume fewer than half the normal
number of cars (odd/even, minus some government vehicles) would result in
speedy passage to the 3rd Ring. No such luck. It pretty
much looked like a normal day between the 5th and 4th rings as traffic moved slightly faster than a crawl at 30 km/h. By the
time we reached the 4th ring and the introduction of the "Olympic
Lane", it was mostly "slow-and-go" with some confused drivers blocking the
Olympic Lane to merge right for off ramps.
I turn on the TV in America, and in the first ten minutes I see...
Barack Obama in Iraq, meeting with the troops and sinking his long basketball shot. My Lord. Politicians have to be tough, and driven, and indefatigable. They also have to be lucky.
We can think of unlucky examples. Gerald Ford, who out of college was offered pro football contracts, tripping on his way down the steps to Air Force One. The first George Bush, all-American* college baseball player, bouncing a ceremonial First Pitch before tens of thousands in the Astrodome (as immortalized in Richard Ben Cramer's What It Takes). Jimmy Carter, lifelong outdoorsman, being caught in a surreal photo that made it look as if he were being attacked by a crazed rabbit.Let's not get into Al Gore's luck in 2000.
I don't know how many times out of ten Obama would make that shot -- but with the (military) cameras running, he made it this time. And it becomes much harder to portray him as an anti-military outsider weirdo after the pictures of the troops clamoring to shake his hand. Politics is only partly rational. The late Mike Deaver, who didn't care how much TV reporters criticized Ronald Reagan as long as they kept broadcasting handsome-looking shots of him, would have appreciated the importance of this footage. If Obama wins, we'll see film of this trip three or four years from now and be amazed that the the worn, haggard looking man in the White House ever looked so carefree and fit. But that's how he does look now, and anyone who has seen campaigns knows how powerful these images are. (And I'm not even talking about the whole godsend for Obama of P.M. Maliki's comments.)
T Boone Pickens bewailing America's dependence on imported oil. I have spent no time on Pickens' plan and don't know whether it makes any sense. For purposes of argument, let's assume it doesn't. The mere fact of a grizzled tough guy saying, "This is an emergency," was startling to see -- and welcome. Much like grizzled tough guy Ross Perot talking about budget-balancing in the 1992 campaign. His own plan had its problems, but he changed the debate.
Health Care Now with its wonderful "Magic Eight Ball" ad mocking the health insurance companies. History would be different if some comparable campaign had been launched in 1993 when Bill and Hillary Clinton were pushing their health care plan.
TV seems more interesting than I remembered, at least in this first blast. I hope it's as interesting in my next three days here.
UPDATE: Kumar, of Harold and Kumar fame, is now on House? WTF??? This is not right.
* Sorry, hyperbole. Thanks to Garrett Epps.
A wonderful new book: 'Now the Hell Will Start'
I read Now the Hell Will Start because I know and like the author. You should buy and read it because it's really good.
The is the first book by Brendan Koerner, a polymath writer in his 30s whom I met a decade ago when we were both at US News. Since then he has worked for Wired, the New York Times, and during its brilliant four-year run, Legal Affairs magazine. The book is different from anything he has attempted before and is a wonderful example of how narrative non-fiction should be done.
To say too much about the story would be unwise. I'll just say that it's a The Fugitive-style manhunt saga set before and during World War II. Like The Fugitive, it has its wronged protagonist on the run, chased by various obsessed pursuers. Unlike The Fugitive, it's a completely true story -- and one that along the way conveys fascinating historical, cultural, political, and scientific info. For instance, about segregated wartime life in Washington DC, how young women in headhunting tribes in Burma choose their mates, why Chiang Kai-Shek was a terrible general but a masterful schemer, what it's like to have dengue fever, and how the military justice system works. Above all it describes the realities and tensions of a U.S. military fighting tyranny worldwide but keeping its own black members in a separate caste.
I had never heard of this drama, involving a fugitive named Herman Perry, so I was surprised and moved by the ending (which gives the book's title great poignancy). Check it out.
July 20, 2008
Another traveler reports on the new, Olympic-ready Beijing airport
From a foreign resident of Beijing, on his latest experience coming in through the sparkling, new, and very very large PEK airport. Confirms this recent report about swift processing and absence of bottlenecks, which bodes well for Olympic-crowd "readiness." Also an interesting reaction to the enormous scale of the airport's new Terminal Three.
