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Apothem TercetIn Search of Nina McKliggan part II - An Artychoke Contending with the Electric Minute |
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12/15/2007 Chinese Characteristics?[Extracted from one of my posts to an email discussion group] Much of what we see in China, much of that which is dying out, can find their parallels in European and other histories. Thus, for example, listening recently to a talk given on behaviour in the fourteenth century in Europe, the speaker told of people wanting large families, as many boys as possible, and of female infanticide being a regular occurrence. This is not particularly surprising. Child mortality in less developed societies is higher than in developed societies. Societies are largely agricultural, and the more individuals in the family the more the land that can be worked. Boys are favoured both because societies tend to be patriarchal, boys tend to stay 'in the family' rather than marrying out and because boys have more physical strength for labour. In developed societies, large families are not favoured. Rather than producing, children tend to consume resources. Child mortality is relatively low. In an urban environment, girls are as well-equipped as boys to serve as producers and families, tending to be increasingly nuclear, tend to 'lose' their boy children and their girl children equally as adults after marriage given that expansion of the household in an urban environment tends not to be an option. Japan and Singapore are two examples of places where not so long ago large families were the norm but which now are having to introduce governmental incentives to encourage people to have more children in the face of declining populations. Whatever their parents may think, I can't recall a student ever talking to me of wanting six or eight children, but I can think of many who have spoken of wanting one or two; some, now, who have even expressed the desire for girl-children over boy-children; and even the occasional individual who has said he or she doesn't want to have any children at all. Regardless of its history and culture, there is an inevitability about certain aspects of change that occur as any society becomes increasingly urban and increasingly developed. Smaller families is one. Other things that the Chinese feel is something that always has been Chinese and always will be such as guanxi, (connections), and mianzi, (face) have their own counterparts in the history of European culture and these too will change. Mianzi is an aspect of any strongly hierarchical society where complicated shows of adherence to the societal structure are required to reassure those with authority that their position is secure. What others may think of them is immaterial; it is the showing of respect that is important. As societies become increasingly reliant upon cooperation the hierarchy tends to break down and gaining the genuine respect of others becomes important. Guanxi secures the kinds of ties that are required both to keep one's position or to elevate oneself in the hierarchy but development leads societies more in the direction of meritocracy. The idiot son of a local official in one's organisation was once an asset in any society, but as societies developed - not only such that organisations within societies competed but also such that societies competed between themselves - such people became increasingly a drain on resources rather than an asset, thereby decreasing efficiency. Other forms of more apparent corruption become increasingly curtailed for much the same reason. My personal bugbear in China right now upon which I am inclined to blame all China's ills is the propaganda department and its related bodies. This, today, is China's most blatant anachronism and without its controls many of China's current ills would be rapidly extinguished; that, at least, is my belief but too complicated to justify here given that in a few hours I have visitors and I have to make my apartment look something less like a rubbish dump. Again, however, go back a few hundred years in England and you find much the same thing happening. Then and there the church was used as an organ of state for the dissemination of propaganda and church attendance was compulsory. The means of transmission may have changed, but the attitudes underlying CCTV and China's distorted history text books are further hallmarks of any underdeveloped society the world over. This is far from an exhaustive list of 'Chinese characteristics' that are far from singularly Chinese. The one-child policy today is a necessity. Soon it will be unnecessary; small families will be people's personal choice. In a century's time, perhaps the Chinese too will be introducing policies to try to encourage larger families as its population declines. 10/5/2007 The English Language IS a ToolI wrote the following some years ago in response to a fellow teacher in a discussion forum.
Fellow teacher: I heard the 'language as a tool' phrase many times... I was vaguely offended by the idea and wondered where it came from - now I know. This man obviously hasn't hear of the even more famous saying 'When you learn a language you learn a culture'... Me: I doubt the originator of 'When you learn a language, you learn a culture' was talking about a language taught as a lingua franca. To be sure, if we learn Chinese we must learn how to use it in a Chinese context and yes, understanding of the culture is thus essential. We will, after all, be using it pretty much exclusively in talking with Chinese people. However, a debate I have tried to start frequently in TEFLChina which has always failed to live up to my expectations is HOW we teach English given its purpose. Firstly, which culture? British? Australian? Canadian? American? And whichever we select, what is its value to a Chinese answering the telephone to a Peruvian, or to a Chinese from Xi'an talking to a Chinese from Hong Kong? I despair, truly, when some poor overworked student approaches me at English corner, having been driven through 90 minutes of cultural education, to ask me some trivial detail of the history of the city of Liverpool because he needs to know it to pass his exams. Well I don't know, I don't give a damn; why should he? And why should the guy from Oman give a damn, the guy with whom the student will be discussing an oil shipment as a part of his job when he graduates? Frankly, I have become heartily sick over the past four years of Chinese Christmases and Chinese St. Valentine's days and Chinese Thanksgiving Days celebrated by Chinese who know nothing of Ramadan in a land where native Moslems outnumber native Christians; Chinese who, in any case, have their own Lovers' Day and Spring Festival celebrations. As for Shinto, what's that? Of course culture should be a part of their education; they are learning English to speak to foreigners after all. But a healthy grounding in cross-cultural communication will be of far greater value to them in the real world where the vast majority of their dealings will be conducted not with native speakers, but with second-language speakers like themselves. They should be learning how to be sensitive to ALL cultural views as they come across them; to learn to expect the unexpected from their interlocutors and how to deal with it, not how to emulate the niceties of their chosen native-English culture and expecting the other to do the same... assuming of course that they have selected the same one as their paradigm. I can think of nothing more pathetic, quite frankly, than a Chinese pretending to be an American trying to have a conversation with a Japanese trying to be an Englishman to the consternation of a passing Korean who pretends he's from New Zealand. I want my students to be three dimensional people, and they can only be that by being Chinese. At the same time, I want them to be sensitive to those with whom they will deal in later life, and they're not going to get THAT from the minutiae of the history of the city of Liverpool. I want them to be called Wang, Fu and Li, not Tom, Dick and Harry, because Wang, Fu and Li are their names, and because if I ask Wang where Dick is he will not have a clue because Dick to him is Li. Indeed, Dick to Dick is Li. Dick is just a noise some idiot has told him he has to make when asked for his name because foreigners can't say 'Li' and won't be able to remember it for the life of them. The ENGLISH language IS a tool. It is a tool used to communicate across nearly all the world's cultural boundaries these days, if not all; and to have it constrained by one native speaking culture - or even limited to half a dozen - is an abuse of the cultures both of our students and those with whom they will speak it. I want my students to learn how to be Chinese when speaking English and to know the best way to approach a person from Papua New Guinea, Holland or Mali - even if they have never heard of Mali before meeting the person with whom they are speaking. I want them to be able to express their own culture through a well-chosen 'The mountains are high and the Emperor is far away' rather than informing a Yemeni that when the cat's away the mice will play, and to do it without thinking they are speaking Chinglish. I have a Chinese friend in Switzerland who has discovered - to her considerable benefit - that she can not only be herself more easily with the use of Chinese phrases in English, but also that she shines more brightly in company for so doing. Not for her the raining of cats and dogs, no sir. I want my students to adopt the language, to adapt it to their own culture without interfering with their ability to communicate, not to forever feel that they are borrowing English and that the only way to use it properly is by becoming a cardboard-cutout native speaker, forgetting their own culture every time they open their mouths... and, far more often than not, forgetting that the person they are speaking to too has his or her own culture that owes little or nothing to the British Empire. English drops out of all the old ways of thinking about language. English is a European language, an Asian language, an African language. Beyond parameters required for mutual comprehension such as pronunciation it cannot be standardised however hard we might try to turn our students into model citizens able to pass unnoticed through Oxford or Glasgow or Chicago or Perth every time they speak it. We can try, but we will fail. We should respect our students - and those with whom they will converse in their careers - too much even to try. Cages"Why do you keep the people in cages?"
"Because if we let them out they will be angry and destroy everything."
"Why will they be angry?"
"Because we keep them in cages." 8/30/2007 What's wrong with Christian evangelism?In the talk of the Korean Christian evangelists, evangelism itself is coming in for a bashing, but just for a moment look at it from the Christians' point of view.
I don't think we can blame Christians for their missionary zeal given what they believe. Were I a Christian I think I would be hysterical looking around me at decent people on the street envisaging what fate has in store for them if they do not convert. I'd probably be grabbing everyone by their shirt collars and pleading.
Just as well, then, that I don't believe.
If I did believe, what would I then be believing in? A God so despotic that he has created a universe in which, when homage is not paid to him, the culprit is punished with an eternity of hellfire and incessant torture. It makes any despot the world has ever known look like a pussycat in comparison.
