Category: China

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Eating Unique Cuisine while Studying Abroad in Beijing

By Angela Jin

Growing up in a Chinese family, it is no wonder that I partake in Chinese cuisine. There is the standard fare of rice and noodles, though ‘standard’ gives the wrong impression that there is only one version of each. There is also a variety of dumplings and buns, usually stuffed with meat and/or veggies, and in the case of the buns, occasionally contain a sweet center. These staples of the Chinese meal are accompanied by a multitude of dishes, which may consist of meat, seafood, vegetables, fruit…anything and everything imaginable. Here, in Beijing, China, the truth of that phrase is proven each and every day.


While walking down 南锣鼓巷 (Nanluoguxiang), a street filled with shops, stands and, of course, people, you can not only buy any kind of souvenir imaginable, but you can also discover a lot of the typical street food of Beijing. There are the typical skewers of chicken, lamb and octopus, although these can be abnormal in that they can reach two feet long in length, as well as skewers of crabapples and other fruits covered in a sugar glaze. You can also buy boiled balls made from fish, cuttlefish, sea urchin, crab, and many other types of sea creatures, as well as the snack 臭豆腐 (choudoufu), commonly translated to “stinky tofu.” You can purchase the Beijing specialty drink 酸奶 (suannai), a delicious liquid similar to yogurt, and juice smoothies of strawberry, melon, corn, papaya, and more. Some stores even sell churros, cotton candy and Japanese snacks, attempting to attract customers with their foreign products. But one of the more interesting foods you can find here is from Beijing itself: fried insects.

 


For reasons I cannot fathom, consuming insects does not seem to faze the people of Beijing (or China, for that matter). While I can understand the practicality of eat these things, which possess a high nutritional value, I would never actually do it; the idea of crunching down on one, with its many legs…I shudder just thinking about it. The shop was even selling fried scorpions, which makes me wonder whether their venomous stingers were even removed. This particular shop was also selling fried starfish, which one of my friends decided to try. He decided it wasn’t quite worth the purchase.

 The snacks of Beijing are not the only weird food to be found. Last night my Foreign Study Program group ate at a restaurant that, like many others in Beijing, served sea cucumbers, birds’ nests (which are the actual nests), and frog, among other delicacies. As you can see below, we ordered a dish of frog legs. It was a little disconcerting, to say the least, to see their little toes and limbs. However, I must add, the meat was quite tender. And as to whether or not it does actually taste like chicken, I am sorry to say (or perhaps not so sorry) that the dish was too spicy for me to taste anything. Perhaps you can try frog yourself one day and tell me. Would you eat it?

 

Note: All photos taken by me

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Chinese Night Market at Dartmouth

By Jane Zhang

 

 

The Dartmouth Chinese Culture Society hosted its annual Legacies event, celebrating Chinese culture and bringing together students and members of the local community. The theme of the event was “night market,” reflecting the bustling street life of contemporary China. During the evening’s festivities, the Chinese Dance Troupe was showcased, performing Tibetan, water sleeve, and sword dancing to the show tunes of a Chinese television drama, gracefully merge the traditional with the more contemporary. 

In addition to the dance performance, various “street booths” had been set up. Each booth featured various Chinese treats. I came upon bubble tea, White Rabbit creamy candies, dumplings, and fish balls. Of course, there was no bubble tea left by the time I had gotten to the booth.


A group of students were playing Mahjong, engaging in traditional Chinese gambling. It brought a festive feeling to the evening, similar to the atmosphere in Chinese neighborhoods when neighbors get together to play games after dinner.

A few kids from the Upper Valley had fun writing Chinese calligraphy. Chinese calligraphy is taught in schools in China. Quite a few Dartmouth students kept venturing back to the calligraphy table, writing jokes and comparing their calligraphy skills.

It was nice to speak Chinese and to hear friends speaking Chinese. Of course, as college students, the catered food was the big attraction that got us to venture through the cold weather to the student center. But we didn’t simply stay for the food. We stayed for the company.

