Youtube has returned to the Middle Kingdom, so I'll celebrate with a non-China post.
Where the Wild Things Are, the movie, is coming! This is a convergence of many of my personal interests:
1) Who doesn't love fantasy stories with monsters? It was books like this that sparked my interest in different worlds. This may be a contributing factor to why I'm in a country where sticking burning hot cups on your back is considered normal medical practice.
2) Spike Jonze is directing. Being John Malkovich and Adaptation were two of the most creative and interesting movies of the 90s, it will be great to see Jonze behind the lens of another movie that mixes fantasy and reality.
3) Arcade fire is doing the music. This band may be more concerned with putting as many musicians as possible on a stage (or in an elevator) and proving that they can play six instruments each than putting it all together to make coherent music, but they still can produce some interesting sounds.
Release date for Mainland China has not yet been announced.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Obama in China
Yesterday, I bought a copy of Barack's autobiography, Dreams of My Father, for about three bucks. There may be something wrong with buying an illegal copy of the president's book, but I couldn't afford the 20 dollar real imported version. I haven't started reading the book, but it looks like someone just scanned it into a computer page-by-page and then formatted it poorly and printed it out on thin paper using pretty weak ink. It's readable. I imagine not much of my 3 bucks will make it back to the poor bastard who stood over a scanner for hours digitizing the thing.
Barack never really got much love from the Chinese, who would prefer a stable, predictable president (Mao said always go with the Republicans), rather than an unknown liberal who might grill them over human rights. On top of this, China remained one of the few countries where Bush's approval rating was higher than America (in fact it was over 50% positive). A country that's okay with Bush couldn't be too excited about a new president talking about 'change.'
One of the best things that's happened since Barack's election is my ability to deal with the "American" question here. I've heard many Chinese say: "you don't look American." More than a dozen have thought I look Iranian. Now I just shoot back, "What's an American look like, anyway? Does our president look American?" Another wonderful thing is debunking decades of anti-American propaganda. Since 1949, the CCP has portrayed America as a horribly segregated, racist country where blacks are oppressed and have no hope. We still have a long way to go before racism fades and people stop making juvenile movies like "Crash" and start trying to get at the roots of black/white inequality. But whenever a Chinese person asks (as happened to me just yesterday during a failed haircut attempt), "Aren't black people all second-class citizens over there?", it's great to be able to respond, "Is our president a second-class citizen?"
Excitement over Barack still hasn't picked up, and while I don't agree with many of his policies, and he's obviously waffling on the banks, the utter lack of enthusiasm for such an historic election has been somewhat disconcerting. To combat the malaise, I bought two Obama/Hope T-shirts made in Guangzhou and I've been wearing them around. Chinese people always comment on it and often I get a chance to proselytize. Barack fever may never sweep China, but after seeing his address to the Iranians, I believe that a similar PR strategy could work incredibly well here too. A couple weeks ago, Wen Jiabao, the Premier, addressed netizens in what was an obviously coordinated series of silly pre-picked questions (how much do you sleep everday?). Still the event was a huge success. If Barack wants to get on the Chinese people's good side (and considering their fear of the dollar's stability, he should), a similar youtube-conversation, although freer than Wen's, could go a long way. Now we just have to wait for youtube to be unblocked.
Barack never really got much love from the Chinese, who would prefer a stable, predictable president (Mao said always go with the Republicans), rather than an unknown liberal who might grill them over human rights. On top of this, China remained one of the few countries where Bush's approval rating was higher than America (in fact it was over 50% positive). A country that's okay with Bush couldn't be too excited about a new president talking about 'change.'