What of all the people here in China who don't believe thanks to an accident of geography? Were a Chinese to be converted, as one young Chinese remarked to me after his own contact with evangelicals, how could he enjoy heaven knowing for an eternity that his grandparents, good people, were suffering moment by moment through no fault of their own? My second ever girlfriend was a Christian. At one point she spoke of marriage. I asked her how she would feel in heaven knowing her beloved husband was suffering and would suffer forever? 'Well,' she replied, 'that would be your own fault.' I hadn't considered marrying her before the conversation. After it there wasn't a hope I ever would. Sometimes it strikes me, given what they believe in, Christians are not evangelical enough.
Were I to believe in this version of God then I'd probably end up in hell anyway. I suppose it would be impossible for me to hide my disgust from Him. The problem doesn't lie with the believers. It lies with what they believe. If this truly is the 'justice' that governs our fate then here's hoping Nietzsche was right when he said 'God is dead'. 8/7/2007 FutilityA priest went to visit a man in prison. ‘Is there anything you want, my son?’ he asked. ‘I want to get out of here,’ the prisoner replied. ‘But you know you have been found guilty of a crime in a fair trial and must pay penance.’ ‘I have never denied my guilt,’ the prisoner said. ‘I know I must pay.’ ‘Then you know there is nothing you can do, nothing I can do,’ said the priest. ‘You must stay here for five years.’ ‘Yes, Father,’ said the prisoner. ‘I know I must stay.’ ‘So,’ said the Priest, ‘is there anything you want?’ ‘Yes, Father,’ the prisoner replied. ‘I want to get out of here.’ 7/9/2007 In China a Child is BornSomewhere in Guangxi province, China, a child is born. I hear the news from a friend of mine, a friend of the newborn mother, who witnessed the birth. The wonder was there in her first words, the amazement at what she had seen; birth. A new life from nowhere.
But soon the wonder ceased. 'Her mother in law is a very traditional Chinese. She told my friend she should throw it away.'
The child was a girl. Throw it away.
Throw it away. A human being. Her grandchild. Throw it away.
3.00am and a long series of messages began. The girl, the mother, was disconsolate. The father of the child, her husband, little better than his mother, said nothing. Only my friend wanted to be of comfort to her friend, a new mother who had just brought a new life into the world, who ought to have been rejoicing regardless. She wanted me to help, but how can I help change such warped, such insane, such barbaric thinking in a few words of advice in text on a mobile phone?
Propaganda people, you scan MSN blogs now thanks to the cooperation of Mr. Gates. You strip them of content you don't like. You educate, re-educate and re-re-educate your citizens in ways you consider to be righteous thinking... and with all that power you can't think to get across to some middle-aged woman that perhaps the best thing to do when a granddaughter is born to her is for her to rejoice and not to tell her daughter-in-law to throw it away?
What damned use are you to your country? What damned use are you to anyone?
UPDATE:
Next morning. The husband has sided with his mother. He doesn't want to keep the child... and so they won't. What will happen to her is anyone's guess. The new mother is, as anyone might imagine, distressed to the point of distraction. My friend is sitting by helpless.
This touches upon so many things here but education, surely, is one of the things most central. No doubt the grandmother, the husband have learned their lessons well when it comes to loving China, hating the Japanese, being wary of foreigners in general and believing China ever followed anything Karl Marx ever said, (which it palpably hasn't). Unfortunately, with all the smoke and mirrors, someone forgot to tell the people it is 2007; that girl children have as much opportunity in life as boy children; that a newborn child should never be simply 'thrown away'.
Claiming exclusive control over the thinking of a nation might be used for good as well as for ill. The paycheck would be the same at the end of the month, wouldn't it? The propaganda department is so damned busy trying to get people to believe black is white they've forgotten the basics, the very basics of human decency.
All that power. Power. Power for the sake of power in the hands of fools without a clue how to use it to do anyone any good at all. 8/27/2006 I'm being followed by a goon shadow... goon shadow, goon shadow...A plane carrying Cat Stevens in the USA was diverted to a closer airport and the Man Himself taken into custody for questioning on suspicion of terrorism. I read an article on CNN on the arrest believing that the US authorities had made a silly mistake.
Again.
Unbelievably -
... officials said Islam was on the watch list because of reported associations and financial support for Muslim charities with terrorist connections. But they would not disclose the names of those charities. Homeland Security spokesman Garrison Courtney would only say "the intelligence community has come into possession of additional information that further heightens our concerns of Yusuf Islam." Yusaf Islam is the name Cat Stevens adopted when he converted to Islam.
Now okay, sure, fine, anyone can be an Islamic terrorist, even the Pope I guess if he got out of bed the wrong side one day with a severe headache and started seeing the Wrong Kind Of Ethereal Visions. We should keep an open mind. But darlings, this is Cat Stevens.
Cat Stevens. Fer Chrissakes. The last I heard this guy would be afraid of going on a campaign march and raising a placard lest the stick snap and the cardboard sign fall and tap someone's poor little head. Cat Stevens - Moonshadow. Cat Stevens - Morning Has Broken. That Cat Stevens. The word 'wet' springs to mind. So here's the plan for any sensible, rational - and I do mean rational as against irrational here - government to consider. If you're going to start bandying around dark suggestions that the likes of Cat Stevens - Cat Stevens, Lord, you can't even say the name without gagging on all the excess of mellow - Cat Stevens on a plane is enough to divert that plane to another airport lest the guy blow himself up and his 21 year old daughter with it because he is Islamic, it might be an idea to show some evidence. (Get it straight. If they didn't think that he was a potential threat to the integrity of the plane then and there they'd just have picked him up at the other end, not diverted the plane to a nearby airport to get him off it as quickly as possible. That's a response to a bomber, not a sympathiser or a funder. It generates way too many problems and way too much in the way of headlines). The Cat is out of the bag. We all know now. Something rotten lurks in the Moonshadow, apparently. The guy is a potential suicide bomber, a bringer-down of crowded passenger jets into a tangle wreckage of blood and mayhem - apparently. We all know it now. It's been in the papers along with the dire warnings as to his attitude. Who are we keeping the secret of his suspicious behaviour from? He knows it, he grows it. His associates know we all know it because the scum (I'm being followed by a moonshadow... moonshadow, moonshadow...) would have been on the phone to all his evil terrorist friends and told them... and saved them the bother of reading the screaming headlines. So what's WRONG? Tell us. Go on, give us a clue. You do have clue, don't you?
Funny, innit? I've heard Cat Stevens being bandied around as an example as a Moslem with the undercurrent of 'You'd no more dream of accusing this guy of terrorism than you would Winnie the Pooh' and here he is... darkly tainted with that very accusation. Winnie the Pooh, suicide bomber. Okay yes. It's possible. The guy's been pretty well out of the public eye for decades and who knows what might have happened in the interim? But for God's sake give us something to chew on while we try to come to terms with the outrageous possibility otherwise you're going to lose all credibility... if you have any left.
I've given up saying 'Enough is enough'. Enough was enough a long time ago. A long time ago, more than enough became much much more than enough and travelled on still further into the realms of way, way too much. We long since entered the realms of the criminally insane and this is no more than another example to add to the pile which not only continues to grow but also shows no sign of stopping. All we can do methinks is set up one of them large countdown clocks for everyone to see so we can see how many years, months, weeks, days, hours and seconds are left of the Bush presidency so that when the nightmare passes we can be well prepared for the global party. Turn your minds back, cherubs, to the world pre-Bush. Try to imagine these headlines, pre-Bush. 'US Authorites Detain Cat Stevens As Suspected Terrorist Suicide Bomber' 'US Authorities Detain Suspects For Years Without Charge' 'US Authorities Kidnap German Suspect On Suspicion' 'German Kidnap Victim Flown By US Authorities To Middle-Eastern Torture Facility For Interrogation' 'USA Lies To UN About Nuclear Threat From Independent Nation To Justify Invasion' 'USA Lies To Own Citizens And Armed Forces To Justify Invasion' 'US President Instructs Investigators Of Terrorist Attack On Where To Pin The Blame' Surreal, huh? Add your own to the list. There are plenty out there, these were just off the top of my head. Pre-Bush, remember, this was a huge scandal. A terrible, terrible thing, a blight on the Whitehouse. 'President Has Sex With Whitehouse Aide' Well, gosh. This was so huge it outshone any scandal arising out of the Bush presidency as a nova outshines a match - a dead match given the fact that there seems to have been no scandal at all surrounding the Bush presidency. None. Sex, it appears, is scandalous. Killing, abuse of human rights, kidnapping friendly foreign nationals, unjustified invasion of sovereign nations on the back of packs of lies - these things are not scandalous. Either that, or the American public has become very tolerant of late. Heavens, they're even tolerating things their president tells the nationals of other countries they should find intolerable and should therefore rise up against their oppressors; a severe case of the Whitehouse throwing stones from the Greenhouse. Luckily Cat Stevens is my compatriot. He's one of us good old Brits. My government won't just stand by when one of their citizens is abused in this fashion by what is clearly - by the very definitions mouthed off by the President of the USA himself on the behaviour that characterises one such - a rogue state, an enemy of peace, a hater of freedoms, a wheel on the Axis of Evil. I am sure even as we speak that Blair is on the phone to Bush. 'Yo, Tony'. 'How's the sweater?' 'Fine, Tony.' 'Oh and by the way...' 'Yes, Tony?' 'Oh... nothing sir, nothing. Can I be excused for the toilet please?' Ee it fair makes thee proud to be an Englishman does that. Thank God for Tony Blair. He's set himself up as a moderating friend on the Bush administration, better in than out, better to have the President's ear so that things can be swayed before they go too far. Blair, the HERO! Blair will help the President go as far as he possibly can to perpetrate anything he chooses it seems, so that at the last moment he can step in and avert er... something even worse I guess. Clever thinking. What a guy. Well... maybe not. Actually it's the British press and public that make me proud to be English these days. I mean, look at the demonstrations on the street against Blair. Look at the way he has slipped to 0% in the opinion polls. Look at the way they've barricaded the guy into Downing Street. Look at the screaming headlines day after day after day after day yelling 'What the FUCK do you think you are DOING?' Look at the demands for full enquiries in our own part in the invasion of a sovereign nation on the back of packs of lies our own Prime Minister told to the nation, to the world. Of course, it's all very British which is why you can't see the opinion poll ratings, the demonstrations, the barricades or the screaming headlines or hear all the clamour for an enquiry but they're there. Aren't they? 6/23/2006 Love Is...I once loved a girl. She was young and beautiful. So beautiful she could make me smile by no more than my looking at her.
