Tag Archives: cosmography

变通: thoughts from chengde

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This was written on July 23.

Biantong (变通): the ability to apply successfully knowledge about A to B. The two characters constituting this word—bian (变) and tong (通)—suggest an understanding of intelligence as a capacity to adapt past knowledge and experience to and thus pass smoothly through the challenges of the present. At the level of cultural history, biantong simultaneously reproduces and changes tradition, creating new worlds where vestiges of the old not only have salience, but also continue function. Visiting Chengde these past few days has helped me deepen my understanding of the establishment of Shenzhen as an instance of biantong. Specifically, Chinese Emperors and socialist leaders have continuously established new cities to initiate political change or diversify administrative s policies while maintaining stability in the capital.

Qing hegemony rested on obtaining legitimacy within both Han and non-Han ethnic communities. On the one hand, the Qing were Manchurians, but governed an Empire that was primarily Han. Indeed, in the state apparatus that the Qing took over from the Ming, Beijing signified the centrality of Han ethnic identity for state building and identity formation. As a first step to securing their hegemony, the Qing occupied the forbidden city (故宫), the former center of the Ming Empire. However, to redeploy the Ming state apparatus for their own ends, the Qing Emperors mastered Han culture, presenting themselves as the embodiment of the Mandate of Heaven. The Qianlong Emperor’s mastery of Han calligraphy and poetry forms, for example, fueled rumors that he was actually a Han Chinese, rather than a Manchurian.

On the other hand, to appeal to non-Han and non-Manchurian ethnic groups, the Qing court promulgated Tibetan Buddhism (密宗), which was practiced throughout much of the non-Han Empire (Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet, Yunnan, and western Sichuan in addition to Manchuria). In contemporary jargon, the Qing located “minority affairs” in Chengde, where they resided in Chengde for five months a year—from May through October. More to the point of this blog entry, Chengde enabled the Qing to place Tibetan Buddhism at the center of imperial policy, something that could not be easily achieved in Beijing, which was already built to reflect Han cosmology. Once Tibetan Buddhism had been firmly established as the court religion, it could be transferred to Beijing. For example, the Yongzheng Emperor donated his pre-ascension Beijing residence, the Yonghe Palace to Tibetan Buddhist monks.

Clearly, minority affairs not only constituted a key element of Qing administration, but also necessitated what was effectively a second capital, begging the question: how much change can be ordered from the capitol, but not implemented there? Many people, myself included, have ascribed the success of reforms in Guangdong, generally and Shenzhen, specifically as an instance of “the Emperor is far away and the mountains high (山高皇帝远)”. However, the fact that the Qing needed a second capitol to administer a multi-ethnic empire complicates this description of change from below. Instead, it seems that political change in China has also occurred because the constraints that Beijing’s bureaucracy have imposed on the Emperor can be mediated by spatial distance. In other words, the Emperor deployed and the Communists continue to biantong urban space with an eye to transforming Beijing and by extension the country.

I have elsewhere discussed Shenzhen’s establishment in terms of the Maoist policy of “important cities (重点城市)”. While in Chengde, I became aware the extent to which the establishment of the Qing’s “Mountain Resort (避暑山庄: the Chinese includes the idea of ‘summer retreat’)” enabled them to govern the Empire through means that would have been both difficult and ineffective in Beijing. Yet once in place in Chengde, these same policies could be re-imported to the capital as national policy. Suddenly, the establishment of Shenzhen appears to be well within Chinese administrative –both imperial and Maoist—history. Cultural continuity through biantong . More importantly, thinking about Shenzhen through Chengde firmly situates the SEZ’s so-called lack of history within Chinese cultural-political history. From the height of Chengde’s mountains, it seems ignorant to argue that Shenzhen doesn’t have a history. Indeed, such arguments appear to be motivated disinformation; who benefits and how when Shenzhen is described as being without history or culture?

