Imagethief
Public relations, communication and interesting times in China.



Introducing the Jinan precision Segway assault squad! (Jul 3)
An "anti-terrorism" drill in Jinan:Yeah, these guys won't be difficult to target at all...Also featured in this quite clearly made-for-TV exercise, a demonstration of that most selective and discriminate of urban pacification weapons, the flame thrower. Imagethief wants to know why they didn't put the flame-thrower guys on the Segways. That would have been really impressive.




Illegal baby part 1: The strange case of the sluggish passport (Jun 30)
Anyone within earshot will know that Imagethief welcomed his son, Zachary, into the world last March 9th. The nearly four months since have been one long sleepless adventure. Despite my fatigue induced delirium, however, the experience has been a happy one. Like parents everywhere I take the most profound pleasure in things that non-parents wouldn't even notice. This week's new talent: Blowing damp, drooly raspberries. I glow just thinking about it. In Imagethief's parenthood-addled mind, it is but the merest step from a wet raspberry to a full ride at Harvard.Having a baby means paperwork. Last week's trip home to Singapore was case in point, as I spent my "holiday" dealing with health insurance for Zachary, life insurance for me, a will for everyone in the family, and various other "responsible parent" stuff. It all left me feeling rather old and grown up.
Having a baby abroad means even more paperwork, as one must go through various registrations with various consulates and embass...


On vacation next week (Jun 20)
Imagethief will be on vacation in Singapore next week, introducing his son to his Singaporean grandparents for the first time. (And getting him vaccinated and setting up his health insurance and bank account and etc. Not really much of a vacation at all, really...)Posting and tweeting will be light. And now that I think about it, if I'd wandered around my junior high school in 1980 explaining to people that someday "posting and tweeting" would be important things to me, I'd have a lot more fake teeth in my mouth than I do now. (I owe those fake teeth to skateboarding, juvenile risk equivalent of getting a Suzuki Hayabusa, downing a bottle of Southern Comfort and trying to ride Skyline Boulevard.)My China phone number will likely be offline next week. E-mail will be the best way to get ahold of me.-Will



And you thought the Air Force tanker deal was just about the billions of dollars (Jun 18)
Imagethief was interested to read in the New York Times today an article about the wrangling going on over the  United States Air Force's new monster procurement deal for aerial refueling tankers, one of the biggest defense programs ever. A little back story: There are two consortia bidding for the deal. One is led by perennial American defense contracting heavyweight Boeing. One is led by Northrop Grumman and European aerospace manufacturer EADS (parent of Airbus). Both consortia are, in  fact, thoroughly international.A couple of months ago, in a surprising upset, the Air Force gave Northrop Grumman/EADS' bid the nod over hometown champ Boeing. Needless to say, Boeing was not going to go down without a fight, and the whole thing has gone into appeals and recriminations, and (joy!) blown up into a multifaceted PR war. Check out, for instance, this relatively recent pro-Boeing blog managed by the hawkish think-tank, Center for Security Policy. Another one of the Center's recent publ...


Monetize this! (Jun 18)
David Churbuck with the best angry response to Associated Press' ill-conceived pay-to-quote-us policy (and follow the chain of links there for more info):Here’s the deal: The Associated Press, a coprolite concept of a global news syndicate used by newspapers to fill their editorial holes with standard news (bus plunges, fungible coverage of the world’s events, items from outside of the local circulation foot print) and to share their original reportage back into the pool in return, has decided that bloggers must pay by the word when they quote from an AP article.

To me that’s like asking me to pay a toll to get off the superhighway and visit a dying town that time has forgotten.For the record, Imagethief plans on continuing to quote AP articles with a link to the original when appropriate. I consider this fair use (and a fillip to the AP member newspapers who's pages I am usually linking to), and I don't anticipate writing a check. But for those who want to make a point, there is als...


