So Sarkozy deems it necessary to send two envoys to mend fences and patch up France's relations with China.

Opération rapprochement. Nicolas Sarkozy tente par tous les moyens de renouer avec Pékin alors que plusieurs manifestations anti-occidentales ont eu lieu ces derniers jours, en France et en Chine. Dans la semaine, ce sont deux émissaires, le conseiller diplomatique Jean-David Levitte et l’ancien Premier ministre Jean-Pierre Raffarin, qui vont être envoyés par l’Elysée afin de mettre fin - ou du moins essayer - au coup de froid actuel entre les deux pays.

Operation Rapprochement. Nicolas Sarkozy is trying every means to restore ties with Beijing as several anti-western demonstrations have taken place in France and China in recent days. This week it will be two emissaries, diplomatic counsellor Jean-David Levitte and ex-Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who will be sent by the Elysée [the president, from the name of the presidential palace] to put an end to- or at least try- to the current cold snap between the two countries.

Ahem. My understanding was that the recent protests were against France and certain elements of the Western media, not against the West as a whole (whatever that may be). 

Anyway, Raffarin leaves Wednesday and will meet Wen Jiabao, and Levitte will be here on the weekend, but it doesn't say who he'll meet. It does say that the two will be carrying messages from Sarkozy, but:

Quel sera le contenu de ces messages? Rien n’a filtré pour le moment.

What will the content of these messages be? Nothing has leaked out for the moment.

But:

Mais s’il est de la même veine que celui délivré ce lundi, il devrait être très conciliant. Au premier jour d’une visite d’une semaine, c’est un autre cadre UMP, le président du Sénat Christian Poncelet, qui a remis à Shangai une lettre en main propre à Jin Jing. Cette jeune femme de 27 ans, handicapée, avait protégé sur son fauteuil roulant la torche olympique face à plusieurs militants pro-t1bét@ins qui tentaient de la lui dérober lors du parcours à Paris. Depuis, elle a été érigée en héroïne par les médias chinois.

But if it's in the same vein as that delivered Sunday, it must be very conciliatory. On the first day of a one-week visit, it was another UMP official, president of the Senate Christian Poncelet, who hand-delivered a letter to Jin Jing in Shanghai. This 27-year old disabled young woman protected the Olympic torch on her wheelchair from several pro-T1b3t@n activists who were trying to steal it from her during its passage through Paris. She was then made a national heroine by the Chinese media.

«Je veux vous dire que j’ai été choqué par les attaques dont vous avez été l’objet le 7 avril à Paris et, pour le courage que vous avez montré, j’ai un profond respect envers vous et le peuple dont vous venez. […] Il est compréhensible que le peuple chinois ait été blessé et je condamne fermement» ces actions, a écrit le président français.

"I want to tell you I was shocked by the attacks you were subjected to on April 7 in Paris, and, because of the courage that you showed, I have a profound respect for you and the people from which you come. [...]  It is understandable that the Chinese people were hurt and I strongly condemn" these actions, the French president wrote.

Hmmm... The pictures I saw only showed one attacker.

Well, I'd be surprised if any of the pro-China or anti-France protests, here or in France, actually had much to do with Sarkozy's decision to send envoys to patch up relations with China, but at least China's voice is being heard and getting a reasonable response. In some quarters, at least.  

Lately events in far-off lands have been bugging me. There's stuff I want to write about, but this frustration, disgust and anger with events far away which have no direct impact on my life and which, of course, I have absolutely no control over, has made it difficult to focus on what I'd rather be spending my time doing.

The best I can do is to remove the link to the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand from the blogroll. It's annoying. I think we need the Greens in parliament for their commitment to the environment and sustainability. Trouble is that their recent support for a movement employing blatantly racist violence and their childish, one-dimensional, knee-jerk response to the word "China" has meant that I can do nothing but remove any sympathy and support I ever had for them. And their opposition to the FTA? Well, they dress it up in their "principles", but that response of theirs to the word "China" suggests maybe it has more to do with plain old-fashioned xenophobia. The emperor is wearing clothes; trouble is, his clothes are transparent.

