Tag: Power

Note to Foreign Students, late 2014

Zhejiang University of Science and  Technology          Hangzhou 

Before you came to China, you were aware of censorship by the Chinese government.   You likely knew that Youtube,  Twitter,  Facebook, and some blog site hosts – blogspot, among others – were blocked by the Chinese government.    You understand that the CCP is so desperately afraid of the Chinese people that it cannot tolerate information from the outside – or inside – that is too “dangerous” to Party longevity.

In 2012, both the New York Times and any news sites operated by Bloomberg were blocked by the Chinese government, in retaliation for reporting on the fabulous family wealth of wen jiabao and xi jinping.    All of their sites are still blocked, including economic information and opinion from Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize winning economist.

In the last three months, we have entered a new phase of blocking unlike anything in the past ten years.    Google was intermittently blocked over the last two years, for their refusal to submit to censorship.   But that blocking applied only to the use of the search engine.

Now, gmail accounts are generally blocked – not always, and not all, but enough to make reliable communication impossible.   I have heard that other American email servers – Hotmail and  Yahoo – are at least occasionally blocked.   My AOL – America Online – service is not blocked, but extremely slow – can take hours for an email to go through.   The meaning of this is that, again, reliable communication is not possible.  You never know when your email is going to go through, and you don’t know if you are being sent emails that you do not get.   I can not have confidence that my students are getting emails I send with readings, ppt, and notes.

For teaching purposes, the blocking of web sites and servers is a bigger problem.    I need access to academic and professional articles, for both my own research and to give to you.  

Quite a few of my attempts to get articles in the last month have been blocked or are so slow –taking hours to load – that the effect is to stifle research.   

I have a workaround from a Chinese student, that seems to get Google access through Hong Kong, but this is also slow and not very reliable, and still fails to get access to many academic articles or sites.

It is now difficult for me to teach here.   I spend hours trying to send emails or get information, and that is just not acceptable.

The crackdown on communication is part of a current government strategy to accomplish several things – replace western communications suppliers – Apple, for example – with Chinese products (see, for example, Replace foreign products with Chinese)

and assist Chinese internet companies – Alibaba, Huawei, others – to become dominant providers inside and outside China, as well as protect the Chinese people from the deadly ideas coming from the west (America) that are designed to destroy China and the Party.   No joke.  These are ideas like freedom of speech, civil rights, and freedom of the press  (see “Document No. 9,”  Communist Party Central Office, spring 2013, if you can get it – Document No. 9 translation).

 I want you to understand that the blocking, like that of gmail, does not need to be perfect to do its job.   What is desired, more than the censorship itself, is to create a climate of uncertainty that encourages people to not bother looking, or to waste just enough time that they fail to accomplish what was intended.   Students give up trying to communicate.  Teachers give up trying to teach.   Researchers give up trying to understand.   Then, the Party is the only voice.

There have been temporary crackdowns on communications in the past.   You may expect very severe crackdowns in the month before June 4,  2015, as the Party tries to erase discussion of the June 4, 1989 murder of students by the army in Tian’anmen Square.

But this current crackdown is different.   This is not temporary.  It will last for several years, in my opinion, and will probably get worse.    You can get a Chinese email address to help communications, but you cannot get better access to web sites for information.   If you buy a VPN – virtual private network – then your access might be pretty good for some time, but the government has gotten pretty good at shutting those down as well, and you don’t know when your VPN will suddenly fail to work.

There is no reason to think that access will become easier in the next few years.   The government and Party have made it clear that internet access will be controlled more, and openness is not part of the strategy.    One can think of this as a policy of  “China for Chinese.   Foreigners go home.”

That is what I am suggesting that you consider, and advise friends back home who might be thinking of coming here next year and after.    China is a wonderfully interesting place, with lots to teach you.   But you need to consider the stupidity of the blocking in the calculation of whether you should study or work in China.

In the meantime, while you are here, I strongly urge you to not get angry about the blocking.    Authoritarian regimes understand anger and hate, and are not worried about that.

What authoritarian regimes everywhere do not understand, and cannot tolerate, is laughter.   I strongly urge you to laugh, loudly, consistently, and often, at the stupidity of a government so afraid of its own people that it cannot afford to let them see Youtube.

William D.  Markle, Professor

Some resources, if you can get them –

Document 9: A ChinaFile Translation.  China File.  http://www.chinafile.com/document-9-chinafile-translation

Perry Link. Censoring the News Before It Happens. China File.  July 10, 2013   http://www.chinafile.com/censoring-news-it-happens

Zeng Jinyan.  This Family Nightmare Is The Price Of Political Expression In China – “Daddy’s ‘Friends’ Are Actually Plainclothes Cops” ChinaFile, September 23, 2014.  http://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/viewpoint/daddys-friends-are-actually-plainclothes-cops

The Light Touch of No Government Regulation

Summer, 2011 

In the socialist economy of China, government regulation is often as derided, or ignored, as in any of the tea party fantasies coming out of prole-land or Romney-Ryanville.

A key example is elevator operation in China, particularly in the non-western oriented buildings  (meaning buildings that have Chinese oriented businesses, not buildings that don’t have a western wall on the outside).    I can’t really speak to elevator safety, or emergency situations.   I don’t inspect limit switches, or floor leveling software, or cables, or brakes.   I have seen some heat-activated floor selection buttons, which have long been a no-no in the heavily regulated US, but what I really want to talk about is elevator floor selection software.

Back in the good old days, elevator floor selection programs were one of the homework problems for simulation courses in system dynamics.    You have several floors, and varying demands for service coming from those different floors, and pretty much everyone wants to go either up or down.   But some people on one floor could have demands to go up, and others to go down.   And some demand is to go all the way down, and some demand is to go down one floor.  And you could satisfy some of the down demand by chance, as it were, if someone on an upper floor happens to want to get off on a floor where someone who wants to go down is waiting to get on.  And you can have an elevator that has satisfied all its demand, the market for elevator service has cleared, and now the elevator is free as a bird, to do as it wishes.   What should it do?   And you have limited supply of elevators.   You want to serve your customers in the least time – or some other optimization.     It actually is a fairly complicated market problem.

