Home Is Where The Heart Dwells

“Blind Shaft” is a modern fable of greed, murder and innocence in the illegal coal mines of Northern China. It is a powerful portrait of terrible working practices and a corrupt society. Not surprisingly, it has won a number of international awards and is banned in China now.

See the trailer on http://www.moviemail-online.co.uk/scripts/media_view.pl?type=Trailers&trailer_ID=171&id=13400&popup=

or simply google “Blind Shaft” + traler.

Comments of the recent news on trapped workers:

http://news.sina.com.cn/z/sxzykn/index.shtml (in Chinese)

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/Asia/China_Mine_Flood.html (English)

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,196553,00.html (English)

(Pictures are from Xinhua net) 

Crews are still searching for 57 coal miners trapped by an underground flood. It has been 9 days since it happened. Residents began to lose hope for a rescue. Several issues attract people’s attention. The first one is the poor working condition for Chinese coal miners. The risk had been there for long before it happened. The private contractors of the mineral omitted it for the cost of making it safe was high. The governmental agency with the responsibility to check the risk did not or did not want to require the contractors to meet the national standard for a safe working condition. The second one is the deception by the private contractors. They tried to report a much lower number of the coal miners trapped. He claimed 5 in stead of 57 on the first day. It was soon found by the central government officials and then made public. The third one is the corruption behind the tragedy. The reason that they could deceive the public is that several local officials helped to hide the truth. One of the officials charged by deception is the major contractor’s brother. 

Among many reasons that lead to this tragedy, the right to have an association is a major one.  Mineral Workers, the sufferers of the tragedy, do not have their own union. They need a union of them, by them and for them. But they do not have one. The existed labors’ union is a governmental controlled one. It serves primarily the government’s interest other than the workers. And the rigid control of individuals’ right to have an association has prevented them from having one. 

My friend Emily gave me a list of films before she left for NY this morning. I hope I can enjoy some of them during the summer.

(L means a film about Law, and * means good.)

1. The Paper Chase L
2. Chariots of Fire *
3. Frequency *
4. The Firm L
5. The Rainmaker L&*
6. Memphis belle *
7. The Pelican Brief L
8. Monsters Inc.
9. John Q
10. Choclate

Quote from “On the Use and Abuse of History for Life”

Observe the herd which is grazing beside you. It does not know what yesterday or today is. It springs around, eats, rests, digests, jumps up again, and so from morning to night and from day to day, with its likes and dislikes closely tied to the peg of the moment, and thus neither melancholy nor weary. To witness this is hard for man, because he boasts to himself that his human race is better than the beast and yet looks with jealousy at its happiness. For he wishes only to live like the beast, neither weary nor amid pains, and he wants it in vain, because he does not will it as the animal does. One day the man demands of the beast: “Why do you not talk to me about your happiness and only gaze at me?” The beast wants to answer, too, and say: “That comes about because I always immediately forget what I wanted to say.” But by then the beast has already forgotten this reply and remains silent, so that the man wonders on once more.

But he also wonders about himself, that he is not able to learn to forget and that he always hangs onto past things. No matter how far or how fast he runs, this chain runs with him. It is something amazing: the moment, in one sudden motion there, in one sudden motion gone, before nothing, afterwards nothing, nevertheless comes back again as a ghost and disturbs the tranquility of each later moment. A leaf is continuously released from the roll of time, falls out, flutters away—and suddenly flutters back again into the man’s lap. For the man says, “I remember,” and envies the beast, which immediately forgets and sees each moment really perish, sink back in cloud and night, and vanish forever.

The best way to prevent censorship!  

(http://sicknick.org/pictures/nov-5-03-kowsar.jpg)

Comments on a blogger’s review of Chinese self-censorship:

http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2006/04/20/what-is-self-censorship/

One may wonder why Chinese bloggers write under strict censorship. Actually the censorship is not so strict, because the administrative capability of the government is little compared the huge number of websites and the bloggers today. However, Chinese government maitains censorship effciently despite the lack of caliber.

Such censorship  works even out of the phiscal border of CCP China. Wang Yi, a dissenter of Chinese government, once criticized some oversea Chinese for their pussyfoot. They declined Wang’s proposition to discuss Chinese politics. For those who did attend his lecture, they did not appreciate his talking on some sensitive issues. It seems that the censorship is no less intense in oversea Chinese community.

How do Chinese government maitain such intense censorship? The secret is to imply, promote, coerce, enforce self-censorship.

The administrative may use competition, franchise or punishment to achieve this goal. One of my friends,  an editor in a famous Chinese press, told me the governing organ simply awarded those who complied their rules well. But the reaction of the numerous publishing institute was to try their best to comply those rules of censorship. Thus the self-censorship was established in this industry.

With the well-established and deep-rooted self-censorship, one courageous liberalist may meet press both from government and from his/her collegues, friends or family members. The reason is simple. One’s rebellious action may cause trouble, and therefore their interests may be effected by such action. As Chinese are taught to care for others’ interest, he/she has to compromise. Hence in most cases such action is defeated not by the government, but by other ordinary people. With time passing by, routines are formed and justified, so is the self-censorship.  Remember 1984? What makes life miserable and hopeless is the inter-censorship. When it lasts long enough, it becomes self-censorship.

