Whose Comments Are They Anyway? (1)
Reputation Management and Manipulation of the Internet
In addition to water-boarding it is apparent that government interpreters world-wide now learn social media, SEO and RSS management during their program of study. It is no secret that many blog comments on opinion-shaping sites are made by full-time surfers or “trolls” as some call them, with nationalist or agency mandated agendas; some get paid for their performance. The real weapons of mass destruction in a digital world are words and the technology is readily available even when we don’t send fuses to Taiwan.
Several recent comments, meant to manipulate media have come back to deservedly sound-bite the perpetrators in their virtual asses.
John McCain campaign aide, Soren Dayton was suspended from the campaign because he Twittered a link to a YouTube video blasting Barack Obama’s minister. And the Chinese government was a bit slow on the draw when they led reporters into the lama’s den in Lhasa last week.
Multi-national companies now hire ethical as well dubious administrators of propaganda to sow seeds of content across the blogsphere when a ruthless competitor, frustrated consumer or PR gaff has sent a brand or image into the cyber-stool. Internet Word of Mouth is an ICBM with a guidance system that can be more unpredictable than a cold war space laser.
I read a news release today written by the folks at 5fad.com. 5fad.com is suing Baidu.com for copyright infringement and then speculating, during trial, about the outcome and impact of the verdict.
Written in something akin to English and suspiciously fed out of a UK media outlet, the release contains suppositions meant to influence public opinion in advance of a judicial ruling.
Some highlights: “The MP3 search engine is of crucial importance for Baidu.com to gain an advantageous position in its competition with its business rival, Google.com. Once the MP3 search engine service is ruled unlawful, Baidu.com’s leading position in the search engine market may topple” Remember that this news release was written by the Plaintiff!
The take a break from legal commentary to do an infomercial about 5Fad: “5fad.com, ranking among 2007 Red Herring Asia Top 100, was founded in 2003. Though headquartered in Hangzhou, it has branch offices in Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo and New York…5fad.com is the leading digital entertainment and culture company in China. Its service network covers a total population of 300 million.” With a Google Page Rank of 4 and a purported audience more than twice the size of the China Internet user base the claim is dubious at best.
I have become so jaundiced that when JWT’s Tom Doctoroff, a man I have long respected as an authority on China, makes statements concerning Tibet like:”…I instinctively empathize with the impulses of the protesters” I wonder if he is just careless and failing to weigh the consequences of the potential spin of his comments as sympathy for murder or arson? Or I question whether or not the soon-to-be Olympic torch bearer has intentionally inserted psycho-linguistically charged language about Tibet, in an article written against calls for an Olympic boycott, in order to draw in more readers for the Huffington Post?
I am a poet and the keeper of an online diary. I am not a journalist or political pundit in blogger’s clothes. I love and cherish the written word–despite my occasional acts of grammatical or stylistic annihilation. And because I am a creative writer I attempt to ferret out the real meanings of a work and the reasons for the choice of diction.
I am becoming less cavalier about reading or writing. I now am casting a cold eye on much of what comes to me via RSS or social networks and so it seems should we all….
Update: Head over to ESNW for an important addendum to the newest China Photogate…
Posted 29 March, 2008 in SEM, Chinese Media, SEO, Internet marketing China, Seo China, Violence, Human Rights, Taiwan, Human Rights China, Beijing Olympics, SEO China Expert, Chinese Internet, The Internet, China Olympics, China Editorials, Intercultural Issues, War, Personal Notes, cartoons, Censorship, 中国, In the news, Tibet, China web 2.0
Zhu Lu Zhongyuan… (2)
How is this for synchronicity?:
I study at least one Chinese idiom, parable or allegory a day. Today, honestly, I opened my study text and immediately saw:
At whose hand the deer will die is unknown
It is an idiom that implies that the outcome of a struggle or rivalry is still undecided. It has roots in the first Han dynasty in 203 B.C..
