Shelley Posted October 28, 2014 at 04:58 PM Report Share Posted October 28, 2014 at 04:58 PM wow I suppose it depends on what you call time wasted, anything to do with Chinese is time well spent as far as I am concerned. Facebook will drag me in once every couple of weeks but it is not hard to stop. Really can't see that I would use that sort of thing, interesting to know that it exists though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneEye Posted October 28, 2014 at 10:57 PM Report Share Posted October 28, 2014 at 10:57 PM Yeah, that's basically what I use it for. Facebook, forums, blogs. Sites I tend to go to automatically when I'm bored or distracted, which I then end up getting sucked into. Blocking them like that removes the distraction. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roddy Posted January 20, 2015 at 08:42 AM Report Share Posted January 20, 2015 at 08:42 AM You mentioned elsewhere you've been de-anonymising recently. Was that prompted by new business ventures, or something else? How's it gone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneEye Posted January 20, 2015 at 02:24 PM Report Share Posted January 20, 2015 at 02:24 PM Yeah, it's basically due to my work with Outlier. It's fine, I guess, just unfamiliar to me. Speaking of which, I met Brendan O'Kane a few days ago, so you and I officially have a mutual friend. The world is shrinking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roddy Posted January 20, 2015 at 02:41 PM Report Share Posted January 20, 2015 at 02:41 PM Wow. I know you better than I know Kevin Bacon. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenny同志 Posted January 20, 2015 at 02:59 PM Report Share Posted January 20, 2015 at 02:59 PM I met Brendan O'Kane a few days ago 他的大名我兩年前見過。We live in a really small world! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angelina Posted January 20, 2015 at 06:28 PM Report Share Posted January 20, 2015 at 06:28 PM Question. Would you label Brendan O'Kane a China watcher? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shelley Posted January 20, 2015 at 06:41 PM Report Share Posted January 20, 2015 at 06:41 PM What constitutes a China watcher? I ask because I have always considered myself to be a china watcher as defined by one of my Chinese teachers, and I have always been curious as to what this actually means. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angelina Posted January 20, 2015 at 06:58 PM Report Share Posted January 20, 2015 at 06:58 PM I'm not sure either. People who are interested in what is happening in China, especially Chinese politics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angelina Posted January 20, 2015 at 07:05 PM Report Share Posted January 20, 2015 at 07:05 PM http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/BAUCHI.html#contents This audacious and illuminating memoir by Richard Baum, a senior China scholar and sometime policy advisor, reflects on forty years of learning about and interacting with the People's Republic of China, from the height of Maoism during the author's UC Berkeley student days in the volatile 1960s through globalization. Anecdotes from Baum's professional life illustrate the alternately peculiar, frustrating, fascinating, and risky activity of China watching - the process by which outsiders gather and decipher official and unofficial information to figure out what's really going on behind China's veil of political secrecy and propaganda. Baum writes entertainingly, telling his narrative with witty stories about people, places, and eras. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shelley Posted January 20, 2015 at 07:10 PM Report Share Posted January 20, 2015 at 07:10 PM Ya, I guess this is about what I thought. But for me its more about China and the people than the politics, never have taken much interest in politics of any country. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realmayo Posted January 21, 2015 at 08:52 AM Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 at 08:52 AM I think of the term more as watching-without-being-involved and associate it with spooks, other government agencies, and media, especially during the time when China was closed to the west and journalists weren't allowed in. Nowadays I'm not sure the term is particularly useful: I mean, what's to differentiate a China-watcher from, say, a Vietnam-watcher or a Russia-watcher? (However I have just realised that the guy is "...and I'm Brendan" from popupchinese podcasts ) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bokane Posted January 21, 2015 at 03:04 PM Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 at 03:04 PM Oh, hey, I felt a sneeze coming on just now, and sure enough... Total digression from the topic of the thread (hi John!), but since Angelina asked, I don't think of myself as a China watcher at all. While I was living there, I had about the level of interest in current events that you'd expect from someone who'd been there a decade and had done occasional translation for journalists and that kind of thing, but now that I'm no longer in China the extent to which I don't care about politics is basically total. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angelina Posted January 21, 2015 at 08:47 PM Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 at 08:47 PM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneEye Posted January 22, 2015 at 08:55 PM Report Share Posted January 22, 2015 at 08:55 PM Speak of the devil, or 曹操 as the case may be. Brendan's answer is about on par with what I thought he might say. He's in the throes of a PhD right now, which I'm sure doesn't leave much time to be an anything watcher, if said thing lies outside of his specific field. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angelina Posted January 23, 2015 at 03:28 AM Report Share Posted January 23, 2015 at 03:28 AM Many people who write about China end up writing about the state of the Chinese economy. It's good to know that Sinologists have not gone extinct by now. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giokve Posted May 11, 2015 at 07:49 PM Report Share Posted May 11, 2015 at 07:49 PM OneEye, can you have a look at the sample pages of this book (漢字樹2) and tell us what you think? It's the second book of a series of four; I chose it because because it has the best preview among them. Are the entries fairly accurate? Would you recommend it as a supplement to leaf through just for fun? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneEye Posted May 12, 2015 at 06:09 AM Report Share Posted May 12, 2015 at 06:09 AM I've seen it before, and it's not very good, etymology-wise. Cool design and whatnot, fun pictures, but fairly poor etymology. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneEye Posted May 20, 2015 at 12:29 AM Report Share Posted May 20, 2015 at 12:29 AM edit: never mind, sorry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angelina Posted May 20, 2015 at 08:32 AM Report Share Posted May 20, 2015 at 08:32 AM Guys, you seem to be friends with Kaiser Kuo, can you please do a 问我 anything with Kaiser?I found thishttp://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/467/transcriptI want to ask him how can we fight for peace, or as my friend puts it, how can we peace for peace? Can he go back to living in pre-May 1999 China? The number one song, stadium crowds. Kaiser sometimes looked out from the stage on 30,000 people singing back to them. People recognized him on the street. Things were great. Until May of 1999. Kaiser KuoOne morning, I wake up. And it's my brother, my little brother on the phone, telling me oh my god, turn on the news. The US has just blown up the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. ReporterChina says it is outraged after 4 people die and 20 are injured, when NATO bombs hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Evan OsnosYou may not remember this. But lots of Chinese people do. There's a Chinese monument to it in Belgrade. And the incident is taught in Chinese schools as an example of how superpowers like the United States-- and I'm reading here from a junior high curriculum-- put their interests above world peace and development and use their military advantage to attack whomever they want. It was the NATO bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, intended to protect ethnic Albanians. And an American B2 bomber flying over Belgrade dropped five bombs on the Chinese embassy. Three Chinese citizens were killed. In America, people saw it as an accident. Not in China. Kaiser KuoMy lead singer, my then-girlfriend, and I walked down to the embassy district to see what's happening around the US Embassy. And then everyone's there, shouting at us, saying hey, Tang Dynasty's here in solidarity with the people who are protesting against American hegemony. Of course, that wasn't my take on it at all. I was thinking-- I thought this through and said, this couldn't have been done deliberately. This must have been some kind of an accident. Evan OsnosHow did your band members react? Kaiser KuoSo initially, they kind of saw things my way. I laid out what I thought was a pretty reasonable case. But it changed really quickly. That very evening, we get a call from our manager who says, look, I'm going to get you guys on a plane tomorrow. We're flying you down to Shenzhen. And you're going to take part in this peace concert. Man[sPEAKING CHINESE (SHOUTING)] Kaiser KuoSo they set up a stage in front of the whole thing. And they bussed in all these people who were wearing color-coordinated t-shirts that say [sPEAKING CHINESE]. Today China says no. And I realize that this is not a peace rally, that this is an anti-American rally. Evan OsnosIt's kind of the opposite of a peace rally, essentially. Kaiser KuoSo my hackles are up. And this camera swings into my face. And it's live, and I didn't know this either, at the time. And they ask me, you're an American. Tell me about your reaction to what's happened. And I said, I come here in the interest of peace. And I said, by peace, I don't mean just peace between the Kosovars and the Serbs, not just peace between the Yugoslav Federation and NATO, but also-- and most importantly-- peace between China and the United States after this tragic, tragic accident. And at the word "accident," of course, everyone's face just blanches. The camera swings away. People start yelling at me. And then I can see that-- I figured that my band mates who were nearby me were mad because they immediately distanced themselves from me. I mean, we're on stage under this Styrofoam and wood mock-up of the burned-out embassy complex. And it's teetering. And when we finally get up there to play, the lead singer sort of looks at me, glowers at me and then starts saying today, the Chinese people will no longer be bullied by Americans. And [MUMBLES]. And he shoots me a couple looks. Now this is like my best friend for 10 years. Evan OsnosThe tension in the band got a lot worse. And Kaiser left, before he could be forced out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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