“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” - Edith Wharton

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Tom Carter's Two-Year China Photo Odyssey


A photographer, his camera, a backpack, two years, one country, 56 cultures, 1.3 billion people, 33 provinces and 56,000 kilometers.

Tom Carter has seen a whole lot of China. After two years traveling the country, taking over 10,000 portraits of people he encountered along the way, Tom recently published a 640-page book of 800 color photographs. His aim was to capture the spirit of China through images and dispel the stereotypes of the Chinese as a homogeneous single nationality.

Traveling by the cheapest modes of transport available and sleeping in 15 RMB guesthouses, the American photographer lived side by side with the ordinary people of China. CHINA: Portrait of a People is the culmination of his hard work, his passion for travel, his eye for detail and his genuine curiosity.

Tom kindly took the time to answer my questions about what it's like to travel in China for two years. I just couldn't resist the "Jack Kerouac" question, the "disgusting food" question, the "what's in your bag" question and of course, the "why China" question. He humored me. Read on. It's been quite the journey.


What style of traveler would you describe yourself? Why do you love to travel? Why China?

I identify with the backpacker set, but I drift around China more like a migrant peasant worker. Though “author” and “photojournalist” sounds romantic and glamorous, my lifestyle is clearly more indicative of a tramp than an armchair traveler. This isn’t intentional, mind you. I just happen to be perpetually insolvent, yet I refuse to let this stop me from seeing the world, so the final result is this kind of vagrant wanderlust. And my new book CHINA: Portrait of a People is a product of that result.

I blame my parents entirely for my nomadic tendencies, as they were both also wandering immigrants who met in the great American melting pot of San Francisco, then passed their émigré blood on to me. But I have come to truly love traveling, because I learned from growing up in a multicultural city that no civilization is entirely homogenous. It’s vital in this age to understand the global scene, for what occurs on one side of the world will ultimately impact the other side. I’m not endorsing globalism; I am endorsing awareness and respect. And I think backpacking leads to awareness more than any other kind of travel. It’s associated with the younger crowd, but I have met several elderly backpackers and backpacking families who sold the SUV so they could travel in China for several months, and I applaud them.

I am convinced that China is one of the world’s best nations to travel, as it provides a broad spectrum of cultures, geography and history that one would normally have to circumnavigate an entire continent for. And as it is still a developing country, the affordability of travel in China is unrivaled. Of course I didn’t know any of this when I fist arrived in China as an English teacher in 2004. All my knowledge and travel advice is the culmination of almost half a decade of first-hand experiences across China.

What are some destinations in China, often overlooked on the usual travelers map, that were your favorites? What parts of China surprised you the most?

I was truly surprised to find that every Chinese province has distinct terrain and architecture as well as unique culture. China is like 33 siblings, sharing the same blood yet each with their own personalities and appearance. But it takes a discerning traveler to uncover this dissimilarity; if you just breeze through the usual tourist highlights, of course you’ll miss it.

I have an affinity for old Chinese villages, so I made it a point to pass through as many as I could. The slate rooftop vista of Lijiang in Yunnan or the antiquated watertowns of Wuzhen in Zhejiang province, Zhouzhuang in Jiangsu and Fenghuang in Hunan, and are “must-see” villages even for one-week vacationers. However they are protected heritage sites that have been restored and commercialized; they are beautiful but they lack the dusty character that I personally appreciate. Plus the droves of red-hat wearing Chinese tour groups tend to get in the way of the view.

For a glimpse into ancient China minus the souvenir stands, go backpacking around the Miao-Dong Autonomous Region in East Guizhou, the tulou Hakka earth buildings in southern Fujian, the Tibetan shanties of Langmusi in South Gansu, or the stunning Qing dynasty villages that dot southern Anhui/northern Jiangxi provinces. It’s like a living, breathing scroll painting. You need to move fast, though; there’s an old Chinese saying I made up that goes “village China does not commercialize is village China will bulldoze.” Like 1,700 year-old Gongtan in Chongqing, submerged last year for a hydro power plant. Luckily I got there just as everyone was moving out; you can see these heartbreaking photos in CHINA: Portrait of a People.

You’ve taken some stunning portraits of Chinese people. Tell us a bit about the challenges and delights of photographing strangers. Any tips on getting great photos of people?

The title of my photobook, CHINA: Portrait of a People, came after the fact; following my first trip around China I realized that a majority of my images were of people rather than places. This probably happened because I was spending most of my time people-watching and interacting with the locals, which is something I really love about China – the people are just so gosh-darned friendly. It was a rare day that I ever met a shy Chinese person or one who didn’t insist on inviting me inside for tea and chatting, even if we couldn’t understand each other. They were simply as curious about my appearance and lifestyle as I was of their’s.

I was originally going to title my book CHINA: Watching Me Watch Them because that’s exactly how I spent most of my time. To this end, the delights of photography in China far outweigh the challenges, which are minimal yet severe. The Chinese authorities are very protective, and they will not hesitate to confront a westerner they catch taking pictures of “negative” things, such as poor people, demolition, police or political activity and even drying laundry.

My tips for photographing people are obvious yet effective: Make friends first, then your great people picture will come after. Language skills are not imperative; a warm smile can be understood universally. Also, don’t be bashful; I always wonder at the tourists who take a picture of someone’s back at ten feet away because they were too hesitant to approach the subject and ask them to pose.

Lastly, many peasants in rural China rarely if ever have the opportunity to see themselves on film. If you have a digital camera, take a moment to show them your snapshot; it will make their day! And even better, get their address and send them a printed copy later; I’ll bet you that photo gets framed and placed in the center of their living room wall.

You must have tasted a lot of odd foods in your travels throughout China. What is the most disgusting thing you have ever eaten?

I am self-exempted from this question because I have been a vegetarian for 20 years, so my knowledge of Chinese cuisine is admittedly limited. Truthfully, I regret not being able to sample all of China’s varied victuals, as I subsist primarily on tofu and vegetables, but for me seeing is often enough.

Take a stroll down Qingping Shichang market in Guangdong and the axiom “people from Guangzhou will eat anything from the sky or the earth” will be seared into your mind forever. Westerners need to keep in mind that the term “disgusting” is subjective; most Chinese think eating cheese is “disgusting” just as we think of fish eyeballs, which is in fact a delicacy in China. And whenever my Chinese girlfriend and I watch (pirated) DVDs together, she insists nibbling on pickled chicken feet and spicy duck neck; she doesn’t like popcorn!

What about danger? Were there moments when you felt unsafe? What were the greates dangers you encountered? What were some of your most trying moments?

It’s vital that tourists coming to China know that the P.R.C. is one of the safest countries in the entire world. Besides boasting one of the lowest crime rates, Chinese-on-foreigner violence rarely occurs. This is as a result of strict Communist law-enforcement, one of those policies that the West would do well to study. Unfortunately, the typical Chinese person’s attitude about crime is to turn a blind eye and let the police handle it. So thieves are rampant in China because they know nobody will say anything.

