It’s a good thing I’m not from Singapore.

It’s a good thing I’m not from Singapore.
by: Long Yingtai
China Times, Oct. 10, 1994
還好我不是新加坡人
撰 龍應台
中國時報，1994年10月10日

I’d like to tell you why I feel so blessed to not be from Singapore.

Back in September, twenty-two foreign ministers from Europe and Southeast Asia met in Germany. At the meeting, the foreign minister from Singapore felt compelled to lecture his European colleagues, “In Asia, we have enough money and technology to sustain long term economic growth well into in the future…since the end of the Cold War, Europe has tried to get us to buy into their cultural values. While we can accept some aspects, we cannot buy into everything. Together we need to learn how to respect our differences.”

That bold statement seems to place all of Asia under its umbrella. German papers noted what they say saw as important news with the headline: “Asian and European cultures clash.” Of course, Samuel Huntington was quoted there as well, “Western culture, with its concern for freedom and personal dignity is confronted with an Asian culture that stresses authority and collective interest.”

So is there anything wrong with what the minister had to say? At first glance, the answer would seem to be no. Europe has been exporting its culture for far longer than the end of the Cold War. If we start counting at the beginning of the Opium Wars, Europe has been in China for over 150 years. In truth, it’s about time Europe starting learning a bit from others.

However, what bothered me about the statement is that Singapore has taken to going around and talking to the West as the spokesperson for Asia. Every time they open their mouth it’s “our Asian values this” and “our Asian values that.” Incredibly, the Western media goes right along with this, parroting the same phrases in chorus as if Singapore actually represented Asia and Singaporean cultural values indeed were the cultural values of all of Asia.

When exactly did Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀, Lǐ Guāngyào) become my spokesperson?

In September, right after the caning incident involving Michael Fay, Singapore executed a drug dealer from Norway. As most of Europe had already abolished the use of the death penalty, this caused quite a stir. I don’t have much sympathy for the Norwegian as he knew what he was doing was illegal. Nor do I think Singapore had any reason to show extra-legal leniency just because the criminal was from Europe. However, I don’t think Singapore has the right to be arrogant. At the very least, they don’t have the right to represent this through and through Asian who happens to be from Taiwan.

I don’t approve of the death penalty. Nor do I approve of tying up those on death row and then taking their picture. I don’t like seeing those who litter humiliated in public by the police as their legal punishment. I don’t like people telling me whether or not I can chew gum. I can’t accept not being able to buy the foreign magazines I want to read. Nor am I willing to let anyone tell me what books I’m allowed to read. I can’t accept any group of people telling me what to think, what to say, how to live, who I should fuck or how many kids I should have. And I won’t accept a bunch of people who think they’re smarter than me telling me what my cultural values are. All the economic growth, political stability and government efficiency in the world couldn’t get me to budge an inch on the issues of freedom and dignity.

I’m not the only one who feels like this: people in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and plenty more places feel just like I do. There’s also quite a few in perfect little Singapore who feel the same way too; it’s just hard to hear their voices on the outside.

Singaporeans have every right to live according to whatever values and rules they see fit, just as it should be for every country. However, the next time you have to cane or hang some Westerner, try to speak on behalf of Singapore, not all of Asia. I’d appreciate it if your statements didn’t include us supporters of personal dignity and liberty from right here in Asia.

I guess it’s a good thing I’m not from Singapore.

原文: http://bbs3.nsysu.edu.tw/txtVersion/treasure/study-group/M.907880897.A/M.935321533.A/M.935494316.A/M.988725928.C.html

Maintaining social harmony and stability

By: Ren Siwen

With the annual meetings of the NPC and the CPPCC beginning this week, all eyes are once again focused on Beijing. Representatives from the entire country have arrived here in the capital to work on our country’s 12th 5-year national development plan.

Currently, our country’s economic growth is excellent and the bright future for our people’s incredible revival is before our eyes. After the hard work that went into implementing the previous 5-year plan, the economy has grown to become the second largest in the world, our country has grown stronger, people have seen their standard of living rise and our country’s standing and influence around the world has ascended to new heights. Together with the country as a whole, Beijing has itself entered a new historic period in its evolution. The look of the city is constantly changing and every aspect of people’s lives there is improving. Despite all this, recently there have been some unusual situations which must command our vigilance.

