Want to be a Chinese flight attendant? Don’t bother if you’re not pretty

by Neil Woodburn on

China’s commercial airline industry is expanding as rapidly as its economy. And with it, so too is the same sexism flaunted by Western carriers in the early, heyday of commercial air travel where only the hottest women landed jobs as stewardesses–a sexy, exotic position steeped in international flair and cosmopolitism.

Today, things are different in the West; they’re now called flight attendants and some of them are even men!

China, however, is mired in the 1960s where being an airline stewardesses is still the aspiration of so many pretty women and the apple of desire for every man.

National carriers, such as China Southern, unabashedly promote this image with nothing short of beauty pageants as part of their hiring practice. According to a recent article by Ching-Ching Ni which explores what it takes to be a flight attendant in China, successful applicants must be of certain height, weight, age, and beauty. Those that don’t make the cut can honestly say they’ve been discriminated against.

But, I have to admit, I flew on China Southern earlier this month and the stewardesses, er… I mean flight attendants were all immaculately dressed, extraordinarily attentive, and very pretty.

Hmm, I think the Chinese might be on to something here…

Buy Nothing Day: Boycott shopping this Christmas, please?

by Abha Malpani on

20% of the world’s population (developed countries) is consuming 80% of the earth’s resources; the average North American consumes five times more than a Mexican, 10 times more than a Chinese person, and 30 times more than a person from India.

As someone originally from India, but brought up everywhere from the UK to Dubai — I’ve seen life in two extremes. One side you have children in India who don’t have a grain of rice to eat, and then you have people in Dubai squandering sick amounts of money everyday on new Ferrari’s, the latest Air Nike’s and Armani suits. I know people who take loans to buy Versace clothes, just because they have the uncontrollable desire to own them — mainly afraid of being judged if they didn’t — something I could never understand.

I’m no Gandhian, but I don’t buy things I don’t need, and will only pay for a brand when quality and durability is important.

With the ridiculous rate at which consumerism is growing around the world and the billions of dollars being minted by international brands always made me think that there is no hope; consumerism is impossible to undo.

But that’s not true because today is “Buy Nothing Day” (for North America) — a day launched by Kalle Lasn, the founder of Vancouver based Adbusters, in 1993 to ridicule the ghastly heights of global consumerism. It is now celebrated internationally across 65 nations on November 24.

Some people will never understand such ideas though, for instance, watch this video from CNN — the host just doesn’t understand how this day makes any sense!

So as friends and most intelligent and considerate readers of Gadling, why not try to not buy anything this Christmas? Spend it appreciating the non-material things you have?

Happy Buy Nothing Day!

[Via Guardian]

On eBay: chestnut from Anne Frank’s tree

by Catherine Bodry on

When Anne Frank was hiding in Amsterdam, she often gazed at a chestnut tree outside her attic hiding place, about which she then recorded in her famous diary.

The chestnut tree has been condemned, as its trunk is so diseased it could topple over. But before the tree is cut down this Wednesday, one entrepreneur was able to snatch a relic and attempt to make a profit on it. Charles Kuijpers, who lives next door to the tree’s garden, has put one chestnut from the tree up for sale on eBay.

Bids at the time of writing were at $700. How much would you pay?

Smoking bans in Naples get residents fired up

by Catherine Bodry on

New anti-smoking measures in Naples stipulate that no one can light up near a pregnant woman or in a park, as well as near children under 12 or in large crowds.

Will it fly? Naples councilor Gennaro Capodanno suggests that Neapolitans’ historically rebellious nature will render the ban ineffective. “However they try and enforce this, they will meet with laughter,” Capodanno says. He also points out that “close” isn’t defined: “How can they assess who’s smoking too close? Do you need to use a tape measure? And how do we know if a kid is more than 12? Does he have to carry documents on him?”

If Capodanno’s attitude is any indication of the rest of Naples’ feelings on the subject, you can expect to see cigarette smoke wafting about in the open air for the time being.

Oh China, how you’ve changed! Part 3

by Neil Woodburn on

This is Part 3 of a three part series exploring the tremendous changes that have occurred in China since the author last visited as a tourist in 1995. To start reading from the beginning, click here.

On my most recent visit to China a few weeks ago, I noticed that Chinese communism is becoming increasingly schizophrenic. On the one hand, capitalism is alive and well in China as businesses boom and entrepreneurship thrives. On the other hand, the government stubbornly holds on to communist ideals and iconography that has been stripped from the rest of this planet. As a result, it was a bizarre disconnect to see an animated hammer and sickle icon appear every night before the evening news while a capitalist free-for-all was simultaneously occurring everywhere around me.

In addition, the government continues to idolize Chairman Mao, the country’s legendary communist leader. Statues of the former ruler remain in prominent locations throughout China, including a massive one I came across in Shenyang. And yes, fresh flowers appear every day to pay tribute. In this respect, China has changed very little since 1995.

Be sure to visit our gallery featuring detailed photographs of this amazing statue. %Gallery-10067%

Censorship and the Internet

Naturally, the internet did not exist in China 12 years ago. Today the world’s most populace country is indeed wired, but only to a limited extent.

Although the government has allowed the internet to develop within China, they have not allowed it to do so freely. Censors ensure that anti-government sites and negative content is kept from Chinese web surfers. In fact, the Chinese government operates what is undoubtedly the world’s largest and most thorough attempt to censor and monitor the web: the Golden Shield.

The Golden Shield is a $700 million firewall through which all Chinese internet traffic passes. Servers electronically monitor suspect sites and deny access when content is not appropriate. In addition, human censors surf the web in search of additional sites the computers may have missed.

And so one afternoon I found myself in an internet café in Shenyang. It was crowded, but no one was really online; the entire café was full of gamers. Out of curiosity, I did a quick Google search for the most sensitive of Chinese topics: Tiananmen Square. Up popped the typical links you might suspect for such a search, but something was slightly wrong; I was not able to click on a single one of them.

I switched to Google Image Search to see if I could find any man-standing-in-front-of-tanks photographs. In a non-censored country, nearly 75% of images that pop with a “Tiananmen Square” search are of that iconic photo. In Shenyang, only two photos appeared. I was shocked that even this many got through the censors. When I clicked on the links, however, I discovered why; there was no text about the demonstrations. It was just a photograph with no description of what was going on. Until censorship technology is able to recognize “dangerous” photographs, random shots of that brave, but now very dead protestor will continue to surface occasionally.

Lastly, I tried accessing Wikipedia. I was hardly surprised to discover this simply wasn’t happening. And I found it rather poetic: Just like some of the less scrupulous contributors to this online encyclopedia, China also writes its own version of history and politics.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, Gadling is indeed accessible in China.

Final Thoughts

Looking back on my recent time in China, I am left with a conflicting opinion: so very much has changed since 1995, while at the same time, nothing has changed at all. In other words, China has always been an enigma to the Western world and it continues to be so.

The Olympics, however, may be just what China needs to pull its head even further out of its shell–although there is still a lot more that needs to come out. In the meantime, the Summer Games are going to be very interesting times for this confused, schizophrenic nation.

Yesterday: Oh China, how you’ve changed! Part 2