iChina Magazine 2009 Feb. Issue

iChina

February 2009 www.ichinamag.com

Eyeing China with My Angle

Published by iChina Media Group & KF Publishing Company Group, U.S.A

• • • • • • •

Democratic society is a consistent goal FDA Opens Offices in China Zero Salary for Chinese Graduates?

Shan Zhai—the Most Popular Word in China Graffiti Art China's urban nomads target graffiti canvas, the Wall Winter Fairyland - The Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival Hainan Island -- The Hawaii of China

INDEX

February

2009

FOCUS 02. Democratic society is a consistent goal 04. FDA Opens Offices in China

ECONOMY 06. Holders Should Not Pay for Fake Money 07. Zero Salary for Chinese Graduates?

PEOPLE 10. Small Business, Big World - Interview with Carmon Crone

CULTURE 13. Shan Zhai - the Most Popular Word in China

ARTS 16. Graffiti Art China's urban nomads target graffiti canvas, the Wall 20. Beijing street fashion

TRAVEL 22. Winter Fairyland - The Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival 25. Hainan Island - The Hawaii of China

FOOD 28. Colorful Faces of Donuts 30. A Green Homemade Dinner on Valentine's Day

LEISURE 34. Chinese Valentine’s Day 35. Learn to Play Chinese Mah-Jong 36. The Best Way to Relax in China 37. Symbol of China - Panda or Dragon?

38. Monkey King Journey to the West 41. Reader's Feedback 42. Survey and Subscription

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iChina is published monthly by iChina Media Group and KF Publishing Company Group.

Editor in Chief: April Zhang Executive Editor: Huijie Feng Managing Editor: May Ouyang

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Associate Editor: Mingwu Gao, Zhao Zhao, Yu Chen, Hua Cheng, Angie Zhong, Sharon Wilson, Elizabeth Steiner Assistant Editor: Stacy Liu, Qinqin Schoser, Michael Smith Copy Editor: Rebecca Stout

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For advertisement or subscription information, contact: Phone: 312-233-2087 Email: marketing@ichinamag.com Http://www.ichinamag.com There are two ways of spreading light - to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. ~Edith Wharton

FOCUS

M

any people have been always curious to know if there is democracy in China or if it is the direction the society will go on. Actually, this answer depends on the different definitions and the perspectives.

Some people, with a very simple and direct standard, will say: the real democracy where you are allowed to criticize the leadership does not exist in China. So, the democracy in China is an illusion. However, some people might not agree with the above. As a communist, senior governor, Huang Mengfu will pose his opinion here by the real stories that happened between him and the Chinese leaders on the highest positions.

Huang, Mengfu, senior engineer, Vice-chairman of the 11th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee , chairman of All-China Industry and Commerce Federation, chairman of the board of directors of the China Foundation for Human Rights Development, member of China Democratic National Construction Association (CDNCA), and member of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Democratic society is a consistent goal Not long ago, an American friend told me an interesting story about China. He said an American could write a book after returning from a weeklong trip to the East Asian nation but could only write a brief article after a three-month stay.

No single word, however, could be written after staying in the country a year, he said. That is because things in the booming ancient nation are much too complicated.

He is indeed correct. It is also why I have come to the United States to communicate with all of you.

There is no doubt the astonishing achievements made by China since its initiation of the historical reform and opening up policy in 1978 are worth eulogizing.

Over the past 30 years, the country's gross domestic product (GDP) has achieved 9.8 percent growth year on year, and the people's living standards have been substantively improved.

Thirty years ago, bicycles were the main means of transportation for Chinese urban residents and telephones were a luxury, but now private cars have become common, and one in every two people possesses a cell phone.

Thirty years ago, about 250 million Chinese people lived in sheer poverty. This figure was reduced to 15 million by the end of last year, only 1.1 percent of its population.

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The country has basically solved the problem of food and clothing for its people and succeeded in building a moderately prosperous society.

Its human rights efforts have also been improved remarkably nationwide.

I still remember the home of one of my friends on the outskirts of Beijing at which I stayed for a period of time in the 1960s when I was at university. His home was rather sparsely furnished, and the family's meals consisted mainly of corn bread and vegetables. Today, he has a color TV, a cell phone, a car and other luxury items, and the family is living a good life.

People who have visited Beijing know that today you can hear discussions on taxi cabs on political issues, and those taking part are free to do so.

Columnist Nicholas D. Kristof wrote in the New York Times on Aug 24, 2008 about the Chinese Internet and sensitive political issues.

The freedom enjoyed by foreign journalists covering the Sichuan earthquake and the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics demonstrated the progress the country has made on human rights issues over the past three decades.

In their pursuit of a better life, the Chinese people are also well aware that we are still a developing country. We have yet to solve a series of thorny issues on our way to modernization, such as how to slow population growth, further narrow the urban-rural

FOCUS divide, and how to set up a social security, education and medical system covering the whole population.

The Chinese people are committed to building a democratic, just, vigorous and orderly society in which people can coexist with nature harmoniously.

A discussion between late Chairman Mao Zedong and my grandfather Huang Yanpei in a cave in Yan'an, the headquarters of the CPC revolution before the new China was founded in 1945, is well known to many people. My grandfather asked Mao how the new Party would not repeat the old model of a Chinese regime from birth to prosperity.

"Democracy", Mao answered.

A democratic society has been a consistent goal pursued by the Chinese people in modern times. A democratic path with Chinese characteristics has been already chartered.

China has adopted a CPC-led multi-party cooperation and political consultation system and the

National People's Congress system.

As the ruling party, the CPC is in close and interactive consultations with other participating democratic parties and social groups on major political, economic and social issues before any decisions are made.

Last year, President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao participated in 18 such consultations. Not long ago, President Hu chaired a meeting with delegates from the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, a component of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, on rural construction and development.

As head of the group, I recommended to the president that the government should pump more funds into rural areas to help far mers and reduce pover t y in the vast underdeveloped areas. My recommendation was later accepted.

Earlier this year, I proposed to Premier Wen that the central government take into consideration the interests of small-

and medium-sized enterprises while adopting a tight monetary policy. The proposal was also incorporated into the government's credit policy.

According to a survey conducted by the US PEW Research Center, 86 percent of Chinese people feel satisfied with the directions of China's development, ranking it No 1 in the world. That demonstrates the confidence of the Chinese people in socialism with Chinese characteristics.

The current world is a colorful and diversified one.

We respect the rights of the people of America to choose their democracy and such rights of the Chinese people should also be respected.

The extent of democracy, freedom and opening up China has achieved was unimaginable 30 years ago, and it will not slow our efforts to improve our human rights situations.

The Chinese government is now actively drafting a blueprint for human rights reform. It will further enhance the development of the country's human rights.

The article is an excerpt of Huang, Mengfu’s speech at Harvard University on Nov 24, 2008.

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FOCUS FDA Opens Offices in China

By Dan Braido

T

he United States Food and Drug Administration opened a small office in Beijing, China. This office is only the first international offering of a planned deployment which looks to install offices in India, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East as well as offices in Guangzhou and Shanghai by the end of the year. While there has been speculation that the office is being opened in direct response to recent reports of melamine being used to dope supplies of animal feed and dairy products, it is actually the first phase of an initiative developed years ago. Improperly produced or handled products are inevitable in any industry, and recent media scares are not the driving force behind an increased push for oversight. American officials realize that the way of the times is globalization, and as a result an increasingly greater percentage of American food and drugs will be produced in foreign countries. It is in everyone’s best interest to ensure that such products not be tainted in any way. This new office will not become responsible for performing the necessar y inspec tions, but is expected to act as an information hub.

American FDA officials will be available to Chinese officials to provide example 4

iChina Magzine • March 2009

guidelines and training. It is expected that the Chinese government wants to make sure that products being produced in its country are capable of meeting certain standards, and that the “Chinese Brand” does not suffer any undue indignity.

As the first international branches of the FDA come online, there is another initiative being explored to ensure the quality of food products in East Asia. The USDA is pushing for the use of third party inspection companies. Private companies inspect goods bound for export, thus reducing the burden on US customs officials. Last year over 13 million food items were imported to the US. However, the number of FDA inspectors responsible for these goods has not changed appreciably. As a result, only 1 percent of food and ingredient shipments crossing US borders were inspected. Aside from actual food, the number of food ingredient shipments, many of which imported to the US from China has more than doubled from 82,000 in 2002 to 199,000 in 2006 and are rapidly increasing still.

