• [024]  Chinese Communist Party Membership (10/09/2007)  (Eastday.com)  The number of Communist Party of China (CPC) members had reached 73.36 million by the end of June, an increase of 6.42 million over 2002, according to the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee.  Since 2002, when the 16th National Congress of the CPC was held, the CPC has welcomed 13.16 million new members, according to the statistics.
   
  Let us work through the arithmetic.  In 2002, there were 73.36 - 6.42 = 66.94 million CPC members.  By 2007, there were 73.36 million of which 13.16 were new members.  That means there were 73.36 - 13.16 = 60.20 million old members who were there in 2002.  Therefore, 66.94 - 60.20 = 6.74 million old members are no longer members today.  There are many reasons: death, resignation, lapsed membership, expulsion for disciplinary reasons, etc.
   
  Of these, an independent source has shown that the number of resignations is 26,996,214 as of today.
  
   
  Oh, wait, the arithmetic does not work ... nevermind ... 

• [023]  Project Gotham Racing Championship (10/09/2007)  (Apple Daily)  At the World Cyber Games, D2C-BURBERRYqq (aka Liu You-chen) of Taiwan finished in third place for Project Gotham Racing.  At the award ceremony, Liu unfurled a Republic of China flag and was showed with invectives from the mainland Chinese contingent: "Fuck your mother!"  "Was his mother a bitch dog?"  "What kind of trash flag is that?"  "You are not Chinese!"  "Do you know that this will result us being banned from the competition!"  That last statement is perplexing, but the rumor was that the mainland Chinese competitiors were told that if they could not successfully prevent the Taiwanese competitiors from showing the ROC flag, the Chinese government will ban them from further participation in international cybergame competitions.
   
  

• [021]  Hong Kong By The Numbers (10/09/2007)  (HKU POP)  (1,008 persons interviewed on October 2-4, 2007).
   
  How necessary are the following top priority items in the Policy Address of the Hong Kong SAR Chief Executive's Policy Address?
   
  Education:
  60%: Very necessary
  30%: Quite necessary
   
  Labour and employment:
  61%: Very necessary
  29%: Quite necessary
   
  Social welfare:
  50%: Very necessary
  35%: Quite necessary
   
  Economic development:
  46%: Very necessary
  36%: Quite necessary
   
  Political development:
  36%: Very necessary
  34%: Quite necessary

佢咁勇，真係為佢擔心 我估佢有以下幾個下場： A 收律師信，刪POST B 收律師信，被告誹謗 C 「無端端」身體受傷 D 時運高，乜事都冇

Translation:

He is so brave that I am really worried about him.

My guess is that there are the following outcomes:

A. He receives a letter from a lawyer, and he deletes the post
B. He receives a letter from a lawyer, and he is sued for libel
C. He suffers bodily harm 'inexplicably'
D. He gets lucky, and nothing happens to him

Bets so far:
- 100 on C
- 1000 on D
- 100 on C
- 100 on C
- 100 on C
- bet on ABD
...
 
In my judgment, options A and B are unlikely because this website is registered and hosted overseas and the post is merely repeating published information from elsewhere.  For example, I cited FEER's Travellers' Tales which quoted from Martin Booth's “The Dragon Syndicates: The Global Phenomenon of the Triads” (Caroll & Graf, 2000).  It would seem more logical to sue FEER and Martin Booth/Caroll&Graf than me.  If option C were to happen (even if I were stupid enough to step in a pothole in the street on my own and bump my head), it would be an unmitigated PR disaster and an international cause célèbre.  If option D were to happen, it would have nothing to do with luck.
 
P.S. To the folks at HK Golden Forum: Thanks for caring -- I am a frequent visitor to your forum because I want to know what REAL people REALLY think.

On the morning of October 7, the two Wah Yan schools held a walkathon to raise number.  Hong Kong SAR Chief Executive Donald Tsang is an alumnus and he held the opening ceremony.  After 'walking' for 5 minutes, he and his wife boarded the Chief Executive's vehicle and left.  On the afternoon of October 7, the democrats held an umbrella march.  Former Chief Secretary Anson Chan also participated by holding up an umbrella as well as talking part in the march.  After 'walking' for about 20 minutes, she suddenly left the parade.  Under the collective stares of the media, she walked into a hair salon opposite Sogo Department Store in Causeway Bay to get her hair done.  When the government official Donald Tsang showed up to hold the open ceremony, the organizers felt honored.  When Mrs. Chan who has the support of the pan-democrats to enter the Legco by-election left in the middle of the march, some democrats were displeased.

