Due to both heavy spamming and the vacation period, this site is closed until further notice, though hopefully I will be back with you in March 2005.
Phil Sen
One reason for not posting here recently is that I've been spending some time trying to figure out the best directions for Living in China.
A way to do this is to analyse and sift through the comments, suggestions and criticisms that have been made over the last few weeks, and for transparency's sake I reproduce them below.
As you'll see, it's impossible to please everyone all the time and some of the suggestions are downright contradictory, but once certain people are available again I've got a couple of ideas in mind for improving matters slightly.
Read on and add comments by all means.
Mark – Single Planet
Leave the aggregator alone and leave it focused on one country, rather than split it up.
Keep the screen simple and clean.
Make a Living on the Planet 'Central' if necessary where people can go to find more information.
Forget all the categories. People will make their own minds up on what they want to read. A 'community' soon knows whose posts they want to read.
Don't be "selective" - let anyone in, "within reason".
New layout is confusing and takes longer to scroll through.
Like Adam, I am tending to use Simon World - although with some reservations - instead of LiC.
I just don't read most of the blogs on my own links list simply because they are focusing on topics that I, personally, don't find interesting. This narrowing of focus affects maybe two-thirds of the China blogs. If it's not the US election, it's internet censorship, armchair Zhongnanhai punditry, or endless debate on a desperately limited rage of topics.
Those blogs that do have a focus seem to be the strongest, and maintain a healthy readership. As examples, both Fons' China Herald and T-Salon both have a very strong focus on a specific area, and a discipline to stay in that area. Both these blogs highlight the news and issues in a narrow field - they are pro-blogs - and so attract readers that are knowledgeable in those fields - pro-readers, if you like.
The questions over the health of Living in China may be premature though. The desire to be published and read remains strong, and if the owners of a community blog can maintain some kind of focus or some kind of quality, then there is probably an attraction for writers who no longer have the ability or interest to maintain a frequent posting rate.
The aggregator, however, may have a hard time going forward if there is no quality control on the blog membership: the change in design and the number of poor quality diary-style "My fish died" posts makes the aggregator less valuable.
It may be impossible for Phil and the LiC people to please everyone, but perhaps pleasing the well-established known entities like Peking Duck, Brainysmurf and the rest of the China blog mafia may be more productive than casting the net blindly in all directions.
Ellen – Crackpot Chronicles
With all those links to other Li __ sites, it dilutes the impact of the individual communities. I think the single link solution would be perfect! People could surf around to their heart's content, but the impact of the locality-oriented aggregator list focuses each site's readers and contributors and promotes loyalty and return visits.
Richard – Peking Duck
I agree that original content is the key, and for a long while there seemed to be plenty of it. Why that momentum was lost I don't know.
And as Adam notes, Simon's Asia by Blog is now more useful than the once-invaluable LIC aggregator.
…go take a look at the aggregator and you'll see it's cluttered with a lot of crap. Now, that is a terribly subjective judgement, but somebody's got to say it. By becoming a clearinghouse for every blog in the region that wants in, it has become something of a cesspool. (I know that's strong language, but it's exactly what I was thinking last night, as I saw there were about 20 posts in a row by a new blogger, each of zero interest or relevance to the LIC readers.) I know that nowadays about 50 percent of my own posts are irrelevant to LIC. Maybe they need to discriminate, and bounce posters like me. But I don't think so -- they just need to look with a critical eye at anyone who wants to be included and ask, "Does this blogger contribute enough that is China-related to make it worthwhile?" Right now, it is so diluted and amorphous, it's all but meaningless.
In addition, instead of becoming more user friendly and simple, the exact opposite has occurred. The aggregator now shows the post headlines -- but it doesn't tell you what blog it's from!
There used to be a simple link to see the list of contributing bloggers, but now you need to hunt for it.
And somehow, it has lost its sense of community. Last summer it was the place to go for the latest news and commentary, thanks to those featured articles. Now it's dead.
