Dear All:

I just returned from a weekend away in Beijing (not with Dr. Myers, but with my girlfriend, Gao Ying) and so I have only just become aware of her analysis this morning. It is now 10am here in Shenzhen.

It will take me a little while to analyse her comments, but I shall, of course, respond! – probably this afternoon.

Thank you all, for your patience.

Best regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

July 3, 2005 @ 8:03 pm | Comment

Take your time. No need to hurry on our account.

July 3, 2005 @ 8:05 pm | Comment

Welcome back Mark, we look forward, albeit with slight trepidation, to your response!

Anne shook things up pretty well here on Saturday!

July 3, 2005 @ 8:08 pm | Comment

Martyn, I’ve asked you this before, but do you ever go to sleep? Damn, I wish I could stay up as long as you seem to.

MAJ, welcome back. And remember, brevity is the soul of wit.

July 3, 2005 @ 8:21 pm | Comment

…and I’ve answered before. I’m not working and I can do what I like!

July 3, 2005 @ 8:27 pm | Comment

Dear Other Lisa,

In your comments on a previous thread, you surmise that Dr. Anne Myers might be my contra-sexual soul image, that she may embody my ideal image of the feminine, as internalised in my unconscious psyche. I must say Other Lisa, that I find your suggestion to be absolutely hilarious! I certainly did have a good chuckle when I read your comments.

But no. You are wrong. The reality is quite the contrary, in fact. Other Lisa, don’t you think that, given Dr. Myer’s comments about both Conrad and me (and she clearly prefers me over Conrad), that rather than she being my anima projection, that it is far more likely that I am her animus projection?

Could this be why she praises me for my hairy chest? Why she describes me as being both “sexy” and, at times, a “beatnik?” Is it not more likely, don’t you think, that I am for her, the personification of an ideal masculinity? Could this also be why she has expressed such a fascination with Conrad’s penis? Her idealisation, I would suggest, has been split – in that for her, the masculine ideal is represented by both penis size and functionalism, as well as by charisma and intelligence. Brawn, or brains? This appears to be the choice she is facing, the internal struggle that is raging in the deep recesses of her unconsciousness. It is, I surmise, why she is so fixated on the debates that I have been engaging in recently with Conrad – the two of us embody, or represent, the two alternative ideals. This is why, I think, she describes Conrad and I as being like “two bulls locked in horns”.

The fact that she edges towards me in preference (she says that she prefers my political views over Conrad’s) means that she is edging more towards brains rather than brawn – though my serious introspective poses and “hairy chest” clearly excite her as well.

I shall write up a response to Dr. Myers later today, though I will email it to her, rather than posting it up here for all to see.

Incidentally, I really don’t know why so many people here have surmised that Dr. Anne Myers is an American – it should be obvious from her spelling that she isn’t. She is English, and quite coincidentally, she used to live in the north-west London suburb of Hampstead, just down the road from where I myself used to live. Her home, she tells me, which she now rents out, sits only a few streets away from where Elton John, Sting, Annie Lennox and George Michael all have homes. I also discovered, from our email conversations, that the both of us used to regularly drink in the same pub in nearby Highgate Hill, only a few doors down from the home that Karl Marx once lived in, and very near to the wonderful neo-Gothic cemetery, where Marx is now buried. Freud also once lived in Hampstead, and his house, which I have visited many times, is now a museum.

Best regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

July 3, 2005 @ 8:48 pm | Comment

I think the attraction to Conrad could be summarised easily, using the words of PJ O’Rourke. “I don’t mind when people call me a Nazi. No one ever had a sexual fantasy about someone dressed as a liberal.”

July 3, 2005 @ 10:11 pm | Comment

Yes Filthy Stinking No.9. – I think you are quite right. There is a very popular saying, that “every woman loves a fascist”. Perhaps this is why she can be both “horrifed” by Conrad’s political views, whilst remaining interested in the functionalism of his “penis personifed”.

Regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

July 3, 2005 @ 10:19 pm | Comment

MAJ, Conrad’s penis and fascist outfits aside (this is becoming the fetish thread, I see), you are leading me down a dusty memory lane. I spent many an English summer around Hampstead and Highgate (where my father grew up), including the same neo-gothic cemetery. They now charge for it, I note – I guess Karl and TS Eliot were getting popular with the tourists. Probably prowled that same pub as well.

PS: I didn’t mean “Conrad’s fascist outfits”. (Although you never know what you’ll find when you start rifling people’s closets. Jeez.

July 3, 2005 @ 10:30 pm | Comment

Check out these three photos on ESWN, you won’t believe it. Actually, maybe you will.

