Shen Yun is Falun Gong!

The Italian public will soon be able to admire the famous show “Shen Yun – China before Communism”, on tour in various locations of the peninsula between May and June 2022.

This is the presentation of the show on the website of the Arcimboldi Theatre in Milan:
Shen Yun represents Chinese culture as it was before it was destroyed by decades of communism. For five thousand years, China had been home to a deeply spiritual culture that treasured virtue, kindness, loyalty and integrity. But when the Communist Party of China came to power in 1949, the first thing it did was to erase traditional Chinese culture, its values and beauty.
Based in New York, Shen Yun Performing Arts is bringing this lost world back to life. Five thousand years of civilisation are reborn.

The acclaimed music and dance show was born in New York in 2006, it was taken for the first time on tour in 2007 and today there are six Shen Yun companies touring the world.
The company’s site is located in New York State, Orange County, in the huge (1.73 sq km) Dragon Springs residential complex, which is the headquarters of Falun Gong (aka Falun Dafa), registered in the US as a Buddhist church, which in addition to the Shen Yun location, includes an orphanage, schools and temples.

What is Falun Gong aka Falun Dafa?
Falun Gong, founded in May 1992 by Li Hongzhi, was born as a spiritual movement that combined the traditional Chinese practice of qigong with the apocalyptic teachings of its founder and absolute master, as illustrated in his books Zhuan Falun and Falun Gong.

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October 16, 2023

THE GOVERNMENT TO THE TEST OF THE PANDEMIC The Chinese Toolkit II

In this report we briefly examine China’s administrative tools, i.e. the role of the government and the CPC. We use pandemic management as a case study to analyse the relationship between government and citizens in China compared to US-led Western countries.
We believe it can provide challenging food for thought, involving the level of accountability of policy makers in their respective countries.

As enshrined in article 85 of the Constitution, “The State Council of the People’s Republic of China, namely the Central People’s Government, is the executive organ of the highest state organ of power; it is the highest state administrative organ”.
The Council of State, chaired by the premier, who is currently Li Keqiang, is formed, in addition to the various ministries (部; bù), by some commissions, (委员会; wěiyuánhuì, including Reforms and Development, Ethnic Affairs, Health), the People’s Bank of China (the central bank) and the National Audit Office.

“Liberal democracies” are based on the separation between the legislative, executive and judicial branches, and are supposedly set up with checks and balances, but this principle does not apply in the People’s Republic of China, where, if a tripartite system separates supervisory, administrative and judicial powers, they all fall under the aegis of the NPC (National People’s Congress), which itself is under the leadership of the Party Central Committee.
The National People’s Congress oversees the operations of the government, Supreme Court and Procuratorate, special committees, and elects the highest officials of the State.

All institutions, including the government, the courts and the defence, include structures that link them organically to the Communist Party. In the words of President Xi, “Government, the military society and schools, north, south, east and west – the party leads them all.”

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October 16, 2023

CHINA IS NOT A DEMOCRACY… OR IS IT? The Chinese Toolkit

On December 4, 2021, the State Council of China published a white paper on the Chinese political system entitled Democracy that Works. It opens like this:
Peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy, and freedom are common values of humanity. Democracy is not a prerogative of a certain country or a group of countries, but a universal right of all peoples. It can be realized in multiple ways, and no model can fit all countries… Ultimately, it relies on the support of the people and will be proven by its contribution to human progress.
Therefore, a basic criterion of democracy should be about the people, i.e. whether the people have the right to govern their country, whether their needs are met, and whether they have a sense of fulfillment and happiness. If the people are only awakened when casting their votes and sent back to hibernation when voting is over, if they are served with sweet-sounding slogans in campaigns but have no say after the election, if they are wooed during canvassing but left out in the cold after that, this is not a genuine democracy.”
Is the level of people’s satisfaction really the fundamental criterion for judging the degree of democracy of a political system? In this case, we should undoubtedly conclude that not only is China a democracy, but that it also functions better than many others, judging by the results of the study carried out by Harvard University between 2003 and 2016, which showed a constant growth of the degree of appreciation among the Chinese, reaching a level of over 90 percent of citizens happy with their government.

