Chinahand

I feel this Guardian article reasonable accurately sums up my feelings: LINK I still find it amazing that people blame Rushdie for being sentenced to death for writing a book about a person having a mental breakdown in which he dreams that he's the angle Garbriel talking to Mohammed. I also think his literary merit is justified - the list of awards presented to him is impressive (see the wiki on him), he cultived other Indian authors, and helped to create a literary movement discussing the issues of post-colonialism and ethnic identity. These issues are a major part of our world, to allow the medieval book burners say whether we should or shouldn't celebrate this man's works is for me simply beyond the pale. I can't think of another author who currently has such an influential set of works - if there wasn't the fuss about the political reaction to this award I can't imagine his detractors being so exercised over this award. If it was Ian McEwan being knighted would people really be saying he isn't as worthy as Irish Murdoch.

I have really enjoyed the writings of Salman Rushdie. Personally I found the Satanic Verses a brilliant opus examining Madness, Belief, Thatcher's Britain and isolation. His works such as Midnight's Children, Shame, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, The Moor's Last Sigh and Salimar the Clown have defined and extended modern literature - his magical realism and unique rolling style creating a body of works of great strength and beauty. What do people feel about his award of a knighthood? BBC Story 1, BBC Story 2 I find the violence and agression of some Muslims towards his writings abhorrant. Various people have been murdered due to their connection with Rushdie - his Japanese translator stabbed to death. For people to be so blind in their faith to advocate death sentences and fatwahs over a fictional text is, for me, deeply disturbing. Do Rushdie's works deserve a Knighthood - or should he be denied it?

I’ve just finished reading Red Dust by Ma Jian. I’m not exactly certain what to make of it. It’s a travelogue or memoir of Ma Jian’s wanderings around China in the early 1980s. This was a time when China was beginning to open up – The economy was being liberalized with booms in Guangzhou and Shenzhen down near the border with Hong Kong filtering out over the rest of the country. The economic reforms were producing huge changes throughout the country – previously people had been assigned to work units who controlled every aspect of their life – now people were starting to be able to escape this control and find an independent living. However these economic changes were not being matched with political change and in the 1980s the level of political repression is almost unimaginable for people for in the west. Ma Jian is a dissident intellectual – a poet and a painter – he’s got long hair, paints nudes, and writes poetry about despair – at the very least these crimes of "Spiritual Pollution" could result in him being imprisoned, and its not impossible he could face execution. As the atmosphere in Beijing gets steadily more repressive Ma Jian abandons his job and travels China. With little money he sleeps in doss houses, begs for money, occasionally cheats, and sees the under belly of the country, while meeting up with other dissident painters, poets and free thinkers to share their thoughts on the country’s future. The despair of the truly poor and the peasants trapped by the corrupt system come over very strongly; along with their comradeship to people in a similar situation. Ma Jian comments that poverty gives people compassion and so they are willing share what little they have. I find it strange that he is continually able to freeload meals and the money for a bus ticket to the next town from people earning next to nothing. Ma Jian in some ways is not a particularly attractive character – he hates the oppression and corruption of the communists, but milks the system – using forged travel documents and invitations to gain access to Government Guest Houses. He regrets and despairs about the collapse of his marriage, but strings along a series of women and records a one night stand and sharing the mistress of a friend. The writing isn’t particularly descriptive and I think the translator has struggled with the sparse style of Chinese – it often reads like a repetitive list: ‘I did this, then that, then went there, the light of the sun on the mountains was beautiful, I then went there and met so and so.’ However within this there is a stark insight into the reality of China in the 1980s and within the nihilism of Ma Jian’s life there is an attempt to find something spiritual within the mundane. These insights come imbedded within the simplicity and repetitiveness of his style – I imagine in Chinese, due to the nature of the language, this would be more obvious – in English it can be hard to find especially when he suddenly refers back to an incident mentioned in half a sentence two chapters back. I’m familiar with China’s recent history, plus the form of literature called Scar literature that emerged in the 1980s – usually these were about the damage done to people by the Cultural Revolution: what makes Red Dust unusual is that he brings the genre into the reform era showing that the Scars continue to be caused even as China opens up. Nowadays the repression is less direct – jeans, avant garde poetry and painting have been subsumed by the regime – have your spiritual angst, but don’t organize or threaten our power. The success of the Communist Party in doing that and so eviscerating the dissident movement is one of the noteworthy parts of modern China – the dissidents are allowed their Christies sales and appear on the BBC or Channel 4 to discuss art, but they don’t challenge the system. Ma Jian’s work is earlier, but you can sense how the future will unfold. I’m not sure how someone who has little knowledge of China will related to a twenty year old story about an alien culture that no longer really exists – swept away in the cultural tornado that is rushing through China. I’ve also no idea if my knowledge of the recent history, and the literally genre has helped or hindered my reading. Red Dust was a worthwhile read, but as a memoir and not a work of fiction it cannot be a rounded story – given China’s transitional state this isn’t a large problem – the book leaves questions unanswered and ponders what the future will bring – published in English in 2001 we can partly see what has occurred since Ma first wrote – the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the continuing reforms, and the continuing repression of the Communist party. That foreknowledge haunts Ma’s despair about what is happening to the country – and added to the books undoubted power. 8/10 Edited to add this link to a blog which I thought quite cleverly summed up China's changes over the past 30 or so years via 3 pictures. The first an image of Mao and his chosen successor, the second the Goddess of Democracy created just before the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the third a sculpture of the Super Girls - the winners of China's first Pop Idol competition! Ma Jian is writing in the period between the first two pictures - but his disident art has eventually been replaced by the Super Girls and not much disent!

