Getting small change in Beijing is a constant and irritating challenge. Restaurants, taxis, convenience stores – pay with a 100RMB note (not much in today’s cities) and you will often be met with cries for something smaller.
Cab drivers have always despised splitting your hundred – but more recently i’ve noticed several restaurants refusing to split a few notes to help distribute change amongst a group. The usual excuse (“we don’t have change”) is most likely a lie and if you persist you’ll be amazed that change is suddenly produced from ‘out of nowhere’.
I’ve found this a lot at up market restaurants – and it’s amazing the lack of desire they even have to maintain a good image with good service. After spending 1000RMB on a meal, the least they could do is help your group with some small change.
If you ever find yourself with the same problem – insist to look at their till. I’d guess that 95% of the time they do have change to give you.
I’ve never heard of it, but BBC news reported on Shizuishan (石嘴山), apparently China’s most polluted city, now blacklisted by the government.
What struck me about this report is not so much the content but yet more attempts by the Chinese government to cover up foreign media reporting. The BBC crew were subsequently questioned by police and denounced by local communist officials for reporting this ’sensitive topic’ – albeit simply a matter of pollution, and that much of the top polluters in the city are still operating (despite supposedly being shut down). Yet again the Chinese government fail to see that despite censorship, the western media will get the news they want: only with interference it makes the Chinese look pathetic, and the censorship itself draws attention amongst foreign viewers. It’s simply counter productive on both counts: it does not allow the media to seek genuine change and improvement in China where issues count, and it does nothing to improve the image of China externally.
Again, the west will see the news regardless, only with the added pathetic-ness of the attempted censorship.
The widely reported wielding of umbrellas in Tiananmen square during the 20th anniversary of was equally amusing – if not plainly embarrassing.
When will they learn.
As was announced throughout much of the international and local media yesterday, Wu Bangguo (吴邦国), chairman of the Standing Committee of the NPC, reiterated China’s position that it has no intention of becoming a multiparty democracy with separation of powers.
As quoted in the China Daily, Mr. Wu was reported to comment: “We will not have multi-party rule, or the separation of legislative, executive, or legal powers”. He called on deputies to maintain the “correct political orientation”. In other words: continue to do what they say. I suppose such an announcement is not entirely surprising: China has hardly made much progress in this regard anyways.
The SCMP takes a harsher view. It claims that “China will not have an independant judiciary. Elections will still have mostly government-approved candidates on the ballot”.
The statements are likely a renewed response to continued calls from the west for more political reform in China. To be fair, such a hard line answer should shut up critics who clung onto hope; and on the other hand western criticism (or even understanding) of China is often harsh and misrepresented. What surprises me about Wu’s comment was it’s brashness: to say now that China will never become something else politically would be as bold a statement as to attempt weather prediction for half a century later. Between now and then, anything can happen.
I do believe that China is opening up and will achieve it’s ultimate goal of a fair and just system with some semblance of a western style democracy. For that matter I think Wu Bangguo is wrong: China will some day have an independant judiciary and acceptable separation of powers. The question is when.
Meanwhile the west needs to understand that change will be gradual, that achievement takes time. People’s thoughts in China are not fully aligned and that’s not to say the west have it right. Afterall the China Daily does note that deputies to the NPC are broadly representative unlike western parliaments which can often also be one sided. China cannot be considered a dictatorship now by any definition of the word. Although the top job is not by mandate of the people, there is neither a personality cult nor absolute power to do whatever is wanted – no doubt to the disappointment of many in the West who still want to believe (and complain) that China is an evil empire run by a madman.
Although the merits of a Chinese vs. Western style democracy is certainly worthy of its own debate, I nonetheless still find Wu’s comments as somewhat drastic, if not childish.