All I know is it was absolutely great for a while, and then it got more and more diluted. As cruel as it sounds, maybe there needs to be a screening process for blogs to be included, or a committee that chooses the blogs for invitation-only participation. If they decide some blogs like my own aren't relevant enough, so be it. But something has got to be down before it collapses under its own weight and drowns in its identitylessness (new word).
John – Sinosplice
The picking good entries process could be automated. It could be set up so that all entries in the aggregator are fed through an admin system. Then you just click on the entries you want to be added, make any necessary edits to the excerpts or titles, and publish.
Also... You were all speculating on why LiC started out good, with community support and all, and then was abandoned. I suspect that a large part of it was that it seemed to quickly transform from a lively community hub into a faceless cog in a massive corporation-like entity. I think the global "planet" structure turns a lot of people off, just like people don't like the idea of a New World Order.
I don't know if it would be worth the trouble, but maybe you guys (read: Brad) could even create a "My Living in China Feed" where users can choose which blogs to include, and this aggregator can be given a name and accessed by other readers. (Kind of like customers on music sites making "favorite albums" lists) If that's too much trouble, you could just let editors make aggregators of their personal favorites. That could be popular, and would still cover a range of topic areas.
You seem focused on getting more original content, but I'm not convinced it's not a lost cause… However, you could choose to go in another, slightly different direction. You could take the http://www.worldstargazette.com/ approach. Basically, just pick all the GOOD entries and link to them on the front page with excerpts. Adding news might be good too. Of course, original content is always great, but if you're short on original content, at least you'd have other (recent) stuff there.
Jeremy – Danwei
For me, the problem is that Living in China has become rather overwhelming. If it was up to me, this is what would be on the homepage of Living in China:
An aggregator that displays the name and author of the blog together with a very short excerpt
A section for original content
A link to Living on the Planet page
A little text of encouragement for new people to submit content, with email address or submission guidelines
I believe simplicity would be great help in getting new people on board, and in getting people to contribute content.
When Living in China started, it was focused. It was the only meeting point for anyone interested in English language blogs about China. Furthermore, it was only a meeting point for China blog people. It wasn't linked to Living in Moldania and it wasn't part of some faceless network of blogbots. There was a team of people who put energy into making Living in China. They were very friendly and social and wrote personal emails to people who got involved. Now Living in China is an automaton, the HAL 9000 of the China bloggers.
Design and technical changes happen without notice or explanation.
It is recycling the same series of photographs again and again.
The aggregator, which is its best function, changes format.
If Living in China wants to succeed, someone needs to explain what the whole setup is about. Who is in charge? Who owns the domain name and what are their plans?
But if the plans for Living in China are for it to be a part of Living on the Planet, I don't believe it will succeed. As Adam wrote in his post, "Who isn't a site that calls itself 'Living on the Planet' aimed at?" Or, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde [actually Groucho Marx, I think, Jeremy], who wants to join a club that will have anyone on the planet as a member?
Alex – Angry Chinese Blogger
On the content side, I see that Asia by blog is now the most prolific poster ever. Maybe summaries of other blogs should be something that is relegated to an in brief section.
An archive for aggregated news would also be something good, if we could use LIC to pull up all articles on a certain topic or from a certain period, like this months news, or this weeks news etc.
A most read articles section would be good as well, it would keep popular articles in view for longer.
I quite like the way that you can view all articles by a specific author, maybe you could expand on that idea and put a guest columnist section or a dedicated columnists archive.
Adam – Brainysmurf
Anyway, the more I think about it the more I think the aggregator — at least the way it works now — isn't useful and instead we should look at letting users do keyword searches. That would be far more useful to more users. Keyword searches for blogs already exist at places like Technorati, but as far as I know you can’t do regional sub-searches. Not all of us talk about China, but most of us do, and when I want to know what the hood is saying about someone, or something or other, instead of looking through a list of randomness, I wanna see a search result.
How about collecting a bunch of news feeds and letting users do keyword searches on them. That way, when someone wants to see the scoop on Tung's getting hit on the forehead with a party pooper they'll have a reasonably good chance of finding everything in one place. (At least in English.) Having a restricted set of RSS feeds to search through will turn up more targeted results.
