I keep swearing this is going to be my last post of the day so I can do some work, but the stories just keep on coming. This one is simply irresistible.

A Hong Kong official said one of the territory’s tiny islands could make a killing with a novel theme park based on its unsavoury reputation as a suicide spot, a media report said on Tuesday.

The morbid suggestion to create a ghost-town attraction where guests were dared to spend the night in “haunted flats” came at a meeting of local leaders on little Cheung Chau island.

Councillor Lam Kit-sing said the island should capitalise on the grisly reputation of one of its holiday homes, where 20 people have taken their lives in the past eight years. Another five people attempted suicide there.

Lam believes the macabre park could be an added attraction for the millions of people expected in the city when Hong Kong Disneyland opens in September.

“A dirty spot yesterday will be an attraction tomorrow,” he was quoted as saying in the South China Morning Post.

“This is innovative and has a selling point.”

Hemlock, anyone? Talk about exploiting the dead…

Does anyone know why this spot is so popular for self-annihilation? Is there a special view, or do they play morbidly depressing music?

Another headline I couldn’t make up if I wanted to. We’ve all seen the works of art that include toilets, a bottles of human fluids with a crucifix floating in it, and even a painintg of the Virgin Mary adorned with elephant dung. But a Chinese artist stitching together the real head of a fetus and body of a bird and displaying it in a Swiss museum — this may be a true first.

A Chinese artist who grafted the head of a human fetus onto the body of a bird has defended his work as art after a Swiss museum withdrew the piece from an exhibit.

“It’s precisely because I respect all life that I did this,” artist Xiao Yu said Tuesday. He said the bird and fetus “died because there was something wrong with them. … I thought putting them together like this was a way for them to have another life.”

Swiss museum visitor Adrien de Riedmatten, 29, filed a complaint on Monday with the district attorney of Bern, Switzerland, calling for an investigation into the piece, which was on display at the Bern Art Museum.

“I want to know where this baby comes from and if it was killed for this work,” de Riedmatten said. “We know about the problems of late-term abortions in China and we have the right to ask ourselves questions.”

The work was removed, curator Bernhard Fibicher said Tuesday, because museum directors didn’t want the controversy surrounding it to overshadow the rest of the “Mahjong” exhibit, which features avant-garde Chinese works from the last 25 years. The museum is planning an Aug. 22 symposium with artists, philosophers and ethics experts before deciding whether to re-exhibit the piece.

Xiao said he bought the head in 1999 for a few dollars from a man who was cleaning out a scientific exhibition hall. The glass bottle in which it came had a handwritten sticker identifying it as a female specimen from the 1960s. According to Xiao, it had no name or cause of death.

I won’t get into the discussion of what constitutes “art,” as it’s one of those can-of-worms topics to which there is no answer. Let me just say for the record, however, that this goes over the top, and I wouldn’t want it in my living room.

[Note: This isn’t breaking news; the link is from 8 weeks ago, but I just saw it today and it definitely merits a mention.]

This is one of the most talked about subjects in the Asia-focused blogosphere, and also one that tends to generate the most misconceptions: Is China now or will it soon be a superpower? Looking at some recent China Daily threads (from whence cometh all truths), you’d think most Chinese believe they are right on the verge of toppling America from it’s No. 1 spot on the Superpowers Top Ten List. But in a recent speech, Federal Reserve executive Richard W. Fisher, who has immense experience dealing with China, applies some numbers to the equation, reminding us that it’s important to stay rooted in reality.

One can paint two starkly different pictures of China right now, the Big China view and the Little China view.

The Big China view centers on China’s manpower and prowess in manufacturing, and it uses purchasing-power-parity adjusted dollars to embolden its case, a convention adopted by economists to adjust for local purchasing power, which has its utility but may or may not be a useful tool in measuring comparative geopolitical power.

Here are some statistics to support the Big China view:

* America has a labor force of 147 million; China’s is 761 million—five times as large.
* China’s factories produced just 200 room air conditioners in 1978; today, they produce 48 million. Back then, they turned out just 11 billion meters of cloth; last year, 35.4 billion meters (over 3 times as much).
* Chinese households have a rapidly increasing abundance of appliances and electronic products—refrigerators, TVs, DVDs, cell phones, etc.—at ownership rates not far below those in this country.
* They have 28.3 million broadband users and 98.8 million Internet users, according to their Ministry of Information and Industry.
* There are 28 billion square feet of floor space under construction in China, compared with just 5 billion in the U.S. Five of the world’s largest shopping centers are now located in China.
* The U.S. manufacturing sector produced goods worth $1.5 trillion in 2004; China’s produced $3.4 trillion, adjusted for purchasing power parity.
* And the grand statistic of them all : On a purchasing-power-parity adjusted basis, economists put China’s gross domestic product at $7 trillion, compared with our $12 trillion—making it already 60 percent of our size.

