Moderate Voices on the Sino-US Relationship

It’s probably fair to say that the relationship between Obama and Zhongnanhai has gotten off to an uneven start.  On one hand, we have presidential hatchet man treasury secretary Timothy Geithner’s provocative comments on revaluation of the yuan (can I say again, as somebody who gets paid in US dollars, easy does it boys), on the other is word that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will break with tradition and visit Asia (including China) on her first trip overseas as America’s top diplomatic official.

Closer to home, as the US financial crisis washes up on Chinese shores, folks in the PRC are dealing with the fallout in different ways, some through forced optimism and wishful thinking, others finding the best medicine in gentle  barbs and jokes.

Moreover, after eight years of watching George W. Bush making a hash of democracy and America’s image abroad, President Obama, right out of the box, now presents an interesting and complex set of challenges for the world’s despots.  It is no secret that the Chinese leadership would have preferred four more years of George W. and for all the wrong reasons.

But rapprochement is a dish best served warm, and David Bandurski has collected

February 4th, 2009

Brief Comment: Shoes on other feet

It’s interesting how the insult of hurling a shoe at someone with whom you disagree is catching on.  I’m not really in favor of people lobbing their loafers at speakers but it sure beats hand grenades.

The only thing about the Wen Jiabao “shoe incident”:

When it happened to George Bush it was shown a gazillion times on Chinese state television and the Chinese public and press had a good time with it.  And to be frank, I laughed along with them.

Now that it’s Wen Jiabao on the other end of the flying footwear all of a sudden Chinese netizens are in a tizzy and Chinese state media seems to have misplaced the footage.

Sadly typical.  Come on guys, if you don’t think the whole thing is worth at least a chuckle then you’re just not having enough fun in show business.

I saw a great quote on the blog Bendilaowai: “Many Chinese are furious about this behaviour towards their adored grandpa Wen, but though I quite like Wen Jiabao myself, I like even more the idea of world leaders being forced to duck a shoe from time to time.”

Amen, brother.

February 3rd, 2009

From the Granite Studio Archives: Lao She’s 110th

February 3, 2009 marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of writer Lao She.  I wrote this short piece last year to mark the occasion of anniversary number 109, and I like it so much that I’m running it again. Enjoy.

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Originally published February 3, 2008:

Today is the birthday of the celebrated novelist, playwright, and also YJ’s favorite author, Lao She, born Shu Qingchun in Beijng, 1899. His family was Manchu, members of the Red Banner, and Lao She’s father was killed defending the city against the Allied Expeditionary Force sent to quell the Boxer Uprising. After her husband’s death, his mother took to working as a laundry woman to support herself and her son. Remembering those years, Lao She would later write:

“During my childhood, I didn’t need to hear stories about evil ogres eating children and so forth; the foreign devils my mother told me about were more barbaric and cruel than any fairy tale ogre with a huge mouth and great fangs. And fairy tales are only fairy tales, whereas my mother’s stories were 100 percent factual, and they directly affected our whole family.”

As a young man, he worked as a teacher and

February 3rd, 2009

2009: A Year of Some Significance

2009 is shaping up to be a great year.  The dissertation is humming along, I’m teaching a class on Modern Chinese history for about 20 American university students studying here in Beijing as well as a seminar on Chinese philosophy.  The classes start on Thursday and I’m almost done with finalizing the syllabus (I’m an inveterate, compulsive tinkerer).  This is the fourth time I’ve taught the philosophy seminar and this is the fourth syllabus I’ve used.  I always begin the process of revision by “wanting to tweak a few things,” but as an academic there’s a hint of shade-tree mechanic in me, and I can’t resist just pulling the whole thing apart and putting it back together again.  The Modern Chinese History class is a little more straightforward (1911-2008) and we hit all the high and low points: May Fourth, Nanking Decade, World War II, Liberation, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, Reform and Opening, that thing that rhymes with Schmiananmen, and the problems and possibilities of the present day.  It’s a fun class to teach, needless to say.

Along the way in the past year, I also managed (almost by accident) to have several pieces published in books which have

February 3rd, 2009
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