Subtitle: What Bush should've read before he got on the plane.
I lived in China, I am fluent in Chinese, and I have a degree in East Asian Studies. I have been thinking about posting about China for a while. When the topic comes up on dKos (or anywhere else, like...to pick a place at random... the White House), there is a lot of ignorance going around.
While a person born in any culture, be it old or new, big or small, is proud of their culture, the Chinese are much like the Americans in that they are used to being the big kahunas. Not only that, but they've been the big kahunas for over 2000 years, whereas we can only boast over 200 years of history and less than a century of big kahuna-ism.
You can't waltz into any country and say "Hey, your government sucks" (although that might find a warm reception in America these days). Even if you think it. You need to do a lot of looking and listening and building relationships, and then you can approach the subject - and at that point, it doesn't have to be confrontational. It'd be nice if Bush learned that before going over there, but I doubt it.
So, here we go on our magical whirlwind tour. In the last part, I will talk about a few important points of Chinese culture that I think Bush should've studied up on before he went - but I think China's present is so tied to its past, it is hard to talk about China today without a firm grounding in its history. I tried to pick out the significant pieces of its history and to highlight events and themes that will add to your understanding of China today.
Contents:
Dynasties - The Abbreviated Version
May 4th, 1919 to Oct 1, 1949
Mao
Post-Mao
My Personal Experiences
(If you read one thing, read this, about the importance of face in Chinese culture)
Dynasties - The Abbreviated Version
A scholar of Tang dynasty style poetry or pre-modern Chinese history might disagree with me, but I find it is easiest to remember dynasties by dates and a few words or phrases associated with each of them. Occasionally, there is something in modern Chinese culture that relates amazingly well to something you can learn from the dynasties (for example, Mao being seen as a god, much like Confucious was seen as a god)... so it's good to have an idea of what went on in China for 2000+ years and then refer back to it only as need be. I've only listed the major dynasties here.
So here we go.
- Xia/Shang/Zhou These dynasties are like the prequel. The real story starts at the Qin dynasty. Confucius lived during the Zhou dynasty, during a time when it was all kind of unraveling. This period is called the Spring and Autumn period. There were many competing feudal states then. The period when he lived is also called the Hundred Schools of Thought. It is named so because there were MANY philosophers at that time, not just him. Stay tuned and you'll see why he's the only one we ever really hear of though.
In brief, Confucius had ideas about how people should act within their relationships. Who you are is relational to those around you. In defined relationships such as husband-wife, king-subject, father-son, etc, there were right ways to act. By following all of Confucius' etiquette, one could become a gentleman.
- ~220 BCE - Qin Pronounced Cheen. This is why we call China "China," FYI. China calls itself The Middle Kingdom.
Qin Shi Huang Di was the first emperor to unify China. He was ruthless and brutal. He also got shit done. He connected all of the little pieces of wall in order to form the Great Wall. He standardized the characters used for writing. He got rid of most of the Hundred Schools of Thought. His philosophy of choice was Legalism (read: machiavellianism) and he had a famous advisor named Li Si who was kind of the Karl Rove of his day. His capital was in modern day Xi'an (formerly called Chang'an) and you can go there today to see the Terracotta Warriors, which were created for him.
This is a picture I took of the Terracotta Warriors.
- 200 BCE - 200 CE - Han The Han Dynasty was everything that Qin Shi Huang Di was not. His color was black, their color was yellow (and going forward, the color of the emperor was yellow). His philosophy was Legalism, their philosophy was Confucism (and going forward, the philosophy of the state was Confucism). Of course, in reality, the government's philosophy was Legalism draped in a cloak of Confucism to make it easier to swallow. This is a theme going forward in Chinese history to modern day.
- 600-900 - Tang The Tang Dynasty was extremely cosmopolitan. The capital was in Xi'an.
