Outsourcing

Although it has been demonstrated that outsourcing should benefit the United States in the blackboard economy, policies must sometimes be amended in the face of real world challenges and in the interest of the public at large.

Outsourcing. That's o as in ostrich, u as in unicorn, t as in talkative, s as in sally, o as in opulent, u as in unsavory.....

For your sake, I won't continue. In the past few days, I have spent almost four hours on the phone with Netgear technical support people who have been "assisting" me with Internet connectivity issues I've been having while trying to hook up my wireless router at home.

After my pirated wireless signal faded into oblivion, I figured as a married, gainfully employed head of household, I should probably just pony up the cash for Internet service. That way, we wouldn't have to sit on the couch with the laptop perched across our legs, crossed just right to move the wireless card into the invisible network cloud coming from some unknown apartment.

In order not to disgrace any particular nationality, I won't be specific, but let's just say that I had a support agent that was very talkative but not at all helpful. She spelled out every single word for me as if I was a child--even my name. The sad thing was that she spoke with such a heavy accent that I wouldn't have recognized my name without the methodical spelling. After a few hours of such nonsense, and with my Internet still disconnected, we finally found the problem, and of course it had to do with my service provider. Finally I called AT&T and got a non-accented customer service rep who walked me through the Netgear setup process. In 10 minutes, the pipes were flowing and I was the proud owner of my very own invisible cloud.

But this story is not about my Internet connection. It's about the dues I had to pay to get it and playing a real, concrete role in an abstract economic theory. The hours I spent on the phone were almost enough to make me recant my views on outsourcing. As an international business reporter, I've become more convinced that free trade is beneficial for the entities involved, and I've seen some of the state of Georgia's outsourcing come back to the state in bigger or different forms of investments.

The quote at the beginning of this piece is something I wrote in college for a microeconomics class. Outsourcing is great on paper, and I really believe it will help the free market in the long run, but it's not fun to be part of that periodic downswing on a mostly steady ascent. Thank goodness for the Filipino representatives at AT&T. They saved not only my economic theory, but my Internet connection as well.

Oracle Bones: Blending China’s Past and Present

As deftly as is possible with modern China, Peter Hessler's book takes a clear snapshot of a changing nation even as all his subjects are moving.

To read Peter Hessler’s Oracle Bones is to appreciate the power of combining literary knowledge and journalistic skill in China, a land ripe with stories for the telling. In four trips to China over the past three years, I’ve witnessed a small glimpse of the country’s dynamic nature, but I’ve only spent a little more than two months there in all my travels combined. Hessler spent two years teaching in rural Sichuan province before working in Beijing as a clipper for the Wall Street Journal’s makeshift news bureau and eventually branching out as a freelancer. Throughout Oracle Bones, it’s easy to see how living in Beijing has helped Hessler, a waiguoren (literally “outside the country person”), gain as much of an insider’s perspective as is possible in China, a highly ethnocentric society. And as he recounts portions of Chinese history, it’s interesting to watch him struggle with the gravity of being an outside insider. It’s also fascinating to follow him as he weaves past and present, a skill as difficult as it is necessary when talking about a country with China’s long history.

The title of the book emerges out of its consistent theme: the irony of how China’s surge toward future development is fueling the rediscovery of its past, and how this theme embodies the country’s current state, where the only thing constant is change. Oracle bones are where archaeologists find the origins of Chinese writing. According to Hessler’s research, these inscribed turtles’ breastplates contain divination texts dating back to the Shang Dynasty. Through a series chapters titled “Artifact A” and so on, he addresses the oracle bones and other archaeological topics like ancient city walls and bronze horses, overlaying them on the framework of the life of scholar Chen Mengjia, who wrote the definitive book on Shang-era bronze sculptures. In the end, Chen’s story somewhat fits together, making limited sense of a chaotic collage of characters and eras that Hessler brings together with a unity that’s uncanny (1) considering the range of topics covered—both geographically and editorially.

But where Hessler really makes his money, as far as I’m concerned, is in the art of the profile. He uses people to tell explain societal shifts, trends, and modes of thought. Emily, one of his former English students, represents both the massive rural-to-urban migration and the uniquely outspoken Chinese female. William Jefferson Foster and Nancy Drew embody the young Chinese couple pushing toward middle class. Old Mr. Zhao, whose his historic home was demolished to pave the way for new developments in Beijing, is the stalwart preserving history for posterity. And Polat, Hessler’s Uighur (2) friend, is strength forged of China’s multiculturalism, Uighur pragmatism and American idealism all wrapped into one.

