So my Inbox is overflowing. Saw the game earlier today — not bad, by the way. Best part was knowing that one of the players on the field is actually older than me (Matt Stover, kicker, 42).

I also had to devote a bit of this evening to my catsitting responsibilities. My wife and I are watching two cats (sort of a catsitting exchange program) over the holiday for a young couple who are going back home for the week. So we’re dealing with four cats who don’t know each other — rather tense situation at the moment requiring constant vigilance to avoid bloodshed.

Anyway, I wanted to point out at the beginning of the week that from now until about two weeks or so later, not all that much is going on here. We are squarely in holiday mode here, and while the traffic is horrible and the shopping is frantic, news will no doubt slow down a bit.

It’s weird timing. No sooner than I saw this from Danwei:

The fireworks craziness - to celebrate the Chinese new year - starts today and won’t end until Lantern Festival (元宵节) which this year falls on February 28.

than I starting hearing the explosions outside. That means from now on, it’ll sound like a freakin’ war zone out there. If I wanted to live in Oakland, I’d move back to California.

One other comment on the holiday season. I had the distinct displeasure of spending a few hours yesterday at the local Carrefour supermarket. The place is crowded most times, but yesterday it was hopping, full of pre-holiday shoppers.

Bleah. It was awful. I was battered about the legs and ass from people shoving shopping carts against me in a rude attempt to push me out of the way. That’s normal, but yesterday there were more people, all of whom were frantically scooping up boxes of chocolate, fruit, etc.

We came away with the basics: a couple tiger-themed paper things to put up on the door, plus a big fuzi. Gave the dui lian a pass this year — couldn’t find one we liked. I was amused to see that Pooh and Tigger were prominent on many of the knick-knacks (I suspect without license from Disney, but what’s new?).

I probably have PTSD from the whole shopping experience, so once the holiday is over, I will begin the search for a good therapist.

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For example, the latest announcement from the Supreme People’s Court:

An official from the Supreme People’s Court clarified Friday that the crackdown on pornography on mobile phones targets those who “sext” to the public, not to each other.

OK, good to know. But do we really have to use the term “sext” to convey that information? Sure it’s a nice short word, and therefore much more efficient than “sexually explicit short message sent by mobile device.” I get that, I really do. But consider the lexis here and the collateral grammar damage.

First, we have the unfortunate use of the term “sex” itself. I got over this one a number of years ago, but remember that back in a more simple time, we used to say “sexual relations,” as in “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” A polite, almost innocent phrase, “sexual relations” suggests a meaningful relationship, or at the very least, a dinner and a movie was involved before the individuals in question got down to the business at hand. Or mouth. Or groin. Whatever.

Contrast this with “sex,” a lifeless word that takes the imagination down dark alleyways where proles hopped up on hormones hump away up against grimy, soot-covered brick walls, desperately trying to get their minds off their drab, Dickensian existence. It’s all so vulgar and cheap.

To make matters worse, we have the fictional verb “to text.” I don’t know about you, but I was taught that “text” was a noun, meaning words, the body of a manuscript, etc. You can’t just take a noun and pretend it’s suddenly a verb, that violates the laws of time and space. Doing the opposite is permissible — that’s a gerund, and the practice is officially sanctioned by the grammar deities.

Taking the vulgar term “sex” and marrying it to the lexical abomination that is the “verb” text results in the Lovecraftian monstrosity “sext,” a hideous manifestation of modern English that should be locked away in the lexical equivalent of an eldritch tomb (even better if the tomb is noisome, covered in ichor (or squamous), in a cyclopean graveyard). Makes my skin crawl just to think about it.

To be fair, use of these terms in China-based English publications is understandable. The editors and writers are simply taking the lead from Western sources. And I’m not so rigid as to suggest the imposition of a draconian and never-changing dictionary to be overseen by some sort of English-language Ordnungsdienst.

That might be taking things a bit too far. That being said, there should be some limits on quick adoption of new language that offends the natural order of things.

Oh yeah, and you can stop worrying so much about sexting. The court said you wouldn’t get arrested or anything.

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Chinese food and agricultural experts said no evidence has proved genetically-modified crops are unsafe for people and the environment.

