Playing by its Own Rules

On paper, China's laws guarantees people the access to lawyers if they need to be defended in court.

Whether or not your defense lawyer is good, is another story.

However, now the government is being picky about who lawyers can defend after it permanently disbarred two for trying to defend members of the Falun Gong.

The Beijing Bureau of Justice said Tang Jitian, 42, and Liu Wei, 33, had their licenses revoked for "disrupting order in the court and interfering with proper litigation procedure," according to a notice on the bureau's website.

They were accused of walking out of the court proceedings when Liu and Tang say they were filmed illegally in court and protested to the judge, but their protestations were ignored. The bureau says they failed to follow the judge's instructions.

Although Liu has yet to receive an official notice from the bureau, she plans to appeal, but doesn't expect much change.

"I don't think there is much hope. If the government acts illegally, it acts illegally all the way through," she said in an interview with Reuters.

"We will try every avenue. If we don't succeed, we'll have to accept it. But I believe someday, there will be a reversal."

Liu and Tang belong to a loose group of lawyers who are walking a fine line when they take on provoking cases in order to challenge Chinese laws and official decisions.

There were already only a few lawyers willing to represent Falun Gong practitioners, especially after they were outlawed by the government in 1999 when they managed to surreptitiously form a giant protest at Zhongnanhai, the Communist Party's headquarters in downtown Beijing, shocking senior government officials.

The legal system in China does not follow the rule of law -- it isn't decided independently by judges who have seen the evidence and heard the arguments for an against -- but by the government that decides who is guilty and who isn't.

And now it wants to further manipulate the system by barring lawyers from defending people who by law must have access to a lawyer.

How is this in any way legally progressive? For a country that is eager to be accepted on the world stage for its economic might, it sure is insecure when it comes to the law. It seems to have more to hide than defend.

Picture of the Day: Empty Campaign Slogans

These posters in various sizes and colours are all over Chaoyang District, which is on the east side of Beijing.

It shows a cartoon girl called Luo Baby jumping up for joy and exclaiming, "Civilized Chaoyang with Magnificent Me!"

Why does the district government feel compelled to spend taxpayer dollars on these silly posters that make no sense? And why didn't they hire an English proofreader to tell them the  translation doesn't work either?

What qualifies Luo Baby to be magnificent anyway?

Apparently the district website talks about this campaign, but fails to explain the aim of it and how long it will last.

It's just a 21st century version of Chinese propaganda slogans that used to be written on brick walls in Mao's days, but now complete with cartoon figures and vague messages.

There were similar posters up before and during the Olympics about how Beijing was striving to be civilized and harmonious.

And two years later the government still feels compelled to continue shoving the message down our throats. But how can anyone take a cartoon girl seriously, especially when her name is Luo Baby? 

Unless the government is catering to anime fans out there...

Anxious for World Praise

The 2010 Shanghai Expo opened to great fanfare on the evening of April 30, complete with a massive fireworks display and many state leaders in attendance, the most prominent of whom was French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is desperate to win political points with China now that Sino-French relations are back on track.

During the live broadcast, President Hu Jintao and his wife dressed in a fuchsia suit, stood in front of a massive blazing red background as they greeted state leaders one by one for a photo op. Couldn't someone have told Mrs Hu to wear something more appropriate colour-wise?

There was a lot of news about how more money was spent on the Expo than on the Beijing Olympics -- $45 billion versus $40 billion. While both numbers are mind-boggling, most of the money was spent on infrastructure in both cities and hopefully Shanghai will be an improved city after the six-month event.

However, the biggest challenge now is dealing with the hordes of people on the site.

The first three days were horrific for organizers, with massive lineups. There were reports that people had to wait four hours to get into the UK pavilion, probably because of its unique building, made of flexible rods each containing seeds. The rods move with the breeze like a giant fluff ball from far away. Afterwards the pavilion will be dismantled and the seeds distributed to schools and universities across China to study.

The opening three days were also a headache because they were the May Day holiday, the only three days people have off... until the October National Day holiday, when there will be another crush of people. Then there is also the pride factor of having been one of the first few hundred thousand people to have visited the Expo.

Apparently Chinese state media are not allowed to report on the negative aspects of the Expo, and so the are left to report on how Shanghai residents will benefit from the Expo, rather than those who were forced off their land to make way for this event; how people made friends while waiting in line; what constitutes a mascot; and how passports are the hot items at the exposition.

