Memoirs of a Geisha star is the latest Chinese to be branded a traitor, for her defection to Singapore:

A decision by one of China’s most famous film stars to take Singaporean nationality has set off an online furore with many ardent nationalists branding her a traitor and a shame to her native country.

Gong Li, the 43-year-old star of such Hollywood movies as Memoirs of a Geisha, Miami Vice and Farewell My Concubine took the oath of citizenship at the weekend along with 149 other new citizens. Her husband, the Singaporean tobacco tycoon Ooi Hoe Soeng, accompanied her.

Beijing does not allow its people to hold double nationality and the star will be obliged to give up her Chinese citizenship. This means she will no longer be eligible for membership of an advisory body to the Chinese parliament – a largely honorary position that the government confers on many celebrities, successful businessmen and famed academics and scientists. …

Diana Fu writes about a friend, one of thousands of Olympic volunteers, and on the impact of the Olympics:

“Training a massive army of volunteers is not just about showcasing China’s might; it is also a great medium for extending patriotic education. Through volunteering, students are learning a political lesson about China’s place in the world. Olympic student training manuals include sections titled ‘China’s Olympics journey is the classic text of patriotic education’ and ‘Patriotism is the core spirit of Zhonghua sports.’ Every volunteer can track China’s journey from humiliation to triumph. Here’s an extract from the training manual which every student volunteer is required to memorize…”

Cheuk Kwan will take questions live today, from 2-3pm Eastern Time, on China’s new nationalism:

“The Chinese-Canadian diaspora, a vast and diverse population now 1.2 million strong, trickled into Canada across several generations and has never been known for its strong attachment to China. It was a nation marked by poverty, chaos, civil war, occupation and communism — hardly the conditions to spark affinity.

But now, as China moves closer to regaining status as a global power, its overseas community has begun fostering a new emotional bond with its homeland. The Olympic Games, in particular, have given Chinese Canadians a focal point, one that has many simultaneously spilling over with pride at China’s success and frustration with the West’s lingering focus on perceived Chinese failings.

‘The Olympics by itself is an embodiment of a sort of Chinese coming-out party,’ said Cheuk Kwan, who said excitement has been mounting throughout the diaspora since China was awarded the Games in 2001.

‘The Chinese are looking at the Olympic Games as the kind of washing off of all humiliation and bad things that China used to represent,’ he said. ‘Chinese Canadians still hold dear the fact that they are Chinese. When China becomes a super nation, they feel proud. They feel that their status in society is tied directly to how China is being thought of on the world stage.’”

Edward Wong looks at China’s curious brand of patriotism:

“I thought about these questions as I looked for the market that Mr. Zhao had recommended. I bumped into a neighbor who suggested I go to another shop. Minutes later, I peered down the street where that shop was supposedly located. I asked a young man named Little Zhai where I could find a flag.

‘You have to go to a big supermarket like Carrefour,’ he said.

I thought I had misheard him. Was he telling me to buy a Chinese flag at Carrefour, the French supermarket chain that angry Chinese youth had urged everyone to boycott in the spring because of the French owner’s rumored ties to the Dalai Lama?

‘Yes, go to Carrefour,’ he said. ‘They definitely have flags.’

The earlier manifestation of patriotism seemed to have dissolved in a matter of months. …”

The man known as “Second Brother on the Right” is China’s darling:

“BEIJING — A handsome but anonymous guardian of the Olympics torch on its troubled world tour has won legions of Chinese female fans — and plenty of marriage proposals.

Known only as ‘Second Brother on the Right’ because of his customary position by the flame, the young man with boyish looks and cropped hair is an Internet sensation and nationalist hero.

Pictures of him in regulation blue-and-white Olympics uniform abound on web sites and Chinese media, with some fans likening him to Lei Feng, an idolized soldier of the Mao Zedong era.

‘We love him not only because he is so handsome but because he represents the pride of China,’ one female blogger wrote.”

Why aren’t modern overseas Chinese embracing the West?

“In the West there’s long been an assumption that this cohort would import Western values along with their iPods. They were envisioned as the bridge to a more open, liberal, Western-friendly China.

That daydream got a cold bath during the torch relay this spring, when furious Chinese students in the West showed they could be even more jingoistic than Chinese who had never left home—and good luck to anyone who dared buck the trend. One courageous Duke University freshman from the coastal city of Qingdao tried to intercede in a campus confrontation between a dozen or so pro-Tibetan demonstrators and a much larger group of pro-Beijing Chinese students. For her trouble, she was called a ‘race traitor’ and a ‘whore’; feces were dumped on her parents’ doorstep.”

Writer Evan Osnos answers questions about his New Yorker article “Angry Youth”:

“You’ve identified an important disconnect between Tang’s appetite for Western ideas and his own hypotheses for the roots of Western attitudes toward China. As he sees it, Westerners are brainwashed through education and media on issues such as Tibet and China’s human-rights record. Intellectually, he admires the skepticism of Western thinkers; it is one of the elements that attracted him to study them. But he gives less attention to dissident voices because, from where he sits, he doesn’t see the impact of their views on foreign attitudes toward China. His understanding of the mechanisms of Western public opinion is comparatively weak. When presented with a range of articles and photos that were, to his mind, flawed in similar ways, he imagined an unseen hand, an editorial conspiracy. (I spent much of our first conversations answering questions about the basic workings of a free press: the origin of story ideas, the role of editors, etc.)”

Some of China’s young nationalists are sounding like neoconservatives, and some like hard realists:

“Liu mentioned the famous photograph of an unknown man standing in front of a tank—perhaps the most provocative image in modern Chinese history.
‘We really acknowledge him. We really think he was brave,’ Liu told me. But, of that generation, he said, ‘They fought for China, to make the country better. And there were some faults of the government. But, finally, we must admit that the Chinese government had to use any way it could to put down that event.’
Sitting in the cool quiet of a California night, sipping his coffee, Liu said that he is not willing to risk all that his generation enjoys at home in order to hasten the liberties he has come to know in America. ‘Do you live on democracy?’ he asked me. ‘You eat bread, you drink coffee. All of these are not brought by democracy. Indian guys have democracy, and some African countries have democracy, but they can’t feed their own people.
‘Chinese people have begun to think, One part is the good life, another part is democracy,’ Liu went on. ‘If democracy can really give you the good life, that’s good. But, without democracy, if we can still have the good life why should we choose democracy?’”

Multinationals get bashed by Chinese netizens:

“LVMH (LVMH.PA) is just the latest multinational struggling to calm angry Chinese consumers using the Internet and text messaging to broadcast their grievances. McDonald’s (MCD), KFC (YUM) and Motorola (MOT) have been among the companies pilloried via mobile-phone text messages and in the Chinese blogosphere for allegedly donating too little money toward earthquake relief, even though the companies have publicly announced hefty contributions. McDonald’s, which even saw protesters briefly mill outside restaurants in Jiangsu and in Sichuan, announced it was upping its contribution to a total of $1.7 million. Nokia (NOK) issued four separate press releases detailing its total contribution of $7.6 million, plus a donation of 5,000 mobile phones.”