August 14, 2008
This sign, the motto of the 2008 Olympics, is at the Great Wall, just outside of Beijing. This photo was taken in late June, on our way out of China. In today’s paper, an athlete competing in Beijing said, “Eerie how the sun never comes out all day.” Eerie indeed.
Lara’s having a hard time breathing at the Wall.
In this shot, the sign is in the upper right corner. It’s sad.
June 24, 2008
We recently arrived in Beijing, a city busily getting ready to hold the Olympics in less than two months. To walk the streets of Beijing, or even look out the window, one has to ask how Olympic athletes will possibly compete here. It’s not possible to convey how polluted Beijing is in words. If Chengdu’s atmosphere resembled skim milk, Beijing is more akin to mushroom soup. One can see about a block or two, then the city recedes in the mysterious mists of smog. It’s like the early morning fog of California, but it never burns off.
Beijing, mid-day.
Modern Beijing.
It’s a wonder the government was able to convince the Olympic committee to hold the Olympics here. What would really infuriate me if I were a Beijinger, is the fact that for the Olympics, the government will stop the polluting industry, and restrict automobile traffic, so the air will be relatively clean. Then, once the Olympics are over, it’s back to pollution-as-usual. Lara and I discussed living in Beijing as embodying the frog-in-hot-water analogy. If the water, or air pollution, increases slowly enough, the frogs, or people, don’t notice. Until it’s too late.
Beijing food market.
Food market workers.
Bored food worker.
Beijing is more hip than Chengdu. It is less socially conservative. People stare less here, or even notice our presence. The pollution is the first thing one notices, and it’s hard to get past.
We went to the Great Wall, or the Long Wall, as it’s known in Chinese. It’s pretty great. But again, the wall is overshadowed by the haze of pollution. One can barely see the wall itself.
The most notable thing about our visit to the Great Wall was what happened after we climbed it. We sat down next to a group of people that looked like they were from Afghanistan, and had some coffee. We sat talking, while a women from Canada approached this group and they all started talking. Before you know it they were discussing Barack Obama and Bush. We soon figured out they were from Pakistan. They turned to us and said, We are against the policies, not the people. It was a big delegation, and a couple of them came and sat next to us, and began talking politics, explaining that Pakistan didn’t have problems with the Taliban until Bush and Mush (Musharraf) began with “their war policies.” He said they favored dialogue over war. He then introduced one of the members of the delegation as Musharraf’s brother, a “legitimate leader because he was elected.” Obviously Musharraf and his brother have some differences.
Yesterday we saw Mao’s body, under a red hammer and sickle flag, on display next to Tiananmen Square. Today we visited the Summer Palace. Tomorrow morning we leave for Portland. Our time in China has come to an end. Check back soon for final photos and some final thoughts on our ten months in Asia.
April 12, 2008
On Thursday, April 3rd, between eight and fifteen more Tibetan monks and lay people were shot and killed by Chinese para-military police forces in Sichuan Province. They were marching on a police station where two monks were being held for possessing pictures of the Dalai Lama, a crime in China.
The incident began when monks at a monastery in the town of Donggu, refused to allow a military force of over a thousand troops into their monastery. The troops forced their way in, ransacked the place, and found the pictures. They arrested two monks. All 370 monks from the monastery, joined by some 400 or so others, marched to demand the monks’ release. Once again, the Chinese police opened fire on unarmed demonstrators, killing several and wounding many.
China acts surprised and outraged that the Olympic Torch relay has been disrupted by demonstrations in Greece, London, Paris, and San Francisco. Anyone who is paying attention to what China is doing should not be surprised by the anger and determination of the protestors. Outside China, the Communist Party can’t control public opinion. For this, they are looking to hire a public relations firm.
Despite all the international frenzy over China, Tibet, and the Olympic Torch protests, life here in Chengdu, Sichuan, goes on as normal. Simply walking around the streets here, one wouldn’t even know that China was in the middle of an international firestorm.
For me, normal life has included a renewed study of Chinese medicine and martial arts. Last week I started interning in the teaching hospital associated with Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). I spent the week in the oncology ward, working with cancer patients. I also began training in a martial art called Xing Yi Quan at a Taoist Temple. Doing these kinds of things are the reason I came to China.
I ride my bike along the river, which runs through the center of Chengdu, to the hospital, a trip which, depending on traffic, takes about forty minutes. Before eight in the morning is rush hour, when one has to compete with scooters, electric bikes, other bicyclists, cars and buses. Two-wheeled vehicles have their own lane. These bike lanes are protected from internal combustion vehicles by concrete medians filled with bushes and trees or bright blue metal gates. In the mornings the bike lanes move faster than the cars, which suffer from roads not designed for the number of vehicles now appearing on China’s streets.
