I’m in the middle of a major project at work — no that’s not right. I am struggling with a major project at work at the moment. and that is seeping up all of my time and desire to blog so posting will be a bit light here for another week. I hope to get on top of things this week so that I can write something soon — as this space is a real outlet for me. But I don’t want to turn this blog into a spot to rant about the failures of PowerPoint (or my failure to master the program), so I’ll just stay semi-silent until I finish the project.

On a more positive note though, Winnie and I did watch the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies on Friday with some friends at a Greek restaurant in Gubei. It was simply awesome especially the fireworks. I do hope that this put a lot doubts to rest about whether China was ready to host the Olympics or not. I’ve also been watching the Olympics on and off all weekend. As of right now, China has six gold and two silver medals.

It was sad to hear about the murder of an American at the Drum Tower yesterday. My thoughts are with the family, but I am wishing deep in my heart of hearts that there is no backlash against China for it. It sounds like it was just a deranged man and the family was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Look for posts again soon.

J.

I’ve kept my eye out for any more information on the Turkistan Islamic Party and so far the only piece of news that I’ve come across in the Chinese blogosphere is this post from Michael of Opposite End of China.

Michael like me doesn’t see much truth behind the group’s claims, but he also had stories from the South China Morning Post in the post I linked to above. The second stories has a source that says maybe the Chinese government or the Xinjiang provincial government was behind this video so they can justify a crackdown in Xinjiang.

But to be honest I am not sure that the Chinese government is behind it either. So who is?

J.

Last week I wrote a post on Lost Laowai wondering about how China defined terrorism. I wondered why China wasn’t declaring the Kuming bus bombings a terrorist act even if it was done by someone with a local grievance. When I wrote it I was just thinking out loud, but then last night I discovered this post on Shanghaiist. It looks like the Turkestan Islamic Party, a terror group (if it’s really a political party would be illegal in China) claimed responsibility in a Youtube video for last week’s Kuming bus bombing as well as the bus bombing incident in Shanghai in May.

Maybe I am being to skeptical about this, but like the blogger behind The New Dominion I don’t really buy it. Why is this group making a claim to the Shanghai bus bombing two months after it happened? The police also said that while both the events in Kuming and Shanghai were intentional, they didn’t appear to be terrorist acts. Nothing has been reported about the TIP’s video in official state media — I’ve seen reports of it on Hong Kong TV though (I haven’t checked CNN or the BBC).

The second question I have is who is the audience this group is trying to reach? The two Youtube videos I’ve seen from the group are all in Arabic Uyghur without Chinese or English subtitles. The fact that there is no Chinese subtitles in the videos make me think that these videos are aimed at people in the Middle East. I don’t if the group’s goal is to get funding for their cause or to reach out to other militant groups such as Al Qaeda. But I don’t think the videos are for Chinese viewers.

I haven’t heard that these videos were posted on Chinese websites. I am sure if they were site censors would probably take them home, but again the group went to Youtube an international site (the videos appeared on the Japanese version) not a Chinese one. So is this group trying to terrorize Chinese or the world? I would assume it’s the Chinese, but the way they are going about it make me doubt the group’s aims. Either that or their media relations plan is screwy.

I’m going to keep watching and blogging on this.

J.

Update: The New Dominion is reporting that the video is in Uyghur not Arabic (see the comment below). Their site is also saying the video has been reported by Xinhua and AFP.

I know it’s been way too long since I posted any photos of Roger, our dog here. He got a summer hair cut and looks much bigger than the last time I posted photos of him. As you can see he’s a bit of a camera hound.

Enjoy

J.

Anyone who wants to learn more about the young Chinese nationalists that were behind much of the anti-CNN backlash around the time of March’s T1bet riots should read Evan Osnos’ piece in this week’s New Yorker. It paints an interesting and far account of some of China’s young conservatives in Shanghai. If anyone who is wondering who the next generation of Chinese leaders are going to be it’s these guys.
Enjoy

J.

WIth all the frustration I’ve been going through on the Olympic editorial I’ve been writing it’s felt like a less than successful week work wise. That changed today not cause I finally got the editorial right — we’ve switched to looking at the Olympics as a way to share Chinese culture so I’ll be taking one more stab at it tomorrow — but because I got a good comment from my boss on another issue. He was happy that I was able to get our company an opportunity to submit an article to the magazine of the Beijing branch of the British Chamber of Commerce in China. That one comment turned my week around.

And tonight I got invited to a new Gubei this weekend thing are looking up.

J.

PS Here’s a link to my latest Lost Laowai post.

Well as I mentioned in my last post, I’m a little fed up with the Olympics right now. It’s not that I’ve got anything against the Olympics. I just have an Olympic-sized enormous Olympics hangover from all the coverage that it’s getting in the news here (as it should) and from working on this Olympics issue of our company newsletter.