One day I saw a pickpocket trying to snatch a woman’s purse, and I half-nelsoned him while yelling for someone to call the cops. A crowd gathered around me wondering what the hell I was doing holding this man, and even the lady was so embarrassed she didn’t even thank me.

Another time in Beijing I caught three guys trying to pickpocket me by boxing me in; I punched one of them clear out the door and followed after them to see if they wanted more, three against one. They were petrified that one of their marks was actually fighting back and ran off like dogs.

But I haven’t always been so lucky. One late night at a cheap hotel in Chongqing a group of drunk Chinese guys in the next room were being really obnoxious. I asked them to be quiet, but it turned into another 4-way fistfight. This time I lost, and found myself on the ground getting kicked in my head. The funny thing about that incident is as their shoes were smashing into my cheekbones, I remember glancing around for help, and I saw a two security guards just standing there watching, like television.

But such situations are few and far between; if a Western tourist doesn’t flaunt their wealth, minds their own business, and keeps a tight grip on their bags, then really they should never have any problems. Even dark alleys after midnight are safe in China!


What are some unexpected circumstances that would found yourself in?

These stories really upset my mom but I like to tell them anyway. My first year in China I caught encephalitis, which is a life-threatening viral infection that attacks the brain. It really hurts, and you die in like 7 days from catching it. I felt like crap for 2 days before I knew something was seriously wrong, so that means I had less than a week to live.

Moments like this give you a new perspective on life. I’ll never know, but I think I caught the encephalitis from mosquitoes; it was entirely my fault because I couldn’t afford the vaccination before I left. No, scratch that, I blame the U.S. government for making vaccinations so expensive; they should be free! Anyhow, it must have been the most exciting thing to ever happen in that small town, because while I was hospitalized they sent in a reporter to take my picture and cover the story in the local state-run newspaper.

Other unexpected situations I found myself in China include the number of times I have been confronted by hostile local police for taking photos where I oughtn’t. One of the most intimidating times was when I accidentally stumbled upon a peasant riot in Hunan.

Any kind of political demonstration or uprising in China is illegal, and so is taking pictures of it. As a photojournalist I couldn’t resist however, but a little while later I was surrounded by undercover police demanding I turn over my photos lest I disappear in the Chinese penal system for an indefinite period of time. A few photos still exist (not saying how) and you can see them in CHINA: Portrait of a People.

And my most unexpected moment occurred while I and another backpacker were hiking around Changbaishan Mountain in North China’s Jilin province. It was the dead of winter and I was crossing the frozen crater lake at the top; there was absolutely nobody else on that mountain, or so we thought. The next moment two DPRK soldiers appeared out of the snow pointing their submachine guns at us. Apparently we had accidentally crossed into the North Korean border. Showing them our American passports didn’t help matters any. It took a tin of communist-rolled Cuban cigars to persuade them to let us go back to China.

What are some tips you might give for a traveler who wants to budget, long haul travel around China?


Some of my ideas about budget travel in China might not be consistent with what the CNTA (China National Tourism Administration) prescribes. Chinese authorities prefer to keep a close eye on tourists and journalists, but I became a bit of a ghost while I was backpacking so I could navigate off the radar, which had its pros and cons. I’ll offer some suggestions, though I take no responsibility for their outcome.

First of all, China usually only grants 1-3 month visas, though staying in China for an extended period of time requires at least a one-year visa. Anything less and your going to have the pressure of constantly making it back to the border on time, which gets expensive. The ways to skirt this are either arrive in China with a job contract that sponsors your 1-year visa (such as teaching English), then quit. Or take advantage of one of the many unofficial Chinese visa services that advertise online; for a tidy sum they will use their guanxi (backroom relationships) to arrange a year-long visa with multiple re-entries.

Also, last-minute train tickets are hard to come by, especially during the Golden Week holidays. If you absolutely must get on that train, most foreigners are unaware that they can purchase a standing ticket (zhan piao), then sleep in the aisle, or on the luggage racks or bathroom sink, like I’ve witnessed many people do. The other alternative for long-distance travel are sleeper busses (coaches with beds); 99% of backpackers I’ve talked to were oblivious to this method of transportation. But I should say that some of these sleeper busses are real heaps, like the one I was stuck on for 3 days to get across west Tibet. It crawled at like 5 kilometers an hour, it broke down in the middle of the night a couple times, and all the other passengers on the bus were smoking for 72 solid hours; I was coughing up blood by the time I escaped.

And speaking of Tibet, flying into Lhasa or taking the new railway are secure ways of traveling in the T.A.R., but for a real adventure, and at a fraction of the cost, hitchhike in from northern Yunnan across the Kham region. This will also allow you to bypass the mythical “Tibet Tourist Visa” that so many travelers worry about.

What else…many national parks in China are terribly expensive, such as Zhangjiajie or Jiuzhaigou. But most have student discounts; a real student ID is best, though sometimes your driver’s license works just as well *wink wink*. Most food in China is affordable and abundant, but if you are really hurting for cash, then a steady diet of street food such as chuanr kabobs and malatang communal hotpot and will keep you alive for just a few RMB (it helps to have an iron stomach).

As for hotels, international youth hostels are becoming more popular across China, especially in the tourist cities, which save you an immense amount of money plus allow you to interact with other backpackers and get lots of travel information; be sure to sign up for the HI or YHA membership card first, and you’ll get even more of a discount.

However in remote towns and out-of-the-way stops, I’m all about luguan (flophouses) that can be found orbiting train and bus stations. The walls are cardboard, the sheets are soiled, and safety and security are iffy, but at 15RMB per night, it’s a budget traveler’s best friend. The only problem is these are illegal for foreigners to stay in, so you have to be discreet about it.

And last but not least: everything in China is negotiable! You are expected to negotiate and fight about the price; if you don’t, you’ll lose face and won’t even know it. The golden rule is at least half the original price.


What are ten things in your backpack that you found most useful on the road?

The cool thing about traveling in China is not only that everything in the world is made here, but it only costs a fraction of what it does in the West. Clothes and accessories are abundant at every stop, so backpackers can travel light and literally pick up what they need along the way. However, some things should be permanent:


Books. I actually enjoy reading the brittle, classic English literature that lines the shelves of Xinhua, but sometimes I need a good dose of contemporary reading. A solid third of my backpack remains filled with books. Most Chinese bus drivers can’t lift my pack because it is so heavy.

iPod. I am an unabashed fan of China pop music, and have over a gig’s worth on my iTunes. But what drives me insane is when a bus or train or restaurant in China puts one particular song on repeat the entire time - and blasts it at full volume. It’s at these times that I must insulate myself with my headphones.

Sarong. As feminine as this sounds, it really is an all-purpose item. It rolls up tight, and when unraveled one can use it as a beach blanket, a bath towel, keeping warm when the train aircon is stuck on high (which happens frequently), as a bed sheet in place of soiled luguan linen, or on those nights when you have to sleep on bus-station floors or in a ditch.

Tissue packs and wet wipes. For anyone who has ever glimpsed a Chinese toilet; no need to go into detail.

