The other face of Tehran

Julien — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 12:09:33 +0100

After years spent in Los Angeles, Azad returns to live in Tehran. He wanders his vast and rambling town capturing these striking images on his simple mobile phone. His message: ‘Don't believe what they tell you; life goes on in Tehran'.

If I were president of France...

Julien — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 10:56:00 +0100

By our Observer, Cai Chongguo, China specialist.

Quite often French people have told me that they find China very dynamic and that it seems like a really happening place. "And what about France?" I ask. France is dead, they say.

I tell them, "Elect me as the president of the French republic. You’ll see, I’ve got all the answers in my pocket."

If I were elected, I would take the following measures: Paris, Bordeaux, Marseille and Nice would become special economic zones. I would dismantle the cities and rebuild them New York style. I would transform the Louvre, for example, into a giant and ultra-modern supermarket and replace Notre Dame with a towering skyscraper, home to IBM or Microsoft. I would sell the grounds of the surrounding parks to huge American, English and German multinationals to build on. To make this work, I would have to take all the power into my own hands and get rid of the Assemblée Nationale. Of course, all of my friends would have a place in the Sénat, and all the trade unions, media and justice systems would have to be suspended. There would be police everywhere.

Next, I would remove the social security system and the farming grants, bring back school fees and cut wages to 10%. All this would save me millions of euros a year, which I’d invest in infrastructure and the aerospace industry, in order to send a hundred Frenchmen to the moon every year. The number of policemen would be increased threefold. Every town would benefit from a brand new underground; the bridges that cross the Seine and the Loire would stand side by side, the TGV would go right to the top of Mont Blanc and all over France.

Thanks to lowered salaries and the removal of state security, French companies will be a thousand times more competitive than they are today, and their products will be exported in huge numbers all over the world. French industry will crush all others in Europe. If the Germans or the English aren’t happy and refuse to cooperate with me, France will resign from the EU and close its borders. I’ll prepare for a war against them. The French military industry will therefore develop at great speed, giving additional vitality to the economy.

You’ll see, under my presidency, France will be even more dynamic than China. Moreover, you’ll quickly pick up the meaning of “Chinese tradition”."

Published 13 December on his blog

Post tour questions to Cai Chongguo

Bus Uncle: he swears, he points, and he's under a lot of pressure

Julien — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 12:47:34 +0100

This video was filmed on a bus in Hong Kong in May 2006. Since then, it has become an online hit in China, and the subject of various take-offs. The story starts when a teenage boy tells the man in front of him to speak more quietly on his mobile phone. The man- now known as Bus Uncle- begins explaining, furiously, that he wishes to remain undisturbed, that he's under pressure, and that he wants to sort out the dispute by shaking hands. The scene is absurd, mainly due to the outrageous behaviour of ‘bus uncle' himself. Why was this video so successful? Maybe because it shows a person on the verge of a nervous breakdown and exhausted from working, like many in Hong Kong. But also because it illustrates the clash between generations, in which the aggressor is not the one we would have at first assumed.