Even at this low inspection rate, still hundreds of items from China and India are rejected every month. So it would follow that for every one unsafe item which is rejected, there are 99 unsafe items that are accepted by default. This situation, without blaming any individual party, is unacceptable.

From the perspective of the United States, increasing inspector numbers and budgets in U.S. ports represents a rather large and unrecoverable expenditure. Heavily inspecting goods after they have reached U.S. ports would reduce the chance of tainted products being imported, but it will not reduce the number of tainted products being produced. It would be much more

FOCUS

efficient to ensure the items are acceptable before they are shipped. A reduction in refused shipments represents a reduction in both production and transportation costs for the manufacturer. Improved oversight in the country of origin means that not only goods which are exported would need to meet stricter guidelines, but goods for domestic use would as well.

The expansion of oversight does represent a significant financial burden; however, it is a necessary step for China with its recent emergence upon the world stage. Unfortunately, in the world of business it is often cheaper and easier to bribe an official or inspector than to make their products the proper way.

While the stated mission of the offices may be to offer advice and training, there will certainly be additional effects of an increased American regulatory presence. Bribing officials would become more expensive, or at the very least more difficult. There is an old army saying, “It’s only wrong if you get caught.” This goes double in China, where the death penalty is carried out swiftly for a relatively broad range of offences. One of the surest ways to receive such a sentence is to cause the Chinese government to lose face in the international community. If the chances of being punished for corrupt practices increased, inspectors would most likely want a larger bribe in response to this greater risk. In addition, inspectors would be less likely to ask producers who follow the imposed guidelines

for a bribe as well. The most effective way to ensure producers will follow the imposed guidelines is to make it the cheapest option.

The opening of FDA offices in China marks an important step on the way to a properly regulated global marketplace. The important thing now is to follow through on the promises this represents. At first opening, each office will be staffed with eight officials.

While this does mean the US has its foot in the door, it is a baby foot, and it does not take much to crush a baby’s foot. If this venture does show promise, hopefully, the number of officials per office will be increased, at least to 50. Furthermore, if the presence of FDA officials actually results in lower rejection rates of imported goods, this will increase the acceptance of FDA offices in the other designated districts.

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ECONOMY

image caption: An employee in Chongqing found out his monthly salary is fake.

Holders Should Not Pay for Fake Money

By Shinan Liu

E

xtremely "real looking" fake bank notes have appeared in several provinces and cities across the country causing panic among the public because there were reports that even bill scanners failed to detect them. To stop the panic, bank authorities have issued

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iChina Magzine • March 2009

statements to assure the public that there was no possibility of fake money getting through the banks' scanners. The statements, however, sound too feeble to assuage the public's fear.

The assurance doesn't seem convincing enough because there

had been reports of customers getting fake money from ATMs. The latest case occurred only a few days ago, when a man surnamed Qian withdrew 1,000 yuan ($147) from an ATM at a bank in Mianyang, Sichuan province, but later found nine of the ten 100-yuan notes to be counterfeit. As he had not asked for an invoice from the automatic teller machine, the man could not prove the source of the money and had to bear the loss.

This is really scary, for customers would feel unsafe when even banks' ATMs spew out fake money.

What is more frustrating is that one can hardly prove it. Last year, a man surnamed Li allegedly received 500 yuan in fake notes from an ATM in Dongguan, Guangdong province. After a shop refused to take the money, Li asked the bank to pay him for the loss but the bank turned down the request, saying

that "it is impossible for such a thing to happen". The man smashed the machine in fury but ended up being arrested by police. There have been other such cases across the country but in all of them the customers have borne the losses.

Rural migrant workers are particularly vulnerable to the fake money tragedy. On December 23 last year, Sun Yun and Wu Li, a couple from Zhongxian, Chongqing, received 2,400 yuan ($353) from their boss as part of their yearly salary. When they began to spend the money, they found that 19 of the 24 100-yuan bills were fake. The boss said the money was withdrawn from a local bank.

The couple were honest country folks. They said they would not spend the fake money because it is illegal; but they could not bear the pain of handing over the money to the bank. "We earned it at the cost of our blood and sweat," they said tearfully, according to media reports.

State regulation rules that fake money, when found, should be confiscated. In other words, the loss is borne by whoever holds it. The regulation is based on the theory that the act of keeping a counterfeit bank

note is illegal. In reality, however, most holders of fake money obtain it without knowing it. The fact leaves the regulation questionable.

Although a person who accidentally receives a fake note is blamed for not being careful enough to detect it, he/she should not be held 100 percent responsible for the mistake. Besides the recognition of the phony notes, the problem also involves their making and trafficking, and they have become more and more difficult to detect thanks to the advancing of the techniques of forging them. These faults should not be blamed on common people who involuntarily become holders of fake money. Instead, it is the State's responsibility to stop, and crack down on the making and trafficking of fake money.

Therefore, the State should share the loss by compensating the holder of a counterfeit bank note somewhat when confiscating it. Otherwise, one cannot rule out the possibility that people try to spend the fake money given the fact that it has become more and more difficult to distinguish it from true money. In that case, it is the national economy that will suffer the most.

ECONOMY

Zero Salary for Chinese Graduates?

By Michael Standaert

X

iao Feng (alias) has interned in a local company in Shijiazhuang, a city southwest of Beijing, for almost one year, and hasn't made a cent. She never complains about it because she wants to accumulate work experience in order to get a job she actually likes. As a large number of college graduates finish the school year and step into the employment market, more and more feel the cutthroat competition when they are job-hunting. "More and more college students in China have considered sacrificing pay today for a brighter future." Xiao Feng is no exception.

After years of stunning economic growth rates, including 11.9 percent in 2007, China's economy has seen its growth slow for the first time since 2002. The World Bank projects 9.4 percent in 2008 and 7.5 percent in 2009. The international consulting firm AT Kearney predicts China's economy will expand by only 6 percent next year.

Yu Yondding of the China Academy of Social Sciences says the Chinese economy must grow between 8 and 9 percent annually to absorb the 24 million new workers who enter the labor force each year. Of 5.5 million university graduates this year, 800,000 have yet to find work. With higher education

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ECONOMY

expanding in China, the number of university graduates is expected to reach 6 million by June.

In the first six months of 2008, some 67,000 plants closed, and as many as 2.5 million workers will lose their jobs by the beginning of 2009 in southern Guangdong province's manufacturing sector alone, according to state statistics. "This is the worst that I have ever seen," said Deng Lina, a 23-yearold furniture factor y wo r k e r, w h o re ce n t l y quit her job af ter her firm stopped paying overtime to supplement a paltry monthly salary of $112. Deng has since moved back to her native province of Henan, joining some 300,000 migrant wor kers who returned to their rural homes in September and October, according to labor officials.

In an attempt to bolster the economy, the g ove r n m e nt re l e a s e d a $586 billion stimulus package and cut interest rates to 5.58 percent, the most significant cut in 11 years. The two-year plan is expected to create jobs by pumping money into infrastructure, health and social welfare, agriculture and housing. "I think the [government] is responding well, but it needs to present a vision of what is going to happen," said Scott Rozelle, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies at Stanford University.

"There is going to be two years of belt tightening for many and then hopefully renewed growth."

Back at the job fair taken place in Guangdong recently, some students quietly rehearsed off to the side what they would say to the potential 91 employers that showed up, while others pored over publicity materials

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iChina Magzine • March 2009

and compared resumes. When they finally reached the coveted tables, many interviews looked like a speed-dating chat. The fair is one of 44 scheduled for Guangdong province in upcoming months with fewer companies willing to participate. A recent recruiting event at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou city attracted only 13 firms, down from 40 in 2007. In Dongguan, a recent two-day job fair had 30 percent fewer companies than the previous year, according to the Guangdong career guidance center.

"What does it matter if I don't get paid, as long as I get a good job out of it," Zhengzhou University student Zhang Junli says. Xiao Liu (alias), a graduate student at Hebei University says graduate students have to accept

the zero-salary policy if they want to get a good job.

"The competition is so fierce that we have no other choice but to accept it." "I am quite lucky because I have signed a contract with a company unlike my poor fellow students who devoted themselves to interning but gained nothing," he says.

One of Zhang's schoolmates Xu Yuntao argues that the zero-salary policy is not a precondition for a good job. "I won't work without pay, even if it means the only job I can get is in manual labor." According to a survey, more and more qualified graduate students feel they have no other choice than to accept the zero-salary policy if they want to work. Data collected from 1,200 enterprises show that 34 percent of students demand a salary of 1,000 yuan per month (US$125).

