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Summer Conference

by Wendy Liu, Section Editor

September 2009: Volume 6, Issue 1

Kicks Off MUN Year

Students Discover Treasure798 BiennaleFaceblockTruth About MisunderstandingsSAT Summer

pg. 2pg. 2pg. 3pg. 4pg. 4

Inside This Issue:

While most students were basking in the sunny glow of their well-deserved summer break, several ISB students par-ticipated in an MUN conference known as WEMUN, which took place at a hotel 50km southwest of Beijing named Grand Epoch City. Organized by WELAND International, a China-based educational company founded in 2005 by graduates of Beijing University, the conference hosted over 1,500 students and took place from August 2 to August 6.

ISB students’ general consensus on the organisation of the conference is that it could have been better.”The organisation was somewhat poor,” remarked Assistant-Director Laura Du (12). “For one, the lunch lines were too long.” Other points of discontent include the chaotic check-in process; the distance between the hotel and meeting rooms; the shortage of admin staff, which resulted in delegates being asked to assume those roles; the absence of some delegations’ placards; and the fact that some ISB delegates were placed in committees using a procedure different from the one they were told to expect.

Still, press member and Assistant-Director Kevin Yang (12) feels that the conference was a success. “It was a lot better than I thought it would be,” says Yang. “Most of the delegates were pretty good speakers, and the hotel was great.” Others, like Kevin Lee (12), a delegate of GA2, believe otherwise. “It was time-consuming, and I felt that the level of debate at the conference wasn’t always up to ISB standards,” admits Lee. “Still, it was splendid in terms of the number and diversity of people; in general, it was a worthwhile experience.”

Although only three actual delegates represented ISB at the conference, as several of those who had registered did not show up, and one of those who did had to leave early due to ill-ness, there were many Assistant-Directors and press members present, for a total of sixteen ISBers. However, despite the small number of delegates present, ISB still managed to scrape a second in the “Best Delegation” award. The ISB press team was also awarded recognition, procuring “Best Delegate.”

“It was really a great opportunity for ISB students to work and socialize with Chinese high school students,” says Mr. Burchell, supervising teacher at the conference. “I hope we will participate again next summer.”

Students Discover Treasure: Pirated Booksby Karen Chen, Editor-in-Chief

While most are aware that 15 kuai is tai gui le for a fake DVD of questionable qual-ity, pirated movies aren’t the only cheap fake goods in the sea. Now made readily available by hawkers in convenient locations such as the China World subway station and the middle of Sanlitun, pirated copies of popular English books are also available for book worms living on a limited budget.

Imagine exiting the subway station and spotting a neatly organized stand, selling titles ranging from English literary clas-sics to New York Times bestsellers (yes, they have Twilight) to the entire collection of Harvard Business Reviews. Unable to resist, is it unreasonable to surrender one’s mor-als – under the good name of curiosity – and walk away with six books for a mere 120RMB? And if the bargain isn’t enough to have students excited, the quality is nearly indistinguishable from the legally published alternatives. With the excep-tion of a blurred ISBN code and a minus-cule line of Chinese characters on the back covers (and a mildly off-centre blurb on a copy of Lolita), the text itself remains as crisp and clear as the books in ISB’s library.

Despite the bold copyright disclaimer conveniently photocopied onto the front page of the fake books, students are apply-ing the same loose attitude toward pirated books as they do for DVDs. “It’s unethical for people to buy fake DVDs, but people buy them anyway. Who’s to say that it’s

any different for books?” points out Wesley Kwok (10). Still, laws are made to protect the intellectual property of authors who make their living off of book sales and this black market is a direct infringement of copyright protection. Just as plagiarising another’s essay is frowned upon and uneth-ical, the free use of the author’s words to liberally photocopy and distribute for prof-it can hardly be justified in a legal context.

While morals may come into play, other students hypothesize that it’s a sim-ple question of economics: where there is a demand, the market will supply it. “I think more people would buy books now since they’re cheaper and maybe more people will read,” suggests Min Jae Kang (11).

