Political campaigns

Political campaigns offer plenty opportunities for communication academics, research companies, advertising agencies, public relation agencies, etc. Political campaigns feed a chain of industries. Politics is moving online in the western countries. I come to the conclusion after I encounter an article online.

In 2002, when the Internet bubbles went out, several online advertising agencies and online advertising monitoring companies who tried hard to make profit in Chinese market withdrew. Only those local ones left struggling.

I lost contact with those companies after they left China. Today, an article caught my attention. Actually, it is an old article, published last September. According to the article, in the US presidential election campaign last year, Candidates, Parties, and Advocacy Groups Spent $2.66 million on Banner Ads Between January and August, 2004 –less than $1 for every $100 spent on TV Ads.

The figure seems very small compared with TV ads, however, it is great for an industry in its infant stage. I am sure the online advertising industry is happy about political online ads. The data quoted in the article came from one of the companies who withdrew from China.

Of course, the company was not only saved by the phenomena that politics goes online, however, it did benefit from the online campaigns. As an advertising monitoring company, the profit comes only after the profit of advertising industry goes up.

I didn’t see the possible success of the company in China if it did not withdraw. First of all, there’s no online political campaign to donate money. Then, Chinese online advertising industry seems growing rapidly. However, we have to see that only the big portal sites benefited from the growth. It is a highly concentrated market. The third party monitoring data would be of little importance in that situation under Chinese cultural context.

World wide web has been an important platform for political campaigns in the Western countries, for fund-raising, voter-profiling, insider communicating and advertising. Political campaign can be very helpful for democracy and a certain industries.

Finding the right track

Tons of things happened during the past 15 days. I find myself standing at the cross of road. I may find opportunity in each of those roads. I can do a Ph.D degree at a university in the field I like. I can keep on working in the current company, where I have potentials. A Ph.D or not is really a question for me.

I have been longing for such opportunities for a long time, since the moment I got my master’s degree. When it really comes, I am hesitating. My heart tells me I should pack up and book a ticket to the US. However, I can’t only listen to my heart.

You know the Chinese are family-orientated people, especially for women. When I came back from Europe, I told my parents I would settle down. Now, I am happily married trying to settle down in Beijing. And then, comes the offer. If my husband were also someone who likes to travel around and see different things, my situation would be easy. “Global citizen” is the last in his identities.

I can hardly give up my job. I love the current job. With a Ph.D I may knock open the door to be professor in universities. However, the current job is creative, innovation and interesting.

I have to find the right track and follow it. Now, I am standing at the crossroad. Life is just one crossroad after another.

Dreams of life

My French partner asked me a question, which brings me back 20 years ago. The question is: “I heard Chinese used to have four dreams in their lives, what were the four dreams?”

My Dad’s bicycle flashed in my memory, it is a big black one older than I am which was brought in 1974. The bike was one of my Dad’s dreams. I can still remember my father clean it during weekends. Now, it is old and rusty, my father still keep it in good condition.

The changing of Chinese people’s dreams revels the change of the society. The four dreams of my parents when they were in their 20s were bicycle, watch, radio and a sewing machine. My parents full filled their dreams gradually. Many of my shirts were made by my Mom on her sewing machine. The first radio in my family was made by my father, who majored in chemistry in University.

Then, the dreams changed at the 1980s. The four dreams were television, refrigerator, washing machine and telephone. My parents, again, full filled those dreams. The first television in my household was bought by my father during his stay in the US., the first refrigerator was bought a year later. For the telephone, it is totally different situation in the 1980s. Telephone network was not well build and fixed line is restricted within governmental officials and high-level intellectuals alike. So my family got a fixed line in 1986 when he was eligible to get it.

That’s the story of the four dreams of the 1970s and 1980s. Then, my partner asked about the life dreams of the youth of the day. I thought for a while and count: an apartment, a car, travel around the country and around the world. He interrupted me and said “so there’s no difference from us, western youth.”

