About China Online

The Human Flesh Search Engine phenomenon in China

2009-10-27T01:54:38Z

The renrou ("ren row", 人肉) or human flesh search engine has been at it again. Today the Shanghai Daily reported that after angry netizens (wangmin or 网民) viewed a video posted of a girl beating up another girl at school, 300 of them descended on the school demanding the girl be punished.

After the video was posted online, angry viewers figured out who the perpetrator was and then posted her personal information including her home address and her father's cell phone number. The crowd dispersed from the school after speaking to the principal. School authorities are looking into the beating "before deciding on punishment".

It's frightening to think what an angry mob could do if a video were doctored or folks target the wrong person in their search for justice. But this cyber posse phenomenon, dubbed in Chinese "the human flesh search engine", can also be used for good purposes. Interested netizens help people find lost relatives and kidnapped children. I posted a story in August about an adopted boy in the US whose adoptive mother used the internet and the help of Chinese netizens to find her son's birth family.

The Human Flesh Search Engine phenomenon in China originally appeared on About.com China Online on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 01:54:38.

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You get what you pay for

2009-10-23T20:00:08Z

The Chinese saying is 一分钱一分货, "yi fen qian, yi fen huo" (pronounced ee fen chee-ahn, ee fen hoo-oh). This translates literally to one cent gives you one cent's worth of merchandise. Makes sense, right?

There's a whole industry of fake goods in China that lots of visitors to China go wild for when they arrive but there's a healthy local market for them as well. It goes beyond pirated DVDs and fake Gucci bags (those are the ones the tourists buy). Very few locals will spend money on legal copies of software when copies of everything from Microsoft Windows and Adobe Photoshop are available for install at every cybermarket. There are smart phones on the market that look like iPhones, operate like iPhones and smell like iPhones for a fraction of the cost (just don't drop it, it will likely shatter and don't expect and after-sale warranties on fake goods).

As a travel writer, I get asked frequently where to buy the fake goods. The answer is easy to give: every large market in China sells fake products - be it eyeglasses, watches, bags, shoes, clothing or electronics. But I remind visitors that you get what you pay for. People are often surprised when they get home and their watch doesn't work anymore or their sunglasses don't actually offer any UV protection whatsoever. The best example comes from my poor husband who bought a "leather" briefcase at the old Xiangyang Market (Shanghai's famous fake market that's now been closed and moved). To his credit, he needed a new bag for an upcoming business trip. We lived close by the market so it seemed like a quick and easy option. After an important meeting in Frankfurt, he closed the meeting, grabbed his bag and left the room - with just the handle in hand.

You get what you pay for. If you come to China and do some shopping, it will be tempting to sample some of these fake goods. But don't pay too much money for them and don't forget, yi fen qian, yi fen huo.

You get what you pay for originally appeared on About.com China Online on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 20:00:08.

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More about our friend, 牛 the cow

2009-10-21T11:51:16Z

Perhaps, dear reader, you can help us understand the Chinese fascination with the cow / ox / bull, all of which translate into 牛 (niu). We had the huang niu from a few days ago and today I learned a slang word for "cool". Apparently, if you're cool, especially if you're writing on the web, you use the word niubi for something that is super cool. Niu bi is literally a cow's (female) nether-region. We decided "ox" or "bull" is actually cooler in English, but a bull can't have a bi, so there you have it.

If you're really stupid, you're a shabi - a stupid cow nether-region. If something is just average stupid, it's erbi - a number 2 cow nether-region. If you want to be cool and you're not, in English you're a poser. In Chinese you're a zhuangbi - a pretend cow nether-region.
As with the huang niu, we couldn't come up with an answer as to why the niu has such interesting connotations. The ox is generally thought of as strong, but being born in the year of the ox does not necessarily make you a niuren, an ultra-cool person.

The slang word niubi comes from Beijinghua - the dialect spoken in Beijing. China, as you may know, has thousands of dialects. To a student of Putonghua (mandarin), Shanghaihua is completely unintelligible to me, even after six years of living here. But the pronunciation and meaning of "bi", my teacher pointed out, is universal in most dialects. Therefore the cool?

Moo.

From Sara Naumann, About.com's Guide to China Travel, guest-blogger for Chinese Culture.

More about our friend, 牛 the cow originally appeared on About.com China Online on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 11:51:16.

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Discovering Shanghai's Lanes

2009-10-19T10:46:56Z

It actually took me a while to realize there is a network of lanes in Shanghai. When we moved here in 2004, we knew we weren't compound-types. No kids, no furniture, we thought a nice cozy refurbished flat in Shanghai's former French Concession would do us just fine. We found one that suited us after a few weeks of hunting and moved in while the paint was still drying. It was located off the main street, set back with a small private garden. Still navigating using a bilingual map and a lot of hand signals, I didn't get off into unmarked territory for over a year.

