China reacts to Avatar the Movie

Avatar the movie opened up in China on January 4th, 2010. Lines stretched for blocks outside of most every theater in the nation for the next week as waves of Chinese went to see the next stage in movie evolution, 3D fantasy on a Hollywood scale. I went on the 6th and from the first few seconds, when water droplets from the crygenic sleep chamber floated right in front of my face, I sat agape and fascinated by the visual spectacle. All around me, I heard the elated gasps and shrieks of an enraptured audience.

What followed afterward, all across the world, was an analysis of the movie's visuals and message from dozens of perspectives. In the US, editorials criticized the movie for employing the same old "white guy saves the natives" guilt-fantasy that has been the theme of many a movie, from Dances with Wolves to a New World. In China, the reaction to the message was no less intense, but focused on a much more immediate, more Chinese problem. The problem of Home.

For the past 20 years, China has been playing catch up, economically, with the rest of the world. China as a nation is catching up with the big boys and is many ways surpassing them and an integral part of that success has been the real estate boom that has turned villages like Shenzhen into international powerhouses and forever transformed the skylines of every major (and minor) city in China. China is urbanizing very quickly and the long-sought after goal of turning farmers into factory workers and laborers is close at hand, but the sacrifices made by millions of Chinese in the name of their Motherland and Progress is starting to tear at the social fabric.

The theater fell silent near the middle of the movie when the Nav'i were forced to watch their home, the Mother Tree, be destroyed and razed to the ground. The silence was full and begged for expression. At the time, I thought it was the pain shared in a theater and did not realize how big the outpouring of comments and essays and blogposts would be the very next day. On popular blogs like Mop, hundreds of comments compared the destruction of the Navi'i home with the widespread demolition of homes across China. Other sites, like ChinaSmack and EastSouthWestNorth translated fragments of these posts for foreign consumption, but they could only give a small taste of what was really boiling underneath.

One essay in particular, posted on the wildly popular Douban.com, is an emotional and in depth response to the rampant demolition of peoples' homes. The essay does not deal with the old, cultural neighborhoods and their value as historical relics, but goes into the very emotional idea of one's home. The author questions whether or not Chinese today actually can call any place they live in a home, because in China one cannot "own" a piece of property, but only "rent" it for up to 70 years. Not only does one never actually own the home or the land one lives on, but the local government can at any moment change their plans and decide to build a road through your neighborhood. Even more galling is the fact that private developers and local officials often conspire to get rid of poor workers and farmers, then use the land to build (or not to build) high rises -- the government forces the people off of the land with minimum compensation then sells the land to the developer for a good price, after which the developer sells the land and any improvements to the growing affluent class of Chinese that are thoroughly enjoying China's economic miracle. The workers are left with inadequate compensation and the destruction of their community.

The comments on this essay are also revealing, in that the majority of them express the same disgust for developers and officials and fully half of the responses say "we are waiting for you to be erased," because essays like these, stories like these are suppressed by the government in order to maintain social stability.

A case in point is the recent tragic death of a woman in Chengdu, who climbed to the roof of her home in November 2009 and set herself on fire in full view of onlookers, police and the demolition crew poised to destroy her home. The woman, named Tang Fuzhen, has a very typical story: in 1996 she built her home here and lived for 10 years without any interference from the authorities. In August of 2007, the local government decided to build a waste management plant near her home. In October, they told her her home was illegal and she would have to leave.

This story, although one of thousands of similar tragic tales, swept through the web like wildfire. Netease quickly deleted their coverage of the story, but not before thousands of netizens left their often angry, but mostly hopeless remarks.

Avatar, or more specifically the spectacle of Mother Tree falling in flames, has brought the anger of the netizen and the tragedy of the common, poor laborer into everyone's living room. People who normally would not even think of such things, just go about their daily business in a fast paced growing economy that requires fast wits and daring, these people are suddenly talking about the pain of losing a home and the absurdity of "renting" a plot of land that cannot be passed on to children or grandchildren. This is a matter of great concern for Chinese parents. The family structure here is still very strong, even after years of being battered by wars, famines, revolutions and unfettered capitalism. For a Chinese to not help his children buy a home is still very rare, so with each demolition and accompanying tragedy, this very deep-rooted need -- to provide for one's children -- is threatened.

It is very revealing to see that many Westerners, especially Americans, choose to see the guilt/fantasy of the white man redeeming himself and saving the planet.

A new day rising?

chillin with my patna 10z taking care of a money crop bumping Nas's new album, which if you haven't heard is another classic. check it out asap.

here is a little post inspired by what I have been thinking about recently and Obama's surprise Peace Prize. I was inspired by my main man Q to include a few words about WHY exactly Oslo decided to award this at this time. At first, I thought premature and linked to American domestic politics, but now after speaking with Q i believe it might have everything to do with the possible destructive fallout of America's domestic woes spilling out into international arenas and Oslo's not so subtle attempt to manipulate opinion. It def. seems like a calculated move as opposed to a decision based on merit. Oslo did this before with Willy Brandt, as described in teh NYT story about the Nobel ...

What some people find solace in

This story is getting passed around the elderly, all-white, businesspeople circle that i have a toe in.

