Political Cartoon

I thought this was a fun cartoon about the Beijing Olympics featured in the Economist~

Fragrant Hills Park

Last weekend, my tutor and I went to Fragrant Hills Park, which is about an hour away from campus, in the northwest suburbs of the city. The public transportation system is something that I’m not sure that I will ever be able to get accustomed to, as people get packed on like sardines. We were on a medium-sized line, and Julie said that there was only one bus for the entire line, which I thought was surprising. Given the population of Beijing, I would think that even for a medium-sized line, at least two or three buses would be operating on the same line. I would watch more and more people get on the bus and very few (if any) get off, to the point where there were people next to the bus driver and on the stairs, where the doors could barely close. I kept telling Julie how difficult it was for me to imagine that that would be very comfortable, and she said that she liked the crowded buses, because she felt more like a Beijinger. I know it is another cultural difference that I will have to get to use to, but at the same time, it cannot possibly be very safe to have so many people crammed on one bus. Another thing about the bus system that is different from home is the bus conductor who collects money and announces stops. Occasionally they will even have a booth of their own to monitor the situation. Normally you just put your exact change into a box near the driver; there are no conductors to monitor people paying, just the bus driver.

Once we finally got to the park, we paid 5 RMB to get in (again, another concept that I’m unfamiliar with- paying to get into a park) and it was really lovely. Oh, except I had to pay the full price even after showing my student ID because I was foreign (that is such a frustrating concept- I am still a student!). Once we were in, there were a few temples right in the front, which were pretty. We were going to climb the mountain there, but we decided first to wander around. There was a beautiful temple 1/4th of the way up, along with a picnic area. Julie and her friend had come very well prepared snack-wise, especially when it came to the dried orange peels dipped in honey. After that we started to climb up the mountain, which was dotted with the occasional artist trying to sell their goods, such as caricaturists and fruit carvers. Lots of families were there, grandparents, parents, and children all came out to enjoy the cool but nice day. We made it up to the half-way point, which was level and had a small playground, a snack shop, and benches scattered around to rest. I was really excited that I could understand bits and pieces of conversations around me, such as “Tai hao le”!

Walking back to the bus stop was fun, because Julie and her friend were buying water chestnuts and other nuts on the way back. I could not peel the water chestnut in under than five minutes, and her friend took pity on me, and started giving me the ones that she had already peeled herself! I did not realize how much of a tourist trap this area had become, as the Beijing Botanical Gardens were also nearby. I did find a great deal on Chinese red knots (2 RMB each), which Julie said was a great bargain considering the quality, so I bought a lot as souvenirs for my friends.

I had a great time; the park was so peaceful. I told Julie that our next adventure should be the Beijing Botanical Gardens; the cherry blossom trees were already opening for spring, and once the weather gets warmer, I can’t wait to go! Julie and I have a whole list of things that we will be doing, including going to the Beijing Opera, the Olympic Stadium, and other sites, so hopefully there will be even more interesting posts after this one!

National Art Gallery

Yesterday Nou and I did a little exploring at the National Art Gallery, which is in a beautiful building (half-Chinese architecture, half-western) in the Chaoyang (?) district. The main exhibit there is a husband-wife partnership named Lu Ping and Ji Qiansheng, and they do scenic paintings along with people. This exhibit takes up most of the first floor, and they really are beautiful. Of course, the exhibit may just be to show foreigners what they want (the subjects are usually in traditional garb, temples are usually the focus of nature paintings), but I must admit I was a little disappointed to see that some of the figures in their paintings had a very Western look (at least their face shape, skin color). Some of these scrolls were almost floor-to-ceiling, especially one set of four scrolls that took up most of the wall depicting mountains. One section was also devoted to Greek statues, with the exception of a huge stone bust of Mao. Another section held a massive collection (at least three or four rooms’ worth) of an Chinese artist whose style was clearly Westernized (nude subjects, “Girl With Pearl Earring”-esue paintings). There was also one section for modern paintings, which have never really been a favorite of mine, but to each his own…

The second floor was completely dedicated to one artist who focused on the mountain terrain. The best way I can describe it is that it was kind of like impressionism, only with a twist. From afar, you could see the mountainside in all its beauty, but close up, it really did look like scribbles. It’s funny that I didn’t appreciate them as much as I could have, considering Monet is my favorite artist.