One of the best things that's happened since Barack's election is my ability to deal with the "American" question here. I've heard many Chinese say: "you don't look American." More than a dozen have thought I look Iranian. Now I just shoot back, "What's an American look like, anyway? Does our president look American?" Another wonderful thing is debunking decades of anti-American propaganda. Since 1949, the CCP has portrayed America as a horribly segregated, racist country where blacks are oppressed and have no hope. We still have a long way to go before racism fades and people stop making juvenile movies like "Crash" and start trying to get at the roots of black/white inequality. But whenever a Chinese person asks (as happened to me just yesterday during a failed haircut attempt), "Aren't black people all second-class citizens over there?", it's great to be able to respond, "Is our president a second-class citizen?"
Excitement over Barack still hasn't picked up, and while I don't agree with many of his policies, and he's obviously waffling on the banks, the utter lack of enthusiasm for such an historic election has been somewhat disconcerting. To combat the malaise, I bought two Obama/Hope T-shirts made in Guangzhou and I've been wearing them around. Chinese people always comment on it and often I get a chance to proselytize. Barack fever may never sweep China, but after seeing his address to the Iranians, I believe that a similar PR strategy could work incredibly well here too. A couple weeks ago, Wen Jiabao, the Premier, addressed netizens in what was an obviously coordinated series of silly pre-picked questions (how much do you sleep everday?). Still the event was a huge success. If Barack wants to get on the Chinese people's good side (and considering their fear of the dollar's stability, he should), a similar youtube-conversation, although freer than Wen's, could go a long way. Now we just have to wait for youtube to be unblocked.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Youtube is Blocked!
I noticed something odd when I tried to watch a harmless music video. When I switched to my browser that was running out of Germany (a country full of the most responsible netizens you can find), I had no problem accessing Youtube, which means it was blocked. Apparently the reason for the blockage is this video of Chinese soldiers beating the hell out of Tibetans last year. Xinhua has reported that the video is faked by the Dalai Lama, a/k/a the Tibetan John Carpenter. Obviously a fake video is a threat to internal stability. To be perfectly honest, this video wouldn't convert a single Chinese person to the Dalai Lama's cause even if it were run on a non-stop loop on Chinese Central TV for days on end. You don't stay in power for 60 years without being cautious.
The Great Firewall gets a lot of publicity outside of China, and most Chinese internet users are aware of its existence. Surprisingly, it's very easy to circumvent, but that's not the point. This site teaches you (in Chinese!) how to jump the wall and rock on in the free world (at least online). This site is not blocked. So what's the point? According to James Fallows of the Atlantic (annual subscription for under 50 bucks, do it now!), as long as the government makes it slightly difficult to get to that information, only people with a bone to pick with the government already will bother to hop over the firewall and bathe in the soothing, unfiltered waters of freedom.
I agree with Fallows's conclusion, but would also add that the internet has created much more access to information than the government would like and people like all the Chinese blogs on my blogroll routinely criticize the government online without being blocked or facing retribution. (That much cannot be said for Zan Aizong, whose blog is blocked and he is prevented from leaving the country.)
Currently Ai Weiwei, former artist and now full-time activist, is roiling the government over its negligence in building supervision of Sichuan schools that collapsed killing thousands of students.
I think in the end the Great Firewall, like the Great Wall itself will fail. People won't put up with it forever. The only question is: "when?"
The Great Firewall gets a lot of publicity outside of China, and most Chinese internet users are aware of its existence. Surprisingly, it's very easy to circumvent, but that's not the point. This site teaches you (in Chinese!) how to jump the wall and rock on in the free world (at least online). This site is not blocked. So what's the point? According to James Fallows of the Atlantic (annual subscription for under 50 bucks, do it now!), as long as the government makes it slightly difficult to get to that information, only people with a bone to pick with the government already will bother to hop over the firewall and bathe in the soothing, unfiltered waters of freedom.
I agree with Fallows's conclusion, but would also add that the internet has created much more access to information than the government would like and people like all the Chinese blogs on my blogroll routinely criticize the government online without being blocked or facing retribution. (That much cannot be said for Zan Aizong, whose blog is blocked and he is prevented from leaving the country.)
