CHINATAKEAWAY

Qianlong's Letter to George III - 1792

2011-12-11T19:42:00.001+08:00

Here is why history is so compelling, in my view. Personal statements and letters always spice up the learning of historic moments and gives a first hand perspective to what came then. Precisely, the end of Chinese independence as they knew it.

During the eighteenth century, the British, the leading traders with China, became increasingly dissatisfied with the inconveniences and limitations of their trade agreement. The East India Company petitioned the Chinese emperor several times for a liberalization of China's policy. After repeated failures, the government sent an official envoy from King George III himself to the imperial court. Thus, in 1792 Lord George Macartney arrived in Peking (modern Beijing) with a letter from the king to Emperor Ch'ien Lung (lived 1711-1799, ruled 1735-1796), requesting British diplomatic representation at the imperial court, an easing of trade regulations, and the opening of more Chinese ports to trade. The emperor rejected all the British requests for the reasons he stated in the following letter.

"You, O King, from afar have yearned after the blessings of our civilization, and in your eagerness to come into touch with our converting influence have sent an Embassy across the sea bearing a memorial [memorandum]. I have already taken note of your respectful spirit of submission, have treated your mission with extreme favor and loaded it with gifts, besides issuing a mandate to you, O King, and honoring you at the bestowal of valuable presents. Thus has my indulgence been manifested.
Yesterday your Ambassador petitioned my Ministers to memorialize me regarding your trade with China, but his proposal is not consistent with our dynastic usage and cannot be entertained. Hitherto, all European nations, including your own country's barbarian merchants, have carried on their trade with our Celestial Empire at Canton. Such has been the procedure for many years, although our Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance and lacks no product within its own borders. There was therefore no need to import the manufactures of outside barbarians in exchange for our own produce. But as the tea, silk and porcelain which the Celestial Empire produces, are absolute necessities to European nations and to yourselves, we have permitted, as a signal mark of favor, that foreign hongs [groups of merchants] should be established at Canton, so that your wants might be supplied and your country thus participate in our beneficence. But your Ambassador has now put forward new requests which completely fail to recognize the Throne's principle to "treat strangers from afar with indulgence," and to exercise a pacifying control over barbarian tribes, the world over. Moreover, our dynasty, swaying the myriad races of the globe, extends the same benevolence towards all. Your England is not the only nation trading at Canton. If other nations, following your bad example, wrongfully importune my ear with further impossible requests, how will it be possible for me to treat them with easy indulgence? Nevertheless, I do not forget the lonely remoteness of your island, cut off from the world by intervening wastes of sea, nor do I overlook your excusable ignorance of the usages of our Celestial Empire. I have consequently commanded my Ministers to enlighten your Ambassador on the subject, and have ordered the departure of the mission. But I have doubts that, after your Envoy's return he may fail to acquaint you with my view in detail or that he may be lacking in lucidity, so that I shall now proceed ... to issue my mandate on each question separately. In this way you will, I trust, comprehend my meaning....
Your request for a small island near Chusan [a group of islands in the East China Sea at the entrance to Hangchow Bay], where your merchants may reside and goods be warehoused, arises from your desire to develop trade. As there are neither foreign hongs nor interpreters in or near Chusan, where none of your ships have ever called, such an island would be utterly useless for your purposes. Every inch of the territory of our Empire is marked on the map and the strictest vigilance is exercised over it all: even tiny islets and far-lying sand-banks are clearly defined as part of the provinces to which they belong. Consider, moreover, that England is not the only barbarian land which wishes to establish ... trade with our Empire: supposing that other nations were all to imitate your evil example and beseech me to present them each and all with a site for trading purposes, how could I possibly comply? This also is a flagrant infringement of the usage of my Empire and cannot possibly be entertained.
The next request, for a small site in the vicinity of Canton city, where your barbarian merchants may lodge or, alternatively, that there be no longer any restrictions over their movements at Aomen [a city some 45 miles to the south of Canton, at the lower end of the Pearl (Zhu) River delta] has arisen from the following causes. Hitherto, the barbarian merchants of Europe have had a definite locality assigned to them at Aomen for residence and trade, and have been forbidden to encroach an inch beyond the limits assigned to that locality. . . . If these restrictions were withdrawn, friction would inevitably occur between the Chinese and your barbarian subjects, and the results would militate against the benevolent regard that I feel towards you. From every point of view, therefore, it is best that the regulations now in force should continue unchanged....
Regarding your nation's worship of the Lord of Heaven, it is the same religion as that of other European nations. Ever since the beginning of history, sage Emperors and wise rulers have bestowed on China a moral system and inculcated a code, which from time immemorial has been religiously observed by the myriads of my subjects [the reference is to Confucianism]. There has been no hankering after heterodox doctrines. Even the European (missionary) officials in my capital are forbidden to hold intercourse with Chinese subjects; they are restricted within the limits of their appointed residences, and may not go about propagating their religion. The distinction between Chinese and barbarian is most strict, and your Ambassador's request that barbarians shall be given full liberty to disseminate their religion is utterly unreasonable.
It may be, O King, that the above proposals have been wantonly made by your Ambassador on his own responsibility, or peradventure you yourself are ignorant of our dynastic regulations and had no intention of transgressing them when you expressed these wild ideas and hopes.... If, after the receipt of this explicit decree, you lightly give ear to the representations of your subordinates and allow your barbarian merchants to proceed to Chêkiang and Tientsin [two Chinese port cities], with the object of landing and trading there, the ordinances of my Celestial Empire are strict in the extreme, and the local officials, both civil and military, are bound reverently to obey the law of the land. Should your vessels touch the shore, your merchants will assuredly never be permitted to land or to reside there, but will be subject to instant expulsion. In that event your barbarian merchants will have had a long journey for nothing. Do not say that you were not warned in due time! Tremblingly obey and show no negligence! A special mandate!"

LAURA 1922 - 2011

2011-11-16T17:17:00.001+08:00

BEST AND WORSE MANDARIN PHRASEBOOKS

2011-10-21T00:04:00.002+08:00

While filing my documents and books anew, I came across a phrase-book that I got one day as a gift. It's by Lonely Planet and it was given to me before another trip to China some 3 or 4 years ago. I knew I had hidden it from myself and others for a serious reason and had not thrown it out only because it is a gift: it carries the worst and most erroneous pinyin ever.

Example: "it is my first time ever." while corresponding to 是我的第一次(...) is spelled like this in the Lonely Planet Mandarin phrasebook (unbelievable..): shir wor-de dee-ee-tsir instead of shi wo de di yi ci.

Although I am somewhat disturbed by this kind of pinyin they chose, I end up amused..I might keep it after all. Could come handy when you want to crack jokes.

The presumption here is that you should not trust any phrasebook if you want to study the correct pinyin. The Lonely Planet one (5th edition!!!) not only is badly written in the pinyin but deviates potential students of an already cumbersome language. If you want to tour China with that, it might do, but my answer is (study the first bits of pinyin, it's only fair): buy phrasebooks in Chinese bookstores. This ends up being cheaper, much more varieties according to need and is an experience altogether seeking for one.

This all reminds me of Crazy English. A documentary-movie I've always been willing to watch. Here's the trailer (date 2008)...

ECLS - PARIS 2011

2011-10-12T15:40:00.002+08:00

And there goes another annual meeting of the ECLS held on September 28-29, 2011. This year hosting us: the Sciences Po in Paris! A brief two-day shot for a high number of speakers. Here is the programme we were delighted to attend. The topic was:

“Law and Justice: China’s Practices in a Global Context”

-H. E Serge Abou (Former European Union’s Ambassador to China, Professor at CESL and
Sciences Po Paris)
-Prof. Michail Xifaras (Sciences Po Paris, School of Law) and Prof. Stéphanie Balme (Sciences
Po Paris and Tsinghua University School of Law, Conference Organizer)
-Prof. Anthony Chamboredon (Paris V Descartes University, Law School, Franco-Chinese Legal
Study and Research Association, AERJFC)

-Prof. Jérôme Bourgon (CNRS/Asia Institute, Lyon): “China Law and History”
-Prof. Jerome A. Cohen (New York University School of Law): “China’s Criminal Justice Today”
-Prof. WANG Chenguang 王晨光 (Former Dean, Tsinghua University School of Law): “Legal
Transplantation: The Chinese Way”
-Prof. Mireille Delmas-Marty (Collège de France, Chair of the Comparative Legal Studies and
Internationalization of Law Program) : « Ordering (Legal) Pluralism »

-Prof. François-Guy Trebulle (Paris V Descartes University, Law School, French
environmental law expert)
Introductory Talk: “China’s Environmental Law Today”, Prof. Marina Timoteo (Bologna
University, School of Law, China environment law expert)
Discussants: Prof. Trebulle and Prof. Marina Timoteo
-Marie-Aude Balland (DS Avocats, Paris):“Environmental Protection at the Forefront of China’s
Priorities”
-ZHENG Jianing 郑佳宁 (China University of Political Science and Law, Energy Law and
Policy Institute, Beijing): “The Four-Dimensional Structure of the Energy Market Access System
in China”

-Yvan Razafindratandra (Adamas Avocats, Paris; Franco-China Environment and Energy
Association): “The Circular Economy in Chinese Law: A Comparison with the European
Experience”
-WEN Xiang 文向 (Ghent University, Environmental and Energy Law Center): “The NagoyaKuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol: Challenges for China’s Biosafety Regime”
-WU Zhifen 吴志芬 (Paris V Descartes University, Environmental Law Department, AERJFC):
“Environmental Law in China: The Challenge of Codification”
-Valeria Poppa (China-EU School of Law & Bologna University): “China’s Environmental Laws:
Sustainable Enforcement towards Sustainable Development?”
-WANG Xinhong 王心虹 (Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku),”Pushing-hands:
Access to Environmental Information upon Disclosure Request between Greenpeace and Zhuzhou
EPB”

Introductory Talk: Prof. Attila Menyhárd (University of Budapest, School of Law, Hungary):
“Private Law Reform in Post-Socialist Jurisdictions”
Discussant: Prof. Attila Menyhárd with MIAO Beihui 缪卑慧, (King's College London, School
of Law)
-Nicolas Nord (University of Strasbourg, Law School): “The New Statute on Conflict Laws:
Approaching China from Europe”
-Christina Eberl-Borges (University of Siegen, Faculty of Business Economics, IT and Business
Law): “Freedom of Contract in Today’s Chinese Law and Legal Practice”
-Laura-Emilia Ascher (University of Vienna, Department of Civil Law): “Punitive Damages
under the New Chinese Tort Liability Law”
-Agata Pienkosz (University of Warsaw School of Law, and China University of Science and
Technology): “A Comparative Analysis of EU and Chinese Regulation of Concentration of
Undertakings”
-Richard WU 胡惠生, (University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Law) : “A Study of Land
Registration Act 2002 of England and Its Lessons for Title Registration Reform in China”
-LI Bin 李滨 (Harbin Institute of Technology, School of Law): “Small Title” Houses: an Example
of Informal Property Law with Chinese Characteristics”
-Mark D. Kielsgard with CHEN Lei 陈雷 (City University of Hong Kong, School of Law):
“The Emergence of Private Property Ownership in China and Its Impact on Human Rights”

-CHEN Yifeng 陈一峰 (Helsinki University, Faculty of Law) : "International Law and Chinese
International Lawyers"
-Wim Muller (European University Institute, Florence): “China’s Sovereignty in International
Law, Convenient Excuse or Genuine Historical Grievance?”
-Leila Choukroune (Maastricht University, India Institute): "China and International Justice".
-Bjorn Ahl (China-EU School of Law, Beijing): “Introduction of the Guiding Case Mechanism in
China: A Comparative Constitutional Analysis of Judicial Law-making”
-ZHU Guobin 朱国斌, (City University of Hong Kong, School of Law): “The Right to Use
Minority Languages in Schools As a Human Right – An Assessment of the Chinese Case”
-Astrid Lipinsky (Vienna University, Faculty of Law): “Positioning Gender in Chinese Law:
From Legal Education to Legal Practice”

-JIANG Ge 蒋舸, (Max-Planck Institute - Institute of Intellectual Property and Competition Law,
Hamburg): “Personal Data Protection in China: Present and Future”
-HUA Jie 华劼, (The University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Law) : “The Fair Use System in
Chinese Copyright Law in The Digital Network Age: the Notion of Legal Flexibility and Certainty” ECLS 2011 Conference - Sciences Po Paris
8
-Rogier Creemers (Maastricht University, School of Law): "Audiovisual Media Regulation in the
PRC: Control, Development and Internationalization”
-BU Qingxiu卜庆修, (Queens’ University, School of Law, Belfast; Director of the Master of
Laws Programme): "Will Chinese Legal Culture Constrain its Corporate Governance-related
laws?"
-Anu M. Lähteenmäki-Uutela (University of Turku, School of Law, Finland): “European and
Chinese Law on Food Production and Marketing”
-HAO Qian 郝倩 (China University of Political Sciences and Law, Beijing) : "A Socialist
Welfare State in Transition: China’s Public Pension Reform"
-JIN Ting 靳婷 , (China People’s Prosecutors College, Beijing) : "The New Trends of
Philanthropy Law"
Buffet – Venue: Sciences Po, 13 Rue de l’Université
Day II - September 29, 2011 (continued)
Venue: Sciences Po CERI, 56 rue Jacob, 75006- Subway St Germain des Près
Afternoon Session: 2.00 p.m. – 6.00 p.m.

Discussion: Prof. Jean-Bernard Auby, Antoine Garapon (IHEJ) and Hou Shumei 侯舒梅
(Griffith University, Asia Institute, Australia)
-Selina Schmid (Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Law, Hamburg
University): “Mediation in Practice, Analysis of a Case Book”
-HE Zhihui 何之慧, (Hubei University School of Law) : “The Evolution of the Practice of Civil
Mediation in China : Cause and Effect”
-Stéphanie Balme (Sciences Po Paris and Tsinghua University School of Law) : « Research
Report : Ordinary Justice in Ordinary Courts in China»
-CHEN Yongxi 陈永熙, (The University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Law) : “The Right to Know.
A Survey on Judicial Protection of the Right of Access to Government Information in China »

-YANG Qin 杨琴 (China-EU School of Law, Beijing and Hamburg University School of Law) :
“ Judges’ Dilemma in China : Perspectives from Local People’s Courts”
-Hatla Thelle (Danish Institute for Human Rights, Copenhagen, Head of China Unit, ECLS CoPresident): “Usually We Lose.., Public Interest Litigation in China”
-John Wagner Givens (Clarendon Scholar, Saint Antony's College): “The Jurisdiction Game:
How and When Chinese Lawyers Cross Boundaries to Sue the State”.

CENTER FOR CHINESE COMMERCIAL LAW

2011-10-11T22:24:00.000+08:00

In the pretty and historical city of Heidelberg, famous for its University, is the Center for Chinese Studies in Commercial Law. A high-school and university oriented school that prepares students for a very versatile approach to a China-rich world, giving students tools to understand and cope with the Chinese presence on the Planet in order to understand their system and gather knowledge on the functioning of its structure, the language and the perspectives for the future. Prof. Dr. Katrin Blasek, a friend and colleague (and formerly a lawyer fluent in Mandarin practicing in China in IP) is in charge of this innovative school and always speaks fondly of this center which will most probably also have an English-speaking cycle of the course itself, a few years from now. Here is the page to it www.zcw.fh-heidelberg.de

THE ECONOMIC VALUATION OF PATENTS

2011-09-24T16:33:00.000+08:00

At the University of Bologna, Faculty of Engineering, a professor with excited eyes and a busy calendar and a strive for economic aspects in calculating IP's value, Associated Professor Federico Munari published a volume on The Economic Valuation of Patents. Associate Professor Oriani (Rome - Luiss) has written the book with him.

Unfortunately no chapters referring to China - Country to claim the highest patent filing rate in the history of modern times - simply because there is not enough or no official data that can support these professors' effective research. We'll get the info we need, once Beijing starts releasing some official data.

