Everyone knows China’s growing at a rapid pace. It scares many Americans that China’s economy will, in all likelihood, become the largest in the world. But is it really any surprise and are the fears well-founded? Would it really be so bad for the United States to be second?
Many rationalize their fears by saying that it’s because China’s ultimately a communist that its power should be controlled in some way (though it can’t be). I’m going to turn the coin over and say that it’s because China’s got a communist (or at least authoritarian) base that it’s growing at such an alarming pace.
Let me start off my saying a few things: I like my (representative) democracy, so don’t go pulling a McCarthy on me. Second, is it really any surprise that China’s economy will be the largest in the world, considering that a fifth of the world lives in China? One has only to look to the past to see that since the beginning of civilization, China’s always been a great state. Even at the same time as the Roman Empire was at its peak, a third of the way across the world, Han China was more productive in the economical sense. In the United States, we just happen to glorify Rome over China because of our western roots.
Even during this global crisis, China is still growing at an impressive pace. Though not quite at the double digit increases that it was experiencing before, the fact that China’s economy is still growing over 5% annually is more than notable.
Just look at the Olympics. Many of the things that the government did would not have been accepted in other parts of the world. Overnight, neighborhoods were knocked down to give way to sports arenas. Factories and plants were told to shut down to help clean the air. The poor were bused out of the city to show a picture of harmony to the world that many feel, in light of its human rights records, just doesn’t exist.
The concept of face is amazing. We all do it, but here in Hong Kong and in China people are renowned for their sheer adherence to it. In seeking to keep a positive, or at least neutral image of oneself towards others, there is a tendency to stay removed from new social situations and new people. This is highly visible on both the macro and the micro levels.
China wanted to show the world that it’s here again, and that’s its ready to join the world again. In its “coming out party” that is the Olympics, it sought to create a spectacular event for a reputable organization steeped in ancient philosophy, and in many ways it did. In many ways it didn’t. In attempting to show the world its harmonious face, it displaced many people and gave itself a facelift that was both highly expensive and highly publicized despite the notorious lack of freedom of press.
As it repaved sidewalks and built a hundred new subway stations though, everyone remembered China’s record. People found brought up Tibet (an issue people are not fully informed of) to show the great disparity of many sorts in China and found the audacity to disrupt the mission of the Olympic movement in the name of politics.
In trying to create a harmonious picture for the nation, it succeeded in created a great Games but failed in creating a new world image. It failed to address many public issues that should have been addressed. The blame is placed on the government and its lack of accountability, so to speak.
Here in Hong Kong, there is freedom of speech; there is a transparent government; there is also face. In local students trying to retain face by only speaking to their friends, many alienate exchange students. This lack of integration and their unwillingness to approach others actually damages their face in many opinions, and while they think they are projecting harmonious face, they happen to be demeaning themselves.
Right now, many people in China do want a say in government. Many outside China wonder then why they don’t get it. Most people in China put economic well-being and economic growth in front of such a say, and I saw one documentary where a man said that while he doesn’t like his government, he has to trust it.
Right now, it seems that the government is acting in the economic interests of the state as a whole. It has managed to keep its economy in good shape and its people relatively happy. At some point though, communism will fail to serve China. For the country to keep progressing, something will eventually have to happen. Just look at how far China has come since 1949. I believe that eventually, democratization with come.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
The Point of No Return
Two months in I stand; two months in I see. Like a ship halfway to its destination, I know I have so much behind me now and yet there’s so much in front of me as well. In a way it’s misleading. I don’t really want to go back at the moment. I look forward to my return, just not this December, not in two months. However, in no way am I home scot-free. My experience here still has the very real possibility of being a naufraga in the same way that I don’t know if I’ll still be alive tomorrow. It requires constant maintenance, and more often than not, it’s an uphill battle.
I arrived August 21, confused, dazed, and fresh off a thirteen-hour flight without sleep. My passport was then used just a few times. Upon entering the country, I was given a student entry stamp on the page opposite my student visa. The square, black stamp looked to take up most of the page to my surprise. The airport gave false impressions of Hong Kong—not false as in better or worse, but false as in different. Getting off the train on Hong Kong Island, I was greeted with lots of noise, winding roads, and my first experience seeing traffic move on the left.
With time, I adjusted. The sweltering heat and humidity lessened slightly as my tolerance increased. The bus system that once confused me became manageable and I could successfully ask to get off the minibus in Cantonese—a skill than increased to requesting stops in specific locations. I found where the better food is and how to deal with copious amounts of rice.
I guess you could say that I’ve now plateaued culturally. While there still is room to grow, there will always be, and I will continue to progress, just slower. As I went from being nervous, I can now say I’m quite the opposite. Whereas at first I missed home and was counting down the days to go back, I find myself now trying to maximize the rest of my time here. I’ve lost count and already I want to do this again somewhere else next fall semester, money and time permitting, of course.
So where am I to go from here? I’ve not yet reached the top of the mountain, though I’ve been to the Peak twice. My finals schedule is starting to shape up, though I don’t care for it to end. With my eyes perpetually towards the future, I’ve decided to take the time to enjoy the present.
To this effect, I’ve begun a project that won’t be done until the end of the year. The idea hatched as I went to the Hong Kong Museum of Art for my Introduction to the Arts of Asia class to research for a paper. The topic was hand scrolls, which have an aesthetic to them that requires observation beyond that of any western painting I’ve seen.
To read a hand scroll properly, you roll it open section by section, right to left. At several meters long, each tends to tell a story, accompanied often by deeper meaning. Many are accompanied with poetry, but the use of motifs and themes allow the artist to tell the story in an abstract fashion. By story, I mean journey, and there is usually a path in the scroll guiding the reader’s eyes through this journey.
For this art paper, we were to observe Qiu Ying’s 清明商河图 or “Along the River During the Qingming Festival” as it is usually translated. We were to compare this Ming Dynasty scroll to Zhang Zeduan’s original of the same name, which was painted during the Song Dynasty. I won’t get into the specifics, though it is clear that Qiu Ying’s is not merely a copy of Zhang Zeduan’s.
To aid my paper, I bought a scaled reprint of the hand scroll at the museum’s bookstore, realizing later that it was in postcard format—fifteen postcards to be exact. Later I realized that this painting, divided into sections by the creases into postcards, being a journey, could be parallel to my journey here.
So I decided to cut apart this scroll replica into the postcards that were on the reverse. Sending them all back to my home in California, I addressed them as such, and stamped them all. As a representation of my journey here in Hong Kong, I’m sending them off from fifteen different post boxes, noting the location and its significance, as well as the date and time at which I sent it.