I think they may be smug about the fact that Blacks and Hispanics defaulted on many of their loans. Here is another story, by Stanley Kurtz, that basically lays the blame of the economic meltdown on defaulting Blacks and Latinos who went through ACORN to get their loans.

ACORN might pop up in the future as part of the large and diverse group responsible for this economic crisis:

The politicians, bought up and ready to preach. The bankers and lenders, bored with the ordinary games and desperate for those high-risk profits. Wall Street, with nothing better to do then create more financial instruments to play with and spread around the globe. And Americans, dumb enough to believe anything, yet save nothing.

The more fingers get pointed, the more of us will realize that it was the entire nation at fault. This is an indictment of foolishness and arrogance. It must be hard to swallow for a country used to hearing we are "the greatest force for good," but its necessary. America can only move forward AFTER weathering crises like this one.

Peep this story and any other Engdahl writes ...

Update:

Newsweek drops some common sense into the bucket of foolishness we hear daily.

This site takes it a bit further and has a database of other interesting news.

Another small update:

Spengler is that guy you love to hate. He's an intellectual realist with no love for dreamers. Here is why corruption in China forces them to invest here in the USA, where hockey mom's ensure our freedom -- only to pass it on to the Piano Children of China, while bombing the Sanctioned Orphans of the Middle East.

What we deserve

I went to watch the Vp debate at Nicole's friend's house. A lot of very liberal women were there and we basically laughed a lot at what Palin had to say and especially how she said it ...

But i had a sick feeling in my stomach as I watched, because I know that a large chunk of America identifies with her grammatical errors, down-home smarmy sarcasm and appeals to the lowest common denominator.

I urge everyone to vote (for Obama) and come November if the ignorant bastards manage to pull out a win and we have a McCain Administration, well then the US deserves whatever consequences come out of that. By US i mean the nation as a whole. In my backyard, I will be doing my thing and living my way and that is still possible in this country.

Even with fears of Depressions and Never-ending Wars, there are regions and cities throughout the US that can and should carry on with Obama's vision of our society, regardless of which politician makes it into office.

I have always thought that Obama represents a return of hope and energy and his victory means more as a symbolic message to every American and to the world at large. Do we need him to win to feel and embody and act upon a message of change and hope?

Shit. We thought 8 years of idiocy was enough to convince Cracker America. But i guess we overestimated the nation and underestimated the impact of all those studies that point to the dismal state in our education system. Yesterday i saw a dude roll around in a car that had "Barack Obama is a fascist" written on the back in white paint.

I doubled over in laughter, then shook my head in disgust. I am so tired of people thinking Americans are fools, but then again it is time we moved away from this silly belief in abstract nationality. I love the trees, mountains, rivers and the skies, no gov can take those away.

Vote Obama! Live the Dream!

"you don't have to believe in your government to be a good American, you just have to believe in your country"

Harold and Kumar: Escape From Guantanamo is the ill.

Its all bad; its all good

My landlord Nikki V is doing a piece for KBOO Radio about austerity measures people (may or may not have learned from their parents/grandparents) are using to get by in "this nasty economy."

I listen with mild interest, because so far my economy seems unaffected by Wall Street's 777+ drop this week after the big bailout failed to get past the taxpayer. I mean, please, does any of those bankers truly believe we are THAT stupid? Supporting a war for oil is one thing, but supporting the big wig banker down the street -- the same guy working on your foreclosure -- naw man. no love for the banker.

I wonder how long I will be able to sit and observe all of this going on before i have to work the strip again just to pay rent ...

Is anyone out there tightening the belt? I know that there are now about 100,000 yuppies wondering what to do with themselves in NYC. They better start learning Chinese and drinking baijiu with some corrupt greedy bureaucrats in Beijing ... Joint Ventures will need their "help" trying to get lying ass Chinese partners to do the right thing ...

The right thing ... the Shenzhou spacewalk is to the Sanlu milk scandal what Palin is to the Republican Party is what Cruise missiles are to Lewinsky is what TV is to woes is what a religion is to the spirit.

There was an insert in last Sunday's paper called Obsession: Radical Islam's War against the West. It caught the attention of a few people ... as it is some pretty uninformative scare-mongering propaganda. The basic goal of the DVD is to equate Radical Islam with Nazism both as anti-Semitic and anti-Western.

Now a few people have pointed out that the Treaty of Versailles did help to bring about Hitler, but no one would go so far as to excuse the Nazis for what they did because of WWI. The Treaty of Versailles took land from the Germans and brought about massive economic collapse in that country .. is that an excuse for genocide? never.

So if we keep playing this relativist game, then we have to equate

the conditions in Germany during the 1930s
the causes of those conditions
Germany's response

to

the conditions in the Middle East since the end of WWI
the causes of those conditions
and Islam's response

it gets a little messy and circumstantial. But i think if you read the history of the Middle East since WWI and replace the Middle East with, say, the US, then you will (if you are American) most likely find yourself contemplating mass rebellion and guerrilla warfare. The Arab states were partitioned and controlled by outside forces (Britain, France, US) and pitted against each other and eventually placed under the control of the most iron-fisted despots in the region. Of course an ideology of rebellion will arise out of those conditions ...

