rolling buried alive in china 2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/oct/12/mo-yan-my-hero-howard-goldblatt?newsfeed=true

howard goldblatt on the mo yan nobel win.
i don't think howard goldblatt is the best translator of chinese. i think his translations are overliteral and use dated language that replaces the colloquial zip of the original and i think sometimes he just makes mistakes. but: hey, if you've read a novel in translation from chinese from a chinese or taiwanese author, he probably translated it. hey, it's not his fault that the western appetite for translated chinese ficiton tends to be v small and focused on "dissident" literature. hey, he translated wolf totem but he also translated notes of a desolate man and gave us the only work by jia pingwa we've ever seen in english (a minor jia pingwa novel and not a great translation).

sad to see nearly every piece of writing on mo yan's win over the last couple days needing to evaluate his credentials as a dissident. and then deciding that he's not a dissident and pointing out that he's a member of the party and a cog in the machinery of maoist cultural control. you guys are missing the point :(

The first golf course in China opened in 1984, but by the end of 2009 there were roughly 600 in the country. For the last several years, development of new golf courses in China has been officially banned (with the exception of the island province of Hainan), but the number of courses has nonetheless tripled since 2004; the "ban" has been easily evaded with the government's tacit approval simply by not mentioning golf in any development plans.[33]

lol wacky

headlines like "A Nobel laureate the Chinese Politburo can love"

and stuff like this: http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/12/the-writer-the-state-and-the
-nobel/

which attacks mo yan for being a party stooge

and quotes gao xingjian, who says that writers need "total independence" to create "eternal" literature.

and then she goes on to question all literature written in china (or other states that practice any censorship/control on literature):

Speaking Thursday, Peter Englund of the Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel for literature, said that Mr. Mo was not a political dissident, adding: “I would say he is more a critic of the system, sitting within the system.”

The question is, then: Can great, lasting literature come from there? The Nobel committee thinks so. Do you?

yeah, i do.

...that’s what happened on Thursday, when Mo Yan, the vice chairman of the state-run Chinese Writers’ Association, won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

i mean, i am as sick as anyone of reading mo yan's vigorous polemics in defense of the communist party's undemocratic rule and all of their many crimes... but...

xiaobing tang, professor of comparative literature at umich:

Didi Kirsten Tatlow’s tirade at Mo Yan being awarded the Nobel Prize in
literature, upon close reading, is really directed at the Nobel Prize
committee. How could you?! How could you bestow such a prestige on a
Chinese writer still living in China? A Chinese writer who is not in
prison or banned, but rather enjoys a reputation and an official status?
How could you not understand, for God’s sake, that the heart of the matter
has nothing to do with what he has written as a writer, but everything to
do with the political symbolism of him being emphatically a Chinese writer
and, listen, with the political purpose of the Nobel prize in literature?

She seethes at the Nobel prize committee for staging a Kafkaesque mockery
and betrayal, but as a political animal, she also knows she can’t afford
to discredit this powerful institution, so she turns on the Chinese state
and the writer himself. Her logic: Mo Yan may have been given the prize,
but he has brought it disgrace. A gift is given, but the recipient does
not understand what it is and therefore does not deserve it. It is far
less troublesome to question the awardee than the gift from an entrenched
Western establishment.

A larger source of frustration for Tatlow and other puzzled pundits is the
fact that they do not have a good narrative to comprehend the complexity
of contemporary Chinese culture and society.

They simply cannot, for the life of them, accept that there is a
mainstream Chinese literature, that this literature is diverse,
innovative, and energetic in its own way, and that it is a vital part of
contemporary Chinese culture. They do not see Chinese society as a living
and complex system with many institutions, and, because they never accept
the legitimacy of the Chinese political order, they refuse to believe that
many cultural practices and institutions there serve functions
structurally symmetrical to their counterparts in a Western democracy.
They regard China still as an alien and ultimately threatening other, so
they eagerly seek and endorse any and all signs of what they like, and
dismiss what they do not like or understand as either outlandish or
draconian.

In this particular case, they are quick to quote certain netizens’
spontaneous comments on Mo Yan as representing the public opinion in
China, but they have no interest in covering the measured responses in
mainstream media or from respected opinion makers.

It is beyond Tatlow to ask what the latest award means for the Nobel prize
itself. If we agree that such a prize is always a subjective and
contingent affair, instead of an absolute and universal standard, we
cannot but wonder about the Nobel committee’s decision finally to
recognize a prominent Chinese writer living and writing in China,
especially in light of previous Nobel prizes related to the topic of
Chinese literature or China at large. It is a decision that can be
assessed from many perspectives.

Ultimately we realize this award is not so much an assessment of Mo Yan
and his literary achievements or, for that matter, of contemporary Chinese
literature, as it allows an assessment of the Nobel committee’s ability to
assess.

The final question Tatlow raises is as naïve as it is duplicitous. Here
she seems to buy into the myth of a “lasting” or “eternal” literature
created in a vacuum. Make no mistake about it. When necessary, she will
turn around and embrace a literature presumably created under oppression
but expressing aspirations she wants to see embraced everywhere.

