周黎明 (Raymond Zhou's bilingual blog) 用中文写娱评，用英文写时评

Don't let bad apple spoil journalism
By Raymond Zhou

What could be worse than a food scandal?

The answer: a fake food scandal designed to add dramatic tension to an already delicate issue.

Some Chinese manufacturers have been accused of turning out inferior-quality or counterfeit food or drug products. Some have been found to cut corners in ingredients, while others might have used specifications out of sync with the rest of the world.

Of course, the whole world has reason to worry. Food and drugs are not like ordinary goods. If I bought a substandard T-shirt and it disintegrated the next day, well, I just wasted a couple of bucks. But whatever I put into my body, the consequences could be long-lasting.

That is why anyone who violates the law in these matters, more than in anything else, should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Zheng Xiaoyu, the former food and drug czar, did not get a tear of sympathy when he was sentenced to die for taking bribes in exchange for approving drugs, some of which did not comply with their own claims.

It is an ominous sign when journalists uncover food scandals. This is the job of official food inspectors. If they are competent, journalists won't have a field day doing such exposes. Yet, a journalist is not exceeding his function when he does that. He provides the random checks that food producers probably fear more than the mass campaigns that often begin with thunder and end with a drizzle.

But just as there are corrupt officials, there are unscrupulous journalists. The cardboard baozi story of this week adds a satirical twist to a tale of international interest.

Here's what's been reported: A freelancing producer for Beijing TV, by the name of Zi, asked a breakfast kitchen to make baozi (steamed bun with pork fillings), but instead of pork and other edibles, he had them put in cardboard. He videotaped the process and broadcast it as an investigative story.

If this is true, Zi was not being overzealous in protecting consumer rights, but equated journalism with making fictional feature films. He did not blow up a story, but scripted and directed it. The fact that he was a freelancer does not really matter because most who work in China's television industry do not have the iron-rice bowl. And lack of training is also a lame excuse. Anyone who gets into journalism should know the difference between telling a real story and fabricating one. 

But in the mad dash for ratings, the sacred line dividing fact and fiction is sometimes blurred. Many television shows use recreations, but contrary to the common practice in other countries, most programs here keep it a secret. Next time you see a talk show featuring a family feud, just remind yourself this could be some unknown actors reading from a script.

I once told wannabe journalists that if you have a rich imagination and tend to concoct or embellish your stories, you'd better get into a more lucrative profession: writing for movies or television drama.

Uncovering a fake food scare may shed light on the deplorable lack of ethics among some journalists, but it does not ease pressure on food safety officials, whose job is much more essential to our lives. Just as one should not incriminate a whole country's food industry with a few scandals, one should not let one bad apple spoil the work of all journalists. We have heroes among us, too, the most recent example being Fu Zhenzhong, the Henan television reporter who exposed the shocking kiln slavery in Shanxi.

(China Daily 07/21/2007 page4)

Right track to harmony
张威摄影 周黎明撰文
 
All passenger trains (1) run in the daytime the 1,142-km stretch from Golmud to Lhasa, which has been open for only a year. Clouds seem to be within reach, nature rolls on in eternal vastness and splendor, and a culture, once mysterious, comes into sharper relief with its ever-growing vivacity and resplendence.
 
In its enigmatic ways, nature is fair: From the Qarhan Salt Lake in Golmud (格尔木的察尔汗盐湖) to Lake Namtsoy (纳木错湖, 5) near Damxung (当雄), the roof of the world had been landlocked, providing only glimpses of its glory to the curious eye of an outsider. Even now, with the engineering triumph of the railway, with such marvels as the 690-m long and 54-m tall Sancha River Bridge (三岔河大桥, 2), nature has not been subverted. Gazelles (4) still roam the plateau, the snow-capped mountains are just as majestic, and the eco-system meticulously preserved. 

The only difference: A train ride is filled with more fun.

For thousands of years, ethnic Tibetans have built a magnificent culture on this lofty highland. Sure, trainloads of tourists and goods have brought in new influences, but they have also instilled a new pride in this unique culture, mystified and glorified in countless novels and movies. Old ladies still pray (7) , old gentlemen still play (6), but nowadays there are more people who appreciate them for what they do.

