Sex-Selective Abortion in China

CHINAYOUREN (which, incidentally, is a blog you should absolutely be reading if you aren’t already) recently posted an incredible and strangely-overlooked piece about the frequency of sex-selective abortions in China. Julen has compared and compiled statistics from a number of different studies, including a recent CASS study that, as he helpfully points out, could hardly be accused of any anti-communist bias. The results he found speak for themselves:

Today, almost 20% of the pregnancies that happen in China are manipulated using the simple method of ultrasound scan to determine gender, followed by abortion in case it is a female.

Most first time pregnancies are natural, with only a few percent points of manipulations. This makes sense, as the 2nd trimester abortions necessary for sex selection are not without risk for the mother’s reproductive capacity. Most families prefer to assure the first descendant, knowing that if it is a girl they will get a second go anyway.

However, about 50% of the first birth parents (the same 50% who had a girl?) decide to go for a second one. It is here that the gender manipulation happens massively. Around 30% of these families manipulated their pregnancy using the method described, with some provinces like Anhui showing a rate of up to 50% manipulations for second births.

This shows that sex selective abortion is not a minority problem practiced by a few rogue parents. It is a very common occurrence, with large parts of the population and the health sector taking part in it. In spite of the illegalization of ultrasound scans for sex detection in the 90s, it is obvious that a large part of the doctors are colluding with the public to ignore the law. In short, in most parts of China practicing sex selective abortion is extremely easy and extremely common. Practically anyone can do it.

I was already aware that the ban on telling parents the gender of their children after ultrasounds was being ignored, having heard from friends who recently had a son that their doctor told them this after their ultrasound: “I can’t tell you whether the child is male or female, but it does have a penis.”

But 10% of pregnancies end with sex-selective abortions? ((Julen’s stats say that about 20% of pregnancies are “manipulated”, but in half of those cases the fetus is found to be male and the child is not aborted))The number seems shocking, but it holds up to Julen’s rigorous (and transparent) statistical analysis.

This issue, of course, raises all sorts of ethical tripwires. Should abortion be permitted at all; if so, should it be limited in any way; is aborting a child because of its gender any worse (or better) than aborting a child of unknown gender; does a woman have the right to choose the gender of her offspring? Answers to these questions will vary widely among foreigners, but given the widespread nature of this practice, it seems many Chinese have no problem with it. For our purposes here, I’m going to ignore the ethical questions entirely — not because they aren’t important but because most people have strong feelings one way or the other already.

A more controversial domestic concern is the ensuing gender imbalance. According to Julen, there are currently 7% fewer women than men being born. The birth rate in China is currently around 14 (births per year per 1,000 people in the country), which means that according to my napkin calculations, there will be about 19,600,000 children born this year. Of these, around 10,486,000 will be male, and around 9,114,000 will be female. So in this year alone, Chinese will give birth to around 1,372,000 men who are unlikely find Chinese wives. ((Note: this is a rough approximation performed in a few minutes by someone who hasn’t studied math in nearly a decade and was terrible at it when he did. Cite this statistic at your own risk.))

Much has been said about this growing wifeless demographic, and the threat it might pose to Chinese society to have such a large population of potentially sexually-frustrated men about. Certainly, the shift promises longevity to those engaged in the world’s oldest profession, as well as some assurance that the government won’t do much to crack down on it in the coming years. The Catholic Church has shown — and one assumes the Chinese government has paid some attention to this — that when men are prevented from having sex with women, a certain percentage of them ((around 10% in some areas, according to the excellent documentary Deliver Us From Evil)) will do very, very horrible things.

But could the increasing gender imbalance actually work out well for women who do survive the prenatal abortion screenings? I’ve heard from friends who think it will, and I was shocked to hear this argument, until I realized I had actually said the same thing myself in September of 2009:

The gender imbalance could, in theory, serve as an equalizing force for women. With twenty million extra guys to choose from (not counting foreign men), the pressure on women to marry young is going to be alleviated somewhat, freeing women up to pursue careers or their education more seriously (as of 2000, women lagged almost 10% behind men in literacy). Traditionally, the scare story has been that one must find a good husband while still young and pretty or risk permanent spinsterhood. With twenty million guys to spare, though, women concerned about getting married should be able to relax their timelines a bit — all the good ones are not going to be taken by the time they’re 25, 30, or ever. That relaxed timeline is likely to mean more serious female graduate students and career women, and one wonders if it might lead to its own little sexual revolution of sorts, too — with time and men to spare, why not spend a bit more time “looking”, as it were?

[…]

It would be rather delicious if the One Child Policy, which has led to some pretty horrific abuse of women and girls (because of backwards traditional mindsets, not the policy itself), ended up serving as a tool for their further emancipation precisely because of those backwards traditional ideas.

It remains an interesting idea, but now I wonder if perhaps the gender imbalance isn’t just as likely to increase misogynist attitudes and behavior, especially among the bitter men “left behind” by the fairer sex for personal or economic reasons. Accordingly, I would expect the number of rapes and other sexual assault crimes to climb. The imbalance could provide leverage to improving the status of women in Chinese society, but even if it does, what will females — from the unborn female fetuses to adult women — have to suffer through to make it to that point? Would it be worth it?

It’s a difficult question, and we look forward to continuing the discussion with the comments. Be aware that your comments may well be translated for ChinaGeeks Chinese, which will likely be compiling a post based on this piece, Julen’s post, and the discussion both here and on CHINAYOUREN.

