I grew up in New Hampshire.  The state’s population is 95.5% white.  That’s a lot.  More than a lot.  It’s why I once had a friend (who I actually do not consider racist) unintentionally mutter a quick “wow,” when he saw a black guy walking down Main Street in my hometown.  Yeah, it’s like that.

It’s also strikingly similar to China’s ethnic mix: 91.5% Han Chinese.  Whether people approve or not, living in such a huge majority bends the yardstick for socially acceptable behavior.  China (and Taiwan) are grossly racist.

"Oreintal Angel" Lou Jing is definitely Blasian!

Part of it is cultural.  There is, especially for young woman, a desire to have deathly pale skin.  This is meant to prove your wealth, perhaps tacked to old notions of parlor living and powdered English wigs.  For as much as the Chinese hate “Western interference” they love to chase its ideals.  Pale is pure, and dark means dirty.  It means field workers, farmers.  And to the elite– then and now– the backbone of society, the working class, those that feed China, is a cast(e) of untrustworthy thieves.

For as odd to the eye as a white person is in remote parts of China, it fails to surpass the contrast in appearance of a dark skinned black person.  And Chinese equate fear with this.  It’s the age old DIFFERENT=DANGEROUS equation.

It’s no surprise that Lou Jing– a gorgeous Blasian young woman who worked her way onto a popular TV show– was targeted by the narrow-minded netizenry of China’s uber-lame mainstream Web forums.  If you want to know how far China  has to go before becoming a “harmonious society,” read this disturbing translation from chinaSMACK.

Chinglish makes everything a bit more interesting!

Here are a couple other quick links:

1. China, ever-so romantic, has dropped a ban on it’s national ping-pong champ.  At age 25, he is now allowed to have a girlfriend.
2. “Long time no see,” for those who don’t know, is a literal translation of a common Mandarin saying.  Direct translations can turn out to be quite humorous, and eventually acceptable.  But in Shanghai, the city gov is working to eliminate any instance of jumbled English phrasing before the open of the World Expo (a.k.a. World’s Fair) next year.  Here’s an article on “chinglish,” the hybrid of our two tongues. The Flickr chinglish group it mentions can be found here.  Some shots are downright hysterical.
3. And here’s a bizarre article about a troublesome bridge in China and a savory solution to suicide threats.

Wang Hao, China’s reigning ping pong champ, is finally allowed to have a girlfriend.  Until recently, the 25-year old was banned from dating, as is common with many of China’s national athletes.  His girlfriend, 23-year old Peng Luyang, is a former national ping pong champion.

“Both of them are old enough and it’s normal,” China Daily quoted Peng’s coach Qiao Yunping as saying.

Star athletes are often restricted from dating or marrying until a certain age, in the hopes of keeping them focused on their athletic careers.  According to AP:

Athletes who date without permission risk being punished. In 2004, Wang started dating another fellow national team player, Fan Ying, and officials kicked Fan off the national team. Media reports said Wang avoided punishment at the time because his world ranking was much higher than Fan’s.

Kind of sounds like some Asian parents I know!

Suzie

Link

Wow, living in China sure seems like fun. For instance, if you are the reigning world champion in table tennis and a two-time Olympic silver medalist like Wang Hao and you want to have a girlfriend, up until very recently, it was forbidden. The 25-year old was banned from dating other players in the national ping-pong program until team officials relaxed their stranglehold on Hao and allowed him to pursue a relationship with Peng Luyang, a 23-year old former member of the team.

“Both of them are old enough and it’s normal,” Peng’s coach, Qiao Yunping said.

As part of their ridiculously tight control over their national athletes, China’s state-run sports system generally bans athletes from dating or marrying until they reach a certain age. As well, many of their winnings are redirected BACK into the system — but then, that’s communism.

Wang has been in this situation before, when in 2004 he started dating another ping-pong player, Fan Ying. Chinese officials booted her off the team for the infraction with Wang receiving no outward punishment. The reason? His world ranking was much higher than hers.

