Next week some of Shanghai’s best bars will celebrate Shanghai Cocktail Week.  Details appear sketchy but promising.  Participating bars will each offer a unique special menu of 50 RMB drinks, available throughout the week.  The event is being held to mark World Cocktail Week, a celebration that has been going on for a few years yet has somehow escaped my attention until now.  What can I say?  Every week is cocktail week at my place. . .

Participating bars include: The Alchemist, The Apartment, Arcade, Fennel Lounge, The Geisha, HoF, Jade on 36 (Pudong Shangri-La), Lost Heaven Lounge (Bund), The Martini Bar (Langham Xintiandi), Otto e Mezzo Bombana, The Public, The Ritz Bar (Portman Ritz-Carlton), Yucca.

Unfortunately there isn’t much info on exactly what different bars have in store.  Perhaps this means hitting them all up to find out? Rumor is that The Public will mix up New Orleans inspired drinks, Jade on 36 will offer a cocktail flight charting the evolution of the Martini, and Fennel Lounge will be experimenting with Chinese flavors.  My picks for reliably good drinks would be The Public and The Alchemist, with Yucca probably also worth a look.  As for the rest, there are a couple of venues I’ve never even heard of, and others I’ve heard of but never tried.  Last time I visited HoF it seemed to be a bakery.  Who knew they did cocktails too?

Oh, and the occasion being marked?  None other than the first printed definition of the word ‘cocktail’, in a New York newspaper on May 6, 1806.  A reader had written to the paper to ask what a cocktail was, and further wondered whether over indulgence in this potion might explain the confused political beliefs of Democrats.  The editor’s enthusiastic reply was both partisan and precise: “Cock tail, then is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters it is vulgarly called a bittered sling, and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head. It is said also, to be of great use to a democratic candidate: because, a person having swallowed a glass of it, is ready to swallow any thing else.“

So cute, but she can’t sing! So plain, but what a voice!  The unfortunate Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi.

There may be people out there who got all excited about the Beijing Olympics, purchased an extra big television, invited both of their friends over, then suddenly realized they had no idea what to mix up as their Chinese-themed Olympic cocktail.  Since this blog has featured a few Chinese-themed drinks, I thought I would dust them off and line them up for the world to appreciate.

This is just a simple little listing.  Links to all vaguely Chinese drinks I have blogged about are listed below.  I have not worried about whether they were Yang Peilis or Lin Miaokes.  Perfect or imperfect, every cocktail made the cut.  While tough, I have tried to avoid getting too excited.  I resisted the temptation to imitate the opening ceremony choreographers and list an auspicious 2008 drinks.  I knew that if I started down that route I would only end up going still further and shooting for 5,000 cocktails, one for each year of China’s long and glorious history.  No, this is just a simple little list, warts, crooked teeth, and all.  Consider it an Uncle Zhang in his underpants kind of list.

China Blue: An authentic Chinese themed cocktail from Asia. This drink may have really been invented in Japan, but it is a staple drink in Japanese bars in China and Taiwan.
http://bunnyhugs.org/2008/04/14/china-blue/

Fort Zeelandia Cocktail: My own invention, more Taiwanese than Chinese themed, and a bit of a pain to make since it involves infusing Genever with Oolong tea.  Worth the trouble though.
http://bunnyhugs.org/2008/02/29/oolong-tea-infused-gin/

Shanghai Cocktail:   A retro offering that seems to date from the early 20th Century.  Surprisingly you can still order this at a few bars in Shanghai.  Though I like to say ‘still’, it could just as easily have arrived in Shangai during the last couple of decades when some local barman flicked through a cocktail manual and found it.  However, judging by the grubby state of some of the menus that list the drink I would say it has been served in Shanghai for at least a decade or two.  They tend to make it with Pernod instead of anisette though.  A sort of slightly sweet, anise spiked rum punch.   Not bad if you have the anisette handy.

http://bunnyhugs.org/2007/03/11/shanghai/

The Flying Tiger: A drink that celebrates Sino-U.S. friendship.  This one is named after the US volunteer aviation unit based in South-West China during the Sino-Japanese war.  This is another of those drinks that mix rum and gin, with interesting results.

http://bunnyhugs.org/2008/03/19/the-flying-tiger/

Chysanthenum and Puer Tea Infused Pisco Sour: An invention of mine.  The fact that I only made it once or twice may indicate it needs a little refinement.

http://bunnyhugs.org/2008/03/27/chrysanthe…-infused-pisco/

Five drinks to choose from there.  Not too bad.

Sunday afternoon saw Auckland subjected to a mass display of ugly Chinese nationalism. Thousands of Chinese gathered in Aotea Square for what was billed as a ‘celebration’ to ‘support the Beijing Olympics’ and promote ‘peace and harmony’. In reality the event was clearly a political rally. Olympic references were drowned out by nationalistic flag waving and chanting. The chauvinistic demeanor of the majority, coupled with a lack of policing, encouraged a large and hostile minority to indulge in physical intimidation and random violence. Within a few minutes of arriving at the event I was assaulted and abused, getting rescued from the hostile crowd by a protest marshal. The marshal then politely asked me to leave, because the event was, in his own words, “not safe for New Zealanders”.

So what exactly happened here?

You know that ‘Sacred Flame’ that’s been tying up the world’s police resources for the last several weeks? What say we bring it to New Zealand?

I first heard about this event on Thursday evening. I had been reading about how the Australian leg of the Olympic torch relay had seen pro-Chinese demonstrators rampage through Canberra assaulting pro-Tibetan demonstrators. The police were so busy protecting the Olympic flame (the ‘sacred flame’ to the Chinese) that protecting Australian citizens from violent Chinese students took a back seat. Finishing that article I breathed a sigh of relief that the Olympic torch would not be coming to New Zealand. Shortly afterwards though, while browsing the New Zealand Herald website, I read that groups within the Chinese community in Auckland had decided to organize their own “Olympic Torch Relay”, as part of a rally to support the Olympics. In the words of Lincoln Tan from the New Zealand Herald:

“Encouraged by organisers to wear red – China‘s colour – participants, expected to number more than a thousand, will wave Chinese flags and do a mock run with a replica Olympic torch in Aotea Square on Sunday”

I was stunned. Given the trouble associated with the Olympic torch elsewhere in the world (see here, here and especially here), why would the local Chinese community choose this moment to organize a nationalistic flag waving rally centered around a “mock Olympic torch”? The event was not even organized by radical students. It was organized by numerous Chinese community groups, and following consultation with the Chinese consulate.

I have nothing against Chinese community events to promote the Olympics. China is the Olympic host. New Zealand has a large Chinese community. New Zealanders are enthusiastic about sport. There should be huge potential for the Chinese community in New Zealand to organize Olympics related events. Such events could have all sorts of positive spin-offs. But was this event really going to be about the Olympics? Was it going to be a positive Olympic promotion or a negative nationalistic display? It sounded like the latter.

Chinese Rally to “Celebrate the Olympics”

Sunday arrived and I headed to Aotea Square to see things for myself, reaching the square just after midday. I was not surprised to find a noisy crowd of several thousand people waving big People’s Republic of China flags; they had been audible as far away as Albert Park. The crowd was almost exclusively ethnic Chinese. A full range of ages was represented, from children to the elderly. However, the majority were young Chinese from the PRC, many of them students. I could surmise this from languages spoken, accents, dress, use of simplified characters on their banners, etc. I saw no Hong Kongese or Taiwanese flags. Nor did I see any flags of the South East Asian nations that contribute to Auckland’s diverse Chinese population – places like Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. There were a few New Zealand flags, but virtually no non-Chinese participants. This appeared to be more a People’s Republic of China event than a wider Chinese community event. There were occasional Olympic flags, but essentially the flags were all national flags of the People’s Republic of China. There appeared to be no presence of Tibetan demonstrators, and nor were there any police.