When I get back home, hopefully all fifteen will have arrived. At that point, I’m going to reattach them back together. This scroll reprint, in postcard/booklet format will then show the journey to the city center of Kaifeng on the front and my journey to Hong Kong on the back.
There are now four weeks of instruction left, so with deadlines looming and a push for more travels to look forward to, I shall resume my studying.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
I arrived August 21, confused, dazed, and fresh off a thirteen-hour flight without sleep. My passport was then used just a few times. Upon entering the country, I was given a student entry stamp on the page opposite my student visa. The square, black stamp looked to take up most of the page to my surprise. The airport gave false impressions of Hong Kong—not false as in better or worse, but false as in different. Getting off the train on Hong Kong Island, I was greeted with lots of noise, winding roads, and my first experience seeing traffic move on the left.
With time, I adjusted. The sweltering heat and humidity lessened slightly as my tolerance increased. The bus system that once confused me became manageable and I could successfully ask to get off the minibus in Cantonese—a skill than increased to requesting stops in specific locations. I found where the better food is and how to deal with copious amounts of rice.
I guess you could say that I’ve now plateaued culturally. While there still is room to grow, there will always be, and I will continue to progress, just slower. As I went from being nervous, I can now say I’m quite the opposite. Whereas at first I missed home and was counting down the days to go back, I find myself now trying to maximize the rest of my time here. I’ve lost count and already I want to do this again somewhere else next fall semester, money and time permitting, of course.
So where am I to go from here? I’ve not yet reached the top of the mountain, though I’ve been to the Peak twice. My finals schedule is starting to shape up, though I don’t care for it to end. With my eyes perpetually towards the future, I’ve decided to take the time to enjoy the present.
To this effect, I’ve begun a project that won’t be done until the end of the year. The idea hatched as I went to the Hong Kong Museum of Art for my Introduction to the Arts of Asia class to research for a paper. The topic was hand scrolls, which have an aesthetic to them that requires observation beyond that of any western painting I’ve seen.
To read a hand scroll properly, you roll it open section by section, right to left. At several meters long, each tends to tell a story, accompanied often by deeper meaning. Many are accompanied with poetry, but the use of motifs and themes allow the artist to tell the story in an abstract fashion. By story, I mean journey, and there is usually a path in the scroll guiding the reader’s eyes through this journey.
For this art paper, we were to observe Qiu Ying’s 清明商河图 or “Along the River During the Qingming Festival” as it is usually translated. We were to compare this Ming Dynasty scroll to Zhang Zeduan’s original of the same name, which was painted during the Song Dynasty. I won’t get into the specifics, though it is clear that Qiu Ying’s is not merely a copy of Zhang Zeduan’s.
To aid my paper, I bought a scaled reprint of the hand scroll at the museum’s bookstore, realizing later that it was in postcard format—fifteen postcards to be exact. Later I realized that this painting, divided into sections by the creases into postcards, being a journey, could be parallel to my journey here.
So I decided to cut apart this scroll replica into the postcards that were on the reverse. Sending them all back to my home in California, I addressed them as such, and stamped them all. As a representation of my journey here in Hong Kong, I’m sending them off from fifteen different post boxes, noting the location and its significance, as well as the date and time at which I sent it.
When I get back home, hopefully all fifteen will have arrived. At that point, I’m going to reattach them back together. This scroll reprint, in postcard/booklet format will then show the journey to the city center of Kaifeng on the front and my journey to Hong Kong on the back.
There are now four weeks of instruction left, so with deadlines looming and a push for more travels to look forward to, I shall resume my studying.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Beijing: Culture in a Land without Speech
I’d like to start by saying that I love Hong Kong. It’s become something of a home to me though I’ve only been here for a few months, and as I’ve explained, as much as I’d like to extend into to next semester, I just can’t. Yes, I’ve said my fair share of bad things about Hong Kong, but in my defense, I feel I’ve said some good things as well, and I voiced my criticisms in a respective way with reasons stated. So as a basis for comments voiced thus far on a particular blog post, I still have no regrets in coming to Hong Kong over many other choices of places to study.
In less crude terms, I’ve described many aspects of Hong Kong to be quite hollow. Hong Kong’s culture seems to be the lack of, and in a sense, the business and international finance aspect of Hong Kong is really the culture in and of itself. In many ways I’ve seen an identity problem here, as people acknowledge their British past before claiming to be part of the People’s Republic of China, even in the purely state sense.
So over reading week, I traveled to a city that seems more than proud to call itself Chinese. I’d been there before two years ago, but now, I got to see the nation’s capital in a new light, from a new perspective, having studying in Hong Kong for a while now, seeing how the locals view China and how they view their position in the world.
Probably a month ago now, we had Margaret Ng, a politician, as a guest speaker in my Hong Kong and the World class. At one point, she broke out to explicitly address the local students. “You are not any more special than Mainland Chinese students. Nothing about you having grown up here in Hong Kong makes you superior to students coming out of China.” She went on to say that they were smart and skilled, hinting at their English skills even being better than Hong Kong students. (No surprise there.)
On another note, in California (and probably in the United States), we value highly well roundedness in studies and a balance in life between work and fun. Likewise, majoring in music causes no overt criticism in saying that a major in neuroscience is just better. In the States, it’s about money, but it’s also about interest for most. “Do what you love,” everyone likes to say.
Do I think most Hong Kong students love business and finance? No. Could I be wrong, not likely, but at the same time very much so. Students here seem to lack interest in the arts or life as an academic and it seems like the few that don’t lack find better more conducive environments to their interests outside of Hong Kong.
In my Hong Kong and the World class again, they mention that businesses seeking to enter Asia, and especially China, go through Hong Kong because of the rule of law and free flow of information (which we would call freedom of speech back home). It seems though that for a people that have free speech, they don’t use it. In no way does that mean it should be taken away, but the fact that there is little visible political activism here (I’ve personally only heard whispers), while possibly a cultural thing, means that people here take a lot for granted and expect their business environment to stay open without much maintenance in that arena.
And I find myself more often an observer than an activist, but I think this lack of well-rounded interest, should it not change, may lead to the fall of Hong Kong. And of course it may not, and if I’m wrong, the more power to them. But thinking about their freedom of speech makes you think about places that don’t have it to the full extent that we do in the United States or in Hong Kong.
Take China, where I went to, where the Internet is censored and Tiananmen Square is supposedly monitored for unrest by PLA soldiers dressed as civilians. My friend, in searching for a particular bar in the hotel room, was blocked by the government and he lost Internet privileges to access Google for at least fifteen minutes as punishment.
