Post_Olympic resolution..

... is to re-activate this BLOG and share some thoughts and anecdotes about China and living in it.

A resolution currently, let's see.. :)

Discovering Beijing's Olympic Stadium - the "birds nest".

Today was a terrific day! Why? I'll let pictures speak for themselves:

How the Olympic Stadium in Beijing is going to look like once done (in March 2007):

How it currently, July 1st 2007, looks like and how we, Nina and I, experienced it:


Apparently some of the migrant workers also liked to have Nina around: ^^

I am impressed by HdM's "new baby" and enjoyed the interactions with some of the 15000 (migrant) workers currently working on it!

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PS: will put some more pictures on my flickr account once I'm back in town and in front of the computer, on July 15th.

olympic games, Beijing, stadium, birds nest, pictures, architecture, HdM, olympic sites, attraction

When will Bush finally be impeached?

Digg just surfaced a story that made me think of this again. The story announced "White House Changes History: Erases 'Mission Accomplished' Banner" and claimed that the Whitehouse had silently modified the video of the speech "Dubya's" had held on May 1st 2003 announcing that major combat operations in Iraq had ended. By cropping the video, so the claim, they removed the fat and proud "Mission Accomplished" banner hanging over Dubya's head and with it what, given the current, tragic mess in Iraq, is embarrassing for Bush.



However, the claim of this video is likely to be wrong since not only this video seems cut (due to the black bar covering the bottom of the image), but all the other ones on the respective site as well. I have a hard time to believe that they cut all videos just to cover up the manipulation of this one, especially since the speech itself is unmodified and its content embarassing and naive enough to haunt Bush still today.

While this claim is likely to be false and highlights the importance of double checking the validity of ones claim (or the claims of others for that matter) it does not mean that there is nothing to hold against Bush. Actually there is as much that I frequently ask myself: So when will this guy finally be impeached? Should the American congressmen/women really allow him to say in office, unimpeached, until January 20th 2009?

• Didn't his wiretapping program violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and isn't his assertion "that FISA hampered intelligence gathering in the war on terror, so as commander in chief he could ignore it" highly alerting from a civil liberties perspective? (also: Illegal wiretapping was one of the grounds for articles of impeachment against Nixon)
• Didn't he and his adminstration missinform (or deliberately deceive) the Congress about Saddam Hussein being linked to Al Quaida and the presence of Mass Destruction in Iraq; a claim partly supported by the allegation that Saddam was buying uranium in Africa, which has been prooven false in the meantime?
  
• Didn't he and his administration "facilitate mistreatment of detainees in violation of the Geneva Conventions and US statutes"?

There seems to be a strong legal case against G.W.Bush (excellent article in foreignpolicy*) and an impeachement could shed the necessary light and guarantee accountability where and to the degree deserved!

Eric Schwartz is slightly more creative at making his point. Hilarious (even though worth a PS)! Check it out:


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* In order to read this article you will need to subscribe to foreign policy. Subscription is for free and, IMHO, worth it.
PS: Clinton was not actually impeached for having received a blowjob but on grounds of "perjury to a grand jury" and "obstruction of justice". He was aquitted by the Senate.

Bush, impeachment, politics, international relations, media, pr, justice, civil society

10th anniversary of "2 systems, one country" - interesting present

A day of increased propaganda here in Beijing as Hong Kong marks its 10th year under a "two systems one country " arrangement.

While reading up on it the following line in an article written by my favorite British news service (ask Tas which one that would be) caught my eyes: It describes one of the presents, next to two baby pandas, offered to HK by Hu:

"[...] It is a waxworks statue of the late Deng Xiaoping, the leader who oversaw the transition of Hong Kong from British colony to Chinese territory.

His image now stands in a shopping mall. [...]"

