Jottings from the Granite Studio

And we wonder why inter-cultural marriages between foreign men and Chinese women still are the subject of so many bizarre stereotypes and cliches.  This was an image I pulled off an actual advertisement running on Danwei of all places….I almost thought it was a gag ad but it appears that no, this company is completely serious.  Yellow Fever? 白血病?  Can we move past this crap in 2009?

And no...the link is NOT active.

On this date in 976, Li Yu (born 936) of the Southern Tang Dynasty surrendered to the armies of the Song.  Li Yu had attempted to buy off the Song Emperor for many years, trying to preserve a kingdom that covered modern day Jiangxi as well as parts of Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Fujian.  Holding out in his capital at Jinling (today’s Nanjing) Li Yu even voluntarily abdicated his title as “emperor” in an attempt to appease the Song court.  No dice.  In the winter of 975 Song troops stormed Jinling and Li Yu was taken prisoner.  He lingered in the Song capital of Kaifeng for a few years until, as the story goes, he was poisoned after having the temerity to write a poem lamenting the loss of his empire and accusing the Song emperor of raping his wife.

Staying in the Song for a moment, on this date in 1085 Song historian Sima Guang published his classic 《资治通鉴》”A Comprehensive Mirror on Government,” a tour de force with 294 volumes and 3 million characters chronicling over a millennium of history.

Today is the birthday of Peking opera star Cheng Yanqiu (1904-1958).  He was born in Beijing to a banner family that had seen better days.  Cheng was rescued from poverty when another resident of his courtyard, a performer of Peking Opera, noticed the delicate young man and introduced him to Rong Dieshan, who became Cheng’s teacher.  Cheng Yanqiu first took the stage at 11 and by 20 was considered a Peking opera superstar.

On January 1, 1912, the founding of the Republic of China was announced by President Sun Yat-sen. Sun had been elected president two days earlier but held the post for just two months before turning over power to Yuan Shikai.   Yuan would later order the assassination of Song Jiaoren, the charismatic young KMT politician who was set to become China’s first (and so far only) democratically-elected Prime Minister.  Yuan ultimately disbanded parliament (a few times) and allowed the country to fall into chaos before trying to sell the whole mess to Japan.   Seriously, not even Axl Rose signing an exclusive distribution deal with Best Buy screwed the chances for Chinese democracy this badly.  In December 1915, Yuan finally just said “to hell with it” and declared himself emperor with January 1, 1916 as the first date of his  洪憲 Hongxian or “Glorious Constitution” Dynasty.  We all know how well that worked out.

Speaking of screwing the Republic of China, today marks the 30th anniversary of formal diplomatic ties between the US and the PRC.

Finally, today is the birthday of revolutionary Hong Xiuquan (born 1814), who led the Taiping Rebellion after convincing himself and 100,000 of his closest friends and neighbors that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ. And it’s also the birthday of Chinese gymnast He Kexin born in either 1992 or 1994 depending on whether or not you work for the PRC General Administration of Sport.

Happy New Year!

Via Twitter, Rebecca Mackinnon sent me a link to an interview she did with Bao Tong in 1999, sneaking into his apartment building and smuggling the videotape out past the government stooges sent to detain them. Fascinating reading ten years after Τiαnαnmen.

Today is the birthday of Rudyard Kipling (born December 30, 1865). Like most people these days, I’m not wild about Kipling’s colonialist baggage, but I do like this quote:

“If history were told in the form of stories it would never be forgotten.”

Something to think about as I write another chapter of the dissertation and prepare my lectures for next semester.

I’m not a huge fan of the RFA and I rarely, if ever, link to it but this piece written by Bao Tong is an interesting take on the events of the pivotal 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Party Congress.  Bao Tong’s account departs from the triumphalist narrative of Deng Xiaoping kicking open the doors of reform and launching the country on a trajectory of modernization and development.  According to Bao Tong’s version, reform was not on Deng’s original agenda, rather what made this moment truly special was the way in which the rank-and-file members of the Central Committee, following the lead of Hu Yaobang and Chen Yun, upset the apple cart.

