CIT Blog Archive - 2009
Foreign Devilry*: A Chinese-Speaking American's Blog
by Brantley Collins, Co-Director of CIT
Christmas in Shanghai
September 27, 2009
December 6th Update: As usual, the “Christmas spirit” of commercialism is in full evidence in Shanghai this year, filling Chinese shoppers with Western cheer. I didn't see any evidence of killer Santas, lame Santa costumes, or hip-hop Christmas choirs this time, though, so it appears that (as in everything else) China is making progress in its celebration of Christmas. And as you can see from the last photo below, taken in the lobby of Kunming's Weilong Hotel on November 17th, the imperial presence of Christmas in China isn't limited to coastal cosmopolitan centers anymore—it has extended its dominion far into the country’s interior:
Click on the photos below to see larger versions.
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Lovely decorations at the |
A blurry gold Christmas tree captured |
Unencumbered by Thanksgiving, |
Original post: One of the nice things about being in Shanghai late in the year—besides avoiding any possibility of hot weather—is the opportunity to experience a Christmas atmosphere in China. It’s one of the consequences of American cultural influence that Christmas is now celebrated by a lot of people there, primarily in the form of decorations and shopping. (What it comes down to, naturally, is that Christmas is another way for the purveyors of materialism to get people to engage in some good old American-style self-indulgence.) I find it all good fun, personally, because there’s no danger of 5,000 years of Chinese culture being done in by a fat, bearded white man in a red suit, but depending on your opinions about globalization I suppose it could be quite disturbing. In any case, it’s certainly a bit surreal to hear “Jingle Bells” in a random Shanghai store and to see statues of Santa Claus, local people dressed up like Santa (not always very convincingly, mind you), enormous Christmas trees, and Christmas lights side-by-side with symbols of Chinese culture. And it’s fascinating to see the Chinese interpretation of Christmas—in some cases you would think you’re in the US, and in other cases they get it horribly or hilariously wrong:
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Christmas lights adorn the trees on |
Every year there's a big |
Where it starts to go wrong: |
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A vaguely pig-like Santa |
A psychotic Santa Claus: apparently |
...or about to go to war with |
Making Connections in Rural China
September 10, 2009
The boy held out a piece of fruit and looked into my Western eyes. With the confident familiarity of someone who frequently came into contact with foreign tourists, but with no discernible greed or manipulativeness, he asked me for some paltry sum for it–an amount that he no doubt knew would be nothing to me, though I'm sure no local would have paid half that much. He and his brother smiled, along with the other village residents standing around us, and their smiles were genuine. Their warmth touched me across so many divides: of age, of ethnicity, of upbringing, of culture, of geography, of material wealth. But it also made me intensely conscious of all of those divisions. I was moved both by a kind of sympathy for the limitations that I knew this boy's life would be lived within and by an unexpected jealousy that I would never experience the kind of life he seemed to be living quite happily–a life uncomplicated and untainted by the questionable influences of modern American life. More than anything, what touched me was a profound sense of the beauty of the place and the people in it. Standing there on that long staircase that climbed up the side of the gorge from the waters of the Yangtze, I felt that this moment was the culmination of many years of dreaming for me. For so long I had wanted to stand in this place, to see these sights, to talk with people like this, to feel these feelings, and it was all more meaningful than I could possibly communicate to anyone.
I gave the boy what he had asked and thanked him. I was caught so off guard emotionally that I didn't think about what I was doing, and I've often wanted to smack myself for not saying more, for not giving more. It was such an inadequate gesture, inadequate to express all that I wished I could somehow share with him and with everyone there. But maybe in the end that simple response was the best thing I could have done. Would offering more money have seemed like a kind of insult? Was there anything I could have said that would have been understood better than a heartfelt "thank you"?
Later, I broke down in front of the other members of my tour group, all friends and acquaintances. I don't think they knew what to make of my reaction, not knowing everything that was behind it. I tried to tell them that I wasn't sad; I was just overwhelmed with so many emotions that they could not be contained. The only way to deal with them was to let them flow. Under other circumstances such a public display of emotion would have been humiliating, but in that moment of pure feeling I didn't care. And the echoes of that feeling have stayed with me ever since.