Since the end of last year, great unrest has emerged in multiple Middle Eastern and North African countries. Social order in these countries has collapsed, depriving individuals of any guarantee of safety. With all aspects of life thrown into incredible turmoil, the unrest has brought nothing short of a disaster to the peoples of these countries. With this in mind, what we must be vigilant about is the individuals, both domestic and foreign, who are attempting to bring this unrest here to China. Using the internet, these individuals are attempting organize illegal demonstrations. They hope to cause trouble through this their use of “street politics.” The overwhelming majority of people emphatically disapprove of this behavior. The small minority who are attempting to organize these activities will find their demonstrations to be little more than comedies, written and performed exclusively by themselves. International media outlets have even gone so far as to label these demonstrations performance art. Those believing they could manufacture news like what has been seen recently in the Middle East have seen their hopes fall short.

Leading the previous 30 years of economic reforms, the CCP, together with the combined efforts of the all the country’s ethnic groups, has made our politics more stable and our economy more developed. The Party’s caring policies have followed the wishes and desires of the people, winning their wholehearted support. They are giving the people what they yearn for: a more stable, safe and developed country. The people also know full well that stability is a blessing and unrest is a curse. Without stability, nothing can be accomplished. It is because of this that the will and aspiration of each person is the continued maintenance of stability.

It is always the case that some individuals from here and abroad will attempt to use some problems during the course of our development to sow discord. This is a reality we must accept. However, we must also never forget to cherish our incredible achievements, maintain harmony and stability, take advantage of the strategic opportunities around us and continue along the path of scientific development. Through this we will not only make China’s future brighter, but also continue to improve the quality of people’s lives.

原文: http://www.bjd.com.cn/10jbgd/201103/t20110305_664250.html

Free speech: Translation as crime

“All media nationwide must use Xinhua’s reporting on the Egyptian riots,” read a directive issued last Friday, referring to the state run Xinhua news agency. “It is strictly forbidden to translate foreign media coverage,” the order said, warning that websites that did not censor comments about Egypt would be “shut down by force.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/360243

which apparently is “管理不力的網站將被強行關閉”

“by force.” lazy evaluation.

the capacity for guilt

Uninformed people might think something like, you’ve got to be kidding me. People who know better say, hmm, makes sense.

 

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2011/01/28/video-cctv-tries-to-pass-off-%E2%80%98top-gun%E2%80%99-clip-as-military-drill/

 

Al Jazeera, Real Player? Really? Real Player?

In the season…

of saying non-original things.

Using the shanghaied students in the PISA tests as your “sample” is about as representative as using any major American big city’s public school students. And that’s assuming no fishiness with things on the red side, which is not something regular Chinese people would even think to consider.

It would be somewhat like taking Gansu (no offense Gansu, you great Arkansas of the East) high school students (the ones who go to school, and therefore have schools) and putting them up against the elite private schools on the east coast. And those elite private school kids were drilled their whole life with a testing culture, and told if they did bad it would shame the country and their family (and they would have to care about those things), and were not allowed to have lives, and studied all day, and learned essentially the things that would be on the test, and then you selected the most capable of those as your sample.

I’m not making any apologies about American schools, I went to them. The problem isn’t always the schools. Most of the kids at the schools are dumb. We try to educate everybody and fail to educate many of them successfully, not always due to the fault of the school. It’s like comparing apples to oranges, mandarin oranges, which I think are just 橘子.

The things you don’t know about the Chinese school system could fill a map of the world, life-size.

諍之

Sometimes I write long posts and don’t post them. Then I find the parts of the post that sound less like me preaching and end up posting little more than the chinese quote I like.

昔者，天子有諍臣七人，雖無道，不失其天下；諸侯有諍臣五人，雖無道，不失其國；大夫有諍臣三人，雖無道，不失其家；士有諍友，則身不離於令名；父有諍子，則身不陷於不義。故當不義，則 子不可以不諍於父；臣不可以不諍於君；故當不義則諍之，從父之令，又焉得為孝乎！

If America were a twitter account…

It would have about a million followers, and follow about ten people, including completely worthless and irrelevant accounts like British Monarchy. Probably because there would be such disdain for twitter that day to day managing would be left to some former Brit.

Whenever some foreign news story managed to make it into the stream, America would be the first to fly some rock of meaning out there to tell it how it is.

