Global Strategies

Shunza sings "Les Yeux Ouverts"

From Wikipedia (here):

Shunza is a Chinese People singer-songwriter known for her "velvet" voice and love ballads. Unlike most pop idols who perform in front of screaming fans, Shunza's concerts are more intimate and cocktail-style. Over the course of her career, she has collaborated with other Taiwanese artists such as Elva Hsiao and Wilber Pan.

Ni Shun Zi was born on February 12, 1973 as the youngest of two children. Her father was a clarinet player, while her mother was a well-known pianist. At the age of 3, she, her mother, and her older sister moved from Beijing to the San Francisco Bay Area as a result of divorce. Upon graduating high school, Shunza studied at the School of Jazz and Contemporary Music in Lausanne, Switzerland. It was there that she founded a band called Duty Free, releasing a few works in Europe. In 1994, Moyan Records, a subsidiary of Rock Records, received one of her demo tapes, and consequently signed her to a record contract.

Since her debut, Shunza has released numerous albums in Mandarin, Japanese, English, and French. In 1999, she was hailed as the Best Female Singer and Best Composer at the 10th Golden Melody Awards In October 2000, Shunza signed on with EMI, joining Cantopop sensation Faye Wong.

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To PPS, Again: "Stop Enrollment Balancing Now!"

For economic and national security reasons, the United States, and our part of it in Portland, needs to educate our next generations with more Mandarin speakers. China is rising. Its economy will be more than twice the size of the US economy by 2050, and their military capabilities will reflect a similar growth. Currently there is only one public Mandarin immersion program in the State of Oregon at Woodstock Elementary in Portland. Each year, it enrolls only 60 new kindergarteners while turning 30 or more away. It is strategic folly at the educational level.

I’ve tried, and so far failed, to get Portland Public Schools to add additional Mandarin immersion programs. Right now the district is engaged in an “enrollment balancing” process in NE Portland. There should be a Mandarin immersion program in NE Portland. I’ve tried, and so far failed, to get them to make plans for a new Mandarin immersion program a part of the enrollment balancing process. I thought the PPS Board agreed to give some consideration to new immersion programs (here). Yet that process is now senselessly steamrolling ahead without any such considerations. Tonight was another meeting. This time at Grant High School. I was there with my “Stop Enrollment Balancing Now!” placard.

Larry Bingham’s Oregonian article “Northest Portland parents weight in on PPS enrollment balancing process” reports on the meeting (here):

A few dozen Northeast Portland parents weighed in on enrollment balancing proposals for six public schools Tuesday night.

Of the 24 parents who expressed opinions during the forum at Grant High School, only a fourth or so spoke about redrawn boundary lines for Alameda Elementary School.

Of the few who spoke against the boundary changes that could shift some students to Sabin School and others to Irvington School, only one speaker said she worried the change would affect property values. Last year's effort to redraw the boundaries along roughly the same lines became contentious…..

“Buddha's End Band" sings "Song of the Wanderer"

From the Shanghaiist (here, where there is more):

At a temple dormitory in Zhejiang, a trio of monks calling themselves “Buddha's End Band" (佛涯组合) sing "Song of the Wanderer" (游子吟), an original song written and composed by the monks......

Clinton to students: ""Think globally, but get out there and study globally as well."

 

Secretary of  State Clinton asks all American students to consider studying abroad. She asks students not to just "think globally, but get out there and study globally as well."

"U.S.– China Relations Need Leadership, Not Anachronisms”

In his World Politics Review post “The New Rules: U.S. – China Relations Need Leadership, Not Anachronisms,” Tom Barnett rightly worries about American leadership. He writes (here)

..... The irony here could not be richer: The global system has long obsessed over a rising China effectively “losing it,” when in reality the fading sole superpower itself is beating Beijing to the punch. As a result of America’s fiscally self-destructive habits, in combination with those of the European Union, the world faces the possibility of one doozey of a second dip in its now three-year-long global economic crisis -- the “great contraction” that the West seems hell-bent on extending across the planet.

