Warning: May contain traces of soy, wheat, lecithin and tree nuts. That you are here strongly suggests that you are either omnivorous, or a glutton.
And that you might like cheese-doodles.
Please form a caseophilic line to the right. Thank you.
In an editorial that places him squarely in the same camp as the Chinese Foreign Ministry, the local editor at SF Gate lambasts Nancy Pelosi for visiting Taiwan. One would suspect him as being a paid foreign agent. Or at least hand-in-glove/turd-in-pants with the chaps at the consulate and spy nest down at 1450 Laguna Street, San Francisco, CA 94115.
Out of touch with the sentiment of real people in any case.
He's sure to be wined and dined royally if he ever visits the mainland.
As if his obsequious pandering to the regime in Peking wasn't enough, he also takes a swipe at one of our major allies, writing "South Korea, which is still in the infancy of an attempted democracy because, for decades, America propped up the country's murderous slate of dictators." Slavoj Szizek could have written that. One suspects that he may have friends in Moscow, Belgrado, or Pyongyang. Might want a position there.
Several cheap jabs, and casual acceptance that China is monumentally tyranical ("Of course, China is committing human rights violations. The country's treatment of the Uyghur people, for instance, is broadly considered to be a genocide") do not speak well, or at all, of his perspective and impartiality.
A review of previous essays shows that he tends to cavalierly piss on everything he can, and should never have been promoted from the sports desk. But he's hip and with it. So he'll go far. Especially with his friends.
I did not know that SF Gate so valued readership at the consulate, or was in partnership with "local" Chinese newspapers pandering to Peking.
Our local news organizations are keen to hear your feedback. Please write to them at: 1450 Laguna Street, San Francisco, CA 94115.
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According to the gangster regime in Peking, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan was "manic, irresponsible, (and) irrational". One rather wishes those fools would shut up, as they apparently have nothing meaningful to say, and are an embarrassment to more mature people. "What's that horrid noise?" "Oh, that's just communist China having a tantrum, pay it no mind."
It's like a baby throwing spaghetti over the floor.
Pooh should remember that in one sense full diplomatic relations mean extremely little; the people's republic is a source of trade, and a regrettable infiltrator on most college campuses, whereas The Republic Of China (On Taiwan) is a strategic partner and a long-time ally with whom we have deep ties and a meaningful friendship.
Many of the princelings of the red second generation have full stomachs and nothing better to do than point fingers and cause headaches. Maybe it's high time to send them back to the countryside?
It is not likely that there will be any significant changes during the next party conference (中國共產黨第二十次全國代表大會; 『 二十大』). The entrenched corrupt old guard has 'interests' to protect. They're kind of like the Republic Party bigwigs coddling Trump.
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A few years ago China put up even more defenses against the internet, in response to articles and essays critical of their reaction to the Hong Kong protests. This became evident when mainland visitors to this site, per my blog stats, went down to zero. So if I have any readers from the PRC they are government employees tasked with keeping an eye on foreign running dogs, and evenso it's quite unlikely that they're paying attention.
I flatter myself that my erudition and subtle wit might keep them enthralled, but the reality is that I am a very crude man, and nothing here is of any importance.
So I can go ahead and say what I think.
Which is that Winnie the Pooh must have soiled his diapers when Nancy Pelosi arrived in Taiwan. It highlighted the complete inconsequentiality of his regime to American politics. We could take down his diplomatic representation several notches -- shut down that spy mission consulate at 1450 Laguna Street, San Francisco, CA 94115 and several others across the country -- as well as reduce staff at our own offices in that country, and while it might have economic consequences, we would be better off. Might as well also impose extremely severe limitations on the local Chinese press, because in the main those are Peking mouthpieces controlled from overseas. One or two exceptions, but mostly garbage.
佩洛西
Per China's Foreign Minstry, Pelosi's visit to Taiwan is "a serious violation of the One-China principle that will have a severe impact on the political foundation of China-US relations" and "seriously infringes upon China's sovereignty and territorial integrity". The One China principle was deepsixed by their own crackdown on Hong Kong, proving that they are unreliable (which was never in doubt) and that they need to be curbed.