ECONOMY

According to some experts, more and more students are qualified for top-tier jobs when they graduate but competition is so fierce that they are forced to take jobs with little to nothing in terms of payment in order to enter the workforce. Many enterprises have taken advantage of this trend to get as much work from graduates as possible for as little money as possible. Experts also say people will question the necessity of going to college. They will think going to school is useless if someone with a lesser degree can earn more money than someone with a higher level of education.

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PEOPLE

Small Business, Big World - Interview with Carmon Crone

By Qinqin Schoser

L

ast year, I accompanied my friend Carmon Crone and his son Jamie for a business trip to China, and half year later, I think it would be fun if we could sit together and recap that trip.

So I called Carmon to come over for a casual talk on a sunny afternoon.

Before I started, Carmon asked me if I could find out the mailing address of the hotel we stayed in Shenzhen during that trip, as he wanted to send a card to a waiter named Cookie. Why? Carmon is a morning bird, and when we went to Shenzhen, he stuck to his early schedule. On the very first morning, he got up bright and early, asking for a cup of coffee. It was so early that the cafeteria was not open yet. But lucky for Carmon, he met Cookie, who was on the morning shift and served him coffee. During the following couple of days, when Carmon got up earlier than the rest of us – which happened to be the case everyday, he would go upstairs having a cup of coffee with Cookie while waiting for us. He was deeply impressed by Cookie’s hard work and positive attitude, and he would like to express his appreciation. Sure, I would help him find the correct address for mailing the card to Cookie. Well, a nice start. Since I told him it would be an interview, from which we’d like to share with our readers what an American businessman thinks and feels about China, our conversation was more like “Q&As”.

Qinqin (Q): Let’s start with a brief self-introduction.

Would you tell a bit more about yourself? Like what you did and what you do?

Carmon (C): Well, I was born in 1945. I grew up in western Colorado. I married my high-school sweetheart, and we’ve been married for 40 years. We spent some 10

iChina Magzine • March 2009

time in Durango, Colorado, where I worked for Fort Lewis College as assistant manager for housing. In 1981 we moved to New Mexico. I have been a famers insurance agent for 20 years. We also have some other small businesses, including a ski shop in Durango, a snowboard shop, a bicycle shop, and a company in Aztec called New Mexico Board and Ski, and two clothing stores in Oregon. My wife Linda has been in education for 36 years, as a teacher, librarian and software instructor.

We have two children, and they were the reason we went to China. Our daughter Rachel was born in 1975, and graduated from Fort Lewis College. Our son Jamie is 29. They own a manufactory called Gold Star in

PEOPLE Tacoma, Washington, and we went to China looking for suppliers.

Q: I got it. Your family has been running small local businesses. So before you planned the trip to China, did you have any international background or experience?

C: I have been to Austria, France and England. My daughter Racial studied 4 months in France. Her college had a good deal. They had a business class in junior year and the whole class was taken to France. You were just paying the flights and normal boarding and they sent you there. Since Linda, Jamie and I had never been out of the States by then, we decided to take 2 weeks off for a trip overseas. But it was just for the tourist. So I considered myself knowing nothing about international stuff. That’s why I didn’t know we needed a visa to get into China until you told me.

Q: Have you ever heard anything about China? Have you every thought about going to China?

C: National Geographic. Well, no, I knew nothing about China except that it is a very big country with a huge population. I would never thought about a trip to China until the moment my son asked me if I would go with him. I was very excited because usually when your children get 29 years old, you don’t get many opportunities to get together or have a trip with them. But we were able to do so. I was excited mostly for the family side. But I was also curious, nervous and everything. Language is a big barrier. Our biggest mistake would have been going there without you because we would be unable to do so many different things, to know what we were seeing, where we were going and what we were eating. When we went to Fr a n c e w e h a d a ver y difficult time. We didn’t experience that in China because of you. It was a comfort zone. (Q: You could get a local guide who speaks English too). I guess you are right but again it gave me a level of comfort. It might be more difficult for people at my age. The young people usually have no fear and are willing to face everything.

to import from china, what made him decide to go to China?

C: He was looking to expand his business in futon manufacture. For the same product, the cost would be way less in China than in Tacoma. He did the research on the Internet and found several companies he might make purchases from. He contacted them and did as much research as he could. Then he wanted to physically check them out, which would really help.

When Jamie showed me the list of the factories in China, it was a long list. But we only make to six out of the twelve factories on the list due to the time constraint and scattered locations. We didn’t expect such a huge industrial zone in China. The factories were located in different cities, and the cities are huge. We spent 2 hours in vehicle to get to one of them.

Q: Did you have any concerns before you went to China?

C: There were a couple things. I think I have fear for any other country than the US. There will be things you don’t want to do in Mexico; there will be things you don’t want to do in Russia; so will be in China. It may not be called fear. When you are put in somewhere surrounded by unfamiliar customs and culture, you’re out of your comfort zone. And the things you’ve heard before always play into your feelings, especially politically, because since I was a little kid I have known that China is governed by Communist. That seemed to go against our political system, so I was at odds over it in the first place. I personally was amazed that I didn’t see any armed troops in China during our trip, and the security guards we did see were not armed with any weapons.

Q: I know that Jamie used http://www.ichinamag.com

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PEOPLE Q: So, what impressed you in China?

C: Well, I had never been so excited to wake up in the morning because everyday I knew that I was going to see something I had never seen before.

I was emotionally very excited about the traffic there. We were there for 7 days and traveled literally a thousand miles but I didn’t see too many stoplights.

And it was a high-populated area. That fascinated me.

We never drove more than a quarter mile without seeing new constructions. It was constant; I don’t how they could manage that speed and density. There were huge constructions going on. And also I was fascinated by the bamboo scaffoldings. For some reason I didn’t realize that you could do that [building out of bamboo scaffoldings]. [There is] no bamboo scaffolding in the United States. I had never seen them before.

I had never seen so many people. Sometimes we drove 100 miles a day for a trip and we never left a population area. That I found unbelievable. One of things you don’t see in the United States is that twowheel bicycles, three-wheel vehicles and MercedesBenzs all cruise along. I saw more Mercedes-Benz and BMWs [in China] than in any populated cities in the US. I guess all the bicycles produced in the world were going to China, because there wouldn’t be any left when all the Chinese use bicycles. I had never seen three wheeled vehicles used for transportation before.

We were driving on an eight-lane highway with a hedge that was perfectly manicured. I just can’t imagine the labor for that work. The other thing you don’t see in the US is that every available piece of ground was under cultivation. When there is an open property there will be somebody farming. Unlike farmers in Kansas in the United States that usually have large farmlands, people in China farms on little pieces. In Kansas, you may drive at 60 m/h for 5 minutes and not go beyond one famer’s land, and see all plants planted and harvested by machine. While in China, it’s completely different. I don’t think the US farmer can make a living by farming in China.

Local farming was impressive in China. Every morning we sat at the cafeteria in the hotel, we could see a famer’s distribution market across the river from us. One of things I notice now in the US is that trying not to bring food from 1,500 miles away. It’s strange that lettuces in a New York market are delivered by a train from California every 8 days. Not to mention the transportation costs. What the U.S. is trying to do is what China is modeling now – to allow the food to grow locally.

Another impression I have was retails. You know my first retail impression in China was about garage stores.

They all had garage doors. In one garage store there might be nothing but soy sauce. Then the next might have only shoes. Then it goes extreme …extreme is the word I was looking for, extreme of everything. When I went to a big store with my son, we saw so many people buying shoes that we tried to figure out the 12

iChina Magzine • March 2009

number. But we simply couldn’t. Where can you see 500 people buying shoes at the same time? No place except here. It just fascinated me. We went to a very neat shopping area the other day, and were overwhelmed by the amount of people. It was an open area but definitely full of people.

The last but not least impressive thing was that the factories we went to seemed to get better along the way. The first factory was almost depressing and the facilities were in very bad shape. You almost thought that the employees were slaves because of the working conditions. I still don’t have an idea how they could work there. So the first factory experience was not good. But as we went to the other factories one after another, things got better and better. The one from which Jamie chose to make purchases had safety rules, quality control and inspection procedures, fully computerized customer service system. They also had very beautiful buildings. I also remember the super super nice furniture we saw; they were beautifully designed and crafted. It went from one extreme to the other. We happened to see almost all the types of the factories in this business, from family shop, to trader, to broker and to the modernized factory.

Carmon and I talked for a long time about the memories of that trip. “Best trip I ever had”, is how Carmon describes the trip to China, numerous times.

