I was hanging out the bar pictured above. After a rock band performed, the stage became a tattoo station. 

I love doing fieldwork in third places. Not only do I get to see all the different ways a space is used throughout a day, it's really easy to find people to talk to. 

Plus at a bar, a few drinks into the night, everyone is willing to talk. Good thing that I have high alcohol tolerance, not that that really matters considering that Chinese beers are the equivalent to water. I don't feel the alcohol but all the people I hang out with do. Makes my work a lot easier! It's more easy to watch who talks to who, who hits on who, and who goes to sleep with who. 

Lunch time is sleeping time for some and bonding time for others. The male cooks bond over games and/or pictures of “pretty girls” on their cellphones. The waiters and waitresses nap before the doors open at 4pm. 

Lunch with one of my participants went longer than expected, which is always a good thing because that means they get to share a lot and I get to learn a lot. By the time we finished chatting, the entire staff had settled down on the second floor. I was so tired after the 3 hour lunch that I wanted to nap with the waiters and waitresses. But I gathered the energy to walk over to the chefs. They were quite squirmish about their cellphone; they immediately put the screen face down on the table, which usually means they were looking at "pretty girls."  

My participant was waiting downstairs, otherwise I would've tried to find out what kind of porn they were looking at and on what type of connection, whether it was downloaded by one of them or pre-installed by the vendor.

Sigh, there is only so much time in one day to do fielwork and there is only one of me. 

"You can trust what you buy。"

“品质值得信赖"

(I originally wrote this post on 88 Bar.)

China telecommunications expert, Marc Laperrouza, tips us off to an unconfirmed bit a of juicy news about the Chinese telecommunication market: China Telecom is being investigated for anti-monopoly infringement! You don’t hear of state-owned enterprises the stature of China Telecom being investigated for monopoly infringement very often so this is pretty big news. Mark explains the charges:

Its sin(s)? Abuse of dominance in the broadband market or more specifically charging other broadband service operators discriminatory network access fees. For those not versed in competition law jargon it means that the company is taking advantage of its position in the market to squeeze out competitors (usually by forcing them to resell services to the final customer under the cost of production).

But like Mark, I am very curious why China Telecom? Is just doesn’t make sense.

The real question is why China Telecom’s counterpart (China Unicom) does not incur a similar investigation, given that both companies have nicely divided the country in two – the South for China Telecom and the North for China Unicom

While both China Telecom and China Unicom have divided the country in two, China Telecom was probably singled out first because they have the most subscribers – 73.7 million subscribers, compared with 779,000 users at China Unicom.

But it appears that in more recent news, China Telecom and China Unicom have been pressured by the anti-monoplogy probe to release statements admitting that they were improperly charging customers and would increase broadband speed. We have an explanation from, Li Qing, China’s National Development and Reform Commission’s  deputy director of the commission price supervision and anti-monopoly department:

These two companies clearly occupy a dominant position in the market…They use this dominant position to charge their rivals higher fees while offering favorable prices to companies that are not competing with them. According to antitrust law, we call such behavior price discrimination.”

And as with most monopolies, companies do not have incentives to offer optimal services. China has some of the slowest broadband speeds in the world despite having the most internet users out of any country. Anyone who has lived in China has become accustomed to slow internet speed.

But even governments needs incentives to break monopolies. The question is, why now? Is is possible that the government now sees the economic incentives to speed up service? Star Chang at Micgadget seems to think so:

An investment banker who cannot send an e-mail to his client or a supplier who cannot reach his buyers are a few examples of potential money loss that occurs on a daily basis. China Internet business will constantly need to deal with internet speed problems, a situation which is a loss for China and for the world. A huge population with fast internet connection speed will help drive innovation and will put China on the map as one of the most attractive business locations in the world. China must provide with faster and freer internet connection, making easier for people in China to engage in global business and to connect with the rest of the world.

But anything that involves faster access to any types of information comes with strings in China. I’m wondering how information will be filtered in an era of faster and more accessible internet? Earlier this year, Kaiser Kuo and others joked that we should all move to Chongqing  for the first International Cloud Computing Special Zone:

The special zone, covering about 10 square kilometers, is the only area in China that is directly connected to the outside Internet through optical fibers without being filtered, according to the Southern Weekend.

Kaiser’s joke points to something that would be good for all of us to keep an eye on – that is the future of cloud computing in China. Faster and more affordable internet can only get so fast if China’s internet infrastructure does not switch to cloud computing. But Jin Ge and I have been discussing the viability of home-grown cloud computing when Chinese netizens have low trust in cloud services from Chinese providers. When it’s already known that your information online is surveilled in China, who will be willing to save even more personal information online? According to Jin Ge’s latest article on China Bubble Watch, Cloud Computing Turned into Real Estate Business in China, no one is putting any information on the cloud servers. He points out that that the popularity of cloud servers are actually part of the real estate machine in China:

The first thing people should know about cloud computing in China is that it is again driven by state capitalism. Once the technocratic officials of China become aware of the concept of cloud computing, they immediately see the potential of applying their magic formula of “fixed asset investment+government subsidy+cheap loan” on it, because after all cloud computing does involve some large physical infrastructure. The story is quite similar to what happened to the concept of “Internet of Things”.