The story behind the idiom takes place in what was once known as “China Proper” which originated in the Tibetan Plateau and was bordered by the Yellow and Yangze rivers: The advisor to Han Xin, King of Qi, urged the King to break away from the Emperor Liu Bang. In 196 Han was executed for plotting a rebellion even though he had not followed the advice given to him by one Kuai Tong.
Later Kuai Tong was brought to Liu to be executed. Kuai Tong told the emperor among other things: ” A dog barks at people, not because it is bad, but because they are not his master. At the time my duty was to help Han Xingain gain power, so to execute me would be unjust.”
Liu Bang pardoned him.
I am hoping for the same fate for other Yellow River inhabitants showing support for their beliefs. I am hoping for the safety of my friends very near the confrontations. I am praying for an end to the violent conflicts– though the outcome of the struggle may long be undecided…
Posted 16 March, 2008 in Human Rights, Violence, 中文, Human Rights China, China Law, Chinese Proverbs, Chinese Media, Tibet, In the news, 中国, Censorship, China Editorials
One of the things wrong with history… (11)
The American iconoclastic lawyer Clarence Darrow resigned himself to history’s repetitive nature, but never stopped challenging the powers to which most of us abandon control.
The British Olympic Team at The 1936 Berlin Olympics
Athletes have long been surrogates for our personal, school, community, and national wishes lies and dreams. We foist on them the responsibility of atoning for our own failures as sportsmen, parents and citizens. And visited on some are the the sins of governments who draft them as unwitting soldiers in wars of propaganda and ideology.
Section 51 of the International Olympic Committee charter, “provides for no kind of demonstration, or political, religious or racial propaganda in the Olympic sites, venues or other area.” That does not stop dozens of groups from calling on he most physically gifted and dedicated among us to end the bloodshed in Africa, restore the Dali Lama to sovereignty, or enforce Chinese intervention in Burma amid a long list of religious, humanitarian and political causes.
Many organizations are calling for a boycott of the XXIX Olympiad in Beijing to further their agendas. Many decry China’s denial of human rights while remaining silent as, paradoxically, some governments, namely New Zealand, Belgium and Great Britain are forbidding their team members to speak their minds before, or during the contest, or face immediate expulsion from the games. It is the western pot calling the tea kettle black.
As a former athlete and coach I might bow to tradtion and refuse to dip the flag for the Olympic reviewing stand, but I could never in good conscience sign any document that demanded surrender of a basic human right.
The web’s most articulate journalist-blogger, Rebecca McKinnon, writes with moving precision about the house arrest of Chinese human rights blogger Hu Jia , his wife Zeng Jinyang and the world’s “youngest political prisoner” their 2-month old daughter Hu Qianci. In the article, Rebecca clearly articulates Beijing’s poorly staged suppression of dissent during the dress rehearsal phase of its first leading role on the world stage. It is exactly this kind of scrutiny of the aging, fumbling power-elite that we might lose by disengagement.
To boycott the Olympics, an arguable failure of policy in Moscow and Los Angeles, moves the spotlight off China, punishes athletes in lieu of policies and leaves the average Chinese citizen, denied full access to information, angered and dazed by a seemingly xenophobic west. To even call for a boycott of the Olympics is to give spin doctors an award- winning script full of perfect, indignant replies to what we can only imagine to be true. Engagement in lieu of boycott will enlighten and inform us all. As the chinese proverb states, 拔苗助长 , you cannot help sprouts to grow by pulling them up.
I am hoping that history repeats only by way of expose made possible by athletic achievements–think Jesse Owens in Berlin– and not because of “free world” demands for the conscription of players into a silent Nazi salute to the abolition of free speech.
Posted 11 February, 2008 in Chinese Media, Censorship, Human Rights, 中文, Human Rights China, Beijing Olympics, 中国, In the news, Intercultural Issues, War, China Editorials, China Sports, Tibet, China Olympics, Asia
GOLF IN CHINA (1)
Now that several Chinese universities are requiring law and business students to take golf lessons to prepare them for the western practice of locker-room deal making, more golf courses are cropping up in China and they are absolutely among the world’s biggest and best.