I have absolutely zero knowledge of current US elevator operating software.  No doubt by this time, the programs used in the US are so standard that the tweaking is about how long the doors should stay open, and the tweaking is done by some two year community college graduate in Bangalore.

But you can see the heavy hand of the government in the heavily regulated markets in the US.   Ever try to use the “door close”  button in a US elevator?   Has this button ever worked on an elevator in the US, in the last forty years?   Why do we even have this button, except as a way to frustrate people, and remind them of the heavy hand of the government in the nanny state – “no, you can not choose to close the door faster, because someone might have their feelings hurt by the automatic-safety-sensor-door hitting their purse as YOU try to close the door.”  In China, the “door close”  button works, everywhere, and it works great.

Market fundamentalism works.    Is there demand for the door to close?  Ok, close the door!   No waiting and speculating about how someone’s feelings might be hurt.   Satisfy the demand.

Now I will admit to different operating conditions in China.   There are four times the number of people as in the US, and between 8:45 and 9:00 on a weekday morning, probably half of the Chinese population is trying to get on the elevator to go to work.   And one cannot design the market system to handle the peak demands.   I mean, even at the heavily regulated parking in suburban US shopping malls, there is sometimes no place to park on those peak days before Christmas.   Sometimes, the market just does not clear in a reasonable amount of time, even with government supervision.

And perhaps my experience is unusual, having lived here for only three years and really used, repeatedly, elevators in only about four different buildings.    I can’t claim operating experience in a statistically significant sample of Chinese elevators.   So don’t treat this as a scientific study;  it is anecdotal, only.   Caveat emptor.

But in China, elevator floor selection software is clearly written with the free market in mind.    Yes, the “door close” buttons work;  but it is far more market-friendly for the elevator cab than that.   Supply makes the rules.   No wishy-washy Keynesianism for the elevator cab.    You want me to provide supply for your elevator demand?  Play by my supply rules.

I have figured out the basic operating principle for free market elevator service in China.    It is, in fact, the Marshall Field dictum – the customer is always right.   The current customer, that is.    The customer you have now, in front of you, inside the elevator, is always right; anyone pushing a button on some other floor is only a potential customer;  you don’t know when demand from that customer will just fade away, and you stop and there is no one there.   So, stick with the customer you have, and don’t worry about the future.    Short termism.     That future customer might decide to go to the bathroom while waiting, and you stop, and the demand is gone.  In the meantime, you are delaying your current customer;  don’t do that.    That potential future customer could do something else – walk up or down a floor, and not tell you, the elevator operating software, about their changed behavior; or they could decide to take the elevator in a different building, or something.    No.  Don’t respond to speculative demand.   Dance with who brung you.

US government regulation would probably require some balancing of demand, and consideration of the feelings and the waiting time of the potential customers, and more such.   So there would be more stopping, and more weighing of the demands from future customers.   Not here.

So let me tell you about getting to my regular Wednesday morning location, the architect/engineering office GA in Hangzhou.    Today was a bit unusual, but not so much.

Went to Starbucks early, got some coffee and looked at some blogs and email.  Left for GA.   It took about 20 minutes to get to the GA offices, in heavy traffic about 8:30.   Distance of the GA offices from the Starbucks, about a mile.  But, rush hour traffic,  Ok.     Traffic in China is also free market oriented, but that is another story.

Parked in the basement garage of the office building where GA is located.   Parked on the B2 level, the lower basement, since that is where the unassigned parking is.    Usually, I get to park in one of the surface spots just adjacent to the main building entry, but today, at 8:50, the parking spots outside the building were filled with people (demand) waiting to get on one of the 5 elevators (supply).    In a sign of creeping government regulation in China,  the building manager has changed the way in which elevator demand at the first floor is satisfied.    In the good old days of a few months ago, when markets ruled, the appearance of supply (an elevator door opens) meant a wild dash for the door.   A hundred people would rush the door, and the strongest and closest to the door when it opened would have their demand satisfied.   (People getting off the elevator are former customers of the elevator, so they are old news.   Screw ‘em.   They have to fight their way out from the people rushing in.   Sometimes, I think people wanting to get off just don’t make it.   Not nimble enough for the market. The same is true, of course, for people getting off the subway train.)

Now, the building management has put in red velvet line control ropes, and everyone has to queue up, one by one, to get on the next elevator.   Hence, in the good old days, with survival of the fittest demand satisfaction, all the demand could fit in the elevator lobby in tight balls of humanity.   No one dared stand more than an inch from the person in front of them, or someone would use the free market to cut into the crowd in front of you.  Now, probably with government regulation creeping in, everybody in long straight lines, the demand at the first floor spills out of the building lobby into the parking lot spaces outside, where I would normally park.

GA is on the 11th floor.   I park in the subbasement.  I have 13 floors to go.

I push the elevator button on the B2 level, and wait.   For a while.  

As an American, conditioned to regulation,  I know elevator demand is being satisfied upstairs, I should wait my turn, so some delay is unfortunately necessary.

After about ten minutes, now about 9:00, I get a stirring.   Some long hidden, free market impulse comes over me.    I can play this game.   I am going to outsmart the market.   I will walk up, not to the first floor, where demand is still heavy, but to a different floor, say the 5th floor, where I can guess that some people will be leaving, and upward demand will be pretty close to zero.    Floors 2, 3, or 4 might not be high enough to ensure that some demand will be getting off, but by the 5th floor, I am pretty confident of getting my demand satisfied.

Now that is 7 floors, but in free market China, that is not a problem for most people.  I have seen 7 and 8 floor walk up apartment buildings, so I don’t feel too bad being part of the market demand. 

At 5, I get out of the stairway, and confidently wait for the elevator to satisfy me.   And, sure enough, an up supply elevator soon stops.  Success!

But, you know, the free market isn’t free.   Even in China, there are weight limits to elevator cabs, and when the weight limit is reached, the bell rings, and the elevator won’t move until someone gets off.   And Chinese are actually rather remarkably good about the last person who gets on taking responsibility for getting off, if the elevator cab decides that she weighs a kilogram too much.  Social mores.  And the elevator cabs, knowing that they are the only source of supply, can be pretty finicky about the weight limits.

