Compliment and Insult

Young Jewish and Chinese girls in Harbin, China [Source]

I was complimenting Mercer where I wrote to her during a 2009 email exchange:

At some point, the interactions got really weird. I think one thing that started it off was my criticism of article she wrote equating Jews with the Chinese. I said there is no comparison, Jews are better. This didn't sit too well. Of course, her response had a whiff of "you are racist" to it [Source: Camera Lucida, 2009].

I was actually saying to her that she was better than the Chinese - brainier, at least. I guess racial "criticism" only goes one way - about the "better off."

Mercer's chiseled pen, with her contributions to VDare, still couldn't accept my proposal that Jews are better than Chinese. We could have discussed the implication, the intrinsic details, what it all means. And if that makes the Chinese any less human.

No. I was simply a racist.

Chinese Always Playing Catch-up

My comment in my Council of European Canadians article: Who is Dr. Theresa Tam, following up on the discussion in the comments on China:

It is easy to dismantle their [the Chinese] apparent incursions into the West, since they are always playing catch-up.

John Derbyshire's: VDare's Contract Man

When Danny comes marching home

Danny shipped off to Fort Benning, Ga. at the end of July
to train as an infantryman in the U.S. Army (2013) [source: Derbyshire's homepage]

[Source: John Derbyshire's homepage and VDare]

I wrote about John Derbyshire's article on Tedros Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization's Director-General, here, and some background on Derbyshire here, and his half-Chinese children, here.

Why is VDare using Derbyshire, a white British man (naturalized American), married to a woman he met in China, as their white representative to "save" America from immigrants and multiculturalism?

I believe VDare's underlying principle is IQ. People with high intelligence, on par with the intelligence of whites, make better Americans than all the others - Hispanics, Arabs, Africans,etc.

Therefore Derbyhsire's Chinese wife is of no concern, since she comes from a country which purports to have high IQ population groups.

Of course, the high Asian IQ theory has its problems, which I've discussed here.

And a high IQ is not a guarantor that anyone, or any nation, will be successful. There are other factors, what I would call the Aesthetic IQ, which determines how one views beauty, the Spiritual IQ, how one lives in accordance with higher principles, and finally the God IQ, how nations and their people figure the Biblical God in the formation of their civilizations.

I presume that Derbyshire has a high "traditional" IQ, which he uses exclusively, and which led him to discard his God IQ, publicly proclaiming his atheism. I also think he is deficient in the Aesthetic IQ, but I won't go into that.

Derbyshire's two children, a half-Chinese son and a half-Chinese daughter, appear in many of his posts, where he has documented their birth to early twenties life in his family album posts. But there is no report on their current situations. Both Danny and Nellie Derbyshire are now nearing their 30s. What are they doing?

Perhaps nothing so impressive as to live up to the subtle IQ hype Derbyshire proudly presented in their earlier years.


My daughter and I had a very instructive morning yesterday

A friend at NYMEX...got us visitor passes,
with a view to Nellie possibly getting an internship
at the exchange in her summer vacation.
[Source: John Derbyshire's posts at The National Review's The Corner, 2010]

My end-2012 puzzle was a splendid 2,000-piecer of van Gogh's The Starry Night

I summon Danny and intone the ritual words:
"Help me out here, please, son. I've almost finished; but there's
this one pesky last piece left, and I can't figure out where it goes."

I then hand the piece to Danny and he completes the puzzle.

[source: Derbyhsire's hompage]

Derbyshire writes about his high IQ son here:

Danny took the AFQT (basically an IQ test: the cutoff for the Army is IQ 92) and the ASVAB
(a vocational test to see which military specialty suits you).
A smart kid - it’s genetic - Danny aced both tests and is in A-1 physical condition,
so they basically told him he could pick his own specialty.
He picked Airborne Rangers, the most dangerous specialty on the list.
They jump out of planes to do Navy-SEAL-type super-hazardous missions.

Where do Derbyshire's Expertise Lie?

From
Ici Radio Canada: Des habitants de Markham ont manifesté contre l'immigration plus tôt cet été August 2018

-------------------------------

I wonder why VDare allows John Derbyshire to write his articles on blacks? I would think his multi-culti expertise would lie more with the Chinese, to one of whom Mr. Derbyshire is married.

Derbyshire has a fascinatingly public "personal" page, where he posts photographs of his English "coal mine" family along with his wife's "Chinese peasants," and his daughter's Hispano/Arab boyfriend called "Mike." So, Derb's progeny continue with his multi-culti example, after all.


"The family Christmas picture, with Nellie's guy Mike at left." [Image and text source]

Merry X-Mas from the atheist and his family

-------------------------------

I'm not the only one to notice this BF. Here's a photo from the Hapa & Eurasian Community: Asian Pacific Halfies, who comment:

noblemagistrate
...maybe his buddy Jared Taylor will excuse him for letting his daughter date a Jewish guy.

