There is a whole thread about this very subject over in the lounge.

Thanks, thursdaysd, now I understand. I guess I should just pay closer attention to things posted on a travel board. So, the sign didn't say that literally. The actual sign text has been distilled into a sound bite. The meaning certainly is the same.

btw, I am not anti-Chinese, just anti- Communist Party. Let me know when they allow free press and I might change my mind.

<i>&quot; [Neil]&gt; one quarter of humanity has been brought from a position of endemic famine,

{Peter}Context is everything. Despite many years of war and civil war, the Party nevertheless managed to drive the economy even further into the ground than it was when they took it over, and then when it showed signs of recovery to twice drive it back down with collectivisation and the Cultural Revolution. During both periods not only did millions starve, but cannibalism became commonplace in some rural areas (in addition to the 'revenge cannibalism' of the CR).&quot;</i>

The general tone of your first post is like the above excerpt - that the &quot;Party&quot; can do nothing right and so, by implication, China would have been better off without the Chinese Communists.

Nothing implied, you say? You imply throughout not just the first post but also the second that the Chinese Communists are the ones who have harmed China, that they have done nothing redeeming nor good, and that China would have been better off without them.

So, what would China without the Chinese Communists have been like? A China without the Chinese Communists would have been a continuation of the situation which existed before the Communist takeover of the country - the kind of situation described in my previous post. That's the historical fact: a very corrupt KMT puppet government fueled with foreign,mainly American, &quot;foreign aid&quot; money; at least two different sets of laws, one for the Chinese and one for the exempt foreigners; a sham &quot;democracy&quot; - hey! just look at Iraq and you'll see what China would have become without the Chinese Communists, only worse.

I'm not here to debate who's more xenophobic, you or me, but this statement of yours is really shocking and took my breathe away: <i>&quot;Furthermore, while the recreational consumption of opiates may horrify us today (although very widespread), at the time that foreign powers were bringing better quality opium to China, more powerful products still were available over the counter for the asking in Britain, for instance; including a potent mix of opium and alcohol called laudanum which was in common use, and Turkish opium actually sold to the UK by American dealers.</i>

Right, because the British were bringing better quality opium into China (at the point of a gun - yes, I know, the British want to rename the Opium Wars a much more neutral sounding &quot;The First Sino-British War&quot; etc), because the British were forcefully having the Chinese accept a better quality opium, massive drug dealing on the part of the British was justified. Ahahaha! Why, I do believe that the implication is that the Chinese should be grateful to the British for bringing a &quot;better quality&quot; opium!

I'm certain that you know that Chinese Communists combatted the massive addiction problem by forcing the addicts to go cold turkey, often in a prison cell. I'm also quite certain that the only thing you will take away from this is how cruel the Chinese Communists were by placing addicts in prison instead of offering them rehab programs. China was too poor and devastated at the end of a long civil war to offer any kind of rehab program - but you certainly wouldn't want to take this fact into consideration in your long litany of excoriation of the CCP.

Oh, and on the KMT, why tippy toe around their brutality? Why not just come out and state the extent of their brutality towards the native Taiwanese? When fleeing mainland China to Taiwan, the KMT killed and imprisoned anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000 native Taiwanese. These were not just the little guy on the street, these were the civic leaders, like the mayors of the towns, so that in one stroke the native Taiwanese leadership was eliminated, allowing the KMT to consolidate its power on Taiwan. If the native Taiwanese were to have their way, they don't want to be part of Communist China nor of Nationalist China and possibly most of all, not a colony of American imperialism.

Are you tiptoing around the brutality and heartlessness of the KMT because your claim is that the CCP shouldn't be in charge of china and that China would have been better off under the KMT? As the KMT history on Taiwan has shown your theory is erroneous and unfounded.

I can't believe that a lifelong anti-Communist like myself has to defend the CCP against British interpretations. How bitter the British were when they had to return Hong Kong to China!

But, no fear, your distorted and contorted postings will find rich soil, especially among those who are China-bashers and Communist haters.

thursdayed: Although I like the Lonely Planet series, I wouldn't use it for checking out historical accuracies. If you really want to know about modern china, might I suggest reading the May 2008 copy of the National Geographic Magazine? A lot of pretty factual and interesting articles on China in that issue.

... the police-state tactics used by the Greek authorities in 2004, which predictably seem to have gone went uncriticised.

Obviously, the Greeks didn't go totally uncriticized - o'neill's article does that. I read that articl, or most of it, and think it is a joke. The IWF is a UK organization where citizens can report on illegal internet content. Somehow, &quot;a vast government-funded wall&quot; in China blocking internet content from a billion+ equates to a parent turning on the porn-blocking software on their home computer (at the parent's option). Can't believe anybody would take that article seriously.

To see what I actually said, rather than what it's said I said, see the my two earlier postings. Thursdaysd also makes an important point about logic.

LP is indeed a very unreliable source of history (and not notably reliable for much else, either). Its China book did after all use to say that the Mongol Yuan dynasty was the only time China was ruled by foreigners, and did so for no fewer than six editions before this was finally put right.

For a full discussion of the sign, what is actually known about it, and the invention of the phrase in question, see Wasserstrom's paper, available here as a pdf:

http://www.polonews.info/documenti_o...g_shanghai.pdf

Peter N-H

Really, I did re-read what you wrote. I see that the 1903 rules excluded dogs but did allow Chinese into the park, as long as they were &quot;servants in attendance upon foreigners&quot; (that is, as long as they were on a leash).

No point in discussing that further because if I didn't get the point by now then I never will.

