New Links and YouTube Ethnography

Hey folks, as part of what I will cautiously refer to as the "revitalization" of this blog, I have added a couple of new links to the sidebar.

The first is a website that has garnered a lot of attention in the last few weeks from the China-watching blogosphere, by which I mean Danwei.org and Time's China Blog. ChinaSMACK tackles an interesting Chinese niche to which no other blog (at least as far as I know) has really invested more than a cursory effort in revealing to the non-native world of China and those interested in its modern moment. The site describes its focus as "Hot internet stories, pictures, & videos in China. What’s popular, scandalous, or shocking that have the Chinese talking," posting the latest viral sensations of the Chinese internet and (perhaps best of all) translations Chinese netizens' responses in online forums. Reading about both these stories and internet users' responses (I believe China is now home to the world's most internet users, but am too lazy to cite a source on that one), one hopefully will find some cultural insight. I'm personally fascinated by the internet slang found in netizens' posts and the various detours of language to express a meaning or word that might be too sensitive or vulgar for the tastes of the PRC's internet sleuths. An example I came across just now: calling someone a "hard disc person," a "hard disc" meaning "Western digital" (a company name), giving the letters WD, standing for "wai di" (外地) person...or outsider. Wow. We can thank ChinaSMACK for providing a great glossary of these sorts of terms along with all the "colorful metaphors" one needs for proper appreciation of the Chinese language.

The other link takes you to the YouTube home of Chris3443, whose videos have been featured from time to time on Danwei and even praised (I guess?) on Sexy Beijing's YouTube video shout-out. Chris' delightful home-videos feature Chinese renditions of national anthems, lip-synching of Chinese rock, original music stylings, political question and answer sessions with his Chinese girlfriend, and generally fun montages of life in a "second/third-tier" city of north-central China, watched by both foreigners and Chinese. On the YouTube page you can find a playlist of videos Chris thinks you should watch first. Look for transcriptions and translations up in the video's description area (click "more").

Furthering the theme of YouTube "ethnography" is a Sexy Beijing, now two-months old, which I just recently discovered. In Sexy Beijing YouTube Takeover our favorite, sexy Beijing laowai heroine lists out their favorite China-related YouTube videos according to category:

Music and Youth Culture
Beijing Natives by Zhang Bohong
Graffiti Shanghai by Adam Schokora and DanweiTV

Documentaries and Viral Videos
Romance China Style by journeymanpictures
Mad About English by journeypictures2008
Eye on Gay Shanghai by QAF Beijing
I'm Begging You, Sofie by Chris 3443
China's Green Beat - Rooftop Revolution by sustainablejohn
The Most Greatest Self-Made MV by Mrbombdi
Beijing Polar Bear by captainbundington
I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change by The Asia Society
Hong Kong Bus Uncle by Hello Allan

Enjoy!

Tibet - Part I

(Part I, written in the summer... I hope to write Part II sometime...)

I’ve been meaning to write about the subject of Tibet since shortly after the riots this past March, and while I’ve amassed a collection of links, I’ve found the pressures of my final semester at school to be too consuming. Now that I’m graduated and faced with the guiltless downtime outside the hours of work, I can focus on revitalizing this blog—and hopefully both demystify and complicate aspects of the 21st century conundrum that is modern China.

It is hard to approach Tibet objectively, as many in the West have grown up with a popularized view of an devoutly pious and harmless people living amid snow mountains, oppressed since the 1950s by the atheistic, communist forces of Red China which have since sought to exploit this people and their home to the utmost extent, eradicating dangerous religiosity and culture all along the way. This characterization has shades of truth.

For quick and simple overview of Tibet, the BBC comes to the rescue. China and Tibet have had a long, antagonistic relationship dating back to the 7th century CE, eventually coming under Mongolian and Chinese influence starting in the 13th century. Since then, the country enjoyed effective autonomy only after the revolution ending the Qing Dynasty in 1911. The ensuing chaos of the formation of a democratic government and subduing of warlords and the subsequent invasion by the Japanese and civil war left Tibet unnoticed in the distant periphery—until 1950, when the newly established People’s Republic of China decided to bring “Liberation” to Tibet—militarily of course. Within the decade, there was open rebellion, sponsored by the American CIA, and with its unsuccessful conclusion, the Dalai Lama fled to northern India, from where he runs the government-in-exile today.