A land of mystique and majesty, a people of peace and tranquility - it could be recorded (3) or sung about, but for the best view, one needs to live it and love it. It can be haunting and purifying for life.

(China Daily 07/21/2007 page5)

在从格尔木到拉萨的列车上，午饭后我到七号硬座车厢瞎逛，遇见了一名美国教授、一名跑生意甘肃人，还有15名盛装的僧人。僧人密轮达吉告诉我：有的可以没有，没有的可以有，有或者没有都不会让他烦心。

Letter from Car 7: A Zen moment en route to Lhasa
By Raymond Zhou

Karen Parshall was lucky to get on the Golmud-Lhasa train on Saturday. She had driven with her traveling companions from Dunhuang, known for its Buddhist grottoes, and spent a day in Golmud.

The professor from the University of Virginia was on her way to a conference on the history of science in Tibet. She knew that getting a train ticket at the middle of the newly built section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway was nearly impossible.

Fortunately, she had a local friend who pulled a few strings. Result: a ticket in Car 7 for a hard seat.

When I asked her about the relative lack of comfort, she smiled and said the service and facilities were pretty good, except for the toilet.

"The crew is very friendly," she added.

Parshall first learned of the railway on the roof of the world from coverage in The New York Times when the route opened last year. On the other side of the car, Ma Shige had ridden on this line four times. 

Ma is a Muslim from Gansu Province, a businessman who buys rawhide in Tibet and sells the hides to the rest of the country. Each shipment may contain as many as 800 to 1,000 cow skins and 2,000 sheepskins.

Ma has been in the trade for eight years. He still uses trucks to ship his goods. He explained that shipping by train involves many more steps such as loading and unloading. In addition, health regulations for train shipment of rawhide are more stringent, adding to his cost. But some of his fellow businessmen who deal in other goods, such as steel, have opted to use the railway. 

Ma has seen a surge in business travelers since the new rail line opened. This should be good for Tibet's economy, he surmises. He likes the new line, he said, because "security is so much better and I've never had my wallet stolen." On other lines, which are often oversold, "I could doze off for a few moment and someone would pick my pocket."

Ma travels with a few other villagers, all Muslims. Even on this train, they carry the food required by Muslim dietary laws. But Ma is philosophical: "This is not a big inconvenience. A train operator has to think from the perspective of most passengers."

Between Karen Parshall and Ma Shige sat 15 Buddhist monks and nuns, all dressed in crimson robes. Monlam darjii was the leader of this mostly teenage group.

"They come from Yunnan and Heilongjiang and are excited to be on this train," he said. The master, 33, comes from a monastery in Nagqu, a town in Tibet.

He has been on the line twice. "It's much more convenient for us constantly-traveling monks with exchange programs with other temples around the country," the master said. 

Monlam darjii started preaching Buddhist teachings at the age of 19. When asked how he directs such a young team on the road, he said tranquility is the key. For example, the train does not provide vegetarian meals, and most of his followers eat only one meal a day. "The less we eat, the more we can leave to others," he noted.

I asked him whether he worries about mundane things like losing a piece of luggage in a crowded place like this. He gave me an answer so Zen that it left me speechless: "Something you don't have, you may have later. Today you have it, tomorrow you may lose it. To have or have not is not something that troubles me."

Outside, yaks and sheep roamed the pristine grassland, undisturbed by the quiet train that ran in Zen-like harmony.

(China Daily 07/20/2007 page7)

阿旺晋美一家沿着青藏公路和铁路匍匐前行，需要三年才能从青海湖北面的冈察走到拉萨。（张威摄）

磕长头朝圣者的心态我难以理解，但他们的精神令人钦佩。

Letter from Kunlun Pass: Pilgrimage along the railway
By Raymond Zhou

The day before getting on the train at the northern end of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, I took a bus from Golmud to the entrance of Hoh Xil (可可西里), famous for Tibetan antelopes.

About five kilometers from the Kunlun Mountain Pass, I spotted Ngawang Jigmet standing outside his tent, right next to the two-lane Qinghai-Tibet Highway.

The 37-year-old herdsman, his wife and daughter were en route to Lhasa. It was no ordinary journey, but "one of a lifetime". It was a Tibetan religious pilgrimage.