Yeung Sum of the Democratic Party publicly defended Mrs. Anson, saying that she had already done a lot for the umbrella ceremony and she had to leave early to handle some personal matter.  Therefore, the public should be fair to her.  But many pan-democrats were perplexed by her peculiar behavior, including some who grumbled privately.  For the sake of unity, the mainstream democrats did not publicly criticize her.  Their judgment was that the unexpected hairstyling for Mrs. Chan is a "public relations disaster."

They said that the economy is roaring alone and society is stable.  The 5,000 plus citizens who held up the umbrellas in the hot weather yesterday are the die-hard supporters of the democrats who were willing to show their support at a time when the whole city is indifferent to universal suffrage in 2012.  On one side, the democrats were screaming at the top of their voices: "We must not give up half way.  No matter how hard it is, we must march to Government Headquarters."  On the other side, Mrs. Chan left the parade after walking for twenty minutes and entered a hair salon like a rich lady to get her hair done.  How should those supporters think?

One pan-democrat admits that Mrs. Chan lacks any sense of electioneering.  Her unwise behavior yesterday must surely disappoint the supporters of the democrats.

Related Video Link:  陳方安生普選遊行  YouTube

[in translation]

Uwants is one of the most popular discussion forums in Hong Kong, and it provides multiple bulletin boards such as mobile telephony, academia, current affairs and commentary.  Uwants claims that it has 2.8 million members with more than 500,000 visitors per day.

Yesterday Oriental Press Group Limited sued the Hong Kong forum Uwants Company Limited for libel.  At the same time, Oriental Press Group Limited demanded Uwants to disclose the name, ID number, telephone number, IP address and other personal information of the user known as 'TheOne88.'  In its lawsuit, Oriental Press Group Limited pointed out that malicious information had been posted at four of the discussion forums at Uwants last Saturday (September 29).  It asks the court to impose damages as well as issue a ban against the defendant and any other connected persons from making similar speeches that hurt the Oriental Press Group Limited.

This news item is drawing a lot of comments at the various discussion forums, although most commentators do not know what "TheOne88" had actually posted because Uwants has removed those posts.  Of course, the Google cache has a long memory and here it is in Chinese:

1970年代香港有三大潮州幫海洛因大亨，分別是綽號「白粉馬」的馬惜如、他弟弟「金馬」馬惜珍，以及綽號「跛豪」的吳錫豪。

馬惜珍在香港，負責收白粉、洗黑錢，再把賺來的錢投資在一般貿易公司,  1969年，他又創辦「東方報業集團」，旗下主要報紙即是極力親台的中文東方日報，後來發展成為全港第一大報。報紙除了用作洗黑錢外, 又作毒品消息通傳.

到了1978年，香港警方得到美國緝毒局、國際刑警組織以中央情報局的協助逮捕馬惜珍,  罪名是「經營香港殖民地前所未有的最大販毒組合」。可是，挺神 祕的，他們統統得到交保候傳的裁決。1978年07月，馬惜珍儘管護照已遭扣押，也持續受到警方嚴密監視，卻能逃離香港到台北。他倆到了台灣之後，當局以 「持用假文件非法入境」為由予以逮捕，判處一年有期徒刑。其實這只是形式。

馬惜珍從1978年起就定居台灣，運用洗錢過的犯罪所得開了好幾家合法公司。馬惜珍的合法事業，在香港和全世界繼續發達。這些事業包括在歐洲、北美洲和澳 洲的商業不動產；根據《星期日泰晤士報》一位調查記者的報導，他們在英國的財產極多，在倫敦市中心金融區和西敏區擁有一整排的辦公大樓。東方報業集團是他們事業成就最顯著的一個實例。現在這是遠東最大的報業集團之一，由馬惜珍的兒子馬承坤主持。馬承坤躋身香港最有錢的富豪行列，影響力極大，...

There are four links to photographs.  Three of the photographs are copies of the front page of a Hong Kong newspaper, and the fourth photograph is the typical photograph of the police bringing in a suspect.

Is this libel?  From reading the material that "TheOne88" re-posted, this seems to be the standard stuff that has been circulated on the Internet for a long time, as listed below.