Why did I have to, spontaneously, think of a raddish (red on the outside, white on the inside) in this context..? Interesting location, interesting symbolism! ^^

*****
PS: Nadja, Rohit, Joanna or anyone else currently in HK: if you happen to pass by that shopping mall and could snap a picture, that would be great!
China, pr, anecdote

Cosmic Dancer

"[...] we have all been summoned to become Cosmic Dancers who do not rest heavily on a single spot but lightly turn and leap from one position to another. As World Citizens, the Cosmic Dancer will be an authentic child of its parent culture, while closely related to all. The dancer's roots in family and community will be deep, but in those depths they will strike the water table of a common humanity. For is the dancer not also human? If only she might see what has interested others, might it not interest her as well? It is an exciting prospect. The softening of divisions will induce borrowings that sometimes produce hybrids, but for the most part simply enrich species and sustain their vigor"

Huston Smith's "The World's Religions", p.7

I love this passage (written in the context of a discussion on the consequences of an increasingly globalized world) not only because it is part of the introduction of a book on the world's religions but also because it expresses to a large extent what I feel and strive to be: A convinced "Bebbi" with roots he loves and the opportunity to dance and discover globally (here, I could write a eulogy on AIESEC that, I believe, made me appreciate "dancing" and provided me plenty of opportunities to do so, with inspiring people; but I do neither want to bore you with it nor add more to AIESEC's reputation as an AIESECT.. ;)). So let me end this simply with a quote taken from Michael Jackson's all time best: "I love you all!" ^^

aiesec, philosophy

Quoting a Chinese Governor

In the context of the slavery scandal of which the tip has emerged recently in Shanxi, where reportedly "more than 1,000 'slaves', including children and mentally retarded men were working for long hours with no pay in primitive brick-making kilns in hilly and remote counties [...]", let me quote part of the self-criticism (heard before..?) of Governor Yu:

Governor Yu admitted that the incident “has exposed the low political aptitude and awareness of cadres in the party, government and enterprises.” He added, “They have not established the concept of administration for the sake of the people.” (read more)

May sustained and sustainable deeds follow these words and may there be more actio and less, pompous, reactio so that a "harmonious society" can potentially come about.

development, China, media, pr

Beijing's Digital Scavenger Hunt.

Last Saturday, slightly more than one year after Exoweb's digital scavenger hunt, it was again "digital scavenger hunt" (click here for more info about what a digital scavenger hunt is all about) time in Beijing. This time Vinny, creative as hell and spicing up not only Beijing's impro theatre scene, and MCK called and a bunch of roughly 30 people responded. Among them:

"toodle pip"

.. meaning Tas, a BBC-phile Brits with a tendency to SPAM, even friends, who also talked us into our distinctly British name, Claire, a seemingly endlessly creative (aka nuts) Northern-Irish with a flair for, as I had to experience, (rhetorical) warfare, Chee Ming, a charming (he almost managed to convince an elderly Chinese lady in night dress to pose for our camera) refreshingly geeky Malaysian and a random Swiss.

Digital camera drewn we set out to hunt the following:

• Something from the country
• Something green
• Something brown
• Something scandalous
• Something unexpected

The result:

• Something from the country - actually the last pic we took: an Irish hick (of course with other qualities..) among watermelons from the country.. ok, passes. Done.
• Something green - Beijing is terribly urban and polluted. So how about assisting plants to claim what might be the symbol of urban development, a well frequented cross-roads? We kidnapped a plant, moved it (we could have watered this bloody plant with our sweat.. ;)) from the office to the intersection and started watering.. Some honking supported our cause: greenen Beijings crossroads! ^^ Done.
• Something brown - something brown (of course with other qualities as well) passed by a brown rubbish bin. Brown in brown? Great. Let's put Tas into one of Beijings public rubbish bins. Done.
• Something scandalous – Given this picture might cause some unwanted trouble for persons that do not deserve it, I won’t publish it here..
• Something unexpected – an ocean of mannequins in Beijing’s “Alien market”. Joining this somewhat unusual crowd, pretending to be one of them might have some customers passing by go “oh, this is unexpected” (or simply, aaaah get that… thing.. out of there.. ;)). Done.

After a jiving 4 hours of hunting and a quick shower we joined the whole hunter crowd in Dave’s factory, a breath taking private loft in Beijing’s bustling art district Dashanzi. We feasted on pizza and some good Italian wine and were excited to see what the other teams had hunted down. There were pictures from people in houhai (very “green” lake in Beijing), nipples pained in green, dog in left hand, beer in right and Chinese “cheerleader” in the back to Beijings police officers exhibiting “scandalous” behaviour.. A fun range of snaps!