We were looking ahead to modernization. But after Chen Yun and Hu Yaobang caused trouble, the members of the Party Central Committee kicked up a fuss en masse, overturning Hua and Deng’s planned framework. Pretty soon, everyone had turned their attention to talking about the past, and then the debates came thick and fast. What were they talking about? They were talking about the Cultural Revolution, the Lushan meeting, the unresolved “political cases,” and Mao Zedong.

From the point of view of Chairman Hua and vice-chairman Deng, this was a loss of control. It was hard for them to endure because it made them look passive. But from the point of view of those Party Central Committee delegates sitting in the hall, it was the revolution they had never had. At least, it was the first taste they had had of liberation since Mao Zedong became the “core” of the Party, particularly since he had punished Peng Dehuai and harried Liu Shaoqi and Lin Biao to their deaths.

Finally, they were able to debate the rights and wrongs of Mao Zedong, and to put the case of the ordinary Chinese people without fear or shame. This was where the true creativity and life-force of the Third Plenum lay! This was how it differed utterly from previous meetings

Bao Tong traces the origins of this mini-’revolution’ at the 3rd Plenary session to the 1976 demonstrations commemorating the death of Zhou Enlai.  Bao suggests that Hua Guofeng and Deng would have been perfectly happy to not to “get tangled up in the problems of history” but were unable to ignore the demands of the membership.

We can perhaps imagine what might have transpired if the meeting had truly gone ahead according to the carefully laid plans of Chairman Hua and Vice-chairman Deng, and gone ahead in a quiet and orderly manner; if Chen Yun and the others hadn’t made a fuss, if the mistakes that Mao made had been covered up, and the Central Committee delegates hadn’t been allowed to talk about them so freely. If that had happened, and they had stuck rigidly to Deng’s theme of “Turning our attention to the work of modernization,” what sort of ending would we have seen then? It is fairly obvious that we would have seen another power struggle and another political coup of the kind that both Mao and Deng knew so well how to do.

Bao Tong’s larger point is that the success of the session was due to Deng’s (and Hua’s) willingness to throw out the old script when it was clearly opposed to the will of the rank-and-file membership who were, in turn, reflecting deep currents within the society.  This, for Bao, was the most important lesson of this historical turning point, one he feels today’s CCP leadership would do well to remember.

On the whole, I found Bao’s account fascinating, though I have to retain a certain sense of detachment and skepticism.  Bao Tong’s role in the political infighting of the 1980s is well known though I have no reason to dispute his account.  Hopefully, as more documents and memoirs from this period become widely available historians and students of history can gain a fuller understanding of this important moment in China’s modern history.

More on Bao Tong’s remembrance of 1978 can be found on the Time China Blog and at WSJ’s China Journal.

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Image top right: Bao Tong

In case the link to the essay is blocked, the above passages were written by Bao Tong for broadcast on RFA’s Mandarin service. Translated and produced for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.

h/t Rebecca MacKinnon via Twitter.

I’ve been taking some time going through December articles and posts on a few of my favorite sites and ran across the case of Yang Shiqun, a political science professor whose critical comments of Chinese culture and the government incited his students to report him to the authorities.  Articles relating to the case can be found on EastSouthWestNorth and David Bandurski has a good overview at China Media Project.

Personally I was taken by something Professor Yang wrote on his own blog where he invokes a comparison similar to one I made last year between the current academic/intellectual climate among students in the PRC and that of the May Fourth Period.

According to Professor Yang:*

I was summoned to speak with my leader today.  He said that some students in my <Ancient Han Language> course have denounced me to the Public Security Bureau and the City Education Committee for criticizing the government.  An investigation is being conducted.  I did not know whether to laugh or cry at the idea that students at the East China University of Political Science and Law should still have Cultural Revolution-era thinking and will resort to all and any methods to denounce their teacher as a counter-revolutionary.  So sad!  These Chinese university students.