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“China’s Unluckiest Father: Gao Zhanghong is Arrested”

Dogged investigative journalist and blogger Wang Keqin, who broke and has been intently pursuing the “tainted vaccines” case in Shanxi, recently made a post on his blog called “China’s Unluckiest Father: Gao Zhanghong is Arrested”. Combined with earlier stories of Gao Zhanghong that have been passed around the internet, the man really is tragically unlucky. We’ve paraphrased bits of his story below, cobbled together from these two sources.

Gao Zhanghong’s Story

Gao Zhanghong and family

Gao’s first son fell ill with encephalitis B in 2006, after receiving a tainted vaccine injection. According to Gao, he was extremely ill, and “the hospital reported several times that he was in critical condition. Though ultimately his life was saved, there were afteraffects. His intelligence has decreased; he’s currently in primary school but can’t keep up with the other children.” His head also apparently isn’t growing properly, and he has trouble controlling his bladder, to the extent that he frequently urinates while playing.

So Gao and his wife has a second son in 2007, one who they hoped might grow up to care for his older brother. According to Gao, “After he was born, he was continuously drinking Sanlu milk powder, we didn’t realize that he too would become a victim ((It’s unclear in the article I read how Gao’s son was specifically affected, but it seems he did survive.)), this time of the Sanlu milk powder scandal […] So my eldest son was affected by the vaccine problem, and my younger son was affected by the milk powder problem, what I am supposed to do?”

Sadly, Gao’s problems don’t end there. Wang Keqin quotes another father whose son was affected by bad vaccines, Wang Mingliang, as saying that Gao Zhanghong has been recently arrested. According to Wang Mingliang, who spoke to Gao once from his holding cell in a Shanxi local police substation, Gao was walking down the street when someone grabbed him forcefully from behind. Gao, being a rather sizeable man, threw his assailant off forcibly and the man — a complete stranger to Gao — fell to the ground. Getting up, he claimed that Gao had injured him, and dragged him to the local police station. The police, apparently, treated it like they would any fight, and arrested both Gao and the stranger.

However, by the time Wang Mingliang showed up to speak with Gao and his captors, the other man — from Sichuan, as it turned out — had already been released. The police had no explanation for who the stranger was and why he had already been released but Gao was still being held. They did, however, say that despite the other man’s release, Gao would continue to be held, and was not free to leave.

In his talk with Wang, Gao said he found it very suspicious than an out-of-towner would attack a large man such as himself on the street, and suspected the man had ulterior motives. Whether or not that’s true is unverifiable, as the police would not release the name of the Sichuan stranger, or reveal where he had gone to, although they suggested he may have gone to see a doctor.

As of Wang Keqin’s post, neither Gao nor his family could be reached by phone; calling them just results in the “this phone is turned off” error message. Gao is currently being held at the Jiaokou country Huilong township PSB substation.

Our Thoughts

The first half of the story is tragic, but probably inevitable. As long as there is lightning, someone is bound to be struck by it twice. In this case, Gao was failed twice by China’s lax quality assurance and safety standards, and it cost him the health of both of his sons. But his arrest is also interesting, as it illuminates just how effective the government can be at obfuscating exactly who is doing what, and for what reason.

Perhaps I’m being overly skeptical here, but the odd attack by a stranger, combined with his early release the police’s reticence to release information about him, seems to suggest that he may have been a government plant. Gao’s story, as previously mentioned, has been spreading around the internet, and he has given interviews to reporters — is this bizarre arrest for “fighting” a means of intimidation, a sort of punishment for Gao’s openness about the tragic fates of his sons? Or is it a total coincidence, just some crazy guy from Sichuan having a go at Gao for no reason? Coincidence seems less than likely, but the situation is vague enough that as long as the Sichuan guy keeps his mouth shut, the government maintains plausible deniability without having to give up their freedom to arrest and intimidate citizens at will.

Make no mistake, this kind of vagueness is a weapon, and it’s something unscrupulous government officials use to their advantage. Whether that’s the case here, we may never know, but here’s hoping that someone is able to dig into this mystery Sichuan man’s identity a bit and find out the truth. Certainly, if there’s anyone in China capable of doing it, it’s the indomitable Wang Keqin.

Southern Weekend: Do Officials Really Fear the Internet?

Several days ago, People’s Daily — the mouthpiece of the Party — reported the results of a survey they had conducted:

Most people believe the Internet is an effective check on government officials’ behavior, a survey has showed.

About 70 percent of the 6,243 people in the poll, which included 5,943 online users and 300 officials, said they believe government officials fear online public opinion and supervision.

[…]

“The survey shows how Internet users, including some officials, value online supervision,” said Liu Xutao, deputy director of the center of testing and evaluation with the Chinese Academy of Governance. Liu also co-wrote a report on the survey for the magazine.

“On the other hand, it reflects how some other media organizations have failed to play the role of watchdog,” he said.

Interesting stuff. Needless to say, the sample they surveyed is preposterously biased, but it nevertheless raises an interesting question. The folks at Southern Weekend were interested too, apparently, as they published an editorial in response to the piece, which takes the form of a mini-debate:

The People’s Daily did a survey, according to which “70% of people think that officials fear the internet.” But if you look at the objects of the survey, 5,900 of the 6,200 surveyed were netizens, only 300 were officials, and none were common people. From the design and results of the survey we can see it’s not the least bit scientific, it seems more like a sort of masturbatory experience for netizens. Do officials really fear the internet?

