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The Persuader
My personal blog, started in 2006. No paid or guest posts, no link sales.
Posts tagged ‘China’
01.11.2022
Dave Troyâs analysis of the Elon Musk takeover of Twitter makes for interesting reading, since Troy has actually spoken to Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and has a bit more of the inside track than most.
For starters, Troy reminds us that Dorsey trusts Musk, in order to keep Twitter away from Wall Street investors. Dorsey has said this publicly in a Tweet. He believes this acquisition is about ideology, so Musk doesnât care if Twitter doesnât make moneyâor at least, money will come if the technology is opened up and they can charge for other things built on top of it. Getting data on all of us helps Musk in a big way, too.
Troy posits that Musk believes we need to be on other planets, so we shouldnât help the poor in our quest to get off this rock; but another interesting one is that he believes in a multipolar world order, something Vladimir Putin has talked about. Musk believes in rule by technocracy, Troy theorizes, not by politics. He also believes Musk is a sociopath.
All this is quite fascinating to read. Taking Troyâs words on Putin, Musk and Dorsey sharing the same vision:
All seem to think a âmultipolar worldâ is a good thing, because after all, shouldnât Russia get to do its thing and not be bothered by anyone else? Thatâs âfree speechâ and opposes âcancel culture,â right? So yeah, thatâs aligned with Putin. But Putin himself doesnât support free speech; his government censors wildly, but it does support speech that breaks the hegemony of the Western elites. As do Musk and friends. This is internally inconsistent.
Because of these shared values, Troy foresees Musk teaming up with D. J. Trump at Truth Social and Kanye West at Parler to control the information space.
It points to a pretty dark outcome and a polarizing world, but one which has been brewing for a long time.
We could talk about the failure of neoliberal economics and, therefore, the western hegemony. With all the figure-massaging by China when it reports its GDP, thereâs still no denying that the country has risen vastly in mere decades. And Putin has said as much about wanting to fight back against western hegemony.
Itâs incredibly easy to fall back on âthem and usâ as a concept. Dictators might find it easier to make their positions official (even if there is internal dissent that is driven underground), while the west can broadly talk about diversity while not truly breaking ranks with the neoliberal order. Our Blairite government here is positioned as such while having a social veneer (and a modicum of restraint) based on history and market positioning, while the Opposition will make things that much harder and is more blatant at wanting to do so.
I would have once said China had the potential to be an outlier, raising its educational standards and embracing Confucianism, which has its foundations in free thought and liberalism, balanced with preserving a relationship between state and subject. Perhaps with Hu and Wen things could have gone that way. Under Xi Jinping the aims have changed, and at least one China-watcher I know (who knew Xiâs father and knew of Xi from 1982) tell me that they foresaw this.
Iâm not going to make any bold predictions myself, but the world looks like a place that wonât become multipolar but bipolar, and Twitter is one tool that is going to accelerate this trendâbuilding on top of what Facebook and Google have already done by forcing users into silos. Meanwhile, Baidu et al will no doubt reflect the official positions of their governments.
Tags: 2020s, 2022, Aotearoa, Baidu, China, corruption, cult, culture, dictatorship, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, information, Jack Dorsey, Kanye West, neoliberalism, New Zealand, politics, propaganda, Russia, social media, Twitter, USA, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping
Posted in business, China, culture, globalization, internet, New Zealand, politics, technology, USA | No Comments »
08.10.2022
If you think some of us were being uppity about New Zealand Chinese Language Week, howâs this for a real-life report?
Speak Cantonese, get banned from a social media platform.
Thatâs whatâs happening in China right now. And I had already mentioned schoolchildren being told off for using their reo.
The Google Translate translation is actually pretty good for a change, if you canât read Chinese.
And here we are in New Zealand, kowtowing (derived from a Cantonese word, incidentally) to the Chinese Communist Party with its policy.
Tags: 2022, Aotearoa, China, Chinese, Chinese Communist Party, culture, Douyin, Facebook, language, New Zealand, social media, Tiktok
Posted in China, culture, internet, New Zealand, technology | No Comments »
02.10.2022
My friend Bevan was going to make a podcast in Cantonese for New Zealand Chinese Language Week, and I decided I would record a few tidbitsâexcept it wound up being something far longer and a podcast episode in its own right. So here it is, all 13-plus minutes of it. If this isn’t your language, please feel free to skip this one!
