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“Catching that Pepsi Spirit” was posted this time last year on the China Beat (back when that site was still blocked), but it’s worth reading if you missed it. Anybody who wants to understand the twisted intersection of attitudes regarding self, other, ethnicity, and advertising in the PRC today needs to check out this twisted saga of a Pepsi commercial, filmed in Xinjiang, that went very wrong. Part David Sedaris, part Anthropological think piece. Letter in the WSJ today claims to shed light on the mystery of the gold the Generalissimo smuggled out of China as he prepared to retreat to Taiwan. (HUGE tip of the hat to Michael Turton at View from Taiwan.) Regarding Melanie Kirkpatrick’s review of “The Last Empress” by Hannah Pakula (“China’s Mystery Lady,” Bookshelf, Nov. 4): When Chiang Kai-shek decamped to Taiwan in 1949, he took the gold with him. Trans Ocean Airlines picked up the gold in Taiwan and transported it to Oakland Airport, home base, where it was transloaded to a Slick Airways C-46 to be delivered to Chase National Bank in New York. The plane was grossed out with a payload of seven tons of gold. I was the pilot of this flight and have often wondered who ended up with the gold. William P. Willoughby Retired Captain, Slick Airways Palo Alto, Calif. The mystery continues. Perusing the papers this morning, I learned from the Financial Times that “India is rapidly losing one of its clear economic advantages over China, with the number of Chinese able to speak English on par with its neighbour and rival,” only to click ahead and discover from Reuters that, “A lack of proficiency in English has been one of the main factors hindering Chinese peacekeeping forces in their missions overseas, officials said on Thursday at a new training center outside Beijing.” China can speak English or China can’t speak English? Geez, I wish China (or the international press corps) would make up their minds already… Now mocking Chinese state media for breathless and brainless historical hyperbole is a bit of poor sport, but this little bit from the ChinaTibet portion of the People’s Daily website seemed even more breathless and, if possible, brainless than usual. The article, in theory, is about the opening of a Museum of Chinese Characters in Anyang. So well as that goes, Anyang is known as a place for studying ancient writing and early scripts. But then the article takes a little detour from Henan out to the western steppe. At the top of the page a prominently displayed caption reads: Photo taken on November 16, 2009, shows the silver plates to commend high commissioners sent to Tibet by the Central Government of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) displayed in the Chinese Character Museum in Anyang, central China’s Henan Province. They serve as the witnesses to the fact that Tibet has been part of China since ancient times. Leaving aside the question of whether the 18th century qualifies as “ancient,” it’s the desperation and the chronic lack of self-awareness that makes this so sad/funny (Like a drunk baby, but maybe not as funny) and it is this shrillness that tends to make It’s November here in Beijing. Three weeks ago, before the snow really started to fall, we took the plants in from our garden. A week later, as we were looking out at our small patch of bamboo bending under the weight of the snow and ice, we decided that it was unfair that it should suffer too. So we made a place for it in our living room. It actually looks kind of nice and seems to be adapting well to the artificial warmth of being indoors. But now when I look out from my desk and into the yard, it all seems so gray. We have pumpkins on the windowsills and corn husks hanging so there is a bit of (autumnal) color, but I do miss the greenery and warmth of the garden in bloom, plants and flowers filling the corners and nooks of our small outdoor space. The cat sitting on my desk, staring out at the garden in summer.
Xu Zhimo was a poet of the |
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