"It gravely undermines peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and sends a seriously wrong signal to the separatist forces for Taiwan independence" -----China's Foreign ministry (中華人民共和國外交部)
"China has been compelled to act in self-defence. Any countermeasure to be taken by China would be a justified & necessary response to the US oblivion to China's repeated démarches and the US's unscrupulous behaviour". -----Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩同志)
Hong Kong's leader (李家超) has also strongly condemned Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, but no one takes that clown seriously anyhow. Shut up you dogs.
It always irritates me when I see the flag of the People's Republic flying on buildings in Chinatown. They should burn that damned rag instead. Lord knows I can understand ethnic and cultural pride, but there should be no place in this country for any banners representing brutal repression and cavalier disregard for civilized norms. Communist China's rulers make even the corrupt and despotic last imperial dynasty look clean. 反共复民。
I am suprised that Donald Trump didn't kiss up to them.
That they're gangsters can't have been a problem.
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Three things of which something reminds me: The delightful North Korean ballad 'excellent horse-like women', popular eight years ago till the singer got decapitated by a giant spider; the similarity of several people in Marin County to wet garbage (particularly the paranoid ones); and the plangent sounds of Taiwanese Hokkien music from the pre-war period.
What I do NOT wish to remember is the absolutely dreadful Taiwanese musical numbers on television from decades ago; the kind of stuff that in your nightmares makes you feel like, or wish you were, a horse-like woman decapitated by a giant spider. Oh, the glories of factory work while being tinkly and seductive.
Oh how happy it will be!
And amid the ancient pillars resounding, the tones of electric organs.
Harmonious background: rythm boxes and accordions!
Startled birds fly.
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In all honesty I had not heard of John Cena, who apparently is famous, until he pissed of the Chinese mainland government by referring to Taiwan as a country. Which, of course, it isn't. It's a rebel territory of the Greater Dutch East Indies temporarily separated from the Netherlands since 1662.
John Cena has apologized. He repents. There's a video of him doing so in fairly fluent Mandarin, it looks like. Which must have been a mistake, because the civilized people speak Cantonese or Hokkien, which derive from the Tang and Chou languages respectively.
[Mandarin was developed by China's version of Australians with sheep and goats in the far north, a barbaric area with dust storms, Turks, and bad food. Beyond dumplings and soggy cabbage, there's nothing to eat there. The Szechuanese add chili sauce to alleviate the tedium. Or fermented garlic. That's it. Nothing else. Bad breath country, Poor bastards.]
Per Wikipedia, John Cena is an American Wrestler based in California.
The version of Mandarin he learned is spoken in Gansu.
An undeveloped dusty region.
甘肅 ('kam suk').
John Cena did well to apologize, if he ever wants to eat dumplings and soggy cabbage again.
And hear native speakers of sub-literate goat-bleat Mandarin.
Or breathe swirls of yellow dust.
And everywhere the echo of heathen drums.
Dungan an an an an an!
亂亂亂亂亂。
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It appears that the Vietnamese are no better than other South-East Asians when it comes to vicious tendencies. One would not expect otherwise. But when rioting turns violent and deadly in a society which is rigidly controlled, there can be no clearer indication of approval from the rulers. Vietnam's communist party was founded on xenophobia, and has steadfastly maintained the tradition. Vietnamese hatred of foreigners has a long history, dating back to the imperial despotisms and warlords of the pre-colonial age.
The only thing that has changed is that in this more literate and well-organized age, keeping lists and targeting victims is much easier.
Excerpt:
"Hundreds of Chinese were today fleeing Vietnam ahead of expected large-scale anti-China demonstrations planned for the weekend, following the deaths of at least two during riots."
Excerpt:
"At least two Chinese have died, and around 90 been injured during the riots, in which Vietnamese protesters attacked Chinese businesses and torched factories over Beijing’s establishment of an oil rig in the disputed Paracel Islands weeks ago."
Excerpt:
"Violent reaction in Vietnam to China's expansionist stance in disputed seas has turned deadly with reports that 20 or more people have been killed during rioting that began with attacks on foreign-owned factories."
Excerpt:
"A doctor at a hospital in the central Vietnamese province of Ha Tinh said five Vietnamese workers and 16 other people described as Chinese died during anti-China rioting on Wednesday night."
"There were about a hundred people sent to the hospital last night. Many were Chinese. More are being sent to the hospital this morning," the doctor told the Reuters news agency by phone."
Excerpt:
"Earlier this week mobs burned and looted scores of foreign-owned factories in southern Vietnam, believing they were Chinese-run when many were actually Taiwanese or South Korean."