She went to Beijing. I was supposed to follow but there was a delay. Still, she would visit me and when she visited she would bring me cheese I couldn't find in the town where I stayed waiting for the day I could leave to be with her. Cheese and love and laughter and happiness and beauty.
But all was not well. Unbeknownst to me... okay, the rest is an aged, dull story monotonous in its variations so 'All was not well' is enough here.
And thus it ended.
I was distraught. I cried for days. But slowly I recovered, picked myself up and moved on with my life. Within a year the pain, the emotion, the love - all had gone. And yet something... one thing... lingered. Lingers on, even now, four years later.
I still miss the cheese. 2/16/2006 Chinese busesLiving as I do an hour and two bus journeys away from the university district, I've had the chance over the last year or more to experience the wonders of Chinese buses at sometimes too close quarters - and, more particularly, the behaviour of other commuters, most assuredly at too close quarters.
My first contact of a morning is in the relatively relaxed environment of a 99 bus. These air-conditioned beauties are twice the price of normal services, and though they may not play host to a better class of passenger as such they do at least attract fewer of them. At times they are crowded, but more often than not a seat is to be had given that the start of the 99's journey is a mere few stops before my own at Wa Yao Kou.
What the 99 lacks in overstuffing, however, it can at times make up for in the behaviour of its passengery.
It's a strange fact in China that the more bestial behaviour is to be found amongst those more monied. As in any feudal system, (which China in many essences remains, at least in the minds of the middle-aged), those with privilege don't have to concern themselves too much with refined behaviour save in the presence of their own superiors. What opportunities may be lacking in their lack of need to barge their way onto an overcrowded bus they can at times make up for in other ways. Most typically this takes the form of a fresh-air fanatic Chinese woman, (it tends to be middle-aged women here who are most bullish), opening the windows of the nicely heated bus on a freezing cold day or to lose all the advantages of the air conditioning on a hot day by the same means. In other arenas I have taken advantage of the fact that these people don't tend to be challenged - Chinese people don't like to cause a fuss though they're often happy to create the environment in which one deserves to be caused - to challenge antisocial behaviour myself to startling effect. An ill-mannered individual can be reduced to an embarrassed wreck with a public show of approbation, and providing the requisite moise has become something of a pleasing hobby of mine. Though I've largely held off doing so in buses, I wish I hadn't on the occasion one gent, showing off to his girlfriend, lit up a cigarette on one 99 to demonstrate the fact that he could. It mattered nothing to him that the woman in front of him silently moved two seats further down with her baby to keep it away from the smoke. It seems ever the way here that piggish behaviour is confused with demonstrations of one's superiority in flouting rules and conventions. The girlfriend, somewhat younger than the smoker and more in tune with civilised ways, was merely embarrassed at finding herself out in public with so blatant a fool. It's increasingly the way here that younger Chinese look with pained faces upon the behaviour of their elders and - ahem - 'betters'.
Generally, though, the 99 ride is an all too brief hiatus before the real battle when I get off at the railway station to await the number 10. For some reason the vast majority of Chinese commuters have failed to realise that the best vantage point is at the far end of the bus shelter commanding a view over the bend in the road from which the bus emerges so I'm often able to pip the majority to the post of the bus doors by watching out for it there in the hope it will stop behind two or three other buses. When this ruse doesn't work, however, the battle is set.
Boarding a bus is akin to battling for a ball in a rugby scrum, only with far fewer rules about the use of elbows, the weapon of choice particularly for those middle-aged ladies again. Some of the regulars at the bus stop treat me with deference, not because I am a foreigner and they are being hospitable but because they've witnessed of old what happens to anyone who uses their elbows too forcibly with me. The elbow back is less than gentle and the accompanying glare-and-curse routine precisely the sort of public spectacle that Chinese go out of their way to avoid. Unfortunately the majority at the stop every morning are new to the ways of this stand-no-nonsense foreigner and so I have to join battle with pretty much everyone else.
I confess to not being very good at it. There's a certain worming squirming approach one has to join in with in order to get on early and such a level of bodily contact too early in the morning with complete, often unattractive strangers is one that I can't put my heart into. Only the more obvious and forceful come in for my wrath else I'd be taking on a dozen people or more, so most of them get their way and around me. I'm not infrequently the last to board.
Fortunately the railway station isn't far from the start of the bus route and so I can often get a seat. However, most of the empty seats tend to be placed on the far side of a body. It may seem sensible to select the window seat, not the aisle seat when one has the choice of two but not so in China. The aim seems to be to try to get two seats for oneself, either so one can place one's bags on the window seat or so one can simply enjoy the luxury of hogging a scarce resource to the detriment of others. To that end the majority of passengers sit in the aisle seat and make it plain that anyone who may want the window seat is going to have a difficult time crossing over them to get to it. When one makes it plain that one is going to have the seat with or without their obstruction, (and few of the hoggers keep their seat pair for long in the scramble of the morning's commute), then minimal room is given by the disgruntled fellow passenger. This is the one time when I will allow myself a measure of infliction of actual bodily harm, and if the individual doesn't move his or her legs they come in for a bashing on the way in; refuses to lean back then a face-scrape courtesy of the front of my bag which I will helpfully push in their direction to make my point doubly clear. I've yet to draw blood in getting past one of these fleshly walls, but my unwillingness to be gentle in getting over them is made abundantly clear several times a week and by now I must have at least inflicted a few bruises. My hope is that I may gain a reputation for this too, and that a few of these fleshwalls may learn to move to the window seat to make room for me of their own accord.
Needless to say, when I have the rare option of two seats I will take the one by the window. However, the aisle seat I leave open, my bags clutched on my knees rather than taking it up so as to advertise its openness to all comers, is almost invariably the last on the bus to be filled, often only long after the aisle has become a solid block of suffering bodies. No one wants the seat next to the foreigners. Foreigners are odd. Foreigners are unpredictable. Heavens, look at this one, he's not even trying to hog two seats for himself for heaven's sake, is he crazy? I have even had odd occasions when I've completed an entire long journey on a crowded bus with two seats to myself, my bags needlessly on my knees, given the anxiety of every standing passenger brought about by my very presence. This is not even through a reputation gained by one of the many options open to me to enable me to keep my pair of seats. I could build this up perhaps by engaging anyone who goes for the seat in a discussion - in English - on non-Euclidean geometries... or, more simply, by making weird foreigner 'blip-blip' noises and pulling strange foreigner expressions. However, I am genuinely willing to have people sit there should they choose to. Or, rather, should they dare. So it is of late that I have tried to build a new reputation for myself by saying 'Hello!' to passing small children to their delight and that of their parents; or by giving a brief and hopefully unthreatening smile to recognised faces. All to no avail though. My fellow passengers are happy to enjoy me at a distance - some even staring here as everywhere - but they don't want to get too close and catch whatever it is they think I might have.
When I can't get a seat at the outset, then the fun and games begin. This number 10 bus is going to get ever more crowded from here on in as it makes its way through the city centre. One has to keep one's balance in the wild swings, the jarring stops-and-starts of the vehicle's journey which frequently leave passengers up-ended where they have the space to actually fall; dominoing other passengers into fantastic contortions of balance where they don't. Then one has to find a place to stand that's not been selected by too many other people, guard one's pockets and bag against the many thieves around and, when one becomes more professional as I have of necessity, work one's way to the Best Positions.
The Best Position Of All is right at the back of the bus. From there, one commands nine seats; the five at the back and - with a little less certainty - the two each on either side of the aisle. A departing passenger from any of these affords an opportunity to pounce.
