[NYTr] Don't-Miss anti-Cuban Propaganda but Nice Photos of Chinese Moveable Type Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2007 17:13:43 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit [Hong Kong Chinese journalism student writes a highly hostile article, but fairly well disguised for the uninformed, about Cuba. This one, who's an exchange student in Missouri, has a future in the disinfo trade. You'd think there were no computers with Chinese character sets in Cuba. Don't mistake nostalgic regard for the history of technology for primitive necessity. Of course, in today's grasping, capitalist-mad China and Taiwan, this adorable relic of a newspaper couldn't exist outside of a museum, and except in Cuba, any 74-year-old who tried to make a living using the old moveable type would soon be living on the street. Chinese treasures are called "hidden" (anywhere else they'd have been auctioned off long ago to the highest bidder) and the people are called "huddled" in Havana. Utter bullshit. This kid should be sent to New York's Chinatown, with its gangs and illegal sweatshops and tuberculosis problem, before returning home. The Chinese population in Cuba is said to be declining. There IS such a thing as assimilation, and there's a low birthrate all over Cuba, in EVERY community, something that concerns the government. It's partly the result of women's greater freedom, something Chinese women haven't traditionally enjoyed. The Chinese restaurants may serve pizza and pasta, but so do some Chinese restaurants everywhere in the world, and pasta is, after all, a Chinese contribution to Italy's culture. There's plenty of excellent Chinese food, of variuos regions, available in Chinatown's many restaurants in Havana. My advice to the author: Don't ever go to a Chinese restaurant in Ireland. BUT the photos of the old moveable type they found in Chinatown are great, and the reporter's enthusiasm about the antique compositor seems genuine. Never fear, folks -- Chinese culture is honored and given lots of recognition in Cuba. There is an active Chinese association, as there are similar ethnic heritage associations for Arabs, various Muslims, Africans, etc. MANY Chinese arrived in Cuba -- as they did in the US -- to work on the railroad (not merely as "sugarcane slaves," as claimed here). And lots of anti-Communist Cuban-Chinese left for the Land of the Free in 1959 after the revolution, just as many other Cubans did. The newspaper compositor interviewed seems to have a perfectly fine relationship with the Chinese Embassy, by the way. Naturally, Cuba supports Beijing's "one-China" policy and this particular Hong Kong kid probably won't be welcomed back. And yes, the Chinese have the same limited internet access as everyone else in Cuba, and the same free educational opportunities. In fact, this relic of a newspaper (with the lovely moveable type donated by some Chinese in New York who had no use for it and where it probably wouldn't even be cared for) is completely subsidized by... the Cuban Government. This brat promised to send the old dude "Chinese fiction" and "hoped the mail wouldn't be blocked." Well, if it is, it will be by the US Government, kid, so better send it from Mexico. And just think: you wanted to know where traditional Chinese culture survives, and you had to go to Cuba to find it. Shame on New American Media for this piece of propagandistic claptrap. What's next? Second-generation Vietnamese-American from the Orange County emigre mafia goes to Havana to interview the Vietnamese living there? Why not? New American Media is an offspring of the Pacific News Service, where Andrew Lam found houseroom to slam Vietnam. But see the nice photos at the original URL. -NY Transfer] New American Media - Aug 19, 2007 http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=a88b5ebf2f77a27a453d6c27d8d37fd4 Cuba Keeps Traditional Chinese Culture Alive Newspaper serves century-old immigrant community with antiquated printing press by Ying Ying Joyce Choi Photos by Doug Meigs In Havanabs Chinatown, therebs a stall named bConfucius.b It has plenty of books with Che and Castro on the covers, but not one Chinese book. Havanabs bBarrio Chinob (Chinese District) seems to be just another touristy gimmick where tourists outnumber Chinese, Chinese restaurants serve pizza and pasta, and waiters and waitresses chorus Asian words in a foreignerbs accent. This was once Latin America's biggest and most vibrant Chinatown, comprising 44 square blocks during its heyday, the result of heavy Chinese immigration. Ibm a journalism student at The University of Hong Kong. For the past year, I went on an exchange at the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Before I started my internship at New America Media, I had a six-week backpacking trip in Cuba and Mexico. Ibm interested in understanding my fellow countrymenbs livelihood abroad, and in particular, how cultures blend and conflict. Chinese treasures, that will soon die out back home, are hidden in this Cuban Chinatown. I stepped into the office of Kwong Wah Po, the only remaining Chinese newspaper in Cuba. Over the doorsill on a plaque, written in Chinese, then English, followed by Spanish, bDiario Popular Chinob (Chinese Peoplebs Newspaper). Four or five lingering Chinese elderly, shoulder to shoulder, crowded on a wooden bench while a Hispanic janitor dusted the furniture. My jaws dropped as I walked in and saw what was behind the reception screen b shelves of Chinese movable type! I only heard about these movable types from my Chinese teacher when I was young. No way could I imagine to see them being regularly used, instead of displayed in a museum, because they were abandoned long ago in Hong Kong and China. I was thrilled by the enormous number of mini metallic stamps sitting on wooden shelves. It reminded me of the life-size soldiers in the Terracotta Army buried with the Qin Emperor. But I was more astonished that a manual printing system still exists in todaybs computerized world, in a country