That’s the Big China view.

The Little China view has many more statistics in its support:

* U.S. productivity in agriculture is 33 times that of China; productivity in U.S. industry is five times that of China.
* The U.S. has 19,497 airports; China, just 126.
* We have 150,000 miles of petroleum pipelines; they have less than 10,000.
* We have 481 cars per 1,000 people; they have seven.
* We have much, much higher levels of education, technology …

I could go on and on with statistics to show where China comes up short. But here are two good summary statistics: On a straight U.S. dollar basis (not adjusted for purchasing power parity), their economy is roughly the size of California’s! China’s GDP per person is just $1,300, compared with our nearly $40,000. That’s just 1/30 of our per capita GDP.

I personally think we overstate the current prowess of China by emphasizing the Big China view. But from either perspective, China has room to grow. To do so, they will have to deal with infrastructure and other problems, which present significant challenges.

The various parts of any and all economies are constrained somewhat to grow in proportion to one another—not in totally rigid ratios, but not in completely flexible ones either.

I’m just scratching the surface; there’s a lot of wisdom to this piece, backed by real statistics (not collected from a local cadre). I don’t agree with him on everything, and I was a little surprised at his lack of visible compassion for America’s working class. But that doesn’t detract from the value of his insights.

At the end of his long speech, Fisher summarizes:

We’re better off if China is rich than if it’s poor. China’s ascension is our opportunity. We have much to sell the Chinese, and they, us. Trade with China is helping raise our productivity and lower our prices. Competition with China keeps us on our toes and sharpens our wits, forcing us to move up the value-added ladder to new and better jobs with higher pay. And as they become more like us, their incentives become more in line with ours every day. This is cause for celebration, not condemnation. And to that, I’ll raise a glass of Chinese beer and say “Good on ’ya.”

One bad Republican down, and more on the horizon. Delay must be sweating bullets.

This is from commenter Pete. If anyone can help answer his questions it will be deeply appreciated.
————————————————————

In my wanderings around Sichuan two weekends ago I met up with a tragic situation. It is a 8 month old minority nationality (Li su) boy who has “water on the brain.” His cranium was the size of a football.

From what I could discern he had had no medical treatment or evaluation because the family was too poor. A long story shortened. I paid to take the boy from the village to the nearest hospital in Xichang. and paid to get him admitted for evaluation.

He is saveable, but needs medical treatment. It can’t be done in
Xichang, but can be done in Chengdu or Guangzhou, BJ.

For the family it is impossible. Cost estimates are 30,000-50,000RMB
for treatment, plus travel costs and accomodations for the parents,
maybe.

I have three questions.

Does anyone know or can find out if there are any free or extremely
reduced cost medical services for poor Chinese and especially a national minority person?

Anyone have connections with any generous medical facilities, foreign
or otherwise, that would do the treatment for free?

Would anyone join me in raising the money to pay whatever it takes to
get the boy treated?

I believe this situation was not a set up. I had gone out to the
countryside from Xichang by bus. I got off and started asking people if any Li people would like to sell me any of their authentic handmade trinkets or jewelry. A roadside fresh grape seller talked to a group of three Li people. They said they have somethings to sell at their house. So we four trudged off about a kilometer or more to their house. One woman was carrying a child on her back under a wrap. After a while they unwrapped this enormous head. Jeez, a big shock.

Their house was one room with 3 beds. The things they had to sell were not much, but they want big prices from the foreigner. I offered very low and they said they want the high prices to get treatment for the boy.

I found out after some inquiry the had never been to a doctor, at least that is what I think they told me. The boy can see and hear and make noises.

I told the mother, father and grandmother that I would pay a normal
price for the jewelry, a ring, but would pay to get the boy to the
hospital in Xichang and get him in for observation and evaluation.

Now I want to see he gets the treatment. Any good ideas, or suggestions?

Before I turn in, I had to point people to this. Rave parties at Auschwitz?

An Internet video that depicts the Nazi death camp Auschwitz as a rave party drew sharp criticism Wednesday from a Jewish rights group, which urged authorities to have it removed from European Web sites.

The three-minute video titled “Housewitz” — a pun on house music and Auschwitz — casts Nazi soldiers as DJs. It alternates black-and-white still photos of Holocaust atrocities with color images of youths at an outdoor party. And it advertises a “Free taxi ride home,” showing a wheelbarrow full of corpses.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s European office denounced the video as “outrageous,” saying it goes “beyond the bounds of freedom of expression to an unprecedented level of obscenity.”