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Education Inequality in China

By Kristy Choi
A Teach for China Classroom in Lincang, Courtesy Hu Xiaodan 

We are constantly being told that America is underperforming in education. That Asia, and China in particular, are catching up. However, for all the high-achieving, hard-working students that China churns out, there are hundreds more that are left behind. While working with the non-profit Teach for China (a Teach for America affiliate that sends recent graduates of both American and Chinese universities to teach in rural China), I have become increasingly aware of the education gap in China. It is a persistent and systemic problem. The problem begins with the rural/urban education gap. Like many other countries, rural education in China is particularly dismal. However, even if a student wanted to attend school in the city where the possibilities for higher education exponentially increase, they cannot. Teach for China maintains that some 80% of children in urban areas have the chance to go to college; that number is less than 3% in rural areas. The result? Among other reasons, rural dwellers have been increasingly fleeing to the city.  However, there they run into problems that Americans would never think to worry about.

The Chinese government issues a hukou to every citizen: it is a household registration that labels what city or region a person is from. In order to buy a house, a car, or enter schooling in an area, one needs the correct hukou. That would be like everybody in New York City carrying a special license, and no one from any other state being able to move there. As more and more migrants are attracted to the opportunities in cities, hukous are increasingly a restrictive factor. The government worries that overhauling the current system would lead to an unbearable inflow of migrant workers, yet under the current system, they already come in droves. In addition to being an obstacle for migrants, hukous reveal a clear gap in the educational system. According to one study, the average years spent in schooling for those who hold hukou status in an urban area is 10.3 years compared to just 6 for those of rural status; there is a 4 year gap in education simply based on where one is born. Moreover, the Chinese government has declared mandatory education of at least 9 years — that means students in rural areas don’t even manage the minimum requirements by its own government standards. In another startling statistic, 67% of citizens with urban hukous go to high school while only 29.9% of rural hukous make it there. The hukou system makes it so that those born in rural areas with less educational opportunities are almost systematically denied the option for improvement.

The clear solution would be to shore up the rural education system. And there are a lot of places it could be improved. In rural areas, only 20% of teachers have 4-year degrees.  Rural areas in China simply lack the funding and educational resources necessary to keep up. The Chinese government has been taking active measures to fix this gap. Notably, it allocates free textbooks and lunches to those who are unable to afford them and is taking steps to make education free for those in rural areas (at least for the requisite 9 years). However, there are still large barriers to success. One of the most important is the lack of qualified teachers. Chinese schools require an entrance exam and one of the main components is English. Yet, too often, the teachers themselves have a shaky grasp of the language. The Chinese government has taken active measures to confront the problem, but without the qualified personnel to teach, simply putting children in schools will not allow them to succeed.

For as much as Americans worry that Chinese education will soon surpass our own, the Chinese education system has a number of pervasive problems. If China truly wishes to step out from its developing country status and enter the world of the developed world, its education system is going to have to change.

Sources
http://www.tfchina.org/about
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/15/china-migrant-workers-children-education
https://docs.google.com/viewera=v&q=cache:mArWDxXGLKMJ:www.psc.isr.umich.edu/pubs/pdf/rr11-735.pdf+education+inequality+in+china&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShYoFL_IQNvuuvhNWrD4E2610doyMN2sFsEVpha5tdjiKHv5QBilLdQCvEijOUpGd_JhmImLJ_TCVukL1g1BhZ3run4WFyoW-6SPWl9sEW4mympchdnIcs4rMuSFSBiE2txr0Hg&sig=AHIEtbSAH3Qf4ptzAsLQyQk4ZDQMC_Vgbg

http://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2012/07/25/from-world-factory-to-learning-society-the-education-landscape-in-china-and-the-future-plan/
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2012-09/26/content_15783022.htm
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A Taste of China: Unexpected Ice Cream Adventures in the Far East

