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Last Friday evening, having secured two tables at a 600 RMB (about $80) minimum charge, I settled in with a group of friends, both foreign and local, to watch the Olympic Opening Ceremony. The whole city—nay, country was shut down as even the taxi drivers stopped on the riverside bar street to watch the theatre, projected on to outdoor screens.
“Just for one night, I will let myself be brainwashed by the propaganda,” Luxi, my tutor, who recently returned from a month backpacking in Laos, said jokingly.
Earlier in the week, when I asked my students to give an example illustrating the term “blanket marketing,” their response came immediately: “Olympics.” This entire year leading up to the event, throughout my travels in China, “Beijing 2008” has been utterly unavoidable. From storefronts to taxi radios, revolutionary monument gift shops and ethnic minority trinkets, the government’s messaging system has comprehensively penetrated every corner of the country.
At remote Qinghai Lake in China’s northwest, an area very much ethnically and culturally Tibetan, I was bemused to find a giant statue of Jingjing the panda, one of the five fuwu mascots, standing behind bronze statues of local women churning yak butter. In a Miao minority village in Guizhou, in the country’s southern interior close to Vietnam, old women in colorful costume shoved tacky trinkets of the five rings in front of me. North of Hong Kong in Guangzhou, I stumbled into a painting academy where the students’ work was being hung: all of their paintings of course, were Olympic-themed. And whilst riding a train back into Sichuan, the speakers play “Beijing Welcomes You,” the official theme song, in between C-pop ballads and hip-hop.
The Games have been described as many things by the media: as China’s “Coming Out Party,” as the setting for the resentful host nation to demonstrate its mettle by winning the highest medal count, as an example of the West’s toothless inability to stop continued oppression and mass human rights violations.
For many Chinese, the Games does indeed provide an opportunity to take pride in their collective accomplishment, in their overcoming the dramatic missteps of Mao’s past rule to now--so improbable a few decades ago--be considered a legitimate challenge to American hegemony. The Games are as much about earning the world’s respect—particularly that of the West—as it is a celebration of progress.
But others showed less concern. A guitarist friend named Xiao Di, who I’d been playing in a short-lived Beatles cover band with, could not have been more apathetic when I asked if he planned on watching the Games.
“I’m not interested in sports, so I have no reason to watch the Olympics. But if it were a band competition, then I’d definitely watch!”
Some of my local friends are eager to see China win the most gold medals. Whilst watching the U.S. roll over China in Sunday’s men’s basketball match, Aaron, an administrator at a local university, described it as a golden opportunity for China to display it’s ability before the world.
“It would be the first time that we beat America,” he noted.
Whilst changing money at a Bank of China branch—the only bank where changing currencies is authorized—I sat in the waiting area benches, where all eyes were fixed on the blurry television above us, watching the men’s synchronized diving. They watched the other competitor’s with mild interest, but everyone—even bank staff—stopped to cheer each time the Chinese pair (who ended up winning the gold) took to the boards. You could almost feel the weight of the nation’s eyes on these two young men, as they walked out to the edge, steeling themselves before they leapt.
Nobody feels the pressure, however more than Liu Xiang, who won the 110m hurdles gold in Athens and whom people are expecting to win again in Beijing. But my students said they feel more sympathy than expectation toward him.
“I’ll just feel sorry for him if he loses, because everyone expects him to win,” Jane said. “It’s not important if he doesn’t win.”
Her comments were a good example of the reasonableness and ambivalence of many ordinary Chinese in the face of the Olympics juggernaut—so promoted by states and companies here in China as outside. Where power politics and nationalism are the dominant roles that the Games tend to act out, there are many Chinese, like my student George, a troubleshooting engineer at Canon, who look beneath the hype, and view the Games simply as a chance to watch the greatest athletes in the world competing together.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Motherland/Homeland
If China is the motherland, Guangzhou is the homeland.
Or at least, that's how it felt upon initially arriving. The Cantonese, the grocery store goods, the tropical air and low tree-lined streets, the smell of durians wafting out of fruit stands…this is the China I know! The China of New York and Kuala Lumpur, of Paris and Sydney, the cuisine the whole world knows as Chinese. South China, including Guangdong, Fujian and nearby provinces, is the place which the majority of overseas Chinese (including this one) can trace their roots back to, and after spending ten months living in the locked-in southwestern interior of Sichuan, it feels refreshing to be once again in a place so outward-facing and global.
Where as the people in Chengdu look much like the ones I grew up knowing as "Chinese," they sounded completely different, both with their incomprehensible dialect and their thick local English accents. They ate dramatically different style cooking. Even their opera songs sounded foreign.
In Guangzhou, locals not only look, but sound, dine and sing the same way that I knew from family trips to Perth's Chinese grocery shops on weekends, or summer trips back home to Malaysia. And so walking around the city, known these days more for its go-getter capitalist drive than its exported diasporic culture, I felt like, for the first time since coming to China, I'd actually, truly "returned to the homeland." It actually felt like home, sensually, rather than merely abstractly, and I embraced the feeling. Having began the process of acculturation and learned to get by in Mandarin, I was able to savor the return more fully than had I just gotten off the place from New York.
I had previously written the city off in a way. Guangzhou, and nearby overnight-superstar Shenzhen, are China's export factory capitals, where cheap plastic goods and 90 percent of the disposable crap that fills up homes throughout the West originates. I had preconceptions of a city of mere commerce and hustle, of crooks and mobsters and squabbling for pieces of the pie. But it has revealed itself, of course, to be so much more. It's a large, top-tier city, with a first-rate subway, significantly larger and more diverse expat population and—most welcomingly—excellent food.
