New Location!

Please go here to view new posts from The Wild East! http://thewildeast.posterous.com

Jobs for Everyone in China??

If you read the NY Times, you may have come across this piece about "American Graduates Finding Jobs in China", which describes Shanghai and Beijing as paradises where recent graduates--denied entry into the job market at home in America--can not only easily and frequently find work, but also in positions of more responsibility than those they might have access to in the U.S. Of course, none of the fortunate youngsters interviewed in the article came to China knowing a lick of Chinese. Wonderful, huh?

What you might not have seen, unless you know where to look, is the response to the article on Danwei:

Danwei received email from two old China hand journalists yesterday regarding the New York Times story linked here:

Wise Hack A:

Here's one of those great stories that the ever lazy hack pack recycle every so often - floods of Yanks coming to China for jobs.

No evidence whatsoever for this but it gets churned out again every couple of years I note.

Wise Hack B:

Please please mention the NYT "no Mandarin required" article and what
an absolute crock of shit it is. Thanks.

Stan Abrams at China Hearsay concurs:

Sorry, that is some real skewed bullshit writing there.

For a more detailed response to the article, with practical and realistic advice on the subject, I suggest you read Shaun Rein's piece on Forbes.com. The bottom line:

One of the best ways to start a career in China is at a school. Apply for Mandarin language study for a semester, or see if you can get a job teaching English. That will get you a visa, you'll begin to learn the language and appreciate the culture, and, importantly, you'll begin to network and find out where the great job opportunities are.

Sound familiar?

Their dystopia is more Brave New World than 1984.

You may have noticed I'm less active on Facebook these days. If you're reading this now, you may also have noticed that I'm very unactive on this blog. This is in part due to the increasingly stringent bonds the Chinese government is placing on the internet here. The latest round of crackdowns occurred in response to the unrest between Uighurs and Han Chinese in the western province Xinjiang--closely watched for its tendencies to express separatist desires...

Jeremy Goldkorn, head of the ever popular China-watcher website Danwei recently wrote a piece for The Telegraph about the Chinese internet and its controls:

Savvy Chinese Internet users know how to use proxy servers and other technologies to get around the Internet blocks: Chinese government Net censorship works not because it's impossible to open websites the government does not like, but because it's inconvenient to access those sites.

So most Chinese net users, who go online primarily for entertainment, don't notice and don't particularly care about censorship, as long as they can chat to their friends, play games, listen to music and watch videos. Their dystopia is more Brave New World than 1984.

Goldkorn reported the bold-faced line was unfortunately omitted by The Telegraph's editors. This is a recommended read for an idea about internet here. It takes a deal of proxying and VPN-ing and any loophole that works before it's eradicated to get to certain websites. In some cases, we just get use to not going to certain websites anymore. YouTube seems a long way from here these days. Facebook's block has made me renew my efforts to circumvent the internet controls, as I rely so heavily on it for simple communication with friends.

Illness and Recovery

This *Will* Happen to You. by "Kendra":

Traveling in China is one thing, but deciding to live here is another thing entirely. During my rather lengthy time in China, I've met a huge array of expatriats that all go through the same process on their route to being psychologically adapted to life in the PRC.

All of them. One for one. Every single. Each and every. Myself included. Same process. I call it "The China Curve", and I'm curious to see who else has had the experience, or, strangely, if anyone has not. And it goes like this:

Months 1-3: Fascination. Your mama taught you that you live in a big wide world, where all people of all nations should hold hands in peace and harmony. There is so much beauty buried in the cracks of this exotic nation! So much fascinating culture, so much that is different. Every day's a new adventure, and you're damn proud of yourself for your spirited nature and culturally tolerant behavior. You don't understand the bitter rantings of those who've been here longer. That will never, ever be you. If you leave now, you'll never come back, and you will forever think of China in wistful, unrealistic terms.

Months 3-7: Somehow, you've become a borderline racist, and some of your days are spent in states of rage, your nights in misery. You don't know how it happened, and you really don't care. The mere thought of going to buy a pair of socks fills you with defeated dread. The shoving and pushing, the haggling. You scream at someone in public and feel first justified, then vindictive, then stupid. The simplest things are so *difficult*. You cling to the few friends you've made, though your social circle hasn't solidified, and you know in your heart you'd never be hanging out with these types of people back home. No one here knows how to eat breakfast... god, you'd kill for a decent breakfast. You tell all your friends you're going home, and you can't bloody wait. If you leave now, you'll likely never come back.