Vitamins. Long-term traveling in a developing country takes a toll on one’s health. And as a vegetarian, I am especially vulnerable. So I keep a big Costco-size bottle of multi-vitamins in my pack.

Ear-plugs and sleeping eye-patch. Hotel guests in China tend to fall asleep with their televisions on full-blast, and the walls are thin. Or when taking an overnight train on the hard seat, the lights remain on. I depend on both of these things if I want to actually sleep.

Avon Skin So Soft. Another feminine product I have co-opted as essential travel gear. Ever since I caught encephalitis my first year in China, I have been quite mistrustful of mosquitoes. Skin So Soft repels mosquitoes as good as DEET, minus the toxic side-effects. Plus it keeps my skin supple and sensual *grin*.

Airplane pillow. Next time you catch a plane, swipe one of those mini-pillows from the over-head; your airfare covers the cost so it’s not really stealing! These pillows are light and compact and oh-so-much more preferable to those bean-bags they call pillows at Chinese hotels.

Bicycle cable lock. Can be purchased for just a few RMB at any Chinese bike stand, and quite practical when you want to stash your bag somewhere or crash out on the bus or train without worrying about your stuff getting lifted.

Matang (Xinjiang dessert). Nut-fruit-nougat cake, aka Muslim trail mix. A must-have for hiking up sacred mountains or long, inter-provincial bus rides. I always buy a brick-size portion of this treat whenever I see Uyghur street vendors, and it has a shelf-life of at least a year so you can just keep it in your pack until your next trip. Be forewarned – it’s pricey, and the Uyghur drive a hard bargain!


Who is your favorite travel writer?

Two authors that without a doubt fuel my travels are Jack Kerouac, who wrote the seminal On The Road, a result of 7 years of wandering during the 1950s. Even more inspirational to me is a less-celebrated historical-fiction author named Gary Jennings, whom I really admire as both a world explorer and storyteller. Jennings penned an epic, 800-page monster titled Aztec, about a young Aztec named Dark Cloud who spends his life exploring pre-conquest Mexico.

Jennings traveled around Mexico for over a decade to research Aztec. His second novel, the equally-long and ambitious The Journeyer, retraces Marco Polo’s adventures across Asia and into China. I read this book several times over while backpacking in China, and I am quite certain it had a profoundly subconscious effect on own odyssey.

How did you deal with loneliness while traveling for so long outside of your comfort zone in a very different culture from what you are accustomed?

Xiaojie hair-salon girls? Heh heh, just kidding. No but seriously, it’s hard to feel lonely in a country of 1.3 billion people. In fact, one of the classic challenges for a foreigner traveling across China on the hard seat of a peasant train is getting all those curious, good-natured passengers to please stop talking to you or offering you smokes and baijiu so you can just chill out with a book. I delight interacting with people, and 90% of my traveling I am doing so, but I also value my “me” time.

So I welcome a little loneliness now and then. Nonetheless, I was backpacking alone in China for one year, but my second spin around my girlfriend accompanied me, and we were on the road together 24-7, also for year. One of the reasons I invited her to come with me is because, despite my independent tendencies, I concede that sometimes it’s nice to have someone to share your happiness with.

What photo would you have liked to have taken but couldn’t for whatever reason?

The camera I was using – an old-school digital point and shoot – had its limitations, so naturally I missed a lot of candid shots that required rapid shutter release, low-light abilities or a telephoto lens. But this just forced me to get up close and personal with my subjects (for the portraits I was as near to them as you see in the photo, just centimeters away), so CHINA: Portrait of a People ironically benefited from my limitations.

Conversely, some photos were simply impossible to capture. For example, to commemorate the 2007 lucky Year of the Pig-babies, I wanted to photograph a live birth. Some people will think that sounds demented, but as a photojournalist I felt it was a very important image to include in the book. I tried countless ways to access hospitals or make arrangements with pregnant families, but this being China, most were dead-set against my presence.

Instead I settled on photographing a pregnant woman, which itself was also quite difficult. The very-pregnant lady you see on page 417 (Hebei) I met accidentally while walking around, long after I had given up on the idea. I asked her to pose semi-nude Demi Moore style, but she – understandably – refused.


What would you say are the benefits of slow travel?
Vacationers who pass through entire countries in record time just so they can check it off on a list and say they “did it” are missing the whole point of travel. Slow travel really allows you to immerse yourself and live and breathe a new culture. It generally depends on one’s nationality, however.


For example, the British are instinctive world-travelers, and I really admire them for taking a year or two off after high school or college to see the world before jumping into a career. I also meet a lot of Israeli backpackers who spend extended periods of time backpacking around, and I’m sure this has something to do with the situation in their homeland. Conversely, Japanese and Americans are very nationalistic and insulated and prefer short bursts of luxury vacation, rather than down-and-dirty budget travel. And the Chinese themselves are infamous for preferring pre-packed holiday tours where everything has been decided for them.

Some people will complain that you need a lot of money to travel slowly, but I am living proof that this is a myth; you just need to be resourceful, and have a keen sense of frugality.


What are your future plans?

I’m preparing a Portrait of a People book project for a new country as we speak, and am actively seeking a camera sponsor to do so. I’m also writing a couple fiction novels about China in my free time. China will always have a special place in my heart, and as my new adopted homeland I feel that it is a country I can always return to.


If you are interested in purchasing a copy of China: Portrait of a People, go here to order online through Blacksmith Books.
Check out more of Tom's photos on
his website.

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Author:
Rebekah Pothaar
Original Source: ChinaTravel.net
Date Published:
Nov 5, 2008
Web Source: http://www.chinatravel.net/feature/Tom-Carter-s-Two-Year-China-Photo-Odyssey/1233.html
Date Accessed Online: 2008-11-13

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A CHANGE OF BALANCE, Part 2: The party's beginning

The key characteristic of the world imbalances of the past two decades was the lending of capital by high-growth countries to low-growth countries in the guise of currency intervention or savings protection. Thus, the likes of China, Brazil and India recycled their trade or current account surpluses to the purchase of US and European government bonds or those of their agencies instead of investing in their own economies.

Age-old rules set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other idiots were the main reason for this orthodoxy being practiced by the emerging countries. Reeling from a series of foreign investor runs on their banking systems in the 1980s and 1990s, many emerging counties adopted the IMF rules of weakening their currencies, increasing their export focus and reducing their total debt relative to the forced savings of foreign exchange reserves.

Going back to the first part of this article, readers will recall the illustration of two brothers who jointly owned a public bar: "Whenever one wanted a pint of beer, he would pay the other a dollar, who would then pay him back for his own draw of beer. Pursued ad nauseum, this meant that the same dollar could account for unlimited quantities of beer ... the game could continue until the brewery sent its chap around to collect money for all the beer that had been drunk by the brothers."