The third floor held a collection of what I think were pages of stories from the 1910s, before the revolution, with watercolor illustrations on one side and Chinese hanzi on the other. Unfortunately, this was the one area where we were not allowed to take pictures, which was too bad because it was the oldest collection in the museum. Another portion of that floor was the eclectic art collection of a German couple (very surprising for a Chinese museum); the pieces were from many different styles of art (everything from a German Picasso-lookalike to Renaissance). Lastly, there was a collection of blue painted vases with Chinese landscapes (mountains, temples). I loved vases that had deep blue-green colors, or particularly ones that mainly a blue background with the exception of red leaves on the blue trees. The combination of the two colors really made the vases pop out at visitors.

The last floor was by far the most interesting one to me- there were two exhibits, the first dedicated to the wax-block printing by those in the Guizhong province, which looks like blue calico. The designs were beautiful and very intricate, including patterns with birds, fish, and flowers. I don’t know how people can make those designs by hand with that level of intricacy. Along with the pieces cut from baby carriers, scarves and shirtsleeves, there were also full traditional outfits on display. Nou also told me that many Hmong traditional outfits have the same patterns, but they take up the full length of the skirt. The other side was devoted to “Dreaming” (a type of Aboriginal tapestries from Australia, which I thought was a little odd (an exhibit devoted to Australia in China?) but again it was nicely done. There were tapestries hanging on every inch of the room, decorated in “orange blossom” patterns and the occasional lizard.

Although I enjoyed my visit, I was a little disappointed in the museum. I really was expecting exhibits from ancient dynasties, and none existed. The exhibit that featured its oldest collection was the stories from the 1910s; this museum really was quite modern considering the extent of China’s history. I would have like to see some artifacts from the Tang dynasty, or something along those lines, but perhaps there is another museum where I can find what I’m looking for. The only other complaint that I had was that very few (perhaps three or four) displays had English translations next to the Chinese description of the exhibit. I would like to know the title of a piece of art that I find interesting, but I couldn’t because my Chinese is limited to “people”, “student”, “busy” and “I am American”. I suggested that we just make stories up about each piece, but that didn’t go over too well!

America's Foreign Policy on T*bet

So a friend of mine work's for Senator Dick Durbin in DC, the Democratic Whip for Senate, and she just sent me an article about what's going on in Capital Hill in regards to T*bit. One of the main journals people on the hill (as we call it) use for source of information is CQPolitics, and it has all of the latest congressinal, senate, and executive news. I completely forgot about how amazing this source is until she reminded me today. I used to read it every morning for my congresswoman when I worked there and a lot of the United State's representatives use CQPolitics as their main source of information, in addition to many others. I think it's an intersting article about how American foreign policy is addressing this situation. This particular article is Nancy Pelosi's (the speaker of the house and AWESOME WOMAN!) stance on the issue!

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=cqmidday-000002693280

Getting Old in China

I wouldn't wanna be a young person born and living in China. Just think of all those responsibilities. I wouldn't make a good little emperor. But one thing we haven't really thought about is aging. Parents of these kids are going to get old pretty soon. There is only one child per family and the government is not considering changing this policy. While this child is getting an immense amount of attention right now, thirty years from now, he or she will be the primary provider of the family. That means that this one child will have to take care of potentially six other people. One family unit would then be responsible for up to twelve individuals without any income other than the pension.

This might be obvious for everyone else and you might have been thinking about it all along. I haven't really, so I have attached a link to an article that helped me get more perspective on this issue.

It is titled: "Who Will Care for the Elderly in China?"