Yes, I thinks so, the life dreams of today’s Chinese youth don’t have any difference from those of the western youth. I just bought an apartment, a car and I have traveled a lot in North American, European and East Asia. My next dream is to get promotion in my work, get a Ph.D degree, have a child, travel more around the world…
So, what’re your dreams?

Jury Duty

Today I got two auto-replied messages from my Friends in the U.S to notify me that they will be out of office for Jury Duties. I am sure they are not sitting for the same duty since one is in Atlanta and the other one lives in New York. One of them is a professor and the other is a journalist. What a coincidence it is!

All my ideals about Jury duty come from Sex and the City, when Carrie was selected for jury duty. Don’t laugh at me, as a foreigner television program could be a good way to understand the culture or a misleading way.

I am going to ask my friends how do they feel during the week of jury duty. Do they meet someone holding a pineapple during the duty?

Je m’appelle Helene

Helene
Je m'appelle Helene
Je suis une fille
Comme les autres
Helene
J'ai mes joies mes peines
Elles font ma vie
Comme la votre
Je voudrais trouver l'amour
Simplement trouver l'amour


The song is popular in China right now. I even don’t remember when was the first time I heard it. But I’m sure it was in a metro station. You can hear the song everywhere, from metro station, to CD shops, from radio station to a guy passing by with an ipod. You can hardly hide from the girl who named Helene.

When we were shopping together for souvenir this morning, my French visitor turned at me and giggled at me. What she can’t understand is why the song is everywhere, what I cannot understand is why she laughing so suddenly at a French song.

“The song is for teenagers is France” she said, “I mean girls about 8 to 12 years old.” She explained, “The song is soft and sweet, it is for teenagers who have day dreams. In their dreams, everything is pink and sweet.” She told me Helene is the main character of a soap opera, she dreams to have relationship with boys.

It was my turn to laugh. What a misunderstanding! To a French ear, that Chinese love music for day-dreaming-girl.

The culture differences are everywhere.

Culture Shock

When I first arrived Holland, I encountered culture shock. Now, it’s time for my French visitors to experience the shocks.

When they ask me questions about what they observed on the street, on television screen, in the bar…It is time for me to think about the cultural differences.

My French visitors’ first finding is that Chinese people like story-telling, especially taxi drivers. Whenever they call a taxi, the driver would listen to stories in the radio while driving. They also found that on TV, there are lots of TV series on Chinese history.

The finding of my visitors is partially true. Yes, Chinese people like story-telling, we call it “ping shu”. (评书). Ping Shu is a traditional Chinese art of telling stories in a dramatic way. It is usually performed by one person. Most of the stories are about Chinese history.

Taxi drivers like Ping shu because they are lonely. What they don’t know about Beijing taxi drivers is that what they really like is to chat with passengers. There’s no way for them to discover that because of the language barrier.

It is also true that right now, on the screen of Chinese television there are lots of “history-stories”. I would rather to call them “pseudo-history”. It is not about Chinese history, not retelling Chinese history in the way of drama. It is nothing but stupid fictions or stupid fairy tales. There are more than 60 channels that I can receive with cable TV. However, whenever a show is hot, other channels would also run that show. So my choice is limited within 6, even less. Chinese government is going to push digital TV to the market. One of the reasons is that with digital television, people can have hundreds of channels to choose from. The authorities forget that it is not the number of channels limits people’s choice but the program itself. I bet with 300 hundreds channels, at least 250 channels are running the same program. The 50 left will run the same program soon or later.

Why there are so many boring and stupid fairy tales and pseudo-history stories running on television? The answer lies in the facts that there are so many areas that cannot be touched in China. The cultural revolution is one, and there are many more similar topics. In order to avoid the censorship, artists have to produce those stupid programs, which will lead to a down turn of social culture.

