Bingfeng Teahouse

via: eswn, sina book (in chinese)

this book named <chinese chef> tells stories of those chefs who have provided services to state guests liek dr. kissinger. one chapter of the book has a stroy of one subordinate of dr. kissinger, who accompanied him to visit china in 1970s. when they had dinner, they were served wine with glasses made of jade. he loved the wineglasses so much that he stole one of the 9 wineglasses. certainly chinese found it and wanted to take the wineglasses back. they could ask him to return the wineglass or steal it back. but finally chinese decided to use another way:

they had a magic performance on the day americans were leaving beijing , a wineglasses disappeared from the hands of the magic performer, and then within a seconds, it re-appeared from the suitcase of that american who stole it. in this way, the jade wineglass returned to chinese hands and dr. kissinger's face saved.

NOW, let's see how Dr. Kissinger was "abused" in the west.

via: sina books (in chinese)

Mei Zi, a young lady, transferred her food blog into a book

if you pay attention to english blogs about china, perhaps you could guess which one will get published next. just a rumor, but a founded one :)

am i too sensititive or did i overreact by accusing horses mouth blog "a place for those who enjoy china-bashing"?

perhaps.

there are many reasons for me to be alert, and here are three of them:

1) "bashing" is a self-indulgent vicious cycle, as soon as you get into the trap, you will have an "urge" to send more ammunitions to the "bashing machine" to make yourself satisfied. examples are ample, here, and here, and the notorious Mr. song, people who originally are not a "basher" are driven by themselves to become a "basher", and even more often, they come to a "bashing place" like those listed above to enjoy the bashing thing.

when all the attentions are focused on "criticisms", the line between bashing and criticism becomes blurred, a media with 80% criticism on one particular target soon attract like-minded readers and has a high possibility to degenerate into a "hate media".

2) i had a conversation with a reporter months ago, briefly, one of his reports almost wrecked a nice company, while admitting his accusation of that company only reveals a small part of the whole picture of that company, he wass not going to take the responsibility for the imbalanced reporting and told me that other media could present the missing parts of that big picture to the public.

putting accuracy ahead of balance becomes the norm for western media in recent years. the competition of different media ensures that no one could dominate the voice, and this greatly reduces the risks of imbalanced reporting. but when it comes to media reporting of china, that diversity seems disappear in seconds.

to some people like this one, blog is an antidote to this imbalanced reporting of mainstream media. however, if a blog is allowed itself traped by vicious cycle of "criticism-bashing-more bashing", then perhaps it will become even worse than a mainstream media.

3) a blog is both a very personal and a very public thing, and it brings attention of a lot of people that someday might make judgement or take action based on what they learn from your blog, like this australian senator who read this peking duck blog post.

i enjoy the freedom of writing a blog, in which i could write anything i like, but still, there is a group of people who will be  influenced by the views expressed in your blog, in one way or another. and these people, readers of your blog, should be respected by not being fed by personal indulgence that might lead them to somewhere not desirable.

finally, i'd like to make it clear that my comment in horses mouth is not intended to offend anybody, as a matter of fact, i have made similar accusations towards stuff i think not fair or not true in many blogs.

related likes:

"Chinglish" translators wanted

how some westerners look at me and china

Blog Wars

Do Expat Bloggers Belittle China?