By Nicole Boyd

For a girl who loves to travel, I haven’t done it nearly as much as I’d like. So when I do go abroad, I’m always eager to soak up as many of the nuances of a place that I can, in a lot of ways — the beauty is in the details. Which brings us to a particular peculiarity I’ve noticed, and that is the Chinese approach to ice cream.
Green tea-flavored soft serve.
Chinese people don’t eat a lot of desserts in the Western sense: cakes, pastries, cookies, and chocolate are available but expensive (sometimes extremely) by Chinese standards and are not terribly popular with natives. Ice cream, on the other hand, has been adopted wholeheartedly as a summer favorite. Most afternoons you can expect to see people of all ages walking down the street cold treat in hand. One of McDonald’s most popular items is their vanilla soft serve. Cheap and ubiquitous, most cones or pops are available for 3 kuai or less (about 50 cents U.S.) and have a decidedly Asian twist. You’ll still find your chocolate and vanilla of course, but the best-sellers are a bit more in line with the flavors of everyday Chinese cuisine: jasmine tea, green tea, mango, dragon fruit, and even pops filled with red-bean paste, a common ingredient in traditional desserts and festival foods. One of the strangest things I saw in China was a shining golden ear of – you guessed it – corn-flavored ice cream. A friend of mine was brave enough to risk it. Her consensus: tastes, somewhat disturbingly, just like the corn.

“Er… Ice cream?” Courtesy Lisa Li.

Something you’ll see everywhere is the particular ice-block pictured below. White, skinny, and not entirely flavorful, these pops were our salvation on 100-degree days. In particularly crowded places, parks, and tourist hot spots like Tiananmen Square, sellers line up every 30 feet or so to call out their wares. The sheer number of vendors makes the price fairly stable at a single kuai (17 cents). If a savvy entrepreneur tries to get more out of you because you’re a foreigner, you’re in luck: the next seller is usually just a 15 second walk away.
Courtesy Lisa Li.

Though it wasn’t something I expected to see half way across the world, I ate more ice cream the summer I spent in China than I have in the last four years in the ‘States. Beijing is a hot city – any traveler would be wise to take their cue from the locals and cool off with an icy treat. It’s a wonderful excuse to consume huge quantities of cold confections at a delightfully guilt-free rate: As they say in China, ru xiang sui su (When in Rome, do as the Romans do).

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The Senkaku/Diaoyu Island Dispute: Part Three

By Nicole Boyd

Political Analysis

What are the political motivations underlying the dispute?


In China, Anti-Japanese protests over the island dispute are concerning to political leaders because a lack of diplomatic response on the Chinese Communist Party’s part could cause discontent to turn to domestic issues, which is a circumstance Beijing has been extremely careful to avoid. As a result, Chinese leadership must appear strong in the face of Japan’s activity regarding the islands. This has manifested itself in a call to boycott Japanese goods and the sudden presence of state fishing vessels in the disputed waters. Despite thinly veiled threats of economic and military retaliation, however, Beijing is highly aware of the cost such ventures could pose.


Japan and China are highly economically co-dependent; trade between the two countries is at an all-time high, amounting to nearly $350 billion in 2011. On top of this, Japan accounts for roughly 11 percent of foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, making it the nation’s third largest source of outside investment after the U.S. and Hong Kong. Pursuit of more aggressive economic means of fighting Japan on this issue would have an undesirable effect on both economies and serve as a negative shock to the world economy, possibly impeding global recovery. A full-out military war with Japan would be extremely costly financially, not to mention the inevitable toll on China’s growth rate. The issue is further complicated by U.S.-Japan security agreements. U.S.-Chinese relations are frequently strained, but the fact is that both states are highly interdependent on one another economically, and the fall out of a war between the nations regarding lost financial and human resources would be enormous.


