I was doing a bit of snooping on the Change.org wikipedia entry today:
- Change.org currently have a great petition calling on Apple to improve working conditions of their iPhone factories in China.
- One of Change.org three CEOs is Adam Cheyer.
- Adam Cheyer is also co-founder of Siri and is currently a director of engineering in the iPhone group at Apple.
My mind = blown.
Image (cc) Tambako the Jaguar
1 Foxconn factory where iPhones are produced 2 Apple iPhone 4S launch in Beijing 3 Phone parts for recycling in Zhejiang Province
China has such a weird relationship with the iPhone. The world is having major guilt pangs about their iPhone habit ever since This American Life did a piece about factory life in China. And there is currently a petition doing the rounds that has attracted over 200,000 signatures calling on Apple to name suppliers who have violated standards.
None of this has put the brakes on sales in China itself though.
Frankly, I feel sorrier for the poor bastards in Guiyu who live in mountains of e-waste, sorting through electronic trash that is imported from around the world, for recycling. Their working conditions and pay are far worse than Foxconn factory workers.
The iPhone comes full circle.
I recently attended training at the Hong Kong branch of Greenpeace, and snapped some photos of my co-workers, who had also come from the Beijing and Taipei offices. The Hong Kong office is pretty funky – smooth concrete floor, open space office, big windows looking out over Hong Kong’s signature high rises. And the reception features a sculpture that spells out “anti-nuclear” in Chinese along with a stack of yellow nuclear cans.
The dude in the second photo, Miles, looks like the baddest mofo on the planet. But in reality is the gentlest most chilled guy I’ve ever met.
A lot of people are surprised when I tell them that the very large majority of staff in all the East Asia offices are locals, not foreigners. Yes, there are Chinese environmentalists, and they’re a very committed, talented and passionate bunch.
Jetstar Magazine
We go in search of Sydney’s secret tastes of China.
Sydney is set to explode with firecrackering frivolity when, on 20 January, the Chinese New Year celebrations get under way. For two weeks the city will be alive with lion dances, night markets, acrobatic performances, dragon boat races, a twilight parade and more. Chinese New Year aside, in the city that boasts Australia’s largest Chinese population, one can find an array of Chinese experiences all year round.
Our morning of discovery begins at the Chinatown branch of International Wing Chun Academy. Wing Chun-style kung fu became world renowned after one of its students, Bruce Lee, made it big in the US. Instructor Jeffrey Macris first gives me a short history lesson.
“Wing Chun was developed over 300 years ago by a Buddhist nun called Ng Mui, in the Southern Shaolin temple. She named it after one of her best students, a girl called Yim Wing Chun who legend has it escaped an unwanted marriage betrothal by defeating her suitor in a martial arts fight.” He explains that Wing Chun emphasises economy of movement over brute force; when strategy is key the best fighter isn’t necessarily the strongest, or even the quickest, of the bunch.
At 10am, a bell rings and the class gives a respectful bow to three photos hanging on the wall depicting a long lineage of teachers. Jeffrey leads us with a graceful warm up of tai chi-like moves, before teaching several punches and kicks. I’m paired up with cute little 12-year-old Julia Lu who tells me she took up the art because, “It was something different. I really like it now!” Julia is half my height so I’m unconcerned; until, that is, she starts landing punches that take my breath away.
Kung fu is rewarded with lunch at Golden Century Seafood Restaurant. Nestled in the heart of Chinatown, the restaurant features a wall of tanks in which swim over a hundred prawns, lobsters, crabs, abalone, fish and other underwater delights all hinting at the dining experience on offer ’til as late as 4am.
I order signature dishes like the fleshy pippies in their fan-shells, doused with homemade XO sauce. The barbecue pork is a lovely, dark pink colour, finished with a sticky glaze. I also try a steamed scallop sitting royally in the centre of a gorgeous, purple shell. Then lick my fingers through the salt and pepper deep-fried mud crab.
A spot of culture is in order, so it’s off to the White Rabbit Gallery near Central Station. The gallery’s four floors house the private collection of contemporary Chinese art enthusiast Judith Neilson. It’s so large the gallery only shows a fraction at any one time, and has been rehung twice a year since opening in 2009. There’s an impressive mixture of paintings, sculptures and digital media works, by everyone from the young to more established artists such as the famed Ai Wei Wei, whose oily black puddles of porcelain grace the second floor.