“A pictorial illustration of wealth inequality in China.”

http://www.zonaeuropa.com/weblog.htm

July 3, 2005 @ 11:21 pm | Comment

I guess this explains my success with the Singaporean ladies::

“A group of Singapore high school students have chosen Adolf Hitler for the their team name and idol at a leadership camp.

The afternoon tabloid, The New Paper, last week reported the students regarded the man who started World War II and masterminded the Holocaust as their hero because of his leadership qualities, and even described him as handsome.

“We like him. He led Germany and was very good although he was evil,” the newspaper quoted the group’s leader, an un-named 15-year-old female student, as saying in Saturday’s edition.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,15788955%5E1702,00.html

July 4, 2005 @ 12:38 am | Comment

Actually, Mark, I was going to speculate that Dr. Anne might be Conrad’s anima projection, but I think your theory is certainly as plausible, if not more so, than either one of mine!

July 4, 2005 @ 1:40 am | Comment

I wonder how Hitler is doing these days? When I was living in Hong Kong, I remember reading in the South China Morning Post that he’d been arrested for touching up a girl in MacDonalds. When they asked the pervert why he chose the name, he replied, “because he was a strong leader.”

July 4, 2005 @ 1:59 am | Comment

Knowing Hong Kong, he’s probably changed his name to Stalin by now.

July 4, 2005 @ 2:07 am | Comment

Filthiest of Stinkers:

I found your response to my earlier analysis to be quite infantile. Firstly, you attempted to marginalise my rather mild criticisms of you by seeking to trivialise me. You knew that I meant for my analysis to be taken seriously, and so you began your attack by stating that you assumed I must have written it merely out of tongue-in-cheek. She couldn’t possibly have been serious, was the line you pushed, but just in case she was, I shall proceed to attack her by declaring her Freudian psychoanalytical framework as being passe – as though the ideas are now dead, a quaint relic from the past. Conrad and Shulan, I noticed, also tried to argue the same thing in response to Mr Jones’ analysis of Bush’s speech. By doing so, you and Conrad and Shulan have simply demonstrated to the world your ignorance on the subject.

How can anybody here possibly take you seriously Filthy? I mean, you can’t even manage to spell my name correctly. You are the same Filthy Stinker are you not, who, not so long ago now, tried to tell us all that the present U.S. occupation of Iraq was nowhere near as gloomy and as dysfunctional as what most of us know to be true – proof that you are not only arrogant and condescending, but also death, dumb and blind.

You claim to have “deconstructed” my text, as though you were some trendy postmodern theorist, but what you overlook here is the fact that most postmodern deconstructionists draw heavily from the ideas of Freud, whose use as a tool you say you reject. Derrida’s work for starters, can be traced back to Freud, and was always heavily influenced by it.

You claim that I espouse “an ideology” whose time has passed, yet I did not appeal to any ideology when making my analysis, nor did I espouse one. I regularly use psychoanalysis as a tool, which is not to say that I agree with every single thing that Freud ever said of course. Who does? All discourse is ideological, of course, so you could argue I suppose that psychoanalysis is ideologically influenced, but I don’t think it proper to call it an ideology as such.

You want to dismiss the validity of psychoanalysis, perhaps because you are threatened by it. But your attempt to do so by claiming it as passe is ridiculous. As Mr Jones pointed out in his response to Shulan’s similar attempt at dismissal, one only has to take a close look at just how many academic conferences are held each year all over the world specifically to discuss Freud and his theories to see that his ideas are not dead or passe – and we’re not only talking about academic conferences held by university departments, but also conferences held by professional associations. “Take a look at the guest lists too,” advised Mr Jones, “and what you will find is that Freud continues today to have a very strong following, even among practicing clinical psychiatrists! To name but one example, off the top of my head, just take Professor Juliet Mitchell: she describes herself as a “Freudian” – she subscribes to many of his views, and has written one of the most authoritative books on the subject, back in 1974, which is still so popular and widely read that an updated edition was re-released in 2000. She is not only a university professor of psychology at Jesus College, Cambridge University, but also a practicing clinical psychiatrist. There are thousands more like her.”

In fact, Filthy Stinker, as Mr Jones has already alerted us to, if you were to turn to any encyclopaedia, you will see that Freud “is generally recognised as one of the most influential and authoritative thinkers of the twentieth century whose ideas continue to shape and to influence the ways in which a great many see the world.” (The Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy)

Notice the word “continue” Filthy.

You also imply that my criticisms of you were motivated by a gender bias, the result perhaps, of penis envy. You are wrong to think like this. My criticisms of you constitute nothing other than a legitimate response to your attitude and behaviour in dealing with the views of others through your responses on the pages of Peking Duck. You can attempt to “deconstruct” my comments, even though you reject the validity of Freud, but this merely demonstrates how hypocritical and contradictory you are.

