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Published: December 4th 2011
What do they mean, "male problems", what problems?
When I saw this ad, one of many for health services that has proliferated in the past years, I thought of the New Yorker cartoon, guy leaning into a refrigerator that is stuffed with butter and he is calling out "Honey, do we have any butter?" (or is it "where's the butter?"Showdown at the raisin bin: I was in the supermarket (Carrefour’s, I go there for cream for my dear one’s coffee) when I stopped at the open bin of raisins. Nearby there are raisins packed in cellophane. Grabbing one of them, as I usually do (it avoids lining up to get the package weighed) I locked eyes with a granny who was pawing through the raisins, one by one, eliminating 25% of them for some deficiency or another. As we stared at one another over the Vitis sea her incredulity was unmistakable as she seemed to confirm for herself, once again, that foreigners were “barbarians” and had no eye for quality. And I snorted at the false protection she thought she was gaining for herself by eliminating one or another blemished raisin while all of them were probably drenched in chemical nasties (not to mention the effects of being handled by countless others.)
This is a theme one sees repeated in many situations. It also accounts for such anomalies as the great quest among people to acquire brand name goods and then silently tolerating the shoddiest of counterfeit items just so they can display the swoosh, some fruit or the
YSL logo on their sweat shopped produce Shanzai (
http://www.shanzai.com/) item.
Last week I went to the Guangzhou Auto Show. It has become one of the largest of the sort in Asia and was projected to draw about 500,000 attendees over its six day run. The Chinese are projected to buy over 18 million cars this year, by far the world’s largest market. Many were on hand to kick some tires and there were scenes of rural teenage boys sitting in a car and endlessly turning switches, engaging the seat adjuster, or shifting the gears to and fro, likely the first such experience for some, no doubt feeling catapulted into the rich world that afternoon.
Another reminder of “modernity” was the use of young women (and a few androgynous men) with come hither looks to sell metal (okay, I lead a sheltered life and the last auto show I wentto was in 1965.) The use of tuckhes and naynays (butts and boobs for those of you who are Yiddish challenged) are being used increasingly to market products in “socialism with Chinese characteristics”. A year or two ago I posted a billboard of a couple locked in embrace, both in
Bus Rapid Transit
In an effort to speed traffic, these purpose built lanes have been established. They are very effective but far too limited to have real impact. At the same time they set these up, they eliminated three lanes of traffic and marked out bike lanes. underclothes and he was, shall we say, ready and raring to go. WWMD!
China remains a rather strait-laced sexual environment with little explicit discussion of sexuality, sexual relations, or the subtleties of gender identification (although our friend Glenn and his co-conspirator XHC are doing their part to change this.) Chinese women are quite modest in their dress; the might wear short skirts (and some of them no bigger than tofu squares), but little is revealed and modesty still has most of them cover their mouths when they laugh. There remains a strong expectation that women will be married by the time they are 30 and that their husbands will provide them with a suitable home, purchased with his family’s money.
And yet, like many things in China, it gets more complex once you take a closer look. Ideas of sex and marriage, love and child-bearing, are undergoing major upheavals. This week’s China Daily reported:
“Cyber love, one-night stand, (and) "instant marriage" have been common in big cities, mainly among young white-collar women. One reason is that women, with rising social status and economic independence, are seeking their self-value and are no longer depending on men through marriage.”
Financial District
This area was agricultural in the youth of some of our students, it is now dominated by these edifices of China's "rise". Women, despite great pressure from their families to get married and have a child, are resisting. For some the focus is on completing their education, perhaps spending a few years abroad, something that would be less likely once they were betrothed. For others, the idea of romantic love is taking hold and they resist the idea that they need to be married to satisfy their parents or the society. Mainstream society fights back, belittling the unmarried 30 year old woman as “leftover”; their male contemporaries wonder if these women have something wrong with them, what else could explain their failure to get married. At the same time, inflated real estate prices make the purchase of an apartment out of reach for most 30 somethings, a further obstacle to any thought of marriage.
Even those already married are rejecting traditional ideas. Divorce is on the increase with a 52% year to year increase in Guangdong Province in 2010. With fewer women seeking marriage, with divorce increasing and with the outsized ratio of male to female births (119:100) old traditions of filial loyalty are being tested; adult children have been relied on to provide care for their aging
Fire safety training
During my stroll through the financial district, I encountered hundreds of office workers undergoing different types of safety training. In this exercise they were entering a smoke filled room, smiling, and exited coughing and tearing. parents. This dynamic, exacerbated by the 30 year old one-child policy, contributes to a demographic crash and burn that policy makers here are beginning to focus on, albeit as more of an engineering problem rather than a social one.