Many people carried banners. The banner messages were mixed. There were many pure Olympic slogans. There were also many nationalistic and chauvinistic slogans that alienated certain groups and made them feel unwelcome at this “Olympic Celebration”. Some slogans were alienating even to other ethnic Chinese. “One World, One Dream, One China” is a strange and contradictory slogan that links the Olympics to militarism. Until Beijing renounces the use of force to impose its “One China” ideology on Taiwan, banners reading “One China” will be read as threatening. Blame Beijing for this unfortunate situation. “Oppose Tibetan Independence” is a political slogan that would make some ethnic Tibetans feel unwelcome and uncomfortable. “The Dalai Lama is a Liar!” is hostile, offensive to followers of Lamaism, and has nothing to do with the Olympics. “Seeing China’s powerful position, do you feel trepidation?” is unrelated to the Olympics or any current issue and can only be read as an odd attempt to intimidate non-Chinese. “Oppose Western Media Distortion!” sounds angry, inconsistent with a “celebration”, and unrelated to the Olympics. “Don’t politicize the Olympics” is a tricky one. Beijing boycotted every Olympics prior to 1979 over the Taiwan issue and currently humiliates Taiwanese athletes by preventing them from competing under their own flag. For as long as the ritual humiliation of Taiwan continues it seems ironic for citizens of the Peoples Republic of China to call for a non-politicized Olympics. I am not certain, but I believe the PRC has boycotted more Olympics than any other nation. Could there be a dash of hypocrisy here? The mixture of positive Olympics slogans and chauvinistic negativity was bizarre.

I snapped a couple of pictures of Aotea Square filled with red flags and political banners. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me, my camera was in the process of dying, meaning my pictures did not turn out.

“Tibetan Splittists” threaten the fun! Vigilant patriots save the day!

Taking the scene in, I saw somebody was addressing the crowd from the Aotea Center. I was about to move in that direction, but then I realized that the focus really seemed to be outside the Town Hall. The words of the speaker at the Aotea Center were drowned out by the crowd near the Town Hall chanting “Go China!” (?????). The national anthem of the People’s Republic of China was being sung. People appeared more densely crowded near the Town Hall than anywhere else. That area was the focus of something important that I could not see. I briefly saw a Tibetan Snow Lion flag flash through the Chinese ones, carrying writing too small to read. No Tibetan demonstrators were visible though. What was happening? Perhaps the demonstrators were about to burn a Tibetan flag? Perhaps the Tibetan flag was held by Chinese and carried a pro-China message? Maybe a Chinese demonstrator was making some kind of conciliatory gesture*?

I went to investigate the Town Hall area before venturing across to the Aotea Center. Rather than approaching directly and getting stuck in the mass of people I took a circuitous route through the thinner parts of the crowd, trying to get a clearer view of the situation. My route took me into the middle of Aotea Square and then towards the back of the Town Hall. From my new vantage point I saw that pro-China demonstrators were using their flags to cover a small group of pro-Tibet demonstrators. I still could not actually see the pro-Tibet demonstrators, but people around me were shouting “Cover their flags!”, “Good job!” and so on. This was not an organized chant, just many people shouting more or less the same thing. I now partly understood the situation.

I still had many questions though. The focus of this drama was a raised stone platform suitable for addressing a crowd, displaying flags, and so on. Why were the Chinese all crowded around this platform when the speaker and main stage were on the opposite side of the square? Had the organizers arranged things so that the rally had two separate focal points? Were different Chinese groups simultaneously organizing different activities in competition with one another? Maybe the ‘Olympic flame’ was about to be carried from this point to the main stage? Why had the Tibetan protesters climbed onto the platform that was the focus of the Chinese rally? Couldn’t they have politely protested somewhere around the edge of the crowd instead of rudely pushing their way right to the middle of it? I wanted to ask the Tibetan protesters what was going on but there was no way to get close. I also wanted to ask a Chinese demonstrator how the Tibetans had got there, but it seemed imprudent to try questioning the hostile and excited individuals around me. I assumed there would be an opportunity to ask later.

Things got more intense as I watched. The Tibetan flags disappeared completely. The crowd cheered. People shouted things like “Drive them away! Beat them up! We don’t want them!” I saw a Tibetan protester for the first time. He was a shaved headed westerner, squatted on the ground, either with his fingers in his ears or using his hands to protect his head. The crowd surged around him and he disappeared. In the brief second he was visible I did not see him get hit. He did not seem to be crouched down in pain, just in reaction to a hazardous situation. I saw no more Tibetans and things up on the platform calmed down slightly. I assumed that the Tibetans had somehow left the platform (driven away, leaving themselves, or rescued by police). I was concerned for their safety, but since the dynamic of the crowd on the platform became less violent after the Tibetans vanished (changing from struggling to flag waving) I assumed they had escaped and were not somewhere in the middle of the crowd getting bashed.

Getting assaulted ‘Olympic Celebration’ style

At that moment I spotted a Tibetan flag on the ground a few meters from me. Presumably it had just been stolen from the Tibetan protesters. People were pushing forward to trample on it. I followed the press, holding back somewhat, and pulled my camera out to snap this image, an obvious focus for anyone holding a camera – others around me were using mobile phones to snap the same photo. As I tried to take my photo somebody kicked me from behind. I also felt I was punched. Somebody seemed to be trying to snatch my camera. Events were confused, with various people grabbing and shoving me. A Chinese marshal of some sort intervened and started to pull me out of the demonstration. I am confused about exactly what happened, but the marshal’s intervention in itself confirmed that I was a focus of hostility and at physical risk.

As the marshal pulled me out I became surrounded by people screaming “Fuck off!”, “Fuck you!”, “Fuck your Mother!” etc. The abuse was in non-native English and Chinese. The abusers must have been relatively recent arrivals from China. I tried asking in Chinese for everybody to calm down, hoping that using their own language might make them see me less as an ‘enemy’ and more as a human being they could converse with. This had no effect though. The marshal had steered me up against the wall of the Town Hall, protecting our backs and preventing the crowd from surrounding us. He then moved me along the wall and out of the crowd. There were big cheers as the marshal finally led me away from the crowd and towards the back door of the Town Hall. The marshal told me not to go back into Aotea Square because it was not safe for ‘New Zealanders’. I guess he really meant ‘non-Chinese people’.

Media stardom and meeting my fans

The attack was partly caught on film by a cameraman (Aaron Huang) from SODE Productions (a local Chinese media company). The cameraman then continued filming me after I was driven out of the crowd. He filmed me answering questions from a couple of concerned passers by, then phoning police to report the assault. Although the assault was minor in the sense that I was not hurt, it was significant in that it indicated an aggressive and out-of-control crowd. Therefore I wanted to report it officially. No police were available at the time though. The cameraman turned out to be quite amiable, and we chatted while I decided whether to continue waiting for the police or just give up and leave. The footage he took may appear in a documentary about the event.

After maybe ten minutes the cameraman suggested going back to the crowd to attempt a “reconciliation”. I had mixed feelings about this. There was a safety issue, an issue of disobeying the marshal, and questions about the real purpose of it all. In the end I decided there was no harm in going along with his proposal. I doubted we would achieve much, but assuming I didn’t get assaulted again it seemed as good a way as any to spend my time. Many attendees had previously been passionately ‘communicating’ with me. Perhaps I should give them the opportunity to express themselves more calmly?

The ‘reconciliation’ never quite got into gear.

To get things rolling, I had to demonstrate that I was not a “Tibetan splittist” by letting everyone see that the T-shirt beneath my (buttoned) leather jacket was not the dreaded Snow Lion Flag. Making things interesting, my T-shirt turned out to carry the equally alarming Republic of China (i.e. ‘Taiwanese’) flag [NOTE: In response to some comments made below I should emphasize that this t-shirt was never visible prior to my unbuttoning my jacket and showing it to the cameraman. There was therefore no connection between this t-shirt and my being assaulted. I was not "asking for trouble" as some have suggested. I had in fact done the opposite and covered up a potentially sensitive article of clothing.]. Adding to the confusion, the T-shirt itself was purchased at the Flying Tigers Museum in Chongqing, China, and carried text from a pilot’s blood chit that specifically asked Chinese people to assist this foreign ally (you can see the design on this page). Clearly I was not a member of the mysterious “Dalai Lama Clique”, but was I some other, equally pernicious, variety of “splittist”? Would the Flying Tigers Museum really dare hatch an audacious plot (albeit doomed) to split the motherland through subversive t-shit designs? Could I merely be a souvenir buyer? How much assistance should they give me anyway? Somehow they accepted the T-shirt and a fresh round of anti-splittist violence was averted. We were making progress.

