The Life-and-Death Struggle for Chinese Home Owners: At Least in a TV Drama

Guo Haiping (right) and Guo Haizao, sisters experiencing the struggles for owning a home, in the TV drama Wo Ju.

To own a home could be a matter of life and death for Chinese people. This is one of the messages a popular yet controversial TV drama tries to send.

"Wo Ju" (蜗居, meaning living like a snail in a small place), a 33-part series adopted from a novel of the same title, was one of the most popular TV dramas in China in 2009. The show tells stories of conspiracy between corrupt officials and real estate developers, the disparity between haves and have-nots in urban China, and the tough life people have to live in order to save or make money for buying a home, among other things--all very familiar to Chinese people.

In the drama, which is set in contemporary China in a fictional Shanghai-like city of Jiangzhou (江州), a low-income family even lost a life in a stand-off against the demolishing of their ghetto. The developer offered the family a brand new apartment for free, something these people could never dream of owning, in exchange for the family dropping the charge against the developer for killing a family member during demolishing.

"A life exchanging for a home," a government official in the show said of the incident. And yet, this official is behind the demolishing effort and devotes himself to using his political power to make way for property developments, and then shares with the developers the huge profits.

Besides plots that vividly depict today's social reality in China, the censorship rumor around the show made it even hotter. The rumor started when the rerun of the show on a Beijing television channel stopped abruptly after 10 episodes. Words then spread on the Internet that China’s governing body of broadcast media ordered the show off the air, on the ground of sexual content.

Viewers also noticed that the TV version of "Wo Ju" had 33 episodes, while the web and DVD versions had 35 episodes. Beijing News said in a story that Beijing TV cut two episodes' length of sexually explicit content before showing it.

Wang Lizhi, a university professor in Beijing, said the show went through the first round of broadcast across China but is not up for reruns like many other popular TV dramas. As Prof. Wang saw it, the issue with the show was not obscene content, but sharp language.

"Wo Ju" is known for its stinging comments that reflect the reality only too candidly. For example, one character told his wife that he took a usurious loan in order to make down payment for their new home. “The interest is only a little bit higher than bank loans,” he says, trying to calm down his furious wife. This comment implies that mortgage in China are having interests almost as high as usury.

In another scene, the wife of the low-income family complains: “We are all proletariat, all working people. There is neither lowliness nor nobleness among labor divisions, but why in a place like Jiangzhou some people live in garden villas…while we live in such a place [a city ghetto]? We are working honestly, too!”

"Such extreme language will influence social mood,” Prof. Wang said. When such expressions gain currency among people, they might encourage extreme actions. “It is better to use rationality. There is no benefit if people are emotional,” he said. For him, stopping reruns of the show was more of a stability consideration.

Despite the controversy, the series is still available on various websites.

News reports about the controversy:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/society/2009-12/12/content_12634070.htm

Watch the show:
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTI1NzAyMjYw.html

Related story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/05/business/global/05yuan.html

Notes from China

traditional houses struggling to survive in a fast modernized city, Kunming

During my visit to China at the turn of the year, I had some interesting observations as well as experiences, and decided to document some of them.

Something New

The first time I finished a degree in the US and returned to China to find work, people in Beijing mostly showed admiration of my American education. I did get pretty good jobs and felt good of myself. That was in 2004. This time around, however, things were very different.

It seems like the ego of Chinese people has grown bigger over the years. They no longer look at people returning from overseas with high regard. On the contrary, they are more into reminding America-educated people that “not everything in the US is right.”

While visiting different cities and talking to different people, for a few times when I tried to comment situation in China by comparing with the US, I sensed resistance from the person I was talking to. So I started to avoid talking about America, unless I was asked about it, which also happened less frequently than five years ago. And frankly, to me, it was more interesting to hear people talking about what they were doing and what was happening in their life in China, than me telling them how things were in the States.

Something Unexpected

I have a few friends in Kunming who have been pretty well established: having decent jobs, getting promoted, and owning houses and cars. All in their thirties and college educated, they’re promising professionals: physician, court clerk, engineer, and accountant. Some of them work for government-related companies. They don’t deny that the single party ruling system has problems, but agree with each other that American-style democracy will not make things better in China.

“We all support the Communist Party,” they say. Millions of people who work directly or indirectly for the government feel the same way, they say. China is doing just fine, despite criticism from other countries, and they don’t want things to change too much.

What about human rights? What about corruption? Well, China is not perfect, they say, but neither is any country in the world. Besides, Chinese people are living a better life than people in many countries such as India or North Korea, in their view.

Having read a lot of news in western media, I’ve got the impression that China is full of crisis. But looking at and talking with people there made me realize that the CCP still has very strong appeal among Chinese people. Young professionals like my friends don’t like everything the party does, but certainly don’t want political overhaul in China.

After all, under the party’s rule, they have established their career, family and a good life. They don’t have that much demand for democracy, at least for now.

Something Impressive

two new houses built right next to each other, Xichuan

vendor-packed street in Xichuan

At least two things impressed me during this trip.

Supermarkets in Kunming, Yunnan no longer provide plastic bags for shoppers. People either have to purchase reusable bags, or bring their own. This is part of the effort pushed by the Kunming government to turn the city into an environment-friendly city. I’m impressed by the decisiveness and effectiveness of the government’s initiative.

Another thing impressed me was the chaos in a small town in Henan. Home to nearly 200,000 people, the rural town of Xichuan was a mess. Increasing number of cars packed in the streets, not stopping for pedestrians, not even for red lights. Everybody fought their way to move ahead, regardless of the traffic rules, as long as they didn’t kill each other. Multi-floor buildings were being built wherever they could set a foot on. They stood only an arm’s distance to each other, made already narrow allies even narrower, and turned the town into a dirt covered ghetto.