Such outcomes are undesirable for China. The nation’s leaders are highly dedicated to regional security as a means of promoting economic growth. It is unlikely that diplomatic actions in this dispute would go so far as to jeopardize this overarching agenda. It should be noted that before the latest excursions following Japan’s announcement that it had purchased the islands, Chinese vessels had not ventured into the disputed waters since August of last year. The Chinese government initially encouraged anti-Japanese sentiments as a means of distracting the public from internal issues, but now it is clear that Beijing feels threatened by the widespread protests and is making an effort to restrain them.20


Japan’s leaders are also facing internal pressure. Since the 2010 incident, domestic criticism of Japan’s weakness in diplomatic dealings with China has escalated. Governor Ishihara, author of the controversial book “The Japan That Can Say No,” is a prominent figure speaking for the rightist nationalist segment of the population that wants Japan to take a more aggressive stance in foreign policy. After Ishihara’s public steps toward buying the islands, the government stepped in not only to appease the nationalism the events stirred up but also as a measure of restraint against Ishihara.


Tokyo leadership has other things to consider as well; elections must be held before the summer and polls indicate a shift in power from the currently ruling Democratic Party to Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party. Naturally this is a period of time when democratic leaders are most sensitive to shifts in public opinion, increasing the effect of domestic criticism on policy decisions. Japan also stands to lose from a prolonged confrontation with China, however pressure from the right is impeding Tokyo’s ability to cooperate by demanding a strong uncompromising image. The way Tokyo has chosen to project that image is not only to engage in verbal battle with Beijing, but also to call upon Japanese-American security relations as another means of threat against would be “invaders.” 

Taiwan’s involvement in the dispute is less intense than it’s larger counterparts. Like China, it also saw fit to make a statement by sending vessels into the disputed waters. However, at the risk of complicating its own sovereign relations with Beijing, Taipei is careful of being too vocal on the issue. 


Taiwan is a major trading partner with both Japan and China and a security partner with the U.S. At the moment, other than its brief show of defiance it appears that Taipei has decided not to complicate it’s relations with the U.S. and Beijing and remains on friendly terms with Japan.


Implications for U.S. Foreign Policy


What does this mean for the future?


Despite speculations in the Wall Street Journal on the outcome of a Sino-Japanese naval war, full-scale warfare seems highly unlikely. Tensions may continue to rise, however, if the governments in question fail to calm elements of nationalism within their respective countries. This will likely manifest itself in the form of increased skirmishes between the Japanese coast guard and Chinese (and to a lesser extent Taiwanese) vessels entering the disputed waters. China might seek to withhold certain imports to Japan as it did with rare earths in the 2010 incident. If such measures are taken, however, Tokyo will feel considerable pressure to fight back economically; the government has already threatened to halt investment in China. This could set off a chain of such attacks that would have the potential to rapidly escalate.


Despite China’s criticisms of “American hypocrisy” regarding its simultaneous claims of neutrality and support of Japan in military defense of the islands under the US-Japan Treat of 1960, to renege on that agreement would have disastrous effects not only on relations with Japan but in the larger scheme of American security interests in the Pacific. With China’s increasing military capabilities, U.S. allies in the region have to consider the ramifications of a potential conflict between the two powers and the possibility that the U.S. is no longer capable of providing the protection that it could in the past. If the U.S. appears to be unwilling to follow through on its security agreements it will send a message to other Pacific allies that with China’s rise a U.S. security agreement no longer guarantees assistance, which will likely spell the end of U.S. dominance in the Pacific.


On the other hand, the U.S. should discourage its allies from deliberately provoking China because they are confident in U.S. support. Not only does this undermine regional stability, but it puts the U.S. in a difficult position diplomatically and undermines reassurances that the U.S. is not trying to contain China. Therefore restraint should be encouraged not only on the Chinese side, but on the side of our allies as well.


The U.S.’s role should continue to be one of neutrality, with no acknowledgement of either sides’ sovereignty over the islands. The situation is a complicated issue historically, legally, and emotionally – to become further entangled in the dispute is to risk relations with all parties. Leaders should continue to encourage calm diplomacy, a point U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta stressed in his visit to Beijing on the 18th. All parties stand to lose from prolonged conflict; most of the governments’ aggressive actions have been designed to alleviate internal pressures. With the importance of saving face so prominent in this dispute, Track I diplomacy will likely be hampered by politicians’ attempts to avoid inflaming public discontent by appearing too conciliatory. Therefore, this represents a good situation in which to consider employing Track II dialogues as well in order to promote cooperation between parties and talks that go beyond the party line. A method of doing this would be to encourage confidence-building measures such as joint fishing and or drilling rights in the disputed waters to try to ease tensions between the nations. 