But we have to keep in mind that market for elevator service works in favor of the elevator, not the customers.   Even free markets have rules, and the rules are written by the friends of the elevator cab, not the customers.  

The pretty full elevator cab stops for me at the 5th floor, and the door opens, but no one gets off.   I try to get on, but the bell rings, and I step off.   Have to wait for more supply, later.

But sometimes, the elevator cab decides that even with no one getting on, it just seems all a bit too much, and the supply chain breaks down.   I don’t get on, but the elevator weight limit bell rings anyway, and the elevator won’t move.   So a girl who probably got on at the first floor gets off, to ease the load on the poor overworked elevator cab.   But the cab is still not happy, and the bell rings again, and the cab won’t move.   So another girl gets off, and the cab is happy, and the door closes.

We now have three of us standing on the 5th floor, waiting to go up.   It is about 9:15 by this point, but demand is still heavy.

The first girl is smart, and finds a way around the market.   She pushes the down button, and supply appears, and she and I ride down to the first floor.  Our other 5th floor companion declined to join us, and waited on 5.  At the first floor, the horde tries to get on.   But we are on the elevator, so too bad for them.   A few of them make it. 

The rest of the ride is uneventful, except on the way up, we stop at 5, for the girl who did not join us on the ride down.   She tries to get on, but the weight bell rings.   Her demand will have to wait until even later to be satisfied.    You have to be quick-witted to survive in the elevator market.

So there you have the glory of market fundamentalism.   Supply tries to satisfy demand, and the market eventually clears, but those most willing to pay, with shoulder pushes and quick wit, still have an advantage over the “queue up” government regulators.    And I now have the advantage of morning exercise, walking up seven floors.   It really is the best of all possible worlds.

Got to GA about 9:25.   Took longer to get up to the 11th floor than to drive to the building in heavy traffic.    But I am happy, because I feel I was able to outsmart the elevator floor selection software design market fundamentalists.

I can play this game.

What comes after Don’t Be Evil?

From a comment of mine in 2015 – We are in the crackdown on foreigners in China (for foreigners, one might read, Americans).  When access to the internet is largely blocked for me, even with a VPN, access for many of my German students is still good.  Perhaps spotty, perhaps needing a couple of different VPN to get around, but it works.

Google’s problems in China began in 2010, when it began redirecting searches to its Hong Kong site to get around blocking on the mainland.  After some negotiations, and fits and starts on blocking of gmail, Google chose to leave China rather than submit to censorship.  Those were the old days.  To  be fair, Google was doing some light blocking of its own at that time, and the issue as reported was the hacking of the gmail accounts of activists within China, presumably by the government.

In 2012, Bloomberg published its story about the wealth of the family of Xi Jinping, and Bloomberg was blocked a few days later, still in force (although Bloomberg is trying to get back in as well).  A couple of months later, the New York Times published its story on the family wealth of Wen Jiabao, and was then permanently blocked.     The Times remains blocked in China, although some staffers remain.  Keith Bradsher reopened the Shanghai office in 2016.

Now, in 2018, Google (formerly, the Don’t Be Evil company – the tag line was formally dropped in 2015) seeks to reenter the market in China.  A comment from Time Magazine in 2015 seems prophetic with regard to seeking new investment …

“Don’t Be Evil” had attracted its share of criticism for being ambiguous and potentially hypocritical; Alphabet’s new code of conduct might be looking to attract a new investments beyond its core search and advertising businesses, according to CNET.

… but simply wrong on potentially hypocritical.  By kowtowing (in the real former sense of the word) to the rulers in China, Google cheapens its brand while at the same time emboldening autocratic government everywhere to adopt the Chinese internet model.  Well done, Google.  It refused to lie by dropping the old byline,  now no longer seeking to not be evil.

New Google Parent Company Drops ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Motto.  Time Magazine, October 4, 2015.  End of “Don’t Be Evil”

There has been plenty of comment online and in the business press about the Google move.  Google staffers have resigned over the blatant rejection of ethics in agreeing to be censored … no, worse, to self-censor, in exchange for money from ads in China.  The article from Hackernoon cited below does a pretty good job of explaining the why – that the Google ad business was suffering as a result of no-ad software, and Google needed to generate more money.  Removal of the “don’t be evil” motto was in 2015, the same year that Apple added an app to its phone that permitted ad blocking.  Ad blocking on YouTube further ate into Google revenues. From the Hackernoon piece –

Even those who weren’t blocking ads had trained themselves to ignore them entirely. Researchers dubbed this phenomenon “banner blindness”. The average banner ad was clicked on by a dismal 0.06% of viewers, and of those clicks, roughly 50% were accidental.

Daniel Colin James. This is How Google will Collapse.  April 24, 2017.    No ads, no revenue

The Foreign Policy article below, by Susan Nossel, neatly summarizes the benefit to Russia, Iran, Egypt – authoritarian governments everywhere – from cracking down on openness.  Google needs revenue.  A few tweaks to software, and markets open.  For the governments, wait a while, and business will come crawling back in search of profits.  Marx does seem to be right about the rope.

Suzanne Nossel.  Google Is Handing the Future of the Internet to China. Foreign Policy, September 11, 2018.  available online from Medium – Google’s timely dropping of “Don’t Be Evil”

American History, and a Memorial

October, 2010 

When Rob Mier died, in 1995, a good part of the national progressive community, in academia and neighborhoods, felt the loss.   Rob was not simply an academic – professor of urban planning and policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and head of the Center for Urban Economic Development, a research unit in public policy and community development.    “Not simply” because other teachers, at other schools, could match his academic pedigree.   But Rob was … more.   He was a professional engineer (a piece of his past that he used to great advantage in meetings and negotiations with government planning officials) and had a passion for activism in community development.   Theory, yes, but always balanced with real community action. 

He was also a rugby player, and that is where Rob and I met, playing for the Chicago Lions.   Several of us spoke at Rob’s life celebration, and I pointed out that his own memories of his own rugby exploits never quite seemed to match our own memories of his exploits, but I put that down to his continuing passion for life. 