I was asked by a fellow forum member how I write my posts. I found it very difficult to reply and this is a rather boring reply - but I still love the book Straight and Crooked Thinking and so thought I'd blog my reply!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How do I post - I'm not really sure - I've been thinking about how to reply and not really getting anywhere other than a rather patronizing sounding laundry list! I've no idea if any of this helps, but its about the best I can do! I think one of the most important things is that I try as strongly as I can not to be rude or insulting - strong sarcasm is about as bad as I'll get - though Albert Tatlock strains that rule occassionally, and Tameelf is almost beyond the pale! Emails and forums are not good mediums of communication - there is little opportunity to explain in detail what you meant and if things spiral into a flaming session and "you said this, I said that" vey little works. I try and qualify my statements - I try not to say "this always happens" I say "this nearly always happens" or "often happens". When I'm reviewing the post it’s these little words that I most often add in. People try and niggle away at over expansive statements and I try hard not to give them that opportunity! I think I try and keep things simple and on subject - though I do know I'm notorious for long winded posts so that can't be really true! But I think I tend to bang on about a single point and provide evidence that this stance is reasonable until the other side cannot continue to deny it! I do rely alot on other sources to back up my opinions and link them to show I've a secondary "authority" behind what I'm saying. I think I have an advantage of being widely read and so can quickly find sources to help me form my arguments - The Economist Magazine, New Scientist, Radio 4 and the BBC are good friends and useful for providing background on alot of the topics that commonly turn up. One thing I'll recommend to you is a very old, and now slightly dated book! Its called Straight and Crooked Thinking by Robert Henry Thouless. The Amazon reviews sum up my feeling towards this book - life changing is a strong word, but I can still clearly remember reading it and suddenly understanding some of the tricks and biases that people were using when arguing and now knowing how to counter them. Its now out of print, so a bit expensive, and the examples it uses are inter war - white Russians and the Communists! But the points it makes are as valid as ever - sacrifice a couple of meals out and use the money and the time to read the book - you'll remember it more than any meal Douglas can give you! Definitely do dive in and post - if you are worried about ruining your reputation create someone new - but do post! Its an internet forum so there's little risk and its fun! Even if you get shot down in flames you can revel in their heat! I get alot of pleasure from the Forums - with a young family the pub is a bit of a distant memory and so getting an opportunity to chew the fat and arm chair theorize is great fun - though the missus thinks I waste far to much time doing it! Regards and Good luck with your posting! Chinahand

is one of the wierdist ways of bashing creationists I've ever seen - if creationists were in charge we wouldn't be able to invade Iraq or arm ourselves - or something like that. Still shows alot of really frightnenning religious people making very stupid statements!

I was actually told about www.liveleak.com by Tony Blair - OK he mentioned it in a speech! But it seems a good site for seeing what the squaddies think of Afghanistan and Iraq: Link1 Link2 Though it also has people cutting other people's heads off and stuff - so use your own judgement (and morality) over what you want to watch.

War, War or Jaw, Jaw. US, Iran and Syria meeting at conference to discuss Iraqi security. BBC link I think the words carrot and stick are appropriate.

They could also run long articles on the US's plans to invade China, take over Taiwan, invade Russia or Sudan or Somailia, block the Staits of Hormuz or the Straits of Malacca. Or why not run artilces on Russia's plans to invade the Baltics, take over Georgia or the rest of the Caucases or head back into cental Asia or use a oil and gas embargo to blackmail Europe. Or what of the Chinese military's plans to invade Taiwan, central Asia, North-Eastern Russia or India, or use information warfare to take out the west's financial system. Militaries plan for this sort of thing. Yes its scary stuff, but don't let the hype get to you! It is not a coincidence that all this is coming up before a UN security council meeting on Iran on the 21st of February. The press love this sort of thing: they get to go on aircraft carriers and show stock footage of cruise missiles going off - the polititians know this too - it gives them a way to get their pro and con messages out. Media manipulation and all that - bet Crozza's a fan - nod.

Link This is a video site where scientists and philosophers discuss the issues relating to evolution. If you like that sort of thing, guilty, its quite interesting! Plus you don't have to read it, it can be on in the back ground.