It is up to Chinese citizens, not to us, to evaluate or modify the political system of China. For our part, however, we can no longer afford to ignore the People’s Republic of China or rely on an artfully manipulated and distorted image of it, which prevents us from understanding how it went from being the 11th poorest country in the world when it was founded in 1949, to the second world power it is currently.

How does the PRC really work? What democratic tools has it developed in the course of its recent history?

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October 16, 2023

CHINA’S WAR ON POVERTY

In May 2020, PBS, a US public broadcaster, aired “China’s War on Poverty”, a documentary film co-produced with CGTN (Chinese State Television). A few days later, Daily Caller, a right-wing news website, accused the documentary of being “pro-Beijing”. After Fox News followed suit, PBS removed the film from its network.
According to Robert L. Kuhn, the producer of the film, the eradication of poverty in China ought to be known instead by everybody, owing to the relevance it bears for the entire planet.
It is undoubtedly the story of a huge success of China’s, therefore it is no surprise that the western media and political establishment does not want it to be known and autonomously evaluated across our “free” world, whose citizens are kept carefully sheltered from any positive news about the Asian power.
The film can still be watched on CGTN YouTube channel at this link.
Here we will try to illustrate how the PRC managed to eradicate extreme poverty ten years ahead of the schedule set out in the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

In 2000, all UN member states committed to achieve eight development goals by the year 2015, the so-called Millennium Development Goals, the first of which was to halve the number of people living in poverty. Whereas China managed to achieve the goal by 2015, other countries did not. Thus in 2015 the commitments were reaffirmed in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity announcing seventeen Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved by 2030, the first and foremost of which was “to end poverty”.

On February 25th, 2021, ten years ahead of the deadline set in Agenda 2030, the Chinese government declared that China had achieved the goal of eradicating extreme poverty. Being home to nearly one fifth of the world’s population, China alone had succeeded in reducing the world’s poverty-stricken population by over 70 percent. A milestone in the history not only of China, but of the whole of humanity.

How did they manage to complete such a painstaking colossal undertaking? – “act as an embroiderer approaching an intricate design”, president Xi urged the government of a rural village in Hunan in 2013.

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October 16, 2023

Arruolato anche il film “Dune” nella guerra di propaganda contro la Cina

Parte essenziale della guerra ibrida lanciata contro la Cina da USA & friends è la propaganda, per cui si sono stanziate grosse cifre nel budget federale.
Il campo di battaglia della guerra di propaganda, di cui non siamo spesso consapevoli, sono le nostre menti e i nostri cuori. Un piccolo studio di caso, volutamente al di fuori dei temi centrali utilizzati nella propaganda anti-cinese, può aiutare a comprenderne i meccanismi.

Ottobre 2021:
Winston Sterzel & Matthew Tye, due popolari youtubers violentemente anticinesi, denunciano che nei poster cinesi del nuovo film Dune non compare l’immagine dell’attrice di colore Sharon Duncan-Brewster, a differenza dei poster utilizzati in Occidente. Motivo? Il pubblico cinese avrebbe un odio così viscerale nei confronti delle persone di colore che l’immagine potrebbe pregiudicare l’affluenza del pubblico nelle sale.
Una brevissima ricerca su Baidu, il corrispettivo cinese di Google, rivela che in realtà varie immagini del poster di Dune sono disponibili in Cina, con e senza Duncan-Brewster, e che il poster incriminato in realtà non è cinese ma uno dei tanti rilasciati dalla casa cinematografica stessa. Il video viene presto contestato da molti.
Il giorno dopo l’uscita del video anti-cinese, China Africa Project, che si autodefinisce un canale multimedia di ricerca sui rapporti fra Cina e Africa, riporta l’accusa di Sterzel e Tye in un tweet che viene immediatamente ritwittato più volte. Dopo uno scambio di messaggi col popolare vlogger canadese Daniel Dumbrill, il canale riconosce l’errore ma non cancella il tweet. Persino Sterzel e Tye, intanto, sono costretti ad ammettere di “essere arrivati a conclusioni affrettate”
Nonostante l’infondatezza della prima accusa sia ormai provata, i giornali britannici Times e Daily Mail la riprendono dopo alcuni giorni.