By the way, why do his kids look 1000% Asian? They don't look mixed at all. I know that WMAF typically look more Asian than white but they look more Asian than their mother, lol.

Here is one fascinating article where Derbyshire discusses Chinese immigrants in Markham, Ontario, Canada(!).

Derbyshire's point in this article is how LEGAL Chinese immigrants organized protests on ILLEGAL refugees being shipped into Markham:

More encouraging is news from Markham, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto with a big concentration of Chinese immigrants.

This started when Toronto found they had more illegal aliens than they could find accommodation for. Numbers coming across the border from the U.S.A. have been swelling the past couple of years, and of course they are all claiming to be refugees from something or other.

[...]

The rumor started that Scarpitti had agreed with the mayor of Toronto to take and house five thousand of these illegals.

Once that got around, a demonstration was organized. To judge from videos and press accounts, the demonstrators were all Chinese. There were big signs on display in English, Chinese, and Chinglish. Samples:

MARKHAM SAY NO TO ILLEGAL BORDER CROSSERS

SAY "NO" TO MAYOR FRANK!

ILLEGAL FREE RIDER NOT INVITED

PROTECT OUR CITY, PROTECT OUR HOME!

[...]

It was a good spirited gathering, though. There was a counter-protest on behalf of the illegals, carrying signs of their own: REFUGEES WELCOME, NOBODY IS ILLEGAL, and so on. A lot of them were Chinese, too, but there were also round-eyes in evidence on that side.

Inevitably there were fisticuffs, but no-one was seriously hurt. I would like to have seen some Chinese martial arts on display, but the most fearsome participant was a young Dragon Lady type with an ear-splitting voice out of Chinese opera, who chased some of the counter-protestors right off the field.

Chinese immigrants, and their several-generations-down inheritors STILL refer to their Chinese, from China, background, and intrinsically search for that reference, and assurance.

Even, Derb's daughter, rather than go for the Whites of her father's background, chose instead an undecipherable (at least in presentation) of a brown man as her mate. What good is having a white father if even he cannot convince you of the goodness of his race?

Derbyshire forfeited that wisdom, and authority, when he traveled across the oceans and married a Chinese woman. His British adventurous fore-fathers never did that, at least not officially, and publicly. The reason colonization worked is because they kept the natives, the inhabitants, of those countries in their countries. They didn't make a bargain through "love and marriage" and opened up the Pandora's box of multiculturalism through multi-racial offspring. Derbyshire is now having to maneuver through that conundrum, with a boyfriend (future son-in-law?) his daughter brought home, with a foreboding face, who might not really like him.

Then what?

China in Mississauga

Last year. I posted on the Chinese New Year event in Mississauga. There was really just one place which organized its store's activities around this holiday, the Holt Renfrew department store.

This year, the number of stores hosting or publicizing the holiday has grown exponentially. At last count, I saw about a dozen. It is becoming the second most celebrated holiday in the mall after Christmas.

Below are some store signs and images that I took yesterday. There is Chinese script in all of them, and most without any translation. "Happy Year of the Pig?" I don't know.

Such alien holidays are a conduit for other gods and godheads to enter the spiritual psyche of a country. Once people accept what looks like a benign "Happy Year of the Pig," there wll be other forces to contend with as the when the "pig" is actually a spiritual force that people genuflect to.

Chinese New Year is far from a "fun" event with gold coins and wish envelopes, and dragon dances and bright paper lanterns. It is a spiritual event that has ancient roots and has sustained a culture for hundreds of years.

But aside from the invisible spirits, the population of Chinese in the Mississauga area is growing at a fast rate with immigrants coming to Canada leaving behind their overcrowded cities and falsely reported prosperity. There is no prosperity in China, only a few who have managed to get very rich.

This year, Walmart is selling New Year's foods and clothing, Roger and Bell digital stores are promoting special promotions, and various clothing stores have decorated their stores with Chinese script and displayed red garments in accordance with the red color that goes with the New Year.

The idea is not participating in a multiculturalism, but a way for China to find a way into Mississauga and into Canada, using . multiculturalism as the ploy for an entry point. So far, it has been tremendously successful.

Chinese Aesthetics: Where Harmony and Cohesion Trumps Individuality and Innovation

I came across this statement I made at Camera Lucida in August, 2008, shortly after the Summer Olympics that were held in Beijing, China that year:

...the Chinese are content to maintain the authoritarian, collective culture that has been part of their tradition for eons.

And I wrote an article on the Beijing Olympics with that quote as the guiding idea.

---

From an unpublished article on the 2008 Olympics in Chinese: Zhang Yimou: Spokesman for China
Written by KPA September 12, 2008
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zhang Yimou: Spokesman for China

The Beijing Olympics opening ceremony was directed by the world-famous, Oscar nominated Chinese film director Zhang Yimou. His exquisitely shot films show young brides, concubines, and peasant women consumed by the monolithic forces that these women (and it is often women) find themselves in.