Sanya, China which is the annual host
to the Miss World Pageant, is also the home of the Yaolong Bay club where a European Tour event is played yearly. But, China’s Hawaii has nothing comparable in size and grandeur to facilities like Mission Hills on the mainland.
Mission Hills Stretches across he cities of Shenzhen and Dongguan, only 90 minutes from my home in Guangzhou ad just across the border from Hong Kong. Mission Hills is the World’s largest golf club. Designed by 12 world-renowned golf legends such as the Golden Bear, V.J. Singh, Greg Norman, and others. It’s an international golf community that combines sport with relaxation, business and luxury lifestyle options at very affordable prices.
At Mission Hills there are a 2,000 female caddies (and 1,000 security personnel to protect them), Asia’s largest pro shop, night golf! and the world’s biggest clubhouse in addition to breathtaking courses that are playable by newcomers as well as professionals.
There are courses along the Great Wall and one even so high in the Himalayas that you can hit a ball by pitching wedge into another country.
Doing business in China just got a lot more fun!
The China Dreamblogue is sponsoring a trip to Mission Hills to raise much needed funds. Check out our listing on e-Bay
Posted 23 December, 2007 in China Golf, Golf Tours, China Business Consultant, Tibet, China Photos, China Business
China: The Balance Sheet…. (0)
China: The Balance Sheet differs from most other books we have been reading in preparation for our 22 province journey across China for charity and understanding. China guides to business or living become obsolete almost before they are published. And most of the “expert” commentary on China gives the reader intellectual whiplash: The data contained in strategy texts is often conflicting or out-dated. To offset that problem, this text offers online resources for continuing information and is a testament both to the wisdom and commitment of the authors.
China: The Balance Sheet isn’t so much a book as it is a project that yielded enough information for a book. It is a collection of work, information, and analyses collected by the Institute for International Economics and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and The Balance Sheet is rife with diverse demographics, like statistics about China’s graying population, as well as an informed political discussion on the Middle Kingdom’s long, curious relationship with Russia. Yes, its such dry reading that we carried an Internet canteen–interspersing the book with irreverent spoofs from Sinocidal to keep from humor dehydration–but every sentence, to drag out a metaphor, is an informational oasis for a Sinophile.
One of the more engaging elements of this book is its ability to maintain a separation from the standard strains of China fever: while the book delivers competent, clear information about mainland China, it avoids over-generalizations and makes clear the plurality and multiplicity of a country with 56 distinct ethnic groups, 200 spoken languages, and size enough to make Europe jealous. As Lucien Pye of foreignaffairs.org says of the book: “The main thrust of the analysis is that diversity has replaced the monolithic system that Mao Zedong created. There are, therefore, many Chinas — rural and urban, wealthy and poor, educated and illiterate, international and isolated.” And yes, seemingly benign statements like that one make it unavailable on the mainland, but censors should tale a second look as it is careful to avoid the paranoia about China’s growth that pervades Western news and doesn’t issue dark proclamations about China’s fearsome rise or apocalyptic fall. The book holds to tenets set forth in early pages: “Because we believe that constructive US policies toward China must rest, first and foremost, on a firm factual and analytical footing, this study’s primary purpose is to provide comprehensive, balanced, and accurate information on all key aspects of China’s own development and its implications for other nations.”
Will the Balance Sheet help you understand business culture in China and learn the secrets of guanxi, face, or how to hold your chopsticks at just the right angle to impress the Chinese delegation leader? No. Will the book arm you with a clear understanding of the economic, political, and demographic realities facing China now? Yes. You can find an overview and preview of the first chapter of the book here and a collection of 2007 published addendum’s here.
This ranks high on our list of must-read texts along with Harold Chee’s Myths.