But what really impressed me was not the mess of this place, but its dynamics. Despite lack of order, this place was full of energy of growth. People were eager to make more money and enjoy better material life. More than once while I was walking in the streets, a door opened beside me and l saw a few women sitting in a narrow room weaving rugs, which was one of the newly developed business in the town. Stores of all kinds were everywhere, mostly individual owned. Many of them selling all kinds of household stuff for just 2 yuan each (30 US cents).

People were complaining about the chaos and the dirtiness, but continuing to do their business and make their living, full of enthusiasm, full of hope.

Something Astonishing

The sky-high real estate price in China is insane. In Beijing, everybody was telling me how housing price has doubled, tripled, or gone tenfold over the past decade. When I was working in Beijing in the early years of the 21st century, the price of 3000 yuan (US$440) per square meter sounded pretty high already. And today, one can barely find any property that’s below 10000 yuan (US$1470) per square meter.

I heard similar story in Chongqing and Kunming. Some people say there is huge bubble in China’s real estate market and the market will collapse some day, others believe the price could only go higher.

For people like me who are still studying overseas, such high housing price could well scare us away from returning to China to work after completing education. Like one lady recently returned to Beijing from the US told me: “a city like Beijing is no longer livable” because of the appalling real estate price.

Something Unchanged

a popular restaurant packed with eaters in Kunming

People. I mean, the amount of people. Having lived in the States for a few years, I have grown used to doing everything by myself: adding gas, filling out forms at the bank, throwing away trash when finish eating in a fast food restaurant. But in China, where there is always a labor surplus, there is always someone there to do things for me as a customer.

At the bank, despite the fact that I do read Chinese and understand how the number vending machine works, which is really simple, there is a clerk standing right beside the machine to press the button for me and hand me my waiting number. Similarly, in pretty much every fast food restaurant, McDonald’s included, there is someone collecting trash after a meal is finished.

It has always been like this, and I think it will continue to be this way. For better or for worse, average Chinese consumers receive more service on a daily basis than American consumers.

Victor Navasky Surprised by China

The website of CJR Chinese

Victor Navasky, the Director of the Delacorte Center for Magazine Journalism at Columbia University and chairman of the Columbia Journalism Review, recently talked with me about his trip to China last year.

Navasky went to China to celebrate the launch of the Chinese edition of the CJR, which was his first visit to the country.

While driving into Beijing, Navasky says he got the sense of a modern city filled with glass buildings, which “struck me as more modern than New York City.”

The next day, he discovered that just a couple of blocks away from the very modern city where his hotel was located, was the Forbidden City. Then he got a chance to visit the Great Wall, and saw pictures of poverty on the outskirts of Beijing. “It is the contrast that sums up the society,” Navasky says.

Besides the modernity and sharp contrasts in Beijing, Navasky says he was also surprised by two political phenomena. He had assumed that Chinese people would view America as the enemy. “But what I left with was the impression that Japan was still the enemy,” he says. During last year’s trip, he also visited the Nanjing Massacre Museum. “It is as powerful as the Yad Veshem, the Israeli museum of the Holocaust,” he says. “I would hate to be a Japanese person going through there.”

The second surprise had to do with mainlanders’ attitudes toward Taiwan. “I just assumed that the attitude towards Taiwan would be like the Miami Cubans’ attitude toward Castro’s Cuba, that they want nothing to do with it, that it is an illegal, undesirable society,” Navasky says. Once he was in China, he soon realized that was not the case. Instead, he said he saw a very active exchange, cultural and personal, between Taiwan and mainland China, with political disagreements.

Navasky, 77, is also the publisher emeritus of The Nation, for which he served as an editor and publisher for many years.

See the full article on China Digital Times.

Is China’s Society Really Advancing? Re: Prof. Gregory Chow

Prof. Chow's blog on sohu.com










The Chinese society has made great process in the past few decades and will sure continue to improve in the future. This is the view Gregory Chow (Zou Zhizhuang), professor emeritus of political economy at Princeton University, wrote in an article published in China Business News and also posted on his blog on sohu.com. This article is listed as the “Opinion Leader” piece on sohu blog homepage on Tuesday.

Seems to me, however, Prof. Chow’s argument is ambiguous at best.

First, he listed the criteria for judging social progress: people should feel that the society is better than the past; the public should obey the law and don’t do things that harm others; the public observes high moral standards, and is willing to help others, etc. Prof. Chow threw the standards out there without making the claim that the current Chinese society has achieved them. Maybe he was actually subtly criticizing the current situation, which perhaps makes more sense.

Indeed, millions of people are feeling that the society is getting worse: people are more selfish, youth don’t respect the elderly, government is nothing but corrupt. The list goes on and on. Also, who is to say that people really obey the law in China? If so, then how come counterfeit and fake goods have become the hallmark of China’s burgeoning market, so prevalent that even baby formula could not be exempt? And what about altruism? Well, people will laugh if someone tries to advocate for this idea. “Are you dumb?” They are going to ask.

Prof. Chow did, however, praise progresses made in the past few decades in the Chinese society, such as education. “I believe, the Chinese society will continue to advance,” he went on to say. Why? “Because the government and the public are making efforts in the aforementioned directions,” he wrote. So again, people are trying to achieve a good society as he depicted, but not quite there yet. His other reasons for being optimistic include China’s economic growth and a “sufficient number of” excellent individuals in China.

I appreciate his insights but not sure about his prescription. For one thing, society-wide corruption—government, business, even academia—is not something that could be resolved by a stronger economy or a few excellent individuals. And don’t forget that if China’s environment continue to deteriorate at the current rate, there is no future for the nation, no matter how much money, how many talents it will possess.

Of course, I may sound just too bleak. What I’m trying to say is that, yes, China’s society may well get better, but certainly more needs to be done.