- 1000 - Song The Song Dynasty had a major Confucian revival. This makes now a good time to talk about civil service exams. For much of Chinese history, the way to really "make it" was to pass a civil service exam and get a job in the government's large bureaucracy. This was so lucrative, that if your family could manage to get one person past the exams every 3 generations, you were set. The exams were entirely based on Confucian and other classic teachings.
- 1200 - Yuan The rulers of the Yuan Dynasty were Mongols.
- 1300-1600 - Ming To follow up the foreign rulers, the Ming were uber-Chinese.
- 1600-1900 - Qing Pronounced Ching. The rulers of the Qing dynasty were from a minority called the Manchus. They required all men shave most of their heads and grow out a long braid called a Queue. You can observe this in Shanghai Noon, the movie. Their capital was Beijing.
Important here is the McCartney mission. The Chinese believed that they have manners and other cultures were barbarians. They were only too happy to help out the barbarians. Other cultures would bring the Chinese tribute, and in return, the Chinese would "civilize" them. In 1793, a man named McCartney went to the Chinese from England and he wanted to make a deal about trade. The Chinese response was something along the lines of "You can pay us tribute and we will give you a bunch of stuff... but as far as trade is concerned, I don't think you have anything we would want." McCartney didn't accept that, and it turned into one big fat boondoggle. The same pressures were still going on about 50 years later, which lead to the Opium Wars.
I see the failure of the McCartney mission as a mutual lack of understanding - and a lack of wanting to understand - as well as the clash of two cultures that were each accustomed to calling the shots in their own worlds. I could see a Shrubya trip to China going down similarly.
May 4, 1919 - Oct 1, 1949
To explain the dates, May 4, 1919 is the beginning of the May Fourth (Wu Si) literary movement, and October 1, 1949 is the day of "liberation" (when the Communists took over).
The May 4th movement is characterized by a frustration with China's backwardness and lack of technology and its seeming helplessness as it is taken advantage of by foreigners. The economy was in the crapper and poverty was everywhere. Chinese writers were looking outward at the rest of the world and then looking inward at China's problems. The father of Chinese modern literature is Lu Xun, who wrote - among other things - Diary of a Madman (Kuangren Riji). Stories from the May 4th movement were never just about a private person and his or her emotions, they were always about how to better China or what China's current problems were. Many of these stories are very disturbing.
Just like the literary world was full of new ideas and hopes to improve China at this time, so was the rest of China. The Nationalists (a.k.a. the KMT, the current government of Taiwan) and the Communists had their start around this time. There were also other movements going on, but those were the major two. At first the KMT seemed to get a lot of power, and quite a few Communists were persecuted by them. The Communists went on a massive retreat called the Long March in 1933 and settled in a small town called Yan'an. It's a good bet that the leaders you still see in China today were on the Long March or were in Yan'an. The KMT was concentrated in the cities, and this became significant because the Communists built up support in the countryside and this strategy is ultimately what contributed to their win in 1949.
Also during this time, the Japanese attacked and the Chinese were pulled into WWII. The Japanese owned Taiwan at this point, and they also had holdings in Manchuria (China's Northeast). During WWII, the Rape of Nanjing took place. There was disagreement between the Communists and the KMT about who they should fight first - each other, or the Japanese. Ultimately, the Japanese were defeated with the atom bomb, but Mao's troops fought like dogs with very little technology to aid them, and he saw Japan's defeat as a victory of people power under his populist model. Once he took power, this became a kind of theme with him - working hard with your hands is good for people yada yada yada.
If you are interested in learning a little more about this period, I suggest reading some May 4 literature by authors such as Lu Xun, Ba Jin, or Yu Dafu (email me if you have interest and I can recommend many short stories) or watching the movie Yellow Earth
Mao
If you've read all of that, it all comes together with Mao Zedong. At the height of Mao's power, he was worshipped as a god, much like Confucius (this is ironic because in the cultural revolution, he tried to rid China of its cultural past - just goes to show how hard it is to shake 2000 years of history). He also saw himself as analogous to the emperor Qin Shi Huang Di. I can agree with that one. Powerful, shrewd, cruel, and Machiavellian. The shoe fits.