For evidence of just how arrogant and condescending you can sometimes be, especially towards some Chinese contributors to the Duck, just consider the response that you wrote to young Lin, for example, back in the “Hu Jintao’s reforms” thread, last April 24. “I would like to make a comment to Lin,” you wrote, “you’re debating with people who are extremely well informed on China…You seem guilty [of the] common assumption in the PRC: because you are Chinese you understand, and that foreigners can’t understand, because they are not Chinese.” This I find both patronising and rude.

And then later, in the same conversation, you wrote: “please don’t project stupid ideas like this onto any of us who contribute to this blog… I would maintain that not only should China work towards democracy, it is the only possible solution to avoiding an inevitable ‘dynastic collapse’ sooner or later.”

Well I’m sorry Filthy Stinker, but I know of many intelligent foreigners who have lived in China for many years, and who would disagree with you, and yet you are arrogant and condescending enough to dismiss Lin on the grounds that you supposedly know more about China than she does, and that your opinion is “extremely well informed” and hers somehow isn’t. Well I’m sorry Filthy, but you are talking through your little penis here I’m afraid, because as I said, I know of both many foreign and Chinese scholars who are also “well informed” and their views on this run counter to yours. That’s fine. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion. The difference though, is that none of the “experts” that I am personally acquainted with would be so presumptuous (would be so far up their own arses) to talk down to somebody so dismissively, whilst elevating their own self-proclaimed “superiority” in knowledge and understanding.

And this brings me to my conclusion: based on what I know of you so far, I would surmise that you most likely suffer from what we psychologists generally term as a “superiority complex” which is a disorder that arises from the conflict between the desire to be noticed and the fear of being shown to be inadequate, characterised by rude and aggressive behaviour, and especially be the kind of condescending behaviour that you have often shown towards others here on the Duck. And if you wish for further evidence of such behaviour on your part, I can most certainly provide you with many more examples, all taken from your comments on this website. Your sharing with us all of the praising comments made about your PhD thesis last week by members of your faculty is indicative of your desire to both noticed and praised.

Now we all know why so many men in particular are prone to developing superiority complexes don’t we? – it’s because they seek to conceal their self-perceived inferiority, a self-perception very often derived from an awareness, both conscious and unconscious, of the real, physical fact of having possessing a certain appendage unimpressive in size!

Dr. Anne Myers

P.S. One more thing Stinky: you claim that the good Doctor would not appreciate others providing her with an analysis of their own – an analysis of the good Doctor, that is. Once again, you are wrong. I am quite happy for others to speculate and to theorise on my character traits, provided that they are intellectually capable of doing so. Unlike your pathetic attempt at “deconstruction”, Mr Mark Anthony Jones has developed such an analysis, which I notice he has also posted on this very thread, addressed to the Other Lisa. I shall soon write up my response.

July 4, 2005 @ 4:33 am | Comment

Here we go again……

July 4, 2005 @ 4:37 am | Comment

Everyone, by the way, I made my guest blogging debut today, thanks to Gordon at the Horse’s Mouth. I’m, therefore no longer a virgin so to speak.

In the words of Richard W, apologies if it’s, well, you know……..shit:

Hi China, Bye China?

http://tinyurl.com/a233q

July 4, 2005 @ 4:40 am | Comment

Dear Mr Mark Anthony Jones,

You are in fact the only person I ever address on the pages of this website with the prefix “Dear” – which I hope you will take to be a sign indicative of the utmost respect and admiration that I hold for you.

Thank you for your earlier email of this morning. I am not in any way offended by your suggestion that I may have reified you as my animus projection. It is indeed a very sound theory, and having pondered the possibility of this for most of my afternoon, I can certainly appreciate how you may have developed such a theory. It might surprise you and our readers to know that I am even inclined to accept the possibility of this – you may indeed be my animus projection. The power of your intellect is most astonishing, I must say! You aren’t even a trained psychiatrist, and yet, it seems as though you may very well have hit upon the identity of my neurosis – and without having even ever met me.

And you are certainly most correct when you say that I favour you over Conrad, and because I favour brain over brawn. But let me ask you this: if my “fixation” (if we can indeed call it that) with your exchanges in viewpoints with Mr Conrad really does indicate a split, a struggle, then why should I choose one over the other? Why should I not choose both? I know that you, in your earlier email of today, offered an explanation for this: you suggested that because I had also shown myself to be satisfied by your brawn as well as your brain (which you say I did by indicating excitement over the images you sent me of your hairy chest, and of your sexy James Dean-type introspective poses, as well as of your more “beat” poses in beret), that I had in fact no longer a harboured need for Conrad – that by virtue of the fact that for me, you possess both brain and brawn, Conrad has simply been made redundant. That he had become an irrelevancy, despite the earlier promise of his penis personified.