Unfortunately, those who had earlier been most eager to communicate with me (i.e. those who had abused me the loudest), were uninterested in civilized communication. I only remember one of them, a middle aged man, asking me a question. His question was “Have you ever even been to Tibet?” I tried to explain that although I had not been to the Tibetan Autonomous Region, I had visited ‘Greater Tibet’, the culturally Tibetan area that extends into Gansu, Sichuan, and Qinghai. The man scoffed and turned his back before I could finish my first sentence. Another individual, a woman of around 50 years old, notable earlier for her passionate screams of “Fuck your mother!”, offered a small Chinese flag as a sort of peace offering. I declined the flag**. Interestingly, neither of these individuals were fiery young students. They were both middle aged – old enough to have little excuse for their earlier lack of self control. There were too many people to interact with simultaneously. They were also all holding back and fairly uncommunicative, presumably out of embarrassment, hostility, nervousness at being on camera, or the dynamics of them being a ‘crowd’ while I was an individual.

I have probably missed some things that were said, but the reconciliation attempt did not achieve much beyond letting them see I was not hiding a Tibetan flag under my jacket. Of course, so what if I had been? Anyway, it was good to have at least tried to talk. Personally I could have tried harder, but given the hostility I had just experienced I was not feeling particularly sociable. I more or less just put myself in front of them, put the ball in their court, and let them do what they wanted. They offered nothing much in the way of an apology, interest in me quickly died, and after a couple of minutes I left. The group I spoke with was not identical to the group that attacked me, though it included at least three individuals from the earlier attack.

The Aftermath

Saying goodbye to the cameraman I walked away via the back of the Town Hall and towards Mayoral Drive. This route took me away from where I was ultimately headed, but it seemed foolhardy to go back through the square alone. A solitary policeman came hurrying down from Mayoral Drive as I left. I asked if he could take my assault complaint. He told me that he had more urgent things to do and jogged towards the crowd looking stressed.

I headed home. Unfortunately I did not get a chance to hear the speakers or see the ‘Olympic torch’. I guess I was in the square for less than ten minutes before getting attacked. Walking home I avoided eye contact with Chinese people, not wanting to get involved in further trouble.

After I reached home a friend of mine called, wanting to meet up and get something to eat. I took the car out and drove along Queen Street to meet him. It was after 2.00 pm by this stage. Queen Street was filled with convoys of Chinese in souped-up cars, blaring their horns, waving flags, screaming, disobeying police directing traffic, and generally creating a disturbance. Chinese pedestrians occupied the pavement, waving flags and cheering the disruptive behavior of the convoys of cars. I was happy to be alone in my car and not sharing the pavement with the flag wavers. I picked up my friend on Queen Street and we went off for lunch.

Violence

Based on news reports, posts on Sky Kiwi, and my own experiences, the day was marred by multiple instances of violence. The following is a quick summary:

- Violence against the small group of four Tibetan protesters. There was clearly a lot of shoving and physical intimidation. One Network News showed a Chinese protester swinging punches at a Tibetan protester. However, no Tibetan protesters were reported to have required medical treatment. Overall it seems Chinese marshals prevented the violent crowd from causing serious harm. There were no arrests.

- Unprovoked violence against myself as detailed above. There were no arrests.

- An incident reported by and involving a non-Chinese builder. Details are not clear but it seems the builder intervened to stop protesters attacking a car (they were rocking the car and pushing flag poles through the windows). The builder and his car then became victims of an attack. There were apparently no arrests.

- An attack by a Chinese female on a taxi. This seems to be a separate incident to the above. In this incident a taxi driver shouted comments in support of Tibet and in response his car was attacked and apparently damaged by a Chinese female. The assailant was detained by the police and released with a warning. The driver was not compensated for damage to his car.

- An assault on a non-protesting Tibetan sympathizer. A man called into a radio station and described being shoved around and struck in the face with flag poles when he attempted dialog with Chinese protesters. There were no arrests.

- An incident outside McDonalds on Queen Street, in which Chinese protesters were verbally harassed and physically assaulted (having their glasses knocked off) by two or three female Polynesians. The Chinese on non-Chinese violence was ostensibly political. This incident sounds racist, probably an ugly reaction to all the Chinese flags. A European man participating in the Chinese protest (his face painted with Chinese flags) intervened by physically assaulting the Polynesians. Read translations of Chinese accounts of this incident here. Two of the three arrests made on the day were for this incident, and seem to have involved the Polynesian assailants. The assailants were charged with assault.

- There seems to have been a third arrest, involving a non-Chinese person, for disorderly behavior. I can find no details on the incident involved. It may or may not have been connected to one of the above incidents.

- There were probably other incidents in addition to the above. It would be unlikely for me to have found information on every single incident of violence.

So what to make of all this? First, there was far more violence than occurs at most political protests, yet this was supposedly a peaceful “Olympic celebration”. The numerous posts on Sky Kiwi denying that the event was a “protest” or “violent” are simply untrue. Second, the level of violence was astonishing given the near absence of opposing views at the event. Tibetan protesters were outnumbered 1000 to 1. One would have thought Chinese attendees would have been delighted at the huge turnout in support of the Olympics and the near absence of critical voices. It is difficult to understand why they began assaulting bystanders who expressed pro-Tibetan views (e.g. the taxi driver), or who they thought might be pro-Tibet (e.g. myself). The number of violent incidents, all occurring in separate locations, indicates a substantial minority of violent and aggressive ‘Olympics supporters’ who were thirsting for conflict.

Policing

So where were the police? The real Olympic flame has created mountains of policing work around the world, yet when the Chinese community decides to import this style of fun to New Zealand by organizing a nationalist rally with accompanying “Olympic flame” there is not a policeman in sight. The lack of a police presence made an odd contrast to the recent protests against the Electoral Financing Act, which saw a huge police presence line Queen Street to control a docile gaggle of retirees.

The timing of the rally could hardly have been more sensitive. The event was being held months before the Olympics (making it hard for many to appreciate the Olympic connection), weeks after the signing of the controversial Free Trade Agreement with China (opposed by many New Zealanders), and just days after the Canberra torch relay (which saw numerous assaults by aggressive Chinese students). There was clearly huge potential for trouble.

A private company called The Edge, which manages the Aotea Center and Aotea Square, was responsible for the event. I have spoken with their security manager. Apparently they were not expecting such large numbers, and on seeing the turnout they requested police backup that never arrived. At least one of the Edge security personnel was in Aotea Square throughout the event and says he never saw a policeman.

The Edge may have failed to arrange police assistance, but the police themselves were also at fault. On the Friday before the protest the police were quoted as saying that they were aware of the protest and had “contingencies in place should there be any trouble”. The police knew the event was happening and knew what had just occurred in Canberra. The police know the Auckland CBD has a huge population of Chinese students. The police have personnel monitoring websites like Sky Kiwi and presumably sensing the anger and extremism of Chinese students in New Zealand. There was plenty of trouble and the police were absent. The police and the mayor of Auckland failed to do their jobs.

The only security personnel that I saw were Chinese marshals, though personnel from The Edge were apparently also present. The marshals did a good job in terms of protecting targets of violence, but of course had no power to arrest perpetrators. Their actions prevented things from escalating further and nobody suffered serious harm. However, the message seemed to be that pro-China thuggery was acceptable within certain limits.