That encounter occurred on my first trip to Mainland China in 2001. Although I've had any number of memorable experiences in China of every kind, probably the most emotionally profound experiences I've had have been in my contact with people living in rural areas in China. The sense I always get when I'm in China of life being lived more deeply, with more immediacy and more vitality, is magnified in areas that are less touched by modernization and Westernization. The people living in these areas seem more there–less distracted, less needy, less divided, in the way that modern media technology, consumer culture, and the faster-paced life of cities seem to make us all.
On a trip to Jiangxi a few years later, I had a similar but less overwhelming experience in a small rural village, a place that was definitely not part of the China promoted by flashy tourism advertisements and government propaganda. A member of our group had grown up there, and we were invited to spend a day with the locals. I was told that I was the first foreigner (or perhaps they meant the first Westerner) ever to visit their village. Who knows whether that was literally true, but I definitely felt like a bit of a celebrity, with a group of local children constantly following me around. They were fascinated with my camcorder and had me play back recordings of them several times so they could see themselves. As with the boy in the Yangtze village, the untainted joy of these children left a deep impression on me. But instead of trying to capture the experience in words, I'll let this video footage tell a little of the tale:
I hope that everyone who travels to China is fortunate enough to have experiences like these with the local people. They're easy to find, even while in a tour group and even within a big city, if you're open to them. To say that they can be life-changing may be a cliché, but it's not an exaggeration.
Shanghai's Disappearing Shíkùmén (石库门)
August 14, 2009
In a previous post, I mentioned China's "economic miracle." The most miraculous thing about it is that it has not (so far) been accompanied by crippling social instability or insurmountable problems. However, the costs of this revolution are also quite real and multifaceted. One of these costs is the rapid loss of China's traditional culture, including the environments in which this traditional culture was born and has thrived.
In Shanghai, for example, vast tracts of the city filled with traditional buildings are being razed and replaced with new high-rise buildings. Though they provide people with cleaner, more comfortable, more modern living and working environments, these new buildings seem to result in a much more isolated and less intimate community atmosphere than the traditional neighborhoods that the majority of Shanghai's population used to live in. These neighborhoods were built around a style of house called "shíkùmén," or "stone gates," which over time often became extremely crowded as they were subdivided into smaller units.
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Shikumen doors |
Laundry and furniture in a shikumen lane |
Shikumen residents |
When I first visited my wife's grandmother's neighborhood seven years ago, my impression of these shikumen was that they were usually dirty and unbelievably cramped, and that no one who lived in them could have any privacy whatsoever, or even real comfort. Some of them, in fact, reminded me of rabbit warrens or bunkers of some sort, with ladders, steep stairways, and narrow, dimly-lit hallways connecting their cramped rooms. They were definitely not the kind of place I could see myself ever getting used to.
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Tiny kitten on a shikumen ledge |
Kitten on the edge |
"Humankind has only one planet |
After having spent some time there and having observed the residents' lifestyle, however, I came to see the other side of life in the shikumen: the sense of intimacy, interconnectedness, and community responsibility that they fostered, especially given the fact that the same families have often inhabited these houses for generations. For someone who had grown up in such a place, the shikumen way of life would no doubt seem natural and comfortable in a way that life in one of the newer buildings could probably never be. With activities like washing clothes and playing chess often done outside, in the small lanes on which these houses are located, neighbors inevitably interact every day and come to know one another well. In Shanghai's newer buildings, on the other hand, neighbors often don't seem to know each other, and they have little incentive to get to know each other, because they're all comfortably shut away and don't have to interact. I'll admit that, yes, I too would much rather live in one of these comfortable new units, which are much more like the apartments many Americans are used to living in. But l can't help feeling that the disappearance of the shikumen and the resulting fragmentation of Shanghai's communities is, at least in one way, unfortunate.
Here, then, is a tribute to Shanghai's shikumen, in the form of these photos I took on my most recent visit to my wife's grandmother's neighborhood. It's entirely possible that in the next few years these homes, too, and with them a great deal of history, will disappear.