Currently Ai Weiwei, former artist and now full-time activist, is roiling the government over its negligence in building supervision of Sichuan schools that collapsed killing thousands of students.
I think in the end the Great Firewall, like the Great Wall itself will fail. People won't put up with it forever. The only question is: "when?"
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Security Guard Marries American Woman
A few weeks ago, Cai Xiaohua, a 35 year old security guard with no high school education married 26 year old Daphne, a native of New Jersey. Xiaohua worked at the gate of the school where Daphne taught English. The relationship began with Daphne entering the guard house and demanding to talk to him. When her Chinese wasn't good enough, they would communicate by drawing pictures. They are currently on their honeymoon. (Full story in Chinese)
This story has appeared around the country and is unusual not just because of the differences in the couple's backgrounds, but also because of their sexes. Of the 58,000 foreign-Chinese marriages that took place here last year, I would guess (hard statistics on this were surprisingly hard to track down) that more than 40,000 of them involve a foreign man, who is probably old, bad-looking, dorky, or rich, and a Chinese woman. I've only ever seen three or four couples in which the woman was foreign in my two years in Beijing, but I've seen hundreds the other way around.
The netizens' reactions to this news item were mostly positive (here in Chinese):
"What a badass [the security guard is]!"
"What a lucky couple!"
"What a pretty bride!"
"I wish you luck!"
Compare these congratulatory statements to the reaction netizens have to a foreign man marrying a foreign woman. (These from a post about Zhang Ziyi and her boyfriend via lostlaowai blog.)
“She is so cheap in the Chinese people’s minds. She’s dead to the Chinese people and should leave China forever.”
“Women who marry foreign devils should be hung.”
“She is shameless and cheap. He will leave her soon. Can’t she find a Chinese man to please her? After the foreign devils f- her she will be useless.”
“After the foreigner tastes her snatch they will know she has a decaying one!”
“The old man just wants to have sex with her.”
“Zhang Ziyi is just a high level prostitute that only likes foreign d--k!”
It is disturbing to see that the nationalist overtones also bear strongly sexist ones too. It is okay for Chinese men to marry foreign women but not the other way around. Many people say that a lot of the rage Chinese netizens express for foreigners comes from both racism and an inferiority/superiority complex.
Interestingly enough, the only negative comments I found on the Security Guard/American Woman story seem to support this theory:
"What happens when she finds out his d--k isn't long enough?"
"What a brave girl. It would be like a Chinese moving to Africa and marrying an African."
"He wouldn't dare marry an African."
"They'll get divorced after she realizes that their sexual relations aren't harmonious."
One of the main reasons the Chinese-as-husband marriages are acceptable is the general view of women, not just in China of course, as being weaker. For the last two centuries, many Chinese have felt that their homeland is the woman to the West's man, and for some, reminders of that imbalanced relationship can provoke visceral reactions. When foreign men marry Chinese women, it reminds the angry youth, the majority of whom are boys, of foreign exploitation. The act of Western men stealing innocent Chinese women away expresses what many Chinese perceive as Western superiority over their own country in a concrete, physical and sexual way. A Chinese man marrying a foreign women, therefore, is role reversal. The Chinese man is the strong, dominant person in the relationship, and the West is put in its place. Under this framework, Chinese women are expected to eschew the advances of Western men while Chinese men are free to do whatever they want.
Given the number of Chinese women who still marry foreigners, however, it is clear that this mindset has not taken over mainstream Chinese thought. But as the angry youths' voices grow louder, it will be interesting to see how this nationalist-tainted form of sexism continues to develop.
This story has appeared around the country and is unusual not just because of the differences in the couple's backgrounds, but also because of their sexes. Of the 58,000 foreign-Chinese marriages that took place here last year, I would guess (hard statistics on this were surprisingly hard to track down) that more than 40,000 of them involve a foreign man, who is probably old, bad-looking, dorky, or rich, and a Chinese woman. I've only ever seen three or four couples in which the woman was foreign in my two years in Beijing, but I've seen hundreds the other way around.