At first glance, Oracle Bones might look like work of disjointed stories, soldered together by a broad thematic adhesive: China. But with Hessler’s attention to detail and literary mind, it turns out to be much deeper than that. Yes, the stories all have to do with China, but they’re cohesive even within their singularity, because they work toward producing a whole image of China. As deftly as is possible with modern China, Hessler takes a clear snapshot even as all his subjects are moving.

I have to warn you. In the first few chapters of Oracle Bones, Hessler makes as if he’s a lowly copy boy in the Wall Street Journal bureau. If this book is your first Hessler book, you might be fooled into thinking that he somehow learned to write by clipping news stories from foreign papers. Be advised: Hessler is Princeton and Oxford educated, and his literary knowledge shows through as he undertakes his second work of what he calls “narrative nonfiction.” I’m currently reading his first book, River Town. I wouldn’t recommend reading Oracle Bones without some prior knowledge of China, but if you have any interest in the Middle Kingdom, it will do you well to read both of his books. He’s informative without being dogmatic, and his stories, though true, read like a fiction bestseller that you won’t be able to put down.

Notes

1 I have a ravenous interest in China, so if my praise for Hessler’s books seems outlandish or exaggerated, attribute it my thirst for knowledge on the subject.

2 The Muslim Uighurs are the predominate ethnic group in Xinjiang province, which occupies the northwest quarter of China’s landmass. Xinjiang is called a “Uighur Autonomous Region,” not because it’s truly autonomous, but because most of the some 9 million Uighurs live there.

The Rape of Nanking-Book Review

In this book about 20th century China, original sin shows our desperate need for God-birthed civility.

Shock value, or the weight of the truth? Either way, Iris Chang’s thoroughly researched book on what she calls “The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II” floors the reader with the brutal impact of the Japanese occupation of Nanking (now called Nanjing) in the 1930s. It’s important to know that Nanjing was the capital of the Chinese Nationalists, the faction that struggled against the Communists but eventually lost in 1949. The Japanese, who had planned to invade China for a long time, saw political unrest in young Chinese republic (founded in 1912) as the opportune moment to attack. The Nationalist army abandoned the city, and most civilians were either too weak, ignorant or poor to flee before the well trained Japanese army descended on the capital. I would say that what happened subsequently is beyond description, but Chang has described it all too well.

Chang chose the book’s title carefully, as if to alarm the reader that something unspeakable awaits within the pages. But no warning is adequate for the tragedy and horror Chang documents with gruesome imagery and relentless statistical evidence: By some estimates, over 300,000 were killed in a span of a few months. Chang’s description of the methodical and sadistic approach taken by the Japanese—with live burials, killing contests, beheadings—is almost too much to take in. But the sheer scale of the atrocities keeps driving the plot. As a reader, you’re drawn to continue, as though you’re not doing justice to the dead unless you trudge through the pages, remembering their story and vowing to ensure that these events never happen again.

Two of the most interesting parts to me were the beginning and end of the conflict. In a chapter called “The Road to Nanking,” Chang talks about how Japanese children were trained to demonize the Chinese from a young age. At the end, she discusses the trials of the Japanese leaders that either directly sanctioned their army’s behavior or failed to stop it. Justice was never served, and many of them have never served a day behind bars. Innocent young minds corrupted, while those who did the corrupting get off without proper punishment. Reading this book confirmed my belief in original sin. The stories within those pages shatter the argument that human nature is inherently good. Outside forces influence us, no doubt. But nurture alone can’t account for the unchecked evil that fell on Nanjing.

On the other hand, there are Chang’s heroes, those unlikely foreigners who show that despite humanity’s propensity toward evil, we don’t have to resort to a Lord of the Flies worldview. We can be civilized. We can regain dignity even in the most disgraceful of times. We can be like Jesus, serving our fellow men even at great risk to and in spite of ourselves.

John Rabe, ironically, was a German and a member of the Nazi party. He was chosen as one of the leaders of the Nanking Safety Zone, a few blocks of cityscape designated as a safe area for Chinese refugees. Rabe housed refugees at his own estate, and he was known for driving around the war-torn city, using his Nazi badge to stop rapes and killings in progress. Germany was Japan’s ally, and this strange authority gave him clout with the Japanese henchmen, allowing Rabe to save untold numbers of people. Interestingly, Rabe reportedly wrote letters to Hitler describing the atrocities and asking the fuhrer to end them.