Sources
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/chinese-government-both-encourages-and-reins-in-anti-japan-protests-analysts-say/2012/09/17/53144ff0-00d8-11e2-b260-32f4a8db9b7e_story.html  http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/aa82cf7a-6f68-11e1-b368-00144feab49a.html#axzz27guHsxfp
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/20/opinion/china-japan-dispute-kingston/index.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20120914/as-japan-politics/

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The Senkaku/Diaoyu Island Dispute: Part Two

By Nicole Boyd


Modern Significance

The islands’ true value lies in the right to extend Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) that a legal claim to them would provide, which would provide the holder with singular access to the fishing and natural resources located in the surrounding seas. In 1969, the UN Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) released a report estimating huge oil reserves located beneath the region’s ocean floor. Such resources would clearly be immensely valuable in today’s fierce competition for oil, especially for China: as the world’s largest energy consumer, China is acutely concerned with securing enough resources to meet the demands of its expanding economy. It was only after this research was released that China and Taiwan sought to dispute Japan’s administration of the territory. Currently, all three parties claim sovereignty over the islands, but only Japan claims a 200 nautical mile EEZ including the islands.

The islands are of strategic significance as well. Located 120 nautical miles west of the coast of China and 90 nautical miles north of Japan’s Ryukyu Islands, sovereignty over the surrounding waters would give the controlling country the potential to exercise military capabilities closer to the others’ shores, as well as increased potential for control over sea trade that passes through the area.

Nationalism also plays an important role in the dispute. Sino-Japanese relations have never fully recovered from bitterness regarding Japan’s imperialism towards China from the latter half of the nineteenth century through the end of World War II. Anger toward the Japanese is still prominent in Chinese society, and incidents that are perceived as affronts to territorial sovereignty such as the Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute are particularly incendiary to the Chinese public. Both countries have experienced rising nationalism in recent years; this adds pressure on each respective government to maintain the appearance of supremacy in the dispute, a fact that complicates international attempts at resolution.

The Current Situation

The dispute has been simmering unresolved in the background of East Asian politics for the past four decades and for the most part it has been put aside by policy makers; however, the issue has remained a flashpoint for conflict in recent years. In 2010, a Chinese fishing boat rammed two Japanese Coast Guard vessels, resulting in the detainment of the Chinese boat captain in Japan for the duration of the investigation. The incident sparked Chinese outrage, leading Beijing to block exports of rare earth materials to Japan. The captain was released after two weeks and normal trade relations resumed, but the result was widespread internal criticism of the Japanese government for its weakness in the face of Chinese aggression.


Recent events have once again brought tensions to the forefront. The catalyst for this disruption to the status quo was Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara’s announcement on April 16th of his intentions to buy the islands out of private ownership, after which he set up a “Senkaku Fund,” accumulating 1.47 billion yen ($18.7 million) from numerous private donations over a period of roughly five months. In order to avoid possession of the islands from legally falling under the purview of Ishihara, whose strong nationalism and determination to have Japan “say no” to China might have caused relations between the countries to deteriorate even further, the national government made the decision to purchase the islands itself.


The result has been a wave of anti-Japanese protests across China, as well as the destruction and looting of Japanese businesses. Since the announcement of the islands’ purchase on September 11th, China has sent numerous patrol boats into the disputed waters and has cancelled the celebration of the 40th year anniversary of the rekindling of Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations. Taiwan also made a statement on Tuesday, September 24th, sending over forty fishing boats and ten surveillance ships into the area. When the ships did not respond to warnings from the Japanese Coast Guard, the Japanese vessels shot at the Taiwanese boats with a water cannon, prompting the Taiwanese vessels to withdraw. 