In April 2011, the government of Chongqing became the first to annouce its plan to invest 40 billion yuan on a cloud computing center that will be the largest in Asia. The plan is called “Yun Duan” (Top of Cloud). Then Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and Guangzhou all followed suit. Shanghai plans to build a “Asia Pacific Cloud Computing Center”,  its plan is called “Yun Hai” (Ocean of Cloud), Beijing has a plan called “Xiang Yun” (Cloud of Blessing), Shenzhen has a plan called “Kun Yun” (Cloud of Flying Fish), Guangzhou has a plan called “Tian Yun” (Cloud of Sky), Ningbo has “Xing Yun” (Galaxy Cloud), Wuxi has “Yun Gu” (Cloud Valley), Hangzhou has “Yun Chao Shi” (Cloud Supermarket) ……

If Jin Ge is right, then we will see a cloud-computing bubble accompanying the yet-to-come real estate bubble.

From the clouds to the ground, 2012 looks like it’s going to be an exciting year for mobile  industry. China Telecom is going abroad to offer mobile services for the transnational elite who travel between China and North America. China Unicom just launched a new mobile internet platform, the Wo-plus Opening System. Let’s see how long China Mobile 600 million 2G users can wait for 3G before switching to Unicom or Telecom. Now that China is the world’s largest smartphone market, how will the future of hardware and software evolve? We already have a glimpse from HTC of their new Sina Weibo smartphone. And then to top if off, both China Telecom and China Unicom may lower broadband prices!

With all these technical and market changes, one of the big questions for 2012 is will Chinese citizens will be relieved of telecommunications costs? Or will 2012 could be the equivalent to the 1996 Telecommunications Act in the United States where institutions benefited more from telecommunication reforms than individuals? [1] We’ll have to see who benefits from thee anti-monopoly investigation.

With the stable divisions of China Unicom, China Mobile, & China Telecom, we don’t hear of potential industry shake ups like this very often. I imagine that Chinese Telcom scholar, Eric Harwitt, is giddy with news. But luckily we have  Marc Laperrouzag, so we won’t have to wait a few years for a book or paper to be published to stay up to date on the details.

Let’s hope for faster and more equitable broadband access in 2012! 新年快乐!

_______

[1] In my analysis of the US 1996 Telecommunication Act, I argued that the act did little to democratize communication for individual citizens. It failed to add Internet access to the scope of communication mediums covered by the Act; placed additional economic burdens on individual telephone subscribers; and auctioned off the spectrum of bandwidth for wireless services to the most wealthy telecommunications companies, who in turn charged high rates for wireless services to recoup costs. The act established the Universal Service Fund (USF) which mandated companies to create affordable telephone access, not information access, for individuals. While the USF was aimed at telephony services for  individuals,  E-rate, a sub-programof the USF, subsidized Internet access for schools and libraries, not individuals.

 (I conducted this fieldwork during the summer of 2011.)

I was living with migrants and working as a food vendor for the last few days. I want to give you an idea what everyday life is like for street vendors.

Background

The family I am living with received a tip from a friend about a construction site in the northern part of the city where vendors have been selling food during lunch and dinner without encountering any chengguan. When the family heard of a chengguan free-site, they were excited to check it out.

Officially know as City Urban Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau (城市管理行政执法局), it's not really clear what they're supposed to do in practice. But what they're known for doing is making migrants' live miserable in cities across China. There are many stories online of chengguan beating vendors, smashing their products or food, and taking bribes. It's also common to hear about chengguan killing street vendors. A recent incident in Guizhou led to a riot when a chengguan killed a disabled migrant. Stories of chengguan exploitation of power are so pervasive that appeasing them with bribes becomes the key to a street vendor's success. Giving bribes is a matter of life or death.

But for migrants who do not have enough money to bribe, they have to constantly be on the run. Constant running means that a street vendor cannot establish a business long term. So for a street seller, like this family I am with, finding a place to set up a cart to sell food in a chengguan-free site is super important. A place to do stable business would give them a stable income to expand their business or go into another line of work.

After spending a a few days observing the site, they didn't see any chengguan officials amid the crowds of construction workers buying food and products from street vendors. They decided it was a safe and stable place to set up business. The family debated about what kind of food to sell. In the end they agreed to sell dumplings, noodles, and chaobing (炒饼) for 4RMB a serving. The family spent 6000RMB ($1000) of their savings to buy 2 battery-powered bicycles, 2 batteries, 1 freezer, 1 stove, 1 gas, 2 umbrellas, 2 large pots, 20 plastic orange bowls, 2 bags of disposable chopsticks, and 16 stools. Other than the chopsticks, everything was second hand. All 3 working adults agreed to participate in this work full-time. They moved to an an urban village slum near the work site.

Fieldnotes

We live in a city village slum (城种村) 20 minutes by bike from the construction site. Migrants from all around China live in this village, like any other urban village. 1 to 6 people rent out one room. Many parents live here with their child. Each room has a satellite dish attached to roof. The landlord lives at the end of the block and his floor is tiled. His job is to keep an eye on what happens in the area, but he appears to be gambling all day.

I sleep in a room with a four people: a mother and father with a 4 year old son, and the mother's little brother. The father and the little brother sleep on the bunk bed, I sleep with the mother and child on the floor. Rent is 300RMB/month ($50). Electricity costs around 450RMB/month at 1.5RMB/watt to keep the refrigerator on so that the food doesn't spoil. Electricity costs more than the rent. Charging the bike batteries also increases electricity costs. There is a television and a fan in the room.