So with such rash biases thrown aside, I'm looking forward to plunging face first into the intoxicating aromas of home, here in Guangdong.
Or at least, that's how it felt upon initially arriving. The Cantonese, the grocery store goods, the tropical air and low tree-lined streets, the smell of durians wafting out of fruit stands…this is the China I know! The China of New York and Kuala Lumpur, of Paris and Sydney, the cuisine the whole world knows as Chinese. South China, including Guangdong, Fujian and nearby provinces, is the place which the majority of overseas Chinese (including this one) can trace their roots back to, and after spending ten months living in the locked-in southwestern interior of Sichuan, it feels refreshing to be once again in a place so outward-facing and global.
Where as the people in Chengdu look much like the ones I grew up knowing as "Chinese," they sounded completely different, both with their incomprehensible dialect and their thick local English accents. They ate dramatically different style cooking. Even their opera songs sounded foreign.
In Guangzhou, locals not only look, but sound, dine and sing the same way that I knew from family trips to Perth's Chinese grocery shops on weekends, or summer trips back home to Malaysia. And so walking around the city, known these days more for its go-getter capitalist drive than its exported diasporic culture, I felt like, for the first time since coming to China, I'd actually, truly "returned to the homeland." It actually felt like home, sensually, rather than merely abstractly, and I embraced the feeling. Having began the process of acculturation and learned to get by in Mandarin, I was able to savor the return more fully than had I just gotten off the place from New York.
I had previously written the city off in a way. Guangzhou, and nearby overnight-superstar Shenzhen, are China's export factory capitals, where cheap plastic goods and 90 percent of the disposable crap that fills up homes throughout the West originates. I had preconceptions of a city of mere commerce and hustle, of crooks and mobsters and squabbling for pieces of the pie. But it has revealed itself, of course, to be so much more. It's a large, top-tier city, with a first-rate subway, significantly larger and more diverse expat population and—most welcomingly—excellent food.
So with such rash biases thrown aside, I'm looking forward to plunging face first into the intoxicating aromas of home, here in Guangdong.
Income Disparities: Considering the Other in Guilt-conscious Tourism
For me, living and traveling in China is a constant reminder of the fact that its people are still largely poor and needy, and that at this stage in its economic rise, there are few, if any rules of etiquette when it comes to getting ahead.
As a traveler from the West, many locals find it difficult to understand why I would choose to leave a country like Australia or America in the first place, and why, if given the choice to go somewhere like England or France, I would choose to come to live, of all places, in China.
After the earthquake struck, those of us in Chengdu--so close to the epicenter yet so fortunately unharmed--felt idle in the face of so much suffering on our doorsteps. Not being picked to go out to one of the towns reduced to rubble in the initial rescue efforts, I made do with visiting some survivors brought in to Huaxi Hospital, supposedly Chengdu's finest.
I met an eight-year-old who has lost a leg and a sixteen year-old who was slowly losing sight in her left eye, her hand having been pressed against her eyeball for 72 hours by a concrete slab that had fallen on top of her. They had lost most of their classmates. Most wrenching however, was a pretty 22-year-old who had lost not only her legs, her friends and her family, but also her still-alive boyfriend, who, upon discovering what had happened to her, decided to break up.
When we talked, on the limited subjects that my Chinese permitted, she was courageously upbeat, given what she'd recently experienced. In their colorful, soft doll-filled hospital room with the two others, each with a personal helper—all volunteers, I learned—they had formed their own family of sorts. Martin, my English colleague who had allowed me to tag along, comes to see them each day, and during my stay they were frequently visited by well-wishers bearing gifts. It was both tragic and inspiring, and gave me some hope for times to come.
Naturally, when an opportunity to go entertain children at a refugee tent village arose with a local volunteer group, I jumped. And, at first, it actually felt rather magical. The kids were ecstatic upon our arrival—in no small part, though, due to the group's mostly Caucasian foreigner body. My group presented some of them with letters written in English by students from other nearby towns—assigned by their teachers in English class—and they wrote moving responses detailing their will to recover and achieve their goals. Parents and older refugees stood behind watching, broad smiles across their faces, grateful for our presence it seemed.
The following week, problems began to arise as the group's goal—to play with and entertain children for a few hours on Sunday—took a subtle, crucial twist. One volunteer, with all the good intentions of every foreign aid program that has exacerbated problems in Africa, took out the Pandora's box: a bag of sweets. The children immediately swamped her, arms outstretched, and she reacted by throwing the sweets into the quickly-gathering crowd, where they fought crazily, like children without access to candy.
Things got nastier the following week, when, upon arrival at the camp, the group attempted to hand out t-shirts it had purchased for each child. The line they originally created quickly devolved, and soon adults were involved, pushing and shoving for t-shirts. Instantly, curious "brothers" and "other children in the tent" were dreamed up, and some of the more entrepreneurial hoarders got away with perhaps ten or so shirts. For the rest of the day, the magic was not only lost, but a new mood had swept the crowd. When playing badminton, a man came up asking not to play, but simply for our rackets. When getting the pre-schoolers to draw pictures, adults came up asking me to procure shirts for them, and one boy kept asking for volunteers' watches. Relations had, as they so often do in China, been reduced to a matter of wealth. We had things that they didn't, and they realized now that they could get some of them from us, a proposition that for many seemed much more lucrative than our mere distracting their children for a few hours.