A few days later, when his son Jamie and daughter Rachel came to visit him, I went over and talked about the China trip with them as well. Everything Carmon and Jamie told about the trip made Rachel want to visit China badly, but they all joked that she couldn’t stand the crazy Chinese drivers. Jamie and Rachel’s business is doing fine. When I asked them whether a trip to China would affect the business of a small American enterprise like theirs, they both said, oh sure. The trip opened their mind and brought opportunities to their business. Rachel said she used to think it would be very hard to do international business like this but things turned out pretty smoothly. They told me that they were looking forward to importing more products from China in 2009.

I remembered the small task “assigned” by Carmon before we started the interview – finding Cookie’s mailing address. I called the hotel and got their address, but unfortunately, Cookie was no longer there. He quit and left for a better job. Carmon was all disappointed to know that we couldn’t get hold of Cookie. But no matter what, I believe Cookie will have a better life, and Jamie and Rachel will do better in the upcoming year.

Shan Zhai —the Most Popular Word in China --Is Shan Zhai Phenomenon Fake or Fun?

I

you got to remember this one: Shan Zhai.

N o w a d a y s w h e n yo u w a l k along the street in China, you may be shocked by how many Chinese teenagers are talking on their “iPhone” – one of the sleekest and trendiest “must-haves” for the younger generation across the world. Well, the question is, iPhone is not that price appealing to many Americans, and is not even available in China, then how come it floods the Chinese market?

Go figure. Ask them to show you, and you will find the answer. The real phone might be a HiPhone

Nakia phone, don’t question the quality control of Nokia. It is not a misspelling. There is a phone brand named Nakia and their produces do look like the ones made by Nokia.

Wa n n a j u m p u p a n d y e l l : “Hey, stop! This is not right! This is the violation of the intellectual property!” Calm down, my friend.

They won’t publish my article if I am on the side of a crime. Since I bought a cococola once I never had any good feelings about this kind of namebrand tricks.

The word Shan Zhai started in the cellphone industry. Shan Zhai cellphones are different from “black-market cellphones” people used to hear about.

The Chinese cell phone market had

Shan Zhai cell phone with the bird's nest shape.

– yes, with an H added, loaded with identical functions and looks with iPhone. Similarly, if you see a

been dominated by Motorola, Nokia and a few other overseas brands for a long time. Back to the year 2000, the license of cell phone manufacturing was very strictly controlled and the domestic brands couldn’t compete with the big brands on technology and quality. When some manufacturer copied the oversea brands, their products could only be sold http://www.ichinamag.com

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CULTURE

n the 2008 Presidential election in the United States, one of the most unforgettable shows was Saturday Night Live by NBC. Tina Fay’s “I can see Russia from my house” even took the first spot of the top 10 quotes in the 2008 Yale Book of Quotations, leaving Sarah Palin herself as the second place. The hilarious show made 2008 election even more dramatic than the election itself.

Well, if the show had ever got a chance to be broadcasted in China, Tina would have had a new name - Shan Zhai Sarah Palin. Well, of course, the great female comedian, Amy Poehler would have been Shan Zhai Hillary Clinton.

I understand that many readers don’t know much Chinese and they will certainly ask, what the heck does Shan Zhai mean? In the above case, Shan Zhai could be explained as a copycat - a creative one.

Literally, Shan means mountains a n d Z h a i means villages, especially small and remote villages. How come Shan Zhai h a s a ny t h i n g to do with Sarah Palin or Tina Fay? If you happened to spend a long time in China in 2008 and paid attention to the media, you would have found out that Shan Zhai was one of the biggest buzzwords in 2008. If you want to get with the cool words in China,

CULTURE

on “black market” which was illegal at that time. In 2006, with the invention of MTK chip, the cellphone manufacturing cost dropped dramatically. Plus, the strict license policy was abandoned in 2007. So the domestic manufacturers took advantage of the technology that big brands (such as iPhone) already had, and added a lot of extra features tailored to Chinese consumers. Plus, they created brand names similar to the prototypes, e.g., HiPhone vs. iPhone, and

of a dog that got thousands of clicks online. The dog looked like a giant panda, with black eyes and ears. And that dog was called a Shan Zhai panda. When a famous actress wore a 3000-RMB yuan dress that looked similar to a 10,000-US dollar designer number, guess what?

The actress got herself the nickname - Shan Zhai dress queen. Popular shows and movies were redone by unknown netizens, who would usually copy parts of the prototypes and then remix them to cater to younger viewers. Some netizens turned their names to the big shots by making Shan Zhai movies.

One of the hottest debate topics in the last whole year in China was whether Shan Zhai was hurting or actually helping the economy and culture. According to a recent survey by Sina (www. sina.com.cn), one of the biggest Chinese websites, 68% of people think Shan Zhai is acceptable vs. 18% think it is a shame; 53% think Shan Zhai culture will have a bright future vs. 27% think in the opposite. Around 20-30% people, however, seem to be struck by the culture shock and do not have any opinion towards the phenomenon.

Here is another Shan Zha Bird's Nest. Some farmers in Shuangxi, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, People who stand for Shan made a bamboo Bird's Nest of the scale 1:20, which took them half a month and spent almost a Zhai usually think that it meets thousand pieces of Mao zhu, the local bamboo. the needs of many consumers.

On the economical side, some Nakia vs. Nokia to attract eyeballs. There born the Shan people think the birth of Shan Zhai products broke Zhai cellphones. They are very tempting in that you can the long-time domination in certain industry and have a cellphone that looks and functions just like a accelerated innovation. Some even compared it as a twin brother of iPhone, if not better with add-ons, at a revolution, implying that it is a battle between small fraction of the price of iPhone. They know niche market. businesses and big brands. A blogger thinks that this is Some cellphones are made in the sportscar shape or also a result of the global economical crisis, as people cigarette box shape; some have stereo ringtones; some who used to spend thousands of dollars without a blink can be used as a speaker in a crowd; some can work as a regular TV set. All of a sudden, when you input Shan Zhai Ji (Shan Zhai Cellphone) in a Chinese searching engine, over 5 million results will pop up. Just as a popular Chinese commercial goes, you will certainly find the one.

But Shan Zhai phenomenon did not just stop at the cellphone markets. It started from cellphone, and grew into every aspect of people’s life. Shan Zhai, as the most popular word in 2008, is used by the Chinese every chance they get. Anything that looks or functions quite like a well-known prototype would be regarded Shan Zhai version. Some people call it copycat, but sometimes it’s not even an intentional copycat.

It almost looks like that there is no way to A Shan Zhai propeller-driven aircraft avoid Shan Zhai. Last year, there was a picture 14

iChina Magzine • March 2009

on luxury brand products had to cut back to deal with the crisis, and they found identical Shan Zhai products a great replacement.

Speaking of copycat, some even pointed out that Bill Gates built Miscosoft out of his learning from IBM, and Sohu, one of the top Chinese websites, was originally spelled Sohoo, some derivative of Yahoo. Well, in a market-oriented economy, there gotta be a good

Shan Zhai Celebrity: Jay is one of the most famous celebrities in China. But this young man is not Jay, he is only a Shan Zhai Jay.

damage to the whole market. They are calling for more regulation for the Shan Zhai market. They think that the Shan Zhai products meets a morbid psychological needs of a certain group of people, who are after the luxury lifestyle but can’t afford it, and find designer look-like, low-profile pieces to comfort themselves. Some of the Shan Zhai products are definitely against certain laws about the intellectual rights. Worst of all, they said, Shan Zhai is an obstructer o n t h e way o f i n n ovat i o n , a s people place more focus on simply copying or manipulating rather than innovative researching and development.

Among the opponents, Professor Ge at Fudan University said that the so-called Shan Zhai culture is a shortcut to fame and success for many people. While it costs a lot of resources and takes a lot of time to create somethins, be it cellphone, movie, song, etc, it is way easier to do Shan Zhai.

Professor Ge said, if we tolerate

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CULTURE

reason that Shan Zhai could take the stage in a short period of time.

On the cultural side, people who support Shan Zhai regard it as a very creative cultural development.

While opponents point their fingers at Shan Zhai stage drama as they think it very superficial and a big insult to the original, advocates think Shan Zhai drama reinvigorates the old version, and paves a path to the real booming of stage drama. Xie Xizhang, a literature critic, took the Shan Zhai New Year Gala as an example. When the traditional CCTV New Year Gala became less and less appealing to the audience, the Shan Zhai version sprang up and brought fresh air.