oceans away from China. The newspaperbs 74-year-old editor, Guillermo Chiu (Chiu Siu Sheung, in Chinese), is the only person at the newspaper who knows how to operate the system, colloquially known as bpicking/arranging word pieces.b It takes a whole room to house just the commonly used Chinese characters. The metal types can make 7,000 to 8,000 different characters. Chinese is not an alphabetical language composed of dozens of phonetic letters, but a pictographic system of characters that are made up of strokes and parts. According to a 2004 update on Chinese linguistics, there are 106,230 Chinese characters of which about 5,000 are frequently used. Every afternoon, the old man sashays all over the office to pick out characters from the 7,000 stamps. He then sets them in a handy composing stick, and places the chunk in a larger master block. Then, 600 copies are printed from the bulky antique printing press, donated by the Chinese community in New York. It takes him 20 minutes to arrange a 150-word piece. The newspaper is biweekly and the size is a full broadsheet of three Chinese pages and one Spanish, arranged by his Spanish colleague. Chiu has no one to pass on his expertise in bpicking word pieces.b The ones who can read and write Chinese, like him, are well advanced in years and would find the skill too hard to learn from scratch. The young Chinese-Cubans usually only know Spanish. Even if they do know Chinese, who wants a job that is a total toil, a total tedium? Kwong Wah Po shrinks in pages, like the Chinese population tailing off in Cuba. Kwong Wah Po, meaning Shine China/Chinese Newspaper, went from a daily, then weekly, to the current fortnightly publication. The three other Chinese newspapers in Cuba have long gone out of business. The Chinese population in Cuba peaked at 50,000 but the number dropped drastically after Castrobs revolution in 1959, and now only about 250 Chinese-born people remain in Cuba, the majority huddled in Havana. Many of them are in their 70s or 80s, like Chiu, still waiting for the opportunity to visit home b China b again some day. The first Chinese immigrants landed in Cuba in 1847. They were a group of 200 sent from Canton province (nowadaysb Guangdong province) on a Spanish frigate to work as contract laborers on sugarcane plantations. Many were slaves in reality, working for a few pesos a month. After the abolition of Cuban slavery in 1886, the Chinese gradually got richer through small businesses and some even brought their entire families from China to live with them. Chiubs father came to Cuba in 1922 and opened a store selling fruits. He told Chiu to go to Cuba for the vibrant business climate. [At] That time, Havanabs Chinatown was prosperous and a hub of culture. The community had grand Chinese New Year celebrations and at least one representative in the nationbs assembly. The 20-year-old Chiu arrived in Cuba in 1953 and has never gone back to China. He learned the skill of bpicking word piecesb when he was 30 at another Cuban Chinese newspaper, and left the job after a year. He then worked at a grocery store co-owned by his father, until the revolution in 1959, when all businesses were nationalized. Many Chinese merchants and community leaders, rather than handing over their businesses and properties to the Cuban government, left for the United States. Among the not-so-rich, Chiu stayed and worked as financial secretary for the Chinese Association in Cuba. In 2000, he started working at Kwong Wah Po. He used to share the workload with two other old colleagues, but they are too old to stand the labor anymore. Chiu is the last willing to carry on the tradition. He doesnbt know if he will still be blessed with health and longevity, but he wishes to do the printing for another ten years. bOr as long as Ibm still alive,b he said with a smile showing some missing teeth. The editorial staff picks out local and international news stories, including mainland Chinabs and local Spanish language newspapersb, and translates them into Chinese. They also put releases from the Chinese Embassy, activity announcements for the Chinese community, and excerpts of Chinese martial arts fiction. The newspaper, now funded by the Cuban government, goes through the authoritybs inspection. The paper seldom touches politics, Chiu said. He proudly showed me the Beijing Olympics calendar he just got from the Chinese Embassy. I asked if Kwong Wah Po would report on the Beijing Olympics, especially if Cuba is one of the top medal-winning nations. He said, bDepends, depends what information they give us.b Chiu places the tiny types in the case and places the chunk in a larger master block. However the content is monitored, the newspaper still bshinesb and the people are respectable for what they persist in doing b passing on Chinese language and culture, traditions and virtues. bWe just want to do something for the Chinese,b Chiu said. bWe try to keep the traditions.b Kwong Wah Po and its handful of veteran staff remain a beacon to the Chinese-Cuban community. Impressed by their labor of love, I wanted to tell Mr. Chiu that I would love to come back and learn the skill of bpicking word piecesb from him. Traditional Chinese b a written format used mainly in Hong Kong and Taiwan, was taken over by Mainland Chinabs simplified Chinese. And the United Nationbs official website abolished traditional Chinese and only provides information in simplified Chinese. I feel helpless in [the] face of all these bigger forces. The world is moving so fast, I donbt know if I could afford to learn a skill that is no longer useful. What I promise to do is to send him some Chinese fictions, as he requested when we said bsee againb (good-bye in Chinese). We both hoped that the mail would not be blocked. * ================================================================= .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org . List Archives: https://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ . 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