As I began work this morning, and dove into my daily task of figuring out how to procrastinate for eight and a half hours, I started, as usual, by reading through the China articles on the New York Times website.  The first article to fall across my screen was yet another monthly reminder by Jim Yardley of why, exactly, the Chinese Communist Party is still in power, because apparently we keep forgetting.  Either that, or we’re just downright impatient.  The headline was:

China’s Communists, Resilient in Face of Change

A few hours later I found that the page had refreshed itself, inexplicably bearing a new title:

China’s Leaders Are Resilient in Face of Change

The second title is actually more fitting for the article itself, which is more informative and less colored than the first title would lead you to believe.  But I wonder what the explanation is for the title change.  Did it all of a sudden occur to some editor that “Oh yes, those pesky Communists are leading the country, aren’t they?  How inconvenient.”

On a related note, tomorrow is the opening ceremony of the Olympics, and in an unoriginal show of confused irony and ambivalence, I plan on wearing my I Heart China shirt.  Either that or an American flag;  I still haven’t decided.

Dreamy riot police, where are you now? (from www.telegraph.co.uk)

There was a crazy man on the subway during my commute this morning.  He sat across the car by the door and swore uncontrollably, punctuating the end of each string of curses with a tight swipe of his arm, as though he were smacking a child upside the head.  Then he would look around, half indignant and half afraid, and self-consciously stroke his long thin hair back behind his ear with the other hand.  As if suddenly remembering that the imaginary child hadn’t quite learned his lesson, he would then burst out with another barrage of cursing, and strike the air again with his palm.

This went on for at least ten minutes before I reached my stop.  Some people got nervous and went to other cars, and some people laughed at him openly.  Eventually one lady wearing a red security volunteer armband came by from the adjacent car and peered worriedly at the man.  People looked from the man to the lady, wondering if she would do something.  All the while the man kept cursing and making striking motions, and I couldn’t help but think of the guy on the bus in Canada who stabbed, decapitated, and ate a fellow passenger, and I wondered when Beijing’s strengthened police forces would finally show themselves, jump onto the train and subdue the poor bastard.

But the police never came and the lady in the red armband did nothing, and the man was still spitting and raving as I left.  What a disappointment.  If my tax dollars are going to go into all of this extra security for the Olympics, the least I can expect is instant and highly effective beatdowns at the first signs of disorder.

This was yesterday’s picture of the day on Telegraph.co.uk, taken at Crab Island, a beach resort area near Beijing.  Who is this guy?  He is my new hero.

Welcome, foreigner!

Although it’s been policy to require foreigners to register residency with their local PSB for a long time now, it’s probably only this year that the policy has grown some teeth, and the police have actually become insistent about enforcing it.  Just last week I found big white posters on the bulletin board by the gate of my apartment, and also on the doors to our units, marked with our police cartoon friend Jingjing (not to be confused with the Olympic panda mascot, whose name is spelled the same), giving us a friendly reminder to register at the local station for a temporary residence permit within 24 hours of the start of our stay.  And though personally so far I’ve been spared the intrusion, over the past several months I’ve been hearing stories from friends of friends who have had the police go door to door through their apartments asking to see foreigners’ registration and fining those without.

But what I just discovered, to my shock and awe, is that the PSB actually have our pictures in digital files on their network.  The other day, one of my housemates finally decided to transfer his registration from his old apartment to our place, and when he presented the rental lease to the policeman behind the desk, the policeman asked who his housemates were, and swiveled his monitor around to show him our files, complete with headshots.

I had heard that the PSB had networked their system a couple years back, but I had no idea that they scanned in our visa application photos!  I had assumed Chinese visa applications just got filed away to grow dust in some central storage, only to be retreived in extremely grave cases of political disobedience.  I am at once impressed and creeped out.  Anyhow, just something to consider when formulating white lies for upcoming visits to the PSB.

There is a cute row of sculpted plant people engaging in various Olympic sports on display near Baishiqiao.  The artists behind the installations must have run out of time or funds by the time they decided to furnish these green creatures with actual sports equipment, to quite an amusing effect:

The tennis and badminton players each have a ball and birdie respectively dangling sadly by a wire from their rackets.  I’d guess the tennis player is not actually supposed to be holding a tennis racket; he’d look much more comfortable with a kendo sword in his hands.  And I think the rifleman is aiming with something that might have been picked off a construction site across the street.

Don't be "excessive" when helping handicapped people. The diagram shows how to say "Beijing Welcomes You" in sign language.

Today I happened across a new series of posters on the neighborhood propaganda bulletin boards about etiquette to be observed during the Olympics.  Olympics propaganda is not new to Beijing, nor are paternalistic slogans on how to be a “civilized” citizen, but this new series in particular caught my eye because of one poster with a list of rules for how to act around foreigners.  Always curious to understand more about Chinese behavior towards us Western folk, I stopped to take a closer look.  Most delightful was a list of eight questions Chinese are not to ask us, which if observed, would leave these curious and enthusiastic hosts with essentially nothing with which to make conversation.  Following are some translated excerpts along with photos from some of the posters:

Smile When Communicating with Foreigners

A Smile is Beijing’s Best Business Card — A Smile is the Whole World’s Propriety

“Eight Don’t-Asks” When Chatting with Foreign Guests

Rules for Interacting with Foreigners

Don’t ask about income or expenses, don’t ask about age, don’t ask about love life or marriage, don’t ask about health, don’t ask about someone’s home or address, don’t ask about personal experience, don’t ask about religious beliefs or political views, don’t ask what someone does.