At the hospital I’m paired up with a couple of friends and a very good translator. We spend every morning with a doctor, either seeing patients who come in for herbal formulas, or doing rounds in the in-patient ward. Those coming in to see the doctor in most cases recently had surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation therapy and are seeking herbs to aid in their recovery. The doctor prescribes herbs to help with the side effects of Western therapies and to treat the root causes of individuals’ problems.
For example, we saw a 66 year old women who was recovering from cancer of the bile duct. She had an operation one year ago, and had parts of her bile duct and stomach removed. Previously she had had three gallstone operations. She now suffers from stomach ache, distension after meals and heart burn.
After asking her a number of questions, taking her pulse and looking at her tongue, the doctor determined she was suffering from Liver Heat Attacking the Stomach, a TCM diagnosis. The lack of a coat on her tongue indicates she has Stomach Yin deficiency, caused by Heat. She was given a formula to deal with the excessive stomach acid by generating stomach mucous to protect the stomach and to ameliorate the acid regurgitation, which in TCM parlance are signs of Heat. Included in the formula where herbs to nurture her stomach Yin. Hopefully by resolving the Stomach Heat, one can help avoid another appearance of cancer which may result from the chronic irritation she is experiencing.
Another day we visited three in-patients, all getting a combination of chemo and herbal formulas. Most of these patients were pretty far along in the development of cancer, and the intention of the doctor is to lessen the pain and increase both the quality and the duration of their lives. I’ll be spending every morning at the hospital, except Thursdays, when I teach, and plan to move around to various departments and see as much as I can over the next month or so.
Ten minutes away from Chengdu University is the Qing Yang Taoist Temple, one of my favorite places in Chengdu. There I’m doing Xing Yi Quan, or Mind Intent Boxing. It’s what’s referred to as an “internal” martial art, which means that one of its primary objectives is the cultivation of internal power, or Qi. It is a sister art of Tai Ji Quan. I’m getting private lessons with a man who has been practicing this form for over 25 years. I go there with a friend, Zhang Hui, who acts as translator and thus gets free lessons out of the deal. That, plus I help him with his English.
In Xing Yi there are five “fists,” or punch/block combinations, associated with the Five Elements (Earth, Metal, Water, Wood, and Fire). Over the next two months my instructor plans to teach me all five, and a “linking form” which includes them all.
Being in the hospital and doing martial arts reminds me of the positive side of China, the ancient culture that paid attention to the body and mind and cultivated techniques and practices aimed at improving both. Doing these things reminds me that the people of China are not the government, a distinction people from other countries are kind enough to grant Americans.
March 30, 2008
While Chengdu is relatively calm, all roads West of here are closed to everything but military traffic. Unrest resides just beyond the blockades, in the areas with large Tibetan populations. With no journalists present, it’s hard to know exactly what’s going on in the Tibetan region. All we have to go on are word-of-mouth reports, as collected by Western journalists and reported in Western papers on-line. The Chinese papers are full of lies and distortions about the situation in Tibet, when they say anything at all. For example, they claim the Dalai Lama is calling for Tibetan independence, which he is not. They also have not reported the numbers of Tibetans killed by the police and military. They blame all the problems on “criminals” and the “Dalai clique” who are orchestrating the protests from India.
We know it’s not just Lhasa that has seen protest actions, but also Gansu and Qinghai Provinces to the North, and in Sichuan Province, where we live, there have been protests and Tibetans shot by police in Aba, Garze, and Luhuo, at least. We know that there have been protests as most recently as this past Tuesday, March 25th, in Garze, Sichuan when at least one monk was killed, and one critically wounded, and there are rumors that there is renewed fighting in Lhasa as of Saturday, March 29th. This is being talked about as perhaps the biggest uprising against Chinese rule since 1959, when the Dalai Lama fled Tibet. We have no idea how many Tibetans have been killed and rounded up. The latest figure from the Tibetan government-in-exile is 140 Tibetans killed. The Chinese admit to imprisoning up to 1,000 Tibetans, although the number is likely higher.
When I say Chengdu is calm, I should qualify that. Until yesterday, there have been half a dozen or more riot cops stationed at the front gate of our University every evening, plus an increased police presence on campus and throughout the city. There were also rumors of a bus bombing in Chengdu, which circulated widely and were countered by the police and media. This rumor was enough to cause an author scheduled to speak about Chinese writer and anarchist Ba Jin to cancel her trip here from Beijing.
Yesterday we walked around the Tibetan section of Chengdu, one of the city’s more interesting neighborhoods.. Because we are so close to Tibet, there are many Tibetans living here. People there seemed fairly low key yesterday, although many complain of not being able to call relatives who live further West. The phone lines are blocked. The Chinese like to control information.