In effect, emerging market countries became the processors (the brewer in the first example) who depended on the pub owners and beer-consuming brothers for their eventual cash flows from the sale of beer. This vendor's credit clearly created its own wave of working-capital shortages for the emerging market countries that were all too frequently borrowed over the short-term from the very people benefiting from one-dollar beer, namely the pub customers.
The second aspect of the story that is important to understand from the perspective of the brewery, that is a producer of goods such as China and South Korea in the global economy, is the distribution of profit margins. Selling goods at a fraction of their eventual sales price still generated enough profits (or marginal revenues at least) to sustain the production of Chinese and Korean factories over the '90s and later on.

In effect, the pub owners in our starting example were not only grabbing cheap credit from the brewery, they also laid claim to the lion's share of profits generated across the entire chain of value addition. Herein lay the secret of US and European corporate profits for much of the past two decades, namely the ability to generate profits on the strength of brand names, while squeezing the margins and leverage of their suppliers in various Emerging countries.

Tackling the aftermath
As the credit crunch rolls on, the effect on individual and corporate balance sheets across the US and Europe will materially impact the ongoing demand for goods and services from emerging countries. Worries of a complete collapse in such demand have led the stock and bond prices of emerging market corporate entities sharply lower in the past few months, in most cases far worse than what has been witnessed in the case of US and European counterparts on a currency-adjusted basis.

This makes sense from a short-term perspective, but provides logical inconsistencies when considered over the longer term. There are but limited alternatives to the replacement of the current globalization cognate, that is, the provision of cheap goods by emerging market countries to Group of Seven counterparts in the more industrialized world: firstly a change of suppliers from foreign to local and secondly a vast change in the price of products.

President-elect Barack Obama apparently ran on the platform of promising the first alternative but somehow also ensuring that the second alternative becomes more tenable. This is so because the idea of Americans and Europeans producing stuff at lower prices than what Asians can manage is ridiculous at best, but could well create enough administrative traction to change the distribution of profits.

As noted in the preceding paragraphs, Asian countries secured large volumes but low profits on their sales of goods to Group of Seven (G-7) countries. With demand falling in those countries the current imperative across emerging countries is to cut costs even further in order to remain competitive.

Emerging countries such as China have to invest proportionately less in their banking systems to keep financial flows stable. In contrast, the series of interventionist actions by the US and European governments will raise taxes and reduce efficiency over the longer term. This shifts the balance of economic power to emerging markets, rather than away from them as the stock markets appear to have concluded a tad too hastily.

The second route that is being opened now, especially by the likes of China and India, is to increase economic spending by the government. While this smacks of the same Keynesian thinking as the G-7 countries, the key differences arise from the consideration of profit potential and demographic advantages.

China not only has the ability to produce goods far cheaper than G-7 countries could manage, it also has to spend less on saving its banking system and on the overall generation of consumption expenditure in the country. Similarly for India, despite the current account deficits of late, the overall profit potential of the economy remains strong, while the high levels of deposits relative to loans help to shield banks from the kind of excesses witnessed in the US and elsewhere.

It heartens me to note that the Chinese government has prioritized infrastructure spending over mere welfare checks as part of its stimulus package. This is the right way to go, as the short-term employment benefits of such spending also lead to longer-term competitive advantages in the production and shipping of various products across China, Asia and the rest of the world.

Going into this weekend's Washington summit, Asian countries will be well served by reminding G-7 members and other representatives about the longer-term economic potential of their countries.

In the first part of this article, I laid out the outline of the argument against Keynesian spending in G-7 countries. Simply put, the recuperation of G-7 balance sheets must be to the advantage of Asian countries, as investors pursue higher growth alternatives to their own moribund economies. This will help plug the financing hole of production-oriented Asian economies.

Much the same logic of investing in these higher-value producers should permeate the thinking of commodity producing countries such as Russia and Middle Eastern nations.

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Author: Chan Akya
Original Source: Asia Times
Date Published: Nov 15, 2008
Web Source: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JK15Dj01.html
Date Accessed Online: 2008-11-15

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US's road to recovery runs through Beijing

English author G K Chesterton rhymed about "the night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier", and it may seem no less whimsical to argue that the United States' road to recovery, as well as Barack Obama's path to presidential greatness, run through China.

In the rush to prop up America's financial institutions, foreign economic policy seems remote from Washington's agenda. America wants to revive the mortgage market and consumer spending. The effort is doomed to failure. For a quarter of a century the American consumer has been the locomotive of the world economy, and now the locomotive has derailed and taken the rest of the world economy with it.

Recovery requires a great change in direction of capital flows. For the past decade, poor people in the developing world have financed the consumption of rich people in America. America has borrowed nearly $1 trillion a year, mostly from the developing world, and used these funds to import consumer goods and buy homes at low interest rates. The result is a solvency crisis of the American household, which shows up as a solvency crisis for financial institutions. If we reckon the retirement needs of households as a liability, the household sector is as good as bankrupt.

No recovery is possible unless American households can save, and they cannot save in an economic contraction when incomes spiral downwards. To save, Americans must sell goods and services to someone else, and a glance at the globe makes clear who that must be: nearly half the world's population, and most of the world's capacity for economic growth, is concentrated in China and the Pacific Littoral.

China's economic problem is the inverse of America's: China has achieved fast rates of growth at the expense of huge disparities between the prosperous coast and the backward interior, as well as excessive dependence on foreign markets. China's policy response to the economic crisis is far more radical than Washington's. Rather than attempting to patch up the situation and restore the status quo ante, China plans to spend nearly a fifth of its gross domestic product on an internal stimulus focused on infrastructure in its interior. Severe execution risk attends the Chinese proposal, and markets remain to be convinced.

China can reduce the execution risk of its great economic shift towards home consumption, and America can solve its savings problem, through a grand partnership. This partnership need not be exclusive to America and China, but it must be founded on America and China, two of the world's largest economies. India and the other Asian economies should be encouraged to join this partnership. A great deal has been written about prospective conflict between China and the United States, but very little explanation is offered as to what issues might arise between China and the United States. China and America have far more to gain from cooperation than from conflict.

America's objection to Chinese foreign policy center on China's pursuit of commercial interest with countries (Iran, Sudan) whose behavior America considers unacceptable. America stands to gain an ally in questions of rogue-state behavior, terrorism, nuclear proliferation and other matters of national interest, in return for helping China achieve its legitimate goals.

The goals of the partnership should be to:
# Support China's internal development by re-orienting export flows towards China and other emerging economies from the United States and other industrial countries.
# Transfer technologies and other expertise to the emerging economies.
# Make the emerging economies partners in the recovery of American asset prices.

Fear and risk-aversion rather than trust and optimism conditioned the two-way capital flow between emerging markets and the United States during the past 10 years. After the 1997 Asia financial crisis, and the 1998 Russian bankruptcy, investors in emerging markets lent their savings to the American government or its quasi-governmental agencies to diversify their portfolios into safe assets, while Westerners invested in local emerging market currencies for higher returns.

As one of the authors reported recently at this site (See Who will finance America’s deficit? David P Goldman, Asia Times Online, November 13, 2008), global financing of the US government deficit drew on leverage in emerging markets. De-leveraging of the world financial system sharply curtails the availability of overseas financing for the Treasury deficit.

