ChinaB

For the most part, I’m used to having censored internet. As long as I can sign into my VPN to browse Facebook and BBC news, I don’t have much to complain about. Then I watch my Jesus Christ Superstar clips on YouTube and the absurdity of Internet with Chinese Characteristics dawns on me again: JCSS is blocked on all fronts in China.

Someone once told me that there were 20,000 people specifically monitoring internet activity for the Chinese government (ergo, 5 毛 x 20,000  must be < tax payers’ dollars). When I heard this, I remembered standing on the footpath that bridges the two sides of the 6-lane street I lived on when I was in Beijing. From that perch, I can see the road disappearing into the haze on either end. I can see the buildings disappearing into a forest of more buildings, all concrete and white, stretching as far as one can see in the haze.

Twenty thousand? That must be at least three-hundred buildings. I start to count the buildings in view from the footpath, but memory clouds my math. I guess it is probably a few blocks’ worth of office space. 

When some family friends visited me in Beijing that summer, I took them to the Forbidden City. Entrance actually was forbidden after five o’clock, so we wound through the outer layers of the palace, where tourists were much more scarce. A bride was having her picture taken against the ancient red wall, the setting sun dousing her in glow. We snaked through the courtyards until we were inside a building. There was a large glass window to an inner room, where about fifty people sat hunched over computers. Within a minute, a woman appeared and asked us to leave — not rudely, more just a matter-of-fact.

 We joked that that was China’s censorship headquarters.

When the internet connection gets lost and I’m signed out of my VPN, I feel suddenly exposed. I imagine there is a person in Beijing sitting behind a computer screen who thinks he’s hit the jackpot because he suddenly has a full view of Lil’ Wayne’s ‘Lollipop’ video. Within a few minutes my entire computer will be non-functioning. I figure either way I have limited time, and I start Lollipop from the beginning.

I took this picture from the inside of a tour bus on Zhong Shan Lu (中山路) in Quanzhou (泉州）on February 8, 2012. It was rush hour in downtown, and  I suddenly heard a collective gasp from the other side of the bus. I’ve rarely heard an entire group of people in China collectively make pitying noises (nothing in particular meant by that), so I jumped up to see what they were looking at. The younger man is standing over an old man, who he hit with his car (parked on the right, outside the frame, blocking traffic). The old man tried to get up twice, but the driver seemed to tell him to stay down. He then starts to do something on his phone as the old man still reaches out for help.

Incidents such as this one attract special attention in China ever since the Peng Yu case of 2006, in which a Nanjing judge ruled that the man who helped an old lady stand up off the curbside had in fact knocked her down. Although there was no evidence for this, the judge issued the statement that “any ordinary person would not help someone unless they themselves had knocked that person down.” He was then required to pay for her medical  expenses.

Last fall (2011), two-year-old Yue Yue made international headlines after being hit by a van twice. Eighteen people walked past her without doing anything, afraid of the consequences. See earlier post.

Where many people would look at the scene depicted above and first ask “is he alright?”, in China there is a whole other inferred dimension. It seems that indeed the man in the picture is trying to help the old man, and that this will not turn out to be another Yue Yue tragedy. Let’s hope that it also does not turn into the circus that the Peng Yu case continues to be.

This opinion is purely based on my own stint in Guangzhou; I did no background research to write it; it is merely an impression — albeit, a very good one.

I’ve been all over China. I’ve seen the modern cave dwellings in Shanxi and the peacock-capped houses in Xishuangbanna. I’ve drank with the underground folk musicians in Beijing’s hutongs  and debated political theory with Nanjing University’s best professors. I’ve been devoured by the crowds in Mong Kok and blessed by the crisp air of Tiger Leaping Gorge.

Every issue I read or hear about in China almost always stems from a lack of a stable and enforced constitutional legal system. This is the ugly result of many factors which I will not get into here, but suffice it to say many government officials do not have traffic safety or gutter oil at the tops of their priority lists.  The longer I’ve been in China, the more skeptical I have become that China’s democratization is the inevitable eventual step in the rise of this nation.

In Guangzhou now, I have encountered several wonderful bits of information that give me hope.

1. Seatbelts. The taxis’ recordings exhort the front passenger to buckle up. It’s required! Not here will you have a taxi driver who waves a hand at you when you try to fasten your seat belt, saying “You don’t need that.”

2. No Smoking in Restaurants. I know this one has plenty of exceptions, but the dim sum restaurant I went to the other day was the first restaurant in China I’ve ever been in where they enforce this rule (as of May 1, 2011, smoking is “banned” in all public areas in China). Nice to see.

3. Local democracies? I am in no position to confirm this, but one Chinese friend in Guangzhou had just come back from spending the New Year in her home town of Pingyao, Shanxi. She said that the county was gearing up for its first democratic election — as were the majority of local governments across the country. Another friend said that he say campaign posters in his apartment.  Local elections have been set up in thousands of counties since the 80s, but to varying degrees of non-corruption. My Pingyao friend’s excitement about her own local election was palpable — a refreshing change from the usual disinterest or disbelief in the efficacy of local democracy.

4. Treat people the same. I know this definitely has exceptions, but again, this is a rarely-encountered anecdote. An old man came into the dumpling restaurant, bee-lined for my table, and rattled his pan at me. I looked over at the boss, who then got into an argument with him about harassing foreigners. “They’re Westerners!” he cackled, “They have money! What’s the problem?” — “Because you aren’t harassing any of the Chinese customers. People are all the same. If you’re going to be treating foreigners like that, you can go somewhere else.” I’ve never been defended for being a foreigner before — especially not in public and in this manner. Granted, she knew I spoke Chinese and may have been putting on a bit of a show. She also had no interest in appealing to this man, who was just a local beggar. Nonetheless, she said it so that everyone in the restaurant could hear, and I was grateful for not being “foreignized.”

In my short time in Guangzhou, I have enjoyed many pleasant encounters, and these few have left an impression on me. Yes, Guangdong is the richest province. Yes, it has long been influenced by international cultures. It is not like the other provinces in many ways. Either way, it has been a pleasure, and I hope that other cities follow in the footsteps of enforcing basic health and safety laws, to start.