Maybe I just missed the jokes

I feel like such an idiot for not understanding the humour in the movie. Or maybe Peter Travers from Rolling Stone is just a prick.

Canadian Immigrants being coerced to spy, geez really?

There have long been rumours about Chinese students and workers in Canada actually being spies. And if you can remember about a year and a half ago, there was a story of a Chinese diplomat in Australia who claimed that there were upwards of 1200 Chinese spies operating in that country.

The defectors say the spies and informants have orders to disrupt the Falun Gong movement, which China calls "a dangerous cult," and to steal commercial and scientific secrets.

Well, those Chinese diplomats have now come to Canada seeking asylum and claim that there are more spies and informants operating in Canada than any other country. Of course the Chinese government denies these claims (as if one would expect someone from the 'Party' to be honest about such a thing).

However, former CSIS agent Michel Juneau-Katsuya, finds them credible. During the mid-1990s, Juneau-Katsuya oversaw the CSIS Asian-Pacific desk. He says if Canadian intelligence agencies weren't preoccupied with Islamist terrorists these days they would realize the greatest threat to Canadian security comes from China.

So this brings forth an interesting question: Should we be making such grand apologies and offering reparations to Chinese immigrants for something that we did more than 80 years ago when our intelligence services are telling us that Chinese have been operating a vast spy and informant network for many years?

I have no problem with apologizing for our past wrongdoings. However, I feel there is no need to begin offering monetary payments on top of these formal apologies from our Prime Minister. Nothing is accomplished from 'buying' forgiveness other than attempting to 'buy' the votes of the Chinese population in Canada (close to 1.1 million or 3.5% of the population). $10,000+ per vote is pretty expensive, but come to think of it, I'd need about that much to vote for Steven Harper. I don't see how getting monetary compensation now can change what happened to someone's parents or grandparents 80 years ago.

Technically, you could say that a 'head tax' still exists for all immigrants. Immigration fees are still high and the process is quite costly. So costly that, outside of refugees, only the rich can afford to come to Canada. Does that mean we should eliminate immigration fees? And give reparations to all people who have immigrated to Canada? Will Meng and I receive an apology because I had to pay immigration fees (head tax) for her to come to Canada with me?

Note: just to clear things up, Meng is not a spy for the Chinese government. I'm 100% sure of that......or am I?

Links:
Reuters story on spies
CBC story on spies
CP story on apology

Happiness!

Not proud to be Canadian at all

It's finally finished, the visa has been issued and no more putting up with Canadian Immigration and their horrible, horrible treatment of people.

Let's start from the beginning, our application for Meng's visa began back in November when we collected all of the proper documents and filled in countless forms. Then send the forms to Mississauga to be processed, then onto Beijing. This part is fine, nothing to complain about. However, when our application was received in Mississauga, they (I'll use 'they' with the tone you use to describe a disgusting group of people who you feel are very unlike yourself) send a letter to say that they have received your documents, that you can check status online, but 'unfortunately, they can not answer any questions regarding your application'. Note the use of can not here, as if it is something that is impossible for them to do because of some constraint, the proper thing to say here would be 'we will not answer any questions' or 'we don't want to answer any questions'. Their use of english during the process will follow this same 'gutless' manner of trying to cover up for their poor attitude towards applicants. Oh, and their online status check, it's great, simply tells you that your application is 'in process; and it gave me this gem of information "application received December 16th, date started processing: January 17th", awesome!


So everything went well in Mississauga and the application was sent to Beijing for the second stage of the application, the first stage took almost twice as long as the time they quoted at the beginning of the process, good job CIC! When the application was sent to Beijing, they sent us a letter (standard letter, not even a form letter which would have filled in our name at the top) addressed 'Dear Applicant' (Jesus Christ!, learn how to make a form letter using Word and Access, it takes 5 minutes) which informed us that applications at this location are now taking 6 to 9 months. This flies in the face of everything else that was said earlier and with their website, which they are always praising as being so up-to-date. Again, top notch service CIC!

Turns out that it didn't take 6 to 9 months but rather the normal 2 months in Beijing that we were originally quoted. We received a letter in late May informing us that we would be required to come to Beijing to have an interview on June 21st at 9am. Excellent, all of the documents are in order, things are going well, just need to finish it off. Of course, 9am means nothing to the them it's just a random number, what they meant to say was 'we start doing things around 9 and we'll get you in sometime in the morning'. Actually, this has more to do with the throngs of people who come to the embassy and start to fill in their forms there (something which I strongly disagree with), not totally your bad here CIC.