Interestingly enough, I see some parallels between Bush and Mao. The Machiavellianism, the anti-intellectualism, the increase in federal power over the rights of the individual, the disregarding science on ideological bases, and the screwing of the population.
From 1949 to Mao's death in 1976, it is safe to say that every time something royally crappy happened in Chinese history, that representated a rise in the power of Mao. If you were in the room of Communist leadership, there were a number of heavy hitters at the table, including names you know like Deng Xiaoping. At times, the pendulum of power swung towards Mao, and at times it swung away. For about the last 10 years of his life (1966-1976), Mao was extremely powerful (and thus, life in China was sucking hard).
Mao's populism can be summed up that all people will be equal... equally poor. The population was rising at about the same rate as the economy grew, so people stayed at a substistance level and never rose above it. Mao made sure most of the resources went into creating things like factory equipment and atom bombs and other things that are not going to feed your people or improve their standard of living.
From 1949-1976, there were a number of big political campaigns (which were all very bad). They include:
- 1956 - Hundred Flowers The government told the people to "let a hundred flowers bloom" - meaning, go ahead, give the Communist government some constructive criticism. Intellectuals took this at face value and many of them did give criticism. Mao took it about as well as Shrubya would, and the government REALLY cracked down on the intellectuals.
- 1959-1962 - The Great Leap Foward The government set up enormous communes in an attempt to give China's economy a "great leap forward." This was a HUGE disaster. In addition to any bad policy or organization, two factors just compounded the widespread famines that occurred. First, droughts and other environmental factors. Second, the Chinese need to "save face." Chinese officials witnessing the famines were reluctant to report what they saw as it would represent a failure and a loss of face. Face is a MAJOR thing in Chinese culture (we'll talk about it later) and although it sounds crazy that the entire country of China could starve for a year or two before the central government was actually informed of it, the need to save face was powerful enough to actually make that happen.
- 1966-1976 - The Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution was an attempt to erase all past culture of China. I am sure you've heard of the Red Guards and book burning or desecration of religious places, etc. Students would criticize or even beat teachers. Children would inform on their parents. Your background was very important. A good family background was one of farmers or factory workers. A bad family background was one of landlords or intellectuals. Mao thought intellectuals needed to learn how to work with their hands. Schools closed for many years during this decade.
A friend of mine, Ning, told me his parents' story, which is more illustrative then just talking about this time period in general terms. Mao decided to "send down" many urban youths to the countryside so they could be re-educated with manual labor by the peasants. There was a lot of idealism at this time and many young people went with the enthusiasm of a young American now going into the Peace Corps. Ning's mom was from Shanghai and she was sent down to Gansu province. That would be like being sent from New York to Montana, except that Montana isn't backwards or poverty-stricken, and they have modern appliances, electricity, and indoor plumbing. I think Montana is a lot nicer than Gansu province was in those days.
Once many young people went to the countryside, many could not return home for upwards of ten years. Sometimes even if they were allowed to go home, they fell in love with peasants from the countryside who were not able to leave. In the case of Ning's parents, this is what happened. Everyone in China had something called a hukou. This is basically analogous to residency - except you did not have so much freedom to change it. Both of Ning's parents were enthusiastic about Mao and the communists - they definitely were not like any story you may hear of a professor being sent to shovel shit in a village or the family of a landlord being 're-educated' in harsh conditions. Anyhow, Ning's dad was from Gansu province, and his parents met there and fell in love. After the Cultural Revolution, I think his mom lost her Shanghai hukou anyway, and his dad had a Gansu hukou to begin with, so they stayed in Gansu. Ning was raised in Shanghai by his grandparents.
If you want to watch some movies about this period, watch
To Live or
Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl.