Throughout the journey, Ngawang Jigmet would walk a few steps, then lie on his stomach and kowtow. He wore a pair of pants with thick leather knee patches, similar to the ones worn by cowboys in Hollywood Westerns. His wife, with several golden teeth, and his 16-year-old daughter Lu Mu pushed the family's cart behind him.

On Friday morning, Ngawang Jigmet woke up early. The trucks and long-distance buses that whizzed by, some honking, had made it hard for the family to sleep into the morning sunshine.

Night on this 4,767-meter-high stretch is chilly even in summer. Fortunately, the family had brought their winter clothes. In fact, almost all their household belongings were piled in the tent and on their cart.

The physically arduous ritual of full-body kowtow had left him tanned, slim and in good spirits. Surprisingly, his daughter, shielded from the high-altitude sun by a scarf, still had a fair and radiant complexion.

The Ngawang Jigmets are natives of Gangcha (Kang Tsa) on the north side of the Qinghai Lake, China's largest inland saltwater lake. They had sold some of their belongings, entrusted their cattle to a neighbor to tend, and set out on the journey six months ago. When asked how they make ends meet along the way, Ngawang Jigmet replied that they survive partly on their own and partly from donations from passersby. When they enter a temple along the way, they are the ones who make donations.

As he spoke, a bus of tourists pulled up, depositing a box of used cans and bottles, which Ngawang Jigmet collected to sell for a few yuan. 

Ngawang Jigmet does not speak much Chinese. Fortunately, someone in my group is an ethnic Tibetan who shares his dialect. Through him, Ngawang Jigmet told me that the pilgrimage would take a total of three years and cost 20,000 yuan. Much of the trip is along the highway, which runs parallel to the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, occasionally crisscrossing it.

"So, your daughter has to skip high school," I asked.

"She doesn't have time." He hesitated, then added: "She wasn't going to school anyway. Our pasture is far from any community."

As Ngawang Jigmet chatted with me, two fully equipped bicyclists sped by in the direction of Lhasa, and a few minutes later a bus from Lhasa hurtled past.

"Once you reach Lhasa, you are not going to trek back, are you?" I asked.

"No, we'll take the bus or the train," he said, his eyes wandering upward towards the elevated section of the railroad just across the highway.

I never understand the religious zeal of a pilgrim. But from the glint of perseverance and optimism in his eyes, I could see the power of faith. Hiking while kneeling on all fours requires physical and spiritual stamina. But when I looked up at the railroad, whose builders overcame almost insurmountable difficulties over five years of construction, I was infused with a confidence that determination can create miracles.

(China Daily 07/19/2007 page6)

新织女尚未达到熟能生巧的程度。（张威摄）

移民村的藏毯厂并没有俗话所说的一派热闹景象，女工们动作很慢，据说她们的时间观念也很差。如果没有政府的鼓励政策，估计投资商早就吓跑了。当然，万事开头难，不放牛放羊了，总得再找一条活路。

Second letter from Golmud: Herdswomen meet factory life
By Raymond Zhou

Under a government program to protect the source of the three mighty rivers that supply China's water, generations of herders are leaving the high Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. They are being settled with government stipends in new villages at lower altitudes.

The biggest challenge for the resettlers is no longer survival but economic prosperity. Once they climb down the mountain, they don't have many sources of income.

Farming is out of the question as the high salt content of the land makes it unusable for farming. Large swathes of Qinghai's land are salted. It has the country's biggest salt lake there. Golmud is known as China's Salt Lake City. Working in the city requires skills and language proficiency, something a Tibetan herdsman is not equipped with.

"We train them to be welders and drivers, but it's much more difficult than we expected," said Zhang Xianlin, the chief in the new village in a suburb of southern Golmud.

Young men who can speak Chinese have gone to big cities in search of better jobs. Those left behind have a harder time adapting to the new working conditions.

At one end of the village is a compound housing a rug weaving workshop opened two months ago. It was set up by a large company in Xining, capital of Qinghai Province, with financial backing from various government agencies.

The total investment is 800,000 yuan. The precondition for the government investment is that the factory must hire resettled villagers.

The weavers, mostly female, are new to the job. When Yang Ruifang, the general manager, took some of them on a tour of the Xining operation, it scared them so much that all but three of them quit. "We'll never be able to perform this kind of work," they said.

