Social Harmony

Between the recent riots in Lhasa, the elections in Taiwan, and the alleged terrorist activities in Xinjiang, it's been a turbulent last few weeks in China. There's been some good reporting about this from US newspapers and magazines, but the blogs of Westerners living in China have done an outstanding job of gathering information and thinking hard about these issues. I don't have much that I can add to what they have already said. For anyone wanting to find out more, I'll put some links at the bottom of this post to the sites that have been the most helpful to me.

I do want to share a few stories about talks I've had with Chinese people about these issues. It's probably hard for people in America to understand why most Chinese accept their government's version of what's happened, or why they buy into the image of China as a country seeking social harmony and peaceful modernity. But if you stop for a moment and reflect, it shouldn't be that surprising. The image that citizens have of their own country is usually quite different from the image of that country that other people have, and reconciling that gap is never easy. Take, for example, the goals most Americans believe their country is pursuing in the Middle East versus the goals most Middle Easterners believe the Americans are pursuing there. Does anyone expect one side to convince the other of their perspective on that issue anytime soon?

But China is different-- the people here accept their country's version of events more wholeheartedly. Part of this has to do with access to information. If you can read fluently in English and have the technological access and knowledge to use the internet, (in other words, if you are a foreigner or super-priviledged then you can gain an outside perspective on events. On the other hand, if you're like most Chinese people then your access to media is the state-controlled newspapers or the state-controlled TV stations.

Yet there's more to the story. Even among the urban young, who do now, thanks to the Chinese government, speak some English and have some access to the net, there's very little questioning of Beijing's story. Most Chinese just don't trust Western media. For Americans, news releases from Chinese sources are disregarded as propaganda. For the Chinese, however, Western media is a tool of Western nations, who are in competition with China and don't want to see it succeed. From their perspective, Western media reports about bad things in China in order to hold back Chinese progress.

You can see how, with that kind of outlook, it doesn't matter how much outside information is available, because it is always discredited before it is heard. This brings me to a conversation I had recently with one of my teacher friends, someone who knows a fair amount about domestic and international affairs and even on occasion expresses frustration and dissatisfaction with the Chinese government.

ME: So, I've been wanting to ask you, what do you think about the problems happening in Tibet?
TEACHER: What have you read about them?
[I summarize Beijing's version of events, but then say I've read in Western media that the riots had popular support]
T: You shouldn't believe what you read in Western media. Were there any Westerners in Tibet at the time?
M: Well, very few, because the Chinese government prevented them from entering.
T: So where do you think the Western media got its information?

I tried to say that the media gathered its information from several indirect sources, but it wasn't getting anywhere. The teacher believed that Westerners were just listening to the Dalai Lama's version and that's all. He also felt the Tibetans were ungrateful for all the money China had invested in "modernizing" their country. In America, when we enter another region, our (stated) goal is always something like "freedom," where in China, the goal is "modernity." That says a lot about our different views of civilization.

Surprisingly, the Chinese people I talked to didn't seem to care that much about the Tibet issue, in contrast with all the attention it's received in the West. They were much more concerned about the Taiwanese election. Over the last week, the other Western teacher at the school and I have both had students asking us about what we thought about Taiwan. Both of us wisely declined discussing it. Taiwan is a huge issue for Chinese people. One week last term, the other Western teacher asked his students to draw maps of China. Every student, without fail, drew Taiwan as part of China. So to discuss Taiwan in our role as teachers is asking for trouble. However, I was having dinner recently with one of the students that I'm closest to, and she asked me about Taiwan. I decided to try the Socratic method, and the conversation went something like this:

STUDENT: Mr. Brent, what do you think about Taiwan?
ME: Well, I don't know much about Taiwan. What do you think?
S: I think Taiwan is part of China.
M: Do you think that people in Taiwan should be able to choose if they want to be part of China?
S: I think Taiwan is part of China.
M: But that wasn't my question. Should people in Taiwan be able to choose?
S: You know, there are a lot of people in Taiwan that want to be part of China.
M: If so many people in Taiwan want to be part of China, then why is there a problem?
S: . . . I don't know.

Did I get through? I doubt it. But you can see how much people accept the government's story, even to the point where it's hard for them to ask logical questions about that story.