America's economy model is broken. The tape cannot be run in reverse: America can't rescue an economy based on rising consumer debt and zero savings. America must become a technology exporter. Throwing more money into consumer stimulus, bailouts for the automobile sector, and so forth will fail miserably. America should recognize that the deformation of its economy is the inverse of the deformation of the Chinese economy (as well as other emerging economies), and that their common problem has a common cure.

The trouble in the world economy has been that a rich Chinese won't lend money to a poor Chinese, unless the poor Chinese first moves to America. China bought American mortgages, including poor-quality assets dressed up as high-quality assets, because China does not have the financial, legal and administrative capacity as well as the trust to write sufficient mortgage business at home. China's efforts to spend a fifth of its GDP on infrastructure face enormous problems of governance. In the United States, voters most approve most public spending at the local level, and the federal system provides checks and balances against abuse of public funds. Emerging economies must rely on the probity of a small number of officials with enormous power, a far less effective check against corruption.

China can use America's help in shifting its economy towards the internal market. Ironically, American officials have been trying to persuade China to import the American financial model for years, and the collapse of the American model has made the prospect less attractive. But it is a very good moment for China to bring in American banks, and start up a consumer lending market. The failures of the American consumer market do not wipe out a century of banking experience in evaluating and securitizing consumer loans. To help import the American model, China should be given the opportunity to purchase major American institutions in return. Citicorp, for example, could be bought today for about $50 billion or Capital One for $13 billion.

America remains the most technologically advanced economy in the world. China needs American high technology. In many instances, America restricts the sale of technology to China due to security concerns.

The United States should offer China a general reduction in restrictions on imports of American technology and acquisition of American companies, in return for a treaty linking Chinese and American security interests. The treaty would include:
# A system of royalties for technology transfers and guarantees against pirating.
# Freedom for Chinese companies to acquire American companies, including financial institutions.
# Agreement on a common stance towards rogue states, nuclear arms proliferation, terrorism and other issues of mutual concern, covering such issues as Pakistan, Sudan, Iran and other areas of past diplomatic conflict.
# An agreement on strategic arms deployment in Asia.
# A roadmap for China's democratization.
# Environmental and energy-efficiency goals.
# Stabilization of China’s yuan against the dollar to support free capital flows between the US and China.

There are close to 2 billion people in China and the countries in its immediate periphery, and a further 1.1 billion people in India. Half the world's population lives in emerging Asia, and its productivity could triple in a generation. Out of the present crisis, the world might enjoy one of the longest and fastest economic booms in history - or it might remain in an economic mire for a decade. The incoming American administration might be remembered as one of the worst, or one of the best, in American history.

David P Goldman was global head of fixed-income research for Banc of America Securities and global head of credit strategy at Credit Suisse.

Francesco Sisci, Asia Editor of La Stampa.

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Author:
Francesco Sisci and David P Goldman
Original Source: Asia Times
Date Published:
Nov 15, 2008
Web Source: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/JK15Ad01.html
Date Accessed Online: 2008-11-13

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Les âmes délocalisées

Chaque soir, Namrata, Vandana et Oaref deviennent Naomi, Osmond et Nikki. Employés d'un call center de Bombay, ils répondent pendant la nuit, à cause du décalage horaire, à des consommateurs qui appellent des numéros verts aux Etats-Unis. Comme des immigrés pénétrant sur le sol américain, ils doivent changer de noms. Pourtant, ils n'ont pas quitté leur pays ni franchi de frontière, c'est la frontière qui les traverse : chaque soir, en s'asseyant devant leur écran, ils deviennent américains. "Cela doit être difficile d'avoir son corps en Inde pendant que son esprit est en Amérique", déclare Ashim Ahluwalia, le réalisateur indien d'un documentaire sur les call centers de Bombay (John & Jane). "Traversant les continents au téléphone, ils vendent des produits et calment les nerfs des consommateurs. Chaque fois qu'ils interviennent, ils rêvent de l'Amérique. Et pendant qu'ils rêvent, ils changent ?" Les six employés filmés dans John & Jane présentent à des degrés divers des symptômes de distorsion de la personnalité. Après quatorze heures de travail, on les voit au petit jour abandonner leur identité américaine comme des Cendrillon indiennes et redevenir ce qu'ils sont, Namrata, Vandana et Oaref, pour aller se coucher.


Le film décrit l'envers de la délocalisation économique et financière : une migration temporelle et culturelle, celle de ces "esprits", que le réalisateur appelle "the souls of the outsourced", les âmes délocalisées. Assignés à résidence la nuit sous les néons des grandes salles d'appels qui résonnent du brouhaha des conversations téléphoniques, ces nouveaux migrants ne voyagent plus dans l'espace, mais dans le temps. Ils "télétraversent" les continents. Ils émigrent dans le temps virtuel d'une onde téléphonique. Happés par un monde virtuel dont ils ne connaissent que les prospectus commerciaux et les séries télévisées, ces employés voient leur identité se confondre peu à peu avec une Amérique fantasmée. Les candidats aux call centers doivent gommer leur accent indien grâce à des stages de phonétique (accent neutralization classes). Mais les formations proposées visent aussi à initier les individus à la culture et au mode vie occidentaux. Les salariés doivent être parfaitement au fait de l'actualité politique et sportive pour pouvoir en parler avec leurs clients. Les séries américaines, dont les employés des call centers indiens sont abreuvés, constituent aussi un excellent moyen de se familiariser avec les habitus américains. L'offre de ces stages intitulés sensibilisation transculturelle (cross-culture sensitivity) a explosé en Inde en raison de la multiplication des call centers et de la délocalisation des structures de back office des entreprises européennes et américaines.

Amelia Gentleman, journaliste de The Observer, estime que "les call centers sont un symbole de l'Inde du XXIe siècle et inspirent films, best-sellers et séries télévisées". Pour Chetan Bhagat, dont le roman One Night@the Call Center est resté six mois sur la liste des best-sellers, les call centers incarnent les tensions d'une nation prise entre deux époques, entre les influences indiennes des générations plus âgées et l'influence occidentale à laquelle sont exposées les jeunes Indiens. Le roman est "une tentative visant à érotiser l'industrie, à faire de l'entreprise un lieu culturellement excitant, hip et cool, analyse Makarand Paranjape, un professeur de littérature anglaise. Bien sûr, c'est de la pure fiction : il n'y a rien d'excitant dans ces call centers, qui sont des lieux de déshumanisation et d'acculturation. C'est le melting-pot dans lequel toutes les influences culturelles se rencontrent". Des milliers de jeunes diplômés des deux sexes passent leurs nuits dans la promiscuité de lieux confinés, brisant les distances traditionnelles entre les sexes, travaillant à l'heure américaine dans des bureaux modernes et élégants, adoptant l'identité d'étrangers américains, accomplissant des tâches automatiques mais gagnant des salaires auxquels leurs parents ne peuvent aspirer.

