MEDIA: While a short blurb here says a RMB 3,000 vacation in Taiwan is not possible and Guangdong tour operators are putting together packages for twice that, Bloomberg reports that red tape and costs are impacting the tours. Beijing's architecture misinterprets modernity. The War Nerd on South Ossetia. Expect a slew of commentary comparing Taiwan to South Ossetia, somehow. For example, Taiwan should learn from Georgia conflict. Korea tourists to Taiwan grow 32.7%. KMT plans to restore original name of Dead Dictator Memorial Hall. Top business pessimistic about profits. Ma save us! Land tax collection falls sharply.A great post on summer birding in Taiwan. He also has a great guide for summer birding here. The Foreigner rips Joe Hung and the Taiwan-China Commonwealth crowd. Mad Minerva on why Ma really seems to be turning out to be a disaster for Taiwan. My friend Kurtis Pei has a great piece on mixing politics and mammals at Wild at Heart. Robert with another piece on getting married. Just tell her that Taiwanese faithfully follow the rules on lucky days and Ghost Month and yet....divorce rates are skyrocketing. J Michael on the Potemkin Girl who lip-synched at the Olympics. All I can say is that with a fidelity to the truth like that, no wonder the Bush Administration hearts China. Oh, and for a special thrill, read the amazingly stupid comments at ESWN and other China blogs about how horrible the western media is for printing why the poor rejected girl wasn't considered cute enough. Yes, that's right -- the western media is the real culprits here. Everybody passes: A-gu and other bloggers have been commenting on the incredibly amazing entrance scores for Taiwan colleges. A-gu. 50 years ago this week was a major clash between the Chiang regime and Communist China over the Taiwan Strait. TaiwanAirPower has several pieces on it this week. Stephen Nelson does the Matsu tour. Missionary Scott Pagel on the recent court decision enabling schools to reject applicants from nutcase science backgrounds. Actually, Scott, there's plenty of academic freedom for methodologically sound science. That just doesn't include IDiocy and Creationism. Roy Berman at the Japan blog Mutantfrog is visiting Taiwan this week and has a nice piece on Losheng. Kelake on better brainstorming. Mark Wilbur with some basic ideas on teaching young esl learners faster.
[Taiwan]
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Excellent article that gives multiple instances of evidence that some of the Chinese ladies gymnasts are under the age of the Olympic restriction of "16".
And for those who think we're splitting hairs here -- consider that other countries actually do not cheat. And consider as well that there is a whole lot of difference between a 14 year old and a 16 year old -- weight-wise, flexibility-wise, and height-wise.
Scandal of the Ages: Documents Reveal Underage Chinese Gymnast
BTW, one of my Chinese co-workers shouted loudly at me when I raised this subject and told me that the western media was to blame. I asked him if he saw this evidence and then he shouted louder at me. I then said, "I wouldn't put it past the Chinese government to fake their passports (which were given to them a couple of months ago -- given to the IOC as proof). Afterall, they exploited an 8 year-old to fake singing "Ode to the Motherland" at the opening ceremonies and then lied about it through the state-sponsored media."
He went ballistic and demanded proof that they "lied", so I gave it to him, showing him cached versions of The China Daily (the articles are now scrubbed from the sites now).
At that point he accused westerners of always being negative and biased and I decided to leave the room as it was creating quite a disruption in the office.
The effects of authoritarian rule are scary, man.
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I think we're missing the most important point here... our baseball team lost to China 7-8. What's worse, it was in the 12th inning when we were 3 runs ahead and with 2 outs.
Expect riots across the nation.
The mainland reactions to the Potemkin Olympics age and lipsync scandals are telling of the fundamentally different attitudes in closed and open cultures. In an open society, the people who lie are censured and those who reveal uncomfortable truths are thanked for their efforts. In closed societies, those who lie are simply doing their jobs and those who tell the truth are condemned.
More than ever we are reminded that the Taiwan/China split isn't some petty squabble over historical borders or ethnic tribalism, but about the fundamentally different values of free and unfree societies. What does it matter if I happen to share certain phenotypes with the mainland "Han" government? Whatever ethnic commonalities we might have, their values are utterly alien to me.
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