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Looming skyscraper in the haze: |
More increasingly rare |
Shikumen residents: |
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The face of change |
A curving shikumen lane |
Shikumen walls |
Thoughts on the recent violence in Xinjiang
July 15, 2009
Although I don't intend to deal directly with political issues in this blog, one goal I have is to foster a better understanding of China among the non-Chinese who may read this blog, in whatever small way I can. In addition, I'm sure there are many non-Chinese who are wondering whether it's safe to travel in China right now, and in Xinjiang in particular. As a result, I feel I should say something about the recent violence and ongoing tension in Ürümchi and Xinjiang Province.
First of all, we at CIT would like to express our sorrow and sympathy for the victims and their families. Whatever the truth is about the violence that occurred on July 5, it is certain that many innocent people were killed. And whatever its political significance, this event was, above all, a personal tragedy for everyone touched by it.
From a traveler's perspective, the first thing to know is that the government of China and, for that matter, most of the Chinese people place the highest priority on stability and "keeping the peace." In the wake of the violence that occurred on July 5, the reports I've read that seem to be the most objective say that riot police were effective in preventing further violence and deterioration of the situation. (If they had not, it is quite possible that many more Uighurs and Han Chinese, both, would have died.) Whatever ongoing problems and tensions exist in Xinjiang, I fully expect the Chinese government to continue to be effective in maintaining stability. For the time being, I don't believe that travelers in Xinjiang will be at risk. That said, of course travelers should be aware of the situation, make prudent decisions, and avoid putting themselves in potentially dangerous situations. Our experienced and concerned tour guides will help ensure that this does not happen, and our tours will avoid any potentially dangerous areas.
A related concern is the increase in anti-American and anti-Western sentiment in China. My experiences in China suggest that whatever political issues the Chinese people may be upset about (often with good reason), many of them continue to be interested in the West and in Western culture, and as a general rule are friendly and welcoming. They don't take whatever anger or frustration they may feel out on individual Westerners, and I've never personally known any Westerners traveling in China who were the victims of violence. (In fact, I don't even recall ever hearing of any such incidents.)
I happened to be in China during the immediate aftermath of the 2001 "Hainan Island incident," in which an American spy plane collided with a Chinese military jet, killing the Chinese pilot. Though there was much discussion of the incident and some (understandable) anger among the Chinese, I did not sense any anti-American sentiment directed toward me. In the years since, the image of the United States and the West in general has deteriorated in China, but the fundamental safety of Western travelers in China remains assured. I would guess that in some situations and places, anti-Western sentiment might be more obvious (take, for example, this American reporter's experiences in trying to interview Uighurs about the recent violence), but these tend to be extreme and isolated situations that don't reflect the typical traveler's experience. (In this reporter's case, is it surprising that he would have such an experience on the streets of Ürümchi in the aftermath of the killings of so many Han Chinese and in the context of so much Western media bias? The threat of violence was not justified, of course, but surely it can't be a surprise that such an incident would occur.)
Whatever criticisms can be made about issues like the Chinese government's policies toward Xinjiang and Tibet, I am confident that the risk to travelers in China, even in those particular places, is minimal. In fact, the risk is probably lower than in most places in the world you might choose to travel to.
From a broader perspective, it is deeply saddening to see the continued lack of understanding between China and the Western world that has been highlighted by the violence in Ürümchi. I've been reading the comments left by both Chinese and non-Chinese readers in response to some articles and blog posts about the situation (see the links below), and they reveal a great deal of suspicion, ignorance, and anger on the part of people on both sides who are clearly intelligent and well-educated. Obviously, anonymous comments made on the Internet are not the best source of sober and even-handed reflection, but the interaction among these people is both revealing and disturbing. As is generally the case regarding issues like the ethnic and economic tensions in Xinjiang, the truth is complex. Unfortunately, what we in the West (especially the U.S.) are usually exposed to is a fairly simplistic and one-sided account that tends to reinforce our prejudices about the Chinese government. While I would never suggest that the Chinese government be exempt from criticism, we Westerners really need to be sure that we look at the situation objectively and become better informed before we make strong judgments. I would not presume to say what "the truth" about China's policies toward Uighurs and Xinjiang is, but I think reading these articles and the responses to them is a good beginning in determining for yourself where the truth lies.
