Shit, dude, I’m sorry to hear what’s happening down your way. I’m beginning to lose faith in Beijing. Really. This used to be the city of history and culture storming into the new century. Now I think the place has been overrun by newly rich wankers and idiot fucking yuppies. I used to love Sanlitun South Street, now I just put my head down and storm my way rugby-style to the Tree when it’s necessary. I used to think of Hou Hai as a quiet, beautiful alternative. I used to like Wudaokou. Now what? Guess I’ve gotta start my own bar scene in Yanqing. Fuck.

*”and makes meaningful choices but they’re few and far in between” NOT “and make meaningful choices because they’re few and far in between.”

I got on a blog reading frenzy the last few days after stumbling across the entries of a guy from my university who’s teaching English in China over the summer.

These blogs provided a lot of food for thought - I’m culturally indentured as a Westener since my family immigrated to Canada when I was seven and Canada and its education system being the lefty pinko paradise it is, my politics are pretty social democrat; I care a lot more Hutongs or loss of dialects about than the average Chinese teenagers my age does.

Usually this fact upsets me a lot whenever I go back to China (this entry about the Hutongs near Drum/Clock towers hit particularly close because I stayed in the neighbourhood with family friends when I visited Beijing) but after reading obversations that often come up in the last few days, there’s been a semi-epithany about the shit-raising ability of an average Chinese person who’s gone through the education system.

There isn’t an inate capacity for most people to be shit disturbers - questioning authority, natural search for intellectual change, whatever. This doesn’t matter so much in the West because there is enough residual ‘openess’ to rebellion and authority defiance in the structures of society and education systems that a baseline level seeps through to everyone. Of course, to go in activist mode there’s still someone who cares significantly more than this residual baseline and there’s a few people like this no matter where in the world, in what political system or culture. However, for any movement to get off the ground, there has to be enough semi passive support - to to write the missives, but to show up. And because there’s the … culture.. of .. resisting..? already present in the West, it’s a lot easier to ‘do stuff,’ so there will be more examples of the type you described and greater chances of success. (But it’s still damned hard. As a part of several of these.. activist-y groups, it’s a constant battle to occupy mindspace and to get people to /care/ and…empowered (good lord what a positive synergy winwin!word))

Anyway, to get back to China, such a cultural base just doesn’t exist. Like with the West, the firebrands are around, but without bandwagon-jumpers (and this is not meant to be derogatory in any way) the chances of …. action … and their success rates are signficantly lessened. Of course, with so many occurrences of unlawful/shady land seizing, inequality, cultural annihilation, even signficantly lessened still translates to high numbers. (something like 20000 protests last year alone? the majority of them hushed and no concrete result, but it’s still something)

I brought up this theory of baseline ‘openess’ level with my mom over supper today and she thinks it makes sense, at least for the people she knows in her generation.

Anyway, I mostly posted this in response to John’s comment. I think he’s absolutely right at some level - if they don’t recognize the value then pfft - but then it’s the sort of malicious I level at the US and Canada when I get bitter - you totally deserve the loser you elected and the rising oil prices and the loss of the majority of your coastal cities and weird ass weather in the coming century. In a perfect world everyone thinks for themselves and make meaningful choices because they’re few and far in between, but I’m beginning to think that freethink is as indoctorined as the stuff happening in China.

Face it: few people are like Martin Luther King Jr. or Ghandi and it’s not their fault. On a brighter note, let’s all subvert The System anway we can. (and no, wearing a che shirt does not count. neither does listening to RATM)

Cheerio,
Jiayi.

There’s a fantastic speech, “A City of Neighborhoods,” by Harvey Milk, San Francisco’s first gay city councilman. I looked online, but Google doesn’t seem to have it; on the other hand, the US Embassy website actually has a Chinese-language edition of the speech at “哈维．米尔克 - 由街道组成的城市.” Check it out, if you have the time - it seems to be a pretty good translation, although

……对这－点我们可别弄错：美国梦是从街道开始的。如果我们要重建城市，我们就必须首先重建街道。而要这麽做，我们就必须认识到，生活的品质比生活的标准更重要。坐在门前台阶上──不论它是－座小城住宅的游廊还是一个大城市住宅的混凝土门廊──与我们的邻居闲聊，要比挤坐在起居室的躺椅上看一个顔色失真的虚假世界重要得多。

strikes me as less pleasing than the original

“Make no mistake, the American Dream starts with our neighborhoods. If we wish to rebuild our cities, we must first rebuild our neighborhoods. To do that, we must understand that our quality of life is more important than our lifestyles. To sit on the front steps, whether it’s the veranda in a small town or a concrete stoop in a big city, and talk to our neighbors is infinitely more important than to huddle on the living-room lounger and watch a make-believe world in not-quite living color.”

Anyway, it’s this vision of neighborhoods - both as a community and, more importantly, as a political unit - that I remember from Philadelphia, and that I find really lacking here. Chris, you’re quite right about people dancing or playing chess on the streets, but it still doesn’t seem to be on the same order - perhaps because it just isn’t something that I’ll ever be able to be a part of - as neighborhood activities back home.
The original speech is in The American Reader, edited by Diane Ravitch (if I recall correctly) - I’ll have to pick up a copy the next time I’m back in the States; it’s a great anthology.

Max - Yeah, I’m sure there are places that are like this, but I hadn’t seen any. People in Harbin were basically friendly enough, but there was never any chance of becoming real friend with them, and the parts of Beijing that I lived in before were mostly pretty remote and forsaken.

I wonder: when everything in Beijing, Shanghai, and the rest that is more than 50 years old is leveled and replaced by replicas of the very things that were leveled, will the tourists stop coming? Or will they come and ohh and aww about how that thing that was built six months ago looks so old.

(argh, this Chinese urban renewal thing gets under my skin)