Saturday, August 2, 2008

Update on Beijing's Spiritual Civilization Construction Commission

The update on Beijing's "long march" toward civility from the Globe and Mail (Canada's NYT analogue in ways both good and not so good) is here.

My favorite bit is that Chinese people are still allowed to use "comrade" with visitors from socialist countries. Does that mean France? It also raises the question of whether socialists from other countries should refer to someone from China as "comrade". China is socialist in the sense that the one party in the one party state is called the "communist" party, but you would be hard pressed to find a place anywhere on earth where more people will try to sell you more things more enthusiastically than in China.

Hat tip: Christine Gribowski