Wang Is China’s Most Popular Name
As modern-day China occupies a greater share of international interest with each day that passes, more and more questions arise about the world’s most populous nation. Will true democracy ever find its way to the mainland? Will China overtake the United States as the world’s most powerful nations? And most of all, are there more Wangs in China than Lis? While the answers to the first two may elude us for decades, the third question has finally been resolved. China’s Ministry of Public Security released the results of a survey that found that the 93 million mainland Chinese named Wang have the nation’s most popular surname. These findings run counter to a 2006 survey by the Chinese Academy of Sciences that claimed Li to be China’s most common name. The new study found that 7.25% of all mainland Chinese are Wangs while just 7.19% are Lis. The name Wang with an ‘a’, meaning king or royal, is the Mandarin version of the Cantonese name Wong, the more common spelling everywhere outside of mainland China. When it comes to Chinese surnames, there are very few. To be quite honest, I was surprised there weren’t more Wangs. It really does seem sometimes that every Chinese person I know has this name.
•AP: Wang Is China’s Most Popular Surname
•Wikipedia: List of Famous Wangs
The People’s Daily reported Tuesday on a new regulation in Shanghai that would prohibit the city’s storefronts from displaying English-only signs. The proposed citywide regulation, not coincidentally, comes at a time when bars, restaurants and stores that once solely targeted foreign customers, are beginning to see an increase in local Chinese clientele. It seems the increasingly wealthy local Shanghainese have a desire for and a means to buy the Western clothes, coffee and cuisine. The Peeps Daily article points to Shanghai stores like Starbucks and Zara that do not display their store names in Chinese. And some Chinese traditionalists (nationalists) are starting to take exception to this abundance of English in China’s largest cosmopolitan center. One journalist told the Peeps-D, “The all-English signboards are catering to a false admiration for anything Western. Some people tend to think it’s a high-end shop if the name is written in a foreign language…we are in China, and the Chinese language should be used in public places.” These people, like this guy, that see China through a totally cracked lens are beginning to bug me. While I understand the desire to preserve the Chinese language and make it easier for Chinese people to read store signboards, Starbucks and Zara are not the proper battlegrounds to fight the battle against Westernization. Because if there is a Starbucks sign in Shanghai, whether in English, Chinese or Ojibwe, you’ve already lost this battle. Furthermore, there is nothing “false” about the admiration the Chinese have for the West. When one walks down Huaihai Road, it becomes obvious that not only are these stores aimed at foreigners with foreign money, but that they are also aimed at Chinese who want to shop, dress and eat like these foreigners. Sounds bad, but it’s true. It’s the same in New York. Someone would rather eat at a Japanese restaurant called “Nobu” than “Al’s Sushi House” not because the food is necessarily better (Al’s doesn’t really exist), but that a Japanese name creates an illusion of cultural authenticity. And the restaurants, bars and stores with English names create the same illusion. Chinese people don’t want to drink coffee, they want to drink at Starbucks. And they don’t want to shop for clothes, they want to shop at the new H&M on Huaihai (saw it this weekend– very impressive). So while I suppose it’s not too much to ask foreign-minded businesses to put up a Chinese name, when it comes to doing business in Shanghai, you’re probably better off without it.
Only in America is the extension of gun rights to the mentally defective an actual debate. More than a week after the massacre at Virginia Tech that claimed 33 lives, America’s gun organizations have spoken out about the killings. And rather than give a collective “my bad,” the two prominent U.S. gun lobbying groups seem to be split on the issue of guns in the hands of the mental. The National Rifle Association, America’s largest gun lobby with 3.5 million members, clarified its position Tuesday that those with a history of mental illness and treatment, like Cho Seung-Hui, should not be allowed to obtain handguns. NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre stated “Our position on this is crystal clear: If you are adjudicated by a court to be mentally defective, suicidal, a danger to yourself or to others, you should be prohibited from buying a firearm.” Well, it looks like me and the NRA finally agree on something. The NRA however, chose not to comment on the political implications of the Virginia Tech massacre citing sensitivity to the families of the victims. I’m sure they’d say what they always say: that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. And to that I would echo the words of comedian Eddie Izzard who once said, “I think the gun helps.” But America’s second biggest gun lobby, the Gun Owners of America (300,000 members), believe that stripping the mentally defective of their gun rights is unconstitutional. The group that calls itself “the only no-compromise gun lobby in Washington” has launched a campaign to block a congressional bill that creates a FBI mental health record database that gun dealers have to check before selling someone a gun. As a Newsweek story Tuesday points out, federal law already prohibits Americans with mental illness to obtain a gun, however individual states often fail to report crazy gun buyers to the feds. Which is why the bill, proposed by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) and Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), seems like such a good idea. While gun nuts don’t seem like the best judges of who and who isn’t equipped to have guns, surely those who work with the mentally ill can clearly explain to Americans why the mentally ill shouldn’t be able to own firearms. Dr. Nada Stotland, vice president of the American Psychiatry Association said this: “It is unconscionable to restrict people’s civil rights because they have a medical illness.” Ok, maybe she can’t. Is this woman for real? When the government confines a lunatic to a mental institution and doesn’t allow him or her to leave that institution, it is “restricting people’s civil rights because they have a mental illness.” Why, with guns, should it be any different? What is unconscionable is that this is an actual debate– that there are living, breathing human beings in America who want guns in the hands of the mentally defective. As a country that prides itself on bringing freedom here and spreading democracy there, until America snaps out of its maniacal obsession with guns, the rest of the world will never accept America as benevolent, peaceful or, for lack of a better word, sane.