There is a large police presence in the neighborhood, and all roads in are closed to vehicle traffic. Marked and unmarked police cars and motorcycles with flashing lights and lots of cops occupy major intersections. There are police cars and SUVs throughout the neighborhood, with their mars lights flashing constantly. Some cop cars are simply parked, with cops just sitting there, blue and red lights flashing. Police SUVs patrol up and down, with cops staring at everyone on the streets and in the shops and little restaurants. Generally you don’t see many police in Chengdu, so this is a pretty heavy presence, no doubt meant to intimidate the local population.
In terms of our personal lives, there have been some developments. Some of our emails are now turning up blank if there is any reference to Tibet, or if there are any links to news stories about it. Internet access to stories is also restricted, so if we try to click on a story, sometimes the page turns up blank and we get booted off line. It’s pretty creepy. If you write us any emails, please refer to Tibet in a coded fashion, such as T_bet.
It’s certainly a strange time to be in China. This police state is being put to the test in the run up to the August Olympics. The torch lighting ceremony in Greece was interrupted by protestors from Reporters Without Borders, who unfurled a banner with the Olympic rings depicted as handcuffs, protesting the lack of journalist access to events in Tibet. Still, the Chinese insist on running the torch over the Himalayas and right through Tibet.
In response to international pressure, China allowed a delegation of reporters to travel to Tibet, but this carefully managed show was interrupted by a large group of monks at one of the monasteries telling the reporters that “Tibet is not free,” and talking about the harsh crackdown by the Chinese. The monks in Tibetan monasteries are forced to recite political propaganda and denounce the Dalai Lama.
We feel safe, although somewhat uncertain about our status. We’ve been very vocal in emails and on our blogs about what is going on, and what things look like from here. Lara just did a radio interview about the situation with a community radio station in Portland. The only thing we are risking is deportation. It’s my guess though that as long as our protests are kept to the world outside China, they’ll tolerate it. Time will tell.
March 16, 2008
We are no longer able to see our breath indoors; life here is starting to improve. Thailand now seems like a place which exists in another dimension. We joke about this great dream we had, where we were warm and people were happy. We’re back in China, where the air looks like skim milk and people’s moods are rather dour.
I’m entering my fifth week of teaching college English. I have 120 students broken up into 3 classes of roughly 40 each. I do short presentations, then have the students work in pairs and small groups. My classes have a kind of workshop feel, with students speaking to each other, and me circulating, answering questions, and helping them out. Coming here I didn’t expect to be a college teacher, but I am and I’m really enjoying it. The students are very appreciative and seem to be learning and enjoying themselves.
Of course I can’t really talk to my students about what I want to. In China, we’re told about The Three Ts that can’t be discussed: Taiwan, Tibet, and Tian’enmen. I do talk to them about global warming and climate change. The environment seems ok to address, so far. Even the Communist Party bosses give it lip service. But I wonder if I would get in trouble if I told my students that four million Chinese die every year from urban air pollution. What would happen if I started pointing to the dark side of the Chinese “economic miracle,” to the massive displacement of people from the countryside, forced into the cities to work in factories? What if we discussed the inherent contradiction between ecological health and capitalist growth? Would that get me in trouble, in this ostensibly Communist country?
While so far I’ve been able to talk superficially about global warming, I can’t openly challenge the official version of what’s going on in Tibet right now. At first the Chinese media said nothing about the protests. We heard about them early in the week from someone in the States. Even then, a search on the Web only turned up a short report on the Washington Post site, under Religion. By Friday, when Chinese police attacked a peaceful march by Tibetan monks, and outraged Tibetan civilians reacted forcefully, the Chinese media could no longer ignore what was happening. Getting their information from Chinese TV news and newspapers, my students would be under the impression that the Dalai Lama was orchestrating “sabotage” from Dharamsala, India, and that “criminals” were killing Chinese shop owners and disturbing the “social harmony” which the Chinese government cherishes so much, especially in the run up to the August Olympics. The Tibetans are depicted here as hooligans, trouble-makers, and “splitters.”
If this weren’t China, I’d tell my students to seek out the Tibetan students on campus and talk to them about their perspectives on what’s going on, that they should ask the Tibetans what they’ve heard is happening from their relatives back home. I would encourage them to seek out information from varying sources and make up their own minds about the issue. I’d teach them about State propaganda and the way the media is used to manipulate populations, and how to deconstruct media sources and assertions.
I would ask them if they knew it is illegal to display the Tibetan flag in Tibet. And that it is illegal to display a picture of the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. Or that according to multiple sources in Tibet, at least 80 people have been killed, some shot down by Chinese police in the streets.
If this weren’t China, I’d expect the Tibetan Student Association to be holding forums on the situation, with updates from friends and family in Lhasa, or Xiahe in Gansu Province. I would expect a rally on campus protesting the crackdown. But, this is China. The Tibetan students on campus are being fairly closely monitored, in all likelihood. In a place like this, you think twice before you even approach a Tibetan student to talk. Who’s watching? This, of course, is the strength of a police state. One starts to police oneself out of fear.