This has been my schedule for the last 3 days:

4am     wake up and prepare bikes, put battery in
5am     head to market to buy fresh food for lunch
8am     return home, clean and wash vegetables
10am   cook food, load up bicycles, eat breakfast/lunch
11am   bike to the construction site and sell food
2pm     bike back to home, unload bicycles, clean pots & bowls, put stools & stuff back inside home
3pm     head to market to buy fresh food
5pm     return from market, wash vegetables, cook food
6pm     bike to construction site, sell food
8pm     bike back to home, unload car, clean bowls and pots
9pm     eat dinner
10pm   go to sleep

repeat.

But our schedule has not been this precise because we encounter many unpredictable problems.

The first few days have been disasterous in terms of making money.

Their bike keeps running out of battery so we have to push it 3 miles home each time this happens. The bike and the battery are second hand, so it's not clear if the problem is with the battery or the bike. The picture at the top of this post shows me pushing the cart after lunch in mid-day 99+ degree heat.

I found out that the refrigerator is only a freezer. But the family still puts everything that needs to be kept cold inside from beers to water to watermelon and to noodles. Sometimes the freezer works really well so there are a few beer explosions. But most of the time it doesn't work well so the dumplings become sticky and uncookable. We already have had to throw away 4 bags of dumplings.

The entire family is now exhausted after 3 days of working. Even the husband, who was really excited to do this new job because he's a really great cook, is now wanting to back out of this plan. In this picture below, he is preparing the lunch food outside the room. This is what their kitchen looks like. When he finishes chopping the meat, the flies come over to stake out their places as he prepares the noodles. No one swats the flies away or tries to keep the meat under some cover where flies can't reach. You would think it was a black stone if you didn't know it was hundreds of flies on top of the meat.

The soybeans are soaked (not washed) one time in a large aluminum bowl. This same bowl is used for washing hair, washing clothes, and bathing the 4 year old child. Food is cooked in a big pot on the ground using gas to power the cooker.

But the husband discovered that he didn't enjoy this type of mass-cooking and selling. Offering dumplings in 100+ degree weather has not been easy, not because there isn't a demand for dumplings, but because the dumplings are difficult to transport and they would become too mushy by the time we bike to the site. The bike ride from the urban village to the construction site is rocky. The road is not paved most of the way. By the time we arrive at the site, most of the soup has already spilled out of the large pot onto the cart. Keeping the soup hot with gas softens the dumplings.

The husband also found out that he has not been able to make food that pleases customers. Many workers complain after ordering the food. They often get angry and yell at them, demanding their money back. In this picture below, these workers want a beer to compensate for the overcooked dumplings. The husband, I could tell, is losing patience for this work. I hear him and his wife fighting about it. He wants to return to selling clothes on the street, even if it means dodging the chengguan everyday.

The family's electricity expenses are getting out of hand just to keep the freezer running. Electricity is more expensive at this particular urban village than their previous place they lived (1.5RMB/watt to 1.2RMB/watt respectively).

I can hear the husband and wife fighting about this every night. It puts a lot of stress on the family. The mother is getting nervous that they are not even close to turning a profit. Everyday around dinner time, she says, "we have to start making at least some money so that we can buy food.We need to buy meat." She needs cash to buy food for dinner. The most they have brought in so far was 200RMB on a good day. But most days only make 100RMB. The friend who told them about this place was supposedly making 500-600RMB a day. The younger brother keeps reminding the family of the friend's situation. Then the husband says that his friend makes a lot of money because sells good food. He pointed out that they didn't have return customers. All the other street vendors' carts had regular workers but no one ever came back to their cart.

Everyday activity has begun to wear on all of our bodies. Trips to the supermarkets, washing clothes, and going to the bathroom seemed to be a big ordeal.

Unloading and loading takes a total of 3 hours a day (4 rounds in total per day). Each bike ride to the market involves a total of 1 hour of loading and unloading items back into the room. Someone had to unload the cart, put everything inside the room, and then hide the valuable stuff (e.g. batteries) with a blanket. The reason why they have to go to the market in the morning and after lunch is because the freezer doesn't work properly. As a result, they could only buy food that can be cooked immediately. Not unloading is not an option because they need the free space in the cart to bring groceries back and they can't leave their belongings outside and not have it stolen.

Anything involving water takes ten times longer because there is only 1 faucet for every 4 homes. And there is only 1 pipe for every 5 faucets. So if any of the 20 families use a faucet, none of the other 19 families have access to a working faucet. Someone is always washing vegetables, dishes, hair, or clothes unless it is 3am in the morning. A few times we were not able to get arrive at the construction site in time to sell food because we were waiting to use the faucet. Water costs 10RMB/person/month. As a result, most of the food is not washed well or at all; it is soaked, and the same water is then used to soak other vegetables.

It is hard to even find a faucet just to get water to wipe the dust and sweat off of my body. And even when I do find faucet time, I am shy about wiping my body down in front of everyone. Since it is summer, families sit outside, eat outside, and gamble outside. There is no privacy. I can't wet the towel and walk inside the room because there is always someone there. No one else is shy about this. The mother wipes down her armpits, breasts, legs, stomach, and butt cheeks in the open.