En 2006, on comptait en Inde quelque 350 000 travailleurs troquant chaque nuit leur identité pour une rémunération très supérieure au salaire moyen. C'est le "nouveau rêve indien", qui a remplacé les vieux rêves d'exil. Peu à peu, ces jeunes "s'intègrent (...) au pseudo style de vie américain qu'ils sont forcés d'adopter, au point de subir une transformation fondamentale, ils deviennent leur job", commente Radhika Chadha, une consultante indienne en stratégie.

"John & Jane, dit son réalisateur, est un film sur le besoin que nous avons tous de devenir des Américains hybrides. C'est le cas en Inde, mais c'est en train de le devenir partout ailleurs dans le monde (...). Ils formatent nos goûts et notre esthétique et, dans une certaine mesure, sans que cela signifie qu'ils y réussissent, notre identité." Le cas de métamorphose le plus impressionnant dans John & Jane est celui de Naomi, une jeune Indienne qui s'éclaircit la peau et décolore ses cheveux pour ressembler à Marilyn Monroe. Elle parle avec un accent américain même en dehors des heures de travail. Blonde jusqu'aux sourcils, elle avoue avec un faux accent du Middle West : "Je suis totalement très américanisée" ("I'm totally very americanized").

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Author:
Christian Salmon
Original Source: Le Monde
Date Published:
14.11.08
Web Source: http://www.lemonde.fr/opinions/article/2008/11/14/les-ames-delocalisees-par-christian-salmon_1118730_3232.html
Date Accessed Online: 2008-11-15

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Thursday, November 13, 2008

A CHANGE OF BALANCE, Part 1 : The party's over


The idea of paper money having a vague intrinsic value can be highlighted in the age-old story of the two brothers who owned equal shares in a pub. Whenever one wanted a pint of beer, he would pay the other a dollar, who would then pay him back for his own draw of beer. Pursued ad nauseum, this meant that the same dollar could account for unlimited quantities of beer; provided of course neither brother ever used it to buy something other than beer from his sibling. More importantly, the game could continue until the brewery sent its chap around to collect money for all the beer that had been drunk by the brothers. As a general rule, the brewery would have wanted to get paid a little more than one solitary dollar for the whole keg of beer.

In essence, this story captures the idea of what happens when stated transactions do not produce incremental cash flows, or when increased liabilities are disguised as new cash. Students of corporate balance sheets will look for these glaring examples of cash mismatch; unfortunately, most economists seem to misunderstand the difference between expenditure and liabilities.

In the above example, the dollar changing hands wasn't the payment - it was an exchange of liabilities; that is, each brother owed the pub a dollar for every pint drunk. Coming up with the aggregate of all the payments meant totaling up the liabilities, not simply exchanging the instrument of exchange, which is to say the dollar note, once again. All of this is particularly important because the brothers deferred their payment for their beer from the brewery - they had themselves benefited from credit.

How then would the brothers pay for the beer in a normal situation? Simply by selling more beer at a profit to their customers than their own consumption would warrant. In other words, as long as the sum total profits of the pub were in excess of the accrued liabilities of the two brothers, the pub remained solvent at the end of the month. If on the other hand the brothers had drunk more than their profits for the month, the pub was insolvent at the end of the month, liable to be taken over by the brewery while the brothers went from being owners to mere employees.

Small beer in economics
In the world before 2008, this brotherly love was best exemplified by the US-China pair, wherein the former would buy billions in consumer goods from the latter and pay with a series of IOUs. As long as China continued to accept the IOUs rather than real money as payment for the goods, the cycle continued. While this describes the supposed cash flow situation, how does the picture change if we look at the balance sheet, that is to say, the relative value of assets and liabilities?
In this case, slightly different from the brothers above, Americans were using their borrowed money only partly for consumption, with the balance for speculation on assets such as houses, stocks and so forth. For the Americans, as long as the value of their assets increased faster than their liabilities, the overall balance sheet situation remained acceptable. Effectively, the increased consumption was warranted by the increased wealth. In turn, the assumed positive net worth of American households engendered further credit provision by China and other emerging markets, in turn boosting the value of American assets as well as further consumption.

Since the collapse of the bubble from the middle of last year, the game has changed dramatically. No longer do American households think of themselves as having positive net worth; many if not most Americans probably consider the size of their liabilities to be in excess of their asset values.

Added to this, the loss of jobs and reduction of corporate profits means a dramatic decline in the income expectations of most Americans. Given all that, the priority for many of them will be to reduce the size of their total liabilities - their mortgage and credit card balances - otherwise the all-important credit scores will become meaningless.

Unlike the citizens of most European countries, Americans pay attention to their credit scores because not only do these cover their ability to borrow, the score also provides flexibility to start new businesses: the basic engine of profit generation in America, which is vastly different from what we can see elsewhere.

To counteract the decline in their net worth, Americans will try to become net savers from being net spenders. This will push the economy further into a recession: this is why comparisons to the Great Depression of 1929 are apt. None of the above should be surprising to readers of Asia Times Online, given the commentary on these subjects by various authors on the website from the beginning of last year.

Many American companies are also stung by the higher costs of borrowing and will be reluctant borrowers, if at all. That leaves only the government as the sole agent to avail of credit in coming months and years.

Keynes, the barbaric relic
Confronting this situation, the new US administration along with its counterparts in Europe appears to have embarked on a Keynesian vision of monetary and fiscal expansion. The rapid rate cuts in Europe and the US in the past two weeks point to the idea of turning monetary policy into "super-easy".

Meanwhile, various governments have announced an expansion of fiscal spending to counteract the expected decline of the overall economy due to cuts in consumer spending. This is also classic Keynes, namely the notion that governments must act to counter the economic cycle.

Anyone reading through the above paragraphs with a grasp of the lessons of the two pub owners will immediately recognize the fatal flaw in the Keynesian design. This is the fact that governments no longer have the credit quality to borrow internationally.

As I have written before on these pages, the best thing about John Maynard Keynes is that he is dead. For no other branch of economics sprouts quite as much voodoo logic as the Keynesians manage in their short, pointless lives (or worse, long, pointless lives).

The United States along with a bunch of European countries is rated at the highest triple-A category. Yet, pretty much none of these countries has an ability to repay its debt from organic cash flows, that is tax revenues, any time soon. The ONLY source of repaying American and European debt that will be incurred in this new Keynesian expansion is new borrowings: essentially what bankers call the refinancing risks.

(There are different reasons between the Americans and Europeans for this. While the sheer size of government deficits run in the past eight years by George W Bush adds to the woes of the US effort, the new socialization of risk suggested by president-elect Barack Obama's team implies lower profit generation than would be consistent with tax revenue increases. As for the Europeans, my series of articles in Asia Times Online makes clear the idea that demographic and profit challenges will push many of these countries to default within our lifetimes.)

A whole bunch of banks went bust in the past 12 months for their failure to properly comprehend refinancing risk. The same is true for American and European governments which will attempt to sell new debt to fund their expansionism. The parlous state of their balance sheets means that anyone contemplating purchases of such debt is basically foolish.