I flew in from Singapore on Wednesday and was amazed that; a) our plane was parked at a gate within 3 minutes of touching down, in contrast to several recent experiences of 30+ minutes of taxiing; b) bags were on the carousel within 5 minutes of my arrival there - and I have a diplomatic passport so got through passport control very quickly; c) only even slightly long line was at customs, where every checked and hand carried bag was being x-rayed. Still, a very smooth arrival.
But, what was equally striking was the emptiness of this massively monumental airport. Gave it a real Stalinist feeling - built to overwhelm the viewer but far more than is needed, and without any consideration of costs and returns, and with no commercial buzz. Admittedly my perceptions were affected by having flown in from the new terminal at Changi [Singapore's airport], which was bustling with people and energy, great shops and food outlets everywhere, free internet stations and free movies. The contrast between these two large new super modern airport terminals couldn't have been starker.
UPDATE: Good news and, well, interesting news from my own trip to the airport on the first day of the new security regime, July 20. Good news -- the traffic! Open road all the way, and I counted only a handful of cars that were brazenly displaying odd-numbered licenses plates on this inaugural even-numbered day. (Plus a couple that even more brazenly had taken off their license plates.)
Beijing's subway line 10 opened today at 5:05pm. My wife and I were passing by a station a few minutes later and took our first ride home, avoiding the dreaded Third Ring Road, not long after that. This is many, many weeks past the original target date (word of earlier delay here), but many hours earlier than tomorrow's promised debut.
Along with line 10 -- light blue on the map below, and connecting many of the places I routinely go through snarled traffic -- line 8 to the Olympic sites (green) and the Airport Express (red diagonal line pointing to the northeast) were supposed to open all at the same time. I trust that riders on those lines had the same happy surprise we did.
Some of our fellow riders on this inaugural ride looked blase. Not us! Another positive sign.
Everything changes tomorrow
This is the view at 10am, July 19, 2008, with 20 days to go until the Olympic opening ceremonies. Not that bad! And everything changes tomorrow.
Tomorrow the even-odd license plate rules go into effect to cut car traffic in Beijing. Three long-awaited subway lines (are supposed to) open. Factories are shut down in the neighboring provinces. Construction projects in the city (are supposed to) stop. And new extra-tight security measures go into effect at the airport, on the subways, in public places, just about everywhere. I'm going to the airport tomorrow afternoon and will leave plenty of time.
On whether the environmental rules will bring clear skies for the games themselves, I remainoptimistic. By the time I get back in a week, I really do expect a different vista.
That is different from saying that the Olympics will make a longer-term difference in Beijing's horrendous air-quality situation. On the evidence so far you'd have to say they won't, since the steps starting tomorrow are so obviously on a last-minute emergency basis.
Other last-minute notes:
- A few days ago, lunch with a group of professional-class Chinese friends at a software company. I ask what they think about the Olympics.Several of them mention, in a "of course this is common knowledge" fashion, that the government security teams have already been finding and removing bombs that terrorist teams were sneaking into the airport, the Bird's Nest Olympic stadium, and other important venues.
Malaysia: It doesn't happen often, so I might as well hail the moment when it arrives: something I agree with has appeared on the WSJ's editorial page. Last known occurrence, nearly a year ago, here.
This latest instance is from the Asian WSJ, which is more interested in reality than is the US mother ship and whose ongoing rhetorical target is less the dreaded "liberal fascists" of the United States than the actual fascists and other repressive forces of East Asia. Its editorial today about the arrest of Anwar Ibrahim in Malaysia is strong, clear, and right. It begins as follows and continues in similar vein:
The last time Malaysian democrat Anwar Ibrahim was prosecuted on a trumped-up sodomy charge, we wrote
that the government's "crude measures will exact a heavy price in terms
of lost credibility." Ten years later, Malaysia's current political
leaders should take note.
______ Tibet: Recently I recommended Melvyn Goldstein's short book about the hotly-contested history of China's relations with Tibet.
I decline to be drawn into the
exhausting and irreconcilable historiographical controversies on this topic and will post no further retorts or
elaborations on it. (Previous illustration of irreconcilability here.) But in the spirit of the open marketplace of ideas, I offer this link to a denunciation of Goldstein and other "Running-Dog Propagandists" by the exiled Tibetan activist Jamyang Norbu. The article's principal argument against Goldstein is that his scholarship and knowledge of Tibet are so impressive that his policy conclusion, that the outside world should not insist on Tibetan independence, is all the more damaging to the free-Tibet cause. Read and judge for yourself.