The New York Times had a field day with its article on Chinglish in Shanghai, how the city is trying to fix the translations on signs to avoid embarrassment. The slide show is all the more amusing. It's a reminder of how Beijing was trying to spruce itself up before the Games two years earlier.

And speaking of the Olympics, the pavilion for Beijing was already panned because the capital couldn't think of any other way to present itself than to revive the five Olympics mascots, Bei Bei, Jing Jing, Huan Huan, Ying Ying and Ni Ni to work their magic again. The theme of the Expo is "Better City, Better Life", about looking forward to the future of cities, rather than back. Besides, there are hardly any traces of Olympic fever in Beijing anymore. Whoever thought of bringing back the Olympics mascots should be sacked.

Then there was criticism in the Chinese media about how the United States didn't put much effort into its pavilion, as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton having to push it through at the last minute, because the US had just missed the deadline on confirming its participation.

She had to drum up sponsors as since 1991 the country's presence in expositions can only rely on corporate and private funding. This again puzzled the Chinese, who believe these pavilions are a matter of national pride and no cost should be spared to present a good image of the country.

Then for most people in developed countries, they have lost interest in expos and with one happening practically every other year it's hard to keep track.

China is so anxious to showcase itself to the world, but the audience doesn't know what to make of it. On the one hand they hear reports of China's rise on the global stage, and yet on the other they hear about the severe measures it takes on curbing human rights and freedoms for the sake of national security, sending chills down their backs.

While it is unfair to measure up China according to western values, how else can you define it relative to what you already know?

Which is why China is so anxious for the Expo to be a success and hope its negative aspects will be forgotten.

Now if they can only figure out how to ease the massive lineups for everything, that will be a great accomplishment in itself.

The Last Farmer

The Lius who we stayed with when we hiked up the Great Wall live a simple life.

Liu senior goes to bed around 8pm and wakes up at 4:30am and starts hiking up part of the same route we went to tend to his fields. It's a series of terraced plots only a few metres in width. He grows corn and at the moment, the corn has already been harvested, but he has cleared the plots of the dried up stalks and will probably move them down to be composted. He also raises several plump chickens and roosters, feeding them corn meal twice a day.

He has lived in this farmhouse all his life, his family having lived here for around six generations, back to the Qing Dynasty. Apart from possessing a mobile phone, installing electricity at home, a freezer and a few modern toys for his grandson, everything else seems old and worn.

As there is no running water, there is a giant vat where they use water to wash their hands, faces and to cook with. I'm not sure where the water comes from, but it was safe enough to drink. Liu senior would use the small plastic red ladle and put some water in the enamel basin and use a bar of soap to wash his hands crusted with dirt, then splash his face and run his wet fingers through his hair. He would then dry himself off with a hand towel hanging on the rack holding the basin.

He has probably never had a proper bath or shower before.

Over dinner we talked about the differences between country and city life. While Liu's wife claimed she preferred more excitement, Beijing was too much for her, with so many people and cars. She said she only came into the capital whenever she needed to do errands there, which sounded rare. Liu senior hasn't been in Beijing in over 10 years.

Liu senior is 60 years old, but tilling the fields has made him look older, but his body is as fit as a 25 year old. His only vice is smoking, which he does quite often, and beers with guests. He can't handle baijiu, or Chinese spirits.

The Lius obviously live a very frugal life and they are representative of the rest of the village here, and perhaps many other rural areas in China, where some are much better off, others worse.

It is this sector of people that the Chinese government is depending on to spend their hard-earned money to increase domestic consumption.

However much the Lius have scrimped and saved, they are not going to be splashing out on refrigerators, microwaves or tractors anytime soon. They have other things to save for, including the dreaded possibility of medical costs, not only for them but also for their family should anyone get sick.

Liu senior likes to think that it's safe to raise a child on a farm, but the reality is that his grandson, although only three years old, will be academically behind his urban peers. In China, parents with children his age in the city are already stressed out in getting accepted into the right kindergarten that will help them onto the path of a good university.

There's no such pressure here on the farm, where there isn't even alarm over the child's dirty hands and clothes.

The Lius live a life completely different from people in the city, and yet they are only a few hours' drive apart from each other.

The differences are so stark after 30 years of reform and opening up, and they will probably become even more pronounced in the future.

Liu senior probably knows he will be the last generation to live on this farm, as his son now has a hostel and restaurant.