Though the Sina survey shows that only 18% of people think Shan Zhai is a shame, the voice against Shan Zhai has never b e e n l o w. S o m e o f t h e m a r e even ashamed to call it a culture phenomenon. On the market, they think that Shan Zhai played against the game rules of the market, and will eventually cause

the Shan Zhai culture, the real invention would have a really hard time to grow in China.

Besides the advocates and opponents that have strong opinion towards Shan Zhai, there are still a lot of people standing in the middle. On the one hand, they enjoy the Shan Zhai products; while on the other, they feel uneasy and can’t help wondering if they are doing the right thing. Some of them have double-standards: they would like to watch Shan Zhai shows that may be renovating to some degree, but object to use Shan Zhai cellphones that are simply knockoffs in their eyes.

The question is: Is there a fine line between these two? I doubt it.

The debate of Shan Zhai is carries on, and probably there won’t even be an end of this debate with millions of Chinese participating. But one thing we know for sure - it always feels good to have our voice heard.

ARTS graffiti gallery.

Her introduction came through a middle school classmate who showed her some American and European graffiti sites. "I t was crazy! You could do it a ny w h e r e . I t w a s n ' t necessarily beautiful but it was daring and brave."

S h e b e g a n scribbling "tags" ( s t y l i ze d re n d e r i n g s of an assumed name) in her notebook and working up the courage to try it out on the street. Perhaps it was her father's advice that finally gave her the edge. "At the time,

Graffiti Art China's urban nomads target graffiti canvas, the Wall

A

twenty-year old kid stealthily creeps towards the Great Wall - a monument to the country's grandeur, audacious and bold. He's no tourist up from Shanghai for a look at one of the seven wonders of the world. He's approaching the wall with a chattering bag of spray cans, and a slight step. For this young rebel, the Wall is a canvas, mile after mercifully blank mile - a graffiti artist's dream. And his moments alone with the Wall are ticking away like a time bomb.

No prize is more coveted for a graffiti artist in China than that of the Great Wall, but for all those out to be the first to mark the pristine stone, it's too late. Last week the Great Wall got "bombed". "Bombing," or illegal acts of graffiti, are nothing new to China.

Sic is one of these artists. Soft spoken, few would think this nineteen year-old female u n i ve r s i t y a r t s t u d e n t i s c a p a b l e o f t h e "bombings" of public buses and police paddy wagons. Affectionate and lithe, Guangzhou native Sic fixes you with an even stare and says, "Some people prefer doing the legal stuff. It's more obedient but I like it out on the streets. I guess my heart's not yet at ease."

Flashing a mellow smile, it's hard to imagine her sneaking out late Saturday nights on predawn raids, armed with a digital camera and spray cans. But those are the tools with which she founded Made in Guangzhou (MIG), the Chinese mainland's first graffiti crew, and their online 16

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graffiti didn't exist in China. My father had always encouraged me to be the first to do something, to be the best!"

Whereas graffiti began in the West as a reaction to an over-commercialized art world that became detached from the artists' lives and as a movement to bring art to the people who needed it the most, those living in poor conditions with ugly surroundings, China's karma with writing on walls is deep and dated. In the classic novel Outlaws of the Marsh, hero and leader Song Jiang makes his revolutionary declaration against the corrupt state with a poem drunkenly scrawled on a teahouse wall. During the Cultural Revolution, pesky neighbors

ARTS

could be eliminated through accusations posted on a community wall. When Deng Xiaoping made his move for opening and reform, he designated a wall in Beijing where people could freely write their thoughts. He may never have imagined that they thought so many

"dangerous" things. Nicknamed the "Democracy Wall," it quickly met its end.

Today's graffiti has entered into advertising, branding, and design. Sprung from urban youth culture and spreading from the population centers to the provinces like an unchecked wave, it is a sign of the next generation.

Although Sic's father might not have had graffiti

in mind, it didn't matter. At the dawn of the new millennium, with extra-wide markers in hand, she and classmate Sue started decorating the walls around their middle school.

Eager to learn more, Sic began contacting Hong Kong artists via the Internet. After chatting online for over a year, second-generation Hong Kong crew FDC (a graffiti group) came to Guangzhou in 2001 to give Sic and MIG their first lessons.

Brought to Hong Kong in the mid-80s by foreign students and visiting hipsters, it would take over a decade for local Hong Kong crews like MC Yan's CEA to begin the first generation of Chinese graffiti. As hip-hop and urban street culture grew, so did the crews. Hong Kong hip hop group LMF cut an album and featured graffiti art on the cover. It was more than simply writing your name on the wall. It was a new voice.

They worked on the outlines, fill-ins, and effects that make up "pieces" or large graffiti mural. FDC brought a "piece book," or a photo collection of their work. "By

showing us these pieces, they gave us direction but we couldn't copy," remembers Sic. "It was up to us to find our own style."

In a male-dominated field, Sic stands apart from other graffiti artists as a female "bomber". Vibrant and strong, her choice of bright, rich colors, sensual lines and cheerful illustration debunks the myth that graffiti is only for urban malcontents and agro-males.

"I'm a girl and I wanted to do girl things," Sic says.

"I started adding flowers. Now when people see the flowers, they know it's my work."

Hungry for recognition, she racked her brain for ways to one-up rival crews. Graffiti is inherently local and difficult to display to a broad audience. It is also a fleeting art form, as walls are constantly painted over or knocked down.

"The Internet seemed the fastest and most direct way to promote our work," explains Sic. "We were the first mainland crew with a website. In that sense, MIG is very advanced."

FBL, another Guangzhou crew, focuses more on the legal aspects of graffiti art. Asked why, member Li Dongyou laughed, "Look at her (Sic's) face. If you were http://www.ichinamag.com

17

ARTS a cop would you arrest her? We're all guys, we have a much harder time pulling off the illegal stuff."

MC Yan, long time graffiti artist, disagrees: "I'm 32 and I tag every day. FBL is more art school oriented. Sic is hardcore, she's on the street."

Danger is integral to graffiti art. It's what gets you shaking before a piece and l a u g h i n g a f te r. S i c, loosening up, jokes about her favorite spots to hit. "I love the bus depot. Public buses are exciting and the surfaces are perfect. There're guards but there're also blind spots." On average, Sic says that 10-20 minutes at one site is long enough to get the work done although high profile spots are troublesome such at the Guangzhou Hotel on the Pearl River.

In this particular incident, they hadn't been working long when hotel security grabbed them, finding their spray cans and escorting MIG away from the area.

"They had no idea what graffiti was though," explains Sic. "We told them we were art students testing out our work on society. They assumed all artists were loons, unfathomable by normal people. They let us go, demanding we return the next day to repaint it."

But as China gains a deeper understanding of the rebel art, will penalties become more severe?

Their reaction to the bombing of the Great Wall could be the litmus test.

Graffiti may still be a little known phenomenon to most Chinese but this is changing. Celebrating their one-year anniversary last week, Urban, China's first free street culture magazine has been working to teach the masses about the new style.

Their focus is street-style and includes hip-hop, punk rock, X-Games, fashion and graffiti. With an estimated readership of 30,000 middle school and college-aged hipsters, the distribution of this Shanghai magazine has already begun reaching out beyond the coastal cities to the in-land provinces.

It's a dynamic new market and big business is following suit. Eager to capture the imaginations, and pocketbooks, of wealthy urban youth, megacorporations like Nike, Reebok, and Adidas sponsor Urban. Last year, Nike branded several basketball courts around Shanghai with its ubiquitous swoosh, christening them Nike Parks. Graffiti crews were hired to deck the walls.

It seems to be working. A local Shanghai middle school student commenting on the park, gushed, "This is a place to make your dreams come true. Look around, 18

iChina Magzine • March 2009

every kid out there wants to be the next Yao Ming."

Amidst the fear that commercialism will diminish the quality of the art is the hope that it will spread graffiti's message far and wide. It may be that the tension between the two that pushes artists to new heights.

Himm Wong, creator and editor of Urban, i s t a k i n g i t i n s t r i d e.

"There is a real need for increased exposure in China. Chinese youth have fewer options for entertainment than their western counterparts," he explains. "They're usually l i m i t e d t o s h o p p i n g, karaoke, and traditional sports. We want to give young people more choices, more ways to enjoy life."

While the magazine is still 80% advertorial, they feature frame-by-frame break dancing and skate boarding lessons and essays from local hip-hop MCs. Graffiti makes up their showcase of local art.

"We're still far from our goals," concedes Wonn.