There is no physical privacy in an urban village. None. At all. Even when you are going to the bathroom, not that it is an ideal place anyone wants to spend too much time in.

When I approach the bathroom, I can hear a faint buzzing sound. When my feet wade through the piles of trash blocking the bathroom entrance, I realize the buzzing sound  are flies. The swarm of flies that is so concentrated that it could lift me up into the air if I stay too long in the bathroom. The odor is nothing that I have ever experienced in my life. I have no words for it. All of these conditions make me avoid the bathroom as much as possible. In my past fieldwork with migrants, I am usually with street vendors who sell products in more urban areas where I could easily pop into a KFC or McDonalds to do a wipe-down shower. But this construction site is not located near any restaurants. So it is my only option.

I try to not use the bathroom as much as possible. But doing hard labor in 100+ degree weather makes the body thirsty. I am now very calculating everytime I drink water. I ask myself, do I really need this water?  Is it worth going to that bathroom? I now sip as little as possible, just enough to moisten my tongue so that it is not sticking to the top roof of my mouth. Yesterday was super hot, but I only used the bathroom twice in 24 hours. Imagining the conditions are enough to hold me back from quenching down a bottle of cold water.

The pit inside is filled to the top with feces, female pads, and trash. There is a rotting dog foot (body missing) in the female bathroom. No one has removed it. I want it removed, but I don't know how to remove it.  Even though I want to get rid the dog paw, I don't even know who to call. There is no such thing as animal control. I don't even know what tools I could use to remove it. I feel bad that other bathroom users have to see it and I feel horrible seeing it everytime I come here. Then I start wondering how this dog paw ended up here. There are many dogs in the village. Maybe a  car ran over a dog. But how did the paw end up in the bathroom? After some wondering, I realize it's time for me to return back home and help the family.  Little things like this, paralyze me because I realize how much I am unable to do here and how this is a reality for people living in these kind of areas. There is simply no time and no means to do anything to make this place cleaner.

With a schedule that requires us to wake up at 4am every morning, there is simply no time to do anything but prepare for the next meal or anticipate sleep. This is exhausting work and everyone collapses at the end of the night. Every night I bike home thinking, I cannot wait to sleep. Before I get home, I pray that the battery doesn't stop. I just want to make these 3 miles home on the electric bike.

I cannot even imagine how anyone working this kind of schedule has time to read a book, follow world news, or browse the internet.

Most recently, NY Times published an article by John Markoff and David Barboza that discusses a near future where China's computing industry could close in on the US. The authors provided many examples, such as China's successful super computing industry and the number of programmers coming out of universities and being sent abroad.

James Landay wrote a response that countered Markoff's and Barboza's optimism. Landay explained that while China has made great strides reforming its academic system to produce top programmers, there are systematic issues (such as power structure within universities, the education system, and patent incentives) that prevent creativity among programmers from being rewarded. 

I'd like to extend upon Landay's comment on the cultural barriers to China's computing industry and offer my ideas of the primary challenges for the future of computing in China.

The three things holding China's computing industry from creating disruptive innovation is the 1.) lack of trust between individuals, groups, and institutions, 2.) lack of organizations that foster creativity and community, and 3.) lack of common myth among technologists, engineers, and programmers.

1. Trust matters

China's computing industry lacks trust between individuals and institutions. Both articles from Landay and Markoff and Barboza touch upon trust issues around patent protection. But when I talk about trust, I am referring to two types of trust, 1.) trust between individuals that leads (or doesn't) to collaborations, and 2.) social trust between individuals and institutions.

Markoff's and Barboza's article pointed to collaborations between universities as indicators of China's growing computer industry. But these collaborations are still far and few between and more importantly, they operate independently from each other. Industrial social structures matter in how industries form, as demonstrated by AnnaLee Saxenian's research on the emergence of Silicon Valley in California. Her analysis revealed that tech companies in Boston, Massachusetts Route 128 operated in a decentralized and independent fashion, while companies in California's Silicon Valley adopted a more decentralized but cooperative system. She argued that Silicon Valley was able to generate more innovation because its unique industrial structure encouraged collaboration between companies.

Trust is an essential factor for collaboration. The missing ingredient in Route 128 wasn't investment or human capital, it was trust. Without the underlying social bond of trust, companies were largely isolated from each other, which prevented collaboration. Lack of collaboration hindered healthy levels of sharing and competition.

The Chinese tech industry is set up more like Route 128 than Silicon Valley. There are pockets of innovation in China, but the innovators are not networked, nor are they collaborating. A common question that Chinese people ask is why China does not have a Steve Jobs. Whenever I hear this question, I ask myself, could Steve Jobs have created Apple in Route 128, instead of Silicon Valley? I'll leave that question for the experts to ponder.

Another type of trust that is missing is social trust of institutions. Aside from the major educational barriers that Landay pointed out and the legal intellectual property barriers that Markoff and Barboza highlighted, the general distrust in bureaucratic institutions is holding back the Chinese computing industry. In a country were information is explicitly filtered and monitored, how can people develop trust in large-scale computing systems? Sure, China has gotten this far by creating the fastest super-computers (at one point). But super-computing does not require high levels of trust, whereas cloud-computing does.