Regardless, Liu senior must be pleased with how his family has developed and hopefully they will continue to have some kind of link to the land they have depended on for generations.

The Great Wall Adventure Part 3

Since we took so long to get to Jinshanling, we thought we would hike back from Simatai to Jinshanling before going home.

But after the arduous hike in the wee hours to the watchtower and back, I didn't think I would be able to hike another 8K and suggested we get back to Beijing instead.

Our gracious hostess Mrs Liu told us how to get back home -- by catching the 9am bus to Miyun (密云) which would cost 6RMB ($0.87) each, then the 980 bus back to Beijing for about 10RMB each.

Liu senior charges between 200-300RMB ($29.29-$43.94) per person to stay overnight and we gave him a bit more, making him a bit embarrassed by the extra cash. But they really had been hospitable and not to mention energetic guides.

Before we left, I took some pictures of her with her naughty grandson, who was awake and precocious as ever, pulling on her ear. She and her grandson led us down the paved roadway that led to her son's restaurant and hostel, the Dongpo Family Hostel.

It has opened for a few years and business is relatively good, with hikers coming down the wall and eating at the restaurant, or even staying overnight.

When we arrived, a young Chinese couple had just finished breakfast and were about to go on their hike.

We chatted with Liu and his wife for a bit, and she proudly showed us their guest book filled comments from people from all over the world, including the United States, Canada, Greece, France and the UK.

We also added our comments, particularly about "Super Geezer" and then Liu's wife took us back on the road towards the entrance to Simatai. Being handed over from one person to another felt like we were refugees fleeing to safety and they were our trusted contacts.

Walking along the "wall" next to a reservoir was not the same as what we had experienced earlier in the morning.

The path was clear and neat, with signs periodically saying, "Be civilized visitor, set up the ecosystem scenery together!" (sic), or "Appreciate the Great Wall lovely view, do not forget the fire is heartless" (sic).

It was already 8:30am and groups of people were starting their climb up, with hikers of all ages from kids to the elderly. I didn't know how far they were going, but I doubted them would go far.

At the bottom we found the parking lot where we waited for the bus to Miyun.

A young man tried to take advantage of my being an out-of-towner by trying to persuade me to get a ride in his car than wait for the bus, but I held my ground.

Around 8:50am the bus arrived and we got on. It was like one of those travel coaches, though a bit run down inside. A woman collected our money and just after 9am the bus made several stops along the way for over an hour, and I pitied those who had to stand for an hour on the bus.

Then we heard the woman announce it was the stop for the 980 bus and we made our way out. We walked another 50 metres before seeing a giant line of people climbing onto one of two buses that filled up quickly and left.

We got onto the third bus in line around 10:40am and again got a seat. This bus wound its way around Miyun before heading onto the highway. It seemed like Miyun was like a suburb, with pretty uniform streets, things looking relatively orderly, apartments a few years old. The place also had its own public transportation system with small buses that didn't seem to adequately serve its customers.

The bus passed a giant outdoor fruit market, the stalls covered with large umbrellas, and the public health bureau of Miyun, an official-looking building furnished with lions to guard the gate. The middle of the city has the "Great Wall Roundabout", complete with the Chinese characters (长城环岛) sculpted from bushes.

Finally we got onto the highway, but our bus had trouble shifting gears and I prayed it wouldn't break down. Thankfully it didn't, and eventually made it to the bus terminus at Dongzhimen Wai at around 12:30pm.

Walking out onto the streets of Beijing and back into my apartment for a shower in 48 hours was a surreal experience. In the early morning we had hiked up a hill, eaten breakfast in a simple farmhouse with no running water, and now we were back in civilization where cars were constantly honking and people everywhere.

As we waited at an intersection to cross the street, a man approached us with a card. "Mutianyu?" he asked, pointing to the card that said Beijing to Mutianyu (慕田峪), another part of the Great Wall.

I said no thanks and we cross the street.

He had no idea where we had just been.

The Great Wall Adventure Part 2

Sleeping on a kang is a trying experience for the uninitiated. It's basically a rock hard flat surface on which a bedding is put on top as the mattress. Then each person has their own pillow, not the fluffy, feathery kind, but filled with beans, and a quilt to keep warm.

It was only in the middle of the night did I realize that I should use an extra quilt as another mattress layer and use yet another quilt (there were many in this room) as a softer pillow option. Sleeping on your side on a kang is virtually impossible too so you have to sleep on your back.