When my family lived in Malaysia twenty years ago, Anwar was the bright-eyed, somewhat fiery-tongued young Malay leader on the rise. Malaysia, then as now a prosperous, diverse, and overall very modern country, then as now had a nascent fundamentalist-Islamist movement to deal with. Anwar in his youth stood for a kind of Islamic reassertion, but of a very suave and modern kind. I was at a conference in Singapore in the late 1980s where he appeared along with Lee Kuan Yew. The arrogant mandarin and the confident young aspirant made an impressive complementary pair.
Then in the 1990s he seemed to pose too direct a challenge to his one-time patron, the overly-long-staying Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir, and he was imprisoned on sodomy charges that most outsiders considered politically motivated. He has recently become eligible to run for office again and has attracted wide support. And now, incredibly, the government has come up with a new 23-year-old male witness to make the same old shocking allegations against him.
I am not aware of anyone outside the Malaysian ruling party who doesn't think this is a politically-engineered charge. To be precise: I know nothing about Anwar's personal life, and perhaps it is conceivable that at two crucial moments in the country's political history he has committed an offense guaranteed to humiliate him in most Malaysians' eyes. But it seems unlikely. The timing and nature of the accusation, this time as before, are too convenient to be easily believable.
Malaysia is a better country than this -- that is, its ruling practices and its judiciary have often been above this kind of opportunism. I hope it shows that it's a better country. Meanwhile, outsiders should remind Malaysia's regime that this is wrong.
I'm saying nothing about boiled frogs for now...
... because I'm conserving my ammo for a final, comprehensive, withering, all-crushing barrage that will shame anyone out of using this cliched and ignorant imagery ever again. Also, because my colleague Jeffrey Goldberg is now on the case.
But I am saying: you, Professor Willem Buiter of London, and you, the otherwise estimable Dahlia Lithwick, had better watch out, if you want to avoid a place in that end-of-days frog Hall of Shame. This is your warning...
July 16, 2008
Final words -- for now! -- on Olympic tourism in China
This is an encore-finale to previous reports about the people who are traveling in China this summer, namely ordinary Chinese tourists, and those who aren't -- namely, visitors from overseas who are being deterred by visa rules, high prices, or other discouragements.
1) From a friend with close connections at BOCOG, the Olympic organizing committee: Initial estimates for total foreign visitors at the Olympics were roughly 500,000. Now the working plans estimate 140,000. My friend comments: "Has any economist run the numbers on what this is costing the government? Frankly I doubt if the government even cares as long as they can hold control of what happens and what is seen."
2) On a brighter note, from Jonathan Tang, an American living in Beijing, about his latest trip through the new Beijing airport (in contrast to my report two weeks ago).
When I got in from HK last week at just past midnight, after a
delay of three hours, I was dismayed to find all of two officers at border
control, ready to examine the passports of a 767 full of cranky passengers.
However, not two seconds after I got in line, the floodgates opened and all the
counters were manned - I got through in less than a minute.
Who knows - maybe 'we' *are* ready?
3) From Edward Russell of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, a report on the Olympic travel business (not available on the web) emphasizing the importance of the domestic-tourist market:
Two sophisticated and well-worth-reading documents on national security
1) From Bruce Schneier, renowned and sensible expert on taking terrorist threats seriously without overreacting and defeating ourselves in the process, on exactly which aspects of the Chinese "hacker" menace are worrisome, and which ones aren't.
Executive summary: these hackers aren't controlled by the Chinese government or military and basically are sharp, cocky young men showing off their technical skills. "The hackers are in this for two reasons: fame and glory, and an attempt to make a living." That is reassuring in some ways and not in others. But the essay should be read in full. (Thanks to Edward Goldstick for tip.)
2) From one Barack Obama, on the mixture of military strength, non-military influence, assertiveness, and restraint that will advance American interests in this era of ongoing terror threats, ongoing Iraq and Afghanistan combat, financial and economic chaos, resource and energy crises, rise of China, unruliness of Russia, and so on. Full text and some video here.
Executive summary: any speech that begins and ends with allusions to George C. Marshall's vision 60 years ago is quoting the right authority but setting a high standard for itself. This is a speech rather than a whole implemented years-long program, in contrast to the great Marshall's achievement. But as a speech it stands up very well and deserves to be read and absorbed in toto rather than relying on news clips.