Given that the regime in Vietnam has had only ONE major success since the Paris Peace Accord in 1973 (unless you count their brutal expulsion of nearly a million ethnic Chinese during the late seventies and early eighties as an achievement), it is only natural that scapegoatism is spreading like wildfire. Many other countries in the region have made spectacular advances in the past generation, but Vietnam still presents a picture of timeless underdevelopment.
Where, apparently, savagery lurks barely beneath the surface.
The New York Times hints that there may be wider ripples than just the typical Viet ethnic hatred:
Excerpt:
"On Tuesday and Wednesday, the center of those conflicts was the factories in the gritty industrial suburbs north of Ho Chi Minh City, where thousands of poor Vietnamese stitch name-brand sneakers and clothing for sale around the world. "
Note: Most of those products are destined for the well-to-do consumers of Europe and North America. Your feet have a hand in this.
Excerpt:
"Early Thursday, Nguyen Van Thong, a worker at an electronics plant he said was American-owned, said his fellow workers had been “angry over China’s invasion” when they began driving motorbikes through the streets, lobbing gasoline-soaked rags into buildings. His electronics factory was spared, he said, only when guards trying to fend off an angry crowd pointed to the Vietnamese and American flags flying overhead."
Note: Coloured rags may not save employers much longer, when the rioting masses realize that such banners are a convenient protective tactic. Surely in Vietnam, a few Vietnamese flags are easily acquired, and far cheaper than fire insurance?
Excerpt:
"The marauding crowds appeared to take their greatest toll on Taiwanese and South Korean factories. The few workers and guards who remained in the streets, where the acrid odor of burned plastic lingered early Thursday, said they assumed rioters were at first confused about the factories’ ownership, then got caught up in indiscriminate looting that rippled out from the show of anger at China."
"At one Taiwanese factory that had tried to ward off attack, a banner outside the ruined building read “No Chinese working here.” And in a stretch of the Vietnam Singapore industrial park, which includes investors from many countries, companies that hung signs in Chinese were destroyed or damaged, while nearby plants flying flags of other countries were mainly untouched."
Clearly Vietnamese petulance is motivated by bigotry and racism, rather than a well-considered perception of grievances and international politics.
Most disturbing, however, is the possibility that primitive sentiments may also become inflamed elsewhere:
"The explosion of violence reflected growing animosity in the region as China works to solidify its claims over vast parts of two seas that other nations have long considered their own."
"On Wednesday, the conflict played out not only in Vietnam, but also in the Philippines, which said it lodged a formal protest with China over signs that it is reclaiming land at a contested coral reef. "
It would not be irrational to fear similar outbursts eventually in Manila.
Anti-Chinese sentiment has always flourished in the Philippines, albeit largely underneath a smiling Filipino mask. Many if not most of the educated classes in the islands have blood kin in Fujian province, and every Philippino politician has connections among the entrepreneurs who built the Philippine economy.
Where-ever you look, there are potential targets.
As well as fuel for fondly imagined grievance.
There's a well-established tradition of lynching ethnic Chinese in much of South-East Asia. But the Chinese are much stronger now, and can make things rather unpleasant for countries that would fall back on past cultural practices.
Atavism may not be a wise choice.
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In total contrast to the fast-paced hip-and-with-it style of Sunday morning's musical offering, here's an aire that speaks of a different time and place.
Wǒ pà jiàn nà yuè liàngguāng, táitóu bǎ nà chuānglián lā shàng；
Ah wǒ xin er zuì xin er huāng, ah yuèguāng!
Paraphrasis: The moon visible from my window reminds me of your love, and I bow my head, trying to guess what you are thinking now;
Like tonight's moon beams, emotions flicker then blaze, as if with the brightness of dreams, or a sweetness that cannot be forgotten, small whispers still echo intoxicatingly in my ears;
I'm scared of this brilliance that makes my heart pound so, oh draw a curtain across the moon.
紫薇小姐是誰?
I cannot find out much about miss 紫薇. She sang in the fifties and sixties (50 - 60年代), and was probably a resident of Taiwan.
Her most famous song was Green Island Serenade (綠島小夜曲).
She also performed in Hong Kong, I believe, but more than that is hard to discover. She made numerous recordings, and you will note particularly the crystalline sweetness of her voice.
If anyone knows more about her, please comment.
