The Two Percent

Interesting factoid of the week, throughout history only two percent of Chinese have been able to write Literary Chinese. In 1996 only two percent of Chinese pursued post secondary eduction. Sometimes it seems that things aren't changing, but they are.

First Cider and Mead

So here are our first bottles. Ginger Mead to the left Simple Cider to the right. They were both open aired fermented for ten days. The Mead is nice and sweet. The cider quite crisp. So far they have met mixed reviews, but at least everyone was willing and able to sample one of the products.

I'm serving as test subject. Some aren't quite convinced this is safe. I suppose I ought to show you some in the glass.

The motive is water purification...

The Mead is one grated ginger root, one part honey, five parts water. The cider is fresh apple juice with slices of apple for their wild yeast.

As I said, the mead is very sweet; you can tell immediately from the nose hit you get. But there is a distinct ginger flavor that gives it some warmth. I think I prefer it to the cider. It is definitely easy drinking; assuming, of course, it doesn't kill me.

The cider smells of vinegar. In fact, we thought it had turned on us, but our cousin says it's fine. It has a yeast taste at any rate. Something Ping finds disagreeable, but our cousin prefers it; it tastes more like typical alcohol. Best drunk in moderation, I think. I hope it will improve with age.

The next cider won't be fermented as long before bottling.

Overall, I'm surprised how well they both turned out. There is still a strawberry mead in the works. That will got into bottle as soon as I make a spare.

Short China

I can understand why people are short China, perhaps they're even in the right. But being here I couldn't care less about the figures.

The Chinese, some of them, are the sort of people you hope will succeed.

They're the type of people that devour an entire book in one sitting to keep from paying; and that strikes me as the important bit.

Yes, numbers aren't looking good, but then they shouldn't be; the economy isn't good and there's a leadership transition to consider.

I imagine leadership transitions are always a slow time of sorts for China relative to others. If I were an empiricist, I'd bother to read some graphs and figure out for sure. But, then we'd have to agree to trust the data or on some means of adjusting it.

So, I'll make an argument from axioms instead. The leadership in power is only maintained in power by delivering a mix of public and private goods to their selectorate. China has a huge selectorate; hence it's success despite the form of government. Because of the large size, a significant amount of the leadership's bid comes in the form of quasi-public goods like 4,000 rmb pensions for Civil Servants. But another significant form of private good is access to cheap money.

During a leadership transition that access dries up. The old leadership is transitioning from authority to power; they don't need to bribe people to govern, they just need to bribe enough people to maintain influence. So, they allow the crusaders at the People's Bank of China to tighten oversight. This makes cheap money a hard thing to find or force.

But the new leadership will have to turn on the spigot anew, as surely as the Emperor prays to Heaven for his rice.

Mind and Body

I read a rather disappointing piece in The Spectator just now on celibacy within the Church. It was disappointing because it was too dualist, simplistic, in perspective. That sort of thing is fine for Descartes, but it is not really what theologians believe.

Body and mind are not held as separate things. It has been a long time since I read theology, and even if it were fresh in my mind, I doubt the distinctions would be rather illuminating.

The author went on to claim that celibacy was seen as the easiest form of self-denial. I don't thing that's quite true. In the Orthodox tradition celibacy has always been considered a form of martyrdom; yes, easy insofar as it is available to all where ever their time or place. But in no way easy in the demands made on body and mind.

But the author is correct in general. There is a Platonism still to be found in then teachings of the Church.

3000 Dead Pigs in Shanghai Water Supply

So, we decided to start paying for bottled water. We probably should have been doing it since we got here, but who the hell knows where the water in the bottle comes from.

I've always maintained keeping kosher in China is neigh impossible. But even I'm amazed.

Narendra Modi

I'm fed up with the hand wringing over at Via Meadia about Narendra Modi. They're too cowardly to take a clear position, but feel a constant need to remind us of our predicament. Screw Modi. If he wins, he'll either deal with America or he won't. But there's no reason for us to court the bastard.

When it comes to talking about Asia Via Meadia pushes this Games of Thrones metaphor way too much. That's just bullshit because in The Game of Thrones is a zero-sum game. Sure there's coalition forming, but there can only be one king.

