It’s a combination of factors that has brought me to this point.

First, the Olympics were a great distraction from real problems, and the financial crisis and subsequent global recession reminded us all of this. I had a great time mocking the idiosyncrasies that led up to the Greatest Games in the History of Mankind, but more serious issues took precedent once they ended.

Second, the hours are okay, but the pay is terrible. In fact, I lose money on the blog proposition. I know, hard to imagine a blog isn’t a cash cow.

Third, there were lots of things, particularly US and Chinese policy, I wanted to comment on, but I decided it might be inappropriate professionally to do so. The result is I will have to keep my sarcasm and pseudo-insight for my friends to listen to via e-mail or at the bar. I’m sure they would all prefer if I had a blog to let those thoughts out, but sadly, they will have to feign interest.

It’s been a lot of fun and I’ve enjoyed the feedback. I’ll never forget my six readers (mostly family members).

Likewise, Tom Cruise is a good actor, but a crazy human being. Fortunately, we rarely have to spend time together. His lunacy is well contained outside of my existence. So I can accept him as the brilliant star who brought gay culture into mainstream America with Top Gun.

I grew up in the era of Michael Jackson, Madonna, Doc Gooden, Michael Jordan, Mark McGwire and Gary Hart. At a certain point, you have to appreciate the fact that just because someone excels at something, they aren’t necessarily a good person. In fact, if you’re famous enough to show up on the  general public’s radar, odds are that you’ve developed a good dose of arrogance and sense of entitlement.

Enter Tiger Woods. People seemed to be shocked that he went around cheating on his wife. Why? Because he’s good at driver a golf ball? Because he endorses a consulting firm or car? He is young, handsome, insanely successful, famous and incredibly rich. People who have a lot fewer of those things going for them have been tempted before.

I’m not sure why, but people repeat the same misjudgment over and over: you don’t know someone just because you see them on television. And even people you know personally might have some aspects of their life that would surprise you.

Having said all of that, the list of Tiger’s alleged indulgences does somehow surprise. He seems to thrive on the seedy. Don’t believe me? Below is a list that combines descriptions of President Bill “Bubba” Clinton’s known sexual triumphs with those of Tiger Woods. Your job is to figure which five go with which celeb:

1. club hostess
2. reality show contestant
3. Las Vegas club manager
4. former employee of “Trashy Girls Lingerie”
5. pancake house waitress
6. swimsuit model
7. former porn star
8. former cocktail waitress
9.  “sexy” British TV presenter
10. “sex-addicted cougar”

Numbers 1, 3, 7, 8 and 10 are Tiger. And so are the rest. How similar are the sexual exploits of Tiger Woods and our former president? Well, let’s just say that one of these men was caught dropping off a diner waitress at her trailer park residence after a quickie, and the other is just suspected of it.

Does this mean that Tiger is a bad guy? Probably. But I never really cared much about Tiger being a good or bad person in his personal life. For me, Tiger’s legacy was always that he broke down the racial wall of a goofy sport. And no matter how many golf tournaments he wins, or flapjack servers he beds, Tiger Woods will always represent one thing to me: he brought a sport that destroys the environment, involves total silence and no direct contact with your opponent to a much wider audience. That will be his true shame.

I got lazy and missed my chance. But now I’ve seen it (or at least the first two hours before we left the theater). Let’s go through the highlights:

• Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek shake hands in Chongqing to set up durable lasting peace for all. As a demonstration of goodwill Mao says that the Communists need to make a concession first to show they are serious. Chiang Kai-shek uses this as an opportunity to attack the Communists and destroy what would have been a long-lasting and wonderful friendship.
• Mao enjoys giving piggyback rides in flowery fields to small children. Jeepers, what a nice guy.
• When the Guomindang send in planes to kill Mao, he has just taken a sleeping pill–although it appears to be the middle of the day–so cooks and workers carry him out on a stretcher because he’s two groggy. This is something I find ironic because I had always heard stories about Mao getting carried for large portions of the Long March. Sleeping pills were not central to that theme.
• A cook meets Mao and is so excited that he develops the demeanor of Zhao Benshan. Mao generously gives him a cancer stick, which he puts behind his ear because he wants to cherish this cancer stick from the great leader for years. Mao of course then gives him the whole pack. Apparently propaganda films can’t have useful messages like “don’t smoke.” Needless to say, that cook is martyred within 10 minutes. He’s running back to get Mao’s food in the middle of a bombing raid because Mao hasn’t eaten yet (presumably sue to the fact that he was too busy taking afternoon sleeping pills). I’m not making this up.
• Every Chinese star you’ve ever heard of is in the film for 32 seconds with the Yao Ming on the Chinese national team look (“so if I do this I can continue my career afterward, right?) I know, I’m so cynical. I’m sure that Jackie Chan, who built his career in Hong Kong in the 1970s, when he would not have been able to pursue his career in the mainland, was really eager to glorify the Communist Party.
• I should point out that I missed the end of the film, so if anyone out there knows who ends up winning the war, please let me know. I’m really eager to find out. I’m also eager for the sequel: “The Destroying of the Republic: The pre-Opening and Reform Years.”