Anyway, Saturday morning I started writing a big, long rant about all that's bugging me. Then at lunchtime I went round to the KFC on Wusheng Lu to meet lzh, who had spent the morning on a fruitless search for suitable prescription sunglasses at the Panjiayuan optometry markets. Then we took the 34 round to Tiyuguanxi, thence to the subway Line 5 Tiantan Dongmen station, then rode the subway to Tiananmen East, then walked up Nanchizi and Beichizi then round to the east gate of Jingshan Park.

And I got all that ranting out of my system with no need to post any of it here. Or anywhere. Or to even finish writing that rant.

And that trip to Jingshan, along with Friday afternoon's wander around Longtan Park, provided a much needed escape from the frustration with the mad, sick circus the world seems determined to become this year.

And yesterday afternoon, while lzh was out at ErWai hanging out with friends and former classmates, I went on a blowout with a few friends and colleagues.

And all is right with the world again. Mental blocks have been relieved; frustrations vented. The weather is warm and pleasant, and poplar fluff is blowing around like a mid-spring blizzard.

Alright, so yesterday's blowout means I lost this morning, and so I'm once again behind on my marking, but hey, I can fix that easily enough.  

See, one of the things that has kept me sane in all these years in China is parks. Sure, Chinese parks can be just as noisy and crowded and chaotic as the rest of the country, but always, without fail, if you look carefully and notice that one little path leading up the back away from the crowds and follow that, you can find peace and calm and serenity. The beauty of Longtan is that, apart from during Spring Festival's temple fair, there's no need to search for that path out the back. The whole park is calm and peaceful and serene. Jingshan, unfortunately, attracts a lot of tourists and all the scum who prey on tourists, but the tourists only go there for two things, and are therefore easily avoided. And both parks are cheap, at only two kuai to get in, and populated by locals out getting some fresh air and exercise or socialising or taking the kid or (more commonly) grandkid out for a run around. It's precisely that normality that makes those parks so calm.

And right now, serenity is what I need.

The world has gone mad, and I need to withdraw from it because I don't want to join the insanity. I'll re-emerge sometime post-Olympics when everybody's calmed down again.

Oh, no, don't take that literally. I'll still be here. I mean, for the sake of my own sanity, I need to mentally withdraw, create a gap between me and the news I read. I won't be disappearing, although I am serious about spending August in Yanqing.

So I'm trying to delay going to the office to mark tests- which desperately need to be got out of the way so I can focus on HSK prep (hahahahhahahhahahahahaha!) and I don't get swamped with the next round of tests coming- oh, straight after HSK. Anyway, I thought I'd delay that by opening up the Southern Daily, and I came across two interesting headlines.

The first is quite provocative:

穷人再给富人让路?

Poor people are giving way to rich people again?

I don't really want to try translating the whole article, because skimming through it would seem to require more local knowledge of Guangzhou than I possess. Yeah, I've been there. Once. Years ago. I spent all my time at either the East Station or main railway station or travelling between the two. No, twice. The first time was transferring from a flight from Changsha to a flight to Bangkok. Anyway, it's about an apparent proposal to limit, if not ban, tricycles- judging from the picture, the taxi version of tricycles. "Giving way again" refers to the fact that electric bicycles and motorbikes have already been banned in Guangzhou. The subtitle tells us:

限令还在拟订中　三轮车已经被扣

Limit order is still being planned. Tricycles have already been confiscated.

Oh dear. It could be interesting to see how that pans out, although I'd have to leave it up to those who actually know Guangzhou to provide any intelligent commentary this issue may deserve.

The second is about an issue I'm very rapidly tiring of:

“在巴黎，我们护卫圣火”　西方媒体称圣火护卫队是暴徒

"In Paris we're protecting the Olympic torch". Western media call torch guards "thugs".