Huang Dafang, director of Biotechnology Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said Friday that the genetically-modified crops are of great significance to the sustainable development of agriculture and China’s competitiveness in global arena.

“It could help increase the output to ease the food supply strain caused by the shrinking of farmland,” Huang said.

China has been interested in GM crops for a long time from a food security standpoint. At the rate that arable farmland is being parceled off to developers at rock bottom prices to build much needed {cough, cough, bullshit, cough} shopping malls. luxury condos, cement factories and hotels, someone better start figuring out a way to grow wheat off of concrete.

The U.S. has been in the GM food biz for decades. The big trade obstacle has been the EU, which has insisted that the WTO allows them to block “frankenfood” when it fails to meet reasonable hygiene/safety standards. The science behind all of this is highly debatable of course. This has led to some very entertaining WTO case law, giving students countless hours of fun trying to unravel the logic of rulings from panels and appellate decisions — such fond memories.

The U.S. would love to export GM food to the EU. China is looking to move into GM food in a big way. You can be sure that if they get really good at it (i.e. develop some valuable patents) in the future, they will want to export as well. And why not? Doesn’t everyone secretly want to eat frankentofu and steamed genetically-modified-pork buns?

So here’s the idea. GM food presents common ground for the U.S. and China, and it also comes with a common enemy, the EU. What more do you need?

I can see it now: joint US-China conferences on the benefits of GM food (sponsored by Monsanto and ADM, natch), renewed calls for the intractable Europeans to recognize the “good science” that says GM food is safe, dueling Op/Eds in People’s Daily and the New York Times about how GM food is a marvel of modern science destined to feed the world’s hungry.

It’ll be beautiful, man. The yellow man and the pasty white man will once again sit together at a metaphorical campfire and sing Kumbaya. I’m choking up just thinking about the brotherhood and all that crap.

Look, China and the US have some sizable disagreements on some very important global issues at the moment.

Solidarity and amicable relations are important. A “trust building” issue needs to be found, and quickly. For better relations, the GM food issue is tailor made (well, poor choice of words there at the end, but you get my point).

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It’s not that I hate pandas. I recall going to see the little panda cub at the D.C. zoo a few years ago. Cute little bastard.

(Note: I use the term “bastard” in the strict sense as I do not believe that the cub’s parents were, in fact, married at the time he was born. Despite the fears of American conservatives, panda marriage has yet to be legalized in the United States.)

I am slightly bored by the ungodly number of articles written about the pandas, though, including the hopelessly cute revelation that one or more will be tutored in Chinese upon arrival here. Within weeks, no doubt, its language skills will be better than mine. Nice to know.

In my spare time today, I’ve been able to catch up on the cess pool that is the U.S.-China bilateral relationship. You know, I’ve been writing about that topic for a number of years now, and it’s suddenly popular. Apparently my writing peaked a few years too early.

I might mention something in a subsequent post about the trade dispute over U.S. chicken parts. New development but old story, so we’ll see if the spirit moves me.

So was today entirely boring? Not quite. I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure out the following puzzle. Imagine you are a tourist from Shenyang (in the Northeast, also known as the Pittsburgh of China) coming to Beijing during Spring Festival with three school-age kids in tow. You only have a limited number of days to spend here — where do you go?

I have no beef with several choices, including the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square and Tian Tan. I would add the Summer Palace and the Forbidden City to the short list.

The person in question says no need to go to the Summer Palace or Forbidden City. They’d rather see the Bird’s Nest and Huanlegu amusement park (a/k/a Happy Valley). I’m just trying to wrap by brain around those choices. I got nothing, and I’m frying synapses at a rate that usually accompanies ingestion of copious amounts of Tequila.

Granted, I’m a shitty tourist even under the best of circumstances. But Huanlegu instead of the Forbidden City? For shame!

Keep in mind that this tourism issue was the high point of my Saturday. This should tell you something about my social life.

Have a nice weekend.

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In the latest edition, which is ostensibly a diatribe against the U.S. government’s budget (a productive discussion during a recession, huh?), Will stumbles upon the facts that: Americans are living longer, and health care for old people costs more.

Pardon my language, but what a fucking genius.

So the U.S. will be spending a lot on health care in the future. What does this have to do with China? Will quotes economist Robert Fogel’s recent article in Foreign Policy:

It carries the headline “$123,000,000,000,000.” Fogel’s subheadline is: “China’s estimated economy by the year 2040. Be warned.”

Why should we be warned? Oh right, I forgot. Zero sum game, and all that. George Will is firmly stuck in Cold War land, so any rise by China must mean something terrifying for the U.S. Got it. Let’s move on.

He expects that by 2040 China’s GDP will be $123 trillion, or three times the entire world’s economic output in 2000. He says China’s per capita income will be more than double what is forecast for the European Union. China’s 40 percent share of global GDP will be almost triple that of the United States’ 14 percent.

I haven’t checked any projections by sane sources (i.e. economists not affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute or an investment bank) lately, but don’t those forecasts smell a little bullshitty to you? It’s either that or my cat (sitting two feet away from me at the moment) is having tummy problems again and polluting the air.

Fogel finds many reasons for this, including the increased productivity of the 700 million (55 percent) rural Chinese. But he especially stresses “the enormous investment China is making in education.”

Yes, China is spending a lot of money on education. It still has a lot of ground to make up and is a long way from having schools that can turn kids into creative thinkers, but the government is trying. All that being said, I somehow don’t think that Fogel, or Will, understand the challenges facing China over the next few decades.

Using China’s education spending to argue for a decrease in U.S. spending is, however, a bit illogical, even for a retard like George Will (oops! We’re not supposed to use that word anymore). If the U.S. government did things his way, they would cut Medicare and Social Security and move towards a balanced budget. You would assume that this would free up money to spend on education, which the U.S. apparently needs to do more of to keep up with those clever Chinese.

But you’d be wrong. George Will would never advocate an increase in federal spending on education. Talking about China’s investment in this area was entirely disingenous as he doesn’t support the same thing in the U.S.

No, he just wants to use the spectre of a rising China to frighten people into cutting social services, his longstanding policy position.

Good job, George. If you had only thrown in a few more irrelevant statistics, maybe I would have been so sleepy that I would have ignored your blather entirely.

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Everyone is in a tizzy over the supposed downturn in U.S.-China relations. (See here, here, and here.) The rhetoric is heating up on both sides, and new issues of contention appear to pop up daily.

[ . . . ]

Frankly, the potential for a full-blown deterioration in relations between our two countries has been grossly overblown. There is nothing new here. We are merely witnessing the reality of the U.S.-China relationship, which is marked by almost no trust, a weak foundation of real cooperation, and a lack of shared values and commitment to true compromise.

[ . . . ]

The only “new” issue on the table is the Chinese cyberhacking of Google, a number of major American companies and think tanks, and Chinese dissidents…and even that is probably not all that new. We just didn’t know about it.

Read the article in full at the CFR site.

For me, I’m not so much worried about the bilateral tension. I’m pissed off at the stupid rhetoric itself making things worse. I totally agree that everyone is getting into a tizzy (haven’t heard that word used in a while, but it fits) over very “normal” points of bilateral contention. Even the “new” stuff, the Google dispute, is not so much new as newly discovered.

None of these issues freaks me out, but there have been quite a few stupid moves on both sides to comment on - the Taiwan weapons sale is just one example. These are not so much evidence of a catastrophic downturn in bilateral relations, but they are a signal that the two sides are not moving closer together.

I would also caution calm. If nothing else, when folks panic, they tend to make even more irresponsible and inflammatory statements about the other side. Stopping a downward spiral into IR oblivion sounds like a good idea.

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I have a two-part question, and just a brief statement of the issue. We have lost 2.3 million jobs as a result of the trade imbalance with China between 2001 and 2007. The remedies to save those jobs are very ineffective — long delays, proceedings before the International Trade Commission, subject to being overruled by the President.

OK, let’s stop there. Specter identifies a problem, the trade imbalance. This is mostly due to very large structural economic issues related to China’s currency regime, fixed asset investments, and export policy, not to mention the U.S. fiscal deficit.

