The Limited World Wide Web

YouTube is back on in China.

For a few weeks, the website joined the list of other blacklisted ones like Wikipedia, BBC and any non-Chinese blogs, such as my own.

There's debate as to why YouTube was blocked.

It happened around the time of the 17th National Party Congress of the Communist Party of China. And some theorize that because the CPC was worried there would be leaks of who would be in the running for President Hu Jintao's job in five years' time, that access was denied.

Others hypothesize this occurred when the Dalai Lama was in Washington to receive the Congressional Gold Medal -- America's highest honour to civilians. They believe there were clips of the Tibetan spiritual leader on YouTube and didn't want the Chinese population to see it, over and over again.

Another theory is that the Chinese version of YouTube was launched in the summer and by blocking the original site, more traffic would go to the domestic one, artificially boosting hits.

But I just discovered that a few days ago YouTube was back on ... as mysteriously as it was blocked.

It's annoying having someone dictating what you can and can't see. Which is why I try to watch BBC World at the hotel gym as often as I can.

It's my own little act of defiance.

There's only so much state-media I can take, when it's all good news, all the time.

Hooray for Hacks

Today China is celebrating Journalism Day.

Some state-owned media took time to recognize the day with rhetorical speeches about the profession and senior editors passing down pearls of wisdom to cub reporters.

What these media outlets should be doing is pay their reporters more. If they were, then these journalists wouldn't be so easily swayed by hongbao, or red envelopes that many companies routinely give to these money-starved hacks. Some envelopes contain from between 200RMB to several thousand, depending on the industry sector.

If they got a significant pay raise then we wouldn't be reading stories that read like press releases in the paper.

Of course they also need lessons in critical thinking, but then that would be ambitious.

On the other end of the scale, foreign journalists in China must be allowed to report on whatever they hear or see.

While on paper the government promises these overseas reporters can practically go wherever they want in the country, several have reported goons following them or throwing them into black cars with tinted windows, questioning and then releasing them in the middle of nowhere.

And in many of these personal accounts, the reporters mention several times that the cars that followed them or they were forced into were black Audis.

Do the branding executives at Audi realize these stories are giving their car a bad name?

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

The central government's agency called the State Environmental Protection Adminstration (SEPA) will do an assessment of five regions and five heavily polluting industries to try and curb the impact they're having on the environment.

Some 39 experts will study how much economic development has affected the areas of the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River; economic zones to the west of the Taiwan Straits; along the Beibu Gulf in South China; the Bohai Rim in North China; and Chengdu-Chongqing.

From the data gathered, these experts will help form eco-friendly national policies that could also assess government officials' work performance. That's because the central government wants to tie in environmental impact as part the evaluation of who gets a promotion or demotion.

While all this is well and good, the article doesn't provide any specifics on how the assessments will be made, who these 39 experts are, and how officials will be held responsible.

What's a bit more disappointing are the five regions that are chosen. There are hydro-electric projects along the Yellow River, but the one getting the most attention now is the Three Gorges Dam and how the river banks are considered unsafe and some four million people have to be relocated along the Yangtze.

I don't know much about the Beibu Gulf and along the Taiwan Straits, while preliminary oil exploration has been done in Bohai Rim, actual extraction hasn't started yet. The only heavy-hitting evaluation will be Chengdu-Chongqing, which are major cities near the Yangtze, using up a lot of the power generated from the Three Gorges Dam.

This plan is just a baby step in trying to determine a small fraction of what economic development has done to this country's environment. In one way it's a naive way to keep the numbers relatively low. Or in another it maybe too frightening for the government and its people to find out what they've really done.

Picture This

I took some visitors to Factory 798 to see what China's contemporary artists are doing.

And similar to my first visit, there's lots of see, but not much of it very good.

Lots of it references Chairman Mao, contrasting his images with the capitalistic society of today. Others experiment with sexuality, one including a realistic statue of a naked woman complete with hair on her head and on other parts of her body, sitting in a chair with legs open. Another did large-size monochromatic portraits with the word "AK-47" in various shades to create the image. The painting technique was excellent, but the name of the weapon was disturbing.

In an interesting twist, an English woman exhibited wood block prints with a strong Chinese flavour. For example, there were dragons with man-made satellites instead of clouds around them.

The gallery assistant explained that this artist hadn't been in Beijing long, but wanted to do prints using Asian style wood cuts, but printed on heavy paper from Italy.

She went on to say with a tinge of criticism that the Chinese art scene is developing too quickly. There is no main message or meaning behind the artists' work. It seems like they are just trying to create something in order to be noticed -- to become the next Yue Minjun.

Yue is famous for his pink laughing faces and most recently his controversial painting "Execution".

It features men in their underwear being shot at by men who pretend to hold rifles in their hands. It's a direct reference to 1989 and inspired by Francisco Goya's "The Third of May 1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid".

And a few weeks ago this painting fetched over US$5.9 million in an auction, the most expensive contemporary Chinese work sold under the hammer.

While it made a lot of money, at least this painting makes a strong statement that no one can deny.

A Plethora of Pizza

Last night after work my colleague and I checked out a pizza place by the Worker's Stadium near Sanlitun.

It's called Kro's Nest and this is its newly-opened second location. The first one is in Haidian District, where many universities are. Kro's Nest is known for its cheap and good pizzas and so we wanted to try them too.

The new location has a strange entrance at the side of the building which is very dark and hardly welcoming. But once you pull the giant door open, you enter a cozy place that feels more like a pub than pizza parlor.

