A somewhat biased view on China…
Chen Shuibian (陳水扁, Chén Shuǐbiǎn) - President of Taiwan since May 2000 - just abolished the National Unification Council (国家统一委员会, Guójiā Tǒngyī Wěiyuánhuì) whose aim was to promote unification with Mainland China.
“The national unification council will cease functioning and the budget no longer appropriated,” said Chen, of the ruling pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). “The national unification guidelines will also cease to apply.“
The Council - established in 1990 - has been out of service under the administration of Chen Shui-bian.
While the Chinese Government still didn’t make any official comments about this, people from Mainland China already started to protest in the streets. They are angrily accusing Chen of betraying his promise - made in 2000 as he became President of Taiwan - that he would not seek to abolish the Council.
Side note: Yesterday, I was working on my computer while watching CNN. Then, I heard “Chen is abolishing the National Unification Council…” and suddenly the screen became black! I suppose it was just a technical issue or a power outage at CCTV, but…
Update
Hu Jintao made a remark about Chen’s decision to abolish the Council while meeting the visiting Swiss Defence Minister Samuel Schmid. Hu Jintao mentioned that it is a dangerous step on the road toward ‘Taiwan Independence’ and that China will never tolerate the secession of Taiwan from the motherland. Without any surprise, the Swiss Minister reiterated that the Swiss government will, as always, adhere to the one-China policy and appreciated China’s efforts in safeguarding peace and stability and promoting exchanges across the Taiwan Straits.
Links:
Chen Shui-bian on Wikipedia
National Unification Council on Wikipedia
News coverage on China Daily
Hu Jintao reaction on Gov.cn
Today, I received a phone call from CMCC (China Mobile Communications Corporation, 中国移动通信, Zhongguo Yidong Tongxin) I’ve been using a post-paid account for more than 3 years now and it seems that I became a really good customer.
Two weeks ago, I received a phone call from 1860. People in China know this number as it is the one used for broadcasting CMCC advertisement and other services like weather forecast, horoscope, etc. So, I received a phone call from CMCC and a woman started to explain to me lost of things about mobile phones, silver cards, plane tickets, supermarkets… WoW! I asked her to slow down but it didn’t help too much. I had to ask a Chinese colleague for some help… My colleague explained to me that I used my mobile phone so much in the last two years CMCC decided to offer me some present.
Then, I had to send them a few SMS in order to choose my present. And today, I received another phone call from 1860. They needed my address to send me a card with 585 RMB (in fact, 600RMB minus the cost of the card) of gas for my scooter!!! Yeah!!!
I should receive the card within 8 working days…
That’s a really good timing! I just repaired my scooter this Sunday!
Spring is definitely there… No more cabs before next winter! ^_^
CMCC is China’s largest mobile phone operator. It is the world’s largest mobile phone operator ranked by number of subscribers, with over 200 million customers. By turnover it is second to Vodafone. A state-owned enterprise, it was spun off from former monopoly China Telecom in 2000, and now has a 37.4% share of the highly competitive Chinese mobile market.
Today, I would like to share with you a nice website about Hanyu Pinyin (????, Hànyǔ Pīnyīn). As you probably know, Pinyin is the official romanization of the Chinese Characters in Mainland China. Pin means spell(ing) and Yin means the sound. It quite appropriately describes the romanization as spelling the sounds or writing in phonetic symbols.
Pinyin.info provides a lot of resources about this romanization: the rules, some readings, useful tools for your website, etc. It also introduces some other systems (both romanization and non romanization such as the BoPoMoFo used essentially in Taiwan)
I really liked the following tools:
- The Tone Converter. If you want to add “Han4yu3 Pin1yin1” on your website, it will convert it for you as “Hànyǔ Pīnyīn” and provide you some CSS to display it nicely with Unicode Font.
- The Chinese to Unicode Converter. If you want to add “汉语拼音” on your website, it will convert it for you as “汉语拼音“.