And then on top of that, knowing you have to wake up at 4am makes it even harder to fall asleep. We could only sleep very lightly, hearing the sounds of the farm around us, including an early wake-up call from a rooster at 3am.

At 4am on the dot, we got a rap on the window from Liu senior. We quickly got dressed, went to the outhouse for a pee, and then with two flashlights, headed out in the darkness to the highest watchtower on the Great Wall in the area called 望京楼 (wang 4 jing4 lou 2), or tower with the view of Beijing, because on a clear day you can see the capital very clearly.

However, in the dark I could see there were clouds in the sky covering the moon which made a clear view of the sunrise questionable. But we headed up anyway.

Liu senior led the way, hands behind his back, one hand holding a flashlight to show us the way. He offered to take my two bottles of water, putting them in his coat pockets. "If you need a drink of water, just tell me," he said.

We first crossed the other farmhouses in the area, their dogs barking at us; we ignored them and continued. I asked Liu senior about the paved road we walked on, and he said it was constructed a year ago thanks to the local government.

But then we broke away from the path and started walking up past terraced plots, then we started hitting a dirt trail covered with rough pebbles that got steeper. Once I thought we would get relief from the incline, Liu senior would change direction and continue up the steep path. "Are you tired?" he asked. I politely replied I was OK and drank some water.

The sky started to get a bit lighter and I worried we wouldn't get up there in time. "How much longer?" I asked. He replied 20 minutes more and pointed up to the brick building towering over us. However, we were now approaching the steepest part of the hike and I started to fatigue, the only one of the three to breathe heavily from the cardio workout. I also began feeling dizzy, and then remembered that we hadn't eaten anything and yet here we had been hiking for over an hour.

Our climb got steeper, now having to use the nearby trees as support, as rocks loosened from the ground and at times made it hard for me to get my footing. By now dawn was coming and we didn't need the flashlights, but I was getting more and more tired and unused to the almost literal climbing we had to do towards the end. My friend had to help me up in the last stretch.

Once we were standing at the top, it was an amazing sight. Far out in the distance was the farmhouse we had come from, and it felt like we were practically on top of the world with no one else around except the three of us. Liu senior warned us to be careful as we wandered around the watchtower (it is closed inside), as it is practically on a cliff. He crouched down at the base of the tower and lit his morning cigarette.

From our view, we could see the wall stretching over the hills like a giant fin on a dragon's back. Imagine being one of those peasants recruited to build the wall, hauling up those giant stone bricks and mortar, or the soldiers who had to hike up there to their stations to be on the lookout for invaders.

The wall here is the real thing, unlike the part fixed up at Badaling or even Mutianyu; here the bricks are rough. Though it looks like some fresh mortar from a few years ago was applied to the brick tower to ensure they stayed in place, it pretty much looks like the original.

"The sun is coming out!" Liu senior exclaimed at around 5:30am, and we watched in the east as the sun struggled to shine through the thick layer of cloud. Nonetheless, it created a dramatic picture of perspective, with the layers of mountains getting progressively lighter in distance like a watercolour.

It was also wonderful seeing the wall during the spring, with cherry and peach blossoms in bloom.

After taking a number of pictures, and soaking in the amazing view, before 6am we made our way back down the same way we went up.

This time we had to keep our balance going down especially the steep part, and definitely relying on the trees as support. At times it meant sitting down and then extending our legs to reach the next part of the ground, or making calculated slides down the dirt path. Liu senior led the way. How he made is way without the need to balance was bewildering. He even carried our empty water bottles for us, while we used whatever was nearby to hold onto for support.

I continued taking pictures around us, and when we got towards the bottom of the hill I looked back at the watchtower, amazed that we had just climbed up so high.

Soon we reached the plots of land and the farmhouses, the chickens and roosters stirring, farmers carrying giant batches of dead cornstalks and dumping them in a pile, a mule waking up, and dogs barking.

When we made it back to the farmhouse, Liu senior's wife was already cooking breakfast for us at 7am. As I ate a meal of tofu sheets with cucumber, stir-fried cabbage with pork fat, peanuts and potato julienne stir-fried with dried chilis and rice, I couldn't help constantly looking up at the watchtower we had gone up to and marveling at the feat we had accomplished.

I really had climbed the Great Wall and was a bona fide Chinese.

