the black China hand

Justice in China grows from the crack in a billfold. About a year ago I got a frantic call from a Chinese friend. Her sister had been arrested and she wanted my help to get her released. Although it’s been a while my old public defender persona kicked into gear and so after calming her down, I endeavored to get the full story in order to figure out a strategy of assistance. What follows is an amazing story of insensitivity, corruption, straight up evil and the courage.

As she explained it, she had last seen her sister (whom she lived with) the morning she “disappeared.” After a day or so without any word she began to get increasingly worried especially when she got no response from repeated calls and messages she made to her sister’s cell phone. Besides the phone she had no means of knowing where her sister was and she didn’t trust that the police would do anything to look for her without some “gifts” or “connections. ” So she just waited and hoped for the best. About three days later she got a call from a friend of her sister’s friend, an expat businessman, who said she had been arrested. However, his Chinese was not very good so she wasn’t sure and she couldn’t think of any reason why her sister would be arrested. After that call however, she decided to call her sister’s friend who went out with her the day she disappeared. Only then did she learn that her sister had been arrested. It was now a week since she had last seen her sister. Stifling the rage she felt that her sister’s friend didn’t figure to inform her that she’d been arrested she pleaded with the friend for further information.

And that’s were things got really weird. The sister’s friend told her that they had decided to go to a bar for some drinks. Once at the bar, they had met a couple of other friends including a couple of expat businessmen. It was all nice until several police arrived and basically arrested everyone woman in the place without a good excuse for being their. Apparently, it was her sister’s first time there, the bar manager did not vouch for her¹ and she had no money to “payment vouch” so she was arrested for solicitation.

Shocked, my friend immediately tried to figure out where her sister was being held. She asked at her local police station was well as the one nearest to the bar where he was arrested. Wherever she went, whoever she asked, she got no information just stone cold stares and several verbal threats against continuing to ask. Her sister had literally been sucked into the “black hole” that is public security in China. My friend was scared as well as her family. She couldn’t tell her parents for fear they would die of embarrassment. She couldn’t tell her sister’s boyfriend for fear he would leave her. She couldn’t tell her sister’s employer for fear they would fire her. So she just started to make up stories, to her parents, to her sister’s boyfriend, to everyone that: her sister was sick or her sister had gone abroad to study or her sister was away on business. In reality she herself didn’t know where or how her sister was.

Eventually, almost a month after her sister disappeared, she got a call from her sister. She got the call while she was on the bus. Just hearing her sister’s voice made her start to cry uncontrollably. People on the bus thought she was crazy. Her sister told her that she was in a local jail. Her sister also told her that when she was arrested the manager of the bar, to escape arrest herself, had fingered her as the one soliciting because she knew she was poor and without connections and therefore unlikely to fight back. She told her sister that for several days she denied doing anything other than going to the bar with her friend for some drinks. She told her sister that the police beat her until she confessed. She told her sister that once she confessed she was transported to her present location to await a final disposition on the case. She told her sister this was the first call she was allowed to give. She told her sister to immediately move from their present apartment because she feared the manager might try to harm her if she insisted on denying the charges. And perhaps most importantly she told her sister what she had to do next to get her sister out and to keep her “safe” while she was in custody.

What her sister had to do next was basically pay off everyone. In order for her sister to be treated well, get “edible” food, have phone privileges and not get beat up while in jail, my friend had to pay off the jail guard that supervised her sister’s unit. Next up was the police officer that held her sister’s case, he had to be paid off so that he would make a favorable recommendation to the prosecutor. Without that recommendation, her “confession” would guarantee a long term sentence. Next, there was the lawyer, whose only job and indeed whose only use was in his connections with the judge on the case. Several lawyers said they had the connections and took my friends money only for her to later find that they had no connections at all. Finally there was the judge who would make the finally decision. Over the next few months my friend begged, borrowed and worked to get enough money to pay all the mouths at the trough. But still after nearly six months, my friend was broke and her sister was in jail and so she called me.