What I found most remarkable was how thinly-veiled the propaganda was. I’ve seen all those miserable Mao dramas on television, but this film had real production value. There’s a right way to do propaganda and a wrong way. When Dick Cheney commissioned FOX to air “24,” it was brilliant. Coming up with a GI Joe action figure so that kids understand the greatness of the military-industrial complex before puberty, again, brilliant. Having the man who sanctioned the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution frolic through the dandelions as he races around with an eight year-old girl on his back…ummm.

What exactly does this tell us? Well, normally most of us in China think of the country as a rapidly advancing place where nationalism can rear its ugly head when targeting monstrosities like CNN and France. But at the same time there is a tendency to believe that 1960s-style propaganda is too transparent for the modern Chinese population–at least those with reasonably good educations.

Perhaps most modern, middle-class Chinese thought The Founding of a Republic was as goofy and silly as I did.  For all of its production value and big-name stars, it was just another clumsy step back for a genuinely emerging superpower.

Hu Shuli, the magazine’s legendary founder, who sas recently featured in a New Yorker story by Evan Osnos, may in fact be behind the move. Speculation is that she is trying to get leverage over control of the magazine, and the scale of the apparent resignations speaks volumes about the staff loyalty and her own smarts.

From China Economic Review:

he exodus has caused speculation that charismatic founder and managing editor Hu Shuli may also be preparing to leave. Whether she stays or goes, Caijing‘s finances are at risk. The business department generates nearly all the profits for the mainland’s most profitable business magazine. Some believe that the resignations are a maneuver in Hu’s negotiations with the magazine’s owner and publisher, the Stock Exchange Executive Council (SEEC). There are rumors that Hu has been trying to pressure the SEEC to surrender majority control by bringing in outside investors, and threatening to leave and launch new business publications if SEEC declines the proposal.

It’s a common theme in China that someone builds something and then someone else thinks that can take it over and cash in. However, to paraphrase Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, I think they fucked with the wrong marine this time.

And yet, with all of the changes that have taken place, there are still some odd remnants of an economy from years gone by that no longer exists. Cash, for example, is still overwhelmingly the preferred type of payment. While you see many more domestic credit cards and bank transfers these days, the overwhelming majority of daily commerce is still done with cash, particularly outside of the three biggest cities. And this doesn’t just go for your local 鸡蛋饼, either. I’ve had landlords who prefer to receive months of payments at a time in cash. You still see people making down payments on apartments in cash. Hell, when I lived in Chengdu, they used to pay my monthly salary in cash. Sadly it fit in a money clip fairly easily.

Now, all of this would be fine, except for one problem. The government has had the foresight to change economic policy drastically in 1979, gradually float the currency to avoid crisis and dissolve, sell or drastically change the structure of state-owned enterprises. And yet, it hasn’t occurred to anyone yet that perhaps it’s time to start printing a bill larger than the hundred.

This, my friends makes no sense at all. It would be tough enough putting a downpayment on a house with US hundreds. Imagine doing it with a bunch of $15 dollar bills. This is really the craziest most out of date anachronism I’ve ever heard of. It makes my life painful, and it makes everything seem more expensive. For example, if you buy a computer, most people hand over stacks of cash. That has to be a disincentive to making big purchases. It just feels like you’re spending a fortune.

The one argument I’ve heard for the hundred being the biggest bill is that it is a deterrent to corruption and the underground economy. If you have a trunk full of case, there’s not much you can do with it.

But that seems like a weak case to keep the rest of us miserable. There’s a restaurant in Baoli Dasha where the coffee is RMB 128. That’s right, there is no bill in China that can cover a single cup of overpriced coffee. That’s preposterous.

So if China is really going to promote consumer spending, I have one simple piece of advice: print larger denominations of currency.

There are two schools of thought about what has changed in the 20 years since. The first argument is that China totally opened up its economy in the aftermath of being shunned by most of the world, transforming it into the modern and vibrant country it is today. The second argument is one a Chinese friend told me, to my great surprise. After hearing that Twitter was blocked, he said, “You know, China is just like North Korea now. Well, not the same, but this kind of policy seems the same.”

So the question becomes: has China opened and modernized over the last 20 years, or is it still saddled with a big brother mindset? As you might imagine, the answer is yes. Both are quite clearly true.

And here is the irony of modern China. It would be impossible to label a country that has about 100,000 foreigners living in its capital city, allows discussion boards and access to most websites a “Hermit Kingdom.” It’s just not accurate. Most people can walk wherever they want, whenever they want. You can discuss pretty much anything with friends, even in a crowded restaurant. At the same time, there are about three topics that you need to be careful about (tanks, Tibet and Taiwan). You can’t read the Huffington Post or watch YouTube. Reports I heard said that there were hundreds of plain clothes police in and around the square today. It is extremely open and yet oddly closely. Both of these realities are simultaneously true.

And this is why there are such muddled ideas about China. It has one foot clearly 20 years ahead of the world curve, but another remains jammed in the door that hasn’t yet fully opened.