Beijing just clicked as a city that’s on the right track to something. Yeah, the people spit (indoors too, sometimes) and horns honk as traffic breaks ranks, but the thing is that there’s more to Beijing than just business, or anything else for that manner. I’ve always heard that Beijing is China’s political center and Shanghai its economic, but the thing is that there’s so much more going on that just politics in Beijing.
There are sports and arts highly expressed around the city. Music blasts out of some shops, and Mandarin-language music in much higher quantity than just American music. In Hong Kong, the only places with music open at night and serve mostly tourists and expats looking for a good time. Street food so prominent around Beijing (though ultimately a way to make money) serves to ground the city and give it character, whereas in Hong Kong, non-locals struggle to find good street food, which is noticeably less common here than elsewhere as many people have moved onto restaurants and such.
It seems that to me, as well as my friends, all the little things that made the place more human and less business affected the environment. Beijing just turned into something that I wanted to keep exploring and keep experiencing.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
In less crude terms, I’ve described many aspects of Hong Kong to be quite hollow. Hong Kong’s culture seems to be the lack of, and in a sense, the business and international finance aspect of Hong Kong is really the culture in and of itself. In many ways I’ve seen an identity problem here, as people acknowledge their British past before claiming to be part of the People’s Republic of China, even in the purely state sense.
So over reading week, I traveled to a city that seems more than proud to call itself Chinese. I’d been there before two years ago, but now, I got to see the nation’s capital in a new light, from a new perspective, having studying in Hong Kong for a while now, seeing how the locals view China and how they view their position in the world.
Probably a month ago now, we had Margaret Ng, a politician, as a guest speaker in my Hong Kong and the World class. At one point, she broke out to explicitly address the local students. “You are not any more special than Mainland Chinese students. Nothing about you having grown up here in Hong Kong makes you superior to students coming out of China.” She went on to say that they were smart and skilled, hinting at their English skills even being better than Hong Kong students. (No surprise there.)
On another note, in California (and probably in the United States), we value highly well roundedness in studies and a balance in life between work and fun. Likewise, majoring in music causes no overt criticism in saying that a major in neuroscience is just better. In the States, it’s about money, but it’s also about interest for most. “Do what you love,” everyone likes to say.
Do I think most Hong Kong students love business and finance? No. Could I be wrong, not likely, but at the same time very much so. Students here seem to lack interest in the arts or life as an academic and it seems like the few that don’t lack find better more conducive environments to their interests outside of Hong Kong.
In my Hong Kong and the World class again, they mention that businesses seeking to enter Asia, and especially China, go through Hong Kong because of the rule of law and free flow of information (which we would call freedom of speech back home). It seems though that for a people that have free speech, they don’t use it. In no way does that mean it should be taken away, but the fact that there is little visible political activism here (I’ve personally only heard whispers), while possibly a cultural thing, means that people here take a lot for granted and expect their business environment to stay open without much maintenance in that arena.
And I find myself more often an observer than an activist, but I think this lack of well-rounded interest, should it not change, may lead to the fall of Hong Kong. And of course it may not, and if I’m wrong, the more power to them. But thinking about their freedom of speech makes you think about places that don’t have it to the full extent that we do in the United States or in Hong Kong.
Take China, where I went to, where the Internet is censored and Tiananmen Square is supposedly monitored for unrest by PLA soldiers dressed as civilians. My friend, in searching for a particular bar in the hotel room, was blocked by the government and he lost Internet privileges to access Google for at least fifteen minutes as punishment.
Beijing just clicked as a city that’s on the right track to something. Yeah, the people spit (indoors too, sometimes) and horns honk as traffic breaks ranks, but the thing is that there’s more to Beijing than just business, or anything else for that manner. I’ve always heard that Beijing is China’s political center and Shanghai its economic, but the thing is that there’s so much more going on that just politics in Beijing.
There are sports and arts highly expressed around the city. Music blasts out of some shops, and Mandarin-language music in much higher quantity than just American music. In Hong Kong, the only places with music open at night and serve mostly tourists and expats looking for a good time. Street food so prominent around Beijing (though ultimately a way to make money) serves to ground the city and give it character, whereas in Hong Kong, non-locals struggle to find good street food, which is noticeably less common here than elsewhere as many people have moved onto restaurants and such.
It seems that to me, as well as my friends, all the little things that made the place more human and less business affected the environment. Beijing just turned into something that I wanted to keep exploring and keep experiencing.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Please Don't Touch
To satisfy my non-western fine arts class for my Eleanor Roosevelt College general education requirements, I thought what better place to take such a class than outside the west? I thought it was a good idea; it was actually one suggested to us by our college at UCSD. And it really was a good idea—just not in the way I imagined.
I had a highly romanticized vision of what taking a non-western fine arts class in a non-western country, so to speak, was going to be like. I couldn’t really say what I expected, but this class was definitely not it. All that can be said is that I’m probably getting more out of such a class here than I would back home.
I actually don’t mean to go negative, because I genuinely like the class (though I had to go to the art museum across the harbor early yesterday to look at a handscroll for a research paper due Friday). Ultimately, it’s an art history class, so it is research and text based with a lot of critical analysis (though thankfully in a socio-historical setting).
So far, we’ve talked about Indian, Chinese, and Japanese Buddhism art, as well as Chinese Folk Religion art such as the banners used in funeral processions (yeah, I forgot the academic name). For Indian Buddhism, we went into stupas and depictions of the Buddha, how we know that the figure is a Buddha, and so on. Regarding Japanese Buddhism, we went over architecture and the implications on art that Buddhism and Shintoism had in their meeting and mixing. For Chinese art we covered works commissioned by emperors as well as handscrolls and aspects of calligraphy.
There were these two weeks where we had a real hands-on application for the class that seems to have pretty much served as the highlight of the class. For one lecture, we met at the Hong Kong Museum of Art where the professor meticulously went over several pieces related to the focus of the class. For one tutorial we got to practice Chinese calligraphy and painting with the same brush (which turns out is much, much harder than it looks). For another tutorial, we went to the art museum on campus where the curator set up a room for us where we got to see some of the more ancient stuff up close and actually get to handle some of the less expensive ceramic pieces.
Besides the papers and the memorization of particular artists names as well as identification of particular pieces, the class is shaping up to be a really good choice.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
I had a highly romanticized vision of what taking a non-western fine arts class in a non-western country, so to speak, was going to be like. I couldn’t really say what I expected, but this class was definitely not it. All that can be said is that I’m probably getting more out of such a class here than I would back home.
