There has been much written about the toll that China’s rapidly improving economy is having on its own environment, but we hear less about what effect it has on the rest of the world’s environment.
Chances are good that if an item sold in the United States was recently made in China using oak or ash, the wood was imported from Russia through Suifenhe. Because as much as half of the hardwood from Primorski Krai is harvested in violation of Russian law—either by large companies working with corrupt provincial officials or by gangs of men in remote villages—it is likely that any given piece of wood in the city has been logged illegally. This wide-scale theft empowers mafias, robs the Russian government of revenue, and assists in the destruction of one of the most precious ecosystems in the Northern Hemisphere. Lawmakers in the province have called for “emergency measures” to stem the flow of illegal wood, and Russia’s Minister of Natural Resources has said that in the region “there has emerged an entire criminal branch connected with the preparation, storage, transportation, and selling of stolen timber.”
……….
In 1998, the Yangtze River watershed flooded, killing more than three thousand people and causing more than thirty billion dollars in damage. At the time, some Communist Party officials believed that the flood was exacerbated by soil erosion—the result of “over quota” cutting of trees—and the government banned logging throughout much of the country. In order to meet its immense demand for raw materials, China began to buy unprecedented quantities of wood from abroad; it is now the largest importer of logs and also the largest exporter of finished wood products. China began to act the way many developed countries in North America and Europe do: it had destroyed much of its primary forests, gained from doing so, and was now protecting the trees it had left by buying wood indiscriminately, often from “high risk” countries, like Indonesia. The year of the flood, China started importing large volumes of wood from Russia, which has more forest than any country in the world and was in a state of political and economic anarchy. The greatest traffic in illicit wood is now thought to be from Russia to China.
How are wood products at major retailers like Walmart so cheap? Well it is a complicated story involving the the Russian Mafia, the Chinese city of Suifenhe and globalization, and I would highly recommend reading the whole piece. We often only think of China as an exporter of goods to the West, but as the Chinese economy grows, and their own natural resources are strained, commodities like wood need to be imported to produce the paint brushes, baby strollers and other goods that are bought by stores like Walmart.
This is not to say that Walmart is the only one to blame here for buying these products produced with illegal raw materials. However, they are the biggest. According to the article referenced above, “A tenth of China’s exports to the United States are sold by Wal-Mart; if the company were a sovereign nation, it would be China’s eighth-largest trading partner.” As the 2007 estimate of China’s exports is $ 1.22 trillion, that means the dollar value of Chinese exports sold by Walmart is $122 billion!
The actress who plays Wudi in a Hunan television adaptation of Ugly Betty (Ugly Wudi) recently made her first public appearance, but the public felt the title was a bit misleading.
Though the actress wears black-framed glasses and ill-fitting braces like the other Betty, her image was largely dismissed by the audience because she is not ugly enough, Oriental Morning Post reported.
Audiences hold the view that the “ugly girl” is beautiful, with a normal figure, big eyes and long hair, aside from the deliberate ugly costuming.
Agreed. I have a similar problem when they dress up beautiful people as nerds in movies. The truly unattractive need work too!
Yesterday, Forbes released this list of China’s 25 Most Powerful Celebrities. Rather than debate what it means to be a “powerful” celebrity, here is how Forbes determines it:
To generate the annual list of China’s 25 Most Powerful Celebrities, Forbes’ China bureau surveyed both the earnings and fame of China’s leaders in film, sports, media and publishing. As is the case with the Forbes Celebrity 100, the list is determined by a combined ranking of income and celebrity, or appearances on Web sites, print publications and other media.
In this case, Forbes looked at 27 magazines, 27 newspapers and 18 television programs over the course of last year. To qualify, contenders needed to be born and raised in mainland China (those from Hong Kong or Taiwan weren’t included).
And to save you the time of going through the slideshow, I have listed them below.