Cloud-computing is user-centric. One of the most important points in Landay's article is that cloud-computing is where innovations matter the most:

"people seem to see much more important innovation going on in the cloud computing clusters that literally combine thousands of commercial processors together in standard racks connected with traditional networks in huge data centers around the world. This is the technology that powers Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and the many other web computing giants of the world and is then resold inexpensively to every little web site or mobile phone application that needs to do computing in the cloud. This type of architecture supports a far wider range of applications than supercomputing."

If cloud-computing is a better indicator of where the Chinese computing industry is at, then it would appear from the recent burst of cloud-computing projects in China that its computing industry is doing quite well. Jin Ge reports on China Bubble Watch:

"In April 2011, the government of Chongqing became the first to announce its plan to invest 40 billion yuan on a cloud computing center that will be the largest in Asia. The plan is called “Yun Duan” (Top of Cloud). Then Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and Guangzhou all followed suit. Shanghai plans to build a “Asia Pacific Cloud Computing Center”,  its plan is called “Yun Hai” (Ocean of Cloud), Beijing has a plan called “Xiang Yun” (Cloud of Blessing), Shenzhen has a plan called “Kun Yun” (Cloud of Flying Fish), Guangzhou has a plan called “Tian Yun” (Cloud of Sky), Ningbo has “Xing Yun” (Galaxy Cloud), Wuxi has “Yun Gu” (Cloud Valley), Hangzhou has “Yun Chao Shi” (Cloud Supermarket) ……

According to a report from China High Tech Herald, even poor cities like Lanzhou and Langfang joined the “cloud making carnival”. Langfang, a third tier city in Hebei province  announced its plan for a cloud storage center that is at least two times the size of the largest existing cloud storage center in the world, which is in Chicago."

But in China, anything that happens this quickly is suspect. Ge Jin reveals that cloud-computing is part of larger real-estate schemes.

"The first thing people should know about cloud computing in china is that it is again driven by state capitalism. Once the technocratic officials of China become aware of the concept of cloud computing, they immediately see the potential of applying their magic formula of “fixed asset investment+government subsidy+cheap loan” on it, because after all cloud computing does involve some large physical infrastructure."

Chinese efforts at cloud-computing are largely government subsidized projects built on shady relationships where it is not clear where money is coming from and where it is going. 

Jin Ge's article reveals the fundamental problem with cloud-computing in China - there is little trust in it. A common response from Chinese internet users is that they trust foreign internet companies more than Chinese internet companies with their information. Most users tell me that they don't trust putting their information up in the Chinese clouds because there is no guarantee that the company will be around next year. In addition, distrust of the government is also a common response. Having become accustomed to explicit information filtering from the largest cyber police force in the world, users have low trust in putting their information up in the clouds, thus another barrier to cloud-computing.

2. Organizational hubs of creativity matter.

China needs organizations that will foster creativity across software, hardware, and social boundaries.

Markoff and Barboza pointed to the rise of collaborations between institutions in China as indicators of China's burgeoning computer industry. I would be cautious of interpreting these indicators as measures of creativity, which is a critical element of disruptive innovation.

In Michele Hoyman's and Christopher Faricy's research, "It Takes a Village: A Test of the Creative Class, Social Capital and Human Capital Theories," they counter Richard Florida's work by arguing that creativity and economic growth can be mutually exclusive. Their work tells us that China can continue to experience great economic growth and computing progress without becoming a hub of creativity. So contrary to what Florida argues, creativity and economic development are not always positively correlated.

This is not to say that I don't see bubbles of amazing creativity in China. One only has to look to Silvia Lindtner's research on co-working and collaborative spaces like Xindanwei and Xinchejian for proof that China is not lacking in creative minds. But will these communities of creativity reach the tech industry at large? Will Chinese companies lead in creating shared value (Kevin Lee has a great post about this topic)? My experience so far tells me that in the Chinese computing industry, the answer is no, at least for now.

In research that I conducted (with Jofish Kaye) on hacker spaces in the Bay Area, I witnessed great fluidity between various creative spaces. People who worked at facebook could be found hacking away at Hacker Dojo or people who worked at a start-up would teach a class at Noisebridge. So far, I don't see any of that happening in China's co-working spaces. Even those these spaces are quite new, it's hard to imagine engineers at Tencent QQ taking time out of their grueling schedule to build an arduino board for fun. I see lots of Chinese artists and designers, and international techies at these new co-working spaces, but the missing group are the computer programmers from industry and academia.

I don't want to underestimate the importance of these new co-working communities, but a few of these sites scattered throughout the country is not enough for massive cultural change. What China needs is an organization that will cut through horizontal and vertical layers of bureaucracy, regional differences, software and hardware industries, and institutions, to bring together people to share.

The US has organizations whose sole mission is to build up the community between techies (the social science kind and programming kind) across industry and academia. Conferences organized by O'Reilly from Web 2.0 to Foo Camp bring together thousands of people in the computer industry to network, share, and play. Existing organizations are hardware and service specific. For example, organizations such as China Great Wall Club plays an important role in bringing together mobile internet service providers, but their audience does not expand beyond mobile, at least for now. And there are a few others organizations here and there, but they don't meet enough and often care more about membership fees than community development. China needs an organization, like O'Reilly, that will bring together academics, researchers, programmers, social scientists, hackers, artists, designers, and writers. Global research centers proposed by Landay would be a start.

