Our American Wedding

Our wedding on Sunday was just awesome. It, somehow, was on par with the Chinese ceremony we had (and I said that that day was one of the best days of my life). I don't really know where to begin with what happened on Sunday night. I'm just going to throw out a few highlights (although I'm sure I'll be leaving out tons).

About eighty-five people came to the Vietnam Vets' Hall where the ceremony took place. My mom told me that the hall was, originally, a church built in the 1800s. It was an intimate group of family and friends.

Our two readings during the ceremony were as follows:

From the I Ching:

When two people are at one
in their inmost hearts,
they shatter even the strength of iron or bronze.
And when two people understand each other
in their inmost hearts,
their words are sweet and strong,
like the fragrance of orchids.

And from Song of Songs, chapter 2, verses 10 - 13 (also a reading from my parents' wedding):

10

My lover speaks; he says to me,
"Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one,
and come!

11

"For see, the winter is past,
the rains are over and gone.

12

The flowers appear on the earth,
the time of pruning the vines has come,
and the song of the dove is heard in our land.

13

The fig tree puts forth its figs,
and the vines, in bloom, give forth fragrance.
Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one,
and come!

The minister who performed the ceremony was class. The overarching theme of his homily focused on us finding each other after growing up so far apart and the concept of yuan fen. The minister is someone I've known for a number of years and I knew that he'd do a great job.

After the ceremony, we all pigged out on a BBQ buffet provided one of Kansas City's best BBQ houses: Jack Stack. There were three kinds of meat: beef brisket, burnt ends, and turkey. There were also a few side dishes of vegetables and such. I heard rave reviews from just about everyone I talked with on the food.

To accompany the food, we had a half-barrel keg of Boulevard's Unfiltered Wheat Beer. I figured the delicious brew would satisfy my more alcoholic friends while at the same time placating the attendees who aren't in to drinking really heavy beer. We also had Budweiser and Bud Light bottles, although hardly anyone drank them. And for wine, we had Red Diamond Shiraz from Washington state and Cavit Pinot Grigio.

Our "first song" was "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong. This song was also prominently featured in our Chinese wedding. Everybody should know this song. It is, of course, amazing. I'm not sure music gets much better.

Instead of hiring a DJ for a hundred bucks an hour, I asked three of my friends to help DJing. To kick off the dancing part of the night, I compiled the first few songs in hopes of getting a dance party started:

Get on the Floor - Michael Jackson
Hey Ya! - Outkast
Burning Down the House - Talking Heads
Stay Forever - Ween

A few people got out for these songs. Unfortunately, we had a technical problem with the sound all night and the quality was pretty horrible (it had something to do with the sound board being "mono" and all of our laptops being "stereo")

There were people out dancing all night despite the sound quality. Qian and I were certainly out there cutting rug all night.

At about 11PM when we only had an hour left, I took control of the music again and put together a pretty ridiculous set of music. It was awesome (to me):

Star Guitar - Chemical Brothers
Sex Shooter - 6 Appollonia
Stronger - Inez
What's the Difference - Dr. Dre
Otto's Journey - Mylo
In My Arms - Mylo
Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough - Michael Jackson
So Easy - Royksopp
Timmy Tucker - moe.

It was just a hardcore dance party. Was so great.

At the end of the night, a couple of our friends took us to Kansas City's Intercontinental Hotel on the Country Club Plaza. The hotel is one of the nicest in Kansas City. That, too, was amazing.

I'm going to wrap this post up. I've left off so much. Overall, there was just so much warmth and happiness in the room. I had a great group of family and friends there celebrating the love between Qian and myself. I'm pretty sure the love and graciousness from everyone in attendance are the things Qian and I will remember most from the evening.

I'll post some pictures when we get them from the photographer.

Getting Married Tonight

Woo hoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Non-Anonymous Internet

The powers that be in China are not appreciating that anonymity that the internet allows.

From The New York Times:

Image from xyberlog.com

BEIJING — News Web sites in China, complying with secret government orders, are requiring that new users log on under their true identities to post comments, a shift in policy that the country’s Internet users and media have fiercely opposed in the past.

Until recently, users could weigh in on news items on many of the affected sites more anonymously, often without registering at all, though the sites were obligated to screen all posts, and the posts could still be traced via Internet protocol addresses.

But in early August, without notification of a change, news portals like Sina, Netease, Sohu and scores of other sites began asking unregistered users to sign in under their real names and identification numbers, said top editors at two of the major portals affected. A Sina staff member also confirmed the change.

The editors said the sites were putting into effect a confidential directive issued in late July by the State Council Information Office, one of the main government bodies responsible for supervising the Internet in China.

The new step is not foolproof, the editors acknowledged. It was possible for a reporter to register successfully on several major sites under falsified names and ID and cellphone numbers.

