January 7th, 2007 Chris
I’m feeling a bit left out. Earlier this week, China Law Blog put up a post on the recently deceased Gerald Ford, saying the 38th president epitomizes American values. Who, Dan then asked, is China’s Ford? Who encapsulates what China is or wants to be?
Then Jeremiah over at the Granite Studio jumped in with his own historical take on it. These being two of my favorite blogs and both daily reads, I was all set to put my own thoughts into the discussion. I did manage to get one comment onto CLB, but since then I’ve been cut off.
Despite being in one of the most hooked-up countries in the world, I seem to be stuck in the one room with internet connectivity worse than what I had in China. For some reason, I can’t get a comment up on either CLB or the Granite Studio, mostly because of their comment spam filters. I don’t begrudge their want of security; it’s my connection that’s lagging. I would have just let the conversation go it’s own way without me, since it’s been interesting enough without me dragging it down, but Dan put a comment on my last post asking me to jump back in, so here goes. I’m recapping as best I can:
This was my semi-serious foray into the running discussion:
To which Dan of CLB replied:
Yao Ming is an interesting choice. Very interesting.
Reminds me of Korea’s Chan Ho Park during his heyday in the mid-1990’s. Everywhere I went in Korea, people would mention him. EVERYWHERE. I would sit down at the sushi restaurant in my hotel, and the sushi chef would say “Chan Ho Park. Best Pitcher” and give a thumbs up sign. To which I would ALWAYS say, “Chan Ho Park. Good pitcher. NOT best pitcher.” Those who spoke better English would sometimes try to tell me he was the best pitcher ever. To which I would say, he is a good pitcher, not even a great pitcher and nobody in the United States thinks he’s a great pitcher. They would then tell me that the Korean papers were saying he was the best pitcher in the United States. I finally tired of telling the truth about Park and bursting everyone’s bubble and just started flashing my own thumbs up in response. Park faded fast in every way.
Yao Ming is better than Park ever was and he has tremendous potential. But I mention Park because it is not clear to me that China’s love of Ming goes beyond Korea’s fleeting love of Park. Do the Chinese respect/love Ming himself or, like the Koreans and Park (and I have no doubt this was true of Park) do they simply like basking in the fact that a Chinese person is at the top of an American (worldwide) game? Does Ming symbolize China or just Chinese pride? What are China’s views on his character? What would happen if you were to ask your class to name China’s greatest figure from among Zhou Enlai, Sun Yat Sen and Yao Ming? Would they laugh or just start answering.
I am asking these questions because I have no idea of the answer and I would actually love to know. Sorry for “assigning you a 20 page essay, but wouldn’t you love to know too?
And I meant to reply. The questions are indeed interesting, and nationalism and identity issues were my bread and butter during undergrad, so I’ve been following this discussion at every step. But, as I mentioned, I can’t seem to get a comment up on either site, so hopefully this will suffice for both Granite Studio and CLB:
First off: Chan Ho Park. Did you really have to bring up that painful memory? The last thing I remember him doing was giving up two grand slams to the same player in the same inning in a game against the St. Louis Cardinals. Sometimes it’s just hard being a Dodger fan.
Anyway, here’s my unqualified and generally unresearched thoughts. Keep in mind that my students are now in another country and I won’t see them until March.
Do the Chinese respect/love Ming himself or, like the Koreans and Park (and I have no doubt this was true of Park) do they simply like basking in the fact that a Chinese person is at the top of an American (worldwide) game?
I’d say it’s nationalistic first and personal second. While Yao definitely gets credit for being a stellar player, there are a lot of stellar players in the NBA. While I occasionally hear other names mentioned, what I get a lot is how much better Yao is than Kobe or Shaq.
Does Yao Ming symbolize China or just Chinese pride?
Not sure how to answer this one. Offhand, I’d say pride more than the country itself, since China is just too plain big to wrap up in any individual (much as Mao tried).
What are China’s views on his character? No idea. Will ask around when I’m back in China.
What would happen if you were to ask your class to name China’s greatest figure from among Zhou Enlai, Sun Yat Sen and Yao Ming? Would they laugh or just start answering.
Again, couldn’t say, but definitely something to bring up next semester.
I think Dan and Jeremiah said it best in comparing Yao’s newfound assertiveness with China’s recent realization that it is, in fact, a world power. Yao is a symbol, not a leader. He’s not setting policy and no one is likely to appoint him to a government post, but as an icon, he works. He’s someone the Chinese, either the CCP or just plain everyone, can build a myth around because, one, he’s succeeding internationally, and two, he’s from the mainland, not Taiwan or Hong Kong. He’s all PRC.
This seems to be getting farther and farther away from Gerald Ford. Here’s my attempt to bring it back:
As Yao excels on the international stage, especially against American players, he gives the Chinese some symbolic cover to be more chauvinist in their personal nationalism. He’s not a national healer, like Ford, so it’s not a direct parallel, but by being where he is and doing what he does, he’s giving the Chinese a way to talk about moving from “up and comer” to whatever’s next. Again, it’s all symbolic. He isn’t actually doing anything besides playing basketball. Does that make sense? I’m pushing 2 a.m. here.
I’d be curious to see what would happen if there were another equally successful Chinese NBA star (or several). Would Yao still be the one? Or would every Chinese player get the same attention?
At this point, I’m going to again plead my lack of qualification and say that this is sooo the Granite Studio’s department. Jeremiah’s got a post on Chinese-ness going and he actually knows what he’s talking about.
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January 3rd, 2007 Chris
There are images I always carry with me into a new country, a new city, a new place. Italy exists in my mind as Siena, Florence, Rome, San Cataldo. Siena is walls, cobblestones, workers etching lines into fresh-laid road tiles by hand, the black and white striped columns inside the duomo. Florence is the river Arno, and Ponte Vecchio at sunset. Rome is a sunset, too, seen from the top of the Spanish Steps the day before Easter, then mass in Piazza San Pietro, John Paul II slumping and the Spaniards singing: “Juan Pablo, Segundo, te aman todo el mundo.” All the world loves you. Sicily is somewhere else. Dry hills, history, mine and someone else’s. My great-grandparents left; I came back, then left again.
The China I had in my mind before I moved there was drawn in pieces, from the New York and Los Angeles Times, in Peter Hessler’s River Town
, in my martial arts classes. Xi’an came the closest to that picture, something old but redone as new, crowded and dirty, outward wealth overlaying stubborn poverty, a history to be proud of, not Beijing, where history is made, forgotten, remade. Maybe Beijing is what China really is: a place that reinvents itself, and its past, when it must.
But I didn’t have an image of Seoul. The last description of the Korean Peninsula I read came from Ha Jin
, and that was a different Korea. That was 50 years ago, during the war, sitting in a prison camp. No use. Seoul is something new and hard to place. I caught myself thinking on the boat over here: “Well, I can look forward to a month of…what?” Nothing came immediately to mind. Usually I spend weeks researching a destination before setting out, but I left in such a rush, and without proper Web access, that I came in almost blind.
Getting here hasn’t made it easier. Incheon passed in gray blocks seen from the subway, a port town like so many other port towns, except immediately not Chinese. The cars stopped neatly behind a red light gave me the first clue of a place different from where I left. I don’t suppose I should expect much similarity between China and South Korea, and in truth I haven’t found much.
Seoul defies easy descriptions. It feels foreign and familiar. Wide streets and fast cars remind me of Los Angeles, houses and apartment buildings stacked up in the hills remind me vaguely of Seattle. All the writing is in Korean, though, and I can’t speak or read a word of it. I’m still very much a foreigner here.
I feel displaced here. Not pushed out, just unattached. I still reflexively see the world as divided between East and West, but Seoul at first glance doesn’t fit such a simple dichotomy. This is the most integrated city I’ve yet seen, far more than Dalian. Granted, I’ve never seen Shanghai or Hong Kong or Tokyo, but I get this inkling that Seoul is different. I like it.
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January 2nd, 2007 Chris
I’ve been watching this “Five things about me” post go around the blogosphere. I think the first place I saw it was Liz Lewis’s travel writing blog. Somehow, it entered Chinese blog space, and a few days ago J. reached across the Pacific from his Granite Studio and tagged me. I’m finally getting around to putting this post up. And while J. did say I could choose Five Facts or Seven Successes, I wrote most of this on the boat from Dandong to Incheon, so I did both. Here’s the dirt:
Five things about me
1. I turned down a Peace Corps invitation. I could have been in Cape Verde right now, sitting on a sub-tropical island, basically living a vacation, occasionally teaching kids how to use computers or something, in another country no one’s heard of. Peace Corps was all ready to send me, and I said nay. Two reasons for this: First, I suspect I would go crazy sitting on a small island (the entire country, 10 islands, has a land mass roughly equal to Rhode Island) for two years. Second, I have a pretty good idea what I want to do with my life. I mean, I’m not certain of this, but journalism and writing are pretty much where I’m putting my chips. I clashed a lot with the PC bureaucracy because they have a way of telling you that, whatever you say you want to do, you can’t do it. If you want it, you can’t have it. They want people who can give themselves wholly to the organization, placing all their trust in the machine and saying, “I go where I must.” I just couldn’t do it. So I came to northeast China to freeze.
2. I’ve studied a handful of martial arts for around 10 years, but I still don’t have a black belt in anything. I’ve practiced Okinawan Karate (brown belt), American Kenpo (inches from black when I left for China), Filipino stick fighting, Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, Aikido. I love martial arts. I’m a nut about this. If you ever need to kill six or eight hours, get me going on the philosophical connections between Bruce Lee, Myamoto Musashi and a few of my old teachers.
3. I’m a nerd. Maybe that was obvious. I read comics, watch cartoons, download “Heroes” off Bit Torrent. I saw the midnight show of X-Men 3 (such a disappointment) and have had long discussions with my brothers about the history of Middle Earth. I could add to this, but why condemn myself further?
4. Things I’m almost always carrying: My laptop, my passport, the US Constitution, a compass. I don’t have internet in my apartment (in Dalian), and I don’t much like being there anyway, so I lug the Mac Book with me in a brown leather satchel I’ve had for a few years now. Generally, I call this my reporter-in-a-bag bag. The Constitution is in a little booklet my old high school history teacher gave me six years ago. It makes for great airport reading. I keep it in the bag. I use the compass at least once a week, because I get lost at least that often. The passport stays on me because it’s my only real ID, and because I always know where my pants are.
5. I have the best and the worst memory. You’re going to have to tell me your name three or four times, because, I’m sorry, I just won’t remember. Tell me again, every time we meet, and it will stick eventually. Want to speed things up? Write it down. I have an almost photographic memory of things I see and read. I had a (semi-creepy, I’ll admit) habit in college of reading emails over people’s shoulders (with their permission, usually) then quoting parts back to them a week later when they needed some bit of information. I have picked up books I put down six months ago, half finished, and recalled 90% of the plot thus far. I kick ass at trivia, but this makes learning Chinese tough, because I can’t read it.
Seven Successes in 2006
1. I moved to China. This was half of my New Year’s resolution last year.
2. I started this blog. Not much trouble, really, but I’ve kept it up for six months now. Remember when I first started fretting about learning Chinese? Or when the chancellor of my alma mater killed herself by jumping off a building in San Francisco? Ah, memories.
3. I won my first and only journalism award. OK, so it was third place for education reporting from Suburban Newspapers of America, but I’ll take what I can get.
4. I started learning Chinese. Hopefully I’ll finish (if such a thing is possible) by the Olympics. If I can get to the point where I’m functional enough to read a newspaper in less than a day and not feel useless in a new city, I’ll be happy. Basically, I’d like my Chinese to be where my Italian was three years ago.