Next stop is Bourke Street’s intimate Zensation Tea House. Their tea appreciation menu begins with a hibiscus blossom tea that’s served slightly chilled — perfect to cleanse the palette. The Silver Needle, a feminine and elegant pale tea, follows. Raymond Leung, the teahouse owner, opens up a tea leaf for me, revealing a bud and two springy leaves with faint, silver fur. Much like wine, Chinese tea can run up to thousands of dollars, depending on their label and season.
For the Milky Oolong, Leung invites me to a tea ceremony. I quietly watch him wash the cups and pour the tea with much flourish. He implores me to “flip” my male “yang” cup, pouring the tea into the rounder, female, “yin” cup. As I sip, a milky taste with hints of coconut fills my mouth.
Evening sets and Mah Jong Room beckons. The décor is modern with borrowed elements from the past: Chinese antique-style furniture, private dining rooms with kitsch 60s-style wallpaper and furnishings, black- and-white photos of Beijing’s iconic hutong (alleyways) and a dash of old-school Shanghai glamour for good measure.
While the food and cocktail menu is similarly sophisticated, the restaurant’s draw card is the chance to play mah jong, a Chinese favourite. A regular, Mike Smith, says: “It’s a great afternoon learning how to play. I lived in Asia for years and would hear the clacking of the tiles on my way home from work each night. I can’t believe it took me so long to learn!”
TAKE ME THERE
- GOLDEN CENTURY SEAFOOD RESTAURANT 393–399 Sussex St, Sydney, tel: +61 (2) 9212 3901
- INTERNATIONAL WING CHUN ACADEMY 1st Floor, 355 Sussex St, Sydney, tel: +61 (2) 9264 2712
- MAH JONG ROOM 312 Crown St, Surry Hills, tel: +61 (2) 9361 3985
- WHITE RABBIT GALLERY 30 Balfour St, Chippendale, tel: +61 (2) 8399 2867
- ZENSATION TEA HOUSE 656 Bourke St, Redfern, tel: +61 (2) 9319 2788
Jetstar Magazine, January 2012.
Image (cc) eddy_
Hong Kong and Taiwan. Previously regions of China, but at some point in the not so distant past, were split from the mainland and taken on different paths. Putting aside the regional cultures of Hong Kong and Taiwan, the two could stand as alternate reality Chinas. What would China have looked like had it embraced capitalism earlier? Had it chosen democracy at all?
At times Hong Kong doesn’t seem so different from China’s southern most province, Guangdong. They are both Cantonese, with Hong Kong the cashed up, cleaner, more fashionable cousin. But every now and then you see something that reminds you you are definitely not in the Mainland. Things like an Occupy protest. Things like this:
This is a monument to the hundreds (thousands? we’re still not sure) who died at Tian’an’men Square, on that fateful day, June 4, 1989.
When Hong Kong was handed back to the mainland in 1997, the Chinese government promised she would be governed with a ‘one country, two systems‘ mentality – or at least for the next fifty years. But as China’s economic might has grown, so too has the financial ties between Hong Kong and the rest of the country. Rather than by force, it is a glimmering river of cash that is bringing a long-lost relative back into the fold.
What will be the fate of Hong Kong’s clean human rights record and freedom of press? I predict we will see one of two things:
1. The monument to the victims of the Tian’an’men Square massacre currently erected in Hong Kong University (HKU) will be quietly removed.
2. In addition to the one at HKU, a monument to the victims of the Tian’an’men Square massacre will be erected in Peking University and other universities around the country.
For those of you who have trouble understanding the Chinese government’s incredible sensitivity regarding Tian’an’men, think of it like this. The government is like a heavy handed patriarch, who, in seeing his children come of age – ready to leave their nest and take control of their own destiny – freaked out and decided the reasonable reaction was to kill/imprison their children.
The patriarch is now extremely bitter about these children he considered wayward. Not to mention very sensitive about the issue – the slightest mention will set him off. He is also extremely paranoid and obsessed with control over the remaining children. He is determined to infantalise them by only letting them know as much as he feels they need to so that they remain in the house and under thumb.
Remains to be seen if Hong Kong will have any influence on the future of the mainland.