"Most styles are still copied from Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and the West. We want to create an organic Chinese style, our own voice. We want Urban to be the flagship."

ARTS

Asian street culture guru and mentor MC Yan may be leading the pack. His latest graffiti project, entitled "China Man Tagging," displays a groundbreaking fusion of eastern and western art traditions. Reproductions of traditional Chinese paintings feature eccentric ancients tagging the walls. Looking for intersections between traditional Chinese and modern art, he seized on the concept of incorporating poetry into paintings. Set against bold, in-your-face graffiti backdrops, Yan writes his own hiphop lyrics like graffiti calligraphy. And, in what

is possibly Hong Kong's largest ever graffiti coup, he designed a McDonald's add campaign that will cover ten entire subway trains with graffiti art.

"I do my own work and I do commercial stuff to support myself," says Yan. "I always let the corporations know that it's a package. If they want the image, they have to take the art."

Most artists realize that corporations have little vested interest in graffiti and will abandon it once it ceases to sell. They are eager to seize the opportunities now. However, at the end of the day, it's the work you've done and your crew that matter most. What's more, the numerous smaller tribes from different cities are in close contact and often cooperate to produce larger works.

It's one thing to tag decrepit walls in Guangzhou but whether or not the Great Wall can stand an attack by a new urban nomad, this remains to be seen.

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Beijing street fashion

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ARTS

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WINTER F

The Harbin International

TRAVEL

W

inter is never dull in Harbin, the capital city of Heilongjiang, China’s northernmost province.. Known as a Paradise of Ice and Snow, Harbin is on top of the must-go list of a lot of tourists, despite the below-zero temperature. On the north part of Songhua River,lies an enchanting place – Harbin Ice & Snow World, featuring amazing icy sculptures created by skillful craftsmen from all over the world. It’s the magic of the city.

The Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival made its debut in 1985. The festival has been held annually since then and has now become one of the world’s four largest ice and snow festivals, along with Japan’s Sapporo Snow Festival, Canada’s Quebec Winter Carnival, and Norway’s Ski Festival. Since 1999, the city of Harbin started building the Harbin International Ice & Snow World every year, covering an area of 40 acres and comprised of over 200,000 cubic meters of ice and snow.

The 25th Harbin International Ice & Snow Festival and the 10th Harbin International Ice & Snow World – themed about the 24th Winter Universiade kicked off on January 5 th 2009, and consisted of 5 themed exhibitions - Winter Universiade Flame Castle, Glamour City of Harbin, the Passion of the Winter Universiade, the New Time Magic World, and the Splendid Ice and Snow Land.

During the daytime, you can take part in a variety of cultural, athletic, and commercial events. While at night, you can simply indulge yourself in the breathtaking Ice & Snow World, lit up with colorful LED. Yes, we know it is freezing cold, but it’s absolutely worth it.

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iChina Magzine • March 2009

FAIRYLAND

al Ice and Snow Festival

BY CINDY LEE

TRAVEL http://www.ichinamag.com

23

Time: 1/5/2009-2/5/2009 Ticket: CNY 150 How to get there: Fly or take a train to Harbin Tips: 1.

Wear warm clothing, shoes and accessories, e.g., down coat, boots, gloves, hat, scarf, ear mufflers.

TRAVEL

2.

Do not forget to keep your camera, camcorder, cell phone, and other electronic devices in warm places when not in use.

O t h e r w i s e, t h e coldness will run up the batter y very fast.

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iChina Magzine • March 2009

Views Alike:

Hainan Island -- The Hawaii of China

TRAVEL

By Nick Kembel

T

h i s i s C h i n a’s i s l a n d o f p r i s t i n e beaches, tropical landscape, and runaway tourism. Located just off the southeastern tip of China, adjacent to Guangdong province, Hainan Island is where most Chinese people aspire to take to the beaches or escape chilly winter. It also attracts a large number of Russian tourists since it is relatively close to Russia, as well as other international tourists and backpackers.

I stayed in the Sanya region, which perhaps can be regarded as the Waikiki of the island, on Dadonghai Beach. This region is devoted entirely to tourism, but I found it interesting nonetheless because it has an extremely different feel compared to the mainland only a stone’s throw away.

The beach is pleasant, and at night the Chinese-style cheese takes over, with laser beams, neon, and strobe lights bursting out from the resorts over the South China Sea, and markets of food stalls and tourist trinkets taking over the waterfront.

Top: Sanya city Bottom: Dadonghai Beach at night

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TRAVEL

Perhaps my favorite part of Hainan was observing the hoards of Chinese tourists, decked out in matching ultra tacky Hawaiian style beach gear. I saw entire busloads of Chinese people pulled up to shops, all went in and purchased the exact same matching flower print shorts and shirt, and then spiced up with a little fanny pack, digital camera pouch, and sunglasses on a string around the neck. Then they may travelled in convoy to the different cheesy sites and theme parks in the area set up for tourists just like them. It was quite entertaining to watch this with my own eyes.

We didn't spend the entire time on the beach. First we visited the Nanshan Fojiao Wenhua Yuan (South Mountain Buddhist Culture Park), a huge outdoor Buddhist theme park,whichcompletes with temples, statues, peaceful parks, and vegetarian restaurants. The centerpiece of the park is the enormous A-Ma statue which is 354 feet high and 53 feet higher than the Statue of Liberty, making it the tallest statue in the world! A-Ma is a female Buddha that is very popular with fishermen through this part of East Asia.

Top: The tallest statue in the world: A-ma Statue, Buddhist Culture Park

Bottom: Imagine thousands of people dressed like this. That's Hainan!

Right: Signatures on temple roof tiles

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iChina Magzine • March 2009

TRAVEL

Another day we got a ride inland and visited an excellent outdoor Hill Tribe Museum, with entire Li and Miao (two local minorities) villages set up,. We saw traditional dance performances, snake and lizard wine making, turtles shaped and traditional houses.There were a lot of good photo opportunities.

Finally, we did a hike up to Luhuitou Peninsula, a sort of love themed park on a peak overlooking Sanya town and harbor, perfectly timed for an incredible sunset over the beautiful southern Hainan coast.

Winter is always the hottest season for Hainan Island, as people all over the country try to spend the holidays at a warm place. Sea and beach? Even better. Come here and join the party!

Top: Traditional homes Left: Li Dancing Right: Miao child

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FOOD

COLORFUL FACES OF

DONUTS

By Sharon Wilson Photograph by Yummie & Mary

L

ast November, Dunkin’ Donuts re-entered China’s market with less sugar. It seems to work well this time, as they are trying to produce more localized donuts. Have you ever tried curry donuts? Well, I haven’t, but I was told that curryflavored donuts were the favorite for a lot of Chinese people. Unlike American people, most Chinese don’t have a strong sweet tooth, and often times, they would choose salty food over

sweets for breakfast. You probably have learned a bit from the article about Chinese burgers in the January issue, and this time, let’s check out the Chinese-version donuts.

Should a donut be round shaped with a hole in the center? Hmm, you’d better be more creative, because you may be surprised by the colorful faces of Chinese donuts.

You Tiao, which is popular all around the country, is basically fried bread. Literally, You Tiao means “grease stick” - more appealingly translated in English as “cruller”. It is made from two long strips of dough – usually about a foot long, twisted together and deep-fried. It ends up crisp outside yet puffy and soft inside. It tastes a bit salty, but not really strongly flavored. When served for breakfast, it can be eaten as is, or dipped in soy milk (in Northern China) or hot congee (in Southern China). You Tiao is so popular that, believe it or You Tiao in soymilk

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iChina Magzine • March 2009

You Tiao

FOOD not, even KFC in China serves it for breakfast.

If you have a Chinese friend from Beijing, ask him about traditional snacks in Beijing. If he does not mention Jiao Quan (fried dough ring), you may want to double check where he is from. Jiao Quan is one of the oldest breakfast picks for the Beijingers, and there was a Jiao Quan King, a really great cook specialized in making Jiao Quan. Jiao Quan tastes really crisp, and is usually served with Shao Bing (baked cake) and soymilk.

M ian Wo, another type of Chinese donuts, is a local snack i n Wu h a n , H u b e i province. I don’t know where the Jiao Quan name came from, but I do think it looks like the real donuts back in the U.S. It is fried rice bread, and again, does not Mian Wo t a s t e sweet. In stead, it is lightly flavored by black sesame seeds and onion.

