The end is nigh!

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December 5, 2007 blog

Well, we have put our foot into the fifth month of our visit and we have begun to turn our attention to what happens once we return to the US. As most of you know, we have left or jobs and rented our house until August, so it looks to be a peripatetic life for the next seven months or so. We took a vocational/recreational/necessity trip to Hong Kong over the weekend; vocational as Ellen managed to get in a meeting with some of the panjandrums of the Hong Kong labor federation, recreational because we got to see some friends and eat pizza, and necessity as the terms of our multi-entry China visas require that we keep each visit under 60 days, necessitating an exit and re-entry within that time span.

Our friend Anthony is in the first year of his professorship in Hong Kong; we met him with Eli’s help when we were here last year and he is a sociology professor who has studied NGOs in China. He was out of town for the first day of our trip and graciously left us the key to his apartment. One thing that always comes as a surprise when we visit Hong Kong is how expensive things are, even by North American standards. Coming as we are from China, the differential sometimes leaves one gasping for breath, like the $12 8” pizza we had for dinner on Friday ( I will say it was excellent). The comparisons between the two parts of China are inevitable and given that the 50-year process of re-integration is now 20% completed, gives rise to the issues that face both sides of the question, both here on the Mainland and in the Special Administrative Region (SAR) of Hong Kong. Will the Mainland catch up to Hong Kong within that period (at current rates of overall economic growth that is not far fetched, at least for the urban areas of China) or will Hong Kong be brought down to China’s level (not likely, perhaps with the exception of matters of human rights)?

There was a by-election held on Sunday to fill a seat on the Legislative Council, the quasi-publicly elected legislative branch of the SAR government. The two candidates, both women, represented different perspectives on the re-integration question with one of them seen as more compliant to the dictates of Beijing while the other had been active in the pro-democracy movement that has pushed back on some of Beijing’s crudest attempts to stifle the burgeoning democracy movement in Hong Kong. The latter candidate prevailed and I think it should be seen as another indicator that the Hong Kong electorate intends to resist full integration on the terms that would deter the movement to democracy

It should be kept in mind that Hong Kong has never been a democratic society; under the British it was fairly tightly ruled by Westminster and it was only in the build up to the 1997 return to China that the Brits began to introduce some democratic reforms(in part to make things more difficult for the Chinese). I don’t recall Ronald Reagan ever decrying the lack of democracy in Hong Kong when he was with us (was that in THIS lifetime?). Nonetheless, democracy is good and the current situation, a shared domination of Hong Kong by Mainland edicts and Hong Kong business interests, will not be mourned if it were to perish. There is little conflict between the current dominators of the society as the Chinese Communist Party is friendly to business interests no matter their nationality and has even made entry into the Party available to the Chinese industrialist class. What is “communist” about the country is more a matter of keeping old totems alive and using the widely held fear of disorder that many Chinese have as a way of keeping their hold on exclusive power (the ideas expressed in this blog are strictly my own and may not reflect those of others near and dear to me).

One important difference between the two regions is the influence and role of religious groups in Hong Kong. Under the British, religion flourished and there are well established NGOs (non-governmental organizations, what we would call non-profits in the US). China is groping to find a way to incorporate NGOs into the service provision matrix, but is concerned about foreign influence or the development of independent service groups that would begin to diminish their exclusive hold on services, resources, etc. Throughout or stay here we have been brought back to this dynamic as the Social Work Department here at Zhongshan seeks to develop its own NGO to provide support and supervision to students in fiedl placements. The Chinese first experienced the gap between themselves and the rest of the world in the buildup to the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women (excuse me for not having the actual title at hand). They saw the remarkable development of the NGOs around the world and their own idea of an NGO was the All-China Federation of Women, tightly controlled by government and unable to oppose any Party edicts. This is an ongoing story.

Tonight I led a discussion group and our subject was societal values, something of a comparison between Chinese and American values. There was a lively and intense exchange and some focus on the question of resisting authority. There is a long Chinese tradition of respecting authority, and as I mentioned in an earlier posting, this has served to solidify the hold of patriarchy on the society. But tonight, after discussion (“Why do Americans go in to debt to buy things?”, Do NGOs really oppose governments proposal in testimony?") on a range of topics one student stated that she believed that the Chinese do not stand up to authority because it wouldn’t make a difference, that no one would listen anyway. This was at some variance to the traditional reason for compliance and intimated a willingness to defy if such defiance could be fruitful. I found my self reflecting on the question of hopelessness and referred to the self-assessment of the Communist after the Long March and how they might have coped with hopelessness.