We didn't make a reservation and the manager said we'd have to wait until 9pm. 9pm??? Thankfully he said if we didn't mind, we could eat at the plastic tables and chairs by the entrance. We grabbed the last table and oogled at the pizzas.

They are gigantic to say the least so you'd better be hungry when you come. The large ones are as big as a truck tire. And I'm not exaggerating! Just watching the servers deliver them to hungry tables was a daunting sight. One slice would be enough per person.

As there were only two of us, we settled for the medium size and could even have two different toppings on each half the pizza. There was a variety, from all cheese, to Hawaiian, and vegetarian. We settled on Meghan's Special - spinach, cheeses, black olives and an olive oil base. The other topping was Kro's Nest Special - meatballs, onions, salami, green peppers and cheese.

We also ordered French fries - the slim McDonald's kind, and a Chinese version of Greek salad - cabbage with cherry tomatoes, onions and black olives with grated feta on top. The server asked us if we wanted Thousand Island or Balsamic Vinegar dressing. Uh, the latter please.

They also had many beers on tap, the cheapest, Tsingdao at 15RMB.

Lots of expats frequent this place as well as many beautiful people having a bite to eat before hitting the clubs nearby on a Friday night. Many people walked out with doggy bags - or in this case pizza boxes.

Our fries came almost instantly followed by the salad which we had to mix the dressing ourselves. For some reason we waited for quite a long time for our pizza. But we didn't mind watching the staff throwing the dough in the air and orders from upstairs put on a clip that slid down a line to the bar.

Finally the pizza came and we were overwhelmed. I started with the Meghan's Special which was choc full of cheese and didn't have much flavour or texture. But the Kro's Nest did making it the more tastier of the two. We also asked for the thick crust and I was pleasantly surprised to find the edge of the pizza didn't break your teeth. Instead it was thick and fluffy bread that was delicious.

But after two slices -- actually I only ate half of the second one -- I was stuffed. Maybe if we didn't order fries I would have been able to finish the second slice. But there were still two more left.

So we each got a pizza box and carried our slices home for our lunch the next day.

And interestingly enough, the slice of Meghan's Special tasted better as a cold pizza...

Kro's Nest
Gongti North Gate
VICS Club South
6553 5253

China's Health Challenges

The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) says China has a series of chronic illnesses to deal with, including cardiovascular, cancer, diabetes, tobacco, obesity and environmental health threats.

Dr Margaret Chan gave a briefing to the press today about her five-day trip to Beijing. She alternatively praised the Chinese government for its efforts on improving healthcare but at the same time urged it to do more.

"China is making good progress," she said, "but it has serious health problems and it must keep working on it. The WHO is ready to provide technical assistance."

She went on to say tobacco is a big problem worldwide, topping all mortality compared to tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and malaria combined.

"China has one-third of the world's tobacco smokers," Chan said. "And if the government does its economic assessment right, it will realize the health burden of problems like lung disease far outweigh the revenue from tobacco sales. It's in the country's interest to control tobacco."

Chan did elaborate on specific measures the government could take, such as increasing tobacco tax, ban tobacco advertising and make it hard for people to get cigarettes. But she didn't disclose whether she explicitly told health officials to do this.

As for other chronic illnesses, the WHO chief said these afflictions were previously only problems in affluent countries, but are now found in low and middle income countries, such as China.

"We're now seeing the 'double disease burden' - communicable diseases and chronic diseases'," she said. "Globalized trade and marketing have a huge impact on people's behaviour."

Chan added the WHO is giving the Chinese government advice on how it should reform its healthcare system.

"China needs to find its own model," she explained. "What works in one country may not work in China, mainly because of the sheer size of the population."

Her big concern for China is the wide health gap between the rural and urban areas, with many in the countryside falling into poverty because of high medical bills. She urged the government to do more to help the rural population as recent WHO research shows disease is the source of poverty for 30 to 50 per cent of the 737 million rural population.

The government is trying to address this with a Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme, where each subscriber is funded 50 yuan (US$6.40), 20 yuan contributed each by central and local governments, and 10 yuan by the individual.

"This is small compared to other parts of the world," Chan noted, but added she hoped China would design a healthcare model relevant to the rural areas.

She suggested perhaps the government could come up with different healthcare models for different parts of the country. For example in cities like Beijing and Shanghai, some medical services could be privatized, whereas the minimum basic care could be given to other parts of the country.

"China is sensitive to the WHO telling them what to do," she hinted.

After the press conference I told some of my colleagues what Chan said. They commented the main problem is that people don't go see doctors because they don't trust them.

"They might charge you more money because you have a more serious illness, or you have to buy several hundred yuan of medicine, like antibiotics that you might not need," they said.

Sounds like the best medicine is preventive one -- don't get sick.

Bundling Up

Years from now I'll remember very clearly when the winter chills settled into Beijing.

On Saturday night there was a crazy rainstorm complete with thunder and lightning. The next day the sky was clear, but temperatures plummeted. I was just warm enough during the day visiting Panjiayuan, the outdoor antique flea market, but it was chilly just standing in the shade.

In the evening, I was literally shivering and turned on the heat at my place.

But after that night I turned the heat off again and am managing to keep warm... so far.

However at work, the central heating in the office building hasn't kicked in yet. I was told it won't be turned on until November 15.

Apparently it's a central government decree, that they can only be turned on when the national bigwigs say so in order to save energy. This also applies to air conditioning.

But would you rather have a bunch of freezing people who have a high chance of catching a cold and spreading it in the office, than warm ones who are more productive? Imagine how that could affect the GDP?

For now I'm wearing an extra quilted vest, but others are even wearing their coats in the office. I wonder if the offices of the central government are just as cold?