Beijing Newspeak

I don’t envy the foreign media’s task of bringing the Party congress to the masses in their prospective homelands. One good friend of mine back in the UK, who does have a keen interest in news about China, sent me a text yesterday which said, ”There’s a full-page spread in the Guardian today on the 17th for the second day running. I made the mistake of reading it yesterday - I’m not going to be so foolish again! Whenever the grauniad journo used the word harmonious I felt the need to sub in quotation marks.” Its no slight on Guardian correspondent Jonathan Watts, it’s just that Hu Jintao’s speech was less spicy than a chicken korma.

Reuters found themselves having to churn out several stories each focusing on a few pars of Hu’s address, introduced by headlines that wouldn’t surprise a jungle dweller. “China’s Hu says Communist Party must stay in charge”, “China vows to rebalance economy, nurse environment”, “China must host good Games: president”. Newspapers picked their angles which led to non-conformity on Google news. The New York Times headline read, “China’s leader closes door to reform” while an AFP story was accompanied by the headline, “Hu flags political reform for China”. In another story, AFP tried to inject energy into Hu’s phraseology with “China to go eco-friendly: Hu”. The Times went easy on their readers with an all-you-need-to-know-about-the-congress article in a question and answer format which actually worked very well. The Telegraph’s Richard Spencer has the luxury (though it seems he has to do twice as much work as a result) of being able to write the news story and then conveying his feelings through his blog, describing the congress as a “festival of dull … dull, that is, except for the surroundings, which are spectacular in a makes-you-sit-up-and-stare sort of way”.

By Tuesday, Reuters were alert to anything that veered from the norm. From the press conference in which the media started to get to know - in the kind of way you get to know celebrities at Madame Tussauds - the expected future leaders of China, Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, Reuters had, “‘Consumption is playing a bigger role in driving the economy than investment. Investment growth continues to fall to what we would expect. These are good changes,’ said Xi, wearing a pair of trousers which appeared a bit too short for him.” It seems as if the Shanghai Party boss has one more character trait than Hu Jintao already - expect the trouser fact to be included in all media profiles of Xi when/if  he becomes president.

Going back to that Times article, Jane Macartney’s answer to the question, “Do ordinary Chinese care about the congress?” seemed spot on.

Put simply, no, not really. Most Chinese feel that politics has little to do with their lives. They are relatively happy with the current unspoken deal between party and people. That is, the party will leave the people alone to get on with the business of making money and living a more comfortable life if the people leave the party to govern.

So most people think there’s little point in meddling with politics and feel it all happens very much in secret and what’s the point of bothering about it.

This post on Danwei addressed the same issue and included this quote from Chinese blogger Zhai Hua:

In sum, rather than investigating how concerned the people are about the 17th Party Congress, it’s probably more valuable to look into whether the 17th Party Congress is concerned with the public.

Again, probably true but I thought I would spend a couple of hours strolling around Qianmen’s remaining hutongs yesterday afternoon anyway, asking the “laobaixing” what they thought about the congress (with the help of a friend whose language ability is a couple of light years ahead of mine).

It had been a while since I had conducted a good old-fashioned vox pop. My last one was asking desperate-looking sorts in betting shops in Chiswick (SW London) what they thought about the mind-numbing, wallet content-sapping dross that is virtual horseracing. They all claimed it was a fix. But they still gambled on it anyway.

The police presence around parts of Beijing this week has been extraordinary. Over in Xuanwumen (Xinhua land), officers have been sitting playing cards in a street that has been cordoned off from the public. The registration plates of their vehicles herald from provinces all over China - it looks like any petitioners from Shandong that decide to make an appearance will have a free ride back home. At Qianmen, the size of the blue-uniformed force is comical and apart from the officers searching people exiting the subway on the south side of Tiananmen, they have absolutely nothing to do. Their sheer numbers do succeed, however, in deterring sly foreigners from stealing one of the hundreds of yellow and red posters welcoming the congress which would make cracking souvenirs. I nearly pilfered an “Eight Honours, Eight Disgraces” poster from Xinhua last year but got cold feet at the last minute.

First up was a souvenir seller with cheeky dimples and a winning initial sales pitch. “Hey, Mr Handsome, you like Mahjong?” After we steered the conversation to the “shi qi da” (the big 17th), she replied, “It doesn’t matter to people like me, I am not important enough. All I care about is making money, enough so I have food and clothes. Your mother like scarf?” (Last bit in English).