In favor: Yes, they’re definitely a bit afraid. The traditional media is more self-disciplined and falls more directly under the authority of officials, so it’s hard [for those media sources] to avoid being handcuffed. There’s no way they can match the freedom and diversity of the internet. Anyone with a heart on the internet is a “reporter”. China often says “the eyes of the masses are bright”; and with so many people watching, there’s an apt saying: “Good news doesn’t make it out the door, bad news is passed far and wide.” The threshold for internet access is low, the publishing speed is fast. The “Tianjia Cigarettes Director” Zhou Jiugeng, “Lewd girl” Lin Ju…these people were caught by netizens. China is quite severe in punishing officials who piss everyone off, so if officials do something wrong and it falls into netizens’ hands, their fate is basically decided. Is it possible for them not to fear the internet?

Opposed: I must admit, when the internet is directly compared to traditional media, it has made it much harder to keep information secret. But thinking more deeply, of all the “crimes” committed by officials publicized by the police and the courts, how many were caught by netizens? Especially for high level officials and big corruption cases, [the internet has little effect…] Moreover, netizens are more prone to groundless accusation that leads to issues going unresolved.

In favor: But the internet has broadened the channel for supervision [of officials]. In the past, officials were very “packaged”; they were very careful when they appeared before the media, but now the internet has brought out the “demons and monsters”. On the internet, you are what you are. In the past, officials were used to being responsible to those above them, but now they’re realizing that with so many people watching from below, “little people” can determine their career prospects and fates. This will definitely move some officials to hold the people in higher esteem. In the case of cross provincial pursuits ((Refers to cases where officials try to arrest people in other provinces for things in internet posts, as I understand it anyway…)), because of the internet there were apologies [rather than arrests]. This shows that the internet can scare officials.

Opposed: According to Chinese law, officials are chosen by the people, so they should always have been holding the people in high esteem. That they go without fear shows that out system has degraded greatly, and that the internet is helping makes it clear that huge loopholes exist. In truth, those who are really scared are low-level people with connections to the masses, because it’s easier for them to be revealed by those they supervise. In the case of that study, the people most scared would be county-level officials, because they have no authority over the internet. If the counties could directly control it, would they still be afraid?

In favor: You can see, there’s also an irrational side to the internet. The people in the survey also mentioned it; in addition to fearing their mistakes be made public, officials fear even more being quoted out of context or having personal information placed on the net that can influence their personal lives and work.

Opposed: That’s a different issue, because if netizens post something that harms your lawful rights and interests online, you can sue. For officials and common people, personal information should be limited, that’s a fundamental standard for any civilized society. Now, because the internet has revealed a small amount of personal information about officials, they’re all scared? That’s not fear, that’s just being contentious. If you fear flaunting yourself in public, or contradicting the inner circle (of politicians), what kind of official are you? You’re given power so that you can deal with the people’s problems, not so that you can enjoy a life of comfort.

Closing thoughts: The internet has become a milestone invention for Chinese politics. But really, this is shameful. The internet has provided a way to supervise officials; however, if our laws (including the constitution) were enforced to the letter, we wouldn’t be clutching at straws hoping the internet can solve our problems. Considering that, saying that “officials fear the internet” is a very fake thesis.

So what do you think? Do officials fear the internet?

Han Han: “The Onions That Can’t Be Cleaned”

This post was written by C. Custer, but the translation is by K. E. David.

The following is a translation of Han Han’s latest post, which can be found here. We are not the first to translate this; that prize goes to China Elections and Governance, who have been translating all of Han Han’s recent posts with such speed that they beat out Danwei and me (for chinaSMACK) on the last one. I’m posting this anyway because K. E. David translated it before he was aware it had already been translated, and because I think it reads a bit more smoothly than their translation (no offense is meant to CE&G by this, I am obviously not an unbiased observer).

Translation

Recently, the Fujian [Education Bureau] has released ten new regulations for [teachers in] higher education. The one that is currently getting the most attention is the second regulation:

“When teaching, disseminating ideas which go against Party lines or policies, the Party’s basic theories, the country’s laws or legislation, or anything that is harmful to fostering within students correct and ideal political convictions and faith in government, will lead to a ‘vote of rejection’, in which violators will be fired.”

What’s soothing about all of this is that when reading the above you’d naturally think that such violations would lead to “being shot”, but instead we just have a “vote of rejection”, which is major progress from the Mao Zedong era. As far as who would cast such a vote, I really don’t care. What I care about are “Party lines, policies” and “the Party’s basic theory”—these are difficult concepts to grasp.

Those in power demand that we [stand together] with a common purpose, a unified way of thinking, but [the leaders] themselves are incapable of thinking in a unified way. When I was small, I vaguely remember my high school textbook describing the separation of powers. My politics teacher said, “The separation of powers is a good thing”. But recently, everything I’ve seen related to separation of powers has government officials and news articles saying the exact opposite, that the separation of powers is a bad.

You know, I only have a high school diploma, so I had only studied politics up to this point before dropping out, so I’m very confused about all of this. I was turned on to an improper way of thinking thanks to the propaganda disseminated by that textbook and teacher. As a result, I feel very worried about my fate.

[Teachers] are always [teaching from] the scripts handed to them by the government. If they screw up, they give it back to the leaders to correct. But the reason they screw up [to start with] is because the leaders changed their minds over night, and when the leaders awake the next morning they change their mind [again].

I read recently an appropriate evaluation [of this situation]. The general idea is that [a leader] gets in his car [and starts driving]. He turns on his right blinker, drives for about a meter, and then immediately swerves to the right, and unexpectedly hits someone.

So, if you find yourself having been crushed to death by this driver, you can only chock it up to bad luck.