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, is popularly received in the West. He is the smiling face of the Tibetan cause, loveable ambassador of his people—interviewed on TV, visited by celebrities and world leaders, even co-starring Brad Pitt (sort of). The Dalai Lama seemingly has pursued without rest the well-treatment of his people from exile, but some would say things have gone astray. Despite his gregarious icon-status, Patrick French in the New York Times asserts that his political strategy of generating popular attention to the cause of Tibet in the west has actually been detrimental. The Dalai Lama has in fact become somewhat of a puppet to the larger, more powerful Free Tibet organizations that pressure for unrealistic concessions on the part of the P.R.C. The Tibetan people inside are actually suffering due to the “good-will” celebrity status of the Dalai Lama. Mistaking awards and medals given to the Dalai Lama by governments abroad, they celebrate or test the local authorities, resulting in arrests, human rights violations, and even deaths with no response from those foreign governments.

What many in the West fail to realize is the extent of Tibet and its ethnic sphere when they talk about “freeing Tibet” or separation from the Chinese state. Tibet on the map, actually the province of the People’s Republic of China known as the Tibetan Autonomous Region (or TAR for short) only encompasses what is historically western Tibet and Lhasa. Tibetan culture and population in fact fans out through four other provinces of western China (which I might add, until the riots in March did not require a special travel permit) as seen in the BBC map here. Additionally for a discussion and revealing peek into Tibetan culture, both in the TAR and Western China, I highly recommend reading Life on the Tibetan Plateau. This is not some big secret, it is in fact clearly visible to the Chinese. For instance, northwestern Yunnan Province is called “Dêqên Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture." The rest of these provinces have similar counties, prefectures, and regions nominally Tibetan. These provinces, however, contain largely diverse populations made up not only of many, many Han Chinese (the predominant ethnic group of China at 92% of the population) as well as a great range of other ethnic minorities. It is not realistic to imagine the PRC would simply relinquish control of this large territory for the idealistic independence of celebrity culture. Despite the power and influence of the western Free Tibet organizations, not even the Dalai Lama advocates independence from China, but simply greater autonomy and more religious freedom—a subject to which I will return.

We should talk about the “2008 Tibetan Unrest” or what is also known as the “3-14 Riots.” What began on March 10, 2008 as demonstrations marking the 49th anniversary of the failed Tibetan 1959 Tibetan Uprising turned into violent riots on March 14. The true extent of damage to property and human life may never be known. While western media largely focused on the PRC’s military response to the situation and demonstrations in neighboring countries, the facts coming out of Lhasa and other sites of demonstrations/riots were not very clear or concrete. In the wake of the initial media blitz, Chinese response took the internet by storm, putting up such websites as Anti-Cnn.com which systemically reveal the bias of western media in description of events, doctoring of photos, and mismatched captions often showing bloody crackdowns carried out by Nepali police on Tibetan demonstrations with captions about Tibet. It’s really worth a look. Blogs of western travelers in Lhasa and other places where Tibetans were rioting affirmed Chinese assertions that the demonstrations were anything but peaceful. Photos used in the news, when showed un-doctored, reveal the violent intentions of the Tibetans. The damage it was revealed was not so much in the Tibetan areas of Lhasa, but specifically focused on the areas in which Han Chinese lived and ran shops. When looking at videos of Tibetan violence put on the internet afterwards we see the demonstrations largely descended into unrestrained thuggery on the part of the Tibetans. Does the military response on the part of the Chinese government really seem an overreaction now?

