A Land of Steel and Iron

Amazing pictures of China: 'Showcase: Infernal Landscapes' by Lu Guang on the impacts of industrialization.

Also watch the flash animation introducing the city of Panzhihua (Sichuan) on eRenlai.com

eRenlai celebrates the Mid-Autumn Festival

Forget moon cakes this Mid-Autumn festival, for surprises that won't disappoint you take a bite into eRenlai and the latest fruits of the Taipei Ricci Institute.

Start with our new resource website Tale Image (http://www.tale-image.com/). Tale Image gathers tales and collections of pictures on people and places in the Chinese world, and offers you unique, ready to publish material on community leaders, spiritual experiences and creative social experiments in China, Taiwan and other parts of Asia. The website will be progressively enriched (with your contributions also, we hope) and aims at becoming a world-wide resource centre for a more narrative approach to developmental, cultural and spiritual issues. (For more information contact Cerise at cerise@erenlai.com).

For those of you with empty book shelves: the Taipei Ricci Institute is publishing 26volumes of primary Chinese sources (pre-1820's) from the National Library of France. They cover a wide range of subjects from history to edicts and memorials, from anatomy to biographies of the first missionaries and the first converts to Christianity in China. This publication is a unique collection and a testimony to the history of Chinese Christianity. The collection is now available at the eRenlai online store here, or you can contact riccitpe@seed.net.tw.

For this month’s Focus, an array of videos and articles provide you with a look into the fascinating culture of the little known Qiang minority group, deep in the mountains of Northwestern Sichuan. Spend a moment with the Wang family and learn how they are undertaking the reconstruction of their house following the 2008 earthquake. And witness the cultural revival that is accompanying such reconstruction work, through rituals, crafts and weaving.

In our editorial section, read about the history of Tushanwan Training Studio and Orphanage established in 1852 by Jesuit missionaries in Shanghai, be led on a stroll through Suzhou's sublime gardens by Benoit Vermander or wake yourself up with some Ersu chants filmed by Liang Zhun.

Jeux de mots, jeux de ...vélos?

Il n'y a pas longtemps, j'ai retrouvé à Shanghai un groupe d'amis parmi lesquels il y avait des chinois venant de Shanghai -même, d'autres venant de Pékin et du Sichuan ainsi que des amis venant de Taipei et quelques étrangers. Nous nous amusions à comparer différentes expressions et mots de vocabulaires: par exemple "bicyclette" se dit "自行车" sur le continent (ce qui signifie (véhicule mû par lui-même)" alors qu'à Taiwan, il se dit "腳踏車" (véhicule à pédale). Et ce n'est qu'un exemple parmi d'autres! De plus, il ne s'agit pas seulement de différences de vocabulaire, on retrouve aussi des différences d'usage, d'accent et de prononciation.

En plus d'être grandement divertissant, ce jeu de comparaison m'a aussi frappée car j'ai déjà observé cette même pratique chez les hispanophones ; ils s'amusent eux aussi à imiter leurs accents respectifs et à comparer leurs différentes manières de parler. Ainsi en argentin, un "gars" se dit "un chabon", les colombiens disent "un man" (ou "un mancito", un "petit man"...), les espagnols "un pavo" (littéralement "une dinde")...

En parlant d'Amérique latine, ne manquez pas notre série de photos et d'articles sur le Brésil. Ma contribution particulière est mon remix de samba qui accompagne l'article de Roberto Ribeiro sur le carnaval de Bahia... Si vous vous sentez une âme d'artiste ou d'inventeur sonique, participez au concours d'installations audio-visuelles mis en place par Jose Duarte au Costa Rica!

Migrant workers in China

Their current number is estimated at 150 million, or 11.5 per cent of the population, nearly double that of 10 years ago. Many of them come from ethnic minorities areas.

In October, eRenlai magazine featured a special Focus about the life of Yi migrants in China's big cities: voice records, interviews and photo reportages compose the precious testimonies of this neglected population.