July 15, 2008
Something familiar, something new
For several days skies have looked better and better in Beijing, and last night I rashly declared to friends that I thought the corner had been turned.
Well, maybe there are a few corners ahead. Here's the view just now,11am, July 16, 2008. Way better than it's been in the very recent past, but still some room for improvement with only 23 days to go:
Here's the new angle: An article today in the China Daily, the English-language vehicle for official views, took a much more tentative tone about Olympic "weather" than I'd seen before.
Probably no one will notice this outside the Blue State liberal elite...
Box on the front page of the (state-controlled and Beijing-based) China Daily, July 15 2008:
To be fair, it was below the fold, and underneath a giant picture of the Miss Universe pageant winner:
Click for larger, and to see some other interesting stories.
One thing I had forgotten about Shanghai...
..., before visiting last week, is how many women carry umbrellas to keep the sun from darkening their skin. OK, in this context I should call them "parasols." By whatever name, when women hold these devices over their heads, the difference in our relative heights is such that the metal or bamboo tines are usually right at my eye level. So as I walk down a crowded sidewalk on a sunny day I have my hands up as if to shield my eyes from the glare. I'm really trying to keep them from being poked out from the sides.
What I need is some kind of protective blinder system, like this:
Or, as customized for Western middle-aged man use:
Really, I think I'd shell out for this if I could. No one in Shanghai gives a second glance to people wearing pajamas outside at 4pm, or the older gents who on hottest days wear boxer underwear, flipflops, and nothing else. I bet they'd take this in stride too.
Why not the same problem in Beijing? Maybe the broader streets and sidewalks, so I can keep a safe distance? Women less fastidious on this point? Comparative rarity of direct sun? Don't know but I'll see if I notice them, as the skies clear in the Olympic era.
July 14, 2008
Olympic livery for Beijing
In the week we were out of town, street signs acquired a new "Beijing 2008" logo
and red and white banners went up on light posts all over town.
In the space of hours, an instant-reforestation project installed thousands of little bushes and dozens of tree in front of an almost-finished luxury complex. Since we moved to this neighborhood last fall, all view of the project was blocked by an 8-foot-high blue metal wall, which squeezed hordes on a packed sidewalk into a path three feet wide. Now we see what was going on behind the walls, including a huge new Giorgio Armani store. Armani store on the left, with the big black circle. Former tiny sidewalk was part of the zone to the right.
Around Beijing, some tall blue walls are being torn down, to unveil projects that are ready for the Olympics, and others are being erected quickly, to shield construction sites that won't be done when the visitors arrive.
July 13, 2008
Because the contested history of Tibet is likely to stay in the news
Let me mention a clarifying, valuable, and short book on the subject: The Snow Lion and the Dragon, by the Tibet scholar Melvyn Goldstein.
It's not quite a literary book, but it is a fact-filled and lucid explanation of the interactions, over the centuries, between respective rulers of China and those in control of Tibet. This includes "political Tibet" as now defined as an "autonomous region" of China, and the much larger "Greater Tibet" that spreads across several other Chinese regions and provinces where ethnic Tibetans live. Among other virtues, the book makes clear why the Chinese government can say what it does -- about China and Tibet having been connected in some form for centuries -- but also why Tibetans can say what they do, about their de facto independence in the 40 years before the Chinese Communists reasserted control.
Anyone working seriously in this field already knows about this book. Indeed I heard about it from Orville Schell, China expert and former dean of the UC Berkeley journalism school, when I asked him where to start on the topic. I mention it less for experts than for the much larger group of people who feel they should have some opinion on "the Tibet Question" but aren't that sure about the historical facts.
While admiring this book, maybe we can also agree that no future book about China need include the cliche "the Dragon" in its title?
I wonder if there could be any possible flaw in this plan?
From yesterday's front pages, a new anti-terrorism concept as the Olympics draw near:
Click for larger and more legible version. The headline in the (state-controlled) China Daily -- "Know of any terror plots?" -- makes me wonder yet again whether the foreigners hired to express the government's view to the English-speaking world are trying their very, very hardest to convey that perspective in the most totally convincing way, or whether they might having some fun on their own.
July 12, 2008
With 26 days to go (updated)
We heard from friends that skies were blue and clear in Beijing yesterday. Here is the view at 10am on July13, 26 days before the opening ceremonies and one week before the emergency shutdown of factories and traffic is supposed to begin.