Passion in Rob was not of the fire-breathing variety.   He was quiet, not physically imposing, and I never remember his voice rising much above conversation level.   But he had a passion for truth, and social justice, and he used his engineering and academic training to help promote better services, better economic conditions, better communications, and better lives for people in neighborhoods in Chicago. 

Rob used the standard Saul Alinsky model in thinking about organizing people in communities, although our work at the Center for Urban Economic Development was more technical and research support than it was activism in organizing.   We considered a lot of the techniques that a young Barack Obama must have used in community organizing in Chicago, including democratic management, worker coops, and community control of resources. 

Because of Rob and others at UIC, the department was known nationally as a locus of research and practice in community economic development and organizing people to take charge and solve their own problems.

Rob and I had similar credentials, although he was far more of an academic than I.   Both engineers, both interested in Chicago neighborhoods, both interested in bringing more sophisticated tools to  community development than simply organizing and arranging meetings.

He was about six or seven years older than me, and I considered him something of a mentor.

At Zhejiang University of Science and Technology, the international business program is taught all in English.  Students are mostly Chinese, with a few foreigners scattered in from time to time.   My courses, in economics and negotiation, fit pretty well with my background.   But in 2009, the ZUST civil engineering program opened its own international program, with promise of a degree from an American university (San Francisco State) for successful transfer students who could first demonstrate proficiency in American style courses.   Hence, the strange offering – the civil engineering program at ZUST was offering a one semester course in American History Since 1865 (to be followed by a course in American Politics).   If students could do well in those courses, then they might demonstrate some ability to do American university level  work.  There really was no one else at the school remotely qualified to teach this course.   I was less remote than anyone else.

International cooperation programs at Chinese universities can be tough to put together.   After all the usual difficulties in negotiation between schools, the reality on the ground can be daunting for a Chinese administration, accustomed to docile students and being in control of students’ academic and personal lives. 

A fundamental problem when foreign students arrive at the campus is that they are not Chinese.   In our case, they are from ten different countries in Africa, and about half a dozen different countries in Asia, plus India and Indonesia.   They arrive knowing nothing of Chinese culture, or language, and for most it is their first time away from parents and their own sense of restrictions.

The  international program in civil engineering is 20 Chinese students, 19 foreigners. 

A key requirement for entry to ZUST is that the foreign students know English.   And their English level is pretty good.   But there is no Chinese language requirement for admittance.   Should not be a problem, since all courses are supposed to be taught in English.  

But the foreign students are not Chinese, and the usual Chinese university administration way of addressing – or, not addressing – student concerns and complaints does not work so well.   There are a lot of complaints – Chinese students about the foreigners, foreign students about Chinese, both Chinese and foreign students about certain teachers and administrative practices.

Communication between the administration and foreign students is terrible.  That is partly Chinese cultural practice, partly lack of willingness to accommodate to the foreigners.   Students do not get university advises about days off from school, makeup classes, or schedule changes.  They must get that from their classmates, ad hoc.

Chinese students complain that foreign students get special treatment.  This is true, up to a point.   Foreign students get to leave the classroom early, not show up for class, and are still allowed to sit for exams.  Not true for Chinese.

Foreign students complain that Chinese students get special treatment.    Classes are supposed to be taught in English, but every now and then, or maybe more often, teachers slip into the vernacular when discussing chemistry, or physics, or mechanics.    Books are in English, but not all the teachers are fluent.   And the Chinese students are on their home turf, and can look thing up easily online. 

Most of the Chinese engineering students study hard.   They are jealous of the foreign students who make time to party.   The foreign students complain that the Chinese students are boring, don’t want to participate in events with them, and don’t help them study.   Chinese students complain that the foreign students always want help, when the Chinese students are working hard to understand the material themselves.

This is all on top of the usual cultural differences – Chinese as more quiet, less demonstrative, less vocal, less willing to point fingers and complain openly.   For the foreign students, particularly some of the students from Africa, such practices are cultural.   Not to mention the usual college age sexual tensions, which for the Chinese students must go absolutely unexpressed.

These students are now second year students, and they take all their classes together, so they know each other now.   The benefits and costs of being together are well known.  The complaints are well known.   The enemies are well known – mostly the university administration, but the group tensions are understood, even if unexpressed, at least by the Chinese. 

So here they are, second year students in a four year program, no one quite knew what they were getting into at the beginning, the carrot is the potential to go abroad for the last two years of school, or at least get a better and more diverse education than by not being together, but the sense of unfairness and, by now, helplessness, is palpable.   They are together, come what may, for the next two and a half years.   The foreign students could choose to leave, but a Chinese university is far cheaper than any other foreign alternative, and the education is better than staying at home in Africa, so they stay.   The Chinese students don’t really have the option of changing universities.   The foreign students have limited options in finding another English language engineering program in China.

The 39 of them are like sailors on a life raft – none of them wants to be quite where they are, they can see where they came from, but they can’t quite imagine how to change their situation.   Nobody wants to be the captain of the life raft.   Everybody wants to complain the raft is not going anywhere.   No one wants to pull the oars, let alone pull in one direction.

The foreign students have certainly been vocal in their complaints to the university administration.   ZUST is new at this international program business, and they certainly have a long way to go in understanding how to run one effectively.  But that doesn’t change the validity of some of the student complaints.   A poorly run program is not their fault. 

And there is nothing in Chinese culture that encourages swift and sympathetic response to complaint, particularly insistent complaint, really particularly by those lower in the hierarchy, especially by foreigners.   Both the Chinese students and the foreign students would be better off talking to a wall than to the university administration.

I have had some of my own complaints, about students.   Foreign students who do not show up for class, who leave early, who do no work.  This creates bad morale in my class, to say nothing of what it does generally among the Chinese sailors on the raft.   From what I have heard, some foreign students have received special treatment in other classes, and I don’t want to do that in mine.  