麻煩你。
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After the war and the precipitous retreat to Taiwan, Mandarin language songs entered a plaintive and regret-filled phase, expressed by romantic imagery, recollection of other times, and a profound sense of distance and separation.
The brashness and zesty vulgarity of the Shanghai years seemed forgotten, supplanted by something more introspective. It was a period of quieting down, and melodies became slower, even calmer.
A good representation of that tendency is found in a golden oldie from the mid-fifties:
"This verdant island, like a boat adrift in moonlight..."
The recording above is not from that period, however. The singer is Vienna Teng (史逸欣), a California native born in the same year that I returned to the States. At present she is a young adult, and let us leave it at that. It is not diplomatic to speak overmuch of a woman's age, and in the case of people who wrinkle far less than Caucasians it may be somewhat pointless in any case.
Given that this song is timeless, and her rendition quite as evocative as earlier versions by other artists, mention of years misses the context.
It is a very sweet song. Far too slow for Cantonese speakers.
And Mandarin, spoken with a good accent, can be lovely.
For people entirely unconnected with Chinese political ferment from a generation ago, the lyrics can be enjoyed for their own sake. But an echoing of classical themes never-the-less must suggest an exile both involuntary and sharply bitter. Note particularly in that regard the intense hues and the palm trees that the lyrics mention; powerful visual codes for the far-southern marches of antiquity.
You hear the song today. Automatically you think of Tang and Sung.
And scholars dismissed and sent away, to wither among the gibbons.
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Several years ago I knew more Hokkien speakers than I do now. They're rather rare in SF, less so in the Netherlands and South-East Asia. Most of the Chinese in the Philippines are of Hokkien ancestry, and the same goes for several communities in Java.
The Hokkienese language is quite unintelligible to speakers of Cantonese and Mandarin, as well as other Sinitic tongues, deriving from an older linguistic stratum and having developed as a separate regiolect for close to two thousand years.
So even though related languages are spoken in parts of neighboring Canton province (Teochow and a few others), one really should think of Hokkien as reflecting a different Chinese cultural world.
SONGS
This cultural and linguistic otherness is quite evident in their songs. Many of the Taiwanese songs show a Japanese influence from the long occupation of the island, while mainland Hokkien songs have folksong elements. Cantopop has had little impact, neither has the Mandarin nightclub repertoire from 1930's Shanghai. But Hokkien 'popular music' on each side of the Taiwan Strait reflects an awareness of the other.
Increasingly, cross-fertilization will enrich repertoires, but probably not erase distinctiveness.
Teresa Teng (鄧麗君 January 29, 1953 – May 8, 1995) sang in Hokkien as well as in Mandarin (and several other languages).
鄧麗君: 望春風 BAN CHUN HONG
Here miss Teng sings a lovely romantic ballad - 'observing the spring breeze'. The visual is what you would expect for karaoke, namely two handsome people (neither of whom is miss Teng) enacting the content of the song in a rather pablumish and saccharine way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsC_Te6XkBs&feature=player_embedded
The themes of the song are familiar to any student of Chinese lyric, being the yearning of a young girl for a husband / lover / companion, coupled with the freshness of Spring symbolizing youthful emotions and feminine beauty, as well as the fear of ending up without ever experiencing romance. Some of the verbal imagery is tongue-in-cheek, and a few of the metaphors are innocently suggestive.
The old-fashioned atmosphere in the video above is quite different from the gloomy modernism in the following video (miss Jiang Hui and Ah-Tu singing 'Dream's Love talk').
Equally modern is this offering by miss 黃乙玲 in which angst, seediness, lonesomeness, and a heat wave combine in a typical Taiwanese social environ. Lang sying ê gwa - song of life.
黃乙玲: LANG SYING Ê GWA 人生的歌
Unhappiness, unfulfilled longing, heartache - and restaurant work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dzebYfqtvo&feature=player_embedded
A very elegant offering, and the video itself is quite interesting too.
The visual language shows both Japanese and Hong Kong influences, the ending is particularly Chinese, and fits in with the underlying narrative.
NOTE: Hokkien-hwe (Fujianese, FuJian-Hua) is referred to as 'Amoy Dialect' by many educated Chinese in the Philippines, but also known as 'Min Language' (閩話) elsewhere. The characters that spell out the name of Fujian province (福建) are pronounced 'Hok Kien'.
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