Livin Large in China - part III
I’m really looking forward to moving to Beijing this weekend. Why? I’m gonna get me a sidecar motorbike! Not to be confused with a popular brandy cocktail of the same name.. (hic!)
Don’t be jealous, You can get one too… Check this out.
The Chang Jiang 750, is popular transport for young trendy Chinese and expat motorbike enthusiasts of all ages. Recalling the on-screen action of WWII in late 1960s and 1970s films such as Where Eagles Dare (1968) and The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) the sidecar motorbike has rough and ready appeal that clearly defines the real meaning of COOL.
The most important fact about the sidecar motorbike is that its easy to buy in Beijing and it can only be found secondhand - it was last made in 1997 and retails, after reconditioning, for around 1000 bucks.
I am S0 getting one!
September 17th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Those bikes are pretty cool. I think I’ve only ever seen one here in the States.
September 17th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
the website say they ship abroad, but Im afraid the shipping costs would easily double the price…
cheaper to Ride in China!
September 21st, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Article: “Beijing police pop up to warn internet users” (Doesn’t sound livin’ large to me.)
—
Cartoon police officers are to appear in “pop-up” warnings on the internet every half hour to warn Chinese users that they must steer clear of unapproved websites.
As the country prepares for its landmark five-yearly Communist Party Congress in October, human rights groups said the authorities are exerting even greater pressure on freedom of speech.
Officials stress that “Jing” and “Cha”, its two “internet cops” named after the two characters that make up the Chinese word for “police”, are on the look out for criminal activity. “They will be on the watch for websites that incite secession, promote superstition, gambling and fraud,” an official told the China Daily newspaper. “Secession” refers to support for an independent Tibet or Taiwan.
A second official said it was important to wipe out information that “disrupts social stability”, a catch-all phrase often used to refer to emails, bulletin boards and blogs that challenge the political status quo.
One unusual aspect of Chinese censorship is that as it has become more systematic in recent years, it has also become more open, with less sensitive decisions published and even argued over in newspapers…..
—-
More at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/30/wnet130.xml
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:41 am
Lord Conrad Black’s Telegraph article translates for us what Jing and Cha mean by “inciting secession”(posting sympathy for or even interest in certain territories either brutally or yet-to-be occupied by the Volksrepublik). Allow me to translate for your BDSM community the remaining concerns of the pop-up cops ..
“promoting superstition” = posting sympathy for or even interest in religions and religious communities who have not signed up for their Faith License. The five official religions here (those claiming to follow Laozi, Buddha, Christ-Roman, Christ-Protestant and Mohammed) welcome worshippers into big public “faith halls” to hear Party-approved sermons from spy-shepherds. No sacredness-of-life, anti-abortion, anti-death-penalty babble here! No promises of the chick-rich environment awaiting all self-exploded minority-rights activists! No, any talk of this nature is strictly “underground”, taking place in secret, out-of-the-way but occasionally-raided warehouse blocks. Why good evening, Sergeant Jing! Blessings upon you, Constable Cha! We were just talking about how shameful it is being so superstitious ..
“gambling” = the infamous chinese vice. Personally i would like to see the bookies and goons who terrorise the peasantry put way out of action. There s a lot of suicide in this country and i m sure debt and goon squads account for much of it. Plus, a dog fight is not a pretty thing. But again there is a lot of “legal” chance-gaming too, like lotteries and stock-market, as you get in many countries, but here much of it is manipulated by cousins or school buddies of “leaders” and their tame party-govt media. The Sports Lottery in Sichuan has never once in six years been won by someone who didn’t know the fatcat running it. Even at the work-unit (job) level, there’s no need to wonder which of your colleagues is going to win the “lucky draw” at the “Christmas party”! (btw Macau has now surpassed lasVegas in annual rakings-in. As to sexworkers it s still neck and neck, and of course in # of King impersonators it’s Vegas hands down). So again you have to ask What segments of the gambling galaxy are Jing and Cha out to stomp and Why.
“fraud” = pyramid business, like Amway, but could be any small business which falls afoul of the DA, like say a music-scene ‘zine with no license. Foreign-invested concerns seem to get “assessed” more than the others, but that may just be my impression, since these are the cases which the media (inside and outside the Volksrepublik) would bother about. One central chinese factory produced fake medical supplies and then sent goons around to a hospital that wouldn’t pay for it. A lot of fraud is small potatos and online, like those massive game universes where you pay real bucks for enchanted numchuks that you use for a solid week without sleep, eating only the instant noodles provided by the internet parlour. Or a peasant might select a trafficked bride for her “auspicious eyebrows” but find when she is delivered that he has sold most of his father’s acreage for a dark-skinned woman whose brows are quite common, and then have no legal recourse because those who bait-and-switched him have involved him in a “black market activity”.