My regrettably fast tour of Chengde included visits to Puning Temple (普宁寺), the little Potala Palace (普陀宗乘之庙; the Mandarin refers to Tibetan Buddhism as Tantric Buddhism), the Mountain Resort, and Sledgehammer Peak (磬椎峰). While there, I enjoyed the cooling beauty of Chengde’s trees.

rural and urbane urbanization in shenzhen

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shangbu overpass, downtown shenzhen (futian)


the guangshen road, songgang

Today, I have decided to define two key terms–rural and urban urbanization–with respect to ongoing administrative restructuring and zoning in Shenzhen. My point of departure is a concise timeline of administrative change in Shenzhen [from my paper, “Vexed Foundations: An Ethnographic Interpretation of the Shenzhen Built Environment”. Contact me if you want the full academic version.] I then illustrate the importance of these changes by comparing who uses the Guangshen Road and Guangsheng Expressway, respectively.

SHENZHEN MUNICIPALITY est. 1979 by elevating Baoan County to the Status of Shenzhen Municipality. Original Districts carved out of Baoan County communes: Shenzhen, Nantou, Songgang, Longhua, Kuichong, Longgang; all are “special”.

SHENZHEN MUNICIPALITY re-established urban-rural distinction 1981, with the establishment of New Baoan County and the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. The Shenzhen Special Economic Zone is designated “urban”, inside the SEZ communes are administratively districted as “administrative regions (管理区)” It is a two-level administrative structure. Outside the SEZ, New Baoan County is designated “rural”. This means that the SEZ develops according to urban law and New Baoan County is administered according rural law. The Second Line (二线) divides the SEZ from New Baoan County. There are seven checkpoints along the border, and Chinese citizens must have a travel pass to enter the SEZ. There are no cross-line buses or taxis. Legal Shenzhen residents and visitors must disembark and go through customs when traveling between the SEZ and New Baoan County. The Second Line is fully operative by 1986.

NEW BAOAN COUNTY (est. 1981): 1,557 km2 zoned for industrial development under rural villages and 25 market towns　（Xin’an, Xixiang, Fuyong, Shajing, Songgang, Gongming, Guangming, Shiyan, Guanlan, Dalang, Longhua, Minzhi, Pinghu, Pingdi, Kangzi, Nan’ao, Longcheng, Longgang, Henggang, Dapeng, Buji, Pingshan, Kuichong, Bantian, Nanwan）

SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE redefined 1983: initially, 327 km2 zoned for industrial development under urban work units; villages zoned for independent industrial development under village administration.

SHENZHEN MUNICIPALITY restructured 1990. In keeping with administrative norms for major cities, the SEZ now consists of a three-level administrative structure—municipality, district, and street. New Baoan County zoned into municipal districts, Baoan and Longgang. The market towns remain rural. Baoan District is primarily Cantonese speaking and made up of 12 market towns (Xin’an, Xixiang, Fuyong, Shajing, Songgang, Gongming, Guangming, Shiyan, Guanlan, Dalang, Longhua, Minzhi). Longgang is primarily Hakka speaking and made up of 13 market towns (Pinghu, Pingdi, Kangzi, Nan’ao, Longcheng, Longgang, Henggang, Dapeng, Buji, Pingshan, Kuichong, Bantian, Nanwan).

SHENZHEN MUNICIPALITY completes SEZ rural urbanization in 1996. All villages in Luohu, Futian, and Nanshan Districts have been designated neighborhoods and administratively integrated into District governments by way of Street governments. The SEZ is restructured again in 1998, when Yantian District is carved out of Luohu District in order to stimulate economic growth in the eastern portion of the city.)

SHENZHEN MUNICIPALITY By 2006, the last of Baoan and Longgang market towns and villages have been converted to streets and new villages, respectively. Importantly, although the border between the SEZ and New Baoan County still in place, it no longer functions as a border. Cross-line buses and taxis no longer stop and passengers no longer disembark to go through the checkpoints.