I would also like to make those who like flashy titles in the news that no matter how many patents a country files, they mean little or nothing if they are, so called, bad patents.

DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT

2011-08-18T06:32:00.000+08:00

We all agree on the fact that the good cause behind DRMs went ill, it got foul quite soon: consumers didn't like the trick. Was it even supposed to be a trick or are we at this point in time just too mashed up with hundred-fold tech devices as before? I ran into DRMs on my iTunes purchases when I wanted to back some tracks up on an audio cd or dvd for myself. I found that all the purchased songs were in gray and I couldn't play them or see them copied. I understand that the artist has no trust in me if I say: I'll make 89 copies of your tracks cause I really want to make sure I have a safe backup. But what about 1 copy? Do they really think we can make good cash on one or even 5 copies? And plus, I do want to play my legally purchased tracks for my enjoyment on my car. And here is where there is no reason at all for DRMs.

Still, let's not forget that killing DRMs doesn't mean piracy has been given the green light. Legally purchased online content is still the best, unless it's not in the public domain: reckless sharing really does damage the makers of movies, music and else; but where is the magic of "I'll make you a mixed tape" if all your tracks are purchased and carry any level of DRM in it? Do I have to purchase the same song X times as many audio/visual devices I have in my possession?

What's your take and what finger are you rising against this issue?

CHINESE VICE PREMIER'S TAKE OF CULTURES, OR WHY WANG QISHAN SHOULD CONSIDER THE BENEFITS OF A THINKING CAP

2011-06-05T16:01:00.002+08:00

For some technical reason I could not post my comment in a blog (The Useless Tree, Ancient Chinese Thought in Modern American Life) in a post called "Understanding China or not" that I found very good about vice premier Wang's statements on how utterly far everyone in the world is (especially Americans) from understanding China. So I will paste my comment right here. Before you go ahead and read it, take 5 minutes to read the page I referred to. I might have gotten too touchy but it's my piece of mind.

I can never argue enough about this topic: great post and nice point of view. Right off the tip of my tongue: Wang's statement wouldn't have occurred if China hadn't a yearly growth of at least 8 or 9% since the early 2thousands. Now let me re-state.

His poorly calculated statement serves a small part of politics and especially a zone where politics borders with shortsighted nationalism (which is fuel for fanatics, at times), that unfortunately many Chinese listen to as if it was a sacred book, because they have no or little access to the real issues of their own country, as you say.

Where I come from, the genes of most people surrounding me date back to a civilization at least 2500 years old, were the carriers of the first commercial ports, routes, banks, universities, arts and crafts, music and literature, managers, politicians, cultivators and sovereigns of a land so small and so diverse in geography and in tradition, that maybe I could give Wang the finger and tell him we're the most ancient and that - no matter how bad our domestic situation is now - the Chinese, and the Americans, and the Swiss, and the Columbian, and the Japanese etc, are simple a people. But our GDP grows 0.1% a year; our prime minister is somewhat a clown for the most part of his daily activity and, probably more importantly, I relinquish any cultural prevarication of mine over others, on any basis: may it be time or size. Principle, fullstop.

And yet, I could say not even my fellow nationals or I myself fully understand their own (darn) ancient country. The Egyptians (the ones living this very day) are probably the oldest civilization in terms of time. But maybe Wang doesn't consider countries that have riots or suffer famine, political distress, plague, unrest and are not able to reach satisfactory levels of commercial activity.

Wang's statement, shows little ripeness of his personal global perspective and his openness, and of those who have endorsed his thought and will support his attitude in the party and in the country. I have spoken to more open-minded taxi drivers in China.

This occurred often in the US as well and probably still does, in areas where cultural traffic is low, with Americocentric education, misinformation and reminiscences of a world were everyone was struggling for US dollars and craving for half of the half of the American's wealth in terms of quality of life, education, GDP, foreign politics and..face. But the American People are humbled by recent events and did some re-thinking for most part. I am not wishing China to suffer the crisis the US wen through, but statements as Wang Qi Shan's, can affect dozens of crucial relationships. Industry and commerce exempted, as always.

DOWNLOAD GUILT

2011-06-03T17:05:00.001+08:00

Do you download pirated music, pirated movies, pirated software? Yes, No?!

Except for children unable to make sense of a computer; except for people not in reach of one; except for the elderly and except for a large amount of other categories of people, monkeys and other prehensile beings, I think few internet-sapiens men and women have never downloaded illegal copies of something. Although I never really ceased buying real CDs every now and then (I bought many official CDs in official music stores in Beijing and in Yunnan), I am one of those.

Correction: I was. As of early 2009 I quit. It's the opposite than to quit smoking: you start saving on the pack of smokes, while in my case, I start paying for the legal copies I want.

I stopped all my pirate downloading and started buying my online music, started paying for custom-radio and purchasing like a good boy, guilt-free (ok ok I still enjoy the benefits of occasional streaming!).

This behavior has a cost. Oh ¥€$ it does! Say I was still downloading pirated music, I would probably have 10 - 15 new songs in my iTunes library by the end of a week (and I would delete at least half of them cause I don't really like some). Taking roughly 7 songs/week as reference, that sums up to 28 songs/month, 336 songs/year.

Now that I have to pay for the tunes, I really think about where my coins are going: I listen to the 30-seconds preview at least a couple of times, I think it over, and then I purchase the song. I might even repeat this action two or three times if the artist's album is really great, but it really stops there, summing up to 42 purchases since last April. That makes 420 days since I cleaned my conscience, making it 1 song every 10 days!

There is another cost, invisible to mathematics and that is knowledge: if radio didn't exist, I'd have to purchase any song I like or replay songs already present in my library. While everyone else is downloading for free, that makes me a turtle in terms of cultural speed, right? If a friend entertains me for half an hour on the movies he has downloaded for free and is all excited about telling me how much he liked them, how can I blame him for loving a downloaded movie? After all it's not that he downloaded cocaine, but I cannot see the same amount of movies he/she does, because I have to consider the actual price for a purchase (movies range from 5 to 10 Euros). This makes me incompetent with movies or (e)books if I cannot keep up the rate of seen movies and read books, right? Extend this to China, where downloading for free is more than normal, we will be surpassed in terms of published knowledge.

What's the speed of your musical conscience?

SIR, THE CHICKENS ARE ON STRIKE ..

2011-05-23T05:45:00.002+08:00

.. so go ahead and fire them!!

At least since 2007 there have been geniuses working on a thin margin of profit in the counterfeit commodities business in China. Not a liquor case, not a rice case, not even a milk case. It's about eggs. And we're not talking scrambled.

Let me just give you a snippet of what one of the sites on food safety quotes from Chinese sources:

1) Similarity to Real Eggs Much Greater: not just the shell, but also the yolk and the white, the surface of the egg and the consistency display no difference to the real thing … can be placed along real eggs in the marketplace …2) Easy Method: Required level of education very low, no need for special equipment …3) Much Lower Cost of Goods: Only need six different ingredients … cost aprox. 0.05RMB – 0.08RMB4) Much more versatile: Can be used to manufacture goose eggs, pigeon eggs as well as single and double yolk.

When I talk about this people say I can't be serious and ask me how it can be. I start stuttering and widening my arms till they reach the maximum stretch and eventually turn to the sky. "I don't know, I just know I've been eating lots of them!"

I've lived in China and plan to continue doing so soon. One of the main ingredients in Chinese cuisine are eggs and this business here is giving me a hard day. I am still confident that there are real farmers providing the restaurants with real eggs.. Good to know that the Chinese Tort Law and Criminal Law are both very strict in sentencing fake food scam. Hope the margins reach zero, so the chickens can come back and hatch for good.

Now is when you can be dead-sure on what to answer when someone comes up and asks in pure British accent "In the end, Charles, what came first? The chicken or the egg?".

CCTV4 and the grand BeLuSiKouNi awareness

2011-01-27T08:35:00.002+08:00

Piacenza ITALY - I was going to sleep when the CCTV 4 channel opens up the latest Berlusconi sexgate. The Prime Minister scoldes an entire show through a live telephone call. A few seconds before airing the whole event with subtitles, the pretty anchor cannot help but put on a smirky face. Here we go, I said covering half my face.

So against all odds, at least mine, the general Chinese public watching, has a clear view of our latest scandals and sex gates. The woman in question is Ms. Minetti. Google that. At last, my fragile dream of seeing Berlusconi fade away our national scene before the Chinese would bother to cover any of this, is shattered. But I should have seen it coming as a taxi driver in Beijing lately didn't refer to soccer, food or Armani suits any longer, rather pointed out in an hysterical laugh, that my prime minister likes girls! I couldn't help laughing along and feeding him more detail. Fact is theChinese are too busy to dwell into Italian politics so they will Just take this for now. And they will never understand how we can still put up with this matter. I still cannot see the point in unlimited premiership instead of a 2 term mandate. Mr Praident, what,s so wrong with retirement?

KNOCK(it)OFF !

2010-12-28T17:41:00.002+08:00

Once more, I fly back from Beijing and find a stack of cut articles or magazines relating to China (it's very easy for anyone to make a safe choice for my Christmas presents . . ). Some of these are relating to IP. Nothing too new in here aside from it being fresh and carrying a set of really top-end people mentioned and interviewed in it (eg, Joe Simone, IP infringement at Beijing's Backer and McKenzie firm whom I've had the honor and pleasure to meet and talk to in a meeting earlier this year; Tian Lipu, commissioner of SIPO and Mark Cohen, another Western IP guru in Beijing who, despite the vox populi and the raw facts about counterfeit reality in China spoke his mind about the general public). Let me quote that:

<< Over a cappuccino (...) Cohen criticized the notion of Chinese government negligence, which he called overly simplistic. "People come to this environment with certain assumptions that all this counterfeiting must mean that there is not one enforcing" he said. "But there's loads of people enforcing! There's enough IP officials to make a small European country. Numbers don't necessarily spell efficiency, of course. (...) >>

Nicholas Schmidle, author of the article carrying catchy detailed macro pictures of a fake and a real Nike sneaker in the New York Times Magazine, of August 22, carries on with cuts of his further interviews and experiences with the locals in Putian, reportedly the biggest counterfeit manufacturer's hub in the country.

MAX PLANCK TEAM AT THE 北京人民大学法学院

2010-11-30T12:33:00.001+08:00

BEIJING - My "As long as you keep busy" policy pushed me to take part in an extremely interesting Sino-German two-day seminar in the Ren Min Da Xue School of Law last week. There is a sunny side in getting a lot of theoretical exposure to trademark issues. Just for a change and to keep up with the embedded problmes related to principles most likely to be most of the concerns that have been keeping the speed of the Trademark Law in China at a slow pace. Others say it's now a political strategy, to promulgate it so late (2012). But all these talks and power point presentations helped me to fill up some gaps and gave me some new ideas on a few topics. On a daily basis you rarely witness this kind of debates around definitions and comparative law.

Find the table of contents to the seminars listed below, so you get the idea of what is being debated and agreed upon between both the Chinese professors and the German experts from the notorious Max Planck Institut in Munich.

Sino-German trademark conference, 23/24 November 2010
中德商标会议日程草案，2010年11月23/24日，

23 Nov., morning session
11月23日上午

-       Greeting addresses
-       开幕式发言
-       1^st part: Prerequisites for protection (absolute grounds for refusal)
-       第一部分：获得保护的前提条件（拒绝的绝对理由）
-       (1) Forms of marks eligible for protection (colour marks, sounds, smells etc.)
o   可获得保护的商标形式（颜色商标，声音，气味等）
-       (2) Distinctiveness, descriptive character, functionality
o   显著性，描述性特征，功能
-       (3) Acquired distinctiveness (secondary meaning): assessment in practice
o   获得性显著性（第二层含义）：实践中的评估
-       Panel discussion: Securing new rights without obstructing the public domain
-       讨论：在不妨碍公共领域的情况下保障新权利
已确定题目的发言人：
1．商标注册的性质和法律效力，刘春田教授，中国人民大学，北京、
2．显著性，描述性，功能性, Prof. Dr. Senftleben, Martin, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam
3．商标法上的美学功能性原则及其反思，朱雪忠教授，华中科技大学，武汉
4．中国立体商标注册实践，罗莉教授，中国人民大学，北京
5．非可视性商标保护比较研究及其对中国商标法第三次修订的启示, 余翔教授，华中科技大学，武汉

23 Nov., afternoon session
11月23日下午

-       2^nd part: Trademarks and prior rights (relative grounds for refusal)
-       第二部分：商标和在先权利（拒绝的相对理由）
-       (1) Protection of earlier marks and trade names
o   对在先标记和商业名称的保护
-       (2) Protection of superior interests in a sign (irrespective of registration): well-known marks; protection against registration in bad faith; registration by agents
o   对符号中的上位利益的保护（不论登记与否）：知名商标；保护商标不被恶意注册；不被代理人注册；
-       (3) Assertion of prior rights and superior interests in registration proceedings, including defenses (in particular: the use requirement)
o   在登记程序中和抗辩中的在先权利和上位利益的主张（特别是：使用要求）
-       Panel discussion: Efficiency, legal security and fairness in registration proceedings – how to strike the appropriate balance?
-       讨论：登记程序中的效率，法律安全和公平——怎样保持适当的平衡？

已确定题目的发言人：
1．相对拒绝理由——对在先标记和商号的保护，Prof. Dr. SOSNITZA, Olaf, Universität Würzburg, Würzburg
2．在先使用有一定知名度的未注册商标之保护：中国《商标法》第31条之理论思考与实证分析，冯晓青教授，中国政法大学，北京
3．先使用对商标注册和商标权保护的影响, 张今教授, 中国政法大学，北京
4．对标记（不论注册与否）中的上位利益的保护：驰名商标；防止恶意注册；防止代理人注册， Prof. Dr. KUR, Annette, MPI, Munich

24 Nov., morning session
11月24日上午

-       3^rd part: Enforcement of rights
-       第三部分：权利的实施
-       (1) Exploring the facts: Data, experiences, economic considerations
o   发现事实：数据，经验，经济考虑
-       (2) Legal rules & remedies
o   法律规范和救济
-       (a) civil and administrative law
§ 民事和行政法
-       (b) criminal law
§ 刑法
-       (3) Procedural aspects: The role of courts and authorities; competence, tasks and coordination
o   程序角度：法庭和行政机关的角色；权限，任务和协调
-       Panel discussion: How to distinguish between the (black) sheep and the wolves?
-       讨论：怎样区分（黑）羊和狼？

已确定题目的发言人：
1．恶意抢注商标行为的法律规制，李琛教授，中国人民大学，北京
2．调查统计方法在商标纠纷案件中的应用，金海军教授，中国人民大学，北京
3．权利的执行 – 法律规定和救济，Prof. Dr. HILTY, Reto, MPI, Munich
4．中国驰名商标品质保证功能研究，刘晓海教授，同济大学，上海
5．商标法律制度的社会功能——以中国企业商标意识为视角，张平教授，北京大学，北京

24 Nov., afternoon session
11月24日下午

-       4^th part: Adjacent fields
-       第四部分：相关领域
-       Geographical indications
o   地理标记
-       Unfair competition
o   凡不正当竞争
-       Other: personality rights; sports rights (Olympia!)
o   其他：人格权；运动权（奥林匹克）
-       Concluding panel discussion
-       总结讨论
已确定题目的发言人：
1．反不正当竞争法的保护对象，李明德教授，中国社会科学院法学研究所，北京
2．作为市场秩序的知识产权─反不正当竞争与知识产权关系思考，高富平教授，华东政法大学，上海
3．域名与商标的冲突及其法律规范，郭禾，中国人民大学，北京
4．人格权，运动权，Prof. Dr. ohly, Ansgar, Universität Bayreuth, Bayreuth
5．地利标记保护，Prof. Dr. BLASEK, Katrin, SRH Hochschule Heidelberg, Heidelberg

PHISHED

2010-11-07T12:08:00.001+08:00

Beijing - I might have been phished, or as the locals say, duiyu maybe. The previous post is a self generated post I will not deletae cause it's a very interesting phenomena: reckless spammers can do anything with your accounts. Just keep an eye open. It makes me wonder how safe y files actually can be here on my laptop. My data, records, docs, pictures, contact details. I am really surprised my bank account is still intact after this.