On the road, we visited Wulingyuan, a national park as great as the Grand Canyon, if not as famous, located in China's belly in Hunan province, home to Mao. It's sheer, towering karst-formed pillars of sandstone are the most dramatic I have ever seen; from a cable car to the top, it's a scene as dramatic and transcendent as a natural landscape has perhaps ever made me feel. But besides the brief moments of respite from the tour groups and hawkers, when we could appreciate our solitude and smallness in the face of such majesty, the trip was an extended hustle. Everybody, from the park authorities themselves, to the drivers, hotel staff, and service providers appear connected in a complex web of commission-based networks. All of them, from the second you stepped out of the park, were chasing your dollar. It might not have been as aggressive as some of the hawkers in Bali or Cambodia or other poor tourist destinations, but when you've paid an enormous park admission fee (245RMB), I quickly lost patience with having to constantly dole out extortionate prices on everything else.
We had decided to go rafting, one of the park's heavily marketed attractions, but upon seeing the site originally recommended to us, it's route unremarkable and its operator's shady, we decided to take a park official's suggestion. We paid 180 RMB for a supposedly two-hour raft trip about half an hour away. The journey ended up being closer to an hour and a half, and an hour's drive away. However, it was indeed, as beautiful as we'd hoped: idyllic, verdant countryside and sheer cliffs, eroded in intricate, diagonal lines, with only dragonflies and fish to bother us.
Traveling with two Canadians, we got onto the topic of national anthems, giving renditions of our own, before asking our raftsman if he'd mind singing us a bit of the Chinese one. A shabbily-dressed man, perhaps in his late-sixties, he declined. He had been silent for almost the entire trip, when he abruptly revealed his anger towards us.
"Tai shao le, tai shao le," he kept repeating, ("Too little") explaining that the rafting company wasn't paying him enough to make his job worthwhile. He was paid for each person he steered: three in our case, whereas normally he steered eight people at a time. His pay for each person? Four RMB, or about two percent of what we had paid the company.
It was, as with many times prior, another stark reminder of the realities of contemporary China. But floating along this stunningly tranquil river, having gotten as far away from the hustlers as we could, now juxtaposed against the simple sorrow of an elderly man toiling away for a pittance in the most dog-eat-dog capitalist society I've known felt particularly crushing.
As a traveler from the West, many locals find it difficult to understand why I would choose to leave a country like Australia or America in the first place, and why, if given the choice to go somewhere like England or France, I would choose to come to live, of all places, in China.
After the earthquake struck, those of us in Chengdu--so close to the epicenter yet so fortunately unharmed--felt idle in the face of so much suffering on our doorsteps. Not being picked to go out to one of the towns reduced to rubble in the initial rescue efforts, I made do with visiting some survivors brought in to Huaxi Hospital, supposedly Chengdu's finest.
I met an eight-year-old who has lost a leg and a sixteen year-old who was slowly losing sight in her left eye, her hand having been pressed against her eyeball for 72 hours by a concrete slab that had fallen on top of her. They had lost most of their classmates. Most wrenching however, was a pretty 22-year-old who had lost not only her legs, her friends and her family, but also her still-alive boyfriend, who, upon discovering what had happened to her, decided to break up.
When we talked, on the limited subjects that my Chinese permitted, she was courageously upbeat, given what she'd recently experienced. In their colorful, soft doll-filled hospital room with the two others, each with a personal helper—all volunteers, I learned—they had formed their own family of sorts. Martin, my English colleague who had allowed me to tag along, comes to see them each day, and during my stay they were frequently visited by well-wishers bearing gifts. It was both tragic and inspiring, and gave me some hope for times to come.
Naturally, when an opportunity to go entertain children at a refugee tent village arose with a local volunteer group, I jumped. And, at first, it actually felt rather magical. The kids were ecstatic upon our arrival—in no small part, though, due to the group's mostly Caucasian foreigner body. My group presented some of them with letters written in English by students from other nearby towns—assigned by their teachers in English class—and they wrote moving responses detailing their will to recover and achieve their goals. Parents and older refugees stood behind watching, broad smiles across their faces, grateful for our presence it seemed.
The following week, problems began to arise as the group's goal—to play with and entertain children for a few hours on Sunday—took a subtle, crucial twist. One volunteer, with all the good intentions of every foreign aid program that has exacerbated problems in Africa, took out the Pandora's box: a bag of sweets. The children immediately swamped her, arms outstretched, and she reacted by throwing the sweets into the quickly-gathering crowd, where they fought crazily, like children without access to candy.
Things got nastier the following week, when, upon arrival at the camp, the group attempted to hand out t-shirts it had purchased for each child. The line they originally created quickly devolved, and soon adults were involved, pushing and shoving for t-shirts. Instantly, curious "brothers" and "other children in the tent" were dreamed up, and some of the more entrepreneurial hoarders got away with perhaps ten or so shirts. For the rest of the day, the magic was not only lost, but a new mood had swept the crowd. When playing badminton, a man came up asking not to play, but simply for our rackets. When getting the pre-schoolers to draw pictures, adults came up asking me to procure shirts for them, and one boy kept asking for volunteers' watches. Relations had, as they so often do in China, been reduced to a matter of wealth. We had things that they didn't, and they realized now that they could get some of them from us, a proposition that for many seemed much more lucrative than our mere distracting their children for a few hours.