I have not translated the above from Chinese into English, because virtually the same thing can be found at FEER's Travellers' Tales.  I like FEER's version even better because of the additional part at the end:

A judge in Guangdong has warned that the triads are on the rise, and are worsening the environment for children. Mainland media cite the usual culprits, including foreign infiltration and, wonder of wonders, sex and violence on TV. Of course, the triads are a home-grown menace, and both the KMT and the Communist Party have made use of them when it suited their purposes. What kind of damage can the triads cause? The late Martin Booth, who lived almost his entire life in Hong Kong and whose mother worked undercover for the police, wrote a fascinating book, “The Dragon Syndicates: The Global Phenomenon of the Triads” (Caroll & Graf, 2000). He analyzed the growth of the heroin trade in great detail, including the crucial role of the Ma family, which continues to play a prominent role in Hong Kong through its Oriental Daily Group:

“There were three principal Teochiu Triad heroin dealers in the 1970s: Ma Sik-yu (White Powder Ma), his younger brother Ma Sik-chun (Golden Ma) and Ng Sik-ho (Limpy Ho)….

“Ma Sik-yu started trafficking narcotics in 1967. He knew the way to succeed was not to be a middle-man but to get in on the trade at source and control it from production to distribution. He travelled to the Golden Triange to set up a purchasing agreement with Kuomintang general Li Wen-huan, who was hiding out in the jungle, ready to strike at Communist China and paying his troops by selling heroin….

“Brother Sik-chun remained in Hong Kong, where he received the heroin, laundered the income and invested the proceeds in general and commodity trading companies, commercial property, cinemas, restaurants and bars. In addition, in 1969, he founded the Oriental Press Group, the flagship publication of which was the blatantly pro-Taiwanese Oriental Daily News, one of Hong Kong’s most popular daily newspapers. He moved in society circles as a respectable businessman and took part in a number of high-profile philanthropic activities….

“Interest in the Mas grew until, in 1976, the Hong Kong police had no alternative but to target them specifically. A task force was set up with sixty officers dedicated to nothing else. They were assisted by the DEA, Interpol and, ironically, the CIA, which had now changed direction somewhat in its attitude towards Asian narcotics trafficking. They were ready to pounce when, in February 1977, Ma Sik-yu was tipped off and fled, predictably, to Taiwan….

“Ma Sik-chun and Woon-yin were not so fleet. They were arrested with seven lesser fry and charged with operating the largest narcotics syndicate ever known in the colony, but, inexplicably, they were released on bail…. The Far Eastern Economic Review reported on 6 October that the Ma brothers had been spotted on 18 September in a Taipei restaurant, dining with two former Hong Kong police officers…. The whole business had barely affect the Mas, who simply shifted their operation to Taiwan….

“The Oriental Press Group is the most obvious of their successful companies. Now the biggest newspaper publisher in the Far East, the company is headed by Ma Ching-kwan, Ma Sik-chun’s son. One of the wealthiest men in Hong Kong, where multimillionaires are 10 cents a pair, Ma Ching-kwan wields considerable influence which reaches well outside the former British territory.”

The Ma family denies all the drug and triad allegations, which have never been proven in court, for obvious reasons. Ma Ching-kwan gave heavily to the Tory Party to secure a pardon for his father before the handover. When this didn’t work, he demanded his money back. Inflicting maximum damage, the Oriental Daily News itself dished the dirt on the influence-peddling, which it said went through the office of the last Governor Chris Patten, a charge Mr. Patten denied.

Here are some of the other Internet news reports:

Tory Scandal: An Oriental family tale of drugs, corruption and exile  Steve Boggan, The Independent  January 20, 1998.

The two Ma brothers fled drug-trafficking charges in Hong Kong. Ma Sik-yo died in exile in Taiwan; Ma Sik-chun, who is said to have given the Tories pounds 1m, does not dare return home, even though his son is one of the richest men in the world. Steve Boggan follows the thread of a web tangled by corrupt police, politicians, the media and the colonial authorities.

Ma Sik-chun, 59, the alleged pounds 1m donor to the Conservative Party, fled from Hong Kong in 1978 while on bail facing charges of heroin and opium trafficking on a huge scale.

Today, his son, Ma Ching-kwan (CK Ma), is one of the richest men in the world, a billionaire at the head of a respectable publishing and property empire. Yet he is powerless in the face of the warrant that will greet Ma senior should he risk returning to Hong Kong from his exile in Taiwan.

In 1991, Ma senior's brother, Ma Sik-yu, better known in Hong Kong as "White Powder Ma" died in Taiwan at the end of a lonely exile. He, too, was a fugitive from heroin-trafficking charges and it is his fate that CK Ma fears may now await his father.

Ma Sik-yu had escaped the clutches of the police after being tipped off in 1977. Ma Sik-chun was not so lucky. He remained in Hong Kong and was picked up by the police, along with four alleged accomplices. At the time, the police narcotics bureau boasted that they had smashed the largest drug syndicate ever to operate in Hong Kong.

Ma Sik-chun faced charges of opium trafficking and heroin dealing on a breathtaking scale. The principal witness against him was Ng Sik-ho, a notorious triad and drug trafficker, better known as "Limpy Ho". Like the Ma brothers, he became the subject of a lurid film supposedly detailing his activities.

Police corruption was still rife in the Seventies and police involvement in the narcotics trade was extensive. A trial could well have caused embarrassment among the so-called law enforcers. Ma Sik-chun was granted bail and the following month, despite supposedly being under round-the-clock police surveillance, he slipped out of Hong Kong aboard a small boat and made for Taiwan. On arrival he was promptly arrested for illegal entry but freed in less than a year.

Taiwan has no extradition treaty with Hong Kong and is the home of many of the corrupt officers who escaped the big crackdown on police corruption in the Eighties. Mr Ma still lives in Taipei, and cannot leave if he wishes to avoid arrest. He has suffered some serious health problems but maintains business activities and is closely in touch with affairs in Hong Kong. Under Hong Kong law he remains a fugitive from justice. The charges filed almost two decades ago have not been withdrawn.

Meanwhile, the Ma family's publishing empire has grown and the flagship company, the Oriental Press Group, is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

Ma Sik-chun's eldest son, Ma Ching-kwan, has been active in cultivating relations with major political leaders. Among those with whom he has been associated are former United States presidents George Bush and Ronald Reagan and the former Australian prime minister Paul Keating.

The extraordinary allegations made in yesterday's edition of the Oriental Daily News came after days of lengthy reports in the newspaper alleging harassment and a co-ordinated effort to undermine and damage the Ma family and its newspaper business. These reports make a wide number of allegations against the former colonial authorities, in particular Chris Patten, then governor of Hong Kong, and his senior officials.

The Oriental Press Group started running the articles after it failed to win an appeal in Hong Kong's High Court concerning a dispute with its bitter rival, the Apple Daily. The appeal judge Mr Justice Godfrey was then subject to sustained abuse in the paper and put under 24-hour "surveillance" by a team of Oriental Daily News reporters, to teach him a lesson. This action evoked a storm of protest from journalistic and legal organisations in Hong Kong. These protests were cited as evidence of the conspiracy against the Oriental group. It is the largest newspaper publisher in Hong Kong and has substantial property interests in Britain.

Yesterday, when asked whether it had been wise for the Conservative Party to accept money from the Ma family, Mr Patten said: "That is a question you will have to put to Conservative Central Office."

Asked whether he would have accepted donations from the family when he was party chairman, he replied: "That is a hypothetical question, and good politicians never answer hypothetical questions."

Jonathan Mirsky, "Family wealth has origins in drugs trade", The London Times, January 21, 1998.

"THE Ma family has become enormously rich from publishing and likes to be seen in the company of world statesmen. Mr Ma Ching-kwan, who until two years ago was chairman of the board of the family firm, lunched with John Major when he was Prime Minister. In 1994, during the launch of his English-language newspaper, Eastern Express, videos were shown on a vast screen of Ronald Reagan and George Bush wishing Mr Ma well.

"But the origins of the family fortune are so deeply connected to international drug-dealing that Mr Ma's late uncle Ma Sik-yu, who died in 1991 on the run from the Hong Kong police, is still known as Ma Baifen, "white powder Ma". Mr Ma's father, Ma Sik-chun, still lives in exile in Taiwan, to which he fled in 1977, just ahead of the Hong Kong drugs police - with the help of accomplices in the colonial force.

"The brothers had originally come to Hong Kong from Shanghai, and plunged into the heroin trade which in the postwar colony was extensive and entangled with the police.

"The Mas expanded into restaurants and fishing and soon founded the Oriental Press Group publishers, the parent company of the Oriental Daily News , which has been printing the allegations about large donations to the Tories.