I certainly hope things in China settle down. But with the Olympics getting closer, I'm worried it will just keep heating up. Let's hope someone on one side has the courage to try to understand the other's story.

Links:

www.beijingnewspeak.com/
Written by a Westerner who used to work for the Chinese state news agency, he has a great perspective on how propaganda in China operates.

http://news.imagethief.com/blogs/china/archive/2008/03/19/the-trouble-with-china-s-communication-about-tibet.aspx
More about the Chinese coverage of events.

http://www.zonaeuropa.com/weblog.htm/
Translations and commentary on Chinese blog postings and news releases about the events.

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10875823/
The only Western journalist in Lhasa at the time of the riots.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/world/asia/18china.html
Good explanation of underlying causes of the recent riots.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/world/asia/20tibet.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Great article about ethnic inequalities in Tibet.

I Return to China and Cyberspace

It's been a long time, but I have finally returned safely to teaching in Yulin. It was odd having a place that was so strange when I first came to it now seem familiar and comfortable. I'm happy to eat noodles and tofu again on a daily basis, be stared at wherever I go, and carry on charmingly awkard conversations with my students. I have been back for two weeks now, but the task of writing about all the places I went to on my winter adventure has given me a severe case of writer's apathy. The trip was great, but whenever I get that inevitable question, "How was your holiday?" I never know where to begin, or continue, or end. I need to write it down though, before it disappears into that big blurry mess that is my long term memory, so I'll be doing a retrospective travelogue over the coming weeks mixed in with my (ahem) regular updates. When we last left off, I was in Hanoi, Vietnam, headed to Hué, the old imperial capital. . .

I pulled my first utterly Brent moment of the trip as we were leaving Hanoi. Somehow, I had managed to bring all of my luggage except for my passport from the hostel to the bus station. I realized this approximately one minute before the bus was scheduled to leave. I dashed off the bus and made a desperate attempt to explain the situation to the man in the bus station. He looked confused but allowed me to use the phone to call the hostel. The hostel receptionist also was somewhat incredulous that I had left only my passport there, but she checked and luckily found it. A rapid fire conversation ensued between her and the bus agent; in the end, it was agreed that it was too late to do anything about it, but the hostel would kindly deliver my passport to the station tomorrow and it would arrive in Hué on the bus the next day. Although I was a little nervous about leaving my passport a city behind me, I thanked both of them multiple times and got on the bus.

Of course, when I went to the bus station the next day and asked if a passport had been delivered on the afternoon bus, the lady there looked at me as though she were deciding if I was a dangerous lunatic. Images ran through my mind of my passport laying on the floor of a bus headed toward Malaysia, or of a bus driver laughing maniacally as he counted the money he got out of selling the passport to fugitive criminals. I called the hostel, who claimed they had sent me an email (which I never found) asking if I did, in fact, want them to send the passport on the next bus. I confirmed this verbally, hoping that this time it would result in them sending the passport. I began contemplating what happens to people with no international identification--can I return to the U.S.? can I take up a residence in a shady apartment in Hué? will I exist in Limbo?-- until, thankfully, the passport arrived the next day.

Travel Journal 2: Hanoi

--Bia Hoi--



I could never find it by looking for it. The old quarter of Hanoi was like a maze of small avenues, none of which are quite straight. The buildings were jammed against each other, colonial-style, uncoordinated in color and falling apart at strange angles. Each of them was unique but they all blended together. Every night I thought I was walking down the right route, and then I'd end up somewhere unknown. And of course a different unknown than the previous nights. Finally, I would ask a local, "Bia Hoi?" and they would smile and point. After walking several blocks and ending up in, say, a fish market, I would give up and ask again. This would go on three or four times until I was convinced I was walking in circles. Finally, I would give up, and then I would find it.

The Bia Hoi places was a small street-corner convenience store. The only way it looked different than any other store was the small cardboard sign advertising the Bia Hoi, and the group of people on the street sitting in child-sized plastic stools. The fat old man who owned the place stood outside the door, arms crossed and smiling, watching over the scene. I felt homely and remote at the same time, sitting on the stool in the street talking to strangers, under the neon glow of the store lights.

It was the cheapest good beer in the world-- 16 cents. Poured straight from the keg, bright yellow and foamy, into plain glass cups. Made fresh each day and then delivered all over the city to other little stores like this one. Never served more than a day old because the kegs are drained before the end of the night. It's smooth and creamy and goes down well with good conversation. My glass was always finished before I realized.

