REFLECTIONS IN A CHINESE EYE

Botswana diamonds fly off Chinese shelves

Swana, a brand of a Botswana-produced polished diamonds, sold out in China's Sichuan province during that country's recent "Golden Week," a holiday associated with high retail activity in the Oriental giant.

Swana diamonds are handmade by Batswana polishers employed by Dalumi Diamonds at Nkoyaphiri Industrial Estate and feature 89 facets or reflective flat faces as opposed to the usual 57 cut into most stones. The higher number of facets means Swana diamonds boast exceptional sparkle, brilliance and glitter and fetch a higher price than their peers. Despite the higher price, Swana diamonds flew off shelves at Sichuan Aixin Jewellery chain shops in the Chinese province during the 2011 Golden Week from October 1 to 7. Sichuan Aixin is the sole distributor of Swana stones in the province of over 90 million people, the fourth most populous in the Oriental giant.

Said Aixin Group President, Xiong Bao Xing, in an interview in Gaborone last week: "The Swana diamonds sold out on October 1, while by comparison only a third of the other regular 57-facet stones were sold during the Golden Week in Sianchu.

"There's very strong demand for these stones. Chinese consumers showed very high acceptance of the product, although it was more expensive than the regular stones.

"Dalumi is ramping up production to meet the demand from Chinese consumers and we also have plans to increase the volume of stones we buy from them. We also intend to intensify promotion and marketing of Swana."

Xing said Sichuan Aixin Jewellery was conducting educational and marketing promotions on an ongoing basis around Swana diamonds, highlighting their aesthetic advantages over the regular stones. He added that customers in the Sianchu province were increasingly being sold on the added value from the handmade Botswana produced stones.

Read more at mmegionline

China on route to see its first Good Samaritan law

When it comes to Good Samaritans in China, “to be or not to be” is a constant struggle.

If you are among the many residents who worry about becoming a victim of fraud after helping people in need, we’ve got some good news for you.

China is preparing its very first Good Samaritan law to protect bystanders who choose to rescue a stranger in distress. According to Guangzhou Daily, officials in the southern city of Shenzhen are soliciting public opinions on a draft of a local Good Samaritan regulation designed to encourage altruism.

The draft follows the tragic death of Yue Yue, a two-year-old girl who was ignored by passers-by as she lay dying in a busy street in October. Graphic footage of the toddler’s death triggered widespread discussion of the “prevalent apathy” in Chinese societies. Many called for a new law to tackle the culture of avoidance and eliminate scams to accuse well-intentioned citizens.

Shenzhen became the first to react.

The draft frees 'Good Samaritans' from legal liability for the condition of the person they help, except in the case of gross negligence. The burden of proving any negligence would rest with the rescued party. Click here for more details on the law, including criminal prosecution for fraud and government compensation for rescuers.

Read more at  CNN n/s

Why the Dalai Lama makes China see red

New Delhi has twice had to fend off diplomatic protests from China on the Dalai Lama's public appearances in barely a fortnight. However, Beijing's acute attack of "Lama-itis" is a global affliction. China recently forced South Africa to refuse the Tibetan leader a visa. It had him

disinvited from a Cambodian conference in December last year. But others have cocked a snook: Mongolians ignored Beijing and the Buddhist leader visited their country in November.

Even US President Barack Obama, an early votary of partnership with China, met His Holiness in July.

Because the Dalai Lama resides in India, say officials, China has taken a different tack to his activities here. Beijing publicly tolerates any activity that does not have the entre's imprimatur.

"They don't mind if he meets state government officials," said an official.

Broadly, China still abides by this rule. However, it has become intolerant of even accidental infractions. Beijing reportedly rejected Indian compromises regarding the World Buddhist Conference in New Delhi such as having the Dalai Lama speak after the Indian president departed or the president not showing up at all.

China doesn't accept New Delhi's argument that in the case of the Kolkatta conference, Governor MK Narayan had accepted when the Tibetan leader was not a participant.

Read more at hindustantimes

As US-Myanmar Ties Warm, China Stands Conflicted

BEIJING December 1, 2011, 10:17 am ET

BEIJING (AP) — China is a conflicted observer to Hillary Rodham Clinton's trip to Myanmar, caught between worries about U.S. encirclement in Asia and a desire to see its isolated, at times teetering neighbor become more stable.

The discord is evident in Beijing's public pronouncements about the U.S. secretary of state's visit. While the Foreign Ministry expressed support Thursday for Myanmar's outreach to the West, a top Chinese leader called for closer military relations when meeting Myanmar's armed forces commander this week. On state-run television, a commentary appended to footage of Clinton's arrival showed U.S. aircraft carrier groups in the Pacific.

"Beijing understands Myanmar's aspiration to diversify its international engagement and improve relations with the United States. However, Beijing doesn't wish to see those goals achieved at the expense of China," said Sun Yun, an expert on China's foreign relations at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Though estranged for decades when China armed anti-government ethnic groups and supported communist revolution in what was then called Burma, Beijing pivoted in the 1990s to lavish the benefits of trade on Myanmar, just as its military-backed government was sinking deeper into international isolation.

