In China, young people are disaffected. The world is changing fast, faster than they can understand, but they do understand that, even if only as something big moving just beyond the edge of their eyes. Families and traditional systems of mentally organizing the world no longer work, and parents don’t understand children, and children don’t understand parents, and people don’t understand themselves. There are economic problems: finding work is hard, then there are long hours (so long), and little money (so little), and always pressure to succeed even when success is undefined and impossible anyway. The gap between the rich and the poor is massive and growing; and there are social problems: crime (but did they have a choice?), terrorism (but for higher ideals?), corruption at all levels of government (but can you hate them all, even the one’s who did nothing wrong?). There are moral problems, all the moral problems of modernity and change and newness fighting together and against one another: homosexuality? Divorce? Sex and love and violence? Everything that anyone of any age ever didn’t understand.

What does a young man or woman in China believe in? There is no religion. There is no Vietnam war. There is no hippie culture. There is no rock and roll, there are no Beatles, no Stones, no Jimi Hendrix. There is no civil rights movement. There is no cold war. There is no Irak. There is no “culture war.” There is no new grassroots, Internet progressivism. There is no Mao, no Deng, no Zhou Enlai. No Cultural Revolution. No communist revolution, to join or to fight against. There is only a helpless, headlong, terrified, wondrous sprint into the future, whatever that means.

These recent years, the true Great Leap Forward, this last generation, this current generation, is very different from Americans of the nineteen-sixties. But they are disaffected, and they do need things to believe in, and what they have is their country and what it has done for them and their own (and somehow, after all, it’s not just young people). I do not condone “cheap patriotism” as a Mr. Wen refers to some recent opinions. Especially when people I know and love are hurt by it, as they have been. But the greatest things that have emerged from this thing (the written children of long misapprehension) are efforts to spread understanding.

There are a lot of things to say to a lot of people, but I thought I’d start here. I write this as a metaphor, not as truth, because I think this metaphor will help people think in a slightly different way.

People who aren’t in China may not have paid as much attention, but the protests along the Olympic torch route and the Western media coverage of same have provoked a…powerful response.  This is a very complicated issue, much more complicated than “evil communist China invaded Tibet and now their media machine is spreading lies about it again.”  There are lies, there is false information, and Tibet has problems.  But it didn’t help when some Western news groups ran photos of stuff “happening in Tibet” that actually happened in Nepal, or CNN’s Jack Cafferty called Chinese people (whether he meant the government or the people is unclear, but to many it doesn’t matter) a bunch of “goons and thugs.”  

Among many, many Chinese people both here and in other countries, there is a very deep seated sense that the West (a unit) is out to get China, has been out to get China, and will continue as long as they (we) can. Westerners “want China to fail” or “want the Olympics to fail” or “disrespect Chinese people.”  Many would argue that Chinese people’s sensitivity is “cultural” (a cultural predilection to be concerned with ‘face’), or a result of government propaganda/propagandistic educational materials.  The first is completely false, and the second far too easy, far too simple.  China is full of nationalist propaganda.  So is America.  Is ours better, more objective, less simplistic or one-sided?  To a certain extent.  It’s also certainly less omnipresent.  And our media is light-years beyond China’s in objectivity, its ability to present multiple sides of an issue, etc.  However, nationalism is something that exists everywhere, that we value, and that we want.  We consider the right amount of respect and love for one’s country to be a virtue, if it is leavened with careful consideration of the government (distinct from the country) and the government’s flaws.  This consideration is not as developed in China as many want (myself included).  But Chinese people are not half as mindless as they are often portrayed.

The communist government has presided over the largest economic transformation and poverty reduction process in the history of the world.  Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of crushing poverty, seen their sons and daughters have opportunities they never could, watched their country, which they love, become someplace important again.  It all happened in a couple decades.  They have reason to be proud.  Doesn’t mean they have reason to do the worst kinds of things patriotic Americans (or people of any nation) have done.  But you can see how they might start getting annoyed if all they hear from the West is this or that report of human rights violations.  Now, I think that the best Western news organizations cover China in a much less prejudiced manner than many Chinese people think, but even they are still occasionally guilty of articles that to Chinese people sound prejudiced.  To many Chinese people, this whole phenomenon is understood as racism.

Like I said, it’s a complicated issue.  I’ve got one more post going up, looking at young Chinese peoples’ nationalism, and then maybe a break from this.

I don’t know if there’s anything people want to know about my life that I haven’t snarked at already (I’ve been in a weird way). Probably yes, if you’ve come all the way out here to read this.

Well, my term project: I’m writing what amounts to a fancy book report on “The Madman’s Diary” by Lu Xun or however it gets translated. It’s fun now, because I have discovered that not only can I do research in Chinese, but that who knew, I like reading stuff about literature. You’d think I ought to study more lit. … I guess it’s a measure of how long I’ve been in the language learning ghetto (no soup for you! only sentence patterns!) that I’ve forgotten that there could exist more…engaging academic subjects. Stunning insight: I like learning about literature, philosophy, history. I do not enjoy reading articles about domestic violence (today’s homework) or the death penalty (tomorrow’s) as much. They have their moments. But really, they don’t grab a clump of my hair and pull my face down into the book.

Interesting fact: I can access my VPN from Starbucks, but not from my apartment. There is no good reason for that to be the case, but it is.

In any event, here are sweet, sweet links–nector to be sucked through a thin proboscis and enjoyed: 

Art!
Chinese Think Tanks!
Ergodic Literature!

That’s me: Living the Interwebs, So You Don’t Have To.

I am enjoying my Lu Xun project now — the same project that drove me to despair mere days ago.  But I spent an inordinate amount of money on thick (and thin) books of Chinese lit crit, and I wallowed in the internet, bobbing like a corpse in the hot mangrove slums of political blogs, Baidu, and Wikipedia, and now I face the future like a man!  Like WFB (who against all reason I have decided to emulate in certain very very specific ways)!  I am alive and happy!  There are worse things to be. 

Things that both make my friends squirm and have influenced me recently: The Fountainhead, WFB’s infinite eulogies, Lolita, To Live (the book, not the movie).  But I count them all as positive influences.  Progress towards up!  Haven’t forgotten that one. 

I may not get to go to Tibet because there are problems there.  This is deeply annoying to me, in the way that only the sudden revoke of undeserved privilege is annoying.  How am I supposed to develop as a human being if I can’t travel at will to the moral equivalent of a giant Indian reservation on a plateau 4,000 meters above sea level?  That is the best way to think of Tibet, I think, as well as Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and all other pockets of China inhabited by significant numbers of ethnic minorities: they are Indian reservations as Indian reservations looked several decades ago in America (read: worse than now).  This is a good article on the subject.  

Last thing: I’ll just mention my trip to Sichuan of a couple weeks ago.  Ate hotpot, drank tea, saw baby pandas, got bit by a monkey (didn’t get through my awesome jeans), climbed a mountain.  The long version is more exciting, but I’m way too snarky to type much more without beginning to hate myself.  Adios for now!

Beijing, as is often overlooked, is the home of Chinese independent music, which is to say every kind of music that isn’t Mandopop, Cantopop, or classical.  The scene’s a small village of people living in some few clubs and popping out for tours when they can — everyone knows everyone else, and the fans and players live almost side by side.  I imagine that music might have been like this in New York or London in the 60′s and 70′s, but now CBGB, The Knitting Factory et al are more myth than real.  A lot of life here, and a lot of movement.  In music like in everything else.

I started class again on the 21st, and now I’m in the thick of it.  I live in an apartment now, with an American and a Chinese roommate.  There’s an elevator operator until 11:30 every night, and a “sun room” for drying clothes, even though it’s below 0˚C every day.  I read articles about the economy, migrant workers, and the psychological effects of globalization for homework, and plan to write my term paper on Li Bai, the most famous poet in Chinese history.  It may not be terribly original, but man if I don’t want to really learn something about Chinese lit in Chinese.  But then again, doing a more modern Chinese intellectual like Hu Shi or Chen Duxiu might be even more interesting (I’m pointedly not considering Lu Xun because my friend Scott’s already doing him).  Must decide!  