Women are entering the workforce in greater numbers and in positions of responsibility, another recent upset of tradition. Once there they are presented other confounding demands: join work colleagues in late night, after work dinners (the better to be seen as one of the team) and risk a drunken superior trying to paw at you, or hold yourself apart from those scenes and risk being seen as aloof and distant. One of my former students, now almost 30 and still single by choice, is working as an official at a psychiatric hospital here. She has been harassed by superiors asking her why she keeps herself so distant from them (a clear sexual request in her view), receives constant text messages at work from married colleagues asking her out to dinner, and is considering inventing a boyfriend to fend off the unwanted advances.
She is a loyal member of the Party (its essential nature to career advancement is paramount), has
Smoking area
This seemed to indicate that the new office buildings were prohibiting indoor smoking and had set up outdoor areas, some progress on the way to a smoke free environment. always put her work first but is so alienated from the official line that she is beyond being shocked by the dissolute behavior surrounding her. She spoke with me with a mixture of disgust and resignation about her work environment. Over the years we have witnessed a growing willingness, on the part of our friends, colleagues and students, to speak openly about the corruption and malfeasance that they see around them. It is unclear if this is a new stance on their part or merely a higher comfort level with our trustworthiness. Nonetheless, it is a great danger to the stability of the government here if the best educated and privileged members of the society are essentially giving up on the prospect of processes that are more transparent and equitable. They are forced to either become part of the problem and acquiesce in spending resources in ways that favors themselves and those closest to them, or marginalize themselves in an economy that does not treat marginalized people very well.
Yesterday morning I was told of an official in Sichuan, the Party chair of a village that had been devastated in the 2008 earthquake. A tremendous outpouring of financial support
White plates, black Audi, golden lion... trouble!
The white plates indicate a government official, the Audi means he is more than mid-level, the golden lion is auspicious, guarding the front of this governmental enterprise (parked on the sidewalk!) helped to rebuild the village and included plans for needed social support services in the isolated region. A large, multi-story senior housing facility was proposed and received private and public funding. Unfortunately, the Party leader converted the project to a luxury hotel, where he could host his Party cronies, while at the same time diverting the revenues to the pockets of family members. When a team of Hong Kong-based researchers showed up to document the rebuilding that had gone on they were wined and dined, while being diverted from their reporting mission. They decided to leave a day early, an option that Mainland researchers might have been very reluctant to take.
Local protesters are subject to severe retribution; the Sichuan parents who demanded the arrests of local officials who had conspired to profit from the building of sub-standard schools that collapsed on their children in the earthquake have been imprisoned. Alternatively, from time to time, some higher ups decide to make an example of the local corruption and will make an arrest and sometimes such malefactors are subject to execution. As long as the responses are limited to either ignoring the wide-spread corruption or making an example of one
you jin bin
A favorite street food, a thick batter is spread over the griddle, an egg is troweled on, lettuce, pickles and spices are added and then it is rolled up and handed over, 32 cents US or two offenders a year with execution, you can be assured that there is no real effort to end the practices.
The well-established corruption and self-dealing, the poor protection of the public in matters of food and work safety, an inflation rate that more than compensates for any wage gains made recently, the presence of a vast army of second class citizens who lack legal status in the cities where they work and live, all present severe challenges to the government. Right now, much attention is focused on next year’s transition at which time a new President and a new Prime Minister will be selected and some new members will be added to the Standing Committee of the Politburo, the highest level of the Party. Something of a public campaign has been waged by to provincial party chiefs for elevation to the Standing Committee, Bo XiLai from Chongqing and Wang Yang from Guangdong. Bo, the son of a high ranking Party member who was victimized during the Cultural Revolution, is reviving some of the Mao-era tropes in his effort to portray himself as one who can best help solve China’s problems. He has launched well publicized attacks on organized
Try walking on those heels
Nothing like bound feet, at least you get to take these off at night but why the torture, right, they are selling cars crime in his Austria size city, and is unconvincingly trying to recall the solidarity of the pre-Reform period.
Wang rests his appeal on the tremendous economic growth in Guangdong, accompanied by a larger space for debate, discussion and social ferment. He is depicted as the one who can get things done, keep the economy strong and points to Guangdong’s primacy in matters economic, and to some extent, cultural (there is an annual sex devices trade show each year
http://shanghaiist.com/2011/11/14/photos_guangzhou_sex_culture_festiv.php, you really need to look at this to believe it.) Looking at the older gents at the show, I would say that put to a popular vote Wang is a shoo-in.
OK, enough of this stream of consciousness; time to get this off and get some work done.
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