But the requirement adds a critical new layer of surveillance to mainstream sites in China, which were already heavily policed. Further regulations of the same nature also appeared to be in the pipeline.

Read On

I've been too forgiving in the past towards China's locking down of the internet. China has no interest in keeping its internet open and a genuine sharing of information. This can be evidenced the blocking of YouTube, Twitter, Blogspot, and a number of other sites as well as this move. It's really sad China is locking things down considering how many benefits the internet has already given the country.

Now that I've left China, I'm really appreciating the freedom of expression we have in America. America has its own set of issues across the board, but at least I can go to websites that I want to and don't have to be self-regulating when speaking about politics (in China, you've always got to be aware of avoiding "the 3 T's.")

Sure, religion and politics are things that are probably better not discussed in America. But at least there's no chance of becoming an enemy of the state for questioning authority or speaking one's mind about such topics.

Copenhagen Talks Already Stalling?

Many have hoped that the Copenhagen Climate Summit later this year will be a productive and positive step forward. There's a chance that it will be, but any progress or agreement is going to be horribly difficult though.

From Forbes:

Image from treehugger.com

China has just laid out its negotiating position for the upcoming summit in Copenhagen, where diplomats will gather in December to try to hammer out an agreement on how to battle climate change.

The West is not going to like it. Essentially, China will argue that Western consumers buying Chinese-made goods should pay their fair share of the cost of cutting the pollution used to make the goods.

West and East have been arguing for years about who is to blame for climate change and how to cut down on the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. Broadly speaking, developed countries like the U.S. have looked with alarm at the fast increase of pollution in the East and insisted that nations like China and India must save the planet by acting quickly to curb pollution.

Developing nations have cried foul, arguing that cutting pollution levels would unacceptably slow down their economic development, keeping tens of millions of people mired in poverty. They argue that the West was allowed to pollute during its period of industrialization, and that they should be allowed to do the same. They say it would be unfair to penalize poor countries when richer Americans and Europeans consume far more energy than Asians do on a per-capita basis.

...

Fan and his colleagues lay out a common-sense approach to determining responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions and use a complex formula based on accumulated emissions from 1950 to 2005 to quantify how much responsibility, in China's view, each nation should shoulder. Their reasoning? "The production is because of consumption, the supply is because of demand, the export is because someone wants to import," according to their August study, "The Low Carbon Development: China and the World." Fan is director of China's National Economic Research Institute.

Using their calculations, China's share of the burden is tiny, despite the fact that China will be the world's biggest polluter by year-end. The U.S. bears the biggest responsibility, with the 27-member European Union just behind the U.S.

...

The leader of the U.S. delegation at the talks, former Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and Deputy Secretary of State Kenneth Dam, said after hearing the Chinese presentation, "I'm very pessimistic on the outcome of the Copenhagen talks." He felt negotiators should take a pragmatic approach that allows for climate improvement, rather than holding out for a comprehensive deal. U.S. negotiators should only agree to what the U.S. Senate will accept, Dam said, to avoid torpedoing any agreement reached in Copenhagen.

Read On

The author of this piece, Robyn Meredith, did a really good job capturing the nuances and contradictions that are going to come up this fall and winter.

I've talked about these issues before recently on my blog. I see both sides' arguments.

China is, in fact, producing goods for the rest of the world. Sure, it's growing quickly and consumption is definitely increasing throughout the country (see the sprawl of shopping malls in any major city as evidence), yet its standard of living is nowhere near what the west's is or has been. China, I think rightly, doesn't believe that it should be fully-burdened for filling Wal-Mart's shelves with goods. The end user of a lot of China's products, and the pollution that chokes China, are Americans and others in the west.

At the same time, I can see why the US doesn't want to let China's pollution and carbon release get out-of-hand. A China that is completely oblivious to its affect on climate change doesn't sound like a good or tenable position to take.

I'm not sure what the middle ground is or could be on these negotiations. Both sides are just going to have to end up compromising.

Considering how polarized things are, both in American and world politics, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see gridlock and nothing significant happen at this critical juncture in human history. That would be sad.

This Blog: One Year Old

I started Mark's China Blog at markschinablog.blogspot.com one year ago today on September 1st, 2008.

It's been quite an adventure so far here at the latest incarnation of "Mark's China Blog." 2008/2009 has been an absolutely fascinating year to observe. I've learned tons about China. Hopefully you, the reader, feel like you have too.

I'm optimistic that Qian and me moving to America will add a whole new element of interest to this site. I'm still not quite ready to delve back into China news/analysis/musings yet. But I plan on doing so again after the wedding, honeymoon, and getting settled that will take place in the coming days and weeks.

So bear with me for the time being. Hardcore China news will be back before too long!