The netizens' reactions to this news item were mostly positive (here in Chinese):
"What a badass [the security guard is]!"
"What a lucky couple!"
"What a pretty bride!"
"I wish you luck!"
Compare these congratulatory statements to the reaction netizens have to a foreign man marrying a foreign woman. (These from a post about Zhang Ziyi and her boyfriend via lostlaowai blog.)
“She is so cheap in the Chinese people’s minds. She’s dead to the Chinese people and should leave China forever.”
“Women who marry foreign devils should be hung.”
“She is shameless and cheap. He will leave her soon. Can’t she find a Chinese man to please her? After the foreign devils f- her she will be useless.”
“After the foreigner tastes her snatch they will know she has a decaying one!”
“The old man just wants to have sex with her.”
“Zhang Ziyi is just a high level prostitute that only likes foreign d--k!”
It is disturbing to see that the nationalist overtones also bear strongly sexist ones too. It is okay for Chinese men to marry foreign women but not the other way around. Many people say that a lot of the rage Chinese netizens express for foreigners comes from both racism and an inferiority/superiority complex.
Interestingly enough, the only negative comments I found on the Security Guard/American Woman story seem to support this theory:
"What happens when she finds out his d--k isn't long enough?"
"What a brave girl. It would be like a Chinese moving to Africa and marrying an African."
"He wouldn't dare marry an African."
"They'll get divorced after she realizes that their sexual relations aren't harmonious."
One of the main reasons the Chinese-as-husband marriages are acceptable is the general view of women, not just in China of course, as being weaker. For the last two centuries, many Chinese have felt that their homeland is the woman to the West's man, and for some, reminders of that imbalanced relationship can provoke visceral reactions. When foreign men marry Chinese women, it reminds the angry youth, the majority of whom are boys, of foreign exploitation. The act of Western men stealing innocent Chinese women away expresses what many Chinese perceive as Western superiority over their own country in a concrete, physical and sexual way. A Chinese man marrying a foreign women, therefore, is role reversal. The Chinese man is the strong, dominant person in the relationship, and the West is put in its place. Under this framework, Chinese women are expected to eschew the advances of Western men while Chinese men are free to do whatever they want.
Given the number of Chinese women who still marry foreigners, however, it is clear that this mindset has not taken over mainstream Chinese thought. But as the angry youths' voices grow louder, it will be interesting to see how this nationalist-tainted form of sexism continues to develop.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Three Things
I am sick today, so I will keep the post brief.
1) I attended a lecture given by two French-language authors, one from Haiti and one from Madagascar. The Alliance Francaise (the French Cultural Center) paid for the two authors to come and give free speeches in China with funds from the French government. The two men occasionally bump into colonialism in their works and had harsh words for the French government. When will the American Cultural Center follow suit and send Noam Chomsky to Beijing so I can see him before he passes away?
The author from Madagascar said that the authoritarian regime on that island country receives military supplies from China. I haven't been able to confirm this, but given the government's involvement with Sudan, Burma, Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka, I wouldn't be surprised.
2) This is how I feel occasionally as an expat in China. If anyone knows what the knight is doing in the frame at the end, please let me know.
3) I am learning how to whistle so I can properly pronounce "fish" and "go" in Chinese. Tips would be appreciated.
1) I attended a lecture given by two French-language authors, one from Haiti and one from Madagascar. The Alliance Francaise (the French Cultural Center) paid for the two authors to come and give free speeches in China with funds from the French government. The two men occasionally bump into colonialism in their works and had harsh words for the French government. When will the American Cultural Center follow suit and send Noam Chomsky to Beijing so I can see him before he passes away?
The author from Madagascar said that the authoritarian regime on that island country receives military supplies from China. I haven't been able to confirm this, but given the government's involvement with Sudan, Burma, Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka, I wouldn't be surprised.