PS.: Here’s Bevan’s!
Tags: 2022, Aotearoa, China, Chinese, culture, language, New Zealand, podcast
Posted in China, culture, Hong Kong, humour, New Zealand, Wellington | No Comments »
30.09.2022
Thank you, Alexia Russell and Radio New Zealand, for giving voice to our concerns about New Zealand Chinese Language Week. You can listen to the episode of The Detail here.
As they tagged Jo (chair of the NZCLW Trust), I decided I would get in touch via Twitter reply. This also addresses one of the points she makes in her side of the story.
I realize the Reformation was way further back than 1949 but you never know. One hopes that when you explain something in the receiver’s terms, they might get you more.
Massive thanks to everyone who gave me some great talking points for this interviewâall I did was give them voice.
Tags: 2022, Aotearoa, China, Chinese, language, New Zealand, radio, Radio New Zealand, religion, Twitter
Posted in China, culture, internet, media, New Zealand | No Comments »
29.09.2022
As we come to the conclusion of New Zealand Chinese Language Week, a review about how inappropriate it was by being the very opposite of inclusive, for those who’d prefer to sit back and listen rather than read one of my blog posts.
You’ll likely catch me on RNZ’s The Detail on Friday, September 30 (PS.: uploaded this morning here). The AM Show changed its mind, so you won’t see me ‘come home to the feeling’ on TV3.
Tags: 2022, Aotearoa, Catherine Churchman, China, Chinese, Chris Tse, culture, freedom of speech, language, New Zealand, New Zealand Chinese Association, podcast, politics, racism, Red China, Richard Leung
Posted in China, culture, Hong Kong, New Zealand, politics | 2 Comments »
26.09.2022
This is why poet laureate Chris Tse is awesome.
The Tweets that follow are must-reads, too, including:
Tags: 2022, Aotearoa, arts, Auckland, China, Chinese, Chris Tse, culture, language, New Zealand, TÄmaki Makaurau, Twitter
Posted in China, culture, internet, New Zealand | No Comments »
25.09.2022
âChinese Language Weekâ has rolled around again, and if you look on Twitter, there are plenty of Chinese New Zealanders (myself included) and our allies miffed about this. And we get the usual trolls come by.
First up, itâs not Chinese Language Week. Itâs Mandarin Language Week. I have no problem with the promotion of Mandarin as long as thatâs what itâs called. But to promote it as being representative of all Chinese people here is ridiculous and encouraging randoms to come up to us with ‘ni hao’ is tiresome. Thirty-six per cent of us might be OK with it, sure. But not the rest. (To Stuffâs credit, probably because it doesn’t promote a Chinese person as a force in politics, and because it now actually has reporters of colour, this is a great opinion piece from a fellow Chinese New Zealander.)
To me, Mandarin is unintelligible with maybe the exception of five per cent of it. When I watch Mandarin TV, I can catch ‘ćąć’. If Iâm immersed in it, it might creep up to 10 per cent after a fortnight, but that’s with the context of seeing the situation in which it’s used. It isâand Iâve used this analogy beforeâlike speaking Danish to an Italian. Some Italians will get it because they’ve figured out the connections going back to proto-European, but othersâ eyes will just glaze over.
If youâre someone who claims that we appreciate a Mandarin greeting, try saying ‘ÎαληΌÎÏα’ to a Norwegian. Yeah, you’d look multilingual but weâd just think you were confusedâat best.
This is a country that supposedly apologized for the racist Poll Tax, but, as my friend Bevan points out:
And Richard said around the same time:
Some initiatives have taken place, which is awesome:
But itâs clear that we need to organize something to counter a hegemonic desire to wipe out our culture and language. This is why so many Chinese get what MÄori go through.
The first Chinese New Zealanders came from the south, and were Cantonese speakers, likely with another language or dialect from their villages. Cantonese was the principal Chinese tongue spoken here, so if thereâs to be any government funding to preserve culture, and honour those who had to pay the Poll Tax, then thatâs where efforts should goâalong with the other languages spoken by the early Chinese settlers.