Criticisms of the Event

Overall, I think the event was an embarrassment to citizens of the People’s Republic of China in New Zealand. Rather than feeling proud of attracting a large crowd, the PRC community should feel ashamed at the nature of the crowd. The crowd was chauvinistic, and many were disruptive, aggressive and violent. Imagine thousands of Korean students descending on Tiananmen Square for a display like this and you will understand how it looked to outsiders.

Some people will be reading this and thinking I have been biased by my own negative experience. Of course that experience has influenced my thinking. However, I am not too concerned about what happened to me; it involved only a small segment of the crowd and would not have been noticed by most attendees. I am more concerned with how the crowd behaved towards the Tibetan protesters.

Admittedly, I do not really know what happened here. However, looking back, I doubt the raised platform on which the Tibetans were standing was being used in the formal proceedings of the Chinese event. My guess is that Chinese attendees crowded towards that area in response to the Tibetan presence. I may be wrong, but my reading is that hundreds of Chinese ignored invited speakers at their own event in favor of taunting and assaulting four Tibetan protesters. The official speakers were made inaudible by the people screaming at the Tibetans. I do not understand this behavior. The protesters were positioned such that anyone focused on the stage would have had their backs to them “they were at the ‘back of the hall” so to speak. Why were hundreds of attendees incapable of just ignoring them?

The organizers should be embarrassed at the conduct of this very large group. Why bother with speeches if nobody wants to listen? Why not just bill the event as “Smash up the LV store to celebrate the Olympics” and be done with it?

Discussion of the event on Chinese websites

Much of the online discussion of the event on Sky Kiwi (New Zealand’s leading online community for Chinese) has been concerning. There have been calls for larger and more extreme actions, celebrations of the violence that occurred on Sunday, and plenty of hostility towards New Zealand. Nationalistic extremism was the dominant voice in the lead up to and immediate aftermath of the event. To be fair, more moderate voices are emerging now that several days have passed. People have perhaps had time to do some thinking and realize that things got out of hand.

Alongside the calls for more violence, there has been some “anti-violence” rhetoric. For example, users have been asked not to post photos of scuffles and assaults. The purpose of the request is unclear though. Is it to hide previous violence (and perhaps protect the perpetrators) or discourage future violence? An acquaintance of mine went on to Sky Kiwi to question the violent nature of the rally (I am banned from the site ever since I questioned an earlier demonstration, as you can read about here and here). Initially most respondents either told him there had been no violence, or that the violence was “Chinese expressing themselves” and locals should shut up and accept it. Slowly, he started to attract some supportive or at least sympathetic responses.

Scofflaws have celebrated their actions online and received unanimous praise. For example, the female who attacked a taxi and apparently damaged its door is being treated as a hero. She has attracted dozens of messages praising her patriotism and holding her up as a role model. Not a single person has suggested she overreacted and broke the law. However, one or two people have hinted at tracking down the taxi driver and taking further action against him.

Hopefully an opinion shift is occurring towards less violent attitudes. You seriously have to wonder if New Zealand needs this type of minority community.

Positive Comments about the Event

A few comments on a more positive note:

- Apparently attendees were very efficient in cleaning rubbish up.

- Everybody seemed to know the words to the Chinese national anthem, yet even the All Blacks mumble their way through the New Zealand anthem. I am not sure thousands of people gathering in one place to sing the anthem of a foreign country for no obvious reason is a good idea, particularly when the anthem involves “rising up” to “brave the enemy’s gunfire” – but least they sang it well.

- Despite all the trouble large numbers of people managed to ignore the Tibetan demonstrators.

Suggestions for Future Olympic Events

Before making any suggestions I should first note that I am not very interested in the Olympics. My lack of creativity below can be attributed partly to this. For what it is worth though, here are a few ideas:

- Far fewer Peoples Republic of China flags: Large groups simply should not wave national flags in other people’s countries. The smaller the group the more acceptable the behavior. The behavior is more acceptable from visiting sports fans since their presence is temporary and their intent non-political. For similar reasons the behavior is more acceptable for short events like football matches. The Olympics do not lend themselves very well to flag waving. The competition continues for weeks, and the emphasis is supposed to be on individual competition, not national rivalries. Even were the Olympics in progress, Sunday’s display would have been over the top, but the Olympics are still months away. Large numbers of New Zealand citizens or permanent residents gathering to wave foreign flags is rather odd. International students doing it is just rude.

- Far more non-Chinese attendees: Achieving this might be very difficult. How many locals would want to be part of an event like that on Sunday? Were they even invited? Would they have been welcome? I have no concrete suggestions on how to achieve larger numbers of non-Chinese attendees. Obviously the key is a more welcoming attitude and less alienating behavior. If more non-Chinese attendees could be attracted it would create a better impression and help keep the focus on the Olympics rather than politics. Also, if politics really must be involved in an Olympic event, surely the clever way of winning support from the wider community would be to attract non-Chinese to the event and then gently try to influence their opinions (e.g. distribute leaflets, through speeches, etc.).

- Creative choice of ‘Chinese’ flags: Huge numbers of People’s Republic of China flags can appear alienating, but there are lots of other ‘Chinese’ flags to choose from. Examples include Qing dragon banners, and flags of the Hong Kong SAR, the 1911 Republic, and the Republic of China (i.e. ‘Taiwan’). Banners of Chinese sports groups are another idea. Even the Snow Lion should not be a problem for people that genuinely believe Tibet is part of China.

- Get rid of the ?????(Go China!) slogan. In the absence of any obvious focus (what exactly is China being encouraged to do here?) it sounds hostile.

- Don’t overdo the national anthem. Given that the PRC anthem is essentially a call to war, full of references to advancing on the enemy and so on, a little sensitivity is appropriate. There is also a difference between singing the anthem once to mark the start of an event, and singing it repeatedly to celebrate a crowd of four thousand successfully assaulting four lonely protesters.

Concluding Thoughts

I have written quite a lot. Hopefully, most people reading will find something of value. I doubt I will attend future Olympics related events in New Zealand. The politicization, nationalism, and hostility against non-Chinese are far too extreme.

UPDATE (16/06/2008):  Nearly two months have now passed since the incident.  At the time the cameraman who filmed me getting assaulted offered to put his footage online (and perhaps gather other footage) in order to help identify the people who assaulted me.  I took his offer at face value, considering it a kind and genuine gesture.  Unfortunately, despite me gently following the matter up he has never followed through on his promise.  There was always a possibility that the company he worked for would not release the footage.  However, according to the cameraman himself the company agreed to allow the footage to be used but he decided himself against helping me.  His rationale is that the Sichuan Earthquake made it inappropriate.  I don’t quite get the reasoning behind this, though it appears to be another variation on the ‘china as victim’ world view.  An earthquake in Sichuan makes it OK for Chinese (many of them visitors to New Zealand) to assault non-Chinese New Zealanders.  Or if the behavior isn’t quite acceptable it still isn’t appropriate to question it.  He suggested that I attend a Sichuan Earthquake benefit event and ask the organizers there to help me.  Umm. . . I don’t think so.  We either go with the original agreement Aaron Huang or you go fuck yourself.  All of my friends told me not to believe this guy.  I guess I should have listened to them not him.

* The Snow Lion Flag is an ancient Tibetan symbol but variations were used even under Qing Imperial rule. While the present version of the Snow Lion Flag dates from the period of Tibetan de facto independence following the Qing, there is no real reason that appropriate use of a Snow Lion Flag should be inconsistent with being a loyal citizen of the PRC. The flag is illegal in China, but New Zealand is not China. Setting the legality issue aside, how is a Chinese citizen using a Snow Lion Flag any different from a New Zealand citizen using the Flag of the Independent Tribes of New Zealand, or the Tino Rangatiratanga flag? It would be nice if 21^st Century citizens of the PRC could treat the Snow Lion Flag as graciously as the 19^th Century Manchurians did.

** Turning down gifts is rude. However, I felt it would be inappropriate to accept the flag. First, I was at the event to observe only. Given the political nature of the event I was not interested in becoming a participant. Second, there was no need for another person carrying a Chinese flag at that moment. Chinese flags were everywhere! I have nothing against Chinese flags, and in the right circumstances I might carry one (e.g. at a football match where I was supporting the Chinese team). I make an exception to the above for really cool Chinese flags – e.g. Qing battle standards or the flag of the 1911 Republic.