This is a class in American History Since 1865.   We are up to the Progressive Era.  We have discussed a lot of difficult elements of American history – slavery, reconstruction, black codes, Indian genocide, Chinese exclusion acts, segregation, union busting, government sympathy toward business in labor-business conflict, strikes, strike violence, factory conditions and living conditions.   We are using the standard textbook by Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty!, which emphasizes the long and difficult process of gaining liberty, the changing definitions of freedom, and who is entitled to the benefits of freedom.   America as a work in progress.   We have discussed labor organizing, and community organizing against unethical business practices, and farm organizations, and women’s rights organizations.   Given the time constraints, all pretty academic and abstract. 

I wanted a meeting with students to discuss expectations.   The university administration eagerly supported  that idea, I think because they knew more than I about the undercurrents.   The mechanics teacher would be at the meeting also, because she had some issues of her own to address, or she was there as moral support for me, or to watch me and report back to the administration. 

The meeting was last night, to start half an hour before my American history class, and given the nature of the discussions, I was willing to let the meeting go into scheduled class time if needed.  

The students actually had an agenda.   First up was an election.  The class leader, one of the girls in the class, had decided to resign, citing her work load.   Four of the 20 Chinese students gave little electioneering speeches, running for the vacant student leader job.   Voting was immediate, using a simple majority system.  No complicated, pairwise comparisons of candidates, A, B, C, and D.   We assumed transitivity of preferences, and consistent policy formulations among both candidates and voters.   I mean, really, it was just a student leader election.   Worry about Kenneth Arrow would have to wait for graduate school.

I expected the bulk of the agenda to be about me, or my class.  Too much work, not relevant to engineering, why are we doing this.  I was prepared with some Concept of the University comments, and community of scholars, and some future-job-prospect comments about the need for softer skills in management, and public speaking, and writing, and negotiation.

What happened was quite a surprise.

No one seemed to have particular complaints about my class.  Too much work, but ok.   In this group of students, there is no natural student leader.   Chinese students are accustomed to being told what to do, the foreign students want things done for them.   Everyone is happy to complain.

One student began talking about a problem, and another answered, but quickly the meeting descended into everybody shouting and talking with each other.   As  the teacher, I took it upon myself to exercise some control over the process.   One person talks, everybody listens.  

I suggested that there were a lot of tensions between students, not only students with the administration.   And, I suggested, unless they could talk about those tensions with each other, it would be easy for the administration to do nothing about any of their complaints.   They needed to speak with a single voice, and a unified approach.

We had some good airing of foreign and Chinese tensions.  Everyone acknowledged the problems.   No solutions, but some clearing of the air. 

But many issues, some easy to solve, some nothing, some more difficult. 

I said, “You have a lot of issues.  Too many.  Can you find one thing to work on?” 

All the students had complaints about the chemistry teacher.   Her English is poor, and even her Chinese manner of speaking is difficult for Chinese to understand.   All the students see big problems in this course.

We had a good fifteen or twenty minutes of complaints, about many things, but always coming back to chemistry.   Some of the foreign students wanted to strike.  Tell the administration that they would not come to class, until the teacher was changed.   I suggested that might not be a useful strategy. 

We are in the middle of the semester.   The students, even Chinese students, have been vocal about the need to change the teacher – now.  The students really could not imagine how little credence such a demand is given by the administration, in the middle of the semester, with a teacher who has a contract, teaching chemistry in a foreign language for, probably, not very much money.

But the demands continued last night.

After a while, it got boring.  It was clear to me that the administration had no desire to suddenly change teachers – it was not as if the chemistry department was loaded with extra English speaking teachers who wanted to take over a course mid-semester.

I told the students that.   Several times.   The chemistry class meets once a week, on Thursday.   I asked the students, you have no chance of changing teachers now.   What are you going to do to solve the problem?

“Change the teacher.”

“Not going to happen.  What are you going to do, Thursday?”

Nothing.

“How about if you do as I do in my negotiation class?  Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, I stop talking and ask the student leader to translate for the boys in the back of the classroom.  That seems to work pretty well.”

“It will take too long.  Class won’t cover the material.   Chinese students cannot always understand her.”

“Ok.  How about if you put your cell phone next to the lectern, and record the teacher’s voice?  Then you can replay it, as you wish.”

“Too slow, too much time, won’t get everything.  And when she slips into Chinese, does the foreign students no good.”

“Ok.  How about asking her to repeat, or slow down?”

“If she slows down in Chinese, what good?”

“Ok.  There are an infinite number of ways to solve any problem.   All you have to do is find one of them.   But the school is not going to solve this for you.   What are you going to do to solve this problem?    What are You going to do to solve this?” 

Nothing.   “You are going to be together for the next two and a half years.   You can have that be a good experience, or you can have meetings like this every week.   What do you want?”

Nothing.

“Ok.  Here is what you are going to do.  You are going to call the chemistry department at Zhejiang University (the big national university, about 45 minutes away, also called Zheda) and find a student, a Ph.D. student, or a Master’s degree student, or somebody, who knows chemistry and speaks English.   And you, all of you, are going to pay for that student to come here once a week and sit in the class and translate and interpret.”

“What?   We should pay money?   The school should do that.”

“The school will not do that.  You are going to pay, all of you, there are 40 of you, about 1 yuan a week to get some help.”

Grumbles and some recognition.

I pointed to one of the foreign students, who is a little plump.   “And 1 yuan per week is not going to force any of you to starve.”   A little humor helped.

“How do you find the phone number for the chemistry department at Zheda?

“dial 114.”

“Do it.  Now.”   Incredulous looks.  “Now?”   “Now.”   Got the number.   “Department is closed.”  

“Ok.  Tomorrow, you (the new student leader, and the foreign student leader) are going to go to Zheda, and find a student.   Understood?   Agreed?”

“If you can solve this one problem together, the maybe you can talk about problem number 2.  And then 3.   But right now, together, all of you, solve this one.”  

The group broke up into a dozen little meetings, and I moved from group to group, telling them repeatedly, “You have to solve this.  1 yuan each.  Solve the problem.”  

All agreed.   It was a breakthrough.  I think none of them had ever had the idea of solving their own problems before, certainly not through group action.   Certainly not by making the student leaders act like leaders.  The meeting did not break up until almost 9:00. 