In many respects, this does sound rather convincing, as I have indeed chosen already from the “two bulls”, or so it may seem to some. Well, I haven’t actually chosen as such at all really (so there is still some hope for you yet Conrad!) but I have certainly indicated which of the two I favour. But why should I choose one or the other? I am, after all, polyamorous. The term “polyamory” as you know, refers to romantic or sexual relationships involving multiple partners at once, regardless of whether they involve marriage. Any polygamous relationship is polyamorous, and some polyamorous relationships involve multiple spouses. “Polygamy” though of course is usually used to refer to multiple marriage, while “polyamory” implies a relationship defined by negotiation between its members rather than through cultural norms – and I, like you, certainly don’t find any appeal in the institution of marriage. It is, as you said in our earlier correspondence, an anachronistic class institution.

So my dear Mr Jones, why should I chose, given my long held belief and practice of polyamory? I mean, as you yourself (and you also claim to be polyamorous) pointed out to me in an earlier email, recent studies on sex reveal that polygamy not only holds biological benefits but has also dominated human history so much that it has become imprinted in our genes. You draw on these studies in fact, to defend your own sexual promiscuity.

In other words, why should I not choose both you and Conrad? To deny myself one of you would simply be self-denial, self-masochistic of me in fact, would it not? And while I do enjoy being slapped a little during coitus, I can’t say that I’m satisfied by more serious forms of bondage. Are you?

Of course, we are not talking about conscious attraction of a sexual nature here, but unconscious attraction. But thanks to your analysis, I have now reached the stage where I can pin-point the nature of my own neurosis: either you are my animus projection, or I harbour a harmless and perhaps exciting streak of self-masochism.

Warmest regards,

Dr. Anne Myers

July 4, 2005 @ 4:41 am | Comment

….anyway, moving swiftly on…….

July 4, 2005 @ 4:53 am | Comment

By the way, Anne, I thought you were going to do your voodoo stuff with our Mr. Laowai2479?

Don’t forget to scope his blog, Public Enemy, for further analysis. Also, partly due to popular demand, he puts recipes on his blog, so throw that into your pyschological mix as it, no doubt, means something significant I’m sure.

July 4, 2005 @ 5:10 am | Comment

Dr. Myers, are you okay? I mean happy. Your posts seem a bit aggressive and condescending.

If you’ll be submitting these for research, please send me a disclaimer. Laowai19790204@gmail.com

July 4, 2005 @ 5:10 am | Comment

Laowai, talk of the devil…..just talking about you mate, behind your back or so I thought..

July 4, 2005 @ 5:12 am | Comment

Testing…Testing……1…….2…..1…….2…..

July 4, 2005 @ 6:02 am | Comment

Well, a bit off topic from Freud:
Happy Fourth of July to all Yanks here!
And Happy British Thanksgiving Day! 🙂

July 4, 2005 @ 6:09 am | Comment

Dear Mr Mark Anthony Jones,

One more thing, which I neglected to mention in my comments to you above. Perhaps one of the reasons why I have favoured you as the better of the two bulls, is because I have a mental image of you that is based not on imagination alone. I actually have somewhere near to twenty or so photos of you, so I know just exactly what you look like. I also know much about you from your travel writings – that you are well accustomed to dining on the canine flesh for example, that you are polyamorous, that you have had numerous lovers (and I note, incidentally, a strong fetish for young Asian girls), and that you are well travelled and well read. I know that your interests vary widely, and that you like cigars and shiraz.

By contrast, I know not what Conrad actually looks like. I have never seen his photo, nor have I read any of his travel writings or essays. All I know of him is derived from his contributions to this website. So perhaps this is also was has tilted me more towards favouring you?

Do you think Conrad might be prepared to email me some photos of himself? How well do you know him? I must say, I am rather curious about the fellow.

By the way, I find that photo of you standing on that nudist’s beach in Sydney to be very very revealing! Who took it? And who are those two lovely young girls standing on either side of you, with their arms wrapped around your shoulders? They both look to be Vietnamese are they? And are such beaches common in Sydney then? What’s the name of that beach? I notice, in the background, that there are numerous naked men wandering about who look to be roughly my age even.

Warmest regards,
Dr. Anne Myers

July 4, 2005 @ 6:37 am | Comment

Dear Mr Mark Anthony Jones,

Forgive me, but just one last thing: how and why the fetish for young Asian girls do you think? I’m looking forward to reading a little self-analysis from you this time.