The Next Best Position is at the start of the back of the bus where the floor raises up a step, just beyond the exit doors. From here the brave try to block all other passengers from passing so they can command all the back-of-the-bus seats and, well, if you're a foreigner you can often achieve the same aim with the inherent anti-magnetism. If the worst comes to the worst and others do squirm their way around you, at least you find yourself at the end of one's journey standing in a good position to battle one's way off the bus.
Another advantage of the back-of-the-bus position is that if one is fortunate enough to secure oneself a seat, one is less likely to have to give it up. If the portrait I have painted thus far has been of an ugly scramble that would be unseemly in the extreme back home, then the Chinese undoubtedly score well above us when it comes to deferring to the elderly and those with young children who might board. Few elderly people get beyond the first few seats on a bus without someone rapidly standing make way for them. In this, the Chinese are models of decorum and deference to an extreme I've never seen before. Indeed, I've had to work hard on my own manners in order to try to emulate it rather than give a poor impression of foreigner-kind. However, I do draw the line at nine and ten year old children who, as far as I am concerned, can take their chances with everyone else in the aisle. They have to wait for a Chinese to rise for them as they do more often than not, though not invariably as for the elderly.
When I do rise for an elderly gentleman or lady I have a 50% success rate. Sometimes my offering is taken with a grateful nod; sometimes amiably - but flatly - refused. The first time it happened I put it down to a communication breakdown until the elderly woman in question forced me gently but so firmly back into my seat by the shoulder that I was left with no uncertainty. I was also left with the feeling she had more strength for standing in a crowded aisle than I did myself.
I was refused, almost certainly, as a foreigner. On the whole this legendary hospitality towards foreigners is rarely exercised outside of the home but, as ever, it's the elderly, the young and the poor here who are most likely to exhibit it when it does happen; the young because many are genuinely seeking a new way of behaving, irritated by the boorishness of the generation above them... the elderly because, perhaps, their behaviour was formed in a time more refined than the scrabble of post-revolutionary China permitted; and the poor because, well, the poor do that the world over. It's relatively well-off, largely middle-aged city folk here that really let the side down. Unfortunately, they compose most of the commuters on an urban Chinese bus. I have had one junior middle school student offer her seat to me as a foreigner, bless her. I refused but made it as clear as I was able that I was gratified by her offer.
Of course, when a seat is vacated, more often than not it is snaffled by the nearest competitor in the aisle... but not always. Not infrequently, indeed, a strange thing kicks in over a newly vacated seat. The people around it pretend it's not there, almost embarrassedly, as if it were a stripper that had unexpectedly arrived and started her show at a refined garden party. This is ever the way with other cultures. You think you have them pegged and then they throw something your way which doubtless fits in with the overall picture in its own way but which appears to have come from a different jigsaw puzzle altogether. The only possibility I can think of is that the ignorers are amongst the more polite people who are the last to get on the bus and don't get involved with the scramble and they are indeed deferring to others, particularly any elderly that may board later perhaps... and, possibly, to me as a foreigner. After all, I have only ever seen this happen when I am there and have never been around to see whether it happens or not when I'm absent. When this happens I don't charge in, but I certainly don't allow the shuffling embarrassment to last for too long before I stake my claim and sit, to the seeming relief of those around me.
Journey's end brings with it the final scramble. Now, I can understand the logic - if not the manners - of people fighting to get onto a bus first with its limited seats and even limited standing room... but fighting to get off? They are fearful there will be no room on the pavement, perhaps? Or that the bus will pull away before disgorging half those who want to get off? Or... well, what? Suffice it to say that the unseemly initial scramble to get on being mirrored in the unseemly final scramble to get off again seems to make no sense, even in a land where dignity is so often sacrificed in the quest for advantage. What advantage can there possibly be in being the first to alight?
Ah, China... five and a half years on and still, still so full of exotic mystery... 1/31/2006 Blair, Iraq and Accountability[Adapted from a post to my discussion group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/apothem_tercet/]
Gordon Brown wants us to be proud to be British? Well, he can start with this.
We Brits aren't very patriotic these days, but there are limits to the depths of mud we like seeing our nation - and ourselves by association - dragged through. Another book has come out to serious reviews in the quality press to say that Blair knew damned well there were no WMD in Iraq when British troops went in... and even before that when he was doing his 'goodwill tour' of heaven knows how many nations to sell the idea that there were. I read just the start of one of the reviews and didn't bother to follow through to the end. The news that Blair lied - to us, to the entire world - is such old hat that nobody even thinks twice about it.
I saw my nation going into that war believing Blair to be misguided but sincere. I felt personally conned when I read the Downing Street memos. And now the lie is out is my nation just going to sit back with all the evidence out there and project to the world complacency in the face of such an enormity? If anyone still trusts us, they shouldn't. And they should continue not to trust us until a formal inquiry is held, individuals in the British government and establishment in general being held accountable for their actions for once and for all.
It is one thing when your Prime Minister is complicit in the biggest lie the world has ever known. It is quite another when you find out the truth and choose to pretend that the lie never happened. I am utterly disgusted by my country right now and, on this score, ashamed to be British.
You want us to be proud to be British, Mr. Brown? Well so do I. But I don't want to be proud of fish and chips and winning the ashes. It's not compensation enough to offset our shame when it runs as deep as this. 1/20/2006 Welcome to the new Cold War[Extracted from an ongoing debate in Apothem Tercet - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/apothem_tercet]
We have come to regard certain things as our God-given right. It is our God-given right to have nuclear weapons. It is the God-given right of our friends to develop them and have them without us causing too much of a fuss about it. It is our God-given right not to negotiate away those weapons, something we are as obliged to do under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty as Iran is obliged not to develop them in the first place. If we have stopped setting a good example on that score, when precisely was it we stopped? More importantly, when was it we started?
Our right to nuclear weaponry and all that may all be as commonplace and as common-sense as a walk in the part for us... but we are not Iranians. For some reason they just can't seem to see it the way we do. The current loony was elected by a populace that was looking to become less radical only a few years ago, and his actions are largely supported by the people who voted him in. The Iranians know themselves to be an axis of evil in the minds of a nation with enough nuclear weaponry to broil everyone in Iran a dozen times over. They know that we - in the time we were setting the good example I guess - were not beyond supplying chemical weaponry to the loony next door so he could use them on the Iranian people, (having tested them on his own people just to make sure with little fuss caused by us at the time), and they know what happened to that loony when he fell out of favour. The result is they now have the axis-accusers sitting on their own doorstep turning up the rhetoric with talk of the Iranians training armed insurgents who come in on the rightful American territory of Iraq. They also know what's happening with North Korea, advanced enough in its own programme of weaponry that no one wants to mess with them too seriously any more.
So, if you're an Iranian, who do you vote for and what do you want?
I do wish we could stop all this 'holier than thou' rhetoric and at least begin to address the possibility - just the small possibility - that we may indeed be walking around with beams in our eyes while hollering about the motes in others. I don't think there's anything in the Koran that says America, the UK, France, China, Russia, Israel, Pakistan, India and North Korea are allowed to have nuclear weapons and the Iranians are not. In fact, I don't even recall that being in the Bible. There's not some natural law governing this, or something that means the world would tip on its axis were it any other way. Where did we get this impression that we are the masters of creation from anyway?
The only thing that stops Iran, the only argument against them or against anyone else, is an international treaty we ourselves have discredited. It was designed to rid the world of nuclear weaponry by ensuring that no one else got hold of the things while those that had them negotiated theirs away, something we have palpably failed to even begin to think of the vague possibility of starting to consider contemplating. Right now Blair is talking about an upgrade to the British nuclear deterrent, but to deter who? Where are we going to point the bloody things? It's not even as if it is a M.A.D. world any more. Whose destruction are we mutually assuring here?
Am I sorry that the Iranians might go nuclear? You bet your left buttock I am sorry. The rhetoric about Israel alone is a frightening obscenity; no better, indeed, than the mouthing we did at the Russians and the Russians at us for all those years of the Cold War when we appeared to be under the impression that it would be better to end humanity for once and for all than suffer for fifty years or so under the unlikely scenario of a Communist takeover, a failing system that would have failed in time even had it temporarily succeeded in some peculiar way no one has ever yet been able to explain to me. It was never explained to me though my arse was on the line as much as the other 4 billion on the planet... who doubtless didn't have it explained to them either why it was better they should all die and the world should end than Communism ever get past the New York customs office. Yep, the Iranians really are nearly as stupid as we were. Sickening thought, but there it is.
We have never set a fine example. And I don't think the way forward is sacrificing now even those examples we did set to some degree in terms of human rights, (for our own people at least), and not resorting to war but instead utilising colonisation-by-proxy through puppet dictators which at least made us look clean.