3. Stories matter.

For China to become a disruptive innovator in computing, it needs a common myth to unifiy players from different social backgrounds. The lack of a common story prevents the emergence of a cohesive computing culture in China.

In Morgan Ames's research on One Lap Per Child, she looks at the kind of stories that technologists and programmers tell about themselves and how these stories are designed into technologies. She argues that the largely male culture of computer programming draws upon a mythologized childhood of independence from adults and freedom to explore computers. In their stories, programmers tend to ignore all the social and demographic factors that makes their story possible, such as being Caucasian, male, middle- to upper class, and having parents who encouraged them to use the computers, and going to schools that had access to computers. Regardless of how accurate these "pull yourself up by your own bootstrap" narratives are, it is a common one that binds computer programmers together.[2] Narratives can be powerful because they allow people to establish trust across time, social distance, and space. So what kinds of stories are circulating among Chinese programmers? I have yet to be able to identity a strong one yet.

Though I would like to point out an interesting story that comes from the mobile industry, the story of shanzai. What started out as a response from a few rogue mobile hardware producers in Southern China who wanted to avoid paying the government taxes on handset producers, has now spawned a whole industry of shanzai products that goes beyond the original definition of being cheap copies of existing products. Shanzai mobile makers did what Nokia, HTC, Samsung, and Motorola could not do - they met the user needs of millions of new cell[phone users (more on this topic from me). By working outside of the dominant infrastructure of mobile producers, shanzai makers went wild with producing mobile phones with new features that were relevant for low-end users. Shanzai mobiles has give the low-end market, that was once dominated by Nokia, a greater number of choices in mobiles at a lower cost. Shanzai is still in the process of moving beyond the perception of being a copy culture to a bottom-up innovation culture, so it is not a story that is embraced by the programming community at large right now.

All stories need a good enemy. For shanzai makers in China, it was the government that levied oppressive taxes. For hackers in the West, is was the education system that tried to prevent them from exploring self-directed learning. So who are the bad guys in the eyes of Chinese programmers?

                                                                               ***

Although I have named several barriers to China's computing industry, trust, creativity, and stories, I don't think that the Chinese computing industry will not be successful if it doesn't achieve all these factors, but whether it will be a Route 128 or Silicon Valley is still to be seen. Creativity and economic growth are not necessarily correlated.

Like Landay and many others, I'm not so optimistic about the actual system changing anytime soon. But here's the thing, I don't expect it to. Because systems take lots of time to change, and the bigger they are, the more change resistant they are. For example, compulsory public education in the US began in the early 1900s. In China, it only began in 1986. The US has had over 100 years to experiment with liberal education. China has only had a litte more than 20 years, and they have a lot more people.

My own research so far tells me that tech innovation in China will not model the West. For example, in the West, following the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, universities and companies arrange mutually beneficial partnerships to facilitate the ease of IP transfer. This does not have to be a model elsewhere. Research from David Mowery and Bhaven Sampat (The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 and University-Industry Technology Transfer: A Model for Other OECD Governments) cautions us from extending the US model of university-corporate partnerships globally because the success of the Bayh-Dole Act is heavily dependent on the history of education and tech industry in the US. And a recent paper from Paul M. Swamidass and Venubabu Vulasa, Why university inventions rarely produce income? Bottlenecks in university technology transfer, questions whether univeristy research is even producing marketable innovations. Both these studies bring up important points, innovation will look different in different contexts. [3]

The future of computing lies in individuals and groups who will collaborate across social and industry boundaries, and know  how to handle the unique constraints of technology usage in China as welcomed challenges. And this is why Lindtner's work on XindanWei and Xinchejian is so fascinating, because her research suggests that innovation in China may not come from the computer industry as we know it, it may come from these loose forms of transnational Chinese who breathe design, art, and tech. And my research on non-elite users and shanzai culture suggests that disruptions from the bottom up can contribute to the innovations in the field at large. Both of our research point to different dynamics of innovation than seen in the West.

In the meantime, we need more coverage of the Chinese tech scene from writers like Markoff and Barboza who avoid Western-centrism and more writing from experts like James Landay who can provide a nuanced insiders perspective. It's an exciting time to be a witness to how processes of trust building, creative development, and storytelling are being worked through in China as its economy is challenging the existing global order.

In Neil Stephenson's cyberpunk novel, Snow Crash, he writes that in an era of American economic decline where inflation is high and inequality is great,

"There's only four things we do better than anyone else: music, movies, microcode (software), and high-speed pizza delivery”

According to the prophet of the tech industry, despite economic decline in America, it will continue to provide good stories, software, and service.

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UPDATE Dec. 16, 2011: James Fallow refers to this article in What's Up in China: Hint, It's Not War With the U.S., The Atlantic

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[1] This is not to say that users' distrust will lead to more distrust in Chinese cloud-computing. Carol Heimer's research shows that strategies of distrust are not iterative, rather they can lead to the necessary groundwork for establishing trust.  For example, as suspect as US and Europeans are of companies' handling of individual's private data, it is this very suspicion that creates a healthy level of check and balances between companies and individuals.