In any case, the availability of pirated books may be a gateway to better equipped bookshelves and a wallet-friendly way to catch up on some reading. Better brush up those bargaining skills, though. As vet-eran fake book buyer Angus Ning (12) ad-vises, “I would have paid 10 kuai instead!”

798 Beijing Biennale Around The Block

Chen Hui (9) frowns un-der furrowed eyebrows and asks, “Uhh… 798? What’s that?”

It is a truth universally ac-knowledged (although arguably an unfortunate truth) that many students are not familiar with the 798 district in Dashanzi, the most popular area in Beijing to exhibit and share artwork. Luckily, a new mega-size exhibition is on its way to the district soon, so interested ISB students will have had a brilliant op-portunity to plan an artistic excursion.

Dubbed “Constellations” after its theme, the soon-to-be exhibition is no small one. From August 15th to Septem-ber 12th, the 798 Beijing Biennale showed the work of over seventy Chinese and international artists, organized by eight curators. This diverse body of artworks ranges from the more conventional genres such as paintings and sculpture, to the less popular or understood, comprising sound works and site-specific public art, all tell-ing different stories of constellations. Re-ferring to the idea that distantly situated stars within a constellation look close to each other in Earth’s perspective, the bi-ennale’s website explains that the exhibi-

tions are based on the concepts of prox-imity and distance, inside and outside, global and local, contrasting such ideas to narrate a bigger story of our world.

Beijing was selected as the perfect location for “Constellations” due to its emerging status as the new art Mecca, as well as being “a megalopolis located between the future and the past—a con-fluence of the pre-modern, modern, and postmodern that, in turn, recon-figures globalization in a manner more complicated and multidimensional than in other areas of the world.”2 Accord-ing to Jerome Sans, Art Director at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA), “Beijing is the new New York.”3

Students in and out of art classes are showing interest. Yoon Chul Ro (11)

remarks, “I’m really looking for-ward to visiting it. I’ve been to 798 with my family, and I was really impressed with the bril-liant artworks there.” Ro’s inter-est in the exhibition was echoed by Angela He(12): “I’ve moved around often, which has allowed me to experience different kinds of art from different perspec-tives. To have a chance to see the show in the comfort of our own favorite 798 art street is something

that I am really looking forward to.”Teachers in the Art Department

are enthusiastic of this new event and have not only planned an art trip to Dashanzi during the display, but are also encouraging everybody to go and have a look. “It’s surprising how so many people don’t use these chances right under their noses,” Ms. Farrell voices her concerns. “This is a great opportu-nity.” Hopefully you took advantage of it.

1, 2. www.theartistnetwork.org/798Biennale09

3. www.worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/Image Source: http://www.theartistnetwork.

org/798Biennale09/statement.htm

Knowing how to say “hello” in a gazillion languages won’t be necessary.

by Iris Rhee, Section Editor

I m a g e h t t p : / / w w w . t h e a r t i s t n e t -w o r k . o r g / 7 9 8 B i e n n a l e 0 9 / s t a t e m e n t . h t m

Bar street goes booky.

Staff List

Arts

Editors-in-ChiefKaren Chen

Melissa Powers

Managing EditorAlice Li

Section EditorsGabriel MekbibStephanie Liew

Wendy LiuIris Rhee

Eric Wang

Cover ArtCecilia Wang

AdvisorsCinder Merritt

Helen Pritchard

Can you see your name here?

Meetings every Monday.Rm 3108.

3:30 - 4:30.

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Sports & Standing

by Gabriel Mekbib, Section EditorAthletes Sweat Out the Summer

Summer break may bring thoughts of lazy afternoons and barbeques but for many of ISB’s athletes, summer is the perfect time for students to push their bodies to reach new heights. Whether it be to make a varsity team or help their teams win APAC or sim-ply to become better athletes, many students spend a large portion of their summer working to become the best sportspeople they can be.