I say again. I do wish that we would do something about ourselves for once and for all here. If we, the Chinese, the French, the Russians and the Americans had actually followed their own end of the bargain with the non-proliferation treaty; if we hadn't between us allowed our pals to develop their own nuclear weapons; then we would have an unarguable moral right at this point in time to go into Iran and kick backsides if necessary to stop Iran becoming a nuclear power and we'd have been able to assemble an army from people contributed by every nation on the planet. As it is, we don't. As usual what will win this argument is 'My dad is bigger than your dad' and God knows that's the very argument, the very attitude that has the Iranians developing their weaponry - if indeed they are - in the first place. The fact is that if we didn't have nuclear weaponry ourselves, if we had got rid of them and not allowed our friends to have them, then Iran wouldn't even want them - even if it does indeed want them now. It's us behind this crisis. Again.
Is this over once we sort out Iran? Not a chance. This ain't never going to end at this rate because we're never going to end it and we're the only ones who can, so where next?
The world is getting so stupid now and the stupidity has been running for enough years that it's stopped being frightening. It's become normal. It's actually boring. Most people aren't even thinking about it much any more. This is the new Cold War - Iraq, Iran, North Korea today, God knows who tomorrow - and unlike Communism which at least put a stop to the last one by collapsing, no one seems to have any end-point in mind for this one. And why? Because in the end it ain't going to finish unless we Lords of the Universe shift our backsides and we aren't going to do that. Oh dear me no no no, the world is much too dangerous for us to sacrifice our God-given right to nuclear weaponry and the policing of the world any more than any of the other God-given rights we Gods have taken for ourselves.
The perfect vicious circle. Somebody's laughing at us here. Somebody somewhere is singing 'Happy Days are Here Again' while making a hell of a lot of money for holding the world to ransom and laughing their bloody heads off. Yes indeed, happy days are here again for someone. Welcome to the new Cold War.
Iran is bad. Yes, it is bad. But us? We are an obscenity. 1/16/2006 Iraq: where are the investigations?[An email contributed to my email discussion group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/apothem_tercet]
I danced lightly on the previous thread over a point which I actually believe - and have believed for some time - to be utterly fundamental. Where, post-war, are the investigations into the war itself?
To be sure, investigations have been conducted... and yet again and again they seem to have managed to avoid some fundamental questions. * Individuals in the American administration appear to have profited directly from a war they made the decision to conduct. Should companies connected with individuals in an administration be permitted to bid for contracts that benefit directly from a war initiated by that administration?
* Testimony and evidence exists that falsified documents were presented in the case for the war, justified at the time by citing WMD and terrorist links within the Saddam regime. What was the source of those documents?
* Testimony and evidence exists that individuals in both the US and UK administrations were aware that there were no WMD from the outset. Is this the case?
* Communications in the UN were intercepted illegally by American operatives. Who authorised these interceptions and what punishment has been meted out to those responsible for the authorisation?
* In the continuing 'war on terror', what covert operations are being conducted that involve kidnapping and illegal detention of foreign citizens by American operatives and how can these be justified?
I don't want to go on and on here, I don't need to, the point is already made without an exhaustive list and the point is this. There is an overwhelming need for a comprehensive investigation into the Iraq war; or, perhaps, several investigations to be conducted in parallel and with mutual cooperation between them so the investigation doesn't run for a decade.
This should be an entirely neutral suggestion. Those for the war should have no concerns about these questions being asked; in the end the US administration will be exonerated on all points. However, those who support the war must surely acknowledge that these questions do exist, that the questions are valid, and that very many Americans - and, indeed, very many British themselves calling for parallel investigations - deserve to have the questions answered when the war conducted was conducted at their expense both in cash and - quite literally - in blood. Whether or not you are for or against the war, these are not questions that can be dismissed with an airy shrug as mere trivia.
The key word here is 'accountability'. Arguments have raged on the back of speculation. If these points can be cleared up to the credit of the US and UK administrations then they should be cleared up and the credit given. If not, then action should be taken against those who are discredited.
There should be no speculation. What we need - what the American people, the British people, the Iraqi people, the UN and the world are all owed as an undeniable right - are answers. 1/7/2006 More people unhappily referred here from baidu.comThree more reasons not to trust a Chinese search engine to get you what you want. The following searches on baidu.com resulted in people visiting these pages, presumably leaving again disappointed:
Apothem Tercet
schoolboy caught smoking behind the bicycle sheds. To indulge in such ill-informed ...sex appeal. She's not conscious of it - just thinks men are normally gaga, I ...Japan can... spaces.msn.com/members/apothem-tercet/ 125K 2005-11-17 Apothem Tercet the bicycle sheds. To indulge in such ill-informed and inflammatory rhetoric ...lifting the...ban on commercial whaling? Concerned with the livelihood of their citizens, ... spaces.msn.com/members/apothem-tercet/ 125K 2005-11-17 Chinese industrial relations[Extracted from an ongoing discussion in my email newsgroup - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/apothem_tercet]
XXX: I see this in adults too. [We had been discussing how Chinese students and children are 'bullied' into work rather than being taught it is for their own benefit and encouraged to work, something which happened not so very long ago in western nations too] The place at which I work was visited by the Big Boss from Hull recently. He suggested to the Big Boss from Chongqing that the workers should be given a carrot and not a stick. Instead of fining them for poor work, they should be rewarded for good work. A bonus system. The Big Boss from Chongqing nodded sagely, and rapidly forgot the idea. It would not work. Somehow, the Chinese brain is wired differently to the European brain, and being praised and rewarded does not produce better work.
Me: The big boss from Hull should have instituted an actual system and given it to the big boss from Chongqing to put into action dot-and-comma; otherwise yes, he is asking him way too much to think his way out of his own cultural loop.
XXX: When I tell my workforce that their work is crap, it will all have to be thrown out and they will have to do it again, and they will all be fined, they don't care. They carry on with no regard whatsoever for what anybody says about the quality of the work, only improving for a short time while being watched like a hawk. These people work like demons, and in appalling conditions, but have no concern at all for the end product or whether they can improve and become better.
Me: ... and why would they? I'd rephrase 'These people work like demons, and in appalling conditions, but have no concern at all for the end product...' as 'These people work like demons, and in appalling conditions, AND THEREFORE have no concern at all for the end product...'
In the bad not-so-old days of British industry, your average guy on the factory floor would rather sneak out to a stinking bog and smoke a fag for 30 minutes in unpleasant conditions rejoicing if the boss didn't catch him than use the time turning out another ten widgets, and why? Because the boss was the enemy. If he turned out another ten widgets then the boss got to have a more extravagant lunch at a five-star restaurant somewhere down the line while the worker would continue to live on bad potatoes.
The grand irony, of course, is that this is precisely the kind of stuff that Karl Marx used to rail about. We're in one of the few nations that puts Marx on a pedestal and raves about him... and equally in one of the few guilty of the worst of excesses Marx used to rail about, not merely in the widget-making sector but also in the mine-coal-to-hell-with-the-death-toll-safety-costs-money sector. It's always been my little joke in China that it won't progress until it starts to understand what Marx was talking about; that if there's one thing this country lacks, it's socialism. When I've said that to Chinese friends they've said 'We have CHINESE socialism' as if that is some kind of virtue. To which I tend to respond 'Well I am a EUROPEAN socialist', underlining where I feel the virtue really lies.
Mainland Europe - far more than the UK - circumvented Marx and came up with social democracy. Bosses started eating in the same canteens as the workers and the canteens improved accordingly. Office doors became open to all-comers. A worker who walked into the office saying that production could be speeded up on line 17 by decreasing the steam-overload factor by 15%, making the hurdle out of brass rather than iron and shortening the sluice so it ran into the third bay rather than the fourteenth was handsomely rewarded for the advice should it turn out to be correct. The whole workforce would kick off with a decent wage and, should recalls decrease and production increase, get a healthy bonus to boot. Books would be open to more general scrutiny so that it was seen they were getting a fair whack. And the boss was no longer called 'Mr. Bastard' but 'Harry the Bastard' and then, as people got used to it, just plain 'Harry'.
The crucial word here is 'inclusion'. It's damned difficult for people to see that they are 'part of the company' and have a stake in its health when the perception - quite rightly - is that they are working their butts off to make someone else rich because they simply have no choice; it's that or starve. Might as well spend that 30 minutes in the bog. Not going to make any difference to your paltry wages at the end of the month either way, but at least you know the boss will lose a few eggs out of his caviare and for that the fag tastes a little better, the bog smells a little sweeter.
In the early '80s I worked for the Trent Regional Health Authority, first in the Engineering Administration department; later promoted to Personnel. I found the attitude in Personnel disheartening, a kind of feudal empire approach. I'd not had any run-ins with Personnel or I'd never have gone for the post. (I went for it because the EA post was temporary; this post permanent). We ran a flexitime system and it was policed by us... but Personnel were concerned that I ate lunch with people in Engineering Admin and Architectural Admin, some of the worst transgressors.
