Category Archives: noted

cultural economics 101: how do you find reliable workers in shenzhen?

Posted on by

The expression “a friend is a means of getting something done (一个朋友一条路)” is a concise description of the Shenzhen labor market. It is, of course, also a description of “relationship-ology (关系学), the social art of making full use of one’s relatives, friends and acquaintances. Given the importance of relationships to getting things done in China generally and Shenzhen specifically, relationship-ology manifests in some ugly ways. Nepotism is classic relationship-ology as is the art of making friends through wining, dining and bribing. Nevertheless, having friends help get things done isn’t as coldly instrumental as it sounds. Continue reading →

the birth of territory and feminist geography, explained

Posted on by

The problem with an issue like APEC blue is that it reads as if an authoritarian government can clean up the skies to impress visiting dignities by inconveniencing working class Beijingers and not be bothered to actually work for sustainable options. As such, this whole cleanup/mess easily slips into cultural mudslinging as if we were not talking a global economic system in which environmental quality is one of the perks of status. In such a system it makes sense that what is a “right” in one part of the system, becomes a luxury and political tool in another. Nevertheless, today I’m feeling hopeful because when we do turn off our factories and stop driving, the world heals. We just need sustainable reasons to do so. Continue reading →

APEC blue paranoia

Posted on by

Suddenly occurred to me that the point of creating APEC blue (APEC蓝) in Beijing is not to give foreigners clear blue skies, but to demonstrate the Party’s superpowers — controlling the weather and people with a single policy decision. I can hear Xi Jinping and evil crew cackling (a la Jiang Zemin), “too young, too simple ha ha ha.” I see them in in black suped-up super up suits, rubbing their hands gleefully as they zoom about the underground tunnels that connect Zhongnanhai to the airport, the Great Hall of the People, and their secret policy laboratories. They need a Marvel tv comic book tv series. In the meantime, however, they already have their own APEC Blue entry on Baidu. I know. Feeling me some paranoia.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iSIMifYRhnw

 

can renters become stakeholders in shenzhen?

Posted on by

I like meeting and talking with visiting urbanists because the conversation is refreshingly straight forward about constructing society (via environmental interventions). Who are the stake holders, they ask. Where can we find them? What should we ask them? These clear and solid questions help me think more precisely about Shenzhen because identifying stake holders entails (1) acknowledging competing rights to the city and also (2) mapping the fraught and unformed territory of Shenzhen identity; who does have rights to this city of immigrants? And how did might they claim them?

Today, I’m thinking about approaching these questions through the construction and allocation of rental property.  Why do urban village handshakes — despite constituting the demographically significant residence in the city — why don’t they transform migrants into stakeholders? Continue reading →

APEC outrage

Posted on by

Seriously? The banner reads “Reduce use of the roads so that foreign friends can enjoy wide streets”. The reason to keep small vendors and hawkers out of the way? Beginning yesterday through Nov 11, the  Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation is holding meetings in Beijing to promote the regional economy. Inquiring minds want to know; just whose economic prosperity are the regional leaders hoping to promote, when the Beijing City City Management (the dreaded 城管) is actively disrupting street markets for at least a week?

The photograph and outrage have been burning up my wechat groups. APEC calendar, here.

playgrounds for consumption

Posted on by

In 2009, Sam Green and Carrie Lozano made the short documentary Utopia, Part 3: The World’s Largest Shopping Mall about the South China Mall in Wanjiang, Dongguan. On November 1 and 2, 2013, I visited said mall. This post serves as a partial update. It also a brief response to the ideas of “too big to fail” and “acceptable capitalism” that haunt so many apologies for contemporary neoliberalism.  Continue reading →

harmonized

Posted on by

While in Tianjin a friend said to me that she wanted to forward one of my posts about the Hong Kong protests to her WeChat circles, but was afraid of being “harmonized” (被和谐掉) — a euphemism meaning “to be arrested for political activism”, or as Orwell might have said, the crime of speaking one’s position. The expression ironically activates Xi Jinping’s relentless calls for social harmony through a return to Chinese values, that might be otherwise expressed as “shut up and do what you’re told” much as Lee Kwan Yew deployed Neo-Confucianism in his pursuit of a well ordered managed Singapore. Continue reading →

rural construction: can law serve china’s peasants?

Posted on by

While in Xi’an, I once again visited the Terracotta Soldiers in Lingtong, once upon a time center of Qin power. The First Qin Emperor (秦始皇 ) installed this death monument during his life. This seems to have been the way of ancient Emperors and Pharohs — a longing to control everything, as if making the world in our own image was (a) possible and (b) a means of achieving immortality. However, we don’t really know what the mass grave meant to him because we haven’t found his grave — just indications that he wanted to be safe in death. But maybe it was a ruse to distract observers from his actual gravesite. That said, we do know that he conquered unified six warring states and became the model for those future Chinese leaders who yearned to bring everything under heaven under themselves. Personally. Indeed, the visit sparked a conversation about the meaning of 法律, its historical constitution, and whether or not law can serve China’s peasants. Continue reading →

of theme parks and the contemporary state

Posted on by

I have been showing my 12-year old niece the sites in Beijing, including the Great Wall. As we wander, I have free associated between these experiences and previous theme park experiences, most recently in Ocean Park, Hong Kong, but before that the original Disneyland in Southern California, the iconic Knott’s Berry Farm, the Jersey shore, its boardwalks and miniature golf courses, as well as several Six Flags and Disneys elsewhere. (Years ago I even visited the uncomfortably super-mini Disney in Hong Kong.)

There are, of course, perhaps more explicit connections to be made with Williamsburg, Jockey Hollow, and other historic sites that I have visited (and actually in Shenzhen I have been involved in promoting historical preservation of local sites), but.  In terms of pageantry and intent to re-present the world, my mind keeps returning to Disney. Continue reading →

not just a china thing: thoughts on keep’um stupid governance and open access to academic publications

Posted on by

While in Beijing, I have been reading David Campbell’s Politics without Principle: Sovereignty, Ethics, and the Narratives of the Gulf War. I am grateful that Campbell has made a pdf of this important work available online not least because as an unaffiliated intellectual who happens to be based in Shenzhen, internet access structures my encounters to academic work. One would think that US institutions would be working to make more research available to more people, but alas this is not the case. University libraries and the virtual services they subscribe to continue to function as if they had limited paper copies of books and journals –with no lending privileges extended beyond their hedges. Continue reading →