I seem to remember this is a regular simon theme: what we say is irrelevent. I'm not certain I agree with him. Of course any individual post is irrelevent, or maybe a better word is insignificant, and probably every post on this entire forum is insignificant in influencing policy on an issue as complicated as Iraq - though it probably does have some effects on Tynwald debating lollipopmen. But our arguing and debating does reflect opinion, and polititians are aware of public opinion, so the idea that we are an irrelevence seems over harsh. People expressing a mass opinion do make a difference. I suppose some people will say that millions opposed the Iraq war but Bush and Blair just ignored them - I think that's only partly true. Opinion on the war was split; at both the popular and policy making level. The UK and US parliaments voted in favour of the war - many people (including me) were not against taking action against Sadam - I, and almost everyone else (even Rumsfeld?), do object to how this policy aim was implemented, but that's a more complicated issue. There was definitely not a unitary voice against attacking Iraq. I suppose there isn't a unitary voice against attacking Iran - various right wing nuts and messianic zionist groups are all for it. And some serious people working in serious policy institutes do weigh up the risks and rewards of attacking Iran and some do say it is possible to do the maths to say it may be worthwhile. But at the moment that maths is very far from clear; and there is not even a consensus even amongst Crozza's usual suspects - who are nowhere near as influential as they once were. Of course there is the a more complex issue - popular opinion verses the opinion of the policy makers. Crozza characterizes the policy makers as sinister elements who do what they do no matter what popular opinion is. That is, for me, too far. He also seems to say they make their policies in a vacum - that also smells to my mind. Influential think tanks, magazines exist: they create a dialectic through their opinions and debates. These debates maybe a long way from what Joe Public thinks, but the debate is there and discernable. The policy makers know that doing things Joe Public disagrees with isn't really a problem - as long as he does agree with the final outcome. But the final outcome on attacking Iran even with "just" a few precision strikes is very unclear. The neo-cons had created a panglossian world where Iraqi's would line the streets cheering the troops on. CNN was amazed and delighted to screen to the world the pictures when it looked like it was occurring - and then reality intervened. There are very few panglossian neocons out there who say attacking Iran would easily and immediately solve the problems of nuclear proliferation and state sponsored terrorism. Quite the opposite. Even people like Netanyahu say attacking Iran is only worthwhile because if Iran gets the bomb the consequence will be the distruction of Israel so taking even massive consequences will be worthwhile - a very flawed argument in my mind. America is pretty cowed and the situation in the Middle East is massively complex - at a regional level the basic power structure has been totally upturned - to the point as John Wright has posted an Israeli-Saudi alliance against Iran is not longer incomprehensible - while geopolitically America's loss of its dominant status, due to its own incompetence and the rising/recovery of Russia and China, adds a further level of complexity. I'd be amazed if either an Israeli-Saudi alliance emerges, or an attack on Iran, but both are concievable - the fact these absoultely diametrical alternatives are possible shows how uncertain the situation is.