Job training involves numerous communication and cultural hurdles. "I have to teach them how to count from one
 
to 10 in Chinese, and I have to demonstrate each step," said Yang. As nomadic herdswomen, they have not grasped the concept of time management. Some tend to drop in at the factory or take off at will. "But they are learning fast, and they're heartened once they see the first rugs they've woven."

For the time being, each worker gets a stipend of 100 yuan a month from the factory, plus another 100 from the government. "A skilled worker can make 1,000 yuan with no problem and market demand for our products is huge," explained Yang, whose job is to teach her 80-some nomads-turned-weavers.

In addition to access to education and urban conveniences including television, one tangible advantage to the migration is companionship. Villagers gather whenever they want, playing mahjong, sipping tea and chatting. In the old days, a herdsman might meet up only once a year with his closest neighbor, who might live 80 kilometers away.

For healthcare, villagers can opt into an insurance plan specially designed for them. Each person pays an annual premium of 10 yuan, and the maximum benefit is 25,000 to 27,000 yuan.

A bulldozer is working on a plaza in front of the primary school, which serves kids from both this village and ones from another village across the highway. The two villages speak dialects so different that they can hardly communicate with each other. After the plaza is finished, villagers will gather there for singing and dancing parties, an essential part of the Tibetan lifestyle.

In 10 more years, the village chief predicts, all remaining households in the protected area will be relocated.

(China Daily 07/18/2007 page6)

赞扎夫妇在格尔木郊区定居新村开设的小杂货铺。（张威摄）

出于保护三江水源的需要，数千户藏族牧民在政府的引导下离开高原，搬到较低的城市郊区。然而，新生活有乐也有苦。

Letter from Golmud: Cowboys no longer roam the prairie
By Raymond Zhou

Tsantra never expected to be a shop owner. Like generations before him, he lived the first 57 years of his life on the high-altitude prairie, tending a dozen cows and 50 sheep.

All that changed when the government marked a wide swath of plateau for protection as the origin of three of China's mightiest rivers - the Yangtze, the Yellow and the Lancang, known as the Mekong in Southeast Asia.

Tsantra finds the notion of safeguarding the natural habitat of the origin of three rivers quite elusive. For him, the big draw was a free house built by the government.

The 62-square-meter abode is by no means spacious, but it shields Tsantra, his wife, their 14-year-old daughter, and his wife's 80-year-old mother from the elements much more effectively than his tent.

Now 60, the ethnic Tibetan stands in the courtyard in a village in the southern suburb of Golmud, the industrial city at the Qinghai end of the newly built section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. His store is a shack in a corner of the courtyard.

There are eight or nine similar small stores in this village of 128 households, all like Tsantra's, which entails competition and precludes Tsantra from making a small fortune for his entrepreneurship.

"I can make four to five thousand yuan a year, which is more than the 3,000 I made as a herdsman," he said in Chinese, with a thick Tibetan accent.

But up in the mountain, he didn't need to pay for electricity, telephone or tap water, none of which was available to a nomadic herdsman. To ease the hardship of transition, the government gives each family an annual subsidy of 6,000 yuan. 

For thousands of years, ethnic Tibetans have roamed the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, subsisting on herding. But the fragile ecology provides the water resources for a significant part of China and the task of keeping it pristine is becoming increasingly difficult.

The government's ideal scenario is to move all the herdsmen from the plateau - thousands of them. But that means uprooting them, forever changing their way of life.

A fund of 7.5 billion yuan has been established for the project. This includes the 30 million invested in Source of Yangtze River Village, Tsantra's resettlement just outside the toll gate in southern Golmud. 

Life for a resettler is a mixture of joy and anxiety. Tsantra is glad he made the 420-kilometer move in 2004 because, he explains, "I was getting older and living in a tent at 4,500 meters above sea level is hard for the health of an old person. Now we have settled down in a 2,780-meter new village with modern conveniences."

As a matter of fact, a few resettlers went back to the mountain, where they can still get a yearly subsidy of 3,000 yuan. Local officials emphasize that all families are free to choose their place of living and no coercion was used for resettlement.

"There are some 50 more households that have applied to come down from the mountain and are on the waiting list," said Zhang Xianlin, the village chief. "Besides, most who moved back and forth ended up settling in the new village."

