- “Well, I hope the ongoing changes in policy towards the Chinese government, most of which I think are justified as a direct response to Chinese government actions, do not also lead to a general prejudice against ordinary Chinese people or all things Chinese.So far, we haven’t seen that, at least not much.For example, Trump, who’s been utterly shameless in provoking racial and ethnic tensions when it comes to African-Americans, Latinos, Mexicans, Africans — maybe I’m missing something, but I haven’t seen the same sort of thing on China yet.Trump seems to put China mostly into the trade/jobs economic section of his brain, rather than the “chaos/social upheaval/white nationalism” section of his brain. (And that’s one reason why, so far, lots of Democrats and independents have supported his policies, along with the Trumpists.)”
That second paragraph worries me a little bit, although I am unsure of my analysis. Economics and culture (very roughly, that’s how I think about the two concepts mentioned above) aren’t independent. The more I read about economics, the more I think each feeds upon the other, and that too, continuously. Such compartmentalization seems too simplistic. The rest of the interview is also worth reading – and as somebody who appreciates great questions, I loved the very last one. - “In March 1951, a frustrated Kodak threatened to sue the U.S. government for the “considerable amount of damage to our products resulting from the Nevada tests or from any further atomic energy tests…” Finally the company and the government came to an agreement. The AEC would provide Webb, by now the head of Kodak’s physics division, with schedules and maps of future tests so that Kodak could take the necessary precautions to protect its product. In return, the people of Kodak were to keep everything they knew about the government’s Nevada nuclear testing a secret.”
The world is stranger than you can know, and imagine. It is also scarily stupid in ways one simply couldn’t have contemplated. A sobering read about how Kodak discovered scary stuff about America’s nuclear bomb experiments – and was essentially asked to keep quiet about it. - “Perhaps because most of us are descendants of immigrants thrust into an artificial construct of a nation, or maybe because we live in a country that is constantly renewing and rebuilding, one of the few tangible things that connects us to the past and our cultural identity is food.”
Ten dishes you might want to try in Singapore, with a little bit of history thrown in. I am sad to report that I haven’t tasted all of them yet. - “Many local African churches have reached out to Chinese workers, including incorporating Mandarin into services. A number of Chinese, in turn, have welcomed the sense of community and belonging that these Christian churches offer. And a small but growing number of ethnically Chinese missionaries from Taiwan and other countries are specifically targeting Chinese nationals in Africa, preaching to them with a freedom they’d never be allowed in the People’s Republic.”
If the rest of the world is worried about Africa being unduly influenced by neocolonial China… China, it turns out, is worried about being influenced by evangelical Christianity from Africa. - “If you missed reports of the shenanigans at Canada’s McMaster University last week, then the following article by academic Kevin Carrico is well worth a read. Universities are letting a minority of Chinese students behave in ways that are utterly unacceptable. One speculates that they do this because many universities depend heavily on Chinese students for fee income, because they and their academics fear the Chinese Communist Party, and because university administrations tend to be pretty weak-kneed.”
I had linked a while back to events in Canada, at a university. Joe Studwell, author of the fantastic How Asia Works, links to an article that provides perspective on this issue.
EconForEverybody 