Here the self-fulfilling prophesies take on an almost comical bent: By refusing to put their own fiscal houses in order, America and Europe put the global economy’s sole powerhouse, China, at risk of serious domestic instability. Already, China’s vice premier and head of government finance, Wang Qishan, has predicted a long-term global recession that will force Beijing into economic reforms that, though much-needed, will be undertaken at a speed that greatly elevates their risk. And America does not have enough Marines to sprinkle throughout East Asia to manage things in the event of a Chinese meltdown.

Fortunately, America’s business community is not drinking the same Kool Aid that is now so popular throughout the Beltway. Their vision more closely resembles that behind the U.S.-China Grand Bargain that I and my colleagues at the Center for America-China Partnership negotiated with a bevy of China’s top think tanks and former high-ranking government officials, and which I discussed almost a year ago in this column. By the terms of that proposal, in return for China investing $1 trillion of its reserve holdings directly into the U.S. private sector, as opposed to into its debt markets, the two sides would pledge to never go to war with one another, respect each other’s sovereignty, dramatically ramp up military-to-military cooperation and split their essential differences over a host of hotspot security issues around the globe. The document also proposed making the current twice-yearly Strategic and Economic Dialogue summit between the U.S. and China into a permanent year-round commission that would focus on improving bilateral investment flows and the creation of new global joint ventures between U.S. and Chinese companies......

And ends:

But 2,500 Marines in Australia represents neither hope nor change, but rather a sadly anachronistic approach. And that can’t substitute for the kind of strategic boldness that is currently needed.

The U.S. is slowly shifting its focus to Asia. Unfortunately, that shift carries with it lots of old ways of thinking. Let’s really get serious about Asian languages in our schools and sending students, especially high school students, to Asia to study.

Dongguan, China

China’s seventh largest city, according to Wikipedia (here), is Dongguan, with  8 million people. For comparison, the largest US City, New York, has 8 million people.

From Wikipedia (here):

Dongguan (simplified Chinese: 东莞; traditional Chinese: 東莞; pinyin: Dōngguǎn, Mandarin pronunciation: [tʊ́ŋkwàn]; Cantonese: Dung¹ gun²; old spelling Tung-kuan) is a prefecture-level city in central Guangdong province, People's Republic of China.

An important industrial city located in the Pearl River Delta, Dongguan borders the provincial capital of Guangzhou to the north, Huizhou to the northeast, Shenzhen to the south, and the Pearl River to the west.

It is also home to the world's largest, though mostly empty, shopping mall, New South China Mall. City administration is considered especially progressive in seeking foreign direct investment. The three neighboring municipalities of Guangzhou, Dongguan, and Shenzhen are home to over 25 million residents, accounting for a large proportion of the Pearl River Delta Region’s population.

Dongguan ranks behind only Shenzhen, Shanghai and Suzhou in exports among Chinese cities, with $65.54bn in shipment.

 

Huntsman, in debate, on the internet generation in China

 

Jon Huntsman is here speaking in a recent Republican primary debate.

Note that Huntsman says:

We should be reaching out to our allies and constituencies within China. They're called the young people. They're called the internet generation. There are 500 million internet users in China. And 80 million bloggers. And they are bringing about change, the likes of which is gonna take China down.

I think US students learning Mandarin and going to study in China is one effective way to reach and understand China’s internet generation.

Update 11/29/11: Evan Osnos posts on the reaction to Huntman's comment in China (here):

.... Polls conducted by the Global Times, which should be seen not as polls, exactly, but as megaphones for a certain realm of thought, show a couple of things: the top-line result is standard—two-thirds of those polled “reject” Huntsman’s prediction—but more surprising is the fact that forth percent believe his statement reflects existing U.S. policy. “When asked what means Washington are deploying to ‘take China down’ through the Internet, 25 percent chose fomenting social conflicts, 23 percent picked cultivating dissidents and 21.8 percent selected advocating Western political values,” according to a write-up, which added, for good measure, a foreign-policy expert pointing out that American “politicians should spend more time addressing their own problems, such as the ongoing Occupy Wall Street movement.”.....