Amazed at all that had happened prior to me receiving the call and how my friend had navigated the maws of the Chinese criminal justice system on her own, there was little more that I could have done myself that had already been done. Her sister’s fate was truly in the hands of he judge. The hope was that the judges hands had been properly greased.

Fortunately, a few weeks after that call, my friend called me again. The judge had made a ruling that her sister would be given credit for time served and released. Almost 7 months after strolling into a bar for a drink and ending up in jail, her sister’s ordeal was over. But it was not before the grace of God that she was released. No, rather her release reason was more practical. It was simply cold hard cash.

1. her friend didn’t vouch for her either but she didn’t tell this to my friend at the time [↩]

While there’s been a lot of talk recently about China’s “Green Tech Revolution” I must admit, even though my US home is in one of the nation’s greenest cities (Seattle), I am a bit confused by the all the options¹ that the talk has included. On a more non-technical level though, one of the areas where I see China doing well in the green movement is on the local, grassroots level. For example, in the neighborhood that I live in (and I suspect in neighborhoods all across China) you can find an money incentive based system for recycling that is part of daily life. Indeed, every day beginning at about 7:30AM and continuing till 5:30PM you will hear a succession of individuals walking up and down the streets, alleys and building common areas yelling the phrase, “Shou po lan” (收破烂). You can’t help but notice because everyone yelling the phrase incorporates it with their own personality. Some sing the phrase, “Shooouu Poooolaaannnrr Deeeiii” while others shout it out in short, chunky, bass inflected tones “SHOU! POLAN!” My personal favorite is the guy that incorporates the phrase into a daily haiku. What does the phrase mean about you ask? A literal translation would be, to collect scrap or junk. But I think a better and more modern translation would be, to buy your recyclables. Basically, what the hawkers want to do is buy any paper, bottles, cans and other recyclable materials that you have lying around your house. Live on the 10th floor? No problem, they’ll come up and get it. Can’t detach that aluminum pipe? No problem, they’ll dismantle it, break it down and transport it. For the effort of simply calling out to them from your window to come and pick up your “junk”, they’ll pay you. Now the sum isn’t much, perhaps a few of cents for a can but its more than nothing and the more junk you have the more your can get. Besides, they do all the work.² And what do they get out of their labors? They resell the items to recycling plants for a slight mark-up in price. I recently asked “the poet” how much he can bring in a day. His answer: On a good day he can make several hundred yuan. He went further to say that combined with his wife (who has another recycling route in another part of the city) they can bring in 1-2500 yuan per month which is as good as working in a factory. More interestingly, to me at least, is how common it is for people to use the recyclers’ services: old and young, women and men, stores, shops, restaurants, everyone seems to make use of them at one point or another. In short, while money is the base incentive, the upshot is that the environment benefits and recycling is embedded in the community mindset without people even knowing it. Now that’s a green revolution.

1. such as wind farms, smart grids and hybrids [↩]
2. Could you imagine this in the US. People paying you to come in and clean out all that crap you have stored up or waiting for the next trip to the recycler. Yeah, that would be nice. [↩]

Since I’m a lawyer by profession, some of the (few) people that read this blog have inquired about why I rarely discuss legal issues. My first response, has been that I started this blog before I actually became a lawyer and more importantly, I don’t want it to become too area-specific. However, after some time of reflection, I’ve changed my mind. While I still don’t want it to become to focused on one specific topic (keeping instead to the “random gibberish” paradigm) I think that it might (perhaps) be interesting to the few readers and to myself to document how China, the law and myself interact. So I’ve decided to blog every now and then on China and the Law … or more specifically China and the areas [criminal defense] of law that I have practiced in. One issue though is that I have almost no experience in Chinese criminal law and so my first series of posts on this will most likely be “notes” of my research into the area. Make no mistake, my total focus won’t be on the law but I will now include a portion on my posts to the subject. Hope one and all can get something out of it.