By David DeGeest with Lonnie B. Hodge
Posted 27 July, 2007 in Internet marketing China, Guangzhou, Chinese Medicine, Travel in China, Chinese Internet, The Internet, The Great Firewall, Foshan China, Chinese New Year, India, China Book Reviews, Chinese Media, China Business Consultant, China Expat, Shanghai, china books, Hainan Island, Chinese Education, Korea, Chinese Proverbs, Human Rights, 中文, Wholesale Electronics China, Wholesale Products China, China Expats, Intercultural Issues, Expats, Teaching in China, Japan, Asia, Hong Kong, Macau, Book Reviews, Asian Women, China Editorials, China Business, 中国, Guangzhou China, The Great Wall, Chinese Festivals, In the news, Tibet, China Olympics, Weird China, Confucius Slept Here, China web 2.0
A Meme You Can Sink Your Dreams Into (1)
Here’s the scoop on what has been keeping Onemanbandwidth light on posts for so long. And, most importantly, here is the meme for how you can help. Even if you hate Meme’s please take the message below and spread it to five people you know will follow through and send it to others:
If you could save lives and provide needed educational opportunities to rural and orphaned children for a few minutes of your free time (and for free), would you do it?
This is the logo for The China Dreamblogue.
Our dream is to travel in 2007 to every mainland province in China. During this journey, it is our intention to chronicle the everyday lives of ordinary Chinese citizens. Our motivation for the trip came from a group of women known as the League of Extraordinary Chinese Women. The LOECW was comprised of 5 women from various walks of Chinese life—wives, semi-professional women, a bookkeeper, and a student. The one thing they had in common was advanced-stage HER2 breast cancer. These women, with little access to formal education and less information from outside sources about the disease they had contracted, naturally and courageously combated their disease with friendship, enthusiasm, meditation, and what medical care they could afford.
As we worked to help these women, we began to think about other Chinese people left behind in the wake of this huge industrial growth. Around this time, we also met Thomas Stader and Laurie Mackenzie, two expats who have devoted their time, talents, and treasures to Chinese people educationally and economically left behind by giving them access to life-changing education. Because we are educators and bloggers actively involved in search engine marketing optimization and education, we sought to find a way to organize the entrepreneurial energy of the people we met and turn it into a force that would help us, and other people, realize the dreams we hold dear.
The Dreamblogue is a simple concept. After a specified period of time (maybe once a month or once a quarter), we’ll select a contributor who will win a prize donated by one of our charitable sponsors. We hope to give away vacations to China, scholarships to study abroad, technical equipment, software and cutting-edge gadgets that will appeal to our broad demographic. We want to attract a Postsecret-type http://postsecret.blogspot.com interest in our blog that will drive enough traffic that we can generate advertising revenue to give to educational and medical concerns. All of the money generated from these sources will go directly from Feedburner and Blogads to the 501(c)3 charities we support—we will never directly handle the money. Funds will go to our partners The Library Project, which builds libraries in orphanages and rural schools all over China and Asia, and to The Reading Tub, a charity that promotes children’s literacy in the United States.
The Blog of Dreams will have videocasts, podcasts, a China picture contest (to be turned into a coffee table book) , a weekly Chinese horoscope, weekly Chinese recipes (also to be a book), and most importantly, the daily dreams of people from around the world. In all, the Dreamblogue has been created to be a tool of understanding and a place where dreams can be spoken into reality.
To help:
1. Go to The Dreamblogue.
2. Click on the little green box that says “favorite this blog.”
3. Follow the instructions on Technorati. This will take you less than one minute. The Technorati favoriting website will bounce you back to the blog of dreams. Click the “favorite this blog” button one more time to finish.
4. Link to our blog, The China Dreamblogue
5. Send us your dream(s) in any format (mp3, video, text,YouTube, photo…any way we can put it on the blog), and send them to dreamblogue at gmail.com.