I actually don’t mean to go negative, because I genuinely like the class (though I had to go to the art museum across the harbor early yesterday to look at a handscroll for a research paper due Friday). Ultimately, it’s an art history class, so it is research and text based with a lot of critical analysis (though thankfully in a socio-historical setting).
So far, we’ve talked about Indian, Chinese, and Japanese Buddhism art, as well as Chinese Folk Religion art such as the banners used in funeral processions (yeah, I forgot the academic name). For Indian Buddhism, we went into stupas and depictions of the Buddha, how we know that the figure is a Buddha, and so on. Regarding Japanese Buddhism, we went over architecture and the implications on art that Buddhism and Shintoism had in their meeting and mixing. For Chinese art we covered works commissioned by emperors as well as handscrolls and aspects of calligraphy.
There were these two weeks where we had a real hands-on application for the class that seems to have pretty much served as the highlight of the class. For one lecture, we met at the Hong Kong Museum of Art where the professor meticulously went over several pieces related to the focus of the class. For one tutorial we got to practice Chinese calligraphy and painting with the same brush (which turns out is much, much harder than it looks). For another tutorial, we went to the art museum on campus where the curator set up a room for us where we got to see some of the more ancient stuff up close and actually get to handle some of the less expensive ceramic pieces.
Besides the papers and the memorization of particular artists names as well as identification of particular pieces, the class is shaping up to be a really good choice.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Beijing: A Question of Scale
Going back to Beijing and when we arrived, the gigantic airport was imposing but not impressive. As we scuttled through the terminal in an attempt to leave the airport it was noticeably empty. Don’t get me wrong; empty airports are good airports, and any day I’d take a flight in or out of the closer and smaller Burbank Airport over the larger and more crowded Los Angeles International Airport.
Designed and built by the same company that did my one of my favorite airports, Hong Kong International Airport, it shared much of the same features. The airport was noticeably efficient—we got our luggage quickly and lines at immigration were relatively short.
It’s architectural merits were there, with large and simple imposing columns with red being the main color of the place (with a slotted white ceiling). I personally didn’t like it looked, and from a glance it was evident that the terminal, built in preparation for the Olympics, was designed to impress. With a big country comes a polished capital airport. I could feel the might of China above my shoulders.
In contrast, flying into Washington Dulles Airport (which I’ve done once), I can’t say I felt the same. The airport was dingy and if I remember correctly we had to do an avoidance maneuver before landing which required us to ascend, loop around, and descend again. The terminals, while not shabby, were in no way impressive. It was designed for utility and though I have no idea how efficient it is, no one had in mind the wish to make an architectural statement or anything.
And therein lies one of the biggest changes I saw in Beijing in going back after two years. Starting at the way-too-big airport and ending at the way-to-big airport (where we spent hours bored because of a lack of decent coffee and a surplus of closed stores), Beijing was noticeably more secure than just a few years ago, and whereas some would cite Communism and extreme maintenance of the peace as the reasons behind this very apparent security, I, having been there before the Olympics, can say that this is not the way it’s always been.
After the Olympics and also due recently to National Day, security has been ever higher. Whereas I’ve met people who couldn’t point to China on the map (as they tried), now China’s has the world’s attention. I guess with great fame comes great responsibility. With China’s human rights record in question and the recent ethnic conflict in the west, China understands that it has enemies and understands that it has more real threats than before.
Two years ago, we went through airports in a snap. We walked through metal detectors without hesitation and even if one us beeped, rarely were we asked to stand for wand-waving or what have you. Mind you, that trip two years ago sent my family and I through four Chinese airports.
This time around, on leaving from Beijing, I beeped the metal detector because they didn’t require belts to be removed. Fine, whatever. A female officer did the whole wand-waving business and then proceeded to frisk me thoroughly. Through exit immigration, the officer alternated his focus between my passport picture and my face about five times. A friend of mine got whisked into a side room for potential questioning because her British passport looked suspicious somehow, though she was let go after six officers eyed it with a magnifying scope.
And that’s not the only place security is tight. China knows about domestic terrorism as well, don’t worry. The entire subway line, which expanded from two lines before the Olympics to God knows how many now and expanding still, has security personnel with x-rays to have you scan bags before entering the system. China’s vigilant and it shows.
But not everything was bigger this time. For one I would like to make a point now validated to me because of this trip. If you can do it, explore and sightsee yourself rather than with a tour group.
Two years ago, my family and I went to China in a tour group. It was super convenient. They loaded us onto a bus and shuttled us around and provided us with food for a real decent price. The thing is though, going to new places is not all about sightseeing, I’m convinced.
Yeah, I still see the sights and then some like the average tourist. The thing is though that when you get whisked away in a tour bus, you lose the opportunity to see real life—something that really doesn’t take more time to see.
This time around, we rode the subway to get to most places. We took a tour bus with Mainland Chinese people to see the Great Wall and Ming Tombs. In addition to the subway, we had to take a bus to see the Summer Palace.
Just being on the subway, you get to see the people. Mixing in with the locals and commuting with the businessmen, you really see some of the more innate aspects of culture—what is different and what is the same. I can’t even begin to describe how much I learned about Beijing this time around than the last time.
One thing that we did that was way off the tourist path though, I’m glad we did. The hotel was just a few subway stops away from the Temple of Heaven, so we decided to walk back to the hotel rather than take the subway. Along the way walking back alongside the main road, we peered into a side street. Feeling in the mood to explore, we ventured back into there. It was like a street full of vendors catering to locals. There were home supply storefronts as well as a guy selling lamb skewers to mention just a few. Walking even further we walked by the home fronts in one of the many hutong not mentioned or marked on maps. There was nothing the average tourist would want to see, but in my opinion it was all part of the experience.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Designed and built by the same company that did my one of my favorite airports, Hong Kong International Airport, it shared much of the same features. The airport was noticeably efficient—we got our luggage quickly and lines at immigration were relatively short.
It’s architectural merits were there, with large and simple imposing columns with red being the main color of the place (with a slotted white ceiling). I personally didn’t like it looked, and from a glance it was evident that the terminal, built in preparation for the Olympics, was designed to impress. With a big country comes a polished capital airport. I could feel the might of China above my shoulders.
In contrast, flying into Washington Dulles Airport (which I’ve done once), I can’t say I felt the same. The airport was dingy and if I remember correctly we had to do an avoidance maneuver before landing which required us to ascend, loop around, and descend again. The terminals, while not shabby, were in no way impressive. It was designed for utility and though I have no idea how efficient it is, no one had in mind the wish to make an architectural statement or anything.