Nice side effect: toodle pip won not only 2 “best of category picture”-, “best overall picture” - and “best group” awards but also 6 bottles of wine.. a nice end (well actually start, since the fullmoon party was to follow) of a, IMHO, rocking Saturday!

Toodle pip!* ^^

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* for all of you as ignorant as I was before Tas “enlightened” me: toodle pip means as much as “bye bye”, cheerio

beijing, fun, pictures, event

Wanna reserve tickets for Beijing Olympics 2008? 4 more days.

Just a reminder for all those of you that may potentially be interested in tickets for the Olympic Games, which are going to start here in Beijing on August 8th, 2008 at 8pm; 8 (bā 八) being an auspicious number according to Chinese culture because it sounds like the word 发/fā meaning "fortune", "prosper"..

Reserve before June 30th!
How to reserve? Turn here: http://www.tickets.beijing2008.cn/section

PS: Nasty: once can only reserve tickets if one has either a Visa card or a bank of China account (or then time and nerves to go queue up at a bank of China). As for me, Visa's straight forward behavious as a sponsor backfired: I'll stick to mastercard, now more than ever. grmpf.. ^^

beijing olympics, olympic games, tickets

If I had to sketch out my philosophy.. :

.. then the passage I just reread after coming home from another one of these legendary Poker evenings with the boys would definitely be part of it:

"When shall we come to recognize that health is as contagious as disease, virtue as contagious as vice, cheerfulness as contagious as moroseness" (in Huston Smith's "The World's Religions")

I guess Monty Python (and may be Aida) would simply crucify themselves, whistling along to the tune of "always look at the bright side of life" to drive the main part of this point home.. ^^

philosophy, quote, religion

Roaring Exoweb :

Exoweb, the dynamic and geeky company I have been working for during the last 1.5 years has been growing quite significantly - while I, fossil in the meantime, was still “ExoMate 25” when I joined, we will soon be welcoming our 54th colleague.

Rocking? Sure! One issue we had to tackle, however, was one that everyone shaping up faces: with increasing muscles even a shiny T-Shirt starts to tweak. Yep, our loft like office space needed some serious expansion, since, hey, reducing chillout space to cram in more people was simply no option.

What followed provided me with ample insight into what renovating in China can imply. Yes, speed is not a major problem (except if you wish to convince a neighbour that an office on the second floor instead of in our immediate zone of expansion is a great idea..^^) and yes, you can have and afford 30 workers to work in parallel on a space no larger than 400m2. But when it comes to orchestrating them, things can become very tricky and intensive, especially for relative rookies like myself. At the end, finding a toilet mounted, meaning cemented onto a pipe in a way that the toilet's opening does not 100% flush with the pipe below won't reeeally surprise you anymore.. We were immensely happy to have Holden and his great experience and insights aboard! ^^

Let there be no doubt about this: the office was a hostile zone for all living creatures during just about a month. Dust was thicker than Beijing smog, smells intoxicating and the noise at times louder than Mick Jagger and Angus Young could ever get, combined. While our branded headphones and masks reduced the suffering slightly, it was not quite enough. Yes, the few mates working at the office during this time suffered and Deyatech, our partners in crime, moved out for a bit. We are happy they are back and still consider us friends. ;)



But hey, IMHO, it was worth the suffering. The stinky toilet is history (eg. pic above), the relaxation area is extended, featuring Nintendo Wii, bigger library and (small) bar, whiteboards are everywhere (the ones in the toilets, meaning to brainstorm when you really have the time, are about to be put up), our new colour, “sweetpotato”, complements the others, Starbucks-like once nicely (IMHO.. I know some are not quite sure about it yet.. ^^) and we even got 3 BBQ equipments for our pimped up rooftop terrace.

Yes, some issues are still not quite in sync and need to be worked on to complete our journey from good to great, but what we have reached was definitely a valid pretext for a party..

Party! How? We thought: “hostilities” belong to history, armageddon-like dust has settled and we are in this strange mood to celebrate.. “Roaring” it had to be, Swingy.. A theme party, the "Roaring opening of the new ExoOffice”, the 1920s on May 25th 2007 in Beijing resulted.