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October 13, 2023

Giulia and Anita in Suzhou

SilkWorms Walking about Suzhou Silk Museum, I started to think of how old globalisation is and of how surprisingly interrelated we are with each other. In the ancient era, silk from China was the most sought-after luxury item traded across the Eurasian continent, and besides, although the Emperors of China strove to keep knowledge of sericulture secret to maintain the Chinese monopoly, in the end sericulture surreptitiously reached also Europe around CE 550.
Thus it happened that far, very far from Suzhou, in a small town in north-western Italy, at the beginning of the 20th century, two young girls called Giulia Masca and Anita Leone were employed in the local spinning mill in excruciatingly unravelling the cocoons of mulberry silkworms, not very differently from the people in Suzhou, I guess. Right, Giulia and Anita are just fictional characters in Raffaella Romagnolo’s latest novel “Destino” , but they are the true portraits of thousands of real young girls likewise toiling and struggling at both ends of the Silk Road. It would be great if Destino was published in Chinese too 😊 … a proper way to mark the BRI!

June 17, 2019

Gaokao

In early June every year -this year it started on June 7th, high school senior students all over China sit for the gaokao, an abbreviation in Chinese for “National College Entrance Examination”, which covers a wide range of subjects, including Chinese, mathematics, English as well as a choice of sciences or humanities, and is considered one of the toughest exams in the world. It is the modern incarnation of the imperial keju, generally regarded as the world’s first standardized test, intended to ensure that appointment as a government official was based on merit and not on favoritism or heredity.
Gaokao is seen as a gateway for talent to climb up the social ladder: by studying hard, you can get into a top university and find a good job. Yet fewer than 40% of candidates will score highly enough to succeed.
That’s why parents try their best to get their children into schools that have good exam records.
At Maotanchang High School, in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui, students go through repeated revision and mock exams for 16 hours a day and seven days a week. Thanks to a university admission rate of 90%, the school attracts teenagers also from other parts of China, whose parents are willing to make any sacrifice to help them climb the path forward into the middle class.
My sincere wishes of success to all the hard-working Chinese students who have sat for Gaokao and to their brave families, as well as to my former students who will soon be sitting for their Esame di Stato, aka Maturita’.

June 14, 2019

Shufa for Peace

With the trade war between the US & China escalating and Trump’s push-back against Huawei in an effort to maintain USA’s dominance in the tech global market, the concern of the people here but also a sense of national pride seem to be on the rise.
We happened to be granted a 30% discount at a popular hotpot restaurant here in Shanghai, which was decorated with lots of small national flags, because we paid with our Huawei phone.

In Zhongshan Park, we came across several elderly men doing calligraphy – not an unusual sight in Chinese parks, but we were struck by one who chose to deliver a message of peace through his beautiful writing.

June 10, 2019

Lu Xun

Lu Xun (Shaoxing 25 September 1881 – Shanghai 19 October 1936), to whom Hongkou Park was dedicated in 1988, was a leading figure of modern Chinese literature. He was a short story writer, editor, translator, literary critic, essayist, poet, and designer. In 1918 Lu wrote the first short story published in his name, Diary of a Madman, which was praised for its anti-traditionalism, its synthesis of Chinese and foreign conventions and ideas, and its skillful narration, and Lu became recognised as one of the leading writers of the New Culture Movement. After the 1919 May Fourth Movement, Lu Xun’s writing began to exert a substantial influence on Chinese literature and popular culture and in the 1930s he became the titular head of the League of Left-Wing Writers in Shanghai. He was highly acclaimed after 1949, when the People’s Republic of China was founded, and Mao Zedong himself was a lifelong admirer of Lu Xun’s writing.