The cyberworld of underground spamming and hacking has always given me the chills but I never felt the actual threat. Now, back to the track, on IP, there is an increasing rumor of the new China Trade Mark law setting sail only in 2012. That sounds terribly far away. In fact, after reading all the reccomendations and witnessing most of the public events in this extent in October in the Capital, reading some of the most relevant US, Japan, EU suggestions to the new revision, I really cannot understand why it is taking so long for the State Council and to set an earlier date.

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2010-11-01T15:04:00.001+08:00

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INDIGENOUS INNOVATION AND GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT (Part. . .how many again?)

2010-10-14T23:17:00.002+08:00

Beijing - This is inspired by a post on Indigenous Innovation published a few days ago on the ChinaLawBlog. During my previous stay in Beijing I have personally witnessed – while interning at the EU Delegation in the Trade and Investment section, IP Department – what the events of a "scary" Circular on Indigenous Innovation and Government Procurement lead to, in late November 2009 (circular n° 618 dated 17 November 2009, issued by the Minister of Science and Technology (MOST), the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the Ministry of Finance (MOF) which invited Chinese enterprises to send applications to be recorded in a Catalogue of Indigenous Innovation Products).Tension was high within the walls and on the telephone lines as well as in the tone of emails. Less tension than watching 'All The President's Men' with Dustin Hoffmann and Robert Redford, but close enough to understand what makes a federal case. . . a federal case.

And, man, it looked serious. In the end, about a month later, following confidential letters and more or less open comments from Ambassadors, Heads of Industry, Commissioners from Europe, Chiefs from the USA-CTR and Japanese institutions, Mr. Xu Guanhua, the Minister of Science and Technology, referred to the case as being a mis-translation and the case was dismissed by the Chinese authorities; the Circular had no longer effect. But something was making most of the players uptight already.

With colleagues, the most frequent statements over this period since then were:

a) they can't be serious

b) they can't be that naive

c) nice try, and

d) did we miss something? (i.e. did we go stupid?)

I am adding a fifth comment, a more subtle one: What did it mean? Really. Is there a hidden message, is it a rookie attempt or a sophisticated strategy to keep us talking about it until, say, right now?

For this sake, this morning, I've attended the EUChina Chamber of Commerce and British Chamber of Commerce's event presenting Mr. Jim McGregorand who gave an outline of the problem at this stage, and, quoting the title of the conference "what it represents for foreign enterprises" (and for promoting his critically acclaimed book "One Billion Customers: Lessons from the Front Lines of Doing Business in China", which I will sooner or later have to read).

Now, the fact that Mr. McGregror dealt with the obviously more articulated matter in a hasty manner was certainly because of time shortage and not so challenging Q&As. It doesn't really matter; because that's how you get more reading material, that's how you are challenged to write and think about it more actively (and meet more people).

From the November-2009-scare, most activities for the Indigenous Innovation concern have been dealt with, from a governmental perspective, acting also and most importantly on behalf of industry associations and Western trade experts. But the gray zone remains wide: why did they do that in the first place?

And the persistent talks about it make me fear there is more ahead to come, not necessarily to worry about; not if we play ball and teach them some tricks as well. Just to remain afloat or make it a really more challenging economy? I am worried that we over worry. China is clearly not going to close the doors on us [on our exportations] although a feeling similar to that of being locked out spreads across the rooms: as the speaker points out, there are fabulous R&D centers, labs and well-wired experts in China, but no where to go if they have no expertise (aka foreign tech?).

Are the licensing agreements not enough? Is contractual international law too slow in the race with the daily scene?

Shall the laws of international trade become stricter on procurement? What if that cripples our industries in a crunch of sticky provisions?

Why – and I take this example directly from Mr. McGregor's speech – do countries (the US) refrain from allowing Chinese companies to acquire portions of American industries while the latter require China to open up to investments from the USA? ["example: China can buy Volvo but hey, no! China cannot buy 20% of a petrol company in the US!" of course they'll stay put from investing in the US and the stars and striped will go jobless and fuel some cheap mid term candidacy talk as of now].

And who should get down and dirty?

Governments alone?

Cooperation programs alone?

Industries alone?

Or all concerted?

Should the CEOs visiting China, as hinted by Mr. McGregor, dwell on the issue? These very CEOs of gigantic money-making companies, should they, who are short-term appointed dealmakers rather than peace-keeping forces for the economy or from diplomatic entities, step up (quoting a brilliant remark by another colleague present today)?

What kind of balance should be struggled for?

A legal battle for more TRIPS abiding behaviors?

That only? – Is it strictly an IP-thing?

A political battle to force the Chinese lawmakers to dial it down a few notches and allow us to catch up?

A B2B duel, to obtain a case-by-case level of technology sharing and market sharing?

Much remains unsolved.

Waiting for another November to show its cards.

NATIONAL IP STRATEGY

2010-09-25T12:40:00.001+08:00

BEIING - The World Economic's Forum 2010 edition lightened up the Chinese plans to broaden their 2008-conceived National IP strategy. Premier Wen stressed the fact they [Chinese] want to foster bilaterals with those countries that are engaged in whatsoever level of IP with the Middlekingdom. Hasn't that already been the case for at least 2 or 3 years now? I guess that is the job of a Premier, to make and remake statements until it becomes common sense but in depth nothing really changes.

Last week in Italy was hectic but inspiring. I had long been asked to give a short lecture on Chinese IP infringement prevention and enforcement for Small Medium Enterprises at the Master in Managing IP at the University of Bologna. That went well and it is amazing how much you learn..from teaching: the questions, the feedback, the speed of information, the people addressed and final assessments in my head. I could do this forever is what I thought when the lecture was almost over.

LATIN AMERICAN IP BLOG

2010-08-02T17:57:00.002+08:00

VIENNA - Dropping a line out there to you, global IP addicts: I ran into a very interesting Latin American IP-concerned blog by Ms. Patricia Covarrubia, a young Venezuelan intellectual property analist, consultant and lecturer. I was looking for Mexican regulations on IP concerning treaties and something related to food and beverages obtained with traditional processes and that are internationally and locally protected such as Mezcal. IP TANGO With an average of 150 posts/year, the message are short, to the point and relevant for any of you concerned or vaguely curious of how fervent IP issues are right now in Brasil, Mexico, Costa Rica etc. Definitely worth it a bookmark.

CLICK YOUR GROCERIES AWAY

2010-07-22T15:44:00.005+08:00

PIACENZA - There is nothing funny about blue cheese. I adore it, studied its origins, varieties and how to combine it to other mouth-bewildering delicacies. Italy's been dealing with a lot of imported food that is not exactly the finest, the purest or the safest: altered tomato juice from China, foul blueberries from Poland, blue mozzarella cheese from Germany carrying a catchy Italian name and the flag's colors.
And it's not a matter of fashion: they have sold mozzarella that turns blue due to its chemical alterations that reveal an unprecedented contamination, although their "mozzarella" can be sold again now. That's funny how saying blue cheese today brings to mind a rotten German cheese. I would send it back to them and say "Here is nice Cambozola you adore, have it!"

While ordering an ice cream recently I came across a flavor I had no intention of tasting and that was blue as a summer sky. I asked the lady behind the counter Is this mozzarella? She liked the joke but a flash of horror also crossed her face. So much psychology just for an ice cream..

So, if buying cheap food on the market can be scary and unsafe in the first place, how will the delivered chicken breast be when clicking the store's isles from my computer in Shanghai? And how tasty will the 1 RMB (aprox. 0.14 USD and 0.11 EUR !!) Carlsberg beer be? Don't forget food and beverage forgery and how thankful your body will be if you keep an eye on all those food 'blues'. There is nothing funny about bad, cheap and counterfeit food or beverages.

NICE TIE! WHERE DID YOU GET IT?

2010-06-30T17:07:00.004+08:00

On page 24 and 25 of the Sole 24 Ore the Italian equivalent of the Financial Times (is this a longshot?), Mr. Paolo Zegna, son of the well-known Ermenegildo Zegna, says counterfeit products have increased by 1850% in the last 10 years (globally?).

Now, as if Italy had just woken up to counterfeit. It's always like that in this country: we burst with rage and fight back like bulls on topics we care about and then we take it easy for another year saying 'oh yeah, that thing!'. However, Mr. Zegna jr. issued a national counterfeit day on the forthcoming 7th July (giornata della contraffazione) where there will be speeches, examples, stats, guests, power point presentations etc. All good, indeed.

Good to read that he also mentions that counterfeit is in the same bloodline of organized crime. Apparently this doesn't get across many people. Industry see the loss; consumers see the deal; IP owners see the image theft; politicians write letters; criminals keep on keeping on. And that is where I like to say that not only Chinese malpractice is on stage, but also several southern Italian entrepreneurs. One small example: Lenny Kravitz Concert in Pistoia, Summer 2008. A few moments before being granted access to the central square where the stage was, a couple of well-fed 'napoletani' with their big smiles and carefree attitude were setting up their walkable Lenny Kravitz T-shirts, bandanas and other amenities. Nice.

Now, if Mr. Zegna points out that other cultures have less counterfeit in all, less similar practices, may I ask why Japan is such a piracy and counterfeit-free society? Where does it start from? Is it a matter of convenience, wealth, personal reputation, respect for originality or fear of the legislator?

REAL ESTATE. FOR REAL.

2010-03-30T11:26:00.002+08:00

北京 – If you think square meters in Beijing housing is inexpensive, reconsider and do your math, cause since the beginning of this year, Beijing has released the Implementing Opinions for Promoting the Healthy and Steady Development of the Real Estate Market for its fast developing real estate sector, attracting real estate sniffers and raising rent at great pace. Fifty two Real Estate projects in the Capital should soon raise the bar of an average sq.meter apartment to a relevant 22’ooo RMB/square meter, translated: 3’228 USD – 2’392 EUR. On a scale, Beijing itself has now reached sq.m. pricing almost of Taiwan (2’909 EUR). For the note, ‘an average square meter’ is a universal standard calculated on central position of a 120 square meter apartment [source: globalpropertyguide.com].

And apparently, and this will need some more research, if you are holding a passport other than the Chinese, you are not allowed to own more than one piece of housing property and if you have not worked or studied in China for more than one year, forget about purchasing a commercial property in the ‘Jing (such as industrial property, malls, retail stores, shopping centre, farm land, multifamily house buildings, warehouses, medical centres and even garages).

Interesting enough rumours have it that the housing bubble will burst. This is what I heard is the trend within the Second Ring where I pay rent, the so called 二环内 or 老北京, old Beijing, a relatively more lively and intimate surrounding, if it may be said of a 15 million + city.

How sexy the appeal of these apartments or residential complexes in all will be, is still to be proven but I have great hopes and confidence in the taste of a few Chinese designers and however, the city allows staggering freedom for foreign and local architects who have already made some parts of the city an astonishing landmark for western avant-garde design in residential complexes.
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SU DONGPO - 蘇東坡 (1036-1101)

2010-03-14T13:30:00.001+08:00

"Drinking through the night at East Slope
still drunk on waking-up
I return home around midnight
my house boy snores like thunder
no answer to my knock.

Leaning on my stick
listening to the river
I wish this body belonged to somoene else.

When can I escape this turmoil?
In the deep night with the wind still
the sea calm
I'll find a boat and frif away
to spend my final years afloat
trusting to the river and the sea."

- Su Dongpo 蘇東坡 'The Immortal By The River'

(about the painting: Su DongPo 'reading out loud' called "Enjoy The Moment Because You Never Know What Might Happen" by Wan Wen-Hua, living artist in Jinan, found and purchased by Gary at Oriental Outpost)

NIKE - LIKE - MIKE - NKIE

2010-03-10T12:45:00.005+08:00

BEIJING - I came across some "Intellectual Property in China" journals and in the August 2007 issue I found an interesting article suited for a short dip into law & society matters. Maybe the title is catchier than the content itself but one of the reasons why I immediately read its barely two pages, is because I once thought about writing my whole thesis on this topic but it was eventually turned down by who was supposed to validate my choice.

Title of the article: "Is Counterfeiting a Part of Chinese Culture", written by Harry Yang. At last I think it's quite a tenable discourse but, at the same time, one that could easily fall in the broader scope of sociology.

Although this is the first time I dissect an article on this blog, here are some highlights:

(...) when you took a taste of the instant oodle with the brand XX and you tasted a different flavor and then discovered that it was the XY brand, did you feel extremely angry or [felt] a sense of resignation?

The act of imitating (...) trademarks is increasingly "flourishing" (…) [f]raudolent imitations are usually perfectly made. (…) The imitation of the words and graphic designs is so subtle that it is very hard to distinguish them. As to the reasons for this prevalent counterfeiting (…) foreign countries consider counterfeiting to be a part of Chinese culture. In an article entitled "The Cultural Origin of Chinese Counterfeit Products" published by Deutsche Welle, the Secretary-General of the Germany-China Economic Association thinks that there is a cultural origin as to why the Chinese counterfeit. He claims that because traditional Chinese Confucian education requires reciting and copying, students take a great man as a role model (a poet, scholar or philosopher) and (…) then 'retell'[his/her teachings].

This is not entirely wrong a statement, but doesn't suffice in today's wider angle of observation. The author then brings up a few examples of how honesty was once the milestone of millennial Chinese culture:

In the thousands of years of traditional Chinese culture, honesty has been one of the fundamental moral standards advocated by the Confucians. (…) honesty has gradually developed into a rule of behaviour that must be followed by businessman.

Mr. Yang rapidly dwells into denouncing a complete loss of this "rule" by indirectly admitting, at least from my reading, that one of the biggest faults lies within the gloomy Maoist period of self-restraint, negation of individuality and blind moral prostitution based on sand castle-visions (or legitimate nationalistic dreams of grandeur), famine and threat (where the latter and the former certainly aren't incentives to honesty but fuel the contrary) to a dogma as big as its country:

I personally think that what is also important is that there appears to be a break in the succession of Chinese culture in the course of social transition, and the moral ideas of national traditions of China are not handed down naturally to the contemporary citizens.

Where "handed down naturally" could be read as "China between the 1940s and 1977".

It is obvious that the prevalence of counterfeiting is not due to cultural origins but because of the lack of traditional culture. Therefore, putting an end to counterfeiting cannot be achieved only through the strengthening of law enforcement and supervision.

To bring "Chinese Traditional Culture" afloat today is probably as useless as it is difficult especially in times like these where at least 3 of the most controversial Asian generations coexist (the "pro-Maos", the "Tian An Mens" and the "BaiDu.cn-s" ).

Strength may be sought from historical culture. The essence of a solution is to re-establish the social values and to restore the restraints of the traditional moral concept of honesty.

I am puzzled by this "traditional moral concept of honesty": what does he mean?

Furthermore, a solution to the problem cannot be accomplished by action alone. It requires a reform process, and it is an essential cost that the entire society has to bear. Apart from the succession of the pith and marrow of traditional Chinese culture, international communication and cooperation are also needed to blend different cultures and civilisations so as to promote a new prosperous Chinese culture.

Needless to point out that no reform process not even at the cost of society alone, can make a single step forward without action. And for action little traditional folklore principles are needes as much as plain enformcement. Moreover, China has a long cooperation history and present, with the EU, US and Japan on any IP issue possible, enforcement being in the top-3 of priorities.

To denounce Chinese culture as a counterfeiting culture can only intensify national resentment. It is not a rational attitude for the solution of the problem.