Each night I would turn and start talking to the person next to me. It was easy with other travelers. This one was a boy from England. He had a friendly smile when he talekd about the places he'd been. He was the kind of person I was glad is traveling the world because he would leave and take good impressions wherever he went. He wasn't quite sure where he was going next or when he would be home.

Some Vietnamese med students were laughing and watching the people go by. They were more than happy to toast me many times. We would have fun trying to make it beyond the language barrier. Our arms and face gesticulated madly with each phrase. We had to find the simplest things to have in common: Vietnam is wonderful, yes; Vietnamese girls are wonderful, yes; the beer is wonderful; yes. It was enough.

A Vietnamese glamor goddess was married to a Swedish man. They sat apart and had separate conversations. She was 50-something years old, wore a short sequined dress and plenty of rings and paint. She loved her body. She presented us her legs and backside for inspection and asked us to guess how old she was. We were all wrong. She was quite proud of her man and happy with him, but she told me that she has never loved a man. She said she was just not that kind of woman. When I expressed disbelief, she tells me that's why she still looks the way she does at her age. Then she laughed and told the same story again.

A young teenage boy walked up to me and showed me a box full of books. He was a little dirty, a little thin-- enough to show people he was in need, but not so much that they would be afraid to speak to him. I told him that I wasn't interested and he stayed where he was, a little too close. He joked with me and the others, and we laughed and he laughed, but then he didn't go away. Another boy followed him, even younger, who just held out gum and said "6000 dong." I kept saying "no" and he massaged my neck, and then asked again. I felt guilty and amused and annoyed all at once.

I learned all their names, even the street boys, but I've forgotten them at this point. The Bia Hoi place forms strange and new neighborhoods each night.

Travel Journal 1: Guangxi Province, China

--Yangshuo--

Steve and I decided to bike up the Yulong River, armed with a map and in search of a place known as the Dragon Bridge. The scenery was wonderful as we biked alongside the karst mountains that seem to rise straight up out of the ground. The day was a little cold and cloudy, but it made the area more misty and mysterious. The area around the river was mostly farmland-- I saw plenty of people pulling water buffalo through the fields-- although the road we're on was lined with resorts under construction. We ran into a Chinese tour group and started talking to a girl. She was the same age as my students, but she studied at a school not far from Beijing. Her English was far and away better than most of the university students from my city. She told us that next year she would go to Holland to study. She was a part of the new, modern China that I didn't see often in my province. Her group called her and she told us that they were also heading for the Dragon Bridge.

After a few miles, we stopped at a small concrete bridge. "Is this it?" we asked her. "Yeah," she said, but after some looks of surprise from us and more discussion among their group, she turned back around and told us, "Well, this is the Dragon Bridge, but it's not the real Dragon Bridge. People just call it that. The other one is somewhere over there, further upriver." We wished her good luck in her travels and headed out. Within a few minutes, we lost all sense of what road we were on, other than it was still somewhat following the river. Then the road trickled down into a path, then a dirt indentation, then at times into our best guess of where a path would be if there were one there. No matter. It was more fun being ferried across the river on bamboo rafts, crashing through farm fields, asking directions from nervous children , and turning around in people's backyards.

Finally, Steve asked me, "So what did this Dragon Bridge look like again?"

I said, "I'm not sure, it's from the Ming Dynasty, it's supposed to be, y'know, beautiful or something like that."

We found several more bridges, all as nondescript as the first. After several hours, we declared one of these the mythical Dragon Bridge and turn home. I prefer to think that we were not lost, and that instead the Dragon Bridge does not exist, it is only a name and a way to lure travellers into the mist.



--Nanning--

After we first arrive we visit a travel agency to get Vietnamese visas. There we meet a young Chinese girl named Fiona, who accompanies us to get our photos taken. She grew up in a smaller city in the province, then moved to Yangshuo (the tourist center) to study oral English for 3 months. After that she moved here, to the capital, looking for work as a tour guide. But as she tells us, it's difficult to get a job here without any experience, especially if you're a girl, and there are too many talented people in China. So she is working for this "shabby company," as she calls it, which still hasn't paid her after 3 months. She doesn't want to move back home because she wishes to someday become independent and even support her parents. Like so many Chinese people, she is chipper and laughs while telling us this.