In Shanghai on Friday, five expats launched a new English-language online publication called Small Swords Magazine. In a city with a dearth of well-written magazines or web sites, Small Swords looks and feels like the real deal Shanghai publication. Divided into four sections– life, sound, image and text– the magazine covers all relevant topics in and out of China. The Life section deals with news and Shanghai culture; the sound page is an impressive window into the Shanghai music scene; “Image” covers art, architecture, TV and movies; and the text section hosts book reviews, a bunch of stories about the Shanghai International Literary Festival, and a pretty sweet column called “Banned,” about literature that has been censored. I perused the site Friday and I found the content to be a cut above what I am used to reading in China. The lead story on the home page is about Chinese sarcasm, and humor in China in general, and reads like a Western-style feature story. And as someone who enjoys live music in Shanghai, the sound page has a comprehensive Shanghai concert listing page and legitimate reviews of recent concerts in Shanghai. But most striking about the site is the handsome design. Small Swords has a magazine feel with the characteristics of a well-crafted website, making use of bright thumbnail images and sidebar columns leading readers to more content. On the about page, the editors explain the name “Small Swords,” which while sounding like a self-deprecating joke among men (two of the editors are female), is really an homage to a political society that occupied Shanghai in the 19th century. Nice touch. I highly recommend you go to this site and jump around reading different things. If you left your love of reading periodicals back in the West, Small Swords Magazine will help you recapture some of it. If the renaissance in English-language media is coming to China, as I hear it is, then Small Swords Magazine might just be Botticelli.
CBS announced Wednesday that the 14th edition of Survivor will take place in China making it the first American television show to be filmed here. Who knew this show was still on? The exact location and production date of the new season have not been announced, but Variety reported Tuesday that this will be the first time in 9 years that the reality show will not take place on an island. The Chinese government typically doesn’t allow foreign film crews to shoot in the mainland for fear that foreigners will portray China in an unflattering light. With the Olympics on the horizon, China has actively loosened its policies restricting foreign productions to film in mainland China. While Survivor locales are usually remote tropical settings, maybe it’s time CBS bring the show to one of China’s big cities. Maybe Shanghai. Instead of the old tasks, participants would have to compete in Shanghai-related events. Like the “Subway Sprint” whereby contestants have to get on the first or last car of a Shanghai subway during rush hour and sprint through all the cars. Or maybe a dumpling competition in which contestants have to eat an order of soup dumplings and whoever sprays themselves with the least grease wins. And then there’s “Street Crossing,” invented by me, whereby the contestants must cross a busy Shanghai city street blindfolded. Two hours ago, I didn’t even know this show was still on TV. The only time I ever watched Survivor was back when they had that guy who used to walk around naked. And even with the suspenseful subplot of “whoa, is someone going to make contact with that guys’s dick,” I still thought the show was stupid. CBS hopes the China-based season will attract a more international audience. The location will be kept secret until filming is over.