So we finally get called in to the interview at 10:30, this is where the good times start to roll. I had imagined that the interview would be in a room where we would sit opposite the desk of the visa officer or maybe at a table. Wrong, we sit in a small booth with a big, thick piece of glass between us and them, way to make people feel comfortable CIC! Without going into too many details of the interview, our application was initially declined after about 10 minutes. Her actual words were 'I'm going to have to refuse your application at this time'. Note the use of 'I'm going to have to', as if some outside force were pushing this decision, that it's not really her doing. Don't be so f'ing gutless, don't tell me 'you're going to have to do something', if you're the one making the decision, have the guts to back it up and say 'I'm refusing your application', don't hide behind this 'I'm going to have to' mask. GUTLESS!

I wasn't going to sit there and accept her refusal, it was bull****. It was based on the fact that we both of us (while being asked at different times) described our relationship as being boyfriend and girlfriend with plans to get married sometime after university. Our understanding of relationships is that you are boyfriend and girlfriend or you are husband and wife. Her understanding was that our relationship was not serious enough (if you look at CIC's new visas, our relationship fits everything decscribed as Conjugal Partner visa), because we said boyfriend and girlfriend and didn't describe it as 'marriage-like' (her exact words). Really, who says marriage-like. The debate continued for quite a while, and explained to her about the Chinese way of looking at marriage and why it's something we can not do right now. Funny how she had almost no concept of Chinese relationships, but her job is to assess relationship visas in an embassy in Beijing. Grade A recruiting CIC! After more debating, she said that she would take a second look at our documents and what she had typed during the interview. Note: why wouldn't they simply record the interview rather than rely on someone having to type and make an important decision at the same time? What the hell are you thinking CIC? These are very important decisions that you're making here.

At this point, everything is a mess. Meng's crying, I'm trying to figure out what the hell we're going to do, trying to calm Meng but not having anything to say that can make this situation easier to deal with.

After 10 minutes out in the waiting room, we were called back in to inform us that they had reversed their decision and that Meng would be issued a visa that day. Finally, reason wins, we would come back that afternoon to pick up the visa. I wish my problems with the embassy ended there. When we returned after lunch, we lined up to get into the embassy and when we got to the front of the line, I was told that I couldn't go in with Meng to get her visa. 'I'm her sponsor, I'm a CANADIAN citizen' but this 20 year old, 140 lb Chinese weakling of a security guard was telling me that I couldn't go into a Canadian embassy. F-you Foreign service, I can't go into my country's embassy when I'm sponsoring someone for a visa. So I got to sit outside on the sidewalk in 35 degree heat for 2 and a half hours. Oh, it didn't take the 2 and a half hours to process the visa, that was done, it took that time to get around to giving it to Meng.

During our waiting time, we met a few people also applying for visas. There was one woman who was applying to join her husband in Canada but had been refused 6 times, yet this man is allowed to stay in Canada. There was another guy, around my age, who wanted his girlfriend to meet his parents before they got married, but had been there all week being refused, yet this man is allowed to stay in Canada.

Oh, almost forgot, if you're rich, you can simply buy your immigration. Correction, you can get your money back after 5 years and 2 months (see paragraph 3 in the link).
Did I mention I hate Canadian immigration?

My New Love

One of my topics for my exam this week was the idea of 'saving face' in China. One of my students gave me a fantastic answer which opened like this (paraphasing slightly):

'Peter, saving face is a very ambiguous idea. There are really three aspects of saving face, one is peacockery, one is indignity, and one is self-esteem'.

He continued from there with a great answer, but I could hardly believe the first sentence. My students are not English majors, and they are not given the topics beforehand. BUT what impressed me most was the use of the word peacockery. I've never really had a favourite word before, but at that moment I knew, I just knew that I would never be able to find a word that makes my heart feel as warm as peacockery can. I'm going to spend the rest of my days thinking of new and clever ways to use it in my daily life; I promise to never let a day go by without discussing peacockery, or, more likely, accusing others of peacockery, and to keep myself humble, I'll even admit to peacockery on my part from time to time.

I love you, peacockery.

NOOOOO!

My computer weather forecast simply shows this: to describe tomorrows weather. Should be a great day to be stuck inside a hot classroom.

Lazy Weekends

Lately in Xi'an, the weather has been very, very hot (see recent post), which makes it pretty hard to get motivated to do much of anything on the weekend during the daytime hours. Especially when a short walk will leave you feeling absolutely exhausted.