The films’ storylines are often bewildering to Western viewers. Are we to sympathize with the characters, is Yimou agreeing with the forces of authority, is he so fatalistic that he cannot see any other story? We are led to believe that the unique beauties - of the young girls, of the surrounding scenery, or in the case of Ju Dou, the lusciously dyed textiles - will overcome anything. But they don’t, and these young women, once distinctive in their charms and their quests, can never escape their culture’s expectations, and are forced to sacrifice their individuality and singularity to the collective fabric of their communities in sad and tragic ways. Some go insane, others simply get old, and yet others bitterly, or blithely, try to forget.

Throughout China’s history, there seems to have been an overpowering preference for the individual’s submergence into the collective. Confucius lays out the ground rules for this coexistence, and Communism was the harshest, most inhumane, example of that history. Yimou is simply recording this cultural reality. He further demonstrates this with his direction of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony. The spectacular ceremony consisted of thousands (15,000 in total) of Chinese performers shifting in huge carpets of precise and united movement.

The world of Chinese human coordination is brought to light when Yimou compares Chinese performers to those of North Korea. He says: “Other than North Koreans, there’s not one other country in the world that can achieve such a high quality of performance.” Yimou didn’t compare his 15,000 synchronized human bodies to American or European artistry, but to an enclosed, isolated extreme dictatorial state like North Korea.

While discussing his experience working with Western actors, Yimou says: “[They] were so troublesome [because] in the middle of rehearsals they take two coffee breaks…[T]here can’t be any discomfort, because of human rights…[T]hey have all kinds [of] organizations and labor union structures. We’re not like that. We work hard; we tolerate bitter exertion.”[] Like the suffering his heroines endure, Yimou confesses that he sees nothing wrong with exerting pressure and discipline on his performers to have them conform to his giant designs.

How different is he and the Chinese, then, from the isolated, dictatorial North Koreans, whose mass parades have garnered his respect? In the name of human collectivity, Yimou acknowledges that Chinese performers are, and should be, willing to tolerate abuses on their bodies, give up their basic human rights, and work under extreme conditions. Yimou’s comparison of neo-Communist, modern Chinese performers with North Koreans is depressingly retrograde. Despite glowing references by the world community, China is still stuck in its past.

Still, one cannot deny the importance of culture and history on a country’s artistic formation. Yimou’s artistic style, both in film and in his latest contribution to the opening ceremonies, is part of Chinese art and artistry, where harmony and cohesion trumps individuality and innovation. This is evident in Chinese watercolor paintings where composition - a concerted effort at harmony – supersedes individual artistic expression. As Yimou’s films themselves show, while his characters go through tremendous suffering and even tragedy, often the best he can come up with is an ambiguous acceptance of the status quo. An outright nihilism or rage would be more understandable, instead of deferment to the collective which in many cases can only be achieved if the individual is sacrificed, like Songlian in Raise the Red Lantern, who goes insane rather than live through her atrocious life.

Olympics which took place in Westernized countries - the US, Australia and Greece to name a few - emphasized more individualized performances and content-rich opening ceremonies, rather than the mastery of synchronized masses. The human presence in these Western performances were a means to a narrative, where one idea leads to another in space and time to tell a story or to reach a point. Most of the Western programs had also a limited in number of performers, since their intention was to use them as actors in a story and not as bodies in giant designs.

Yimou’s primary purpose was to use his human subjects as anonymous forms to make stadium-sized patterns. There was no emphasis on time or space, and the performers were enclosed within their own tightly limited areas. The Western performers, on the other hand, both individuals and groups, often moved from one end of a stadium to another for a particular purpose – to reach a destination, to enter into a building, or as in the young boy in the boat from the Athens show, to reach shore.

Yimou’s shore has now come and gone. The Chinese had their chance to show the world what they were made of. Astute observers will notice that nothing much has really changed in modern China, as exemplified by even their most freest commentator, an artist, who confesses admiration for the artistic endeavors of one of the harshest regime in the world, and admits that he emulates its style.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] “Zhang Yimou’s 20,000-Word Interview Reveals Secrets of Opening Ceremony,” Nanfang Zhoumou (Guangzhou), August 14, 2008

Statistics

The Underbelly of China's Impoverished Rural Regions

Image Source:
From February 2017 article: Social transfers in rural China: Do they contribute to poverty reduction?
In press release by Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies
Photo: Zhanli Sun © IAMO

---

Here is an email correspondence I recently had regarding statistics:

---

Dear---,

I hope you are doing well. I am sorry that I can no longer attend the meetings that --- organizes. Hopefully my schedule will change in the near future .

I would like to ask your advice as a statistician on current global population movements, and if you have any suggestions on how I can find reliable information on the following issue.

Here in Mississauga (a suburb of Toronto), I am seeing an incredible rise in Chinese immigrants. Usually immigrants from non-Western countries have relatively low incomes, and past Chinese immigrants have been no different. But this latest influx is of wealthy Chinese.

Would you know how to find out the population statistics on current Chinese in China? For example what percentage of the population is wealthy, and what is poor? Or if there is a substantial middle class (by Western standards)? My gut feeling is that the majority of Chinese haven't broken into that middle class range and still live at some level of poverty. These wealthy Chinese immigrants may also be camouflaging a temporary gain in money, as their financial sources in China dwindle sooner than later.

For example, the frenzy over real estate in Toronto (and Vancouver) by Chinese may reach a crisis when (I believe, and not if) mortgages become difficult to keep up. These Chinese also are not citizens and can simply "go back home" when things get tough, after they have disrupted the financial climate of these countries.

To make a long question simpler: is there any statistical information on the Chinese population both in China (and I guess Hong Kong) and those who have recently moved/immigrated to the US and Canada?

I am in the process of writing a book on Mississauga and the effects of immigration, both historical and contemporary, on the city's development.

Thanks,

Kidist

--------------------------------------------

Kidist,

No, unfortunately. I don't have any sources, more than you could get from on-line searching. Hard to trust data in any case, China being what it is.

Hope the book goes well!

---

--------------------------------------------

Thanks, ----, for your insight.

But did you mean "hard to trust data in any case China being what it is"

to be:

"hard to trust data from China in any case China being what it is"

China is especially deceitful, and now they have a global plan. They are now all over Africa in a strange form of colonization. What we see is them dumping their own workers by the thousands from the underbelly of their impoverished rural regions into Africa to work in their factories which they "promise" these African leaders will bring them work and prosperity.

As you may know I have an ABD in Nutritional Sciences (from the University of Connecticut) and it was fascinating how we could "manipulate" data to mean what we wanted it to say especially with population studies (epidemiology). My work which relied on clinical data (Vitamin B12 deficiency) had all the "hard" data but still the health planners and others - especially my university professors seeking huge government grants - could translate it to mean what they wanted it to. I quit the program before my results got published (in various clinical journals).

Kidist

The Chinese in Mississauga

Art Gallery of Mississauga director Mandy Salter presenting a Chinese "delegate"
with a First Nations textile durng the delegation's visit to the AGM

A mysterious "Chinese Delegation" was apparently in Mississauga last week. According to an events planner whom I found dismantling a conference in the hallway of the Mississauga Civic Centre in which they had participated, they were visiting the various museums around Mississauga, including the Art Gallery of Mississauga.

I could find no information on this group, not in the websites of the many Chinese organizations in Mississauga, not at the various museum sites. I found only the photo (plus three others) above at the AGM's instagram and a few more at the gallery's twitter page. But even there the information is scant, such as the instagram caption: "This morning [October 31], we had the absolute honour of touring the gallery with our guests from the Chinese Delegation. It was a pleasure hosting them and we hope to see them all soon!"

What is astonishing about the photo above is the reverence with which the AGM's curator Mandy Salter presents the piece of cloth, and the slightly confused awe with which the "Chinese Delegate" receives it, as though she was caught up in Salter's trance-like behaviour but couldn't emulate it.

I wonder if Salter would present a Homer Watson painting with equal delicacy? Of course not! In fact, she wouldn't present one at all, as she demonstrated to this illusive Chinese delegation. And the very fact that one of his pieces, so artistic and so refined, is not showcased in a gift-giving protocol tells everything.

As Kendra Ainsworth, then Assistant Curator at the AGM (and now no longer there - see this recent post) wrote in the Watson exhibition catalogue in 2015:

For colonial settlers [sic], Homer Watson, and for Canadians of European heritage today the Canadian landscape is something one can easily place oneself in, whereas for First Nations peoples, interactions with the Canadian landscape are much more politicized. To even consider a truthful representation of landscape we must ask who lives in this landscape and how are they allowed to interact with it?
[Kendra Ainsworth. The Quest for the True North(s), In Beyond The Pines: Homer Watson and the Contemporary Canadian Landscape. 2015]

The AGM's website "About" page has the following:

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The Art Gallery of Mississauga (AGM) would like to acknowledge and give thanks to the land on which we work. The AGM is a respectful guest upon the Traditional Treaty Territory of the Mississauga’s of the Credit First Nation and traditional homeland of the Anishinaabe, Wendat and Haudenosaunee nations. We are thankful to the many First Nations, Inuit, Métis and global Indigenous peoples who call this region home.

The AGM is committed to recognizing and incorporating diverse Indigenous perspectives within exhibitions and programming, and highlighting the numerous Indigenous artists who have contributed to this gallery. The AGM is dedicated to providing a platform for contemporary Indigenous art and curatorial practices, and hosts events and programs that reflect various cultural topics and identities.