Agreed: China is not the only country facing IP issues. Still, it is the sad and chubby giant of most counterfeits circulating the World's market.
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WHEN A HELPDESK GOES ALL THE WAY

2010-03-08T22:32:00.002+08:00

BEIJING - About a year ago I was going through some extra material from the IPR2 (Roadmap on Trademark Protection in China) when on the back of it I noticed a big gray box containing a direct link to a SME (Small Medium Enterprise) IPR Helpdesk in Beijing. It turned out that the website (back then not as complete and abundant in material as it is now) helped me get a quick grip on a few more concepts I wanted to have in a nutshell or just broken down in a more practical way for me to use while pinpointing some IP issues. I then rarely used it again only to flip through its pages 3 or 4 months ago before I met the dream-team (only seven!!) working on the website and the Helpdesk itself and who constitute the project altogether. If you have 20 to 25 minutes to go through their e-learning modules you will discover it is highly useful, user friendly and a valuable site to actually use and not just navigate through. It is very valuable if you own IP rights or if you are to any extent concerned on what to do with your IP rights in China whether it'd be dealing with China from home, outsourcing, ecommercing, attending international trade fairs, dealing with entrepreneurial know how or else.
-

THE AVATAR BLUE[S]

2010-03-04T14:04:00.001+08:00

BEIJING - And after the first batches of Chinese Trademarks being squatted in Western Jurisdictions, here comes a fiction novelist from Beijing claiming Avatar was his idea. Mr. ZHOU Shaomou is defined by Chinadaily and IPR China an "amateur" writer who back in the time found no support from Chinese publishers who claimed "there [wasn't] any room for fantasy books in the country at that time. Now that there is more than room and sighs for an imminent Avatar 2 so big that the central Government tried to dial down its impact by unscreening the 2D version (pointless strategy and somewhat upsetting in the foreign press), Mr. Zhou's novel muust be read to verify his statements. Whoever owns one of Zhou's e-copies of The Tale Of The Blue Crow is more than welcome to debrief us on that. And once we are done wiith that, it would be great to see if someone of you speaks cirillic because apparently a Russian is also suing James Cameron of Avatar for the same movie.

Looking West, the director of Avatar, Mr. Cameron, was also accused of plagiarism for his movie Terminator and settled the dispute out of court with Harlan Ellison with an N amount of Dollars.

Talking money, Mr. Zhou finds 10 % of Box Office income just enough for his complaint for this potential copyright jackpot. Standing by for more blues of the blue people from Pandora.

CONSTANT RISE ?

2010-02-04T18:25:00.005+08:00

BEIJING - The title of today's post has little to do (well..in some way) with the first couple of paragraphs to follow, and I did not separate the posts because it just makes more sense like this.

Yesterday the European Chamber of Commerce (EUCCC) and the American one (AMCHAM) organized an event on the new Chinese Patent Law (CPL) that was promulgated in 2008 but entered into force on 1 October 2009 replacing its 2001 edition (the new Implementing Regulations and Inspection Guidelinies consequently entered into force week earlier this week on Monday 1 Februrary), called New Chinese Patent Law and the Impact on Business. Also SIPO's Commissioner Tian Lipu was there for his key note opening speech and other paramount figures took the floor, alternatively with experts from the industry and scholars.

There are very positive innovations in the new CPL: Accordingly, hereby not complete and in no order of importance, rather, of appearance: New absolute novelty requirement; higher treshold for granting procedure and examination; harsh (but fair) raise of statutory damages and penalties award (soaring penelties to 400% of the illicit profit and, also if no illicit profit has occurred, damages payments now go to 200'000RMB, aka. roughly 19'500 Euro - all depending on the kind of patent infringed, the nature of the infringement and, again, on the value). Moreover, design patents will face a harder examination, and designs such as beer or soft drink bottles or wine labels can no longer be awarded design patents; etc.

Also, in the recently baked CPL some drawbacks are showing, but which new law goes without? Will name just very very few, as the new CPL unfolds over businesses and as I consider myself less than an amateur on this: There are grey zones about compulsory licences and the levels of disclosure, especially in the medical field (where developing countries such as China may request medical patents for free in light of TRIPS articles 4, 5(b) and (c), but where it could also be a great promoter and distributor of medical supplies and medicines, given its enormous productive power, new to no one); some further concerns regarding overall expenditures that might be costly for the Country's R&D funds and resources (see FP7 reports on how China had been doing in the last years), etc.

So, when all this was over, I considered how China has been in the spotlight for quite some years now, but from a more distant and global perspective. Definitely not a comprehensive analysis because it is unwieldy but it is still a tenable argument:
In a nutshell, take these elements and combine them at will: entry in the WTO in 2001, major movies in western theatres, the Olympics, the upcoming Shanghai World Expo, the years of the Ox (2009) and the one of the forthcoming Tiger (both, animals of outstanding strenght and dominance), new laws, more and more writers and artists making it to the headlines etc. I recogn this is the big - but necessary - picture, despite negative facts we shall all be aware of). One must admit that each year now more and more factors contribute China to be in an outstanding position. I just hope they will be able to be as energetic, united and effective to fight back some evil consequences such as environment, standards, IP issues, politics and domestic problems. Now add some more of your own and there you go. Draw your own conclusions.

YU HUA - 余华

2010-01-20T15:56:00.002+08:00

BEIJING - On my flight to Shanghai in mid summer of 2009 I was reading the first pages of "live", a short book by this chinese author who was in an Italian magazine's story earlier in Spring. A long story short, I ended up buying "Brothers - 兄弟" and "Vivere - 活着" (live) in Italian. By the second day in my hotel in China I had finished "Vivere" and was completely astonished by the power of it. Quick and frank narration aside, some irony, strong and indirect references to the Cultural Revolution, a thick sense of family values and never overdramatic, Yu Hua has the tools to splash an entire story of a whole family on you, in a matter of 180 pages leaving you breathless and astonished.

My good Chinese friend Y. back in Shanghai had never read it and a couple of days after our dinner she had read it all in Chinese, deeply thanking me for reccomending the book. She was actually thanking him and herself for going back to reading intensely. There is very little merit in my actions, much more in Yu Hua's pen. And I thank him for that.
Last week the topic of "Brothers" came up again with an acquaintance at lunch: "..oh yes I am reading it right now!", and I replied "you're kidding me?! of all the books.." and, again, yesterday I spotted a big fat version of "Brothers" on a busy desk of a colleague of mine. It seems like many of us are reading Yu Hua now amongst us lao wai in China. It is a nice feeling to know that the characters "Fu Gui" and "Song Fang Ping" from both books are read by so many people around me.

Have you had the chance to read them?

BELLA ITALIA - 美丽的意大利 - BEAUTIFUL ITALY

2010-01-14T11:36:00.000+08:00

BEIJING - Years ago a famous pasta brand aired a TV add in Italy where a German bohemienne tourist opened a window on a gorgeous valley in Italy. He was overwhelmed with admiration, romance and culinary appeal and was smelling the freshly cut vegetables being simmered along with spaghetti, served just below, on the big wooden table in the courtyard by a very healthy looking Italian lady. That is when, in the (always funny) German accent he cried "ahh, bella Italia" and spread his arms wide open.

Which brings me to this post. I am very fond of Italian industry when it struggles to get back in the spotlight, as it was ages ago and since late August 2009 I have been waiting for this project to set sail because it looked like having big potential in tickle the Italian market at all levels: One day ago a dozen of Italian corageous enterpreneurs has launched an indipendent web page (chinese version) that will host Italian driven enterprises on a Chinese server as to promote food, tourism, leisure, shopping and importation.

Meili de yidali's (meaning 'beautiful Italy') philosphy stands out for having a very clear cut structure offering the Italian industries (3 levels of visibility on the site) covering wines, sunglasses, of course shoes and clothes but also less mentioned areas like spas and resorts or bed and breakfasts and other family run businesses who want exposure in China. People at Meilideyidali (like Maria Grazia Casella - Web Page Editor, find her in http://www.linkedin.com/) are very aware of the rising number of internet users in China and of the purchasing power of many new Chinese millionaires or well-off burgeois.

I wish I had coome up with this kind of project myself and would definitely go out there and promote my business, the Italian culture, its traditions and crafts to the World. Italy needs projects like these as much as the desert needs water, for Italians have been constrained in domesti affairs way too long now and the Chinese market is a very fertile environment to hop into. But you check it out for yourself!
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EVOLUTION OF CHINESE CIVIL PROCEDURE LAW - PART 3 OF 3 !

2010-01-13T18:44:00.000+08:00

BEIJING - As we now enter the halls of a virtual Chinese court, this part needs a scenario, sort of a role play game situation: if I am a plaintiff and am going to court to file against someone I must know that each Court in China has established and depends on an Adjudicating Committee. What is this and what is it doing in the Court? Empowered to adjudicate, the Adjudication Committee observes the cases filed in court by “me” and has full liberty in choosing to stop the case, call it “significant and difficult” and take over the decision-making.

To aggravate my bewilderment in front of such situation, I must also know that this Committee, which arose from the dark, sucked in my case and will spit out its verdict, decides behind closed doors, allows no testimony hearings and is vertically above any judge of the ordinary judiciary. This is normal in China. This is hijacking the independence of the judiciary, where I come from. Nonetheless, as most of the times, the Chinese find an excuse for almost everything: They are like good chess players to whom you would ask “how did you make that move?”. Answer: "judges don’t earn much money and courts’ budgets are staggeringly shallow outside the big cities. So, one move back, the Adjudicating Committee prevents the judges from being bribed even though they have taken an oath when they went into office the first day".

Me again, in the virtual Courthouse: “So the Committee decided it is best to verdict alone because without the judiciary it would certainly be less fallible a judgement? Please tell me how I should believe that?”. The good chess player finally doesn’t answer and carries on.

This Chinese Trial Epic ends mostly at the first level. There are four levels of courts and two of trials: People’s Courts – Intermediate Courts – Higher People’s Courts and the Supreme People’s Court in Beijing. The last two only handle appeals or handle previously determined cases only they can decide on.

“Now the verdict of the Jury”.
If for one second there, you thought about the Chinese Jusry System being close to the American Jury System, you are to read carefull what follows.

As the Chinese would say, “it’s an American Jury with Chinese characteristics.” Here are the Chinese characteristics of their Jury: Addressed as “The People’s Assessor System”, in charge of double checking the judge’s decision, when it is not grinded by an Adjudication Committee, the people who make this Chinese Jury are not randomly selected, but accurately picked and screened by local people’s courts along with their fellow justice departments. That choice, is then bounced to the Local People’s Congress (?!) in order to be confirmed. Finally digested, The People’s Assessor System is ready.

More check, than balance, I must say.

However fancy, the The People’s Assessor System still is not able to overthrow a judge’s decision having the judges to be at least two thirds of the collegial bench, making the The People’s Assessor System a slim one third of it.

Please do not forget that most courts in China now are full of expert judges and a number of courts have been even ranked as “specialized” because designed and trained for particular subjects like IP or Maritime Law. Now some facts denying others before 2001: Until then and from the late 70s, when it was made mandatory for judges ''to have legal knowledge''; the requirements of accession to the judicial career have increased. Now, after Judges Law of 2001, wanna-be judges must have a bachelor degree, then the National Judicial Exam, finally followed by the Legal Professional Qualification Certificate.

Judicial Interpretations have accompanied those hundreds of Regulations, Tentative Provisions, Decrees, Statutes and so on, for the sake of augmenting at least some of its binding effect. Although the famous and long-armed Adjudicating Committees are empowered to approve or disregard judicial interpretations, these still find a paramount ranking in the sources of Chinese Law (757 today).

Concerning the topic of this sequel in Chinese Civil Procedure Law, the 1992 Opinion on Several Issues regarding the Application of the Civil Procedure Law of the PRC, issued by the Supreme People’s Court, stands tall and just one step further down from the 1991 Chinese Civil Procedure Law by filling it’s loopholes and grey zones. To some western jurist’s surprise, one of the subsidiary aids given to the CPL 1991 by the Judicial Interpretations of 1992 is on the rather critical issue of evidence collection (evaluation, legalization, examination, etc), which is in the spotlight of many debates concerning the Mandatory Notarization and Legalization of Evidence Originating outside the Territory and Procedural Documents (especially in administrative enforcement and judicial practice in Trade Mark infringements, particularly burdensome for foreigners doing business in China or finding their Trademarks maliciously infringed in China – given the first come first serve rule has been observed and malicious acts can be proven).

Here ends the long march of a summary of the Chinese Civil Procedure Law, from the Qing dynasty Imperial Code of Civil Procedure. So this is the stand now: the 2007 China Civil Procedure Law (entered into force on 1 Apr. 2008) and the 2001 Some Provisions Concerning Evidence of Civil Procedure, issued by the Supreme People’s Court.

Goodnight and good luck.
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GXXGLE ?

2010-01-13T11:33:00.002+08:00

BEIJING - Where I work, the internet is "imported": We access from a European server. Otherwise our work efficiency would be compromised, or else, I couldn't be posting as fast as I am doing it, but would have to go through http://www.heavymist.com/ . I learned from China Law Professor Blog (Donald C. Clarke's post of yesterday) that Google in China is furious about alleged infiltration by Chinese Government on some email google accounts of Human Rights activists. Whether successfull or unsucessful these attempts to infiltrate said accounts (apparently not), Google - who is already in a pretty bad mood because of the Chinese books scanning for Google Books Asia copyright dispute - is publicly considering:

to allow access to all censored Google pages in China
to consequently

take the blame,
recon the disorder it will cause
accept to be shut down and
leave the Country

I see exciting times for Chinese Internet history very soon! Keep an eye on http://www.google.cn/.

There is an extra thought I would like to share with you:
Considering China has the highest annual rising rate of new internet users (aprx.300 million if not more) constituing a big financial loss for Google's business in China, and the country is well strong on a number of own internet search providers, how relevant would a Google departure from China be? Will the Chinese even care or notice?
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EVOLUTION OF CHINESE CIVIL PROCEDURE LAW - PART 2

2010-01-13T10:30:00.001+08:00

BEIJING - I mentioned mediation in the same parenthesis along with Civil Procedure Law in the previous edition of these posts on Chinese Civil Procedure Law. Yes, mediation was and is important and embedded in all minds of Chinese. Mediation is a daily means of dealing with mostly any genre of distress occurring in the household, in the neighbourhood and on larger levels. Chinese mediation was particularly endorsed by the Communist Party and even formally considered as a founding principle: "Mediation first and trial second". This sprouted into the modern mediation dicotomy: 1. the People’s Mediation (人民调解 renmin tiaojie) and 2. People's Mediation in Court.

Mediation is why today every neighbourhoood and most compounds have a mediator; it helps to get a quick sorting of the problem, avoids the lengths and costs of Court and keeps the ball in the scope of tradition - and it may prevent from losing face which is of great importance in China. However, mediation is not an absolutely binding justice tool for a person not satisfied with the mediation result: if the outcome is disappointing, he/she can go ahead and file a regular lawsuit in court.

When the People’s Republic of China (see movie…the Founding of a Republic, 2009 – 60th anniversary of the PRC) and the communist army was called one of Liberation, the CCP was less than friendly about anything or anyone standing in their way and went ahead and tor down the Legal System of the Nationalist party leading for the first text of their Constitution in 1954 (database for all Chinese Constitutions in both English and Chinese http://www.e-chaupak.net/database/chicon/ ) leaning on principles of Marx and Lenin.

And the story is well known of what occurred in those times in China: "a cultural" revolution. The legal system was eradicated like bad weeds and held responsible for polluting the minds, tradition and respect for the ancient Dynasties was banned at all levels, courts were shut, professors persecuted, universities locked, property so much deprived to the extent people forgot the concept of private property by the time Deng Xiaoping was put in charge of cleaning up the mess, starting from 1978.