They were 'right' to be concerned to their way of thinking. I found out through the back door that one of my friends was being watched. They were trying to gather enough evidence against her to hammer her hard for screwing with the system. I took her on one side. 'Better lay off, they're on to you.' And she layed off, became a good girl... and Personnel was furious. They wanted their pound of flesh. When I pointed out to them that the goal had been achieved, that the system was no longer being screwed by this individual, the taxpayer was saving money while under their system they needed her to swindle the taxpayer out of another ten or twenty hours of pay for no other reason than the delight of taking her into the office and screaming at her to show her who was boss, (they had no intention of sacking her), it didn't compute.
They couldn't sack me, but they pushed me out of my post using various pressure methods. I was the enemy within. A few days before I left, the elderly woman in charge of the typing pool came into the office for some reason and said - for the benefit of the entire office - 'I hear you're leaving us, Pete.' When I confirmed the fact - 'Well that is a very great shame. It was quite lovely to be able to walk into this office to a smile and a greeting from someone for a change.'
Personnel employees were sent off regularly for training courses on how to handle those in their charge and, if the general ambiance of the department was anything to go by, they weren't selecting courses on how to make friends and influence people. More like 'How to shout effectively' and 'The benefits and techniques of mild forms of psychological torture'. And doubtless the Trent Regional Health Authority's Personnel Department wasn't the only customer for the training courses.
Around the same period I heard an interview on Radio 4's 'Today' programme with a German economist. Germany at the time was truly THE powerhouse of Europe, this before the fall of the Berlin wall. The question put to him: Why is it that Germany does so well and the UK so badly. His answer was simple. 'It's the relationship between your management and your workforce that's the problem.' Boring liberal nonsense. They wanted to swiftly move on. 'What else?' 'Nothing else,' came the reply. 'That's it.'
Again and again and again, I repeat. You simply do not have to go back very far very often in our own social history to see China. In some respects yes, you have to go back a long, long way... but in this instance, Steve, you're going back a mere 20 years or so in UK history to see the same mentality in action. And as we know, things here change fast and BLOODY fast.
It will change fast here for the simple reason that it works. It worked in Germany which shot ahead of the UK. As individual companies pick up on the idea more and more, they will shoot ahead of the company down the road and put it out of business. Some of it will come from outside influences - I am sure your Big Boss from Hull hasn't finished with your Big Boss from Chongqing yet who may yet be out the door if he doesn't do as he's told - and though I can't speak for what happens on the shop floor at Haier or Gree they are at least forcing other competition out and down the toilet through doing nothing more than producing quality products that last.
Companies run more effectively with a sense of inclusion. This is my company. I am a part of this entity. If it does well, I do well. If it does badly, I do badly. There's a glass ceiling on China's economic development if this trick isn't learned across the board and certainly 'feudal' companies will disappear when faced with the successes of those companies that do learn the trick. Darwin works in the marketplace as anywhere else, and your Big Boss from Chongqing is a dinosaur. 1/6/2006 More thoughts on the Chinese Summer of Love[Extracted from an ongoing discussion on my email web group]
Punk was punk and what is here is purely imitative to be sure, but at least it is moving out of the rut. The beginning of change is the search for alternatives. Alternatives to imitate will only be the start; I firmly believe that. I saw other things that night. The guy playing with subsonics was unlike anything I'd heard before, albeit the underlying idea was not without precedent. My main target of the night was one Zhang Qian Qian, a highly original female alternative whom I would compare with Laurie Anderson but only for want of another direction of thinking to compare her with, not because there is any resemblance; she is out on her own. Sadly the Zhang Qian Qian on the bill that night was ANOTHER Zhang Qian Qian, a folk balladeer... but sometimes I wonder whether it might not be the alternative folk circuit here from which real change will come. (It may be that the artiste I was hoping for is actually called Zhang Qin Qin). I really don't know enough about that area of things. That may find it easier to slip into Summer of Love mode though and its roots are firmly Chinese I believe, developing out of the culture rather than imitative of another. I think our big mistake again and again is the idea of stasis. I've argued against that with China - the idea that you take the society and economy as it now stands and extrapolate it out into an indefinite future assuming the cultural underpinnings static and eternal. I would now argue the same extrapolating back through our own society. One point I make to my students again and again is that if you go back to the year of my own birth - '59 - western thought was radically different to what it is now. One story I told my students heading out to Sunderland. My best friend at university's parents, on the night of their marriage, had an altercation. The yet-to-be father, alone at last with the yet-to-be mother, his bride, said okay then, let's er... do it. His wife, puzzled wanted to know precisely what it was he wanted to do. Husband... well, 'It'. You know, let's go to bed and do 'It'. His wife's bemusement as deep as before he sat her down and explained. She was shocked. That was disgusting. There was no way on God's green earth they were going to do that. What kind of monster had she married here? He defended himself. 'Your parents did it!' he protested. She slapped his face. 'If you ever, EVER suggest my parents could EVER do such a disgusting thing again we will DIVORCE!' My friend was testament to the fact she came round to the idea in the end and his two sisters suggest she might have quite got to like it. However, the same tale may be told of my own dear mother who, the night before she went to South Africa to marry my father who was working there at the time, had to be taken on one side by her best friend to have it all explained to her. She had had no idea. 1957, or thereabouts. What a difference a decade makes. Then look at the music. Pre rock'n'roll, where was it? Anodyne balladeering for the most part; media-driven safe pap arising purely from previous precedents set. And where did rock'n'roll come from originally if not from imitation at its very roots? And yet fairly rapidly it spawned the first youth movements in the early 60s - they weren't there before remember - and it was only some five years after the mods and the rockers were fighting it out that the Summer of Love kicked in. You don't have to go back too far in our own history, then, to see the face of Chinese youth in its mirror. And I would suggest that in those terms, we're already into the early 60s at least here. The signs are there of original thought arising out of the imitative. It may be still more there in directions I've not looked - anyone who does know about the new Chinese folk movement in here? Maybe I should be the researcher on that one... it would be interesting to see what that is doing at the fringes. There is an incentive here for rapid change. We're seeing it in sexual behaviour. We're seeing it in the aspirations voiced. We're seeing it in the frustrations expressed. It is precisely because there is anything from 50 to 500 years to be bridged here by a younger generation who have lost all anchorage with the past of their parents' generation that I think things will kick in and kick in fast. It will happen because it has to happen. Current youth won't simply march into line here. The line is already ragged as it is and concessions have already had to be made as, for example, in the right for students to marry, the 30% - 40% according to one of my students' estimates as to how many of his fellows have a girlfriend or a boyfriend their parents unknowing and a burgeoning number of students who find apartments off-campus so they can go somewhere to breathe. The sit-ins are already happening, Steve. They're few and far between but they're happening. I would suggest you only have to go back ten years, maybe only five for that very idea to have been unthinkable. The pressure now is immense on the youth of China to simply break out and find their own voice. Far, far, far, far more immense than it was in the west in '68. I don't believe for an instant we're going to have to sit around and wait for the developments out of the west to be mirrored over 25 years. Everything here is compressed time-wise... and the summer of youth and all that will come with it is now well overdue. I would say that if it doesn't happen in the next five years then that itself would constitute a miracle. 12/31/2005 Bestial copulationI just went to my settings to find out who had visited my page of late and discovered one of the links to be quite intriguing.
It seems someone had been searching on a Chinese site for 'bestial copulation' and there I was. This seemed rather odd, and so I clicked it. Apothem Tercet was indeed therein listed in the following:
Apothem Tercet
copulation. He laughed - then remembered Cath's smile and wondered if it was so ludicrous after all...bestial fuss. Thanks, but no thanks; if I have to make a fool of myself I want my ... spaces.msn.com/members/apothem-tercet/ 125K 2005-11-17 My humble apologies to the person thwarted in his search in his location of my rather anodyne page... particularly if you have been drawn here yet again by this item. My guess is it wasn't what you were looking for...
I note, incidentally, that I am heavily listed on Baidu, a Chinese search engine, though I am unclear why. To be sure I am in China; and sure enough thus mention China a lot. But why all referees are sent from Baidu and nowhere else I am none too clear. 2006 - The Chinese Summer of Love? Or Hate?[In my email newsgroup, an English friend in another Chinese city spoke of Christmas Eve and a relatively good-natured gathering of the citizenry to have a pseudo-riot which involved, amongst other things, crowds of hundreds of people hitting each other with giant inflatable hammers and firing silly string at one another. It threatened to get out of control when an armoured van came in for some attention and its being covered in silly string progressed to it being rocked back and forth onto two wheels with the threat of it tipping. At exactly the same time I was at Guilin's first rock festival ever and, though I'd known of an underground artistic movement here, I was amazed by its variety and competence as displayed at the festival]
On the night of which you spoke, I was at Guilin's first rock festival - 12 hours over two nights - and at perhaps the same sort of time as your first post watching a skinhead punk band singing - in English - 'Fight for your rights' and 'We don't give a fuck, we don't give a shit, we are Chinese skins'. They so modelled their clothing on Sham 69 I felt like I was back in London and stepped back in time 30 years to boot. I later chatted with the lead singer and found, though his English was not too great as it turned out, that my own accent slipped back into it's native broad London East End, something which has only ever happened to me before on meeting Brits with broad accents over here. Chinese he may have been, but his dress, his attitude screamed 'Home!'