Ya think? Wednesday, new facts emerged in the Virginia Tech massacre. First, in recent weeks, Cho was ordered to go to a psychiatric hospital for stalking two women at Virginia Tech. Cho was released from the hospital by a judge who ordered him to undergo outpatient treatment. The terms of his release did not prevent him from purchasing a weapon in the state of Virginia. Second, between the dorm shooting and the school building massacre, Cho mailed a bag of goodies to NBC news that included 27 digital videos and numerous photographs. Above is my favorite photo of the lot. My first thought was, “hey, I have that hammer.” And my second thought was “Jesus, this guy was nuts.” You have a 9mm and a .22, why would you think a hammer would make you look tough? As time has passed since the shooting, it seems that Cho was way more methodical and calculating in planning his shooting rampage than what was once assumed. I mean, between deaths 2 and 3, he mailed a parcel. And Wednesday, all of the U.S. news outlets stepped up the blame game. Why didn’t his teachers know from his graphic writing? Why didn’t his doctors know? Why didn’t his classmates alert authorities about his craziness? People don’t, and nor should they, assume that a kid who’s a loner is going to kill 31 people. Not every “sign” is readable. Not everything is someone’s fault. But it seems from the videos, Cho wanted the recognition, the immortality and the fear that he has attained from his violent act. And as my mother would say, he was one sick puppy.
Contrary to a Tuesday Chicago Sun-Times report claiming the student who opened fire on a Virginia Tech school building was a Chinese national, it turns out the gunman was a 23-year-old south Korean immigrant named Cho Seung-Hui. According to a CNN story Tuesday, a doctor at a Blacksburg hospital described the injuries of the shooting victims as “amazing” and said, “there wasn’t a shooting victim that didn’t have less than three bullet wounds in them. We saw one patient that had a bullet wound to the wrist, one to the elbow and one to the thigh. We had another one with a bullet wound to the abdomen, one to the chest and one to the head.” He described the shooter as “brutal.” Reportedly, Cho was a loner (big surprise) and investigators had trouble gathering information about him. Police have not determined whether or not Cho is responsible for the dorm room murder-suicide two hours before the massacre. Officials said that Cho’s family has been contacted. The post below was inspired by the erroneous Sun-Times report.
A live-animal art installation by internationally renown Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping was closed Sunday as animal rights groups deemed the exhibit cruel. The “Theater of the World” exhibit, on display at the Vancouver Art Gallery, featured several live animals such as scorpions, tarantulas, crickets and lizards together in a small cage without sufficient light or food. The British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals demanded last week that the exhibit be drastically altered or shut down saying, “People were concerned about different species coexisting in that habitat…they are species from different parts of the world that would not normally be with each other.” Huang (pictured right) believed the exhibit was purely artistic and conveyed to the viewer the element of chance and the imminence of death. The Chinese have never been accused of being champions of animal rights. As the AFP reported Sunday from Vancouver, “a fierce fight over animal rights and artistic freedom immediately broke out in this western Canadian metropolis, where the VAG is the premier public gallery.” The VAG? The Vancouver Art Gallery calls itself the “VAG?” Do Vancouverites go around asking, “is there a new exhibit in the VAG?” Or “Is the VAG undergoing renovations?” Or “Is the VAG open on Mondays?” The exhibit was part of a larger show titled “House of Oracles: A Huang Yong Ping Retrospective” which was previously shown in Minneapolis and Massachusetts without any controversy. In a press release last week, Huang said critics of the exhibit “completely ignored the concept and ideology behind this particular art work, citing instead the doctrines of so-called ‘animal rights’ that violently interfere with the rights of an art work to be freely exhibited in an art museum.” Clearly, the VAG gave in amidst mounting outside pressure. Perhaps in the future, artists will have to think twice before putting live animals on display in Canada’s VAG.
I’ve written about online gambling. And I’ve written about online video games. And now, I will be writing about the third and final way to waste an inordinate number of hours sitting at a computer– online porn. As an American, it is difficult to imagine the internet without pornography. Nowadays, images of busty housewives and wholesome teens pop up onto screens, advertisements featuring breasts and thong-split asses adorn the borders of sites, and some websites like Craigslist.com, an otherwise reputable site, have areas in which pornographic images can materialize into an actual real-life sexual encounter. I know guys that use the internet exclusively for porn. This is America. It’s not really considered a problem. But as we all know, the internet is not confined to any border and that websites are accessible from pretty much anywhere. Including China. And the growing presence of blow jobs, toe jobs, cunnilingus, anal, rear-entry vaginal, 69, cowboy, reverse cowboy, froggystyle, frottage, piledrivers, spitroasts (look it up), and fisting on the web is beginning to irk China’s leaders. Especially the reverse cowboy.