When I was a kid growing up, one of the cultural icons of “livin in the hood” was the ubiquitous clutter of people hanging out on their porch … talking, eating and chilling … or standing on the corner … smoking, drinking and cursing. As a kid, this is how I thought people connected with each other in a non-work, non-school, non-confrontation environment. How people, at least where I came from, traded recipes, gossiped, kept up to date on sports, news … in short, it was how people bonded. In China, at least in the city I’m in” you can see similar gaggles of people randomly gathered on the corner, around the back, at the entrance of the choice apartment building or in small rooms everywhere. It’s obvious that these groups of folks are also bonding, trading stories and staying in touch. The only little wrinkle is that the bonding glue that brings these people together is the game called majiang. And just like back in Jersey where everyone seemed to have an idea about everything and would freely add their two cents (even when it wasn’t wanted) so it is with the majiang circles. You may be totally crazy and shunned by others normally but … saunter up to a majiang circle and drop a timely piece of strategy and you’ll be famous … for a minute … in that little world revolving around those particular tiles. In college, I learned to play majiang (actually learning to play is a misnomer because every group of players have their own rules and so you can never totally learn every rule but rather a broad set of principles) and played on occasion but never really got into it as I figured its just a game. How wrong I was. Recently, over the last month or so I’ve become part of a regular play group. We usually meet up on early Sunday to start a serious session of wan majiang that has lasted up to nine hours. This usually involves food, copious amounts of beer (more on beer in a later post), tons of idle banter and perhaps if your lucky a bit of cash at the end. I would say it is similar to for Sunday NFL watching revelry minus the pre-game network shows. The first couple of times, we played sitting on mini-stools, on a dusty table using some tiles that my friend got from his grandparents. It definitely wasn’t the most comfortable. However, last week on regular went out and bought a fancy-smancy electric majiang table (see photos) and our world of majiang blew up. This is the equivalent switching from a 5-inch black and white monitor to a 47-inch flat-screen HD TV … needless to say playing has been a joy ever since. This brings me back to my original idea about people and bonding. Over these weeks of play, I realized what I didn’t get playing majiang in college … it is not the game itself that is important but rather the interactions of the people playing or watching the play that is important. In the US we meet up for happy hour, we throw scrapbook parties, we hang out on the corner. In China, they …we … play majiang. Its all the same and it’s very different but it’s most definitely very interesting and well worth the time if you get that chance.

In an early issue of Wired magazine, famed technologist Nicolas Negroponte reflected on what he termed modern multimedia and what we today might call Interactivity, Cross-platform operability. One of his points was that in the future (like today) multimedia would need to be able to have, "fluid movement from one medium to another, saying the same thing in different way." For some reason this got me to thinking about China and the Chinese language and I wondered what Mr. Negroponte would think of each. Based on the article here is an excerpt from my fictional interview with him:

BCH: How do you see the development of multimedia in China?

NN: Well from a fundamental standpoint, China should be at the forefront of the multimedia revolution. Multimedia is intuitively part of daily life here. The written language. Chinese characters are at once both visual and aural/oral. Take for example the character for knife. Here you have a character that requires one to move simultaneously from a visual domain (the character looks strikingly like a knife) to the acoustic domain (saying oral pronunciation of the character) to the text domain (reading the romanization of the character and the pronunciation) and the mental domain (understanding the specific tone used for the character). This movement from domain to domain would must likely occur thousands of times a day to a normal Chinese person and so I would risk a guess that the idea of multimedia resonates albeit subconsciously in the Chinese society.

BCH: Hmm, interesting. Do you see any concrete examples of this resonance?

NN: Yes. Last night as I flipped through the channels on my hotel TV I realized that more than half the movies that stopped on included Chinese subtitles. The results of this are that most Chinese that watch TV regularly are experience what Marshall McLuhan would say hot and cool media stimulus. Hot in the sense that watching movie emphasizes one sense that of vision with very little actual involvement in filling in the details of the moving images and cool in the sense that reading the characters requires more effort on the part of the individual to understand what is going on. This then is the multimedia at its best. So for all these reasons it wouldn't surprise me if China would eventual be the leader in the development of multimedia.