Despite all these constraints, exacerbated and brought more into relief under these conditions, it’s interesting to spend time with these Chinese young people. Although college freshmen, they look and act more like high schoolers. Because of Yao Ming they are all Houston Rocket fans, and all the boys like basketball and the NBA, which is better than their misguided belief that ping pong is a sport, the national sport in fact. They are interested in politics, but also in Madonna.
In a discussion of film, I taught them the word “genre,” and gave them a sheet with my top five picks in eight film categories. They all love Titanic and Forrest Gump, so I felt compelled to clue them in to some more interesting films. In a discussion of responses to show interest and start a conversation, I taught them the words “bummer” and “excellent,” and the phrase “That’s cool.” Three of my students are sitting in because they’ll be going to the U.S. to study in the Fall. At the very least, I hope that I can provide them with some basic preparation to make the most of their experience there.
Although I’m not doing what I wish I could be doing with my classes, it is interesting to teach. It’s a good experience to get in front of groups of people to talk every week, and this is opening up my mind to different things I can do when we return to the US, in terms of teaching, public speaking, and political organizing. A big part of those kinds of activities involves feeling at ease talking in front of people you don’t know. That’s what I’m getting from my experience. And who knows, maybe some students may want to talk about Tibet, global warming and the negative impact of capitalist development, or alternative news sources, after class. Even then though, should I speak my mind?
February 2, 2008
We left Bangkok after a few days of taking in the various monumental and ornate wats (temples) and palaces. One of our favorite activities in sprawling Bangkok was traversing the city scape via water taxi, boats which carry both Thais and tourists along a major river which snakes through the center of the city. This is a very calming and meditative means of transportation, one I’d imagine the average Thai worker coming home from their job couldn’t help but appreciate.
We headed north via train 12 hours to Chiang Mai. Although very tourist-centered, Chiang Mai is more run down and humble than Bangkok. We had to negotiate with Tuk Tuk (motorized rickshaw) drivers over the exorbitant fares they wanted to charge to take us moderate distances, plus arguing against their attempts to take us to various tailors they get kickbacks from to deliver us to their shops. Subsequently, as usual, we spent a lot of time walking. It was hot and lazy in Chiang Mai, and I enjoyed wandering through the city’s streets, checking out the wats, which were not as spectacular and glitzy as those of Bangkok. Without the crowds of Bangkok the wats seemed more human and less on display. We explored little restaurants off the tourist path, eating a Thai version of hot pot and a jungle curry. Our last day there I got ill for the first time in Asia, ironically after eating at a fairly fancy restaurant overlooking the city, which took us half an hour walking up a hill to get to after we refused to pay the extra 100 baht the Tuk Tuk driver insisted upon to actually take us the full distance. I spent the night moving between the bed and the toilet, moving very slowly the next day until we got on a train back to Bangkok.
Back in Bangkok we paid 1000 baht to watch Muay Thai (kickboxing) fights. At an exchange rate of roughly 30 baht to the dollar, this made for an expensive evening. Most of the fighters were teenagers, weighing around 100 pounds. A couple of the fighters exhibited skills beyond knee strikes, kicks, and punches and were quite exciting to watch. These guys had obviously been training for more than a couple of years. Of equal interest to what was going on in the ring was the frenzied betting going on all around us, with men winning thousands of baht per fight. We stayed for seven fights, getting our fill after several hours.
Our friend Audrey from Portland arrived the next day and we took another train south to Surat. We spent less than 12 hours there, mostly sleeping, and got a ride to the rain-forest of Khao Sok National Park with the owner of the hotel we stayed at.
Khao Sok has the remains of a 160 million year old rain-forest. This was the jungle interior part of our trip. We took long boats deep into the jungle ala Apocalypse Now, then trekked in even deeper. Our Thai guides had mischievous smiles upon arriving at a cave complex, where the three of us and four Germans were led deeper and deeper into a dark, wet, huge cave crawling with water and life. Several of us had headlamps which followed our gaze around the cave’s interior as we sloshed through ankle deep water in flip flops. The guides advised us we would encounter chest-high water, but we didn’t know if this was real or hyperbole.
Looking up towards the ceiling of the cave’s interior, we could see hundreds and hundreds of bats dangling from their feet, hanging upside down, twitching either from being disturbed by our lights or as part of their natural physiologic processes. The cave was pitch black, as evidenced anytime one of us strayed far from the lights. We crawled over boulders and through rocky crevices, encountering spiders as big as our hands. Half way through we came across a spring, which soon turned into a stream and eventually a narrow, quite powerful river. Climbing down between the rocks, sure enough, we were soon immersed chest high in strong currents of water, navigating through the darkness in a journey which didn’t come to any quick or tidy conclusions. At one point we had to swim along the length of a gushing river squeezed between narrow rocks in the direction of the only way out. I had to be careful not to submerge the battery attached by two wires to the headlamp I was wearing. After close to an hour we finally saw the hint of daylight in the distance and soon returned to the heat of the jungle. It felt exhilarating to make it through the cave complex, seeing a world one seldom encounters, navigating the darkness to emerge on the other side. At times it felt crazy to even be in there, Whose idea was this? Upon exiting back into the light, we sat and drank water and laughed about what we had just been through.