Part of the reason why I was so vocal in my last post on this topic is because there is still no one place to go to find information on Chinese current events. Google News China is disappointing to say the least in its lack of inclusivity (if you’re searching from the mainland anyway). So my feeling is that we must make it ourselves.
Simon's updates have also rendered LiC's aggregator as useless and primitive. I far prefer a human editor that categorizes things to a cold summary that doesn’t offer any hints as to whether or not I want to read what's provided.
LiC's parent group Living on the Planet suffers from a lack of any context, as well as a pretty lame name. Who isn’t a site that calls itself "Living on the Planet" aimed at?
Death by lack of focus if you ask me. Just a bunch of links with no indication of what’s going on at all.
Matt - Metanoiac
For small-time bloggers like me who feel like they have some unique perspective or can perhaps capture something in a different way than others, the Living in China website has done me nothing but good. While it doesn't bring a whole lot of traffic to my site, it brings some, and I certainly won't complain about that.
Certain sites (not this one) seem to have a certain air of snobbishness about them concerning who can be placed on their 2 and a half mile long blog roll, which is a bit difficult for me to understand. The Living in China site seems to be a den of inclusiveness and I kind of feel that that should be the driving spirit of the blogging community. I also have trouble understanding the grumbling because it is a community-based project and I'm sure there would be ways for people to filter out posts they find uninteresting. My personal angle, of course, just concerns how the site benefits me. Anytime I try to go and check the site out for myself- to see what others are putting out there-
it seems poorly organized and also loads up very slowly, often incompletely.
Andrea – T-Salon
Very good idea in terms of the keyword search on a smaller sub-set of blogs/sources rather than on the world-wide-web!
The one thing I would like to see is more first hand accounts on what's happening outside the three major cities: Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong.
I didn't really like the new format of the aggregator as it is not quite what I was used to - being able to read information, views and news from people I "know" at a glance on one single page.
Judging from the appearance, I can only say that not having all posts in one page makes loading faster.
Having the content rather than the author's /site's name appears first in each aggregator post forces us to be a bit more open minded and read a post based on the content and not of because of the blogger's name (although my brain doesn't naturally work that way, since I tend to pay more attention to those whose views I know, care and trust).
It seems having each aggregated post stored in a database (and thus a unique URL or a trackback) opens up many new possibilities to do something creative and interesting with the content aggregated from around the blogosphere (a more targeted and accurate search on the community is one possibility).
As Jeremy says, any technical changes need some explanations to the users.
Having said all that, I prefer the old format and the new functionalities. Can't we have the best of the both?
I remember Dave Winer once said that making the aggregator (feeding it with feeds) is like a curation. It's actually not easy to strike a balance between being all-inclusive and making it relevant, useful and interesting.
Perhaps one possible solution, as I have said a few times before at other places, is that we put feeds into categories and come up with topic-based aggregator (i.e. current affairs aggregator, business & economy aggregator, etc.)
This approach has its own problems too. As human, it is natural that we have diverse interests and hence our blog will cover a wide range of topics. Until there are better blogging tools that allows us to better categorize each post, and send each post (rather than the entire blog) to the appropriate site / aggregator, we are stuck with the current way of content aggregation: being all inclusive and no focus; or focus but exclusive.
Everyone can now practically build and run an aggregator whether on their own desktop or on the web (bloglines or kinja for the those with no programming skills and maggiepipe, radio userland, etc. for those who knows how to code), do we still need community aggregators similar to the Living in China blog aggregator? Why and why not?
Shanghai Slim
I would suggest that a model that depends for its content on the vagueries of charity is not a stable model. The fact that you used to get free quality writing was probably unique to that time and place. Now things are different, your model needs to be adjusted to changing circumstances. What I'm saying is, if one of your central complaints is that people aren't submitting enough content to keep the site vital, then perhaps it's time to forget about people submitting content.
The featured posts are now few and far between, and often of marginal interest.
The aggregator is usually clogged with crap-links to pointless single-sentence blog posts.