News reporters seek the truth, history teachers lecture history, authors write about the truth in speech, movie directors film reality. Taken lightly, they’ve committed incorrect thinking. Taken heavily, they walk the path of the criminals. However, once someone [walks down this path], people one after another [start to] guess: Was he taken out for coffee? Is he shut out? Has he been arrested?

And the reality is that nothing had happened to the person the whole time. In the end, whatever it was they did that supposedly broke the law was just deleted/removed. But people still don’t feel at ease. On the contrary, they feel more worried. They feel that perhaps it’s because that person has a reputation, that the government is apprehensive [about punishing him]. [And so people think], if the government does something to me, is it because they aren’t apprehensive about doing so?

What type of deep-rooted problem is this taking form? How long has it been being watered and cared for for it to turn out like this?

With any generation, brainwashing is just like washing vegetables—there are always a few onions that will never be thoroughly cleaned. In the past, some people would take these onions and peel them clean, but following the changes of succeeding generations, [these onion peelers] are satisfied [if the unclean ones] mind their own business. But as soon as the unclean onions start talking to other [clean] onions, they’ll be squashed by those pretending not to know otherwise.

[….]

As for most of the history, language and politics teachers: what type of evaluation will future history, language and politics textbooks receive? What role will you play in these? Perhaps you lack the ability to act independently, of your own volition, but each one of your students is a seed of yours. Truly try to be a teacher. Teacher your students common sense, give them a voice and way of thinking of their own, give them independence and justice. Put yourself in a position where, looking back on the present from later years in life, you can tell your grandchildren that you proudly took on and fulfilled the responsibilities of your profession. Don’t look back on this time ashamed.

Our Thoughts

Reminder: this part of the post was written by C. Custer.

This post is significant because instead of just being snarky, Han Han is actually calling for action here. What’s more, he’s not calling for the government to change their policy, rather he seems to be imploring teachers to ignore government political mandates. Granted, he doesn’t say that explicitly, but the between-the-lines implication is there.

We’ve written quite a bit about education recently, and Han Han is no newcomer to the topic either as his breakout novel was a criticism of the Chinese education system. Still, as one of the privileged folks who authorities are afraid to mess with, and someone who dropped out of the educational system, Han Han is coming from an interesting position here, especially in his appeal to legacy. Teachers, especially teachers of history, are wont to be conscious of the legacies they leave. One wonders if Han Han, too, is pondering his legacy. Thusfar, he has walked the line, gaining the common people’s admiration without attracting too much government attention. Perhaps this post is an early sign that Han Han is no longer willing to be labeled as, in the words of William Moss, “dissident lite”.

Also, check out ChinaGeeks Chinese’s newest translation: 采访前中国吸血鬼.

Yu Jian: “Education Without Heart”

Below is a translation of this article from Southern Weekend, a fairly well-known online news site featuring critical essays and opinion pieces on various issues related to China. In this article, Yu Jian discusses how the contemporary Chinese education system is failing to produce individuals with “empathetic hearts”, and that the current system is too focused on producing test results instead of quality human beings.

Translation

Teaching for the final test seems to have become education’s primary duty.

From what I understand, all grade three Chinese senior high school students have already finished their normal studies for the year and entered into vigorous preparation to battle the Gaokao exam. Now, all schools only have one class: how to handle the Gaokao. Parents closely cooperate, and the study of unrelated subjects such as poetry, music, dance, art, philosophy, aesthetics and ethics have resolutely come to an end, as if the sky had collapsed in on them. In other words, the skill of test taking has become education’s highest knowledge, the only knowledge [worth having].

And I’m quite sure that China is the only country confronting this type of situation. From the time children enter school, they spend their entire academic careers preparing for the Gaokao. The objective of all subjects is just to serve one purpose: to prepare students for this final test. When students attend class their teachers will usually inform them of what material will be tested, and what material will not. “This won’t be tested, turn the page, don’t study this,” [teachers say]. When studying history, for example, students will only cover the main points concerning the governance of the economic system. The humanities of history are ignored completely.

Score + Grades = Character

One rainy morning as I was seeing my child off to school, we approached the school entrance just as the test bell went off. As soon as the bell sounded, children all around me frantically began running inside fearing to be the last [to enter the classroom]. Amidst all of the running, a female student slipped and fell down. Not one student stopped to help her up; they were all too busy running to class. The student picked herself up [and ran inside]. The students around her seemed to feel [this disregard for others] to be completely natural—the test is more important than anything else.

And I sighed. If this is the result of education, that students turn a blind eye to another student who has fallen down, that empathy has vanished, then this education system truly is too terrifying.[….] Education which emphasizes only testing, education without heart, is inhumane education.

The objective of this contemporary education system is to mold “new people”. When I say “new people”, I mean a new generation of individuals different from the historically backwards ones. But during this process of “molding” it is impossible for us to throw off tradition. No matter how we mold [new people], we still must depend on the day in and day out tradition of educating unobtrusively and imperceptibly, of teaching students according to their individual abilities.

When the great Confucius said that we should “teach students according to their individual abilities”, he certainly did not mean that we should teach only from some textbook for some test, he meant that we should identify and cultivate each student’s individual and unique genius[….]

Gaokao Prep Books

In the past, teachers praised and criticized students on the good and bad deeds they performed—this determined whether or not a student was a good or bad child. Now, teachers praise or criticize students solely on their grades. Students who score high on their exams represent “Socialism’s ‘new person’”. Whether or not the student has morals, faith in socialism, or is an empathetic person is not important. Scores determine everything. An inhumane student with good grades is still considered to be a “new person”.