Sorry if I seem a little too frank too by the way, but I’m afraid my tongue has been loosened somewhat by my having consumed several small glasses of gin over the last hour. Your analysis of earlier today is still troubling me it would seem.

And do you think you could be a little more efficient with your correspondence? You take such an awfully long time to respond do you not?

Dr. Anne Myers

July 4, 2005 @ 7:01 am | Comment

And where is the Duck himself these days? Not being roasted somewhere, I trust. I enjoyed a nice course of Peking Duck two evening ago in fact. Most delicious, I must say.

Anne Myers

July 4, 2005 @ 7:04 am | Comment

Anne

Richard is in America so as per the time attached to the bottom of each post, it’s just after seven in the morning.

Must be 10 hours behind Beijing time. By the way, I’m in Guangzhou as well, just about, Huiqiao New City, right up in the north next to the old airport.

July 4, 2005 @ 7:10 am | Comment

There’s only one appropriate and effective way to deal with Filth, and that’s to apply to it generous quantities of disinfectant.

My last thoughts for tonight….

Dr. Anne Myers

July 4, 2005 @ 7:10 am | Comment

Martyn,

I reside in the very fashionable and in places rather postmodern Tian He District.

If you should ever visit me, be sure to bring along a bottle of gin – that’s if you wish for me to converse with you in good temper!

Now I must stop chatting and hurry along to bed.

Dr. Anne Myers

July 4, 2005 @ 7:14 am | Comment

I’ve though of Tianhe as a lot of things but never postmodern. Still, there’s some nice places to live over there, like The Greenery and CITIC Plaza. Expensive though.

Before coming here I always lived in Baiyun District, near The Garden Hotel as that was where my local pub and mates were.

July 4, 2005 @ 7:27 am | Comment

“I do not think our successes can compete with those of Lourdes. There are so many more people who believe in the miracles of the Blessed Virgin than in the existence of the unconscious.” Sigmund Freud

I am not ignorant I am sceptical. I do not reject that Freud can be quite inspiring reading.
What I have problems with is the impression that psychotherapy has become the Lourdes of our times.
I am not aware of any scientific reaserch that has prooven that anything from depth psychology to behavior therapy is more effective than just doing nothing.

July 4, 2005 @ 7:28 am | Comment

Hey guys, you have to treat Dr. Anne Myers with more respect. She’s a doctor. I know because it says so in her signature. Probably from a real school.

FS9, what if you have a sore throat in the postmodern Tian He District? And you go to the doctor? She’s about to prescribe an antibiotic and asks your name, and you say “My name is Filthy Stinking #9.” Then she’d probably charge you extra.

Unless she’s a doctor of something else, in which case she’d lecture you an extra 20 minutes, to increase your pain.

July 4, 2005 @ 7:29 am | Comment

Dr. Myers asked:
“Do you think Conrad might be prepared to email me some photos of himself?”

It appears I was more accurate than I imagined when I yesterday wrote:

“Surely I could not have been the only one who took Dr. Anne Myers’ carefully penned musings as a thinly-veiled plea to Conrad for some personal photos?”

That was one quickly shed veil!

Conrad and MAJ, would one of you please oblige this poor woman, so we can return undiverted to our usual carping and pseudo-intellectualizing? 🙂

July 4, 2005 @ 7:32 am | Comment

Hahaha.

Exactly.

…and I never thought for one single minute that MAJ’s poor response time has anything whatsoever to do with his fetish for young Asian girls.

July 4, 2005 @ 7:45 am | Comment

Actually, I’m enjoying having Anne here on Peking Duck. Although that may have something to do with the fact that I haven’t been caught in her cross-hairs …yet. I mean, I never thought I’d see the day when Mark Anthony Jones was out-commented by another!

Anne’s thoughts about Kevin on the ‘China is Beautiful’ thread:
—————————————-
“Dear Kevin

What in God’s name are you rambling on about young man? What flows like sewage from your tongue smells like nothing other than a foul and paranoid rant.”
—————————————–
Definitely enough said!

July 4, 2005 @ 7:50 am | Comment

By the way Martyn, on a much more mundane topic, thanks for the offer of obtaining deoderant. In fact, several common American brands of deoderant are readily obtainable in many places around Shanghai. I just bridle a bit at paying the purchasing power equivalent of nearly $30 for what is more or less a stick of wax.

That’s why I was (initially) excited about that latest “Fa” product, which goes for about 25 rmb (purchasing power equiv of about US$8).

I wonder if I could get a sweat gland transplant?