“disrupting social stability” = rocking the boat, ie Party-pooping.
September 23rd, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Drinking and Dancing while Black
Tom Mackenzie South China Morning Post Sep 24, 2007
BEIJING–Dozens of black tourists and expatriates, including the son of the Grenadian ambassador, were arrested and some badly beaten during an apparently indiscriminate weekend anti-drug operation by Beijing municipal police.
About 30 men, mostly African or Caribbean, were detained as dozens of baton-wielding security guards and uniformed police swept through the Chinese capital’s nightlife district, Sanlitun, on Saturday night.
Students, tourists and the ambassador’s son Joslyn Whiteman Jnr were among those wrestled to the ground, handcuffed and hauled to the Chaoyang district Public Security Bureau (PSB).
At least three people, including Mr Whiteman, were beaten with rubber truncheons despite few signs that they were resisting arrest.
Grenadian ambassador Joslyn Whiteman said he was furious at the way his son was treated. The 22-year-old spent a night in hospital with a concussion.
“Obviously I’m very angry,” the ambassador said. “My son was arrested and beaten for no reason whatsoever. I will be taking this up with the authorities and looking into the matter.”
Witnesses said the round-up appeared to be aimed squarely at black men. Those who tried to photograph the incident were made to delete the images from their mobile phones and cameras.
“It was pretty brutal,” Beijing-based magazine editor Alex Reid said.
“I saw a man being beaten by six guys in camouflage. He was covered in blood. The police seemed to be targeting anyone who was black.”
Thabo Lieket, a 24-year-old student from Lesotho, was among those arrested and later released without charge. He thought the police assumed he was dealing in drugs because he was black, he said.
“They were rounding up all the black people; it was pretty frightening,” he said. “I was walking with some friends past one of the bars when I was grabbed by some of the guys in camouflage. They dragged us all to the police station, where we were put in the same cell.”
When asked about the incident, a police officer at the Chaoyang PSB said: “This is an anti-drug operation.”
September 24th, 2007 at 12:56 am
YES .. NOBODY STANDS UP FOR A BODY GETTING STICK HERE .. LET ALONE FOR A BLACK MAN WHOM THE CHINESE SEEM TO DESPISE. MAYBE SKIP WOULD COS HE KNOWS WHERE ROCKNROLL CAME FROM .. BUT NOBODY COOL WOULD HANG IN THOSE BARS .. THE WHOLE STRIP IS JUST NOUVEAUX RICHES WANNABES AND LAZY DIPLOMATS STEPPING OUT TO PULL BIRDS.
http://jenbrea.typepad.com/africabeat/2007/09/africans-beaten.html#comments
September 24th, 2007 at 4:44 am
yeh whatever, ernest. visible minoritys get stomped, wifes get sold - what do you want? it’s china, get it?
what we should be focusing on, since this is a lifestyle blog and not amnesty bloody international homepage, is that righteous little liberation army sidecar, the yummy yangtse 750. maybe when skip gets his sealegs he& i can play chicken out on the# 7 circle road before they connect up the paved bits. whoever’z chick screams first - you lose!
lookin over hiz previous posts, it occurs to me that skip may want to get a second sidecar too. those hainan lovelys you befriended [photo, Why you should Move# 1] won’t stay friendly long if you think you’re gonno parade them up Sanlitun in the same little basket. that’s just the way they are here, believe me.
fortunately it doesn’t seem to be a problem to knock a car onto portside, Thailand style, acording to the site. http://www.cjsidecar.com/pro4.htm
oh and mate i think you’re in for a surprise once you get to workin the metropolitan music scene. “we aint got no crack or meth” ?! [Sept 3, 7:14PM, point 4] skip, sell your cow and arrive in town. beijing rock has been running on drugs since the 80s. some of these guys have even got meth mouth! check out the drummers, and the engineers.
September 25th, 2007 at 4:53 am
OH! They “got crack” and didnt give ME any?
sheesh….
September 25th, 2007 at 4:56 am
You back, Skip? Where, when, how wuz yo trip?
MWD
September 25th, 2007 at 5:01 am
“sell your cow and arrive in town.”
HA HA HA HA>
BTW, Bomb’s second drummer, Bruce, DID sell his horse to move out of South Dakota and get to Frisko to be a rocker.
MWD
September 26th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Yes im Here. In Beijing. will write about that soon.
anyway ..yeah yeah.. some ineffectual internet popup cartoons. Aint seen em, and whatever ( i got popup blockers and proxies if i need em. no sweat) …
.. the internet has blasted the free speech thing wide open.