Following up on my earlier post on the Chinese protests in relation to Tibet, there have been some further developments in the whole Chinese protesters and Chinese online media saga.

- After coming home from the protest on Saturday afternoon I rang the offices of Sky Kiwi to try and find out the reasons for my banning. Having had my IP address blocked it was not possible to look to the site itself for help. I was given the mobile number of a Sarah Li, who seems to run Sky Kiwi. I left a detailed message regarding the situation with the man who answered her mobile (she herself was apparently sick). I told him I wanted to know why I had been banned from the site. Had I offended some part of their terms of service? Had there simply been a mistake? I emphasized the irony of the situation and said that I hoped they would get back to me soon. The man promised to have Sarah call me back as soon as possible.

- On Sunday violent threats against me appeared on the site. Netizens talked of tracking me down and arranging to have me “fucked up”. Other netizens discussed my identity, describing the clothes I had been wearing at the protest and thus making me easily identifiable from photographs posted online. Ironically, while some members of the community discussed my identity, potentially with a view to facilitating my assault, other members of the community were very concerned to protect the identity of the Tibetan, in case his family were assaulted. You need to understand that Tibet is an immensely happy place, and things can easily turn violent when a Tibetan who is merely contented encounters a compatriot who is actually blissfully ecstatic.

- I spent Sunday afternoon making numerous phone calls to get the threats removed. Sarah Li never answered her phone, and nor did anyone at the other mobile numbers I was given by the office. The office kept telling me to call back on Monday, but I wanted the material removed before things got out of hand. In an incident a few years back (the China Bounder Affair to be precise) an acquaintance complained people visited his offices in China to make threats over a similar matter. In the end a guy called Wesley decided to help. It took much convincing to get him to speak English, then more convincing (including mention of police involvement if he didn’t act) to get him to actually do anything. In the end though he took action and the offensive material was removed from the site within an hour or so. Great job Wesley! You actually did something to help. Thanks.

- On Monday I had been expecting a call from Sky Kiwi (I had left enough messages by this stage). No call came. I made a reminder call and left another message for Sarah.

- I left another message at the Sky Kiwi offices on Tuesday.

- On Wednesday (today) I called the Sky Kiwi offices again. They told me to call Sarah. I did so. Surprisingly, Sarah answered her phone. I briefly identified myself and asked if she had received my messages. She said she had, and moreover had already returned my call. This was odd since she had definitely not called me. I tried to explain the situation in case she was mistaking my identity. She interrupted to tell me again that she had already returned my call. Then she told me I should not be calling her and that she had no obligation to return my calls. She said I should deal with the matter through the site. I tried to tell her that I could not do anything through the site while my IP was blocked. She hung up. I called back. She hung up again, saying she was “in a meeting”.

- Having had no luck with Sarah I tried the Sky Kiwi offices again. This time they told me to write them an e-mail since they could not deal with the matter by phone. If they could not deal with the matter by phone then what had the last four days of taking messages been in aid of? I told them this. They told me to write an e-mail and that whatever I wrote would be “given to their lawyers”. Really? What is going on here? Should this not be a simple issue of explaining their forum moderation policy to a frustrated reader/contributor. I don’t want to talk with their lawyer. I want to talk with somebody in charge and find out why a site whose members are organizing a protest against ‘media bias’ bans the one member who asks a few thoughtful questions about that protest. How and why does this happen? The answer must : 1 – site moderation policy, or 2 – site bias, or 3 – a mistake. Somebody at Sky Kiwi has the answer to my question. Can we not communicate about this simple matter without going through lawyers?

At this point I have given up trying to deal with Sky Kiwi. From Saturday through to Tuesday they were just uncommunicative and hard to deal with. On Wednesday they turned peculiar, with Sarah lying about having called me and the desk staff talking about getting lawyers involved. I have tried to understand them. There seems to be no point trying any further.

In a side note, a New Zealand journalist told me that he had tried unsuccessfully to contact one of the protesters to follow up on Saturday’s protest. The reason they didn’t want to speak to him? The protester felt that the journalist, as a Singaporean Chinese, was “not a real Chinese”.

Lets finish by analyzing this last matter. A segment of the Chinese community decides to protest what they see as ‘western’ media bias against them, a form of discrimination if you will. The point of the protest is supposedly to communicate their views to mainstream society (‘western’ society, if you like). A journalist approaches them to discuss the protest, but is rebuffed on the basis that, as a mere Singaporean Chinese, he is “not a real Chinese”.

A couple of points. . . First, who is discriminating against whom here? The discrimination within the Chinese community suddenly looks worse than the discrimination they are supposedly facing. Second, how will the protesters communicate with mainstream society if they harbor such bigoted attitudes? Are the protesters trying to engage and influence mainstream opinion (hint: this may require two-way communication), or are they just angry patriots clutching flags?

Gentle readers, it was at that point that your good narrator became involved, with ironic and entertaining results.

I heard that Chinese students in Auckland were planning to protest western media bias, and specifically New Zealand media bias. The New Zealand angle interested me because it was local, and because I had not personally noticed anything remarkable in the New Zealand media coverage*. Therefore I looked around for details on the planned protest, and found them at www.skykiwi.co.nz, New Zealand’s largest electronic media serving a Chinese audience. The protest was to be held on Saturday noon in Aotea Square here in Auckland.

Reading through the site and sensing the anger of these young Chinese I could not help feeling a little unease. I was reminded of the anti-Japanese protests (riots?) that I had attended in Shanghai a couple of years ago. That was the only previous occasion on which I had personally witnessed a protest by educated and privileged young Chinese. The day had ended with the Japanese consulate and numerous Japanese businesses seriously vandalized (in an interesting cultural aside, the mob ignored the beer fridges in the smashed up Japanese restaurants). I asked myself why privileged and educated young Chinese only ever protest foreign things. It appeared to me that they only ever become moved to express their views when the issue is Japan, or Taiwan, or Tibet, or some other perceived slight to China.

Rather than sit there asking myself this question, I went ahead and asked New Zealand’s Chinese netizens. I wrote a post asking a few things. I asked why their protests only ever targeted foreign things and never targeted their own government. I told them that I had attended the Shanghai anti-Japanese protest, and that at times it had appeared like a riot. I noted that Japanese in Shanghai had been too scared to leave their homes on that day and that numerous innocent business owners had suffered mob violence. While nobody had died or been seriously hurt in the Shanghai demonstration, were there not some parallels between the behavior of demonstrators (rioters?) in Shanghai and in Tibet? Somewhat provocatively, I asked if Tiananmen had simply made educated and privileged young Chinese too afraid to protest their own government. Finally, I asked when the Chinese media was going to ask the Chinese government to produce proof to back its allegations that the DL orchestrated the Lhasa riots.

The response was interesting. Various posters attacked me as a “foreign devil” (洋鬼子) and a “foreign pig” (洋豬). Others apparently believed I was a Chinese pretending to be a foreigner and called me a “fake foreign devil” (假洋鬼). The thread I had started was swiftly locked and I received a disciplinary message. The message gave no explanation of why the thread had been locked, but did suggest that I was not welcome on the site and should leave. I do not know if the people who abused me also received disciplinary messages.

I started another thread to ask why my previous thread had been locked. Provoked by this stage, I sarcastically suggested that the protesters were just mindlessly trotting out the party line in the manner of the Cultural Revolution period. Specifically, I took the piss with a wisecrack about them being “good children of Chairman Mao” (毛主席的好孩子們), and suggested the chairman might reward them all with a Popsicle (冰棍) if they organized a good protest. I knew that was likely to get an ‘interesting’ reaction. But really, if netizens call me a “foreign pig” and site administrators lock my threads and ask me to leave, all because I asked a question, how charming am I supposed to be?