And therein lies one of the biggest changes I saw in Beijing in going back after two years. Starting at the way-too-big airport and ending at the way-to-big airport (where we spent hours bored because of a lack of decent coffee and a surplus of closed stores), Beijing was noticeably more secure than just a few years ago, and whereas some would cite Communism and extreme maintenance of the peace as the reasons behind this very apparent security, I, having been there before the Olympics, can say that this is not the way it’s always been.
After the Olympics and also due recently to National Day, security has been ever higher. Whereas I’ve met people who couldn’t point to China on the map (as they tried), now China’s has the world’s attention. I guess with great fame comes great responsibility. With China’s human rights record in question and the recent ethnic conflict in the west, China understands that it has enemies and understands that it has more real threats than before.
Two years ago, we went through airports in a snap. We walked through metal detectors without hesitation and even if one us beeped, rarely were we asked to stand for wand-waving or what have you. Mind you, that trip two years ago sent my family and I through four Chinese airports.
This time around, on leaving from Beijing, I beeped the metal detector because they didn’t require belts to be removed. Fine, whatever. A female officer did the whole wand-waving business and then proceeded to frisk me thoroughly. Through exit immigration, the officer alternated his focus between my passport picture and my face about five times. A friend of mine got whisked into a side room for potential questioning because her British passport looked suspicious somehow, though she was let go after six officers eyed it with a magnifying scope.
And that’s not the only place security is tight. China knows about domestic terrorism as well, don’t worry. The entire subway line, which expanded from two lines before the Olympics to God knows how many now and expanding still, has security personnel with x-rays to have you scan bags before entering the system. China’s vigilant and it shows.
But not everything was bigger this time. For one I would like to make a point now validated to me because of this trip. If you can do it, explore and sightsee yourself rather than with a tour group.
Two years ago, my family and I went to China in a tour group. It was super convenient. They loaded us onto a bus and shuttled us around and provided us with food for a real decent price. The thing is though, going to new places is not all about sightseeing, I’m convinced.
Yeah, I still see the sights and then some like the average tourist. The thing is though that when you get whisked away in a tour bus, you lose the opportunity to see real life—something that really doesn’t take more time to see.
This time around, we rode the subway to get to most places. We took a tour bus with Mainland Chinese people to see the Great Wall and Ming Tombs. In addition to the subway, we had to take a bus to see the Summer Palace.
Just being on the subway, you get to see the people. Mixing in with the locals and commuting with the businessmen, you really see some of the more innate aspects of culture—what is different and what is the same. I can’t even begin to describe how much I learned about Beijing this time around than the last time.
One thing that we did that was way off the tourist path though, I’m glad we did. The hotel was just a few subway stops away from the Temple of Heaven, so we decided to walk back to the hotel rather than take the subway. Along the way walking back alongside the main road, we peered into a side street. Feeling in the mood to explore, we ventured back into there. It was like a street full of vendors catering to locals. There were home supply storefronts as well as a guy selling lamb skewers to mention just a few. Walking even further we walked by the home fronts in one of the many hutong not mentioned or marked on maps. There was nothing the average tourist would want to see, but in my opinion it was all part of the experience.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Ngo5 hai6 Hoeng1 Gong2 Dai6 Hok6 ge3 hok6 saang1
So I started realizing about a month ago that I haven't been writing that much about class. So here I'll start.
First up is Cantonese for Foreign Learners 1. Ideally, I've found that for learning languages, practice every day (or at least five days a week) works wonders for subconciously memorizing vast amounts of vocabulary and complex grammatical patterns. Unfortunately, my Cantonese class meets on Mondays and Thursdays for an hour each time. We cover a lot, but the fact that we don't repeat what we learn in class means that I have to study a lot more outside of class.
It's stuctured as we're given material and accomopanying homework than tested on it twice in the semester. So far we've covered the usual topics: acoomodation, self-introduction, money, time, and greetings. And for what we've learned (combined with what I learn myself) I've fared well. In going out of the country I use Cantonese at immigration (though by Hong Kong law I am entitled to use English if I so choose), I manage to hop of minibuses with ease, and ask for directions frequently when infrequently I get lost.
In addition, we have two presentations to deal with. The latter is a group project which we have not yet started. The former is a memorized self-introduction with a minimum of 100 character-syllabes delievered to the class. This self-introduction happened on Friday, right before I departed for Taipei, and by all regards it went well.
I had my speech memorized to the point where I left the script at my dorm that most would use for last-minute review and preparation. I thought I would miss a fair number of tones, but I knew I had all of the phonetic sounds down. The only thing I was lacking was confidence, because while I have little trouble speaking in front of large groups of people, strange as they may be, I've never done so in a foreign language (except in other foreign language classes), and in such a foreign foreign language.
But it went well. With speech not in hand, I delievered it smoothly and confidently. Part of it (bless them for their effort though in learning Cantonese), many of the other students were so poor. Many focused more on the tones than the sounds of the words. Entire consonants were missing as vowels were made to sound overly contrived and highly awkward.
And here's where I get into the nitty gritty of this class. To start things off, when I was learning bits and pieces of Cantonese (never enough to be fluent) from my mother when I was younger, I had already gone through two non-consecutive years of Chinese (Mandarin) school. I was always told that I sounded better in Mandarin than in Cantonese, and in a way that inhibited me from going too much farther.
But in a way, I have something of a natural ability to kind of pick up languages—and whereas everyone honestly does or did, I never seem to have truly lost mine. When speaking Spanish or French, I can go sentences at a time without people thinking i'm a non-native speaker. One woman in France asked me what district of Paris I was from, need I reiterate.
So now in taking Cantonese class here, hearing a native Cantonese speaker speak twice weekly, I find myself sounding more and more native, less and less stilted every day—which is good albeit expected, since the same thing happened to me when I took that year of Mandarin in my last year of high school.
I don't know how nitty gritty I can get into this here for sake of losing eyes, but I'll go so far as to say that we use the Jyutping system in class. Most of the vowels used don't correspond to English, though the consonants do, so go look it up in a book or online. But for the tones, we use six in the class (though some scholars have counted up to a dozen). Basically the first (1) is high-level, the second (2) is high rising, the third (3) is mid-level, the fourth (4) is mid-low falling, fifth (5) is low falling then rising, and sixth (6) is low-level.
So if you speak Cantonese, the sentence "Ngo5 hai6 Hoeng1 Gong2 Dai6 Hok6 ge3 hok6 saang1" means I am a Hong Kong University student."