Prof. Chow’s blog on sohu.com
http://zouzhizhuang.blog.sohu.com/132431943.html

Beijing’s New Health Care Reform Blueprint: Offering both Hope and Doubt

In setting up the new health care reform guideline, the Chinese government did the right thing by putting public interests before profit-making, and by striving for equality between rural and urban areas. 

Millions of Chinese people who have suffered in various ways from a twisted and corrupt health care system would probably feel relieved upon reading the news: at least on the paper, the government clearly stated that it is on our side. China’s vast group of farmers would probably hail the new reform plan as well, since it set the tone for setting up a health care system that will provide equal care to both urban and rural residents, limit drug prices and build more health care facilities in rural area, according to a story in the South China Morning Post. 

But a lot of people would not jump up and down on the new plan just yet. As Chinese people have learned over so many years and so many things, a good plan does not guarantee a good result. 

Yes, the government is now saying that public hospitals should no longer pursue profits as their priority and treat patients based on their ability to pay. But how to maintain or improve the quality of health care? 

The current plan is issued by the central government and serves as a guideline, while the local governments get to set up specific rules and regulations for hospitals to follow. Will local governments faithfully adhere to the line set by the government? Many people would doubt that because in many places, the local authorities no longer treat directions from the state government seriously. 

Even if good rules and regulations will be in place, no one can be sure that they will be well followed. Can the good rules get over bad officials who have their hands in all fields that could bring them extra cash and a bureaucratic system that is so corrupt? Will China’s medical education system produce enough practitioners with not only deft hands but also good hearts, who can therefore sustain a health care system that truly serves the public? 

On the surface, it sounds like a good thing that the government finally decided to intervene and do its part in fixing a corrupt health care system. At the same time, however, the reform nevertheless falls into the old circle of relaxing and tightening control, whereby the government relaxes rules to encourage reform in a certain area, only to rush to get the control back after market-oriented behaviors went awry and hurt the public. 

China’s health care system is now a big mess but can’t afford of being unfixed. In a society that is already threatened by all kinds of social conflicts, a sick health care system could only aggravate public grievance. Fixing it is a big challenge and it waits to be seen whether the Chinese government can meet the challenge.  

Street Talk: US Economic Recession Hit Chinese Village

Millions of migrant workers in China lost their jobs as a result of the US economic recession and had to return home




One thing that truly surprised me during my recent trip back to China was the big impact of the ongoing financial crisis, originated in the US and soon spread globally, on Chinese people’s life. As one local official in Henan told me, the financial crisis “affected even a brick plant in a village.”

How so? I couldn’t help but ask. “Well,” the official said, “because of the financial crisis, Americans are buying fewer goods from China, and therefore many Chinese plants closed. Many migrant workers lost their jobs and had no money to build new houses in their home village, and thus the decline of sales of bricks.”

Just by looking around, I couldn’t tell that the economic recession in the US had hit China hard. Restaurants in Beijing were full of eaters like always, while supermarkets were crowded and stuffed with plenty of products, so many that some of them piled up along the stairway. On the surface, Chinese people were living a happy and prosperous life and enjoying ever growing purchasing power. What I didn’t see, however, were the huge flow, usually in millions, of job-less migrant workers, from coastal and eastern area to their inner-land hometowns, which had become the No.1 headache for many local governments in the past couple of months.

One of my friends from Guangdong told me that one town there was practically lawless as unemployed migrant workers were robbing everyone they can in the streets. Such robberies were so common that local police no longer bother to launch any investigation or law enforcement effort. “They now only do something when people are murdered,” my friend said. In other places, local governments were trying everything they can to make sure that returning migrant workers can get a job or at least do not make trouble, people told me.

Hearing these stories made me wonder: is the US the only country in the world that had been buying products from China? Or is most stuff made in China actually made for American consumers? Maybe. The current economic crisis has been a strong testimony of the far-reaching impact of globalization, so much so that what happened in Wall Street would end up being reflected in a brick plant in a remote village half the world away.

Why Babies?!

San Lu formula was found contamined in a recent public health incident

I grew up in China getting used to fake and poor quality goods. They were just everywhere. I never expected my shoes, for example, to last more than one year, and most of the time did not assume the NIKE sweater I was wearing to be genuine. I learned not to trust certain products, such as health supplements, produced in China, and I probably would not purchas baby formula of Chinese brands had I had my baby in China.

If I somehow managed to live with poor quality clothes, shoes and appliances, since it is simply the reality of the market, I was always scared of fake drugs and contaminated food. But never before, was I so ashamed of China’s notorious fakes and counterfeits. This time, it was the melamine-tainted San Lu baby formula that killed four babies and sickened over 10,000.

While watching photos of little babies lying in hospital with IV sticking to their little head, my heart hurt. I can’t help but ask: what is wrong with our people? What made them so obsessed with making a little more money that they even harmed our little babies?!

There is an old saying in Chinese: even animals as cruel as tigers won’t hurt their own child. It is also common among wild animals to situate their young members in the very center of the entire group to protect them from predators. Needless to say, babies are the most precious human being. They are the future of every nation, every group of people. So how can someone ever try to make profits at the price of baby’s health, even life?

It is said that the melamine that harmed so many babies was likely added by people at the milk collection centers, where milk from dairy farms was sold to formula factories. It is appalling to realize that those people who actually put in the chemical may well know that the very milk they were poisoning would be used to make baby formula.

Aside from tightening regulations, removing high-profile officials, and arresting a bunch of bad guys, we as a nation should really ask ourselves: what went wrong? What makes us so ruthless in making money that we even hurt ill people, and now, babies? Just how deep we have fallen down the moral cliff? Can we ever climb up back?

There are some deeper and more severe problems of Chinese society way beyond sloppy market regulations, incapable officials and corruptions. When a nation starts to see its babies harmed on a large scale by its own adults, something is seriously wrong.