When I held my <Ancient Han Language>, I definitely criticized certain traditional Chinese culture in the context of the course materials.  If there are certain aspects of traditional culture that are connected to today’s society, I would make those connections and criticize the government.

I remember that two female students came to see after class and angrily denounced me for daring to criticizing Chinese culture and the government!  They even had tears in their eyes.  I admire students who love Chinese culture and the government so much, and it is their right to do so!  But why don’t I have the right to criticize Chinese culture and the government?  Therefore I told them: I have the right to express my views and if you don’t like my lectures, you don’t have to take my course.  However, they went to denounce me to my superiors and added some more imaginary “crimes.”  I was really surprised.

You know, if this were to happen in the late Qing dynasty, someone might believe it.  If this were to happen in the May 4th era of the Republic of China, people won’t believe it.  The youth of that era had basically adopted the notions of “democracy,” “freedom” and “human rights” and therefore such weird incidents could not be happening.  But today in the 21st century, it is happening in China and at a Chinese university no less.  This is really incredible.  When I recall the series of weird things that occurred in Chinese schools recently, I have to pray silently for Chinese society and its people: When will Chinese society emerge out of ignorance?  When will Chinese education get on the right track?  When will Chinese students begin to think normally?

Last May, I wrote on The China Beat:

Like their May 4th predecessors, the young people of China today espouse a strong Chinese nation and their rhetoric is filled with pride and optimism for their country’s future. The passion and fire of May 4 is certainly there as well, even if the new media is an electronic one: Sohu, Tianya, and a universe of blogs and BBSs represent the new New Youth.

But something is missing: The marketplace of ideas.

Today in China, even with the government tirelessly trying to limit access to alternative perspectives, bookstores and the Internet still abound with news, essays, translations, history, and philosophy, providing young people with an access to information far beyond the wildest dreams of the May 4^th students. But the desire to find out more, the craving to challenge assumptions and formulate multiple perspectives on complex issues is woefully absent. The youth of today write more than ever, more than any generation in recent memory, terabytes of opinion available online—but the anger and passion and fire of the May 4^th generation are now enlisted in support of a single worldview and a single perspective on a range of issues. A whole generation whose arguments are hard-wired: an authoritarian success story.

I have a sense that things are changing and that the hard-wired fenqing anti-intellectualism will ultimately soften as emotions ebb and reason and analysis have their day.  At least I hope that’s the case…

UPDATE December 30: Louisa Lim reports on the case of Professor Yang for NPR’s Morning Edition.

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* Translation by Roland Soong, the original post in Chinese can be found on Professor Yang’s blog.

Today is the day after Christmas and the spirit still hangs in the air (especially if you’re like me and your Christmas is a five-day multi-state slog between family homesteads.)  It is also the birthday of Mao Zedong (born 1893).  With that in mind, who really rules the season?* I say we sort this out once and for all, so with apologies to both Dr. Jack Ramsay and Bill Simmons,** let’s break this down, Dr. Jack style:

RED OR EXPERT?

Santa Claus definitely brings the red. It’s a key part of his fashion palette, plus you have poinsettias, holly berries, candy canes, Reindeer noses, etc. That said, is there any doubt? Mao may have frequently dressed in a suit of “Christmas tree” green but he was all about the Red: Red Army. Red Book. Red Guard.

ADVANTAGE: Mao

IDEOLOGY?

One of the two is famous for seizing goods produced by an enslaved, isolated population and redistributing them to people deemed to be worthy of receiving said goods based on an arbitrary set of lists that his minions check every year judging people on their ability to adhere to previously announced ideological guidelines.  The other is Mao.

ADVANTAGE: Draw

ORGANIZATIONAL ABILITY?

Mao compelled a billion people to abandon their fields and spend the next two years making steel in the backyard. Santa has a handful of elves. Of course, the elves generally do NOT die of starvation as a result of their work so…

ADVANTAGE: Santa

GREATEST JOURNEY?