I have been attempting to catch up with some of my sci-fi reading (Harlan Ellison and William Gibson lately) and it got me to thinking about science fiction (科幻) in China. A little searching around the internet confirmed what I thought would be true; that sci-fi died out when the communist took over, and is now beginning to flourish, with some even saying that we are entering a “golden age” for Chinese sci-fi.
Twelve Hours Later bills itself as a site featuring “Chinese SF, fantasy, and mainstream fiction”, and while it doesn’t update very often it is excellent source for information. It provides reviews, and is where I found about Science Fiction World, where the above images are from. Science Fiction World is one of China’s most popular magazines, with a circulation of 500,000 (or 320,000?). At least a few sources mention that Chinese sci-fi tends to lean towards more “hard” sci-fi, perhaps to avoid crack down by censors?
And while there seems to be a lot of Chinese science fiction available to read online, I have seen very little of it that has been translated into English. The most promising thing I’ve been able to find is an anthology that was published in 1989, Science Fiction from China. I have requested this from my local library and will give a short review of it after finishing. Here is the synopsis of the book from Publisher’s Weekly:
This fine anthology of eight stories by six authors shows that, while years behind the west in terms of maturity of the genre, China is catching up as fast as the state will allow. Editor Dingbo Wu’s excellent introduction gives a historical overview of SF in China, while detailing the fluctuations of political acceptability during the past decade. If the plots are generally familiar, the stories convey the freshness with which the authors approached them, making each one more than just another variation on an old theme. Wei Yahua’s “Conjugal Happiness in the Arms of Morpheus” finds a new way to bring a robot to life. “The Mysterious Wave” by Wang Xiaoda and “Death Ray on a Coral Island” by Tong Enzheng are both classic gadget stories. Conversely, Ye Yonglie’s “Corrosion” is mostly concerned with the moral dilemma of desired fame vs. livable self-image. The chronological bibliography of Chinese SF is a valuable resource.
This sounds interesting, but what I am really interested in taking a look at is some more recent material. If anyone knows of any resources for translated sci-fi, let me know in the comments.
My apologies for the lack of new content as of late, as most of my free time has gone into the redesign of www.jennifernoveck.com. Please visit and leave comments.
And for some old link housecleaning, Made in China: Hip-Hop Moves East was an interesting story by NPR about the current state of rap in China.
Today I have been messing around with TVU, a video utility that has a wide variety of television channels from around the world. I mention it here for a couple of reasons.
It has a good selection of Chinese language television, with all the CCTVs and channels from Hong Kong and Taiwan. I have been looking for more sources for listening practice, and it is excellent for that. Plus I miss those Korean soap operas…
For you entertainment staved foreigners living in China, it has Comedy Central, Sci-Fi channel, a channel that just shows episodes of Family Guy and various news channels. I don’t know if it will actually work for you or not, but it is worth a try.
It also seems spyware and free, at least according to Softpedia and some other sites, and that is more than you can say for a lot of these online television players.
While flipping through the channels on Sunday, I lingered a minute on Fox News because they were discussing something China related. It had to do with the banning of push-up bra ads and sex enhancements commercials from Chinese television. This of course gave the news network a valid excuse to show clips of women’s breast, and for Fox News to feature one of its favorite topics, evil China, denying its citizens essential freedoms. It is really a win-win. I tried to find the clip online, but instead found what I believe is an advertisement for a Taiwanese bra company.
Man: “How embarrassing!”
Women: “Don’t be, it’s very comfortable”
….
Women: “How embarrassing!”
Man: “Don’t be, I also feel very comfortable”
Commercials like this one, (and other similar ads) will no longer be seen on Chinese television. Something that I have not see reported is if they will carry this over to the gigantic bra billboards in downtown shopping areas of cities that feature ten foot tall breasts. If they don’t, then this law seems even more silly.
The folks over at Chinesepod have once again done an amazing job on a subject that, while probably not relevant to everyday life in China, is entirely practical to watching X-Files reruns dubbed in Mandarin.
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