Secondly, they found there weren’t many “Chinese ideas” generated from brainstorming on wireless service in the near future. I was puzzled by the word “Chinese ideas”. They told me they were expecting some ideas based on Chinese traditional culture. Then, it is my turn to feel shock. I never image there would be “Chinese idea” or “French idea” or “American idea” on high technology services.

What makes the different perspective between my guests and I? Later in the afternoon, I figure out several reasons. Firstly, in the area of IT industry, China is at the same level as western countries, which makes no difference in Chinese ideas and western ideas. Secondly, almost all respondents have educational background in a Western county (including me). Our experiences in the western countries colored our eyes on the differences between the east and the west. So the ideas fixed by such group reflect rare Chinese characteristic. Besides that is my third reason, since modern technologies, including IT technology, are imported from the West. There’s no Chinese characteristic involved in. All my reasons point to one bigger picture: globalization.

Anyway, I am still wondering about Chinese ideas. Speaking about internet and mobiles, regardless of language, are there American website, French website, Dutch website or Chinese website?

I know Chinese sites carry more advertisements than websites from any other countries. Are there any other differences?

QR code

Do you have any idea about this picture?

The answer is it is QR code. 3 days ago, I thought, I would never use it or have any connection with the little square picture. But now, it entered my life all of a sudden. Actually, the small black and white picture knocked my door at the beginning of July. Little attention was paid to it at that momment. When my working partener holding a small green covered magazine M entered my office and said amazingly, "You Chinese people use QR Code!", the response he got is a blank look, "What is QR code."

The guy opened the little book and showed me those pictures on the top of each page. I was still confused. I grasped the book from his hairy hands and turned quickly to find instructions on how to use it.

Rignht, I got it. Firstly developed in Japan, QR codes have become a major tool to facilitate the usage of mobile data services, and QR codes help to overcome one of the most important barriers to mobile commerce and mobile content sales.

I downloaded the software with my not so modern mobile phone, (although it is not 6 months old) and begin to try the code.

Apparently, the six months old mobile is out of date, because it cannot scan the picture with its camera as the instruction describes. I have to put the digital code in manually. Anyway, it works and I was directed to the information the code represents for.

It is said that QR code is everywhere in Japan now. Could it be the next big thing is China? Can you imaging young people hold the little book in one hand and mobile in the other. Can you imaging they scan every little squared picture? Can you imaging your business card need to put on that little square picture?

Excuse me, do you have working permit?

The weather has been bad for several days across China. Typhoon Masta hit east coast cities bringing heavy rain and wind. Millions of people were affected by the flood. Even the modern city of Shanghai, too, was in flood. The Masta went north hit some cities I bet haven’t been visited by typhoon for 50 years. Then, scientists predicted that it was traveling to Beijing. When the whole city prepared to welcome the heavy rains and strong winds it might brought, Masta dumped Beijing. It turned and headed for the sea.

Online jokes said that Masta found she has no residence permit of Beijing and no money with her to apply for the residence permit. She was worried that the police in Beijing would catch her and send her all the way back to her hometown. So Masta turned as headed to the sea.

This is a joke, of course, no one is going to ask Masta for residence permit of Beijing. But the joke underlines an important social issue in China. Should big cities refuse immigrant workers from other cities or countryside? Do all Chinese have the right to choose freely where to live in their country? What kind of policy should be taken to solve the problem of population problem in large cities?

Residential and working permits are not something new for me. When I was in Europe, it took me a long time and a lot of trouble to apply for working permit. I understood that is because I am a foreigner to the country. I applied for a job which is not in my motherland. Awarding me the work means I occupied the social resources of the host country.

However, I never understand my situation in Beijing. Why should I need a residential permit to live and work in the city? Since I was a residence of Shanghai, another large city in China, my situation was better than those who come from small cities or the rural area. One of my friends who came from a small village was stopped in the street to check the residence permit several years ago. Since she had no such documents, she was asked to leave the city.