Months 8-12: Here, the path splits. You either:
1) Go home with the intention of never coming back only to discover that while your life has been upturned, your friends are doing exactly what they were doing the day that you left. Their lives, you think, will always be this way, while yours... well, you don't fit in anymore. All your sentences start with "In China...", but no one's really listening to you. It's like you unwittingly joined some kind of brotherhood, and however hard you try, you can't break the ties you made. You start plotting your return, and wonder if you're a masochist.

2) Stick it out like a real veteran, waiting excitedly for your one-year visit home. But after the first week back, when you've eaten your fill of butter and cheese, you realize that your friends are all doing exactly what they were doing the day you left. All your sentences start with "In China...", but no one's really listening to you. You realize you can't wait to get back on the plane, and wonder if you'll ever feel at home anywhere in the world ever again.

THE RETURN

You set foot on Chinese soil. At the airport and around town, you watch all the first-timers and tourists with hidden self-satisfaction and a little pity. You easily navigate the hustle and bustle, speak a few words of Chinese to your cab driver, and experience a deep contentment. Somehow, the friends you made and never really expected to keep have solidified into life-long pals, while your friends from highschool and college recede into sameness and nothingness. After so much emotional investiture and hard work, somehow, this has become Your Country.

And wherever you go from that day onwards, China will be in your blood.

On the night of September 1, 2007 I sat in the warm heat of a Memphis summer night among the lawn-chair powwow outside the Hills’ house in Cordova. Having returned just hours before from eight months abroad in the People’s Republic of China, I was strangely more than willing to entertain discussion about my experiences there despite having been traveling nearly twenty-four hours straight. Strange because my body and mind should have been weak. Stranger because for the last eight months, I had rarely broached the subject at all with parents or friends. Had you asked me that night (which someone must have) if I planned to go back to China, I would have hesitated in ambivalence. I would have thought, No, never, but I would not have had the courage to say so. Instead, I’m sure I said, We’ll see. or I have to see how I feel after some time. Right now, I’m happy to be home.

I do not think I was unprepared for China. While I studied and dreamed of ancient times, I read plenty of articles and watched many films about the issues and struggles of the modern moment in the mainland. I thought I knew it would not be pretty. That parts would be backward. That culture would be different and—shocking? Culture shock, it seems, is not something you can prepare for, despite pre-departure packets outlining symptoms and stages. Culture shock is not freaking out about squat-toilets. It’s an infection more akin to a mental illness, a side effect of some strange medicine.

Less than a week after my arrival in Memphis, I found myself back in Middlebury among old friends and classmates. I felt reticent and a little overwhelmed. I could understand everything everyone was saying. My best friends were there, to whom I ashamedly had maybe written a sentence or two if anything at all. I had not heard any of their voices in eight months—longer for some. Strangely I felt closer than ever to them. I felt warm in their company.

For most of my life, I have been fiercely individualistic. I felt constrained in group projects, impatient when others called on me for help. In China this became my undoing. I established myself early on as an independent force that travels on his own, that doesn’t depend on slow-moving, cumbersome groups of foreigners to explore the nearby restaurant, alley, or temple. When culture shock started to seep in, I realized I was alone. How could I bother these people now? I buried myself in books. My ipod’s earplugs were always in my ears. My computer was always connected to Facebook. I was shielded as best as could be against any interaction with the locals.

Underclassmen asked me about China. Was it amazing? I bet you had so much fun! I laughed and began to explain. I bet your Chinese is awesome now. Is Hangzhou nice? Did you make lots of friends? How were the roommates? I somehow perfected my diatribe of negative feelings about China into a 2 minute speech that shocked and awed any unassuming young Chinese students, turning their excitement into bewildered horror. It’s hard. It’s lonely. Everything’s off. Everyone’s out to get you. It’s dirty. You will be unhappy. It wasn’t amazing. It was not so much fun. My Chinese is awesome now, but I never made any friends. Hangzhou is boring. The roommates were juvenile and annoying. After a while, I thought I was going to die any day and never make it home. I have a hard time lying.