We never got to the Progressive Era chapter.   But I think Rob Mier would be proud of me.   And maybe I taught a little American history after all.

https://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/40520

https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/hony-my-father/Content?oid=898033

Firemen are Firemen …

even in China …          Spring, 2011 

… although they are members of a national service, run out of Beijing, not by local governments.  So that is the reason for the army guys, not the police, doing traffic control when the local fire brigade ran through some training exercises yesterday.   But firemen are, down deep inside, guys, and high school guys at that.   So part of the training is a run, about 100 meters, with hose and connections.  At the end of the run, they have to hook up the hoses and put out a small electrical fire.  The water was already hooked up to a small pump, and came from our on-campus lake.

So at the signal, everybody took off from the starting line, just as if they were doing wind sprints at the end of football practice, and of course there was a big yell at the signal, and complaining during the run that somebody got a head start, and one guy dropped the hose at the signal, so he had to run again while everybody else laughed and watched him. 

The pumper is equipped with axes and sledges and pry bars and lots of hose.  You can see the cannon on top.  I think it is thoughtful of them to put the words on the truck door in both Chinese and English.   Otherwise, who would know?

 

A short time later, the fire department (different truck, though) came to do a fire rescue demonstration, or practice, at the school.   The concept was to rescue people from a burning or smoke filled room by letting them jump into an air cushion.  

All worked perfectly. The firemen got the cushion out and in place quickly.  The students who chose to jump, though – took them a while to get up the nerve.  I presume an actual emergency would act as a greater incentive.

 

Don’t think I have ever seen this practiced in the US.  And the likelihood of needing this assistance is low in China, where buildings are all concrete, except for some doors on classrooms,  and there is no wood or fabric in the school buildings, and no heat or air conditioning or even mechanical ventilation to cause smoke from a burned out motor.

Update on the Occupation in Hangzhou

 The G20 in the Potemkin Village           September 2, 2016

First off, let us stipulate –

  • It is vitally important for a nation to ensure security during the G20. National leaders will be present, en mass.  With terrorism threats salient everywhere, China wants to show off its prowess as a new member of the elite club.  In Hangzhou, terrorists and protesters,  ils ne passeront pas!
  • At the same time, China shows the major democracies, all of which are G20 members, and the world, that there are ways to ensure stability and harmony. No Seattle 1999 here!   Chinese soft power in action. 

 
The question for the G20 members, all of whom are seeing a Potemkin village Hangzhou, is what cost for stability.

One expects some concessions in time and convenience for a meeting of world leaders.  But perhaps the concessions go too far.

There are “checkpoint Charlie” locations everywhere going into the downtown districts.  All vehicles must stop to be checked, registered, and if desired, searched.  The checkpoints are at major arterial streets going toward downtown, generally 30 to 45 minutes driving time from Xihu, West Lake, the focal point of all directions in downtown Hangzhou.

On the way to the train station this morning, it only took me 5 minutes to get through checkpoint, at 5 am.  I left an hour early, anticipating longer delay.

But I had to get out of the car, go into the special police station built just for this purpose (construction started more than a year ago, and I wondered what this was for; now I know) and have police check my papers.   Took about 4 minutes.   But now imagine this checkpoint, with only two checking lanes, and every car has to stop for at least a minute, to have someone write down license plate number, check the hukou registration of the driver, and check the driver’s license against records.   Put this system on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, or the Holland Tunnel in New York, 24 hours a day for two weeks.  Imagine the back ups at rush hour – could you imagine sitting in the line for an hour and a half?  two hours?   That is what people have to do here.  And, like the movie, No Way Out – there is no other way to get most places of business in Hangzhou, or the train station, or the airport, without going through one of these checkpoint Charlies.  

This checkpoint, and others at the train stations and airport, even at some school entrances, look like an occupying army has swept down.   More police than you can imagine, at any one location – two policemen every twenty yards, for two hundred yards or so, standing both sides of the access ramp, driving up to the train station dropoff;  plenty more policemen in the drop off zone, some with heavy body armor and weapons.   Inside the train station, a police lookout station, built just for the G20, with an armed guard surveying the train station masses.   Special luggage search lines, not only to get into the train station, but also to get out of the station.   Ticket and passport inspection, not only to get into the train station, but also to get out of the station.  

I posted before that there were very few taxis available on the streets in Hangzhou.  That is because most Hangzhou taxis have been allocated to the train stations and airport, and wherever the G20 people are staying.  It has never been easier to get a taxi at the train station in Hangzhou.  No line of people waiting.   Dozens of taxis in line waiting for customers.  

There are luggage checks on the buses and on the subways.  I cannot verify that myself – only reports, and in this environment, no reason to doubt.

Factories are closed in the districts of the city.  All construction has ceased in Hangzhou.  This applies only to the districts, not the outlying counties, where I think I saw some construction going on from the train.   But that means no one is working on construction projects at all for miles from downtown.  

There are absolutely no trucks on the streets at all – not last night at 8:30, not this morning at 5 am, not this afternoon at 1:30.   That means no deliveries of any kind.  I will say it again – no trucks at all.   Our main grocery store seems supplied, as of Saturday morning.  There is meat in the display cases, although I think less than usual.  I am going to bet that the stores will be running out starting today, and the G20 meetings are all next week.  

Thousands of businesses are closed.  From my looking, it is not clear what determines whether a business is open or not.  It feels a bit like after a tornado – only rumors, no information –

 “Is the bank open?”  
– “No, but maybe the branch across town.”
“is the mobile phone store open?”
– “No, all closed.  But I heard they might be open next weekend.”

For tens, perhaps hundreds, of  thousands of people, it is a two week forced vacation, but no place to go.   Locals are barred from many of the places they might want to go, like restaurants near Xihu, the big lake.  A permit is required to go anywhere close to downtown.

The Hangzhou government has encouraged residents to leave Hangzhou, to visit nearby places a few hours drive or train ride – “go anywhere, just go.” 