Students are also becoming more pragmatic: since all that matters is the final score, studying is just a means of developing test-taking skills; learning is insignificant. The acquisition of knowledge is only valuable in so far as it can help them test. Knowledge is boring—only the answers matter. A or B. Why one is B and not A is not important—it’s just the answer.

And this [approach to education] leads to undermining morality and ethics. Students do not learn to take initiative in their studies, everything is decided by the test answers. Why bother studying when all [the students are doing] is learning to memorize the answers? [….] Rote memorization has forcefully exterminated empathy. Genius, talent, creativity, wisdom, independent thinking—these skills all receive a final mark of “0”.

Students outwardly go through the motions of receiving this type of education, but inwardly disdain it. The knowledge required for tests is comprised of one set of facts, and the knowledge needed for reality another. Moreover, most of the material covered in today’s textbooks has no practical value in the outside world, and is irrelevant to everyday life. And for this reason this type of education can no longer be taken seriously [….]

This education system creates latent enemies of education. Once a student’s score passes a certain mark, [students feel no need to continue to learn,] and feel no remorse for not continuing their education.

There is also a very important difference between modern education and traditional private schooling. Private education is represented by the teacher’s personal image, while in modern education, the teacher’s personal style and morals, and student’s behavior, is concealed—the teachers and students are merely represented by a test paper. Teachers who produce students with high scores are good teachers. The teacher’s personality and morals are not important. Teachers have no need to adhere to moral principles or responsibilities. Their only responsibility is to help students achieve high scores.

And immoral teachers carelessly go about teaching during normal school hours. After class, they collect [extra] fees from students’ parents and teach these students directly from confidential test books. Today’s students do not respect their teachers, as teachers are considered to be only a boring screw in the country’s test machine.

Teachers do not care how their students develop as human beings, they only care about their test scores, and this signifies that teachers are not empathetic. If saving a person leads to scoring low on an exam, you are a bad student[….] Actually, neither the teacher nor the student is wrong as the education system itself has made this type of logic natural. Don’t behave this way, don’t study this way, if the teacher doesn’t get his or her bonus, there won’t be a school.

Modern education is training education dissidents. I’m not at all using hyperbole when I say that our current education system is heartless and without morals, that students under this system will never look upon teachers fondly as if they were their mothers and fathers, students will never feel deep gratitude [for them].

After the tests, after students have entered society, they will discover that society does not revolve around scores. If one day they cannot find the answer and do not have the ability to judge right from wrong, then they will have no spirit, no personal opinion or voice, no talent. And if there are hordes of people like this, then our future is in grave trouble. My meaning is, when confronting how different countries’ education systems are supposed to lift up their societies, it is clear that the goal of education is to make a country stronger. But what we see now instead is not how our education system will make our country stronger, but instead a foreshadowing of how this system is slowly degenerating and burying our country.

The Adventures of Zhao Zuohai

“Being disappeared” is nothing new in China. But “being confessed, pledged guilty, sentenced, declared innocent and touristed” – which is how a netizens sums up the tale of misfortunes that Zhao Zuohai was subjected to – is very telling of why of the unassuming grammatical particle bei (被) that indicates the passive voice became the word of the year 2009.

The trigger of the newest wave of discussion about the shortcomings of the public security organs and the legal system is”Zhao Zuohai, who was sentenced for murder 11 years ago and was only declared innocent when his “victim” turned up alive recently. An ironic twist is added to this case by the fact that the alleged murder victim fled his hometown in the belief the he himself had killed Zhao Zuohai in an altercation. While the “happy ending” of the story should have been that he was finally able to return to his family, the story took another turn when he never made it there after his release, adding fuel to suspicions that he was forced into confessing and pleading guilty.

While the mainland media do face a lot of restriction there is also plenty of proof that there are critical and witty journalists out there, like Wang Xuejin, who writes about the origin of the new hot word on the net and shares his “guesses” about the dealings behind it. “This commentary from Shenyang Evening News was also carried on “Xinhua.

Endless guesses about Zhao Zuohai “being touristed”

by Wang Xuejin
Shenyang Evening News, May 11th 2010

Zhao Zuohai, who has already served a prison sentence of 11 years, was finally declared innocent and released on May 9th. Strangely enough though, Zhao vanished into thin air after leaving the prison. His brother in law Yu Fangxin hurried to Kaifeng on the evening of the 8th to await Zhao when he comes out, but as is the case with Zhao, there has been no sign of him either. So where did Zhao Zuohai go? Even his elder sister and his uncle Zhao Zhenju don’t know their whereabouts. Zhao Zhenju, who received a call from the public security bureau, told us: “They said they took Zhao out on a trip”. (According to “an article in Southern Weekend the officer said: “Zhao is together with officials from Zhecheng County, the party secretary wanted to take him on a trip.”)

This seems to be a painstakingly arranged situation. At this very moment Zhao will be all but in the mood for traveling, he must have been “asked away” by the people of the relevant departments of Zhecheng County, who came to pick him up. The question if he really was invited to some scenic tourist spot can not be answered for now. But no matter what mysterious location Zhao was taken to by above-mentioned VIPs, may it be an office, a hotel or scenic spot – among those undoubtedly some well-known places – one thing is certain: People well have reason to wonder and guess what is happening.

Guess No. 1: Seeing that this case already gripped the attention of the entire nation, the local leaders immediately picked up the freshly released Zhao to be able to avoid him being surrounded and pursued by journalists from all over the country who got wind of his case. This would effectively prevent him from receiving interviews by the media as he likes and guarantee that he doesn’t leak the truth about details of the case, to avoid that local public security and legal organs and county officials are once again being sucked into the maelstrom of public opinion as the passive subject suffering blame.
Guess No. 2: Zhao is currently being enlightened by officials and entertained with good wine and cigarettes. He is under their patient and systematic guidance. They appeal to his reason and move his emotions, telling him what to say and what not to say, as there should be a coordinated line of action. They are immediately giving him the “seal your mouth” education.