Well, do you want to try something sweet? Here are some Chinese donut holes. In Tianjin, there is a famous snack - Er Duo Yan Zha Gao (Ear Hole Lane fried rice cake), which has a history of over 100 years. In Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), a man named Liu, Wanchun was living on making Zha Gao (fried rice cakes), and he made really good cakes and his shop was always packed. His shop was located at the entrance to Er Duo Yan Hu Tong (Ear Hole Lane) and hence, his cakes were named Er Duo Yan Zha Gao (Ear Hole Lane fried rice cake). The cake is made from a mixture of different types of rice and stuffed with grounded red beans, flavored with brown sugar. It tastes crisp outside yet soft and flavorful inside.

Similar to Er Duo Yan Zha Gao in Tianjin, Tang You Guo Zi (fried sweet rice ball) is a popular “old good” snack in Chengdu, Sichuan province, with an even longer history. It is made from grounded pearl rice, fried with brown sugar and covered with white sesame seeds. According to the name, literally, you can tell it contains sugar ( “ Ta n g” ) , fried with oil (“You”), and looks like fruit Er Duo Yan Zha Gao balls (“Guo Zi”). Tang You Guo Zi is always served with 5-6 balls on a bamboo stick. It tastes best when served hot – crisp with a blended flavor by brown sugar and sesame.

I am trying to introduce some of the most popular Chinese-style donuts to you, and I have to say, it is a tough call to decide which ones to include. I wish I could have over 100 pages, just to talk about various donuts. If you have more to recommend, please share with us!

Tang You Guo Zi

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FOOD

A GREEN HOMEMADE DINNER ON VALENTINE’S DAY

By Sharon Wilson Recipes by Danny Ong and Amy Beh Photograph by Kano, Yucky and Sharon

A

s more and more people start to switch to an eco-friendly lifestyle, Valentine’s Day has become greener and greener. According to the news report, a lot of Chinese people decide not to buy roses or plastic-packaged gifts but opt for a green Valentine’s Day instead. This year, facing the tough financial situation, it is of greater importance to live green and healthy. If you plan to dine out at a fine restaurant, why not try dinner in instead? Shop your favorite organic food from local grocer, and make a one of a kind dinner for your sweetie. Doing so will not only cut back

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iChina Magzine • March 2009

expense (you know how important it is in such a tough financial turmoil), but also add extra flavor (I’d call love) to the romantic dinner.

Compared with stir-fry or deep-fry, boil, steam, and bake/broil are healthier ways of food processing.

Thus, the V-Day recipe we are going to share with you consists primarily of boiled or baked/broiled food. Now, let’s roll up the sleeves and fix some easy yet flavorful dishes, with an Oriental twist blended in.

R

FOOD Appetizer – Cooked Spinach Salad Spinach contains a variety of flavonoid compounds that function as antioxidants and as anti-cancer agents.

It also benefits brain, eyesight, energy, and so forth. When cooked, it is easily to put into different shapes, and that makes it a perfect starter for the V-Day dinner table!

Ingredients: 1/2 lb. fresh spinach 1/4 tbl lemon juice 3/4 tbl olive oil fresh mint, parsley or chives salt pepper chick peas if desired

Dressings: 1/3 clove garlic 1/4 cup plain yogurt

Garnish: 1 medium sizec red tomato

Directions: 1.

Wash the spinach well and either steam it or cook it in just the water clinging to it.

2.

Drain thoroughly and leave to cool.

3.

Chop the cooled spinach and put it into a bowl with the lemon juice, olive oil, and some salt and pepper, tossing it gently so that the oil and lemon juice are well distributed.

4.

Peel and crush the garlic and then mix it with the yogurt.

5.

Put the spinach salad onto a flat plate and make them in heart shape.

6.

Spoon some of the yogurt mixture on top; garnish with chopped green herbs.

7.

Garnish with tomato rose. Starting at the top of the tomato cut the peel or skin part only with a sharp utility knife 1/2-inch to 3/4-inch wide in a continuous unbroken strip like peeling an apple. Roll the tomato skin up as tightly as possible with the shiny side out. Turn the tomato rose upside down, adjust the roll if necessary to resemble a flower and set on a serving plate.

Main EntrÊe – Boiled Salmon Salmon is another healthy source of nutrients for your diet. Even though it is not a Chinese tradition, this recipe gives it an Oriental flavor.

Ingredients: 1/2 pound salmon steaks or fillets 1 1/2 tbl soy sauce 1 tsp lemon juice 1 clove garlic, minced 1 tsp ground pepper 1 tbl finely chopped fresh cilantro

Directions: 1.

Mix soy sauce, lemon juice, ground pepper, and minced garlic in a bowl.

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FOOD 2.

Cut the salmon steak into two; marinade with the mixture.

3.

Cover and refrigerate for 40-60 minutes.

4.

Drain salmon; reserve marinade.

5.

Make a tray from heavyduty foil paper. Arrange steaks (arrange fillets skin side down) in the center. Fold two short sides of foil paper and then seal the two long sides.

6.

Arrange the sealed foil tray on a baking pan (or on an oiled grill).

7.

Broil or grill for 5 minutes.

8.

Take them out and add the reserve marinade. Reseal the foil paper, and put back to broil for another 5 minutes.

9.

Set one or two plates and sprinkle with cilantro.

10. Garnish with lemon slices, if desired.

Side Dish – Grilled Shiitake Mushroom and Golden Needle Mushroom Mushrooms have been the object of scientific research for many years and are considered to have valuable immune-building and anti-cancer properties. Shiitake is also known as Xiang Gu (Fragrant mushrooms) in Chinese. Being more fragrant (rich and smoky flavor) than the other kinds of edible mushrooms, it is a widely favorite mushroom of Asian people. Golden needle, also known as Enokitake, is skinnier and longer, and always comes in tufts. You can find dried shiitakes and packaged fresh golden needles in most Asian grocery stores (or, to make it easy, shop at www.iChinamag.com).

Ingredients: 5 dried shiitakes 1/2 lb fresh golden needles 1/2 onion 2 tbl whipped crème salt ground pepper

Directions: 1.

Soak 5 dried shiitakes in water, rehydrate for an hour. Drain the mushrooms, and reserve 1/2 cup of the soaking liquid. Cut off the stems, and cut the mushrooms into slices.

2.

Wash the golden needles, cut off the stems, and split them.

3.

Slice the onion.

4.

Mix the two kinds of mushrooms and onion in a bowl, seasoned with salt and pepper.

5.

Evenly spread whipped crème in the center of a piece of foil paper, put the mixture on top.

6.

Seal one side of the foil paper, add

Dessert/Snack – Wife (Sweetheart) Biscuit Check out the name – sweetheart biscuit (better known as wife cake), how can you not try one? There was a beautiful legend back in a feudal society in China. A daughter-in-law offered herself for sale in return for money to cure her ill-health father-in-law. In a desperate attempt to redeem her, her husband created a kind of 32

iChina Magzine • March 2009

FOOD gourmet cake for sale in the bazaar. His cakes got so popular that he eventually made enough money to get her wife back. His recipe then spread from place to place, winning the name “Wife Cake”. Personally, I think it tastes more like biscuit with filling, rather than cake. No matter what, after a meal, you need some light, sweet treat just like this, not too sweet, low in fat, carbohydrate, and sodium.Ingredients (for 6 servings): Filling • 4 1/2 ounces winter melon strips, candied, and chopped • 1 1/16 ounces sesame seeds, toasted • 1 1/4 ounces sugar • 1 1/4 malt sugar • 1 1/2 ounces glutinous-rice flour, cooked Water dough • 5 ounces all-purpose flour, sifted • 1 tablespoon caster sugar • 1 1/2 teaspoons golden syrup • 1 7/8 ounces shortening • 1/8 teaspoon vanilla exact • 1/3 cup water Oil dough • 2 1/8 ounces all-purpose flour, sifted • 1 7/8 ounces shortening Glaze • 1/2 egg, beaten with 1/8 tsp salt

Directions: 1.

Mix filling ingredients. Fry winter melon in a pan (with no oil or water) for 30 minutes. Then add sugar, glutinous-rice flour, and malt sugar in order. Remove the pan and add sesame seeds.

2.

Divide filling into 6 portions.

3.

Mix water dough ingredients. Set aside for 1/2 hour. Divide into 6 portions.

4.

Mix oil dough. Place in plastic wrap and place in fridge for 1/2 hour. Divide into 6 portions also.

5.

Wrap oil dough in water dough. Roll flat into round pieces.

6.

Place filling in dough, seal and roll flat into 3”-diametered cakes.

7.