Perhaps not blue, but better than it was eleven days ago and through most of the preceding three months. We'll hope this is a trend.
Update: with 25 days to go, this appears not to have been a trend, at least not a positive one. But only six days now until the sweeping shutdowns. I believe the neighboring factories will close, as advertised. Somewhat more cautious in my assumptions about the cars, since I've met so many people who have mentioned that they've obtained both even- and odd-numbered licenses plates, to cope with the even/odd restrictions on driving each day.
We are ready! Finale
Wrap-up of this exciting week-long series (previously 1, 2, 3, 4, 4A):
Good news: We hear from friends that the skies are blue and beautiful in Beijing today. We're heading back soon and will embrace the idea that, with 27 days to go, the good times have begun.
UPDATE: Just arrived, and it is beautiful. Lights of whole city spread out in a LA-basin style panorama as the plane came in for night landing at the Capital Airport's new Terminal 3. Along the airport expressway into town and on the Third Ring Road, flashing signs tell drivers that from July 20 to September 20, new traffic restrictions will keep heavy vehicles off the road and apply even/odd-day rules for car license plates. Maybe things really are about to change. Also, in contrast to our previous arrival at Capital Airport, bags appeared five minutes after we got off the plane, and we were in a taxi fifteen minutes after touchdown.
Challenging news: When it goes on line (there's usually a several-day delay), I will post a link to today's edition of Dialogue on CCTV-9, the English-language channel of the state TV network. I think this may make clearer to viewers outside China the depth of the, well, communication challenge that lies ahead.
We are ready #4A! Special bonus post: why travel to China is down
As mentioned earlier and as reported widely in the press, foreign tourism seems quite obviously down on the eve of the Olympics. When I've asked restaurant owners and hoteliers what's happening, they've usually blamed visa restrictions.
A U.S.-based reader who has just returned from a trip through China adds these extra explanations, which ring true to me and fill out the picture:
We talked about tourism with several guides [who were] pretty open when it came to government criticism and China's myriad problems.
Anyway, they said that the tour traffic is just way down, and business travel is down, too. Most felt like visa restrictions played somewhat of a role. But they felt like there were two other factors that played at least as big of a role:
1) Good news: TV. According to Geoffrey Fowler in the WSJ, Chinese media authorities have decided to let international broadcasters transmit live from Beijing during the games. This might sound like a "Duh, no kidding!" obvious and trivial decision, but it forestalls what could have been a big problem.
Yes, yes, the Chinese government had given its OK to real-time broadcasts from the sporting arenas themselves. The whole world will learn at the same time whether Liu Xiang, the defending Olympic champion in the 110m hurdles and all-round spokesman (along with Yao Ming and Jackie Chan) for every product on every billboard in China, can endure the unbelievable pressure on him and win another gold.
But at any big event, TV networks love to swing to supplemental coverage. "Now let's go across town to the Houhai district, where Matt Lauer is standing by live to tell us how ordinary Chinese people react to their basketball team's surprising victory over the United States." Until now, it wasn't clear that the authorities would let anyone do this. They were hinting that all TV broadcasts except from the sporting sites would have to go through a delayed-transmission screening system that would let government censors turn off the signal if anything unseemly showed up on the screen.
People at NBC (official US broadcaster) and elsewhere were obviously not delighted about this, and it was shaping up as a huge running sore that would make the games a nonstop reminder of the most closed aspects of Chinese government policy. Good for the Chinese authorities in doing the right thing, although belatedly, and good for whatever outside officials helped them to this conclusion.
2) Less good news: travel and entertainment business. In these last few days in Shanghai, I've revisited lots of places (restaurants, bars, shops) that are popular with visitors and talked with lots of people I know who operate this kind of establishment.
Wonderful online treasure trove of old photos of China
Duke University has has just put online a collection of 5,000 photos shot in China between 1917 and 1932. They were taken by Sidney D. Gamble, heir to part of the Procter & Gamble fortune, who according to the Duke news release was "a sociologist, China scholar and avid amateur photographer."
The photos (that I've seen) vary in artistic quality, but some are great and all are evocative. The most amazing part is that they're searchable. You enter a place name, like Guangzhou, or a keyword, like temple or rice or funeral, and the relevant pictures immediately come up. I'd use one as an illustration, but I'm not sure of the propriety of doing so. You can check them out for yourself here.