These Chinese visitor delegates have a steep learning curve.

"Punished According to (Chinese) Regulations"

Here's a dystopian vision of the future: A real announcement I recorded on the Beijing-Shanghai bullet train. (I've subtitled it so you can watch in silence.) pic.twitter.com/ZoRWtdcSMy

— James O'Malley (@Psythor) October 29, 2018

Retweeted at: Kevin Michael Grace

Read the thread and see how China is "accommodating" 1.3 billion people.

Saved By Bell

an
Square One Mall, Mississauga
Mural for soon-to-be-opened (relocated into a much bigger space) Bell Store
(November 2018)
[Photo By: KPA]

This images is an allegory:

All innovation and and work of high standard is done by Whites, even in a city like Mississauga which has close to 60% of its population coming from Third World countries

---

There is major construction/reconstruction going on in Mississauga, all in anticipation of the high-priced condo sales that are going on attracting big-time foreign capital by Beijing Billionaires.

This is now becoming a major global phenomenon where the Chinese are investing throughout the world. There is no clear indication about what is REALLY going on WITHIN China, and the first place in the NUMBER of billionaires doesn't tell us their PERCENTAGE of the whole Chinese population.

My working theory is that as many billionaires there are in China, there is a ten to twenty fold increase in the number of Chinese living BELOW (Canadian, and much worse in Chinese) poverty lines.

Also, all those Beijing Billionaires had to have found their workforce from somewhere. And it has to be the desperate and impoverished from rural China, getting pittance wages (by Canadian standards, and much worse by Chinese) working in those Chinese cell phone factories to make those cell phones that get shipped out to Canada and America lining the pockets of those Beijing Billionaires.

And who are the engineers, the electricians and the construction teams working on the Mississauga condo projects? Well Whites of course.

More on all this later.

The Truth

(Via Orwell & Goode)

Staryu
Starmie
Starving

Extraordinary!

Here's a dystopian vision of the future: A real announcement I recorded on the Beijing-Shanghai bullet train. (I've subtitled it so you can watch in silence.) pic.twitter.com/ZoRWtdcSMy

— James O'Malley (@Psythor) October 29, 2018

(Via Kevin Michael Grace)

Sino Imperialism: Take-Over through Fake Indebtedness

Comments on the video:

Uriel Zaldivar:
The new jews

Mwidini Njuguna:
Soon African countries will be forced to adapt to communism due to failure of servicing Chinese debts.

Mengele Ugulumo
..."there is no free lunch, in fact there's no lunch at all" hehee!

Junaid Anwar
Don’t worry, the whole world soon will be subservient to China falling into their debt trap

My Local Walmart: Chinese With "Money"

I shop at Walmart. Right now I don't really care about the "monopoly" Walmart has over other stores. If people were strong enough and voted for the right things and people, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Walmart started as the middle/lower income Americans' store. You can really find everything. American and Canadian fruits and vegetables DO make the cut. You don't have to buy those Mexican peppers you now!


The cashiers are doing their job. They are admirable. They must see a lot of sh*t here in multi-culti Mississauga. They would be great witnesses for the decline of Canadian society.

Yesterday, I was buying cream (for my morning Starbucks coffee) and paper towels (I "recycle"). In front of me were two tall Chinese men. They were busy talking in their guttural Cantonese.

The cashier was passing their items through the sensor. There was A LOT!

"$80" she told them. I mostly saw chips, soda and mostly non-essential foods. Maybe they're having a picnic!

On the counter, they had a large LCBO paper bag (Liquor Control Board of Canada - yes this is Canada!). The paper bag was tall so it must have been several bottles of wine. Canadian wines now cost around $12 a bottle. But I doubt they went local. California is where to go! (And maybe France). In any case bottles are about $15 (unless you went really international and got an Italian wine for $7.95) That would make their alcoholic beverage cost around $60.

So $160 at one shot! And for non-essentials. And at Walmart too!

I wonder when all that Chinese money will run out? And people will get tired of their "we own the world" attitude. Not long , I guarantee you. Shopping at Walmart is already the tell-tale sign. There is a big and fully-stocked Whole Foods Market just up the road. I go there once in while to get some of their fruit (it about the same as the Farmer's Market and, I think equally good).

Why are they not there if they're so rich?

You see?