More to come.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
First up is Cantonese for Foreign Learners 1. Ideally, I've found that for learning languages, practice every day (or at least five days a week) works wonders for subconciously memorizing vast amounts of vocabulary and complex grammatical patterns. Unfortunately, my Cantonese class meets on Mondays and Thursdays for an hour each time. We cover a lot, but the fact that we don't repeat what we learn in class means that I have to study a lot more outside of class.
It's stuctured as we're given material and accomopanying homework than tested on it twice in the semester. So far we've covered the usual topics: acoomodation, self-introduction, money, time, and greetings. And for what we've learned (combined with what I learn myself) I've fared well. In going out of the country I use Cantonese at immigration (though by Hong Kong law I am entitled to use English if I so choose), I manage to hop of minibuses with ease, and ask for directions frequently when infrequently I get lost.
In addition, we have two presentations to deal with. The latter is a group project which we have not yet started. The former is a memorized self-introduction with a minimum of 100 character-syllabes delievered to the class. This self-introduction happened on Friday, right before I departed for Taipei, and by all regards it went well.
I had my speech memorized to the point where I left the script at my dorm that most would use for last-minute review and preparation. I thought I would miss a fair number of tones, but I knew I had all of the phonetic sounds down. The only thing I was lacking was confidence, because while I have little trouble speaking in front of large groups of people, strange as they may be, I've never done so in a foreign language (except in other foreign language classes), and in such a foreign foreign language.
But it went well. With speech not in hand, I delievered it smoothly and confidently. Part of it (bless them for their effort though in learning Cantonese), many of the other students were so poor. Many focused more on the tones than the sounds of the words. Entire consonants were missing as vowels were made to sound overly contrived and highly awkward.
And here's where I get into the nitty gritty of this class. To start things off, when I was learning bits and pieces of Cantonese (never enough to be fluent) from my mother when I was younger, I had already gone through two non-consecutive years of Chinese (Mandarin) school. I was always told that I sounded better in Mandarin than in Cantonese, and in a way that inhibited me from going too much farther.
But in a way, I have something of a natural ability to kind of pick up languages—and whereas everyone honestly does or did, I never seem to have truly lost mine. When speaking Spanish or French, I can go sentences at a time without people thinking i'm a non-native speaker. One woman in France asked me what district of Paris I was from, need I reiterate.
So now in taking Cantonese class here, hearing a native Cantonese speaker speak twice weekly, I find myself sounding more and more native, less and less stilted every day—which is good albeit expected, since the same thing happened to me when I took that year of Mandarin in my last year of high school.
I don't know how nitty gritty I can get into this here for sake of losing eyes, but I'll go so far as to say that we use the Jyutping system in class. Most of the vowels used don't correspond to English, though the consonants do, so go look it up in a book or online. But for the tones, we use six in the class (though some scholars have counted up to a dozen). Basically the first (1) is high-level, the second (2) is high rising, the third (3) is mid-level, the fourth (4) is mid-low falling, fifth (5) is low falling then rising, and sixth (6) is low-level.
So if you speak Cantonese, the sentence "Ngo5 hai6 Hoeng1 Gong2 Dai6 Hok6 ge3 hok6 saang1" means I am a Hong Kong University student."
More to come.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Monday, October 26, 2009
You Guys
Last week in my Hong Kong and the World class, we had James Thompson, CEO and founder of Crown Holdings International, as a guest speaker to talk to the class about United States-Hong Kong relations.
As an American businessman living in Hong Kong, he had some good things to say about the place, perhaps too many good things. And before I start getting called a pessimist or what have you, he knew a lot about business—and that was about it. And business is good right now. It’s easy to set up shop with little bureaucracy and maintain profitability with low taxes.
Admittedly, he probably knows more about Hong Kong than I do, but after 15 years of living here, it was pretty clear that he lived in foreigner’s Hong Kong. He seemed to be speaking from the heart, but then again he was a high-profile businessman. The content of what he said suggested that though he spoke with decorum, business and Hong Kong for foreigners was all he knew.
And I could very well be wrong, but out of how he phrased one particular statement, it seemed to me that business was the primary focus of his living—so much so that cultural insensitivity becomes commonplace.
First off, what do I mean by foreigner’s Hong Kong? Well, I’ll preface this by saying that I am still a foreigner to Hong Kong both culturally and officially. I’d be among the first to admit that I do not understand it any meaningful extent—not yet, maybe not ever. When I first thought of Hong Kong, I envisioned the skyline of Victoria Harbour of the skyscrapers alongside the mountains that everyone’s seen in postcards.
That first night I took the taxi to Sassoon Road from the Airport Express Station, I was a little more than surprised to see the buildings behind the skyline. It’s like I knew they were always there, just never how they looked like.
And that’s how I’d describe foreigner’s Hong Kong in the figurative sense. (as Crown Holdings did set up shop in Sha Tin, which is quite far from Central Hong Kong). From the way he described his daughter’s ability to speak Mandarin, he suggested that he himself lacks a significant grasp of Cantonese or Mandarin.
And this makes sense since it’s quite easy to get around Hong Kong in English. Though most don’t speak proficiently, many service workers know amounts necessitated by their work.
So back to James Thompson’s appearance as a guest speaker for one of my political science classes, he did a good job politically in his speaking, acknowledging the widespread presence of Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese students in the lecture hall.
And he ended his presence with one comment about Asians—not Hong Kongers or Chinese, but Asians. He recounted the story of his daughter (applying as someone from Hong Kong) to the University of California, Berkeley. Though white with a European surname, she and her application for admission were rejected with the memo that they’d already filled the Asian quota for that year (though affirmative action is now officially banned in public settings in California).
That little anecdote was summed up, addressing the Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese students as, “Well, you guys are doing something right!” Apparently James Thompson doesn’t get the difference between Asians in California (or seeming anywhere else) and those from East Asia. This was met with approval by laughs from most of the class.
They say that you learn something new every day. That day, I confirmed something the same.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
As an American businessman living in Hong Kong, he had some good things to say about the place, perhaps too many good things. And before I start getting called a pessimist or what have you, he knew a lot about business—and that was about it. And business is good right now. It’s easy to set up shop with little bureaucracy and maintain profitability with low taxes.
Admittedly, he probably knows more about Hong Kong than I do, but after 15 years of living here, it was pretty clear that he lived in foreigner’s Hong Kong. He seemed to be speaking from the heart, but then again he was a high-profile businessman. The content of what he said suggested that though he spoke with decorum, business and Hong Kong for foreigners was all he knew.
And I could very well be wrong, but out of how he phrased one particular statement, it seemed to me that business was the primary focus of his living—so much so that cultural insensitivity becomes commonplace.