5. I reduced the contents of my life to one large backpack, one small backpack and a small satchel. Plus I left five boxes of books in my parents attic, but that hardly counts. I have this long-standing goal of owning nothing (again, books not included) that can’t be stuffed in a duffel bag and moved on short notice. I don’t have a real concrete reason for wanting this, and I’m sure someday I’ll want a house and space of my own. For now, I like being mobile.
6. I interviewed my paternal grandparents. This is one of those things I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. A week before I left for China, I sat my octogenarian ancestors down together and separately to talk on camera about their lives and our family history. Eventually, this will turn into an oral history, something I don’t have for my mother’s side.
7. I survived almost half a year in China. Then I fled to Korea. But I’ll be back. Oh yes, I will be back.
Right, so time to pass the buck. Rick beat me to the Dalian gang, so I think it’s time to move this beyond China, since I’m not there, either. This is going to be a familiar list. I tag…
James. He likes midgets and wants his own adjective (like the pope’s).
Nicole. No posts in a while, and I haven’t heard from her in longer. Maybe this will get her back on the blog.
Benjamin. I just found this blog. Or rather, he found me, commented here, and I tracked it back to him. Anyway, I like it. Call it my token China tag.
Except, I’m going to tag Alex in Beijing. He and Lindsey took me in and showed me around my first week in China.
And finally, I’ll tag Titus at Red Fence. One of the best editors I’ve worked with, and one hell of a writer. He even let me ride his motorcycle once.
Five new facts about you, or seven successes in 2006. I leave it to you.
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January 2nd, 2007 Chris
Catching up. Internet is hooked up in my room, but the connection is shaky. Pretend this was posted last Thursday.
I’ve long marveled at the power of alcohol. It has been shown to grant super-human strength, and I have seen it reduce Captain America himself (in the guise of my old roommate on Halloween) to a half-dead rag doll, unconsciously squirting the contents of his stomach onto the sidewalk. It fueled Hemingway and Kerouac across continents and through novels until it finally washed them away.
Last night, I watched alcohol turn a respected and well-dressed office manager, a man I estimate to be in his early 40s, into a giddy six-year-old girl. I have never seen it do that before.
What combination of beer, bad wine and baijiu did this to him is unknown. He downed at least a liter of Tsingtao to show his great friendship to the foreign teachers at Dalian Fisheries University, even though we’d never met him before. His sloppy gropes and the beer spilled from pouring glasses to the absolute brim, I’m told, were also signs of affection. I concluded that some part of his psyche must have been transformed when he began playing with Will’s beanie, first stealing it away and laughing hysterically, then plopping it down on Will’s head like a beret. This seems like something no grown man would do, but it might be cute if performed by a six-year-old girl.
The office manager, who wore a black leather jacket the probably cost a month’s pay, was in good company in that haze. This was the semi-annual teachers’ banquet, with food and booze on someone else’s tab. All sense of restraint was left somewhere back on Heishijiao.
My department head, I think, started drinking the moment she arrived. She’s usually so tightly wound she nearly leaps at every request, not out of any apparent desire to see it fulfilled, but in fright of what could happen if it isn’t done. She’s rather like a small animal in that way, always shivering, startled by everything, generally harmless. It’s possible that simply being free from responsibility for one evening had some intoxicating effect on her.
The foreign language dean didn’t hide her inebriation. She confessed it to me several times during the night, leaning in to say, “I’m drunk,” then asking me complicated questions about the educational system in China. I was more honest with her than I’ve been in the five months since I arrived in this country. She took it well, and maybe she’ll even remember some of it. She also told me Chinese food is the healthiest in the world.
I lost count of the toasts. The ritual of drinking oneself into stupor, and the mutual efforts at alcohol poisoning to show what good friends you are is well documented. It’s much the same as happens in college dorms across America, and probably elsewhere. To drink a beer quickly without feeling its effects shows you have great testicular fortitude. This is not unique to China.