Is it "war" against Chinese blogs? (Jun 16)
BusinessWeek's Dexter Roberts has written an article titled "Inside the war against China's blogs" that looks at the impact of China's blogosphere on companies doing business in China, and how a group of specialist PR and monitoring companies help clients manage reputation on the Chinese Internet. Among the companies featured is my friend Sam Flemming's CIC, which specializes in monitoring Internet word of mouth in China. The story is interesting, but it rather makes the whole area of managing online reputation in China sound a bit swampy:Plenty of companies are willing to pay for positive spin. PR outfits hire students to write postings that boost certain brands and criticize the competition, says a staffer at a Western PR firm in Beijing. The job description of one online help-wanted ad reads: "Publicize and popularize [products] via online forums and blogs. Send at least 50 propaganda posts per day." Workers are offered 1.5 cents per post.

Chinese Web Union is candid about doing t...


Shock! Chinese bloggers not completely obsessed with foreign companies (Jun 16)
Ok, so we know that Chinese bloggers criticize a lot of stuff (and we can say from experience that bloggers from other nations do as well). From the Wall Street Journal's China Journal blog, here is an interesting piece quantifying what, exactly, Chinese bloggers are complaining about. It's from a research paper by Ashley Esarey, an assistant professor at Middlebury College, who specializes in Chinese media.The finding: Sixty percent of Chinese blog posts are critical of something. (Imagethief wonders how this compares with American bloggers, who are no slouches when it comes to griping.) Criticism of corporations accounts for a relatively small ten percent of all posts, although one sixth of all critical posts. Not surprising: There is essentially no explicit criticism of local or national heads of government. Somewhat surprising: There is a lot of implicit and explicit criticism of government itself at all levels, and especially national government. It seems people are off limits,...


Spontaneous Olympic joy by decree and other news (Jun 16)
Cliff Coonan has a story in showbiz trade Variety that examines the broadcasting problems I posted about last week. The article is something of an omnibus piece on current Olympic issues. Among other things, it gets into the organizers' efforts to develop and promote an official cheer. This part is worth highlighting:
While Beijing is on the defensive against attacks, it is also taking extensive steps to make everyone feel welcome -- and to show national enthusiasm at the Games. The four-part Olympic cheer will be taught at schools, promoted on TV, and instructions will be available as part of a poster campaign. It officially will be used to fire up the national team, but can be used to inspire other countries. Step 1: Clap twice while chanting "Olympics." Step 2: Give the thumbs up with your arms extended upward, while chanting "Let's go!" Step 3: Clap twice chanting "China." Step 4: Punch the air with your fists, your arms extended, shouting "Let's go!" The cheer is a joint inve...


Everything you need to know about the Chinese visa situation? (Jun 14)
China mavens will know that China has tightened up its visa issuance regulations significantly in recent weeks. There has been much piecemeal reporting on this, but it has been hard to find good, comprehensive information on the situation. While several blogs have covered this pretty well, the most comprehensive information I have found so far is on Travelpod.com If you are traveling to China soon or wrestling with the visa situation, check it out.Update: Imagethief always likes to give credit where it is due. As you'll see in Rebekah Pothaar's comment, below, the original source of the information in Travelpod's post was the China travel forum Chinatravel.net. Given that this situation is subject to change at any time, and they seem to have done a good job tracking this situation, their "passport and visa" forum would probably be worth checking periodically.
 


Chinese mourning rituals and the great Wenchuan quake (Jun 14)
During the official mourning period declared a week after last month's Wenchuan earthquake, I put up a post remarking on the government message that replaced the foreign entertainment channels on my building satellite TV system. This got me zapped by a commenter who felt I was displaying ignorance of Chinese mourning rituals. While I disagreed with the commenter, it did say something of the how important ritual and custom can be in times like these.Fortunately for anyone interested in the topic, Don Sutton, an author and academic who specializes in such things, has posted a comprehensive article at the China Beat addressing the issue of quake mourning. It gets into several aspects of the issue, including the Internet, and is well worth a read:Yet another longstanding obligation is to express one’s bereavement with sincerity, in the case of women, vocally. Bereaved women have been photographed wailing at quake sites displaying photographs of their loved ones. Some have called angrily...