The march towards the Washington summit in a couple of days seems bereft of any references to the balance sheets of US and European governments. Much like the vaunted triple-A ratings of various fixed income instruments in the past few months turned out to be bogus, Asian investors must be cognizant of similar risks for the bond ratings of the US and European governments in years to come.

This is the first article in a two-part report.

(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

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Author:
Chan Akya
Original Source: Asia Times
Date Published:
Nov 14, 2008
Web Source: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JK14Dj02.html
Date Accessed Online: 2008-11-13

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Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Globalization and Internationalism in a Starbucks Cup

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Obama and the War on Brains


Barack Obama’s election is a milestone in more than his pigmentation. The second most remarkable thing about his election is that American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual.

Maybe, just maybe, the result will be a step away from the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life. Smart and educated leadership is no panacea, but we’ve seen recently that the converse — a White House that scorns expertise and shrugs at nuance — doesn’t get very far either.

We can’t solve our educational challenges when, according to polls, Americans are approximately as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution, and when one-fifth of Americans believe that the sun orbits the Earth.

Almost half of young Americans said in a 2006 poll that it was not necessary to know the locations of countries where important news was made. That must be a relief to Sarah Palin, who, according to Fox News, didn’t realize that Africa was a continent rather than a country.

Perhaps John Kennedy was the last president who was unapologetic about his intellect and about luring the best minds to his cabinet. More recently, we’ve had some smart and well-educated presidents who scrambled to hide it. Richard Nixon was a self-loathing intellectual, and Bill Clinton camouflaged a fulgent brain behind folksy Arkansas aphorisms about hogs.

As for President Bush, he adopted anti-intellectualism as administration policy, repeatedly rejecting expertise (from Middle East experts, climate scientists and reproductive health specialists). Mr. Bush is smart in the sense of remembering facts and faces, yet I can’t think of anybody I’ve ever interviewed who appeared so uninterested in ideas.

At least since Adlai Stevenson’s campaigns for the presidency in the 1950s, it’s been a disadvantage in American politics to seem too learned. Thoughtfulness is portrayed as wimpishness, and careful deliberation is for sissies. The social critic William Burroughs once bluntly declared that “intellectuals are deviants in the U.S.”

(It doesn’t help that intellectuals are often as full of themselves as of ideas. After one of Stevenson’s high-brow speeches, an admirer yelled out something like, You’ll have the vote of every thinking American! Stevenson is said to have shouted back: That’s not enough. I need a majority!)

Yet times may be changing. How else do we explain the election in 2008 of an Ivy League-educated law professor who has favorite philosophers and poets?

Granted, Mr. Obama may have been protected from accusations of excessive intelligence by his race. That distracted everyone, and as a black man he didn’t fit the stereotype of a pointy-head ivory tower elitist. But it may also be that President Bush has discredited superficiality.

An intellectual is a person interested in ideas and comfortable with complexity. Intellectuals read the classics, even when no one is looking, because they appreciate the lessons of Sophocles and Shakespeare that the world abounds in uncertainties and contradictions, and — President Bush, lend me your ears — that leaders self-destruct when they become too rigid and too intoxicated with the fumes of moral clarity.

(Intellectuals are for real. In contrast, a pedant is a supercilious show-off who drops references to Sophocles and masks his shallowness by using words like “fulgent” and “supercilious.”)

Mr. Obama, unlike most politicians near a microphone, exults in complexity. He doesn’t condescend or oversimplify nearly as much as politicians often do, and he speaks in paragraphs rather than sound bites. Global Language Monitor, which follows linguistic issues, reports that in the final debate, Mr. Obama spoke at a ninth-grade reading level, while John McCain spoke at a seventh-grade level.

As Mr. Obama prepares to take office, I wish I could say that smart people have a great record in power. They don’t. Just think of Emperor Nero, who was one of the most intellectual of ancient rulers — and who also killed his brother, his mother and his pregnant wife; then castrated and married a slave boy who resembled his wife; probably set fire to Rome; and turned Christians into human torches to light his gardens.

James Garfield could simultaneously write Greek with one hand and Latin with the other, Thomas Jefferson was a dazzling scholar and inventor, and John Adams typically carried a book of poetry. Yet all were outclassed by George Washington, who was among the least intellectual of our early presidents.

Yet as Mr. Obama goes to Washington, I’m hopeful that his fertile mind will set a new tone for our country. Maybe someday soon our leaders no longer will have to shuffle in shame when they’re caught with brains in their heads.

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Author:
NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Original Source: New York Times
Date Published:
November 9, 2008
Web Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/opinion/09kristof.html
Date Accessed Online: 2008-11-11

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Monday, November 10, 2008

Lane living - the spirit of community behind the storefronts


ONCE most Shanghainese lived in lilong, low-rise lane and courtyard housing that emphasized the spirit of community. Nancy Zhang traces their history back to the first real estate boom of the mid-1800s.

If the Bund is the public facade of Shanghai, then the lilong, or lane housing of the back alleys, is its core.

Blending Eastern and Western architectural styles, these houses and housing concepts have evolved with the city over the past century and a half.

Housing millions of ordinary Shanghainese through the city's most significant times, lilong has bred a peculiar community way of life that's at the heart of being "Shanghainese."

The word lilong (colloquially known as longtang or lanes) combines a sense of community with the physical space of a lane - it roughly means community alleyway. It captures the imagination of visitors and the nostalgia of Shanghainese. Shikumen (stone-gated) houses were part of the lilong.

Once Shanghai was a city of lilong, but most were bulldozed to make way for more modern housing and new office towers. The remaining lilong neighborhoods, however, are generally preserved.

Dominant from the 1850s to the 1940s, lilong is characterized by commercial shop fronts enclosing residential compounds. They were well suited to a trading city in the mid-19th century, since street-facing facades were valuable commercial spaces. As an old Shanghainese saying goes: "An inch of space on the street front creates a lifetime of fortune."

Inside lilong compounds, individual houses are Chinese in design, but clustered in a way that was inspired by housing forms of industrializing Europe where space efficiency was crucial.

This walled-in structure makes lilongs particularly serene and safe for private life.

A primary lane runs through the middle of a lilong compound, with housing organized in rows along smaller secondary lanes perpendicular to it. The crowded life inside the houses spills out onto the quiet lanes outside, creating a tight-knit sense of community.

Even today you can see in secondary lanes laundry hanging outside, old people sitting, fanning and chatting, families cooking dinner and children playing.

Though local Chinese have embraced this way of life, lilong actually started in typical Shanghai fashion - as money-making ventures by foreigners.

Predating the recent real estate boom by more than 150 years, the building of lilong marked the first modern real estate boom in China.

In the mid-1800s, Shanghai was already divided into foreign settlements that initially segregated foreigners and Chinese. This changed in 1853 when a series of Chinese rebellions drove thousands of Chinese to seek shelter in the foreign settlements.

Foreigners debated whether to continue the segregation or make money from renting land and houses - profit won out.