Red Pockets and "An Imagined Chinese Culture"

More than red pockets: the celebration of chinese new year for multicultural canada
By Jennifer J. Lau
Fete Chinoise Annual Magazine
2018 issue

At the end of January this past year, I celebrated Chinese New Year or “Spring Festival” in Beijing because I was on a short research trip in Asia. I was met with a quieter-than-expected city, with clearer skies and fewer tourists than the last time I was there. Had I recalled beforehand that many of the libraries and institutions would be closed as their staff returned to their respective homes outside of the capital city for the New Year, I might not have chosen February for the visit. As I was left with this unfamiliar quietness in the country’s capital, I reflected on what Chinese New Year means and could mean for Canadians today and tomorrow. I wondered what this celebration marks for fellow Chinese-Canadians beyond red pockets and large family gatherings, and for Canadians at large who see the festivities unfolding around them between New Year and Valentine’s Day.

Growing up in Toronto, I distinctly remember Chinese classmates requesting one-week-long absences during Chinese New Year. Being a multicultural society, teachers would approve these requests. It was strange witnessing my friends, who usually did not speak Chinese much, taking time off school. Prior to this realization that Chinese New Year had such significance, I gave little thought to it as a child. However, understanding the traditions and meaning behind New Year in the Chinese culture has become even more nuanced now for several reasons: a large number of Chinese immigrants are arriving and settling in Canada; Canadians of Chinese descent are starting new families with the desire to maintain Chinese traditions in some way in the upbringing of their children; and as our Canadian society embraces celebrations and festivals of the various cultures that make up our nation.

What is Chinese New Year and how is it celebrated? Chinese New Year and its traditions have a far reach. The celebration is marked by the first day of the first month of the Lunar calendar, which follows the cycle of the moon, in contrast to the Gregorian calendar, which follows the cycle of the sun. This is why the date differs each year on the Gregorian calendar; although it usually falls around late January or early February. Family reunions are extremely important for the New Year and traditionally festivities last for a duration of fifteen days; families will gather for a “year-end meal” or “reunion dinner” at home. Special dishes are prepared and made in anticipation of the family coming together. Decades ago and still for some people today, the family meal on New Year represents the best meal of the year. Some families may perform ceremonious rituals to gods and ancestors as well as, visit relatives throughout that duration. Many parents will buy new clothes for their children to ring in the season, usually in red (which is considered an auspicious colour in Chinese tradition). Married couples will fill red pockets with money to distribute to the younger generation as a wish of good luck and fortune, for both the one giving and receiving. Children will practice idioms to recite when they see their elders and receive their red pockets; common phrases include: “May you have the spirit and energy of a dragon and horse!” and “May your youth and beauty be eternal!” Chinese New Year festivities are vibrant around the world, in regions within and outside of China, such as Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia in Asia and of course in cities with Chinese descendents including those who call Canada and America their home.

What is interesting is that how Chinese New Year is celebrated is nuanced across cities with high Chinese populations around the world. This is partly because of the dialectical and regional differences within Chinese-speaking communities. For example, traditional dishes with names homonymous to festive phrases during the celebration are not the same in Hong Kong (and other Cantonese-speaking communities) as those in Taiwan (and other Mandarin-speaking communities). Words have distinct pronunciations that work for one dialect and not the other, so there are diversions in the words exchanged and meanings behind the foods enjoyed and the foods themselves.

Cultural practices also differ. The tradition of “walking around the Flower Market” is a Southern Chinese practice — evident in places like Guangzhou and Hong Kong and where large number of Cantonese immigrants have settled, like in Toronto. Knickknacks in red, luck-changing pinwheels, and flowers are common items sold in these markets, alongside food and game stalls. Participating in the walk is one way of changing one’s luck or gathering more, it is believed. But this particular form of celebration is not a common cultural practice across China at large and rural cities. In other regions, there may be night-long parties with firecrackers and lantern festivals on the fifteenth day of the New Year.

It is these differences in the words we speak, in the foods we eat, and in the ways we celebrate, that we learn about our intracultural flavour. As more people of Chinese descent arrive and settle in Canada, this mélange will continue to grow and evolve. And when we learn to appreciate the distinct practices within families, communities, and an imagined Chinese culture, our children and grandchildren will hopefully embrace and find meaning in their own encounters of Chinese New Year. The appreciation and understanding of the roots of this celebration is a starting point — the beginning of a journey of learning about the past and how we relate to it in the present and future.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Born and raised in Toronto, Jennifer is pursuing graduate studies in East Asian Studies with a specific focus on interactions between China and Canada. Passionate about being a bridge between cultures for the community, Fête Chinoise has been an amazing platform to educate others about the richness of Chinese culture in multicultural Canada.

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Chinese Humor

Screenshot Via Kevin Michael Grace's twitter

I suppose this tweeter is making fun of Black slang with a fake Chinese broken English. There is odd concealed racial slur too (bn = black negro?).

I wouldn't call it Black communication slang though, since this English is a result of an interpretation of English to produce a language that evolved over time within a group of people.

This leads me to conclude that it is not necessarily a lack of language issue but a grammatical/logical issue where the Chinese language and grammar structure guides the language expression of these "Canadians."