Lu’s was an eventful life, which at some point took him to study western medicine in Japan. He quit in order to become a literary physician to what he perceived to be China’s spiritual problems instead. You can find more on Lu Xun’s life in Wikipedia.
Personally, I would like to focus on two facts about his life as particularly useful to understand Chinese reality. The first is to do with the imperial examinations system, the route to wealth and social success, and refers to his father and grandfather, rather than himself, but bore heavily on his personal prospects. His father, Zhou Boyi, was discovered attempting to bribe an examination official. Lu Xun’s grandfather was implicated, arrested and sentenced to beheading for his son’s crime. The sentence was later commuted, and he was imprisoned in Hangzhou instead. After the affair, Zhou Boyi was stripped of his position in the government and forbidden to ever again write the civil service examinations. Subsequently Zhou Boyi engaged in heavy drinking and opium use, his health declined and died when he was only 35.
The second episode is to do with the institution of marriage in China: in June 1906, Lu’s mother forced him to take part in an arranged marriage she had agreed to several years before.The girl, Zhu An, had little in common with Lu, was illiterate, and had bound feet. They never had a romantic relationship, but Lu took care of her material needs for the rest of his life.

Inside the park, a small but excellent museum commemorates Lu Xun, see photos.

May 24, 2019

Lu Xun Park, Hongkou

Hongkou Park, whose design was based on a park in Glasgow, like Zhongshan Park was attended only by the foreign residents of the International Settlement, as Chinese residents were not permitted to enter either park until 1928. The park was renamed Lu Xun Park in 1988, after the eminent intellectual and writer, who died in Shanghai in 1936. In 1956, Lu Xun‘s remains were reinterred in the park and the new tomb’s inscription (“鲁迅先生之墓”, “The Tomb of Mr. Lu Xun”) was written in the calligraphy of Mao Zedong. See photos of Lu Xun Park
I love Lu Xun Park, which, apart the usual sights of beautiful trees, lake, locals exercising and practicing tai chi, calligraphy and ballroom dancing, offers food for thought of its own. Personally, I was captivated by the small crowds of people on a Sunday afternoon – a Chinese acquaintance eavesdropped and told me that one group were listening to a woman talking about the state of the world politics (the highlight being on US-China trade war), while another were debating on the prices and quality of the fruit on sale in the shops. Delightful!

The other feature which I find peculiar to Lu Xun Park is an international flavour about it, from its “World Literary Giant Square” to several signs of attention to Japan, going from a Clock marking the Chinese-Japanese friendship to a flowerbed donated by Japan. The Japanese influence is still apparent in the streets surrounding the park, as the Japanese settlement in Shanghai was predominantly concentrated in the Hongkou area, which remained under Japanese control until the end of WWII.
I believe the Chinese are exceedingly good at dealing with contradictions and keeping contrasting things together, and here in Lu Xun Park I have found direct evidence of that for the umpteenth time: a stone tablet featuring a bilingual inscription in Chinese and Korean and a memorial hall commemorate Yun Bong-gil, a Korean independence activist opposed to Japanese rule over Korea, who killed two high Japanese officials and injured another two in a bomb attack on April 29, 1932, during a celebration of the birthday of Emperor Hirohito in Hongkou Park. Long live Korea! Long live Japan!
edf On leaving the park, I had xiaolongbao in a long-established unclean small place on 123, Shanyin Road called Wanshouzhai, always very crowded.

You can watch a tutorial on eating xialongbao, if you like 🙂

May 23, 2019

Asian Civilisations Dialogue

Yesterday, May 15th 2019, Beijing National Stadium, also known as the Bird’s Nest (鸟巢; Niǎocháo), hosted the opening ceremony of the Conference on Asian Civilizations Dialogue (CDAC).
More than 2,000 delegates from 47 Asian countries and other countries outside Asia will attend the Conference lasting from May 15 to 22. The opening ceremony was really impressive, featuring the most diverse and colourful performances from several Asian countries.
The conference seeks to promote intercultural dialogue in view of building an “Asian Community of Shared Future”. The official key words of the initiative are: mutual respect, harmonious co-existence, openness, inclusiveness and mutual learning among civilisations. Music to my ears, which have grown sick and tired of hearing too many of our leaders ranting about clash of civilisations, building protective (?!) fences etc etc.
To get just a glimpse of the joyful opening gala watch:

May 16, 2019

People’s Square Marriage Market

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While in busy Renmin (People’s) Square on a warm Friday afternoon, we headed for the quiet namesake park beside and chanced upon an informal marriage market taking place near exit 5, with parents sitting behind umbrellas showing various info, e.g. age, physical details, property etc of their unmarried adult children.

May 10, 2019