I’ve just watched a documentary by Aaron Russo. What to make of it. What fascinates me is how people are using both traditionally left AND traditionally right wing arguments to turn what are basically free market ideas of liberal democracy into an Aunt Sally or whipping boy for the anti-globalization movement. I have to admit I do wonder if I am using the correct word in describing this movie being as part of the anti-globalization movement – as alluded to above there are themes of anti-capitalism and government totalitarianism in the film, but for me it is the synthesis of these ideas into a major theme about world government and the control of that government by the “Bankers” which are overarching themes – hence I do not think that saying this is an anti-globalization movie is too far from the truth. The film starts off with an attack on the right of Federal Government of the United States to levy income tax. The main players in this debate are right wing American libertarians who distrust governments and who wish to push a political agenda of decreased government influence. These people want to get rid of government provided health care seeing it as a way for governments to ration Health Services; they do not want government to oversee the quality of education; see welfare and social services as government imposed wealth distribution; and most especially they wish to restrict the way the government taxes its citizens. A good half of the film is spent building up a distorted and simplified view of the legislation concerning the vires of Federal Income tax. The film states that the 16th amendment did not create any new powers of taxation, and this is then used to thump through a series of claims that there is no authority for the IRS to issue its tax codes and enforce them. The film uses some early rulings of the Supreme Court to claim that lower court rulings in favour of the tax system are invalid, but this ignores legislative changes and other later rulings of the Supreme Court which now have precedence. The film omits to mention that the 16th amendment removed the requirement that indirect taxes had to be apportioned. It was this issue that had previously stopped the creation of an income tax system; the constitution already allowed for indirect taxes (no additional powers were required in this respect for an income tax), but how these indirect taxes were apportioned had previously made earlier Supreme Courts reject the right of Congress to introduce an income tax system. After the 16th amendment the Supreme Court has basically refused to accept cases claiming income taxes are unconstitutional. The film seems to not understand this issue; it is only when the Supreme Court Justices view that a lower court is incorrectly ruling that they take on a case and accept an appeal of a lower court ruling. For all the complaints of the “We the People” lobby, the silence of the Supreme Court in respect of income tax is a sign that lower courts are acting within Supreme Court guidelines and that this is not a controversial area of law. The film is also surprisingly silent about the 1955 Supreme Court ruling in the “Commissioner v. Glenshaw Glass Co.” Case and the later “Central Illinois Public Service Co. v. United States” ruling in 1978. These directly dealt with the powers of the Federal Government to tax wages and income. The film makes much play of quoting 18th and 19th century jurists over wages being an exchange and not an income. This is all well and good, but the world has changed and in the 1950s and 70s the Court ruled on the current set up of the US Federal Tax system to tax both income and wages and found it to be valid. What is interesting in this is that in these cases the Justices discussed the legislative intent of the laws. This goes beyond questioning what the lawmakers actually wrote in a particular statute and asks why they were writing it. This could go to the heart of the movies misconception; there may be no direct sentence in law relating to creating an income tax (I have no idea I’m no expert!), but for all the supposed lack of some vital words, in the Supreme Court it is uncontroversial that the legislators were intending to create a Federal Income tax system, and this has been found to be constitutional. Unless new legislation is passed changing this, or the constitution is altered the “We are the People” lobby is going to be unsuccessful in getting the Supreme Court to change its mind. The film then concentrates upon the tiny number of cases where juries have ignored the guidance and summing up of the Judge and acquitted people defying the IRS. Great play is made of this, but the simple fact is this: when somebody is acquitted of a crime it does not make the crime legal. The film makes an issue out of the refusal of the IRS to play along with the lobby groups and the various petitions and class actions taken against the Federal authorities; ignoring the fact that the Courts have consistently agreed the IRS has legal vires. This refusal of the Courts to take these cases is played up and made out to be in some way sinister and at this point the film opens up into a more general theme of liberty. The film now links together a series of technological, financial and political changes into a campaign by sinister bankers to rule the world. Great play is made of RFID technology. Part of this is laughable; an earnest woman describes how by using RFID the banks will be able to track when you take money out of a bank machine, and Wal-Mart will be able to track you using this money to buy its goods … guess what; they can already do this: if bank machines didn’t identify who was removing the money from them they would not work very well! Cheques and credit cards also give the banks this power and now make up by far the majority of transactions. RFID will not significantly change this, or produce a revolution in financial affairs. I find it fascinating how new technology is regularly linked to the number of the beast. In the 1960s and 70s it was the bar code; with its three 6s. We were all going to be tattooed and made to scan ourselves when ever we wanted to buy some soup or get on a bus. Nowadays this technology is ubiquitous; if you were so minded you could make everyone scan themselves and all their belongings when they are getting on a train or a plane; THEY could demand you swipe before going into a bank etc etc. Now similar fears are being raised about RFID. There is no doubt that it would be technically possible to link up every single RFID reader into a single data base and so when you walked into the bank it would record that you were carrying some soup just bought in Wal-Mart. What use this would be to the bank is left unclear; currently the bank already has a record of all your card purchases at Wal-Mart, will it help it to find that you are bringing these purchases with you to cash a cheque? The film clearly worries about this and links it into the consumer society paid for via consumer debt. All the T.V.s and video players and meals out paid for by credit are clearly an evil fostered upon us by those sinister banks to control us. Because we decide to use credit to even out the discrepancies between our cash requirements and our cash supply we are being enslaved. And this enslavement is part of a global plot to create world domination. Here the movie decides to throw in a few bugbears of the globalization movement: the WTO, the IMF and the Bank of International Settlements with the movie claiming that these organizations are out to create world domination and strip countries of their democratic rights. It isn’t really