Sources
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/senkaku.htm
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703720504575376712353150310.html
http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2010/09/28/a-sea-of-trouble-in-sino-japanese-relations/
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14799850902886617
Shirk, Susan. China: Fragile Superpower. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/09/the-history-behind-china-and-japans-anger-over-a-few-empty-islands/262702/
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201206090024
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9534711/China-deploys-two-warships-after-Tokyo-announces-disputed-island-purchase.html
http://asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4860&Itemid=214
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/sep2012/chjp-s26.shtml
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-26/china-japan-foreign-ministers-meet-as-island-tensions-hurt-trade.html

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The Senkaku/Diaoyu Island Dispute: Part One

By Nicole Boyd

This is the first part of a three-part series on the disputed territory in the East China Sea. Stay tuned for parts two and three!

The Issue

Arguments are heating up in the East China Sea over the disputed sovereignty of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. The islands represent a long-standing territorial dispute between China, Japan, and Taiwan. Tensions have increased as a result of the Japanese government’s purchase of the islands from private ownership, straining relations between the nations. This is a delicate situation for the United States, which officially maintains a neutral position but stands by the islands’ inclusion in the 1960 U.S.-Japan security treaty, which would require the U.S. to support Japan in any military dispute concerning the islands. Mismanaging the situation could result in damaged relations with all parties involved. I seek to outline the history of the dispute, its current significance and political implications, as well as recommend that the U.S. continue to maintain its neutral position regarding the sovereignty over the islands, provide military support to Japan under the 1960 security treaty, and promote diplomacy and restraint rather than economic or military retaliation in resolving the dispute.

Conflicting Claims

The disputed islands, called the “Senkaku” in Japanese, and the “Diaoyu” in Chinese, are a small chain of 5 islands and 3 barren rocks located in the East China Sea. The islands were administered by Japan from 1895 to 1946, when they were transferred to U.S. control following World War II under the San Francisco Treaty between Japan and the allied powers. In 1972 the U.S. returned control of the islands to Japan.


Japan makes the following arguments for its rightful claim to the territory:


1. Japan surveyed the land in 1894 and determined that it was Terra Nullius, or “land belonging to no one.”The cabinet then formally decided to incorporate the islands into its territory in 1895 on the principle of discovery and acquisition as its right under widely accepted conventions of international law.
2. China did not administer the region nor dispute Japan’s claim prior to 1971 when the U.S. began preparing to transfer control to Japan.

3. The islands were never a part of Taiwan or administered by the Chinese government, thus are not contained in the Treaty of Shimonoseki in which China ceded control of “The island of Formosa [Taiwan], together with all islands appertaining or belonging to the said island of Formosa” following the end of the first Sino-Japanese war in 1895. As a result, the islands were not included in the San Francisco Treaty of 1951 in which Japan renounced control of Taiwan.


Both the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC) dispute Japan’s territorial control of the islands.  As each claim that they are the rightful seat of the Chinese government, they make the same arguments for “Chinese” rights to the islands:


1. China had knowledge of the islands in documents and maps as far back as the 14th century, thus refuting Japan’s claim on the basis of Terra Nullius.
2. China argues that the islands were included in the 1895 Treaty as part of Taiwan, and thus were included in the San Francisco Treaty and should have been returned to China with Taiwan.

3. In 1971 China used this argument to formally oppose the island’s return to Japan by the U.S.

These arguments are still widely disputed. The current U.S. position is one of neutrality, but with the affirmation that it will hold to the U.S.-Japan Treaty of 1960 with respect to the islands, which calls for the U.S. to help defend Japan against military attacks to its territory.

Sources
http://news.yahoo.com/u-believes-japan-u-security-treaty-covers-disputed-031746983.html
http://www.taiwandocuments.org/sanfrancisco01.htm

http://csis.org/files/publication/Pac1257.pdf
http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/vajint14&div=17&g_sent=1&collection=journals
http://www.sdh-fact.com/CL02_1/79_S4.pdf
http://www.taiwandocuments.org/shimonoseki01.htm
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-09/25/content_15782260.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11341139