I’m not sure where we go from here. In the American model, often we see change coming in the form of new waves of politicians. It bubbles up from non-establishment figures, often unexpectedly. We moved from malaise to Reagonomics because a politician came out and spoke directly to the people. And we moved from Bush, Clinton, Bush, to Obama, because he came out and seized an opportunity that no one gave him. It’s the same thing on the issues in America. George Will has pointed out that it doesn’t really matter where people stand on gay marriage because it’s a generational issue. If you’re under 35, odds are pretty good you don’t object. Do the math and it’s just a matter of time before it becomes and overwhelming majority of the population.

But in China, the leaders are often chosen because they do not have ideas terribly different from the previous generation. Sure, Deng Xiaoping broke the mold, taking the country in an entirely new direction (twice), but I’m not sure a politician like that can rise to the top anymore (particularly after the events of 20 years ago). So is the country doomed to incremental change on all fronts (or  significant change on some and virtually none on the others)? I don’t know. There’s no model to look at.

So, 20 years later, the question remains: what kind of a country is China today?

But surely Twitter couldn’t ruin a good autocracy, right? Those annoying one sentence blasts that usually link to something more interesting (or not). Surely that can’t threaten the Chinese way of life, right? Or not.

Apparently, fearing that people could express ideas that could undermine the stability of China in under 140 characters, the country has blocked Twitter. (Incidentally, that last sentence was too long to tweet.) In a painful irony, Cup of Cha had only recently figured out the wonders of such an idiotic service (mostly that I could put much less time into maintaining an online identity that has thus far yielded me little more than the unexpected wrath of Celine Dion fans). That’s right, it was on this past Sunday that I launched the glorious Tweet of Cha. And I had spent most of my time reading hilarious DPRK tweets (long story short: they’re real press releases but someone else is posting them).

In another irony, the last blog post that I wrote (and didn’t publish) was about how ridiculous it is that China seems concerned that YouTube will tear the country down. I now feel compelled to post it and backdate it. Not sure why I have to backdate it, but dagnabit, I will.

I was going to write a bunch more about how China should want people to waste their time doing stupid crap, but I already did in my previously unpublished post.

Nothing like a really dumb policy to get me back on the Cup.

To me, after the cold, dry, bleak winter, this is a very welcome sign. Yet, for every wonderful turn of events, there is always a negative side. In the case of Beijing spring, being able to sit outside on plastic chairs and eat on crappy folding table far outweighs the negatives. At the same time, the oddities of Beijing spring require a closer look.

These are observations, not complaints, mind you. The strange happenings of Beijing spring are indeed bizarre, and they come in waves. So, in the spirit of Passover, I give you the 10 plagues of Beijing spring. Many of them repeat every year, a few are unique to 2009.

1. Those weird white fluffy things flying through the air. What are these things and how do they get so high? I’ve looked at the window from the 20th floor of office buildings and it looks like it’s snowing. Even in areas with no plant life. They blanketed the city last weekend, and now they are gone. Figures.
2. Gnats. Let’s just say I make sure to keep my mouth shut while biking in spring.
3. Dust storms. There’s nothing quite like looking out the window and thinking, “Are rain clouds usually red?”
4. 4:30AM sunrises.
5. Ritan Park stench. You know what I’m talking about. They drain that pond in Ritan Park and it stinks something awful for two weeks at a time. Those are not fun times at the Stone Boat.
6. Return of gray skies. Remember how the sky was blue all winter? It’s like they’ve decided most of the Olympics reporters are finally gone and they can stop spray painting the air blue.
7. Another spring, another day removed from the May Holiday. This year we get three days off. But two are on a weekend. That’s messed up.
8. Children’s Day. My understanding is that kids don’t work, pay taxes or have any responsibilities. Good thing there’s a day when they can get out from under all of that stress and get pampered by their doting parents. Few countries spoil their kids more than in the US, but we don’t celebrate Children’s Day.
9. Realization that the Olympics aren’t coming back. On the up side, foreigners can get visas this year.
10. The impending return of the old-man-tank-top-roll-up-over-the-beer-gut moments. Actually, this is a positive development.

That pretty much sums up the weirdness of Beijing spring. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go outside and make a Mongolian-sand castle.

The other thing you see, less surprisingly, is English phrases. Sometimes they make sense, other times they are down right confusing. Like the one I saw with the menacing logo…and most generic text possible:

Given the number of college girls in America walking around with tatoos on the small of their backs that say “I love syphilis” in Chinese, I’m not going to critique the language skills of these drivers.

However, I saw one recently, that had perfect English–at least in that it made sense.

The message, on the other hand, may be a little telling about different views on the role of police in society. In most US cities, the police department motto is “To serve and protect” (see below for the good folks at the SD Police Department).

In China, at least on driver views the role of the police differently:

And yes, they were talking about the police, although I am totally baffled as to why they imply the police were founded in 1865.

And all the while, my understanding was that the Chinese PLA was supposed to be celebrating 50th anniversary of the liberation from enslavement of the serfs in far western China. I guess the policies are regional.