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Published: January 13th 2013
Guangzhou South Railway Station
Newly built, cavernous, underutilized, and monumental in scope... China in 2013We arrived in Beijing five days ago, taking the newly opened high speed train from Guangzhou. We covered the nearly 1400 miles in exactly eight hours, the same time it takes Amtrak to move you 320 miles from Montpelier to NYC.
Our stop over here is occasioned by some meetings that Ellen has, some re-connections with former students now working in Beijing, and a few days with Eli, as he is here wrapping up this stage of his research. I think this is the first time that I have overlapped with him in Beijing and it gave us a chance to visit some of his favorite haunts i.e. restaurants. He stayed in the apartment of a friend that he met when summering in Madrid a few years ago (Julia was doing research), said friend home for the holidays in Australia (these youngers are quite the cosmopolitans!) It is in a luxury high-rise, gated, and comes with a women who comes in to clean.
Our digs are
High speed train
These were built for 350 km/h but since an accident a year ago have been limited to 300 (we actualyl hit 311 on one stretch!) much more modest, located in one of the few remaining
hutong in Beijing that wasn't Disneyfied into smart bars for the comprador class nor demolished to make way for wide boulevards and high rises. Very modest, comfortable and HEATED, glory be as it has been quite cold. Eli has departed, in California on his way back to Ithaca and Julia (who made the first round cut for a job at Brown, she is to make a campus visit soon!)
A few nights ago we had dinner with two of Ellen's recently recruited Chinese-Americans, young women interested in learning about labor here and making some connections with their labor work in the Bay Area. They had come to know a man with a very unusual history (I am going to obfuscate some of the details for the sake of his privacy); he was born in China in around 1952 to American Maoists, he lived here until 1974, taking part in aspects of the Cultural Revolution. He spent the next 30 years in the US, with some short trips back here and re-located himself here around four years ago. He regards China as home, is quite critical of many aspects of
Hutong
Mostly destroyed, our first three nights we stayed nearby and it was a respite from the din of the city party policy (“there are fascists in the highest places here”) and yet feels that this is where he wants to be. What a fascinating discussion, one of the young women had been born here and once things opened up a bit in the 1980's, her mother was resolved to abandon China and all the grief that it had caused her. Now she is back, visiting with family for sure, but also fascinated by some of the possibilities she sees here. The lives of all these people were affected by the turmoil of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and as time has gone by different generations have made divergent accommodations to the history.
Two days ago we re-located to a lux hotel, way out of the center of town, that was arranged for us by the organizers of the conference that Ellen is participating in. Huge spa, indoor pool, “Executive suite” and in the middle of a most depressing urban scene. Compounding matters is the fact that the pollution here is off the
charts; there are no clouds in the sky, I am told, yet in early afternoon the cars cut a sepulchral swath as they suddenly appear out of
Hutong 2
There was some real life going on here, not the expat havens many of the other surviving hutongs have become the Stygian gloom and then quickly disappear as they continue on their way. I half expect their sound to be muffled, as if they were riding over a packed snow surface but of course, this is China and there are loud honks to punctuate the scene.
Yesterday I ventured outdoors only once, a short quest for some dinner. All of what is happening in China was evident, the ongoing construction of housing, preceded by the destruction of old buildings, automobile choked street, filthy dangerous air, and people walking around in seeming contentment. I know that the latter is not a complete picture, wherever we go that we have some trusted friends, we hear stories of frustration and anxiety. One friend, a reporter for an important news outlet, complained about the difficulty she experiences as a reporter; she has access to information denied others, she generates ideas for stories that she knows would resonate with the readership, yet she is not allowed to pursue them as they will upset public order. And disturbing the public order is an offense:
CHANGSHA - The mother of an underage rape victim in Central China's Hunan province said Saturday that she will lodge Notice to foreigners
These are attractive places for foreigners to live and we are reminded that the security bureau needs to know your address at all times. an administrative lawsuit after authorities rejected her demand for state compensation for the time she spent in a labor camp.