Oh dear. Can you imagine a hip-hop musical about the Rape of Nanjing? What ever happened to respect and good taste? How far will assholes people go for some free publicity?

It just had to be a Muslim terrorist, whether the evidence shows it’s true or not.

One of my very favorite sites tells us how the LGF lizards went into automatic pilot, using it as a new platform for bashing all Muslims (as if Charles Johnson hasn’t already provided enough platforms, real or imagined, to bash Muslims). The post also makes the point that bombings in China are not unheard of, and to reflexively blame “the Muslims” for the latest one is irresponsible.

Again, I am under pressure to finish some big projects and get ready for my trip to China. Please use the latest open thread to share links and comment on life’s mysteries. For now, I can’t keep up the usual volume. Thanks for your understanding.

If you’re concerned about getting the September 11th blues next month, not to worry. The government that brought you freedom fries and the freedom tower will cheer you up with the “America Supports You Freedom Walk”! There’ll be country music and hoe downs and line dancing. Nothing like remembering our dead with a stroll and a little Willie Nelson.

I thought “The Three Represents” was the most awkward phrase in history. But then someone dreamed up the self-parodying and supremely clumsy “America Supports You Freedom Walk.” Catchy, isn’t it?

No, I’m really not making this up.

The Pentagon would hold a massive march and country music concert to mark the fourth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in an announcement tucked into an Iraq war briefing today.

“This year the Department of Defence will initiate an America Supports Your Freedom Walk,” Rumsfeld said, adding that the march would remind people of “the sacrifices of this generation and of each previous generation”.

The march will start at the Pentagon, where nearly 200 people died on September 11, 2001, and end at the National Mall with a show by country star Clint Black.

Word of the event startled some observers.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” said John Pike, who has been a defence analyst in Washington for 25 years and runs GlobalSecurity.org.

The news also reignited debate and anger over linking September 11 with the war in Iraq.

“That piece of it is disturbing since we all know now there was no connection,” said Paul Rieckhoff, an Iraq veteran who heads Operation Truth, an anti-administration military booster.
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Rieckhoff suggested the event was an ill-conceived publicity stunt.

“I think it’s clear that their public opinion polls are in the toilet,” he said.

Rumsfeld’s march had some relatives of September 11 victims fuming.

“How about telling Mr Rumsfeld to leave the memories of September 11 victims to the families?” said Monica Gabrielle, who lost her husband in the attacks.

Administration supporters insisted Rumsfeld was right to link Iraq and September 11, and hold the rally.

“We are at war,” said Representative Pete King, (Republican, New York). “It’s essential that we support our troops.”

He also said attacking Iraq was necessary after September 11.

“You do not defeat al-Qaeda until you stabilise the Middle East, and that’s not possible as long as Saddam Hussein is in power.”

Repeat it often enough and people will believe it. We did not go to war to oust Saddam or make anyone free, but to protect us from the mushroom cloud of WMDs. But we all know that. And we all feel so much safer now that the tired old dictator is in jail; it was worth 2,000 American lives and 40,000 civilians.

Ever-sardonic James Wolcott offers his take on the Freedom Walk, and as always, he doesn’t disappoint.

Rumsfeld was disappointed that famed documentarian Leni Riefensthahl will be unable to film the event for posterity because, well, she’s dead. But he’s pleased as punch (“you bet!”) that he’ll be able to duet with Clint Black as they perform Rumsfeld’s original honkytonk composition “It Takes Big Feet to Fill Big Boots (and I’m in the High Teens, Baby).”

…Also, Rumsfeld says this year’s event will “initiate” the America Supports You Mill Around on the Mall commemorative.

Does that mean this madman intends it to be an annual travesty of the tragedy of 9/11? Whose crackpot idea was this, his, Karen Hughes’? Will Bush himself be in attendance, pumped after his five weeks of brush-clearing in Crawford, Texas?

Get your cowboy boots ready. It’s gonna be a different kind of September 11 this year, a day for kickin’ and struttin’ and plain old relaxin’. I can hardly wait.

Still on deadline so can’t post nearly as much as I’d like. The Tibet thread below is still kicking and seems to have generated some of the smartest comments we’ve seen here in a long time. And so far, the zero-tolerance program on asinine trolls (ZTPAT) seems to be working. When it comes to comments, quality is way more important than volume. So trolls, please keep out.

I really don’t know. All I can say is that the jury is most definitely out. And be sure to consider the source(s). For now, I’m staying neutral.