Accounts of violence in Xinjiang (BBC News)
Ürümchi riots signal dark days ahead (The Telegraph)
As an American who is keenly aware of the history of racism in my own country, I hope that the Chinese people will be quicker to engage in constructive self-criticism than my country was. (I believe that there is already plenty of evidence to suggest they have done so and will continue to do so, but it's easy for people to find excuses to avoid that difficult process.) I also hope that we in the West will be more objective and better-informed in our attitudes toward China. With this blog, I will try to make a small contribution to that hope.
China's Drinking Culture
June 25, 2009
One of my many misconceptions about daily life for the typical Chinese that I mentioned in my first blog entry concerned drinking and partying. Though I had forced down some Chinese liquor on one or two occasions before going to Taiwan for a study abroad program, I still thought of the "Chinese personality" as rather sober and strait-laced. Boy, was I wrong. It's foolish to think in absolutes about any culture, especially one as rich and varied as China's, and I quickly discovered the party animal side of Chinese culture. For many Chinese, it's customary to make frequent toasts at meals, play drinking games, have drinking competitions, and drink prodigiously while engaging in activities like karaoke. If you're a foreigner, they may take it easier on you, or they may be eager to take you down. And you may get your liver handed to you.
Although there are a lot of drinking stories I could tell, one of the first that comes to mind is from a trip to Jiangxi Province with a couple of my wife's friends from Shanghai. Having seen them drink just about every experienced drinker they've encountered into a stupor, I now know not to provoke them. But in my first experiences with them, I was like a mischievous child poking a cute, furry wolverine with a stick. Needless to say, I got clawed, chewed up, and spit back out.
On that particular occasion, the drinking began on a red-eye train trip from Shanghai to Nanchang. Our friends brought a bottle of Chinese liquor (白酒, or "baijiu") with them, but once the drinking began after most of the passengers had gone to sleep, that bottle lasted all of a few minutes. We then relocated to the area at the end of the car, as far away from any sleeping passengers as possible, and proceeded to play drinking games while sitting on the floor. As a tenderfoot playing against sly and savvy veterans, I managed to lose just about every round and had to endure constant imbibing just to get the small satisfaction of occasionally making them take a swig. And naturally, as I got drunker, I got worse and worse at these games. It was the most vicious of vicious circles. Over the course of the night's festivities, we drank every last can or bottle of alcohol available on the entire train...and it was a BIG train with a LOT of people. I remember taking a long stumble through I don't know how many cars and past I don't know how many startled passengers (I was the lone white guy on a train full of hundreds of locals, and I was appearing out of nowhere) to the front of the train, where there was rumored to be more beer, and being elated to find that they did indeed have a few more cans. In the end, I collapsed on my bunk and passed out while my still bright-eyed companions outdrank some random passenger who had foolishly decided to join us - and who, we found out later, missed his stop while sprawled out unconscious.
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The wolverines with their hapless (yet happy) victim
And that was only the beginning. After three or four hours of sleep for me, and even less for my friends, we got up ridiculously early to exit the train and begin our sightseeing, and the drinking continued at lunch with another bottle of baijiu. For my friends, there was nothing demoralizing or even unusual about this. For me, however, it was starting to become intimidatingly clear how much pain the next few days held in store for me.