Now as Myanmar's largest economic partner, with $4.4 billion in trade last year and nearly $16 billion in total investment, China has unmatched reach. Its state companies are extracting minerals and timber and investing in dams and pipelines. Chinese food products, medicines and other goods flood Myanmar's markets.

As a result China is both ubiquitous and unpopular. The infrastructure projects have drawn protests from ethnic and environmental groups, which in part led to the new government's recent decision to suspend the $3.6 billion China-funded Myitsone dam. Myanmar companies complain they cannot compete with lower-cost Chinese goods, many of which are smuggled over the border and not taxed. One midsize maker of cakes and cookies has said it might have to shut down.

"The Chinese are surprised by the changes in Burma. They misunderstand our country, our people," said Aung Kyaw Zaw, a former Burmese Communist Party strategist who lives in the Chinese border city of Ruili. "They have good relations with the government, but not with the people of Burma. There's more and more anti-Chinese sentiment among the people and among the army."

Read more at NPR

Herbert and Lou Hoover's Excellent Adventure

Tianjin History Tianjin People

Written by Drew Pearson

In October of 1891 Herbert Clark Hoover entered Stanford. During his senior year at Stanford, Herbert Hoover met his future wife, Lou Henry. She was also a geology student whose love of fishing and the outdoors paralleled that of Herbert Hoover's enthusiasm for these outdoor activities.

May of 1895 Hoover graduated with a degree in geology. May of 1897 he arrived in Australia. 1898, Miss Lou Henry, who was Stanford’s first-ever female geology graduate, graduates.

Herbert had gone to work in Australia as an administrative engineer and had been promoted to a junior partnership in a British firm. He was successful. Charles Moreing thought Herbert Hoover could help with the firm's fortunes in China, and so he offered Herbert a chance to go to China with a better salary. The aggregate salaries would be about $20,000 per annum and expenses.

This in turn caused Herbert to consider his personal life. 1898 on packing up at the Sons of Gwalia and traveling to Perth in preparation for his journey to China via London and the US, Hoover cables Lou with four words: “Will you marry me?” She replies with one: “Yes.” The uncertain and turbulent life of an engineer offered no obstacles to Lou Henry.

Hoover arrives in London for a briefing on the China job, then proceeds to New York and across the continent to Monterey, Lou's hometown, in California. There they were wed in the bride’s family parlor on February 10th. Less than a fortnight later, outfitted with dozens of books on China, they embarked from San Francisco for Beijing and then Tianjin (Tientsin). Hoover had circumnavigated the globe, a transit he would make—by sea and by land—four more times in the next decade.

In Tianjin, his non-Chinese staff of perhaps a dozen was greatly overshadowed in number by his Chinese staff, composed chiefly of semi-technical assistants, draftsmen, surveyors' assistants, interpreters, etc. A few of the Chinese helpers had had foreign training; there was one from Yale, for example, and another from Rose Polytechnic. The latter so devoted to American baseball that he was greatly disappointed when he found that Hoover was not a baseball player. But he thought better of him when he learned that Hoover had at least managed his college team. The staff had its headquarters in Tianjin (Tientsin), where were also the principal laboratories for the mineralogists, assayers, and chemists. Some of the men gave their time to the technical work, and others were engaged in collecting and correlating everything that had been published in the foreign languages about the geology and mines' of China. Chinese scholars hunted down and translated into English all that had been printed in Chinese literature.

Hoover and most of his immediate experienced assistants were chiefly occupied with the exploring expeditions into the interior and the examination of the old mines and new prospects. Especially did some immediate attention have to be given to the mines already being actually worked, for the Minister let it be known that he expected Hoover to pay the way of the Department as soon as possible from the increased proceeds of the mines which were to arise from the magic touch of the foreign experts.

In Tientsin, he rented a commodious house on the outskirts of the foreign settlement that removed him from the local populace, save for his fifteen Chinese servants. The house was a large, four-square, wide-veranda affair. The servants, carefully distinguished as "No. 1 Boy," "No. 2 Boy" and so on down the line, waited, according to their own immemorial traditions, on the Mr and Mrs Hoover. These servants had curious ways, and a curious language in the odd pidgin English that enabled the door boy to announce that "the number one topside foreign devil joss man have makee come," when the English Bishop called, and the table boy to announce a dish of duckling as "one piecee duck pups," or of chicken as "one piecee looster."

As most of Mr. Hoover's journeys into the interior were under circumstances where reasonable comfort or privacy was impossible for any woman, Mrs. Hoover determined to fill her time learning to speak Chinese. For this, she engaged a Chinese teacher and never failed in her daily stint whenever she was at home. With a natural gift for languages she made great progress in the most difficult tongue in the world.

Mr. Hoover never absorbed more than a hundred words. But all their life afterwards she kept that hundred words in use between them by speaking Chinese to Mr. Hoover on sotto voce occasions.

In the winter and spring of 1900 the Hoovers began to hear of the new secret society directed against foreigners. It was named the I Ho Tuan—the mailed fist. The foreigners called it "The Boxers." Their avowed purpose was to expel all foreigners from China, to root out every foreign thing—houses, railways, telegraphs, mines—and they included all Christian Chinese and all Chinese who had been associated with foreign things. They believed they had supernatural protection from foreign bullets and other great powers.

Read more at Tianjin Past and Present