SHENZHEN MUNICIPALITY restructured in 2007 with the establishment of Guangming New District, combining the Baoan Street administrations of Guangming and Gongming

All this to contextualize the two forms of urbanization in Shenzhen—rural and urbane. Rural urbanization is led by and benefits local people (formerly farmers). Urbane urbanization is led by and benefits migrants from China’s cities—Guangzhou, Chaozhou, and Huizhou in Guangdong, but also Beijing, Shanghai, Dalian, and Chongqing, to name a few.

The second line remains an important landmark in Shenzhen. Although people no longer speak of the SEZ, nevertheless the categories “outside (关外: guanwai) and “inside (关内: guannei)” the checkpoint are fundamental areas in cognitive maps of the municipality. Roughly speaking, local people have urbanized the area outside the checkpoint; it is a prime example of urbanization as the proliferation of new village forms. Urban planners and architects have designed most of the area inside the checkpoint; it is the poster child for China’s high modern modernization. Inside the checkpoint, the new CBD is the prototype of this kind of modernization. Thus, guanwai development epitomizes rural urbanization and guannei development represents urbane urbanization.

To get a sense of how fundamental the distinction between rural and urbane forms of urbanization has been to the construction of Shenzhen, you could do worse than compare the Guangshen Road and Guangshen Expressway. Along the Pearl River in western Shenzhen, there are two primary roads from Shenzhen through Dongguan to Guangzhou—the Guangshen Road (广深公路) and the Guangshen Expressway (广深高速公路). After the Nantou Checkpoint, both the Road and the Expressway pass through Xixiang, Fuyong, Shajing, and Songgang before entering Dongguan and then Guangzhou.

Eight-lanes wide, with two-lane access roads, the Road functions like a mega-Main Street, where manufacturing, residential, and commercial clusters grow thickly along its edges and tributaries. Everyday, hundreds, indeed thousands of container trucks surge from village and zhen industrial parks toward Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Unlike inside the second line, where only the small blue container trucks can be seen, on the Road, large, 20-ton containers rumble past, twenty-four/seven. Busses that traverse the Road stop regularly, allowing, for example, Fuyong residents to pop—if pop can be used to describe the journey—over to Shajing. Consequently, the trip from Nantou Checkpoint to the Songgang terminus takes over an hour, often longer, depending on traffic.

In contrast, the Expressway operates like an expressway, slicing through the surrounding area, but not actually connecting with it. Cars and busses get on and off the Expressway at toll stations. Such is the Expressway’s disconnect from the local environment that its construction has not stimulated local business. Indeed, agricultural and piscatorial industries still abut the Expressway. Instead, the Expressway connects interests in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, integrating the economies of the two cities, quite literally allowing this level of economic production to bypass local residents. Consequently, the trip from Shenzhen bus station to the Guangzhou terminus takes about ninety minutes.

The Road links Shenzhen’s urban villages, where most manufacturing is located. In contrast, the expressway links commercial and financial interests in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. In other words, the Road supports the interests of village urbanization, while the Expressway supports the interests of urban urbanization.

In the unfolding of rural-urban valuations, the Shenzhen experiment has constituted an interesting twist on post-Mao reforms. Specifically, Shenzhen has actualized the attempt to realize xiaokang by transforming formerly “rural” areas into appropriately “urban” areas. In other areas, like Shanghai or Anhui Province, reform has entailed reforming cities as cities, or rural areas as rural areas. Many recent studies focus on the contradictions that migration into urban areas has created. In Shenzhen, however, the state imposed the work unit system onto an area that had been administered through collective ownership. In other words, the Shenzhen experiment initially consisted in transforming formerly “rural” areas into appropriately “urban” areas, even as it maintained this division within its administrative structure. Crudely, the past thirty years of reform and opening might be understood as an attempt to restructure and re-imagine the Chinese state by urbanizing rural areas. In this sense, Shenzhen is an ongoing product of a historically specification mediation of rural and urban Chinese societies.