I wonder.

http://www.bgsu.edu/downloads/cas/file35700.pdf

Public Shower Experience - It's a Bit Long

So a friend of mine, Nathan, was talking to one of our Chinese language tutors and we discovered that many of the students shower in public showers (basically 100 naked girls or boys in one bathroom showering at the same time). We were actually shocked that something like that existed in such a modern city like Beijing. I suppose I failed to remember that Beijing is over-populated and space availability is a bit of a problem. Nathan, jokingly at first, had mentioned how we should experience these public showers for the cultural experience. After asking a million other questions about these public showers and some other apprehensions a typical foreigner would have, Nathan and I decided that we would actually be up to the personal challenge of trying out the public showers for ourselves. Two weeks later, today, I finally accompanied my roommate's tutor, Julie, to the showers.

I was very nervous before meeting her. I found my bright red, Victoria Secrets, travel bag and loaded it with my liquid soap, flip flops, facewash, shampoo, face products, my green lufa, two towels, and one pair of underwear. I was worried that I was bringing too many things and that I would come off like a typical materialistic American with my unnecessary produts. (Later I found out that everyone else used the same amount of products as I did, and I did not look out of place at all). On my walk over to the bathrooms I couldn't stop smiling from the embarrssment I was preparing myself for. I felt like a ten year old that was about to do something mischevious. Julie could not stop laughing at my facial expressions and reactions to something that I had not even experienced yet. I did assure her that my immature behaviour would vanish the moment we got to the public bathrooms and that I would take the experience in as a native would. And sure enough, it did.

The moment I walked in I saw naked women everywhere. We entered the locker rooms first and women were drying their hair, chatting, laughing, drying themselves, and getting dressed and undressed. The ratio of nakedness to dressed women in the locker room looked about 16:4 (naked:dressed). We found a locker and began getting undressed. While I may have appeared normal on the outside, my heart was racing while I began undressing. I actually was very nervous. Finally Julie and I were ready to walk to the showers. With nothing on and a basket with our products we both began walking down the long hallway of showers. The shower was one big hallway flanked by three big sections of mulitple shower heads. Women were showering everywhere and chatting as if they were hanging out on the streets. Nobody seemed to notice that they did not have any clothing on. It reminded me of gym class in America where all the girls would hang out and gossip about what was going on in their lives that week. We picked the last section of the left hand side of the hallway and used our ID cards, which had money on it, that allowed for us to receive water. We were charged .19 cents/minute for using the hot water. The moment hot water hit my body I became a native and forgot their was anything unusual about the experience. I was so happy that , at least, I had the luxury of a hot, steamy shower and found the pressure of the shower more enjoyable than the private bathroom I have at my apartment. I was even surprised that it did not phase me when one of the women showering stood in front of me and raised one of her legs up against the water heater so that she could start shaving and expose a more intimate side to her. After we were done showering I walked back to the locker rooms with no towel around myself. I think this was the most negative part of the experience. I was wet and water was dripping down from my hair and the closer the locker rooms got, the colder I began to feel. No one else had a towel either. The custom was to dry yourself with a small towel that you brought with you to the showers and then walk back with nothing shielding you from the cold back to the lockers so that you could get dressed. I did not have a small towel with me, I had a big towel by the lockers. I felt foolish drying myself with so much material while everyone else was content with barely a hand towel. I then got dressed and walked back to my apartment as if this were a daily routine activity for me.

After analyzing the experience, I decided that it was not so bad at all and I should not have been so worried about exposing myself so freely in the locker room. It was actually a very practial experience and kind of fun. I suppose socializing and showering is not that bad of a concept. So anyways....that was me living out every man's fantasy of 100 naked women showering together! haha! Don't really see what the hype is.

T*betans, Through the Eyes of a Foreigner

So I have a personal blogg that I write in about my experiences in China. The blogg is basically about various cultural immerion experiences and the reactions I have about them. Below is my very first blog and is much lighter and less controversial than some of my other entries. After reading this entry over, I realized that I could have been a bit more critical about my ovservations and more detailed about some other cultural elements. However, I think it illuminates a fun light side to Tibet (to contrast our recent conversations) about a foreigners exposure to T*betan culture in China. I think it wil serve as an interesting juxtoposition to our experiences when we visit Qinghai and Ghansu (which i am still hoping we get to go, despite everything).

