Jottings from the Granite Studio

• Via Danwei comes a report that inclusion of the Cultural Revolution film “Though I am Gone” (我虽死去) has resulted in the cancellation of the Yunnan Film Festival. The film, available in 10 parts on YouTube, documents the horrific killing of Bian Zhongyun, the principlal of the Girls Middle School attached to Beijing Normal University. Her students, many of them the daughters of high ranking officials, beat Bian to death with wooden clubs spiked with nails. Bian, one of the first casualties of the Cultural Revolution, was killed in August of 1966. The film is not easy to watch but really is a must-see. Let’s hope that the powers-that-be eventually display the courage to allow this story to be told.

• Andrew Leonard, writer of Salon’s How the World Works blog, discusses the question of how Taiwan became Chinese. Leonard, a former English teacher in Taiwan who admits to a “Taiwan fetish,” looks at a recent book Tonio Andrade in which he argues that it is the Dutch who bear the responsibility for the eventual incorporation of Taiwan into the Qing empire. According to Andrade, Dutch policies encouraged the first major wave of Chinese colonization on the island and it was the suppression of the Ming loyalist Koxinga that forced the Qing to take a firmer hand in administration of the frontier island, the first “Chinese” dynasty to do so. Perhaps most interesting is the publication of Andrade’s new book as part of the e-Gutenberg project that makes electronic copies of monographs available to subscribers and (notes Andrew Leonard) those readers fast enough to take advantage of the one week free trial.

• Finally, more inside dirt on the recent cancellation of the China Bowl, previously scheduled for this August. Will at the ImageThief has two great posts dishing on the NFL’s change of heart. In essence, the NFL likes to totally control its product and pays a ridiculous level of attention to getting the smallest detail right. There might not be a less compatible partner for the NFL in the world than the staff at Gongti. That and the total turn-out was looking like YJ, me, TMH and 500 drunken yahoos from Shanghai. Not good times for the NFL’s big marketing splash in China. For the conspiracy minded of course, one of Bill Simmons’ readers came up with even more Machiavellian reason behind the cancellation:

Thoroughly enjoyed this conspiracy theory from Kevin F. in Boston: “I just figured out what nobody in the media has reported on yet: why the Patriots’ exhibition game in China this August was canceled. On March 31, the U.S. hit China with a tariff on imported Chinese coated-paper. One day later, the Pats-Seahawks game was oddly and abruptly canceled. My theory is that Kraft’s paper business was expanding its presence in China (hence, he lobbied for the China Bowl game so he could hob-nob with top Chinese officials which would be good for business) and the Chinese were pissed about the U.S. paper tariff news, so they abruptly canceled the NFL game and the Krafts have remained mum on the topic because they don’t want to ruffle feathers. Notice how they keep refusing to comment on the situation? If you don’t believe me, check out the Pravda-like NFL spin. How great is that?”