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If it feels like I link to China Media Project a lot, it’s simply because David Bandurski runs a damn good blog. Allow me to do so again and recommend his excellent post “Can China forget its own history,” a must-read for anyone interested in modern Chinese history and historiography. The accompanying essay/translation will also have particular resonance for those familiar with the documentary Morning Sun, in which Song Binbin’s recollections feature prominently. I took a taxi to work this morning, always a mistake. In this case because I’m pretty sure my driver was hammered. Now I know we expats like to make our little jokes about how some taxi drivers in Beijing like to get a little lubed before heading out to work, and certainly anyone who has had lunch (or breakfast) at a restaurant frequented by cabbies has witnessed the distrubingly high liquid/food ratio, but I never had the personal pleasure of watching a cabbie squint his way down the Second Ring Road at high speed. At first, when he tried to light a cigarette, had trouble with the radio, and was driving 8 miles an hour on an open Dongzhimen Nei, I thought he was simply sleepy…these guys do put in long hours. Why didn’t I just bail? Well, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, everytime I thought my life was truly in danger he’d rally and we’d have 10-15 minutes of uneventful driving before he would feel I was too bored and so spice up the trip with events like “Swerve into oncoming bus” and “narrowly miss bicyclist.” I was still in the middle |
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