The response was more abuse, then my account on the site was deleted and my IP address blocked. I was no longer able to even read the site without using a proxy. Of course having lived in China I am familiar with proxy servers.

I find this sequence of events hilarious. It took less than 12 hours for the NZ Chinese media most instrumental in organizing Saturday’s protest against bias in the western and New Zealand media to ban (probably) its only non-Chinese contributor. The crime was simply questioning the nationalistic tendencies of educated young Chinese. While the online Chinese New Zealand media was busy displaying its massive bias on matters Chinese, the “your views” section of the New Zealand Herald website was allowing Chinese overseas students to engage local New Zealanders in vigorous debate on the China-Tibet issue. I have no idea if the New Zealand Herald censored comments in that debate, but there is no question that the debate occurred.

Could there be a double standard?

Could the irony of this situation be deep enough for a pod of whales to go swimming in?

I attended the protest on Saturday and chatted with a couple of the protesters. The ones that I spoke to seemed reasonable enough, if (in my opinion) slightly misguided. My criticisms would be as follows:

First, they failed to identify any specific examples of bias in the New Zealand media. Yet their protest claimed to be (at least partially) a response to New Zealand media bias.

Second, they shot themselves in the foot by using some rotten examples to demonstrate western media bias. Most notably, one of their leading examples was the Fox News photo of Nepali police arresting a demonstrator, the caption for which read “Chinese troops parade handcuffed Tibetan prisoners in trucks”. It is obvious that the picture was incorrectly captioned and not a serious attempt to mislead. A person who believes the newspaper used the caption to trick its readers into thinking the Nepali police are Tibetan must also believe the newspaper wants to dupe its readers into seeing invisible trucks, parades of prisoners, and handcuffs. None of these things were in the photo. Why did none of these protesters have the mental facility to spot this obvious truth? Spotting this truth requires nothing more than elementary English and an open and critical mind. Do none of them possess this? To somebody like myself who has followed this story closely from the start, they were simply regurgitating the propaganda from the anti-CNN website. I think they could have done much better.  You can find biases in the western media if you look, but few of the examples they presented fitted my definition of meaningful bias.

Third, the English copy of the flier they distributed was extremely difficult to understand and degenerated into illogical rambling in places. This was an unprofessional attempt at communication. Why had a native English speaker not edited it? The copy is almost too lousy to analyze so I am not going to seriously attempt that. Notably though, the flier stated that western news organizations had been unable to report directly from Tibet because of its geographical remoteness. The flier went on to state that the students were committed to ‘Freedom of Speech’, and framed ‘freedom of speech’ as a shared western and Chinese value. How is this professed commitment to freedom of speech consistent with ignoring the Chinese government’s vigorous restriction of foreign media access to Tibet? Why talk about geographical remoteness (surely a side issue), while ignoring tight Chinese controls over media access to Tibet (surely a major issue). Are they genuinely concerned with free speech and the truth, or are they merely concerned with China’s image?

Fourth, a general survey of the discussion on Skykiwi before and after the protest reveals far more discourse on feeling good about China and abusing things foreign than there is discussion and analysis of the issues they say they are protesting. For example, one common theme in the online discussion was to draw a parallel between their protest to the anti-Japanese protests (riots?) in Shanghai. Another characteristic was describing the event as an “(ethnic) Chinese rally” (華人集會), not a protest against biased coverage of PRC government handling of the Tibetan issue by the western media. A further feature has been the protesters publishing long diatribes online that are expressions of Chinese nationalism and anti-western xenophobia, not genuine attempts to address western media biases. The failure of the protesters to identify concrete bias in the New Zealand media, plus their failure to critically analyze the media material presented by their own protest, also support my feeling that the protest was primarily nationalistic. Social anthropologists sometimes say that you should analyze what people do, not what they say they do. The protesters say they are protesting a specific grievance, but their discourse before and after the protest neglected the grievance itself in favor of simple nationalistic fervor. Of course, being motivated by nationalism is not inconsistent with being motivated by real grievances. However, I think a question should be asked about degree. To what degree are young Chinese protesters critical thinkers who analyze issues and respond rationally? To what degree are they uncritical nationalists primed to respond irrationally to all kinds of triggers?

Fifth, there was some odd amateurism, or even the hint of a conspiracy. The online discussion of the protest mentioned that a Tibetan who had recently returned to (or arrived in?) New Zealand from Lhasa came past to offer words of support. The posters mentioned that this Tibetan described Lhasa to them as a thoroughly harmonious place where all Tibetans feel 100% Chinese and are hugely contented with life. He also said he had been present in Lhasa during the riots, and knew for a fact that the disorder had been orchestrated by non-Tibetan speaking agitators from outside Tibet (who were presumably agents of the DL). Having made a special trip to express his support, the Tibetan seemed to then take his leave fairly quickly, maybe without participating as a protester. There was discussion on Skykiwi about how it was not safe to post the Tibetan’s photograph online because doing so could endanger his family back home. I am not quite sure how this works since Lhasa is said to be a harmonious place inhabited by contended people. The really interesting thing however is this. The sentence previous to the one requesting the Tibetan’s photo not be published provided his full name. How can the protesters be such amateurs? Wasn’t the same person who published the Tibean’s name supposedly concerned with protecting his identity? Maybe the Tibetan told them he was happy to be represented by a name but not by a photograph? Maybe he used a false name? But if the Tibetan hid his true identity from the protesters, could his whole agenda in approaching them have been a deceptive one? I assume the protesters are simply amateurs, but the whole scenario is weird.

Well that just about wraps up what I have to say about the matter of bias in the New Zealand Chinese media and the protests against bias in the western media. Comments are welcome. Abuse is not.

Update: Some follow up to all this is here – including death threats!

* Do not take that to mean that i think the New Zealand media coverage has been problem free. I have not even read most of the New Zealand coverage because I prefer to get my news on Chinese issues from specifically China oriented sources. However, I noticed nothing unusual in what I did read. I also note that the New Zealand Herald website appears to have allowed a free debate in its online comments section, which saw an exchange of views between those supporting and opposing the Tibetan protesters (and rioters).

Following up on my earlier experiment infusing Oolong tea in gin, I decided to do another Chinese tea inspired infusion. This time round I wanted to use a tea blend called Jupu (??), which is simply a mix of chrysanthemum flowers (??) and a black tea called Puer (???).

You do not buy this tea as a blend. You simply buy a pack each of Puer tea and chrysanthemum flowers and blend them yourself in the pot. The ratio is up to you, but the usual thing is to use enough puer to make a decent brew and then add a teaspoon or so of chrysanthemum. This tea is very popular among Cantonese as an accompaniment to dimsum.

Puer is an interesting tea from Yunnan province in southwest China. Puer is a black tea, meaning it is fully fermented. After fermentation and roasting the tea is pressed into bricks and aged. This aging makes Puer tea unique. The finished tea has an earthy and almost fungal flavor. The top of the range stuff can be decades old and sells for huge sums.

You can buy Puer tea in various forms from any Chinese grocery or tea shop. Traditionally it is sold in bricks of varying sizes, ranging from enough for a single pot up to huge things that could keep a person supplied with tea for years. You simply unwrap the brick and remove what you need using your fingers or a knife. Breaking off exactly what you need is tricky, and things can become messy if the brick crumbles all over the place. These days loose leaf Puer is popular. Although not traditional, loose leaf Puer is easier to deal with and tastes good enough for everyday use.

Chrysanthemum tea should also be available from any Chinese grocery. It is sold in the form of dried whole flowers and is quite inexpensive.

My first experiment with this infusion involved gin. I infused the gin with the tea for two hours, and then made a gin sour sweetened with honey. I did not particularly enjoy the result. The idea behind the honey was to mimic the honey sweetened chrysanthemum tea which is a popular iced summer drink in Cantonese areas. However, I found it did not work well as a cocktail. The honey dominated too much and the gin seemed to clash with the chrysanthemum.