Other foreigners helped as well. An American doctor performed surgeries for days on end. Another American woman protected her students at a women’s college. All in all, Chang estimates that more than 200,000 people were saved as a result of the efforts in the safety zone. Although the soldiers rarely honored its boundaries, a team of less than 20 foreigners was able to somehow feed and protect refuges from all over the city and the countryside.

In the end, Chang has told compelling story, but not one with a neat resolution. In a crystal clear picture of sin running rampant, there is no silver lining. Sin is messy, and when it takes control, there is only the melancholy legacies of lives senselessly ruined and the faint hope that somehow nations and people will learn from the transgressions of the past. If the 1930s and 40s taught us anything, they taught us that the days are evil. We need something—Someone—outside of us to keep the world spinning. May we continually pray for grace, because Chang’s book proves that if He gives us over to our own desires, there is no limit to the pain we can inflict on one another.

Why We Can’t Afford to Boycott China

Angered over continued human rights abuses throughout China, a Congressman from California recently drafted a resolution recommending that the United States boycott the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing to send a message to the communist nation that the United States is “a country, not just an economy.”

What he means, of course, is that we shouldn’t let our precarious financial situation with China dictate our stance on issues that involve human livelihood. His is a noble and well-intentioned goal, and I agree that with great power comes great responsibility. Our nation shouldn’t be soft with those that show no regard for human rights, but I don’t believe the Congressman is seeing the whole picture.

In 2006 we had a trade deficit with China of a little over $232 billion, and while we spend our money like a drunken sailor, as my boss says, China has bought more and more of our currency and steadily depressed the real value of the yuan. For the past 10-15 years, American companies have increasingly moved manufacturing operations to China for the mounds of human capital and cheap labor. As a result, we have become inextricably intertwined with the most populous country on the planet, and maintaining good terms in that bi-lateral relationship will be important to the world’s stability and our livelihood. Last year, one of my professors told me that a sudden adjustment of the currency imbalance could severely harm our economy. Although China probably wouldn’t go that route—to hurt our economy would impact theirs significantly—it might be chance they are willing to take if relations deteriorate substantially.

A historical glance at 20th century China reveals another component that is possibly a more compelling reason to buddy up with China: Slowly but surely, China is opening, and with increased involvement on the world stage comes a greater demand for transparency in government dealings. When talking to the Chinese people, I’ve confirmed the stereotype that they are not known for their brazen openness. Unlike Americans, they’re very indirect in discussing their emotions, and it takes time to break down the wall and really get inside their heads. The government’s like that too, I think. It fears exposure, because exposure means vulnerability, and vulnerability threatens control.

It started in 1979, three years after Mao Zedong’s death and one year after the United States decided to recognize the People’s Republic over Taiwan as the one true China. The country was still recovering from Mao’s disastrous Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward campaigns when Deng Xiaoping first visited the U.S. to lay the international groundwork for what would become known as gaige kaifang: Reform and Opening. Since then, our relationship with the Asian juggernaut, though fraught with setbacks, has dramatically improved. Although egregious human rights violations continue, the fact that we know about them and actually care is a result of our active involvement in China’s development. At least on the surface, China is making changes to appease foreigners, a strange dynamic in the land where the Boxer Rebellion and Cultural Revolution (two bloody campaigns against all things foreign) took place. To boycott the Olympics now would be disastrous. It would be our “Great Leap Backward” and would all but nullify hard-fought progress we’ve made over the past 30 years.

Besides, maybe a crackdown on human rights isn’t so bad in the grand scheme of things. You’ll probably say I should tell that to the families of those who suffer. But maybe government repression is evidence that, like a cornered viper, a Party that once ruled with support from the people is lashing out as a last-ditch effort against encroaching capitalism.

Just the other day, I sat down with an expert from Beijing who is in charge of all English publications having to do with the Olympic games. A deputy editor at the state-funded China Daily newspaper, he will work for two years in all translating Chinese documents to English for the International Olympic Committee and English to Chinese for his government. This is his fourth trip to the U.S., a personal journey to visit his daughters who work in Atlanta and Los Angeles. Ironically, we met at Starbucks, and we talked about the fact that a franchise was recently removed from the Forbidden City because it was “too American” and “not harmonious” with the Chinese cultural relics surrounding it.