We cannot condone the violence of the Tibetans and the damage done to innocent Han Chinese (and reportedly people of the Hui minority as well), but this violence is an indicator of something. While those outside of Tibet have accused the Chinese of committing “cultural genocide” by means of suppression of religious freedom, placing restraints on Tibetan Buddhist monks, and encouraging Han Chinese migration and travel into these Tibetan areas specifically for the purpose of diluting cultural purity/exclusivity (such as the new Qinghai-Tibet Railway). On the ground, however, the last is probably the most influencing factor. While the Chinese government claims they have liberated the Tibetan people from serfdom under the rule of the Dalai Lama and brought economic development to the province, disgruntled Tibetans claim only the Han Chinese immigrants have benefited from the economic improvements, while Tibetans are discriminated against by Han Chinese companies, run out by Han Chinese small business owners, and forced to take only the worst and most dangerous jobs available. Obviously there is something out of place if people feel the urge to take to the streets and commit violence against another ethnic group.

Entertainment and Enlightenment

In the last few months, I've come across several things that have either given me joy or expressed a facet of China I found myself explaining a lot since being home. All of the following, I think, will give you some insight into the mystery of modern China.

The Dictatorship of Talent chronicles the Chinese path jumping through various hoops of education to success. The editorial has an important explanation of the Party as it is now--no longer about communist ideology, but now more like a "gigantic Skull and Bones" social network. In the end, though, the writer questions the ability of the individuals risen to success through this system, where they are not taught to question but to repeat.

I also have a couple of bits on the Beijing front:


The New York Times (if you can't tell, my new favorite source of information...) has been running a series called Choking on Growth about China's industrialization and drive towards prosperity, highlighting the disastrous environmental and societal effects. The most recent part of the series focused on Beijing's attempts to clear its skies for the Olympics in '08. Despite their efforts, you can see Tiananmen Square in the photo to the right (courtesy of NYtimes.com, AP). For comparison, I attached my own photo from this past August to show it's not always so bad (though I did suffer through a couple of days this bad last January '07).

On a lighter note, Sexy Beijing is one of my new favorite things on the internet. A spin-off show from the acclaimed Danwei.org, a blog about media and news in China, Sexy Beijing is a series of Youtube-supported videos starring Anna Sophie Loewenberg in a show opening with an homage to Sexy in the City, but quickly turning into often interesting, usually hilarious street-side interviews. "Sufei" uses her language skills in Chinese, sometimes aided by friends, to penetrate some of the more curious aspects of love and life in everyone's favorite city--Beijing. It's really a great study break, but really opens up China, specifically Beijing, culture in a very tangible way. Don't pass this up.

Don't pass any of them up.

Media

For any readers still making their way to this little place...I've yet to decide what the future will hold, but I would not say an occasional return would be without reward. In time there will be more photos from my time in China--film that I'm just now developing and printing. I might also find occasion to reflect on my time in China, or at least share with you some new finds that somehow pertain to my experiences recorded in this blog. This is one such occasion.

In the post China: The Musical I briefly described Beijing's exploding performance for the Chinese New Year. Jeremy, the director of my school in Hangzhou captured a similar experience there on camera--which I hope will give you some idea of what it was like. Keep in mind--that's all shot up from your average comrade.

In other news, I've come across a NYTimes article about Kunming called China Lite which describes it as a bastion of counter-culture that possesses a laid-back atmosphere not found elsewhere in the People's Lovely Republic. The places and events described in the article pretty much describe my life this summer.

Lists

So, my time left here in the People’s Lovely Republic is short. In these situations, I feel reflection is inevitable—an attempt to discern through the fog of time and emotion the moorings of fact and what will be memory. I’m also starting to think of the friends I know will be coming here themselves soon enough or even in the winter, to walk the same steps I have. I’ve found the best way to go about organizing things (for me at least) is lists. From lists, you can expand to points, and connecting points, you make arguments, manifestos, and revolution.