Dog-control Officers Show Off

The men in the photo are not officers from a SWAT unit, but newly geared-up dog-control police officers in Wuxi, Jiangsu, as part of the city's effort to put dog raising under control. They are demonstrating their new equipments in a public gathering marking the implement of the city's new regulations regarding dog raising.

http://news.sina.com.cn/c/p/2008-02-29/210015049585.shtml

More Foreigners Working in China

the Central Business District in Beijing is one of the places in the Chinese capital that see a large number of working foreigners

Nearly 180,000 foreigners were registered as working in China by the end of 2006, double the number three years before, according to a newly released official report.

The United States, Japan and Korea are the main origins of the foreign workforce in China. Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou took in about half of the workforce by the end of 2006, and the other half mostly gathered in big cities in Eastern China.

Most of the foreigners working in China are well-educated professionals, working in businesses such as service, manufacture, information technology and computer software. Many of them are senior executives, the report says.

http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2007-05-31/151713122427.shtml

Child Sexual Abuse in China Documented by Scholar

The book, titled "Shame of Sex ? Or Pain of Harm?"

The first social study report in mainland China about child sexual abuse was published recently. The author, education researcher Long Di, told Beijing Morning Post that the case of child sexual abuse is increasing in China.

There were 135 cases of girl’s rape reported to All-China Women’s Federation in 1997, and the number reached over 3000 in 2000, she said.

Ms. Long Di’s book documented the experience of six young girls from a northern China village who suffered sexual abuse. They were abused by their school teacher since the second grade for two years.

The six families finally reported to the police, but then some villagers started to gossip with exaggeration about the girls' experience, and some others prohibited their own children to socialize with those victims.

Ms. Long said in order to prevent sexual abuse of children, researchers need to study those sex offenders first, and listen to their stories. More education to increase the awareness of child sexual abuse among students is also necessary, she added.

Child sexual abuse has long existed in China but started to gain attentions from scholars and the public only in recent years. Victims, especially those in rural area, are often times too ashamed to report abuses to the police or officials in fear of losing their own and their family’s dignity. Many people still don’t see such abuse as a crime of the offender, but merely a shame of the victim.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/edu/2007-05/11/content_6084866.htm

Dog Rights VS Human Rights

An incident of burning dogs in the city of Nanjing drew nearly 17000 comments from web users on Thursday and triggered a huge debate about dog rights.

The behavior under fire took place on Wednesday, when a couple of people poured gasoline on two puppies and their mother and set their cave on fire. The dogs were homeless and had stayed for a few months in a corner of a garden in these people's housing compound. One of them said the dogs’ bark disturbed people’s sleep, local newspaper reported.

A witness tried to stop the fire, but one puppy was killed. Residents later called police. Messages on online forums said the surviving dogs were taken care of.

Condemnation of the burning dominated online comments on this incident. People called the act cruel, utterly inhuman or barbarous. Some say those who set the fire could have gone to jail if they were in some other countries.

“You could not like dogs, you could even hate them, but you have no right to take their lives because of your discomfort,” one comment read.

Not long after the debate broke out, a post appeared on tianya club forum written in the name of an old lady, who claimed that the dogs’ barking had forced her to increase the dose of her sleeping drugs but still kept her awake at night. The poster admitted that it was her neighbors who tried to burn the dogs to help her and that she was sorry about their behavior.

“It is a good thing that people have more awareness of animal protection and animals now have higher status,” the poster wrote. “However, please consider here: animals have their rights, but shouldn't people also have their rights as human? When human rights were hurt by animals, whose rights deserve protection more?”

Nevertheless, other web users questioned the true identity of the poster and still could not forgive the burning.

“If [you] think the dogs are disturbing, [you] could contact people at animal protection center to take care of them, or find someone to adopt them. Why use such cruel method to burn them?” One post responded.

There are also a handful of comments that do not take the burning as such a big deal and insist that China needs to focus on problems of people instead of dogs and cats.

“Those who think about dog rights, have you thought about human rights?” One commentator asked, and listed a series of threats homeless animals could bring to human, including carrying disease, barking at children and dropping excrement everywhere.

A harsh debate for animal rights like this was unimaginable in China just a couple of decades ago, when most Chinese people were largely concerned of their own livelihood. Material shortage and relatively poor living conditions left people with little heart to care about how animals around them were doing.

Recent years have seen more and more Chinese people, mostly affluent urban residents, keep pets like dogs and cats. Animal hospital and shelter have been set up in many places, although such resources are still far from abundant. Schools also carried out the so-called “love education,” instructing children to love small animals and respect lives.

Local news report on the incident
http://news.163.com/07/0426/04/3CVRPPTV00011229.html

Online comments
http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/Content/free/1/897547.shtml
http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/Content/free/1/897516.shtml

Students Hope to be Away from Internet Porn

Bad Internet content harms students


Students around China have voiced welcome to a nationwide crack down on Internet pornography, a campaign launched by the Chinese government this month.

They knew they are an easily tempted group and some of them have already suffered from viewing too much unhealthy content from the Internet.

A secondary school student in Anhui was addicted to Internet porn and his grades suffered significantly. To pay for the fees he owed to an Internet cafe where he viewed those sites, he went so far as to steal machine parts from a factory.

Eighteen-year-old Beijing boy Liu Wei once had similar experience, and told Xinhua that he now hates those “dirty stuff” on the Internet.

Traditional media in China, including print and broadcast, are relatively clean of sexutal content because of tight control of the government, and no porn publication store is allowed in China.

In contrast, the Internet has become perhaps the freest media in China, both in terms of expressing people’s opinions as well as publishing conventionally deemed inappropriate or provocative contents such as exposing pictures.