The thing about Koppel is that he doesn’t sense the transformation in it’s entirety, while someone like Sarah Palin does. I hate to call it an age thing, but I’m pretty sure that’s what it is. Even someone like Obama really doesn’t seem to understand the internet or the media or information landscape. Koppel seems to think there’s always going to be these foreign reporters flying out to places or based in places giving us the news we need and should know about. (Yes, in the newsletter model, maybe, not the newspaper model.) Jarvis is at least a little more forward thinking in saying, uh, why not just talk to the people there, why do we need any filter, or an “American” filter. No one bought your quality control or reputation in the first place. If they did, they wouldn’t have abandoned it like a sex crime victim on the side of the road.

Palin, the communications/journalism major, is shockingly more able to connect with people than Big O. Sure, Palin doesn’t connect with everyone politically, but she connects with people. And she knows that. She was smart enough to learn during her  many years and schools that communication (and journalism) is about connection. Without connection, you don’t have communication. You have yelling, you have informing, you have transmission, but you don’t have communication. Koppel or a place like the nytimes aren’t in the business of communication, they are in the business of journalism, or informing. Journalism is not a two-way street, and the kind of function they perform for some people just doesn’t make that much sense.

Prior to something like the Internet, there was a desire to enter the world of the press, for without it, reach, ie reaching a massive audience, was difficult. But Sarah Palin knows entering the world of “serious” journalists entails criticism and a price. The journos think it’s crap she won’t talk to them, and the she owes it to them. No, no one owes anyone anything. (The Press claims it’s a stand-in for the people, not the other way around.) And she doesn’t have to play ball, because she can connect to people through the internet, or media organizations that are partial to her. Why does she owe Katie an interview? She can go on FB and answer any question she wants, or field some requests from Twitter followers, or hold an online forum streamed online and take questions live from anyone. (Even Lebron James gets this.) What does the press offer her? Reach? She’s got plenty. The news journos want to print on Palin should come from research, and last time I checked, they don’t need to talk to her for that.

So basically, journalistic enterprises see their purpose as being arbiters or judgers or deciders, and establishing reputation. This entails hierarchy, and that entails transmission versus communication. People don’t need these organizations for transmission of information, it slides around fluidly from a press release, or a friend, or whatever. It’s a commodity, not a product. I don’t need you to print press releases for me anymore, thanks.

from: http://www.npr.org/2010/11/16/131361367/should-objectivity-still-be-the-standard-in-news (emphasis added)

KOPPEL: One of reasons that I regret the absence of that so much is that we have no way anymore of judging the validity of information that we get from overseas. As often as not, if you listen to the accents, it's no longer even American reporters over there.

CONAN: Jeff Jarvis.

Prof. JARVIS: Well, what's wrong with - wait, wait, wait. What's wrong with that? We have people who actually know the territory and are natives. Do you think we have to have Americans tell Americans the news?

KOPPEL: I would like to have American reporters conveying the news to Americans, yes.

Prof. JARVIS: Whoa. That seems like a kind of strange bit of xenophobia, journalistic xenophobia. I would love to have people - I love being able to go to blogs and elsewhere and read the people who are in Iraq and in Iran explain it to me far better than someone who just jetted in.

KOPPEL: You're making precisely my point. I don't want someone who just jetted in. I want someone who's lived there for two or three years, speaks the local language, and knows something about it.

Prof. JARVIS: How about someone who's lived there for 40 or 50 years and truly understands it and can use these magnificent new tools - which you still haven't answered for me. What do you think of the new tools? Do you see new hope for journalism here?

KOPPEL: I don't see new hope for journalism, I see new hope for the exchange of information. But you haven't responded to my part, which is unless one knows the provenance of the information, unless I know who's putting the information out, I can't judge the validity of that.

--

What’s weird about Koppel is that he seems to be insinuating that regular consumers used to have the ability to judge the validity of foreign news. How? By trusting him? Or one of the three networks? Stranger still is how he seems to think this is somehow connected with getting it from an American or from an American agency. Is that how we think of the world? Unless we send one of our own out there we don’t trust it? Are cross-border journalistic ethics that non-existent? Why in the hell did people ever like us with this kind of attitude? Did we secretly believe everyone was just dumb for believing us, when in fact we’d never believe any of their country’s people? Or did we really believe we were the only beacon of quality and good in the world to be trusted?