I talked with the head of the department shortly after my return to Middlebury. He smiled at my confusion and emotional ambivalence. That’s why we don’t let you go for more than a semester. Everyone hates it. It’s only after you come back that you start to miss it and become ready to go back. My thoughts lingered on my last memory of China: hazy sunrise in Beijing. My last days were spent in Beijing waiting for my flight home. Things felt full-circle. I had survived. I had randomly reconnected with old friends—ships passing in the night. I wondered during the silent cab ride to the airport, absorbing the pink-lit city around me—would I ever come back to this place? It becomes a blessing—or a burden. It becomes a part of you for the rest of your life that others won’t understand, he said.

After recounting a short China story one wintry night in early spring, my friend mentioned that it seemed I rarely told stories about China. I felt strange. They’re hard to tell, China stories. You have to explain so many different things, and you see people’s attention drifting so soon. By this time my most visited websites had become China blogs and vlogs. By this time, when I was asked about China—I told them it was hard, and I told them it was ridiculous. The food is so good. I tried to leave it at that. I gave them the advice I never took.

In late summer the smell of cilantro being picked was as strong as a bowl of Lanzhou pulled-noodles sitting in front of me. There is a lot of time to think working on a farm. There is a lot of time to talk working on a farm. Weeding, hoeing, picking, washing, sorting, packing. In China… this. In China… that. Green mountains and small towns. Good work. Good food. I could have stayed. But I’m young. I needed adventure. I needed real Chinese food again. I needed that part of me to be understood.

An Analysis of Beijing Traffic

Firstly, I'm sorry I've turned into a terrible blogger. I hope I will make this up to you. I cannot promise such things you.

But here's something to interest you for now:

Beijing Traffic Lesson: Left Turn

Traffic rules-mayhem* is one of the more fascinating-bewildering-exasperating** aspects of China. I continuously assert that traffic in Beijing is comparatively tame to other places I've been in China, namely Hangzhou and Kunming. In Hangzhou taxi drivers regularly challenged oncoming traffic in opposing lanes to pass cars (in speeds in excess of 40 mph). I dreaded taking taxis in the city for the activation of danger-response chemicals in my body. In Beijing on the other hand, taxi drivers usually do not drive in speeds excess of 30mph, and everything moves in a generally more leisurely fashion. But do not mistake leisured pace for order. Crossing the streets demands awareness of maybe 4-5 traffic flow patterns--and that's when you have a green walk-light. You have to watch for right-turning vehicles on both sides, left-turners, u-turners, rogue bicycles/scooters/motorbikes crossing when they don't have the light, etc. And don't forget not to collide with any pedestrians or two/three-wheel traffic moving in the opposite direction.

* I think I'll coin this compound word for describing aspects of China...because it is really a place of duality and contradiction, where there are rules, there is also mayhem.

** another compound

Two Holidays: New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day

Chinese New Year 2 from cui ruide on Vimeo.

My batteries were dying just as it was going off. I hope 5 seconds gives you some idea...


D-22 Hedgehog (2) from cui ruide on Vimeo.

Rock band Hedgehog 刺猬 playing a packed crowd on Valentine's Night at D-22.

Snow in Beijing

Today it snowed in Beijing, and I walked a mile for a taxi. Apparently Beijing is the one place where a 20% chance of precipitation means it will precipitate, as it did with today's morning flurries and last week's afternoon drizzle. These two occasions I suppose signal a pause in the 100+ days of drought afflicting the North China Plain.

Other things I don't understand: how so many Chinese men go without hats in this winter weather. And why the subway is sardine-packed at 2:30pm on a Monday. Why are these people not working on my day off?

The holidays are at last over. The fifteen days of explosions ended with one final night on which I dodged low-exploding mortar shells, roman candle snipers, and the ra-tat-tat fire of those long ribbons of crackers. The Mandarin Oriental hotel burned to its skeleton in a fiery saturnalia that night.


The winter camps are over, and now we're starting the new semester. From now on, things are supposed to be "normal."