A major part of this journey is about creating a space where people can blog their dream—whether these are dreams for themselves, dreams for someone else, or educational dreams they want to fill. There is a Chinese superstition that if you talk about bad things, they will come true. We believe that if you share your dream with others, you are willing it into being. Send your dreams to us at the blog of dreams, anonymously or not. We will post them and do our best to help them come true through the give-aways we sponsor, the resources of the Dreamblogue community, and the corporate sponsors we have asked to fund a few of the dreams that come to our blog.
We will create a rolling blogroll to give credit to the people who pass on this meme, favorite our blog on Technorati, and link to us.
If you’ve never done a meme before, now’s the time to start. Send this to at least five people you trust to uphold the dream of blogging other peoples’ dreams.
6. Tag! Send this to five other people, or at least mention us on your blog
Posted 14 June, 2007 in SEO, SEM, Seach engine Optimization, Blogroll Diving, Guangzhou, Chinese Internet, Seo China, Internet marketing China, Search Engine Marketing, Travel in China, Chinese Education, American Professor in China, China Expat, 中文, Heartsongs, Chinese Media, Charity in China, China-US Medical Foundation, Tibet Climb, Expats, Teaching in China, China Editorials, Intercultural Issues, China Expats, Asian Women, Hong Kong Blogs, China Business, American Poet in China, Top Blogs, 中国, Guangzhou China, In the news, Tibet, The League of Extraordinary Chinese Women, Confucius Slept Here, Hong Kong
Memorial Day (1)
As part of his therapy while trying to recover from a head wound suffered in Vietnam my father used to make the poppies that the American Legion sells on Memorial day.
Here is the poem that was written three years after the famous In Flanders Fields that most of us know….
We Shall Keep the Faith
by Moina Michael, November 1918
Oh! you who sleep
in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet - to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honor of our dead
.Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We’ll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.
Retrieved from an earlier post:
I had the chance to mountain climb with an aging PRC Army Veteran of Tibet and Tiananmen Square. He had that “thousand yard stare” soldiers who have been amidst senseless death can see in the eyes of another.
Years ago, as a corpsman at the Army’s Academy of Health Sciences, I was almost detailed to collect bodies in the Jonestown Massacre. Many of my friends went and are forever changed. I know medics, who went to Vietnam as conscientious objectors, and came back morphine addicted. It was one way, albeit not a good one, to cope.
Soldiers and Paramedics in New York, Iraq and New Orleans have acknowledged that there was a self before the tragedies and a different human, with a different world-view, that emerged from the devastation.
When most of the school children of a Chinese rural village, dozens, drowned in their classrooms, and left these hand prints on the windows trying to escape, it was the army who first saw the prints and then had to search through the mud for their bodies….
When I traveled, during Vietnam, in uniform I was vilified by many as part of the Military Industrial Complex. I did not get too many salutes.
As the war becomes more unpopular in Iraq, as the world increasingly calls us a police state, remember this: Governments declare war. Officials deploy troops. Hurricanes and earthquakes obey no warnings. And it is the soldier, and the victim, who carry with them, forever, the stench of death. It is like a house fire: you can never seem to rid yourself of the smell of smoke.
Love the soldier. They all write poetry and letters of longing home to their loved ones.
Hate the war, hate the floods, hate the notion that we are not close to getting it right, socially or environmentally, just yet.
Pray for the men, like my father, and soldiers of all nations who gave up sleepless nights and often, like my father, their lives, before and after battles, for you and the missions that they were asked to fulfill.
Salute them all with words and deeds today.
With special good wishes to the Wed. Heroes crew/blogroll. Most of you are not accessible from China, so I cannot get to you and often cannot receive mail or link out to you properly. Keep up the good work.
Posted 28 May, 2007 in Vietnam, 中国, Violence, Veterans, 中文, Holidays, In the news, Poetry, Intercultural Issues, Homeland Security, cartoons, Tibet, War
China Photo Contest (4)
Have picture of the Middle Kingdom you like and want to share with the world?