I never had such problem, but it was difficult for people like me to get social warfare in Beijing. Beijing government said that I should get the warfare in Shanghai, regardless of the situation that I work in Beijing, bought apartment in Beijing, pay my tax in Beijing.

After years of that situation, I decide to change my location of residence. It is not me who do not want to change location of residence in the past years, but because it is difficult to become a residence of a big city, especially Beijing if you parents are not residence of the city.

Should I thank to the new policy that welcome well-educated people to live and work in Beijing? I don’t know. Anyway, since I was educated in a foreign country and have a master’s degree, I am eligible to change my residential location to anywhere in China including Beijing. I did that 12 months after I returned to China.

For people who don’t have the chance to get education in a foreign country, do they have the right to pursuit their opportunities in Beijing? Is it right to deny a people’s citizen right to live in large cities or to discriminate them only because they were not born there?

Every one knows that China faces population pressure. Large cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou face more serve problem. However, it is unwise to refuse workers immigrate from other party of the country to large cities. This issue has generated a hot debate in China, especially online.

I am nobody and have no influence on the issue. Let’s hope those who make policies realize that it is ridiculous to restrict free immigration within a country and there are better ways to balance population and economic development.

Chinese Media Spectacle on Discovery

Space shuttle Discovery is hype right now in China. Maybe, it is hype not only in China but all over the world since the day it launched to the space.

Yesterday, the media hype reached its peak by a live broadcast on 2 China central television channels (CCTV) out of 14 and 1 provincial channel out of 20 that I can receive. This hype is not over after the touching down of Discovery. 24 hours after the space shuttle and her crew returned to the Earth safely, CCTV-4, the international channel has another live broadcast on the shuttle’s return to Kennedy Space Center.

Maybe I should not be surprised at the media hype of Discovery in the age of media spectacle and the age of high technology. The media hype looks reasonable in the following senses: it is first trip to the space after the disaster of Columbia and the space mission itself.

The last time when the Chinese media carried live broadcast on a space mission is the launching and returning of China’s first space shuttle. As far as I can remember this is the first time do Chinese media paid such attention to an American Space mission. (Excuse me if I am wrong, for I spend several years in Europe and America). Never before did China media gave such space to an American space mission, so why Discovery?

The answer is thanks to the commercialization of Chinese media and the changing criteria of what is news worth. What is news worth? Scholars had the answer years ago, something which is negative, such as a conflict, a disaster, something related to important countries, important people, etc. Chinese news organization may not admit it and argue that they do not prefer conflict, negative things than positive events. But the truth is they are.

The journey of Discovery is not smooth. Its launching off was postponed. When it soaring into the blue sky, some pieces of debris were found falling from the ship. It is because of falling debris, the Columbia broke up as it attempted to re-enter Earth's atmosphere. During Discovery’s journey in the space, other safety problems were also discovered. Then the crew took actions to repair it, which is the first mending ever taken to a shuttle in the space.

It is those problems that push Discovery right into the center of the media hype. July 27, the day after Discovery soaring into space, one Beijing newspaper carried an astonishing headline: “Debris hit Discovery, no more return for the shuttle”.

It is threading to see a newspaper (not a tabloid one) jumps to that conclusion and use that sensational language. The headline is a tragedy for that newspaper, even the Chinese journalists as a whole. In the market competition, the newspaper has lost dignity as human beings. Nothing left in their heads but money. They forget everything about the objective news, the moral of journalists. Only one thing left: tragedy sells paper.

Let us think what would us, Chinese, think if an American newspaper carries a headline “Debris hit Chinese shuttle, no more return from the space”? Hurt? Angry?

Yes, that is the normal reaction. So how could the journalists and editors of that newspaper do that! It is not a normal media spectacle but more like clasping hands while others encounter a problem.

Commercialization is one thing, journalism code of conduct is another thing. No media outlets have the right to jump into such conclusion without any scientific proofs. Even if with proofs, it is still horrible to be happy towards others’ trouble.

Let’s hope this would never be repeated in the future.