Chinese Reads: Tai Pan

I am currently experiencing a Chinese phase of my life.  I live in China, I am learning Chinese (though unsuccessfully), and most of the books I read are about the Middle Kingdom.  Just last month I finished James Clavell's TaiPan, a story about a British trading firm during and after the first Opium War.  Unlike Clavell's other notable work, Shogun, I finished TaiPan and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Loyal readers may remember the blog post about me abandoning Shogun 800 pages into the book.  Despite Clavell writing TaiPan in the 60's, it reads like an allegory for today's China with its wonderful descriptions of cohongs and corruption.  The cohongs operated as middlemen between traders from Europe and America and the Chinese mainland.  All of the opium smugglers needed to partner with a cohong for the importation of opium to the Chinese mainland and the exportation of teas and silks.  Any sane person might ask I thought opium was illegal and the Europeans just forced it on the Chinese?  Yes opium was illegal, but the cohongs still oversaw the importation of the drug and made large sums of money from the practice.

The book highlighted two things in China that haven't changed in nearly 200 years.  Foreign enterprises still need to partner with Chinese middlemen when operating in the mainland.  The words the book using to describe this practice is "the squeeze".  Even back in the time of the emperors, China still placed lining the pockets of government ministers uber alles.  Today companies in certain industries, particularly anything relating to heavy manufacturing, must form a joint venture with a Chinese company, usually one of the state owned enterprises (SOE).  In industries that don't require many fixed costs or expertise, such as tech companies, foreign companies sometimes get locked out of China entirely.  Clavell's book shows this has been happening in China since before the "revolution".  

Not much different from
the cover of Shogun

The other harsh fact the book highlights is the absence of the rule of law.  China watchers might remember a few months back when every newspaper carried stories about President Xi's drive to foster the rule of law in China.  Then they realized this would be a bad thing of the party and the phrase "rule of law" disappeared about three weeks later.  Clavell uses the importation of opium to China to show us that the absence of the rule of law runs throughout Chinese history.  The Imperial Government made the importation of opium illegal and placed the Mandarins (government officials) in charge of enforcing the law.  Instead the Mandarins find a way to profit from importing the drug, regardless of the edicts from the emperor.

Though written decades ago, Clavell's novel reads like a tale of modern Chinese government and Chinese business practices.  He also does a wonderful job of showing why the tiny island of Hong Kong became so important for the Chinese people who went there for a better life.  As a teacher, I found the part about the cohong leader's efforts to have his son educated abroad particularly poignant.  Despite its nearly 800 page length, this book went by way to fast.  I recommend it for historical fiction buffs and anyone with an interest in China.     

Chinese Progaganda and Advertising

Communist China is famous for its propaganda. Despite efforts to keep many messages from the party a "domestic matter", it's always worth it to find out what these posters say. Some feature unintentionally funny messages and almost all boost poorly photoshopped images, a staple of Chinese propaganda since Windows 95. Images of the propaganda currently displayed in Beijing's public places is usually hard to come by on the internet, so I decided to take it upon myself to enlighten the world and dispel those nasty rumors spread by western media. Visitors usually don't break out the selfie stick for something they can't read, so I did it for you. Also western media outlets don't want to be locked out of the valuable Chinese market for pointing out some propagandist's efforts at passing off a poorly rendered, photoshopped version of Chicago as a model Chinese city. Enjoy these bits and pieces of the party's collective hive mind. Note: I once saw a propaganda poster with the White House on it in Tangshan, Hebei, but I was unable to snap a photo of it. I'll keep my eyes peeled.






This poster has appeared all over Beijing in the last few months. The writing says, "Promote ideological and moral construction for the children, create a healthy environment for the growth of children." The poster features many common themes in Chinese government propaganda including children laughing, greenery, and skyscrapers (both foreign and domestic).





This one says, "Maintain long-term prosperity and stability of Hong Kong and Macau， Work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations." Messages like this began appearing during the Hong Kong democracy protests last year. The reason this poster made it on this blog is because the photo is of mid-town Manhattan and not Hong Kong or Macau. If you look closely you can see the Chrysler Building and the Bank of America Tower.





Though I don't know for certain, I think this piece of propaganda from the Beijing Subway might be left over from the Beijing Olympics. Though this photo doesn't show it, the poster is extremely faded. It says, "Civilization forging industry brand，construct humanistic subway." No one said that these posters would translate well.






The ubiquitous, "Chinese Dream, Subway Dream," poster can be seen everywhere in Beijing. No one quite knows exactly what the Chinese Dream is, but I imagine its best dreamt during your 1:30 post lunch nap.






Sometimes the television screens in the Beijing Subway manfunction, and when this happens they display images from Windows XP. Not exactly propaganda, but it seems the Beijing Subway should ask the Microsoft paperclip for help.






I wasn't able to get this one translated, but it features the Sihui Bus Station. I couldn't resist the opportunity to take a picture of propaganda featuring a building while I was inside of the building.





Loyal readers of this blog might notice these buildings from "The Beijing Mysteries" series.
This poster is from the Sihui bus station in Beijing. Originally meant to be completed before the Beijing Olympics, the 40 story towers from the building in the posters stand topped out in central Beijing but have remained in development hell since 2008.
"Beijing spiritual practice , creating a hub success" The hub is a reference to the Dongzhimen
transport hub underneath the complex.







This poster from a bus stop is notable for its inclusion of the Seoul Tower from Seoul South Korea.
The poster says"Everywhere be safe"





This poster is from the backside of China Unicom's world headquarters on Chang'An. China Unicom is one of the "Big 3" Chinese state owned telecom companies. It features a poorly produced collage of buildings from around the world. "The leading digital media in Beijing"




This poster demonstrates the downside of using stock photos from the internet. Notice the World Trade Centers in the collage.




This one also features a much larger picture of New York city. The messages were placed next to two images, one of Macau and one of mid-town Manhattan. I assume they thought no one would notice, especially considering the poster of New York is in the middle of the display. The writing says, "Celebrate the 65th anniversary of the establishment of People's Republic of China"





The poster with this egg woman says "Chinese Dream MyDream" This poster is just one of many in a series featuring the "Chinese Dream" motif and porcelain figures.


The last propaganda poster of the post features the phrase, "Warm all the way , all the way clean, safe journey home." I don't know what it means either, but enjoy the photo of the countryside.