But instead of recognizing this, Specter goes on to talk about bilateral dispute mechanisms. He calls these “remedies,” implying that these procedures have been put into place to save jobs, and says that they are “ineffective.” At bringing jobs back to the U.S.?

What an amazingly idiotic and dishonest bit of populist bullshit.
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The increase in inequality in China has leveled off in recent years and could be less severe than previously thought, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says, suggesting that Beijing is starting to make progress in tackling one of its biggest social problems. (WSJ)

The income gap has been one of the big problems with China’s high growth over the past couple of decades. In the past few years, it has seemed like during the boom times, the rich get richer (and the poor move upwards much more slowly), while during tough times like last year, the rich still do OK (and the poor take the hit). So the income gap has widened continuously.

The OECD data must come as great news by Hu Jintao and the PRC leadership. What will most likely be the big legacy of Hu will be his attempt at rebalancing the economy and managing growth. The driving econ policy of the past couple of years has moved away from growth-at-all-costs to a managed growth that takes things like the income gap and environmental issues into account.

Is this data evidence that the Hu and Wen rebalancing effort has been successful? Way too early to tell, but it definitely provides evidence to bolster their position.

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If an interpreter is really good, he/she fades into the background. During a negotiation or business meeting, it’s like the interpreter wasn’t there at all. This is extremely difficult, but the really good ones can manage it.

I don’t think I’ve ever come across a lawyer, their language skills notwithstanding, that is also an exceptional interpreter. Well, perhaps one or two exceptions. Generally, lawyers are too headstrong and knowledgeable to allow themselves to merely be a conduit, even junior associates translating for a partner.

Lawyers will almost always get involved in the conversation, interject their own opinion, or otherwise interrupt the flow. It’s incredibly annoying. Although I tell every single lawyer I’ve ever sent out to a client meeting, Board meeting, negotiation, etc. for the purposes of translating that they should not be an active participant in the discussion unless absolutely necessary, they almost always do so.

Nothing gets a client more pissed off than when their translator gets into a five minute discussion with the opposing party in a negotiation and fails to let the client know what’s going on. Moreover, when both the opposing party and the translator are Chinese nationals and the client is a foreigner, they almost always think that something untoward is going on and that they are somehow conspiring against the poor foreigner. Silly, perhaps, but is happens very often.

This isn’t to say that I wouldn’t love, and prefer, working with an interpreter who not only knows the language very well, but can walk the line between giving valuable advice to the client on the one hand and being as unobtrusive as possible on the other — I just don’t see those kinds of skills that often.

In fact, the more intelligent an interpreter is and the more experience they have with business or law, the more likely they are to be an active participant in the discussion. It’s tough to hit the sweet spot.

Dan also reposts a Ten Do’s and Don’ts list for Chinese/English interpreters that is kind of interesting. Of the ten items, I find the first one weird:

1. DON’T say have fun. The phrase “having fun” or any other derivative of it, “have fun” “had fun”, does not translate into Chinese. Culturally, it’s simply not a concept that resonates with Chinese people. It’s not that Chinese people don’t enjoy a good time, it’s that they don’t value fun as much as an English speaker might.

I think something got lost in the translation here, ’cause I don’t understand that at all. First, I’m trying to figure out when I would use “have fun” in a business context anyway. Can’t think of an example.

Second, Chinese people talk about “fun/play” very often, so the “does not translate” is puzzling. In fact, in English when we might say “I’m going to the mountains this weekend to go hiking,” a Chinese person might say “I’m going to the mountains this weekend to have fun.” Maybe I’m missing something here?

Third, and most bizarre, is the notion that “Chinese people don’t value fun as much as an English speaker might.” Huh? I think this makes no sense at all, but if anything, I think Chinese people value fun more than some Westerners. I know some industries in America where people having a lot of fun (e.g. vacation time, time out of the office) is frowned upon and seen as a weakness. One example would be American lawyers, unfortunately.

Anyway, good topic. Everyone over here has a good interpreter story to tell. By the way, the folks who are licensed to do simultaneous translation are amazing. I have always kind of been in awe of that ability — it appears to be insanely difficult.

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Three people have been arrested in China in a fresh crackdown on melamine-tainted milk products, police said Wednesday.

Zhang Wenxue, general manager of the Lekang Dairy Co. Ltd. in Weinan City, in Shaanxi Province, Zhu Shuming, a vice general manger of the company and a workshop director, and Ma Shuanglin, a milk powder dealer in Weinan’s Linwei District, were charged with manufacturing and selling food that does not meet hygiene standards, said Xu Qiang, deputy director of the Shaanxi Provincial Public Security Department. (China Daily)

That’s more like it. More of that, please, lots more.

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Chinese intellectual property rights (IPR) authorities said on Wednesday that information transmission on the Internet should be prevented if it is found to be violating China’s IPR regulations, especially copyright, referring to the Google issues in China.

Yin Xintian, spokesman of the State Intellectual Property Office, said that it had been China’s consistent stance.

He was responding to a question about Google’s threat to retreat from China over Internet management disputes, at a press conference on the amendment to the implementation rules of the Patent Law.

“Information flow on the Internet should follow the basic principle of respecting and protecting the intellectual property rights of others,” he said. (Xinhua)

1. Why did someone ask a question about Google to a SIPO spokesman who was talking about the Patent Law Implementing Regs? (FYI, SIPO is China’s Patent Office with no authority over copyright matters.)

2. Regarding the answer, what does this copyright dispute have to do with Google’s complaints over censorship and Gmail hacking?

3. Why is the SIPO person alleging, in a way, that Google is somehow not respecting IP rights? Is this some sort of equivalence argument? (i.e. “Google’s hands are not clean, they should shut up)

The “It’s OK to pile on Google” message appears to have gotten out there.

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Let’s hope it’s worth it. I’ve already heard that the story itself is kinda lame, derivative, and preachy, and the 3D has me nervous ’cause my wife is prone to motion sickness.

But I’m a sucker for peer pressure, and the damn thing is ultra-popular.

I will update later with bitching and/or raving as is appropriate.

UPDATE: No raves, some minor bitching.

Thumbs up on the motion capture and overall graphics tech. Very well done but hard to describe. My best compliment here is to say that I “bought into” the reality of Pandora immediately and never thought about it as CGI. Same with the blue people. I’m not sure I’ve ever been able to say that for another heavily-CGI movie.

On the other hand, I kind of feel that using that powerful tech just to make ten foot tall blue people is kinda lame. You could have used real actors with body paint and CGI tails, although I understand that integration with the rest of the CGI would have been more difficult.

I guess my point is that I expect some future creative genius to use this new tech in a much more creative way.

Also, I was pleased to see that the 3D was unobtrusive. I think my last 3D experience was Captain Eo at Disneyland (Google it) in the ’80s. Back then, 3D meant having things pop out at you to justify the tech.

OK, the bad stuff. The story wasn’t horrible, just incredibly boring. The movie was shot in 3D, but the story was 1.5D at best. Character development was sorely lacking.

This was a classic Noble Savage type of story (the genre is centuries old in the West). I don’t like the genre even when done well (absolutely hated Dances With Wolves), and this wasn’t done particularly well. Character development was nearly nonexistent (the main character is supposed to have some sort of conversion regarding the native folks).

The whole rite of ascension bit was a yawner. The only good thing I can say about it is that riding a dragon looks like more fun than hitching a ride on a huge Sandworm. (OK, this movie was a hell of a lot better than the film version of Dune.)

The movie was painfully politically correct from a Lefty point of view. You had the Noble Savage genre to begin with, then there was some environmentalism, pop spiritualism, lots of negative stereotyping of technology, corporations, the military. You had a hero who was in a wheelchair, a US Marine enemy, and a nature deity as the deus ex machina. I even caught a reference to the current US health care debate early in the movie!

As a strong Lefty myself, this movie was way over the top even for me. I guess I just have a strong aversion to the Noble Savage thing. I’m too much of a geek to picture a society without technology, and let’s face it, these kinds of movies do not dwell on the fact that these wonderful blue people don’t have flush toilets, a written language, or modern dentistry. I can’t make fun of the fact that the blue people prayed to a giant tree, since in Cameron’s Pandora, the native deity is actually real. (Most Noble Savage genre pieces include natives who practice some form of animism, or something like the Force in Star Wars.)