Guess No. 3: If Zhao Zuohai can talk to others according to the line agreed on with the officials, they will represent the government in promising him that he can not only get a huge compensation, but also a lot of other benefits. The premise being that he listens to them and follows their plans.
To put it bluntly, this “being touristed” is a fake, (them) reaching some kind of deal (right now) is the reality.

You cannot but admire the brilliance of the public security and legal organs and the local leaders! With this arrangement they can at least achieve these various results:
One is to protect a group of people; especially those who were the officials in charge of Zhaos case, like Zhu Peijun, who was promoted to the branch director of the public security bureau of the Shangqui new investment and economic zone and who back then was the one who arrested Zhao for murder. Or Ding Zhongqiu, who has already risen to vice director of the Zhecheng county public security bureau and who was the one responsible for the investigation of the crime.

The second is to cover up the most suspicions aspects of the case. Was Zhao subjected to torture to extort a confession? It’s hard to imagine that a person who is not a murderer will make nine depositions stating that he is guilty. A few days ago Zhao Zuolan, Zhaos younger brother, went to visit him and asked why he originally decided to admit that he had committed murder. Zhao replied: “I won’t say, if I’d say they’d kill me.” (But) In order to show that he was beaten Zhao Zuohai pointed to the scars on his head, saying these were inflicted with rods and pistol grips. If this would be verified, this matter would become more and more troublesome and would bring about some very serious consequences.

The third is that they can mitigate a rash criticism from the public concerning how the police handle cases. After all, this case without a corpse was not yet cracked, now that Zhao has emerged from this all not as a party involved but simultaneously as the victim. If the public security forces gained a confession from torture to solve the crime, the judgment of the public opinion would not let go of the ones responsible.

In the middle of so many vested interests, can the local and public security organs and the leaders lightly let Zhao Zuohai gain his freedom? They have to use the so-called “courteous treatment” – which in fact means restricting a person’s freedom – to take away Zhao and look after him for a few days. And after making sure that he consents to their arrangements, they will let him go back home. No doubt that this was a smart plan, but since this case has already become a hot topic on the internet and for journalists, the real circumstances of the case will eventually come out in the open, no matter how well this act of “being touristed” was directed. The outcome will simply be that the more one hides, the more one will be exposed, they basically outsmarted themselves. The truth will come out since it only relies on itself and can’t be fended off by this “being touristed” (sheme) that was considered skillful.

Well, it seems that for a change the writer of this commentary was “right with his optimistic assessment that the truth will attend to itself…

New on ChinaGeeks

This section of the post was written by C. Custer
You may not care, but my writing in general and ChinaGeeks in specific has been chosen as a Danwei model worker! I am extremely pleased with this, as I have been coveting the shiny badge you see at left since I started blogging (I am not joking). In any event, thanks are due on this occasion to all of our ChinaGeeks contributors, including the newest one and this post’s author and translator Katja Drinhausen. All of these people have been extremely consistent in turning in absolutely outstanding posts, and I am extremely grateful to them. Extremely.

Ai Weiwei’s Newest Piece: “Missing”

Artist and activist Ai Weiwei has done a lot to commemorate the students who were killed in the Sichuan earthquake because their schools were poorly built. And while he’s built up a strange sort of cult on Twitter and he tends to turn people off with his vulgarity, he still has the ability to be quite poignant when he wants to be. His latest piece, an audio recording called “Missing”, is no exception.

Actually, the title is difficult to translate. The character 念 does mean missing, but it also means thinking of, reading, and commemorating. Ai undoubtedly picked this word intentionally because it conveys both the recording’s literal content (reading) and its significance.

“Missing”, posted to the web in the form of a three-and-a-half-hour-long MP3, is a recording of netizen volunteers reading the names of every single student who died in a school in the Sichuan earthquake ((Every student that the Citizen’s Investigation was able to track down and add to their list, anyway.)).

Ai posted the recording with the following message:

“Presenting to friends a work that shows the voice of the students killed in the Sichuan earthquake: “Missing”. It represents the memory of the lives that have been lost and the anger at the covering-up of the tofu-buildings ((i.e., schools that were built poorly or using low quality materials)). Respect life, refuse to forget.”

It’s a pretty powerful piece. To begin with, its sheer length is has an effect. The fact that one could fill three and a half hours with just the names of dead students is absolutely devastating in a way that looking at the numbers simply can’t be. And hearing a variety of people reading the names helps to drive home that these were sons and daughters, not statistics. The netizens reading the names serve as a sort of stand-in for the students’ families and friends. They remind us that the students who died left loved ones behind.

The greater power, perhaps, can be found in the fact that this is a collaborative, commemorative effort. These netizens, who may or may not have had any connection to the dead students, have shown by participating in this recording that they have not forgotten the students’ tragic deaths. It isn’t just their families, or even just activists like Ai Weiwei, that wish to commemorate these kids. It is, in a rather real sense, the people.

What do you think of Ai Weiwei’s latest piece?

If the above link to the file doesn’t work, you can try to track one down here or here. The file is too big to upload here.

Many thanks to Isaac Mao for tweeting about this and also clarifying for me who it was who made this recording.

China’s Youth: Angry, Aspiring, or Excrement?