….its so wonderful! and..oh
I am living large, you can Believe That!
vroooom!
October 2nd, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Drinking and Dancing while Black, part ii
Tom Mackenzie http://www.scmp.com Oct 03, 2007
BEIJING–Students and businessmen, teachers and diplomats packed the African-themed Pili Pili restaurant on Friday in Beijing’s run-down Super Bar Street, knocking back drinks and munching on African barbecue as a DJ spun the decks.
A Botswanan dance troupe gyrated, eliciting a chorus of applause. But for some there that night, things had changed.
A heavy-handed anti-drug operation by Beijing police in the nearby Sanlitun bar district had put many of Beijing’s black residents on edge. In what witnesses say appeared to be a racially motivated exercise, about 30 African and Caribbean men, including the son of Grenada’s ambassador, were arrested and some badly beaten early on September 22.
“The city is a more frightening place now,” said Michael, a 25-year-old businessman from Uganda, who did not want to give his full name. “Since hearing about what happened that night, I’ve been very careful about where I go in Beijing. And I always bring my passport to prove that I’m here legally.”
Beijing Municipality’s Public Security Bureau denied black men were the focus of the operation. A spokesman told the Associated Press that the action was “aimed at rectifying social order”. Few among Beijing’s African community appear to believe them. But many concede that there is a drug problem - and most cite the city’s growing Nigerian population.
“Everyone knows they’re the ones selling drugs here … what they do gives Africans a bad name,” one high-ranking African diplomat said.
Others contend the size of the Nigerian population in Beijing makes them an easy target.
“To blame them is wrong,” said a 30-year-old Nigerian businessman who has lived in the capital for seven years. “Most of the drug dealers in Beijing simply aren’t Nigerian. Many are from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Kenya, but they use fake passports and pretend to be Nigerian because in the past, it was always easier to get into China if you were Nigerian.
“It might be Africans out on the street doing the selling, but it’s the Chinese who run the operation.”
Some say the perception that all drug dealers are black is fuelling racism and discrimination in the capital, which in just 10 months’ time will be hosting the Olympics and thousands of black athletes and sports fans.
“It’s definitely getting worse,” said Thabo Lieket, a 24-year-old student from Lesotho who was among those arrested in the raid and later released without charge. “In the last few months, the atmosphere has changed. Beijingers are becoming more racist.”
Black men say taxi drivers will often refuse to take them. Some restaurants and bars are known for stopping anyone black from entering. But it is not just Beijingers who are being blamed.
The expatriate manager of one popular bar in Sanlitun said: “It’s the Africans who sell drugs, so we try to keep them out. If I hear an African accent, I’ll ask them to leave.”
But despite what many of Beijing’s black residents feel is increasing discrimination, few say it is bad enough to make them leave China.
“When I lived in Ireland, I had eggs thrown at my house, dogs set on me and stones hurled at me by kids. You don’t get that in Beijing,” said Ama, a 29-year-old Ghanaian-Irish teacher. “I feel a lot safer here than I did in Ireland. There’s a lot of racism, but it’s because people … don’t know anything about Africa.”
October 6th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
Thank you for sharing!
October 25th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
BEIJING: Chinese customs officials caught a heroin smuggler after noticing he was wearing “weird sandals,” state media reported Monday.
Xinhua News Agency said a Nigerian was detained last week in Zhuhai, which borders Macau in southern China, after he was caught carrying more than 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of heroin.
It said attention was drawn to the man because he was “wearing a pair of weird sandals.”
“Police X-rayed his suitcase and found another pair of strange sandals in it,” Xinhua said.
The heroin was hidden in the soles of the two pairs of sandals, it said. Xinhua did not describe the sandals.
November 12th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Drinking and Dancing while Black, part iii
(featuring crack for Skip Lunch)
by Laurence Brahm
(a 46-yr-old New Yorker in Beijing, author/filmmaker, and all-round Shambhala guy - http://www.shambhala-ngo.org/Bjkis_media.htm )
http://www.scmp.com Nov 13, 2007
At 9pm on September 21 in Beijing, Chaoyang district police cordoned off the popular Sanlitun bar district near the diplomatic compounds. They then proceeded to round up any black people in the area, handcuffed them and herded them into detention. Anyone who questioned why they were being treated like animals, without rights, was beaten up. Diplomats’ children and international students were caught up in the race-based round-up, and people were hurt in the process.
The foreign diplomatic community was alarmed. It occurred just minutes away from the doors of their embassies, and less than a year before the start of the 2008 Olympics - when China is supposed to show the world how civilised it is. People were being rounded up like cattle, regardless of what nation they were from, and indiscriminately beaten as part of a sloppily executed investigation into Nigerian drug dealers.
