Genius

I just got an unsolicited robo-call on my landline asking me to sign a phone petition (press 1) because I hate ObamaCare and want to end the death panels and socialized medicine before they can start. This spew of lies and hate *does* mention that “America’s Next Generation” wants to help defeat ObamaCare with me.

Obviously this pisses me off, but there’s really no way to scream at them. Still my head is jangling so I can’t get any work done, and all I can do is follow my sick curiosity by using The Google to find out that the America’s Next Generation SuperPAC was formed after the Citizens United decision by the executives of a telemarketing company in Akron, OH called InfoCision. I bet you won’t guess where 97% of the funds that this SuperPAC raised during the 2012 election went to…InfoCision. What’s worse is that InfoCision was recently sued by 318 employees for failing to pay overtime, minimum wage, and in some cases ANY wage at all.

So not only is a SuperPAC being used as a deadbeat telemarketer’s sales tool to further enrich members of the 1%, but they are spewing extremist lies and hate into the public on a wide-spread level simply as a way to get enough people riled up to send them $25. And it works. And when the few folks who actually Press 1 to “sign” the petition probably the only thing that’s done is their phone numbers are added to a list that is sold to other like-minded telemarketers to insure that these folks continue to be bombarded with lies and hate and asked to “donate.”

And we still wonder how our public discourse has been poisoned?

Don’t Take My Word For It

Here’s an excellent overview of the Uighur situation by the NY Times, which concludes that through its heavy handed repression of the Uighur population in Xinjiang, the Chinese government “could unwittingly radicalize a generation of young people, said Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who is based in Hong Kong. ‘The entire Uighur ethnicity feels asphyxiated, having become suspect as sympathetic to extremism,’ he said. ‘Xinjiang is trapped in a vicious circle of increased repression that only leads to more violence.'”

I wonder, however, if the Chinese government’s efforts are the opposite of “unwittingly” because as soon as there is a violent incident that is indisputably linked to a Uighur resistance group, the government will then have “license” to wipe out all but a few token Uighur communities, and their assumption of this HUGE region will be complete, claiming outright their only petroleum reserves and an increasingly crucial trade link to the rest of Asia and Europe.

Turpan Story

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The wirey man in the small room did not sit at a desk, but stood at a small metal stand — perhaps a music stand? – holding paperwork and my and Alison’s passports. He seemed young – smooth faced, long and lean, almost feline – but it’s often difficult for me to estimate age in Han men. He wore an all black uniform along with a black cloth baseball cap that had a short brim and Chinese characters stitched into the front.

“What is your name?”

“Eric Rector?” I replied as a question, obviously nervous.

“What is the purpose of your visit?” He had not yet looked at me, and continued working through the paperwork on his stand whether I replied or not. Perhaps he was filling in the blanks of a Rural Village Visa application, I wasn’t sure.

“I am touring Turpan for pleasure.” I said using the terms available in the list of options on the imagined visa form.

He laughed, which did not make sense because I’m sure he wasn’t reading any irony into this situation. My host family had tried to register our visit to their home with the village police, and the local police wanted nothing to do with us. They insisted that my hosts call the city police and follow their lead. In the village station my host called and was told: bring them to the city headquarters – we want to talk to the visitors. We also want them to check into a hotel in the city; there are not adequate facilities for them in your village.

“What is the purpose of your visit to _____ Village?” he clarified.
Continue reading “Turpan Story” →

Writing Behind “The Great Firewall”

Image provided by gorancson.wordpress.com and/or lostlaowai.com

We have returned from our trip to China, and I expect we will be processing our experiences for many weeks and months to come — stay tuned. We are also taking advantage of the long Labor Day weekend to re-acquaint ourselves to our normal lives, which somehow seem just as foreign to us as our first days in Beijing, Xinjiang, or Chengdu.

One item of note that bears immediate reflection, however, is how difficult it was to even report our experiences to the RectorSite while we were in China even though we had Internet access almost everywhere we traveled except for the small towns in Xinjiang province. As we generally stayed in “Four Star” hotels (or better) catering to travelers — particularly Westerners — I can only explain this difficulty to the massive effort the Chinese Government continues to make to *FILTER* the Internet. The Chinese Government recognizes that they NEED the Internet to facilitate economic exchange with the rest of the world, and that it would be foolish as well as a public relations black mark if they completely disconnected their citizens from this worldwide network of ideas. However they really dislike it when their citizens are exposed, and/or are allowed to talk about certain ideas. Therefore they have constructed a “Great Firewall / Golden Shield Project” that sniffs out those ideas in all traffic within their borders — either entering the country from outside sources, or generated internally — and deletes them.
Continue reading “Writing Behind “The Great Firewall”” →

Expat Experience

After an unfortunate (for all involved) mistake on the part of our Super Funky Hotel for our last night in Beijing, we “landed” at the Four Seasons a few blocks away from the US Embassy in the northeast corner of the inner-ish city (Third Ring Road out of six so far). We are surrounded by other western and western style (Kempinski?) hotels, High Fashion boutiques (Rolex, Tudor, Chopard…) in glossy shopping malls, and large boulevards.

Last night we met up with Michael and his wife (Dee) and co-worker Hao at a real micro-brewery for draft beers, lamb burgers, onion rings, and bbq chicken wings (the day before I was munching on spicy pickled chicken feet in a Chengdu market). The crowd was WAY expat with a sprinkling of hip locals, and the talk was about today’s China and how we each related to it.

When we got back to our 23rd Floor room at the ‘Seasons, I said to Alison, “it’s too bad that we aren’t going to be able to experience the ‘real’ Beijing on our last day.” And then, looking out the window at all the office towers, apartment towers, flashing advertising, and bumper-to-bumper traffic, I realized I was wrong. This experience — a westerner in the Four Seasons in this commercial and diplomatic district — this WAS a ‘real’ Beijing experience, just as much as exploring the hutongs in the Dongcheng district, visiting the landmarks, biking the streets, eating (and making) dumplings, and climbing the Drum Tower to watch the twisting pigeon flocks orbit their home roofs. We were still in Beijing where nothing and everything was changing.

Et Tu, Chengdu?

[Yes, our driver DOES speak a little French…]

Where to begin; at the end of course — at The Dictionary of Flavor restaurant in an upscale pedestrian mall area of Chengdu (where you can buy silk embroideries for THOUSANDS of dollars each) I crossed off almost everything left on the (written!) list of flavors that I wanted to sample:

  • Spicy Noodle Salad (native spice!)
  • Fish Flavored Grass Salad
  • Fire Exploding Pork Kidneys with Wood Ear Mushrooms
  • Wonton Soup
  • Jiao Zi Dumplings in Sauce
  • Steamed Beef In Corn Pudding
  • Cornstarch Noodles with Pork Intestines
  • Noodles with Beef Sauce
  • Big Lychee Flavor Pork with Shiitake Mushrooms (aka Sweet ‘n’ Sour Pork, but so much more)
  • Deep Fried Yam Stick
  • Steamed Glutenous Rice Dumplings

At one point I might have said that Xinjiang was ‘killing us with kindness’ where as Chengdu appears to be killing me with endless awesome dishes.
Continue reading “Et Tu, Chengdu?” →