explained how this is linked to consumer credit apart from via the fact that the Federal Reserve system is “owned” by private banks. Which is portrayed as a major evil and conspiracy. As ever this is a vast and distorting simplification. Unlike Canada, the UK or New Zealand the US Federal Reserve requires all banks operating in any of the 12 central bank regions to deposit a defined proportion of their deposits with the relevant Federal Reserve bank. These deposits are not interest bearing, but are used to pro-rate the “ownership” of the bank and so the depositing bank becomes an “owner” of the Federal Reserve. The movie doesn’t explain this, but makes out that there it is some sort of conspiracy as it is unclear at any given moment to outsiders exactly who “owns” the Federal Reserve. The fact that when anyone makes a deposit at any American bank it changes the “ownership” of the Federal Reserve isn’t explained, nor is the fact that ownership has few advantages: by law the Federal Reserve does not make a profit, its shares cannot be traded, or offered as security. The reason banks join and deposit their reserves with the Bank is because they cannot trade in the United States otherwise. The private ownership of the Federal Reserve in no way stops the ability of the Fed to print money and control the money supply, but if you watched this movie you’d think it did. We are now nearing the end of the film, and here the terror of world domination in all its dread is alluded to: Free trade, and open borders are made out to be plots against us. The plucky Europeans threw out the world government ideas of the EU constitution, but Canada, the US and Mexico are going to overthrow US democracy by cooperating on security and trade agreements. A late interpolation of an almost tearful Lou Dobbs is used to give right wing cred to this left wing fear. I have no idea what to make of this. The only part of the film that genuinely worried me concerned the powers provided under the Patriot Act and its kin. The full powers of this act have only been used against about 500 people, but the risks in providing them and the risks of their misuse seem to me unacceptable. They allow vast powers to hold people and restrict their liberty. Those that asked for this power say they will use it lightly and only in exceptional circumstances; almost nobody really trusts them to do this. Only time will tell. On the other terrors and fears the film uncovers I see them as unrealistic and overblown and often distorted. Towards the end I was literally amazed when the film maker suddenly threw in a demand for a return to the gold standard. He seemed to be wanting to claim that one of the most successful invention the world has known, fiat money, is some evil monstrosity and to protect us from it we have to link our currencies to what Keynes called a barbarous relic as early as 1944. Mr Russo clearly knows nothing of Keynes or even the Triffin paradox which showed in the 60s and 70s that a gold standard cannot function if the US has a sustained budget deficit; exactly what it has at the moment. I don’t pretend the world is perfect; the world’s financial and trade systems have serious failures and distortions in them, but when Mr Russo puts up a graph showing how the purchasing power of a dollar has reduced in the 60 years since the end of World War II I cannot help laughing. These 60 years have been some of the most hopeful and economically successful the world has known; especially for Americans. There have been no major world slumps like in the 1930s and growth rates and inflation have been under control for the majority of the period. The 1970s and early 80s are seen by some as the end of the world; I can only assume these people have little sense of what poverty was like in earlier times. The economic success that Russo ignores is especially true since the late 1980s when the world trade system grew extensively with the opening up of East and South East Asia to world trade. This has brought huge increases in wealth to the poorest people in the world. In 1980 China on a per person basis was poorer than Africa; its embrace of world trade has brought about an absolute transformation Mr Russo plays on the fears the increasing competition Globalization brings and links them into his anti-tax agenda. He’s a convicted tax evader: he has a direct personal reason for accepting the ideas of the anti-income tax lobby. But he knows few people are going to watch a 2 hour movie on such a narrow issue. So what does he do? He deliberately attempts to link his movie into the general concerns about globalization that exists in the west today. I don’t think his movie stands up to scrutiny. The image it creates of a world system controlled by evil bankers does not correspond to how the world’s financial and trade system actually works. The image does fit into the common stereotype of the world peddled by anti-globalization activists and the concerns they raise resonate strongly with those disempowered by the changes in the world economy. What is sad is that the world is massively benefiting from Globalization, but there is a very real risk that concerns about the increased competition it brings to western societies will create protectionism. These western societies are the best equipped and have the most flexible economies to be able to manage globalization; and they benefit hugely from the massive new markets being created as a result of this process. But perversely that could end if fears are used by politicians to encourage economic nationalism and protectionism. All I can assume is that Mr Russo does not know or understand how nationalism and protectionism in the late 1920s and 30s destroyed the world’s trade system creating a huge economic slump which helped foster the very fascism Mr Russo claims is now engulfing the world. I believe that by breaking down barriers, allowing ideas to move freely and by allowing people and companies to invest their money as they see fit economies will flourish and fascism and its ilk will be kept at bay. Mr Russo wishes to remove one of the main ways governments gain funds; he supports people who wish to remove the social security safety nets which allow people to take risks and deal with the problems of flexible employment and job market failures. Mr Russo wishes to restrict world trade and shackle the world’s financial systems. These types of policies directly created fascism in the 1930s. It is via breaking them down we have the freedoms we currently have. Our freedoms our under threat, but if we followed Mr Russo’s prescriptions I firmly believe it would make a return to fascism more not less likely. Rather than attempting to explain the complex and difficult issues facing a globalized world where people face more competition and the dangers of extremists using the system for evil, Mr Russo sticks to simplicities and well worn clichés. I learnt far more in my reading to refute his arguments than from watching this documentary. It was over long, repetitive, over blown and set up false Aunt Sallies for Mr Russo to dramatically knock down. I am not surprised that this movie is available for download on the internet. I doubt if any major distributor will see it as worthy of distribution or as a money maker. The movie is a tirade and panders to simplicities. I would ask for people to research the issues Russo raises and think about the implications of doing what he advocates. He warns that we are moving from Freedom to Fascism. If politicians carry out his desires I firmly believe this will be so. Don’t be fooled, this movie is dross and should be treated as such.