Until then and up to 1981 China had no Civil Procedure Code as we know it, except for the “Provisional Regulations on the Procedure System for the People’s Courts to Adjudicate Civil Cases” a sort of guidebook to promptly deal with a case. In 1982 the first Civil Procedure Law was enacted and adopted experimentally for nine years, when in 1991 the National People’s Congress enacted the Civil Procedure Law (a booklet made of 270 articles compared to the 840 of the Italian Procedure Law Code).
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EVOLUTION OF CHINESE CIVIL PROCEDURE LAW - PART 1

2010-01-12T18:09:00.003+08:00

BEIJING - (-13degrees) I was not joking when I mentioned I might write about Chinese Civil Procedure Law or any related aspect. I know it is not the typical chit chat you’d want to get from a blog while sipping on your coffee in the morning, but here is what: for the sake of my cultural diversity as well, I will brake it up and give you an easy tour in more than one portions. Starting today.

"Wrong wrong wrong!" This is what you should answer when someone points out the Chinese never had or now only little legal experience or tradition. Many aspects of the Chinese way of ruling a country with its laws is broadly unknown and most of the times civil procedure in China is, as a whole and along with other topics, considered an exoteric or largely inaccessible. Also wrong.

An organized group of people (society) living together extensively (traditions, customs) on a given geographic area (country) sooner or later will find they have rules they follow (laws) by which the continuation, standards and quality of their lives will be determined (State and Government), praised (incentives), punished (criminal laws) and matters settled (civil procedure or mediation).

As simple as that.

Traditionally the Chinese have used ordinances or enactments of the legislative body (Emperor’s statutes) until 1910 when the Qing dynasty promulgated the first Imperial Code for Civil Law Procedure. That of 1910 (大清民事诉讼律 da qing minshi susong lu) was a law emulating the Japanese 1890 Civil Procedure Law which imitated the German Civil Procedure Law of 1877 (Deutsches Reichsgesetzblatt). That is why we may call that Chinese Civil Procedure law of 1910 substantially a pure piece of civil law.

In 1911 only one year after, the last Chinese dynasty was overthrown; little emperor Pu Yi was nothing but a decoration to his own residence and the Forbidden City almost burned down and the Republic of China was founded (not the People’s Republic of China – 1949).

The struggle for power lasted until 1921 when the factions ended their first fight: the Northern Government and the Nationalist Party. After fierce bloodshed between them and the foundation of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1927, the Nationalists promulgated their first Civil Procedure Law of the Republic of China in 1935.

to be continued.

(Credits also to Luo Wei from http://www.lawcase.org/)

ICE GOLD KINGDOM

2010-01-06T11:25:00.003+08:00

BEIJING - The other night I went to a concert at Yugong Yishan with a friend of mine.

Do you have a bike?
Sure.
Ok then, let's take the bike.
Ah..you want to go by bycicle?
Yes! Come on! It's very close from here!
Aha...let me see..I cannot find my keys though...
What's wrong with you? It's not too cold!

My bike is conceived and designed for a nine year old kid and Beijing IS cold.

The dancefloor was empty even after I purchased my second drink. After two arguable support groups I was very curious to see the main artist " GIA " perform, who, turns out, is a quite well known alternative post punk female artist in the city. This is what she wrote about herself in 2008 and I loved it:

"I'm the first punk rock girl of China in 1998 in Beijing with our all girl's band 'Hang on the Box' and we were on the Newsweek cover twice in 1999, we really exploded the chinese rock history, and kicked stupid boys' asses!"

I had the chance to talk to her after the (surprisingly short) concert. We briefly talked about her musical influences in the last years and exchanged some contacts. I really want to see her next performances! She was soon flooded away by some of her girlfriend fans.

She tried out bossa nova and some post punk rock that night, reportedly different from her usual punk alternative rock-ish self grinded underground noise.

The crowd was not the "put your hands up in the air" kind of people, rather more a numerous flock of affectionate fans and curious pub-hopping photographers and fancy couples dressed in minimalistic outfits.

Her 2008 album is called "Mood". Will try to find it and report back.

RESOLUTIONS

2010-01-05T18:42:00.000+08:00

BEIJING - I was not planning on any particular resolution for 2010 but a few came my way and I welcomed them casually. This blog is not a newborn, it has been going on for sometime now, that is true. True fact no`2 is that I have often refused to post because concerned with the appreciability of the post itself.. yes I question myself a lot about it! Most of the times I refrained from posting because the content was maybe too legal and was afraid it would scare readers off. On other occasions I wasn't posting because the content was way too personal, or just out of context and plus, it had little to do with China.

Another reason for my scarce posting: addressing the world in English is great outreach but using Dante Alighieri's language is often so pleasant that it bothers me not to do so. Ergo, I didn't post as much as I wanted to. Way less. I am considering running this page in Italian or go ahead and have two blogs. Not such a good cost/benefit idea. Would you suggest going bilingual on the same blog?

So, aside from the other resolutions for the new year (come on, I am not going to tell!), here is what I will do with this blog. There will be changes in the topics, ranging from green to blue, from red to white. I want this blog to survive, yet nothing shall halt me from being free to post. On the other hand, quite a few people of my network are familiar with this address so I still should be politically careful with the contents. I don't see peaks of coherence on most internet pages anyway, so go blame someone else if I come up with the description of a painting followed by the historic background of Chinese Procedure Law. If anything, I will change the title to the whole blog. I do travel China oriented so it's fair to keep it a wonton blog, but hey: a travel log is sometimes a stew.

I removed instant notification of my 'new-post alert' to aficionados (no offence) just not to bother them with what looks like a much more frequent number of posts/year. I might reconsider this action in some weeks from now. Let me get started. Happy new deep fried chicken year (this year, February 14th).

ONE MORE VISA

2009-11-17T00:56:00.007+08:00

TRENTO - Yet another boarding pass. Another argument with the consulate official in Milan. Another season away in the far east. Or home. LIU BOLIN describes his astonishing art of camouflage as the only way of expressing his emotional bond to the present. Impressive works. Reminds me of how many people cross our daily photograms.

A pretty long break from this summer's China: more than a month spent in Europe and a certain very personal restraint from posting on the blog because of the overwhelming information I was getting and that I didn't find - in the utmost smallest amount - interesting to post about. This might bring me to some change ahead, regarding the direction of this blog.

It's BEIJING this time. Plane ticket back to Europe is set and not anywhere close. Six full months. After 3 massive months in Shanghai, I will take on Beijing and my first winter in China, ever. First time in the Capital was in 2005. A summer hard to forget.

The more I try to define what it is like to be an expat in China or what it is like there, the less I want to talk about it: just too general a question, when I am asked. Or maybe I am too touchy about it lately. I surrender long descriptions as much as snub sentences.

So, I suggest to come and visit and add that it's mostly fun. Or, like the PRC Government likes to go about (using percentages), "it's 70% mostly fun and 30%.." well, I do change the caption for that 30%, from time to time. It really depends who I am talking to.

What is it I should say or keep saying?

- an economic giant, indeed, you're right. ah-hum, it is the world's industry, yes.

- the place is huge, pal, give me a break.

- no, did you you ever witness a chinese funeral?

- yes, censorship is harsh but basically you can surf freely.

- Grasshoppers? no, I don't know what they taste like. Didn't I tell you last year?

- Of course Obama is known in China. Less than Gucci, though.

- If I could, I would summarize how they spend their free time. Just give me a decade.

- Chinese girls can be pretty, believe it or not!

- Sure, and it will snow, too.

- I have seen that movie twice. Weren't you with me?!

HIGH AND DRY or LOW AND WET?

2009-08-12T16:58:00.003+08:00

SHANGHAI - No fluds, no dirt-waterfalls, no people grabbing branches and sleeping on rooftops. Not in this area. Where it struck, it struck pretty hard. From satellite motion pictures I can see that the typhoon is dissipating as it hits the warmth of the continent. We got lots of rain but more than anything, wind. Above all, given the latitude we do have a tropical climate, or something close to being able to grab mangoes from the window, so humidity has its big time.

So humid my books and pictures and clothes and any water or cellulose-containing object within reach, is as moist and soft as if it had been in some forgotten basement. You leave the huge entrance hall of the office surrounded by those heavy double glasses and the humidity hits you in the face, on the blazer, salutes the tie, goes through the shirt and finally covers your bones. Then you're ready to go home.

We've been having this kind of crappy weather since the spooky morning of the eclipse, when everything went from artificial grey to haunting black within seconds and for a handful of minutes. Skyscraper's lights lit, cars and buses switched on their beams, windowpanes at all stories were bursting with lights and flocks of mankind examples in People's Square went 'whoa'-ing ensemble. Some others, indoors, must have kept lights off in their apartments or offices, just to witness this elegant dance of celestial bodies while I was with newly met friends in the warm and sprinkling rain, suited up and drinking Starbucks caramel mokkaccino for the first time in my life. My inner dissertation about Italian roasted espresso and mass-production caffeine drinks surely ended by the time the eclipse embraced me with a chilled feeling of human primitive frailty before the ever-revolving 'grand..planets' out there, irresistibly mocking us from afar.

Where silence is alienating, where objects and values are either ridiculously huge or unthinkably small.

There is one picture I found on an online paper that is really touching and I do hope it gets published along with this post. It's a firefighter embracing an infant, deeply looking into the kid's eyes, sticking out of the bundle of yellow plastic bags he is wrapped into. Nothing planned, no acting, no propaganda move, nothing like that. Reminds me of the earthquake in Italy that struck earlier this summer in the Abruzzo region.

EXPO METRO-PHILO-POLIS.

2009-08-03T13:05:00.003+08:00

SHANGHAI - Barney from HIMYM would say I did a good job in melting 'metropolis' and 'philosophy' together. You'll read that at the end. Core: I spent some twenty minutes at an exhibit on the World's Expo's since the mid 1800s, (1st World expo was in London in 1851) in the Hong Kong Plaza on Huaihai Road and took some pictures of the model of how the expo's pavilions should look like and what the Chinese delegation displayed on all the World's Expos'. I was impressed by their temple-like pavilion in 1905 in Saint Louis if I am not mistaken. I will try to upload an archive photo of that if I can make it from here (I am still posting from my gmail account due to censorship). Aside from the timespan of Expo's displayed in the temporary museum hall, I sat and wrote down a couple of interesting things, some assorted and values lying within the forthcoming Shanghainese event, in some brain-storming way.

The main word for the Expo is 'CITY' and they highlight 3 fundamental questions

'What kind of city makes life better?'
What kind of lifestyle and practices enhance a city?'
What kind of urban development pattern makes the World a better place?'

Now, it develops into something more dynamic. Here is a summary of what I grasped: 'People are the most creative cell in a urban organic system. Then they linked this concept with "life" a lot and a motto-like triad:

A - Urban Resident;

B - City;

C - Urban Planet.

I know it sounds like a slick jeans advertisement or the name for a funky magazine, but no, it's the Expo's grid of values on which all participating countries will have to display their efforts. It will have to stimulate urban planning specialists, biologists, architects, public administration, governments and the general public (ever seen 'An Inconvenient Truth' by Al Gore?).

With a 17milion people city (where the recurrent motto is "better city, better life") and an ever rising artificial compromise between waste disposals, majestic refurbishments of financial districts and green areas striving for a bit more room, it all seems contradictory or just difficult. However, China is definitely more and more aware of the vital role of the human individual in a urban environment and things are moving with respect to green policies and consumption control. I believe there is a price for a better quality and it is not on sale, but it might as well be possible someday in our countries as much as over here, in rat-race-China.

..according to the 'Stinsonian' dictionary, there is a nexus between possible and impossible or feasibility and fantasy: no matter how possibly impossible the outcome may look, not all is impossible, just "possimpible". And we need to believe that. My generation probably more than ever.

GET A EUROPEAN PICTURE OF IP..IN BEIJING !

2009-07-16T15:06:00.002+08:00

SHANGHAI - Getting tired of hearing about outsourcing in China and trading with Senzhen or making business in Shanghai? (I doubt it: if you are reading my blog you aren't tired of hearing about that or you are a true friend!) Want to learn more about European Intellectual Property without leaving the Middlekingdom? The Europe China University of Political Science and Law, also known as CESL is hosting a professional training on European IP in Beijing from 18 - 20 September. I think professors and senior law students in China and also expats ought to be the perfect audience for this kind of event. Probably it wouldn't exactly suit an enterpreneur or a joint venturer because they have their own flock of IP advisers taking the heat of learning World IP. The idea of teaching EU IP matters, in just a couple of days and on a top end expertise faculty is quite an opportunity in my point of view. I found the program here.

Along with Prof. Daniele Alexandre (Professor in Strasbourg who has a number of international accomplishments also aside from the collaborations with the European Commission), Ms. Andrea Wechsler - formerly working at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and is research associate today at the Max Planck Institute for IP and Tax Law, focuses on the Asian Region is also chair of the training program, are definitely outstanding personalities of the IP scholars and having them there in Beijing will surely define the quality standards provided.

I checked out the topics. Here is a few:

Sources and Instruments of European Union Law
Intro to EU Patent Law
Community Trademark Law and Enforcement
Patentability and non-Patentability of Inventions
The EPOPprocedures for Oppositions and Appeals (patents of course)
Technology Transfer Contracts
IP Protection at Trade Fairs (big issue also in Chinese IP context)
Field Trip to Munich... ...

...just kidding about the last point.. But indeed, Munich is absolutely worth a trip (and for workaholics on vacation: go check out the Max Planck Institut).

For those who are leaving comments on my posts and do not see their comments published I apologize - on behalf of the People's Republic of China - but due to plain censorship I cannot view my blog and am posting from my Gmail outbox. But yes! I do get your comments, keep writing and asking. I will soon hand out some news from Shanghai. Other sites completely down now, due to the Uiguir unrests (who are here placidly addressed to as 'terrorists') are: Facebook, Youtube and sometimes Skype. Of course Twitter but I have never tried it. But if you have an IPbridge you can access anything. Problem is, I don't know how to do that.

WHAT CENSORSHIP??

2009-07-03T18:17:00.001+08:00

SHANGHAI - There is so much more freedom in China today. People can enjoy news stands of any kind, watch cnn in hotelrooms, see international papers over the internet and can have italian spaghetti or german beer in a Paulaner bar that looks like directly cut out of the soil from the Octoberfest. But no easy life for blogs.

I think it affects all the Blogspot blogs in China. I might be wrong, but I used Chrome, Mozilla and Internet Explorer and I get the same slap form each one of them. It's ok, I won't get mad and tie myself to the local police fence or climb the Marriott hotel with a peace and freedom flag, I'll just keep cool and be harder. A small voice, in a big chorus counts. Each one of you.

My stay is nonetheless marvellous so far. I can see a wonderful sunset from here and foresee intense weeks to come until the end of September. I missed a conference called "Branding in China" yesterday but the same organization will hold a conference on Innovation in China next Thursday at 7pm to 9pm @ 1933 Creative Complex 1st floor, building 4 in 24 Shajing Road, Hangkou district..if you can read my blog, of course :)

POWER OF COMIC STRIPS

2009-04-13T03:00:00.004+08:00

BOLOGNA - I just finished reading the comic strip book called Shenzhen, (publ.2000) by Guy Delisle, an incredibly talented and sarcastic animator from Canada who travelled to the southern industrialized China and - first of the successful triad of works before 'Pyongyang' (2003) and 'Chroniques Birmanes' (2007) - beautifully yet also in a necessarily raw, sweet & sour dressing, perfectly explains the difficulties, doubts, feelings and impressions of a first-timer expat in China. I was struck by the amount of shades and dark curtains he uses and by the dialogueless silent and explicative portraits of buildings, roads and facial expressions. I guess it's just a bit funnier if you have been to those places beforehand. Awesome anyway, even if you've never been to China or Korea. His graphic novels are translated in a number of languages so go ahead and ask your closest librarian for a copy of this unique portrait of a busy and evergrowing Chinese metropolis! Have fun!