In a relatively recent panel held by the Brookings Institution in April of last year titled “Understanding China’s ‘Angry Youth’: What Does the Future Hold?”, Kai-Fu Lee, the founding president of Google China, discussed his take on China’s youth.

Though completely unrelated to his day job, Mr. Lee made a number of provocative insights worth looking at further. In particular, this article will elaborate on the ideas expressed in his keynote address in hopes of creating a more well-rounded and fairer depiction of China’s youth than the term “angry youth” itself elicits.

Mr. Lee begins with a language lesson, explaining the taxonomy of the term “angry youth” found in Mandarin. The word most commonly used to refer to “angry youth” is fenqing (愤青), which comes from fennu qingnian (愤怒青年), or, literally, “furious youth”. In addition to this fenqing, there are two other fens; 粪, which means excrement, and 奋, derived from 奋斗, which means to struggle. In each case of 愤青, 粪青, and 奋年, the fens are synonymous, having both the same pinyin spelling (fen) and tone (fourth tone).

Each of these three classifications refers to a different type of youth. Mr. Lee defines the “furious youth” (愤青), as “critical, skeptical, sometimes unhappy…. They want to point out problems of things that they observe and they use the anonymity of the internet to let the silent majority have a chance to speak up.”

A more extreme version of the “angry youth” is the “excrement youth” (粪青), which Mr. Lee describes as “people who are generally gullible. They have a lack of knowledge; they don’t apply enough logic and common sense to problems. They are easily provoked. They’re impetuous, and they’re hot-headed, and they sometimes don’t just speak up but they actually take action…they sometimes have trouble separating patriotism from nationalism, and they sometimes not only want China to win, they may want some other countries to lose, and a lot of responsible Chinese journalists and authors have called these excrement youths scoundrels hiding under the pretence of patriotism.”

The third, and more realistic fenqing, is the 奋青, or “aspiring youth”. Mr. Lee describes this group as “aspiring [and] industrious…[they] are people who are objective, realistic, fair…[they have a] strong sense of social responsibility. They don’t just point out the problems, but they want to solve the problems — they want to point out solutions…they have a clear understanding of what patriotism means, that it is not nationalism, that they love their country but it’s not at the expense of other countries, and I think this is a group of constructive people I think who are going to hopefully become the pillar of society in the future….”

By and large, it seems that the “angry” and “excrement” groups are often the ones most commonly referred to whenever someone uses the term “angry youth”. This is a problem for those outside of China who do not know any better, as these two groups unfairly paint for western observers a portrait of a xenophobic and nationalist China. In fact, data from a survey done by the CASS Institute of World History Special Topics Groups, published by Stanley Rosen in the May 2009 volume of the Journal of Asian Studies, in his article Contemporary Chinese Youth and the State, suggests that the majority of China’s youth is better described as aspiring, not angry.

When asked to relate their core belief system, the survey found that 72.7% of respondents believe their personal belief system is best described as “individual struggle” compared to the 10% who “did not know” what belief system they related to, and the 17.2% who “struggle to achieve communism”.

When asked whether or not they identified with American cultural concepts, 51% reported they did indeed identify, 32% said the influence of American media was a “non-factor” and 17% said they did not identify at all. It is possible, however, that the number of those who do identify with western cultural concepts is higher, considering that 61% of respondents stated they related to liberalism, which is a western concept.

Such evidence suggests that China’s youth is far from being as xenophobic and hyper-nationalistic as some tend to let on.

So why is it that viral videos, such as the one discussed here, tend to bring out so much xenophobia and nationalist sentiment? While hard data cannot be provided to argue either in favor or against the argument that such commentators do not represent China’s youth as a whole, the 90-9-1 principle may provide some insight.

This principle holds that of everyone who interacts with something on the web, 90% purely consume (i.e. they do not interact with the content, by commenting, for example), 9% directly interact (e.g. by leaving comments on blogs) and only1% actually create content. Such a theory may provide us with some perspective on the amount of China’s youth which actually come forward to participate in such discussions.

In addition, the Dunning-Kruger effect, “a cognitive bias in which ‘people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it’”, suggests that of the ~10% who do interact with blogs, BBS forums, etc., those expressing strong xenophobic, racist and nationalist sentiment likely belong to the small “excrement” minority.

And many of China’s aging youth do have things about which to be angry: domestic issues such as a 12.6% unemployment rate for college graduates, rampant government corruption and rising house prices, and international issues such as regularly being misrepresented by foreign media. And these are issues which are not solved by toting anti-western, xenophobic slogans, but China’s aspiring youth already know this.

In conclusion, though certainly not a new idea that it is a mistake to generalize an entire generation of people based on the actions of a small minority, the continued adoption and use of misnomers like “angry youth” do a tremendous disservice to casual observers of China. By conjuring images of disturbed teens and college grads who are now stepping behind the wheel of one of the world’s largest economies, and America’s biggest challenger to its lone superpower status, such terminology only further fosters unease and suspicion in an already largely uninformed western public. With over half of America’s general public seeing China as a “major threat”, terms like “angry youth” are neither accurately portraying the post-80’s generation, nor are they helping to show the world that China has the potential to become not a major threat, but a major ally.

New on ChinaGeeks

ChinaGeeks Chinese translates this post of ours on the Shanghai Expo, as well as many of the comments from it: 上海世博会能走多远？

Teaching Chinese (and China) in the United States

Full disclosure: the author of this post is a Chinese language teacher in the United States.

I have written on this topic before, but the New York Times has published another fascinating article on Chinese language teaching in the US, and the experiences of Chinese teachers who come from China to the US for the first time to teach their native language.