July 4, 2005 @ 8:24 am | Comment

No, I know SH must have deoderant, I was just surprised that you buy Fa, but then pete steamed in and said that he uses it as well, so perhaps I’m wrong.

No, I offered to get you Vanilla/Van pods next time I’m in HK if you’re desperate.

Hardly the most exciting of posts I’ll admit but we all can’t be Mark/Anne’s you know!

July 4, 2005 @ 8:33 am | Comment

Oh, sorry, I got confused.

I was looking for vanilla to make ice cream with. However, I have “cooled” to that idea (sorry) when I realized most ice cream uses uncooked egg yolks. Not sure if I want to risk that in China.

Thanks all the same!

July 4, 2005 @ 8:39 am | Comment

Well, that’s a relief. I thought the vanilla beans were for your armpits!

July 4, 2005 @ 8:56 am | Comment

Slim, is it warm enough up there for you?

SCMP:

“Hundreds of people have been hospitalised in the Chinese metropolis of Shanghai as a record-shattering heatwave showed no signs of letting up on Monday, straining already stretched power resources.

The thermometer hit 39 degrees Celsius on Sunday, making it a record ninth straight day above 35 degrees.”

Apparently, it’ll continue till Wednesday when massive rainstroms will cause temperatures to plummet.

July 4, 2005 @ 9:11 am | Comment

Recent comments added to “China The Beautiful”

Excellent. Just excellent. Even though I am lucky enough to split time between Hong Kong and Shenzhen what you wrote really struck a chord. This was especially meaningful: “I’ve found that suffering and pride are irrevocably intertwined into an illness that absolves personal responsibility on part of its people towards its own people.” And I can relate to the hospital stories. I’ve had a couple of my own, though not at the miserable scale you’ve experienced.

July 4, 2005 @ 9:54 am | Comment

Gosh! I can’t say that I disagree with the line he underlines.

July 4, 2005 @ 9:55 am | Comment

Found Freud’s nice selfdescription:

“I am actually not at all a man of science, not an observer, not an experimenter, not a thinker. I am by temperament nothing but a conquistador – an adventurer, if you want it translated – with all the curiosity, daring, and tenacity characteristic of a man of this sort.”

Well, if my doctor would say that to me …

July 4, 2005 @ 9:59 am | Comment

I’m going to go out a limb here, but I would say that those of you who do the “I’m a guest in their country” bullshit, really don’t care about China. Otherwise, you would care about raising the standards.

I love China very passionately. It is the beacon in a stormy sea that has changed my course of direction in life and I would love nothing more than to see every Chinese person (rich or poor) enjoying the same fruits of every other modern society.

I’m far from perfect, but I’ll never settle for mediocrity.

Fuck that “it’s just their culture” shit.

Stop spitting! It’s a health hazard.

Pick up after yourself! You’re polluting the environment.

….the list goes on. But that’s okay, it’s just their culture. That makes it completely acceptable.

Meanwhile, the pollution clouds flow to Hong Kong an even across the Pacific.

If you’re willing to lower your standards just because you’re in a country that has yet to catch up with where they are trying to go, then you have compromised yourself and in the case of China, you are only contributing to their victim mentality.

July 4, 2005 @ 10:08 am | Comment

I’ve already recognized the spelling errors, so float past them.

It’s 00.11am here and I’m enjoying my wine.

So get over it.

Dr. Myers…You’re still obsessive-compulsive.

You should seek help for that. The Chinese make great…er..nevermind.

July 4, 2005 @ 10:14 am | Comment

An interesting piece of news: http://tw.news.yahoo.com/050704/15/20tku.html
if anybody can read.

July 4, 2005 @ 10:17 am | Comment

What, Gordon, you’re in Shenzhen?

Say, all the pontificating and bloviating aside, happy 4th of July to those who celebrate it. Politically incorrect firecracker pictures here.

July 4, 2005 @ 10:21 am | Comment

Just back from up North.

I have a very interesting experience there today before I returned. I was walking around looking at and photographing the old architecture. I came across a lot of people milling around on the street and at the entrance to some government building with some police gathered too. As a good example of an old foreign build house was in the compund I went inside to take some photos. Now there was a speaker and the crowd of 100 to 120 (15 or so cops too) cheered at some things he said. Whoa, what is going on here? Damn, if it was a protest. I took a few photos of the crowd. Then a cop spotted me and in English ask me where I was from and why I was taking photos. I gave him a Chinese city name and point to the old house. Then one of the crowd tried to talk to me with his little English. While trying to make sense with this man, another man in regular clothes put his hands on me and tried to move me away. I phyiscally indicated for him to get his hands off me and some of the crowd noticed and there was a murmur of recognition of what I had done. The guy who was trying to chat with me ask for my telephone number.

