I love this bit:

“The demolition failed due to technical reasons, the China Daily reported.”

January 3, 2010 @ 7:18 am | Comment

Haha…my wife is from Liuzhou…I eat at that same McDonald’s every time I visit. My wife was there to watch the demolition.

January 3, 2010 @ 7:46 am | Comment

As usual, the Mail get it somewhat wrong. The building was not demolished by crane later. It is still standing or rather, leaning. Local papers say that it will take up to a month to destroy it by conventional methods.

The shoppers are carrying on, “unperturbed by the dangerously leaning building” because they are nowhere near it! There is considerable foreshortening in the picture.

More at http://liuzhou.blog-city.com/leaning__tower2.htm

January 3, 2010 @ 12:42 pm | Comment

Thanks for the correction, LL – I was nervous about linking to a story from the Mail knowing how unreliable they can be. They have again lived up to their reputation.

January 3, 2010 @ 12:58 pm | Comment

On the Concept of Psychological Dominance

In human society, psychological dominance is very important. For example, a very rich billionaire, the money he earned he will not be able to spend it all in life, even in 10 lives. Then why does he keep earning more and more? One important reason is to establish psychological dominance over his competitors.

Today, a strength of a nation very much depends on a nation’s psychological dominance. Why do Americans these days always talk about a “rising China”, about the prospect of the end of Western dominance,etc? Well because when a country has debt as high as the mountain, it will suffer a huge blow to its psychological dominance, it would have feeling of psychological weakness.

One important factor in the fall of the great USSR was its loss of the space race to the Americans. Once the Americans announced that it landed on the moon, the USSR suffered a great setback in its psychology. If it was the USSR who landed first, then the outcome of the Cold War may be very different. I believe that when the news broke about Americans’ landing, the Soviet leader asked its best scientists and engineers: Can we do this? And they concluded that it’s very very difficult to do this, even if you threaten to kill them, they still can’t do it. From this moment on, the USA gained its psychological dominance over the USSR.

How did China lose to the British in the two Opium Wars and started its century of humiliation and defeat? How did it allow a few thousand British soldiers slaughter 20,000 Qin soldiers? That’s because the British empire’s psychological dominance over the Qin Empire. This psychological dominance came from the British’s dominance in weapons technology. Never been had Chinese seen those guns, those muskets, those cannons. One curl of the finger, and it can kill a person. This is too scary, too terrifying.

Similar thing happened in the book “Adventures of Robinson Crusoe”. Robinson Crusoe killed a Native, and the Native, not knowing what killed his friend, bowed to Robinson, thinking he was God.

Psychological dominance has a contagious effect. How many people did the H1N1 flu kill? A negligible amount. Yet the H1N1 virus has a gained a psychological dominance over humans. Because rumors can spread, exaggeration can be created, and soon it’ll spread into everyone’s heart and ear. Similarly, words of terror of the British Empire’s guns spread into the heart of Qin soldiers, and as a result, 3000 British soldiers conquered an entire country of 400 million people. This is the power of psychological dominance.

The psychological dominance of the Western Empires over China lasted for a long long time after the fall of Qin. During World War 2 battles, often hundreds of thousands of Nationalist troops would be defeated in one fell swoop by Japanese armies 1/3 in number. Why? Psychological weakness inherited from the past.

Mao Zedong was a great psychologist for China, for its people. Mao Zedong invented a phrase that has now become part of the English vocabulary: Paper Tiger. He initially used this phrase to describe Western Imperialists, to an interview from an American journalist. Initially, his translator used the phrase “scarecrow”. But Mao thought that word was too bland, and instead invented a new word: “Paper tiger”. Soon after, he stood on top of Tiananmen Square on Oct 1, 1949, declared the “Chinese people have stood up”. And it’s under his leadership that China detonated its first atomic bomb, its first thermonuclear bomb, tested its first satellite, and stopped much better equipped and trained American forces at the 38th parallel – first time in human history where there’s such a lopsided mismatch in hardware and equipment and the stronger side could not defeat the weaker one.

Of course we know that the last decade is one where our Chinese, through its rising national strength and economy, has gained a psychological advantage over the West. Or at least we can say that the psychological dominance the West gained over China 200 years ago has been greatly reduced.

Psychological dominance applies to personal life as well. Why do people want to be government officials, senators, congressmen? Because it gives them psychological dominance over their subordinates. Why do people want a good job, to gain psychological dominance over those without good jobs. Why do people want good grades in school, to gain psychological dominance over those without good grades. Why do people want beautiful women, to gain psychological dominance over those without beautiful women. A few months ago my friend was in a city in America, and was with a white female Caucasian escort, about 20 years old, and very pretty. She said she was laid off from Wall Street. My friend, being a citizen of China, and a senior manager in a Chinese state bank (which is responsible for buying US treasury securities) stuck his feet into her mouth and told her to clean them with her tongue, and also threw a few hundred dollars in cash at her face as a tip. This gave him great psychological dominance over his American counterpart.

January 3, 2010 @ 1:21 pm | Comment

Math helps us start the new year right. Thanks, Math!