Then I made a new friend, someone who'd lived in Shanghai for a lot longer than I had and knew the ropes. As we strolled our newborn sons down the Sycamore-lined streets, she introduced me to the shortcuts between main roads, the sudden quiet that engulfs the alleys, the community within the hub: Shanghai's longtangs.

It amazed me how a city I'd grown to know - or thought I knew - could surprise me in such a way. Shanghai is a city of layers. For the most part, buildings are like a lazy farmer's fence - rather than strip the paint, he just slaps on another coat. But underneath, there might be some beautiful original wood. Much of Shanghai's art deco and other grand architecture is hidden behind layers of shops-upon-shops. Small flats have been thrown up in the space between the front door of an old villa and the garden gate to house the multitudes that live in the city. Once you know what to look for, you can see the gems beneath.

Now I live in a lane house with my family. An interesting mix of East meets West architecture, the row (lane) houses were built en masse in the 1920s and 30s to house the influx of people arriving in Shanghai from the outlying provinces. Usually home to single families, the houses are narrow with small gardens, three floors with small rooms on the half-floor landings. Now they house many families, each to a floor or a room. Some houses are bought by property owners and developers (like mine) and then rented out as a whole unit.

It's a nice lifestyle. While quiet when compared to living on a main road, new sounds like neighbors playing mahjong and mynah birds chattering in mandarin now wake us instead of honks and bicycle bells. To read more about life in a lane, read Tom Doctoroff's article on the Huffington Post or Kathy Pauli's blog From my Tingzijian.

From Sara Naumann, About.com's Guide to China Travel, guest-blogger for Chinese Culture.

Discovering Shanghai's Lanes originally appeared on About.com China Online on Monday, October 19th, 2009 at 10:46:56.

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Gavin Menzies, author of 1421 and 1434 visits Shanghai

2009-10-16T10:25:52Z

I went to a talk today by Gavin Menzies discussing his books 1421 and 1434. The talk was one of M on the Bund's Literary Luncheons and I can't recommend them enough. If you find yourself in Shanghai, please check M's web site to see what's on - it can be really worth your time.

Mr. Menzies' discussion focused on the maps he has used to establish his well-received (and much criticized) theory that not only did the Chinese treasure fleets led by Zheng He, the eunuch admiral under the Emperor Zhu Di, map the entire world by 1421, but that European explorers including Columbus, Magellan and da Gama, were armed with copies of these maps when they set out on their own "explorations".

What I found terribly interesting was the genesis of Menzies' interest in the subject. During a 1990 visit to Beijing, he found that many of the great accomplishments that are major tourist attractions in the area were completed in 1421. His guide told him that the Great Wall*, the Ming Tomb they had visited and the Forbidden City were all completed in that same year. This was during the legendary Ming Emperor Zhu Di's reign, a forward-thinking man who commissioned the treasure fleets and sent admiral Zheng He with thousands of emissaries to explore the world and bring back diplomats from the places he visited.

Menzies decided to go home and compare England at historically the same time. Where British rulers were eating dried cod from plates of stale bread, Zhu Di was celebrating with a massive banquet that included 26,000 guests eating from the finest blue & white Chinese porcelain. It is not difficult for me to make the leap, as Menzies does (with countless items of proof), that the Chinese did, indeed, circumnavigate the globe years before the Europeans did.

In any event, whether you're a believer or not, Menzies' theories are interesting reading and subject matter. Don't forget, if we are still to believe the commonly-held opinion that Europeans were the first to map the world, they did so all the while believing the earth was flat. They too were proven wrong.

*The Great Wall was not completed in one go. What most of us know now is a Ming Dynasty refurbishment of interconnecting walls begun as early as 656BC during the Chu State. Read more about the History of the Great Wall.

From Sara Naumann, About.com's Guide to China Travel, guest-blogger for Chinese Culture.

Gavin Menzies, author of 1421 and 1434 visits Shanghai originally appeared on About.com China Online on Friday, October 16th, 2009 at 10:25:52.

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The Tale of the "Huang Niu" Mooncake Scalper

2009-10-12T00:02:12Z

Huang Niu (黄牛) or "yellow bull" is the local term for scalper. My Chinese teacher doesn't have an explanation for why this is and my research failed me; though one person wrote that probably somewhere there's an ancient Chinese idiom that explains it perfectly.