Tang Hui was sent to a re-education through labor center in the city of Yongzhou on August 2 last year to serve an 18-month sentence after campaigning for harsher punishments for those found guilty of raping and prostituting her then 11-year-old daughter. The city's re-education through labor committee gave her the sentence, saying "Tang seriously disturbed social order and exerted a negative impact on society" when petitioning for justice in front of local government buildings. The news of her detainment quickly set off a firestorm of public criticism. Tang was released eight days later, as the center said her daughter, 17 years old last year, was still a minor and required the mother's care. The city's re-education through labor committee on Friday rejected Tang's demand for state compensation, saying her term was given in line with regulations on re-education through labor and that the decision to release her was based on humanitarian reasons. "I thought that I could get a fair outcome nearly half a year after being released from Hairdressers bounty
I once tried to calculate how much energy would be consumed if China used clothes dryers at the same rate as Americans do. the labor camp," Tang said.
"The rejection of my demand for state compensation hurt me for the second time," she said, adding that she will file a lawsuit with the help of her lawyer. In October 2006, Tang's then 11-year-old daughter was kidnapped, raped and forced into prostitution. She was rescued on Dec 30, 2006. It is not that these stories are not reported, indeed they are; the entire issue of "re-education through labor" is one that is being fiercely debated here and there are some moves to limit its use. Essentially, these local committees can sentence individual to terms of up to two years in labor camps for acts that are not prohibited by the legal code but that somehow upset the local powers. The authorities have realized that a complete news blackout is neither possible nor desirable. Rather the efforts are always to turn any scandal that catches the attention of the public into an opportunity to show the pubic that the government is on their side, as it comes down harshly on any miscreant official as if these are one-offs and not a consequence of the entire authoritarian regime. I have often
Street scene
Not sure what the toilet is doing there! said that as along as the punishment for official corruption is execution, we can be sure that the government is not taking serious steps to counter it. Making anti-corruption efforts a routine part of governance, disallowing the huge self-serving that goes on, and rewarding officials for something other than raising the GDP would be signs that this attitude was changing. Hardly a week goes by without another story of a corrupt official meeting his (they are
always men) comeuppance. Last week an official was seen touring an accident site with a “smirk” on his face. This outraged local netizens and they published photos of the official sporting 12 different luxury watches over a period of a month. Within days, it was announced that he was under investigation.
What does not get investigated is the entire corrupt system of Party control, the incentives given for emphasizing growth over all other factors, and the inability of people to effectively challenge the Party's edicts.
All this makes me seriously question the role of foreigners here. My current thoughts is that we should let the Chinese sort these matters out for themselves; I am beginning to think that all efforts to cultivate
Lacing a wheel
Nothing fancy here, just using what he has to put the wheel together institutions, develop policies and practices, orient organizations to better serve their constituents, all these things only serve to give the “fascistic” rulers legitimacy and room to maneuver. Ultimately, they will decide their own fate, let them figure it out, they have access to the world's knowledge and expertise but making the job easier for the rulers does not make sense.
Our presence merely allows them to excoriate the efforts as not reflective of Chinese values or insulting to the Chinese state or some other jingoistic turn or phrase. Our colleagues are forced to report on our activities to Party officials and our presence only serves to give authorities breathing room as it struggles to solve the enormous problems that face China. And now, aided by the US Administration's “pivot” to Asia and the provocative actions of its Japanese ally, the nationalistic card is being played and papers are filled with stories about building the military strength to counter the Japanese aggression.
The new party boss, Xi Jinping has been especially vocal in his call for the rise of the "Chinese race" (although this is usually translated as "Chinese nation".) Last summer Xi also denounced the “intellectual pollution” of
Hawthorn
A sort of candied apple type treat that is popular in the north of China Western ideas that were infecting Chinese universities, somehow squaring that with the fact that his own daughter is enrolled at the vast Superfund site of education on the Charles River. Maybe it is time to leave them to their own devices, they are very capable, they work hard and if we believe, as I do, that there is something about the evolutionary process that moves us towards freedom and democracy, then they will get there on their own, perhaps more rapidly if the “polluting” elements retreat.
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