First off, what do I mean by foreigner’s Hong Kong? Well, I’ll preface this by saying that I am still a foreigner to Hong Kong both culturally and officially. I’d be among the first to admit that I do not understand it any meaningful extent—not yet, maybe not ever. When I first thought of Hong Kong, I envisioned the skyline of Victoria Harbour of the skyscrapers alongside the mountains that everyone’s seen in postcards.
That first night I took the taxi to Sassoon Road from the Airport Express Station, I was a little more than surprised to see the buildings behind the skyline. It’s like I knew they were always there, just never how they looked like.
And that’s how I’d describe foreigner’s Hong Kong in the figurative sense. (as Crown Holdings did set up shop in Sha Tin, which is quite far from Central Hong Kong). From the way he described his daughter’s ability to speak Mandarin, he suggested that he himself lacks a significant grasp of Cantonese or Mandarin.
And this makes sense since it’s quite easy to get around Hong Kong in English. Though most don’t speak proficiently, many service workers know amounts necessitated by their work.
So back to James Thompson’s appearance as a guest speaker for one of my political science classes, he did a good job politically in his speaking, acknowledging the widespread presence of Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese students in the lecture hall.
And he ended his presence with one comment about Asians—not Hong Kongers or Chinese, but Asians. He recounted the story of his daughter (applying as someone from Hong Kong) to the University of California, Berkeley. Though white with a European surname, she and her application for admission were rejected with the memo that they’d already filled the Asian quota for that year (though affirmative action is now officially banned in public settings in California).
That little anecdote was summed up, addressing the Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese students as, “Well, you guys are doing something right!” Apparently James Thompson doesn’t get the difference between Asians in California (or seeming anywhere else) and those from East Asia. This was met with approval by laughs from most of the class.
They say that you learn something new every day. That day, I confirmed something the same.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Friday, October 23, 2009
The North, Part 4
Lama (Yonghe) Temple
Temple of Heaven
Hutong in contrast with new development
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Temple of Heaven
Hutong in contrast with new development
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Beijing: Ten Percent Annually
We ended Tuesday at the Olympic Village. Basically, it was an impressive site for an impressive country. Well, what do I mean by impressive? For one, the Beijing Olympics were massive. With everything involved, including the actual events and the trademark stadium involved, there was also the fact that Beijing’s bid including massively upgrading their mass-transit system and that most of the sports venues had to be built from the ground up.
For those who don’t remember, the games ended up costing somewhere along the lines of $47 billion USD. The opening ceremony alone, directed by the renowned Zhang Yimou, cost about $300 million USD. With China’s reemergence onto the world scene, the Olympic Village shows all the money put into it.
For one, the grounds are huge. The commonly-called Bird’s Nest that served as the centerpiece of the Olympics and was used to hold many events. The architecture is astounding and bold, with the seemingly crisscrossed beams making their way over the functional part of the stadium. Much like the Coliseum in Rome, the events held inside were as impressive as the façade on the outside.
Across the massive plaza there sits the Cube, which is groundbreaking in its own right. Serving the aquatic events, the building’s frame is filled in with filled, custom-cut plastic sacs and lit on select nights to a variety of colors, the least of which being blue, of course.
The subway system is now world-class and still growing. All but a few of the sites that my friends and I saw we got there by the subway system. It’s clean and efficient, and the voice speaks English in addition to Mandarin (albeit with the most annoying way of saying the [æ] in “trANsfer”).
The second reason I feel China is one impressive country is the sheer economic growth they’ve been experiencing—and it most definitely shows. Before the economic slump, the nation’s economy was growing at over 10% a year, year after year. Now, it’s probably under 10% but still positive, largely because China’s stimulus package was so effective.
When I visited in 2007, we flew into one of the two old terminals of Beijing Capital Airport. They were dingy and dirty and as soon as we walked outside, the rampant pollution permeated every piece of clothing you were wearing and burned the back wall of your pharynx.
Yeah, Beijing is still polluted, but whatever they’ve been doing, it’s been making the air cleaner. Of course, doing so was one of their promises in their Olympic bid, but for a metropolitan population of twelve million, it’s no easy (or small) task.
Most of the days we were there, the air was remarkably crisp and seemingly clean. At the south side of Tiananmen Square in the morning you could see all the way across to the north side and the entrance to the Forbidden City and Mao Zedong’s portrait. At the Summer Palace, it was easy to see the life of luxury and relaxation that the emperors lived in as the wind brushed against your face and the water splashed against the shoreline.
Just two years ago, the weather at the Summer Palace was horrific. After seeing the water in that lake, we decided never to eat fish from China again. Though still polluted, that water has definitely improved; and looking back and pictures from my last time in Beijing, where there were dead plants there are now thriving lilies.
In the Forbidden City, much of which covered by scaffolding being restored for the Olympics, now shone in the clean air. Once temple once rumored to have good views of the Forbidden City you could now see from the Forbidden City. The funny thing that I noticed though was that not all of the intricate painted surfaces were restored. While some were left put all together, others were restored only on the front—the areas that show up in pictures. Much of the roof undersides were left showing their age.
Going through the Forbidden City though, one had to think that on this massive scale how many people were displaced. Going through the Olympic Village as well, how many hutong were demolished and how many people were displaced?
A hutong (胡同) is a more traditional aspect of Beijing. It’s a neighborhood comprise of interlinked buildings house many families, and as of recent, have been disappearing to skyscrapers and more monumental structures. There was a time in Beijing when there was the palace, which was surrounded by hutong. Now, you have to into backstreets to find them. The ones that aren’t in the alleys have had to find their niche (usually alcohol) in some way.
Two years ago, the hutong that our tour group showed us was interesting to say the least. It was rundown and needed a bit of revitalizing. Coming back two years later (and on accident to this particular area), it’s now the bar district. It all came back to me when we crossed this one small bridge over the main canal. In one fell swoop it all came pouring back in. I have no idea what it was called back then, but it was probably named the same thing as now—Houhai (后海).
Just a few years ago, these storefronts were just storefronts. Now they were relatively well-appointed bars with music blasting out of their seams. I’m not going to assert that the change was bad, but it’ll at least say that it was different.
And back to the Great Wall. I visited it two years ago because that’s just one of the things you have to do in Beijing. Back then it was impressive, though the pollution came all the way out there.
And so it turns out that we went to the same section of the Great Wall that I went to two years ago. Badaling (八达岭) is one of the most popular tourist spots on the Great Wall, and when I went there in 2007, there was a dirt parking lot in front of the wall with vendors nearby. For a price, you could dress up as a Manchurian emperor and pretend to be coming through the gate to Ming China.
