The Aftermath

This will be my last post with Olympic connotations.

The Western AND Chinese media are starting to evaluate for themselves what the meaning of this vast spectacle that went down in Beijing really is. I will just lay down a bunch of links and let you get down on it:

This article in Time is actually pretty good and lays down a few of the real issues that China has to face now that the party is over.

The other night i watched the movie Little Red Flowers about Chinese kindergarten. Beanmilk sang along with all of the little kids and told me that -- except for a slight improvement in amenities -- nothing has changed. This movie is an adaptation of the book by Wang Shuo. The book is widely read in China, but the movie can only be found amongst the pirates slanging them DVDs from out of the back door ... This article here talks about the growing courage of the Chinese art community and the government's tacit approval (or ignorance of) the works that speak out about this society. This interview with the famous crime novelist Qiu Xiaolong also touches on these issues ...

Some people are unsure about what the true aftermath is: some believe that the Chinese are already "affected" and will take their business into their own hands, while others are sure that this is the continuation of the CCP's drive to crate an Orwellian society based on their "experiment" in Shenzhen ... the experiment aint working, as this article tells us.

The reality is too complex for me to comprehend and I am sweating n the Sultan anyway. So here are some more links for ya, keep reading and wonder how this has anything to do with you:

Here are some "reflections" by a favorite target of the ChiCom trolls Geoffrey York. I like what he says: it happens to be true. Thats why ChiCom trolls hate him so much. It probably also has to do with the hard lean of the Western media toward China bashing, but I argue that the hard lean is a function of the Chinese media's overall lack of courage and freedom in covering their own affairs. Other than the Southern Weekend, of course ...

So thats why the media is filled with stories about China's corruption, the Bank of China's nefarious dealings, the insecurity of the government and on the other end: uplifting stories on how the city with the second-most cameras in the world will stage a better Olympics by highlighting .. democracy ...

Here is some interesting commentary on The Fat Teacher and Dongpo Pork (which I have eaten and relished in its hometown of Meishan -- actually a small village outside of Meishan) ...

And last, for no reason other than i could not find a proper category for it now: an idea of "what happens next," in this story about China's forays into the Dark Continent.

Mad love.

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.

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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.

Mainstream

For the past week I have been a scab for USAToday. I haven't actually written anything for them, but just in case the Tangjiashan quake lake bursts, then I should be there to write something up about the ghost towns of Beichuan, Mianyang and Mianzhu and all of the people whose houses and fields have been washed away.

People here are convinced that the Party will save them from any floods. Most people believe that the danger is over and that the lake will not break through its barriers and flood the Chengdu plain. In the foreign media, it seems to be a competition as to who can ratchet up the scariest headline. If the dam breaks, it will affect more than a million people and destroy the cities of Mianzhu and Mianyang.

Meanwhile, me and my man Andreas the Photographer are thinking of working on three different stories, all of them long and drawn out, complex and far-flung, insightful and underreported. We hope to sell them to universities or think tanks...hehehe

In Dujiangyan, we visited the tourist park around the 2000-year old irrigation project. The project itself and most of the works around it are intact and working. The only real casualty is the Two Princes Temple. A Daoist Temple built on the hillside overlooking the irrigation project which honors the Gods of Earth, Water and Sky, gives instructions on how to maintain the project in four-character verse and reveres Li Bing (head of the project back in the day) and his two sons.

Other than the loss of Two Princes Temple, there are cracks and shifts in the park's walkways and walls, but all in all it looks fine. The city hope to have tourists roam through and confirm this starting as early as the 20th of June.

Tomorrow we head back up to Qing Cheng Mountain and do some research on what was destroyed and what not up there. Part of the work is for the Sichuan Quake Relief people, the other part is for a *feature* on the impact of the quake on the tourism industry, from the big tour operators down to the actual sites and further down to Old Wang the innkeeper who ain't got no inn.

I wrote a column for antiwar.com the other day about China -- its kinda rambling, but the point was to A) show that aint nothing changed for the Party and B) there are sad similarities between the CCP and the Republocrats ...

I look forward to Portland and decompression time. my friends there think it will take me a year to un-China myself ...

These next few months will be very trying. Sometimes I wish i could fast-forward through to Portland.