Next up was a young DVD vendor, who ended up costing me 160 yuan for Zhang Yimou’s greatest hits. He said the congress didn’t really affect his life and he didn’t have time to watch it on television. One of the only things he had in his DVD store was a television. Then, the 60ish popcorn seller who was reading the congress pages of a Beijing newspaper. He said he was interested in the congress but it would take a long time for the common people to feel the benefit of government policies. “Look at me,” he said, as clarification.

We took a right into an area of hutongs east of Qianmen which are slated for demolition, stopping by a group of men squatting by a pile of those seed things (can’t remember the name) that are used to stuff pillows. Are you discussing the shi qi da? “Too busy drinking,” one man with a bottle of baijiu said. And after a few niceties, he said to my friend, “I like you, I want to fuck you.”

We found our final interviewees at a newspaper stand - a man and a woman in their forties. The man didn’t want to talk but the woman didn’t mind. “It’s great that the government is starting to care about the common people,” she said, beaming.

So there you go. In this case, a vox pop around Qianmen really was of limited use. But it was good fun anyway. It also served as a useful reminder that I should study a lot more Chinese and that every “laobaixing” you meet can’t be expected to pour out their hearts to a couple of foreigners after a minute’s conversation. When I was researching a story about the redevelopment of Qianmen several months ago, a few people we interviewed said to my Chinese translator, “Why are you helping a foreigner to find out the bad things about China?” Others, on the other hand, were very forthcoming.

Shuffling around Qianmen is also far less dramatic than clicking a mouse. Last night, Bullog.cn had a notice saying, “Due to this very sensitive period, we can’t let you talk about politics anymore, very sorry.” One response was:

The People’s Congress is the whole country’s representatives meeting time, during this time all the people have to shut their fucking mouths. Look, what can you do when you have been castrated? If you have been castrated, how can you fuck? All you can do is be fucked.

Now that sells newspapers.

Excellent link: http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/10/16/china-tough-blogging-the-communist-congress/

It is a governmental masterstroke. After two years or so, the phrase “harmonious society” is about as a fresh as a shrivelled daisy. When things go wrong these days, the sardonic line “so much for a harmonious society” is a common display of disappointment. Well I have heard it a lot at work anyway. A new promotional method is needed and it doesn’t involve printing more wallet-friendly cards carrying the “Ba Rong, Ba Chi” or releasing more stories through Xinhua.

Get the people to spread the word. Just ask the general public to celebrate all things harmonious (that’s the third time I have used “harmonious” already - it is in no way linked to a pathetic desire to see this blog flagged up on google following the input of the search words “harmonious society”) through a writing competition and offer an attractive cash prize.

The full Xinhua report is here:

Chinese Internet operators are working to promote the political philosophy of “harmonious society”.

They are running an online competition under the banner “Building a harmonious society guided by the scientific thinking on development” in which members of the public are invited to submit articles, photographs and video clips related to harmonious society, however tenuous, for a top prize of 5,000 yuan.

The competition is being co-sponsored by all 188 Chinese news and entertainment portal sites licensed by the State Council to publish news, including sina.com and tom.com, and will run from August 3 to September 20.

There are no restrictions to the age, region or nationality of the participants and both individuals and groups can take part in the competition, an official with the organizing committee said.

According to the organizing committee, many works including articles and photos have been uploaded to the portals already.

“Social development can be perceived from details of people’s lives displayed in their photos and written articles,” the official said.

An indicator of the heart-warming nature of the competition could be seen in a series of photos entitled “Love sent her back to school” displayed at www.tom.com. They tell the story of a student named Li Dongmei who has recovered from disease with assistance from her classmates and donations from society.

According to President Hu Jintao’s New Year speech, 2007 is an important year in building a socialist harmonious society under the guidance of the scientific thinking on development advocated by the Chinese central leadership.

It would be slightly misleading to attribute the idea of the competition to “Chinese Internet operators”. You would think the Publicity Department would be proud to claim this particular piece of PR as its own. I had a look at two of the major news portals - www.tom.com and www.sina.com - and there is a link to the competition buried in their homepages. The actual competition pages are here and here, both with individual designs for the banners at the top, which read “Building a harmonious society guided by the concept of scientific development” and, as a sub-banner, “I build, I witness, I record”.

The current story on Tom’s competition page, I am told, is extolling the virtues of email, a revolutionary form of communication which is apparently pushing conventional letter-writing into the shade. I suppose that’s the scientific development link although the internet as a tool to promote harmonious society rather being seen as a possible threat by the Party is a tad far-fetched.

Anyway, seeing as the competition is open to all nationalities, and Hu Jintao is committed to building a harmonious world, it would be nice to see a global response. Cash prizes down to fourth place by the way.