Post-Mao
After Mao, things got better - if slowly. There is a Chinese propensity to find a fall guy and blame something big on them. A group called the Gang of Four, including Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, were arrested and blamed for the Cultural Revolution. Remember, they had just gone through ten years of neighbor informing on neighbor and students criticizing teachers, etc, and it wasn't always so easy to just drop it and start fresh. It would've been like blaming all of Abu Ghraib on Rumsfeld and being done with it, without so much as bothering to try Lynndie England or anyone in between.
Deng Xiaoping ascended to power and he radically shifted the policy by saying basically "We are still all going to get rich - just some of us will get rich first" (as opposed to Mao's ideal of complete and total equality, with the goal of making the country rich all together at the same time but no visible evidence of that ever happening). He also basically said "We are going to try a bunch of things and see if they work. If they work, we'll call them Communism. If they don't work, we'll call them Capitalism." Anything I put in quotes is probably way off of any real quotations... they're just my memories from class.
In 1979, Deng put in place a set of policy known in Chinese as "Gai Ge Kai Fang" (awkwardly translated as "Reform and Opening Up"). It was basically the single most important economic change that lead to China's prosperity today. China still refers to itself as a developing country, but the changes between 1979 and now are drastic, and most can be traced to Gai Ge Kai Fang.
I read a fantastic book called China: Alive in the Bitter Sea by Fox Butterfield. Butterfied, an American journalist, went to China when it first opened up in 1979 and stayed until 1981. The book is a collection of his experiences, observations, and the stories of people he met. It is a snapshot in time. At that time, top Communist cadres had access to things like English dictionaries, bicycles, and color TV, but the mainstream public did not. Most people had to wait in lines to get food all day. One line for the chicken, one line for the pork, one for the vegetables, etc. There were also waiting lists to get bicycles. Color TVs were trickier - often you had to know a westerner who could go purchase one for you at the Friendship store. It was risky being seen with foreigners, and Chinese were not supposed to give foreigners such "classified information" as even a phone book. When you called someone on the phone, often the first thing they asked was "Where are you?" The meant, what is your danwei? Danwei roughly translates to unit. Each person was in a danwei which decided their job, home, healthcare, school, and many other things. It was not easy to change your danwei.
A second book I read that was very good was called Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China by Paul Theroux. Excellent book. This one is similar to the Butterfield book, except it takes place in about 1984, and Theroux draws a LOT of comparisons between China and the book 1984.
Another thing to note is literature. China and its writers were traumatized by the Cultural Revolution. 1949-1976 is basically a black hole as far as Chinese lit is concerned. After 1976, there was a period known as Scar Literature - literature written while China's authors were getting over the shock of the last ten years. Then there is Root Seeking Literature - because if China erased its centuries of culture, then what is left? After these periods, Chinese authors really came into their own. Modern Chinese avant-garde literature is much more sophisticated than any previous literary movement. I have an anthology of short stories I like (if only for the cover) called Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused.
There's more to talk about between 1984 and now than just books, and I can address it best in terms of my own personal experiences.
My Personal Experiences
Prior to age 18, I had no interest in China at all. My cousin works in the U.S. government intelligence (he's a defense attache in Taiwan currently) and he told me I should study Chinese, so I did. Not out of interest - but because a billion people speak it. Once I started studying the language, I was hooked. After studying the language for a year, I went on the Duke Study in China program in Beijing for 2 mos. I lived and studied at Capital Normal University (Shou Shi Da). After returning to America, I continued studying China's language, culture, history, and religion for the next 3 years. My favorite class was one about a history of science in China and maybe one day I'll post something about it if I find the notes. I find Lysenkoism particularly pertinent today - it was a movement to combine ideology and science in the early 1950's... kind of like our modern day FDA.
My neighborhood was on the west side of Beijing, away from where most foreigners go. Beijing is arranged like several rings of concentric circles with Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City smack in the middle. Around them go the Ring Roads. I lived on Third Ring Road. A few major streets cut across the city from east to west, including one called Chang An Jie that runs right in between The Forbidden City to the north and Tian'anmen Square to the south.