I was never a great fan of punk, but am becoming so here. It's a breath of fresh air in the anodyne surroundings of pacifying pop songs. There were several punk bands - I'm proud to say the Union Jack seems to be the symbol of choice for a lot of them - and one gent on a computer playing with dark ambient and subsonics in a way clearly intended to freak the audience. This was the kind of stuff I was seeing back in England; how the heck it got here I have no idea.
Then there are your observations of anarchic behaviour, Steve.
The point about all this is that it is harmless revelry and I sincerely hope it stays that way. But it is harmless revelry that contrasts sharply with the expected. That night I was chatting with an ex-student, a revelatory small conversation. I'd been disturbed a week or so earlier by a student telling me that she'd been beaten by her father every night upon returning home from school. On one occasion she had returned home with a test score of 89.5% where she'd up until then always scored into the 90s. Her mother forced her to kneel on a sharp-edged washing board for half an hour. The girl was 12 at the time.
I'd heard tales of beatings before but this shocked me. Then my friend, Xiao Gang, told me there was a common belief that the only way to get the best from one's children is to beat them. She also finished the washboard story for me. Apparently this torture is so common that the joke for a henpecked husband is that he'd better be good or his wife will have him kneeling on one. In other words, be subjected to treatment more suited to a child than to a husband.
Compare and contrast. The gap is so vast now between the generations, between the aspirations of youth and what parents, even society permit that something simply has to blow here. I could wish that the radically artistic Chinese had slipped back 40 years to the beat poets, psychedelia and flower power rather than a mere 30 to the somewhat more meaningless and more aggressive anarchism of punk - not bad back home when things were stable enough, the battle for change had been fought and won and the griping was stereotypical youth for the most part rather than an expression for the need for serious social change - and I confess that the choice of the outright anger approach does alarm me. I'd rather see something a tad more introspective and constructive than 'We don't give a fuck, we don't give a shit, we are Chinese skins'. I would like The Summer, when it comes, to not turn into The Summer of Hate. On the back of psychedelia and flower power those fighting for social change might reassess their feelings towards the Japanese for example. I fear that on the back of punk and the pogo, old hatreds and nationalism might even be entrenched to emerge as a more fascist and divisive movement for social reassassment.
We shall see what we shall see... but 2006, either way, could prove a most interesting year in China. 12/17/2005 Another (short) letter I wrote published in 'The Independent'http://comment.independent.co.uk/letters/article333437.ece
16 December 2005 edition
Sir: What is it with all the political infighting right now? Can't everything simply be cleared up by Tony Blair joining the Tories as shadow foreign secretary, Kenneth Clarke taking over the leadership of the Lib Dems and Gordon Brown facing a challenge from Charles Kennedy? We still wouldn't have a clue which way to vote, but at least it might keep the noise down.
[Well I said it was short] 12/11/2005 When is torture acceptable?An excellent edition of BBC Radio 4's The Moral Maze threw out a very good argument. In talking of extraordinary rendition and its possible association with torture, the question was posed 'What if the torture of a suspect were to yield information that were to avert the destruction of an entire city such as Manchester?'
The questioner, as is usual in this situation, was trying to get to the apparent crux of the problem; that condemnation of torture under all circumstances, an absolute condemnation, is not possible.
The response was superb. To boil it down - yes, the condemnation is absolute, under all circumstances... and in any individual circumstance is regarded as illegal and to be tried in a court of law. It is in the court that the individual merits of the case are then assessed. An individual who confesses to the torture of a suspect that did indeed yield information that prevented the destruction of Manchester would doubtless be exonerated.
Although this is the first time I have heard this argument put in the case of torture, it is a fairly obvious one when put alongside murder. We cannot say that any individual murder is wrong. If a man has a gun and is holding hostage a class of schoolchildren and someone else with a gun is able to get in a shot to his head then that is murder, plain and simple. However, it is inconceivable that the individual who shoots the hostage taker would be found guilty of murder as such and thus the case would never be likely to come to court. However, the crime itself - murder - remains absolute though individuals may be acquitted - or not even tried - and thus not found guilty of the crime under very specific circumstances.
This is a good argument because, extrapolating it out in the instance of absolute rendition and other outright criminal acts, all aspects of abuses of human rights are thrown back at the abusers to answer. Detention without charge and trial may indeed be justifiable under certain circumstances. The reason for global disquiet at its being practiced by the US administration is that it is regarded as being practiced at too low a level of threat to be justifiable. If the US administration can demonstrate to the world that undeniably illegal detentions and other undeniably illegal practices (in terms of basic human rights) are being conducted under morally justifiable circumstances, then so be it; they will be exonerated. However, that does mean that the US administration does need to be tried for its actions - Guatanamo Bay being an obvious and undeniable example of illegal detention - in an international criminal court; behind closed doors if security is considered to be an issue. The excellence of this argument is that it doesn't condemn the US administration for its actions per se; it condemns the US administration for not allowing itself to be held to account for its actions by endeavouring to justify them in an internationally recognised court of criminal and human rights law. 11/29/2005 Is it right for us to involve ourselves in sex education?[Contributed to a newsgroup for laowai English teachers in China]
We are by now - many of us - used to correcting the cultural misinformation that is powerhammered into the minds of our students. Similarly some bizarre notions of the English language. Indeed, it seems there are few areas left untouched when it comes to students being presented with a singularly warped view of the world in which they live. I realised today, given a most disturbing experience, that misinformation is perhaps reaching out into hitherto uncharted - by me at least - waters. I was teaching a free conversation lesson, happy as ever for students to use such things as magazines and books as subjects for discussion should they so choose. However, one small clot of male students was clearly far more involved than is usual with some publication or other one of them had on his lap while others leaned over to take a closer look. If the giggling and occasional monosyllabic grunt were not enough to give away the universal reality of 18 year olds looking at something they certainly shouldn't be, the red face of the publication's owner as he hurriedly shoved it into the desk recess upon my approaching to investigate said it all. I reached around the lad in sudden hush to retrieve the offending item, still open at the page at which the lads were so engrossed. The photograph thereupon was black and white and appeared to have been taken hurriedly, perhaps furtively by an individual less than skilled with a camera, but the contents were nonetheless obvious. It was a picture of a bicycle. Do others feel I might get involved with a little fatherly advice here before things get entirely out of hand? Perplexed, Guilin 11/26/2005 American-style diplomacy[From a debate in a newsgroup]
ZZZ:
Those speeches were expected by the Chinese, and they shrugged them off as usual. My point is that you are far more bothered by them than the Chinese are. Moi:
Let's get back to first principles here. First, the tone of the speech was the tone of the speech and I say again, it's pretty much unique in international politics. It betrays an underlying attitude. If it didn't the speech wouldn't be made in that tone. It is as simple as that. It is a belligerent, confrontational and far from diplomatic tone. Does it make me uncomfortable? Yes, for sure it does. As a European it makes me very uncomfortable indeed. It makes the whole bloody WORLD uncomfortable, ZZZ. You don't seem to be aware of that. Secondly. However you look at it, talking to the government of the nation destined, without any shadow of a doubt, to become the most powerful on earth if only in terms purely of scale as if they are naughty schoolboys caught smoking behind the bike sheds by the head boy is ridiculous. The fact that people EXPECT this of America now makes it no more laudable than the rubbish that spills from the mouth of any damned idiot. 'Don't mind him, he's a moron' is a sign of acceptance because nothing can be done about it, not an embrace. This is NOT merely all a part of the fun and games of international politics. This is a part of how America considers international politics are most skillfully conducted. It is outmoded by the realities of a world that is interdependent to a quite ridiculous extreme.
Next, Bush should be aware - and if he isn't then he isn't fit to blather in the corner of a bar, let alone run a country, let alone run a country that has decided it is going to police the world with the consent of absolutely no one - that Chinese reforms will take time. I am sitting here right now pissed off as all hell because I won't be able to actually send this email because of the damned internet connection going fuzzy on me which I'd bet a pound to a penny is happening because they're screwing around with the bloody security crap again. Am I happy with that? No. Am I going to scream and yell? Yes. But if I ever decide to talk to Hu Jintao about it I ain't going to use the naive to the point of stupidity rhetoric I heard from Bush about a situation I suspect he is no more happy with than I am but there's precious little he can do about it right now. He needs time and encouragement, not some querulous old foreign fart blathering at him from a platform in Tokyo - in TOKYO for CHRIST's sake - at a public speech telling him he's a naughty boy and he must get it right. Pardon me, ZZZ, but your normal isn't the Chinese normal and it isn't even the European normal any more. But yes, you are completely and utterly right - this is perfectly AMERICAN normal.