By 1854, 20,000 refugees had flooded into the foreign settlements. By 1865, the number was estimated to be 80,000. One British merchant at the time noted that by renting land or a house to Chinese, foreigners could make a profit of at least 30 to 40 percent. Another contemporary in the early 1870s said this was the most profitable business in Shanghai.

Foreigners had found an ingenious way to make money by renting Chinese land back to the Chinese.

International trading companies, which initially made their money selling opium to Chinese, eventually made most of their money in real estate.

Lilong was therefore built in batches of identical units and on speculation - in anticipation of the market. This was unlike any previous building in China, which was traditionally built for individual use.

According to Lu Hanchao, author of "Beyond Neon Lights: Everyday Shanghai in the Early Twentieth Century," lilong marked the birth of the modern real estate market in China.

Even after wartime speculation died away, a stable real estate market developed in Shanghai. By 1949, lilong made up three-quarters of the city's housing, and many different types of lilong evolved with the changing times.

The first wartime lilong was hastily built wooden shacks. But due to fire and safety concerns, they were abandoned for brick and stone buildings from 1869 onwards. These were named shikumen.

According to Lu, the transition to stone buildings also marked a social change whereby lilong became permanent dwellings rather than refugee shelters.

New shikumen

Today the Shanghai government identifies five distinct types of lilong. The early shikumen brick structures adopted the row-housing pattern of industrial revolution-era London, but the interior retained the siheyuan (four-sided courtyard) style.

Early shikumen houses were followed by new shikumen around the time of World War I.

They provided cheap housing for migrant labor attracted to Shanghai's budding manufacturing industry.

They also housed smaller families resulting from the disintegration of the extended family this housing was densely packed and minimized the community courtyard.

As China's feudal system fell in 1911, Shanghai further prospered and new wealthy entrepreneurs and foreign-educated classes emerged. The new-type lilong developed from 1915 to provide lilong with considerably better facilities. Sticking less closely to the courtyard house format, the new-type lilong eventually became like Western townhouses.

Garden lilong of the 1920s to 1940s were more luxurious, with large detached or semi-detached houses in prestigious locations.

The final stage of lilong development coped with soaring real estate prices.

Like modern skyscrapers, apartment lilong that was popular from the 1920s, made efficient use of land by rising into the sky, with five to 10 stories of apartments.

The late 19th century real estate sector was dominated by foreigners such as the Sassoon family and Silas Aaron Hardoon (1847-1931). By the early 1930s, almost half of all lilong on Nanjing Road, the most expensive area in the city, were owned by Hardoon.

But inside the lilong, Chinese history was also played out. Chen Duxiu, one of the founders of the Communist Party of China, was a lilong resident. The first and second National Congresses of the CPC were held in lilong housing near modern-day Xintiandi.

The site of the First National Congress of the CPC has been preserved and renovated as part of the Xintiandi development and is now a museum.

Not all lilong fared so well.

After the 1949 liberation, lilong above 150 square meters were divided up. A structure formerly inhabited by a single family was often converted to a seven-family residence.

Today the lilong is crowded and lack basic facilities. As Shanghai entered its second real estate boom after the 1978 reform, some lilong houses were pulled down in favor of modern apartments and skyscrapers. Many lament the lifestyle that is being swept away. But they forget this process was already started with the development of the apartment lilong in the closing days of old Shanghai - these sacrificed proximity to alleyways for space efficiency.

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Author:Nancy Zhang
Original Source: Shanghai Daily
Date Published:
2008-11-10
Web Source: http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=380011
Date Accessed Online: 2008-11-10

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Sunday, November 9, 2008

SURVEY: Views on AIDS in China

A recent survey came out which "investigates knowledge, attitudes, behaviors and practices (KAB/P) among different segments of society in six important Chinese cities Kunming, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Wuhan, Zhengzhou and Beijing." It was conducted by "Renmin University with financial and technical support from UNAIDS, the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria (GBC), and Ogilvy."

From a final sample size of 6,382 interviews, the focus was on four social groups:
  1. Youths: Aged 15 to 24, with local identity card (hukou), and resident in the target city for at least 1 year continuously, in or out of school. Total surveys conducted: 1,604
  2. Migrant Workers: Aged 18 to 49, engaged in manual work in cities, without local identity card (hukou),living in target city for at least 3 months continuously. Total surveys conducted: 1,529
  3. Blue-collar workers: Aged 18 to 49, with local identity card (hukou), and resident for at least one year in the target city, engaged in manual work. Total surveys conducted: 1,649
  4. White-collar workers: Aged 25 to 49, with local identity card (hukou), and 1 year of continuousresidence in the target city, engaged in managerial or higher-level work. Total surveys conducted: 1,600
The complete text is available here: AIDS-Related Knowledge, Attitudes, Behavior, and Practices: A Survey of 6 Chinese Cities

For our purposes, here are some the most interesting results I found:

Popular Media Formats in China:
- The five most popular media formats among interviewees in China were television (79.2%) newspapers (53.5%), the Internet (34.1%), HIV/AIDS materials and booklets (22.5%), and magazines (21.
0%).
- The survey showed that China Central Television (CCTV) was the most watched channel (86%) among all the TV networks and channels in China.
- The most watched television programs were news programs (62.0%), series dramas (47.2%), then entertainment programs, and finally sports and movies with 25.9%, 24.1%, and 18.0% shares of all
viewing respectively. Educational programs accounted for 11.1% of viewing. Other common responses included "super entertainment programs” (8.3%), music programs (6.6%), entertainment talk programs (5.6%), and documentaries (3.0%).

Chinese Views and Behaviors related to AIDS and HIV
- 52.3% of the interviewees viewed China’s current HIV/AIDS situation as “serious” or “very serious”.
- Thirteen survey questions used to determine knowledge of transmission routes were answered
correctly on average 80.9% of the time. However, more than 48% of respondents thought they could contract HIV from a mosquito bite, and over 18% by having an HIV positive person sneeze or cough on them.
- 26.3% of interviewees did not know where they could get an HIV test. 11.0% did not know
where to get condoms and 29.6% did not know how to use a condom correctly. 43.1% had never
used a condom, mainly because of sexual inactivity or trust in their sexual partner(s).
- 30.0% of interviewees think HIV positive students/children should not be allowed to study at
the same schools as uninfected children/students.
- Nearly 48% of interviewees would be unwilling to eat with an HIV-infected person; 65% would be unwilling to live with an HIV-infected person, and 63.4% would be unwilling to accept services such as hairdressing from an infected person.
- Conversely, more than 74% of respondents would be willing to "shake hands" with HIV/AIDS infected people, nearly 80% would be willing to care for a sick relative, and 53.
- 7% would be willing to work in the same place as an HIV/AIDS infected person.

Condom Use
- The survey showed that 2,753 (43.1%) of more than 6,300 total interviewees had never used a condom before.
- 79% of white-collar workers said they had never used a condom, the highest percentage
in the survey group.
- Second were blue-collar workers (66.8%) and migrant workers with 61.9% Only
- 19.7% of youth said they had never used a condom before.

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