The attention given to International Women’s Day in China today was nothing short of incredible. Xinhua love it. It is a great event for filling story quotas - just find any female reference and stick “ahead of Women’s Day on ..” somewhere near the opening line. I just can’t help but feel that the occasion, in some ways, plays up to stereotypes, particularly when most women I know back in Britain regard the concept as patronising. A sign of more equal rights, I suppose.

Female colleagues at the Great Hall of the People were visited by the Xinhua big boss - Tian Congming (TCM) - and were lavished with flowers, chocolates, shampoo and body lotion. Women all over Beijing were bombarded with text messages in the morning from clothing stores proclaiming unprecedented discounts of up to 70 percent off for one day only. Well, many women in the capital were given the afternoon off so what else were they going to do. Ahem. Unfortunately, Xinhua ladies missed out on that one. TCM returned to the main building to give a lecture in the afternoon in “celebration” of Women’s Day. The main point of the talk was to encourage women (and a few token men) to spend less time sitting in meeting rooms listening to people talking.

A couple of female colleagues said that for a developing country, China has some of the best women’s rights.  It seems that old Mao can take some credit for this with his “Women hold up half the sky” line - although his infamous biographers Jung Chang and Jon Halliday believe that he just wanted to boost the nation’s workforce. It was encouraging to see a report by China Daily carried in the People’s Daily about guaranteeing a much-needed minimum number of female NPC deputies for the elections next year.

The problem has not gone unnoticed by the NPC Standing Committee, too. In a draft resolution on the number and election of deputies to the 11th NPC to be discussed at the ongoing NPC session, it has asserted that the number of woman deputies should not be less than 22 percent. This is the first time that the NPC has drawn a bottom line for woman deputies in its election plan.

The figure is below the UN target of 30 percent for women in leadership positions and legislatures set back in 1990 but a start nevertheless.

Incidentally, there is a Chinese phrase which seems to have originated from Hong Kong films and televisions and is inspired by International Women’s Day. In a cunning use of the date of the occasion (san yue ba hao - 03-08), the phrase is: “Ni shi da san ba”. It means something like “You are a big gossiping woman”. Ah, the sterotypes.

Unlike around 60 percent of China’s population I didn’t see CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala. But a few people have told me about a poem read out by children of migrant workers live on the program, which describes their struggle for schooling in the capital. “It is our mothers that clean Beijing’s streets, it is our fathers that build Beijing’s skyscrapers,” goes one line. The people who raised the gala item, a couple of them Xinhua colleagues, said they were genuinely moved to tears by the piece. In fact, the female CCTV presenter, who was jointly hosting the gala, committed the cardinal sin of live television and started sobbing. A story released by Xinhua gave the example of one man (a good friend of the journalist who wrote the article) being inspired to donate 100 yuan to the cause the next day at a donation point in a Temple Fair. Although it should be clarified the donation point was not set up specifically for migrant workers’ children.

My first reaction was to applaud the publicity given to this issue in front of an audience of around 700 million. Yes, it was a piece of propaganda. But it was another example of the problem of migrant children’s schooling being publicised through the state media, something which has become increasingly apparent in recent months. Take this article from China Daily for example, written by columnist Li Xing about the closure of Xingzhi school, one of the largest migrant kids’ schools in Beijing, which reaches the following conclusion:

“But to help schools like Xingzhi to grow and further develop, better policies are needed to address the current divide between the permanent Beijing residents and non-residents and between the so-called public schools and “private” schools, so that all children are able to enjoy free basic education wherever they live, even without permanent resident status.”

Then, another colleague of mine shed further light on the poem recital. She saw the same poem being performed by the same group of children wearing the same clothes on a Beijing TV channel at the end of last year. She picked out different lines from the poem, saying that the poem was quite sensational. “Beijing is not yours (city kids), it is ours!” and “You compare your parents with ours, we will compare our futures with yours!” As my colleague rightly pointed out, this kind of aggressive language emphasises a clear divide between migrant kids and city kids. She wondered what the children reading out the poem really thought about it and hoped they were not being manipulated.

It is difficult to comment properly on the poem when I have never actually heard it all the way through. And I wouldn’t be able to understand it anyway. So it may seem a bizarre choice of topic for a first blog entry. But this is an issue I feel strongly about, having followed it at Xinhua and tried to encourage reporters to cover it properly. We made some headway in the reporting of it last August only for a combination of a lack of bravery on the news agency’s part and the silent treatment from local officials to ensure the stories reverted back to vague promises on improving migrant children’s educational facilities.

The migrant children have read a poem on the biggest TV program of the year. They should not be asked to do it again. Hopefully, it was the kick up the arse the Beijing government needed and this year we will actually see some results.