"It was in 1977, acting on a police tip, that Ma Sik-yu fled to Australia to evade drug-trafficking charges in Hong Kong. In the same year, his brother Sik-chun was bailed on a heroin-trafficking charge but sailed away in the dead of night to Taiwan, where he was joined by Sik-yu.

"In 1996 Ma lawyers approached the Hong Kong Government to discover if Sik-chun could return to the colony. This was two years after the alleged Pounds 1 million donation to the Tories and it was the Hong Kong authority's insistence that if Mr Ma returned he would face arrest which resulted in the April 1997 demand, described in the Oriental Daily News, that the Tories return the gift."

Media: The Sun rises in the east - and sets off a price war    Stephen Vines, The Independent    March 16, 1999

The Oriental Daily News made its name from crime reporting and retains an enormous stable of reporters who cruise around Hong Kong in cars ready to rush to crime scenes, sometimes arriving before the police.

It may be thought that the paper's interest in crime is somewhat inappropriate considering that Ma Sik-chun, its principal founder, is a fugitive from justice living in Taiwan where he escaped after fleeing from Hong Kong's biggest ever drug trafficking conspiracy trial.

The Ma family are very well known in Hong Kong but only came to the attention of the British public a year ago when they used the Oriental Daily to publicise a demand for the Conservative Party to return a pounds 1m donation made by the Mas in June 1994 "in exchange for a personal matter". According to the Ma family, "this matter was not dealt with" and so they were publicly demanding the money back.

(Mother Jones)  Chinese Junk.  By Rob Schultheis.  Feb/Mar 1982.

(New York Times)  Hong Kong Donor to Tories Now Wants $1.7 Million Returned    Edward A. Gargan, January 25, 1998.

The family that owns Hong Kong's largest-selling Chinese-language newspaper says that it paid Britain's Conservative Party $1.7 million for ''certain commitments,'' but now wants its money back. The paper, The Oriental Daily, has run full-page accounts, with cartoons, menus from 10 Downing Street, a copy of a letter to the Conservative Party discussing the donation and a receipt from the Conservative Party treasurer for $1.7 million.

The paper, through its owner, Ma Ching-kwan, is demanding its money back because, his letter to Brian Mawhinney, chairman of the Conservative Party, says, ''there appears to be no satisfactory outcome to the explicit expectations of my family.'' What is left unsaid is that Mr. Ma's father, Ma Sik-chun, is accused of being one of Asia's biggest drug lords and fled from Hong Kong in 1978 after being charged in a huge trafficking case. He pleaded not guilty, but then fled before a trial.  The year before, in 1977, the elder Mr. Ma's brother, Ma Sik-yu, known widely in Hong Kong as ''White Powder Ma,'' also fled to Taiwan as the police were closing in on him in a drug case. At the time it was said that Ma Sik-yu was tipped off by a corrupt police officer so he could flee before being arrested.

The account that is emerging, albeit in skewed pieces, seems to show an attempt to go through the Conservative Party to get the British Prime Minister at the time, John Major, to make it possible for Ma Sik-chun to return to Hong Kong without fear of arrest. The younger Mr. Ma has not denied that that was the goal. In a statement to the London newspaper The Independent, a spokesman for the Tories denied that any donation was received from the younger Mr. Ma with conditions attached. But the spokesman did not deny that the donation was made. ''We categorically say that the Conservative Party did not or would not accept donations conditional on favors,'' the unnamed spokesman was quoted as saying in The Independent on Tuesday.

What is clear is that Ma Ching-kwan, whose name appears on a receipt from the Conservative Party Treasurer, No. A10885, knew Mr. Major. Not only did the paper print a quarter-page picture of Mr. Ma with Mr. Major, it also included a reproduction of a menu from a dinner at 10 Downing Street held on Sept. 27, 1994, an assemblage of documents apparently intended to show a level of familiarity between the men. The 8 o'clock dinner, the menu showed, proceeded from cucumber and tarragon soup, through roast loin of lamb, to caramelized lemon tarts with fruit compote. The meal came three months after Mr. Ma wrote a check for $1.7 million to the Tories.

The letter from Mr. Ma demanding the return of his contribution is dated April 1, 1997, just as the British general election was getting underway and Mr. Major's party was widely -- and correctly -- seen as heading for a colossal defeat. ''In light of present circumstances,'' Ma Ching-kwan wrote, ''and the publications made over the recent past within the British press concerning the background of certain members of my family and the bona fides of the source of the family's wealth you may consider it appropriate for my family as well as for the well-being of your party in the forthcoming general election to return the sum of this particular contribution.''