As you know, the season for mooncakes just finished up, though every household in China has an abundance of them left to snack on until Chinese New Year. But you may not realize that the mooncake season is also a boon for the huang niu. Scalpers for mooncakes? What, if you can't get that coveted box of Shangri La cakes you'll go to all lengths until you have them? There is probably a good business for huang niu getting the good stuff to re-sell at a profit later. But that's just too obvious.

No, I'm speaking about the can't-pick-up-your-mooncakes-in-time huang niu who is actually doing a service. I'm not sure it's a legal service, but everyone involved seems to be happy.

Take my friend. Let's call her Zelda. Zelda received a lovely gesture from another friend: a voucher for a box of delicious H�agen-Dazs mooncakes. But when Zelda went to pick them up, that particular H�agen-Dazs outlet wasn't distributing mooncakes. She was told she'd have to go to another branch. Zelda didn't have time for that and she was going out of town the following day and would miss the mooncake pickup deadline (the vouchers have strict expiry dates). She shrugged her shoulders and prepared to go mooncake-less on her way.

Up steps Mr. Huang Niu. A group of young men who'd been hanging out inside the H�agen-Dazs were mooncake voucher scalping. Much to Zelda's benefit, the huang niu offered her 200 rmb for the voucher. Zelda walked away a littler richer. The scalper may resell the ticket for 230 and let's say the original cost of the ticket is 250, so some lucky mooncake buyer will get a discount of 20rmb on a box of delectable ice cream cakes.

Sure, Zelda's friend may be the only unhappy person in this scenario since she paid the full price. But all things considered, everyone ends up with something. While scalpers can, of course, do some serious price gouging on people who are really in need of hard-to-get goods and services, I think this little fill-in-the-gap economy is great.

From Sara Naumann, About.com's Guide to China Travel, guest-blogger for Chinese Culture. You can also find me on twitter .

The Tale of the "Huang Niu" Mooncake Scalper originally appeared on About.com China Online on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 00:02:12.

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Happy Anniversary China! Photos from the October 1 parade

2009-10-01T21:01:52Z

From the comfort of our home on a very rainy day in Shanghai, my family tuned in to the PRC's National Day Parade. If you'll recall, I thought it would be fun to take my family to Beijing to watch it live, but found out quickly that going to Beijing was out of the question. The parade was not open to the public. In fact, folks who live downtown or work any where close to the parade route had strict instructions to stay home with their windows shut. It might have been the people's parade, but they were invited to watch it on TV.

In the end, I think we would have been a bit bored had we gone. While impressive with shear numbers and regiments of military units and tanks and all kinds of equipment I haven't a clue what they are, I was expecting more of a spectacle along the lines of the Olympics Opening Ceremony. But it was a very serious affair with bigwigs like Mr. Hu Jintao and Mr. Jiang Zemin not cracking a smile.

Luckily, with the help of weather meddling, Beijing had a sunny day. Shanghai was not so lucky. But it has cleared out today so my son and I are going off to buy some mooncakes on Fuzhou Road. Maybe we'll get to see the full moon tomorrow during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Photos: these professional shots of the parade were taken from my living room in Shanghai, October 1, 2009. � 2009 Sara Naumann, licensed to About.com, Inc.

Happy Anniversary China! Photos from the October 1 parade originally appeared on About.com China Online on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 21:01:52.

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Civil Society

2009-09-24T01:53:22Z

I�ve been listening to a few podcasts discussing the loss � or lack � of civility in the US recently. We�ve got Congressman Joe Wilson�s outburst during President Obama�s health care speech at the forefront, followed up by Kanye West and Serena Williams� recent gaffs. Is it coincidence or really an illustration of the decline in American civility?

Despite nodding my head in agreement with the pundits who argued it was indeed a real decline, and apologies should be (and were) offered up, I found myself only days later in an interesting dilemma.

In China there�s a different notion about civility. Diners routinely snap at waitresses to hurry up. Horns blare at the first sign of a green light. It�s even difficult to say �please� in the same way we would in English. And saying �thank you� to a family member isn�t necessary. As I stood for what seemed to me too long in the front of the grocery line with my hand out dangling the cash for my purchases, while the checkout girl took a personal call on her cell phone, my recent agreement on the downfall of American civility vanished as I snapped in Chinese to hurry up.

So here I am in China, caught in my own, what my American side tells me is, lack of civility. I would probably not have done this in the US (though admittedly my local grocery store has moved to self-check out, but that�s another matter). I put it to my Facebook friends to see what they thought and most agreed that I didn�t act circumspectly.

