Category Archives: noted

taxi talk

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A few days ago, during rush hour, I was in a cab heading east on Binhai Road. We had just darted onto the expressway, when traffic slowed. And slowed. Until we were inching our way forward in a simmering mass of cars, many of which were trying to push their way forward by straddling lanes. Which in turn, slowed us further.

The cabbie had his radio dial turned to the morning traffic report. I was craning my neck, trying to figure out just why the snail’s pace. We inched. We sweltered.

He said, “Probably another accident.”

I grunted. He took a swig from his water bottle. We oozed forward another three inches.

At the Mangrove Park bus station, we saw the accident. Two cars were parked at the  divider between the expressway and the station offramp, effictively closing down two lanes – the offramp and the southern most lane. This caused major congestion because there were drivers who, in order to arrive at Mangrove faster, had straddled their way over four lanes to the lane furthest north, and then needed to force their way back to the exit lane to get to the bus station. Yes, because those two cars had blocked the offramp, those who weren’t already in the exit lane were having difficulty getting back, creating more back up and generalized highway irritation. The cars’ drivers were talking on cellphones, glaring at each other.

We had past the accident and were moving a bit faster when the traffic report announced that there was a serious traffic jam at the Mangrove Park bus station because the traffic police had yet to arrive, make the accident report, and have the cars removed. In Shenzhen, cars in accidents are not moved from where the accident takes place until after the accident report is made, otherwise, neither can make insurance claims. According to the report, the cars had been at the offramp for over two hours, which meant that the traffic police had not yet shown up.

“That explains it,” I said, although we still hadn’t picked up all that much speed.”Where do you think they are?”

The cabbi nodded thoughtfully and then made five key points about the nature of corruption in Shenzhen:

  1. High-ranking Shenzhen leaders all have two jobs (兼 – jian is one of those fabulous words that refers to the way that Chinese bureaucracies are knit together).  Clearly, it’s difficult to do both well.  The Municipal Party Secretary, Liu Yupu (刘玉浦) for example, is also one of the Guangdong Provincial Party vice secretaries. According to the cabbie, the Secretary was just biding his time until he was promoted.  “As long as he doesn’t make any mistakes, he’ll be fine.” On that note, Liu Yupu replaced Li Hongzhong (李鸿忠), who after five years in Shenzhen is now the governor of Hubei 兼/jian vice Party Secretary of Hubei Province.
  2. The Shenzhen government is too polite. Back in the cabbie’s home county, the county boss doesn’t back down from anything he’s said, even when he’s wrong. Then, if someone goes against the county boss, well the court does what the court needs to do (该怎么判断，就怎么判断！). In contrast, the Shenzhen government allows the people to talk back. For example, he noted the ongoing 操 contraversy in the Futian court, which was itself a hot topic on the traffic report that day.
  3. The Shenzhen government only pays attention to big events, like preparing for the Universiade in 2011. It doesn’t pay attention to the everyday lives of the people.  The Shenzhen government is, he said, a show for outsiders. And, he added growing increasingly vehement, now they want us to promote Shenzhen to visitors. He then gestured contemptuously at the traffic outside and asked rhetorically, “How in good conscious can I promote THAT?!”
  4. The police take bribes. So if there’s no benefit to coming to the scene of an accident, they won’t come. Just like this morning, he mused, they’re probably having dim sum at a 5-star hotel.
  5. Shenzhen people are themselves morally bankrupt. Everyone with a driver’s liscence knows the traffic laws and everyone has passed the test. In fact, he muttered, they probably could quote all the relevant laws. However, once they’re on the street, they don’t have the breeding and temperment (教养 and 素质) to do what they should.

His discourse lasted about thirty minutes, or the time it took us to crawl from the Mangrove Station offramp to another accident at the entry to Xiasha New Village. Like most populist worldviews, his was a fascinating mix of fact and fiction, liberalism and conservatism. It was also much more entertaining that the traffic report.

More Shenzhen Hukou (debate about) Reforms

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This academic year (2008-2009), for the first time, Shenzhen law allowed for students without Shenzhen hukou to have the same rights to compulsary education (义务教育) as students with Shenzhen hukou. Of the roughly 600,000 school children in Shenzhen, 340,000 do not have Shenzhen hukou. It was estimated that the reforms would cost the government 400 million rmb.