Santa visits every house in every country every year all in the span of about 48 hours (getting a little help from the international date line) and does so being pulled by a team of magic deer. Mao marched his troops 8000 miles in 370 days across incredibly difficult terrain while under fire most of the way.  No word on how well the reindeer handle flak.

ADVANTAGE: Mao

CHOICE OF SIDEKICK?

Mao had a succession of sidekicks and heirs apparent, of course he let Liu Shaoqi linger in prison and Mao’s “Closest Comrade in Arms” Lin Biao died after a failed coup attempt against the Chairman. Santa has Rudolph, whose loyalty to his boss/master was tested only by the uncomfortably close bond Rudy formed with Herbie the Dentist Elf that time both were on the lam with Yukon Cornelius.

ADVANTAGE: Santa

GREATEST FEAR?

Santa: A rebellious elf.  Mao: Deng Xiaoping.

ADVANTAGE: DRAW

LONGEVITY?

It’s been 115 years since the Chairman was born…of course for the last thirty years or so he’s been pickled under glass.  The mythical roots of Santa Claus date back centuries though you could argue that our modern image is actually Mao’s junior having been based mostly on advertising images from Coca-Cola and other companies in the early 20th century.  But then again Santa’s got the whole “as long as Children awake wide-eyed on Christmas morning, the spirit of the season lives forever” thing going, so…

ADVANTAGE: Santa

WINNER: Santa, but it was closer than I thought.

Happy Christmas!

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* I was going to do Mao versus Jesus, but I’m getting on a plane for a 20-hour flight over the Pacific Ocean next week.  Best to play it safe.

** Jack Ramsay is a basketball coach and analyst famous for his side-by-side breakdowns of playoff series. Bill Simmons is a writer/humorist who has adapted Dr. Ramsay’s formula for things such as Cheers versus Seinfeld and Deniro/Pacino.

Samuel Huntington, a legend in academia, passed away on Christmas Eve at the age of 81.  Like them or loathe them, his ideas were highly influential among scholars, policy makers, and the reading public.  His 1996 book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order theorized that the world was divided into cultural ‘zones’ and that the differences between those cultures would define the post-Cold War age.

Personally, I wasn’t a huge fan but that might be because I think culture is overrated.

That’s not to say that “culture” (as a thing, if a thing difficult to define) doesn’t exist nor that this thing “culture” is unimportant.  Rather, the excessive focus on culture (or nation, or ethnicity, pick your poison) tends to obscure as much as it illuminates, and in fact can be quite destructive.

‘Culturally incompatible’ is too often lobbed about by those opposed to ‘foreign’ concepts (such as, say, human rights in China or women’s rights in Saudi Arabia) as if such an ill-defined phrase could ever be the final word on a particular subject.  (The rhetorical equivalent of Michael Corleone hissing at his wife “Don’t ever ask me about my business” in the Godfather).*  Problems of compatibility of course DO exist, but these problems are not necessarily insurmountable nor can they be considered fundamentally incomprehensible to “outsiders.”

And this excessive focus on “culture as an excuse or explanation” can compound the situation when differences lead to conflict.

I can think of an example quite close to home, in fact from within our home.  YJ and I grew up in different places, environments, and family structures (to name only three differences).*  She was raised in a working-class home in a large Chinese city while I come from an upper-middle class home in exurban New Hampshire.  Yet we both feel that we are quite compatible.  In cross-cultural (there’s that word again) relationships, there is a tendency, by those on the outside looking in (and sometimes even the people in the relationship) to immediately attribute misunderstandings or conflict  — both the real and the possible –  to ‘cultural differences,’ when in fact ‘culture’ might be only one part of the problem.

This is especially pernicious if the definition of culture deployed is based primarily on ethnicity/nationality. One could argue that just as large a ‘cultural’ gulf exists between YJ and me based on my growing up surrounded by trees, a 45 minute drive away from the nearest mall or cinema, whereas YJ grew up in an urban environment teeming with people and activity.