 

To PPS: Stop Enrollment Balancing Now!

             

Portland Public Schools staff has proposed “enrollment balancing” changes affecting six schools in NE Portland. Because no Mandarin immersion programs has yet been proposed for NE Portland, PPS staff should stop the enrollment balancing process, determine where to locate the next Mandarin immersion program in NE Portland, and then, and only then, proceed to balance enrollments.

Currently PPS staff is proposing (here):

1. Portions of the westside of the Alameda/Beaumont boundary would shift to Irvington K-8 and Sabin PK-8 schools (see attached map).

2. Rigler would change to a K-5 school. Students in grades 6-8 would be assigned to one of two schools: Vernon PK-8 or Beaumont Middle School.

3. Sabin would either remain as a PK-8 school or convert to a PK-5 school, with middle grades students assigned to Beaumont Middle School.

4. Because Beaumont would be adding one new feeder school—either Rigler or Sabin—6 th grade transfer slots would drop from 75 to 30, the same levels as other middle schools. The guarantee from Sabin  PK-8 to Beaumont would be eliminated.

5. Transfers into 6th grade at all PPS schools would be limited by neighborhood.

 At the start of the enrollment balancing process, I argued (here):

Portland Public Schools is now taking the first steps in an “enrollment balancing” process. They are looking at under-utilized and over-utilized schools and will look at ways to shift enrollments to make utilization more balanced. Once they do that, of course, it will be hard, if not impossible, to fit new Mandarin or Japanese immersion programs in anywhere. So they need to make expanding Mandarin and Japanese immersions decisions prior to or as a part of the enrollment balancing.

I thought PPS staff agreed to make new immersion programs as part of the enrollment balancing process at the 10/17/11 PPS Board meeting, as I then wrote (here):

Judy Brennan, PPS Enrollment Planning Director, told the Portland Public Schools Board at its 10/17/11 meeting that additional, expanded foreign language immersion programs would be considered as part of the “enrollment balancing process.” Board member Bobbie Regan asked Brennan whether and how expansion of popular magnet programs, including immersion programs, would be considered. Brennan assured the Board that they would and that she would work with the head of the immersion programs to do so. 

On page 3 of the PPS staff proposal (here, again), three other options that were considered are listed. No mention is made here or any other place in the proposal that immersion programs (or other magnet programs) were considered in the process.

So, stop the process now! There should be a new Mandarin immersion program in NE Portland! Get enrollment balancing right!

Video: Microblogging in China: Peeking inside Sina Weibo

From Wikipedia (here):

Sina Weibo (Chinese: 新浪微博; pinyin: Xīnlàng Wēibó; literally "Sina Microblog") is a Chinese microblogging (weibo) website. Akin to a hybrid of Twitter and Facebook, it is one of the most popular sites in China, in use by well over 30% of Internet users, with a similar market penetration that Twitter has established in the USA. It was launched by SINA Corporation on 14 August 2009, and has more than 250 million registered users as of October 2011

Evonne Hsu sings "What do I do without you?"

From Wikipedia (here)

Evonne Hsu, also known as Hsu Hui-hsin (Chinese: 許慧欣) was born 5 December 1979, in Longview, Texas, United States. She is a Taiwanese American Golden Melody Awards Mandopop singer. Hsu is managed by Music Nation Wingman Limited and signed by Universal Music Taiwan since her debut in 2002.

Evonne Hsu was born in the USA about five hours from Houston Texas in a small rural town of Longview. Hsu grew up with a love for singing and dancing but had chosen to major in psychology at the University of Texas at Austin when a musical arranger friend convinced her to make a demo tape of her singing.

Hsu released her debut album To Be Happy in January 2002. To date, she has released eight albums and has also published a book.  On July 7, 2007 Hsu performed at the Chinese leg of Live Earth in Shanghai.