Blood & Treasure

Beijing welcomes clueless and affluent

I’m wondering what the significance of this enterprise is in the general China scheme of things. Back when it were all fields you could divide western visitors to China fairly neatly down a business/backpack divide; the backpack category including most academic folk and any and all sorts and conditions of adventurers. That in turn fed into an idea that China was a social frontier for westerners, which lent a certain sort of credibility to questions over the sustainability of how China did things. In fact, the whole gold rush after 1992 was freighted with the notion that all visitors to China were evangelists of a kind, inviting the locals to bathe in their warm, democratic glow.

Anyway, you went to China to do specific things, or you went there to find things to do in order to stay in China. Now Beijing seems to have become integrated into the global hipster circuit, and/or people who have brief cultural business in the capital and who want a comprehensive steer. Assuming this venture succeeds, a market has delivered its verdict. People who appear in paid media are going to Beijing on a regular basis; so are people who are paid to produce that media, or who know people who do, and are happy to talk about what a wonderful time they had, because Beijing is a place where you can enjoy bespoke service. The upholsterers have moved in. At a certain level, China is in the fold in a way that it wasn’t a few years ago.  

but by god they frighten me

Mrs Treasure draws my attention to the retro knitting company and its fascinating array of soldier's comforters. And I in turn pass on the information.

when i were a lad, it were all sjowall and wahloo round here

In re Stieg Larsson, I used to have the slightly smug feeling of someone who hasn’t read the books everyone else seems to have read. Having read this I have the additionally smug feeling of knowing why I as right all along not to.

And while I’m being insufferable, Wallander is, when all is said and done, just a bit of an old mope.

And being really insufferable, here’s the quick and dirty Blood & Treasure guide to Scandicrime:

Read the first Martin Beck mystery.

Read the others.

Don’t bother with anything else, maybe.

brown envelopes

In the midst of the FIFA scandal, I can't help but feel a little sorry for Qatar. After all, bribery plays a part in placing most major sporting events, and it's hardly as if they were corrupting innocent souls. There they are, trying to manage a nice little somewhat reformist autocracy, figure the World Cup'll be a nice showcase, pay a bit above the going rate for it, and now everyone's making a fuss.

Also, FIFA officials are behaving and speaking exactly like CPC officials after a particularly good scandal's come out about them online.

soft power, bitches

Are you people still bombing things? Via, plus translation and comments.

massacre and discussion

Sri Lanka is to hold an international seminar starting Tuesday to share lessons on its bloody defeat of Tamil rebels, but major nations have declined to send delegations amid war crime allegations.

The island's government said the massive military offensive that finally defeated the Tamil Tigers two years ago was a victory over terrorism, and that other countries could benefit from studying its success.

But New York-based Human Rights Watch has urged a boycott of the seminar, entitled "Defeating terrorism, Sri Lankan experience", over claims that thousands of civilians died in military bombing of so-called no-fire zones.

I’ve seen the itinerary. It goes like this:

Introductory remarks by the chair. CRUSH THEM!

Seminar one: crush them LIKE BUGS!

Breakout session. Crush them LIKE MAGGOTS or CRUSH THEM like SQUIRMING LITTLE ANTS? an interdisciplinary enquiry

Coffee, biscuits .

Keynote Address: CRUSH THEM! STAMP ON THEIR HEADS! GRIND THEM DOWN UNTIL YOU CAN FEEL THE PULP SQUISH UNDER YOUR HEELS!

Closing Session: Please remember to WIPE YOUR FEET!

Refreshments, finger buffet.

UPDATE: Website of actual event over here. There's a dress code.

i thought Hunter S Thompson died before he killed himself, but he still lives on

A truly great American story. Up there with the classics:

"I remember someone holding me up and making me sign something," he said.

"Then I woke up in a taxi. My shirt was stained with red wine, and I had this huge painting of a woman's head."

Read it all. Despair though one might of the United States, China just can’t match the effortless sleazy class of this. Also, nobody dies.

inner glockenspiel therapy

A therapeutic apparatus to treat depression has been developed in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, government sources said Saturday.

The apparatus, which claims to be the world's first instrument to treat clinical depression, combines transcranial magnetic stimulation and music therapy. An evaluation report by the provincial committee of industry and information technology called it a worldwide breakthrough.

Did it now.

This is a new method to treat depression, in addition to the current medical therapy and psychological counselling, said Sun Zuodong, chairman of Aobo Medicine Apparatus, the developer based in Harbin.

Resembling a headphone, it will generate "prescriptive music" through an electromagnetic field to a patient during the therapy, Sun said.

A couple of months ago, exactly the same apparatus was being marketed as a cure for Parkinson’s Disease. I wonder when it will surface in Britain as a cure for something, and if so, what.

minor controversy in popular culture cleared up

“The point is,” Townshend says, “when we read Keith Richards’s book, are we really reading who he is? James Fox [Richards’s ghost] is a brilliant writer. I think it’s sad that we will only remember Keith’s book because of what he said about the size of Mick’s [apparently modest] genitals. Which, by the way, to use an apt term, is bollocks. I’ve seen them, and they are not small. And it is not just the balls that are big.”

Thank you, “more intelligent life” magazine. But there are probably people in their sixties talking about this, so I’m glad to be able to set the minds of my elders to rest.

power versus power

Definitely worth watching:

China is heading for a summer of energy shortages reminiscent of the 2000 California Energy Crisis. The shortages are real: China is suffering a tremendous drought, whichcripples hydroelectric production and endangers China’s food system and available drinking water. If that wasn’t bad enough, shortages are also being created: international coal prices are rising, which has created a dangerous set of circumstances for China’s power producers.

According to the NYTimes, State grid, China’s dominant energy producer and distributor (with something close to 85% of China’s grid) is idling coal fired power plants and delaying new construction plans across China because they are losing money on every watt of power produced. As coal prices rise, the loss per watt grows, and State Grid, and other power producers, are choosing to protect their bottom line before their duty/function to the State. This is awkward in China, because Power producers are all State Owned Enterprises (SOE).

More on State Grid over here. It’s run by Liu Zhenya, a politburo alternate member, and as such probably not too popular with the comrades right now. Having said that, I doubt this would be happening without some kind of united front from within China’s power generation sector. One of the live questions about the CPC is whether power in its upper ranks has been so diffused that specific sectoral interests - power, construction, transport etc - can hold the rest hostage (see Willy Lam here, for instance). So that question is playing out as well.