3rd ANNUAL ECLS CONFERENCE - VIENNA

2009-04-11T19:54:00.010+08:00

BOLOGNA - The next and 3rd annual conference of the Europe China Law Studies ECLS will be held in Vienna this year (after Hamburg 2007 and Bologna/Turin 2008) from June 18-20, in Palais Trautson at the Federal Minister of Justice's. Registrations are open until June 10 and the Modules are interesting. Ranging from Legal Practice in China to Environmental Law and from Human Rights to Commercial Law and Policy, this year's ECLS annual goes more into depth and foresees broader cooperation with new speakers and scholars of Chinese legal studies. Interesting enough, in Module IIIB, Roger Greatrex from Lund University will talk about well-known trademarks in China (legislation and infringement cases) just like my thesis.

Other quite specific papers regard:

- new Chinese bankrupcy law

- Chinese relations to Africa (Congo)

- compensation standards for urban demolitions

- the interpretation law of the SPC

- WTO compliances (China entered WTO in 2001 and in 2 years the final assesment will be published by the TRM)

- rehabilitation of drug addicts policies

For a complete list of the topics, venue and schedule, take a look at the pdf version of the brochure.

in the photo: "Cargo" by Liu Jianhua

GOING..GOING..GONE!

2009-04-08T22:19:00.008+08:00

BOLOGNA - On March 23 I finally graduated from law school and went on to become a "dottore", what in Italy happens after a black and blue cloaked Professor amongst others says these words: con i poteri conferitimi la proclamo dottore in giurisprudenza! Translation: you're officially out of here and jobless!

It has been a great day with friends and parts of the family on a sunny and cloudless day. Pressure strikes you the night before such events in the shape of a subtle, light and invisible hand: you feel every single sound, every bone in the body and nevertheless grow anxious and would love to skip the night and be at reception the very next moment.

The warmth of friends and the rising encouragement worked its way to the next morning when I got up - reasonably at dawn - and left the apartment just to hit the road to the University on my own. Friends all came in groups while I was catwalking the red tiles and focusing. The sunny and smiling bunch were waiting and were there for me at the examination and, of course, at the buffet: I threw a buffet in my favourite Chinese restaurant in Bologna, called La Rosa, and the setting was awesome.

There's been much going on since then: interviews, trips to interviews, emailing like no tomorrow and generally catching up with all those things left behind during university. I definitely am still China-oriented - more than ever - and I embrace this challenge and what it brings. Therefore I foresee those big changes in the forthcoming weeks I had only drafted during this stretch of my recent life. These have been years of precious experiences, through thick and thin. I truly thank all the friends and collegues who studied with me, who supported me and inspired me, who lived with me and shared their thoughts and time with me. Family, of course, also the far ends of it, and my dearest brother Marcus.

THESIS COMPLETE

2009-03-08T01:39:00.005+08:00

BOLOGNA - there we go. It's done. Tonight I'll be done with the final version of my thesis. It's been fun and stressful, kind of an alienating thing to do but intriguing. I eventually took a short week off in Munich to do some extra research at the Max Planck Institut for IP where I found an overwelming amount of material and met interesting people from around Europe on their 4-year doctorate. It's just a good feeling to drink a 'moccacino' from a brown plastic cup at the vending machine with someone who comes up to you interested in what you are writing and exchanging points of view and ideas. In particular I met a student who is writing in Chinese anti monopoly law and we found the present Chinese legal system in commercial and industrial law to be massivly improving.

I myself, writing the paper, was surprised to read of how much effort the chinese put since the late '70s; the Implementing Regulations are an example, the WTO accession in 2001, the rising number of settled cases favouring not only liberal grounds for IPR development but also the Chinese themselves. Despite all the progress, there will still be tough times ahead because of the traditional view of property rights and recognition of invention and creation amongs Chinese - one of the biggest and most crucial aspects of conflicting cases between China and "the West".

I just made a small 'wordle' of my thesis, here, in the picture. I would use it as the front cover to my thesis if I was allowed to!! The D-day (dissertation day) will be somewhere in the week between the 23rd and 27th of March and will give a toast to whatever we'll think of, in a very special venue in Bologna. It's meant to be a surprise so I won't spoil it!

I've been looking into jobs in China for a pretty long time and especially internships are intriguing amongs international organizations, chambers of commerce or law firms.

2009 isn't only the century's financial abysmal nadir because of the crisis but it also is the bull's year, (or, the "niu"牛 "new" year, funny eh?) or the ox' year: it's heavy but if you find out how to guide it, it might pull us all out of the crisis. The ox must be a positive-thinking one, not only a knowledgeable cow but determined and sturdy one, too. Not a Milka cow but definitely a special one.

SPAGHETTI SYNDROME - 面条综合症 ?!

2009-02-16T00:33:00.019+08:00

BOLOGNA - There is something very powerful in stacking magazines on a shelf and going through them all in one day. Aside from the beauty of the crispy paper and the full blasted colors in worn out pages. Other advantages is to find this experience somewhat useful aside from being just a sensorial amusement.

At some point in my thesis – while discussing asian branding by fully or 51% asian run enterprises – it is said Chinese investors recently enjoyed successful acquisitions of foreigncompanies and their more or less famous brands (驰名商标). This new financial escalation in buying foreign famous brands (and their whole industrial structure) must be regarded as one of the few most thriving options for gaining a solid position on the global market.

Other advantages are enjoyed by those acquired enterprises: they are saved from failure or bankrupcy and may see the light for so many decades to come, for prosperous production without a change in their traditional process. Another advantage si on a social level including a strenghtening of relationships with the local community and by fastening trust with the general public and the institutions.

The article that inspired me to post all this was published in the weekly magazine „Il Venerdí“(the Friday) belonging to the national newspaper „La Repubblica“, released april 4th 2008, issue no° 1046.

Riccardo Staglianó, the article’s author, focuses on the fact that well-known Italian companies of a number of industries are being bought by willingly low profile Chinese investors at relevant prices. Considering that Italian labour price is 10 times the Chinese, it is obvious that said Chinese spend gargantic capital in these financial transactions. However, that shouldn’t suggest the knewly-bought Italian companies now suffer any form of Chinese dictatorship! On the contrary: workers and managers of these merged companies spontaneously guarantee they’ve never been happier. This is just one of the examples reported in the article that prove the fact the Chinese don’t interfere with the work nor with the decision-making boards of the acquired company. Chinese buyers are extremely respectful of the knowledge the founders or veterans in those companies possess and are eager to learn from them also by just observing (and, in return, by pouring in the cash).

This is the case of the motorcicle industry BENELLI; the paper company CARTIERA di ASCOLI and, amongst others, MENEGHETTI FRIGORIFERI (refrigerators and similar cooling storage appliances) who have decades of experience and represent local industrial ferment, which is always endorsed and admired, especially in such times of domestic crisis.

The mentioned acquisitions are relevant opportunities to keep seizing for Italians. The word should go around in greater share and it shall be clearer to any level of the public that:

1 – WORLDSOURCING: collects the knowledge where it is forged from (take China, India, Italy the US as easy examples!) and dispatches it to wherever it is needed. In other words, unlike yesterday, geography is an option today.

2 – SPAGHETTI SYNDROME: we think we have the best food, cars, clothes, but…uuups!..did you know diversity is a surge for cultural and economical richness? National identity and IP protection is one thing, being blind protectionists is something else. Wasn’t Italy the crib for literature, fine arts, modern banking, religious and cultural plurality and generally diversity just a few centuries ago? Why does that memory seem farther away in time than it really is? It's probably all too messy right now to make retro nostalgic assertions, but it's necessary to avoid being skeptical at all costs and Italy should realize it's not too favourable position right now and consider the effects and opportunities of China being the 8th buyer of Italian products and/or enterprises.

In the words of Oscar Niemeyer: "don't be pessimistic, being realistic is enough" no matter how bad the picture looks.

TIME FLIES (no, not really)

2009-02-13T05:53:00.012+08:00

BOLOGNA - I made it through law school. Actually, I still have to "discuss" my thesis (title's: "Well-known trademark protection in China"). That will take place sometime in late march, right here in Bologna. I found I had a bunch of post-its sticking on my wall and they were all waving at me today reminding me all sorts of things. Facelifting the blog was on the list so here it is. Time flies, one should say. It's usually mostly said when you realize you were having a good time all along. There are gray areas, too, that can last long enough to think time doesn't really throttle madly all the time. Though that is still true when holidays are on. Right..

The "ox year 2009", the one I'll turn 27 in - yikes! - sounds kind of crazy: massive unemployment, world financial crisis, no real change - on the Italian peninsula - nor in politics or in the world's view of peace, the question of where to start from after university, gathering all the info possible, sending off CVs, make the best of each day and enjoying the times I finally have on my hands and that I felt likeI've gracelessly postponed during this last year in school.

What should a law graduate student expect from a China adventure right now, in the midst of these times? I was at this job fair in Bologna, called the "Careers Day" and I stpped at every other stand like Ikea, Generali, Barilla, Philip Morris, Bialetti, Trenitalia, some big law firm every now and then and some pharmaceutical companies and some really fishy ones no one really understood what they do, but I won't mention their name directly (Maccaferri). I eventually spaced out on a hot espresso in the bar facing the stands. "Ah, so many students roaming the world."

I started to do some very ill calculations about how many students were there, looking for a job. Then I multiplied it for the EU countries, the Americas, Asia and then, times two (calculating the ones who will graduate next year) and added 1 third (the ones who didn't find a job last year). I almost choked on my espresso coffee. In all, I really felt like law students will rarely be satisfied with job fairs like these where engineers, biologists, business students go etc. They should change the offer criteria and run the fair for 3 days instead of one hasty day. I'll just keep it real and believe in what I've been trying to do China-wise.

And none of us is getting any younger, aren't we? There's so much to do out there and people to see again. On your marks..

UNEXPECTED

2009-01-14T01:42:00.003+08:00

I've been held back from pursuing my goals in finishing off college in February. But it's January!

I know.

But Febraury is not feasible. One more exam to go (criminal procedure) + thesis in Famous Brands in Chinese legislation. I guess I'll have to start from scrap and get used to the fact I won't be in China until spring 09. I'll post about the outcomes or even earlier.

THE WORLD TUNED IN. RAISE YOUR VOLUME

2008-11-08T19:59:00.009+08:00

Obama president-elect represents victory in many ways for the entire world. I don’t need to summarize places and people who celebrated it for almost 3 days now but there are interesting sides of the phenomena: some of us legitimately don’t exactly know why they preferred Obama to McCain. Is it the age? The talk? The arousing ways and warmer adds? It’s about motivation; mankind always did marvellously with motivation.

After 9/11 much has happened. The World was going to support the US and the US had a chance to review their policies and figure out more sensitive policies in foreign affairs and domestic issues. The population was hurt, the scare was high and gun-hopatriotism was getting out of control, and then Afghanistan and Iraq happened and the American people where puzzled and lost face month by month until they could stand it no more. Here's a new Era made of crisis and hope, human endeavour and global necessities, individualism and humanitarian aid. On election night we probably did not get rid of the whole rotten system, but we definitely felt ourselves back in the right place and that's motivation.

This victory is a victory beyond parties, beyond historical ideologies, beyond human race and it seems a new sprout of unknown kind is finally here. We recognize it and cheer for it and rise as one for it. It’s great! Change will come slowly, not tomorrow morning; fights will still be there but unity in your neighbourhood first and then on planetary level will come. Now, whoever there outside reads knows there is stuff their State can or should do for them but there are also things you can do for your country!

On yesterday’s Herald Tribune in Philip Bowring’s article „Obama in the Orient“ I read ai great statement and wish to write it here for you although I never do this:

„(…) The economic issues facing Obama are daunting. In ASIA, US interests are so many that reconciling them will remain difficult. Butt hese problems cannot negate the impact that the election will make on the relationship between a United States now more united in its diversity and an Asia struggling with its own diversity. „

SURPRISINGLY CHEERFUL POTTERY

2008-11-03T00:39:00.007+08:00

We ususally think about very misterious, fabolous, hidden and all but easy-to-crack sayings when we see Chinese calligraphy on pieces of art. This, of course, is a valid assumption amongst those who like me are familiar with leisure life Chinese level of spoken and written but not more than that.

Story is, that in September I walked across Di An Men’s hutongs in Beijing to pay a friend a visit. He had a beautiful small antiques store filled with stuff that was not ordinary at all nor for the objects nor for the way they were displayed. Even French sacred church objects were there and I didn’t want to know how they got there. This vaguely japanese-resembling man in his late thirties, who had just finished emptying out dark green leafs from his teapot gave me a warm welcome right after his parrot said hello to me in Chinese on the doorway.

In a nutshell, that was 2005 when I met the whole family (his wife and kid who was a few weeks old). This year, as I was saying, I looked for his shop and the shop was almost empty and things were scattered around and many shelves were collecting dust rather than exhibiting jewelery or plates. Heavy Chunghwua cigarette odor was all over. Finally I met his brother who was running the business but before I got any sadder he took me to his older brother’s shop just a few meters away. There, this „old friend“ of mine shook my hand strongly and that’s when I gave him a copy of the picture I had taken of his wife, their child and me. He was real happy and showed me around and we had some brief talks about the reasons of my stay and my upcoming projects. On the way out he gave me a small vase as a gift, in sign of friendship. After wrapping it up in his own newspaper and gently placing it in a black bag he wished me well and gave me his new business card. What a cool guy, I thought. Kind of chubby, japanese features, long black hair tied in an elegant pony tail and a lemon yellow Tshirt.

Once I got back to Italy I searched for the meaning of the word on both sides of the vase and couldn’t get it. No dictionary helped and the radicals were misleading. Of course! It’s a Qing aera vase so it must have been before the 1955 simplyfication. At that point I truly couldn’t figure it out so I asked for some help. The word you see is (and you probably already know it is) a XI 3rd tone which is quite different in today’s writing. Here is the vase, and here is the modern word for it: 喜. Yep! The 喜欢 xi. How could I have overseen that? Easy question: you try!

So, (by looking up the Oxford Chinese Dictionary) XI 3 or (喜) means HAPPY; PLEASED; HAPPINESS or, as in 有喜了(you xi le) even EXPECTING A BABY (which is, I figure, one of the highest moments of joy in a person’s life). Happiness that is yet different from the gao xing (高兴) expression which is a status of high 高 and pleasure and urge 兴; an alterated and in context XI 3!

My dear Chinese friend 赵洁 Zhao Jie from Beijing says there are four traditional sayings, that I like to cut and paste here because I find them meaningful and they pay a tribute to the figurative type of language that Chinese is, and that are rare to find today in most western languages, where metaphores, common places and images through set sayings of wishing well are not popular (any longer, because considered too conventional or simply not more in fashion than a topper). Here you go

„The chinese character on this vase is "XI"(third tone).It means happy.

We have an old saying which is there are 4 happiest things in our life:

1.金榜题名时 means when you get offer from your dream university

2.洞房花烛夜 means when you get married

3.久旱逢甘露 means when you overcome difficulties

4.他乡遇故知 means when you meet your fellow-villagers in other cities or countries“

Great! Now one more question: what is a whishing well word doing on both sides of a 4inches tall piece of pottery? In what context was it given or in what part of the house would one display it?

ECLS 2nd ANNUAL. DONE.

2008-10-07T17:54:00.007+08:00

Bologna – It’s a funny feeling wearing a badge with my name stuck on my suit in the very building in which I started out college and where now, some years later, am preparing to graduate. Unfortunately I must be offhanded due to time issues though I encourage you to read the forthcoming conference summary on www.ecls.eu to get a grasp of the more or less 20 papers discussed.

Now, on IP. Finally I witnessed a clear “lecture” on IPR. Most of the tals on IPR are either too specific for my level of achievement or are just unclear, garbled and bombastic, making it either exhausting or unclear.

Doctor A.Wechsler (PhD student at the Max Planck Institut for intellectual property in Munich) made it clear and simple from page one to the end (Intro – issue – analysis – solution – conclusion) where she was heading: “IP as a powerful economic tool for innovation and development” and balancing IP factors, (where “balancing” is an interesting and her personal approach to IP, going beyond the classics of rights and obligations as the centre of the topic; she did so by pointing out all STAKEHOLDERS involved in the market, in any market).