We ask her if she would show us some local food for dinner. I had heard that the specialty in Nanning is Dog Hotpot, and she was delighted to take 2 foreigners to try their exotic cuisine. Hotpot is very popular in China but I've never seen it in the U.S., probably because there is no way that it would pass safety regulations. Everyone at the table shares a large pot of spicy broth and plates of thin cut raw meat, vegetables, noodles, and anything else that the Chinese mind can imagine (which is a lot). One puts the food in the broth, lets it cook for a few minutes, then takes it out and dips it in a bowl of peanut sauce to cool it. Then, at last, enjoy.

I was a little nervous going to the restaurant-- I've taken on a lot of strange Chinese food, but a dog? I love dogs. Many Chinese people eat it though, and the dogs that are eaten are farm raised to be eaten. So it's not like I would be eating anyone's Rover. Nevertheless, I made sure to finish several beers before the meat reached the table.

My first bite was hesitant, but soon I was tearing into it with abandon. I wasn't even upset when I saw the paw at the bottom of the dish. Dog picks up the spiciness of the broth well, and it has a distinctive savory aftertaste. We finish the dish without a problem. When we go back to the travel agency a few days later, Fiona tells us no one at her shabby company will believe that the foreigners tried dog, much less liked it.

B. Dawson begins his Conquest of the Southern Lands

Driven from his northern stronghold of Yulin by the inhospitable cold and unrelenting hordes of youthful Chinese students, B. Dawson and his ally S. Pire will begin a new campaign today. First, they will return to Yangshuo, their site of initial contact with the mysterious Chinese civilization. From there, crowds of admiring peasants will carry them in luxurious sedans along the length of the Mekong, where they will visit Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. What perils lie in store for them one can only guess, be it one-to-one combat with Ho Chi Minh's embalmed corpse, drinking the blood of a freshly killed snake, ghoulish flashbacks within the DMZ, capture by the Khmer Rouge, or giant boulders crashing after removing treasure from Angkor Wat. Barring any of these disasters, and with access to the internet, reports will follow over the course of the next month and a half.

All Stripes, Feathers, Wheels, and Metals

As much as Americans love to hate traffic laws, love breaking traffic laws, and love to hate other people who break traffic laws, they have no idea how much more orderly and obedient they are compared to Chinese drivers. I have seen Chinese traffic police, and I've heard that they have arrested people, but I've never witnessed this myself and it certainly doesn't seem to impact drivers' mentalities. The number of lanes on a road is the number of cars you can squeeze into the space; if your lane is jammed, try driving in between the opposite lanes of traffic. Honking is acceptable, even mandatory while driving, although I've never figured out what exactly it accomplishes. That's not to say that the roads are chaos: there are rules and expectations. I've learned that the best way to cross a street here (since there are very, very few traffic lights) is to walk out into the middle of traffic, and no matter how much it looks like I'm about to die, maintain a steady speed and direction. The drivers will honk and swerve, but that's what they're expected to do, and they expect me to keep walking. It's much safer than it looks, or at least that's what I tell myself every time I have to do this.

I'm amazed by the creativity of the Chinese in the variety of vehicles they have created and adapted to suit their needs. I don't mean high-technology designer vehicles, I mean the things I see on the road everyday that people use to get by. Let's start with cargo vehicles. I've seen three wheeled trucks carrying loads larger than semi's in America. The only rule about weight and size of cargo here seems to be how much one can strap to the back of the vehicle. I've seen stacks of everything from bricks, hay, huge concrete pipes, to plates of glass tied down with rope in varying degrees of security. Another common sight is a man on bicycle-wagon carrying a huge load of cardboard. These people are paid a small sum of money for turning in recyclable materials, enough to get by on. There are even legends among Chinese of people becoming millionaires by creating a recycling empire, although all the cardboard-carriers I have seen look pretty meager. In my city, many people still use donkeys to transport cargo, and it's not unusual to see them walking alongside taxis and SUVs, or tied to a pole outside some new high-rise building.