My second experiment used a different approach. I dispensed with the gin and turned to pisco. I thought Chilean pisco, with its ‘raisiny’ character, would make a nice base for this infusion. Pisco would contribute some similar characteristics to honey but without dominating nearly so much. Moreover, the absence of competing botanicals would leave the delicate chrysanthemum unmolested.

I made my infusion by soaking the following for two hours:

100 ml Bauza pisco

1 tsp puer tea

5 dried chrysanthemum blossoms

Then I simply used that infusion to make a pisco sour, as follows:

1 ½ oz chrysanthemum and puer tea infused pisco

¾ oz lemon juice

½ oz simple syrup (2:1 sugar to water)

1 egg white

Shake over ice and double strain into a cocktail glass. I did not bother with the Angostura Bitters garnish because I wanted to be able to enjoy the flavors without extra distraction.

This really worked. The pisco provides a nice soft background and lets you really appreciate the chrysanthemum. It makes for an interesting drink, albeit a slightly lightweight one. If I was to refine this further I would look to increase the chrysanthemum. I might also do the infusion in two steps, first briefly infusing the tea (say for 2 hours) to get flavor without too much tannin, then giving the chrysanthemum a longer infusion.

I guess vodka could also work, though right now I prefer to use the more light bodied piscos I happen to have lying around. If I were to do this with a more full on pisco, such as Machu Pisco or Demonio, I would definitely look to take the chrysanthemum up a notch. This might also work nicely if sweetened with St. Germain, though again I would look to increase the chrysanthemum if I went down that route.

I will update with a name when I think of one.

Disney designed the Flying Tigers decal.

I found this one on CocktailDB while looking around for drinks using grenadine. In my post on The Fogcutter I mentioned how small quantities of gin can make an interesting contribution to rum cocktails. Since this drink is another example of that idea I thought it would be worth a try.

This drink appears to have been named after the legendary Flying Tigers. The Flying Tigers were a squadron of U.S. volunteer pilots who assisted China in resisting Japanese aggression before and during WWII. They were based in Kunming (the capital of Yunnan province in southwest China), and commanded by Claire Chennault. Their successes became the stuff of legend, and included protecting the inhabitants of Kunming against Japanese bombing raids for the entire duration of their deployment there, adopting novel tactics that saw them massively outperform the RAF in the defense of Burma, and allegedly destroying nearly 300 Japanese planes for the loss of just 14 of their own pilots. The Flying Tigers formed a crucial part of China’s air defenses, and were a rare U.S. success story during the bleak period of Japanese advances that followed Pearl Harbor.

Flying Tigers “Blood Chit” worn on the back of pilots’ flying jackets: the Chinese reads “This foreigner has come to China to help in the war effort. Soldiers and civilians, one and all, should rescue, protect, and care for him”

The unit had a reputation for hard drinking, though not to the extent that discipline broke down, and some members of the unit were dismissed by Chennault for drinking. One member to be dismissed was Gregory Boyington, whose alcoholism eventually saw him sent to New Zealand for four months to ‘recuperate’. Incidentally, Boyington would go on to lead the Black Sheep, the colorful Solomons based air squadron partly made up of pilots stood down from their original units over disciplinary issues.

I have been to the Flying Tigers museum in Chongqing and even bought a Flying Tigers t-shirt. Maybe it is time to try the cocktail?

1 ¾ oz light rum (Havana Club)

½ oz gin (Plymouth)

¼ oz grenadine (homemade)

1 dash aromatic bitters

This is a sweetish but not uninteresting drink. It tastes heavily of rum, but with the grenadine giving lots of body and fruitiness. The gin and bitters add some light spicy and herbal notes to make things interesting. It may not be hugely exciting, but it shows what gin can do when used as a flavoring rather than the base spirit. It is also one of those handy drinks that does not require any hard to find ingredients – provided you either have good grenadine or can put up with average stuff.

Incidentally, how is this for coincidence? The Rough Riders were a unit of U.S. volunteers who allegedly invented the Cuba Libre, which allegedly combines rum and gin. The Flying Tigers were a unit of U.S. volunteers with an associated cocktail, invented by themselves for all we know, that again combines rum and gin. Spooky? Absolutely! It was probably after a discovery like this one that early man first got all philosophical and asked himself whether the universe had an intelligent designer.

I decided to give infusing gin with tea a try. I started by making the Earl Grey Martini as written up by Gary Regan in the San Francisco Chronicle. Earl Grey is possibly my least favorite tea. I don’t hate the stuff exactly. Oil of bergamont is an interesting flavor. Unfortunately, that taste just doesn’t work for me in tea. To me, black tea must have milk added to it, and tea with milk should be a pedestrian affair, free of surprises. Oil of bergamont just does not fit into the picture.

So where does a guy like me get his Oil of Bergamont fix? The answer according to Gary Regan is to infuse your Earl Grey tea in gin and drink the gin. What an amazing idea! Where do I sign up?

OK, in reality I exercised a little caution. Rather than following Gary Regan’s instructions exactly and infusing ¼ cup of tea leaves in a liter of gin, I infused a heaped teaspoon of tea leaves in a mere 100 mls of gin (infusion time 2 hours). I didn’t want to risk ending up with a bottle of weird and disgusting Bergamont flavored gin that would be good only for plying old ladies with.

I then made the drink as described by Mr. Regan, 1 ½ oz infused gin, ¾ oz lemon juice, ¾ oz simple syrup (Gary Regan suggests an ounce but that seemed too much to me) and an egg white, shaken over ice. Bloody delicious! The sugar could possibly be taken down another notch, but no faulting the concept. This tea infused gin is great.

On a roll, I began rummaging through the house for things to infuse. There was some method to the madness. I figured I’d try some Chinese style tea infusions. My favorite tea is Oolong so I did an infusion of 1 heaped teaspoon of Oolong in 100 mls of Plymouth Gin (infusion time two hours). Then I did the same using Bokma Genever (infusion time three hours because of the lower alcohol – only 35% for the Bokma versus 42% for Plymouth). I figured rich Oolong tea might really work well with heavy bodied Dutch Genever as opposed to English gin.

I used good tea for this, namely a very good quality autumn harvest Iron Goddess of Mercy (???). Iron Goddess of Mercy is a popular Oolong tea from Southern Fujian and basically my favorite tea. With good quality Iron Goddess of Mercy you cannot go wrong. Good stuff should be in the form of rolled green leaves, will smell fruity and aromatic, and reusing the same leaves will yield three or more brews with evolving rather than diminishing flavor. Iron Goddess of Mercy is the most aromatic of Oolong teas, and the autumn harvest is the most aromatic of the variety (though the more delicate spring tea fetches the highest prices). The generic blackish Oolong you get in most Asian grocery stores is not even close to being a substitute. Search around for good stuff. A specialist Chinese tea shop will sell it.

I took my Plymouth gin Oolong infusion and threw together a gin sour as follows:

1 ½ oz Oolong infused Plymouth Gin

¾ oz lemon juice

¾ oz Kuei Fei Lychee Liqueur

Shake over ice and strain into a glass.

This experiment turned out strangely delicious. The gin ended up quite bitter but with fantastic tea fragrance. Some people dislike bitterness and may find it too much, but for me it was more or less what I was looking for. It may be possible to reduce the bitterness by refining the infusion process. I was not sure how well the lychee liqueur would fit. It seems such a cliche to whip out the ‘Chinese’ liqueur to match the Chinese tea. I was getting sick of always reaching for the St. Germain though and wanted to give something else a try. The lychee works well. Some people describe the fruity tastes in Oolongs as resembling lychee. Drinking the two together in a cocktail like this really does produce an effect like drinking a fruity, alcoholic, Oolong tea. Although the lychee is very much a one note liqueur, there is enough complexity in the rest of the drink that this is not an issue.

On reflecting, the odd thing is that the original tea brewed in water may have a more intense flavor than the cocktail. Iron Goddess of Mercy is traditionally brewed extremely strong. Instead of adding a few teaspoons of tea to a large pot you take a tiny pot and pack it so full of leaves that the leaves swell to fill the pot once water is added. A single pot of leaves will yield multiple brews, which drinkers enjoy from from tiny liqueur glass sized cups. Just maybe I should increase the quantity of tea in the infusion. However, it may then become too much to handle. Oolong is also high caffeine and even drinking it at the above strength I almost thought I was getting some caffeine effect before the alcohol.

