So Funny and Sad and True

1. My friend who is a Hui Muslim, an ethnic and religious minority, does development work for an international organization in Xinjiang, the western most province madeup of mostly people who are Central Asian descendents and strict Muslims and speak a Turkish language. It's as contentious a region as Tibet just not as much in the news (for a variety of reasons of course, but perhaps one of them is that the West is more sympathetic to Buddhism than Islam).

A person my friend has worked with is a professor at an Irish university teaching human rights and invited him to do a MA in human rights at her uni, all expenses covered of course.

His response: "You want me to study HUMAN RIGHTS in Ireland?! All my family in China will disappear!"

2. We don't realize how much trust there exists in the States where we trust that someone will do something that she said she will do. In academia especially, grants and awards are given on the basis of a proposed project's merit and the only substantial check is the result at the end of the study; or more accurately, the bad rep you will have by failing to publish a substantial result. In China, where the checks and balances and a tradition of general rule following fostered by a strong legal system (not as much as the Germans and Japanese of course, but still existing) are easily subverted, trust even in academic partnerships is elusive.

At a meeting where a National Science Foundation funded project's principal investigator (PI) is meeting with the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS):

CAS: Show us the documentation that shows you have the NSF grant.

PI: I forwarded you the email that said we received the grant, and I sent you our approved proposal.

CAS: How do we know you didn't just write that email and approve that proposal yourself. I do not believe that the most prestigious research institute in the US just gives you an email to say your proposal is approved. You must have some certification, or your university must have it.

PI: Well, I only have the email, and I also know I've gotten it because the award is in my bank account.

CAS: So you need to either prove to us you have the money in your bank account or give us a certificate from your university.

PI: Would I really come all the way to Qinghai to try to form a research partnership with you if I'm pretending to have the money? Expenditures are in USD, which is 7 times rmb. But I'll try to see if my university has some more formal agreement from NSF. Realize that in the US, we don't stamp things.

The document that the university received from NSF is...?

An email.