傻冒儿 Stupid Hat aka ShaMao'er

Letters from a Chinese Official - Part 1

I will post a few excerpts from a book entitled "Letters from a Chinese Official being an Eastern View of Western Civilization" that I have published in London in 1903. 

"Now, to us of the East all this is the mark of a barbarous society.  We measure the degree of civilization not by accumulation of the means of living, but by the character and value of the life lived.  Where there are no humane and stable relations, no reverance for the past, no respect even for the present, but only a cupidinous ravishment of the future, there, we think, there is no true society.  And we would not if we could rival you in your wealth, your sciences, and your arts, if we must do so at the cost of imitating your institutions.... We prefer our own moral to your material advantages, and we are determined to cling to the institutions which, we believe, insure us the former, even at the risk of excluding ourselves from the latter."

Wonder what he would think of the girls in my office in Beijing who say that BMW means "Be My Wife"

What's in a name?

What is ShaMao'er?   In Chinese in translates literally into "stupid hat".  The 'er on the end is the Northern China (especially Beijing) pronounciation which makes it sound a bit cooler. 

I just learned this expression fairly recently from one of my colleagues.  She was telling a story about driving her car and trying to cross lanes so that she could enter one of the ring roads.  She allowed one car that was trying to cross the other direction to pass in front of her.  Of course in normal Chinese driving fashion this resulted in a long stream of cars cutting in front of her and she ended up stuck for a bit.   So she called herself a sha mao for allowing the first car to cross. 

Upon further conversation, I found that this is a fairly commonly used expression which basically means anyone who does anything kind for a stranger.  If you do something nice to someone you don't know, they will end up screwing you and so you are a stupid hat.   Foreigners in China are guilty of being stupid hats on a near daily basis and never fail to be surprised at the result no matter how long they have lived here.  I think the phrase is great.  Sums up modern Chinese society pretty nicely in just 2 words.

Beautiful, and inspiring

  Last nights shuttle launch

In the eye of the beholder

This month marks the 5th year anniversary of China's joining the WTO.   The following are a few headlines in today's papers related to this fact.   

From China:

Doom and gloom forecasts on post-WTO China falter : Shanghai Daily : Staff

China 's WTO entry 'changing the world' : China Daily : Staff

From Taiwan:

US worried about Chinese backsliding : Taipei Times : Staff From Elsewhere: Defensive talk after five years in WTO : The Standard : Benjamin Morgan

  Chinese voices that oppose reform grow louder : Financial Times : Susan Schwab

It seems that the impact of China's WTO accession and its aftermath are very much in the eye of the beholder.   The Chinese headlines are so typical though.  You would think that they would have moved beyond such blatently propagandist titles by now...   

You gotta love media in China.   There is only good news and bad news that has been approved to meet some agenda.   I used to know a girl who worked for CCTV for a few years.  She told me that only about 50% or so of the stories they shoot ever get aired because the are squashed by someone or other.  She also had a funny story about how it was fairly common that a CCTV crew would go out into a province to shoot some relatively contentious story (like local corruption or pollution..) and would have to literally try to race back to Beijing so they could have the piece edited and approved before the provincial officials had time to travel to Beijing and meet with their contacts to get it squashed.

A short tale of globalization

Met a guy a while back at a party in Beijing.   He is the sometime boyfriend of a friend of a friend.  He is about 40 and a VP level executive with a small American company from the US.  The company manufactures some sort of specialty machines.   

He came to China to go to a trade show a couple months ago.  At his hotel bar he met a young Chinese girl (typical Suzie Wong''s type) who he proceeded to have sex with for a few days.   Since that time, he has been back in China on at least 3 trips over a 4 month period supposedly doing market research and meeting with potential customers but really just banging this Chinese girl he met.   The girl, who has multiple foreign boyfriends of course, professes to love him. 

So I met him at this party, on his 3rd trip back.  I get to talking to him and he tells me that when he goes back to the US, he plans to try to sell the company CEO on moving their manufacturing to China.  He's been thinking of all kinds of arguments he will use to get this done and also to ensure that he is relocated to China to run the new operation.  Of course, he is just looking to continue screwing this girl he met. 

So, about 100 or so people will lose their jobs in the US so this guy (married with kids of course) can have sex with this Chinese twentysomething.  Somehow I can't help thinking that this is a much truer driver of globalization than anything Thomas Friedman has included in his books.

US / China Economics

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/061204/4chinaexplainer.htm

Fairly useful article that simplifies a few concepts that are often thrown about, but I think little understood, regarding the US/China relationship