In 1932 Thailand went from being a Monarchy to being a Constitutional Monarchy. There’s a monument to this transition dubbed, prematurely, the “democracy monument” in Bangkok. It was here, in 1973, that hundreds of thousands of demonstrators gathered to protest the very lack of democracy in Thailand and the control by the military. The military opened fire on the pro-democracy demonstrators and at least 75 were killed near the monument. It was partly in response to this kind of oppression that many students headed south to the jungles of the rain-forest to gather and organize against the government. Khao Sok National Park was a prime location for students and communist insurgents to hide out in during the 1970s.
From the interior’s rain-forest we headed towards what most foreigners know Thailand for, namely the beaches. We spent a night in Krabi, a sleepy little town with an awesome food night market, and a veritable Clown Navy of colorful fishing and transport boats. At the night market we had Phad Thai, which was quite good, made by Muslims at a small cart. From Krabi we took a longboat to Railay, a beach recommended to us for its beauty.
We found an affordable place to stay at the top of a hundred stairs. Railay is where we got in the water and lay on the beach for the first time. In Railay we went snorkeling, diving off a boat into water filled with myriad multi-colored fish. The water is warm and embracing. We visited surrounding islands, swimming and exploring beaches.
Unfortunately, Railay was clogged with tourists by the thousands. It was far too dense with European, Australian, and US tourists to really be very enjoyable, and everything there is outrageously expensive. The tourist circuit in Thailand is about as expensive as New York City, although Thailand is more affordable off the beaten path. Railay was not always a tourist haven. The area around Railay once sheltered pirates who used its extensive beaches and inlands to hide out in and plan attacks.
From Railay we took a boat a couple of hours further south to the Island of Phi Phi (pronounced Pee Pee), part of which was made famous by the controversial filming there of The Beach. Upon landing in Phi Phi it appeared as bad if not worse than Railay in terms of base commercialism, but some advanced research led us to a fairly secluded little beach where we found an affordable place to stay. We ended up spending three nights there, lying on the beach, snorkeling, playing cards, writing and reading. There was hardly anyone else there, and the people that worked there were very kind. The only way back was by long boat, or an hour hike through the jungle.
Phi Phi was largely wiped out by the tsunami three years ago, and its rapid redevelopment is haunted by this recent cataclysm. Many businesses and small shops give thanks in their advertising for the international support given in the destruction’s aftermath. One day we hiked 1,000 feet practically straight up and over a bluff back to town to get some supplies, check email, make some phone calls, and arrange the next stage of our trip.
Sadly, we had to leave. After a couple of boat rides, two ferries and a mini-bus we are now in a little working-class town called Trang on our way to islands further south.
January 14, 2008
From One-Party Dictatorship to Post-Coup Constitutional Monarchy, here we are in beautiful Thailand. As you may know, Thailand had a coup just over a year ago to oust an allegedly corrupt Prime Minister who also happened to favor the rural poor, possibly as part of his own political maneuvering. With him in exile, a political party favorable to his cause recently won elections here, and the Supreme Court is currently sorting out various alleged election irregularities which may either deny the party a governing majority in the parliament, ban them outright, or hand them the keys to power.
Although the military is currently largely in control, Thailand is anything but a country under martial law. Although in our week here we’ve been limited to Bangkok, the capital, and Chiang Mai, the largest city in the North, we haven’t seen any overt military presence in the streets, with the notable exception of air-force jet flyovers that woke us up one morning.
Of course we haven’t been to the South, where 40,000 police and soldiers are suppressing an insurgency by members of the Muslim population, and bombings and drive-by shootings are an almost daily occurrence. Thailand is 90% Buddhist, and some in the Muslim minority feel mistreated, although no organization has yet emerged to identify a list of demands or put forward any kind of ideology.
While the constitutional side of Thai government is sorted out, the Monarchy is going through their own changes, as the King’s sister recently died. There are pictures of the King everywhere you go, and his sister has now joined him in poster-sized tributes. Our first night here we walked out of our hotel in bustling Bangkok to completely still traffic and everyone on the sidewalks also standing still. Knowing something strange was happening we were soon informed that the King was coming and we should stand and wait. Sure enough motorcycle police with their lights flashing and a convoy of SUVs suddenly appeared, speeding down the road surrounding a very regal looking car with Thai flags flapping from each side of the hood.
Despite being ruled by a King and being at the tail end of their 18th Coup (although the first in 15 years), Thailand feels much more free and open than China. The modern has not bulldozed the past the way it has in China. Ironically, the Cultural Revolution layed waste to any potential cultural opposition to the emergence of blatant consumerism. Thais seem not to have lost their connection to their own history, the way people in China have. The old and the new are better integrated here and, quite frankly, Thais are a lot cooler than people in China.