The trolls have been interesting, because theyâre copying and pasting from the same one-page leaflet that their propaganda department gave them when websites opened up to comments 20 years ago.
In the 2000s, I criticized BYD for copying pretty much an entire car on this blog, when it was run on Blogger. BYD even retouched Toyotaâs publicity photosâit was that obvious. The car colour even stayed the same.
Above: The Toyota Aygo and BYD’s later publicity photo for its F1, later called the F0 when produced. The trolls didn’t like getting called out.
Either CCP or BYD trolls came by. The attack line, if I recall correctly, was that I was a sycophant for the foreigners and anti-Chinese.
No, kids, itâs anti-Chinese to think that we canât do better than copying a Toyota.
Nowadays even the mainland Chinese press will slam a car company for this level of copying. Zotye and others have had fingers pointed at them. BYDâs largely stopped doing it.
The trolls this time have been the same. The comments are so familiar, youâd think that it was coordinated. Dr Catherine Churchman pointed out that one of her trolls repeated another one verbatim.
All this points to is a lack of strength, and a lack of intelligence, on the part of the trolls, with uppity behaviour that actually doesnât exist in real life. ‘I’m so offended over something I have no comprehension over.’
The fact remains that those advocating for Cantonese, Taishanese, Hakka, Hokkien, Teochew, and all manner of Chinese languages love our Mandarin-speaking whÄnau. In many cases, we feel a kinship with them. The trolls are probably not even based here, and have no idea of the cultural issues at stake. Or the fact they already have three TV networks speaking their language.
Is it so hard for them to accept the fact some of us choose to stand up to hegemony and insensitivity, and want to honour our forebears? Are they anti-Chinese?
For further reading, Nigel Murphyâs âA Brief History of the Chinese Language in New Zealandâ is instructive, if people really want to know and engage in something constructive. It’s on the Chinese Language Week website, who evidently see no irony in hosting it.
Tags: 2000s, 2022, Aotearoa, Beijing, China, Chinese, culture, hegemony, history, language, media, New Zealand, social media, Twitter
Posted in China, culture, media, New Zealand, TV, Wellington | No Comments »
16.09.2022
I see it was only 19 months ago since I bought the Asus ROG Strix Evolve mouse. A mouse that cost several times what a regular one does, claiming the switches would last 50 million clicks. It has now developed a fault, and I wouldnât even consider myself a heavy user. Iâm certainly not a gamer.
Mice seem to last shorter and shorter periods. An old Intellimouse 1.1 lasted from 2002 to 2013. Its successor (after trying badly made Logitechs) Microsoft mouse lasted from 2015 to 2020. Here is the latest lasting 19 months.
Its problem is that a single click is being recorded as two clicks, with increasing frequency. Right now, a very cheap no-name unit bought in August 2021 is the daily driver with my desktop PC, and one of the earlier ones will now have to go with my laptop. Itâs reasonably comfortable because the size is (almost) right (the biggest criterion for me), itâs light, and it works. Those switches wonât last 50 million clicks and the unit feels cheaply made, but right now I need something usable, and most mice are just too small. I even saw an article testing mice for âlarge handsâ, and I can tell you in no uncertain terms that they are for medium hands at best.
A Delux M625 is on its way now from Aliexpress (here’s the seller’s link). Iâve never heard of the brand before, but one Tweeter who responded to me says he has tried one, and found it acceptable. What sold it? None of the features that I find useless (a rapid fire button for gaming, RGB lighting effects that you never see because your hand is on the mouse and your eyes are on the screen, high DPI up to 24,000) but three simple figures: width, length, height.
The Microsoft Intellimouse 1.1, which I have raved about for decades, measures 126 by 68·1 by 39·3 mm. A bit of height helps so I donât mind if a mouse exceeds 40 mm.
The Delux vendor claims 130·6 by 68·9 by 42·5 mm. That sounds very comfortable to me, as width is very important (something the Asus didnât have, with my ring finger off the body of the mouse and on to the mouse pad). The no-name could be better, too. In a few weeks, I should know.
I had been so desperate after coming up empty with local sellers I even looked on Amazon. But I couldn’t be arsed converting Imperial measurements to metric, which the majority of the world uses. Jeff’s mob can carry on abusing workers and selling to their own country.