As Sean Connery says in the immortal action classic, The Rock, “Losers whine about doing their best, winners go home and fuck the prom queen.”

[Stuff.co.nz]

As the reigning table tennis world champion with two Olympic silver medals under his belt, China’s Wang Hao almost had it all — except a girlfriend.

The 25-year-old was banned from dating until recently, when national team officials permitted his relationship with former national teammate, 23-year-old Peng Luyang, the government-owned China Daily reported.

“Both of them are old enough and it’s normal,” the newspaper quoted Peng’s coach Qiao Yunping as saying.

Strict control of athletes’ personal lives is common in China’s rigid state-run sporting system, which grooms young hopefuls in specialized sports schools around the country to become gold medalists, providing them with intensive training and free food, clothes and shelter.

Under the watchful eye of team officials, star athletes are often banned from dating or marrying until a certain age, restricted in endorsement contracts and sometimes have a large percentage of their winnings taken away.

Athletes who date without permission risk being punished. In 2004, Wang started dating another fellow national team player, Fan Ying, and officials kicked Fan off the national team. Media reports said Wang avoided punishment at the time because his world ranking was much higher than Fan’s.

How old were you when you started dating?  Have you ever thought that your parents’ rules concerning dating were too strict?  Have you ever joked that you were not going to allow your child to date until he or she was 25?  Well, in China, they are not joking when they say that.

Wang Hao, a world-class table tennis player, has been deemed old enough to date at age 25.  Who decided?  Well the Chinese table tennis officials, of course.  Who else would be qualified to make this decision?  They also decided he was not old enough at age 20 when he showed interest in a young girl.

I wonder how old he will have to be if he decides he wants to get married.

Being architects, my wife Gyda Anders and I, have a different approach to Feng Shui, and the other day I picked up a book written by a PhD candidate in the History Department of Beijing University, where he wrote about a new approach to the study of Feng Shui in Mainland China. I think what he described fits ours very closely as well, so I have roughly translated his words as a reference to our own thinking.

The author name is Wang Hao 王浩 and the book is called “Shen Suan – Zhongguo Shushude  Mimi” (神算 – 中國術數的秘密), which I have translated as “Divine Calculations – The Secrets of the Chinese Art of Numbers”.

“In recent years, a group of specialists and scholars from the architectural field has declared openly that their in-depth study and research have revealed that the core content of Feng Shui is in fact essentially the same as the principles used in ancient Chinese architecture and planning. They reckon by using Feng Shui one can resolve the thousand years old riddle relating to how the architectural space is managed in our environment and how the man-made and the natural landscape are integrated in large or small-scale projects in ancient time. From this point of view, Feng Shui can be seen as a multi-disciplined and unified architectural theory that incorporated the study of geography, ecology and philosophy etc. as well as landscape and architectural design. Although this approach cannot fully explain all the mysteries attributed to Feng Shui, nevertheless it is a surprising but valid approach worth pursuing.”

Seit dem Wochenende habe ich die  Tischtennis-WM in Yokohama verfolgt, bei der die Chinesen selbst für ihre Verhältnisse überaus dominant waren – alle Gold- und Silbermedaillen sowie insgesamt 17 von 20 Medaillen gingen ins Reich der Mitte. Vor allem die Herrenkonkurrenz hatte es mir angetan. Nach den innerchinesischen Halbfinals zwischen Wang Hao und Ma Long (4:1) und Wang Liqin und Ma Lin (4:3) siegte der Weltranglistenerste Wang Hao heute morgen im Finale mit 4:0 gegen den Titelverteidiger Wang Liqin. Das Finale hat es noch nicht bis zu YouTube geschafft, es war aber auch nicht so hochklassig wie das Olympiafinale zwischen dem neuen Weltmeister und Ma Lin. Von dem Spiel habe ich einen rasanten Zusammenschnitt gefunden, der in etwas über vier Minuten das Endspiel von Peking zusammenfasst – viel Spaß beim Tischtennis vom Allerfeinsten!