Would it be possible for the aggregator to give a better description of what lies at the other end of each link? I have no idea what kind of technology lies behind it. I assume the original authors submit their links - if so, could they be requested to add a one-sentence summary? This would allow readers to avoid the "Today I bought a new bowl" posts.
It's such a bother to sift through so much chaff to find the nuggets of interest, that I have taken to "making the rounds" of worthwhile blogs on my own, nullifying what is for me the main reason to visit LiC - it's useful function as meta-blog.
Roddy – China Forums
I was thinking it would be a collection of the best of blogging - I'm not a big blog fan, but the best of it ain't bad. However, I think for months now it's failed to be about the best of blogging and has instead been the (diplomacy) not the best(/diplomacy) of journalism.
It's confusing, and I was initially unsure whether I was on the 'blogzine' bit or the aggregator. What does Living in USA [CN] mean?
Why do aggregator pieces have more links back to livingin*.com sites than to the blog itself? Why is there a weather link that doesn't work? I click in constant fear I'm going to wind up on livinginthenorthwestsecondringroadBeijing.com and not be able to get out.
If you want to rescue it, strip it right back to what it was before the whole livingontheplanet stuff started. I'm not sure it's worth it though - your aggregator makes the 'blogzine' bit redundant 9 times out of 10, and a desktop RSS reader makes your aggregator redundant slightly more often.
The knives are out again for Living in China. Initial criticisms are levelled by Brainysmurf and taken up by Peking Duck. Also alluded to by Simon World's Asia by Blog and Danwei.
My response as posted in the comments sections of the first two are reproduced below. But it's also worth saying that the fact that people are talking about it means they still think it's worth talking about.
Living in China is new. It's different. It's not always going to meet everyone's expectations. The important thing is that people have to work at it to keep it going.
I'm guilty of not always putting the hours in - especially when you look at the dedication of Michael Darragh and Brad Ferguson who have not just put in time but money too.
It's kind of sad that people are so ready to sling the mud but not to paint the wall. LiC can be great again if people can set aside personal vanities and scores and help the whole thing out. In a way it is a poisoned chalice - a site that aims to bring together bloggers doesn't necessarily appeal to the vanity that drives them (myself included).
So what do you say?
Like anything it needs time and effort from everyone concerned - and most of all that includes the people that criticise.
My own comments below:
It's a toughie guys, and despite being the manager of Living in China to an extent I have to agree.OK, so a bad workman blames his tools. And a really bad workman blames the other workmen. Now I've got that out of the way, can I try to objectively discuss a couple of the problems that I think are causing the malaise.
1. Lack of interest and participation. It's a group site and if people don't want to write original material for it, I can't make them. And since the original flurry of interest since the site's conception (by Adam Morris of Brainysmurf, it would unfair not to mention, though the building of the site was taken up by others) about a year ago, interest has died off.
There was a direct correlation between interesting articles on the site and site traffic, and when the site traffic goes down people lose interest too.
2. No reward. People are selfish - it's not a criticism, it's a fact of life. Good writers would rather write good articles for their own sites first rather than for a group site which brings no direct reward in terms of readers or comments.
Lately I and Ralph Jennings of Laowiseass have been looking out for good content on other sites and (with permission) cross posting it. The idea is to attract attention to what people write, especially lesser-known bloggers, but as you can imagine it's a very laborious task.
3. Petty arguments. The comments on this and on Richards site are just and fair and I accept the criticism, but in the past there has been some real sourness (the 'censorship' and 'community' arguments can be seen elsewhere) that frankly puts people off.
If I was a new blogger, a bit nervous about the whole venture, those kind of tirades would put me off altogether.
4. Lack of focus and direction. No matter what is said on this topic, it is going to annoy people. Some will agree, others will vehemently oppose it.
The question is in some ways the question of 'what is blogging anyway?' Living in China exists to serve China bloggers. On occasions I have personally followed topics of interest such as the Typepad block etc. and at those times it's been a good site - as a representative voice for China bloggers as a whole whatever their complexion.