People here smile, with a warmth and sincerity one doesn’t encounter in China, or most places in the West for that matter. In a way similar to India, there is a real sense of benevolence here. It may sound ridiculous, but the mere fact that cars stop for pedestrians is striking after four months in China where that never happens.
So this is our Winter break. Chinese New Year is February 7th – the Year of the Rat is upon us. Classes don’t start for a month, so Lara and I are here, with a potential visit to India in the works. The sun is out every day, it’s in the ’90s, and we’re very happy. Thailand feels a lot closer to our home in Portland, both because the people here are more like home, and because we feel more like ourselves.
I know it’s cruel to post a Blog about Thailand and not include any pictures, but that’s what I’ve done. Once we work out some technical issues, photos will be forthcoming.
November 25, 2007
Here we are in the belly of the emerging beast, witnessing a whole new set of problems inside a potential future superpower, while looking from a new perspective at the now familiar problems of the old superpower. It feels good to get some distance on the harsh political realities of life in the contemporary U.S. I don’t know what continues to astound me more, the blatant transgressions of those in power, or people’s complacency. Americans have come to accept actions that in an early period would have brought down governments. America is a country which appears to have run out of ideas.
So here I am in China. This is a big place. I only have a very tenuous grip on the language, and only a few Chinese friends to talk to. But after three months, I can convey some basic impressions of what’s going on here. It seems that the biggest issues are the ongoing ecological crisis, the exploitation of people’s labor, and the lack of democracy.
China is an economic powerhouse, with a capitalist economy which is growing at about 11% annually. As has been clear from our experience in the West, capitalist growth destroys ecological health. This is happening here big time. Rivers are dying, lakes are dying, people are dying of lung cancer and other diseases related to the poisoning of the environment.
The air quality in the cities is atrocious. There is a constant haze here and in Beijing, the two major cities we’ve visited. In Chengdu, there is a natural inversion layer, but this simply traps all the auto and industrial exhaust. It’s truly appalling how overwhelming the pollution is. Beijing doesn’t have this sort of inversion layer, but it suffers from extreme levels of smog. More and more Chinese consumers are buying cars, which only adds to the problem. The explosion of private car ownership is about five years old in Chengdu. Traffic is bad and only getting worse. Car drivers think that they own the roads, and that pedestrians, bicyclists, scooter rides, and electric bikes are all secondary and in the way. They just drive right through crowds and groups of non-motorized drivers. I’m amazed we haven’t seen more accidents.
China’s CO2 output is a major contributor to global warming, and we have a worldwide ecological crisis driven in part by the Chinese economic machine. Per capita, the U.S. puts more than twenty times as much CO2 into the atmosphere as China, but China, with so many more people, is in the process of overcoming the U.S. in total emissions of Greenhouse gases. The people of the world have to choose between continued economic growth and a future.
There is currently a huge migration of Chinese people from the countryside into the cities, estimated to number 100 million in the next decade. It’s similar to the period of the enclosures, when the common land in England was privatized, forcing peasants off the land, and into the cities, where they were forced to work in the factories. This period marked the birth of capitalism in England, and is being replicated here. The cities are huge. Chengdu, where we live, has 11 million people. That’s New York, plus three Portlands.
The question for China is how can it develop in an ecological fashion and address widespread poverty, while avoiding the mistaken path of the capitalist West. There is an assumption that in order to eliminate poverty, the environment and people’s health have to be sacrificed in the name of economic growth. This is a form of madness, perpetuated by Western economists and business interests. Unless China can promote democracy and ecological sustainability, along with the rest of the world, there’s little hope of a future that resembles anything other than a dystopian nightmare. The results of global warming are everywhere we turn, and will only get worse unless we fundamentally change society. The ecological crisis is a social crisis.
Gross levels of consumption in the U.S. drive production in China. Almost everything one buys in the U.S. is made in China. The ecological disaster here, which affects the entire planet through climate change, is not only the problem of the Chinese. It’s to a large degree Western Capital which motivates Chinese production. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to speak in terms of problems confined by the borders of nation-states. What goes on in China is affected by, and in turn affects, the West. Consumption habits in the U.S. affect production in China. And those habits are conditioned by corporate advertising, driven by a base profit motive. The tentacles of capitalism are reaching – as depicted in old Chinese Communist propaganda posters – into the furthest corners of the globe.
Within the borders of China, there is a problem, namely the lack of empowerment of anyone other than those with Capital. If one has money, and wants to make more money, one has all the freedom one wants. New buildings and shopping centers are being constructed here everyday. Billboards and advertising are everywhere. Money rules Chengdu, more than the Communist Party.
