Schedium

Is corporal punishment a good method for teaching children how to behave? Or is it just a way for impatient and frustrated parents to unload their negative emotions on defenceless children?  Just a few days ago I was walking on a street in Taipei and I saw a mother who kept yelling at her young daughter. Then she suddenly hit the child across the face so hard that her cheek immediately reddened. I do not know exactly why the mother was so upset, but slapping her daughter in the middle of the street and in front of everybody doesn't seem to me a good way to teach anything. Passers-by, of course, saw what happened, and some looked slightly shocked. But as this is considered a private family matter no one would have dared interfere or even show too much attention. The child will have to learn to submit. As I have explained in one of my posts, corporal punishment used to be common in East Asia and is still relatively widespread, though not as much as before. However, mild for

This morning, on the 16th days since the beginning of the Occupy Central protests, the police have gathered at the sites occupied by demostrators and are trying to remove the barricades. Apparently, the policemen are prepared to use teargas. Hong Kong police try to clear road barricades as protests enter 16th day http://t.co/CQJwLxpWay — SCMP News (@SCMP_News) October 13, 2014 Hong Kong police start clearing protest barricades: Occupy Central http://t.co/IHe3757Y9H — Reuters Top News (@Reuters) October 13, 2014

" The Chinese revolution is a key factor in the world situation and its victory is heartily anticipated by the people of every country, especially by the toiling masses of the colonial countries ," said Mao Zedong in a July 1936 interview . " When the Chinese revolution comes into full power, the masses of many colonial countries will follow the example of China and win a similar victory of their own… "  According to Mao, the Communist-led Chinese revolution was part of the " world revolution " directed against " anti-imperialist and anti-feudal " forces ( On New Democracy , January 1940). " Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin " had given the revolutionary avant-garde a weapon. " This weapon is not a machine-gun, but Marxism-Leninism ", he explained ( On the People's Democratic Dictatorship , June 1949).  Faithful to his ideology, Mao not only accepted the help and guidance of the Soviet Union, but he also helped &quo

Tiu Keng Leng (調景嶺; pinyin: Tiáojǐnglǐng) is an area in Hong Kong's Sai Kung District. Today it is a modern neighbourhood with high-rise buildings and shopping malls, but in the past it used to be a settlement of Guomindang sympathisers and supporters of the Republic of China (ROC).  Tiu Keng Leng is often called 'Rennie's Mill', after Alfred Herbert Rennie. Born in Canada in 1857, Rennie moved to Hong Kong in 1890. He found work as a clerk at the Government Public Works Department but he resigned in 1895 to start his own business. He wanted to build a flour mill, since Hong Kong imported flour from abroad at the time. He bought land at Junk Bay ( Tseung Kwan O ) and built his mill between 1905 and 1906. However, the business turned unprofitable and failed. Desperate and disillusioned, Rennie drowned himself in 1908 ( Bard 2002 , p. 234).  The Chinese-speaking population henceforth called the area 吊頸嶺 (Tiu Keng Leng, literally "hanging neck ridge").

At a press conference this evening Carrie Lam , Hong Kong's Chief Secretary, was supposed to announce the details of the talks between government representatives and student leaders which were scheduled for tomorrow. Instead, she surprisingly declared that the administration had decided to cancel the meeting altogether.  “ The talk is based on two conditions , " she said. " First the discussion must be within the framework of the decision made by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee . Second it must not be linked to the Occupy movement . Unfortunately, the protesters rejected the rational proposal and went back to their old position. " They now insist on public nomination and to abolish the decision made by the NPCSC . They also link the dialogue with the Occupy movement and even said the movement would last until the talks produce a result [they want] . This is sacrificing public good for their political demands, and is against public interes

According to The Age , an Australian newspaper, Hong Kong's Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying   received a HK$49.9 million payout from an Australian firm. Leung did not disclose the sum when he assumed office in 2012, claims the newspaper.

Over the past few years, a battle has erupted in Hong Kong over the future of the former British colony which was handed over to the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1997 and became a Special Administrative Region (SAR). According to the "One Country, Two Systems" model proposed by Deng Xiaoping, Hong Kong was to maintain a high degree of autonomy as well as the freedoms inherited by the colonial state.  According to the Basic Law  of the SAR, promulgated in 1990 by the PRC government and put into effect after the handover, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong " shall be the head of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and shall represent the Region ". He " shall be accountable to the Central People's Government and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in accordance with the provisions of this law ."  The function of Chief Executive basically replaced that of the British governor in colonial times. But while the governor was

Since September 28 at least 34 people have been detained and 60 people have been questioned by the police in mainland China for sharing images and news of Hong Kong's Occupy Central or showing support for it. As the " Umbrella Revolution " unfolded in Hong Kong, the Communist government and its media apparatus have been trying to insulate the mainland from the outside world, leading to a sharp increase of censorship activities. According to Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch (民生观察), the Hunanese activist Ou Biaofeng (欧彪峰) was arrested on October 1. A squad of Zhuzhou Internal Security Bureau broke open the door of his house while he was still in bed. They questioned him about some pictures he had posted online in which he was seen as shaving his head in support of Occupy Central (the initiators of Occupy Central had shaven their heads at the beginning of September to show their "determination to fight for true democracy"). " Because I shave

After anti-Occupy groups attacked pro-democracy protesters on Friday and Saturday, injuring several demonstrators, many wondered whether these assaults, which appeared well-organised and planned in advance, were the work of triad members . Yesterday at a press conference the Secretary for Security of Hong Kong  Lai Tung-kwok (黎棟國) confirmed that triad members were involved in the clashes.  TIME: Hong Kong Government Accused of Using Triads to Attack Student Protesters: The deputy chairman of the Ho... http://t.co/YhHViEK39S — Hong Kong Stream (@hkstream) October 4, 2014 Kwok said that the government severely condemns the violent behaviour of some individuals, and confirmed that the police had arrested 19 suspects, 8 of whom have triad links. They allegedly assaulted demonstrators during clashes in Mong Kok, a popular shopping district. According to the 'China Times', some of the thugs may have been taxi or minibus drivers with triad affiliation. 

Hong Kong protesters beaten and bloodied as thugs attack sit-in http://t.co/2XzsWnvAk6 pic.twitter.com/RKcvBSnIhV — Guardian World (@guardianworld) October 3, 2014 Yesterday was a sad day for Hong Kong. I really love this city. Every time I go there, its atmosphere and beauty, its energy and uniqueness mesmerize me. But the contradictions of the post-1997 settlement are coming to the surface now and threaten to change the ex-colony forever.   The images we have seen yesterday are shocking, and to a certain extent unexpected. I was there on the first day of Occupy Central. The tension was palpable. People seemed optimistic, but how to forget what happened in 1989? Who could know whether the leadership in Beijing would react the same way and the soldiers of the PLA would storm out of their barracks to put down the demonstrations?  However, no one expected that thugs would do the dirty job of scaring off the protesters. Yesterday, men who oppose Occupy Central attacked

Clashes have erupted between Occupy Central demonstrators and pro-Beijing groups. A woman speaking Mandarin was seen giving orders to men who attacked protesters. Are pro-Communist forces in Hong Kong using thugs to scare Occupy Central supporters? PICTURED: Disorder in Mong Kok as anti-protesters confront protesters http://t.co/RmZuwQm3I2 pic.twitter.com/PLhTJGWp8l — SCMP News (@SCMP_News) October 3, 2014 This is difficult to say and impossible to prove (that's where the cleverness of this strategy lies). However, it can be proved that Beijing has been using this kind of tactics in Taiwan, where the so-called ' White Wolf ', a former leader of a criminal syndicate, meddled in this year's Sunflower Movement protests to intimidate opponents of China-Taiwan reunification.

Wang Long, a 26-year-old Chinese activist, was arrested in Shenzhen because he posted pictures of Hong  Kong's Occupy Central on Chinese media. He was detained for " picking quarrels and provoking trouble ”. At least 3 people have been so far detained on the mainland because they posted photos of the protests in Hong Kong. Wang Long had already hit the headlines earlier this month when he sued China Unicom , a state-owned telecom provider, for denying access to Google websites and services. After the Occupy Central campaign was launched by Benny Tai on September 28, thousands of people have joined the demonstrations. The images of the protests have been shared by millions of people all over the world, but not in mainland China, where censorship has been at work to prevent the Chinese people from seeing what is really happening in Hong Kong. 

The People's Liberation Army  (PLA) is closely monitoring Hong Kong's Occupy Central (讓愛與和平佔領中環) - literally. The PLA headquarters are located on Lung Wui Road, close to Admiralty and the government offices in Tamar.    Today the South China Morning Post published a picture showing staff inside the  Chinese People's Liberation Army Forces Hong Kong Building  watching the protesters with binoculars.  Occupy Central poses the biggest challenge to Communist rule since the 1989 student protests. The democracy movement on the mainland was suppressed by the very PLA whose garrisons entered Hong Kong after British forces left the city in 1997. I had never noticed that building until last Sunday. While I was walking from Central towards Tamar, trying to return to Admiralty, I stumbled upon a group of protesters gathered in front of the PLA headquarters. The road was blocked by the police, so I couldn't walk any further. I turned around and saw the military pr