Summer creates an opportunity for students to leave Beijing and prac-tice at a top level. Michelle Bulterys (10) said, “I went to Stanford soccer camp in order to meet the coaches and scouts who would not otherwise come to Beijing. I had the opportunity to im-prove my soccer technique to increase the chances of being recruited for col-lege.” The same is true for basketball

enthusiast Eli Frischmann (12), who trained in Spain. His training regimen required numerous hours as he trained up to 6 hours a day, 6 times a week for two weeks of the summer. Frischmann has no problem finding motivation to adhere to such a strict schedule because he “wants to improve because [he]loves the sport.”

Outside the realm of typical ISB sports, other students like Varun Singh (12) spent their summers training for the international stage. ”I need to en-hance my cricket skills so I can be good enough to play professionally.”

The common ingredient for sum-mer training is drive. Whether you play soccer, basketball or cricket, summer provides an ample opportunity to get ahead of the competition.

Image source www.isb.bj.edu.cn

TECH: Faceblockedby Melissa Powers, Editor-in-Chief

The death of Xanga, the on-and-off YouTube bans and Wikipedia’s existence as an Atlantis-type fable until late 2007. It’s well-known that China is a sensitive country in terms of internet con-trol. Starting this summer, its resi-dents are suffering another blow. The termination of popular sites such as Fa-cebook, Twitter and YouTube has left ISB students staring at the now familiar “Web-site not found” and feeling oddly lost.

While most are familiar with You-Tube’s disappearing act, the current block is its longest yet. Not only that, but China has yet to issue a statement explaining why the video-sharing site been com-pletely blocked when in the past only sin-gular videos and incriminating keywords were blocked.

Alternately, Facebook and Twitter, tremendously popular social network-ing sites, have been blocked for clearer

reasons. Their shutdown came within a few hours of the deadly riots in Xinjiang province, leaving many there unable to spread news of what had happened, as well as to decrease further organization of protests online.

Even in light of the riots, students feel irritated at the blocks, since, as Kara Ng (12) points out, “Most of the people on those [sites] don’t even bother posting any-thing political or radical!” Jeffrey Zhang (11) agrees, lamenting the fact that although he “can understand the blocks, there are so many kids now who have nothing to do on the Internet.”

On the other hand, could the obstruc-

tion of these sites have come in time for a new school year? “It will affect your social life,” Riowena Seah (10) admits, “but you can concentrate bet-ter on school work because Facebook doesn’t work.” Liza Borgonjon (12) dis-agrees, stating that “lots of students can get around it – it’s troublesome at first,

but you get there eventually.”

Despite how “[frustrating]” these blocks may seem, Ng continues, “I think [the government] is just doing it to stop any sort of ‘bad’ information from be-ing passed around.” Actions certainly do speak louder than words – security still tightens every year around the 1989 Ti-ananmen Square Incident’s anniversary in early June. At the root of it all, whether China is simply trying to protect herself or you end up missing those pictures from last night, the block does not seem to be lifting anytime soon.

Image courtesy of internet provider

Sketch courtesy of Wendy Liu

My new homepage

You’ve got to stay in shape over the summer to look this good!

There is an unspoken rule of thumb that journalists should strive to maintain a wholly unbiased view, to see the big pic-ture before studying in detail the individ-ual components. Yet there are inconsisten-cies, chinks in that armor of objectivity. This is inevitable, given the sheer number of differences between each individual and the resulting preconceptions. Misun-derstandings, even small ones, can easily distort the truth. But what is the truth? And if there are these misunderstandings, these differences, does this then create varied truths? If this is so, then the big question remains: what version of “truth” do you believe more?

Here are the facts. On June 25, at least two Uighur workers were killed in a brawl at a toy factory based in Guangdong Province; whether their deaths were ac-cidental and who is to blame are up for debate. The two groups involved were of

The Truth About MisunderstandingsHan and Uighur ethnicity. Following this was massive unrest in Xinjiang, with a violent outbreak on July 5 that left at least 197 dead, a thousand injured and a thousand more arrested.

When I first learned of the conflict, I was in California and reading about it in the Wall Street Journal. The article con-tained the same specifics as the next article I read, and the next one after that. Regardless of the

newspaper or the coun-try it was printed in, the statis-

tics remained the same. However, that is where the similarities ended. The same evidence acted as the foundation for each article, yet there was still a clash of per-spectives, particularly between the West’s portrayal and that of China’s.