On the road, we visited Wulingyuan, a national park as great as the Grand Canyon, if not as famous, located in China's belly in Hunan province, home to Mao. It's sheer, towering karst-formed pillars of sandstone are the most dramatic I have ever seen; from a cable car to the top, it's a scene as dramatic and transcendent as a natural landscape has perhaps ever made me feel. But besides the brief moments of respite from the tour groups and hawkers, when we could appreciate our solitude and smallness in the face of such majesty, the trip was an extended hustle. Everybody, from the park authorities themselves, to the drivers, hotel staff, and service providers appear connected in a complex web of commission-based networks. All of them, from the second you stepped out of the park, were chasing your dollar. It might not have been as aggressive as some of the hawkers in Bali or Cambodia or other poor tourist destinations, but when you've paid an enormous park admission fee (245RMB), I quickly lost patience with having to constantly dole out extortionate prices on everything else.
We had decided to go rafting, one of the park's heavily marketed attractions, but upon seeing the site originally recommended to us, it's route unremarkable and its operator's shady, we decided to take a park official's suggestion. We paid 180 RMB for a supposedly two-hour raft trip about half an hour away. The journey ended up being closer to an hour and a half, and an hour's drive away. However, it was indeed, as beautiful as we'd hoped: idyllic, verdant countryside and sheer cliffs, eroded in intricate, diagonal lines, with only dragonflies and fish to bother us.
Traveling with two Canadians, we got onto the topic of national anthems, giving renditions of our own, before asking our raftsman if he'd mind singing us a bit of the Chinese one. A shabbily-dressed man, perhaps in his late-sixties, he declined. He had been silent for almost the entire trip, when he abruptly revealed his anger towards us.
"Tai shao le, tai shao le," he kept repeating, ("Too little") explaining that the rafting company wasn't paying him enough to make his job worthwhile. He was paid for each person he steered: three in our case, whereas normally he steered eight people at a time. His pay for each person? Four RMB, or about two percent of what we had paid the company.
It was, as with many times prior, another stark reminder of the realities of contemporary China. But floating along this stunningly tranquil river, having gotten as far away from the hustlers as we could, now juxtaposed against the simple sorrow of an elderly man toiling away for a pittance in the most dog-eat-dog capitalist society I've known felt particularly crushing.
Changing Money in China
I changed 2,000 RMB to US Dollars today at a Bank of China, the only bank I know that is authorized to convert money.
Outside the bank, a woman approached me soliciting money. At another chain, a security guard had offered to do the same for me when I realized I needed my passport in order to change money (Duh!, I know).
The whole transaction took about 45 minutes.
After waiting the 25 minutes or so for my number to be called, the teller sent me to another counter to fill out a form and copy my passport. They explained that the exchange rate was (August 2008) 6.8: lower than I’d expected. They had me wait another 5-10 minutes or so before sending me back over to the teller. Originally, they handed me another number slip, explaining: “Sorry but you have to line up again.”
Then—maybe after seeing my expression—the service woman said I could see if the teller would allow me to go ahead, avoiding the line. He was nice enough to do that, and after going through the paperwork and having another teller count the greenbacks, I had the net result: $290 USD finally in hand.
In Guangzhou, a trader acquaintance showed me an illegal money converter tucked into the back of a clothing store shop front. Skipping the bureaucracy, I would have gotten the money in a fraction of the time, though with greater risk of counterfeit dollars, or worse yet, getting in trouble with the state. Such are the risks that people take.
Outside the bank, a woman approached me soliciting money. At another chain, a security guard had offered to do the same for me when I realized I needed my passport in order to change money (Duh!, I know).
The whole transaction took about 45 minutes.
After waiting the 25 minutes or so for my number to be called, the teller sent me to another counter to fill out a form and copy my passport. They explained that the exchange rate was (August 2008) 6.8: lower than I’d expected. They had me wait another 5-10 minutes or so before sending me back over to the teller. Originally, they handed me another number slip, explaining: “Sorry but you have to line up again.”
Then—maybe after seeing my expression—the service woman said I could see if the teller would allow me to go ahead, avoiding the line. He was nice enough to do that, and after going through the paperwork and having another teller count the greenbacks, I had the net result: $290 USD finally in hand.
In Guangzhou, a trader acquaintance showed me an illegal money converter tucked into the back of a clothing store shop front. Skipping the bureaucracy, I would have gotten the money in a fraction of the time, though with greater risk of counterfeit dollars, or worse yet, getting in trouble with the state. Such are the risks that people take.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
National outpouring and Earthquake curses
On Monday, May 19th, one week after the Sichuan earthquake struck, the first of three national days of mourning begun at 2:28 pm. I was at Chengdu’s Sports University, and stood behind a small assembly of university staff, lined up in rows, heads solemnly bowed, facing the Chinese flag atop one of the campus’ administrative buildings. As had been planned, emergency sirens, joined by car horns, filled the air in mournful chorus.
That evening, a large informal gathering took place at Tianfu Square, Chengdu’s answer to Tiananmen. As is common practice in Chinese urban centers, it is—as its name infers—a giant concrete square, headed by a statue of a waving Mao and dotted with fountains and large wire coil-shaped lights. From the outside, it looked like people had organized a giant vigil of sorts, with candlelights glowing both in hands and a number of gently ascending helium baskets. But upon entering the square, we could immediately see that the gathering was far less organized, and far more raucous.