For example:

- There is no corresponding plural word to its singular in Chinese

- There doesn't appear to be any clear cut definite or indefinite article (below explains this more):

Definite Articles: Chinese language doesn’t have the exactly word "the" at all. If one wants to say "the apple" in Chinese: 这蘋果的, one is really saying: "this apple/that apple/those apples/these apples".

Indefinite Articles: There are the indefinite articles: “A”, “An” and “Some” in English language, but if one wants to say "a dish" (一个盤), one is really saying "one dish" (一盤).appears

- Verb tenses:

1. Mandarin Chinese does not have any verb conjugations. All verbs have a single form. For example, the verb for "eat" is 吃 (chī), which can be used for the past, present, and future. [Source]

And

2. [In] Cantonese grammar...there is no need for the use of verb tense. That is, verbs always take the same form, and tense is communicated via additional words. For example:
- Instead of saying, “I am going fishing,” you’d say, “I go fishing today.”
- Instead of saying, “I will go fishing,” you’d say, “I go fishing tomorrow.”
- Instead of saying, “I went fishing,” you’d say “I go fishing yesterday.”
[Source]

Language is more than words and stringing those words together. And I think it is also more than a cultural education. It reflects the logical structure of the human mind. How we understand each other is a function of who we are. Of course this is obvious on an individual level, but it is also the case on a racial level also.

So yes race does affect language and communication.

Some Chinese I've met have a tendency to drop articles (a/the) and also to leave out the ends of words (-ed, -s) which is probably a combination of grammar and phonetics, probably errors brought on by the actual Chinese grammar and the pronunciation that is transferred to English.

Interestingly I catch this even in those who are younger (teens to early twenties) who speak otherwise flawless English and who are interacting with other Chinese of their own age group. They have, in a way, created their own "slang."

I suppose they can be compared to Italian immigrants who produced their own particular way of speaking, replete with hand movements. But Italians, unlike Blacks, never really produced a lasting "slang." One would be hard-pressed to identify an Italian these days if one went by language alone, so much have they integrated into the mainstream society.

But I think Chinese can and, I would wager that they will.

Because I don't think the Chinese youth will reach that level of integration the Italians acquired. First, recent (the past 20-25 years) immigration policy in Canada promotes the multicultural way of life. Join in, but please don't give up your wonderful culture! Second, the Italians had much more in common, hand movements aside, with the prevalent culture. At least Leonardo da Vinci is a common reference. And third, they wanted to join in!

What Chinese/Chinese immigrant/second-third-generation Chinese really wants to be part of the Old Stock Canadian culture? Things are just fine as they are. Canada is this benevolent place, rich enough to lead World Leaders in Davos 2018, and generous enough to "welcome" (as those CBC programs keep telling us) all these people from around the world, including their grandparents from those villages they can't find on the map.

They can sip a latte with soy milk in a Starbucks coffee counter at any street corner, but the nice barista on Queen and Spadina even puts on the current pop star from Hong Kong. They can dine on the Amazon/Wholefoods organic brown rice with tofu that reminds them of home cooking. And when the deals are good, which are pretty often now, they can catch a plane back to China/Hong Kong, assured by their round trip ticket that their stay wont be for too long.

In the meantime, they will be as Canadian as they want to be. Any maybe even join a Black Lives Matter solidarity rally the next time it comes around.

And when will this tweeter @liangweihan4, who appears to be posting from a Chinese location, pack his bags and move in?

Long Live Canada! Vive Le Canada Libre!

"Where is all the money coming from?" Update

"Where is all the money coming from?" update:

It is already happening.

Where is all the money coming from?

First, China faces significant overcapacity in its steel and construction sectors. Building roads, ports, rails and other infrastructure will help deploy some of these otherwise idle human and capital resources. Investing abroad might also strengthen the economies of nascent trading partners, thereby securing future demand for Chinese goods and services. There’s also the issue of rising domestic labor costs; better trade networks would help Chinese firms offshore manufacturing more efficiently.
China's "One Belt One Road" Momentum Going Forward

By: Ruston Bazzarre*
Liknedin article
October 14, 2016

This seems to be the analyzed reason for China's modern "Silk Road:" to establish cheap labor centers in its African and Middle Eastern country targets who will produce those products that will enrich China's coffers to start its modern Silk Road trade loci and materialize its regional hegemony.

All that has to happen is for these cheap labor centers to refuse to play along.

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China's "One Belt One Road" Momentum Going Forward
Ruston Bazzarre*
Liknedin article
October 14, 2016

Two weeks ago, a 32-container train from Wuyi, China arrived in Tehran, Iran. You might think the arrival of cargo by rail would be no big deal, but in this case you’d be wrong. This was the first journey of its kind between the two cities, and it shortened the typical ship-based travel time by 30 days. This new connection is among the first visible signs of a massive trade network that China is currently constructing across Eurasia. The Silk Route is being rebuilt.