That's the wrong sort of attitude to have in Asia. Having that sort of attitude will hurt American interests. Because there are plenty of actors caught between the US and China and they do poorly if you turn this into a zero-sum game.

Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia. Even the likes of Vietnam. They want an off-shore balancer. They want options not dilemmas.

North Korea China Relations

There's been a lot of talk about the relationship between China and North Korea recently. I just want to put some things in perspective.

Neither India or Pakistan have a ballistic missile that can target Beijing. North Korea has one. North Korea also has some nukes. They might even have some ballistic missiles armed with nukes.

If North Korea is a threat to America its a far greater threat to China. Is the relationship between China and North Korea going to change? Yes. North Korea is dependent on China but has China locked in a position of Mutually Assured Pain.

North Korean missiles are able to target the entire Chinese seaboard. Hell they could even hit Chengdu or Lhasa.

So what's my prediction? Either the relationship is going to go sour quick, or China will accept the new reality facing it: North Korea cannot be reduced to tribute state status. Frankly, it's already a bit late to do anything but accept North Korea can't be coerced.

And we're making the same damn mistake with Iran.

But another mistake we're making is thinking of these weapons as North Korea's. They aren't. They're the ruling coalitions. How valuable are they as bargaining chips in either a situation where the Kims are being given the boot, or in a negotiated reunification?

In fine, North Korea's nukes are a safety net in more than one way; they present the leadership with intriguing bartering options in multiple scenarios.

Dew neh loh moh

On break, while reading Noble House, I came across the words: dew neh loh moh. From context I realized it was obviously a curse. Then I cam across it again and again and again until my interest was peaked.

So, I read the words allowed and hear Ping gasp. What in the world does dew neh loh moh mean?

It means, word for word, fuck your old mother. Clavell plays with the phonetic spelling he employs.

It has been suggested that Dew neh loh moh is Hakka. Perhaps, but the Hakka for you isn't neh, at least not in our dialect. The Hakka for you is more like nhhh or ng.

No, in my opinion dew neh loh moh is pure Cantonese.

How authentic is it? People say it, but I've never heard it in person. Clavell seems to do this. He makes his characters swear.

Clavell doubtless knows more Malay than me, but his curses in Malay are of a sexual nature. And I've recently read that Malays aren't really big on that sort of thing.

Incidentally, there's a character in Noble House that deliberately wears a green hat.

Pensions: Public Good or Spoils?

Seven children living in a home for the disabled dead because the home was to cheap, or inadequately funded, to provide proper heating.

Meanwhile, retired government officials get 4,000 RMB a month in pensions without ever having to make a contribution in their life.

During the last few weeks of Spring Festival I began wondering about pensions: are they public goods or just a way of paying off China's selectorate?

Looking at how local governments manage pension schemes, I feel officials see the money pouring into the system is theirs for the taking. Just look at how pensions have been treated in America.

Dismayed at Kindle

My kindle is a fantastic little thing. I take it almost everywhere. But I was surprised to find a dearth of good books on British foreign policy or politics in general. 

Perhaps I just don't know where to look. I've spent so much time reading about Asia and China, one book leading to another, that maybe I just don't know where to dive into the literature on British politics.

But I can't help but feel peeved at finding perfectly good books available for kindle on amazon.co.uk that are no where to be found on Amazon's American site. I don't blame Amazon. 

I'm just surprised that there isn't enough demand in the US. I find it perplexing in a way. It seems the working of Chinese society is more accessible to me these days. It only seems so though. Doubtless I can't even begin to fathom the goings on in Zhongnanhai.

Start of Classes

I had my first classes this Thursday. I'm surprised that it went so well. I've decided to go out on a limb and trust my students. In other words, I'm making working in small groups a bigger part of our class routine.

I hope the experience will provide me with some deeper lessons, but even if working in small groups doesn't improve end results it's still worthwhile. At the very least, it is something novel. Chinese students are used to lectures.

This term I'm also trying to encourage large group discussions. How it works is my students divided themselves into groups to blog about any topic they'd like. For part of each class we discuss their posts. This way the students will be constantly confronted by the reader.

I think one of the hardest parts of being a teacher is being a reader. Students, not all but quite a few, have no qualms about torture by prose.

I confess I am a sinner too.

To my readers, you long suffering few, please forgive me.