The reply from the Tories made no mention of the donation and said his letter would be given ''the amount of attention it deserves'' as soon as possible.

"Was 'White Powder Ma' a secret agent?", South China Morning Post, January 10, 1993.

"Believed to be the biggest drug baron in the territory during the 1960s and early 1970s, Ma Sik-yu, who died in Taiwan late last year a fugitive from Hongkong justice, may also have been an agent for Taiwan and the US. Chris Dobson reports. [...]

“For more than 15 years the Narcotics Bureau tried to bring the man who was perhaps Hongkong's greatest heroin baron to justice. That battle ended on November 16 last year, when he died of heart and kidney failure in Taiwan. But Ma left behind a mystery: was he an agent for the United States and Taiwan, passing on intelligence about China?

“According to a number of reports, former US president Mr Ronald Reagan sent a letter of condolence to Ma and his younger brother, Ma Sik-chun, on the death of their mother early last year.

“The same sources said outgoing US President and former ambassador to Beijing Mr George Bush also sent a letter of condolence, as did representatives of the British and Australian governments. Mr Bush was also head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the late 1970s.

“The brothers' contacts in the Golden Triangle, an area covering parts of Thailand, Burma and Laos, would almost certainly have had access to intelligence about the military and political situation in Indochina and southern China at the height of the Vietnam War and the Cultural Revolution. [...]

“Ma Sik-yu, a contemporary of Limpy Ho [Ng Sik-ho], was believed to have been the largest importer of morphine and opium from the Golden Triangle to Hongkong in the late 1960s and early 1970s and to have amassed a multi-million-dollar empire in the process. […]

“Ma's group was considered by underworld figures to be more powerful than Limpy Ho's, which was estimated at 1,000-strong. [..]

“A number of narcotics officers believe he "retired" from the drug trade some years ago, but Superintendent Braithwaite suspected he kept his underworld links and could have used them over the last 15 years as Taiwan became an increasing important hub in international trafficking.[…]

In <The Politics of Heroin>, McCoy cites an article in the now defunct Hongkong Star newspaper based on US Drug Enforcement Administration sources which claimed Ma Sik-yu "was deeply involved with a network that spied on China for Taiwan".

“The article claimed the "spy network" was active in both Hongkong and the Golden Triangle and the information was dispatched to Taipei.

“McCoy writes: 'Most important to their ability to avoid prolonged imprisonment was the Ma brothers' alleged involvement with the Taiwan intelligence operations against the People's Republic of China.'

Relevant Links:  Hong Kong SAR Court of First Instance, Action 2140 of 2008; Hong Kong SAR Court of First Instance, Action 0597 of 2009.

• [016]  Du Cheng-sheng Battles Typhoon Krosa (10/07/2007)  (Apple Daily, TVBS)  Typhoon Krosa blasts Taiwan and President Chen Shui-bian leads his cabinet to hear the status reports at the emergency command center.  Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng stole the limelight by an exhibition of napping on the job.
  
   
  It is often said that the democracy in Taiwan shall serve as a model for China.  The question in this lesson is: Could photographs of a napping Minister of Education of China ever appear in the mainland media?

• [015]  Taiwan Joins ... Nation? (10/07/2007)  (TVBS)  For the national day celebration on October 10, the words "Taiwan joins the United Nations" were posted outside the Presidential Office tower.  Typhoon Krosa swept through northern Taiwan and took away the words for "United."  This left "Taiwan Joins ... Nation."
   
  

• [013]  How To Get A Good Report Card (10/07/2007)  How do Chinese government officials get good report cards for their accomplishments?  On one hand, there are monument-building on a grand scale as shown in Luxurious Government Office Buildings in China.  That will bring a lot of attention, not of which are good.  On the other hand, there is the opposite tactic.
   
  (Daqi)  The CCTV program <News Investigation> named the Wuhan city party committee office building and the city government office building as positive models to emulate.
   
  The party committee office building was built in 1952 with an expected lifetime of 50 years.  It has five stories with an average of 9 square meters of office space per person.  The party disciplinary committee and the political and law department have their offices in the basement.  The city party commmittee's publicity department and the party organization department work in an old residential apartment behind the back.  Earlier this year, maintenance work was performed to reinforce the building structure after the building was observed to be sinking into the ground in some places.
  