Well, to put it simply, today I won a tibetan dance competition!!! So our program director tries to take us out to dinner once a week and this week we went to a traditional T*betan restaraunt with t*betan folk dance and music performances. It was really great. I was all smiles the whole time, "ooohing" and "ahhing" excitedly like the little foreigner I am. The food was great and very similar to Indain food. Our table ordered malai kofta and palak panir... it was great!! I was starting to miss Indian food already. Everyone, espeically some of the performers that we would soon meet, were dressed in traditional T*betan costumes filled with vibrant colors and embroideries. The whole environment was decorated in a similar fashion with intersting wood furnishing (with a slight pottery barn feel to it) and lights everywhere. The atmosphere was loud and I felt like we were at the circus waiting to be entertained with food and performances. Well any wayz... while we were eating, laughing, and sipping our "butter tea" the traditional dance performers were going around to each table and singing their native songs. When they came to our table we were all so into it. We were clapping and shouting out the weirdest cheer sounds. The singers sounded like they were screeching and I even saw one of the "fuyans" (waitresses) covering her ears because the pitch of the screeching would reach certain notes that only dogs could hear. The dancing was awesome. It reminded me of garba (that Indian circle dance, for those of you who don't know it... I think I've taken most of you to one). Sooooo MY THING! So towards the end of the first part I got up and joined in, while the tibetan dancers were dancing around a circle around the tables throughout the restaraunt. It was great! I was given the message that this is how traditional T*betans celebrated. During the second part they announced, in Chinese, that they wanted four girls to get up on stage. My directer and everyone that understood was like ANJ GO UP THERE!!! I was pretty much up for it because i was in one of my outgoing moods that allowed for me to make a fool of myself and have fun. My roommate, Katie, came up with me too!! Thank God! The game we were to play was to have our backs to the audience and the first girl would imitate the dancer who was showing her a movement (we could not see the dancer do these moves). Then the second girl, me, would turn around and the first girl would show me the moves she learned and I would have to imitate her. After that, I would show the third girl and then the third girl would show the fourth girl. At the end the announcer and a translater began asking us questions about the game and how we felt about it so far. I replied in the little Chinese I knew and everyone in the audience (and the performers) loved that and started laughing and clapping. After this, the audience was to shout out who would be the winner of the game. I WON!!!! It was awesome! I got really expensive inscents (according the the announcer) and a cd (I don't know what's on it). That wasn't all...the winner had to stay on stage after the other volunteers sat down...and had to pick something to do one stage (either sing or dance for the audience). I told them that I would learn a complicated tibetan dance move and immitate that as my choice. i did pretty well, so i was told. It was really similar to bhangra moves (a dance style from the state of Panjab in India).... haha (jen, totally thought of you!). It was pretty awesome and my table was roaring with laughter and excitement. Needless to say, it was a pretty sweet time! Well, that's all I have for now... I'll post the next time something exciting happens! CIAO MY LOVES!!!!

What do you have to hide, China?

For anyone who is attempting to find solid information on the recent T*bet occurrences, good luck because you most likely won't be too successful. As if China didn't already make it difficult to get solid information, expelling every foreign journalist made the difficult task pretty much impossible.

I am a bit of a media junkie. Although I know the New York Times and BBC (my go-to-media sources when I'm abroad and short on time) have no more reporters in the T*betan area, I find myself checking the NY Times and BBC on almost a daily basis. At best, I find an article of the Dalai Lama making another statement about the importance of peace or an unnamed witness who saw something from a distance away.

Some numbers have surfaces, but they are largely disputed depending on the source. Chinese media sources claim thirteen died in Lhasa on March 15 while the Dalai "clique" claimed at least 80 casualties. Western media sources state eyewitnesses to have seen and heard bullets, but Chinese officials stand firm that the officers could not have done so because they were not armed with any lethal weapons that day.

