Letters to the Editor
-
The point is not that Mao was icky.
The point is that it's worth reading to get an inside view of what "Old Boys' Network" actually means. (For those of us who aren't inside it, I mean.) It looks like a scene from a bad James Bond movie (was that redundant?).
-
Old Boy's Network, peeshah!
You think the older women in China, the ones who also seek morality and decency, the ones sitting besides the powerful men, would be against such a plan? They're probably the ones muttering under their noses about the decline of Chinese culture and how it is the young women's faults.
Call it 'old boy' but it really means powerful elites vs the rest of society, NON-GENDER SPECIFIC.
Heck, the young guys in China would not have liked such a plan-- but then, unlike you women, they are powerless, so they do not count.
-
Has anyone here read Jung Chang's Wild Swans?
Or her follow up book called "Mao: The Unknown Story"?
"Wild Swans" is an incredible autobiographical story of three generations of women in Jung Chang's family. Her grandmother was the concubine of a Chinese warlord. Her mother was a member of Mao's army and physically went on the great march. Chang herself is now a scholar and writer married to an Oxford History professor in England.
Funny, I actually picked up "Wild Swans" after reading "Living History" by Hillary Clinton, when she talked about it as a book that she respected. I had forgotten that until today. It's good for me to remember something nice about Hillary Clinton since I'm currently frustrated by her campaign.
But Wild Swans is extraordinary. I recommend it to anyone. It changed my view of China completely--and I had visited China as an English teacher in the mid 1990's. Mao was not a good man, even early in his life, as Chang's second book lays out his personal autobiography, as well as the history of China during his rule.
-
Get Rid of the Men?
> American women complain incessantly and in public
> about men and how thay waould like the world to be
> rid of them.
Where do you find these women who want the world to be rid of men, BS?
For the record: I know a lot of women who identify as heterosexual and feminist. Most are in relationships with men. They love their husbands, and/or boyfriends, and/or sons. They do not generally pick men with six-pack abs and huge... salaries; some do, but many tend to have quirkier standards.
They do not want a world without men.
BS, you may be confusing "women who don't like men" with "women who don't like YOU."
-
Pnask
It all goes back to do women want men as they are, or as they WISH them to be?
Therein lies the rub, you women control us men by your yays and neas and do not even know it-- or pretend it does not exist.
-
Modern, urban Chinese society
Life for women among China's rural poor has much that can be improved upon. Even in 2008 many rural Chinese women are treated as little more than property.
I'm always surprised and pleased to see how forward-thinking and feminist modern, urban Chinese society appears to be with regards to womens' issues. I think that most educated urban professional Chinese women consider themselves on equal footing with their male counterparts.
-
Count Me In
Um...I'll take a couple of Chinese women if no one else wants them....
-
Takeaway
So here's the takeaway: Mao was a freak and Nixon was a patriarchal troglodyte. This is news?
Seriously, though, what is the issue? Two married people joking about the opposite sex wanting things their own way? Men and women have been doing that for 50,000 years. It was probably among the first conversations humans had.
If anything about the scenario is properly offensive to more cultured sensibilities, it's that Mao, who was by then increasingly dependent on Zhang Hanzhi not just as his English translator but his translator to the outside world in general, was indulging in such colorful humor in her presence. That does smack a bit of old-fashioned sexim — inconsiderate and degrading.
But the humor itself (such as it is)? It's hard to get worked up about it. There will be boy talk and girl talk as long as there are boys and girls.
-
hmm
Wonder how Kissinger responded? Wonder why *that* isn't public?
-
All Hail Comrade ScottyRVA
I praise your socialist dialectical explanation of the farseeing Chairman's proletarian humor. I look forward to your elevation at the next Party Congress.
-
That didn't happen 25 years ago
Um, 1973 was 35 years ago. I know, I know, we're all getting older, but still.
-
Is That What It Goes Back To?
> It all goes back to do women want men as
> they are, or as they WISH them to be?
Oh, I thought it went back to women wanting a world without men. I was mislead by the fact that that was what you actually said.
Everybody has tastes. When women want rich sugardaddies, or standardly handsome men you complain about how women are forcing men to be a certain way. And when I talk about women with less stereotypical standards for men, you... complain about exactly the same thing. Apparently women should not want men at all, because by wanting them, they force them to be a certain way.
But women who don't want men would be your "women who want a world without men," and you don't like that either.
In the meantime, it does not seem that you like women as they are. You have many, many wishes on how they should be. You may claim that you don't hate women, but your standards for them are so exacting - and self-contradictory - that you could never approve of any actual woman.
-
Erratum
Kissinger, not Nixon. Duh. Same patriarchy, different troglodyte.
-
Are those num-chucks in your pants or are you just happy to see me?
Let me take you back to the day that I met my china girl
When I landed a pam like on the san fran real world
I was sweating like a vegetable inside of a wok
Id never been to asia minor but I was gonna bangkok
Like kristy yamaguchi I had to break the ice
Should I talk about mothra m*a*s*h or shrimp-fried rice?
I was sharp as a chinese star but its a line I threw
Just thirty seconds over tokyo and this johnny would woo
I took a shot like jeanette lee put on my moves like bruce lee
I told he every soon yi needs a little woody
She said for all the tea in china my vaginas not free
But my love will linger longer than the ming dynasty
I said I needed her to do and her to do my laundry
I knew she needed a way to stay legally within the country
She was made in taiwan I said Im o.k. with that
Just promise me youll never try to eat my cat
Chinky chinky bang bang I love you
Chinky chinky bang bang I know you love me too
In japan the hand is used as a knife
In japan a mans wifes hand job than can cost him his life
But now this captain kirk has his own sulu
Ill shampoo her foo man chu with lo hung wang goo
Cause I ride my slant-eyed slope like a brand new kawasaki
Oh me chinky shes so kinky got me hot like nagasaki
Burnin up like napalm burstin like an a-bomb
I think I got that jungle fever but I caught it in nam
Shes like an oriental rug cause I lay her where I please
Then I blindfold her with dental floss and get down on her knees
Im a diving kamikaze eating out chinese
First Ill have the poo-poo platter than some tuna sushi
Shell be screaming like godzilla and kickin like jackie chan
Ill get her redder than china wetter than the sea of japan
Like the chinese new year shes gonna see fireworks
Now be a good chinky and press jimmys shirts
Chinky chinky bang bang I love you
Chinky chinky bang bang I know you love me too
Sing chinky sing
One more time
Chinky chinky bang bang I love you
Chinky chinky bang bang I know you love me too
Chinky chinky bang bang chinky bang
Chinky chinky bang biddily biddily biddily bang