OMBW will sponsor a contest that will run all year and culminate in a coffee table book that will raise funds for China charities and the Literacy Group The Reading Tub.
It is simple:
Send your best shot of people, places or events in China to: dreamblogue@gmail.com with the information required below. We will post several shots, once a week, on OMBW and on http://blogof dreams.com where you and your friends can vote for your favorites. The top 250 will make it into the book. There is NO entry fee.
There will be prizes, yet to be decided, for the winners, links back to blogs or sites if requested, contributor copies of the coffee table book. All rights are returned to the creator upon publication and you are free to multiple submit your work to other sites, magazines or contests. First prize in each division will be an expense paid week on the road with Yanzhi and Dawei and the Dreanblogue Team during their charity and friendship tour of China
Ideally there will be three divisions:
Hobby Photographer: You take pictures for personal enjoyment and you have a shot that you would like to share with the world
Amateur: You aspire to be professional and have a bit more experience or training than do most of us in the amateur ranks
Professional: You get paid for your work, but are willing to share it with us at OMBW and the Dreablogue so we can raise a few dollars for charity
We will try to post new pictures once a week on Friday. The rules:
Make the photos as Web-friendly as possible: No more than 450 Pixels wide please. If you win we will ask for the high resolution file.
Include the following information with your email:
- Real name
- Division
- Province where picture was taken
- Name of Photo as you want it in the ALT tag
- Your location and email (not to be published)
- Your desired screen name for voting and picture tags
- A short statement giving us permission to place the picture on OMBW and The China Dreamblogue during 2006-7
- Your blog or website URL, if there is one, to which we should link the photos
There is no limit to the number of photos you can submit….
Look for the first photos next week!
Posted 22 May, 2007 in SEO, SEM, Seo China, Chinese Internet, New Blogs, The Internet, Search Engine Marketing, Travel in China, China Photo Contest, Photo Contest, 中文, Heartsongs, Chinese Media, Charity in China, The Great Wall, Yangshuo China, Intercultural Issues, Expats, China Expats, Greater Asia Blogs, Top China Blogs List, Hong Kong Blogs, Teaching in China, The League of Extraordinary Chinese Women, Top Blogs, 中国, Tibet, Photos, China Photos, China web 2.0
“Global Uprising Day” (5)
One of the staff at my college, a Canadian-Chinese, recently reported me to the administration because I expressed surprise at her fierce anger about foreign faculty and student visitors being upset about last year’s shootings near Tibet. She will not watch the video and is certain no such event occurred in October of last year nor 48 years ago. She is still unconvinced and I remain warned that I could lose my job for talking about it on campus.
[youtube]blC-EXv1Al8[/youtube]
Acording to Boing Boing via the Hao Hao Report: Tibetan exiles around the world and their supporters plan to use YouTube to commemorate “global uprising day” this Saturday, March 10. Videos already uploaded include pilgrims, rap songs, statements from monks, rants from young Tibetan exiles in the United States, and words from ama-la (grandmas). Looks like the revolution(s) will be televised after all. Link. (Thanks, Nathan Freitas / Students For a Free Tibet)
History: On March, 10, 1959, an uprising took place in Tibet against the Chinese occupation. In Lhasa on that day, 300,000 Tibetans surrounded the palace that housed the Dalai Lama, in order to protect him from anticipated abduction or assassination. China’s military response in the days that followed left thousands dead. Link. More than 1.2 million Tibetans have since died as a result of the occupation, according to the Tibetan Government in Exile.
Posted 10 March, 2007 in 中国, Censorship, India, In the news, Tibet, Asia, China Editorials, Personal Notes, Videos
OMBW Blocked in China! (10)
Well, it finally happened: My site is blocked in China.
I am guessing it was the Tibet piece the banned blogs post and the last one below….I should have stuck to funny stories about coffee coke…
It reminds me of the “Aw *hit” certificates we used to hand out in the military . It read something like: “1,000 Atta Boys are negated by one Aw *hit”…
Aw *hit!