Long chains of spontaneous marchers weaved through, filled mostly with students and young adults. Many were quite fashionably dressed in heels and colorful dresses; others wore more casual garb. They pumped their fists in the air as they chanted passionately, their voices heavy with emotion.
“Zhongguo Jiayou!” (“Go China!”) they chanted, followed by “Sichuan Chungsi!” (“Go Sichuan!” in Sichuanese).
Meanwhile, others set up small memorials of candle arrangements and flowers, on the ground and in existing flowerbeds. Wherever they were set up, a huge crowd of interested watchers surrounded the small vigil in concentric circles, digital cameras and phones snapping and filming away.
Perhaps most interesting were the wax clean-ups. I have never seen anyone scrape wax off of the floor—in a public square no less--as vigorously as these small half dozen-sized groups of citizens who took it upon themselves to clean off any candle wax left on the ground, from a memorial or otherwise. When asked why they were cleaning the floor, two young women replied: “Because we saw other people doing it.”
They used their hands, and often credit cards, to get beneath the wax, which was collected into small piles and quickly thrown out. This, in a country in which it is not uncommon to see children take dumps on the sidewalks (though sometimes newspaper is placed out beneath them first); where spitting is an unofficial national pastime. If this surge of national pride means less filthy streets, I think many will welcome such change. Somehow, though, one can’t help but feel that broader changes than street sanitation may result from all of this year’s events.
My group, finally managing to reunite due to limited cell phone service, decided a patio drink at one of the city’s riverside bars would be nice on this, a pleasant spring evening. It took a phone call to remind us that all bars were closed during the three days of mourning, and then a security guard at our apartment door later than evening, to inform us of the government’s (ill-founded) prediction of another major earthquake. In the ensuing pandemonium of traffic and blankets, we slept beneath a large One Child Policy statue.
Many Chinese see the earthquake as linked to a series of cursed events, often using numbers and local superstitions as proof. 2008 is seen by some as a cursed year, just as 1998, 1988 and 1978—the year of Mao’s death—were before it. From May 12th to August 8th—the start of the Olympic ceremony—are 88 days. The day of the earthquake, May 12th, as well as the Lhasa riots, April 13th, in sum total eight. When I asked my tutor why eight might be construed as cursed when it is also commonly linked to prosperity—the two words are similar sounding in Chinese—she wasn’t sure.
Even those ever-present, stuffed doll-ready Olympic mascots have been tied to the curse. Of the five, Jingjing the panda represents the earthquake, as pandas are found here in Sichuan. The Tibetan antelope mascot represents the recent Tibetan unrest, the kite mascot represents the city of Shandong, where a recent train crash occurred and the flame-red mascot represents recent tumult surrounding the torch relay. The only remaining mascot is Beibei, a sturgeon fish, linked alternatively to the Yangtze and to Beijing and the Games themselves.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Earthquake Diary
Earthquake Diary
Less than an hour’s drive from here is Dujiangyuan, the small town--previously famous only for its ancient irrigation system--that has become the focus of headlines the world over.
Here in Chengdu, only four days after what has been dubbed “The Great Sichuan Earthquake”, life has essentially returned to normalcy. Though most schools remain closed, some universities have resumed classes, and many shops and businesses have already restarted.
The earthquake at this point, for many Chengdu residents, is a psychological game of probability and worst possible scenario. Against the background of everyday life is the constant preying on the nerves of the possibility of another large quake. Jitters kick in with each successive apartment-jiggling tremor, lasting perhaps a few seconds but strong enough to remind us of what can—and has already—happened. The questions residents ask one another: “Is it alright to sleep inside tonight?”, “Should we still stay together at all times by this point?” are pondered over unrelenting waves of rumours and prophecy.
Text messaging—as with increasingly organized, rapidly mobilized protests—is the key instrument of viral rumors. They continue to spread, almost invariably warning of the “next big one.”
“My uncle works for the government’s earthquake bureau and he said there will be a big earthquake at 2:00 and 10:00 P.M.” one of them read. And, with people as shaken up and fearful as they are, they continue to react accordingly. They brace themselves for round two of the original quake, at whatever time it is supposed to strike, then, according to the next rumour, the following one, and again, a few hours after that, ad infinitum. To date, these wild speculative flurries have proven completely untrue, but not enough for those who cry wolf to stop calling.
Let’s hope the wolf does never come again, given how hungry for lives the first one was.
On Wednesday the water was turned off in parts of the city, due it appears to the leaking of toxic chemicals into Chengdu’s water supply. The rumour mill immediately kicked in, whispering that it would be off for a week. Within minutes, shops all over the city sold out of water as rampant hording began. A trip to the supermarket displayed bare beverage aisles a la past decades of patchy Soviet goods provision. With water no longer available, shoppers filled their carts with soda and orange juice: surely not the best way to combat dehydration in the event of a water crisis.
The rumours, yet again, proved to be unfounded.
Outside, from university campuses to parks and fields to any possible suitable space, makeshift villages of canvas have formed. Many have pitched hastily bought tents; others have made ingenious use of tarpaulin and rope, as thousands continue to sleep outside for fear of their home collapsing. Walking around camps earlier on there was a certain sense of adventure in the air. A friend described the evening of the quake as “like being at a music festival.” With work and school on hold, people found themselves on “emergency holiday,” and wasted no time in doing as the Sichuanese do so well: breaking out card decks and Mahjong tiles for some camp-out leisure and conversation.