Hi everyone! 

•  “The western development trajectory indicated that environmental issues would be dealt with after one becomes rich. However the reality is that, as the consequence of unsustainable development practices and policies currently employed, environmental degradation, resource scarcity and human health are bottlenecks for China’s continued development and quality of life.”

-Lu Zhi, 北大 (http://china.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/questions-for-lu-zhi/)

-Thank you for saying that.  Too many Chinese people argue not so much against environmental protection, but FOR the status quo by saying “after we’ve developed we’ll deal with it” or some variation thereof.  The truth is, a lot of things we do to the world are much more expensive to fix than to prevent, and others simply cannot be undone.  

• “Fundamentally, however, an authoritarian, decentralized, endemically corrupt political system has little hope of becoming a global environmental leader, much less getting its own environmental house in order. What is missing from China’s environmental protection effort to date is not access to environmental policy approaches or knowledge about environmental protection technologies but rather a system of transparency, accountability and rule of law that rewards officials and businesspeople who do the right thing and punishes those that do not.”…
• “In concrete terms, this means that China’s burgeoning environmental non-governmental (NGO) movement must be protected from corrupt officials who try to quash them. At this time, it’s not. It means that reporters need to be able to report on pollution disasters, uncover and report on environmental abuses, and publicize official malfeasance with impunity. At this point, they can’t. It also means that the party must be removed from the legal system and that trials are open and transparent to prevent the atrocious corruption that pervades the political and economic system in the country. This is not currently in the cards.”

-Elizabeth Economy (http://china.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/27/answers-from-elizabeth-economy/)

-Good answers across the board from her, but the scenario she spins out is rather utopian.  China’s not going to eliminate media controls any time soon, much less suddenly change its political culture.  For me, media is key.  I think everything that can reasonably be done to help media gradually open, to help media stay on the path toward openness, should be done.  This is not to say we foreigners should start interfering in every way we can.  Interfering is very delicate, and even on the rare occasions it might be useful, requires serious thought.

It’s the fundamental values of democracy that matter in this, and all other cases (and it’s thinking like this that hopefully distinguishes me from more hawkish or neoconservative folk).  By suggesting that change be implemented in China (or Russia, or anywhere else) I do not want to say “be like America,” “be like Europe,” or “be like the ancient Greeks.”  I mean only to advocate on behalf of the values that form the substratum of successful democracies, republics, communes, households, etc: transparency, accountability, and equality.  Clearly I’m biased towards what I know and what benefits me, but I also honestly think most people prefer to see values such as I’ve mentioned supported.  There are a host of ways to pursue these goals, and one need not see modern America, Europe, Japan, et al. as anything other than case studies — though they ought not be forgotten.

如今还没有空，但这此关我什么事儿呀？*

So!  Been a long time!  Finally bothered to find a new proxy server.  I really hate those damn censors.

What’s new?  I’ve since traveled to Inner Mongolia, Shanghai, Hangzhou, southern Anhui, and Xi’an.  I’ve moved across the city to a different university (首都经济贸易大学), started a new program, learned some slang, and next week I turn 21!  Everything’s just neat-o.  I begin to get tired of being in the tiny minority of foreigners, but in Beijing it’s not so bad.  Even in this part of Beijing, the Central Business District, it wears on you — but it could be worse.  I know some folk at the Yale-in-Peking program at Beijing University, my friend moved here from the states for the year, and my Chinese is much better.  

I’ll try and find time to add more stuff this week, now that I sort of have a semi-not-really-convenient way of doing so.  Interestingly (not really) I have wa-a-ay more work this semester than I thought I would.  On a given weekday I have almost no free time, and I already manage to waste too much of my not-free time doing things like sleeping or eating.  Bah, I say.

*(I will always continue to try and stretch the limits of the things I know how to write in Chinese. Obviously I’m likely to screw it up. Just so you know I know.)