I suppose the true link between Nazism and Radical Islam is the Jewish State of Israel. The Nazis (and their many many European collaborators) felt guilty enough to give the Jews a state, but they did not feel guilty enough to give them Switzerland or Luxembourg or Prussia or some other swath of territory from the people who slew them.

Instead, Europe made the Arabs pay for their mistake. And used the Book as justification.

What will arise, eventually, out of America's economic crisis and the wars around the world is a new appreciation for History amongst a people (Americans) who have been taught to believe that history died during the boat trip to the New World. If it means re-learning what Grampa did to get by during the hard times, or what exactly hobo glyphs are or just the aftermath of the Great War ... it will be a maturing of our young nation. Maybe I will live to see it.

Friedmann has found his issue

He is just hammering away, hammering away at the alternative, renewable energy grid that would bring the US out of its doldrums. No mercy. I remember being annoyed with good ol TF for some of his views on globalization and war in the middle east, but he's got this one nailed. his issue is important and his thoughts are clear: every column rips into the opposition and drops knowledge on what we can do. props.

speaking of getting ripped (i know i link to the NYT a lot, but hey, they got good stuff these days), McCain gets the proverbial "second orifice" from Frank Rich in this one. I laffed pretty hard at some of the statements .. not meant to be that funny, but you know there was more behind the statement that Rich left out cuz he ain't offensive.

The death of traditions

It is so hot and humid in Chengdu right now that my brain is bathing in its own liquid, humming strange tunes to itself and sending me images of massive artillery guns firing into the distance.

Spengler is a columnist for Asia Times who has derided the Europeans for lacking the courage to face the modern world, upholds the Christian belief in salvation through God's grace as the answer to the world's crisis of faith and who is certain that traditional societies must change in the face of today, or perish.

And many other themes, some of which he touches on in this latest column about America's special place in the world and what he believes is Obama's deepest desire: to rid the US of that which grants us this special place, modernity.

*********************

I lament the demise of funk streets the world over. I have been actively seeking out the jabbering markets where chickens are held up for inspection, approved, beheaded and plucked before your very eyes; the courtyards of stone and their rickety wooden enclosure, with door gods and drying tobacco leaf; the delicate dance of a family-supported courtship and marriage; the one stringed wailing and the gourd flutes; family charts, bamboo weaves and dog-hair sandbags.

But they are dying the world over. In some places quicker than others and a few places not at all, but their fate is sealed by the progress of the modern world.

In my own neighborhood, the old Hakka traditions are resting in the cataracts of an 80 year old as he sips tea and fingers his mahjiong pieces.

Every time I meet my man Zhuang Jian for tea, we trade bitter reports of this and that place lost forever to the modern hordes and whisper of the few that still survive. These conversations always end in silence, whereupon we turn to money issues and quote Candide:

"... one's own garden ..."

My heart aches when i read of this prognosis for the world: Modernity and the lonely quest of the individual for solace on earth and grace from heaven. Is it said any differently in Eccliastes or the Dao De Jing? I think tribalism is immortal in us and community is our last gasp to ward off death, but in the end i am my only keeper -- I suppose i lament what is gone until i am a part of what will endure.

Dammit, Spengler is right. Wherever I have gone in the world, people are choosing, being forced to choose and just plain drifting into the real world. The only way to reconcile the two worlds is to create things which cause others to dream. Make wishes and see them come true ... Aha! i finally know what the Auryn means!

And so the lamenting pray and hope for God's retribution before his grace. Only the ghosts of the dream world actually spout Mayan prophecies of 2012 to each other, discuss the civilizations that existed 10,000 years ago and that we are doomed to meet their fate.

2012 allows us to be there for it and have the last laugh on guys like Spengler when God's grace falls on those who longed for what's lost, instead of those who embraced what is. It is the Great Dream of all dreamers.

holla at me

does anyone out there work with alternative fuels/renewable energy on a large scale -- research, investment, development, promotion over breakfast at the sunny side up on lyndale can ya feel me ???

i bet there are at least five peeps reading this. anyway. this story and others like it have me very excited and optimistic. i'm tellin you ... we all goin green.

here is a story that's pretty funny: China and India being "more green" than the US. Oh my Lord is that hilarious. but its an interesting point. China and India are polluted nations and its getting worse. but they head to open air markets for their food and ride bikes. it has to do with economic choices rather than green choices. If everyone in China could get a car, they would.

The fusion of economic choices with environmental choices can create a very fine society: making green living desirable because it represents modernity, consciousness and conjures up images of sci-fi Utopias ....

I wish i knew more. so holla at a ninja!

the sad truth for tibetans and uighers

is that unless China falls apart, freedom will be a dream fulfilled only far from home.

we Westerners should consider what exactly drives our support for Tibetan/Uigher/Burmese freedom. The San Francisco authorities did their best to maintain free speech for all while respecting the integrity of the Olympic Flame. This show of strength by a free society is necessary and powerful when confronting oppression in a foreign country. Remember that the American dream began as a beacon in the dark.