So the Spring Festival break refreshed the staff, and now we have returned to work full of new ideas. Except the foreign staff seem to have been frozen out of the editorial meetings. Although conducting the meetings in Chinese is obviously easier for our editors, excluding us entirely (without actually stating that this has been done) is a laughable illustration of our colleagues' lack of communication skills. It seems we are not even worthy of being debriefed after the meeting, but must somehow guess what topics we are addressing this week.
Meanwhile, an article about St Patrick's Day has confused the censors. An independent country so close to Britain, i.e. Ireland, appears just too dangerous a notion to allow readers to become aware of it. I mean, they might start asking how and why Ireland became independent, and subsequently draw a parallel with Taiwan. So Ireland is in "northern Europe" and references to its national colour being green have been removed from the article...
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
Korean escape
South Korea was a welcome escape from the China Daily cage. The holiday offered a brief and illuminating insight into the history and culture of these two neighbours, and an opportunity to reflect on propaganda of a curious kind.
At the border between North and South Korea stands a marvelously grand train station, designed by the same architect responsible for Seoul's ultra-modern Incheon airport.It's all ready and set to process passengers, but the only direction you can travel is south. The tour guides would have you believe a link to the trans-Siberian railway is imminent. Yet necessary new track costs a million dollars per kilometer and the idea of free passage across North Korea is still just a pipe-dream.
The tour guides seemed to have been instructed to push the case for peaceful reunification - that both sides are eager to welcome each other with open arms if a suitable agreement can be reached. However, by applying the smallest pressure to the facade our guide was quick to acknowledge that North Korean defectors cannot adapt to life in the South. Their mindsets are almost totally opposed, and the likelihood of a porous border any time soon seems remarkably slim.
It is also hard to believe the propaganda film that is obligatory viewing at the DMZ.The film suggests the DMZ is a site of peaceful prosperity, but the North Korean gun turret visible from the observatory suggests otherwise. As recently as 1990 the South Korea detected a North Korean attempt to dig a tunnel beneath the border. Walking along a similar 3km tunnel built by the North with the intention of invading Seoul in 1978 , it is hard to see how such recent attempted incursions could be easily forgotten. Our guide wryly mentioned that now the South has opened the tunnel as a tourist attraction, the North wants a share of the proceeds. The audacity of such a request is perhaps matched only by NK's apparently genuine attempt to excuse the tunnel by painting the walls black and stating they were merely digging for coal (in a solid granite area).
On the North Korean side of the border the tallest flagpole in the world (160m) towers over even the obligatory statue of Kim Jong-Il. Apparently the flagpole is the result of a prestige battle that saw both sides building higher poles until the SKs packed up and took the moral high ground.
Chinese netizens have allowed the Koreans to retain this position recently through their callous jibes at the destruction of the nation's most treasured monument, the 610-year-old Namdaemun gate in Seoul. Quite why such a tragedy should elicit this kind of response is hard to ascertain, especially as the two nations have enjoyed an historically close relationship. My colleagues say Chinese are resentful at what they see as Korea's assumption of the Chinese identity. However, what I witnessed in South Korea was a harmonious rendering of Confucian ideals. These principles are supposed to underpin Chinese society, but appear to be being rapidly forgotten in the rush to grasp the next fistful of dollars.
At the border between North and South Korea stands a marvelously grand train station, designed by the same architect responsible for Seoul's ultra-modern Incheon airport.It's all ready and set to process passengers, but the only direction you can travel is south. The tour guides would have you believe a link to the trans-Siberian railway is imminent. Yet necessary new track costs a million dollars per kilometer and the idea of free passage across North Korea is still just a pipe-dream.
The tour guides seemed to have been instructed to push the case for peaceful reunification - that both sides are eager to welcome each other with open arms if a suitable agreement can be reached. However, by applying the smallest pressure to the facade our guide was quick to acknowledge that North Korean defectors cannot adapt to life in the South. Their mindsets are almost totally opposed, and the likelihood of a porous border any time soon seems remarkably slim.
It is also hard to believe the propaganda film that is obligatory viewing at the DMZ.The film suggests the DMZ is a site of peaceful prosperity, but the North Korean gun turret visible from the observatory suggests otherwise. As recently as 1990 the South Korea detected a North Korean attempt to dig a tunnel beneath the border. Walking along a similar 3km tunnel built by the North with the intention of invading Seoul in 1978 , it is hard to see how such recent attempted incursions could be easily forgotten. Our guide wryly mentioned that now the South has opened the tunnel as a tourist attraction, the North wants a share of the proceeds. The audacity of such a request is perhaps matched only by NK's apparently genuine attempt to excuse the tunnel by painting the walls black and stating they were merely digging for coal (in a solid granite area).
On the North Korean side of the border the tallest flagpole in the world (160m) towers over even the obligatory statue of Kim Jong-Il. Apparently the flagpole is the result of a prestige battle that saw both sides building higher poles until the SKs packed up and took the moral high ground.
Chinese netizens have allowed the Koreans to retain this position recently through their callous jibes at the destruction of the nation's most treasured monument, the 610-year-old Namdaemun gate in Seoul. Quite why such a tragedy should elicit this kind of response is hard to ascertain, especially as the two nations have enjoyed an historically close relationship. My colleagues say Chinese are resentful at what they see as Korea's assumption of the Chinese identity. However, what I witnessed in South Korea was a harmonious rendering of Confucian ideals. These principles are supposed to underpin Chinese society, but appear to be being rapidly forgotten in the rush to grasp the next fistful of dollars.
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