I learned it was a labor protest over, I guess, wanting higher wages. Sometime later a person who spoke English called me wanting to know why I was at the scene. Specifically, they wanted to know if I was a jounalist. I am not.

Does anyone here wanted to take this matter up? I am proposing if you are or know a jounalist in China who might be interested I will give you the phone number to pursue the matter. Maybe these folks could use a subtle hand. Say Jeremy for instance. If you want to contact me email Richard and if he will, he can forward it to me.

More about the trip. The first time I have seen this in China, street side beer sold in plastic bags for take home. Kind of amazing. Keg beer tapped and sold in bags on the sidewalks. The first opportunity I had to try was today. For lunch I bought rolls and flat bread; I saw a streetside keg so I bought a pint, at yi kuai, of cool refreshing famous beer.

Near #1 beach there is a hangout that Westerners seem to know about and gather with the cool Chinese sailboard instructors and beach guys. Its called Sailing Club and Bar.

The new district is aggressively upscale. In some public places it has the most luxurious grass I have ever seen in China, not that you all probably care.

There is a Starbucks coffee joint, fairly close to the image stealer coffee shop that still uses the essence of Starbuck’s logo and color scheme.

In the harbor is a navel installation with about 4-5 destroyer class ships. On at least two of them I could see missile racks. They looked loaded, but probably with dummies as the ships are close to the tourist paths.

Weather was only so-so. Heavily overcasted or smogged in first two days, but today the sun appeared. It was humid, but not like Guangdong.

I went to a Century21 real estate office to check out rentals and possibly a purchase. Century21 is affiliated with the US company with the same logo and color scheme. Anyway in the office was a poster that showed a picture of the Whitehouse with a “For Sale” sign pictured on the Whitehouse front lawn. The text on the poster was in Chinese saying in effect if Bush wanted to sell Century21 could help a customer buy it or something like that.

Cool? First IBM computers, maybe Maytag and Unocal, now the Whitehouse. Actually I am just joking here, but not about the poster itself. They staff did not mind that I took a photo of it as they seemed to be completely unaware of any implications it might have for an American mind.

Watch out for the 8th edition Lonely Planet on China. I tried to find 2 restaurants it mentioned. Could not find either one. One may have moved and the other I think is out of business.

July 4, 2005 @ 10:33 am | Comment

Sam, if I were in Shenzhen I would be buying you beer until…well, you ran out of money.

Happy 4th to you too.

July 4, 2005 @ 10:50 am | Comment

…and if Sam was paying then I’d join you.

July 4, 2005 @ 10:58 am | Comment

I repeat (as I said a few hours ago):
Happy July 4th, to all Yanks here!
I just can’t get into Freud on the Fourth of July….. 🙂

July 4, 2005 @ 11:28 am | Comment

Pete, were you in Beijing?

July 4, 2005 @ 11:57 am | Comment

Hope you’re enjoying your vacation away from the flourescent pit of hell. What’s cooking today?

July 4, 2005 @ 12:46 pm | Comment

sweet.

http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050704/2005-07-04T142239Z_01_N04658021_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-RIGHTS-CHINA-DC.html

July 4, 2005 @ 2:39 pm | Comment

Dear (yes dear as in precious, with affection, held in esteem and as a custom for which derived) Dr. Anne (Are you really?); Richard the Duckhearted; Martyn, MAJ, Laowei and others:

Except for the salutation, this message shall be brief although lacking in wit, inspite of it’s soul.

This dog seems to be chasing its tail. As a snap shot though, you’re a funny bunch. Thanks for the show.

July 4, 2005 @ 2:52 pm | Comment

just to come in out of nowhere:
Laowai: thanks very much for on an older open thread giving me the address to the mp3s of putonghua — I’d searched hi & lo & got nowhere until that site!

July 4, 2005 @ 2:53 pm | Comment

also been puzzling over Dr Anne.
cos I was really hoping to see what MAJ had posted back.
how is it that she reads just like MAJ — uncanny is it plagiarism parody or pastiche? should people be allowed to palgiarise MAJ even? perhaps there should be a law, or a nanny.

and yet he so clearly is her muse, her catalyst, her lightening conductor, for I believe it was his inexpert comments on phalluses and buildings etc that provoked the dear doctor in to pridefully demonstrate her expertise in these matters — provoked her to post for the first time I think?

she even shares his correspondance with us all.

the bits about animuses and reifications are a bit beyond me I can’t deny.

but it’s clear as night is night and day is day, Mark, that you have little to fear from your rival Conrad: polyogony notwithstanding, what she wants is you to lock horns and fight with him over her!

and why not? her views on the PRC are quite sound, after all.