Feeling slightly shamed, yet at the same time righteous, I took it to my Chinese lesson where my Chinese teacher was incredulous. Of course it�s OK to tell the service person to hurry up. It�s not even considered a lack of courtesy. My �outburst� wouldn�t even be considered such here in China. Here, many discussions would be considered arguments in the US. (I do not dare compare Chinese culture to any other than my own.) Where Americans are typically non-confrontational, Chinese people can openly discuss their disagreements and, as long as a level of face is kept by both sides, it can end rather amicably. It is not uncommon to see a crowd of people gathered around a traffic incident where the perpetrator is using a very loud and excited voice with the policeman at the site. I gawk at such sightings waiting for the officer to throw the person to the ground yelling �Spread�em!� but it just doesn�t happen here.

The discussion on civility led to another interesting topic � freedom of speech. I�ll save that for another post.

From Sara Naumann, About.com's Guide to China Travel, guest-blogger for Chinese Culture. You can also find Sara on twitter .

Civil Society originally appeared on About.com China Online on Thursday, September 24th, 2009 at 01:53:22.

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Good news for the environment from China?

2009-09-22T01:53:47Z

From what I witness on a daily basis here in Shanghai � old buses belching black exhaust, enormous construction dump trucks barreling down the streets puffing smoke and even little motorbikes burping black clouds from their wee exhaust pipes � it�s hard to believe that China plans on leading climate change. My family even cut a trip to Pingyao short last year because of the pollution there. But if there�s another thing I�ve witnessed in my past few years here, it�s that when China sets goals, it usually meets them (and sometimes early).

So kudos to Beijing for their plans to reduce greenhouse emissions dramatically by 2020. In yesterday�s Financial Times, Fiona Harvey reports that a chief International Energy Agency economist stated �[China�s] emissions [growth] will have declined so much by 2020 that it will be the country that has achieved the largest emission reductions. China will be on the forefront of combating climate change.�

While slumped economies and funding cuts for new power stations are causes for much of the reduced greenhouse gasses in other countries, China, the land of burning coal and an insatiable appetite for raw materials plans to reduce the growth of emissions while its economy continues to grow. This is truly good news.

Source: Fiona Harvey, �China to lead on climate change,� Financial Times, September 21, 2009.

From Sara Naumann, About.com's Guide to China Travel, guest-blogger for Chinese Culture.

Good news for the environment from China? originally appeared on About.com China Online on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 at 01:53:47.

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Chinese Ideals of Beauty

2009-09-17T10:22:04Z

Albeit halting and painful, at the end of Chinese class yesterday, my classmate and I had an interesting discussion with our teacher about the ideals of beauty. In our lesson, a presumed foreigner discusses her surprise to learn certain cultural aspects of Chinese women and what they do to make or keep themselves beautiful. For example, she states her surprise when she sees ladies using umbrellas on a sunny day. She asks her friend and finds out the point is to shade the skin and keep it lily white. She ends the narration by saying she�s learned that Chinese people like big eyes (眼睛大大的), tall noses (鼻子高高的) and white skin (皮肤白白的).

Now before anyone�s feathers get ruffled, this is straight from the My Chinese Classroom textbook published in China. But the discussion it sparked was interesting. My classmate claimed that these ideals must be somehow influenced from the outside and that until subsets of Chinese society gain more political power, this beauty ideal will survive. Among my acquaintances in Shanghai, it�s commonly thought that if you have a tan, it makes you look like a manual laborer. So in my classmate�s mind, when the 农人 (nongren or farmers) have more power, you�ll see more suntanned faces on the cover of Vogue China.

I agree with her to a certain extent, but I think ideals of beauty go farther back � or farther in. This set of ideals is not a recent phenomenon. The glory of these features dates back hundreds � if not thousands � of years in Chinese history. Our Chinese instructor believes it is derived from the fact that big eyes and �high� noses were rare in Chinese facial features and therefore became desirable. While to my eye, most Chinese ladies look pale, the spectrum is lost on me as I�m used to the broad palate of skin and hair color found in North America and Europe.

In China, like anywhere, ladies have easier access to achieving the ideal. Beauty products from high-end department stores to convenience stores offer whitening products and plastic surgery for nose jobs and eyelid tucks (making the eyes look wider) are becoming more affordable. But as my classmate states, as differing parts of Chinese society gain political power, will the ideas of beauty change? The vendors selling parasols to the ladies exiting the subway are betting not.

From Sara Naumann, About.com's Guide to China Travel, guest-blogger for Chinese Culture.

Chinese Ideals of Beauty originally appeared on About.com China Online on Thursday, September 17th, 2009 at 10:22:04.

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