And, if the Pinyin is not displayed correctly on you website, refer to their explanation on How to put Pinyin with tone marks on Web pages.
Today, I want to share a really nice website about Kung-Fu… It’s great both on design and content point of view.
On this website, you will learn who Chris, a Martial Arts expert is. At the age of 17, he went to Hong Kong and then spent 10 years studying Kung-Fu with masters in HK, TaiWan and Mainland China.
And then, you will also meet Michelle, working in an Institute of Physics where she is doing a PhD in Atmospheric Physics. Michelle is also interested in Kung-Fu and would like to learn how to break wood with her bare hands. In fact, what she really wants is to understand the Physics behind…
As you see on the picture, this website is organized in sections and for each section, you will have some texts and a small video. Here is the list of the sections:
Impressive, no? Michelle is explaining how she calculated the energy needed to break the wood and the energy she would produce if she hit the wood correctly. After verifying that it works mathematically, that the energy she produces is bigger than the one she needs, she tried and… success!!!
Go and check by yourself! ^_^
Links
Kung Fu Science - Chris and Michelle
First of all, I should clarify this misunderstanding of the Birth Control Policy in China. While media like to call it the ‘One-Child Policy’, it is far from being that simple. In cities all over China, the limit has indeed been set to one child. However, this policy is defined region by region and, within a region, ethnic group by ethnic group. In most rural areas, people may have 2 children if the first one is a girl. Also, most minorities are exempt of any birth control. And recently, also in big cities, if both parents are from a one-child family, they may have two children instead of one.
This makes the average closer to two children per family rather than one. However, in big cities, the policy is still strongly applied and additional children result in fine and other economic penalties such as being forced to pay for the otherwise free education of the additional children.
China Daily is reporting that more and more woman, especially in the urban upper class, are taking fertility treatment in order to get more babies per birth. There are, of course, no such economic penalties for multiple birth. The number of twins in China has doubled in recent years!
While fertility drugs have been banned for healthy woman in 2005, no specific control has been done. Chemists should be forced to ask for prescriptions before delivering these drugs. China Daily also notes that this situation is not restricted to China. For example, British doctors have noticed that 10% of the women asking for a fertility treatment are explicitly asking for twins.
Links:
China Daily - 2006 02 14
Wikipedia on One-Child Policy
Current status of the population and family planning in Chinese provinces
Chinese Government view on the Family Planning
The Lantern Festival (元宵节, yuánxiāojié) takes place on the 15th day of the first lunar month in the Chinese calendar. It marks the end of the series of celebrations starting from the Chinese New Year.
On that day, people are used to eat Tangyuan (汤圆, tāngyuán). Tangyuan are made from glutinous rice flour and water to form balls. They are usually filled with sesame paste.
Traditionally, it was a day of matchmaking and young people would go in the street with colorful lanterns in the hope of finding love. In that point of view, it is quite a good choice to have the Lantern Festival just before the Western Valentine’s Day. 
The Lantern Festival is becoming a family party and enjoyed mostly by children who go to parks to see the beautiful and colorful lanterns, often made in shapes of animals. Yesterday, I went to Chao Yang Park and took some pictures of the lanterns. You may find them in the Gallery!
Nowadays, teenagers and young adults prefer to celebrate Valentine’s Day. On that day, boyfriends and girlfriends will go to the cinema, have dinner together, lots of them will also spend some time in the Park to see the lanterns.
But Valentine’s Day seems to be important for single people too. Single Parties are organized in order for them to feel less lonely and, of course, to find a mate for next year’s Valentine’s Day.
Okay, one last thing about Valentine’s Day, Love and China. As you probably know, Chinese people are quite superstitious. For example, they dislike the number 4 (四, sì) which sounds like the death (死, sì). Well, in term of Love, they also have their numerical codes with the preferred one being 520 1314 which sounds similar to ‘I love you forever‘
Links
The Gallery
Wikipedia on the Lantern Festival
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