Looking at his new and ever improving community, Tsantra knows his daughter will live a better life. In his heart, he still regrets that his is the last generation of shepherds and cowboys, and he doesn't feel like a Golmud resident. But "for the sake of the country and the environment, I understand this is necessary," he says.

(China Daily 07/17/2007 page6)

在西宁的两天是最无聊的，既没有像样的工作，又没有观光游览。唯一的闪亮点是在西宁火车站外的马路边看到一个卖刨子的，边示范功能边用诗歌形式说出一套一套，十分搞笑。其中有他对各届领导人甚至美国总统的评价，堪称民间时评人。（注：不是以上照片。）

Rhyme time with hawkers proves big fun
By Raymond Zhou

青海人（包括官员）对于青藏铁路有诸多意见，主要是到了青海的游客很难买到去西藏的车票。其实，这更多是公共管理的能力问题，即应该增开青海（西宁和格尔木）到拉萨的列车，不然，青海可能在某种程度上会遭受《汽车总动员》中那个小镇的命运。

Small things count in management
By Raymond Zhou

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway has been open for a year now, but most passengers climbing up to the "Roof of the World" have opted to sidestep Xining, somewhat of a gateway to the plateau.

It is not because the capital of Qinghai Province does not have an abundance of tourism resources to offer. The culprit is scarcity of tickets from Xining to Lhasa, capital of Tibet Autonomous Region.

Once you get off at Xining and spend a few days taking in such sceneries as Ta'er Temple and Qinghai Lake, you'll probably end up stuck here. During the summer season, there is a daily demand for 1,200-plus seats originating from Xining, but only 700-some are available.

Don't even think about getting a seat on the other Lhasa-bound trains that depart from other cities and pass through Xining. They are all booked solid through the holiday season, which runs from June to October.

This has made the tourism bonanza elusive for Qinghai and also left a typical Qinghai-Tibet travel plan disappointingly incomplete for tourists.

Granted, there are reasons why the current capacity of 3,480 tickets to Tibet cannot be raised. Train cars used in the newly built section of the railroad have to meet stringent specifications for high-altitude operation, including pumping oxygen into air-tight cars. And unlike the packed-like-sardine trains elsewhere in China, no over-booking is allowed on this route.

While emphasis on passenger safety is commendable, the inflexibility towards market fluctuation is puzzling. During off season, trains run at only 50-60 percent of capacity.

A question arises: How come a railroad with such daunting engineering difficulties, including stretching across 550 km of tundra, could be successfully built, but adjusting the number of trains to better reflect seasonal changes of the market appears to be so arduous?

I asked many railway authorities on my trip to Qinghai, but did not find a satisfying answer. Instead, they gave me the look as if I didn't know what I was talking about. 

I often get this kind of perplexed look when I ask about annoyances in urban management. For example, the Capital Airport has a public announcement system so loud that it drowns out a cellphone conversation. Could they tune it so that it's clearly audible but does not simulate shouting? Does the system have only two volume levels - off and shrieking?

The same goes for the city's bus service. For a while, ticket sellers were alerting passengers to the name of the next bus stop. I asked one of them why they didn't use a recorder-speaker, and she replied that it would be "noisy to the residents in nearby buildings".

I guess a lot of people shared my curiosity. Soon, the speaker was back on. And now I can hear buses pulling in from my apartment 100 meters from the street.

I know bus announcement systems can modulate their volumes because I've seen buses in other cities with volumes just loud enough for the waiting passengers. The problem seems to be that those departments run by bureaucrats rarely pay attention to the small things in customer service.

Why should a train run with more cars in the busy season and fewer cars in the off season? Why should a bus or airport speaker be easy on the ear? These may not be life-or-death issues, but it is the job of management to find them out and calibrate for the best possible result.

Xining could increase the frequency of trains to Lhasa, but that comes after local government officials made multiple requests and possibly held many coordination meetings. On most occasions, there must be mountains of complaints from the public before action is taken. When will the bureaucrat managers get proactive and resolve those minor troubles before they grow into an avalanche?

(China Daily 07/14/2007 page4)

FilmArt Bimonthly NO.4.2007, Vol.315