This is a familiar doublespeak. When you do not like a writer’s politics
or political stance, you use the rhetoric of pure or eternal literature to
discount him/her; when you approve a writer’s politics, you praise him/her
for being brave and relevant to our time. This doublespeak stems from the
blindness inherent in the liberalist vision that Tatlow wholeheartedly
subscribes to. The world should be diverse and colorful, she reassures
us, but we should all be the same too, just like us.

i think this is the crucial part:

They simply cannot, for the life of them, accept that there is a
mainstream Chinese literature, that this literature is diverse,
innovative, and energetic in its own way, and that it is a vital part of
contemporary Chinese culture. They do not see Chinese society as a living
and complex system with many institutions, and, because they never accept
the legitimacy of the Chinese political order, they refuse to believe that
many cultural practices and institutions there serve functions
structurally symmetrical to their counterparts in a Western democracy.
They regard China still as an alien and ultimately threatening other, so
they eagerly seek and endorse any and all signs of what they like, and
dismiss what they do not like or understand as either outlandish or
draconian.

i think it's even relevant to the asinine WHY NO CHINESE GANGNAM question, in which the answer is given to us already that it's because of brutal state control of all media.

a "living and complex system" with "cultural practices and institutions" that are "structurally symmetrical to their counterparts in a Western democracy" YES

zizek has a big thing about this - that china and the west (and south america, and russia, etc) are both performing local variations of the same capitalism

I hadn't heard of Mo Yan before, but his work sounds interesting. I'd like to read something by him. I agree the criticism of him for not being enough of a dissident is misplaced. Obviously there is plenty of room for free expression in China and for a vibrant, complex, and lively popular culture. I think most artists and writers in China have a pretty good idea of where the out-of-bounds areas are, and as long as they stay away from those, I doubt they have much to fear from the state censors. Thankfully ideological purity does not seem to be a big deal in China. I think the emphasis on trangression of taboos in literature is often overdone by Western critics.

Good interview with a scholar of Chinese literature about the Mo Yan win:

http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?type=&id=1003&fulltext=1&media=

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ai-weiwei-goes-gangnam-style-142428435.html

cranky:
whenever i read about something being praised for being "banned in china" my fucking eyes glaze over.
the "chinese netizen" reaction i've seen is: lame. he dances around + a five year old meme. the fuck is this?
ai weiwei didn't "coin" "grass mud horse" and i really hope this doesn't unleash another avalanche of "CHINESE NETIZENS ARE FIGHTING CENSORSHIP BY CLEVER MEANS WHICH I WILL EXPLAIN TO YOU BECAUSE IT'S AN IMPORTANT THING." (this shit is easy to cover with a very elementary grasp of chinese language+society while other, real social movements and shit in china are ignored: we get that fat fuck on this american life and coverage of ai weiwei).

but hey. i dunno. it's cute. it's fun if you know who the people in the video are. i'm glad the guy can make a living.

:(((

...the dance phenomenon is turned into a powerful statement about liberty.

The original Gangnam video is unchallenging pop-culture pap. Ai’s cover version is part of a daring artistic campaign aimed at waking up the largest nation in human history.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/25/ai-weiwei-does-gangnam-style-to-make-a-point-about-freedom.html

lol

Best political story in the NY Times today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/07/business/global/facing-protests-chinas-business-investment-may-be-cooling.html

http://www.my1510.cn/article.php?id=87900

taiwanese reporter hanging out in beijing man on street perspective old people upset about reform and opening old news but good primer on working class resentment

lazy translation

chattin in a park in old beijing

chen yiting

one day, with the 18th national congress on and nothing else to do, i decided i'd spend the time wandering around one of beijing's most historic temples. the temple yard was fantastically quiet; i felt the years of history and the peaceful air of religion wash over me. there was such a great contrast between the beijing outside, the beijing that hung banners to welcome the the party's 18th national congress, and the tranquil atmosphere of the temple.

under the winter sun, i watched the elderly citizens of the capital chatting in the courtyard, passing the day with a deck of cards or a chess table. i watched women pushing their husbands in wheelchairs, both of them enjoying the sun. i picked an oldtimer named zhang out of the beautiful scene and sat for a chat with him. when he heard i had come all the way from taiwan, he called over a few of his friends to join in.

i was an interloper there, a journalist come to chat, to interrupt the tranquility of their afternoons with my questions. the old men and women of the courtyard alternated between pontificating and teaching, climbing atop the soap box, then climbing down to conduct a quick tutorial, as if instructing a wayward pupil. i felt as if i had convened my own congress.

zhang and the others were all former workers in state owned enterprises, laid off following opening up and reform. he talked about buying a house. how could anyone buy a house in beijing on the wages of a government employee? i didn't have an answer for that. he said that nobody in beijing could afford to buy their own house. when the houses provided by the state were demolished by that same state, they were given a pittance with which to purchase a new home. but they were forced out of their old home, old beijing, and driven to the suburbs beyond the fifth ring road. if they got sick, it could bankrupt them. and even going to the temple to offer incense and say a prayer-- even that cost money. he told me that the new people replacing them in old beijing were outsiders. he asked me, do you think they're using their paycheck to buy a house? no, he said, they got rich from business and family connections: nepotism. they come to beijing and buy a house and a car and drive up the price of everything. the end result is that real beijingers are booted out of their homes.