Even on popular websites like sohu.com, yahoo.com.cn and sina.com, which are accessible to just about any Internet user, there are always a few sexually explicit video clips or photos on the home page, in entertainment section or blogs. Students can view such content easily, and if going to an Internet cafe, they can further log on to some porn sites without much effort and almost free of surveillance.

Setting up porn websites and publishing pornography on the Internet is illegal in China, but in recent years, there were several serious incidents where porn sites targeting viewers in China were registered on overseas servers, but those who ran the sites, for making money, were Chinese citizens, sometimes teenagers. Among about a million registers of these sites, most were Chinese youth, according to state media.

Statistics show that by June 2006, there were over 80 million adolescent web users in China, out of the total of 123 million, and about 30 million were elementary and secondary school students who are extremely vulnerable to Internet porn.

In addition, some young people got involved in the so-called “nude chat” on the Internet, using cameras. Lately, technology development allowed new channels for filthy content to reach students, such as porn video games downloaded to cell phones.

The government, schools and parents, including students themselves, have grown very concerned about the problem, but not enough has been done to cope with it.

In this crack-down campaign, which will last for six months, the authorities will “clean up” videos, photos or fictions on the Internet that contain pornographic content. Meanwhile, the authorities will also target online information that “disturbs social order,” as well as online forums, chat rooms and blogs that are deemed having grey area in “management responsibility.”


About the crack-down campaign
http://news.xinhuanet.com/edu/2007-04/19/content_5995268.htm
http://edu.people.com.cn/GB/1054/5637785.html
http://news.tom.com/2007-04-13/OI27/34990413.html

Other stories about Internet porn problem in China
http://news.xinhuanet.com/edu/2006-09/01/content_5033303.htm
http://www.yn.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2006-09/11/content_8007062.htm
http://www.people.com.cn/GB/jiaoyu/1054/3098263.html

Virginia Tech Massacre Let Chinese Public Appreciate China’s Gun Ban

A photo on a Chinese news website with the caption reading "Chinese student suspected for Virginia Tech massacre"






The massacre at the Virginia Tech that left 33 people died has been one of the most discussed incidents among Chinese Internet users in the past 24 hours. Besides hundreds of comments expressing shock over the rampage and condolence for the victims, a large portion of the discussion touched on the issue of gun control.

Many Chinese people related the incidents to the widespread private ownership of guns in the United States. “[The U.S.] Better have ban on guns,” one commentator said.

They then started to feel fortunate that carrying gun is strictly prohibited for the general public in China, and the majority of the comments supported the ban.

“It is good that China has strictly controlled guns since the beginning [of the People’s Republic],” one wrote. “If China lifted the ban on guns, perhaps the number of people killed in China in one day will be equal to that in the US in a year,” another commented.

“Everyone having gun is just like everyone having no gun,” still another comment reads. “I don’t want that one day I walk on the street and get shot just because I take a look at a person who broke up with somebody.”

Although the United States remains an ideal society with democracy, freedom and justice for many Chinese people, quite a few posters used the massacre to criticize human rights situation in the US, since individual’s personal freedom and safety were not well protected even on a university campus.

“It is not heaven there,” one comment reads.

Earlier, a huge sensation rose among Chinese media and the public regarding a false speculation that the shooter was a Chinese student.

The gossip started with an article written by Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed, who wrote that a 25-year-old “Chinese national who arrived in the United States last year on a student visa” was being investigated for the shooting.

Before long, some Chinese newspapers in the United States and state-run China News Services picked up the story. Soon after, China’s major news websites such as sina.com and sohu.com also posted the story that a Chinese student was regarded as the suspect.

Information online even provided two specific names of the alleged killer, one with the surname Jiang, from Shanghai, and the other with the surname Guo, from Liaoning. Apparently the news, especially those in Chinese, had made it seem real that the shooter was from China.

Upon receiving such information, people in China started to post comments expressing feelings like “very sad” and “ashamed.” Some even tried to assess the reasons for such “extreme behaviors” of Chinese students studying abroad in the US, such as pressure to excel and the disparity between their high self-esteem and humble reality.

Still, many people kept hoping that the shooter was not Chinese and waited for almost a whole day for the final confirmation.

“We were all misled [by the news],” a poster web-named Mu Mu wrote in an online forum soon after Virginia Tech police confirmed the identify of the shooter as 23-year-old South Korean Cho Seung-Hui, who was a permanent resident in the U.S.

“[I am] Greatly relieved after hearing the news [confirming the shooter],” another one wrote.

The news on the website of China News Services, sina.com and sohu.com is now corrected. Some online comments based on the wrong speculation were also deleted.

Online discussions
http://forum.xinhuanet.com/detail.jsp?id=41961697&pg=2
http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/Content/free/1/892044.shtml
http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/Content/free/1/892049.shtml
http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/Content/free/1/892284.shtml
http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/Content/free/1/891971.shtml
http://club.cat898.com/newbbs/dispbbs.asp?boardID=1&ID=1604577&page=1
http://club.cat898.com/newbbs/dispbbs.asp?boardID=1&ID=1604716&page=1
http://club.cat898.com/newbbs/dispbbs.asp?boardID=1&ID=1603487&page=1

Speculations on shooter being Chinese
http://www.suntimes.com/news/sneed/344393,CST-NWS-SNEED17.article
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1664913.ece
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21571821-5001021,00.html

Update (8:45pm, April 17):
The links to the Sun-Times column and the Times story have been updated to the corrected version regarding the identity of the shooter. But a Google News search by "Chinese, Virginia Tech shooting/massacre" can still reveal the original headlines.

Update (10:27am, April 18)
Here is the blog of Mr. Wayne Chiang, a Chinese American and student of Virginia Tech who was wrongly thought as the shooter not long after it was said that the shooter was an Asian.
http://wanusmaximus.livejournal.com/

House Owners “Disappeared” after Nail House Demolished

The "most incredible nail house in history" being struck down

Wu Ping and Yang Wu seem to have disappeared along with their nail house, which was finally struck down on Monday night after the couple reached an agreement with real estate developers.