[2] This mythologized childhood story of computer programming is shared by so many male techies that is often works in exclusionary ways, such as alienating females and minority programmers who do not share a similar childhood, as evidenced by research on gender biases in computing from Jane Margolis and Allen Fisher.

[3] Landay explained that the field of Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp) as lacking in Chinese scholars. But Ubicomp is not a field that the industry looks to for innovation. Students and researchers of Ubicomp and other similar fields are often times more concerned with producing papers than creating innovative contributions that will leave the lab.

There are signs everywhere that the expanding middle-class Chinese are globally mobile. Brands are noticing and catering to this new consumer. You can see it in the advertisements where companies are selling a specific lifestyle, such as this Toyota Highlander ad I saw a few months ago.

Even more interesting are ATM and credit card advertisements from Western companies. HSBC and American Express have long been marketing to global consumer. Their ads are more or less duplicated for each market with minor changes, such as translating a phrase or hiring ethnic models to represent the target market. But other than translation and localization, there is not much that differentiates an HSBC ad at London Heathrow from the one in Shanghai Pudong.

I saw this Citibank ATM ad as I was running through the doors of Hongqiao Train station in Shanghai to catch my flight back to Wuhan. In what looks to be a Chinese couple in a European city, the wife has happily returned from her shopping spree to a husband who was drinking an espresso. He appears to be quite happy seeing all her colorful shopping bags. With their no-fee withdrawal ATM card, both the husband and wife can enjoy their vacation without the worry of running out of cash.

Citibank reminds the viewer that these types of shopping experiences are possible because with an ATM card, shopping is now possible anywhere in the world.:

"you can withdraw money without paying fee [with Citibank ATM card], regardless if you are in this country or abroad, or withdrawing from Citibank or other banks."

This picture reflects the primary reason Chinese tourists travel: shopping. Chinese tourists overall prefer material experiences instead of relaxing or spiritual excursions. The The Economist tells us that they the Chinese tourist's ideal material experiences are not "in luxurious hotels and lavish meals. Coming from a newly affluent, increasingly unequal society, they have a strong preference for the accumulation of material goods.’” 

China Mike has compiled a list of statistics that show you just how much Chinese outbound travel has changed global tourism. For example, here are a few stats and graphs:

• In 2008, Chinese tourists passed all other nationalities as the biggest shoppers in France, according to a survey by the French government. [The Financial Times, “Chinese travellers change the face of tourism” June 8, 2010]
• The number of Chinese traveling outside the country rose to 54% from 2005 to 2009 (to 47.7 million)…and “they spent more than French, Japanese or Canadian travelers.” [U.N. World Tourism Organization; Time Mag. “Your Next Job: Made in India or China” March 17, 2011]

I've been seeing more ATM and credit cards from Western companies creating content specifically for Chinese middle- to upper-class tourists. If you spot any other ads like this one from Citibank ATM, please share!

Xin Kai (psyeudonym) is a wholesale clothing seller. I stopped by his story today and he told me about an incident that happened today with the chengguan

I write often about the chengguan. Officially, they are a bureau located in every city that is responsible for managing public spaces in a city. But they are more commonly known as a violent and deathly street mafia.

I also thought this conversation was interesting becaue we talked about the police stopping him because he looked different.

Xin Kai: Today the chengguan game.

Me: Why would they come for you? You have a store.

Xin Kai: I had all these new winter jackets dropped off from a seller and there wasn't room in my store, so the piles of jackets were placed in front of my store. Then the chengguan came and they didn't even ask if the jackets belonged to anyone. They just started putting my jackets in their truck. If I didn't come out earlier they would've just taken all my coats and all their family members would've been warm this winter. Bastards.

Me: How could they just do that?

Xin Kai: Ha, they don't have to ask, they can do that to anyone. They are the chengguan. But I got my stuff back with a little bit of arguing. 

Me: Well they probably didn't believe it was your stuff. You don't really look like a typical store owners.

Xin Kai: Yah I don't, great huh? [had a proud look on his face] They can't bully me that easily.

Me: Well you do look pretty different with your hair. [The top part of his hair is 2 inches long, the rest of it is buzzed, half of the hair on top is kept long that extends past his neck. He has a tatoo on one side of neck.]

Xin Kai: yah you like this? I used to have it even longer and then a few years ago I used to have the outline of my hand imprinted into the back of my head. Looked like someone had grabbed my head. It was pretty cool.

Me: What makes you think of all these creative styles?

Xin Kai: I like that it's different. I have a new style ever few years. Plus it keeps people far away from me. No one ever cuts in front of me. Like when I need to buy a ticket at the train station, people step out of my way. They think I am mafia member. Which is fine with me.

Me: Do the police ever stop you?

Xin Kai: All the time.

Me: Like where?

Xin Kai: At the train station, on the road. They used to stop me more, but now its more relaxed.

Me: Does it bother you that they stop you?

Xin Kai: What does it matter? I haven't done anything wrong. Sure you can run my identity. But I'm clean. I have nothing on me. This is me, this is my special look, fuck them if they don't like it. I'm not a bad person.

Me: So you know the power of your "look."

Xin Kai: Ya, I like it a lot. I am trying to think of what I should do next.

Me: maybe I should adopt your hairstyle - people are always cutting in front of line.