Transportation also comes in all sizes and speeds. Of course we have the usual buses and taxis, although some taxis are just private, unmarked cars that their owners have put to business use. A cheaper, faster, and potentially more thrilling option is the motorcycle taxi, which will gladly weave through traffic to help you reach your destination faster, while you cling for life onto the back of the driver. Lastly, there is the motorized three-wheeled caravan, which has two thin curtains instead of doors and fits a cramped four people. I think it maxes out around 20 miles per hour and doesn't like turning, but you can't beat feeling like you're in a 19th century carriage on a 21st century roadway.




My favorite vehicles are the food carts. Many sidewalks double as marketplaces, and the easiest way for sellers to get their food where it needs to be is to put it on wheels. Usually this is created by fusing the front of a bicycle with the back of a cart, or wok, or oven. I'll never forget the first time I saw a vendor biking in the street, the fire still lit on his back cart with kebobs grilling on them. Outside my school, a man has converted an old filing cabinet into a steamer for sweet potatoes. The steam rises from the bottom, each drawer contains a sweet potato on a stick. Of course the whole contraption is on wheels. There are also bikes that hold two rows of dishes behind glass, like a miniature buffet. Near the vendors, you can find fresh produce-and open air meat- being sold from carts, wheelbarrows, and the like.






I always enjoy walking China's streets, because every block it seems I find something new that makes me laugh or gasp or want to cry or whatever. There's an incredible amount of variety and mixture here, culturally and economically, that I see in all the different kinds of vehicles on the road, all sharing the same space. And it's amazing to see all the different, creative, and dangerous uses that technology gets put to here. Maybe because China is poor, or maybe because recently there's been so much new technology pouring into China, but people here are adept at taking old things and making them work for new purposes. What was invention's mother again?

Musical Happenings in China

Once upon a time in America, I enjoyed something known as Live Music. I felt that Live Music and I had a good relationship. I would attend its shows, whether they were jazz in smokey bars or rock in crowded concert venues. It provided me a certain sense of happiness, even euphoria at times, and a chance to have a shared experience with friends. Since coming to China, Live Music has become elusive, rearing its head in unexpected places and sounds, yet always leaving me wanting more.

The most common way to hear live music is from friends, strangers, or whoever singing a famous song. Almost no Chinese person I've met, given enough prompting, will turn down a request to sing. It gives a surreal feeling to living here that is somewhat like living in a musical, but more like living in an enormous karaoke bar. That's not just a metaphor- there is a KTV (karaoke) bar on nearly every block. In my small town, there is no equivalent to a standard American bar, all places are either KTV or discos. The songs at the KTV range from traditional folk songs done up in lush orchestral arrangements to contemporary technopop to a very random assortment of American music. Songs I've performed out of lack of options at a KTV include "Bitch" by Melissa Ethridge, "Black and White" by Michael Jackson, and "When a Man Loves a Woman" by Percy Sledge. As amazing as the KTV experiece is, what about original material and live instruments?

In Xi'an, the nearest big city, I have been fortunate enough to find a few bars where live, loud music is played by young people. The first time I went to Xi'an, my friends and I happened to wander into the "Moonkey Bar" (no, that's not a typo). That night, the band played a few Chinese songs, but mostly Bon Jovi covers. Truth be told, they rocked those covers with more energy and heart than many American bands put into their own music. Still, it is strange traveling halfway around the world to hear people play old music from your home. The next time I went to the Moonkey Bar, a Beijing band was playing original music that was close to the style of the Ramones and had lyrics in English. The music and language should have felt familiar to me, but seeing familiar words and sounds come from a people and culture so different than my own made the experience bizarre.

Last weekend I was walking the streets outside my school and came upon a folk band playing on the sidewalk. They had weird wild instruments making weird, wild sounds: the snakeskin banjo, the erhu (chinese two string violin), something that resembled a hammer dulcimer, assorted things to bang on. Different singers took turns singing old songs in the thin, nasal, melodic Chinese style. The reason for the concert? A new convenience store had opened and wanted to celebrate. I don't know how much business it brought the store, but a crowd of old people, some carrying their children or grandchildren, gathered around the band to listen and cheer. Outside the circle of people, life was rushing on in its busy Chinese way. The noise of trucks rumbling by, motorcycles weaving through traffic, and people haggling on the sidewalk, created a accompaniment to the music. It was perhaps the most musical moment I have had since coming here.