Things I will miss or have already started to miss about life in China:
-Chinese food, Chinese food, Chinese food
-music shows in Beijing (Jazz at D-22, seeing Iz, etc.)
-big group dinners in Beijing
-Laobian Jiaozi Restaurant—best Dongbei (Northeast-style cuisine, i.e. dumplings) restaurant ever…
-jidan Guan Bing (egg-pancakes sold by the old couple outside the gate of CET Beijing)
-the little convenience stores outside CET
-the Xinjiang food near CET
-group outings to Sanlitun’r (the bar street)
-warm bubble tea (zhenzhu naicha, ‘pearl milk tea’) in cold Hangzhou
-Lanzhou food: la mian (pulled noodles), potatoes and beef on rice, and jidan chaomian (egg with fried noodles)
-scotch and green tea (together)
-bottled green tea
-7 Club in Hangzhou—cozy little import beer bar
-the one Hangzhou Greentown soccer game I went to
-conversations on bus rides with classmates (usually about China or the people around us)
-times at the all-you-can-eat/drink Japanese restaurant in Hangzhou and our tours of West Lake afterwards
-nighttime jaunts around West Lake in general
-old people and their crazy dancing, exercising, and games
-exploring neighborhoods
-epic scenery/locations
-really smiley waitresses/store workers
-(usually) great service without having to tip
-my teachers
-a little village one mountain away from Tibet
-easy access to lots and lots of different kinds of tea
-being able to bend rules because I’m a foreigner
-the bit of unprostituted, undestroyed culture you might accidentally find somewhere
-making coffee with my French press
-75-cent DVDs
-drying my clothes on the line
-qiezi (Chinese eggplant in all its tender, gooey goodness)

Things I won’t miss:
-the staring, gawking, laowai-laowai-laowai-ing, walk-by Hello!s, and requested/unrequested photographs
-shop clerks hovering an inch behind me or trying to sell me everything I do and do not look at
-la duzi (“pulled stomach”—take a guess)
-being lectured to about my country/Chinese nationalism
-Chinese political/whatever slogans and other feihua (“nonsense”/"thief's talk")
-the ignorance—western and Chinese
-unrelenting and pervasive anti-Japanese mentality
-“cultural exchanges”—“Americans are all rich, right?”
-struggling with people who ignore my Chinese in order to speak their English—which no one understands, least of all me
-Hangzhou cabbies—may they rot in hell
-Chinese traffic/transportation impatience
-people of all shapes, sizes, and gender blowing snot-rockets and hocking their insides out everywhere
-everyone littering and the people whose job is to sweep the streets after them
-the prevalence chain-smokers
-being told my Chinese is great after I say Ni hao (Hello)
-never 100% understanding someone/never being 100% certain I spoke correctly
-seeing someone dead or dying with a group of people standing around them just watching
-people incapable of forming a line
-long fingernails
-women shielding themselves in any ridiculous way they can from the barest drop of sunlight that might touch (and darken) their skin
-Chinese train stations
-the Chinese tourism industry and its effect upon landmarks
-Chinese break-my-heart pop music
-Chinese "House" music
-white-tile buildings with blue windows
-squealing electric scooter brakes
-crossing streets

I guess that gives you an idea.

On a Theme

The track on the ‘soundtrack of my life’ for Summer ’07 would have to be the Rolling Stones’ “Beast of Burden.” I did not bring my music library with me to China, so my musical experience in China has been limited to what’s on my iPod. As you might imagine, the same old songs tend not to sustain 7 months’ listening. Thus sometime in the beginning weeks of my time in Kunming, I experimented with making a new playlist for my small musical companion. The theme of this new symphony of mine was intended to be a laid-back, feel-good background for a chill party perhaps, and I believe I’ve achieved this to some degree. And in the process of composing this playlist, I rediscovered “Beast of Burden,” which I can’t help but play to death.

And that laidback, feel-good, chill feeling I get when listening to “Beast of Burden” has really reflected the theme of my 9 weeks in Kunming. I read in the morning with my coffe; I pass the day in the office mixing work with breaks to read the New York Times; and I walk home through the cluttered streets, waving at the baozi-making family. Some days I ride a couple of buses to get some pulled-noodles and go climbing at the wall on the other side of town. Some days I hang around and watch DVDs like a lazy bum. I make peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches when I want a snack; I get ice cream for the walk back to the office or home after meals; and I drink little cans of coconut juice/milk. I’ll tell them not to put chili peppers (lazhao) in my food (because they put it in everything there; eating is no longer the great refuge it once was), and it’ll be bad or good. I’ll eat out with coworkers or I won’t. I’ll head to the university area and chill with a book, or I’ll go with a coworker and have a beer; or I’ll do all the above—and often enough, I’ll be bobbing my head to “Beast of Burden” or another song on that list.