Known as One Belt, One Road, China’s plan to build veins of trade over land and sea into Europe and Asia — announced in 2013 — may be the most significant global economic initiative in the world today, and it’s not getting the attention it deserves in Western media.

The initiative is gigantic, with future investments of almost $1 trillion already announced. In comparison, America spent an inflation-adjusted $130 billion on the Marshall Plan following the World War II. China’s web of trade would span over 60 countries that are home to 4.4 billion people — more than half of the world’s population. Further, the initiative would interact with economies representing more than 40 percent of the world’s GDP. It’s a massive program that has the potential to affect global trade patterns.

The initiative is broken into a land component, known as the Silk Road Economic Belt, and a sea component, called the Maritime Silk Road. The “Belt” will consist of a number of corridors connecting China to the far reaches of Eurasia by road and rail. The “Road” will involve the development of ports and shipping routes connecting Chinese harbors to Europe and the South Pacific.

Funding this massive program is not a trivial undertaking. There are a number of institutions on hand to support the funding of China’s grand vision. First, Beijing started a $40 billion “Silk Road Fund” that has already helped fund a hydroelectric power project in Pakistan and invested in a liquefied natural gas project in Russia. Second, there’s the newly created, $100 billion Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in which China controls 26 percent of the votes. It’s logical to assume it might finance some of these projects. Lastly, the China Development Bank announced in June that it would invest a stunning $890 billion dollars in over 900 One Belt, One Road projects across 60 countries.

So why would China want to deploy capital in this way? After all, doesn’t it face a massive domestic slowdown and potential debt crisis that warrant financial prudence? Why invest abroad aggressively when there are potential domestic needs?

There appear to be two main reasons: one related to the Chinese slowdown and economic vulnerabilities, the other to geopolitical ambitions in the region.

First, China faces significant overcapacity in its steel and construction sectors. Building roads, ports, rails and other infrastructure will help deploy some of these otherwise idle human and capital resources. Investing abroad might also strengthen the economies of nascent trading partners, thereby securing future demand for Chinese goods and services. There’s also the issue of rising domestic labor costs; better trade networks would help Chinese firms offshore manufacturing more efficiently.

It will also foster greater trade and energy security. The current maritime trade routes, which Chinese goods flow through, are deeply vulnerable — in a time of war, a blockade could crush the economy. The Silk Road initiative will keep markets open for Chinese goods, but also secure China’s access to energy. Last spring, China announced it would support over $20 billion worth of infrastructure projects in Kazakhstan, a potential energy partner. It is also planning a 2,000-mile, high-speed railway from western China to Tehran, in part to gain easier access to the growing supply of Iranian oil.

In addition to bolstering its economic strength, One Belt, One Road will also generate significant geopolitical clout for Beijing throughout Southeast, South and Central Asia as well as the Middle East, parts of Africa and Europe. Just consider the influence China will have in Pakistan. Beijing has already launched a $46 billion infrastructure program in Pakistan, which will double the energy-poor country’s electricity supply. In return, China will secure access to the port of Gwadar, minimizing the time for goods to transit from inland Chinese cities to global markets. Investing in Pakistan will help develop western China.

The Pakistani alliance is particularly useful, since China can use it as a counterweight to India’s influence in the region, and controlling instability in Pakistan through investment might lessen the risk of it spilling into China. Beijing already has growing concerns of restive minorities within China and wants to minimize the likelihood of domestic instability gaining momentum from external sources.

Despite the clear benefits the Chinese strategy seems to offer, it’s not without risk. The Financial Times pointed out that the sheer ambition of the project is part and parcel with the fragmented and often contradictory process of economic policymaking in China. How implementation goes is anyone’s guess.

Further, Chinese inroads abroad could produce international tensions. Russian President Vladimir Putin has signaled openness to cooperating with the initiative, but it remains to be seen how far he will tolerate Chinese influence in Central Asia.

And the countries that are part of this new Silk Route are not without significant credit risks and political risks. Local instability could undermine investment projects in countries like Pakistan, which is deploying thousands of troops to safeguard China’s investments. The private-intelligence firm Stratfor also points out that the flip side of stronger connections is that they will “provide new routes for the illicit movement of goods and people into China.” Could major Chinese cities emerge as terrorist targets, as New York, Paris and London have in recent years?

Despite this uncertainty, it is particularly unwise to ignore the One Belt, One Road initiative. It just might shape the 21st century as much as the Marshall Plan did the 20th.



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* Ruston Bazzarre 威廉
Lets Connect | Business Development | Re-engineering Change management | IT | Consultant | Supply Chain
Shanghai, ChinaManagement Consulting
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Skeleton Technologies, Tekresell
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Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Victoria University Switzerland, Hangzhou China, Master Kong Holdings Co. Ltd.
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Purdue University