Slightly prick on top of each cake with toothpick, or cut with knife.

8.

Brush egg glaze.

9.

Preheat oven at 350 °F. 10. Place cakes on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 °F for 20-25 minutes.

Drink – Great Wall Red Wine No V-Day dinner is complete without wine. Great Wall is a top-brand red wine producer in China, and provides a variety of red wine dating from 1995 to present. Pick a bottle and simply indulge yourself in its delicious inclusions.

No matter easy or hard, cooking is fun, especially when you are doing it for your sweetie. We hope you love the healthy, yummy food on our V-Day’s menu. Have a green, romantic Valentine’s Day!

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33

Chinese Valentine’s Day

LEISURE

Edited by Stacy Liu Everyone knows St. Valentine’s Day is on February 14th every year. Especially in western countries, it is the traditional holiday on which lovers express their love by sending cards and gifts.

But not a lot of people outside China have ever heard of Chinese Valentine’s Day, also known as Qi Xi (七夕). There is a beautiful love fairytale about Qi Xi: A young cowherd named Niulang came across seven fairy sisters bathing in a lake. Encouraged by his mischievous companion the ox, he stole their clothes and waited to see what would happen.

The fairy sisters elected the youngest and most beautiful sister Zhinv to retrieve their clothing. She did so, but since Niulang had seen her naked, she had to agree to his request for marriage.

She proved to be a wonderful wife, and Niulang a good husband. They lived happily and had two children. But the Goddess of Heaven was furious to find out that one of the fairy girls married a mere mortal and and ordered her return to Heaven. Down on Earth, Niulang was very upset learning that his wife was gone. Suddenly, his cow began to talk telling him that if he killed him and put on his hide, he would be able to go up to Heaven to find his wife. With tears flowing, he killed the cow, put on the skin and carrying his two children with him and off he went to Heaven to find Zhinv. The Goddess found out he had come and was very angry. Taking out her hairpin, the Goddess scratched a wide river in the sky to separate the two lovers forever (thus forming the Milky Way, which separates Altair and Vega). Zhinv must sit forever on one side of the river, sadly weaving on her loom, while Niulang watches her from afar and takes care of their two children.

But once a year all the magpies in the world take pity on them and fly up into heaven to form a bridge over the star Deneb in the Cygnus constellation so the lovers may be together for a single night, the seventh night of the seventh moon.

On Qi Xi, a festoon is placed in the yard and the single or newly married women in the household make an offering to Niulang and Zhinv consisting of fruit, flowers, tea, and facial powder (makeup). After finishing the offering, half of the facial powder is thrown on the roof and the other half divided among the young women. It is believed by doing this the women are bound in beauty with Zhinv.

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iChina Magzine • March 2009

Learn to Play Chinese Mah-Jong Edited by Stacy Liu A Brief History of Mah-Jong The history of mah-jong dates back 4,000 years to a time when Chinese aristocrats were the only people on the planet to play the game. The ruling class was so snobby about keeping the game to themselves, that they kept the rules a secret from the Chinese peasants.

Mah-jong only became public knowledge when China became a republic in 1911.

Mah-Jong Titles A mah-jong set consists of 144 tiles: 108 suit tiles, 28 honor tiles, and 8 bonus tiles. Most sets come with three dice, four racks, and a handy carrying case. The racks are long flat boards for you to put your tiles on. They're just like scrabble tile-holders. Some sets also include score-keeping paraphernalia. While about half of the tiles will have dots or lines on them, the other half will have little pictures of Chinese characters. Under the assumption that you don't know how to read Chinese, you have two options: 1. Learn the characters (most follow a pattern or are color coded to help you). 2. Buy a set of Americanized tiles that have numbers on the corner of each tile to help you "read" them.

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35

LEISURE

The Basic Concept of Mah-Jong You will discover when you get into the rules of mah-jong that the game is actually just a version of gin rummy, albeit much more complicated; it's about grouping tiles (in place of cards) together by either suits or sequences. So if you know how to play gin rummy, you're 95% there.

Mah-jong is usually played with four players. A player's basic goal is to discard and claim tiles to form combinations, until all of his/ her tiles fit a certain pattern. Just like with cards, a mah-jong player's set of tiles is called a "hand" and the game goes around in a circle so that each player gets a turn to organize their tiles into a winning hand.

The Best Way to Relax in China

LEISURE

By Julianne Page Getting a massage is one of life's pleasures and one of the best ways I know to unwind and relax. In those big cities like Beijing or Shanghai we are spoiled for choice and can choose from any number of styles. There's foot massage, body massage, massage that focuses on the face, the back or the spine. Then there's body massage performed by visually impaired people, head massage performed by hairdressers and for the more adventurous vacuum bottle treatments and ear candle procedures. Phew! So where to start?

It really depends on what feels right for you. If you do need an excuse to get a massage, consider this. Massage can improve circulation and detoxify muscles as well as maintain physical, emotional and mental well-being. So don't feel guilty that you're just being self-indulgent, massage has real health benefits for everyone.

One of my friends in Beijing Meng loves to go to massage every week. Her first experience was a body massage by a blind masseur. Beijing has many blind massage businesses providing employment to a large number of visually impaired workers. Meng was hooked. I asked her why she particularly enjoyed getting a massage.

"It eases tension and work stresses and it can also help revive my energy", she said. Meng enjoys climbing mountains and finds that this type of service can also unknot tired and aching muscles.

There's no need to worry about breaking the bank in the pursuit of this type of relaxation either.

Compared to what you might expect to pay back home all types of massage in China are cheap. So if you're looking to unwind and revive after a hard day sightseeing around China or a busy day at work, head to your nearest masseur, sit back and relax.

36

iChina Magzine • March 2009

Symbol of China - Panda or Dragon?

By Kate Chan

i s g e t t i n g m o re a n d more attentions from the world nowadays.

Recently, two pandas Tu a n Tu a n a n d Yu a n Yuan, whose names said together mean ‘unite’, were flown to Taiwan on a Tuesday with steamed cor n buns and fresh bamboo in their luggage and a standby supply of air-sickness pills. Giant p a n d a i s b e yo n d i t s cute appearance in this “panda diplomacy”.

In western countries, the image of dragon is always evil-looking and cruel. It is very different from the legendar y dragon. In that case, people would assume that people in other countries prefer giant panda to dragon as the symbol of China.

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37

LEISURE

A Shanghai TV host recently proposed in a program that the giant panda be considered as China's national symbol. The view has sparked heated debate.

The Beijing Youth Daily carries a story, saying the dragon has all along been viewed as the symbol of China and changing this image would be quite hard. According to an earlier sur vey, 90 percent of people felt the dragon was the best symbol of China.

In fact, Chinese people consider themselves as descendants of the dragon.

However, giant panda

LEISURE 38

iChina Magzine • March 2009

LEISURE

http://www.ichinamag.com

39

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iChina Magzine • March 2009

When glancing at the index of the January issue, the article “What have overseas contributed to China in the past 30 years” caught my eye in the first place. It made me wonder, hmm, if there could be a similar article telling the stories about what contribution overseas Americans had done to the U.S. Maybe no. In the past few years, China has “exported” a lot of talents abroad. I don’t know whether it could be considered brain drain or not, but I do believe those people make a difference.

No matter where they ended up - in the U.S. (or any other country than their motherland) or back to China, they have kind of built up a channel for intercultural communication. I have met way more non-American people, including Chinese, than my parents did. And from them, I learned better about the world – my world, their world, and the world at large.

- Julie, San Jose, CA

I was invited to a Chinese New Year Dinner this year, and had a lot of fun. Since the party-goers were from different areas in China, we had such a wide selection of Chinese food that we had to take three mini-dinners that night: some Southern-style dishes as “appetizers”; dumplings as main “entrée”; and Taiwanese cream cake as “dessert”. What a feast!

I wish we could have the big meals once a month – getting all friends together and trying out different dishes.

- Joey, Urbana, IL

One of my favorites is “My Chinese Wi f e” s e r i e s . N o n e o f m y f a m i l y members has international marriage, so it is really interesting to read the true stories written by others to learn about the differences and feel the happiness brought by the authors.

- Annie, San Antonio, TX

I was really impressed by the breathtaking views of Danxia Landform in the January issue.

It is amazing that nature creates these similar views on the two ends of the world, and it is more amazing that we find them. I have been to the Grand Canyon several times, and I could find something new every time. It’s the beauty of the nature. And I hope someday I can go check out the Danxia Landform in China!

- Dan, West Jordan, UT

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