This summer I’ve missed home, friends, and Midd more than ever before in China—but on the whole, I’m relaxed. It’s different here from other places in I’ve been in China. Maybe it’s summer; maybe it’s a different culture; maybe it’s just different music. But it’s different here. I don’t think China’s for me—the work’s unrewarding, the day-to-day uncertain and damned dangerous, and the people are just walking in a different direction—we just don’t get each other. And that’s alright I guess. I’m alright with that.

It’s over soon enough, and I got it done.

Spring/Summer

It is only my third week in the Spring City, but I’ve already fallen into a routine that I believe was mostly settled my third day here: I wake up as the old ladies in the courtyard below finish their morning dancing; I read a page or two with a cup of Yunnan coffee; and I stop at the “baozi lady” to get my two sweet bean paste-filled Chinese pastries to breakfast on as I read over email and the morning’s (or should I say night’s?) headlines on the New York Times.

The end of my semester in Hangzhou proceeded without major event. It settled into the rhythms an iPod-accompanied walk between my dormroom and the various places I habited to eat, life’s reality sharing time with the fantasy provided by reading. Hangzhou provided time or at least an incentive not found at Middlebury to read for private entertainment, and I added to the aforementioned books Charles Frazier’s (author of Cold Mountain) highly anticipated sophomore work, Thirteen Moons; Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude; and am now close to finishing my rereading of Tolkien’s The Two Towers.

And so I came to the end of my time in Hangzhou. Most classmates (and I am no different), were just ready to get out. For some this meant home and loved ones, far away from the eccentricities of Chinese life. For others, it meant family or friend-accompanied travel. And for a fair number of others, it meant life moved to a new Chinese city or at least a new life in the same Chinese city for studying or working. I think everyone was confronting some form of disbelief. It seemed impossible that some of us would be home in a matter of days; that some would not be home for months; that some still had to languish through the added days and weeks of traveling when all they wanted was their own bed.

As I was just realizing that my time in Hangzhou would soon be over (what a week or two earlier seemed unending), I also realized that I had just passed the halfway point of my time in China. This discovery was aided by a time calculator on the internet, which also revealed to me that I had spent about 10 million seconds in China; another 10 million remained.

And so, for better or for worse, I moved to the wild west—Kunming, Yunnan—to begin my internship with The Nature Conservancy. But first, I decided I’d have a little vacation. Taking a day to relax and see a bit of the city with my supervisor and co-intern, I headed out with a 40 liter backpack to Northwest Yunnan: I went to see what the government calls “Shangri-La”—the corner of Yunnan nestled at the feet of the Himalayas. Once you get to Zhongdian (now officially Shangri-La, or Xianggelila in Chinese), you realize “Tibet” is not bound by the borders of the map. In fact northwestern Yunnan, western Sichuan, and Qinghai Province are all regions heavily-populated (heavily used here as a comparison, not suggesting density) by Tibetans—many nomadic.

In the course of a few days, I crawled my way by bus, taxi, and boot to Meili Snow Mountain (a range of snow-capped peaks on the border the maps draw between Yunnan and Tibet). There I spent some time in a small village nestled in a lush valley, meeting western and Chinese backpackers, drinking local grape wine, seeing a sacred waterfall, and enjoying both sun and storm. I can genuinely say it was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been and definitely one of my best experiences in China. I hiked down on a stormy, cloud-swallowed day, and we drove back to the nearest town on winding mountain roads listening to the driver’s cassette of Tibetan folk—a haunting music of women wailing in song and men underscoring with deep tones. I looked back, but the mountains and the world and our little van were all swallowed, hidden in cloud.

These short weeks in Kunming have so far been filled with exploration of its endearingly decayed infrastructure, settling into the routine of working 9-5, and finding ways of busying myself. The city feels very alive but relaxed, the old and young ambling or lazing along the streets. It is called the Spring City for its cool climate throughout the year and perhaps its bursts of rain throughout the day. To my amazement, though, it is more a rule than an exception that the day’s stormy weather will be spited by the sun breaking through at 5, parting the way for blue sky. 5 million more seconds till summer.