The Road and the Expressway both exemplify the contradictions between rural and urbane forms of urbanization in Shenzhen and also actualize how that contradiction has been built into the environment, shaping possible lives. Pictures of the road, here. To contrast with urbane Shenzhen, visit icons of urbane urbanization.

五湖四海：shenzhen’s symbolic geography

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As Shenzhen continues to raze its past, investing more and more in the symbols of global urbanism, it become increasingly difficult to remember that the city was planned and built within the the symbolic world of Maoism. The manifest logic of building Shenzhen was that of the model city (on the order of Daqing), while the actual practice was that of rustification–shipping young people out of cities to the countryside in order to realize socialism.

The symbolic geography of Maoism included the natural world. During the 1980s, Shenzhen was famous for its “五湖四海 (five lakes and four oceans)”. The referent was a quotation from Mao Zedong, “我们都是来自五湖四海，为了一个共同的革命目标，走到一起来了 (we have come from everywhere [literally: from the five lakes and four oceans] to achieve a shared revolutionary goal.” Early shenzhen leaders mapped these five lakes and four oceans onto Shenzhen’s extant geography. The five lakes were: East Lake, Silver Lake, Xili Lake, Xiangmi Lake, and Shiyan Lake. The four oceans were the Big and Little Meisha Beaches, Shekou, Daya Bay, and Shenzhen Bay.

The thing about blunt interpretations of Maoism is that it opens the door to all sorts of ideological speculation. What does it mean, that Shekou and Shenzhen Bay have been completely reshaped through land reclamation? That the Meisha beaches are now high end real estate? That Daya Bay is the site of Shenzhen’s six nuclear power plants?

The transformation of Shenzhen’s coastline, notwithstanding, traces of Maoism remain more visible near the five lakes, perhaps because they were early on designated important sites and therefore more difficult to raze. Maoist traces in Shenzhen take several forms. First, scale. Maoist Shenzhen architecture is small scale, built for imagined city of half to one million people. Two, technology. Maoist Shenzhen architecture was built out of cement and required little technology to erect a building. these low buildings were framed by the environment. Indeed, Maoist shenzhen had an almost southeast Asian feel.Three, roads. Maoist Shenzhen roads were one to two lanes wide. Four, walking paths. Maoist Shenzhen walking paths meandered through gardens, reproducing original walking paths. Moreover, there were few if no borders within sites. Today, barbed wire and new walls. Five, landscaping. Maoist Shenzhen greenification was based on native plants that thrived even in the absence of aggressive gardening. In short, the Maoist aesthetic was also high modernist.

Yesterday, I visited one of the five lakes, East Lake Park. Established in 1961 as “reservoir park (水库公园),” in 1984, the Shenzhen municipal government changed the park’s name to “East Lake”. East Lake retains much that is Maoist and beautifully high modernist. Indeed, in an explicit reference to the establishment of the SEZ, the Shenzhen Art Museum was celebrating its 30th anniversary. Pictures of the museum give a sense of another aesthetic, which now reads as inscribed history.

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移民与海： oh that shenzhen cultural industry

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yesterday at 派意馆,　the shenzhen sculpture institute (深圳市雕塑院) hosted the opening ceremony/press conference for its multi-cultural documentary “immigrants and sea (official translation of 移民与海). paiyiguan is an exhibition space located in the oct loft area, right near the art center. the documentary explores the question of (in word for word translation of the chinese) “coast cities immigrant culture way of life (滨海城市移民文化生态).” a string of descriptions that force grammatical impositions in english. safest translation, perhaps: the immigrant culture of coastal cities.

the entire project has three parts: a documentary film about cultural life in latin american coastal cities; a public culture project in shenzhen; and an exhibition in the shenzhen architecture biennial. the documentary recounts cultural moments in various south american countries and cities. in havana, the shenzhen photographer xiao quan (肖全) takes the audience on a tour of havana’s charms. “he passes through cuba’s big streets and small alleys, searching for and recording cuban smiles and happy faces, ceasely uncovering the native warmth of cuba’s powerful culture and integrative force.”