It should come as no surprise that the Chinese government has a tendency to keep hush-hush about such “delicate” matters. Yet there was reportage. In fact, the government even invited the Western press to come to the unsettled areas to re-port. And almost predictably enough, the West’s portrayal of the riots were similar to how they addressed the Tibetan issue, with negative reporting on minority dis-crimination and other violations of hu-man rights. Although it was not directly stated in Western papers, it was obvious that the Uighurs were the main victims of the show.

There is some justification to this

perspective. Even with all the new ben-efits that minorities are receiving, such as paying fewer taxes and a better (albeit Mandarin Chinese) education for their children, there still remains the problem of prejudice amongst different ethnicities within China. This is particularly evident with the treatment of different religions; e.g. the comparatively small population of Muslims. Yet, on what grounds can the West point a finger at China and accuse her of committing crimes? As clichéd as this may make the sentence, it must be done: the truth of the matter is much of the West still remains ignorant to the nu-ances of the Chinese culture and history. What may come off as an infringement on human rights, may simply be custom and, in certain cases, necessary.

All of these factors, when tied in with the evidence above, suddenly a whole dif-ferent scenario and one in which we in-ternational students living in Beijing must come to terms with, not only in this situ-ation, but in all situations. Our student body is an eclectic one with diverse back-grounds, and as such, it is only natural then that we become used to misunder-standings and different truths. Therefore we must learn to challenge ourselves and not slip back into the same comfort-ing prejudices that inevitably cling to our skins. As the saying goes, there is always another side to the story. It’s only a mat-ter of finding it and figuring out for your-self the real truth.

by Alice Li, Managing Editor

Students protest for Facebook; Uighurs protest for rights

Summertime Acute TortureSummer break no longer has the

same meaning it used to; rather, those words have become quite the paradox, particularly for ISB students applying for American colleges. I think I speak for most when I say that I’ve been cheated out of my two-month period of relax-ation. Instead, I ended up spending the greater part of my break working through stacks of SAT practice books, sitting rath-er ominously on my desk, still waiting to be completed.

A number of high school students take SAT classes over the summer. Wheth-er these efforts will yield perfect scores and guarantee an Ivy education, I doubt we will ever know. But nobody—or at least no parent—is willing to “jeopardize” a child’s future. And so, like an infectious disease that confines students indoors all day, the SAT epidemic has taken over our summers.

Since the SAT supposedly tests knowledge that students should already know from school, why is there a need to take SAT-prep classes at all? I consistently

fail to find a connection between the SAT and my academic “scholarly” knowledge.

And while we slave away at our tragi-cally thick SAT prep books, we risk losing what summer is supposed to be about. Days which should be filled with explo-rations of the vibrant culture around us and give our bodies time to stretch and relax outside of the school setting are being replaced by bubble after bubble of perfectly penciled-in answer sheets. The amount of effort we put into preparing for the SAT is ridiculous. The more time we spend trying to measure our worth out of a 2400 point total, the less time we have to enrich ourselves with memories that are likely to guide and benefit us for a lifetime.

Knowing this, it is just surprising how much money the SAT-prep industry rakes in every summer. Parents spend so much and kids give up so much time to learn a few unconventional tricks that will only ever be useful for this one test. Students should really take into consideration just what they are investing all their time and their parents’ money in, and if it really is

worth the price. The SAT is unhealthily overstressed, treated like an ultimatum for a student’s future. We need to keep in mind that most colleges look at students holistically, and the SAT is only just one out of the many aspects that colleges con-sider. The main difference is the SAT re-ceives the most hype. We mustn’t forget about our other pursuits, other talents with which we can prove our worth.

Image source http://www.flickr.com/photos/achieverspoint/1962056064/

by Eric Wang, Section Editor

Imageonline.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203547904574279952210843672.html

A scene from a nightmare—oh wait, they’re real.

Opinions

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