But more recently, as days of sleeping outside with limited access to amenities lengthen, a sense of lethargic desperation has crept in. Some have begun to return to their apartments and dorms, but others have still been denied entry by cautious authorities and landlords. Others, stripped down to shorts and sandals, beneath canvas shade and supplies of instant noodles, choose the relative peace of mind of remaining outside, weathering the uncomfortable humidity of late Spring.
Meanwhile, the relief effort carries on, with fundraiser benefits, donation drives, volunteer sign-ups and the like. At a benefit event on Thursday evening, foreigners donned “I love China” t-shirts—perhaps to demonstrate their equal concerns for victims and the desire to take active part in the relief work--as they bid on wine auctions and filled in volunteer forms with relevant technical skills. In addition to the Red Cross and other NGOs heavily involved in the rescue effort are individual, self-motivated efforts, such as that of some of the Israeli students living in Chengdu.
I caught up with one of them, a Krav Maga instructor who I previously interviewed for a magazine article, who has been personally involved in the rescuing. When two Israeli travelers went missing and the country was considering sending its own rescue team for them, Eliran and a friend traveled out to the town where the women were supposed to have been traveling. They found the girls, in shock and attempting to walk back--a delusional idea--and took them back to Chengdu for surgery. One of the women had her broken jaw operated on and another lost a few fingers. It turns out that a restaurant had collapsed while they were inside.
My Chinese teacher has gone to a hospital in Deyang to help out with providing care and basic assistance to the many victims. Less direct in form but equally valuable are the many people who are dropping off blankets, sleeping bags and non-perishables at desperately under-stocked hospitals and field sites.
Despite all of these efforts, it’s difficult not to feel increasingly skeptical of the chances of pulling out more survivors from the rubble, this long after the initial quake. The death toll, well over 20,000 people at this point, is estimated to reach 50,000 people by the government.
Less than an hour’s drive from here is Dujiangyuan, the small town--previously famous only for its ancient irrigation system--that has become the focus of headlines the world over.
Here in Chengdu, only four days after what has been dubbed “The Great Sichuan Earthquake”, life has essentially returned to normalcy. Though most schools remain closed, some universities have resumed classes, and many shops and businesses have already restarted.
The earthquake at this point, for many Chengdu residents, is a psychological game of probability and worst possible scenario. Against the background of everyday life is the constant preying on the nerves of the possibility of another large quake. Jitters kick in with each successive apartment-jiggling tremor, lasting perhaps a few seconds but strong enough to remind us of what can—and has already—happened. The questions residents ask one another: “Is it alright to sleep inside tonight?”, “Should we still stay together at all times by this point?” are pondered over unrelenting waves of rumours and prophecy.
Text messaging—as with increasingly organized, rapidly mobilized protests—is the key instrument of viral rumors. They continue to spread, almost invariably warning of the “next big one.”
“My uncle works for the government’s earthquake bureau and he said there will be a big earthquake at 2:00 and 10:00 P.M.” one of them read. And, with people as shaken up and fearful as they are, they continue to react accordingly. They brace themselves for round two of the original quake, at whatever time it is supposed to strike, then, according to the next rumour, the following one, and again, a few hours after that, ad infinitum. To date, these wild speculative flurries have proven completely untrue, but not enough for those who cry wolf to stop calling.
Let’s hope the wolf does never come again, given how hungry for lives the first one was.
On Wednesday the water was turned off in parts of the city, due it appears to the leaking of toxic chemicals into Chengdu’s water supply. The rumour mill immediately kicked in, whispering that it would be off for a week. Within minutes, shops all over the city sold out of water as rampant hording began. A trip to the supermarket displayed bare beverage aisles a la past decades of patchy Soviet goods provision. With water no longer available, shoppers filled their carts with soda and orange juice: surely not the best way to combat dehydration in the event of a water crisis.
The rumours, yet again, proved to be unfounded.
Outside, from university campuses to parks and fields to any possible suitable space, makeshift villages of canvas have formed. Many have pitched hastily bought tents; others have made ingenious use of tarpaulin and rope, as thousands continue to sleep outside for fear of their home collapsing. Walking around camps earlier on there was a certain sense of adventure in the air. A friend described the evening of the quake as “like being at a music festival.” With work and school on hold, people found themselves on “emergency holiday,” and wasted no time in doing as the Sichuanese do so well: breaking out card decks and Mahjong tiles for some camp-out leisure and conversation.
But more recently, as days of sleeping outside with limited access to amenities lengthen, a sense of lethargic desperation has crept in. Some have begun to return to their apartments and dorms, but others have still been denied entry by cautious authorities and landlords. Others, stripped down to shorts and sandals, beneath canvas shade and supplies of instant noodles, choose the relative peace of mind of remaining outside, weathering the uncomfortable humidity of late Spring.
Meanwhile, the relief effort carries on, with fundraiser benefits, donation drives, volunteer sign-ups and the like. At a benefit event on Thursday evening, foreigners donned “I love China” t-shirts—perhaps to demonstrate their equal concerns for victims and the desire to take active part in the relief work--as they bid on wine auctions and filled in volunteer forms with relevant technical skills. In addition to the Red Cross and other NGOs heavily involved in the rescue effort are individual, self-motivated efforts, such as that of some of the Israeli students living in Chengdu.