As to the Asus, caveat emptor: it hasnât even lasted two years reliably.
Tags: 2020s, 2022, Aliexpress, Asus, China, computing, Delux, design, mouse, quality, quality control
Posted in China, design, technology | 4 Comments »
22.08.2022
After reading Mojeekâs blog post from last July, I learned there are only seven search engines in the world now. In other words, I was checking more search engines out in the 1990s. Itâs rather depressing, especially as the search market is largely a monopoly with Google dominating it (and all the ills that brings), and Bing and its licensees (like Duck Duck Go) with their 6 per cent.
Knowing there are seven, I fed the site:lucire.com search into all of them to see where each stood.
The first figure is the claimed number of results, the second the actual number shown (without repeats removed, which Bing is guilty of).
I canât use Brave here as its site search is Bing as well.
Yandex appears to be capped at 250 and Mojeek at 1,000, but at least they arenât arbitrary like Google and Baidu. Baidu has a lot of category and tag pages from the Wordpress section of our site to bump up the numbers.
Gigablast 0/0
Sogou 19/13
Bing 243/50
Baidu 13,700/213
Yandex 2,000/250
Google 6,280/315
Mojeek 3,654/1,000
Frankly, more of us should go to Mojeek. It can only get better with a wider user base. Unlike Bing, it hasnât collapsed. I know most of you will keep going to Google, but I just donât like the look of those limits (not to mention the massive privacy issues).
Mojeek is now at 5,900 million pages, which must be the largest index in the west outside of Google.
Tags: 2022, Baidu, Bing, China, Google, internet, JY&A Media, Lucire, Mojeek, monopoly, publishing, Russia, search engines, technology, UK, USA, World Wide Web, Yandex
Posted in China, internet, publishing, technology, UK, USA | No Comments »
24.07.2022
One more, and I might give the subject a rest. Here I test the search engines for the term Lucire. This paints quite a different picture.
Lucire is an established site, dating from 1997, indexed by all major search engines from the start. The word did not exist online till the site began. It does exist in old Romanian. There is a (not oft-used) Spanish conjugated verb, I believe, spelt the same.
The original site is very well linked online, as you might expect after 25 years. You would normally expect, given its age and the inbound links, to see lucire.com at the top of any index.
There is a Dr Yolande Lucire in Australia whom I know, who Iâm used to seeing in the search engine results.
The scores are simply for getting relevant sites to us into the top 10, and no judgement is made about their quality or relevance.
Google
lucire.com
twitter.com
lucire.net
instagram.com
wikipedia.org
linkedin.com
facebook.com
pinterest.nz
neighbourly.co.nz
âI hate to say it, as someone who dislikes Google, but all of the top 10 results are relevant. Fair play. Then again, with the milliards it has, and with this as its original product, it should do well. 10/10
Mojeek
scopalto.com
lucirerouge.com
lucire.net
lucire.com
mujerhoy.com
portalfeminino.com
paperblog.com
dailymotion.com
eldiablovistedezara.net
hispanaglobal.com
âMojeek might be flavour of the month for me, but these results are disappointing. Scopalto retails Lucire in France, so thatâs fair enough, but disappointing to see the original lucire.com site in fourth. Fifth, sixth, seventh, ninth and tenth are irrelevant and relate to the Spanish word lucir. Youâd have to get to no. 25 to see Lucire again, for Yolaâs website. Then itâs more lucir results till no. 52, the personal website of one of our editors. 5/10
Swisscows
lucire.net
wikipedia.org
lucire.com
spanishdict.com
lucire.net
lucire.com
drlucire.com
facebook.com
spanishdict.com
viyeshierelucre.com
âConsidering it sources from Bing, it makes the same mistakes by placing the rarely linked lucire.net up top, and lucire.com in third. Fourth, ninth and tenth are irrelevant, and the last two relate to different words. Yolaâs site is seventh, which is fair enough. 6/10
Baidu
lucire.net
lucire.com
lucire.cc
lucire.com
kanguowai.com
hhlink.com
vocapp.com
forvo.com
kuwo.cn
lucirehome.com