She has listed a number of sensible points on the topic, but I will just quote my own notes to avoid copyright infringements to ruin my first approach to IP !

IP has aroused academics shifting IP finally in a more aware economic analysis

There must be a normative rethinking of IP

Enterprises of any size need to understand IP as an inevitable asset

Innovation and development comes from good IP management

Chinese market is not the only market that will have to face major IP rethinking

China will have to do significant investments and academic efforts in order to go beyond the crossover point where benefits overtake costs!

Interestingly enough she has adopted a diagram that I immediately liked to call “the Wechsler IP balancer diagram” breaking IP range of influence down to simple branches. Again, I cannot risk the Copyright issues there so I will just say that it was cyclical and it involved many more than the usual factors.

Here is the data; you go ahead and do your own diagram:

Publishers / licensees

Invention / author / owner

Consumer

State ( - interests)

Next year’s ECLS conference will be in the summer probably and might be in what was once a strong Empire’s heart.

Did I mention Vienna?

GETTING READY FOR THE 2nd ANNUAL ECLS CONFERENCE (BOLOGNA & TURIN)

2008-09-13T21:15:00.010+08:00

By the end of the month those who are going will have packed neatly for the second annual meeting of the European China Law Studies Association (ECLS). This time Italy is hosting; unfortunately not in some spa resort or on some tuscan hilltop sprinkled with pleasant shady spots for wine tasting and cheese savouring, but the chosen cities are definitely worth the journey. Extravagantly enough, the 4-day conference will be in fact split in a double location setting: in Bologna (1-2 Oct) and Turin (2-4 Oct).

Not exactly the shortest distance between the two (340 km) but the ride back and forth will definitely be an entertaining mix of shop talk and laid back chatter. Participants of all over this Chinese-interested-world will be welcomed and hosted by institutions such as the CASCC (Centre for Advanced China Studies) in Turin and - but this one's only my prediction - the Collegio di China (China Centre) that is a mixed institution partially embedded in our University in Bologna.

Now, down to business: apparently this year the number of scheduled topics doubled and most interestingly cover horizons I wasn't expecting to be, such as TV broadcasting in China or Law and Fiction in Jiang Zilong's stories. Of course, the whole mould of traditional and ever most updated EU-China law stuff, case study, WTO agreement studies, Market Law framework study etcetera etcetera will be on the plate along with some great dishes from the Italian cuisine, still unafraid of Chinese progress..

For anyone interested here is the direct link with this year's topics and faculty; schedule and venue information. Have a good one, see you there!

A SHORT STAY

2008-09-13T20:31:00.008+08:00

I am taking my second to last exam before graduation. And it's hell of an interesting exam. In Italian it's called "Diritto dell'Asia Orientale" (link to the book if you're willing to purchase it in Italian only); that would be "Law of the Far East". Of course, of all compulsory exams this was the one for me to choose, regardless the large amount of historical, technical information within it. I will sooner or later cover the topic of this book I am studying. But for today, the news regarding my upcoming China trip.

In less than a week I shall be in Beijing again from 22-26 September and will see some people I met sometime ago and will probably be at some seminars on

- Amendments in the appeals procedure before the EPO (European Patent Office)

- Appeal procedures updated to 31/12/2007 case law

- Biotech patentability

- Computer programs patentability

- Changes to the EPC (European Patent Convention)

in English at the SIPO (Chinese IP Office).

I will keep busy meeting friends, checking out the housing prices for next year, the Chinese classes costs, seeing busy people getting busier and stealing some more motivation out of their words and looks and of course will be witnessing all levels of engaged traffic after the Olympics roamed the city. OK let's JIA YOU! 加油！！

CONSULAR SERVICE? HELLO??....HELLO?

2008-08-14T16:11:00.004+08:00

I must get my visa papers done by september before I leave for a fortnight, but nobody is answering the phone in Milan's Visa office at the Consulate General. I have been calling every morning since Monday morning! I cannot stand this! I might as well take a train to Milan today and check out for myself! geeez... come on, jia you or what?!

HUA DAN - MORE THAN JUST RELIEF

2008-06-17T19:18:00.007+08:00

I just ran into a Danwei's page and noticed a youtube video reporting on a SiChuan earthquake relief programme. I didn't expect it to turn out into what it really is. These people at HUA DAN (which literally may mean "to blossom nevertheless" 花但)who are (chinese and chinese-speaking foreigners) pros in theatre, organization, motivation and generally education, took the relief in sichuan at heart. They really boost motivation there activating games and plays that are - supposingly - aimed at de-traumatizing families and the youth from the earthquake that left so many homeless and killed more than we can imagine in that brief period. I suggest you take a look at what they do on video. Really enriching.

WHAT MING TOMBS? AND WHAT HISTORICAL HERITAGE PRESERVATION?

2008-04-14T01:38:00.005+08:00

When is it you heard a Chinese asking "what on earth brings you to Beijing?". A lot of times. When is it you heard a Chinese asking you "what you’ve seen so far in the city"? Very often. When is it you heard a Chinese asking you what you think about the Ming tombs? …never?!

Right! I see many Chinese tourists in the very few Ming tombs open to the public or those unveiled at all. There are more signs telling you how much the tickets are, or to watch your step on the endless stairway sinking in the moist and gorge of the Earth than explanatory signs or posters.

After a countless number of stairways we got a funny deja-vue feeling and hit the bottom: the Ming tombs. The lack of personnel (in Chinese supermarkets you can count up to 4 employees per isle) and the vague signs said about nothing of where I was.

So I tried to figure it out pretending I just awackened. There are many tombs in the world of famous conquerors, emperors, dynasties or reckless heroes, but none of them I saw were left in such solitude. I felt the emptiness of the hearts of the poor Mings saying “hey, give the tourists a minimum notion of what we were, when and why!”. No signs, no descriptions if not “you are here, get out from there – these are the copies of the Ming tombs, emperor right, wife one on the left, wife two on the right. No pictures please.” That’s it! I know the contemporary Chinese governments never really indulged on spreading their ancestor’s history but…come on! What’s this all about?! Is it another Chinese do it yourself motto?

Ok, forget about how abandoned the tourist feels, but how badly is national history encouraged in China? And why? I think I know - and it hurts. You’ve got to know some of your roots!

"GOURMAND": a gluttonous eater.

2008-03-15T21:41:00.012+08:00

Enough bloodbaths. 80 dead, 49 years of struggle should no longer remain in the shade.

There is little to say about Spielberg's decision on leaving the assignment for the Olympic Games. People should know more, much more about Tibet, and India should throttle down the attitude China is asking them to emulate.

So much ado about nothing.. I was once told in China that the Dalai Lama was a tyrant and should never get back to Lhasa. I played surprised to her words even when she told me that he would reestablish dictatorship and make his people to slaves and the Chinese military was there to avoid such undemocratic events.

I almost chocked on the rice.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. But then, in such a country, if people who write history books are who they are, then nothing should surprise me. I am just so terribly sorry not to be able to be in Beijing for the games to witness the situation. I think it will be the first protest in China, from foreigners, in the middle kingdom's whole imperial history.

Still, it is important to recognize sovereign action and to stop protesting if we don't know the history.

The Chinese are not so stubborn not to take action and give the World and example of rational and cooperative politics although it seems that economical - more than efficient political - powers are fanning the fire. Which gets ugly, especially when people in the middle die.

What goes around comes around.

SIZING IT DOWN IS THE HARDEST THING. EVER.

2008-01-07T17:32:00.002+08:00

PIACENZA - Finding material for my “China law” thesis is much like skimming the surface of an ocean. I keep looking over my dossiers, the papers I collected, the magazines I had people buy for me, the internet pages printed out, the books I got in various countries, the rapidly sketched interviews, the conference papers and the drafts of recollections of both seminars and casual talks. And that ocean keeps getting bigger. Boundless. I close a door and three more open up. There is just too much for me to size it down for my legal thesis. I’m glad I must stick to a legal topic because I would be lost. It makes me want to buy a one way ticket for the Virgin Islands and soak in the water. Yet that has to wait. Any suggestions?

CONTRACT LAW

IP CONCERNS

COMMERCIAL LAW

LABOUR LAW AND OUTSOURCING

HUMAN RIGHTS - CENSORSHIP (again?!?) – CRIMINAL PROSECUTION

DOMESTIC JUSTICE

LOCAL ADMINISTRATION

FOREIGN INVESTMENT, LOGISTICS AND QUALITY CONTROL

GENETICS OF COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT

And more. But the matter is: is my thesis going to be helpful in any way? Or should I just write an ordinary paper and get the hell out of here (the university?!), the system, the country, and catch to first plane to Zhongguo? I see what you are suggesting. Still, that ocean is so vast it sort of sinks all sounds. What is it I can write of, that can be catchy and still casual in law!? Too many ideas though. I need to see my professor and stop Xeroxing and filing. Let me first get the last exams out of the way and then I’ll call it my own challenge with that ocean.
I'm on my way.
-

POLYSEMICS - THE RETURN OF HE-LI 合理

2007-11-13T16:34:00.001+08:00

Since Chinese is such a multi-level language where technical terms are conceived for the general public as much as for the qualified positions in specific fields of study or in operational sectors, it is not a surprise, that these terms are used on different levels and for most variable purposes.

And now... TO THE POINT: after receiving a brief comment from a ECLS member, saying I had pointed out too few examples about the heli 合理 implementation, I say I agree to the comment. However I must remind every reader (interested in this and maybe also in Marina Timoteo's speech held on that occasion), that the he li principle is definitely - quote - a polysemic word. Therefore it has several implications in doctrine and jurisprudence. Hence it is a principle expressed and used in more than just a handful of occasions.

It is a principle - such as the Italian doctrine has established in decades of analysis as for their domestic legal culture called principio di ragionevolezza, where jurists from the civil and from the criminal or maybe strictly contractual law make abundant use of it, yet in a experienced and carefully aimed fashion. So, of course heli 合理 principle has more than one meaning than just in contractual breaches.

UPDATES IN THE ECLS SITE

2007-10-11T23:14:00.000+08:00

This is just a flash-post-it to tell you there now is an official summary of the speeches held in Hamburg on this year's ECLS conference on European and China Law Studies on www.ecls.eu . Also the full photo album is included! Have a nice day.

HISTORY REPEATING

2007-10-03T19:01:00.000+08:00

From little Italy to enormous china town...this is what I wanted to call the post.

In a period of one's personal history and the events that happen during his/her existence, it is often rarely recalled - if not dangerously forgotten - that before our grandfather even started thinking about getting married, his grandfather already had travelled across the seas to find new hopes, a better living; just a different place where to raise kids and set home.

Italians did that. The Irish, the Spaniards, the Lithuanians, the Russians, the Turks and some Germans did so too (and more are moving as you read this) and gave birth to huge communities, industries, brought new value and expertise, manpower and added quality to the places they settled in. Problem is, that quality never comes in a clean packaging. It involves crime rate, unemployment, cultural clashes and probably even embedded resentment for the host's attitude to the "stranger". It takes time.

I have to set a mark here before I go any further because each aera is both injected with peculiar and modern history events (e.g. wearing the veil or not; christ's cross in the classrooms or not; build more or stop more new mosques flourishing in Europe; etc) and common and evergreen topics such as: too much immigration-less jobs; labour exploitation; religious friction; etc. But it carries way too many hot topics to be discussed in a plain post: it's history repeating and there is no such thing as stopping it.

You can slow it down, accelerate the process, but if you want to see the good of it, you must try to cope with it.

As precisely depicted in the sensible document you may read, the number of immigrants flowing to Italy (page 6 for chart) has increased at an impressive rate in the last five years. Among illegal entries across coastlines, the official and authorized major stream of immigrants come from Morocco, Algeria, Senegal, Romania, Nigeria, Russia, Albania, Pakistan, Bangladesh and of course China. (personal and official data)

As I ordered my lunch out today, I came across a brief headline on the free local newspaper saying the immigrations rate is increasing a lot and especially Chinese (they are doubling - and little is known about identity exchange and evacuation of the passed-away). So I ran into an aquaintance of mine and asked for his opinion. Far from obvious, he strikingly included street talk to pretty much an economical and all round analysis of what an pretty much aware person would say:

" The Chinese doubling their presence here in Bologna? Hell yeah, I'm fine
with it! I just hope they ...
work hard
are honest and pay the taxes
are loyal, helpful and respectful of the members of their people
and endure in fair & free competition "

It sounded reasonable to me and purely rational and tehre is more in those words than in a dozen of paper columns. I like those kind of answers: casual and to the point. Unfortunately it was rush hour so we couldn't get involved in the discussion any further. However, he ended saying...

" ...and that's what I think, I mean, what I would expect. Still, I should probably live in a part
of town where the Chinese have settled, to know if I'm right or wrong. "

Smile. There is no more such thing as a China town in Italy, unless you consider the outskirts of the cities. Still, I understand what he meant: the networking and close connection any minority in any country at any given historical dot on our chronologic string would do.

Downtown Bologna, it's Pakistanians, Bangladeshanians (?), Indians and my beloved Chinese. All doing their thing, sending money home, buying their flats, taking the local accent and cleaning their shelves before they stuff their mini-shop with more imported or local (price-inflated!) goods. I like that mix. Not so much my wallet.

Friday night I finished moving into the new flat and today I discovered a bar at the corner, owned by Chinese. Time to go and practice my hanyu with them, sipping on Italian coffee!

TIME FOR A NEGATIVE RECORD !

2007-09-14T21:07:00.001+08:00

I was having lunch when the television saluted me with news from Chinese Congress urging to make prudent use of death penalties. That sounds like good news to start off my lunch with! Sadly, the numbers are still very high: last year China sent (reportedly) 4'500-5'000 people to death (source: Hands off Cain) and Jiang Xingchang, vice president of the SPC (Supreme People's court) said it's getting better year after year.

How do you evaluate better? All I know is that there are interesting positive rates such as the annual 5% decrease in general crime rate in the Country and the fact that facing death sentence for killing a relative for what in Italy we call a "delitto passionale" - i.e. a passion-driven homicide - can be avoided if the murderer reacted upon a victim's cause and if he compensates the family. It would be interesting to know what kind of measure they have to evaluate the victim's causing. Good thing there are 2 years of reprive foreseen for murderers. Too bad I don't have time to check out which crimes - instead - need immediate death sentence.

There are currently more than 60 crimes in China that foresee death penalty and more collateral punishments that are never reported of are also still in court's fashion. I don't want to add more to the stack of comments; I just seize the opportunity to say that

it's time China beats another record.
A record most people like to see beaten: reduce death penalties perpetrated too easily.

AND WHO'S YOUR SUPPLIER TODAY?

2007-09-11T02:55:00.000+08:00

No, I will not endure on toxic products like led-exeeding paint on toys produced in China, because I have read enough about it and boring you with that is useless. I am more concerned about focusing on a more "how does that happen" level. There is an indefinite number of advantages that a foreign company in China obtaines by producing there. And that's a point well beyond doubt. And now about quality control. Colours? Formaldeide? Fake drugs? Smeary make up? Unfinished garments? Generally hazardous products? ok! No doubt.

Then, let's pretend I make real good stuff here in Italy, say shoes. And say I have enormous profits/year and my brand is all over the continent but still, I want my business to hit the whole globe and to do that I want to get on mass-production. And also say I am a very responsible person/manager/chief and want my product to be as good as it is in Italy when it's finished. No excuses. Very well.

So what I do is get all my distributors I have in Europe and have them ship it all to China to my new chain production establishment. I have the shoes made and priced, sold locally and finally also worldwide - as I had in mind. Terrific!

What is wrong with theory? Answer: real life. In the example above it all sounds great because I do no harm: I produce more and I can cut on labour cost. A year later I end up like Mattel and am forced to retrieve all my goods from the markets, publish apology letters on national newspapers and double my team of lawyers from lawsuits and the next thing I know, one of my managers hangs himself. Where is the flaw? I urge my inspectors to report and I find out my shoes are toxic and who wears them gets real bad skin itch.