I caught up with one of them, a Krav Maga instructor who I previously interviewed for a magazine article, who has been personally involved in the rescuing. When two Israeli travelers went missing and the country was considering sending its own rescue team for them, Eliran and a friend traveled out to the town where the women were supposed to have been traveling. They found the girls, in shock and attempting to walk back--a delusional idea--and took them back to Chengdu for surgery. One of the women had her broken jaw operated on and another lost a few fingers. It turns out that a restaurant had collapsed while they were inside.
My Chinese teacher has gone to a hospital in Deyang to help out with providing care and basic assistance to the many victims. Less direct in form but equally valuable are the many people who are dropping off blankets, sleeping bags and non-perishables at desperately under-stocked hospitals and field sites.
Despite all of these efforts, it’s difficult not to feel increasingly skeptical of the chances of pulling out more survivors from the rubble, this long after the initial quake. The death toll, well over 20,000 people at this point, is estimated to reach 50,000 people by the government.
On Rising Chinese Nationalism
Here in Chengdu, signals of China’s rising nationalism are everywhere.
In Sichuan University, Chinese flags hang from the windows of college dorms. Until recently, this was something one rarely ever saw.
A middle school student of mine told me he and his classmates want to plaster “Made in China” across their chests, as a symbol of pride, an inversion of the label commonly found on consumer goods available overseas. Another student of mine, who works for Nokia in Chengdu, told me that before the recent Tibet flare-up, many young Chinese didn’t feel particularly nationalistic, until they realized, following the Western coverage of Tibet and the torch relay, that there were “so many unfriendly nations” against China.
Rising Chinese nationalism is a common motif of Western foreign correspondents, up there alongside food and product safety scares and Tibet. They often talk about how nationalism has replaced Marxism as the country’s ideology, and of its rising potency as a force for democratic liberalization and a subsequent weakening of the Party. They also describe a sort of intense furor, one that infers future aggression in its relations with outsiders, such as through the country’s foreign policy.
The Olympics in China is, as one might imagine, a huge deal. I’ve never lived in a country during the Olympics and it’s to be expected that they would make a fuss over it, but the Olympics logo can be seen plastered on everything from ice-cream wrappers to television cartoons starring the Olympic mascots. For China, its government and its people, the Olympics is their coming-out party of sorts, in which it announces to the world its place as a global superpower, celebrating its rapid rise from poverty to prominence.
In addition, perhaps more so than people in other countries, Chinese take criticism of their own nation personally. A colleague of mine estimates that 80 percent of Chinese genuinely, passionately love their country, far more I would say than those from many Western countries. This is instilled at a young age in school, when students learn the “We Love China” pledge and reasons are plastered up on classroom walls. To me such nationalism is similar in zeal to the sort taught in American schools, both of which are far heavier than the comparatively cynical Australia.
So, in a situation such as this, where the Olympics has involved such enormous investment of national pride and international “face”, this more recent burst of negative press in the Western media was taken as a serious insult. The biggest case in point: when a Chinese wheelchair-bound athlete carrying the Olympic torch was attacked by protesters in France.
Following this, a nationwide boycotting of the French supermarket chain Carrefour took place on May 1st, a national holiday in China. According to a local, people stood outside the store encouraging potential patrons to shop elsewhere, and pictures were posted online of empty supermarket aisles.
Some might wonder what’s the big deal they’re making? It’s not like they were attacked and had thousands of people die, such as with 9-11, right?
Though true, I think that gives a severely reductive, almost mathematical explanation to a much more complex force. Nationalism is inherently emotive, and in China, it feels to many people like much of the world, not just a group of fundamental Muslims or a terrorist organization, are out to get them. In such circumstances, considering how ethnically homogenous and often ethnocentric (all non-Chinese are often lumped together in discussion as “waiguoren” – “foreigners”) China can be, it’s no wonder the tides of opinion towards the outside turns so quickly.
--
I’ve not heard of any actual incidents of violence. One widely reported story of an American volunteer being attacked outside a Carrefour was later found to be false, when the alleged victim wrote into the newsblog himself, in order to correct the sensationalist version of the incident being reported.
But what does seem more common is for Caucasians in China to be treated much more wearily: whilst shopping, a British friend overheard a sales assistant say “I can’t believe that Frenchman has the nerve to show his face here,” and “I’m going to kill that Frenchman” from a man when in a public bathroom. He hasn’t been attacked, however, and does not fear it occurring. Outside my apartment complex, a Caucasian and a Chinese man were involved in a crowd-drawing shouting match, before the police took the Caucasian man away--to where I’m unsure.
--
From discussions with locals and following online discussions, I think the major issue that irks young, educated Chinese about foreign relations is the ignorance and faux-sympathy of Westerners towards China. They’re agitated by the way may Westerners smugly hold that Chinese citizens are controlled by state media, mere blind pawns being drummed into a nationalistic fervor by their evil leaders. More so than anything else, it is this stripping of any sort of individual agency, as if they were passive machines, that outrages them.
They remind me that whilst they read both Chinese (state-run but also independent blogs and independent media) and Western (English-language) outside media, most Westerners do not read Chinese media (many are incapable of doing so).
They talk about how many of them have studied, traveled to and are reasonably knowledgeable about the West, but how little Westerners know about China, beyond the negative coverage they read about human rights and trade deficits.
One student said she used to believe that Western media was more trustworthy and balanced as a source of news, but following the Tibet coverage, her opinion was greatly lowered. Now she considers it not much different from Chinese media.
These young professionals are the more intellectually nuanced and well informed of Chinese society. Surely, other segments of the population are less thought-out and more non-discriminatingly angry and weary of the West at present. Much, one might notice, like it is in the United States or other Western nations.
--
Interesting articles:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0501/p09s02-coop.html
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/JE07Ad02.html
http://ieas.berkeley.edu/shorenstein/1996.10.html
http://shanghaiist.com/2008/04/24/volunteer_in_ch.php
In Sichuan University, Chinese flags hang from the windows of college dorms. Until recently, this was something one rarely ever saw.
A middle school student of mine told me he and his classmates want to plaster “Made in China” across their chests, as a symbol of pride, an inversion of the label commonly found on consumer goods available overseas. Another student of mine, who works for Nokia in Chengdu, told me that before the recent Tibet flare-up, many young Chinese didn’t feel particularly nationalistic, until they realized, following the Western coverage of Tibet and the torch relay, that there were “so many unfriendly nations” against China.
Rising Chinese nationalism is a common motif of Western foreign correspondents, up there alongside food and product safety scares and Tibet. They often talk about how nationalism has replaced Marxism as the country’s ideology, and of its rising potency as a force for democratic liberalization and a subsequent weakening of the Party. They also describe a sort of intense furor, one that infers future aggression in its relations with outsiders, such as through the country’s foreign policy.
The Olympics in China is, as one might imagine, a huge deal. I’ve never lived in a country during the Olympics and it’s to be expected that they would make a fuss over it, but the Olympics logo can be seen plastered on everything from ice-cream wrappers to television cartoons starring the Olympic mascots. For China, its government and its people, the Olympics is their coming-out party of sorts, in which it announces to the world its place as a global superpower, celebrating its rapid rise from poverty to prominence.
In addition, perhaps more so than people in other countries, Chinese take criticism of their own nation personally. A colleague of mine estimates that 80 percent of Chinese genuinely, passionately love their country, far more I would say than those from many Western countries. This is instilled at a young age in school, when students learn the “We Love China” pledge and reasons are plastered up on classroom walls. To me such nationalism is similar in zeal to the sort taught in American schools, both of which are far heavier than the comparatively cynical Australia.
So, in a situation such as this, where the Olympics has involved such enormous investment of national pride and international “face”, this more recent burst of negative press in the Western media was taken as a serious insult. The biggest case in point: when a Chinese wheelchair-bound athlete carrying the Olympic torch was attacked by protesters in France.
Following this, a nationwide boycotting of the French supermarket chain Carrefour took place on May 1st, a national holiday in China. According to a local, people stood outside the store encouraging potential patrons to shop elsewhere, and pictures were posted online of empty supermarket aisles.
Some might wonder what’s the big deal they’re making? It’s not like they were attacked and had thousands of people die, such as with 9-11, right?
Though true, I think that gives a severely reductive, almost mathematical explanation to a much more complex force. Nationalism is inherently emotive, and in China, it feels to many people like much of the world, not just a group of fundamental Muslims or a terrorist organization, are out to get them. In such circumstances, considering how ethnically homogenous and often ethnocentric (all non-Chinese are often lumped together in discussion as “waiguoren” – “foreigners”) China can be, it’s no wonder the tides of opinion towards the outside turns so quickly.
--
I’ve not heard of any actual incidents of violence. One widely reported story of an American volunteer being attacked outside a Carrefour was later found to be false, when the alleged victim wrote into the newsblog himself, in order to correct the sensationalist version of the incident being reported.
But what does seem more common is for Caucasians in China to be treated much more wearily: whilst shopping, a British friend overheard a sales assistant say “I can’t believe that Frenchman has the nerve to show his face here,” and “I’m going to kill that Frenchman” from a man when in a public bathroom. He hasn’t been attacked, however, and does not fear it occurring. Outside my apartment complex, a Caucasian and a Chinese man were involved in a crowd-drawing shouting match, before the police took the Caucasian man away--to where I’m unsure.
--
From discussions with locals and following online discussions, I think the major issue that irks young, educated Chinese about foreign relations is the ignorance and faux-sympathy of Westerners towards China. They’re agitated by the way may Westerners smugly hold that Chinese citizens are controlled by state media, mere blind pawns being drummed into a nationalistic fervor by their evil leaders. More so than anything else, it is this stripping of any sort of individual agency, as if they were passive machines, that outrages them.
They remind me that whilst they read both Chinese (state-run but also independent blogs and independent media) and Western (English-language) outside media, most Westerners do not read Chinese media (many are incapable of doing so).
They talk about how many of them have studied, traveled to and are reasonably knowledgeable about the West, but how little Westerners know about China, beyond the negative coverage they read about human rights and trade deficits.
One student said she used to believe that Western media was more trustworthy and balanced as a source of news, but following the Tibet coverage, her opinion was greatly lowered. Now she considers it not much different from Chinese media.
These young professionals are the more intellectually nuanced and well informed of Chinese society. Surely, other segments of the population are less thought-out and more non-discriminatingly angry and weary of the West at present. Much, one might notice, like it is in the United States or other Western nations.
--
Interesting articles:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0501/p09s02-coop.html
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/JE07Ad02.html
http://ieas.berkeley.edu/shorenstein/1996.10.html
http://shanghaiist.com/2008/04/24/volunteer_in_ch.php
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