At the press conference announcing the decision, Vice Mayor Yan Xiaopei (闫小培) said that there were two bright spots to the new policy that would make compulary education in Shenzhen more equitable. First, was that education for non-Shenzhen students would be free, just as it is for Shenzhen students. Second, in addition to providing free education, the city would also begin issuing free textbooks. In addition, public and private schools would be obligated to follow the same standard for payment of additional fees.

Of course, these reforms are welcome. However, they point to two ongoing education problems in Shenzhen: 1. The lack of good high schools for the number of students in the city, which means that those who don’t test into a top school and have college ambitions leave the city for high school even if they have Shenzhen hukou and 2. the link between taking the college entrance exam (高考) and hukou.

This April at the Shenzhen two Conferences (the National People’s Congress and the Chinese Political Consultative Conference), Shenzhen began debate about dissolving the law that requires high school 3 students to return to their hometowns to take the college entrance exam.  A few quotes from the debate:

到目前为止，对于政协委员和居民的呼声，深圳市政府方面显得很冷静。对于“取消高考资格户籍限制”的建议，深圳市教育局副局长坦承：“这是一个非常好的理 想。”但唐海海随即表示，高考资格之所以有户籍限制，有多方面的原因。深圳社会科学院社会发展研究所所长、深圳市决策咨询委员会委员杨立勋认为，在目前配 套政策没出来之前，放开高考户籍限制会出问题。深圳市人口办有关负责人也表示：深圳是特大城市中户籍准入最开放的城市，深圳的人口压力已经很大了，如果完 全放开，可能会带来很多问题。

(from xinhua net): To date, the Shenzhen government remains cool in the face of  the desires of the Consultative Conference and Shenzhen citizens. With respect to the suggestion to “dissolve hukou limits on the college entrance exam”, Shenzhen Vice Minister of Education, Tang Haihai (唐海海) said, “This is a wonderful ideal.” However, the Vice Minister then pointed out that there are many reasons why participation in the college entrance exam is limitted by hukou. According to Yang Lixun, Head Social Development Research Department of the Shenzhen Academy of Social Sciences and Member of the Shenzhen Policy Consultant Commity, until an entire set of related policies are in place, disolving hukou restrictions on participating in the gaokao will only lead to problems. A person in the municipal population office pointed out: Shenzhen hukou policy is the most liberal of all the especially large cities, and population pressure in the city is already very great, if [hukou restrictions] are completely dissolved, it is possible that many problems will follow.

In the meantime, the “Sunny Internet” program for middle and high school students who will take the high school and college entrance exams, respectively, enters its fourth year. All of Shenzhen’s schools are required to put basic information online, for free, in the interest of fairness. Required information includes: the kind of school (public, public-private hybrid, run privately owned by the state) its ranking (provincial first level…), target students, recruiting field (the whole city, a particular district), costs, address, and where to go for more information. For those desiring the latest information on both tests, visit the Shenzhen Tests Website (深圳招考网).

taxing fun with (yes!) cell phones…

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One of the events being promoted by the Shenzhen Bureau of Taxation is citizen participation in the 3rd National Tax Collection Text Message Publicity Contest (第三届全国税收宣传短信大赛). I hadn’t realized that the first and second contests had come and gone, but the current contest is open until June 30, 2009. The particularly ambitious can also compete in the ring-tone competition and the multi-media message competition (basically flash for phone), examples here and here, respectively.

I have translated the call because it’s all juicy – from the legalize to justify a text message and jingle competition through a starting date on April Fool’s Day to assurances that the lottery for voting participation will be strictly overseen and that the prize money includes taxes… The assumptions written into this competition, the reasons it is necessary, and the form it has taken are themselves exquisite, interesting, and humorous expressions of applied anthropology at its best.

I am also impressed by the ongoing efforts of the Chinese State to modernize its efforts to stay in contact with the Chinese people. However, I do wonder how these messages will be circulated. Will the State pay to send messages to every cell phone in China? Will it target lists of people a la credit card companies? Or will it simply put the winning messages and ring-tones on line, confident that the artistic merit of the winning entries will result in these messages being downloaded and subsequently circulated among circles of friends?

Below, the contest call.

为向纳税人传递税收信息和宣传税收政策，继2007年、2008年成功举办第一届、第二届全国税收宣传短信大赛基础上，国家税务总局办公厅与中国税务报社今年决定联合举办“第三届全国税收宣传短信大赛” 　　(In order to transmit information about tax collection and policy to tax payers, on the foundation laid by successfully oganizing the first and second National Tax Collection Text Message Publicity Contests in 2007 and 2008, the General Office of the State Administration of Taxation and the National Tax Publishing House today agreed to co-organize the “Third National Tax Collection Text Message Publicity Contest”.)