Where is my production malfunctioning? If all the products I use to build shoes are the same old good ones I use in Europe, that means some of my managers are willing to profit from unauthoized distributors who supply my company with material that has not met QUALITY STANDARDS.

And here is where my post really starts: I am not sure if it is a matter of bribery from foreign and local companies before selling products (in the so called pre-shipment), or if it's a matter of an utterly unregulated market that looks just too busy to care about what's what (also: what's IN what?).

Since 2003, products from 19 groups divided into 132 products must be inspected and have to meet the "CCC"-mark standards imposed by the PRC government (here is a flowchart of how the CCCMark is issued). If the product does not meet those standards (hard to imagine), it will or might be held at the border. Right. Makes sense. But is there any reverse mark? From PRC out to us? I am not asserting China should have an inland control as thorough as the German TÜV before tomorrow morning after breakfast, but still I found an endless number of companies (third parties) who are willing to check the quality of raw materials or finished products for companies before, during the production and at the above mentioned pre-shipping levels.

Why are companies such as Mattel or others putting such fame at stake? How much more do I need to know?

MAESTRO LEAVES THE SCENE (on a flying pentagram) 悲痛...

2007-09-06T20:40:00.000+08:00

A small memento for a great tenor, man, father and husband.

Luciano Pavarotti
Modena 12 oct 1935 - Modena 6 sept 2007

Leaves 4 daughters and billions of fans of all ages. Was on tour in China for several times, I think his last time there was in summer 2005 in Shanghai. ciao mestro..

ECLS HAMBURG MEETING 2007 – PART II

2007-09-05T00:40:00.001+08:00

It’s done. Back from Hamburg. Three good days of shaking hands and listening to speeches and develop an idea of

· How broad it all is
· How many people have been involved in Chinese law since forever and are still committed to it
· How many people are in it now and are my age
· How important Hanyu is
· How important it is to be on board
· How nice it is to be in intense international environments
· How beautiful Hamburg is (and how cold it can get there in late August)

Day 0 started with a casual gathering at the Max Planck Institute for Private Comparative Law (hosting the conference as said before), with brief introductions to other participants. After being addressed by Dr. Pißler and reminded about facts and figures and expectations I understood it was going to be an intense experience.

Do to the amount of information gathered at the conference attended I will describe just fragments of what all of the faculty talked about. I will be glad to discuss specific topics with you further on.

Day 1 was launched by an in-depth, so to say “micro” (as Prof.Dr. Randall Perenboom said in the Q&A) view of How and when courts expand their authority through more routine decision-making by Prof.Dr. Ben Liebman who stressed out the facts about evidence showing that local courts in China are starting to have sort of a legislative engagement in sentencing, besides applying the existing norms. Apparently there is nothing new about it since magistrates were doing so since the Qing dynasty. What has been unsettling lately is that for some reason the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) has been taking the wind from the National People’s Congress (NPC) – the legislative. Therefore, some interpretative doubts rise when questioning about the relevance of both organ’s decisions. Following case law such as the Seed Case or the Qi Yuling case concerning actual competence of either the NPC or the SPC on Constitutional claims. Another interesting case was the one in medical malpractice in the Jiangsu province where compensation for caused death was expected: hot spot of it was the concern of what can happen once the systematic application of the law contravenes with a fair outcome. So it looks like the courts are starting to become creative, reaching needs of masses instead of being purely mechanical by sticking to the rules.

For the Danish Human Rights Centre Director Hatla Thelle there was more practical spectrum: she was certainly one of the speakers less directly involved in academics and it was good to see how technical perspectives in the legal world are confronted by someone involved in collateral areas. The smart and powerful image Ms Thelle gave of playing the part of a poor Chinese having to strive with authorities was enjoyable. What institutions does one seek out for in such cases? What is he to do if he has no guanxis good enough? The answer is doubtlessly difficult for the missing of figures, stats or other data revealing the real iter of such a situation, so she pointed out the origins of those institutions that survived imperial times and that also come from Mao’s period. Four kinds of dispute resolutions are foreseen in China; i.e. consultation, mediation, arbitration and litigation – in principle all open to the masses. Resolution mechanisms reportedly differ on a geographical basis ranging from state to province levels.

- Basic legal services (supervisory body is the local government justice bureau) consulting 6 mil people, represented 750’000 cases in court and take care of civil cases at the lowest level and active since the year 2000.
- Legal Aid (supervisory body is the Ministry of Justice and local bureaus) effective as of 2003 regarding more than 290’000 people.
- Letters and visits or Petitioning System (supervised by the party and local government) recorded up to 11 mil cases a year since 2005. It covers complaints on administrative actions and rulings.
- Mediation, active since 2002, filed more than 4 mil cases (the number of staff involved in all these levels is at a gargantic level spacing from 3 to 6 mil people!)
- Labour Arbitration (controlled by Ministry of Labour and social security on local level). Active since 2003 involved in barely 260’000 cases.
- Social Organizations (supervised by Ministry of Civil Affairs or local industry). Active since 1998. No figures available in this category – concerns social conflicts. It is a non governmental group. Even at university level, students are giving free legal counseling!
- Last but not the least: Law Firms providing the so called barefoot lawyers who assist clients for free.

So what we are facing here is the survival of modern and traditional ways of getting a claim or petition through. There is puzzlement though in having this double-decker system: switching from one to another may result in non-assurance of justice or in the other case, mal-justice. Still, this dual track system seems to be keeping up. What are we expecting anyway, since they are undergoing so many reforms especially in the last decade?

Otto Malmgren then focused on Constitution: article 37, equality, access to remedies, right to liberty of a person as natural elements of constitutional rights. Concerning equality, there are suggestions that it (pingdeng) should only mean procedural equality: in law enforcement and in adhering to the law. This conflicts terribly with the so called friend // us (朋友//我) principle where the righteous come before the criminals and generally before all of the law infringers making access to justice for them much tougher. And who knows when that principle steps in during assessing the alleged criminals crimes. More in this speech: I found the study of the glossary of art.37 (i.e. the words citizen, nationality and Chinese person) quite intriguing. Most of crucial article’s in world Constitutions are stimulating when observing glossary used. Also in this part of the conference: study of the terms arrest, approval and detention; and, as for the principle of legality: illegal and unlawful.

The wild part of the sanctioning system in China during the speeches was the dark vaults of Shanggui. This wide-spread practice of punishment for suspected corruption perpetrated by members of the CCP (only), has a long history. Recently, it was banned formally between 1978 and 1980 although, since there were very little stats or any figures before then, it was even more than a hard quest to find out if Shanggui was still running after the early Eighties. However, Dr. Flora Sapio, from the Lund University, made the turning points of Shanggui clear by stating it is a:

o A suspect’s summoning
o Deprivation of freedom
o Psychological manipulation (self-convincing of having committed the crime)
o Harsh integration techniques (torture).

Generally these measures could be as harsh as they are unheard: standing for 5 days and nights without permission to sit and other depravations. On the outer side, I learned Shanggui is a practice set out by the so called Commission for Discipline Inspection that is controlled by the Central Government, despite not being part of it. I suppose that, distance from the capital and appointing middle aged men with no knowledge in criminal law, law or investigation methods, has set ground for a harsh but generally well intentioned system to have terrible and inhumane outcomes. Family members where never told were the subject was taken, for what reason and for how long he would have to be away. The central government has acknowledged the incoherence of such Commission in spite of the Constitutional provision for procedural righteousness of fair trail, but nevertheless allows the CDI to silently pursue its objectives. I am sorry I have to cut short in this topic, but I will include a list of subjects that have their own manner of punishment provided (!) by government:

- sheltering and repatriation = beggars
- sheltering for education = prostitutes (e.g. having to read books for days until memorized)
- forced drug treatment = drug addicts
- drug treatment through labour = also drug addicts
- stop and question = citizens suspected of perpetrating of crimes
- shanggui (伤规) = CCP members
- re-education through labour = weifa 违法 (be illegal) violations
- reform through labour = fanzui 犯罪 (to commit a crime).

You have read the correctional mechanisms. There are efforts in bringing these to a more rule of law level, limiting harsh methods and providing more abolitions of them.

Leila Chouckrone was instead focusing on the Chinese judge and international comparative law trying to establish what kind of influence Chinese lawmakers and doctrine is getting from the west and, on the globalization sphere, what approach is being used towards international treaties. Although China is sympathetic and willing to take part in international cooperation (e.g. China is involved in 12 peace-keeping operations), the Government is rather reluctant, Ms Chouckrone says, in meeting all international directives.

Benjamin von Rooij’s highly detailed study on Politics of Law Enforcement was a 360 degree race covering most aspects as possible ranging from political and specialized campaigns aimed at influencing local level law enforcement – 专项行动 zhuanxiang xingdong – e.g. political rallies against crime, IPR infringements, pollution, arbitrary land usage. It is a so called “campaign law enforcement” having the unsteady backbone of decentralized legislation, time limited durability and the pro of hitting the spot where the arm from Beijing could not reach. Prof. von Rooij’s speech had deep insights on this phenomena that I will not be able to report here.

DAY 2 – last one.

As for Comparative Law, Prof. Marina Timoteo displayed a multilateral study both linguistic and legal, of the Heli 合理standard in Court Practice. Asserting that Courts in world history have had a mainstream of referral to general principles, vague notions and other standards, China has yet another singularity in making a point linguistically very different from our views regarding “reasonable”. Heli 合理 meaning suit, agree, join for “he“ and reason, principle in “li”, somehow has common grounds with the latin expressions ratio (meaning, reason), rationalis (meaningful), both stating some kind of legitimacy in legal speech. Unfortunately I must, once again, break it up and lead you through the very challenging path across semantics and etymology. Ultimately heli is a combined meaning of provisions sprouting from an authority and circumstances that have relevance.

Contract breaches are definitely in the hurracane’s eye here. Prof. Timoteo points out a number of cases in which heli sentences were granted, thus the ratio of a reasonable sentence and its “balancing standards” virtues. This is obtained combining heli with gong 公 as public, common, and ping 平 as fair, equitable. It looks like heli is no sole legal term (mostly used by the Chinese judiciary) but it is embedded in Chinese culture and therefore is not too easy for westerners to decrypt it swiftly.

After these days of listening and taking notes I attended one of the four Workshops. Led by Eva Pils, from the University of Hong Kong, we focused on Civil Rights and the agenda for the upcoming months.

We were highly rewarded for the all the efforts and pleasant listening in an elegant reception at the Senate’s guesthouse for gestures of appraisal and short after that dinner was served on a memorable boat trip at sunset along the Elbe river. Arrivederci! I hope all is clear here.

photgraphs by Viktor von Hessen

ECLS HAMBURG MEETING 2007 – PART I

2007-08-28T19:58:00.002+08:00

MUNICH - So I look into the conference’s draft in April and get enthusiastic by reading the list of people who are going to speak and chair at the conference so I became a member and sent my application for the 3-night-hamburg-rush. Based on a standard conference, this two days meeting will end in an interesting parallel set of workshops concerning

Access to justice

Civil rights

Politics and law

Comparative law

and will comprehend a final x-ray of the outcomes. In the application sheet I checked both Comparative Law - and Civil Rights for a change. I am curious to see what these workshops will turn out to be.
Talking about Germany, German Chancellor Merkel just a day ago, pushed the Chinese Congress to pursue a better aid and more consistent support in Human Rights enforcement pointing out that

“Nobody has the right to put himself above others ... human dignity cannot be divided."

Of course not.

Even a Chinese would say. But, hey! Beware of telling him this remark regards his Country He wouldn't believe you or if he did have a clue, he'd be shy or resentful to admit it to a stranger.
This information doesn’t get into their living rooms! And if it is said during an official visit in Beijing, papers are discouraged to even think about publishing. But all this censorship thing is not a new topic.

What the conference in Hamburg will aim at is a crossing lane for sharing methods of Chinese Law-teaching around the world and the problems related to comprehending the not too old Chinese legal system, such as:translation problems of specific terms, the fact that Chinese is not spoken enough in the West, the sharing of information.
And most of all, it should be about focusing on the hottest topics in Chinese Law (e.g. legal pluralism, Art. 37 and 35 Cost. – on which I wrote a post in Italian for a high school group, extra-legal detention, media in China (hot!), and contract law.

I cannot wait to be there and be part of it. I will report soon after.
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FIRST THINGS FIRST

2007-08-28T03:26:00.001+08:00

BEIJING ..BACK IN 2005 – July, a hot one. It was a steamy little kitchen and the petit lady with her hair tied back was frenetically stirring the vegetables in the wide black pot dancing on the flame underneath it when she said “I hear you are studying Chinese! What brings you here to do so?”.

I wouldn’t say it was then, but soon after that and other peculiar encounters, I decided I shouldn’t ever stop writing about my thoughts in and out of China. I did write a log and I was doing it everywhere I could: in cabs, in subways, in bed, in libraries, in gardens and probably in my sleep, too. Eventually my bag was stolen and so was the log in it, along with hundreds of digital pictures of my first trip to Beijing alone. I felt empty but I took a deep breath and told my brother he was right: I’ll write another one, the hell with it. I just hope the robber had his own share of punishment. Maybe he was run over ten seconds after that. Hard to say, though, my imagination would love to keep stating that!
That was two years from today. Things sort of moved on, even though my fantasy about that are still there, now just a little bit more sarcastic.

BUT WHAT AM I TRYING TO PROVE HERE ?

The most obvious thing that comes in mind when speaking of China is a list of general concepts such as Chinese culture, Chinese history, Chinese economy (oh no!), or Chinese GDP (oh dear!). But they all make no good sense if you haven’t seen through the history of it. Ok, so now all of us should turn this thing off and go and buy a good book of Chinese Contemporary History. Yikes!! Most of us don’t have the time or will for that, so here is the plan.

I do not surf the net all that much but I get lots of what is happening in it. Still, to do what I want to set out doing, doesn’t really need all that worldwidewebbing, as much as webbing together what I hear from people around me concerning China. Their statements, perplexities, arguments, concerns, curiosities, prejudices and reactions to the Chinese phenomena.

Mind you, this cannot be done without generalizations of broader concepts. If I was to try to explain it all, this project would turn out to be filled with endnotes, PSs and reminders. None of you would be into that! It happened to me too many times, reading from other sources, to have the guts to do it to you!
What I can do is to blend personal experience and facts giving my perspective to whoever wishes to keep on reading.
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THE ABOUT ME POST

2007-08-25T16:45:00.006+08:00

BOLOGNA - Born in Munich from an Italian father and American Mother, after eight years of Bavarian life, Riccardo moved to northern Italy where he graduated from high school on a hot July and left for college with a big bag of Thopes and doubts. He got into Law school at the University of Bologna and a year from then, Arab, Russian and Chinese were triggering his attention. He was indecisive. Not late after the first chat, Professor Jing Li started giving him Chinese private lessons twice a week. Driven by excitement he went from doing homework to cooking in Chinese with her and her mother. After a year of Erasmus program in Vienna, attending Austrian law school and side courses of Chinese at the Synologie Institut, a crowded plane flew him to Beijing on yet another hot July of 2005.

Trying to keep up both law exams and Chinese classes taught by overseas students from the Middlekingdom studying in Italy, he felt kind of involved with China. He could tell by the leitmotif of the gifts he got for Christmas and birthdays. He figured it showed. On his trip back from a brief stay in Taiwan he downloaded Chinese software for typing on his laptop and joined at conferences about China in Italy. By then he had the feeling this is definitely going somewhere.

You should say “China” at dinner time at a family gathering at his place, and then notice everyone is sort of waiting for him to say something, no matter what word follows whether it is economy, rights, counterfeit products, cuisine, the great wall or roasted ducks. “Hum…are they still looking?” is what he seems thinking.
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