They accepted an offer of a same-size property at a different location as the exchange for the nail house, plus 900,000 yuan ($112,500) of compensation for their business loss due to the redevelopment construction.

Journalists, however, were not able to reach the couple for comments on the finale of their long and widely publicized fight for their property. Ms. Wu Ping, who was eager to talk to journalists in the past couple of weeks, turned off her cellphone, an action so unusual for the media-appealing lady that some journalists were concerned about her personal freedom. An official from Jiulongpo District Court, which facilitated the final agreement, assured the press that the couple “is absolutely free,” but simply too tired to talk to journalists.

Ms. Wu Ping and the developers resumed negotiation on March 25, but again refused to see each after failing to reach any agreement on the compensation plan. The breakthrough came along after Wu Ping met with the Party Secretary, the top leader, of Jiulongpo District on March 28. The two had a three-hour talk and after that, “Wu Ping’s attitude changed significantly,” officials briefed the press on Tuesday.

Right after an agreement was signed on Monday, Yang Wu left the nail house by himself, along with the national flag and the banner showing right-defending slogans.

In just a few hours, the famous nail house, which has been watched by the entire world and seen by many as the symbol of Chinese citizens’ resolution to fight for their property right, collapsed to the ground. The time was 10:36 pm.


Video of the demolishing
http://bbs.cqnews.net/dispbbs.asp?boardID=72&ID=53992&page=1

Video of the court’s press conference on Tuesday
http://cqtoday.cqnews.net/system/2007/04/03/000778057.shtml
http://cqtoday.cqnews.net/system/2007/04/03/000778236.shtml

News stories about the press conference
http://cqtoday.cqnews.net/system/2007/04/03/000777941.shtml
http://cqtoday.cqnews.net/system/2007/04/03/000777943.shtml

Nail House Demolishing Deadline Set, Yet Again

Huang Yun, chief of Jiulongpo District, showing a image of the redeveloped area at a press conference

The newest deadline for Yang Wu to leave and have his house removed is April 10.

This is the third time the local court issued such an order to Mr. Yang, and the two-story house is still standing while Mr. Yang is still staying in the building that has been vacant for more than two years, without running water and electricity.

The court ruled on March 19 that Mr. Yang should allow demolishing of his house by March 22. He did not. The case was then transferred to the court’s execution bureau, which ordered the house be removed by March 29. Yang again ignored the order. On March 30, the court sent him yet another notice, which was supposed to be the ultimatum for him to obey the court’s order. If he failed to do that again, the court will “carry out the demolishing forcibly at an appropriate time,” local officials told the media.

Negotiation is still under way. The crux of the conflict between Yang Wu and the real estate developer is how he should be compensated for his property.

Mr. Yang and his wife Wu Ping have refused to accept more than 2.4 million yuan ($300,000) of cash the developer would pay to them, but asked for an unit of the same position and area as their current property in the new business compound to be built on the same location, which happened to be a major commercial area in the city.

Local officials also said the couple asked for another 5 million yuan for the economic loss they suffered due to the redevelopment, since their house was used as a restaurant before the ground was broken, a condition the developer did not consent.

In recent conversations with journalists, Wu Ping has not insisted on the 5 million money request, only claiming that all she is asking is property on the same spot.

Chongqing officials brief the press
http://cqtoday.cqnews.net/system/2007/03/31/000776469.shtml

Investigative report by Southern Weekend
http://news.163.com/07/0329/11/3AOEIUAL00011SM9.html

Young Blogger Took on the Coverage of Chongqing Nail House

Other homeowners protesting on the site of the Chongqing nail house (left)
Looking at the construction site from a nearby light rail station (right)

While the Chinese public is hungry for the latest update about the Chongqing nail house after the mainland media were largely squelched in their coverage, thanks to a young and restless blogger, people are now satisfied with on-site reporting published online.

Being perhaps the first non-journalist blogger in China to do original field reporting, Zola Zhou, a 26-year-old Hunan native, boarded a train on Monday and arrived in Chongqing early Wednesday “like a crazy rock,” on his own expense.

“News sensitivity and the desire to become famous overnight” brought him to Chongqing, he writes in his blog entry. By asking around, he found his way to the construction site where the nail house was still standing.

On Wednesday afternoon, he met Wu Ping. “Seeing her with my own eyes, [I] do not think she looks like a tough spicy girl [Chongqing women are nick-named “spicy girl” for their well-known pungent style], but an intelligent and well-mannered intellectual,” Mr. Zhou wrote. “[She] talked appropriately, like an experienced spokeswoman.”

He only had a two-minute conversation with Ms. Wu, who told him that despite the widespread rumor about her special background, the only background she had was “the law.” She also told Zhou to “be careful of health and safety.”

“Her heart is calm and strong, and deserves my trust and support,” Mr. Zhou wrote in his blog, published sometimes via his cellphone right on the scene.

Interestingly enough, Mr. Zhou met other home owners from Shanghai, Guangzhong, Zhuhai, Chengdu and Xi’an, who gathered at Wu Ping’s property site to propagate their own story of losing homes to redevelopment projects, since this place has attracted many journalists, domestic and foreign.

These people brought over pictures of their demolished houses, documents proving their legitimate rights to the properties and signs denouncing the government or claiming their own rights. A man from Xi’an even gave a public speech at the construction site, opposing the use of “nail house” on those who defend their properties, Mr. Zhou reported. Local people also told him that several cameras were installed in the trees and on the walls surrounding the site.

But what he reported is not as extraordinary as the reporting journey itself.

