Day of Mourning, and Regeneration

The Economic Observer (经济观察网) warns that over the positive emotions put across by the media coverage – emphasizing the relief efforts in Qinghai Province -, the actual gravity and pain can be easily forgotten: the freezing temperatures, the devastation, the helplessness.

Yes, we seem to be used to forgetting, making funerals turn into a happy occasions. After the ritualist approach of eating and drinking, people disperse quickly. For a long time, we have been used to turn bad things into good things, and to see the good from facing the bad. These strange dialectics haven’t allowed us to really feel disaster profoundly, but made us turn the pages rather lightly.

是的，我们似乎总是习惯了遗忘，我们的传统是将丧事办成喜事。在做法事的道场上，人们吃喝一顿然后一哄而散。长期以来，我们还习惯了将坏事转变成好 事，习惯从坏的一面中看出好的一面。这种奇怪的辩证法，总是让我们还没能够真正体味灾难，就轻巧巧地揭过了这一页。

It is said that a lot of distress regenerates a nation. But behind the back of this logic, we need a full and comprehensive understanding of the disaster. Only then can we understand the causes and patterns of the disaster. And then lessons can be drawn, reflections can be made, even to the extent that national regeneration will result from it.

人们说，多难兴邦。这个逻辑的背后，其实首先是我们对于灾难有了充分而全面的认识，然后才能了解灾难的成因和规律，进而总结教训，进行反思，至于兴邦则是 这一系列过程之后的可能结果。

The article points out that concerning the Yushu earthquake now and Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, issues like construction safety and the structure of emergency relief system – prevention rather than dealing with the aftermaths – should be the main issues in the news.

From JR’s Searchhelp Department

A noticeable number of “Globescan”-related searchwords suggest that this year, you are in fact looking for this report (2010).

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Related
The BBC-Globescan Opinion Poll Champion, February 6, 2009

Tech: Time to Start Stealing in China?

The German machine building industry lost 6.4 bn Euros of business in 2009 on the account of product piracy*), reports Die Welt, quoting a VDMA (German Engineering Federation) study today. The numbers are based on a survey among 326 German companies. Most of them name China as a counterfeiting country (79 per cent). The runner-up, maybe more surprisingly, is Germany itself (named by 19 per cent). Then follow India, Turkey, South Korea, and Italy.
One of the factors for the prominent role of German counterfeiters here is probably proximity – in this country, you will happen on a machine-building company more frequently than on a cat. Then there is the high degree of technological absorbability. The further an industry is developed, the easier it should be to make use of competitors’ ideas in one’s own design.

The capability to adopt competitors’ technologies – in addition to the usual “cultural reasons” – may help to explain, too, why China is featuring prominently in the survey. Another study, quoted from by Die Welt on April 12, sees Germany’s technological machine-building leadership – gradually – shifting into the direction of China. It’s no longer only about copying after all, the study says – the first Chinese companies are beginning to take a technological lead in their fields. To counter growing Chinese machine sales volumes especially in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China itself), it reportedly recommends to do more of the production in China, or even cooperation with Chinese companies (but, by way of precaution, leaving the more important fields of research and development at home).

I’m wondering. Has the time come to start stealing technology from China? Maybe – but you better make sure that such technologies are no state secrets.

The Chinese wind energy market’s growth notwithstanding, Enercon, a Northern German builder of windmills (the world’s fourth-largest company in the industry), prefers to stay out of it, writes Die Welt.

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*) a loss of 40,000 jobs is also mentioned in Die Welt‘s coverage, but without a correlative period.

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Related
Creative Destruction or Development, March 15, 2010
Steiff Stuffed Animals: Closer to Home, December 14, 2009