Even the streets outside downtown have a desolate feeling, like a highly selective neutron bomb went off.  Buildings are all there, but maybe 5% of the normal population walking around.  At 1:30 in the afternoon, driving back from the train station, the traffic on Tianmushan Road, a big 8 or 10 lane road (somewhat akin to Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive in local prestige) was less in volume than it would be at 1:30 in the morning.   No trucks at all.   Only a few buses.  Almost no one riding a bicycle, or a motorbike.

Buses are normally crowded, standing room crowded, any time of the day or night.  Even with substantially fewer buses operating, they are not crowded – score one for good planning by the transportation department.  Everyone gets a seat, when normally, almost everyone would be standing.   Looks like bus service in the suburbs.

I don’t know how the word has gotten out to business owners, and to bike riders.   But it is absolutely eerie.   Most hotels are closed, except for those serving G20 participants.   I drove by restaurants I have been to, and banks I have been in, and stores I went to.  All shuttered. 

Police, some armed, most not, are everywhere.  As I mentioned before, all schools are closed, with no one allowed in or out, except for a special few.   All foreign students were told to leave Hangzhou, and universities will open for classes two weeks later than usual.  At my school, foreign teachers who live on campus were relocated, with all their belongings, to a different building.  At one school entrance, where there would normally be hundreds of students and many cars and bicycles and motorbikes, there were ten policemen, a couple heavily armed.   Some school entrances have concrete barricades in front of entrances, in addition to the locked gates.

In the last month, police went to every apartment in our residential development, checking hukou for Chinese and looking for foreigners.  I was in Chicago, but they came looking for me two or three times.

On the streets, police are stopping people on bikes and people walking, checking ID.  This is not near any G20 events – at least ten miles from any event.

Every bus stop – every bus stop –  has a couple of volunteer assistants, standing all day in the sun, with bright red hats and vests,  ostensibly to help any G20 participants who might (a) be on a bus; (b) not be accompanied by a guide: (c) want to go exploring in the neighborhoods; and (d) might somehow need instructions.   The instructions are to report anything out of the ordinary to police.  Every bus has an assistant, as well.

It is an occupying army of police and chengguan (chengguan are the non-uniformed unofficial police, who serve as thugs as needed).   The city is in shutdown mode, except, I guess, where the G20 events are and the participants will be staying.   I don’t have a permit to get near downtown, but I know the streets are clean, the taxis are plentiful, there is no traffic other than G20 traffic, no noise from construction or trucks, no emissions from factories, the hundreds of girls serving as waitstaff are well-dressed and pretty and helpful, and there is no one on the street, for miles around, to take pictures, much less hold up a sign. 

But G20 promotion signs are everywhere, hung from metal posts on the sides of the major streets – “Hangzhou – A Good Host, A Better G20”   In the train station, the new cars on display have a G20 logo on the sides.   Buses all have a G20 promotion on their sides, as well.

Hangzhou and Zhejiang provincial government employees have the script down pretty well – “No trucks?  I am enjoying driving now.  It is so pleasant.”   Heard that from a couple of  friends.

All online searches in Hangzhou are blocked.  I was going to look at Hangzhou Expat, a site that would have other information about the gross government panic we are witnessing in preparation for the G20, but that is blocked.   A search for Hangzhou is blocked; also baseball and Chicago.

Selective internet blocking is a specialty here, so it is no surprise that the hundreds of journalists will have no trouble filing stories, as long as they remain within the village. 

In the train station in Shanghai, I could get some internet searches.   I found a little of the discussion in Hangzhou Expat.  Posts ended in early August.  I don’t know if Hangzhou Expat has been blocked since then, or not.   You see how rumor replaces information, when rumor is all you’ve got and you can’t evaluate the source.

Local TV has foreign journalists praising the organization of the Potemkin village, announcing that based on what they have seen, the G20 will be great for Hangzhou tourism and spending.  A young journalist from Africa expressed hope that China would bring investment to her country.   The foreign journalists interviewed all look earnest, well-scrubbed, and well under 30.

 At opening meetings of the B20, a business meeting in conjunction with the G, Xi Jinping walked out to address the foreigners come to pay tribute, Xi walking out to trumpet blasts announcing the emperor.  Applause was perfunctory.  No ovations.

One can learn from the history of Chinese GDP statistics, customarily announced publicly before the data could all be collected.  Two days before world leaders begin arriving,  I am announcing that the G20 will be a great triumph for Hangzhou and for China. 

Hangzhou is pretty, and modern.  Right now, not so bustling.  And not so good for business, or people’s incomes.  But no personal sacrifices are too great for the greater good of the state.  The world can learn from China.

Next meeting should be in North Korea.  Same safety, same theatrical sets, less expense. 

Alice

June, 2010 

Anybody in Chicago who has met Alice Zhou Xiaofang remembers her.  She is the number 2 government person in the urban planning department in Shaoxing, but she is a mayoral advisor and all-around whip smart, dedicated, open, public servant.  Who asks questions and tells you what she thinks.  Who is also an electrical engineer and knit me the blue scarf I wore all last winter.   I was in Shaoxing to look at another ancient town, called An Chang, which is on both sides of a narrow waterway on the outskirts of Shaoxing.   It is now surrounded by modern buildings and cars and development, but some of the old town still remains.  Old, in this case, is late Ming-early Qing dynasties, which puts the buildings at about 400 years old.   This is based on fading inscriptions in stone, and on what I am told by Alice and others.

There may be some George Washington’s hand ax element to this, since wood exposed to the weather doesn’t normally last for 400 years.  (Those who don’t know the George Washington story are encouraged to ask Rob Clarke).   But there is no doubt about the style of buildings, and that what is there is pretty old.   Even the residents.

You know that the government owns all the land in China, except for farmer land, and it is convenient to think of the government as the Big Landlord.   Everybody, from government agencies to big factories to apartment dwellers, is on a month-to-month lease.   When the landlord wants the property for some other use, there isn’t really much room for discussion.  There is compensation for moving, and it doesn’t happen overnight or in 30 days, but when the decision is taken, there is no running to tenant court to fight it.

