Blood & Treasure

let’s end the year on a peaceful note...

With a favourite B & T theme: sleeping Chinese cadres. This is from a safety planning meeting of the Beijing Cultural Heritage Association. I find it admirable. Make people go to a pointless dead-arse meeting in Britain, and they’ll not only do it but actually pretend to pay attention. Do it in China and you’ll get a bunch of people openly falling asleep in your face.

tiny little sharks

I still have the lurgy, so won't be posting properly till I get back to China, but this, on exploitative microfinance in India, is worth reading.

the blow-off

Over the holidays I re-read Daniel Mannix’s pulp classic Memoirs of a Sword Swallower, the tale of how the son of a Vice Admiral in the US Navy ran away to join the circus and which starts with the epic sentence: "I probably never would have become America's leading fire-eater if Flamo the Great hadn't happened to explode that night..."  And noodling around for more on the author, I came across this previously unpublished chapter.

Even though she was very attractive, I never could really fall in love with Frances-Francine because I didn't know if she was a man or woman. Finally I asked her and she told me frankly, "I don't know myself, Slim." As she did a strip in the blow-off of our sideshow top, it should have been easy to tell, but it wasn't that simple. The sideshow-or Ten-in-One as it was called because it featured ten acts under one top or tent-had an added attraction at the far end, separated from the rest of the pit by a canvas sidewall. This attraction was known as the "blow-off" because it was the climax of the whole show and there was an extra charge to see it. So important was the blow-off that the other acts-fire-eater, sword-swallower, human pincushion, freaks, etc.-were little more than inducements to bring the tip into the top where the inside talker could persuade them to pay a handsome sum to enter the blow-off and see the star attraction completely nude "and I'll give you a dollar for every stitch of clothing you can find on her."

orbanisation

The authoritarianism of people like Sarkozy and Berlusconi (and Blair for that matter) has a kind of impulsive, reflex quality. This reads as if it’s altogether more thought through.

The most visible sign of the new Hungary consist of 70-by-50-centimeter plaques that are now required to be displayed in government buildings, including ministries, military barracks other public buildings. "A new social contract" has developed "following the successful revolution in the voting booths," the plaque reads. "Hungarians have voted for a new system, that of national unity." The government, the plaque continues, will complete this unity "resolutely and without compromise."

It’s more than just placards. So much for the spirit of ’56. I think the next country to go down this path may well be South Korea.

show of hands

Worth watching: a crowdsourced map of labour disputes in China, complied from reader submissions. The originators explain their rationale here.

Jonty was an assistant

Workfare company A4E – it stands for Action for Employment – has huge contracts with the government to help the unemployed into work. But its most recent success has been in finding a job for former Conservative Central Office functionary Jonty Olliff-Cooper, appointing him as its new director of policy and strategy.

A4E has a history of hiring political insiders: it recruited David Blunkett as an adviser when Labour was in power. But a former Labour minister will not be as helpful looking after its £150m contract with the government as a Conservative one. Jonty was an assistant to David Cameron aide Steve Hilton in the Tory party policy unit; before that he taught at Eton and had a brief spell on a reality TV show playing an aristocrat looked after by servants, in Channel 4’s The Edwardian Country House.

Happy new year, and may your job be a safe one.

recruitment video

Join your local Mexican narco cartel; any cartel apparently – this is from a band called Cartels United - though being fairly porky is an advantage. But maybe steer clear of Acapulco. Via the grimmest blog in the world.

drilling all over

I’m not sure what kind of news this is, but I think it’s news of some kind.Per the China Defense blog:

 While China calls for calm in the Korean Peninsula by calling for the cessation of military drills, it is interesting to see China stage a large drill of its own by one of its two Praetorian Guards: the 38th and 39th Group Armies. It might be a coincident that this drill is scheduled near Secretary Gates and the Defense minister of South Korea, Kim Kwan-Jin's, planned visit to Beijing.

The 39th Group army, which is doing the actual exercises, is part of the Shenyang Military Region that covers the Korean border area. The post continues:

One can speculate what the Praetorian Guards' mission might be: containing 23 million refugees? Protecting a weak regime from imploding? Or to simply stand tall as a reminder that China does have a military option if Dear Leader (tm) crosses the line. It seems that the PLA has a contingency plan.

I’m not sure how rampaging across the grasslands of Inner Mongolia would constitute a plan for the very different terrain in the DPRK. But I suppose it could be a reminder to the SecDef and Seoul that China is committed by treaty to fighting on the North’s side against whoever its belligerents happen to be if war breaks out again. As such, it would compliment Dai Bingguo’s apparently successful efforts to get the North to pass on the opportunity to escalate provided by the recent South Korean military exercises.

Back in 1950 China managed to sneak 300,000 troops across the Yalu without MacArthur noticing, so maybe it’s a good thing that everybody’s putting what they’ve got on the table.

the one from the other

This week on North Korean children’s television: young people are taught to distinguish a hammer from a mallet. I infer a metaphor about the most effective way to beat things until they fit.

no coincidence, comrades

Lede of the day:

That Mao Zedong was born within a day of Jesus Christ is seen as no coincidence by some.

Just remember: if you’re thinking of building a shrine to Mao in your back garden – and who among us has not considered it – there are complex technical specifications to meet.

Elsewhere: Mao meets Monty.