   
  By comparison, the nine-story Wuhan city government building is sparkling modern as it was built in 1985.  The average office space per person is around 12 square meters.  The city mayor and deputy mayors get as much as 25 square meters per person with 13 square meters for their secretaries.  In 2002, the city government received permission to erect a new government office building with a budget of 120 million yuan, but this was deferred due to frugality.  During the past four years, Wuhan city has 10 billion yuan more in revenues while investing 35 billion in social infrastructure (such as the 150 million yuan Hankou Liberation Park, which is right next to the Wuhan city party committee office building)
  
   
  Who gets a better report card?

• [009]  Lord Duck Is Dead (10/04/2007)  (TVBS)  TVBS reports that Chen Chi-li (陳啟禮), a prominent figure of the United Bamboo gang in Taiwan, had passed away at 9:15pm on October 4 in Hong Kong.  Chen was born in 1943 in China and moved with his family to Taiwan in 1949.  At age 17, he formed the United Bamboo gang with friends.  There were five factions within the United Bamboo gang, and Chen Chi-li was with the "ducks."  Hence, his nickname was "Lord Duck 鴨霸子."
  
   
  The ESWN blogger has never met Chen Chi-li or any of his gang associates in his life.  Nevertheless, the ESWN blogger has a deep understanding of Chen Chi-li and his gang at a level that will be barred from the outsiders -- he knows how these people talk and act.  This is because the ESWN blogger worked once upon a time as a translator for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the US of A (see Translation and its Discontents), and his job was to transcribe taped conversations among the Bamboo United gang members.  The ESWN blogger did this for a couple of years on a full-time basis.  Therefore, the ESWN blogger can recognize the individual voices of Chen Chi-li (aka "The Duck Lord"), Chang An-lo (aka "White Wolf"), Chen Chih-yi (aka "Yellow Bird") and others even though he has no idea what they look like.
   
  The United Bamboo gang came to the attention of the FBI through the shooting death of the American-Chinese writer Henry Liu on October 15, 1984 in Daly City, a suburb of San Francisco.  Liu had just completed a biography critical of Taiwan president Chiang Ching-kuo and he reportedly has a manuscript of the man who had an extramarital affair with Madame Soong Mei-long.  The head of the Military Intelligence Agency of the Taiwanese Defense Ministry, Vice Admiral Weng Hsi-ling ordered Chen Chi-li and two United Bamboo gangsters Wu Tun and Tung Kuei-sen to carry out the execution of Henry Liu.
   
  When the FBI figured out the United Bamboo connection in the murder of Henry Liu, they conducted an undercover operation against the gang in the United States and rounded up the gang members for a separate charge of conspiracy to import heroin into the United States.  This was the case that the ESWN heard on the surveillance tapes, which also included the re-capitulations of the case of the murder of Henry Liu.
   
  Chen Chi-li was not swept up in the American case, but he was caught and sentenced to life in prison in Taiwan for his role in the murder of Henry Liu.  He was paroled/pardonned in 1991 and went to Cambodia.
   
  In 1994, Chen Chi-li was quoted as saying: 我既然是來歷練人生，我怎麼會後悔，我就只是覺得人生很短，歷練不足、不夠！(translation: I came here to gain experience, so how could I have any regrets?  I only feel that life is too short and I don't have enough time to gain experience).
   
  The ESWN blogger feels that he knows Chen Chi-li very well, in that he could tell and predict the turns of phrases.  But nevertheless, the ESWN blogger does not feel that he knows Chen Chi-li at all.  For example, it was explained that the United Bamboo gang was formed by a bunch of teenage students who were born on the mainland, oppressed by local Taiwanese people and got together to defend themselves.  The ESWN blogger has no means to determining the veracity of this piece of romanticism.  This is perhaps the reason why Chen Chi-li experienced so many ups and downs in his life, because he could not separate ruthless pragmatisim from the romanticism of the brotherhood of gangsters.  At every turn, he took rhetoric for truth and was betrayed/disappointed, but he never changed/adapted.
   
  P.S. This was strange.  The time of death of Chen Chi-li was 9:15pm on October 4 and the place of death was St. Teresa's Hospital.  At that very moment, I was at the Intensive Care Unit of St. Teresa's Hospital for other reasons, but never saw Chen and his family.  He must have passed away in his room.