Finally, and most importantly. Is this sort of thing without effect? No. Very definitely no. It has an effect and that effect is entirely self-defeating. If Hu had any reforms in the pipeline when the speech was made - and you can bet your arse there were some - then they have now been shelved. They have been shelved for months, maybe longer, for the very simple reason that China cannot be seen by its people, the old guard here or the world in general to be doing something on the back of a wagging finger on the part of some damned nonsense American nannyish lecturing, especially when it's delivered courtesy of the international media from a platform in the old arch-enemy. Tell me, ZZZ, if your President has healthcare and poverty reforms in the pipeline, Hu went to North Korea and made a speech for the international media saying 'Bush should bring in healthcare and poverty reforms as we Chinese are trying to do. They have the money. They are bad. They should join look to socialism. They will never succeed in their goals until they look to socialism. We the Chinese know but the Bush administration simply doesn't know how to run a country'... well, do you think those reforms would be on the statute books the week after the speech was made even if that WAS the original schedule? Good God, this isn't even a Chinese thing. This is universal.
ZZZ:
Who gives a flea's fart what language comes from Brussels? Certainly not the Chinese. They, more than anyone, understand that empty rhetoric from politicians is par for the course. Barroso, or Bush, will either deal in terms mutually agreeable to them and the Chinese, or they won't, and Beijing knows it well. Moi:
Wrong. Ridiculously wrong. International relations today are, in essence, business partnerships. A good analogy right now might be my own situation in Guilin. My very strong preference is for university teaching and there are a limited number of colleges and universities around. Consequently I have to maintain as good a relationship with each one as is possible. However, in one of those universities one individual is the one I had the run-in with when she screwed up on my damned visa renewal good and proper precipitating the situation I now find myself in. I may have made a silk purse out of it, but her contribution was a sow's ear. This idiot is someone I would be quite content to work with amicably for the simple reason she needs me, I need her. And I AM working there... but am hearing that she continues to carp away about me while I would actually be quite content to forget it all. (Hence my use of the term 'idiot', coupled with the fact it was her screw-up and she continues to introduce new people to the idea that somehow I screwed up which means that, in my defence, I am revealing to those same people the realities of what she actually did. More of this self-defeating cultural nonsense). In other words the analogy is pretty clear. Her institution has to remain an option because my options are limited. Thus the crap that blathers out of her makes no apparent difference. But the important word there is 'apparent' purely and simply because I have more sense than to join in the fray publicly.
Not only are institutions limited here, so too are foreign teachers and, specifically, their time. When I hit my number of hours, that's that. And if next semester two institutions offer me eighteen lessons apiece, I have to decide who gets how many lessons taught out of the time I have available. Right now, her institution would get two lessons and the other the full eighteen. If she would stop being stupid it'd be ten / ten. If she experimented with the idea of being pleasant and cooperative it'd be 2 / 18 her way. And frankly, as soon as I don't need that university it's out of the picture entirely if it doesn't change its tune and the English department - who has already been gently warned of my discontent with being maligned behind the scenes and has little love for this woman anyway knowing her for what she is from their own experiences - will be told in no uncertain terms she's the reason I am out.
Right now, ZZZ, the world needs America... as the world needs China, needs Russia, needs Japan; no less... but, increasingly, no more. But just as the world needs America, America - believe it or not - needs the world. Indeed, America needs the world more than the world needs it. If the world stopped trading with the USA tomorrow it would be a somewhat unhappier place but America would be utterly screwed. And if the rest of the world gets on with dealing with its spats in private and polite conversation - I have no doubt that the EU does indeed do that with China, look at the arms export ban still in place after all debated almost entirely behind the scenes and you can bet your arse that human rights and international relations are aspects of that debate - then America is going to increasingly find itself outside a cozy little club while it hollers away from the podium wondering why when China is offered item A from both the USA and Europe, each version equally good, the Chinese always seem to opt for European. 'You're a bunch of bastards. Now buy our planes and our computers.' Huh? Say again? Excuse me for a moment while I nip down the street and see if the people selling stuff just as good are charging the same price. They have a 'Welcome' sign on the door and a smile for me when I walk in.
Yes, ZZZ, this is what America does, for sure. America. No one else in the so-called 'civilised' world. Everyone expects it. No one expects them to be capable of anything else these days, quite frankly. 'The dog, the dog, he's at it again'. All very normal USA, nothing to be done, it's in its nature. But nobody likes it.
And we're living in a world, ZZZ, where it pays increasingly to be liked.
Pete 11/22/2005 Attitude Europe vs. USA[Brief extract from an email to a newsgroup]
... in a world that is becoming so interdependent that it pays to smile at the neighbours, George Bush is running around making grand proclamations on the domestic squabbles of some fairly powerful people just up the road. Interestingly, even the politest term used for nations such as China - 'strategic competitor' - is not one used, say, in Europe EVER where the thought is more towards opportunities presented than any sort of containment. It's an attitude problem. When the guy up the street gets a bigger car the USA gets snippy and abusive. Europe goes and knocks on the door with a bunch of roses for the wife in one hand and a business proposal in the other. 11/16/2005 The Nanny Statesman[A letter submitted to The Independent]
In wagging a nannyish finger in peremptory fashion at the Chinese government, what is it precisely that George Bush is trying to achieve? Is he expecting to engender some sort of epiphany in the powers that be here? 'Democracy? Gosh, now why didn't we think of that?' The word 'ridiculous' in this instance cannot be dismissed as mere hyperbole. China in its rapid development - social as well as economic - is in a perpetual state of near-crisis. The problems that need to be addressed are numerous and there are no quick solutions. Democracy can't simply slot in here like a new battery, and the inertia inherent in the old state bureaucracy is immense. Too radical a leader would be deposed by those who see their power threatened, and yet here is the President of the world's self-imposed police force once again talking about societal change of immense magnitude in the world's most populous nation as if it were nothing more than the flick of a lightswitch. If Bush's chastising granny-like finger is to be taken at face value then this is either far from charming eccentricity or stunning ignorance. Either way it is alarming. I believe in Hu's good intentions, but he must move at a modest pace and it's about time Bush woke up and started encouraging Hu instead of lecturing him like some naughty schoolboy caught smoking behind the bicycle sheds. To indulge in such ill-informed and inflammatory rhetoric against the Chinese government from Japanese soil - of all places - before even meeting with Hu and discussing the issues with him is not merely hubristic, it is utterly self-defeating. Any advances that Hu may have been considering for the near future will now be shelved lest it be seen by the old guard, the Chinese people and others that China has been hectored into change by the President of the United States. It is difficult to believe that any US president - even George Bush - can be unaware of all this. So what on earth is he trying to achieve? For God's sake, SHUT UP, George...He's at it again. Bush is hectoring like some sort of damned senile grandmother. In calling on China to do this, do that, do the other anyone would think that the Chinese government isn't aware of anything. 'Freedom? Oh yeah, we never thought of that, thanks George, nice going, we'll give it a whirl.'
The Chinese situation is complex and it's not going to budge forward one inch for Nanny Bush doing his wagging-finger bit. In fact, he's just going to piss the Chinese off. It would piss ANYONE off. Coming as it is at the same time the beloved new Iraqi 'freedom' US-generated government has been caught out with 170 tortured and starving prisoners found in a ministry bunker; with Guatanamo Bay still unresolved though it contravenes fundamental basics of human rights; with no answers yet given to accusations that the CIA is permitting, nay encouraging and fostering the torture of suspects on foreign soil what the hell is this damned fool going on about?
George, you arsehole, just shut up. Just shut the HELL up. Somewhere in the Bible, idiot, it speaks of a mote and a beam. Read it, go home and do something about your own human rights sewer. Do something about the impoverished in your country. Do something about the fact that people are running around with guns and shooting each other with government blessing.
Something tells me that when the world is in search of a righteous man pointing the way, they just ain't going to be turning to you. Fool. 10/30/2005 Where are you, Nina?I thought I saw you, Nina, out there in the dust... thought I saw your diamond purity.
She was petite; long, dark hair; intense; creative; intelligent; potent; there was a certain cynicism to her smile; and yes, of course, she was pretty.
I was so certain.
Not for the first time.
Actually, for the third.
We played in half-darkness and I projected your image into the gloom.
Not for the first time.
The first time we parted in the early dawn, the light hardly visible, the image barely diminished, the projector still running. It ran for years in my mind. It still does. Sometimes.
The second time we parted at noon; sunlight had long since drowned your likeness.
The third time, this last time, at midnight, she switched on the lights and smashed the projector.
Seeing her since in cold daylight I wonder at my mistake, hope she's smashed the projector for good, hope there won't be a fourth time.
Where are you, Nina? Are you out there, hidden in the dust?
Or is the real mistake in dreaming? Thanks for visiting!
Public folders
Songs I play then go back to the start and listen to all over again
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