Students in this group are among the most privileged (at least in terms of their educational opportunities, they come from a variety of class backgrounds) and are being educated to be the future leaders of China. This question, and others that have been posed over the semester, makes me quite optimistic about the future of China and the sound grounding students are getting. Of course, I am not getting to speak with Business Administration students or engineering students so my sample is likely skewed.

Walking through the supermarket the other day I suddenly realized that I was hearing Bing Crosby doing Christmas carols. Christmas is something the Chinese know about and there is some commercial recognition of the holiday but obviously no religious connotation. I was reminded that we are missing the pre-Christmas build up in the US when I read the following news item from Black Friday:

At a Wal-Mart in Nashville, Tenn., the doors opened at 5 a.m., with customers surrounding a wooden palette piled high with $50 digital picture frames at the front of the store. Worried the frames would sell out, Cindy Chavez, 36, braced herself, yelped and tossed her body on top of the pile, much to her fellow shoppers’ horror. She emerged from the scrum with six frames. “I just didn’t think I could reach down and bend over and get it,” Ms. Chavez explained.

I think I have mentioned that our apartment is adjacent to a primary school and a high school. Four times each day, the movement of students in and out of school is heralded by the squeals of these young students (our front walk is the entrance to the primary school) as they make their way to and from school. In comparison to the comparable scenes in America there are some differences; two that stand out for me are the wearing of uniforms and the absence of automobiles sent to retrieve the youngsters (and there are many Grammas and Grandpas awaiting their precious ones)

Schools here dress their students in colorful track suits, in the case of our elementary students white and turquoise, with sweat pants for the cool weather and shorts for the warm season. You see students throughout the city in their uniforms of varying colors and sometimes they wear them even when they are not going to school. I have long been an advocate for school uniforms; in fact Ellen and I have advocated for uniforms at work with different colors signifying the different ranks. In hospitals, for example, you would put the docs in purple, administrators in green; I think social workers would warrant a multi-hued pin stripe (vertical of course).

OK, I am going to end this and save room for an unusually large number of pictures, Ellen tells me that people especially like them.

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Photos

Stuart and Ellen Present!
This was the announcement board at the Children's Palace on the day of our presentation on autism. Ellen has since been back thee weekly, helping the parents to organize themselves

The height of fashion
One contrast between Hong Kong and the Mainland is dress, them men are much less formal and the women here have an eclectic fashion sense. Lots of layers and combinations that are unique!

Handicapped friendly
There are efforts to make things more accessible to people using wheelchairs and people with sight impairments. These sidewalk markers for the sight impaired are quite common, but they often lead one to an unexpected obstacle, in this case an 18 inch curb.

Traditional music group
Near our apartment is a senior center and twice a week there is a traditional music session, sometimes it can be quite melodious.

Shenzhen, a Hong Kong wannabee
20 years ago Shenzhen was a fishing village of 10,000 people. Now, this city on the border with Hong Kong, boasts over 7,000,000 and is the site of many of the exported products that come to North America. They are developing large tracts of glass clad office buildings, in the Hong Kong style.

Hong Kong
This is in the main business district on Hong Kong Island. They may build them to look the same in Shenzhen, but HK as the most glorious setting, with a beautiful harbor and ringed by mountains and the lights of the business district

On the metro
Hong Kong has a very efficient, if pricey, system of public transport and we make good use of it. I am always left wondering at the sight of very expensive European sports cars here, there are no roads that allow speeds in excess of 65 MPH and you go about 25 mies before you slam into the border.

Waiting for the children
Four times a day parents and grandparents walk their young ones to and from school

The start of a problem
China has made the transition from a society where infectious diseases are major causes of death to one where the developed world's problems of heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and obesity are prominent. This young guy represents the next generation's head start on these problems.

Kids playing
Children are rarely head to scream, to cry or to complain. They find ways to play without adult supervision or heavy handed adult organization. I believe this forces children to find ways to accommodate one anther without adult rule setting.

One more kid shot
Nothing to add to this one!!

Baby looking at the foreigner
Children are less self-conscious about staring at the foreigners ;yesterday, I was leaving the school yard, I engaged a 12 year old girl, she was eager to try out her English and was remarkably poised (her friends were giggling the entire time).