一、比赛时间2009年4月1日~2009年9月30日。 　(Contest dates: April 1, 2009 through September 30, 2009.)

二、比赛形式第三届全国税收宣传短信大赛包括手机短信、彩信、彩铃3种形式。(Contests will be held in text message, multi-media, and ring-tone publicity.)

三、比赛内容手机短信参赛作品题材不限，需与税收相关，要求在70个汉字以内，具有短小（字数少而工整）、精致（有一定表达创造性）、诙谐（有趣味性，易于传播）等手机短信属性。 (There are no restrictions on the subject matter of competition text messages, they should be related to tax collection,  have less than 70 characters, and share the defining features of a text message, such as brevity (few characters and carefully done), exquisitness (with definate expressive creativity), and humor (interesting and easy to disseminate).

四、参赛步骤及办法参赛者将创作的文字短信，用手机发送，移动用户发送至106575020906，联通用户发送至106550105216，电信用户发送至1065901020000，彩信、彩铃作品发送至taxnews@163.com。( To submit your text messages, use your cell phone. China Mobile customers send to 106 575 020 906, Liantong clients send to 106 550 105 216, CITIC clients send to 106 590 102 000. Multi-media messages and ring tones can be sent to taxnews@163.com)

主办单位将定期在中国税网（www.ctaxnews.com.cn）“第三届全国税收宣传短信大赛”站点上发布参赛候选作品，供公众通过发送手机短信在候选短信中进行投票选出上榜短信，最后由大赛评委会通过对短信得票数、创作水平、趣味性和幽默性等方面的综合评比，确定最终获奖作品。(The oganizers will publish contest entries on the “Third National Tax Collection Text Message Publicity Contest” page of the China Tax News website, where the public can vote for their favorite message. Contest judges will decide the winning entries based on the number of votes, creativity, how interesting it is, and humor.)

公众无论发送信息参加作品比赛，还是发送信息参加投票评选，除正常通信费用（手机短信每条0.1元）不另加收任何费用。(Whether members of the public send text messages to enter the contest or to vote on entries, they will only be charged the standard rate for sending a text messege (.1 yuan per message)).

五、评选和奖励办法 　　1.短信作品奖：一等奖3名，奖金各3000元；二等奖15名，奖金各2000元；三等奖30名，奖金各1000元；纪念奖100名，每名颁发纪念品一份（价值300元）。 　　2.公众投票参与奖：在公证机关的监督下，评委会从参加投票的公众手机号中抽取公众投票参与奖，其中一等奖1名，奖金2000元；二等奖10名，奖金各1000元；三等奖20名，奖金各500元；纪念奖50名，颁发纪念品一份（价值200元）。(Selection and awards  1. text message prizes: 3 first prizes, each 3,000 yuan; 15 second prizes, each 2,000 yuan; 30 third prizes, each 1,000 yuan; 100 honorable mentions, each a prize worth 300 yuan. 2. public participation awards: under the supervision of an authorized agent, the award committee will draw names out of the telephone numbers of people who participated in the voting.  Among the lottery winners, there will be one first prize, for 2,000 yuan; ten second prizes, each for 1,000 yuan; twenty third prizes, each for 500 yuan; and 50 commemorative awards, each worth 200 yuan.)

以上奖励不能重复获得；奖金和奖品均含税，主办单位工作人员及其家属不得参加竞赛活动。(The prizes cannot be repeated; prize money and awards includes tax; family members and employees of the sponsoring bureaus cannot participate in the competition.)

sudden insight into 以人为本

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A first insight after my trip to Switzerland: I now have visceral understanding of the ubiquitous phrase “以人为本” or “make people the basis”.

While in Switzerland, I was impressed, shocked, and actually somewhat confused by the precision of their clocks. My friend’s watch, the clock on the bus, the clock in the plaza, the clock in the bell tower – all kept the same time. I watched an empty bus pull away from a stop while two girls ran across the street to catch it. Had the driver waited another minute, the girls could have caught the bus and been on their way. Instead, they had to wait precisely 16 minutes for the next bus.