Yep, I won’t lie: I love theme parties. I love to see people switching into roles they do not normally play. And this party was… well judge for yourself:




BBQ and swinging on our rooftop terrace profiting from a warm summer night, bluffing our way to the poker jackpot, sipping cocktails or whiskey, straight (I still have my doubts about that stuff.. ^^), enjoying homemade music by Tim and Greg – don’t shoot the pianist – Jakacki, singing (resp. trying to) playing the Wii or simply chatting the night away while looking gooood.. ;)



Mates, friends of mates and AIESEC gang: you rocked and were looking damn good! Let’s hope we Exoweb will continue growing, giving us more reasons to expand our office space and.. celebrate! ^^

****
PS: if you want to see more pics you can turn either here or here. If you are living in Mainland China, where Flickr services are currently "facing problems" you might want to use this.

roaring twenties, party, beijing, python, software, exoweb

How traditions can give "face" and goose bumps to a 老外 (lǎowài) :

Yu Bo aka Kelly, one of my colleagues, and her boyfriend Hong Yan got married!


Yep, another one of my teammates, most of them younger than me (Cindy, another workmate of mine put this on her BLOG in the following, lovely way: [...] 当时看到他的时候觉得想不到他只是比我大两岁[...] or as much as "When I saw him [me] he looked more than only two years [our actual age difference] older than me".. well, well, it must have been the jet lag.. ;)) got married, or as Yumna, an Indian friend of mine announcing her upcoming wedding (yes!) put it, "bit the dust" ^^
For me, Yu Bo and Hong Yan's wedding meant at least the following:

• People way younger than me can do it... I might wanna start thinking about it myself... start thinking, I said.. ;)
• I got to enjoy once more the opportunity to participate in a Chinese wedding and all the traditions that come along. I've written some more about these traditions and how I experienced them in previous post about the first Chinese wedding, Rena's, that I had the chance to attend.
  
• Gaining "face" at the cost of quite some goose bumps..

What do I mean with the latter? Well, in China there is this tradition saying that the father or mother as well as the manager of the bride, respectively the groom get to do a little speech. I also found out about this only a day before the wedding when Kelly called me up around 9pm to ask me if I, having been her direct manager, would do that on behalf of her. "Absolutely" I had already responded, when I thought: Wait, I guess that should be in Chinese then? "Yes", she responded, giggled and told me that "I would do great"..

A little nervous? Yep, my goose bumps bore a strange ressemblance with the Himalayas, but hey, this was a great complement to my usual, relatively very boring, Chinese studying, with books, flashcards and the like... Once back from a Friday night out I got my act together, gathered my thoughts and was super happy that Echo had the patience to have a serious go at them ^^

Well then, I stumbled, fumbled and had a little big helper (check out the size of my notes.. ;)). But hey, it was great to hear the happy cheering after the first 3 Chinese words the lǎowài (the semi endearing term often used by Chinese to refer to foreigners. The Chinese "gringo"..) had uttered and to be able to say right there, how much I appreciated to work with and be a friend of Kelly!


Disregarding the fact that I am not Chinese, Kelly made me gain quite a bit of "face" and I was happy and ready to down a glas of 'good' old Baijiu with Hong Yan ^^ Oh, one more thing: yes, the tradition of throwing the bouquet has become an integral part even of Chinese weddings. Kelly threw it and guess who caught it... Vivi, another work mate of mine... Do I hear another wedding coming up soon..? ;)

china, chinese wedding, culture, exoweb, beijing

Sexy Beijing

Sex and the city, now also in Beijing..

"Sexy Beijing" is a series of small clips (to be found on youtube) produced by the "local" Carrie Bradshaw, SunFei. It provides fun insights into some of the issues making our days here in Beijing.

Check out this one called "lost in translation". It's about how and what English names some Chinese choose for themselves.. Best one I've personally met so far, and have business card of, is called "Dying Duck", his first name.. ^^





sex and the city, video, beijing, china, fun

China to enforce niversal cell phone charger to reduce technical waste :

Just came accross the following news in EETimes:

China will start to enforce a compulsory universal cell
phone charger standard this month. All cell phones designed after June 14
must adopt the universal charger interface, based on USB, otherwise they will
not be approved for sale in China, according to the Ministry of Information
Industry, which is responsible for enforcing the rule.