After several hours of this, the floor was slippery and I was feeling a bit awkward about the office manager’s hand that kept gripping my thigh, but Will and I only encouraged him by staying another hour. We figured other teachers would stay, too. Almost no one did. Karaoke was the only logical solution.
If I look at the situation that unfolded upstairs objectively, I might conclude there was some element missing, or at least something out of place: Three men, aged 25, 31 and 40-something, danced with no apparent rhythm or coordination, not with each other but on the same empty dance floor, while four middle-aged women played cards and payed no attention to the blaring music or occasional deadpan singing. This went on for a strange hour.
In that moment, actually, it didn’t really make sense either.
Posted in the Dalian life | 1 Comment »
January 1st, 2007 Chris
We all have our expensive habits. Fast women and slow horses; music, sex and cookies; faberge eggs*. Mine is travel. From my first day in China I started planning trips elsewhere: Africa, trans-Siberia, the Balkans again. Two days ago I stuffed most of what I own in a backpack and left Dalian, for the moment, to suffer its own cold winter without me.
Tonight will be the fourth in as many consecutive nights I’ve slept in a new place. Since Friday, I’ve passed through five cities in two countries. In the past week (my most hectic since moving to China) I’ve spent roughly 18 hours on buses, 17 on an overnight ferry, six in an over-packed group taxi. I don’t want to total up the money I’ve burned through.
I’m in Seoul at the moment, sitting in a net bar. The events of the past week, and my reasons for being here, however temporarily, need a fuller explanation. Expect that soon.
I’ll be here for a month, then it’s probably back to China, at least for a little bit. My winter holiday just started and I don’t have to teach at the university again until March 5, so there could very well be more travel in the offing. I have a short-term teaching job here, with a First World paycheck that will go far when I’m back among Third World prices.
I haven’t been online much in the past week, between traveling, working on a side project, and being cut off from the non-Chinese internet, and I’m way behind on both posting and reading. When I get my laptop hooked up in my room, expect a flood of posts. I did manage to see that Jeremiah from the Granite Studio tagged me with the seven successes/five things you didn’t know about me post that’s been circulating. That’s sitting on the laptop, too.
The internet is up and running and connected to the rest of the world here in South Korea. It’s like the quake never happened. And there’s no Great Firewall. Nice, really. I finally read Ryan’s great bit on the earthquake. And today I saw that my last post ended up on the Peking Duck and caused some stir because I said China was cut off from the World Wide Web. I’ll stand by that, actually. If you can’t get anything outside of China (and I couldn’t) it just ain’t “World Wide.” And as Ryan said today, considering that snapping one cable took most of China out of the ballgame, that hardly qualifies as being in the Web.
I don’t quite know when the next post is coming here. I also plan to focus a bit more on Korean issues while I’m here, though I’ll do my best to keep an eye on China, too. In the meantime, here are a few other places to wander, should you likewise be inclined to get out of China for a spell:
James in Turkey. James used to cover the cops beat at my old paper. He also worked in the funeral business and for the Republican party. He likes poking dead bodies with sticks. Now he lives in Izmit, Turkey, where I’m pretty sure he has about the same moral framework (read: none). We like to say James sins for the rest of us.
Nicole in LA. Nicole actually had the cops beat before James, but she left journalism for a more lucrative and less stressful dot.com job.
Laura in Madagascar. There isn’t much here, because, well, it’s Madagascar and Laura doesn’t get online much. She’s a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English in conditions that make Dalian Fisheries University look like Harvard. She’s a better writer and a smarter person than me. (Full disclosure: I’m sort of remote managing this blog. All the content is hers, though.)
Red Fence. Some of my more artistic friends back home decided that trying to find places for their diverse and multi-genre work wasn’t worth the effort, so they started their own magazine. It’s all online at the moment, but I hear a print edition is coming soon. They also have a blog.
Enjoy.
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*The preceeding addictions can be attributed to George Foreman (as said in a radio interview I heard recently); George Uetz from a song of the same name; and Bleeding Gums Murphy from the Simpsons. I couldn’t find proper links to go with these.
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