Back at my post at the school, I began to notice that none of the clocks on campus, none of our wristwatches, and few of our cellphones kept the same time. Instead, the time that matters is the time kept by the highest ranking person in the classroom or office. So if there’s a meeting, we all gather more or less at the same time, but start when the leader says to start not when the clock shows a “time”. Likewise, in the classroom, students arrive at more or less the same time, but classes start when the teacher starts teaching. The upside of this 以人为本 arrangement is that bus drivers to wait and often stop (even after they’ve started to pull away from the stop) for running passengers. The downside is that whether or not a student or staff member is “late” is highly arbitrary.

This has me thinking about how communities build our assumptions into the world, which thereby continues to confirm them at even the most minute level of experience, begging the question: what does it take to escape from cultural presuppositions and “know” something else? Yes, this is a rather quaint anthropological insight suddenly made fresh in light of the juxtaposition of times (!) experienced in Switzerland.

Here’s the point: Yesterday afternoon, I encountered  my cultural unconscious in a way which has suggested that I only begin to question my “instincts” when they have failed consistantly for an extended period of time.  What’s more I suspect my response time (15 years to figure this out) falls somewhere in the middle of a cultural learning curve, which means many of us live our cross cultural lives in potentially destructive ignorance.

At work, I sit at a desk in an office to which students have free access. I am fortunate to have warm relations with many of my students and so they come and go at will. However, lately, I have been busier than usual, which has meant that when they come to see me more often than not they interrupt my work. Yesterday, five minutes before class started (according to my office clock) and 90 minutes before I would give an hour lecture to over 200 students, one of my favorite students swept in, dropped his books on my desk, and asked me if I wanted to look at some of the paintings from his father’s portfolio.

I snapped, “I don’t sell steamed buns!”

He, in retrospect, looked understandablyconfused.

Me, in retrospect, felt understandably irrate and grumped, “Every morning, I line up for steamed bums at the stand just outside my housing estate gate. Every morning, someone pushes ahead of me and shouts at the bun vendor, ‘quicker, I’m in a hurry.’ Every morning, the vendor calmly serves the volatile customer and then returns to me. Cutting in line is rude and disrespectful both to me and the vendor.”

He, still confused, asked, “What did I do wrong?”

Me, still irate, said, “In the United States it’s rude to interrupt someone when they’re busy. You should first say ‘excuse me’ or wait for them to finish what they are doing before speaking.”

He, “Can’t you work and speak at the same time?”

Me, “No.”

He, “Why not? Chinese people just keep working when someone talks to us.”

Me, internally, “A-hah.”

Me, trying to be conciliatory but probably coming off as pedantic, “In the United States, when someone speaks to me, it is considered polite to stop what I am doing and give them my full attention. This means that when someone, like a student, just starts talking to me, I experience it as a command to stop what I am doing and listen. When student number three or four issues the same command, I become angry.”

He, “Oh. So its a cultural difference.”

Me, “Yes.”

He, “Do you want to see my father’s paintings.”

Me, exasperated, “We have class in five minutes!”

He, “I’m leaving.”

As I write this post, I’m wondering how power relations also contribute to my experience of being interrupted. I don’t become as angry when my boss interrupts me. At the same time, my current boss is British and tends to interrupt in a way that conforms to my expectations of how interruptions should occur. There’s also my vanity. When I said, “I don’t sell steamed buns,” I clearly (well maybe not crystal clearly) implied that my status as teacher needed to be recognized through corresponding forms of student courtesy. More soberingly, I wonder how much of my reluctance or disinclination to reflect on my anger at students has arrisen out of my “experience” that Chinese people tend to “live for others” within intimate circles and  “live for themselves” outside those circles. What part of my unconscious was comfortable glossing my students’ behavior as collective rudeness, rather than trying to understand why a particular action by usually considerate and well-intentioned youth made me uncomfortable?

Sigh. Fifteen years in Shenzhen, 8 months in a new job, and a 2-week trip to Switzerland later, I have 1 sudden insight: if I am going to live in Shenzhen, I need to “make people the basis” of my daily interactions, rather than uncritically following the  “陈习陋俗 (outdated habits and despicable customs)” of my native land.

food related note

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two food related links.

the first is a chinese introduction to the food-scape project, here.

the second is a story about belo horizonte, a brazalian city that has ended hunger through innovative policies, here.

al fresco and imported greens

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al fresco

Originally uploaded by maryannodonnell

last night, we returned to a very old haunt–the nanyou food street, which used to be a thriving world of al fresco seafood, sichuan hot pot, and the odd miao restaurants. today, the street still bustles, but in a crumbling, obviously down-graded kind of way. it’s interesting to note that chains have moved in where independent restaurants used to be, while several spaces have been consolidated into larger restaurants, and rennovations were under way for another mega-restaurant.