Now, I've never met Negroponte and it is very likely that I may have a garbled understanding of both his and McLuhan's theories of media but on one level it makes sense, at least to me. The reality is that I see no actual proof of it. It looks to me that the kings of multimedia continue to come from the West. But it's just a theory that popped into my head after reading that article. Perhaps it's all yet to come.

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(continued from last post)

After some time … Mr. H had us huddle together with the goal of hammering out a full-fledged company with marketing strategy, business development plan, profit schedule and product line as well … all with no input from the person with all the information: Mr. H. It was like that game SimCity … just make it up as you go. In essence, he wanted to create a "model" US focused company down to the Starbucks coffee they would serve and the American lawyer (me) in his employ.  His hope was that Big C would think that he has such deep experience in dealing with the US market that they wouldn't hesitate to give him the contract. Then once he had the contract he would have enough capital to go on and actually complete the contract.

After about an hour of this we broke for lunch and Mr. H asked me if I would be interested in the job. I said no. I also said that it would be best to take a different approach to getting the contract. I rather suggested that he forego creating this model company because any multinational worth anything will see right through his scheme (What I really wanted to say is that straight up lying is not going to cut it) and focus on the success, the experience and the knowledge he has had in his dealing in Asia and Europe. I told him that just because he has no experience dealing with an American client doesn't mean that they will not hire him if they feel he is qualified and he is qualified. Mr. H was non-plussed with my advice.

One last note (which gave me the title to the post) … at lunch I asked Mr. H how he was able to start (and become successful in) his company. His story was as eye-opening as his attempt to get the Big C contract. It also gave me insight into how many Chinese companies get there start.

He was hired right out of college to the sales department of a state-owned import-export company. After working there several years he decided he wanted to branch off on his own but he needed capital and clients. He solved that problem by basically poaching the clients he made working at the import-export company. As for capital: he basically ran his company from his desk in the import-export company drawing a salary, making use of the company's resources (cars, dinners, gifts) to fund his personal initiative. If company officials knew or cared they didn't make him aware of it. So with no risk (financial or legal) whatsoever, over several years, Mr. H was able to build his company until it could sustain itself without the "shield" that the import-export company unknowingly provided it.

At that point, he simply quit the job at the import-export company … registered his own with the relevant authorities, rented a space elsewhere and continued doing what he had been doing over the last several years. Ten years later he's in the running for what I perceived to be a multi-million dollar contract with a top US company.

Wow! I thought. I don't know much about starting a business in the US but it can't be that easy. Anyway, after the lunch I left. I haven't seen my friend since that time but when I do I'll most definitely ask if Mr. H was able to get the contract. And if he did my next post will be: Who Runs US Companies Doing Business in China? Are They Kidding?

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About two ago I got asked by a friend if I would be interested in some freelance legal work with a local entrepreneur. Naturally, I agreed to at least meet with the person and see what "freelance" legal work was all about. We three met at a ritzy Japanese coffee spot and after some small talk we got down to business. The entrepreneur, whom I'll call Mr. H, was in his early-mid fifties and ran a small outfit that found buyers for machine parts but was now expanding in actually producing the parts himself for sale. He had some mid-sized clients mainly in North Asia and some in Europe but nothing especially eye-popping and nothing with a US company … which is why he was interested in me. Somehow, some massive US multinational, which I'll call  Big C, had become interested in perhaps doing some business with him and were due to arrive the next week for a due diligence/meet and greet. He wanted to hire me as his corporate counsel, English teacher to his staff and all-around business consultant. Shocked (but not so much) at the audacity of what he hoped to get out of me I agreed to a second meeting at his office the next day. I knew something was fishy though when the bill came he couldn't find his wallet which left me (the potential employee to foot the bill).

His office was located in one of the city's prime locations for office buildings (which struck me as odd for such a low-level player) and as we rode up in the elevator I began to think perhaps I was a bit too harsh on Mr. H after all. But as we exited the elevator and moved on to his office I knew I should have been harsher. It was a nice office … the only problem was that it was a mess. Books, files and papers were scattered everywhere and construction guys were running in and out. I asked Mr. H what the deal  was and he told me that he just rented the office a week ago and was rushing to get it set up for the meeting next week. I asked why doesn't he just use his old office and he said he wantedso much to impress Big C to get the contract that he thought it best to get a new "model" office. Ah ha … no wonder the office locale.