I will do something with the genever infusion soon, most likely the same recipe.

Update 1:

The next day I tried exactly the above drink using the genever infusion, again with very pleasant results. This version somehow seems less bitter and more fruity. I wasn’t exactly scientific with my tea measurements so I may have unintentionally put slightly less tea in the genever compared to the Plymouth. Or maybe the lower alcohol of the genever meant it extracted less of the bitter components despite my infusing it for an extra hour.  Possibly the sweetness in the genever also offset the bitterness. Finally, the bitter tastes might have been reduced by the strained infusion spending 24 hours in the fridge.

Update 2:

The genever version of this drink has been quite well received and I think it deserves its own name. I am going to go for The Fort Zeelandia Cocktail. Fort Zeelandia was the Dutch capital during their colonization of Taiwan. The rationale for the name is that the drink combines Dutch-style gin with Taiwanese-style tea.

So today marks a leap year meaning we get that rarest of experiences – February the 29^th. This may not seem hugely exciting. However, back in the 1920s, when Harry Craddock was mixing cocktails at the Savoy, leap year celebrations were quite the thing. Harry Craddock even created the Leap Year Cocktail to mark the 1928 celebrations at the Savoy. The Leap Year Cocktail isn’t a bad drink either, being sort of a lightweight cousin to the Burnt Fuselage.

The Burnt Fuselage (which I found here at the Cocktail Chronicles) became a minor hit in Shanghai after I introduced the recipe to the now disappeared Senses Wine Lounge. Senses was stocking a good mixing cognac, had some customers who appreciated cognac cocktails, and the drink took off. The drink spread and I started getting late night texts from strangers asking me to confirm the recipe for them. Even more amazingly, the Senses bar staff kept making the drink consistently to the original recipe for weeks on end. This consistency was something of a first.

Chinese barmen are not the world’s greatest. There are a few different things at work here. First, there is a force in China called ‘cha-bu-duo-ism’ (???-ism). When something is “Cha-bu-duo” it is “just about” or “nearly right”, and in China that’s generally considered good enough. If a barman finds himself without rum he’ll make a Pina Colada with gin. In fact even if he does have rum he may just make it with gin anyway – who would notice the difference?  Second, there is the Chinese habit of protecting ones interests by keeping knowledge to oneself. This works well in martial arts epics, lending itself to grand finales hinging on secret and powerful kungfu techniques. The same habit works less well in the context of a bar. Staff tend to jealously keep knowledge to themselves. If asked to pass knowledge to co-workers they may even deliberately mislead. Chaos ensues. Third, China suffers a simple lack of basic knowledge of how to make drinks. Where bar staff have real trouble retaining complicated recipes, simple mixtures comprising equal proportions of three ingredients are a godsend. Equal parts recipes are also pretty easy for inebriated drinkers to remember too.

So the Burnt Fuselage is made as follows:

1 oz cognac

1 oz Grand Marnier

1 oz Dry Vermouth

Stir over ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist, being sure to express the oils into the drink.

Simple, rich, complex and delicious.

The Leap Year is a lighter cousin to the Burnt Fuselage, made as follows:

2 oz gin

½ oz Grand Marnier

½ oz Sweet Vermouth

dash of lemon juice (my dash was a teaspoon or so)

Shake over ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

This lacks the powerful and complex body of the Burnt Fuselage. It is much lighter, less sweet, and refreshing rather than contemplative. The Burnt Fuselage seems more like an after dinner or late evening drink. The Leap Year is probably more at home in the early evening. Not a classic, but also not bad. Why not mark the 80th birthday of this drink by mixing one up? Oh, and according to Harry Craddock this drink was responsible for more proposals than any other cocktail ever invented. The tradition of women being allowed to propose to men on a leap year must have been very real back in the 1920s. Some men may wish to closely guard the formula.

The one bar where I have drunk a Charlie Chaplin was a little Japanese place in Shanghai. This time the bar in question was not Constellation, but rather the little bar inside the Garcon Chinois restaurant on Hengshan Rd. That bar is much smaller than Constellation, and does not have nearly the same range of spirits, but the cocktails used to be very carefully and expertly made by a Japanese woman who knew exactly what she was doing.

She looked nothing like a bartender. In my experience bartenders are almost never Japanese women with greying hair and the homely dress sense of a church goer. Walking into her bar was like visiting a Japanese aunt you had only recently discovered you had. Things would begin with a friendly but slightly distanced greeting – understandable given that the pair of you had only just found out about each other. Then she would get busy behind the tiny bar. Were it not for the bottles piling up around her hands you would assume her meticulous and busily leisured movements were eventually going to produce a small batch of dumplings, or perhaps a plate of cold tofu sprinkled with chives and sesame oil. Instead, after the type of interval that builds anticipation without seeing it collapse into distraction, you would be presented with an excellent and carefully measured cocktail. It was slightly incongruous, but the results were very competent. Unfortunately I heard she has since left.

When I asked for a Charlie Chaplin she warned me that they didn’t have Gordons sloe gin (for which they relied on customers carrying bottles from Japan). She offered to substitute Bols while complaining about its bad quality and saying the taste would be too artificial. Warming to her theme she was soon lamenting that even single malts were often artificially flavored these days. I am not so sure if that is true. Regardless of that though, it is not often a bar cares enough about getting their drinks perfect that they will warn their customers before using what they feel are inferior ingredients. I had the Charlie Chaplin anyway and even with the Bols it tasted OK.

I made my own Charlie Chaplin as follows:

2 oz apricot brandy (I used Marie Brizard)

1 oz sloe gin (I used Gordons)

1 oz lime juice

Shake over ice and strain into a highball glass. The drink isn’t going to fill the glass without something extra, so consider pouring onto a couple of large rocks.

You would think that a drink comprising three parts liqueur and one part citrus juice would be extremely sweet. It is sweet, but less than expected. The slight sourness in the sloe gin boosts the lime, pushing the drink more towards fruity acidity than complete sugar bomb territory. Something about the lime and sloe gin helps the apricot brandy come across more as a fresh apricot flavor than a cloying liqueur. There is an interesting hint of almond flavor in the background as well, almost like an amaretto sour. This may not be the most exciting drink in history but it makes a nice showcase for apricot brandy, and is refreshing and neither too strong not too sweet. This is a drink that deserves to be made a little more often. The sweet and sour flavor profile also fits well with modern tastes, while the sloe gin and apricot brandy introduce a couple of ingredients not often called for in modern bars. Obviously apricot brandy is going to dominate the taste so try to use the best you can find.

Looking at the recipe I couldn’t help wondering whether it dry apricot brandy hadn’t been intended. My natural inclination to use eau de vie at every opportunity was probably at work here – I just love the stuff. So I made up another drink with an apricot eau de vie. Coincidentally I was watching a Buster Keaton movie at the time, so naturally I dubbed the new drink (if indeed it is a new drink) the Buster Keaton.

Buster Keaton

2 oz apricot eau de vie (Barrak Palinka)

1 oz sloe gin (Gordons)

1 oz lime juice

Hmm. . . This really wasn’t particularly good. In fact it seems a shame to attach the venerable name Buster Keaton to such a bad drink. I find relatively few experiences involving alcohol to actually be unpleasant, but this one ventures into dubious territory. The dry apricot brandy and lime are amicable enough companions. The sloe gin is very out of place though, and there isn’t much sugar around to smooth the rough edges. The drink is thin bodied, sour, and arguably more alcoholic than necessary – not unlike myself. You can certainly gag it down but is unlikely to be an experience you’d want to repeat. Sorry Mr. Keaton.

Well that wasn’t very pleasant but at least I think I have learned something. The Charlie Chaplin is definitely supposed to be made with a sweet apricot brandy, so get the best one you can and give it a try.