His action has won almost universal support in China’s cyberspace. Hundreds of people left comments on his blog and other sites that republished his posts, among which the words “support,” “be safe” and “be careful” appear most frequently. His readers apparently are concerned that he may get into trouble with the authorities.

Mr. Zhou is hailed by many as a grassroot hero as well as a “citizen journalist,” or “independent journalist.” Some praised Zhou as making history among Chinese bloggers by doing such original reporting, and called his endeavor revolutionary.

People expressed their disappointment and distrust of official media, while placing on Mr. Zhou their hope of getting the true story of the incident. “Now only such an individual media like you is trust worthy,” a web user named Jorin writes.

Another poster says he heard rumors that the house has been demolished, only to find the information untrue after reading Zhou’s report.

“Keep digging deep, looks like [I] can only know the truth from you,” a poster named HP writes.

People not only give him emotional support, but material one, too. By Thursday, supporters have wired about 1700 yuan (more than $200) to Zhou's bank card and telephone card. “I am not alone,” Zhou writes.

Currently not employed, Mr. Zhou has been spending a lot of time maintaining several websites of his own. He had received some computer skill training but never went to college. He described himself as an optimistic guy, “willing to help those who are really in need,” and aiming at becoming a “righteous, strong and dare-to-dream man with money.”

This young man has also been influenced by the entertaining spirit of the media culture in Hunnan, and claims his website to “entertain the mass,” a task he has well fulfilled with the field reporting from Chongqing.

(photos courtesy to Zola Zhou)

Zhou’s Chongqing journal
http://www.zuola.com/weblog/?p=750
http://www.zuola.com/weblog/?cat=11
http://www.zuola.com/weblog/?cat=11&paged=2

Photos taken by Zhou in Chongqing
http://www.fotolog.com.cn/allsize.f?photoid=1673375

Some Online Coverage of the Nailhouse still Alive

After the official ban on news coverage of the holdout in Chongqing was issued on Saturday, news broken by a Chinese blog, the special section about the incident on sina.com.cn is no longer there.

However, a couple of websites covering the holdout is still accessible on people.com.cn, one of the major state-run gateway websites, which is supposed to follow official publicity guidelines.

Similar coverage is also available on some commercial websites like NetEasy and sohu.com, by the time this post is published.

Here are the links:

people.com.cn
http://finance.people.com.cn/GB/1045/5510689.html
http://unn.people.com.cn/GB/14748/5513146.html

other sites:
http://news.163.com/07/0324/14/3ABVC5LQ0001124J.html
http://news.sohu.com/20070324/n248944151.shtml

the ban on press coverage
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2007/03/chinese_government_forbidden_media_reports_about_the_na.php

Family Killed Officials and Refused to be Relocated

Ms. Wu Ping held an impromptu press conference next to her disputed property (left)

The house in question: the only one left on the construction site (right)

The episode of a Chongqing couple’s prolonged struggle of refusing to have their house demolished is not over yet, while a family in Jiangsu allegedly killed two people for the same kind of dispute: home demolishing and relocation.

On Thursday, Ma Xueming, a Suzhou resident, allegedly attacked and killed Zhang Jinlong, a manager of a relocation company, along with a female local community administrator, and injured another man from the company. The three people came to Ma's home to talk about compensation plan for demolishing his property and relocating his family due to a development project.

Mr. Ma were said to threw lime powder at the visitors and then stabbed them, witnesses told a local newspaper.

Police took away Mr. Ma, his wife and a teenager son right after the incident. The family was the only one yet to be relocated in the village, because they had not reached a compensation agreement with the real estate developer.

People who knew the family said they were quiet and honest people, and that it was “inconceivable” that they would take such “extreme actions,” local newspaper reported.

Upon reading the story, many web users point out that people in Suzhou are usually good-tempered. Now that even such nice people also start to violently resist relocation for real estate development is a signal that such practice has aroused huge public resent.

Most people don’t agree with the killing, but many express sympathy for the Ma family as well as their own hatred of government officials and relocation company personnel who often force people to move.

Many call the incident a tragedy, some compare Ma’s action with communist revolutionaries’ rebellion over half a century ago, and still some see the incident as yet another indicator of people’s fury against the government, who, as put in one comment, “has become the accomplice of real estate developers for the red and green paper [money bills].”

“The volcano is about to explode,” one posted a comment as saying.

“If real estate developers and local governments still don’t rein in on the brink of the precipice, more similar incidents will continue to occur around the country…and constantly undermine harmonious society,” another one writes.

“This is a typical case of [the result] of power overshadowing law. Grass-root people have no power and can only fight with death,” still another says.

The Suzhou incident was by no means the first time people died in conflicts regarding relocation. Two years ago, for example, an old couple in Shanghai was burnt to death in the house they refused to move out to make way for a development project. Shanghai government later announced that the arsonists were people from a local relocation company.

Meanwhile, a lot of public attention is still on the story in Chongqing.

The deadline of Thursday, which was set by a local court for Yang Wu and his wife Wu Ping to allow demolishing their house, passed without much happening. Construction workers have set up fences around Yang’s standing-alone property to stop people other than him, his wife and journalists from coming close. The couple tried to move back to live in the house a few days ago. They haven't lived there for about two years.

According to Chinese law, the court will enforce its ruling under coercion if Mr. Yang failed to obey it, but the court has yet taken any action. Court officials told state media that the court needed some time to carry out the enforcement. Wu Ping also told a dozen of journalists from around China that she was willing to give up her house if an agreement could be reached.

Suzhou killing
http://paper.people.com.cn/jnsb/html/2007-03/23/content_12642385.htm

Online comments
http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/Content/free/1/879734.shtml
http://comment4.news.sina.com.cn/comment/skin/default.html?channel=gn&newsid=1-1-12589815&style=0

Chongqing conflict
http://finance.people.com.cn/GB/1045/5510689.html
http://news.sina.com.cn/z/cqzndzh/index.shtml

2007 NPC, CPPCC Journal, Day 7

Mr. Han Deyun


Suggestion on Abolishing “Illegal Cohabitation” Triggered Debate

The proposal of abolishing the notion of “illegal cohabitation,” referring to man and woman living together without legitimate marriage, has triggered harsh debate among China’s web-using public, who is widely divided on this issue.