As an example, here are two articles from March 18 showing the contradicting coverage:
"T*bet chairman: Police exercised 'great restraint'" -China Daily
"Simmering Resentments Led to T*betan Backlash" -The New York Times

Chinese media is known for withholding information which has a possibility to hinder their "image." Because of this history, it is difficult to take much of their coverage seriously. On the flip side, mainstream Western media has a talent of reporting fragments of stories and making them appear to be the full story. From the pictures and coverage it appears the entire T*betan region is either on fire or up in protest. Although the recent events have some sort of impact on all T*betans, the majority of them are most likely making little to no change to their daily routines.

Whatever happened last Saturday and the days to follow, China is not helping themselves by removing all foreign media personnel from the area. A couple days after the March 15 riots, the Chinese government claimed Lhasa was back in order, so it can't be for the sake of the reporters' safety. Besides, reporters are in the heart of the Middle-East's worst areas which even if T*bet is as much of a mess as the NY Times plays it out to be doesn't compare to the danger posed in those Middle-East areas.

China has made large strides for the past couple decades at becoming a large world player. They have made many positive moves to earn the respect of foreign leaders, but this is a major step back. Whether or not the Chinese government has anything to hide, this secrecy sure makes it look as though they do.

Non-Scheduled Reading Response Notes

This week’s reading response addressed the issues of the “little Empress” model. I found many different sections of this reading particularly interesting; especially in regards to comparative study. In the article entitled, “Heavy is the Head of the ‘Little Emperor,’” the author hooked his audience with a provocative topic of suicide amongst students in China. A boy described how the suicide rates in China were due to the fact that the children were feeling overly stressed about their education and the harshness of their struggle over competition. The government tried to form a policy that would help reduce some of these stresses whilst boosting the economy in some way. While this attempt did, in fact, somewhat achieve the latter the situation of high stress amongst students still remained a problem. While I read through some of the case studies provided, which helped support some of these claims, I noticed many parallels to the American Ivy League students. One great example of this parallel is a personal situation of mine that involved a dear friend of mine from childhood. She was an American born, Indian woman who had been brought up through the traditional standards of an Asian household. All throughout her childhood we had taken many different extra curricular activities together outside of our school. Our parents would bond over new programs run by our community centers to help enhance our education. We would take Kuman (a Korean method of learning math and reading comprehension) together, dance, do community service at our temple, tennis lessons, Sylvan Learning Center, private tutoring in almost every subject, and much more. For my friend, these extra activities helped shape the person she was. She did not understand a life outside of academic success. She received straight A’s in high school, made honor role every year, graduated top of her class, and still maintained her image of a well rounded student amongst all of her other accomplishments. Needless to say, she had never been exposed to failure or the idea that she would not achieve her high dreams of becoming a future, successful Dentist. This friend had been accepted into a direct program into dentistry straight out of high school. After her third year of the program she had received her first “C” letter grade ever and had been consequently kicked out of her program/University. Her parents were devastated, but not so much as she was with herself. All of her dreams had been vanished due to one bad grade. This was the level of competition she was surrounded by. While, everyone helped her look for other alternative programs or top “notch” universities that would provide her with the same level of prestige, she was becoming more and more disappointed in herself. A few months later this friend had committed suicide. This was not a first of such stories within the Ivy League community. While, understandably, it is important to preserve certain standards of education in order to produce quality results and progress in education; I think it is worth analyzing some of the repercussions. If the standards are not maintained, would academia as a whole lower its scale of achievement? Are the small fractions of deaths and high stress cases worth changing the system? These questions could apply to both China and a few cases in the Western education system. I would also find it interesting to analyze some of the statistical data measuring suicide rates and high stress levels in American University students to see if a majority of these individuals came from Asian specific backgrounds who have similar value systems to those of their native countries. Also, what are some of the global comparisons regarding this topic?

From the Front Lines.... or at Least Close to Them

I found this piece on the TIME China Blog this morning and thought it would be of interest to many you, in light of recent events. One of TIME's Beijing bureau journalists was allowed to head west to see what's going on there:

"It's early evening in Litang, a normally bustling city of some 50,000 in the far west of China's Sichuan province. On a normal day, the streets would be crowded with cars, bicycles, throngs of shoppers, even the odd yak. But today there is an eerie silence, with only the occasional resident hurrying home, eyes to the ground. The shops are all shuttered and the only vehicles on the roads are prowling police cars whose blue and red lights flash in the gathering dusk. Litang, 90% of whose population is ethnically Tibetan, is a city under siege..."