I do have a question about one poster's statement: &quot;Yes, of course, better that millions of Chinese die at the hands of the Japanese invaders than by the hand of their own countrymen, the Chinese Communists - much better.&quot;

Was that meant literally? That it IS better that Chinese are murdered by Japanese instead of being murdered by Chinese? Or the opposite: that it is better that the Chinese be murdered by their own government? We can't ask the murdered people.

&gt; Really, I did re-read what you wrote.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. That remark was directed elsewhere.

&gt; I see that the 1903 rules excluded dogs but did allow Chinese into the park, as long as they were &quot;servants in attendance upon foreigners&quot; (that is, as long as they were on a leash).

Ho ho.

Indeed, and there were other circumstances under which Chinese were allowed in at other times, and all restrictions anyway vanished in 1928 with the introduction of an entrance fee.

The claim that there was a sign that baldly said 'No dogs or Chinese' is made to unite Chinese behind the Party in hatred of foreign colonialism by suggesting that all foreigners deliberately, insultingly, and publicly equated Chinese to dogs. There is no interest in the fact that such a sign did not exist, only in the effect of making everyone believe it did. And this is not uncharacteristic of Party-approved historical accounts.

Merely for context, and not in any sense to suggest that it was right to keep the Chinese out even using the most flowery language (not that any of us need feel responsible for the actions of people a century ago, oddly enough), let's note that the Chinese who were complaining probably wanted themselves but not those they considered the lower classes to be allowed in; and that these same people considered themselves infinitely superior to foreigners and routinely referred to them as barbarians. They also used the dog radical in characters naming some of their own ethnic minorities.

It might also be added that comprehensive segregation by race enforced by signs in very direct language survived in certain countries until the middle of the 20th century.

None of which excuses the Shanghai expats of the time, of course, whatever their nationality. But some remark about casting the first stone comes to mind...

Peter N-H

To anyone who missed it for whatever reason, the Olympics were awesome. Think Cirque du Soleil of sports on a most massive scale. I think China should use the bird's nest as a theater and keep the show running.

I enjoyed the competitions but skipped the ceremonies.

The sound bite version of the sign is going to win out every time over a 25 page scholarly analysis (that pdf file). The sound bite can be repeated loudly and often - perfect propaganda.

The age restrictions on the gymnasts are unfair. Half the girls born are eliminated from doing their best in the olympics. Those are the ones who turn 14 and 15 in an olympics year. By the time they are eligible for an olympics they will be 18 or 19 - over the hill. It was right for the Communist government to falsify the girls' passports considering that the olympics were being held in their own country. It allowed them to use their best athletes in their Games.

So it was ok for the Chinese to cheat because the Olympics were held in their own country?????

&quot;It was right for the Communist government to falsify &quot; - did I actually read that???

Binthair -- To the west of Tiananmen Square on the south side of Changan Avenue across from Zhongnanhai (the Party's headquarters)is a newly completed french designed National Grand Theatre that almost rivals the Bird Nest. the shining glass and titanium structure is dubbed The Egg, it's surrounded by a big artificial lake and theatre goers enter through tunnels. I was taken around it before it was completed and was very impressed. It's one of the stops on recent group travel tours.

Oh, I forgot to mention The Egg has HVAC(heating, ventillation and air con).

Shanghainese: The National Grand is quite a structure. You were lucky to get the tour, I only got to see the underwater entrance as far as the metal detectors! I had our driver take the long way home one day to drive by the CCTV tower which was another item on my architectural wish list. There were quite a few other buildings I snapped photos of that I found interesting in Beijing. And Shanghai, especially Pudong, is amazing. The skyscrapers here in Houston seemed so much smaller when I returned home!

Sorry, thought I'd run that up the flag pole and see if anyone salutes. I would not have been surprised.

But that has to be their (the commies) thinking. I'm just wondering what their attitude is. Is it just arrogance, they knew they would get away with it?

I just keep thinking about a quote from the gymnastics coach who said that &quot;the Chinese government and the athletes must be respected&quot;. Saw that quote in (as &quot;he added&quot and out (as &quot;he warned&quot of context.

The Bird's Nest is amazing and the Chinese should be proud of the Olympics. But I'd give credit to the Chinese capitalists for that because I don't respect the government.

Having the games in China was surely a good thing for the Chinese. After being on the world stage it makes it harder for the government to turn back the clock.

&gt; After being on the world stage it makes it harder for the government to turn back the clock.

This was also irony?

1.5 million people shifted willy-nilly from their homes; clamp-downs on dissidents; tightened restrictions on media (despite promises to the contrary); wannabe protesters locked up or forcibly returned to their home cities just for applying to protest (despite promises to the contrary); non-residents expelled; those who criticise the Olympics arrested; businesses and factories closed down with staff left unpaid; restrictions on visas; and electricity and water diverted to the capital leading to power cuts, drought, and the destruction of crops and farmland in neighbouring provinces.

All of this took place while China was 'on the world stage', and next to nothing was said about it. Likely some here, without contesting the facts, will still describe mentioning these problems as 'China bashing'.

It seems the government can and does turn back the clock any time it likes, even during the Olympics, and will continue to do so whenever it feels the need.

[None of these remarks should be construed as expressing any opinion about the KMT, the British empire, alternatives to the Party, or the existence of the man in the moon. Amazing as it may seem, it's apparently necessary to point this out.]

Peter N-H

Binthair -- I didn't get an inside tour, only a drive around the exterior like you. My DS, who went on an inside tour, told me they have renamed it the National Centre for Performing Arts.

Please look me up when you visit SF, I'm a skyscraper buff.