Personal Blog of Carl Pei

I’ve now been in China for a year, surviving on my own. This entry is a look back at what’s happened and is written both for you the reader and me, as a reminder of what has happened and what remains to be done.

I remember many years ago, when I was 6 and attended preschool in Sweden, we were doing maths. I worked and thought hard to complete my assignments quickly, while many others were struggling and held their hands up for the teacher to help them. I too help my hand up, not to ask for help, but to ask the teacher what to do now that I was done. To my great surprise, she told me to sit quietly and wait for the others. Then she left me with her stinky breath of too much coffee and cigarettes, to help someone else. I expected the teacher to praise me. All the hard work for nothing.

Throughout the entire Swedish school system, I was never motivated, always staying under the radar and not joining into class discussions unless asked by the teacher. But I was not dumb either, I always managed to get above average grades, just a cut below those who put their entire heart and soul into the schoolwork and system with minimal effort. During the last year of High School, I got very fed up with the school system. I felt underestimated by everyone, especially some teachers, who failed to recognize my abilities and compensate accordingly. Slowly, the idea of moving to China formed, and as graduation approached, I decided to go for it.

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On the 13th of March 2008 a new club called 88 opened on the Bar Street (酒吧街) here in Zhuhai, China.

Since opening, 88 has been widely popular amongst the locals, foreigners and Macau Chinese alike. To get a table at 88, one has to book several days in advance. It’s always very crowded and hard to move around in. The other clubs on the Bar Street requires no prebooking of seats and are half-empty most of the time.

What is it that makes such a place so popular? All clubs have themes, so the success can not be attributed to its steampunk decorations. The talk of the town has been that no Japanese are allowed into 88!

Upon personal inspection, I found it to be less sensationalist than that. At the entrance of the club, there is a sign prohibiting (my own translations) Imperialistic Japanese, Terrorists (Fundamental Islamists), Separatists and weapon-bearers to enter. Below follows an explanation.

• Many Chinese still hate the Japanese for invading and killing 300,000 Chinese back in WWII. Some nationalist Japanese people today still support the invasion, or as they call it, the “liberation of China”. This is what’s meant with Imperialistic Japanese. These are the people that aren’t welcome. Regular Japanese can still enter.
• China has some problems with some Hui (Muslim) Chinese. Extremists have caused violence and some are fighting to separate their region, Xinjiang, from China.
• By Seperatists they most likely are referring to some special Zang (Tibetan) people. We all know from recent news what they stand for.

China was once a strong and glorious civilization, but later weakened and faced the plundering and humiliation of by many foreign powers, something that has made the Chinese have become protective and nationalist. As China now moves into the World Stage as a key player and slowly back to its former glory, the Chinese finally have something to be proud about, and this has made them even more nationalist. The three groups mentioned above are those that currently are causing the most problems for China.

Chinese people are nationalist, and the owner of 88 used it to his advantage. The result is a fascinating example of how doing business in China is different.

I tried to get some photos, but security stopped me.

The recent Tibet unrest has been huge in Western media as of late. Western coverage (CNN, Fox, BBC, …) hasn’t merely been biased against China, but downright against China. A lot of lies and misinformation was spread. For instance, the protests were labeled as “peaceful”, when many Tibetans, even monks, were caught on tape with weapons destroying property or beating Police.

When they found this wasn’t working well for them, they then spread the false news that the Chinese Army (PLA) had set the riots up, dressing as monks. A picture was even provided as evidence, but only hours after the report that picture was also found to be fake. The photo was taken during a 1994 movie shooting. Chinese movie companies often use students or the military for low skilled acting as they are much cheaper than professional actors. Also, the PLA uniform was changed long ago, the picture showed them with the old version.

I find it funny that Western media outlets, that often speak poorly of China’s state controlled media are responsible for such a catastrophic level of journalism. Clearly, they are at least as bad as their Chinese “propaganda-spreading” counterparts.

The central government also acted with extreme caution this time, as they knew that separatist camps as well as the Western media was watching closely for any form of aggression. Despite of this, several journalists have stilled called for a 2008 Olympics Boycott, one prominent journalist even compared the 2008 Olympics to the 1936 Nazi Olympics.

On German TV, people saw videos of how Nepalese Police beat monks at the same time as reporting as reporting the Tibet unrest in China. If I was an average German citizen, I sure as hell would hate China after watching the news too. All the false, bad press about China has caused major demonstrations outside the Chinese embassies throughout the entire Western world.

After all this media hype, I decided to do some digging on my own, on the root of the problem; the Dälai Läma. My own research shows that he is a hypocrite, and has no right to (and doesn’t) advocate peace. He is sponsored by CIA. I won’t go into details as it will take up too much space. If you are interested, you can dig it up yourself. Information against him can even be collected from commercial Western media, such as the New York Times.

Despite all this, China won.

This is the information age, and as Chinese citizens now are better educated and use English more proficiently, they also learn ways to bait the media. First, a Chinese student collected photos of how Western news reports wrongly told this story. Chinese news websites quickly picked the photos up, and not long after, even Chinese old media started reporting on this. When the Chinese mainstream got to know about this, they were furious at all the lies. Even students, who often disagreed with the actions of the central government embracing Western thinking, were now fully supportive of how the government handled the situation.

China unites, and fights back. All over the internet, one could see Chinese citizens posting on English message boards in their best English trying to explain their truth. Not long after, students set up a website, Anti CNN, to show the various “lies” that the Western media used to turn the story against China. If you are interested in learning more about Tibet, or how Chinese people feel about the situation, I strongly urge you to check the website.

Also, it’s funny to note that the Chinese government has noticed that the internet can not only work against them, but in favor of them too. After years of inaccessibility from the Middle Kingdom, the BBC, which was responsible for many of the so called lies, was suddenly unblocked in the midst of chaos so that everyone in China could see how they reported. I was shocked at fist, but now believe it was a very smart move.

Maybe it’s because the Chinese people are starting to tell their versions of what’s happened, that the overall tone online has changed. Ten, or even five years ago, if something like this happened, people all over the world would agree in unison that China was evil. Now, it’s different. More and more Westerners, especially those with higher education, are not so sure about their position anymore. Some have even started to support China and condemn their own media on this matter.

The times have changed indeed.

I used to give money from time to time to beggars, but after several incidents and revelations, I will never do it again.

In China, beggars are professionals and will take measures, such as wearing dirty clothes and adding dirt to their body in order to maximize profits.

• Incident 1. A month ago, I was in the buffet section of a Macau casino offering some of the world’s best buffets. Sitting by a table was a beggar from Zhuhai whom I’ve seen numerous times on the streets looking very poor now enjoying a great meal.
• Incident 2. During the Chinese New Year celebrations we were outside setting off fireworks. A beggar, male crippled with only one arm disturbed me for a few minutes asking for money. After the fireworks, on the way home I saw the same man, wearing the same dirty clothes, but now carrying a smart citybag walking home rapidly. He now had two arms and was enjoying a cigarette after a hard days work.
• Incident 3. A friend one told me of how he was standing in the line of a bank behind a Guangzhou beggar who deposited 200,000 CNY (approx $45,000 USD) at the counter. When the beggar was walking out of the bank, my friend glanced at his bank statement which now showed more than a million CNY! A regular hardworking Chinese can’t make a million in a lifetime.
• Incident 4. Yesterday I heard a street vendor ask a beggar who was missing an arm how business was going. The beggar said, “Not bad.” Beggars see themselves as businessmen.

Another type of business model used by beggars here is to buy crippled people (normally children) and send them out to beg. At the end of the day, the owners come and pick them up and take all the money. If the cripples don’t manage to get a certain amount of money, they will be beaten or not given food.

So you see, no matter which kind of beggar you decide to give money to, it is a complete waste. If you have money to throw away, give it to some regular hard working person who needs and deserves it more.

Just today, the limitations put on my two PayPal accounts were lifted.

A PayPal limitation basically means that your account is locked to various degrees, and you have to show them evidence that you are the person behind the account. The amount of evidence depends on how limited you are. Everyone gets limited sooner or later, so it is advisable to learn as much about the process as possible.

The limitation is a security measure by PayPal to protect themselves from people using stolen / hacked credit cards that causes them to lose money. It is necessary, but also a very tedious process for their honest customers. For instance, many links inside their Resolution Center were broken and lead nowhere. Not only to protect themselves, the limitation is also a way for them to retain higher profitability, using the money of their customers to invest. I had almost $10k USD in my account which they locked for 2 weeks, which can get them around $25 USD in interest in a Swedish bank, much more if they invested more cleverly.

My personal account, which was limited once before got limited once again. This time, I had to show them bank and credit card statements together with proof of address.

My premier account, which had its limitation lifted the 25th January, was limited once again the 27th after I withdrew $1.500 USD. They wanted statements of 2 credit cards, photo ID and proof of address.

I’m not home, so I had to call home for my parents to help me gather the needed information. After many hours of frustration, a phone call to PayPal and much waiting, my accounts were finally restored today.

Lessons learned:

1. Never keep money in your PayPal account waiting for the dollar to rise. There is no perfect moment, just withdraw and forget about it.
2. Only add the credit cards and bank accounts that you currently use. Having more means you will have more to prove to them.