2) This is how I feel occasionally as an expat in China. If anyone knows what the knight is doing in the frame at the end, please let me know.
3) I am learning how to whistle so I can properly pronounce "fish" and "go" in Chinese. Tips would be appreciated.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Zhang Yimou and History
In my last post, I made a fleeting reference to Zhang Yimou being a sellout. This, as many things in China seem to, has to do with history. Most Americans are familiar with Zhang Yimou through Hero, a movie that would not have been released in the US without the help of Quentin Tarantino, an interesting, but less talented director than Zhang (I often wonder how Zhang Yimou feels about that).
After Tian Zhuangzhuang released Blue Kite overseas to critical acclaim, he was blacklisted. The government banned him from directing for nearly a decade. Blue Kite is one of the best movies made about the Cultural Revolution that I've seen (perhaps second only to Zhang Yimou's To Live). When Zhang Yimou's own picture on that subject was subsequently banned, he must have surely feared that what happened to Tian, his film school classmate, would also happen to him. He escaped the directing ban by shying away from politically-sensitive topics, but years later, he would address them head-on, only with a different bent.
Since Hero is the most watched of Zhang Yimou's movies in America, I'll assume you've seen it and I won't care if I spoil the ending (people who took Chinese History knew the ending anyway). The soon-to-be emperor whom Jet Li is planning on assassinating, Qin Shihuang, is credited with uniting China under one dynasty after centuries of petty squabbles between small, weaker kingdoms. (Qin China looked like this.) After conquering all the various local rulers, Qin Shihuang imposed a strict legalist code that overturned the Confucian system and resulted in the draconian suppression of his opponents. The Qin dynasty was so harsh and repressive that it only lasted 14 years. In Hero, Jet Li chooses not to assassinate Qin Shihuang (at this point he was not called Qin Shihuang yet) because he remembers those two characters， 天下 (everything under heaven), that took Tony Leung an absurdly long time to write (I'm pretty sure 天下 was only seven strokes even in 200 BC). Viewing the unification of China as more important than anything else, Jet Li leaves the blood thirsty tyrant alone. It is pointless to speculate about what history would be like if the assassin had succeeded (would the glorious Han have emerged and ushered in a golden age?).
You are probably wondering, so what? How does this make Zhang Yimou a sellout? Before he started considering himself made of the same stuff as Sun Wukong, the fabled Monkey King, a recent Chinese leader liked to imagine that he was the reincarnation of Qin Shihuang. His real name was Mao.
Note: Chen Kaige, another classmate of Zhang's and Tian's, directed a good version of the same assassination attempt starring Zhang's ex-girlfriend Gong Li. It's not a kung fu movie. The Emperor and the Assassin.
After Tian Zhuangzhuang released Blue Kite overseas to critical acclaim, he was blacklisted. The government banned him from directing for nearly a decade. Blue Kite is one of the best movies made about the Cultural Revolution that I've seen (perhaps second only to Zhang Yimou's To Live). When Zhang Yimou's own picture on that subject was subsequently banned, he must have surely feared that what happened to Tian, his film school classmate, would also happen to him. He escaped the directing ban by shying away from politically-sensitive topics, but years later, he would address them head-on, only with a different bent.
Since Hero is the most watched of Zhang Yimou's movies in America, I'll assume you've seen it and I won't care if I spoil the ending (people who took Chinese History knew the ending anyway). The soon-to-be emperor whom Jet Li is planning on assassinating, Qin Shihuang, is credited with uniting China under one dynasty after centuries of petty squabbles between small, weaker kingdoms. (Qin China looked like this.) After conquering all the various local rulers, Qin Shihuang imposed a strict legalist code that overturned the Confucian system and resulted in the draconian suppression of his opponents. The Qin dynasty was so harsh and repressive that it only lasted 14 years. In Hero, Jet Li chooses not to assassinate Qin Shihuang (at this point he was not called Qin Shihuang yet) because he remembers those two characters， 天下 (everything under heaven), that took Tony Leung an absurdly long time to write (I'm pretty sure 天下 was only seven strokes even in 200 BC). Viewing the unification of China as more important than anything else, Jet Li leaves the blood thirsty tyrant alone. It is pointless to speculate about what history would be like if the assassin had succeeded (would the glorious Han have emerged and ushered in a golden age?).