The internets reasonably helpful. Try out Chinese Radio International: it the chinese equivilent of the world service and runs two Chinese language course. Learn Chinese Now starts right from the beginning. While Chinese Studio is more advanced and has been running for years.

I studied with the Integrated Chinese Series by C&T Asian Languages Series by Daozhong Yao (Editor), Ted Yao (Editor) Annoyingly I can only find Level 1 Part 2 on Amazon UK so here's a link to Level 1 Part 1 on Amazon US! A couple of points. Be very careful about characters: China and Singapore use simplified characters, Hong Kong, Taiwan and most overseas chinese use Traditional Characters. There is a significant difference between the two. I'm China-centric and so prefer simplified, but some people argue that you need to learn the traditional ones to "appreciate" the meaning of the characters. I pretty much disagree, both sets have arbitary rules, which mean you cannot learn by rote, some rules hold up more with Traditional ones, some with simplified. Simplified are easier to write and read. You can usually undersatand simplified if you learn traditional and vice verse, but sometimes they'll stump you! For less academic books Colloquial Chinese is excellent, but has few characters. While Don Rimmington's Basic Chinese and Intermediate Chinese Work book and Grammars are brilliant for concise explanations of how the language works. They have good exercises, but they don't have particularly good vocabularies. For fun I'd very much recommend the Fun with Chinese Characters series by Tan Huay Peng. They are cartoons explaining the eteology of the most common characters. I've got all 4 books from the series and browse them still! I studied with a language lab, so didn't have any trouble with listening tapes, I'm not sure what's best. The Colloquial Chinese CD is probably as good as any

As I keep reading up on China I'll keep posting stuff in this topic ... probably bore most of you to death, but anyway ... I've just finished reading Wild West China by Christian Tyler. It's all about China's far western region of Xinjiang (xin is pronounced a bit like shin as in the bit of leg below the knee, jiang sounds pretty much as its read!). Xinjiang is a huge area to the north and west of Tibet in the far west of China with a population of around about 18 million people; about the same as Australia. Unlike Tibet which most people have heard about, the conflict and desire for self determination in Xinjiang hasn't captured the public imagination. On a side note if you want to read about Tibet try out The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet and the Dalai Lama by Melvyn C. Goldstein. It’s an excellent book which examines nationalism, self determination and the cultural and political conflicts between the Tibetans and Chinese over the Roof of the World. The reasons why Xinjiang isn’t so well known are complex; there's no Dalai Lama like figure, plus as an Islamic region its religion doesn’t capture the western imagination as much. Then there is the simple fact that the region has been ruled by despots for millennia; they aren’t as romantic as Tibet's ruler monks. Tyler says he’s writing a neutral history, but he admits he’s angry about the treatment of the indigenous Uighur people by the Han Chinese and thinks the facts speak for themselves. Modern Chinese Historiography is very distorted and exaggerates Han Chinese influence. It basically makes out that Xinjiang has been a part of China for millennia. The reality is much more complex with only the most powerful and successful Chinese Dynasties being able to send in troops and colonists for intermittent periods. Examples of this are the Han Dynasty in the first few centuries before and after Christ and the Tang Dynasty in the 8th and 9th centuries. These periods of Chinese rule were pretty unstable and for the majority of the last two or three millennia the cities of Xinjiang have pretty much ruled themselves. It was only in the 17th and 18th centuries that the Qing Dynasty really started integrating Xinjiang in to China proper in any meaningful way and even then it was a wild area of exile and adventure. With China’s weakness in the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries it was touch and go if China would remain in control or if an independent East Turkestan would emerge. The Communists have now tipped the balance firmly in China’s direction with a regime that can be violent and repressive and this has been backed up by massive immigration of Han Chinese. This has seriously altered the demographic balance with the area changing from being 5% Han to 50% in just a few generations. Xinjiang was a central part of the silk route. After leaving China proper the caravans would pass through the badlands of Gansu and then into Xinjiang. Then there were two routes through the huge Taklamakan desert, generally described as the most extreme desert in the world. The routes would pass through various Oasis towns until meeting again in Kasgar and then could either go south through the Karokorum mountains to Pakistan and India or west to the deserts of Central Asia and the Oasis towns of Samakand and Kokand and on to Europe. Tyler in explaining the history of the region shows that that the Oasis cities of Xinjiang were more a part of Central Asia than China, but the growing influence of China with its visiting merchants, imperial soldiers and colonists slowly tipped them into the Chinese sphere of influence. When the sea routes opened up the orient the Silk Road died and the Deserts started swallowing up towns which had lost their purpose, but then came the Great Game played between Russia and England over the control of Central Asia. England wanted to defend India from Russian expansion and the game was played out throughout Central Asia. Peter Hopkirk has written a truly excellent history of the Great Game – I couldn’t recommend it more, it’s a brilliant, entertaining and informative book. He’s also written about early western encounters with Xinjiang in Foreign Devils on the Silk Road; a book I’ve not yet read. Nowadays the Great Game is starting up again but this time the antagonists are Russia, America and China and the issue is oil! Central Asia is sloshing with it and whether it goes North to Russia, South to Iran, West to Europe or East to China is a very very big issue! Xinjiang not only has its own oil supplies, but is also the entry point for oil and gas pipelines from Kazakhstan. With its geopolitical importance, any desire for independence amongst the native people of Xinjiang is going to come to naught. The PRC government is simply not going to allow it and repression and violence is the result. Some Uighur’s have become radicalized: a few of them were captured in Afghanistan fighting with the Taliban and there have been terrorist attacks in Xinjiang and Beijing. For the rest their religious practice is very closely monitored, their indigenous culture treated with suspicion and their towns and cities taken over by colonists from China. China has created a huge semi-militarized organization to defend Xinjiang and help Han migration. It’s called the Bing Tuan (Chinese for Soldier Group), or more accurately the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corp. It’s a masive organization with over 2.5 million members and acts totally autonomously of the local Xinjiang government: it reports directly to Beijing. It’s built and controls entire cities and brings in Han Chinese to settle them. Many of its first members were captured troops who'd fought on the wrong side in the civil war and were sent into internal exile as a result; on a personal note I've a friend who's the daughter of such exiles. China’s concerns have meant they’ve pumped in huge amounts of investment into the area: mainly in roads and railways to speed troop movements and enable minerals and raw materials to be taken out of the area. As a result Xinjiang is reasonably wealthy compared with the rest of China. But there is massive inequality with the rural Uihgurs not benefiting from the mines and oil refineries built to exploit the mineral wealth of their land. Naturally all of this creates resentment amongst the local population. Wild West China is an interesting but quite sad book. It documents a people who have lost their identity and have become peripheral to a huge neighbour which is insistent on controlling their land. Their political leaders and history hasn’t enabled them to adapt to this onslaught and their future is very uncertain. For the 9 or so million Uighurs and other ethnic groups living in Xinjiang the risk of being swamped by the Han is very real and the geopolitics of the area could make them the play things of the great powers. As oil politics become more and more relevant its likely the world will hear more and more about Xinjiang and I’d recommend Wild West China as an excellent introduction to this troubled region.