If you don’t have money, you have the freedom to choose who you want to work for, often at long hours for low pay. It’s ironic, but the Anarchists had to struggle in Chicago at the turn of the last century to achieve an eight-hour work day, while here in an ostensibly Communist country, people typically work twelve hour days, at least. Factory shifts sometimes run as long as twenty hours. However, not everyone has work. The less fortunate lay out pieces of cloth on the street, displaying their wares: a few vegetables, DVDs, socks, watches, whatever. Spontaneous street markets pop up all over.
Incongruously, China has the stark contradiction of a ruling Communist Party overseeing free market capitalism of the most base and exploitative form. It’s really the worst of both worlds: an authoritarian State, and a ruthless capitalist market.
Walking around Chengdu, one might have no idea this is a Communist country. The only thing communistic that we’ve encountered since being here were the free carts for our luggage at the airport. Since then, nothing. You even have to pay to use a public toilet.
The market has run amok. Most of Chengdu resembles 14th Street in Manhattan, meaning lots of shops selling lots of junk. There is a push to turn the Chinese more into consumers, beyond their current role primarily as producers. As this continues, more and more junk is consumed, more waste is created, and the worse things get.
How members of the Central Committee reconcile this from a Marxist point of view, I don’t know. I’d be interested to find out. Which position paper justified this and how? It all started with former Chinese leader Deng XiaoPing, who first promoted capitalist development in the late 1970s, and it’s gotten to the point where To Get Rich is Glorious is now a Communist Party slogan. The red flag and Communist imagery are kept merely to hold the whole thing together. It’s the glue without which this country might come apart like the Soviet Union did.
Before arriving we read about the level of social unrest, of demonstrations and riots going on everyday, but as of yet China seems to be living up to its rulers’ emphasis on the importance of “social harmony.” The most popular political t-shirt is of Che Guevara. You see him on young people’s shirts, and on bags and magazine covers. Next to that we’ve seen maybe three or four circle-A shirts, and one F*ck Police, Ireland Rules jacket – we’re not sure that jacket wearer realized the import of the message he was displaying all over town. Otherwise there are no signs of political opinion anywhere. No one here has bumper stickers or political buttons. The only people handing out flyers are those advertising stores’ promotions. You never see anyone tabling, much less holding a rally or protest.
A surveillance camera in Kanding.
China is leading the world in employing surveillance technology, supplied by Western companies. They have cameras everywhere, and employ tens of thousands for monitoring and censoring the internet, including this site. They even have a new technology utilizing cameras and computers which monitor peoples’ movements which, when detecting signs indicating people gathering for a possible protest action, notifies local police to be dispatched. We saw plenty of cameras and police in Kanding, where there is a large Tibetan population.
Lara and I have talked about China being the future of the planet: heavily populated, filled with lots of stuff, most of which doesn’t work, dead rivers and no sky, dirty air, congested streets, ugly buildings, inhabited by people living a drab and largely meaningless existence ruled by the market. I tend to be generally optimistic about the future, but being in China is really testing that. Often one can put ones’ hope for the future in young peoples’ hands. Here, most young people have an energy similar to that of those in American shopping malls. The main orientation seems to be toward fashion and consumption. There’s a real infantilization of people here: lots of cheesy cartoons on the TVs on the public buses, lots of school kid fashion and “cute” things everywhere; little mouse ears on all the children; cartoon characters on products and in advertising. Mickey Mouse is very popular. You get the idea. It may be that this will run its course, and people will realize they’ve been had. Perhaps at some point the spirit of ’89 will return, and people here will want more from life than Starbucks and McDonalds. Only time, and what people do with it, will tell.
November 18, 2007
Someone, or some committee, or work unit, or automatic process within the Chinese State Apparatus, has determined that this Blog should not be seen in China. As of two weeks ago, although I can access the WordPress site just fine, I can no longer access my own Blog. This means, of course, that not only the 1.3 billion inhabitants of China can not see it, but neither can yours truly. This is turn makes maintaining this Blog that much more of an adventure. It takes on the dimensions of a Spy Novel, or Espionage thriller. Well, not really, but it makes it more interesting to think so. Frankly, I have no idea why this has happened and, although I wear this censorship like a badge of honor, the actual reasons for it are probably fairly mundane, routine really. Which is how State repression works most of the time.
So this explains the delay in postings this month. Fortunately, a comrade in an undisclosed location has stepped in to help, so this Blog will in fact continue, despite the feeble attempts of the Chinese government to stop it. I actually do not think they are trying to stop me from expressing myself. Rather, they want to make it more difficult, more of a hassle, which is what huge State bureaucracies thrive on, right? It’s a hassle to do anything in this country, so why should maintaining a Blog be any different?
This censorship actually turns me in a new, more free direction. Dialectically, the Chinese should have seen this coming. Now that I no longer have to worry about being censored, because I already am, I can speak more openly about what I think and what I see. I have nothing to lose now. Stay posted.