Competition Law in China:The Proposed Anti-Monopoly Statute
May 23, 2006/9:30 am – Noon /Harvard Law School
Main Presentation: Professor Wang Xiaoye
Professor of Law and Director of the Economic Law Department, Institute of Law, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; visiting at Chicago-Kent College of Law, 2005-2006

Discussants
Professor Gary H. Jefferson:Carl Marks Professor of International Trade and Finance, and Chair of the Economics Department, Brandeis University
Professor David J. Gerber:Distinguished Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Program in International and Comparative Law, Chicago-Kent College of Law
Professor Sungjoon Cho:Assistant Professor of Law, Chicago-Kent College of Law

Workshop Convenor: Professor William P. Alford

Henry L. Stimson Professor of Law
Vice Dean for the Graduate Program and International Legal Studies
Director of East Asian Legal Studies

This morning Professor Wang Xiaoye, a CASS scholar and the principle advisor of government in anti-trust law, gave a speech in East Asia Legal Study Center with three US professors on Chinese anti-trust legislation.

With fluent English, Professor Wang discussed with other professors as well as audiance the policy concerns and her reading of the latest draft. Over all her opinions were quite liberal. She reckoned the market standard as legal criteria for regulation. In other words, she fully embraced the idea that regulation power should be applied only when the market needs. However, she also admitted that the anti-trust laws, which the liberalists hated most, hardly contributed to breaking the administrative monopoly.

Professor Jefferson evaluated the importance of the legislation as 5 in a 0-10 spectrum. His major argument was that Chinese companies are far from an optimistic scale. There were other concerns he mentioned that migh also underscore the importance, such as the governmental ownership and Chinese companies’ inability in IP competition, which is another form of monopoly but legal.

Professor Gerber’s reading of the legislation was critical. Having noticed several open-ended clauses in the draft, he generalized them as a “socialist market” or “Chinese uniqueness” issue. (I left for a while and did not have a full picture of his comments. )

Professor Cho talked about his observation from the perspective of trade. Ironically, although China was pushed by the US and WTO to facilitate more or less foreign companies’ competence, China did so on her own initiative in the name of fighting back mutinational companies (at lease as an offcial position).

After their discussion, Professor Alford opened the forum to the audience. Demacracy issue was raised by a Chinese LL.M student. Wang replied that this law in the long run definately would facilitate political democracy. I asked whether a fair reading of the anti-administrative-monoply clause (article 6 of the latest draft) would impede the price-fixing of taxi companies in Beijing. Wang expressed a pessimistice view about it. Professor Shen insightfully commented the current legislation fitted to the traditional model of dual-track regime, which reminded me painfully that there is still nothing new under the sun.

Courage is a virtue that Greek consider indispensible for the life. Socrates taught people that courage is the knowledge of good and evil generally, after diferentiating it from military courage and animal’s ignorant act of violence.(Plato, Laches, or Courage)

However, it could be the reverse. The knowledge of good and evil might only be aquired through courage. Wittgenstein, a legendary figure in philosophy, once tried to write a confession, though he’s not a Catholic or Protestant. He insisted his friends read it. Rush Rhees commented that Wittgenstein thought he had been performing for himslef in a character that was not genuine. His self-deception was not because his lack of wisdom, but lack of the will.He could not become clear by intellectual examination and argument with himself, but only by doing something he found diffficult, something that needed courage–such as writing out a confession to show his friends; or by doing something which brought him troubles which he hoped would do him some good; or in the war by trying to be placed in situations where his life was constantly in danger. (Rush Rhees, Postscript)

One issue that Wittgenstein has challenged Plato is whether the knowledge brings with virtue. Modern philosophers have found the seperation of knowledge and life. Or to put it in another way, knowledge in the modern society has left life alone.

Finally I could relax, after a whole year of hard working.

I was cleaning up the room, throwing away papers that had been in my hard disck, and preparing for moving out.

This room is lovely. I think I am going to miss it.

After a year of living and studying here, I begin to have a feeling of home. Indeed home is where the heart dwells. My heart rejoices when critical thoughts flash both in class and table talk, perspectives are shared by many brilliant scholars, for whom the world is not broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls. What more could I expect?

A recent stroy from a Chinese legal blogger’s website: Li Hongfeng, a retired worker, was sentenced to one year labor reeducaiton with the alleged fact that he smashed an ashtray and broke a  window glass. He was once a protestor and visited several governmental offices. The Labor Reeducation Committee of Qiqiha’er City claimed that he committed such wrongdoing during his visit. The legal reason for the one-year sentence was his breaking of the peace.

 http://bbs.fyfz.cn/dispdetail.aspx?bbsid… (This blog site is in Chinese.)

According to a researcher, the power to send people into labor reeducation is totally controlled by the public security bureau (police station in China). There is neither effective power balance nore well-designed procedure. As in China the public security bureau is usually called by government offices to handle the protests, it tends to use labor reeducation to crackdown the protests. It actually becomes a pistol to the protestor’s head.

 http://www.usc.cuhk.edu.hk/wk_wzdetails…. (This is an on-line research paper in Chinese.)

The blogger is delegating Li Hongfeng in this case. Hopefully he is going to initiate an administrative litigation soon. But even he prevails at last, Li Hongfeng has to stay several months in jail.