I was then introduced to his staff which consisted of three 30-something women and his wife (an ex-PLA officer). They all (except his wife) had big titles like VP of Marketing, VP of Business Development and Senior Engineer but that as I spoke with them it was clear that their titles did not reflect any deep expertise. I learned that the Senior Engineer and VP-Business Development were just hired a couple of weeks earlier and the VP of Marketing was brought over from his other office.  The two new hires knew very little about the company, the product or the business plan or what exactly they were doing there and the VP of Marketing was brought over because she worked in Sales. (Can a sales person be a good marketer?)
(to be continued in the next post)

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In the HBO TV series True Blood, what makes the main character Sookie Stackhouse so unique is that she has the ability to listen to people's thoughts. While many people would die to have a similar ability, Sookie herself sees it as more of a burden and a nuisance that has kept her from living  a "normal" life. To her, hearing all the nasty thoughts of all the people is just too damn tiring and troublesome. I, for one, absolutely agree with Sookie. You see, after too many years of mind-numbing practice … I've amazingly acquired the uncanny ability to "hear Chinese".  Most people in China, as with Sookie's ability to the people of Bon Temps, don't know … shoot, don't believe I have this skill. The benefit/burden of this is that they speak their minds unaware that I understand what they are saying. Example in point: I went to the store yesterday and upon entering, the one clerk said to the other: Aiya! Xia si wole! Ni kan … jinlaile yige heiren. Aiyo! … Tai hei le! Exin! (translation: Whoa! Scare me to death! Look … a black guy just came in. Whoa! He's too black! Disgusting!)  This was all said within earshot. Indeed, I was the only one in the store. This is not the sort of comment I think you'd make if you want someone to be your customer. More interestingly, even though the clerk totally dissed me, when I checked out, she smiled at me like we were old childhood friends. Although I was dying to let on that I knew exactly what she said … and perhaps give her a little of what I think about her … I resisted that urge (like Sookie learned to do from an early age). I mean what could I really accomplish by confronting every single person with wack thoughts, er… comments. But it is indeed a daily battle with me nowadays to resist that urge. Just makes me wonder, what would Sookie do?

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She is attractive, effervescent and has an appealing voice. But these qualities alone would not have made Lou Jing the most famous television talent show contestant in China and the subject of national debate in the world's most populous country. The reason they are talking about Lou is because she is black.

My first reaction to the article and the video was disgust. But as I thought about it more my eventual reaction is a bit more nuanced. First, being an African-American that has lived many a year, I've been called a lot worse than chocolate boy … so it's not like this is a first and most definitely won't be the last. Second, being an African-American from America … where some people still feel in 2009 that bi-racial relationships are bad (see here) … this again really does not come as a shock. I mean what would you expect. It goes with the territory. But still it viscerally angers me when I run into such blatant racism and just because that is just the way it is doesn't mean I can't do something about it (like express myself in a blog post and hopefully touch on another to also think about it). On the other hand, what I find/found interesting is precisely who (at least in my relationship network) feels as strongly against Lou Jing as some of those hateful commentators that also expressed themselves in no uncertain terms. From an un-scientific survey of about 20 Chinese friends and colleagues on what they think of Lou Jing … amazingly (to me) most of the better educated people felt a Chinese-Black mix was improper and that Lou Jing should not win (My take is that although her talents were good she should have lost because she's not "Chinese". Conversely, most of the lesser educated people I asked either didn't feel strongly one way or another or outright liked Lou Jing and felt she should win. So what I will take away from this is that China is not a monolith and while there are more than plenty racist knuckleheads out there to spew their hate there are also more than a few open-minded individuals that are willing to look past a person's skin color and at the person individually. And it's those open-minded ones that we need to seek out and connect with. Cheers to you Lou Jing. May the gods shine on you!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/01/lou-jing-chinese-talent-show

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