September 19, 2007
We’ve been getting around town, at first, via taxi, then by bus. It costs about $2.00 to take a taxi anywhere we need or want to go. The bus is even less, about a quarter a ride. This is fairly cheap by US standards. But in making decisions about transportation, like anything else, there are political and social factors to think about as well.
In Portland, our primary mode of transportation is the bicycle. Riding a bike keeps you in shape, and doesn’t contribute to global warming. It’s interesting that two of the US’ main health epidemics, spewing Greenhouse gases into the environment, and obesity, could in part be solved through increased utilization of bikes.
While individual acts based on principle are essential, they alone will not solve the ecological crisis we are in. For that we will need to change society.
So here we are in China, where the bicycle once was the dominant mode of personal transport. This society is certainly changing, but it’s going in the totally wrong direction. China is becoming a car dominated culture.
We have not given in to this rising tendency however. No, fear not, we just bought two new bikes, Flying Pigeons in fact, kind of a Chinese Shwinn in that they are everywhere, in all makes and varieties. They cost us 350 Yuan2, or $46.00 each. They are single speed, the kind of bike that you can backwards peddle on freely without affecting your velocity. They come with a little bell we can ring to tell other cyclists or scooter riders we are coming up behind them.
In 2002 there were 143 bikes to every 100 Chinese households. In 2003 China produced one third of the world’s total number of bicycles, 78 million. But all that is changing, as the government encourages private car ownership by the emergent middle-class, and bike riding is increasingly relegated to the poor. Having a car is a status symbol.
Riding a bike in Chengdu changes one’s perspective on the city entirely. No longer are you either huddled up and cramped with fifty other people on a slow moving bus, or alternately, being carried along by a seemingly maniacal taxi driver with a horn fetish who takes his and those in his care’s lives in his hands with every ill advised swerve and turn.
On a bike you move at your own pace, breathing the air, seeing the people and shops and homes along the way. Although it’s increasingly being taken over by the automobile, Chengdu is still better designed for bicyclists than any American city.
The bike lanes have physical dividers from the rest of traffic, usually a median with trees, flowers, and a small fence. In addition to bikes, you also have the ubiquitous scooter, and electric bikes to share the lane with, as well as the occasional taxi and people strolling, or standing waiting for a bus, or getting on or off a bus, or driving a rickshaw. There are myriad possibilities of what you’ll encounter along the way.
When approaching intersections, you leave the relative safety of the bike lane and have to watch out for the endless parade of cars turning right, as they have the right-of-way. And, you have to watch out for the on-coming cars making left-hand turns, which appear legal either at the beginning, middle, or end of a Green light. The traffic lights all have a separate Green for bikes, and you have to jog right a little to cross main streets on the designated lane (again while watching for turning cars, trucks, and buses).
It seems that Chinese drivers have a kind of sixth-sense. They know how to cut-the-gap just ahead of colliding, all with a serene, nonplussed look on their faces.
Despite drivers’ antics, I have yet to see any instances of road rage, or even someone being upset about being cut off. The rule for driving, as far as I’ve been able to ascertain, is every-person-for-themselves-but-be-cool. You can cut in front of someone and make that left hand turn during a Green, but be prepared for someone else to pull the same thing on you.
At the same time, as crazy as the car traffic is, life in the bike lane is truly life in the slow lane. Everyone, even the scooters and electric bikes, rides so slow. Incredibly slowly, like 3 – 5 mph slow.
The other day I was able to ride to one of our favorite parts of town, where there is an English language lending library, a small French cafe, some good restaurants and a vibrant youth culture around Sichuan University. It took only 25 minutes to ride there. This made the city seem much less daunting and more manageable – I can ride my bike there and back!
Now we ride to the grocery store, to the bookstore, to the cafe, everywhere. It gives us more of a sense of autonomy and freedom. We’re more in control when we don’t have to rely on bus schedules or flagging down a cab.
China once relied primarily on bikes for transportation. Today this nation is at a crossroads, having recently become the number one emitter of Greenhouse gases in the world. Pollution from China is turning up over the West Coast of the United States.
Ecology is beginning to get some consideration here, in part due to preparations for half a million foreign visitors for the Olympics next year, and in part in response to the reality of a severely degraded natural world.
To what degree ecological thinking begins to guide policy and everyday decisions in this country of 1.2 billion will determine to a great degree the fate of human life on earth.
*Generally when Mandarin Chinese is translated into the Romanized pin yin system for Western readers, the tone marks are not included. This is very unfortunate, because without the tone marks not only do you not know how to pronounce the word, but you don’t know what it means. Words can be spelled the same, but which of the four tone marks will determine its meaning and how it’s said. Many books containing “Chinese” words in the West are in fact almost completely useless due to this omission.To help remedy this, whenever I use Mandarin words here, I will indicate which tone it is immediately after the word.
