Confucius Institute vs. British Council THROWDOWN

Some thoughts on the "I'm not defensive, YOU'RE DEFENSIVE! You don't understand our 5000 years of Chinese culture" reactions in this article: US Universities End Confucius Institutes, Chinese Reactions

1.) "You just don't understand Chinese culture" is a surefire sign that you're looking to guilt others into not pointing out your agenda. It's a sign of guilt, not a defense of innocence (in that way it's not so different from "I'm not racist, some of my best friends are ______"). 

2.) American movies may contain American cultural characteristics but that's not the same as purposefully crafted and disseminated propaganda. And it's stupid to imply that American cultural products never criticize or show America in a bad light.

3.) Sure, the BC and Alliance Francaise exist, but they don't disseminate Western cultural propaganda. You can tell the difference between "promoting culture" and "propaganda" this way: if a political party with an ideology is solely in charge of determining the content of such an institute's promotion, it's propaganda. If many different voices are heard from various parties in determining the content, it's probably not.

4.) "Harmony in diversity" MY ASS. Try telling the Tibetans that.

5.) Another way you can tell the difference between cultural promotion and propaganda is this: go to BC or wherever and ask them about unflattering/bad events in British history. The person you talk to will, while not openly denigrating Britain, will probably be honest with you about what happened and why it was wrong. Go to a Confucius Institute and ask a Chinese teacher about Taiwan or Falun Gong and see the stone-face you get.

6.) As a friend pointed out, Confucius Institutes exist within schools and universities, which are meant to be bastions of academic freedom - so when a government puts limits on what can be said in an entity within such a space, it's a big fat problem - it denigrates academic freedom to not be able to discuss certain topics. British Council and Alliance Francaise exist as independent institutions, and are not affiliated with schools and universities. That right there is a big problem. If the Chinese government wanted to open schools abroad in the same way, through legal means, and insisted that teachers hew to CCP propaganda within them, while Westerners would criticize that, they would be able to do so. If you didn't like it, you wouldn't have to take a class there. You could...enroll in a class at a local university! Whereas with Confucius Institutes in universities, often if you want to study Chinese, you have to go through them. 

Space Confucius!

I was writing another post - I have a few on the back burner right now - but have come down with an irritating headache on the right side of my face: I blame the constantly changing weather.

So instead, enjoy this photo I took at Dragon Boat last year.

I think it is especially appropriate that I picked a beer-in-yer-pocket photo because 7-11 is now stocking Sam Adams again. Yay! I still tend to go down the street to the specialty store for Erdinger or Duvel, but hey, I'll take a Sam Adams any day.

Almost related but not quite: I've learned recently that mixing local energy drink (that stuff in the brown glass bottles with white labels that looks totally foul) with canned Mr. Brown coffee is a big thing among the blue collar and laboring class.

So...nasty viscous energy drink and canned coffee?

Really there's just one word to describe that.

And that word is "Ew".

COLD

...it's cold.

Uh...Space Confucius.

Yes, I did totally just head off my post with a snapshot of an adorable kitten to get your attention. Who can resist an adorable kitten? Nobody, that's who! And yes, I took the picture myself - that kitten, along with a more mature cat, are residents at Cafe La Boheme, one of our favorite haunts on Wenzhou Street.

Anyway, the weather's been crap all week - all cold and gloomy and not uplifting at all - and my posts of late have been similarly gloom-and-doom, and I feel like posting a pick-me-up because I'm fairly sure the steely skies over Taipei aren't clearing anytime soon (and when they do, it'll be so they can pour plum rains on us).

So, enjoy a few photos I've taken over the past few months but haven't posted that should give everyone a nice cheer-up, like a good Maker's sour.

This is the creepiest Santa Claus I've ever seen, made of recycled bottles, fairy lights and, uh, I'm not sure what else. Either way, ACK.

He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awaaaake...

One of the lovely two girls I have English playtime-class with on the weekend - we finished up our time by building a giant blocks/stool/cards/Japanese cartoon figurine castle.

Last weekend gave us brighter, though polluted, weather. For the last time the sun was seen in Taipei, we went to Da'an Park and saw all sorts of animals, including the big fellow above and the tiny guys below.

Just look at the sun hitting the grass and trees. Oh sun. How I miss you. I wish you'd come back!

The La Boheme kitten is fascinated by the Taiwan Pen Twirl (you know what I mean - that twirly thing that Taiwanese people do with their pens when they're daydreaming).

Yeah, uh, I don't even know what to say to this. We've seen a lot of great store names recently - there's this one, "Croissant de Louvre", "Versace Home Art", "Ho Mart"...but this store? It's for man!

"I guess I'm sleeping on the couch tonight."

On one of those warm-ish sunny weekend days we didn't know were numbered, we headed up to Wenhua University and had coffee at TBRC before watching the sunset by the university.

But now we're back to being freezing and glum, and all we want to do is this:

Ye Old English Guangdong Drinkware: Made in China edition

I am writing a post now about where to find good sweets in Taipei, but got temporarily distracted by this.

"The Fairytale Romantic Union of All the Centuries"

See? Prince William and his lady bride-to-be. No no no, don't argue with me, that's totally Prince William. Guandong Enterprises even says so on their website.

I borrowed the picture from Regretsy, linked below - that site makes me laugh every day but as a one-time resident of China, it made me especially crack up today.

You can read about it here or visit the company website.

(I urge you to visit both).

I won't tell you whether I bought one or not.

Even if it is a hoax, which it may be, it's a pretty funny one.

Space Confucius

Feelin' sad for Japan right now. Happy that Taiwan has escaped a tsunami.

After a few Belgian beers at Zabu, one of my favorite Shida cafes, I was looking at my pretty new tag cloud...and realized that the "community_space" and "confucius" tags, due to the spacing, look like they read "community" and "space confucius".

So now I have to create a whole series of posts tagged "space_confucius". I just do.