General Rules for Etiquette with Foreigners

One’s manners and bearing, and image should be graceful;
Be neither humble nor haughty, but at ease and self possessed;
Seek commonalities while reserving differences, have reason and integrity;
Adapt to others’ customs, respect ethical code;
Abide by agreements, adhere to promises;
Be enthusiastic in moderation, differentiate between insiders and outsiders;
Be appropriately modest, be affirmed in yourself;
Do not ask private questions, respect others’ customs;
Ladies first, be gentlemanly;
Seat honored guests on the right, and get along harmoniously.

(The man in the lower-left bubble says: “This is Mr. Peter.”)

Read more…

One World, One Dream, One-Piece Pajama Suit

Usually when an area in Beijing is fenced off for destruction, the fencing is covered with huge canvas printed with repeating pictures of greenery: woods, lakes and parks with elderly people in wheelchairs happily being pushed along brick paths by healthy role-model youths, strolling one way down the right side of the picture and then the other way back in mirror image.  “No destruction here!” said the facades.  “Only beautiful greenery!”

Now as of last week they have all been uniformly replaced by coverings printed with Beijing’s Olympic slogan, brightly decorated in solid rainbow colors.  There are so many construction sites and all of the coverings were replaced so quickly that it’s as though the whole city slipped into a new pair of pajamas.  It doesn’t seem right that it should remind me so much of pajamas, seeing as Beijing is getting ready for either a party or an important formal occasion rather than tucking off to bed.  But I suppose it’s because Beijing reminds me more of a child whose parents brought him down to the dinner party dressed up in a zip-up pajama suit that I should think of it so.

Part I of The Battle of Red Cliff is coming out in theatres here on Wednesday, the culmination of, from what I hear, has been the most extended and expensive game of grab-ass in Chinese movie history.

When I first went to see the set with the American special effects team back in December of 2006, we took a van down to Yi Xian, three hours south of Beijing, to look at three of the biggest projects requiring special effects.  One was a shallow rocky creek, which the construction department proposed to dig out to a wide rushing river, over which the special effects crew would build a bridge which was supposed to shake and collapse, and be able to reset for several takes.  Another was a full village on the side of a hill by a river which would be required to burn over and over again.  Last was two wooden ships which, in addition to listing mechanically side to side, were also required to burn over and over again.

We didn’t discuss the bridge effect very much that day because it wasn’t clear exactly how they planned to dig out the river and whether or not the riverbase would even support construction of such a bridge.  But the obvious solution for the other two effects was to lay gas piping and buy a whole lot of petrol.  For the burning village, the challenge would be to find someone who could manufacture the piping, and to figure out how to store and supply the set with such an absurd amount of fuel.  For the ships, the immediate challenge lay in the fact that the construction crew had already begun to fix the outer planking over the metal skeleton, and the special effects team had intended to plumb it up with gas pipes before they covered it up with wood.

I decided that day that I didn’t quite have the energy to deal with what was quickly going to turn into a prolonged shit-fight, let alone living in Yi Xian with nothing to entertain us except for trips to the local hair salon, so that was my last day with the Red Cliff crew.  Since then, I’ve heard some stories that make me thankful that I got out when I did.

Not surprisingly, the American special effects team also left the project.  I read that it was because their estimate of the cost to plumb the village with gas pipes was too high, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they intentionally gave a quote they knew would be too high just as an excuse to quit the movie and hurry on back to their American beachhouses.  They were replaced by a Korean team who had a much more simple solution:  douse the whole set and let it burn!  As the story goes, a minute after they tossed the match and set the village up in flames, it occurred to someone in the production crew to inquire how they intended to douse the blaze.  Put the fire out?  That’s not our job, said the special effects crew.  We set fires, we don’t put them out!  The fire continued to spread to surrounding areas and grow out of control until finally emergency teams from a remote military film studio were able to arrive and control the blaze.

Red Cliff and Vista, partners in crime

As for the ships, news reports came out early last month of a fatality when two prop ships collided, exploding unexpectedly in a massive ball of flame.  One stuntman was killed and six others were injured.  This news comes only a month before the movie’s release in theaters.  Either that scene will appear later once Part II is released, or we can expect some surprisingly realistic-looking stunts in Part I.

One last juicy tidbit I heard was that one scene from the movie called for a tiger, along of course with a tiger trainer.  However, this was apparently difficult to come by on a moment’s notice, so they made a tiger suit and put a stunt man in it.  I hear it did not look very much like a tiger.

On a related note, in celebration of this craptacular release, Amoi has also announced the sale of its own Battle of Red Cliff cell phones.  Features include:

• Windows Vista
• Accidentally explodes on contact, brutally maiming you for life

Relatively new errant signage in the Dongzhimen subway station.  I don’t know how this one managed to slip though.  Translating “fragile” into “crumbly” I can understand, but translating “North” into “South?”  Come on, China, you can do better than that.

Update: Ah, they fixed it!  How boring.

This bus is parked in the alley outside my window. It’s filled with fruit, and I don’t think it can move. When I moved in, the wall behind it enclosed a field of rubble. Maybe there were houses there before. A couple of months ago work crews came and started drilling the ground and digging a pit, and shipping out truckful after truckful of dirt. There is now such a massive deep pit behind the wall that I can’t see the bottom of it from my window. But the wall is still there and the bus is still parked beside the wall, as though there were no menacing gaping chasm behind it. I imagine some big yellow metal arm of a crane or digging machine reaching up out of the pit, chomping down on the bus and snatching it back over the wall.