Moreover, if I forget to do the dishes, it’s generally because I’m lazy, not because I’m American, and when YJ changes her mind 95 times before she decides on where we’re getting dinner it’s because she can be maddeningly indecisive about food and not because of some sort of inherent aspect of “Chineseness.”

In the interest of full disclosure, I admit to sometimes falling into the trap I’ve described above and it’s something for which I must constantly be vigilant. For example, why should it be that when somebody cuts me off in traffic in Beijing, I think “crazy Chinese drivers” but when somebody does it in my hometown I just think the guy’s being an asshole?

Problems arise, both internationally and (ahem) domestically, when disagreements are stuck with the label of
“cultural trait” and thus assumed to be somehow essential and hopelessly unresolvable.  Add to the mix the tiresome and horrifically anti-intellectual idea that a person cannot hope to understand a particular culture unless they are identified as a member of that group, and the results can be quite destructive.

I admit to a strong universalist streak: I believe that when our path to mutual understanding is blocked, it slows the journey to peaceful coexistence.

Awareness of culture, even cultural difference, is a good thing.  People do come from different backgrounds and these differences do inform our life choices and perceptions.  But there is far more that unites us as human beings than divides us, and it’s time we focus on that rather than participate in the continued artificial fragmenting of the world.

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* The Boston Red Sox had a manager about five years ago named Jimy Williams. A taciturn man, he would frequently dismiss reporters’ questioning of his decisions with a terse “manager’s decision” and that would be that.  I thought the Al Pacino reference would be (slightly) more recognizable.

Readers of this blog might not know that one of my hobbies is music.  I’ve played piano all of my life and (mis)spent a portion of my high school and college days bashing around in a series of bands which ranged from cow-punk to Grateful Dead covers.  I still play a bit, though as with all things when in graduate school, the amount of time one can devote to outside avocation suffers.

Nevertheless, it’s a subject in which I remain intensely interested and so it was my great pleasure to learn of a new blog that combines both my vocation and avocation together: An Imperfect Pen. It’s only the first month, but he blows me away with the quality, focus, and regularity of his posts.  It helps that the site fulfills one of my basic rules for online writing: Good blogs are about SOMETHING and use that theme as a foundation to then explore other ideas and subjects.

The author, Peter Micic, describes his mission thus:

I am a specialist in Chinese music history interested in a vast range of topics, ranging from exploring the complexity of gender relations among music-makers in late imperial China, the revival of musical styles from China’s musical past, the transliteration of foreign musical terms into the Chinese language (including loan words and neologisms), and from the way that globalization affects music cultures around the world. I am fascinated by problematizing history rather than accepting our often cozy assumptions of it, and am committed to finding ways to reach and engage both specialists and the general public.

I highly recommend checking it out.

In a new phase of China’s reemergence as a naval power, a 3-vessel anti-piracy task force set sail from Hainan for the waters off of the Horn of Africa.*  It’s been over 600 years since the eunuch admiral Zheng He began his series of amazing voyages from the Ming Empire through the Indian Ocean.  Some historians have argued that the decision by the Ming court to end the expeditions and dismantle the armada created a naval power vacuum in the Indian Ocean which allowed small and aggressive ships from Western Europe to force their way into long-established patterns of trade along the South Asian and African coast. 

While China certainly has a stake in keeping the shipping lanes open in the region, there’s also a strong whiff of “let’s test our mettle” to the expedition.  PLAN commanders have already suggested that the mission serves to provide combat experience for China’s sailors and marines, and after thirty years of military modernization, there must be a strong temptation in the PLA brass (shared by boys across the world this day after Christmas) to stop dreaming, take the toys out of the box, and let ‘em rip. 

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There’s apparently some sort of editorial directive for the foreign media to bring up Zheng He’s name within the first two paragraphs of any article about the mission.  So…let me be #944,345.