You are probably wondering, so what? How does this make Zhang Yimou a sellout? Before he started considering himself made of the same stuff as Sun Wukong, the fabled Monkey King, a recent Chinese leader liked to imagine that he was the reincarnation of Qin Shihuang. His real name was Mao.
Note: Chen Kaige, another classmate of Zhang's and Tian's, directed a good version of the same assassination attempt starring Zhang's ex-girlfriend Gong Li. It's not a kung fu movie. The Emperor and the Assassin.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Chuck Norris sues, Gong Li kicks ass
When I saw this headline, I thought it must be from the Onion: "Chuck Norris Sues, Says Tears No Cancer Cure." The joke all American college students have heard has made its way into a book entitled The Truth About Chuck Norris.
"Chuck Norris's tears can cure cancer. Too bad he never cries."
Apparently, Chuck Norris thought this was believeable enough to harm his image and worthy of a lawsuit. When I was studying Chinese in Beijing a couple years ago, we had a lesson to remind us that America is the most litigious society in the world. The text talked about the McDonalds' coffee burning incident and gave other examples of how ridiculous Americans are when it comes to going to court. I, the neophyte that I was, wondered why Chinese people don't go to court and my teacher recommended Zhang Yimou's (pre-sellout) movie, the Story of Qiuju . Plot summary: An official kicks Qiuju's husband in the groin, possibly causing damage to his reproductive organs (one hell of a kick!), and then she spends the rest of the movie attempting to get payment for this barbarous act. The normally ravishingly beautiful Gong Li kicks ass as the stubborn, determined Qiuju.
My teacher's point was that going through the courts can be a long, convoluted process that sometimes leaves you worse off than you were before. This was a topic at the UN Human Rights hearing on China this year. When people seek redress for wrongs committed by government officials, they often end up in "black jails" that exist outside the law. They have no rights to have their cases heard and can be detained for an indefinite period of time.
So, for now, I'll gladly accept Chinese people's criticisms of American frivolity.
Note: Chinese law has indeed been getting better. Recently women won the right to sue their husbands' mistresses for damages. I don't know what this says about infidelity, but it sounds like progress. (Here for details)
"Chuck Norris's tears can cure cancer. Too bad he never cries."
Apparently, Chuck Norris thought this was believeable enough to harm his image and worthy of a lawsuit. When I was studying Chinese in Beijing a couple years ago, we had a lesson to remind us that America is the most litigious society in the world. The text talked about the McDonalds' coffee burning incident and gave other examples of how ridiculous Americans are when it comes to going to court. I, the neophyte that I was, wondered why Chinese people don't go to court and my teacher recommended Zhang Yimou's (pre-sellout) movie, the Story of Qiuju . Plot summary: An official kicks Qiuju's husband in the groin, possibly causing damage to his reproductive organs (one hell of a kick!), and then she spends the rest of the movie attempting to get payment for this barbarous act. The normally ravishingly beautiful Gong Li kicks ass as the stubborn, determined Qiuju.
My teacher's point was that going through the courts can be a long, convoluted process that sometimes leaves you worse off than you were before. This was a topic at the UN Human Rights hearing on China this year. When people seek redress for wrongs committed by government officials, they often end up in "black jails" that exist outside the law. They have no rights to have their cases heard and can be detained for an indefinite period of time.
So, for now, I'll gladly accept Chinese people's criticisms of American frivolity.
Note: Chinese law has indeed been getting better. Recently women won the right to sue their husbands' mistresses for damages. I don't know what this says about infidelity, but it sounds like progress. (Here for details)
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