• [008]  A Political Slogan in Taiwan (10/04/2007)  (Wenxue City)  In the Chinese language, the most commonly used curse is 他媽的 which literally means "His mother's."  As such, it is unclear.  It is actually the abbreviation of "Fuck his mother's cunt" but it is considered impolite to use "fuck" and "cunt."
   
  Now how would anyone dare to invoke this term in a political slogan?  This is possible only because 媽 (mother) is homonym of 馬 (the family name of KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou).  In the city of Kaohsiung, there is this 15-meter-tall slogan with the words: 他馬的，就是愛台灣。 (Ma, he just loves Taiwan).
  
  The explanation for the advertisement: "Over the years, certain people accuse others of loving Taiwan as if it is their sole right to love Taiwan.  The four hundred years of Taiwan history, good or bad, were created by the inhabitants of Taiwan.  They share the collective memories and everybody loves Taiwan.  Perhaps "Ma, he just loves Taiwan" will have resonance among the people of Kaohsiung."

• [006]  The Service Workers' Complaint Website (10/03/2007)  In this week's EastWeek magazine, there is a four-page profile of this blogger (see 藏住张爱玲最后的真相：宋以朗).
  
   
  On the fourth page, there is a photograph of the blogger being served tea by the receptionist at a local restaurant. 
  
   
  After the receptionist saw the article, she made a request: "Why don't you start a website for people in the service trade?  Any number of newspapers and magazines publish customer complaints about lousy service.  But there is no place for service workers to complain about lousy customers.  I think that you should start a website for us to complain about lousy customers!"

• [005]  Top Military Secrets For Sale In Taiwan At NT$3 Per Kilogram (10/02/2007)  (Apple Daily)  In Taiwan, following a tip from a retired military officer, Apple Daily began to station reporters at the Ministry of Defense building since September 4.  On the afternoon of September 11 and September 27, they observed a military sedan carrying large plastic bags with books, newspapers, magazines and shredded paper heading to a recycler.
  
  On the occasion of September 27, the reporter offered to buy the two plastic bags from the recycler after the military sedan left.  The recycler weighed the two bags and then asked for NT$40 for the 14.6 kilograms (at a rate of less than NT$ 3 per kilogram).
  
  Back at the office, the reporters discovered about several hundreds of thousands of small paper strips about 0.04 cm in width and 3 to 4 cm in length in the two bags.  The reporter took out some paper strips near the top of one of the bags and spent six hours re-assembling them.
  
  After six hours, the four reporters found that they had on their hands six types of documents: (1) those that refer to Chinese Communist naval and air movements as well as missiles; (2) air force readiness exercises; (3) movements of American carrier task forces; (4) official memos addressed to the Chief of Staff; (5) the travel of itinerary of the Chief of Staff; (6) contact telephone numbers for the aides to the Chief of Staff.
  
  The tipster had said that this practice has been going on for years.  The soldiers have been selling the newspapers and shredded paper to buy beer.  Under the law, if the soldiers knew that the documents were supposed to be destroyed but still allowed them to go out, they face a prison term of 3 to 10 years; if the soldiers were profiting improperly through the sale of state property, they face a prison term of 5 years or more.

• [004]  ISO 3166 (10/02/2007)  (China Times)  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Taiwan has filed suit in Geneva against the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) with respect to the ISO 3166-1.  Specifically, the existing term TW is "Taiwan, Province of China."  Previously, many international organizations and private companies have referred to "Taiwan, Province of China."  When the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Taiwan asked for corrections, the excuse was that everybody was adhering to the international standard in ISO 3166.  So the actionable item was to file suit against the ISO and force a revision of ISO 3166.
   
  So what do they want to be known as?  The suit was filed by "Republic of China (Taiwan)" and that is what the correction will be for.

• [002]  Website Self-Inspection To Insure Harmony (10/01/2007)  网站不良信息在线检查系统 is the "online system to detect harmful website information" which is available through the URL http://www.macdown.com/check/check.php?site=XXX.com, where XXX.com is the URL of the target website (such as people.com.cn or xinhua.org).  If you run this, you will receive a list of harmful keywords on the target website.  The following is the list for this website.  This is surprisingly short because everything at The List of Filtered Items should have been 'illegal.'
   
  
   
  
  Here is a partial list of 'harmful terms' from above: brainwashing, dictatorship, Communist Party, Taiwan independence, riot, distubance, student strike, Chai Ling, FLG, self-immolation, evil cult, Xinjiang independence, fellatio, anus, meat stick, sexual intercourse, defloration (of a virgin).