for years, shenzhen has been actively upgrading its image by removing al fresco restaurants and other small, independent stores that used to spill onto the uneven sidewalks. all this grooming has resulted in neat, straight, clean streets that cut through beautifully tend and imported topiary–we are overwelmed by palm trees, where the restaurants and stores and kiosks used to be. the restaurants, of course, have (been) moved indoors, where air-conditioning, private rooms, and stylish chairs allow people to not only dine in comfort, but also eat in environments where open-toed high heals and business suits can be kept clean. after all, one of the downsides to al fresco dining is the grime that accumulates under the grill, between the tables, and in street gutters.

so, clear stratification under way in terms of unique dining experiences for those with money and increasingly mass produced for those with less. indeed, it is noticible that the al fresco restaurants continue to thrive in working class and older neighborhoods, while in more middle class neighborhoods (and those that have been subjected to beautification projects), the restaurants are all tucked away behind glass doors. unfortunately, for small restaurants, this layout is not comfortable. given the noise and proximity of fellow dinners in a successful chinese restaurant, big is better if you don’t have the sidewalk. thus, more fallout from the street-cleaning: larger, high capital restaurants do better in middle-class areas because they can provide a better dinning environment, while opportunities for low capital food entrepreneurs diminish.

yes, i am waxing nostalgic for old shenzhen, the shenzhen that friends once derided as “nothing more than a small town,” the shenzhen where al fresco dining was the norm, where workers and employees both jostled for tables under magnolia trees along uneven streets, and where cargo trucks rushed past, spewing carbon monoxide into our drinks.

exotic dubai

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dubai

Originally uploaded by maryannodonnell

the dubai-shenzhen connection reaches new levels of irony on the houhai land reclamation area, where “exotic dubai” is now an architectural style to be bought and sold in a soon-to-be-completed trés upscale residential area.

“exotic” is one interpretation of 风情 , which when refering to gender usually refers to the spiritual aspect of a woman’s sex appeal e.g. 多指女性.风情是女人的韵味，与性感有联系，两者的不同之处是：风情来自於“神”而性感来自於 “形” . likewise, when refering to place 风情 usually connotes whatever it is that makes minority groups “attractive”. this new marketing strategy not only begs the question: what other city has turned a bay into a desert in less than 10 years? but also has inquiring minds wondering: are they building artificial seas in dubai?

on that note, does anyone know if “shenzhen” is now or has ever been used as an adjective to describe real estate elsewhere?

Fake currency update

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In the interest of science (of course!), i’ve been trying to collect fake currency from various shopkeepers and friends and have been relatively unsuccessful. no one admits to having any counterfit bills to give me. the taxi drivers have been particularly vehement in denying their involvement with fakes.

three possible explanations. either (1) i come off as some kind of spy and no one trusts me; (2) there really isn’t as much fake currency out there as the signs and gossip would have it, or (3) all of the above.

a close friend did pull a fake ten out of her cash register for me, explaining, “the new help can’t tell the difference between real and fake currency.”

joys of field research!

What’s your experience?

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Yesterday, a journalist interviewed me about differences between US and Chinese education systems. The heart of the matter was how might Chinese students apply successfully for US university and college admissions. I blah-blahed for a while – on the different social functions of testing, on the relative importance of excelling in one subject, rather than having good grades in all subjects, and on the advantages of finding an environment that fits the student, rather than choosing a college based on how famous it happens to be in China. Thus far, a rather ordinary interview. Or so I thought.

At the point when I was blathering on about how the ideal function of a US college education was for students to figure out their intellectual interests and then professionalize at the graduate level (as opposed to many other post-secondary systems, where professionalization happens at the undergraduate level because many countries track students into the humanities or sciences as early as high school), the journalist sighed (?!) and said, “You’re really idealistic.”

I’ve heard this. Frequently. It’s as if idealism was a bad, bad thing. My stock answer du jour is, “In the context of the US college system, it’s practical to assume that students will change majors once or twice, may transfer to another school, or could take time off to follow other passions. It’s safe to say, most will stumble into a job after college and then professionalize on the job (and even more likely professionalize through a series of jobs) with a possible detour through grad school.