China’s leaders should realise that such indiscriminate sweeps are not in the nation’s best interests so close to the Beijing Olympics. Such action does not show the nation’s best side to the foreign media. If police in the Chaoyang district want to do something about drug dealing, they should shut down its plethora of brothels, where crack cocaine is big business.
When a number of diplomats raised concerns about unwarranted police abuse affecting the diplomatic zone and their families, the Foreign Ministry just denied that the incident had ever happened. That is despite the fact there were a number of local and international witnesses, including journalists.
Why would it do this? One problem is that when mainland authorities investigate any matter, the organisation concerned investigates itself. The probe begins at the top, and continues layer by layer - each protecting the others. So, in the case of the alleged police abuse in Sanlitun, the officers assigned to the case will believe their own people’s accounts, and report as much to higher authorities like the Foreign Ministry.
Clearly, the central government needs an independent body to investigate abuses at all levels of all departments. Local abuses are protected through local protectionism. This has become the new meaning of “Chinese characteristics”. There are signs that the problem has spread like a cancer through the nation. Still, no one expected it to explode in the heart of Beijing’s diplomatic community.
It is very easy for a perceived race-based round-up to be interpreted as “racist”, and the story to be spun as an extension of Chinese chauvinism and nationalism, clearly not the image China wishes to portray to the rest of the world. The police abuses in Sanlitun cannot be ignored by the international community, mainly because the government clearly chose to ignore the reality. Someone at the Foreign Ministry should read the Vienna Convention of 1961, which enshrines the principle of “diplomatic immunity”. Clearly, though, diplomats and their children should realise, after this incident, that Beijing’s police force either does not understand this principle - or doesn’t care about it.
Many wonder whether the Foreign Ministry would have responded differently if it had been citizens from a member of the Group of Eight nations who were rounded up. Does China see all people as equal? China’s officials, from President Hu Jintao down, like to repeat the slogan: “All countries are equal”. Indeed, given its tragic history of foreign “spheres of influence” and the Japanese invasion, China has a right to demand equality. But it also has a responsibility to stand by such a principle.
That begs the question of whether China wishes to use its economic clout to serve as a voice for developing countries. Or is it only saying what these leaders want to hear in order to secure energy resources, as some have accused it of doing in Africa? Many people feel disappointed that China has not stood up for developing countries’ interests more in international forums. Moreover, diplomats in Beijing of those same developing nations feel let down when the Chinese government fails to protect the rights of their citizens, especially when they are victims of officially sanctioned racial abuse.
November 12th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
OK. I’ve grown bored with this, and I’ll out what I’ve realized from IP logs last week:
–ivan denisson
–cheetah jacobson
–Stephen Deng
are all the same person. He, whoever he is, lives in China. (Unless it’s three roommates sharing the same computer in China. Man….I’d not digging rooming in that pad.)
MWD
November 13th, 2007 at 2:48 am
Well that Kind of police action Would be more interesting if it were in Your Backyard! Just Imagine.
My new guitarist is black [ex-player in FUNKADELIC!!]…and he was on the scene….
_china correspondent
SkipLuNCH, LOVING BEIJING, …nonetheless
November 13th, 2007 at 3:29 am
Stephen Deng, cheetah jacobson, ivan denisson and Zheng Qi are the same guy, and he is in Australia.
I’d hate to think some guy pretending to be in China might get my site blocked in China.
Maybe it’s all one guy in China using an Australian proxy….Though you don’t need a proxy to get on Stink Fight…..yet!
November 13th, 2007 at 9:55 am
Michael, you’re just hilarious. I’d love to show you my ID to prove that Zheng Qi is my real name but too bad you don’t read Chinese anyway. As for where I live, I believe Dr. Skip could answer that question for you with pleasure…
I don’t think you should trust ur IP list anymore, Interpol, at least not when it comes to Asia. Will an American policeman be able to catch a Chinaman in China Town, NY? There was another time when you said there was no IP from China among your podcast downloaders, but Skip downloads every single one of Clone the Homeless.
So there you have it.
However, I do think that this is the funniest joke you’ve ever made. Love ya for that.
November 13th, 2007 at 10:05 am
I sit corrected.
November 13th, 2007 at 10:57 am
….Or maybe Chery IS deng, cheeta, et al.
Just kitten…….
And I.P. sleuthing is an inexact science from where I’m sitting. Though cops can do it better, to answer your question. And they need access to the DSL provider’s logs and sign-up info though. Which I don’t have (and wouldn’t want!)
MWD
November 13th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
On the web nobody would know if you’re a cat. Meww!
November 14th, 2007 at 1:18 am
LOLLLLLLLLLLLLL…..that almost made me spit soda on my monitor laughing.