So the moral of this post is that depending on the company you keep while in China, be prepared for your liver to take a serious beating. If my liver could talk, it would go off on me like Christian Bale on a wayward dolly grip for the abuse I've dealt out to it during my stays in China. On the other hand, I've gotten a lot of fun and some good stories in return. Just be careful, folks, because you may end up biting off more than you can chew. And watch out for those Shanghai women! They may be sophisticated and well-dressed (the photos above don't do these two justice), but they can probably drink you under the table too.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
Burgeoning Shanghai
June 14, 2009
Ask anyone who's been to China more than once in the last twenty years about their impressions of China, and invariably one of the first things they'll talk about is the unbelievable pace of growth and change. Although China does face significant problems that it must deal with over the next few decades, its "economic miracle" is undeniable to anyone who has witnessed it firsthand. One of the places where this growth is most conspicuous is Shanghai. My wife and I have visited Shanghai five times in the last seven years, and every time we go back the changes are enormous - so enormous that they can be overwhelming, even to a Shanghai native like her. In just the last two decades, Shanghai has become a forest of gleaming high-rise buildings and shining neon lights, with a lively, even febrile nightlife, hordes of shoppers buying the latest fashions and electronics, and unimaginable sums of money changing hands on a daily basis. Here are some photos that testify to the rapid pace of life and expansion in the largest city in China (click on the photos below for larger image files):
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An area in downtown Shanghai
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Neon lights on Shanghai's famous Nanjing Road
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Pudong, the area east of the Huangpu River that used to be
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Pudong at night
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The Ever-Surprising, Always-Stimulating Nature of Travel in China
June 5, 2009
The process began as I desperately clutched the seat in front of me, wondering whether I would even survive the ride into Taipei from the airport. No doubt the driver, my Chinese professor's brother, found my fear quaint and amusing as he weaved nonchalantly through the crush of contending cars. Driving with a heedless brusqueness that would have evoked a string of one-finger salutes and perhaps a few acts of violence in most American cities, he aroused the ire of no one on that highway in Taiwan. Most of the other drivers were too busy doing exactly the same thing to even notice him. So it was with these stomach-churning observations that my process of disillusionment began, not one hour after I had first set foot in Asia.
Strange mannequins in a Shanghai shop - Why are some of them naked?
As a white American who was double-majoring in philosophy and Mandarin, my first acquaintance with China and Chinese culture was primarily academic. I had an idealized impression of Chinese culture formed by the many hours I had spent analyzing the Analects of Confucius, stumbling through t'ai chi, meditating to Buddhist chants, struggling with the abstractions of Chinese poetry, listening intently to the feverish plinkety-plink of classical Chinese music while drinking green tea and inhaling incense smoke, and scratching out Chinese calligraphy that must have seemed to my Chinese friends like the scratchings of a second-grader - in other words, through an ivory-tower exploration of China's vast cultural panorama. Although I had had a number of close Chinese friends for years, they were primarily well-educated, somewhat Westernized Chinese who were not at all representative of the typical citizen of China or Taiwan. So I guess it's no surprise that some part of me always expected to find in the daily lives of the Chinese people a more elevated, culturally sophisticated lifestyle than I had observed in American society. In that sense, I've had some disappointing experiences in China: I've seen pollution, ignorance and backwardness, a dog-eat-dog business mentality, shallow popular culture, and, of course, harrowing city traffic (not to say, of course, that these same flaws and many more can't be found in the United States). Fortunately, looking back on the last thirteen years of my travels there, I can say those experiences have been far outweighed by the many more pleasant surprises that China has given me, in addition to treasured friendships, soul-cleansing mountain hikes, touching encounters with earnest rural villagers, late-night strolls through the urban canyons of Shanghai, euphoric drunken karaoke binges, wide-eyed walks along ancient city walls, and meditative moments in temples and teahouses, all of which have made every day of my time there fresh and stimulating. China is a land rich with paradoxes and brimming with vitality.
Relaxing in a boat on West Lake in Hangzhou
These are the things that I'll be sharing with you in this blog, and these are the things that I hope our company will allow some of you to experience for yourselves. When you travel anywhere, life is more vivid, more intense, somehow more REAL than it is during the mundane routine of daily life. Nowhere has that been as true for me as it is in China. No matter what kind of life you've lived, traveling to China will be one of the best things you've ever done - especially with the extensive knowledge, practical experience, and thoughtful service that my Shanghainese wife and her Cantonese partner, along with our many connections in China, can provide. Our tours are a good place to start your own cultural journey.
Welcome, then, to the home of China International Travel CA, Inc. I hope you enjoy browsing our website and watching it grow. Please feel free to contact us with any questions you have.
* "Foreign devil" is a loose translation of the traditional, now only mildly pejorative Chinese term for foreigners, Westerners in particular.
Usage: A foreign devil making a fool of himself and all his fellow foreign devils in a karaoke room