The school's campus was gated. It included a library, dorms, and athletic facilities - like any school - but there were also a few other random features, like a tailor. They had typical cafeterias, but also restaurants and convenience stores.
A restaurant:
Outside a classroom:
My dorm was called the Wai Shi Lou - the Foreign Affairs Building. There were two sides, one twice as expensive as the other. I was on the nice side. Compared to the other side, we had air conditioning, color TV with cable, private bathrooms, and nicer beds. On the top floor, there was a laundry room with a water boiler - even the Chinese themselves do not drink unboiled water. My room came with a hot water bottle and a teacup, so I could run up the 4 flights of stairs to get some scalding hot water, and bring it downstairs to make tea or use it for anything else I wanted. The second floor had a computer lab. Many internet sites were firewalled.
The bottom floor of the dorm had a common area that sold beer, ice cream, and other snacks. I liked to talk to the fuwuyuan (the girl who worked in the shop) and tell her about boys I liked or ask her about China. I think the fuwuyuans were not supposed to talk to us so much or come into our rooms. I think our Chinese friends also were not really supposed to go into our rooms.
Here are a few pictures from my dorm.
Downstairs in the common area:
(I had red silk PJs made for me, so that's what I am wearing.)
In the common area with a few friends from Inner Mongolia:
A friend of mine with the fuwuyuans in the little shop. See all the toilet paper? In China, life is BYOTP - bring your own toilet paper.
The computer lab:
I spent one day at the apartment with my friend Shi Ting. Her family lives in a small apartment in Beijing, and both of her parents work. Her dad was home with us (he cooked) and her mom was out working so we never met. The funny thing was, we watched Forest Gump while her dad was preparing the food... there's a few lines in the movie about China, plus the bit about ping pong diplomacy. For the record, quite a few Chinese I met were fucking good at ping pong.
Here are Shi Ting & me at her apartment.
This is one of my favorite things to eat - it's like a Chinese fondue.
Ok, enough of What-I-Did-On-My-Summer-Vacation and back to history and culture. I was in China over the summer of 2000, and I read Fox Butterfield's book while I was there. There was an amazing contrast between his description of the same city only 20 years before and what I observed in present day. For example, he spoke about how books like English dictionaries were hard to come by if you weren't an important cadre. In 2000, there was a brand new huge bookstore a few blocks from my dorm that sold anything you might want, including English books with English on one side of the page and Chinese on the other so you can practice reading English if you are learning. Butterfield describes long lines and shortages. I was a short walk from a hypermarket that sold EVERYTHING - no shortages there. Way back when, foreigners had to use a special foreign currency. Not now. We foreigners use the same currency - Renminbi (the people's currency) - as everyone else.
Chinese communism is different from pure Marxism or Soviet communism. Today they seem to define it in whatever way they think will benefit them. I know that once you get into business and legal affairs, there's a lot to contend with, but if you go there, you will see individuals selling fruit, vegetables, shoe repairs, steamed buns, fans, designer knockoffs, and even pet rabbits on the street. You will see McDonalds (Maidanglao) and KFC (Kendeji) EVERYWHERE. They also have Starbucks, A&W, Hagen Daas, and more. These Western restaurants are expensive to the Chinese, and McDonalds and KFC especially are seen as a treat. I don't mean to say that I am a fan of Chinese communism, I'm just saying you can't paint it with the same brush as any other communism you've learned about, and China now is different from the China even 15 or 20 years ago.
The most important concept to grasp about the Chinese is the concept of face. The Chinese word for it is mianzi. They have expressions like diu mianzi (lose face), gei mianzi (give face), and meiyou mianzi (have no face). Generally speaking, face is respect. You need to be able to have respect for yourself among those around you. You may lose face by being caught in a lie, being forced to back down in an argument, or being otherwise embarrassed in public.