in chile, liang erping retraces the footsteps of pablo neruda, citizen of a country of only 15 million people that nevertheless produced a nobel laureate. in brazil, shenzheners are less interested in rio than they are in brazilia, itself a famed overnight city. our guide in brazilia is shenzhen television personality, hong hai. the documentary pays special attention to carnival. in buenos aires, a shenzhen designer han jiaying explores the richness of argentine tango, soccer, and architecture.

that brief sysnopsis helps define what the film makers mean by “culture”; it is not only high culture, but also culture as giving a city definitive international identity. what kind of culture would shenzhen’s immigrants have to create in order to attain similar recognition?

historical alleys like havana? the attempt to package the ming and qing dynasty county seat at nantou has not succeeded.

noble prize worthy literature? one of shenzhen’s most famous author is an ze, a woman who broke out of being a laboring daughter (打工妹) by exposing the gritty and sexualized underside of shenzhen’s development. unlike the protagonist in wei hui’s better known book, shanghai baby who attempts to realize herself through writing and sex, the protagonist’s of an ze’s (also banned) books use sex to get ahead. sex in shenzhen, the story goes, is not liberatory, but cohersed and mercenary.

municipal festivals like carnaval? at windows of the world themepark, shenzheners already participate in carnival, oktoberfest, and water festival. there is, however, no city wide festival, in part, because most native festivals are village based. indeed, going with a local festival would entail shenzhen’s urban elite recognizing the contributions of local villagers to urban culture, something that hasn’t happened as of yet.

architecture like in buenos aires and brazilia? this seems the most likely, and shenzheners continue their pursuit of architectural excellence. it is telling that this project is entering shenzhen’s public culture through the architectural biennial.

fat bird enters this picture in part three, the sculpture exhibition. the sculpture instute is the same organization that sponsored fat bird’s inclusion at the guanshanyue museum’s tenth anniversary celebration. they have also invited us to participate in the biennial. we are currently working on a project about remembering nanshan’s now banned oyster farming as our contribution to shenzhen’s coastal culture. in fact, remnant beaches (in yantian district) of oyster cultivation could become an important and unique marker of shenzhen cultural identity. the catch is that oyster farmers immigrated generations ago, and shenzhen’s cultural elite are interested in creating high culture out of their immigrant experience.

yang qian and i left the press conference with a purble paper bag stuffed with gifts: a neckless, advertising materials, and purple immigrant & sea shirts. unfortunately, my camera was uncharged, so i didn’t photograph the event. so i have included a picture of yang qian modelling the purple shirt. he is standing on the balcony of our houhai apartment. faintly visible in the background is the land reclamation project, which is perhaps shenzhen’s most concrete contribution to coastal ways of life.


the purple shirt, the balcony, the reclaimed coastline

historic houhai

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July 1, 2007. ten year anniversary of the Handover of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty. Unlike ten years ago, when the city buzzed with anticipatory dreams of what two systems might mean for ordinary people, this year Shenzhen has been relatively unconcerned with commemorating the other of Deng Xiaoping’s two accomplishments. When an American friend asked a Shenzhen friend what they were doing for “July 1st,” my Shenzhen friend looked at both Yang Qian and me, trying to figure out what holiday it was.

May 1st is International Labor Day. June 1st is International Children’s Day. July 1st is the birthday of the Chinese Communist Party, although its an internal holiday, so nobody celebrates it. As we counted, everyone got into the “first” spirit. August 1st is the birthday of the People’s Liberation Army. September 1st is the first day of school. October 1st is National Day. November 1st is All Saint’s Day. December 1st? Nothing. January 1st is New Year’s Day. February 1st? Nothing, but February 2nd is Ground Hog’s Day, which might count in a more generous world. March 1st? Again nothing, but International Women’s Day falls exactly one week later on March 8th. April 1st is All Fool’s Day. We turned to our guest. July 1st?