Conclusion: I look forward to the adoption of this new tech on future movies where it will no doubt be used to much better advantage. You think a crappy vanilla story like this was the only way Cameron could get financing for this? Just wondering.

Final note: the theater was packed with people, and not all of them were kids.

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It’s Revenge of the Milk:

China has launched a 10-day emergency crackdown on tainted milk products after several were found creeping back onto the market despite a massive scandal that sickened hundreds of thousands of children in 2008. (AP)

“Creeping back”??? WTF? That almost sounds cute. What are we really talking about here?

The sweep that started Monday comes after milk products tainted with the industrial chemical melamine were pulled from shelves in Shanghai and the provinces of Shaanxi, Shandong, Liaoning and Hebei, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said. Some had been recalled in the previous scandal and repackaged.

I see. The guilty parties waited until they thought the government wasn’t paying attention any more, brought back the tainted products from the warehouses where they stashed it, and started selling it again.
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No reason to comment on the merits of the case. The CEO of Great Long Brother would have us believe that after the P88 design was unveiled at a trade show six months ago, Apple copied the design and developed its product at breakneck pace. [my emphasis, to denote being flabbergasted]

Yeah, the guy sounds a bit kooky given the timing and specific design. As Wired has helpfully pointed out, “The P88 has been on the market in China for six months. It’s easy to recognize: it looks just like a big iPhone.”

But hey, isn’t this a triumph for the Innovation Society? This company obviously understands the importance of IP and how it can be used to compete in the global marketplace. Furthermore, the company apparently filed a design patent, so it’s doing its part to create indigenous IP.

All those public education campaigns seem to be working!

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Here’s the opening bit:

Overseas technology companies may possess hundreds of reasons for not having a great presence in China but one of the major ones, according to some, may be their local names.

Industry experts say many foreign firms don’t pay enough attention to their Chinese names. Some fail to research the culture while others choose characters that put potential customers off.

OK, that’s enough to get the attention of this IP lawyer, although I myself have probably written and spoken on this issue over a hundred times — it’s kind of all been said before by me and the other usual suspects.

I was interested though to see the word “technology” inserted in there. I thought maybe the article might also address patents or tech transfer, although I failed to see what that had to do with branding.

Imagine my surprise when I got to this passage:

Google, for example, upset a great number of its Chinese fans when the world’s largest search engine launched its Chinese brand name “Guge” in 2006. The name, which in Chinese means “harvesting song”, was considered by many to sound strange and unsophisticated.

The disaffection drove a group of Google Chinese fans to create a site called noguge.com, aimed at collecting suggestions for alternative names.

“Many Chinese users find it hard to pronounce Google and its Chinese name Guge,” said Edward Yu, president of domestic research firm Analysys International. “That partly resulted in a lower brand awareness for US firms in China, especially in third and fourth-tier cities.”

Ah, now I get it. This is called piling on, kicking a man when he’s down, jumping on the bandwagon . . . you get the idea.

Chinese names of foreign companies is a big issue. Again, I’ve dealt with this many, many times over the years. I’ve seen some stupid choices, some great ones, companies that spend very little time and effort in making the choice, while others pay out huge sums of money to PR agencies to ensure that their Chinese name is perfect.

MNCs have gotten pretty responsible about the name choice thing in recent years. The boneheaded moves are usually reserved for SMEs these days. And by the way, this has nothing in particular to do with “technology” companies. I suspect that word was used as a lame excuse to use Google as an example of a tech firm.

Is Google’s Chinese name so bad? I don’t think so, and most of the people I’ve talked to say it’s fine. Not as good as Coca-Cola’s notoriously perfect Chinese name maybe, but it’s all right. It definitely could have been worse. I’ve heard lots of Chinese folks pronounce “Google” using the sound “gou” (i.e. “gu gou”) — if Google really sucked, they might have ended up using “狗” (dog). Did Google’s name choice “disaffect” a huge number of Chinese “fans”? Um, that’s just a ridiculous statement.

If there is one thing the press is good at, it’s herd mentality. Google is an official target, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see more of this stuff. Perhaps future hit pieces will be slightly better researched and more effective, though.

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