 Well, I haven't seen the word "thugs" used by any media in reference to those guarding the torch. I can think of others who deserve that title, but they're the darlings of the Western liberal establishment, so they get a thoroughly undeserved free ride. I'm starting to think my village in Yanqing won't be far enough away from the sick circus some people seem determined to turn the Olympics into, I'm starting to think about Mongolia. Far, far, outer Mongolia, somewhere out on the grasslands in a yurt herding sheep to pay my way... At least for the summer. 

留法的中国学生自发组织守护圣火传递，与藏独分子拼口号、斗旗阵

Chinese students studying in France organise their own protection for the torch relay, match slogans and banners with T1b3t indie pen dance supporters. 

And good on 'em, too.

Southern Daily's Zhong Yuedong and interns Ma Yan and Yuan Ding report:

他们不是圣火护卫团的武警，也不是手擎火炬的一员。他们是中国在海外的留学生。在英国，他们自发地组织起来守护圣火；在法国，他们同样坚持。圣火在传递， 一个国家到另一个国家；留学生们也在传递，将守护圣火的任务从一国留学生传递给在另一国的留学生。当火炬在巴黎熄灭，留学英国的中国学生就生气地斥责留学 法国的中国学生“没有保护好圣火”，护卫圣火似乎成为他们的使命。

They're not the armed police of the Olympic Torch Escort Squad, nor are they torch bearers. They're Chinese students studying overseas. In the UK they organised themselves to protect the Olympic Torch, in France the continued the same way. As the torch relay moves from country to country, the overseas students are also relaying, shifting the duty to protect the torch from one country's overseas students to the next country's overseas students. When the torch was extinguished in France, the students in the UK denounced their French counterparts, saying they "had not protected the torch well enough", as if protecting the torch has become their mission.

Yeah, alright, I'm being bad: I'm refusing to render "圣火" as "sacred flame" because it's not sacred. The whole bloody torch relay is just some ridiculous neo-pagan ceremony invented by the Nazis, and it really, really disturbs me.

And I don't really want to translate the whole thing, as the Beijing Olympics are turning, like I said, into a sick circus. It's ridiculous, and I can't think of any other Olympics that has become so stupidly, absurdly politicised. Berlin, 1936? Maybe- but then again, there was a damn good reason to politicise that one. Moscow, 1980 and LA, 1984? Just the usual Cold War bollocks. Beijing, 08, however, has been hijacked by every self-righteous wanker with a bone to pick with China, and I can't help but feeling that China's fenqing actually have a point when they claim it's about Westerners feeling threatened by China's rise and trying to keep the heathens in their place. 

And yes, I am uncomfortable with the rather nationalistic undertone to these Olympics, but at the same time I can't see how any reasonable person could blame China for seeing this as an opportunity to celebrate 30 years of successful reform, opening up, development, and spectacular achievement. When I look at how far China has come and how much the Chinese people have achieved these past 30 years, I can only congratulate them- and I do so wholeheartedly. 

I can tell you this much, though: After March's blatantly racist violence and their antics in London, Paris, and San Francisco, I have lost any residual sympathy I may have ever had with a certain indie pen dance movement in southwestern China, and I am thoroughly disgusted with said movement's self-righteous, hypocritical Western supporters. They hear "China" and start frothing at the mouth and madly shouting "Hugh man writes! Hugh man writes!" but their "principles" don't extend to China's 55 other ethnicities, least of all Han, and apart from a handful of celebrity d1ss1d3nts, their sympathies don't extend to the plight of your average Zhou. 

Gah. Long rant short: I'm thoroughly sick and tired of it all. If I could fast-forward to September and skip this sick circus, I would. Sadly, like everybody else, I'm going to have to sit it out.

But, strange as it may sound, and it sure feels weird to write this: On this issue, my sympathies lie with the fenqing.

So I say: 中国，加油！(Go China!) And go the overseas students, and all other Chinese scattered abroad. Get out there waving your five-star red flags, sing your anthem, shout your slogans, and be proud! Don't be aggressive, though, please, we're seeing enough of that shit from the other side, and you'll never find me condoning violence unless it is truly a last resort in a case of genuine self-defence.

Wow, I'm surprised that rant came out of me. Anyway, time to stop and be all responsible like and get to work.