January 3, 2010 @ 1:41 pm | Comment

Someone should collect math’s posts and make a blog with them.

It could be interesting.

Any volunteers?

January 3, 2010 @ 2:55 pm | Comment

Back to the topic.

Why demolish it? It can be a good touristic attraction, like Pisa’s tower in Italy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaning_Tower_of_Pisa

This building leans now even more than the tower!

January 3, 2010 @ 3:03 pm | Comment

Shanzai Pisa Tower 😉

January 3, 2010 @ 3:09 pm | Comment

@ecodelta – Do you recall of the famous poet named “Liu ZongYuan”,let’s make it fun and hilarious.

January 3, 2010 @ 5:40 pm | Comment

A few months ago my friend was in a city in America, and was with a white female Caucasian escort, about 20 years old, and very pretty. She said she was laid off from Wall Street. My friend, being a citizen of China, and a senior manager in a Chinese state bank (which is responsible for buying US treasury securities) stuck his feet into her mouth and told her to clean them with her tongue, and also threw a few hundred dollars in cash at her face as a tip. This gave him great psychological dominance over his American counterpart.

Math, you’ve outdone yourself this time. Where does it go from here?

January 4, 2010 @ 2:17 am | Comment

@Richard – Oh, that? He just stole that from ‘A Beijinger in New York’ (北京人在纽约). Points for presentation, but none for originality. On the topic of “psychological dominance,” I hate to think what Math might do if he ever saw, e.g., the “Ass-Pennies” sketch from Upright Citizens Brigade.

January 4, 2010 @ 2:53 am | Comment

@smatter — You mean “城上高楼接大荒?”

January 4, 2010 @ 2:54 am | Comment

@smatter
Some light heartiness may help defuse some trolls, even make them more participative.

Liu ZongYuan? Never heard of him. I am checking him up. Hhhmm… Tang dynasty… interesting…

By the way, you should say “remind me of …”

January 4, 2010 @ 2:55 am | Comment

Thanks for recommending that sketch, Brendan. I guess. I made the mistake of watching while eating.

January 4, 2010 @ 3:09 am | Comment

I’m still amazed that the escort managed to fool the Chinese official that she used to work on Wall Street. Just like the girls at Maggie’s used to be Mongolian diplomats. . .

January 4, 2010 @ 11:13 am | Comment

I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of escorts these days are claiming to be ex-finance types. As an origin story, it’s got to beat whatever they were using previously.

The Mail’s report also says: “Er… that’s not looking so great: Half of the building tumbles sideways in a cloud of dust.” The sideways fall actually seems to be intentional.

Liuzhou Laowai’s video is nice in that it shows multiple angles, including from the west side of the tower. I don’t see any implosion charges going off on the upper floors, and the area to the west had been cleared of people.

Too bad the video cut off right in the middle of the explanation — I was really hoping to hear the rest of it.

January 4, 2010 @ 11:55 am | Comment

Math: “A few months ago my friend was in a city in America, and was with a white female Caucasian escort, about 20 years old, and very pretty. She said she was laid off from Wall Street. My friend, being a citizen of China, and a senior manager in a Chinese state bank…stuck his feet into her mouth and told her to clean them with her tongue, and also threw a few hundred dollars in cash at her face as a tip. This gave him great psychological dominance over his American counterpart.”

The scene you describe sounds a bit like a scene from the popular 1990’s television drama 北京人在紐約, in which the character played by famous actor Jiang Wen 姜文 (of 陽光燦爛的日子 and 鬼子來了 fame), after hiring an attractive young American prostitute (a blonde, of course), throws hundred dollar bills at her while she humiliates herself in front of him.

The Australian scholar Geremie Barme wrote about this scene in a book entitled “In the Red” (the relevant chapter is entitled “To Screw Foreigners Is Patriotic,” or something similar). He argues that China has been feminized (i.e., f*cked) by the West and seeks to return the favor. Indeed, f*cking the West has developed into something of an obsession with many Chinese men. Moreover, this f*cking can be both literal and figurative. That is, in addition to ravishing the West’s women (the whiter the better), stealing the West’s trade and diplomatic secrets, winning more gold medals than the U.S. at the Olympics, and pirating Hollywood movies and Microsoft operating systems are all popular ways to stick it to the Western man.

I suspect, Math, that you are plagiarizing a scene from a 15 year old teledrama. It’s either that, or your friend (and you) are as sick as Jiang Wen’s character. Get help.

January 5, 2010 @ 1:29 pm | Comment

Slight update on the Liuzhou Tower.

They have started the (re-)demolition this morning and someone has come up with commemorative t-shirts!

http://liuzhou.blog-city.com/leaning_tshirt.htm

January 6, 2010 @ 12:45 pm | Comment

Final Update : The tower has finally been demolished. Video here.
http://liuzhou.blog-city.com/tower_toppled.htm

January 9, 2010 @ 1:28 pm | Comment

Thanks for keeping us informed. It would have been a great tourist attraction.

January 10, 2010 @ 12:11 am | Comment