At least as interesting as the article itself (perhaps even more so, depending on your perspective) is the comments section. The China Blog is one of the more high profile China-related blogs around since it's attached to a major global publication, and this means that it attracts all kinds of wing-nut commenters, particularly nationalists who are easily whipped into delirium by anything TIME's foreign journalists say. (Ever wonder what a steady diet of PRC patriotic education can produce? Now's your chance to see some of its more extreme effects.)

It's worth checking out.

There's also been a lot of discussion going on over at The Peking Duck, which you'll have to use a proxy to view.

My friend and classmate at the Granite Studio has posted links to a few history-oriented pieces he's written over the years on T*bet. Everything on this blog is academically-informed, but written in a very accessible and often humorous style. I recommend having a look around there as well.

Finally, I also heard about this article at the Atlantic Monthly-- supposedly a good historical overview that attempts to lay out Chinese perspectives, T*betan perspectives, etc. on the issue.

Chinese Politics...do we really get it?

When I first choose to blog about this week’s assignment, focused on China’s one-child policy, I was under the impression that I would be reading an entirely different article. My understanding of China’s population control stance was most definitely from a Western perspective. I figured it was a harsh public policy enforced by a evil communist regime as a way to possess further control on its citizens. Greenhalgh and Winkler also eluded to some of these Western perspectives when trying to summarize some of the misconceptions mainly associated with this policy; “…in the mid-1980’s, the dominant news story in the West was of a coercive totalitarian regime, cases of journalistic interests those of individuals suffering from brutal enforcement of the one-child-policy”(Greenhalg and Winkler 12). While the authors of this piece do not completely deny these statements, they do mention that the severity of these statements are not necessarily true for all of China. While these harsher laws and restrictions, regarding the one-policy, may exist in some remote villages in the outskirts of China, there are other examples of this policy that shed another, more positive, light. I was very much intrigued by the dichotomy of perspectives that existed regarding this issue. It is interesting how information can become skewed based on the geopolitical regions from which the news is coming from. There was an entirely different side elucidated by the Chinese government that is worth analyzing. This brings into question a couple of things. How has the West used censorship as a tool when promoting their international political agenda? To what extent has the west used their own biases in their educational system, as a way to infiltrate western society? While there are MAJOR differences between the East and the West, are their certain similarities, regarding this topic, which are worth looking into?
According to one view, controlling the population has produced some positive results that have recently been acknowledge, but not stressed, by the global community. From what I understood, the one-child policy has been able to stress quality over quantity as their main promotional tool; “…by focusing solely on the state’s repressive project of drastically limiting population numbers, it has overlooked the second, more seductive project of enhancing the quality of the Chinese people….the standard account has also missed the important transformations that have taken place, especially since the early 1990’s, as marketization has accelerated and quality has overtaken quantity as the major domain of population politics” (Greenhalgh and Winkler 213). The single child policy, especially when applied to the Urban regions of China, were able to cultivate a quality single child; this accumulatively, was able to create a quality population that affected progress in education, the economy, science, technology, and much more. One reason this was made possible was because families were able to concentrate their care and resources onto their single child. I found it interesting that this other side existed and that the authors of this piece were able to find statistical information to help support some of their claims. I wonder how much of what we have been told by the Chinese government is true. It could be likely that the Chinese government intended for these positive outcomes but, in face, was not able to carry out these policies as they have claimed. I would also be interested to find out, if these positive notions of the one-child policy exist, some other tangible evidence or documentation that would further support some of these claims.

cuius regio, eius religio

Initially, I wanted to write about Deng Xiao Ping, but then Katie reminded me of the Easter egg hunts, which made me think of last year's article by Slavoj Zizek.



http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/opinion/11zizek.html?ex=1349841600&en=a6bf39fd39100bc1&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink