The Failure of Rodman’s “Basketball Diplomacy”

When Dennis Rodman, the former NBA rebound champ, tweeted, on May 7th, 2013:

His upcoming visit to North Korea in August 2013 seemed positive. Bae is an American missionary arrested in late 2012 in North Korea and sentenced to 15 years in early 2013 for crimes against the state. Loaded with confidence, Rodman even criticized President Obama and added, “Obama can’t do s**t, I don’t know why he [Obama] won’t go talk to him [Kim].”

“The Worm” called his upcoming visit in August a “basketball diplomacy tour,” suggesting that his method is in full effect and will revolutionize diplomatic relationship with international “loose cannon,” the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

However, Rodman’s comments – followed by his visit, not in August, but instead in September – precipitated doubts about his basketball diplomacy. Rodman’s response to the reporters in Beijing before crossing over to the North perplexed those who had hoped for a different answer. When asked about discussing Bae’s release with Kim Jong-un, Rodman commented, “I’m not going to talk about that,” and added, “Guess what? That’s not my job to ask about Kenneth Bae. Ask Obama about that. Ask Hillary Clinton.” These comments seemed to uncover Rodman’s guise of a “diplomatic” attitude.

Some still remained hopeful, however. Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr., a civil rights and religious activist, tweeted, “Congrads [sic] @dennisrodman on your diplomacy efforts in North Korea. It might be dark but you are a light!” This was deleted and replaced by, “… ping pong diplomacy worked in China, and Basketball seems to work in North Korea. #KeepHopeAlive”, referring to the method used in the early 1970s by Nixon’s administration to open up and build ties with the People’s Republic of China.

Kudos to Reverend Jackson for digging out a similar negotiation strategy from the past, but there’s a “minor” error in his comparison of the two: when Tim Boggan, the American ping-pong champ, and the rest of the team visited the PRC, they represented the United State of America and cooperated with the U.S. government to advance U.S.-PRC relations.

Unlike Boggan, when Dennis Rodman visited North Korea again on January 9, 2014, he’d become “BFFs” (best friends forever), with the young North Korean leader, the friendship struck when the two sat next to each other watching a basketball exhibition in Pyongyang in February 2013.

But when asked, Rodman had no interest of resolving Bae’s internment. Even worse, he sided with the North and brashly asked the press if they knew what Bae had done, implying that maybe Bae deserved his sentence. In turn, the U.S. responded to his actions by stating that Rodman was not a representative; Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who visited North Korea, followed up with this criticism and said Rodman’s comments “crossed the line.”

Rodman’s comments confirmed that as far as opinions on Bae’s captivity or Kim Jong-un go, he and the U.S. aren’t on the same page. He defended his visit: it was about opening “the door a little bit”, and indeed, taking the steps gradually may be the key. However, this January’s trip was his fourth to North Korea, and every time, he seems to be buddying up to Kim at the expense of becoming an enemy of the States. He’s no longer working towards “basketball diplomacy”, but rather, too busy entertaining Kim for the leader’s birthday.

Despite what many had hoped for, it appears that a leopard can’t change his spots. Rodman failed his own self-appointed diplomatic mission, his nation, and those who truly work for democracy and transparency.

Weekend Quickie: What’s in My Browser Cache

The Mao mango cult of 1068 and the rise of China’s working class. (Collectors Weekly)

Taiwan ex-colonel gets life term for spying for China. (Al Jazeera)

When I was young, one of my father’s closest friends was “Major” – that was it. Of the age and the upbringing – then and now – to call everyone male, Chinese, and older than me by “Uncle”, I nevertheless questioned his name. He’d left Taiwan with his two young children in a hurry, with barely anything else; he returned to the country, under some compelled circumstances, about 15 years ago. I always hope I’ve never read about him.

So what’s in a name? Everything, and nothing. “Conversely, children with Asian-sounding names (also measured by birth-record frequency) were met with higher expectations, and were more frequently placed in gifted programs”. (New Yorker )

Chen Guangiao is the greatest man in the country continent world room, self-proclaimed. (Business Insider)

(Photo: Adam Taylor/Business Insider)

BMW’s China-only deal: buy a Rolls-Royce, get a chauffeur lesson (for your driver, not you, of course!) for free. (Bloomberg Businessweek)

China’s “Tragedy of the Commons”

“Tragedy of the commons”, primarily an economic term that describes the phenomena of overused common resources, has become the drama in the everyday life of Chinese people. Public facilities like parks, libraries, and transportation, poorly maintained and regulated, are excessively exploited. Here are some typical scenes in China:

“Rush hour” at bus stations and subways

For many Chinese people living in big cities, fighting for seats – or even a space for one’s body – is a routine part of their life

A traffic jam to rival the notorious Los Angeles lanes

A dance in the square (广场舞)

The activity you see in the picture is called 广场舞, or “dance in the square”, which literally means a bunch of people dancing in a public square. “Though not artistically designed, this activity is quite popular among middle-aged women in China: indeed, such exercise is good for their health, though it’s definitely not the only option for exercising. However, these dancers take up a large public area, and the music they play is always loud and noisy.

In my hometown, I could barely walk in a nearby park without stepping on someone’s feet after the nightfall, because there were sometimes over four hundred people moving around in a space no more than 1,000 square meters (10,784 sq ft, or about the size of a baseball diamond). Due to the music and other noise, I needed to shout to my friend in order for her to hear me.

In my city’s public library, there was a study room. In China, from June to August is the period when many college students and graduates study for the civil service examination (a test used to select government officials) and the postgraduate entrance exam (think of it like the Chinese GRE). Yet, most of their dorm rooms or apartments are unbearably hot at this time of the year. As a result, the air-conditioned study room becomes highly desirable.

Last year, I witnessed the Rumble in the Library: by 8:00 o’clock in the morning, a large group had already thronged outside the gates of the library. A few guards stood inside the gates, keeping a keen eye on these people. Once the gates opened at 8:30 a.m., the group, some men in suits and some women in high heels, wrestling about and pushing aside their neighbors, stormed upstairs to the study room. I was dumbstruck by their valor and energy.

At the door of the room, there was a second line of security. A guard dragged a desk to block the door and let in only a limited number of people. Arms akimbo, he yelled to those of us who swarmed outside the door: “You, don’t push! If I ever see anyone sneaking in, I will kick that person out of the room!”

Inevitably, a large portion of those who successfully got in were young men, because they were physically advantageous. Once they’d secured a seat, these men sat down with a relieved sigh, fanning themselves with their papers and books. Not hurrying to their original purpose, they took their time, and with amusement, instead studied the crowd outside, as if they themselves hadn’t been one of the anxious, pushy mass a minute ago.

Other reading rooms in the library wouldn’t let people in to study. Each room had a staff standing at the door, checking the readers’ personal belongings: they weren’t allowed to bring in any of their own books, and they could only read newspapers or books offered in the room. In the end, I had to sit on the stairs and read my own book. It was even cooler on the stairs, though, compared to the air-conditioned rooms pack with bodies.

Excepting the problem of “moral rust” that exacerbates in the competition of common resources, I can see from my personal experience that this chaos also invited bullying by the library staff. Despite the intentions of the controversial “one child” policy, China’s population remains a large number. The amount of public facilities, on the contrary, is far from enough. Both factors compound the competition of common resources in China: the ideas of rule and morality evaporate in the face of scarce public resources and overwhelming needs.

Chinese Scholars and the Dream of a Second Child

In 2011, I met Dr. Yuan in Boston. He was a visiting scholar from Shanghai, China and worked at the Boston General Hospital’s clinic. His wife was in her sixth month of pregnancy; at that time, they already had a 9-year-old son.

Doctor Yuan said he was pretty lucky: during their second month in the U.S., his wife became pregnant. Their baby would be an American, born during their length of stay in the States; they wouldn’t have expected this– a second child– if they were in China.

In comparison, Zhiqi Cai, who was teaching in South China University of Technology, was fired recently for allegedly breaching the one-child policy. Cai and his wife’s first child, now a 6-year-old girl, was born when he was a Post-Doctorate candidate at Ohio State University, in 2007. As the child was an American citizen, Cai assumed it would be legitimate to have a second child in China– their first in the country– since his family hadn’t “met” China’s one-child quota.

Cai’s second child was born in Tianjin, in northern China. Later, a whistle-blower exposed the family, and Cai received a notice from his place of employment (the South China University of Technology) that he was in violation of the one-child policy and would be fired according to Guangdong’s family planning regulations. Mainland Chinese scholars aren’t supposed to have a child during their one-year study period in the United States; or, to Cai’s situation, despite whatever other citizenship his first child held, he wasn’t “allowed” another Chinese-citizenship child.

Cai is starting a lawsuit against the University’s Office of Family Planning. To illustrate the difficulty faced by Chinese academics, Tingbing Cao, the head of the Department of Chemistry at Renmin University, who’d conducted research at Harvard University from 2002 to 2005, jumped to his death from the ninth floor of a campus building in March after being threatened with dismissal for having a second child. His colleague, Jianxin Li, a Beijing University professor, attributed his death to extreme pressures brought on by his colleagues’ accusations on Weibo of having another child.

Under such circumstances, if Dr. Yuan wanted to back to China, he’d be fired for violating the three-decades long family planning policy, even though the easing of the policy is just around the corner.

Dr. Yuan is lucky: he’d already found a job in Boston, and he said he would quit teaching in China.

For many scholars with short study periods in the U.S. or abroad, it’s tempting (and risky) to flout the one-child policy. After overseas studies, these academics tend to enjoy higher reputation and better employment prospects. Adding to that a freer social environment, a more convenient passport, better social welfare systems, and modern education– many of them choose to take the risk. Sometimes, this means possibly losing almost everything back in China and starting from scratch.

Dr. Yuan told me, “I’m not doing anything good for myself here; I’m doing something good for my kids.” His nine-year-old son was standing by his mom. He showed her his first award: ranking number one in the class, in English.

Plastic Surgery in South Korea: The Same Face Epidemic

Sitting on the floor of my uncle’s house in Seoul, I watched with a mixture of horror and fascination as a young woman came out on the television screen. She had undergone extensive plastic surgery on the South Korean show, 렛미인 (Let 美人), a reality program where regular people (usually women) receive free plastic surgery by agreeing to have their lives featured on TV.

I was watching the climax of the show, the big reveal where the participant came out and shocked viewers with her dramatic makeover. This girl had almost every plastic surgery procedure possible done on herself: a nose job, double-eyelid surgery, a forehead implant, jaw reduction surgery, etc. When her family members came out to see her, they couldn’t recognize her at all.

“Her mother and brother can’t even tell who she is anymore. Why would she change herself so much?” I exclaimed, in Korean.

“Isn’t it worth it, being beautiful?” replied my uncle.

At this, I had no response because as a woman, of course I could sympathize with the girl I saw on the screen, crying tears of joy over her new appearance. I myself put on makeup and try to dress nicely every day because I also want to be seen as beautiful and care about others’ perceptions of me. But looking at this young woman’s before and after pictures, I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable and even a little sad because while her former appearance was not like that of a model or a celebrity, she was not ugly or deformed like how others seemed to make her out to be.

I found myself unable to smile and clap for her like the audience members in the show were doing. She had undergone intense cosmetic surgery and major facial reconstruction, despite the fact that she had no real physical abnormalities and despite potential risks like facial paralysis, infection, lifelong pain, or worse, death.

And for what? All to be considered beautiful.

In South Korea, a lot of women and men don’t hesitate to go to extreme lengths to change their looks (like this girl on the show) because in a society where your appearance determines how others treat you, whether or not you get that high-paying job, or who you end up marrying, beauty becomes a sort of social power. Due to the strength of this social power in the country, South Korea has the highest rate of plastic surgery per capita in the world.

But Koreans aren’t using plastic surgery to pursue unique, individualistic appearances; rather, they attain the same ideal look: a small face with big eyes, a slim jawline, and a thin, high-set nose, all features that are more common amongst “white” Americans and Europeans but less common amongst Koreans.

If everyone pursues the same standards of beauty, their appearances inevitably become the same as well. Who could forget the uproar that Miss Korea (a South Korean beauty pageant) contestants created this year as their strikingly similar profile pictures went viral on the internet? There’s even a .GIF, highlighting how each woman’s face looks like the one before her.

With the popularity of plastic surgery, Seoul has become a city of cookie-cutter faces, since everyone goes under the knife to achieve exactly the same look. Gangnam (yes, of “Gangnam Style” fame), one of Seoul’s most affluent neighborhoods, is crammed with plastic surgery clinics, so much so that Koreans jokingly say that in Gangnam, everyone’s faces are identical.

If this “same face” epidemic continues, the statement “Asians all look alike” may very well transition from an ill-founded stereotype to a valid observation.

Letter from the Editors: Happy Holidays from Jane and Audrey

Good morning, dear readers!

We’re using December 25th as the placeholder to celebrate this wonderful time of the year in much of the world: family, friends, food, part deux if you were in the U.S. and were here for Thanksgiving. In fact, please refer here and replace the appropriate sentiments with mostly parallel sentiments, because to reiterate is too cheesy, and, as we know, most Asians tend to be lactose-intolerant.

If you’re not around for Thanksgiving, we want to wish you a very Merry Christmas, or happy holidays, or very simply a happy Wednesday.

This is one of Audrey’s favorite clip — don’t examine too much into this — film. Back to a time when moxie could potentially avert disasters and LiLo pre-desperation (i.e., The Canyon).

Saturday Quickie: What’s in My Browser Cache

In which we collect news and stories of interest from the internet, so you can sit on the couch and pretend to “work” on your laptop versus cleaning up or helping out in the kitchen. Wait, that’s me.

AAPI(ish)

In China, bird flu is back in the news. (Voice of America)

For a local’s take, TWP covered it here.

San Francisco had a day of air quality worse than Beijing, and then everyone was all like, APPLES AND ORANGES. (SFist)

Murder on the Roof of the World: My Travels Along the China-Pakistan Border (The Atlantic)

Writer Li Chenpeng praises Taiwanese democracy, sees trees for forest? (Li’s Sina blog, in Chinese)

And beyond

15 scary, beautiful scenes of skeletons (Salon)

This seemed to be a very social-services focused week for me: The Invisible Child (The New York Times), which will win something for sure, and The Welfare Queen (Slate)

Lose more time in the Wiki wormhole with the Wikipedia Advent Calendar. (Noah Veltman)