So our group of about seven people wandering around the old town, looking at preservation and tourism promotion possibilities, had no problem wandering into people’s houses or businesses, just to have a look.   Sometimes I think this must have been arranged before hand, so we could just march in unannounced, but then I think maybe not.

We wandered into one particularly old housing unit, in the middle of another of the rabbit warren of extended family compounds.   As in most others I have seen, there are several rooms located around a center courtyard, which in this case was about 8 feet by 15 feet, with an ozmanthus tree and their well for drinking water.   The ozmanthus blooms in the fall, and smells really sweet.   Really like perfume.   In some of these older buildings, that is a welcome addition.

“Rooms” is really not correct.  These are openings, usually with not much of a fourth wall, from a walkway.  Uses are mixed- bedroom, living room, storage, workspace, kitchen, everything piled into corners and on top of other things and giving the impression that some of the piles have not been touched in a hundred years, except for the TV, which is usually not too new itself.   For those of you who have spent time in cubicle land, or in corporate private office land, think of what life would be like if there were no real fourth wall to separate you from the hallway, and you lived permanently in the office or cubicle.   For your life.  And your family has lived in the same space, next to other extended family spaces, for generations.

In our current example, I was told by the great grandmother, who got me, the foreigner, a chair to sit on (imagine what that does to one’s virile image)  that her grandfather built the compound.   The great grandmother was the picture of a very old Chinese lady.  You can imagine, but my guess would put her at probably 80 or 90 years old.

The question was what will happen to the space when the old lady passes on, and the grandmother chooses to move in with her daughter?  The great granddaughter was there, having lunch, in a space where she grew up or spent a lot of time when she was a kid.  Her age now, about 18.   She was dressed like any teenager, and she looked so out of place with her t-shirt and necklace it was clear that she had no interest in inheriting this space.   She might not have been going to college, but she was going to be living in the city, somewhere, in an apartment.   She was as far away from this space as any US immigrant is from the old country.

So we talked with the family for a few minutes, and inspected the well, and looked at another piece of intricately carved wood that had been saved from the local misguided youth during the Cultural Revolution.   I told you about the locals putting heavy mud or concrete over the carvings in Huatang ancient village, to keep them from the Red Guards who were out to destroy anything old or deemed culturally significant, especially if it reminded anyone of Europeans or emperors.   In this case, the family took the wood piece apart from its place as a lintel, and stored it above the doorway hidden by clothes and cloth coverings.

When we were through inspecting, we thanked everybody and left, and the family went back to their lives.   No knock on the door to enter, no leaving business cards when we left.  Everyone completely cordial and feeling comfortable with the situation (except maybe me, but I am getting used to it now).   Like walking into and out of a shoe store.

Accompanying Alice and me and the group was the actual honored guest of the day, Alistair Morrison.    He is a Scottish expat, who taught for many years at Purdue.   He is still sort of on the faculty at Purdue, as distinguished professor and assistant dean in the Hotel and Hospitality College.  He has moved to China, and has a three year old business doing tourism promotion work for provincial and local governments here.   He lives in Shanghai, and was joining us for a couple of reasons.  He has done some work for Shaoxing on tourism promotion, so he and Alice were discussing that, and there is the customary interest in how to make the An Chang old town appealing to foreign tourists, as a way of bringing in money when the preservation work is complete.   So he and Alice were talking about that as well.

Morrison seems like a good guy, and we talked while walking and later about many things.   But at the moment, he was the featured guest, so he got to sit next to the number 1 at lunch, with Alice next to him and me next to Alice.

The seating arrangements at lunch and dinner are always important, even when you think they might not be.   The number 1 seat at lunch was the mayor of Shaoxing County.  This is the seat furthest from the doorway at the big round table.   He was buying, so Morrison sat next to him on the left.    The real actual number 1 came in a little late, as befits his status.  This was the Party chief for Shaoxing County, and he sat to the mayor’s right.

To the right of the Party chief were four businessmen, I think all from one textile factory in Shaoxing.   They were doing okay, I guess, although the economic changes have been hell on the textile business in China and in Shaoxing, which is their claim to specialty.   But they were interested in doing some real estate development in Shaoxing, and they wanted to test the waters with the mayor and the Party leader.  Not so unlike doing real estate development in Chicago.

So that is what Alice was doing at lunch with this crew.  Alice works for the City of Shaoxing, not for the smaller County, so in CCP hierarchy her job is bigger than that of the mayor or the Party guy.   Her Chinaman, as in the old Chicago phrase for one’s benefactor, is bigger.  So Alice was there, as the No. 2 government official in the City planning department, to tell the businessowners what she thought.

Lunch was eleven of us around the big table.  The usual toasts of everyone to everyone else, and in my case it was mostly get the attention of the intended toastee, get up, say a few words in English or Chinese, mostly thank you, and drink up.   That is fine, and everyone understands.   You have to keep in mind that the Chinese generally don’t drink anything with meals except tea.  No ordering a Coke or orange juice.   And one can sip tea whenever one wants at lunch, but it is less refreshing than the chosen form of alcohol.  So the toasts are a way to get some liquid refreshment during lunch, and frequent toasts are a form of medicinal treatment, to keep from having a throat so dry that you cough on your next crab claw or vegetable dish.   That is not what Alice told me, but that is my story.

After a couple of hours, we got through most of the toasts and the small talk and preservation and tourism and buttering up the leaders and the question of real estate development came up.   Alice was masterful.  She began talking, in a no-nonsense way, but she held forth.   In a room of eleven people, Alice the only woman, she probably made point after point, from intellectual to practical to economic to good of the city and the nation.   I didn’t get any of it, of course, but she held the floor, without any objections or questions or anyone excusing themselves to go to the bathroom, for well over an hour.   Everyone sat up and paid attention.  No one smoked or drank.  I don’t think anyone coughed.

She told me later that she suggested the business owners not do the real estate development.  Too much overbuilding right now, and for the property they want to develop the government already has other plans.   She may get overruled, and the mayor and Party guy might be able to do that, but that is the nature of guanxi and pushing against each other in the rush to make money and a name for oneself.   But everybody wanted to hear what she had to say, and she told them.   And that is why I like Alice.