You can give someone face too. Nixon gave the Chinese face by visiting them. Anything you do to recognize someone's importance or show them respect by dedicating time, money, or valuable resources to them will give them face. When my father went to China on business, he printed that he had a PhD on his business cards. By sending a PhD to China (and not just any old schmuck), his company gave their business associates over there face. It used to be common that if you went to China on business, the most important person possible from the Chinese company or group you were visiting met you at the airport. This is less common now, but imagine the statement it makes. It says "You are so important that our company's {whoever} took time out of his or her busy day to meet you at the airport."
Bush is giving the Chinese face by visiting. It would also give some face if he bothered to learn ANYTHING about China at all before he went... but I wouldn't count on him to do that. It would make China lose face if Bush said something to embarrass them while they were getting covered by the international press during his visit. One last word on face and then we'll move on. If you make a Chinese lose face - YOU WILL NOT WIN. The Chinese will get you back, no exceptions. Maybe Bush says something embarrassing about Tibet or Taiwan in front of the international media. Some time later, he goes to China about a trade agreement... and the Chinese say "the trade agreement is inconvenient." Or they say "we will put it under consideration" and never get back to him. When our plane crashed in Hainan, Bush made China lose face because the press started reporting on it. The result? The Chinese didn't want to give the plane back. It was all about face.
If you want to learn more about face and other aspects of Chinese culture, I recommend (in addition to traveling to China) reading Getting Along With the Chinese: For Fun and Profit
Back to talking about me. It took several weeks for my Chinese friends to open up a bit about government and politics. One story sticks out in my mind. Towards the end of my trip, Shi Ting got a job at a magazine. All newspapers there are government-run, so even after growing up in Beijing and living through 1989, Shi Ting didn't have a great grip on what exactly happened at Tian'anmen Square and how it played on international TV. At the time, Beijing was working hard towards the 2008 Olympic bid. Students were writing essays on it, it was everywhere. Shi Ting's magazine did a piece on it too. One day she came back from work and said to me and a group of Chinese friends that she was shocked at work that day to find out why Beijing didn't get the Olympics in 2000. She heard at work that in the selection process for the 2000 Olympics, both Sydney and Beijing made presentations. Beijing did theirs, and then - for Sydney's - they showed footage of tanks rolling down the street downtown Beijing at the 1989 Tian'anmen Square massacre.
Don't get me wrong - the people of Beijing know it happened. I just don't think they realized how much it resonated around the world. I got the idea that the version of it they were fed came from the government - except of course for people who were there, or knew people who were there. I grabbed a book I had in my room and opened it to a 1-page summary of the Tian'anmen Square massacre. Shi Ting - who had to learn English to pass her exams and get into college (the modern day exams for college remind me a bit of the civil service exams of the past mentioned above) - quickly read the whole page, and all of the Chinese friends I was with passed it around and read it. Finally, after several months, I was at a point where I could talk politics with my Chinese friends.
Unfortunately, I had to leave China soon after that. I wonder what would've happened if I had stayed. I hope to go back and stay for longer someday, but right now a disability of mine is making me concerned about actually pursuing a job there ever. Something tells me I should live and work in countries with very good disability protections and I don't think China is it.
I hear Randi Rhodes and random individuals on dKos and elsewhere make the Chinese out to be some sort of eastern bogeyman. I agree that China needs to take better care of its citizens and its environment - and that our trade policies could use improvement. It's funny how little things changed since the McCartney mission. I don't think anyone can look at modern day China without looking back to the economic changes in 1979, or the events leading up to and after 1949, or even back 2000 years to Qin Shi Huang Di's consolidation and management of the empire with an iron fist. I just wish that Old China Hands would speak up around here every so often and treat us all to a well-informed point of view. As someone who's only lived there for 2 months, I've just got a smattering of knowledge from various experiences, classes, and movies. I don't think I'm the expert we all need. Sad to think I know more about it than our president.
UPDATE: I forgot to add these pics!
This is a village I visited in China. The pictures are us walking through the village, washing dishes, and sitting on the kang inside someone's house (a kang is like a big bed that a whole family might share).