Did anyone see the TV program last night on China's first emperor? It was a pretty good two hour special mixing talking head academics with drama. The stories in the program were almost entirely based on the ancient book "The Records of the Grand Historian" by Sima Qian. This was written 2100 years ago and has survived as one of the best records of what China was like so long ago. I was slightly surprised that they actually toned down the stories. Sima Qian reports that Lao Ai, the old queen's lover who rebelled against the Emperor and was eventually pulled to bits between two horses, became the Queen's lover because of the size of his dick! Sima Qian reports he did a rather unusual party trick with it and a chariot wheel!!! Anyway rather than making dick jokes I thought I'd pass on details of Sima Qian's book which is available from Amazon."The Records of the Grand Historian Qin Dynasty". The sections on the assassins of old China and the individual biographies of the heros and villians of the time are fascinating, though I admit quite alot of it is hard going! If your interested; enjoy! It'll open your eyes to an alien world and culture.

Books on and about China I’ve no idea how interested people are, but I thought I’d do a post on the favourite books I’ve read on China. It’s an amazing country and its rapidly increasing role in the world means it’s definitely worthwhile learning a bit more about it and its huge history and culture. General history The best coffee table type book which tries to cover the full 5000 years or so of China’s history is Patricia Ebrey’s Cambridge Illustrated History: China. It’s got lots of photo’s, maps and pictures and is an interesting read. A slightly shorter time period is covered in Chronicle of the Chinese Emperors which gives a reign by reign record of every one of China’s emperors from 200 BC to 1919, along with maps, cultural references, etc. For an introduction of more recent history, the definitive read is The Search for Modern China by Jonathan D. Spence. Spence is one of the most respected historians of China and has written many books on various time periods. The Search for Modern China starts in 1600 and goes through to the end of the 1990s. Its a huge detailed book, but written with real pace and prose, I wasn't bored by it or felt I was just reading a series of facts; Spence manages to give a proper narrative drive to his subject. Another slightly different history is Nigel Cameron’s Barbarians and Mandarins which is a history of westerners travelling in China; it discusses such travellers as Marco Polo, Matteo Ricci and the opium smugglers of the Victorian era. It’s a fascinating book, really one of my favourites out of all the history books I'm recomending; I loved the stories of Jesuits and adventurers travelling with the Mongols across the steppes to distant Cathay. Another history which is one of the best books I’ve read this year is Rana Mitter’s A Bitter Revolution. It uses the lens of the literary and protest movement called May Fourth which started in 1919 and is still influential today to examine the history of 20th century China. It’s a fascinating book and takes a different approach than conventional histories through using how a philosophical movement has changed as the society changed from Feudal to Republican to Anti-Japanese War to Civil War to Communism to Reform. I also really enjoyed reading When China Ruled the Seas by Louise Levathes. It covers the period when China was by far the most powerful country in the world in the early 15th century and sent Treasure fleets out to explore India and the African Coast. Levathes book isn’t as speculative as 1421: The Year China Discovered America by Gavin Menzies and is more academically respectable; its also a thumping good read! A similar really good basic history which gets in to some of the more minor details of history is The Pirate King: Coxinga and the Fall of the Ming Dynasty by Jonathan Clements. Coxinga's father was a smuggler and pirate who traded with the Japanese, Portuguese and Dutch up and down the coast of China. When the Ming Dynasty fell to the Qing (nomads from the north descended from the Mongols) his son led the resistance against the invaders while funding it via continuing the smuggling and piracy. He eventually fled from China to Taiwan and over threw the Dutch who'd established a colony there; when the resistance against the Qing eventually failed Taiwan was amalgamated into the Chinese empire. This history and Coxinga's place in the histories of Taiwan and China are VERY political today as Taiwan attempts to maintain an independent existance from the mainland. Literature The Chinese Classics are huge long stories running to multiple volumes. There are quite a few versions of these books available, I've linked the versions I've read, enjoyed and can vouch for the readability of the translations, but some of the Beijing Foreign Press editions are hard to come by and expensive ... I'm pretty certain the other editions available via amazon are also pretty good, but I've not read them so I can't be certain. The Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin is the most famous classic. It’s a beautiful literary book and a fascinating story about a huge decadant and decaying family in Qing Dynasty China – around the 1760s. The main plot is a love story centred on Bao