Well done Duke, Sidney Gamble, and P&G. And thanks to Michael Ham of Later On for the tip.
July 9, 2008
We are ready #3! A short anecdote and a long email
Previously in this exciting series: here and here.
Context for the entire series: first two paragraphs here. (Executive summary: "No one in China or anywhere else will be better off if the Chinese public ends up feeling under-appreciated or aggrieved about the Beijing Games. So it's better all around if they're a success.")
Short anecdote: well, it's right below.
I've been having big internet problems while on the road away from Beijing. Entire outage for a day-plus. On and off connections after that. The problems, I now know, were purely technical. Bad connections in one part of town, then a router that was failing. But before knowing that, I asked the very nice manager at a modest but nice hotel what was going on. She said:
"With the Olympics coming up, the police are being very careful about the internet. We are sorry for the inconvenience to our visitors that they have closed it down during the summer months."
She was apologetic and slightly embarrassed to have to give the (false, but true to her) explanation. The interesting point was, she thought it was entirely natural that this would be the cause.
Long email: After the jump, one of several interesting messages I have recently received from people involved in or closely observing the Olympic preparations. This person, whose name and background I know, I will identify only as ethnic Chinese man who is now a naturalized citizen of a Western country and who has great professional familiarity with defense and military-technology issues.
The gist of his point: the reason the Chinese government is being so unbelievably ham-handed in its security measures and irritating the very foreigners it has invited to view its Games is that it is so ill-informed and naive about the real views of the outside world. Also it has such limited intelligence about the terrorist threats it actually might face that it is over-reacting and trying to shut everything down.
My correspondent ends with a plea for outside assistance to save the Chinese government from itself. I'm not holding my breath for that to happen, but his detailed description of the predicament is worth considering.
____________
Previously in this exciting week-long series, here.
If you go to this page of the official Beijing 2008 Olympic site, you'll see a list of the corporations from around the world that have invested most in the success of these games. The 12 companies on the left-hand side are "Worldwide Olympic Partners," with long-term sponsorship of the Olympics. The 11 on the right, "Beijing 2008 Partners," have invested specifically in the Beijing games. In all there are 22 companies represented here (one, Johnson & Johnson, is in both categories), 13 of them based outside China.
One of the non-Chinese companies on this list -- I can't be more specific than that, to avoid getting people I've spoken with into trouble -- recently planned to produce a special, lavish, glorification-of-taut-young-sweaty-bodies and glorification-of-rising-China series of films about the games. They had invested a lot of time and money in preparation for the shoot. Their film crew was set to arrive in China recently to show the athletes nearing their performance peak, the venues being tested and buffed, the whole proud host nation preparing to host their contests and welcome the world.
And they couldn't get visas to enter China, "during the tense Olympic period." Plans called off. Or so I am told by a person directly involved in their now-cancelled visit. I will retract this report if and when I see such films from the company (they were intended to be something no one watching the games could miss).
If you didn't know better, you might have thought in 2003 and 2004 that U.S. government strategy was being set by people trying to make enemies rather than friends in the Arab-Islamic world. And if you didn't know better, you might think that the Chinese government's approach to the Olympics is being set by people trying to make the country look bad.
July 7, 2008
We are ready! A special week-long series
I am not in Beijing this week, so I don't have much to say about the air. But on the general topic of being ready for the Olympic games, some other interesting things are turning up.
For the record, two important and familiar points of context. First, no one in China or anywhere else will be better off if the Chinese public ends up feeling under-appreciated or aggrieved about the Beijing Games. So it's better all around if they're a success. And second, notwithstanding the previous point, for the last few months Chinese government has been doing just everything it can to ensure that the games don't win China any good will. (Denying visas to visitors, limiting broadcast rights, tightening the vise on foreign and domestic journalists, etc.)
Today's installment: public transport.
I mentioned recently that two subway lines that are crucial to Olympic transport plans -- the airport express, to bring visitors in from PEK airport, and the special line to the Olympic venues themselves -- have had their opening delayed, along with another, Line 10, that is crucial to my own transport happiness. They're all now scheduled to open later this month, immediately before the games.
After the jump, an account from a reader who talked recently in Beijing with two foreign engineers directly involved in getting the subways going. I can't vouch for this personally, but I have heard other accounts that parallel several of these points. (The source also provided other details about the engineers' bona fides.) As an expectant rider of Line 10, I really hope this report turns out to be too pessimistic:
