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.

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.

It started with a subway brawl in Hong Kong. Despite signs and announcements prohibiting the consumption of food on the subway, a Chinese mainlander was enjoying a bowl of instant noodles in a subway car. One Hong Kong resident lost his temper, announcing that mainlanders have no respect for Hong Kong rules or way of life. See the video here and read details at the Shanghaiist (try not to be put off by the title “Bitchfight;” it’s got all the right links).

In response, Beijing professor Kong Qingdong lambasted the Hong Kong people on television, saying that they lacked morals and were no better than dogs — imperialist Britain’s dogs, nonetheless. When the video clip went up on Youtube two nights ago (which is not blocked in Hong Kong), I watched as the comments poured down the screen, every few seconds an offended watcher decrying Kong Qingdong’s lack of tact.

One wonders how much it was a simple matter of tact. It was first and foremost hate speech, and that is allegedly why it was removed from Youtube. But “hate speech” is not a phrase you hear in mainland China; “unusual”/”exceptional” are phrases more commonly used to excuse someone’s extreme opinion, if not couched in nationalist rhetoric (where “cultural difference” and “misunderstanding” are more often the words of choice). Indeed, hate speech is too often defensible in mainland if it is in response to insulting mainland culture as such (I am careful not to say “Chinese” culture here). For this reason, such rhetoric appearing on television, egregious as it may be, should not come as a surprise to China-watchers.

In a report by Hong Kong’s Apple Daily 《苹果日报》 this past Sunday, Kong Qingdong denied having said any of it:

English (first three rows):

Yesterday’s Interview                                  vs.                                   On Air (Jan 19, 2012)

That Kong Qingdong is famous for being the 73rd-generation descendant of Confucius (and therefore guaranteed the burden of representing “traditional China” + media spotlight) is not even his most interesting aspect. He also walked side-by-side with Tiananmen Demonstration leader Wang Dan during the events in 1989:

The extent of his involvement in Tiananmen organization is not known, but clearly it was not enough to have him exiled. Nonetheless it sheds a supremely interesting light on who he is and what he’s getting at. I sense a disillusioned, opportunistic post-Mao generation’er who has swallowed the poison of Beijing rhetoric in order to keep his own boat afloat. As it were, he probably is receiving some sort of under-handed kudos for having “defended” the Chinese people. To say he is receiving bad press in Hong Kong is a royal understatement. Unfortunately, it is not likely to make any waves beyond Hong Kong island, what with censored media and 63 years of Maoist discourse dissolving such discussion at the border.

See the debate: 海归女 PK名主持

Twenty-four-year-old Liu Lili recently appeared on a Chinese job-hunting TV show. She was halfway through saying, “I was in New Zealand for three years. After those three years, I came back home, and realized, ‘Wow, China’s been through a lot of changes!’ Now if it had been New Zealand—”, when the host, Zhang Shaogang,  scolded her for using the word “China” rather than “my country” （我国) or “my ancestral homeland” (祖国). He said that using the word “China” did not convey the warm-hearted feeling that two Chinese people should share when talking about the motherland.

Liu Lili probably did not realize what she was going up against when she was accepted onto the show: China’s state media and popular perception of Chinese who have lived overseas. NY Times recently reported on state media scaling back popular “racy” TV shows, such as “If You Are the One,” due to such programs’ morally ambiguous content. In that case, overt patriotism does not seem to be in the cards, but rather a tension between projected national values and the reality of seductive consumerism. Neither of these issues directly play into this episode, but nevertheless the threat of shut-down still lingers, even looms.

Liu Lili’s status as a “Returned Chinese” (海归女) is pivotal to the debate; she was slotted from the beginning to be attacked for any signs of un-Chineseness. Indeed, living and studying overseas poses a certain soft-power threat to the home state, especially when the home state publicly announces that foreign culture is invading. Had she not been an English major who studied abroad, but rather an engineer from a humble Chinese college, she may not have received such a criticism.

What this ultimately suggests is a disappointing albeit unsurprising picture of current media in China. Chinese media is not the freest it ever has been. Since the founding of New China in 1949, that time was probably 1976-1980 — in particular late 1978, when Deng Xiaoping announced that “Democracy Wall is a good thing.” Instances such as this one, however, may work to “invite fire into the home” (or, as is said in English-speaking countries, to cut off one’s nose to spite the face). The reporter’s follow-up analysis and many of the comments on this clip indeed express disapproval of the host, many stating “I don’t see what the problem is.”

And that may be what it boils down to: a host who was just trying to fulfill the censorship rules. But when saying the name of one’s country becomes so sensitive that it cannot be said on that country’s TV, what comes to mind is not pretty: 1984′s Newspeak, Voldemort, and - as one Chinese reporter brought up - the emperor’s new clothes. Instances such as these may be their own undoing, wherein overt patriotism may conceivably and ultimately fall out of fashion. While that may seem like a far-off day from where we are standing, I for one am counting on history’s pendulum to start swinging back.

Police are calling him a serial killer, connecting this murder to a previous seven in the cities of Chongqing and Changsha. There is admittedly no evidence to confirm his identity, and as such he has been loosely named “Close-Crop Man” (“平头男”). At about 40 years old, five-and-a-half feet tall, with a dark complexion, black clothes,  Sichuan accent, and a sauntering (“split”) gait, he hardly stands out in a crowd. See the Chinese report here, or China Digital Times’ report here.

Given that you can only pay in cash in China, it was necessary for me to access the ATM a few days ago – five days after the last ATM murder. A girl friend accompanied me to that Construction Bank, all the while acknowledging that she would be useless if the armed killer showed up.

Having a skewed sense of reality lends to unwarranted confidence in the face of danger. This time, it inspired the opposite; my hands started to shake and desperately paw at the money dispenser. The serial killer had arrived: dressed in all black and advancing at a saunter, the middle-aged, stony-faced Han male with close-cropped hair was already shooting me dead with his fixated stare. I was instantly glad that I looked foreign. Also, I was only taking out 1000 RMB – hadn’t the last kill been for 20,000? I shoved the money into my wallet and zipped my purse elaborately. If he saw that the money was not handy, maybe he wouldn’t bother. I grabbed my friend and ran for the door, but the ATM security system had me beat: I would have to press the button next to the sliding glass door, just in front of the killer, to get out. I punched the release button and hustled past him, his eyes trailing us down the ramp.

It hadn’t even mattered that he was wearing a police uniform. In my moment of vulnerability, any middle-aged Han man in all black was the killer. What was otherwise very ordinary – a Chinese man staring at a pair of white females – in that moment was dooming. (Like I said, a skewed sense of reality can affect your sense of peril.) That a police man showed up should not have come as a surprise, given that downtown Nanjing has been swamped with armed policemen – a situation far more frightening to me than anything else. 好恐怖。。。！

My neighborhood is now plastered with Close-Crop Man’s face. I took my camera for a walk down Shanghai Street just to capture how inundated we now are with his presence.

Two posters next to one another.

Below, all the posters in each shot are circled in red.

Six posters at the Yunnan Bei Lu bus stop.

Four posters in sight; one hundred meters from the bus stop.

Four posters in sight; two more around the corner.

Not that this inundation is necessarily a bad thing; in fact, it’s a good sign that such a huge effort has been made to alert the public. But we have now entered the storm of massive annual migration. As people stream out of the city to return home for the Chinese New Year, hush steals the streets of Nanjing. Netizen “pufei” succinctly poses the problem: “【Question】Why are the police, carrying assault rifles, still searching downtown Nanjing five days after the armed bank robbery?   【Answer】 The police are certain that the son of bitch can’t possibly get hold of a train ticket to leave Nanjing during the Chinese New Year season.”[1]

Professor Sam Crane wrote a piece about the humane treatment of animals in Taoist and Confucian tradition. In sum, animals make scant appearances in Dialects and other scripts, and when they do appear, they are making a point about how humans should honor ritual and value human life.[1] One can thus only surmise about how he would view animal rights in the modernist sense.

Stepping away from Confucius as the pontificator of truths, let’s look at the idea of ritual (礼, li) and benevolence (仁, ren) and how it applies to animals. According to the principal “父父子子君君臣臣,” everyone should behave as their roles determine. A father must act like a father, a son like a son, and so forth. This is one of the quintessential tenets of Confucianism – respect of one’s own role. In this sense, an animal could also fulfill its role by obeying its master. Some may argue that it has no choice in the matter, but then again neither did women have a choice in who they married (in a sense, who their masters were for life). And don’t women also have a duty to be good wives and mothers? Perhaps 兽兽 should be added to the liturgy, thus acknowledging animals’ role in a home and society.

Confucius probably could not conceive of the complex world we now live in, and this is the biggest problem with surmising about how his philosophy applies to modern society. I thus can only offer the following possible conclusions:

1. Confucius believes that animals are first and foremost property, and the rules of human behavior (ritual, benevolence, morals, etc) do not apply. Therefore, humans can treat them however humans please.
2. Although animals are property, it is wrong to mistreat them. To be a good person, one should not be overly violent; do not do unto others as you would not have done unto you, lest this reflect poorly on your moral substance.
3. Animals have no way of understanding li (ritual) or ren (benevolence), and therefore have no status in society.
4. Animals obey ritual by obeying their status as the laborers of their masters, and by obeying their masters, they are ensuring their position in society. As effective members of the society, therefore, while not necessarily equal to humans, they should still be treated with some amount of humanity.

As a modernist humanitarian thinker and ex-vegetarian, I like to think the fourth option is most viable. To act in a Confucian manner in modern society, one can perhaps refrain from harming animals personally.

This of course says nothing in particular about the meat-packing industry. Given Confucius’ disinterest in the animal realm, disinterest in the meat industry is seemingly the most viable answer. What really needs to be investigated here is the discrepancy between the system and the individual – something about which I am sure Confucius had a few thoughts, but where my own knowledge reaches the limit.

Jonathan Levine has been in China for almost a year teaching American studies in an English-speaking Tsinghua University class. According to him, China is a treasure trove of jobs for Americans, as demand for native English speakers is “white-hot.” And frankly, he is correct. I’d wager that the majority of secondary school principals would jump out of their chairs if an American walked into the office asking for an English-teaching job. Educational consulting businesses would claw at the chance to have, ahem, a white face to put on their college-prep advertisements. The chances for Americans are plentiful – especially white Americans.

This is something any CET study-abroad student could tell you. What Mr. Levine does not mention is the definite tiered system of jobs for native English speakers in China, wherein most involve copy-editing or English training at a price of 6,000-10,000 RMB per month ($1000-1500, and no health insurance) – more than enough to party it up in Sanlitun. For sure, China can be a whirlwind of crazy daily experiences, fascinating conversations, good food, and cheap drinks; a real paradise for singles in their twenties without a strict career path (I would know). But for non-teachers with a specialized skill set, especially those coming from middle-level American jobs, and especially those with families, I dare to suggest that China is a step down for them in terms of income and professionalism.

The next tier up includes Western-salary companies, who hire native English speakers to audit, manage, train, and communicate. It’s not a bad gig if you can get it; most of those end up in Guangdong, where the factories are, or nestle into random pockets of IT activity. There is a plethora of consulting jobs in Shanghai; most Americans can land one of those at China-salary, while big-name consultants (Bain, KPMG) are reticent to hire anyone who is not a native Chinese speaker. To my friends and classmates who have worked their way into the latter positions, I have the utmost respect. They could not have done it without years of perfecting their Chinese language skills.

This brings me back to my frustration with an article about working in China from someone who knows very little about the place. Those who have high-paying, health-care-providing jobs in China generally do so either because they are hired by a Western company first and then move to China, or because they know about China and speak Chinese very well. This group cannot afford, however, to be looking at the jobs that Mr. Levine rightly claims to be so plentiful (i.e. teaching and copy-editing). First, almost anyone who has lived in China more than a few weeks has done one of these jobs. Chinese majors and freelance scholars, therefore, tend to have plentiful TESL experience to blog about. However, these people generally do not go to China to be Western. They seek something more meaningful; something that is a testimony to the work that they have put in learning Chinese and about China.

I dare to say that, ironically, finding a real career in China is hardest for this group. They have sweated over memorizing characters, perfecting tones, mastering the nuances of discussing sensitive issues with Chinese people. They are invested and, in many cases, in student debt. The American with the best Chinese I have ever heard graduated from the Hopkins-Nanjing Center last year. While teaching English at a high school in a second-tier city, he buried himself in Chinese culture. He labored to this end for eight years before returning to the US this past year. Why did someone so skilled have to leave China? Because, in his words, the only things he was qualified to do in China were teach English or open a bar. He is now a US federal employee.

My other friend graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Chinese language and literature in 2008. He moved to Beijing and taught English, then copy-edited, then freelance translated, for a total of three years. It was a charmed life for sure, but the aimlessness of translating and copy-editing spurred him to return to America to start a career.

After six months in America, he’s back in Beijing. When asked why, the question of employment doesn’t come up. “Everyone in America just talks about politics or the TV shows they watch. When you mention that you’ve just lived in China for three years and speak Chinese, the conversation basically stops,” he says. After a certain point of delving into China, this friend is faithfully and irretrievably a laowai, wherever he may go (laowai is the Chinese word for foreigner). I expect Mr. Levine to end up in this group one day, as well, and maybe then he’ll be more humble.

For those who graduated with degrees in China studies and have an honest, vested interest in the country paired with deep humility from having learned the language, Mr. Levine’s sort of article borders on offensive. Was he just trying to rile up the political feathers of those who claim that China has stolen American jobs? “If you don’t have a job, go to China” – and manifest destiny! Just be careful about getting into the language and culture; if you go too far, you might not qualify as Western enough to be employed.

2. China adopts Marxism as its ruling ideology.

3. China adopts partial capitalism under Deng.

4. In 1979, the philosophy of Yugoslavian Marxist humanist Gajo Petrovic becomes directly transplanted into Chinese intellectual rhetoric and sees great popularity. The alienist faction of Mao reformers quote Petrovic for having said, “The de-alienation of economic life also requires the abolition of state property.” (Jing Wang, High Culture Fever, page 13).

5. The alienist faction fails for internal reasons.

6. Wukan.

2. The world remains as it is right now, with America forever the strongest country (perhaps with a late-90′s economy). Everywhere else is what it is.

For Chinese: You have to pick between two scenarios
中国人：请您选择下列一项选项
1. China becomes the strongest power in the world, but loses most of its culture to Westernization.
1. 中国变成世界上最伟大的国家，可是为了西方化而失去了所谓“中国文化”。

2. Chinese culture remains forever intact and preserved, but China is weak in the world scheme.
2. 中国文化永远保留下去，可是中国是个较弱的国家。

Key question: What does China have to offer the world if it became the greatest power?
关键问题：如果中国变成世界上最强烈的国家，它的强大会给世界带来什么贡献？

I have never before heard a question that more clearly illuminates the ideological conflict between China and the “Western world. ” I was part of a discussion of about ten Chinese students in their twenties and thirties, and three Americans. This was the question posed to the class: What does China have to offer the world?

The responses included:

Diversity (more Chinese people in the world)
A peaceful rise to power
China’s experience (meaning China’s “experience” in itself is an inherent contribution to worldwide improvement)
Confucian values of self-reflection, obedience to order, and perfection
A legal system that is situational (i.e. suing Dunkin’ Donuts for its coffee being too hot would probably be too ridiculous get off the ground)

None of these answers actually speak to the question of what values China has that are distinctly different and applicable to the modern world. Diversity is not a value in this sense. A peaceful rise to power is not a value; nor is it original, distinct, or really that peaceful, if you consider how many minority groups suffer in China on account of its economic rise. Confucian values have potential, but the discussion group wavered on if Confucian values still exist in modern Chinese society. As for the legal system, well, we’ve all seen what can happen when a society does not have a unanimous moral code or constitution on which to base its decisions.

Thinking in this way helps illuminate the Chinese manner of using nationalism and economics to explain things in a way that Westerners might not. For instance, Chinese media representations of the US in Libya uses the rhetoric of imperialism, invasion, and bullying. CCTV was swift to cite Western politicians who said, “Libya is its own country and should therefore be able to decide its own future for itself” – thus inherently bolstering China’s own claim to ultimate sovereignty and independence (sovereignty and independence of values, in my opinion). Whereas in America, we would say that Qaddafi was an evil dictator, America has a responsibility to defend democracy and human rights, and sure there are a lot of other factors and America has a sometimes embarrassing tendency to be a moral policeman, but that’s the basic tenet.