I’ve just rewritten our editorial for the third time in two days and I hope I got the tone the way I want it this time. For some reason writing an opinion piece on a blog is much easier for me than it is to write an editorial for professional media. I always found them difficult to do when I worked in journalism and I am finding them difficult to write now. I’m not sure if it’s the fact that I am writing in the paper’s voice and not in my own (as a columnist does) that is the problem or whether I am just not a great opinion writer.

But enough complaints. It’s time like this I turned to a good novel to escape a writing rut. I always thought that was slacking off but I was surprised to see that according to this article in The Globe and Mail it’s actually a good idea for me to do that. I’ll be refreshed later and have a better grip on a situation and my writing. Why not try it yourself. But before you do be sure to check out my latest book review at Lost Laowai — the review of Jan Wong’s Beijing Confidential has been submitted and will hopefully be published in That’s Beijing soon.

J.

Recently I’ve really been enjoying two Canadian literary blogs, Seen Reading and the Quillblog. Seen Reading is about what one writers sees Canadians reading while the other is from a respected Canadian literary journal. All the books they discuss sound so great that I just want to go out and buy as many Canadian authors as possible. But Shanghai isn’t known for having much CanLit. Plus even if it did, books are expensive and I would just spend all my money on them I already have too many books on my shelves. So it got me looking at what’s there and making a book list for the next month or so. Here it is:

1. Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctorine
2. Ian McEwan’s Atonement
3. John Updike’s Terrorist
4. Jiang Rong’s Wolf Totem
5. Michael Chabon’s Wonder Boys

You’ll notice that there’s only one China book there. I’ve kind of had my fill of China topics for now. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I deal with different aspects of the country everyday at my job or the fact that I spent most of my day writing an editorial for our company newsletter on the Olympics, but I need a break from it for awhile. Right now, I’m going to finish up some projects I’ve got in the pipeline (a book review of the memoir A Year Without Made in China for Lost Laowai and one on Jan Wong’s Beijing Confidential for That’s Beijing) then I am going to take a rest from China for a week or so. After that I should be ready to come back and tackle it again.

J.

In all this heat, I’ve been watching a lot of DVDs. Tonight’s choice was the first episode of AMC’s series Mad Men.

I’ve only watched the first episode but the show seems to feature everything that I like about the 60’s: well-pressed suits, drinking in the afternoon and a sense of living where you can tell that they are taking lots of risks but they don’t make it look like they care about those risks. That last sentence can be used to describe the show’s lead character Dan Draper.

I don’t know enough about Draper’s character to really give a full description yet, but he seems to be living a bit of a double life — risk-taking Madison Avenue Ad Man while in Manhattan, quiet family man when he comes home to his suburban home. I’m not sure which one is really him — it will keep me watching to wait and see though. As will the little “time-sensitive” bits that are dropped into the show, such as Draper’s boss asking him to help write ads for RIchard Nixon’s first failed presidential campaign and a joke that Draper makes late in the first episode in reference to a photocopier.

I just took a look at the Mad Men website before writing this post and I saw that the second season will be starting on Sunday July 27th for viewers in the US. So any readers of this blog in North America who might have seen the end of season 1 please don’t tell me how this ends. This is one ending I definitely want to find out by myself.

J.

On Thursday I celebrated my 29th birthday. It didn’t feel like a momentous birthday. I know that in about 362 days I will be turning 30 but turning 29 didn’t seem like a funeral durge. Instead it just felt like a slightly more special day because I kept being told happy birthday all day and my office gave me the day off without docking my annual leave — which is probably the best gift that they could ever gave me.

That wasn’t the only gift I received from my office though. There’s also a program where they give you a gift on your birthday and at Christmas. For my birthday they gave me a Creedance Clearwater Revival CD. It seemed like an ideal gift. You see CCR was my Dad’s favourite band and so when I was growing up I heard their music often. So to hear that music again on my birthday got me thinking about my childhood birthdays.

Since my birthday is in the summer I never had to go to school. Occassionally,  I had to go to day camp but often I had the day to myself and I could relax. I usually received books and CDs for my birthday (something I always loved and still do — and I still frequently receive) so I’d spend the day reading and listening to music with breaks to watch whatever was my favourite talkshow that summer or Law and Order reruns on A&E. At night there’d be a trip to my favourite restaurant for dinner and then usually a trip to the theatre to see whatever was the big summer blockbuster that year.

I always stayed up late on my birthday. After the movie I’d come home and read again until midnight or 1am. I usually finished the first of whatever books I got a day or two after — maybe even that day if it was short enough.  The one feeling I’d have that day is happiness. Nothing could ever go wrong that day and still can’t.

This year was pretty much the same. I walked Roger, I watched Torchwood and I read Jan Wong’s Beijing Confidential. At night Winnie and I went out to dinner and then on the way home she bought me a couple of books as a birthday gift. Again the entire day felt perfect, but I didn’t stay up late instead I went to bed and slept soundly.

J.