July 4, 2005 @ 3:28 pm | Comment

polyagony I meant, for what it’s worth

July 4, 2005 @ 3:34 pm | Comment

KLS, I had no idea your were such a poet. Nice work.

Winston, this is an open thread. Lots of tail chasing, to use your metaphor.

Dr. Anne, I don’t think one needs to be a seer to see some serious flaws in your arguments. It’s fairly clear you are projecting your own shortcomings onto poor FSN9. You call him infantile and find him guilty of trying to marginalize you, when your entire MO is to act in a far more infantile manner while marginalizing just about everyone except the new-found love of your life. Your entire tone, dripping with a supercilious snobbery and a presumtion of superior intelligence belies your own implied claims of psychoanalytic omniscence. I’d also have to say you are perhaps the most sexually obsessive soul I’ve met on the planet, an honor previously held by your bete noire Conrad the Barbarian. Congratulations, you now hold the prize.

Devi, I am marking time, preparing for tomorrow’s descent into hell , at which time I will have to deal with the powers that be. My destiny will almost certainly be decided tomorrow, now that The Boss is back in the office. I feel apprehensive, not about losing the job but about the looming question marks. Knowing I’ve lost the job would come as a wonderful relief.

To the commenter far above who asked if all the comments of Dr. Anne were sent by the same person, the asnwer is yes, based on IP address.

July 4, 2005 @ 4:03 pm | Comment

July 4th…………The first thing come to my mind is:
How come so many savy characters could gather in the right place at the right time, and later came up with the novel Constitution Law which has been respected by all following presidents and congress ever since?
You lucky american bastards, happy July 4th!

July 4, 2005 @ 4:05 pm | Comment

Martyn quoted:
“Hundreds of people have been hospitalised in the Chinese metropolis of Shanghai as a record-shattering heatwave showed no signs of letting up on Monday (…)
The thermometer hit 39 degrees Celsius on Sunday, making it a record ninth straight day above 35 degrees.”

Now you know why I have been thinking a lot about deodorant lately. 🙂 What the article doesn’t mention is that the reason it’s so uncomfortable here is Shanghai’s d@mnable humidity, which seems to be 80%+ most of the year (and 99% lately).

Around here, this time of year is called “Huang Mei Tian” (Plum Days?), typically twenty days of sauna-like weather punctuated by short, intense monsoon-like rains that suddenly appear out of nowhere.

Thank heavens I can wear shorts to work.

Sam_S – Ha! I have not actually tried clenching beans under the armpit, but who knows? It doesn’t sound that much stranger than holding a burning herb near a pregnant woman’s toe. 🙂

Happy Fourth of July!

July 4, 2005 @ 4:10 pm | Comment

Richard don’t be so hard on the dear lady, I’m not prepared to comment on her original comments on FS9, but she was surely correct in her dissection of the structure of FS9’s response.
and any cat that can get the tongue of MAJ, as well as putting Conrad on the back foot, can only be a good thing.

July 4, 2005 @ 4:15 pm | Comment

Lin,

I know what you mean, unfortunately I don’t believe that any of our Presidents since the founding fathers have held true respect for our Constitution.

July 4, 2005 @ 6:26 pm | Comment

Dear Dr. Anne Myers,

Thank you for your compliments, and I am most certainly pleased to have been able to have provided you with an analysis of yourself that you find plausible. I’m sorry though, if you are troubled by it, though I can understand your appreciation. I am glad to have been of service.

But I would greatly appreciate it though, if you would very kindly refrain from sharing with the wider public my personal fetishes, etc. Do I really want all Peking Duck readers to be made aware for example, that I have a taste for the canine flesh? – given the enthnocentricity of many of the readers here, details of such habits are best kept quiet I think.

And do I really want the world to know that I frequent nudist beaches when at home in Sydney, and that I am polyamorous (though I guess most people are these days, aren’t day?)

To answer your other question, I’m afraid I do not know Conrad at all. I know as little about him as you do, so I have no idea whether or not he would be prepared to send you his photo.

I look forward to our next correspondence. I have almost finished writiing you an essay (it’s only twelve pages long this time) about postmodern time and space – postmodern being a term I use to refer to the cultural logic of late (globalised) capitalism, in following with Frederic Jameson’s model. Your criticisms will be much appreciated. I shall email it to you soon, as an attachment.

Best regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

July 4, 2005 @ 7:22 pm | Comment

Oh Anne …

Go play in the kindergarten.

July 4, 2005 @ 7:27 pm | Comment

If you don’t mind, I’m closing this down so we have only one open thread going up top. Thanks.

July 4, 2005 @ 7:37 pm | Comment