“My life in high school was torture, just studying, nothing else,” said Ms. Zheng (pronounced djung). “Here students lead more interesting lives,” partly because they are more involved in athletics, choir and other activities.

“They party, they drink, they date,” she added. “In China, we study and study and study.”

High school may be where the most severe gap between Chinese and American schools exists, but having worked in both systems, I wonder if the best way to run an education system isn’t somewhere in the middle of these two. The Chinese system, aside from being a bit inhuman, does nothing whatsoever to foster well-rounded kids or help them develop their social skills. The American system, on the other hand, tends to produce kids with an excess of social skills and a dearth of academic abilities. Given the sharp contrast here, it’s not difficult to imagine the culture shock Chinese teachers face when they move to the States:

In interviews, several other Chinese teachers said they had some difficulties adjusting to the informality of American schools after working in a country where students leap to attention when a teacher enters the room.

[…]

Ms. Zheng said none of her students had been disagreeable, and Samantha Weidenmaier, an assistant principal at the school, MacArthur High, said that in Ms. Zheng’s classes “the respect levels are kicked up a notch.”

Still, Ms. Zheng said she believed that teachers got little respect in America.

“This country doesn’t value teachers, and that upsets me,” she said. “Teachers don’t earn much, and this country worships making money. In China, teachers don’t earn a lot either, but it’s a very honorable career.”

Zheng makes a great point here. We can’t blame the flaws of the American education system wholly on its informal atmosphere or its emphasis on extracurriculars. The fact is, very few of America’s outstanding students go on to teach in public schools (or even private schools), and why the hell would they? Generally speaking, teaching jobs offer terrible wages, schools provide little to no training or support for their teachers, and while the vacations are hard to beat, working hours when school is in session can be brutal. This is all true in China, too, but the upside is that saying “I’m a teacher” often garners respect, whereas in the States it’s just as likely (if not more likely) to garner contempt, derision, and pedantry. “Those who can’t do, teach,” as the old joke goes, and teachers in the States are frequently forced to deal with parents who assume that they are stupid, incompetent, and “out to get” their children. Parents in China thank you for teaching their kids, but parents in the US lecture, demand, and blame you for their children’s failures real or perceived ((Of course, this is a generalization. Many American parents are great, and there are certainly Chinese parents who do these same things too.)). It’s no secret why American schools constantly lack teachers.

Continuing in the NYT article:

Ms. Zheng said she spent time clearing up misconceptions about China.

“I want students to know that Chinese people are not crazy,” she said. For instance, one of her students, referring to China’s one-child-per-family population planning policy, asked whether the authorities would kill one of the babies if a Chinese couple were to have twins.

I have found this to be a remarkably widespread and virulent misconception. I’m not sure where it comes from, but I have read dozens of student papers on China that explain how the One Child Policy means the Chinese government will summarily execute any children you have after the first one. I get these papers even after we’ve covered the One Child Policy in class and I’ve stressed repeatedly that the government is not in the business of murdering children. It’s frustrating, and it’s probably also pretty horrifying for native Chinese teachers when they inevitably discover it.

That afternoon, Ms. Zheng taught classes at Central Middle School, drilling 22 eighth graders on how to count to 100 in Chinese and explaining some Chinese holidays before turning her back to write a Chinese tongue twister on the board.

Out of the blue, a girl with long brown hair asked her classmates loudly: “Where’s France at?”

“In Europe,” a boy with baggy jeans called out from across the room.

“France is not in Europe,” another boy said.

Ms. Zheng just kept writing Chinese characters on the board.

This scene will sound familiar to every American teacher, but it’s hard to imagine in China. I’m not referring to the geographical ignorance, but rather to the widespread belief among American students that silence on the part of the teacher — especially if the teacher is writing on the board — signals an invitation to engage in private conversations.

This sort of thing is something American teachers quickly learn to manage (or are ultimately destroyed by). But it strikes me that “classroom management” probably isn’t even a topic of discussion at most Chinese high schools, where students don’t tend to speak up much during class for any reason, let alone to disrupt it. For Chinese teachers moving to the States, it must be very difficult not to take this kind of behavior personally, not to take it as a slight against China or Chinese.

Education is a valuable tool for intercultural communication but it can just as easily lead to frustration and disillusionment if one isn’t careful. The article doesn’t really discuss it, but I suspect many of the teachers the Chinese government sends here aren’t getting proper training or adequate preparation for what they’re going to face in American classrooms.

And teaching Chinese might well lead to more trouble than teaching some other random subject. Many Americans (and more than a few Chinese) believe there is something ineffable about Chinese that makes it impossible for average people to learn. Remarkably, this phenomenon exists even among students who are learning Chinese and have memorized characters or distinguished tones (for example) successfully in the past. In my scant year of teaching Chinese, I have had multiple students tell me that they’re not physically capable of reproducing characters. They have functional hands and no problems with English writing, so the suggestion is obviously preposterous, but it seems possible to them. After all, it’s Chinese. Some people, probably even most people, just can’t do it.

Right?

New on ChinaGeeks

A word of apology for the recent lack of posts, as well as the rather slapdash one you see above: May is the busiest time of the year for my school, and my workload is compounded by the beginning of work on a new ChinaGeeks-related project. I can’t reveal any more than that at the moment, but we’re hoping to keep pushing the boundaries in the wake of becoming one of the first bilingual bridge blogs on China. (All praise due to China Dialogue, who’s been doing it for years on environmental issues, and of course Global Voices Online, the ultimate super bridge blog.)