Yu, the young favourite of the family, and Dai Yu, a beautiful orphan brought to live with these distant relatives. But some of the sub plots are what make the book … especially the manipulative Wang Xi-Feng as she takes her lovers and schemes against her husband’s mistresses. The Penguin Classics translation is very readable, but runs to 5 volumes each of 300 or so pages; ie it’s a long project to read them all, but very worthwhile. The older classics are the Three Kingdoms, The Outlaws of the Marsh (also called the Water Margins … remember the TV show in the 1980s?) and the Journey to the West (the TV show Monkey). These books are much less literary; you don’t read them for many insights into the soul! But they are thumping reads of adventure and daring do!! I’ve not read Monkey, but can recommend the other two. They are both attributed to Luo Guangzhong. The Beijing Foreign Languages Press Three Kingdoms is translated by Moss Roberts and runs to 4 volumes while their Outlaws of the Marsh is translated by Sidney Shapiro and also runs to 4 volumes. So they are also pretty big reading projects. The Three Kingdoms is a historical novel about the collapse of the Han Empire (220 AD) and its replacement by three Kingdoms which battled against each other. It’s a huge sweeping book with a cast of thousands but with 4 main characters: Liu Xuande who becomes one of the Three Kings; Guan Gong and Zhang Fei who are his two comrades in arms … Guan Gong the idealised honourable warrior and Zhang Fei an unrestrained psychopath; and finally Cao Cao the scheming general who brings down the empire. The book was one of Mao Zedong’s favourites and the blurb on the back says “The novel offers a startling and unsparing view of how power is wielded, how diplomacy is conducted, and how wars are planned and fought; it has influenced the ways that Chinese think about power, diplomacy and war even to this day.” Need I say more! Definitely a boy’s book! The Outlaws of the Marsh is more down to earth and consists of loads of subplots concerning the outlaws as they become renegades and flee the control of the 12th century Song Dynasty. The personalities are fascinating, but sometimes extremely violent and misogynistic. I didn’t like the book quite as much as the Three Kingdoms, but the rawness of some of the characters does make for a great read. I’ve not read any of the really modern Chinese books: famous examples include Shanghai Baby by Wei Hui. Her books have been banned in mainland China for “spiritual pollution” and depict the individualistic and nihilistic life of modern day China. Dai Sijie’s Mr Muo's Travelling Couch is definitely on my wish list as an example of modern Chinese literature; a returning exile, trying to bribe a judge to release his old lover, is ordered to find the judge a virgin. It received some very good reviews and is an example of magical realism in the tradition of Rhusdie or Marquez. The last work of literature I’ll recommend are the short stories of Lu Xun (also known as Lu Hsun). He’s a May Fourth era writer (the 1920s) when China was struggling to understand the collapse of empire and its weakened place in the world assailed by colonialism and western and Japanese aggression. Lu Xun’s short stories have a melancholy and thoughtfulness that really touched me. I can’t find his most famous collection a Call to Arms in English, but a lot of the stories are included in The New Year Sacrifice and other stories. They are haunting and beautiful stories, but often tragic … “Medicine” where a father is made by a quack Traditional doctor to feed his pneumonia suffering son a bread roll soaked in the blood of an executed prisoner sums up the tragedy of China in the early 1920s Poetry and Religious Those of a romantic bent should definitely try reading some Chinese Poetry. Obviously poetry in translation looses something, but can still be very beautiful. Yip Wai-Lim's Chinese Poetry: An Anthology of Major Modes and Genres sounds very academic, but its not really and gives beautiful examples of Chinese poetry between 600 BC and 1400. The book includes hand written chinese calligraphy, a literal translation and a poetic translation of about 150 poems, many of which I find incredibly beautiful, the descriptions of nature and the peace it can bring are a true inspiration. A short penguin classic is Li Po and Tu Fu, like Yip's book there is a mix of Chinese Calligraphy and translations. Tu Fu was a Confucian scholar producing works full of the longing of an official posted far from his wife and the sadness of a country racked by war, but also some poems have the peace of a scholar content with his work. Li Po was a Daoist revelling in the joys of wine women and song. The pair complement each other producing often short poems that are full of life and the world. Talking about Daoism the Dao De Jing (also know as the Tao Te Ching, Tao Teh Ching etc etc Chinese transliterations are a real problem!) is a wonderful short book about the mysteries of the world and how we should live in it. The web also has a wonderful site with multiple and very different translations … just try out a couple and feel the mystery! Well thats about it ... I've got through that lot (and a lot more) in the last 15 years or so ... hope some people are interested; China's quite a place and its only going to affect us more and more! Enjoy the read!