Oh how this Toyota Highlander advertisment is reflective of the new global order.  I saw this picture in Guangzhou's domestic terminal. A Chinese couple is getting out of their Japanese brand car into what appears to be a private yacht. A white male greets them, taking their travel items and appears to be eager  in their service. 

This advertisement reflects a new Chinese imaginary - one that is global, expansive, unlimited, and exploratory. It also tells us who has the power to live out this imaginary. 10 years ago or even 5 years ago, I don't think this advertisement would've existed. But now companies have turned to the Chinese consumer, encouraging them to participate in this lifestyle. The entire global economy right now depends on the Chinese elite and middle-class to spend. But how long can this go on for until we see the next crisis? For how long can each system create "value"?

As of right now:

• China continues to buy America's debt that now stands at $2.1 trillion. China holds $1.16 trillion of US Treasuries.
• The US recently lost its AAA S&P credit rating (to AA+) and the latest news is that it might be downgraded again
• China scolded the US for its incompetence in stabilizing its economy and creating a debt solution:

“The ugliest part of the saga is that the well-being of many other countries is also in the impact zone when the donkey and the elephant fight,” Xinhua News

I felt off today. Everything was making me annoyed.

The grey air full of deathly toxins seemed to bother me more than usual. The bus exhaust in my face made my eyes sting. Walking on the street didn't seem faster than the sidewalk. Every pivot I made seemed to slow me down. I was totally off rhythm - motor bikes were blocking every possible space and bicyclists seemed to cut me off at every exploit to move ahead. It wasn't even hot but I was sweating just from the effort required to push through the crowds. A plume of kebab smoke enveloped my body, i knew I would smell like a stale fried piece of meat instead of my soap fresh body wash.

Congested bodies bumping into each other with no care for who is pushed or ran over. I walk past the bus station depot and I feel so tiny. Rows of buses waiting -  I could easily be squished in between two of them  and no one would help me, just like no one helped the 2 year old girl in Foshan who was ran over twice. The officials here would probably cover up the accident. What horrible thoughts I am imagining.

I am such a ball of negativity. I shouldn't be out in public right now because on any other day none of this would bother me.

Then then a voice pushed through the crowded space of sounds. A singing voice. But not the typical high pitched and stuffy karaoke voice. This voice was deep and honest. It was a young voice that carried itself through smoggy air and into your ears.

I walked up and saw that a crowd had gathered around the voice.

He was a young male. Like everyone else from my own world, I was drawn into a pause.  Crouching on the street with one arm awkwardly resting on his leg - the hand seemed to dangle. His microphone hand rested on top of his other arm. His body was compacted to take up minimal amount of space.

There were no obvious visual clues for why he would resort to singing on the street for money. His jeans appeared clean, his hair was long but not oily, his sneakers weren't falling apart, his color on his shirt remained true to its original black color, and his arms and face were not spotted with dirt.

He never looked up at the crowd. Not once did he turn around to see that there was a crowd of around 50 people on the steps in front of the mall standing and listening.

He wasn't a performer; he didn't have the air of a young street musician whose love is to sing for a living. To sing and ask for money, this was not his doing. Circumstances must have forced him to take his voice to the street. His voice was strong yet so unprepared and so unaware of how it could stop even a crowd - it grabbed me so much that I didn't even realize he was singing to music until he used a remote control to change the track for the next song.

I stepped through the crowd to read his hand written sign that was held down a money box.

I am a poor student from a mountainess rural area, I lost my father when I was young. My mother brought me and my sister up, she sent us to school. My sister got into Wuhan University of Technology, but because of economic problems my sister couldnt' go to school and had to work with my mom in the city. Then my sister got really sick and went into the hospital. The doctors tried their best to rescue her. But her sickness has made our family even more poor. So now I have to take one year off to make some money. Thank you to all who can donate money. I will always remember you.

This is the beauty of living in a city with streets that are alive. The streets hold stories. And even when you're feeling grumpy, you'll be given a distraction long enough to remind you of all the souls who share the world with you.

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Fieldwork can be tiring and difficult on the body. I've been trying to slow down so that I don't become the grumpy anthropologist who no longer appreciates her own field site. But no one ever talks about this - how to be emotionally and physically healthy in long term fieldwork. We hear stories of anthropologists going off into their field sites, immersed into everyday life, and then they return to society with goodies of insights.
But what if everyday life is wearing on you? What if everyday life is wearing on the people you spend time with? What if it all feels so heavy that you forget why you are doing this fieldwork in the first place?
How do I keep my observations alive when what once seemed to be an observable distance is now hovering over me - like the sulfuric smelling smog that just makes me feel nauseous the moment I step outside?

I worry that I will begin missing stories like this young student.  If the conditions in my own fieldsite begin to annoy me, then that will be a bias what I observe and that could prevent me from seeing many moments that would've otherwise stood out to me before.

I just co-started a new blog with Heather Ford, Jenna Burrell, and Rachelle Annechino.  It's called Ethnography Matters. Well be talking about some of these issue on our blog. This inspires me to create a category with tips on how to remain balanced while doing fieldwork.

In the meantime, I will reflect on what my wonderful advisor Barry Brown suggested: for every 3 days of fieldwork, I should spend 2-3 days writing and another day resting.

Well it's been 6 months into fieldwork and I have yet to follow his advice.  I think this is a good time to start.

It's time to remind myself what a magical place I am in.