But most of the time there is nothing to focus on. LiC is simply a tool for people to use as they see fit. I would like it to promote all bloggers writing about China - but it has to be proactive rather than reactive. Simon World, Danwei and others already have analyses of other peoples' blogs and long may it continue.
For everyone's reference, there is and always has been a statement of policy at http://www.livinginchina.com/about.html and http://www.livinginchina.com/membership.html
Noone ever read them, choosing instead to say they didn't exist!
5. The new publishing system. Like others I'm no technophile and the incredibly hard work that Michael Darragh and Brad Ferguson put into the new system may have backfired somewhat. It was supposed to be a more functional alternative to Movable Type but I'm worried that people are afraid to tackle the system. There's still a number of bugs and glitches too that don't help.
6. Me. I reserve this till the end since it's the point people will remember, not because it's least important. I had hoped that after a few months of a guiding hand, LiC would run itself and that people would post material on it of their own accord. They didn't. It was a miscalculation.
I'm not paid to do this, and not every hour of my day can be spent working on LiC. Since March I've started dating a girl who doesn't really appreciate being left alone while I tinker on a computer screen for hours! I work during the week, I have frequent problems with my laptop and connection not to mention all the issues of blocking. And sometimes I just want to watch a DVD, read a book or sleep.
I also haven't sent a 'newsletter' e-mail for a while, which has reduced awareness I suppose - but then again chances are no-one read them anyway...
So I haven't spent as much time on LiC as I should, and for this I apologise to all. But at the end of the day, it's not my site - it's everyone's. If the content were just my writing or just my selections it would be 'Living in Phil's World' - it's not and never was meant to be that. I have my own blog if you're interested in me.
If anyone does wish to take over the reigns, I'd be very happy to help and transfer the job to them - my e-mail is below. But for all the problems I list above, the biggest is lack of interest from people - and it's become a vicious circle.
I would love LiC to keep going and still believe it's a worthwhile project - does anyone else?
Phil Sen
Editor - Living in China
phil at livinginchina dot com
From the goodness of my heart, a couple of links.
Firstly to Simon's excellent Asia by Blog, which is frankly the first place you should start your surfing day. Already syndicated on Living in China, Simon's asking for trackbacks in return for what is a useful service and evidently very hard work. Only too happy to oblige.
Then on to new guy Dave in China - a new teacher at my school. Seems like only a year ago I was in his shoes... which of course I was.
And finally to a praiseworthy project which in its audacity and sheer insanity that rivals even my own in staying on here for another year is well worth a look. Old signals comrade Tim Nicholson dropped me an e-mail from India yesterday - he is driving to Oxford. From Oxford. From Oxford UK to Oxford NZ to raise funds for the Red Cross. In a Morris Oxford.
You can visit his and his colleague's site Oxford2Oxford.co.uk here, though inexplicably you need a proxy to view it in China (try this link here instead).
Beyond the pale. My failure to understand two of the world's most common, important but obscure languages - Chinese and Computerese - is really getting to me now.
This site is now attracting about 30-40 spam comments per day. There is an IP banning facility on MT but it's laborious to use. However, deleting the comments manually is almost equally laborious.
And the spam is so annoying. I don't want viagra, tramadol, cialis or any other old-wives' erectile disfunction medication. I don't want to play poker or blackjack online. I don't require any satellite dishes or storage containers, thanks. And I certainly do not need to enlarge my penis. I ask you...
So why don't you download a program to eradicate all this, you say? Well, I can't. My computer won't satisfactorily download anything at the moment - always an error message when you click the .exe. I've tried turning of the virus scan but no effect. And I've no idea how to fix the problem since my operating system is in Chinese...
Any tips, I'm all ears, cheers.
Today it's exactly one year since this site went online - so here's my anniversary review. This is me on the right, by the way: I'm not actually keen on putting photos of myself up here since I'd rather emphasise my thoughts, ideas and pictures.
Philip-sen.com is an idea I had been toying with for a while, and once I returned to the UK afer four months travelling last year I decided to go ahead. Initially it was meant to be an online photo album with a little bit of a self-marketing section, but since then it's blossomed more than I had imagined. There must be close to 500 pictures on the site by now.
