While bringing in the New Year I added a new hobby to my days. 
A pastime which has helped me to engage a little more with matters on the Chinese news front, as I have failed to do that regularly with my own notes here. I passed through into 2010 as a Hao Hao Reporter! Now, although the title is more grandiose than the reality, which is simply volunteering to add media stories one finds interesting on the internet to the Hao Hao Report website, it has been a good way to keep a little more on-top of what is going on in relation to China news, across the media spectrum. It also seems to have a good community of people contributing to it, though disagreements amongst members do seem on occasion to occur!
The Hao Hao Report is an excellent site, kicked off in 2006 by Ryan, of ‘The Lost Laowai, ’The Humanaught’ and ‘Dao by Design’, and which with the help of its members, attempts to aggregate all online media articles that have a central reference to China; whether musings from mainstream media intellectuals or insights from personal blog posts- that is, if they are considered good enough. If a member puts forward a story, it quickly becomes obvious if it is considered good or not, as the community votes somebody’s story up or down depending on their own evaluation. Positively, you automatically receive a vote for the story you put forward upon submission. If a story receives 5 votes it moves through to the so-called ‘Popular Page’, which doubles as the site’s homepage; thus those stories considered more interesting hang around longer for people to read. The stories and topics I have come across these last few days have in equal measure been amusing, inspiring, interesting and moving.
No story was more moving and saddening than the story about the 14 year old student who was caught and punished for climbing over the school wall to go and buy some snacks. He was told, by the teacher on duty, to stand outside in the cold. The teacher subsequently went out for the evening and forgot about his student. The boy was discovered the next day- having frozen to death. I must say that for me personally, the story of Akmal Shaikh and his 4kg of heroin, questionable mental state and subsequent execution, the first national of an EU country to be executed in China for 50 years, paled into the background compared to this tragic loss of a single helpless life. It is so sad on a number of levels, outlined in the story linked to above, but two stand out for me.
from bbs.tiexue.net
The first was simply the needless loss of life and the tragic ease with which a young person’s life can just disappear into nothing. And second, that the boy’s seeming acquiescence to authority overrode his basic human instinct for survival. We can all talk about our perceptions and generalizations of /about the Chinese mind set; the (没有为什么-mei you weishenme) “no why” mentality; discussions of greater length have gone on elsewhere. However, for now, I will just leave it by saying how very sad a story this is.
Another issue or topic that stood out through all the postings of stories over the New Year period was a recognition of China having, during the last decade, fully entered the domain of global governance. Whether on issues of climate change, currency evaluation, internet censorship, trade in rare earth metals or in its guise as the central force within the ASEAN-6, China is most certainly at the table of international affairs and it is sitting there with its own agenda and methods of governing. This was summed up more generally by Niall Ferguson when he noted: ‘I think maybe it was only then [last month at Carnegie Hall] that I really got the point about this decade, just as it was drawing to a close: that we are living through the end of 500 years of western ascendancy.’
Tags: Hao Hao Report, Media
西安