I found that statement interesting on a variety of levels. For one, the fact that he used the word “harmonious” showed that the Communist Party is still kicking. Building a “harmonious society” has been President Hu Jintao’s catch phrase for the past year or two, and the terminology has trickled down even to newspaper editors. Secondly, when I was in the Forbidden City last summer, I noticed that Coke is not too American to be prevalent inside in the emperor’s playground. I guess an imperialist franchise location is a bit more intrusive than a few plastic bottles that can be put out of sight after they’ve sucked in foreign money.

The way the conversation started, I was skeptical. I thought I had a seasoned communist propagandist on my hands, and I braced myself for a long and unproductive discussion. But as he sipped his grande-sized latte, he answered my questions with surprising openness. When I asked about China Daily’s ability to be unbiased in China, he looked tired and said this was a hard question to answer. “I gave this answer when I started 20 years ago: It’s an official newspaper,” he said. “Twenty years later I give you the same answer: It’s an official newspaper, but we try our best to be objective.” Because the newspaper is state-funded, it’s hard to be independent, in the same way that American publications are often limited by their advertisers, he told me.

With regard to human rights, he was even more vocal. I didn’t reveal that I on my four trips to China I have been detained at border stations, kicked out of towns and interrogated by the police on numerous occasions. I didn’t need that leverage to get a straight answer. He mentioned criticisms about Falun Gong, the crisis in Darfur and China’s investment in Sudan, the situation in Tibet and China’s punishment of democracy advocates. “I cannot say that all these criticisms are wrong, because they have their reasons,” he said. “But I can say that China is doing the best it can.”

While I have my doubts about that statement, and Congressman Rohrabacher would certainly disagree, the expert gave me indelible evidence of the improved relations between our countries as we walked outside to say our goodbyes. The asphalt was blacker than usual, wet from a flash thunderstorm that had soaked me as I came in. In the eastern sky toward my home, charcoal clouds threatened to drop more water on the drought-dried city. I jogged to the car to get a business card. Coming back, I handed it to the expert with both hands, thanking him for his time. I waved goodbye to his wife and the two Chinese-Americans that had arranged our meeting. When we locked hands, he looked at me with sincerity in his eyes. “When you come to Beijing, you are welcome to my home.” I thanked him. He grasped my hand tighter.

Beijing jian, he said. See you in Beijing.

Photo: Mountain in Guizhou province, by Trevor Williams

Access Granted

When I entered college I knew I liked to write, but I never thought I would become a reporter. Sometimes I still don't think I fit the mold. I am naturally curious, but on the other hand, my curiosity hasn't given me the intrusiveness that a journalist sometimes needs to have. I'm personable, but I'm not that outgoing, so approaching people I barely know is not my forte. I don't like the idea of becoming the snoopy journalist who rids himself of decency in the name of "getting the story."

That's where my job is cool. As a small, international business publication, GlobalAtlanta's philosophy is to build relationships through reporting. In other words, I'm responsible for getting an accurate story, but incumbent in that responsibility is facilitating a healthy relationship with and between businesspeople. As a result, I've been able to meet a number of important people on good terms. Here's a small, non-comprehensive list of the people I've had access to because I'm a member of the press:

-Lee Tae-Sik-Ambassador of Korea to the United States, who is starting a tour of the U.S. to promote a controversial U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. He does not know if or when Congress will vote on the proposal.

-Rajmah Hussain-Ambassador of Malaysia to the United States, whom I met at a Malaysian Gala last weekend. There I met Chef Zam, Malaysia's "Emeril" who has been featured on the U.S.' Food Network. I also got to know the youngest Malaysian ever to climb Everest, a 25-year-old who calls himself Qobain.

-Qiao Hong-Chinese consul general in Houston, Texas, who visited Atlanta shortly after assuming her position.

-TobyMac-Christian rocker who is a former member of the band DC Talk.

And the less-known subjects: An Atlantan opening a Jamaican restaurant in China, representatives from Japan and Nigeria's chambers of commerce in Atlanta, businesswomen from the Middle East, and others.

I'm grateful that God who, knowing my disdain for the mundane, saw fit to give me a job where each day is different and I get to continually feed my interest in international affairs. I've always wanted to have a global impact and in some small way, I feel like I'm doing that now.