After becoming nervous whether Google was ever going to trace it, finally it did and the hits started coming in.
In response to a suggestion by a former editor, my old e-mail dispatches from around the Asia Pacific region were re-invented as a blog some time in October, adding a whole new dimension to the site.
The blog is hard to define, but ultimately it's a personal magnifying class on my life and thoughts during my stay in Shanghai. I came here with an unwritten mission to try and understand China and the Chinese, something that's much easier said than done. For what it's worth, this is mostly what you'll see on these pages.
Discovering blogging opened up new windows for me: I was appointed editor of a newly germinating site called Living in China, which is beginning to assume some significance in the Chinese underground media. Recently I started up another site, PostCampus.com, a webzine written by students from my Journalism English course. Ultimately the amount of hours I've put in with the above have been to the detriment of my own personal blog, but no matter.
So much for my little empire. Without access to Dreamweaver, the whole lot has been hard coded (HTML programmed by hand) by myself, which has done wonders for my computer skills though I wouldn't yet rank myself as a web designer.
So that's my site. Precisely one year to the minute after its first hit, www.philip-sen.com has garnered 23,115 visits and 62,422 page impressions. Viewings currently average about 100 per day. This may not sound like much, but it gives me some personal satisfaction.
It's not a big gun, but it's fun shooting it..
Firstly, after weeks of painstaking effort and struggling with the code, I've cracked the layout for Postcampus.com, the student website I've been building up. Read about it here.
I've also managed to scan in my Huang Shan pictures for what they're worth.
Enjoy!
Postcampus.com - the website I'm developing for the journalism students I've been teaching is now online.
It's still very much in test mode - I'm having enormous trouble with the table format and the CSS which is rendering some of it illegilble - but it should be ready soon.
Now for England v Switzerland...
Everybody loves to think they are an original and unique thinker, so imagine my chagrin when I discovered this website. The colour scheme is different but in all other respects it's unnaturally close to my own. Weird.
Even worse, this Angus McIntyre guy is a better writer and photographer than I am, which is doubly annoying. Wish I could contact him, but no details on the site that I can see. Oh - here it is - angus (at) pobox (dot) com
Check it out here: http://www.disoriented.net
Clearly the powers that be think highly of me since an entire article I wrote for That's Shanghai has been cut, pasted and reprinted in CCP English-language organ China Daily.
See the evidence here:
Original article
Reprinted article
I spoke to the editor of That's Shanghai, for whom I wrote the original, and he confirmed that as far as he knew there was no agreement between his magazine and China Daily.
In the UK there's a word for what's happened. It's called plagiarism and it's illegal. Breach of copyright is a civil offence in my country. While not technically criminal, it is breaking the law.
I'm not the only one: I've heard stories from journalism students asked to plagiarise items during work experience placements; and fellow journalist and blogger Dan Washburn has had a similar issue with Beijing Youth Daily.
I've been trying to drum this Western idea of the rights of the writer into my students' heads for months now. As many other teachers know, cheating and copying is so endemic here it's not even considered abnormal to take something from the Internet and pass it off as your own work.
But do I have a leg to stand on now even the official boredom rag is doing it? What the hell, I'll put it on my CV anyway...
More on Typepad and China - courtesy of The Guardian weblog:
March 30: Six Apart co-founder Mena Trott has emailed me to clarify what I was told on March 29 regarding Typepad in China. She says TypePad has 'heard reports from some Chinese TypePad users that they can not access their public weblogs but can access the TypePad application. We've heard from some weblog readers in China that they are able to access TypePad weblogs.' She goes on to explain that 'we are pretty confident that there is not a technical reason on our end for the problems some Chinese users are having accessing their sites', but 'frankly, because we are not in China, we can't be 100% sure of the exact cause and effects of the situation and to what degree our customers are being affected'.She goes on to say: 'For the record, I did not state that the Chinese government was blocking TypePad sites. I did convey that it's not likely to be a technical problem on our end, but that doesn't not rule out technical problems in the routing of the sites in China.' Mena has placed a full copy of her message on her new blog, Mena's Corner.