Here is a bouquet of articles, flash animations and voices records to know more and understand better this phenomenon in China:

Yi Migrant Workers in Chengdu by Liang Zhun

"The Yi workers range in age from 20 to 40 years old, so they are carrying the twin burdens of supporting their elders and caring for their children, who sometimes number three or four.They still have to send money back home (around 500 Yuan per month) in order to satisfy the demanding expectations and wishes of their families in their hometowns. To save money, several workers rent a single room together so each one only pays 50 to 60 Yuan per month. The living conditions are barely adequate and the hygiene extremely poor..."

read more

Migrant Workers and Local Development by Bertrand Cristau

"The migration of young people from the Chinese countryside to cities raises a number of questions about the future of rural and mountainous areas. Will this exodus create deserted areas, without working force and creativity, or will these youth come back to transform and energize their place of origins?"

read more

From Liangshan to Shenzhen by Hua Li (voice in Chinese)

"I am just back from Shenzhen where I worked for three months in a plant doing cell phones, assembling parts. My formation lasted for 3 or 4 days, and afterwards I worked. The salary was 1,000 RMB, but once all the fees were deducted we were earning 700 RMB a month. We were 23 to leave together. The others still work in this factory. I came back because I heard about this opportunity in Shanghai.In this factory, after one year you can sign a contract. Before that, you are just a temporary worker.I’d like to study a technique, a trade, whatever which. I’d like to help the poorer people around here. I think we should plant more vegetables. I am interested in the greenhouse project."

Ethnic migrant workers in China today by B. Vermander
"The needs and difficulties faced by ethnic minority migrant workers are multi faceted: they comprise (a) the lack or the very poor quality of the formal education received before they have left; (b) the general problems met by migrant workers all over China (housing, working conditions, lack of work contracts, healthcare…); (c) additional difficulties linked to their cultural and linguistic estrangement; (d) lack of sustainable community projects at home, which also means (e) lack of long-term perspectives and subsequent difficulty in formulating a personal project.. ."
read more

And plenty other testimonies, studies and articles on eRenlai.com

While in China...

And some places in China don't even have access to running water, here is how you build an hydraulic system in a small village : Yangjuan.
Read the article Water for All ! by Jacques Duraud.

China's Environmental Challenge

During one of these “café conversations”, when one is remodelling the world with friends, the topic turned to China's Environmental Challenge. In fact, China’s environmental problem is a concern for the world and not only Asia. Recently an article from Spiegel Online (China's Poison for the Planet 2 February 2007) pinpointed the fact that China was most of all “An export world champion -- in pollution!”

From a global perspective or an inside view, the question is also how much are the Chinese people aware of environmental protection’s necessity? And how do Chinese individuals perceive their natural environment? It would mean that it is not only a matter of policy decided by an upper governance because, maybe at the end, the decision to cut the last tree or to overexploit the resources is to be made by individuals. But most of the individuals have almost no influence on the policies made by institutions like the WTO or the UN. Still, in the Chinese context, it may be mandatory to start with a focus on education and with the reinterpretation of the Chinese tradition to achieve a better relationship between development and nature.

Today’s favourites
Climate Change: a Call for World Governance and China's Environmental Challenge
by Benoit Vermander, chief editor.

China 1979-1981

When I saw Yves Nalet’s pictures of China between 1979 and 1981, I immediately thought about my uncle and my aunt who lived in China exactly during these years. They were French teachers in the Language Center of Tianjin University and they keep an unforgettable recollection of this time. I would like especially to reproduce here their comment of this photo :

“The photo of the bicycles’ parking made us remember our first time at the picture. We were wondering why people would hastily leave the theatre even before the end of the movie. We finally understand when it took us three hours to get back our bicycles!”

According to them, Yves Nalet’s pictures are a good testimony of a revolved time they are very glad to have known.

Today’s favourites
China, 1979-1981, pictures by Yves Nalet