The discussion ended with no conclusion on what China has to offer the world other than ease of consumerism. It is exactly this point that Professor Adam Webb damns in his enlightening book, Beyond the Global Culture War, saying that China has sold out its traditional values to modern consumerism (in his defense, which I must explain, otherwise he’ll raise an eyebrow at the last sentence, China’s consumerism was not the point of his book, it was just one of hundreds of examples).

I invite all interested people to read his book, which goes far beyond China and the US and the modern era. I also invite any and all comments on the issue of China’s potential worldwide contribution in the valuable and ideological sense.

It was my first time to Hong Kong. The adrenaline rush of being in a new city – Hong Kong of all places – clashed with my swirling ignorance about the place. The trip started (after 8 hours of travel) with me wandering around Chinese University’s campus, following e-mail directions from a stranger who told me that I had been put up in a dorm at Chinese University by a friend of a friend of a friend. I was carrying the weight of an under-thought Master’s thesis to a conference of literary big-shots. Also, it took me an hour to find a drink of water (can I drink from the faucet? Where is the nearest Seven-Eleven? Which subway stop?).

Being in a new city feels like a constant upstream battle. I had not realized how comfortable I had gotten in my Nanjing water well until I got to Shenzhen and had to follow the funny-looking pinyin to guess where the border-check was. Hey, expats thrive on that stuff.

Leo Ou-fan Lee, Tian Yuan, Xi Chuan, Bei Dao, Liang Wendao. What a line-up. Bei Dao, incase you don’t know, is considered by many to be the most accomplished poet of the Democracy Movement (a Misty poet, but I prefer identifying him with the DM, albeit that is also limiting). He was exiled after the Tiananmen Massacre, not because he was a participant (he was actually lecturing in Europe at the time), but because his poems had appeared on banners and in songs. He has been repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He is now a professor of Chinese literature at Chinese University in Hong Kong. He is also the focus of my Master’s thesis.

Bei Dao was a gracious host even to the lowly graduate student of shallow poetry appreciation. I approached him at one poetry reading to schedule a meeting, and he patted the seat next to him. We chatted at unpretentious ease up until Regis Bonvicino (Brazil) got onstage, at which point I actually felt no need to give him space. He radiated kindness. You don’t often hear that about people. China lost a great man when they exiled him for, um, inspiring the youth…with his poetry.

Liang Wendao was of course a celebrity appearance among celebrities, and I made sure to attend his panel, “Chinese Poetry: Negotiating Dilemma.” Most of the speakers resisted taking the bait of bemoaning poetry’s relative unpopularity in China. They instead talked about the relative [in-]significance of online-speak (网络语言 – it only involves a certain demographic; which I think means that it will become a classist dialect of sorts), the anxiety of being a colonial subject (that was actually Vivek Narayanan of India), and poetry being a sort of lifestyle. I wasn’t crazy about Kunming poet Yu Jian’s claim that English does not carry the poetic weight that Chinese characters inherently do, especially given that he does not know English (it just smacked a little too much of Chinese exceptionalism. And I let him know.). Mr. Liang finished his panel with “我们不懂诗的时候，我们【这个时代的人】都怪作者。”(“When we don’t understand poetry nowadays, we blame the writer.”) Speaking of charisma, by the way, Mr. Liang is a bubbling charisma fountain. Afterwards, my bus passed him as he was leaving campus for a smoke (in Hong Kong you can’t smoke on campus!). We made eye contact and both burst out laughing. Pretty cute.

I left the conference with a new poet and friend Xi Chuan (link different than previous one). Like Bei Dao, he is completely comfortable being genuinely kind. His poetry stood out among the recitations, his understated attitude all but testifying to the latent passion of his words. You can read a few of his poems here. I have his friend and translator Lucas Klein to thank for having introduced us, and also for having told me about the conference in the first place.

I finished the weekend writing a thesis prospectus in my Chungking Mansion matchbox. It was so wonderfully reminscent of Gordon Matthews.