The Great Wall Adventure Part 1

Yesterday my friend and I made plans to hike the Great Wall from Jinshanling to Simatai to a farmer's house to stay overnight and then hike up early in the morning to the highest watch tower in the area to catch the sunrise before heading back to Beijing.

However, the best-laid plans can go awry.

We started off relatively late, around 12:30pm and tried to catch a bus going to Chengde, a city in Hebei Province that borders Beijing, as Jinshanling is along the way.

Two buses going to Chengde flew past us as they were already full so we rushed over to get the next one.

Turns out there was no rush because most of the people had already gotten on the two previous minibuses and so we sat there for over an hour waiting as a group of guys tried to drum up business. Some prospective customers who were interested in going to Chengde were turned off by the price (85RMB/$12.45). The men kept shouting "Chengde" until they were hoarse and it didn't bring much results until finally we headed off, still trying to get more customers along the way and managed to snag about three more.

Then traffic was very heavy -- we were going in the same direction as where the 2010 Beijing Auto Show is being held until today and car fans were rushing to Shunyi to the International Exhibition Center. As a result we crawled along Jingmi road until we finally got onto the highway. By now it was 3:30pm and this was leaving us less time to hike on the wall.

While we were on the road, one of the guys hustling business in a purple shirt, sat across from us and either kept calling his friend or his friend kept calling him, constantly updating each other on where they were. It got very annoying until all of a sudden our bus was pulled to the side of the road and stopped.

The next thing I saw in the window was the guy in the purple shirt and the driver had run across the highway to a coach that had also stopped on the highway -- not even on the right side -- and they switched positions with the coach driver. It was so bizarre not to mention dangerous.

Finally around 5pm we arrived at the Jinshanling Tourist area and rest stop and we got off; the rest of the passengers were given a 15 minute-break before getting back on the bus. We went to the restrooms and then got more water and asked the woman working at the cashier if there were small vans that would take us to the base of the wall at Jinshanling because our friend had told us that was how he got there.

She said there were none and we asked another clerk working at the tourist desk. There are no vans, he confirmed, unless we wanted to walk another 5km to the spot. "You either need to drive there on your own or ask the bus to drop you off there," he said, uncomfortably dressed in a military-like uniform complete with a sash across his chest that said he was from the tourist information desk. We wondered why there weren't any bus lines that specifically went to this area so that it wasn't so difficult for those without cars (the vast majority) to get there.

Nevertheless, it was a bizarre situation to be in, not really knowing where we are and what to do since it was getting late.

We then called Liu Hanqiang, our contact who helped us arrange our farmhouse stay with his father. He eventually came to pick us up in a small van driven by his friend, as he himself only had a motorcycle.

Sitting in the front were two young girls around four or five years old who chatted and sang non-stop amongst themselves making for amusing entertainment. We drove down an unpaved narrow path that winded around a stream and lots of trees and boulders. Finally there was a crudely-paved road and then we saw the small village in sight on a hill and were let off.

We met Liu's father, a farmer with a weather-worn face. My friend affectionately calls him "Super Geezer" as he has no trouble hiking up the hill -- with his hands behind his back -- and doesn't need a drop of water either.

His wife made us a simple meal of scrambled eggs with tomatoes, crushed cucumbers with garlic and vinegar, dense tofu and cucumber julienne, and stir-friend green peppers with mostly fatty pork. Oh yes and peanuts roasted with peppercorns.

The elder Liu insisted on drinking beer with me and luckily brought out two small glasses. Every time he took a sip he wanted us to clink glasses and after two bottles, he probably drank one and a half of them.

Liu's son, a precocious three-year-old, also joined us, and wasn't too shy once we said hello.

Apart from growing corn, Liu senior raised chickens and they would wander around the yard, as free range as you can get. Apparently their kungpao chicken is the best, but I didn't get to sample any this time around.

Even though it was only 8:30pm, we had to try to get some sleep as Liu senior would wake us up at 4am to take us to the highest watch tower in the area.

We settled in a new "wing" of the home that was added two months ago. There was a long bed called a kang, that is heated in the winter by an outdoor fire, with bedding on top. However, the bed was so hard, and the pillows filled with beans that it was practically impossible to fall asleep.

Oh and did I mention there was no running water and an outhouse for a bathroom?

We were kind of roughing it, but the air was clean and quiet setting. Best of all was the amazing scenery of the Great Wall right in front of the house.