“That’s just it,” the journalist jumped in. “In China we don’t have so many choices. It’s even worse when you reach middle age. Then the job chooses you. Living for one’s passions is a luxury that Chinese people don’t have.” And then he added the zinger designed to end the conversation, “You don’t have this experience of living for other people because you’re not Chinese.”

Bracketing the fact that the journalist was younger than me and I haven’t yet admitted to middle age-dom, his rebuttal was similar to other responses (especially from parents) that I’ve heard. What’s interesting to me is what makes my response seem “American”. On the face of it, the journalist’s rebuttal assumed that realism means getting a secure, high-paying job right-out-of-college. This seems to me a pretty standard response to capitalism as we know it wherever we happen to live. Specifically, I think Chinese and American parents share this definition of realism, especially about their children’s college education, because they are anxious about what will happen to their children once launched and they know that it’s harder to make a living in an uncertain economy.

Making college “about” getting a job is actually magical realism (of an albeit cross-cultural kind), rather than hopefully and practically idealistic. Imagine parents stirring the pot of destiny, thinking, “If I can control what college my child attends, then I can protect them from unemployment, debt, and exploitation. My child will never experience the humiliation of unemployment and the sadness of insufficient medical care.” Fingers wiggle, green smoke appears –Poof – “You won’t ever have to suffer the arrows of outrageous multi-national fortunes.” In contrast, it seems to me that protection from the injustices of an economy out-of-control (and I think that’s a constant state of being, rather than a momentary aberration) is more likely to come from discovering and nourishing passions that will make our lives more meaningful, and by extension, make the world more beautiful than it is to come from placing one’s faith in name-brand schools and top-ten jobs.

So I return to the question of what made my understanding American, rather than optimistically idealistic within a global context. I believe my American-ness hinged on the journalist’s belief that “Chinese” people live for other people and “Americans” live for themselves. Unsurprisingly, I’ve also had this conversation with other Chinese friends. When it’s pointed out to me that “Chinese” people live for others, the examples tend to be about sacrificing oneself for the greater good. – 牺牲你一个，幸福千万人 and 舍小家为大家 being two recent contributions to the debate. When I counter that I’m not opposed to living helpfully, I just don’t see how my unhappiness (and even death should sacrifice go so far) would improve the world, I have heard, that this is precisely the cultural difference that they are talking about. The sacrifice of a few for the many does lead to greater happiness. If I had the experience (体验 – which I understand to emphasize embodied knowledge of the walked-a-mile-in-a-man’s-shoes variety) of living for others I would know in my bones that this was true.

And yet. Throughout the public sphere, Shenzhen inhabitants butt in line to get on the bus, cut off other drivers to make a U-turn, and push themselves in front of me to buy breakfast buns. Why don’t the activities of lining up and waiting for one’s turn count as “living for others”? This kind of living for others I do quite well. However, my Chinese friends tell me these behaviors are examples of 素质 and 文明 – breeding and civilization. In contrast, living for others is about one’s relationships to 自己人 – one’s people. On this explanation, “living for others” defines degrees of intimacy; it is not about one’s relationships with strangers. So two points. First, what makes me American is an unwillingness to participate in forms of intimacy that are defined by a willingness to sacrifice myself for my family and friends. Second, in those contexts defined by a lack of intimacy, what makes one Chinese is full throttle “living for oneself” and giving over to one’s (unlimited) desires.

It seems to me that in defining cultural difference between Chinese and Americans, it’s more important to establish where and when self-expression (defined as giving over to one’s desires) is socially acceptable, rather than positing “selfless” Chinese and “selfish” Americans. Certainly, many Chinese have experienced the liberating effects of Shenzhen in terms of being unconstrained by the desires of family and friends back home. Indeed, this lack of constraint is what makes Shenzhen seem “un-Chinese”. My experience has been that the more friends I make, the more is asked of me in terms of social commitments. So that despite a zero intimacy starting point, I have been and continued to be socialized according to Chinese norms that are tempered with the “knowledge” that I am American and hence of the selfish ilk.

What’s your experience?

FBI: 2009 The God of Argriculture Plan

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Fat Bird developed FBI: 2009 The God of Agriculture Plan through a series of workshops that explored the meaning of eating in post “3-Deer” China. “3-Deer” products had been exempted from food safety inspections because of the companies previous contributions to society. However, the contamination of milk products shook the confidence of processed food consumers, resulting in the rise of comephobia, a pyschological condition marked by hallucinations, high levels of anxiety, and market place aggression.  See the results of FBI effort at the Fringe Club City Festival!