Jane Perrone
Many thanks to Jane Perrone at The Guardian for her tenacity in pursuing the matter, but it sounds to me like Six Apart are reluctant to accept that this is a block.
I have to say that Mena Trott raises some fair points. Moreover, perspectives from abroad, where Internet censorship is not the issue it is here, are likely to be different. It may be that outside the PRC, China bloggers complaining of assumed censorship are simply seen as being paranoid, while there is indeed a simple explanation.
So if you ARE able to access any Typepad sites such as http://www.andresgentry.com , http://www.danwei.org or http://www.glutter.org from the mainland, please let me know via the comments section.
How can China move forward if even the journalists are corrupt?
I teach a class of journalism students, and I'm beginning to learn from them as much as they learn from me. Some of it isn't encouraging.
A couple of weeks ago, a student approached me with a story from his summer holiday work experience where he witnessed plagiarism so routine it made The New York Times Jayson Blair look positively original. The student said that this is common enough practise in China and I believed them.
Below is another e-mail just sent to me by a student; it makes stark reading.
The economy of this country grows too fast!! The large gap between the poor and the rich, the very different living standards, the principle with which to value whether a person is successful or not - the amount of money you possess - makes people lost in this confused metropolis.
I had a conversation with one of my friends, a 35-year-old business man, who once worked as a good journalist at a newspaper. Now, he is engaged in real estate.
The [real estate] industry is full of profit, much more than a journalist can earn, but what he talked about in front of me was money. When he talked about his salary and the car he bought recently, he was completely indulged in it .
"Vulgarian," I told myself.
The man before me had changed a lot. He was no longer be proud of being a journalist. He said this job is not stable, and not highly paid. He regretted being so late to realise that and jumped out of the circle of news.
He told me that his passion for this career was cut because to keep oneself honest is difficult in China. Many journalists are richer than editors because when they attend news conferences, it is very common for them to receive benefits given by the host - and an [pre-written?] accomplished report is provided. All you need to do is to polish it.
Sometimes the host will give you two "(Chinese Character - gifts)", one is for the journalist, the other is for the editor. And it is very common in news circles!!!
When your report inteferes with a big potato, an official, even a person who has a personal connection with the power department in this city, this essay will be
killed by the editor. If not,you will be kicked out.
"But you can use the law to defend your report," I said.
"No, stupid, there is no relevant law, not even a rule, to protect China's journalists till now," he said.
Where is the morality of a journalist? What is the role the newspaper plays in our society? It is no more than a tool to publicize the ideas from the CCP [Chinese Communist Party].
No wonder that during your classes, our conception of the READER is so faint. The direction our media takes is towards our leaders, this so-called elite.
He even warned me that most women in newspapers are spinsters; no man wants to marry them, because they are too good and know too much. No one will marry a woman better than himself. They need a petite one.
What a poor theory! But unfortunately it actually happens in China.
So, I ask myself time and time again: Why should I choose to be a journalist?Why? Tell me why you chose to be a journalist.
There is always a gap between the ideal and reality that can't be fulfilled. A person should always know what he needs, who he is. Keeping yourself in this society is not easy but necessary.
Heart rending stuff - what could I say? I said that eventually the CCP will change; it is already changing albeit very slowly. Better this than the alternative, economic collapse and bloody revolution.
Moreover, I said, once corruption within the media is eliminated it can strive to expose corruption in industry and politics. Only through beating this cancer can China truly maintain its seemingly phenomenal growth. A fundamental aspect of a healthy market economy is free trade and fair competition; this is fundamentally in oppostion to a culture of graft, kickbacks and bribes.
While the government gives lip service to fighting corruption, an honest and courageous media is another key weapon. But the journalist's job here can be a dangerous one; perhaps we shouldn't forget the privileges we take for granted in the West.
Later, after I replied, the writer followed up:
May be what I wrote will provoke an allergic reaction from some people. I don't care. At least I can start some interesting discussions...