an old man named yang entered the temple courtyard and zhang called to him, we've got a young fella from taiwan here to talk to us. he had a few things to say about zhang and his theories about rich outsiders driving up prices in beijing. he told me he was from hebei, the province which borders the megacity. outsiders, he said, are even poorer than native beijingers. people like him come to beijing as a last ditch effort, when life back home becomes unbearable. but life in beijing is often just as bad for them.

the crowd around me began to grow and i the grievances of old beijing flowed like a sewer, all the corruption and cruelty of life in the city exposed. they told me about the cost of healthcare far outstripping their insurance, and the mean realities of modern medical care that saw them as just another poor customer, someone to be rushed in the door and back out. in their eyes, the china that was created by reform and opening was one that existed for the benefit of the party and its cronies.

i think the best reform in china would be if everyone stopped pushing reform, zhang said. a man named xu, who had been playing cards, interjected, hu jintao and wen jiabao, they all say we need to reform the party to save the party and the country. the whole thing is a goddamn mess.

another old guy interjected, look at all the people walking around with those red armbands now that the congress is on! public security, my ass. they're looking at everyone sideways now. where did all the people threatening public security come from? who is the party trying to protect itself from?

from the other side of the circle, someone answered, they've got a guilty conscience.

the conversation had been getting out of hand, with everyone joining in to offer an opinion. but i also noticed a few people listening but a few avoided saying much. coincidentally, those in the second group were also the ones quick to defend the legacy of mao, saying that when mao was in charge was the greatest time of their lives, a time when people were civil. i couldn't help being a bit shocked by this. but perhaps it's the same as the first time mainlanders went to taiwan and heard people talking about the taiwan independence movement.

deeply perplexed, i asked this group of archaic maoists about the cultural revolution. how could they say that china was the most civil during mao, when the cultural revolution had torn friends and families and the country apart? zhang was the first to speak. he hesitantly admitted, you're right. that was a great time.

another in the group explained that the gap between rich and poor in the new china was what disturbed them. the nostalgia for the maoist era was nostalgia for a time of relative equality. let me tell you, he said, when chairman mao was around, how much did a local politician make? even if he wanted to be corrupt, there wasn't enough money to make it worth it! we sweated our balls off working in a factory, but the boss of the factory wasn't exactly sitting in an airconditioned office, was he? but look at how it is now. everyone is on the make. yang from hubei added, they suck every drop they can from people like us. that's how these people get rich.

i asked them what they thought of hu jintao and wen jiabao? how had they done over the last ten years? would the new leadership be any better? one of the group said, i've got no clue how they've done. how can you have any idea if what they're saying is true or not?

prodding a bit, i asked, but you guys are spending the day here, not suffering at all. you've got houses in the city. what are you doing grumbling about the government? an old man in the group piped up, what are we? farm animals? i have a house that's seven square meters. zhang patted me on the shoulder, tell taiwan not to bother coming back.

i kept prodding: but reform has made china rich and powerful. china is a superpower now! as soon as i said it, an old guy named wei spat a mouthful of phlegm into the dirt, as if to punctuate my remark. zhang laughed, we're only lying to ourselves about the superpower thing. if china was so powerful, why did they get into the mess with the diaoyu islands? if they were a superpower, wouldn't they just take them back? japan might be little but they've got powerful allies. old wei added, hu jintao says that in 2020, we'll be done building a prosperous society. in 2020, people like us are still going to be living like animals. they've been rich as hell for ten years. if they're going to be any richer in 2020, i'd rather not be here.

my own little congress went on for about an hour and then the group slowly peeled away one by one.

when everyone had left, i thanked zhang and went to catch a taxi. my driver was a man of 44, who had seen 30 years of reform and opening in china. i asked him what he thought of the national congress. he shyly said that he didn't really follow the news and didn't know much about political stuff. but i caught a glimmer in his eye in the rearview and after a few moments, he started talking with genuine enthusiasm: reform and opening was a great thing. people can live in peace now. this is what the party gave us. the 18th congress is when the people can show their love to the party.

when i told him about my conversation in the park, he was shocked. he finally stammered, how... how could they tell those things to an outsider?

ty for that, dylannn.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/13/empty_suit?page=full

(probably posted before)

The Chinese first started buying chateaux in Bordeaux in 2008, with some turned into luxury hotels for high-end Chinese clientele. China is now the biggest importer of Bordeaux wines with consumption up by 110 percent in 2011 alone, and it is even building a Saint-Emilion-inspired wine theme park in the northern Dalian resort, due to open this year.

http://v.qq.com/cover/3/389tljp77jmi437.html?vid=d0011q4yhfb

lol

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/china-puts-nephew-blind-activist-trial-17843694#.ULi-PNPjm4d

http://www.ministryoftofu.com/2012/12/chinas-first-masturbation-contest-unveiled-before-world-aids-day/

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/05/world/asia/how-crash-cover-up-altered-chinas-succession.html?hp