âInteresting mixture here. Strange, too, that lucire.net comes up top. We own lucire.cc but itâs now a forwarding domain (it was once our link shortener, up to a decade ago). Seventh and ninth relate to the Romanian word strÄlucire and eighth to the Romanian word lucire. The tenth domain is an old one, succeeded a couple of years ago by lucirerouge.com. Not very current, then. 7/10
Startpage
lucire.com
lucire.com
lucire.net
instagram.com
wikipedia.org
linkedin.com
facebook.com
pinterest.nz
fashionmodeldirectory.com
twitter.com
âAll relevant, as expected, since itâs all sourced from Google. 10/10
Virtual Mirage
lucire.com
instagram.com
wikipedia.org
lucire.net
facebook.com
linkedin.com
pinterest.nz
lucirerouge.com
nih.gov
twitter.com
âI donât know much about this search engine, since I only heard about it from Holly Jahangiri earlier today. A very good effort, with only the ninth one being irrelevant to us: itâs a paper co-written by Yola. 9/10
Yandex
lucire.com
lucire.net
facebook.com
twitter.com
wikipedia.org
instagram.com
wikipedia.eu
pinterest.nz
en-academic.com
wikiru.wiki
âThis is the Russian version. All are relevant, and they are fairly expected, other than the ninth result which Iâve not come across this high before, although it still relates to Lucire. 10/10
Bing
lucire.net
wikipedia.org
lucire.com
spanishdict.com
lucire.com
facebook.com
drlucire.com
spanishdict.com
twitter.com
lucirahealth.com
âHow Bing has slipped. There are sites here relating to the Spanish word lucirse and to Lucira, who makes PCR tests for COVID-19. One is for Yola. 7/10
Qwant.com
lucire.net
wikipedia.org
spanishdict.com
drlucire.com
spanishdict.com
tumblr.com
lucirahealth.com
lacire.co
amazon.com
lucirahealth.com
âFor a Bing-licensed site, this is even worse. No surprise to see lucire.com gone here, given how inconsistently Bing has treated it of late. But there are results here for Lucira and a company called La Cire. The Amazon link is also for Lucira. 3/10
Qwant.fr
lucire.net
wikipedia.org
reverso.net
luciremen.com
lucire.com
twitter.com
lacire.co
lucirahealth.com
viyeshierelucre.com
lucirahealth.com
âThe sites change slightly if you use the search box at qwant.fr. The Reverso page is for the Spanish word lucirĂ©. Sixth through tenth are irrelevant and do not even relate to the search term. Eleventh and twelfth are for lucire.com and facebook.com, so there were more relevant pages to come. The ranking or relevant results, then, leaves something to be desired. 5/10
Duck Duck Go
lucire.com
lucire.net
wikipedia.org
spanishdict.com
drlucire.com
spanishdict.com
lucirahealth.com
amazon.com
lacire.co
luciremen.com
âWell, at least the Duck puts lucire.com up top, and the home page at that (even if Bing canât). Only four relevant results, with Lucire Men coming in at tenth. 4/10
Brave
lucire.com
instagram.com
twitter.com
wikipedia.org
linkedin.com
lucire.net
facebook.com
fashion.net
wiktionary.org
nsw.gov.au
âFor the new entrant, not a bad start. Shame about the smaller index size. All of these relate to us except the last two, one a dictionary and the other referring to Yolande Lucire. 8/10
The results are surprising from these first results’ pages.
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Google
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Yandex
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Startpage
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â Virtual Mirage
â
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ââ Brave
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âââ Baidu
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âââ Bing
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ââââ Swisscows
â
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â
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âââââ Mojeek
â
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â
â
âââââ Qwant.fr
â
â
â
â
ââââââ Duck Duck Go
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âââââââ Qwant.com
It doesn’t change my mind about the suitability of Mojeek for internal searches though. It’s still the one with the largest index aside from Google, and it doesn’t track you.
Tags: 2020s, 2022, Baidu, Bing, China, Duck Duck Go, France, Google, language, Lucire, Microsoft, Mojeek, Qwant, research, Russia, search engines, technology, UK, USA, World Wide Web, Yandex
Posted in China, France, internet, publishing, technology, UK, USA | 2 Comments »
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