This weekend, I decided I had to do something; no more sitting inside and hiding from the heat. So yesterday, I biked out to the old school to hang out with some friends and play frisbee. I've discovered that biking is actually the best form of transportation in the heat. That is until you actually get to where you're going. While your biking, the breeze keeps you nice and cool, but as soon as you stop for about 10 seconds, the sweat just flows as if there was someone turned on a faucet (I'm gross). By the time I got out to my friend's place in the afternoon, everyone was too tired from the heat and drinking to manage to get outside to toss the frisbee. But I managed to drag one friend out with me so I was able to enjoy the nice sunny weather.

Later on, when we were going out to dinner, something happened that made me realize just how cynical I've become. The two girls we were with complimented me on my arms (yeah, I'm huge now after going to the gym) and my first thought was that they were just taking the piss. I can't even hear a compliment without first thinking that the person giving the compliment is being sarcastic. Maybe it's from always being the skinny guy, but more than likely it's because I'm a cynical bastard, really have to work on that.

Woke up again this morning to a beautiful sunny day and again, nothing to do. Decided I had to get out again or I would go crazy in this little apartment. I tried to convince my friend to come out and bike around the city with me but nothing doing. It seems everyone is suffering from the no motivation to do anything syndrome. I felt the urge to bike around the city wall, always a nice view and I've never been all the way around before. Strange how I wait until I'm just about to leave a place that I decide to appreciate it. Actually, not too strange, people do this all the time, not just with places, but with everything. The ride around the city is actually really nice, there are parks lining the outside of the wall all the way around. It would be really nice if you could ride your bike in the park, but they are pretty narrow and full of old people so perhaps it's better that they don't allow it. In a few spots, the roads on the outside of the wall get really congested or have some construction, so I had to duck inside the wall a few times and ride on the narrow streets just inside. It's amazing just how quiet these streets are compared to the rest of the city. One minute it's cars, buses, motorbikes and horns (lots of horns), the next it's like riding your bike in a library, these little streets are empty except for a few bikes and occasionally a single car will drive through (meaning no use for horns).

Whenever I ventured out on my bike, I always take my camera with the best intentions to capture something interesting the city. Never works. Xi'an is a pretty hazy city, and everyone knows that midday haze makes for poor photos (unless you're really skilled, which I am not). Some people are very good at taking photos of people doing there everyday things, but it's not something I really feel comfortable doing. I just feel kind of guilty doing it, being intrusive and making someone's daily life some sort of tourist attraction. I know that I would feel uncomfortable if some Chinese guy came up to me while I was working or hanging out with friends and asked me if he could take my picture. So, not a lot of interesting people pictures. I did manage to get a couple, one of the Southeast corner of the wall and another of a really interesting building I passed by.

Then again today on the way home, another thing struck me. I passed a guy on my bike and he looked over, smiled and said hello. Seems like a simple gesture, but here in China foreigners are constantly bombarded with mocking 'hellos' from everyone on the street. Because of this, our natural response is usually something unpleasant or just ignoring the person. Today, I was lucky enough to catch myself and quickly give him a smile and hello back before biking away. I just wonder how many times we fail to recognize the genuinally friendly 'hellos' and in the process give people the impression that all foreigners are assholes. Really something else I need to work on, at least for the next month and a half.

China's Opening Up Policy Reaches New Heights.

As part of China's recent efforts to 'open up', the Chinese government has blocked the use of the popular search engine Google.com.

Although, for some people it may seem strange that block access to information would be considered an opening up move, it actually makes perfect sense to Chinese government officials.

"You see, Chinese citizens have the freedom to access any and all information," explained Xiao Wang (see picture on right), an officer with the Ministry of Information "as long as it conforms with a healthy message and it hasn't been deemed 'dangerous information' by our crack staff."

When asked what exactly constitutes 'dangerous information', Xiao Wang quickly changed the subject by inviting this reporter out for a lunch of baijiu and 'little sisters'. Note: I'm not exactly sure what little sisters are but Wang gave me a wink and a nudge while saying it.

What makes this recent move even more puzzling is that in January, Google agreed to censor the information on its search engine in response to government pressure.

As expected, the youth of China are up in arms about the government apparently blocking their free access to internet news.

"Does this mean I can't play World of Warcraft anymore?" was the response from one unnamed student. Once this comment was overheard by other net users at the cyber cafe, a small scale riot ensued, with many youths threatening to attack local government offices with various weapons accumulated from their net games. It wasn't until it was explained by the friendly officers shown on the right that Google being blocked would have no effect on their net games or 'soft' porn did the short-lived riot end.

So what effect will this recent move have on net users in China? It will mean that people will have to type yahoo.com rather than google.com or simply use software such as Dynapass, Ultrasurf, Freegate or Garden Networks to break the impenetrable 'Great Firewall of China'.