This story has all the elements that make Hemingway proud: ping pong, karaoke, urination, violence and of course a man named Wang.

Wang Hao is the marquee player in China’s premier table tennis league which is a fancy way of saying ping pong and who also won a team gold at the Beijing Games. He is the face of ping pong damn it!

For the record you should see the movie Ball of Fury it is hilarious.

It seems Wang was outside a karaoke club minding his own business while draining his dragon, when a security guard attempted to stop him midstream. Now that’s worth about 1000 douche bag points right there people.

Kerry Wood salutes you Wang.

Ozzy Osborne, however, is less than impressed…

During this altercation Wang uttered perhaps the greatest ping pong quote ever:

“I am the famous Wang Hao! I am the world champion! Does it matter if I beat you?” shouted the 24-year-old, according to a witness quoted by the papers.”

I personally feel Wang should receive a position with the UN for saying this. That quote replaces my all-time quote “I got the poo on me” which was from the movie Joe Dirt.

Of course Wang would be my newest idol if he would have incorporated the phrase “I’m Wang Hao bitch!” sometime during this altercation.

Of course the national table tennis team denied the incident at first and claims that Wang only was sober at the time, which still doesn’t explain the urination factor.

Spain is working feverishly on a new team picture.

“There was no drunkenness or brawling. There was just an argument,” Monday’s Shanghai Morning Post quoted China national team manager Huang Biao as saying.

“Because Wang is a celebrity, the story has been amplified.”

Nonetheless Wang will face punishment and we all know how China doles out punishment don’t we? Uh huh…hopefully he will live through it.

Wang told the government controlled press that he lost a match over the weekend and basically turned to alcohol and that he has learned his lesson from this incident.

“It taught me that I have to be very careful about anything I say or do,” Wang told state broadcaster CCTV.

Wang will also reportedly receive counseling. I wonder what kind of counseling though. Remember this is a country that gave two women (One was blind) who were over 70, “Reeducation through work” counseling for protesting in an area that was designated for protesting during the past Olympics.

Jetzt, wo die Sonne so langsam wieder raus kommt, spiele ich von Zeit zu Zeit ein bißchen Tischtennis. Das hat dann weniger sportlichen denn freizeitlichen Charakter und dient vor allem einem bißchen Zeitvertreib an der frischen Luft, aber auch das ist ja ein wesentlicher Faktor sportlicher Betätigung. Anders sieht es da bei den Herren aus dem Video aus, die ob ihrer Reflexe und ob ihrer koordinatorischen und technischen Fähigkeiten mich immer wieder zum Staunen bringen. Ich will allerdings mir nicht vorstellen, unter welchem Druck die großen chinesischen Drei Ma Lin, Wang Liqin und Wang Hao stehen, wenn es im Sommer in Peking um Gold geht. Wenn das mal nicht dazu führt, dass Timo Boll der chinesischen Übermacht den Olympiasieg vor der Nase wegschnappt… Zur Einstimmung auf das Tischtennisturnier bei Olympia ein schöner Clip, den ich bei YouTube gefunden habe.

Ma Lin, de huidige nummer 2 van de wereld, maakt zich op voor de Olympische Spelen van 2008. Eigenlijk zijn alle Chinezen daarmee bezig. Het moet hun moment worden. Ze moeten alle ereplaatsen bekleden volgend jaar om de schande van de vorige Spelen te doen vergeten (daar won namelijk een Zuid-Koreaan goud). Buiten de Spartaanse training die de Chinezen krijgen, heeft de Chinese bond een ‘exportverbod’ aangekondigd voor de Chinese spelers die in een Europese competitie spelen (lees groot geld verdienen). Zo voorkomen ze dat de Europese concurrenten kunnen wennen aan het spel van de Chinezen. Zie hier Ma Lin, volgens mij samen met Wang Hao favoriet voor goud, aan een nieuwe opslag werken. Dit is te zot, geloof me.