The goal is to reduce the number of chargers that are thrown away each year
because of cell phone upgrades. Nearly 100 million cell phones are replaced
every year in China, according to MII.

Today, June 4th, 18 years ago - Remember

And what if Cao's proposal to impeach Li on the basis of a violation of Art.29 of the Chinese Constitution would have trumped?

The conditional sucks.

Remember.

china, politics

Chinese stockmarket - currently "Chinese roulette"?

There seems to be only one thing crazier (and more "hyped"?) than the current reported GDP growth of China: China's, resp. Shanghai's stock market.

While reported GDP growth in 2006 was 10.7%, the Shanghai Composite has surged some 62% since the start of 2007 alone. Sustainable? Yeeeeah, sure... A sign supporting Alan Greenspans remarks from last week, that it might be about time to get out of the market now (to get in (since prospects in the long-term are still decent) at way lower price later on) is, IMHO, this piece of info that I just read in the Financial Times:

Share trading accounts in China hit 100m

By Geoff Dyer in Shanghai

Published: May 29 2007 21:56 | Last updated: May 29 2007 21:56

The number of share trading accounts established in China now exceeds 100m as the country’s retail investors continue to ignore warnings about the risks of a stock market bubble and continue to put new money into the market.

The surge in the interest to buy shares among China’s population has accelerated over the past few days, with 385,000 new accounts being opened on Monday alone, taking the total to 100.27m, according to China Securities Depositary and Clearing Corporation. In the previous week, around 1.5m new accounts were opened. [...] Read on

385'000 new accounts!? Might that be close to Switzerlands total existing amount of trading accounts? Wicket! Greed is drawing lots of laymen into the market! Get out!!

China, finance, stock market, economy

Beijing Olympics: Rockets against the rain

During previous Olympic games rockets were installed to keep away airplanes navigated by potential terrorists. In Beijing rockets are not only going to target terrorists but also clouds that get to close to the Olympic sites. Well at least if they threaten to let it rain..

Parts of an article published in The Daily Telegraph:

[...] Wang said aircraft and rockets would be used to spread silver iodine and dry ice high into the air to control moisture.

He said the agents were expected to act like catalysts, targeting rain-heavy clouds and inducing rainfall before the clouds reached the Olympic venues. [...] Read whole article

This is hardly news for Beijing where artificial rain is relatively frequent, especially in summer. But it's yet another example illustrating China's extensive efforts to prepare for what can be called China's current holy grale.

Ready for global warming?

Random: while reading up on a story on "Schwarzenegger accuses Bush of 'inaction and denial' on global warming" spread via digg.com, I found the following:


Check out more of these Diesel ads here. Global warming going fashionable... Creative, even if I'd prefer energies to be spent on fighting global warming rather than on getting the right cloth to be served water the "Diesel" way.. ^^

advertisement, global warming, green, fun

The Olympic Stadium in Beijing - The 'Bird's nest' - and other architecture in China

Lots has been written and said about the monumental National Stadium that is currently being built here in Beijing for the 2008 Olympic Games.

As a "Bebbi" myself I'm obviously kind of proud to say that it's HdM (Herzog and de Meuron), architects from Basel, that have won the competition and get to realize their project... ;)

Anyway, I just read an interesting article written by Guido Mingels and published in Das Magazin. While the article contains the usual, funny anecdotes about daily life in China and the understandable disbelief about and fascination with the Chinese way to build (The abundance of labour: at times 10'000 persons were working on this building simultaneously. The speed: partly due to the amount of relatively cheap manual labour available, partly, also judging from my own experience, because of a slightly different idea of what passes the required minimal quality threshold and what doesn't) it also contains some very interesting thoughts about the associations a piece of architecture can evoke, especially in China.

Mingels describes how some of the monumental buildings currently under constructions are perceived by the local population and how they were given nicknames that defy their original purpose : to build proud buildings symbolizing the 'rebirth' of China.