Han Deyun, an American-educated lawyer representing Chongqing in the National People’s Congress, said during the meeting that “the concept of illegal cohabitation should now disappear from people’s life,” China Youth Daily reported.

He said that the term was coined at the end of the 1980s in order to denounce couples living together without marriage, and was more of a moral censure than legal judgment. At that time, when such cohabiting became a surging trend, the society was largely intolerant with such a behavior.

The notion of “illegal cohabitation,” according to Mr. Han, does not make much sense in legal terms and China’s Marriage Law does not prohibit man and woman living together without marriage. Mr. Han suggested replacing the term with “invalid marriage.”

Commenting on Mr. Han’s view in sina.com.cn forum, people agreed with him almost as much as they did not.

Those applauded Mr. Han’s suggestion held that it is not reasonable to define as “illegal” something “so normal and widely existing.”

Indeed, Chinese society has been much more tolerant with dating couples, both not married, living together without officially tying the knot. “If based on mutual-agreement, it [living together] should be protected [by law],” reads one comment. “In the future, such a situation where a dating couple is deemed as illegally living together should absolutely never happen again.”

Another poster agrees, “Although [living together before getting married] contradicts old traditional moral views, it does not go against the new ones…. Such phenomena have been accepted by many parents.”

As put in one comment, many people now consider living together as “personal freedom” and “very romantic.”

Many other people, however, not only disagreed with abolishing “illegal cohabitation,” but proposed changing the Marriage Law to make cohabitation outside existing legitimate marriage “really illegal,” such as keeping mistresses. They said the concept should stay to identity those married people who live with someone other than their spouses.

There are also comments warning that learning too much openness and freedom from Western society is not good. “The West is advanced in science and technology, but not all culture copied from the West is good.”

http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2007-03-11/053912484378.shtml

Online Comments
http://comment4.news.sina.com.cn/comment/skin/default.html?channel=gn&newsid=1-1-12484378&style=0

Highlight
Wu Bangguo, Chairman of NPC standing committee, delivered his work report of the standing committee on Sunday. He discussed issues like the supervising power of the NPC, and reviewed several law revisions, including the Compulsory Education Law. http://webcast.china.com.cn/webcast/created/1130/34_1_0101_desc.htm
http://news.sina.com.cn/pc/2007-03-12/326/143.html

Street Vendors Gained Permission in Major Cities: A Governing Approach Turnabout

Street vendors in China

The city of Chongqing is preparing to carry out new policies allowing street vendors to do their business, after decades of banning and cracking down on them, city newspapers reported.

The city government said recently that some back streets and alleys in the city will be open to street vendors within this year, with more than 10,000 spots already in plan, providing over 15,000 jobs. To get a spot, applicants should be laid-off workers of government or state-owned enterprise, low-income people and migrant workers, according to local newspapers.

The city government will obtain consent from local residents before setting up vendor spots in an area, and will set regulations for facilities and business hours of these spots. Certain procedures, such as road occupation permission and sanitation examination, are also required.

Just a few days ago, Shanghai government revealed similar policy initiatives, allowing street vendors in certain areas and certain hours, which is expected to take effect in the second half of this year, China Central Television reported.

The public has praised such a turnabout of the administrative approach of city governments, which have often handled their unfavored matters like street vendors with just one rule: prohibition.

In most Chinese cities it is illegal for individuals to just get out on the streets, set up a stand and sell stuff, because the city government says they block roads, cause traffic jam and create lots of trash, compromising the government’s efforts to beautify the city and improve traffic.

Tens of thousands of people, however, mostly unemployed urban residents and migrant workers, make a living by doing such trade. There are no less than 50,000 such street vendors in Shanghai alone, Xinhua reported.

For decades, street vendors and city patrol officers have been playing the cat-and-mouse game, mostly resulting in the vendors being chased away, fined, or having their goods confiscated. In several incidents, such confrontations evolved into assaults or violence, leaving either the vendors or the officers injured or even dead.

But the vendors keep coming back, because they lack other ways of surviving and they do have a market. Urban residents like the convince and great bargain offered by the vendors, who usually sell fresh vegetable, fruits or other small goods right in front of residential buildings, at very low prices.

“Actually many street vendors in residential areas are welcomed by residents,” a Shanghai city official was quoted by Xinhua as saying. “It is better to allow some options than to completely ban [street vendors].”

Most of the public reactions toward the new approach hailed it as a wise policy, a good move toward building a harmonious society, an idea fostered by President Hu Jintao.

“This is no doubt a return to the idea of serving the people,” writes blogger Zhou Minghua.

“Absolutely support!” Another poster wrote at sina.com forum. “This is an embodiment of [the government] letting the poor to survive.”

But not everyone likes the new policy. Some people posted comments on the sina.com forum to express concerns that the ban lift could bring dirty streets and traffic jams. There are also voices calling on the city of Beijing not to follow suit.

Still some are more reserved in singing the praise. “It is indeed a bit of progress, but it is too early to draw conclusion of the outcome,” one comment reads.

----by Josie Liu

Chongqing story
http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2007-03-01/020512395094.shtml

Shanghai story

http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2007-02-26/221612375408.shtml

Comments:

http://blog.sina.com.cn/u/545e6ea4010007mt

http://news.sina.com.cn/c/pl/2007-02-27/000112375519.shtml

http://comment4.news.sina.com.cn/comment/skin/default.html?channel=gn&newsid=1-1-12370430&style=0