Corruption is definitely a big problem, but I don't think it is the major barrier in improving China's economy. Corruption exists in every country, every period. It is not typical of China.
But our political system which caused the corruption is really bad. It gives officials too much power. So, the Chinese government should take measures to change the system and block the origin of corruption.
Meanwhile the 900 million peasants in China deserve more attention. Once the gap of income becomes enlarged to a dangerous extent, our country will not have the security which is a fundamental element for development.
Agreed. What can be done? The CCP's grip on the press is certainly loosening, but maybe it needs to let go before it ends up choking the whole country to death too.
Yep, gone and put my foot squarely in it, though this time I don't think that things are going to ignite like last time back in January.
By this I mean the storm of protest about 'censorship' on Living in China, something which I was not responsible for. I was in fact sightseeing in Beijing.
The current arena is Glutter - you can read aaaaalllllll about it here (be aware that it gets rather abusive): Hidden Curriculum and www.glutter.org, and goodbye LIC. Pay particular attention to the comments.
There's even more here - Glutter's at it again.
All I'm trying to do is find more people who are writing in English from or about China. Currently, politically correct as this sentiment is, there are too many white male expats and not enough Chinese (particularly Chinese women). Since ultimately the peoples' are the voices that really matter.
If anyone would care to explain why this is such a bad thing, please do so below. I'm not depressed about it, merely exasperated. But there's a darker and deeper undertone that is beginning to worry me.
It's the issue of depression itself. Not concerning me, but among young Chinese women, and probably men too. More than one student at my university has approached me - a not altogether insensitive but completely inappropriate counsellor - with problems of various hues.
Furthermore, I've heard of and am hearing about more and more examples among people I know and people connected with them. They have no one to turn to; they don't know what to do. There are only about 12 qualified psychiatrists in Shanghai - that's one per million. Expect the same elsewhere in the country.
Depression is in many ways a Western disease. You could argue that when you stop worrying about the raw necessities such as finding a square meal every day, then you discover things to worry about within yourself. But China is accelerating itself towards being a developed nation. The major cities are already there.
Thus there is bound to be a nagging sense at the pit of the city's stomach: where do we go from here? What else is there to achieve? A feeling of being alone among an amorphous mass of millions, billions, of people. The culture of saving face and not expressing emotions in public - much like in England - could be another factor.
I have no answers, and this is an admittedly clumsy wishy-washy and superficial attempt at tackling a serious issue which I think is going to become more and more relevant in the new China. But whether people are indiscriminately lashing out or simply withdrawing into themselves, I think that it needs to be recognised.
You don't know what you've got until it's gone.
Whether or not there are avid readers of this weblog out there, this will be the last normal post for a while while I set off to travel around China. Plan is to start in Beijing. After that there is no plan. Keep it flexible.
Over the course of the last four months I've begun to realise how dependent I am on my elderly, knackered-out old laptop. It's my entertainment system, for playing CDs and DVDs. It's my primary mode of communication with friends and family back in the UK and beyond. It's my part-time job, editing Living in China. And it's the only tool I have for connecting with the reality outside the surreality I encounter here in the People's Republic of China.
Does this make me sad? A geek? A nerd? Perhaps it does. But one thing I realise every time I switch on the TV or read a Chinese newspaper - a rarity these days - is that the Internet is becoming a reality in its own right.
Yeah, most guys love The Matrix films. As was once pointed out to me, there's nothing wrong with a chick in black PVC kicking the XXXX out of people.
But to explore its deeper significance, it's worth living here for a while. I do often feel that in my normal life I'm isolated from the day-to-day reality I experienced in the 'outside world'. The only way to reconnect is through the keyboard. Down the rabbit hole.
So I will feel a bit naked on the road without it. But, let's face it, I might as well carry a brick around with me. It's better off at home. Anyway, in due course there'll be tons of misadventures and escapades to follow as I bimble around the Middle Kingdom.
Adieu till February...
Finally, with many thanks to Michael for attempting to set this up not once but twice, my all-singing, all-dancing, new Movable Type system is up and running.
Please leave your comments below! I'd especially like to hear about how it looks on different browsers.