Today, the wall itself remains the same. The environment changed. Of course, it’s now fall and the leaves were a different shade. It was windy and the air was crisp and clean rather than hot and humid.
I basically had another Houhai moment. I was standing right in front of the Badaling gate and it all came back again. The unpaved parking lot and ground peddler shops was now an elegantly-tiled, well-arbored plaza with a memorial-style retaining wall commemorating the Great Wall. The retaining wall was covered with a bronze relief of a Ming general in the foreground and a mock outline of the Great Wall in the background. The actual Great Wall had flags on the watchtowers with the character 明, as in Ming dynasty.
This makes me wonder, how does the People’s Republic of China view its past? Most people would agree that the Cultural Revolution led to the destruction of history in many regards. Does the fact that they’ve refurbished the Great Wall to suggest the Ming Dynasty show that they venerate the past, or do they do it just for tourism? I can tell you most of my friends didn’t know what the 明 on the flags meant.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
For those who don’t remember, the games ended up costing somewhere along the lines of $47 billion USD. The opening ceremony alone, directed by the renowned Zhang Yimou, cost about $300 million USD. With China’s reemergence onto the world scene, the Olympic Village shows all the money put into it.
For one, the grounds are huge. The commonly-called Bird’s Nest that served as the centerpiece of the Olympics and was used to hold many events. The architecture is astounding and bold, with the seemingly crisscrossed beams making their way over the functional part of the stadium. Much like the Coliseum in Rome, the events held inside were as impressive as the façade on the outside.
Across the massive plaza there sits the Cube, which is groundbreaking in its own right. Serving the aquatic events, the building’s frame is filled in with filled, custom-cut plastic sacs and lit on select nights to a variety of colors, the least of which being blue, of course.
The subway system is now world-class and still growing. All but a few of the sites that my friends and I saw we got there by the subway system. It’s clean and efficient, and the voice speaks English in addition to Mandarin (albeit with the most annoying way of saying the [æ] in “trANsfer”).
The second reason I feel China is one impressive country is the sheer economic growth they’ve been experiencing—and it most definitely shows. Before the economic slump, the nation’s economy was growing at over 10% a year, year after year. Now, it’s probably under 10% but still positive, largely because China’s stimulus package was so effective.
When I visited in 2007, we flew into one of the two old terminals of Beijing Capital Airport. They were dingy and dirty and as soon as we walked outside, the rampant pollution permeated every piece of clothing you were wearing and burned the back wall of your pharynx.
Yeah, Beijing is still polluted, but whatever they’ve been doing, it’s been making the air cleaner. Of course, doing so was one of their promises in their Olympic bid, but for a metropolitan population of twelve million, it’s no easy (or small) task.
Most of the days we were there, the air was remarkably crisp and seemingly clean. At the south side of Tiananmen Square in the morning you could see all the way across to the north side and the entrance to the Forbidden City and Mao Zedong’s portrait. At the Summer Palace, it was easy to see the life of luxury and relaxation that the emperors lived in as the wind brushed against your face and the water splashed against the shoreline.
Just two years ago, the weather at the Summer Palace was horrific. After seeing the water in that lake, we decided never to eat fish from China again. Though still polluted, that water has definitely improved; and looking back and pictures from my last time in Beijing, where there were dead plants there are now thriving lilies.
In the Forbidden City, much of which covered by scaffolding being restored for the Olympics, now shone in the clean air. Once temple once rumored to have good views of the Forbidden City you could now see from the Forbidden City. The funny thing that I noticed though was that not all of the intricate painted surfaces were restored. While some were left put all together, others were restored only on the front—the areas that show up in pictures. Much of the roof undersides were left showing their age.
Going through the Forbidden City though, one had to think that on this massive scale how many people were displaced. Going through the Olympic Village as well, how many hutong were demolished and how many people were displaced?
A hutong (胡同) is a more traditional aspect of Beijing. It’s a neighborhood comprise of interlinked buildings house many families, and as of recent, have been disappearing to skyscrapers and more monumental structures. There was a time in Beijing when there was the palace, which was surrounded by hutong. Now, you have to into backstreets to find them. The ones that aren’t in the alleys have had to find their niche (usually alcohol) in some way.
Two years ago, the hutong that our tour group showed us was interesting to say the least. It was rundown and needed a bit of revitalizing. Coming back two years later (and on accident to this particular area), it’s now the bar district. It all came back to me when we crossed this one small bridge over the main canal. In one fell swoop it all came pouring back in. I have no idea what it was called back then, but it was probably named the same thing as now—Houhai (后海).
Just a few years ago, these storefronts were just storefronts. Now they were relatively well-appointed bars with music blasting out of their seams. I’m not going to assert that the change was bad, but it’ll at least say that it was different.
And back to the Great Wall. I visited it two years ago because that’s just one of the things you have to do in Beijing. Back then it was impressive, though the pollution came all the way out there.
And so it turns out that we went to the same section of the Great Wall that I went to two years ago. Badaling (八达岭) is one of the most popular tourist spots on the Great Wall, and when I went there in 2007, there was a dirt parking lot in front of the wall with vendors nearby. For a price, you could dress up as a Manchurian emperor and pretend to be coming through the gate to Ming China.
Today, the wall itself remains the same. The environment changed. Of course, it’s now fall and the leaves were a different shade. It was windy and the air was crisp and clean rather than hot and humid.
I basically had another Houhai moment. I was standing right in front of the Badaling gate and it all came back again. The unpaved parking lot and ground peddler shops was now an elegantly-tiled, well-arbored plaza with a memorial-style retaining wall commemorating the Great Wall. The retaining wall was covered with a bronze relief of a Ming general in the foreground and a mock outline of the Great Wall in the background. The actual Great Wall had flags on the watchtowers with the character 明, as in Ming dynasty.
This makes me wonder, how does the People’s Republic of China view its past? Most people would agree that the Cultural Revolution led to the destruction of history in many regards. Does the fact that they’ve refurbished the Great Wall to suggest the Ming Dynasty show that they venerate the past, or do they do it just for tourism? I can tell you most of my friends didn’t know what the 明 on the flags meant.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
The North, Part 3
Tiananmen Square
Qianmen
My friend and I attempting a conversation
Summer Palace
Houhai (a lakeside hutong turned lakeside bar district)
Hotpot
Beijing Yogurt
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Qianmen
My friend and I attempting a conversation
Summer Palace
Houhai (a lakeside hutong turned lakeside bar district)
Hotpot
Beijing Yogurt
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
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