On September 26 Taiwanese President Ma Yingjiu was hit by a book hurled at him by Yan Mingwei (顏銘緯), a student activist. Ma Yingjiu  had just attended a gala organised by the International Franchise Association. According to the  Taipei Times , that day an event of the pro-independence Northern Taiwan Society was hosted in the same building. When Ma left the venue, a journalist asked him to comment on Xi Jinping's recent remark that the 'one country, two systems' model is the only way to solve the China-Taiwan issue . The activist then threw the book at the President, hitting his abdomen.  The 18-year-old Yan Mingwei is a student of sociology at Zhongshan University, and a member of Flanc Radical (基進側翼), an anti-Guomindang organisation. The President's spokesperson, Ma Weiguo (馬瑋國) said that the government accepts the people's right to express their opinions rationally, but condemns every form of violence.  At a press conference held by Flanc Radical th

A man surnamed Li (李) has to pay 30,000 RMB to compensate a woman who lost her virginity to him, decided a court in Shanghai 's Pudong District in the first case of this kind in the People's Republic of China.  In 2009, Mr Li had met a 30-year-old woman surnamed Chen (陳) through a website. At first, the two of them were just friends. On September 2013, however, they began dating, and their relationship became closer and closer. According to the woman, he pursued her and hinted at the fact that they might get married. On WeChat, they started to call each other 'husband' and 'wife' (terms used in Chinese in a different way than in the West; they denote the formation of a social relationship ranging from would-be marriage partners to patron and mistress ). They also went on a trip to Singapore together. During their stay there, they had sex. 

Few people may have heard of Montargis , a small town 110 km south of Paris , with a population of around 15,000 and an economy based on farming and light industry. But today, Montargis has made the headlines as it is the first city in Europe (and probably in the whole Western world) to have named a square after the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping .  In fact, on September 20, in an official ceremony attended by the mayor of Montargis, Jean-Pierre Door, and the vice-premier of the People's Republic of China , Liu Yandong  ( 刘延东) , the square in front of the city's railway station has been renamed "Deng Xiaoping Square."  But why has the city decided to name one of its squares (and an important one, too) after a Communist dictator? Is the town looking for Chinese investment and trying to ingratiate itself with Beijing? Are the people of Montargis fond of Communism? Or do they simply admire Deng Xiaoping, the great statesman and reformer, despite his lack o

On September 14  Xue Zhenguo (薛貞國) , a 38-year-old police detective, was beaten do death during an altercation with several members of a criminal gang near  ATT 4 FUN , a shopping mall and recreation centre in Taipei 's Xinyi District . According to ' Apple Daily ', the causes of the incident date back to September 13, when a man named Zeng Weihao (曾威豪) , his girlfriend Liu Xintong (劉芯彤), and three other people went to  SPARK , a famous nightclub inside ATT 4 FUN. Customers at a nearby table complained that the group was too loud, and a fight broke out between them. The nightclub's security intervened and forced Zeng and his friends to leave the premises. Zeng was enraged and vowed to settle the score. " We are from the Hetang *," he said, " we'll teach you a lesson ." *( 和堂 , pinyin: Hétáng, is a subgroup of the notorious Bamboo Gang , one of Taiwan's most powerful criminal syndicates) The 28-year-old Zeng Weihao immediately wen

On a day in the spring of 1852, Theodore Hamberg , a Swedish protestant missionary who had come to the British colony of Hong Kong in 1847 to spread the gospel among the people of Southern China, received an unusual and in many respects mysterious guest. One of his Chinese converts from the countryside brought with him a man named Hong Rengan (洪仁玕; pinyin: Hóng Réngān), a Hakka from Hua County (now part of Huadu District, Guangzhou), who claimed that the Qing government was chasing after him. He spoke of a heavenly prophet, of Hakka Christians whose numbers were growing, who fought against the Qing and destroyed the Chinese idols, of battles and insurrections.  To Theodore Hamberg, these stories did not make much sense, but he was fascinated by the man's narrative and by how much he knew about Christianity, although he came from a region of China with no missionary activities. He asked Hong Rengan to write down his story. Hamberg expected that his guest would stay in Hong

To Singapore with Love , a documentary film by Singaporean director Tan Pin Pin, has been banned in Singapore due to national security concerns. The film revolves around the lives of activists, student leaders and members of the communist party who fled the country between the 1960's and the 1980's in the midst of crackdowns carried out by the British colonial government and then the government of the new Republic.  The Media Development Authority (MDA) , a government agency that supervises Singapore's media, decided that the film is "not allowed for all ratings", which means that it cannot be distributed or publicly screened in Singapore.  

Two weeks ago, a 27-year-old Taiwanese woman surnamed Wu (吳)  travelled to Hong Kong, but during her stay in the city she spent all of her money, that is HK$2000 (approximately 200 Euros, or 7800 NT$).  Yesterday (September 10) her friends took her to  Kwai Hing , near Kwai Chung Road , where she basically "settled down" in the middle of the street. She took off her jeans, sitting and walking around in her panties; she washed her hair in public; she began selling what she had in her suitcase, mostly beauty products; and she offered "beauty treatment" to passers-by, charging HK$50.  Her behaviour and looks astonished the passers-by, some of whom called the police.