The National Opera being built according to Paul Andreu's design, even dwarfing the neighbouring, imposing Great Hall of the People is consequently referred to as "duck egg".

The CCTV tower designed by Rem Koolhaas and currently being built in Beijings CBD is risking to be referred to as the inclined gate of Beijing.


The article also mentions a project by a European architect who participated in the competition for the construction of the National Opera. His design consisted of 3 oval buildings whose roofs were composed of a variety of green, polygonal surfaces. Altogether the buildings looked like 3 green turtles. Lovely, right? Well, not quite. In China a green turtle stands for a married man that has also succumbed to the temptation of an other woma - an adulterer. Even though architectonically brilliant, the project was dead before it really started.

Projects that fare better are the appendix to the airport in Beijing designed by Norman Foster. Since it looks like the tail of a dragon, it is a "sure winner" in China, so Li Xingang.


So what about the Olympic stadium? It started off risking to be referred to as a big "potty", hence not exactly ideal to evoke national pride or the respect it, architechtonically, merited. Taking the concerns uttered by Li Xinggang into account, HdM changed the design slightly. Result: the public has adopted the nickname "bird's nest" for this colossos made of steel and concrete. Since the connotations of a birds nest in China are positive, ranging from birth, family, security to nature, the stadium is likely to become the magnet it is supposed to be.

The fact that this "magnet" is considered very important is implied by its location: It is built on one straight axis connecting the Forbidden City, Tian'anmen, Mao's Mausoleum and Bell- and Drum tower, all symbols of past rulers and pride. What will the prominently located Olympic Stadium stand for? Good architecture is not only a reflection of the people's mind and culture but influences their life and, potentially, their minds. In this sense I slightly disagree (idealist as I am) with the authors last sentence, but like his thoughts about the "evolution of the architecture of the state".

Evolution der Staatsarchitektur

Wer dereinst beim Besuch in Peking nacheinander die Verbotene Stadt, den Tiananmen-Platz und das Nationalstadion besichtigt, wird dabei vielleicht eine Evolution der chinesischen Staatsarchitektur erkennen. Eine Evolution, die den Traum von Herzog & de Meuron, symbolisch an einem neuen China mitzubauen, bestätigt. Die Kaiserachse, auf der alle drei Bauwerke stehen, ist gleichzeitig eine Zeitachse der politischen Kultur Chinas. Der quadratkilometergrosse Kaiserpalast, der im 15. Jahrhundert angelegt wurde und nacheinander vierzehn Kaisern der Ming- sowie zehn der Qing-Dynastie Heimat bot, war eine eigene Stadt in der Stadt, von hohen Mauern umgeben, welche die gottähnlichen Herrscher niemals verliessen, unerreichbar für das Volk. Der Tiananmen-Platz wiederum, von Mao umgestaltet, ist eine schier endlose offene Fläche, zu der zwar jeder Bürger Zutritt hat, auf der sich der Einzelne aber restlos verloren fühlt; es ist Monumentalarchitektur mit erdrückender Wirkung, und erst in der Ferne, am Rand des Platzes, bieten die Mao-Grabstätte und das Kongressgebäude als einzige Perspektive dem Auge einen Halt. Das Olympiastadion schliesslich, sieben Kilometer nördlich, drückt eine völlig andere Haltung aus. Es ist riesig, aber es hat keine Mauern und nichts zu verbergen. Die Stahlstruktur hat keine Türen, ist überall betretbar, jeder kann jederzeit hinein und hinaus. Das Vogelnest ist ein Geflecht ohne Hierarchie, in dem aber jeder Zweig eine statische Funktion hat; bricht man nur einen hinaus, leidet seine Stabilität. Wenn dies zum Sinnbild eines neuen China würde, dann hätte das Olympiastadion mehr getan, als nur seinen Zweck erfüllt.

Aber natürlich entscheidet am Ende nicht die Architektur darüber, wohin die Politik sich entwickelt. Sondern umgekehrt. Read more

I'll definitely going to include questions regarding the new "historical" buildings of Beijing and how they are perceived into my conversations with people that I tend to bug randomly in the streets of Beijing. ^^

architecture, design, culture, china, beijing, olympic games