Tenth Anniversary, she said.

Ahh. We knew that, but it hadn’t registrared. Clearly.

Not that Shenzhen hasn’t prepared a major engineering feat to commemorate the Handover. This morning at around 10 a.m., the Western Corridor Bridge (lit up)officially opened, as did the Shenzhen Bay Border Checkpoint. At 6 a.m,. this morning I made my cursory “in the spirit of documenting history” appearance at the site. I walked down the old Nanyou street. At the intersection between the road and the new Houhai Ocean Front Road, police had set themselves up to prevent cars from going in. Presumably, they were also keeping people off the sidewalk. However, about 10 steps away it was possible to walk through the park that had just been put in (also for the opening ceremony). Walking this way it was possible to go around the police and head toward the new Customs Checkpoint and get a closeup of the Bridge.


heading south the banners read: one country two systems, together build a harmonious society; one land, two checkpoints, achieve scientific development

I came back to the house and told Yang Qian that I felt for the police. Not because I think they should be barricading people away from the checkpoint. Not even because they had to stand in weather that alternated between excruciating sun and thunderstorms. But because they were called on to do a job they couldn’t actually do. Anyone who wanted to walk toward the checkpoint and look at the fuss could and did. There were just too many open spaces from which to access the site. All this reminded me of when I tried to get on the Houhai land reclamation site at Number 8 Industrial Street and ended up walking around to Number 7 Industrial Street. And the funny thing is, once on the site, nobody questioned my right to be there. Likewise, once wandering around the new coastline, noone stopped me. This perhaps an important point about cultural assupmptions about belonging. Difficult access, but once in/on a site noone bothers you. How different from the US, where its not enough to get past the guards, but you also have to remain out of sight. Different forms of regulation. Or assumptions about what regulating means.


heading north the banners read: one bridge connects north and south, shenzhen and hong kong add another connecting passage; enthusiastically celebrate the official opening of the shenzhen bay border checkpoint

Once at the new coastline, much about the topography that the land reclamation project has produced fell into to place for me and I could see a whole, where previously I had only seen partial edges. Those already obsolete pictures, took when looking out toward unbounded space have something immence about them. In contrast, from the perspective of the new coastline, the area still looks big, but now seems managable, within the scope of a retrospectively visible and relentlessly mastering plan. As if we knew what we were doing all along. Or somebody did. So, pictures of historic houhai and a sense of just how banal human effort can suddenly seem.

后海新村: more houhai, again

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houhai tianhou

saturday morning, houhai new village, where the houhai tianhou once gazed out on houhai harbor and now sits back from houhai road, among shade trees and handshake buildings, her view blocked by cars and housing developments. those pictures, here.

also, at some point when i wasn’t paying attention, nanyou and chuangye roads became nanshan road. on my 2004 map, the road has the old names, which mark the border between nanyou and shekou neighborhoods. my 2006 map has the new names. i’m looking for a 2005 map to see when the change happened. interesting because it points to the continuing subordination of shekou to nanshan district. once, long ago, shekou was directly under the central government, and was only brought under district control in the early 1990s. but then again, the district system only came into play in the mid-1990s, but that’s not the story i’m telling here. nevertheless, i did wander past the old nanyou building and take a picture of it. again, interesting for its mid-1980s state of the art, both architecturally and in terms of landscape. (nanshan road runs parrallel to houhai road, and before the completion of the binhai expressway was the main road connecting the nantou peninsula to shenzhen by way of shennan road.)


nanyou building, shenzhen state-of-the-art, mid 1980s

second random thought of the houhai village walk. shenzhen is full of buildings from the late 1980s and early 1990s that have never used air-conditioner casings. the casings, attached to the buildings and located next to windows, were designed for small air-conditioners. presumably, once shenzheners could afford air-conditioners, they went for the bigger, better, colder variety. so empty casings and air-conditioners variously attached to the sides of buildings. as part of the beautify nanshan campaign, these randomly placed air-conditioners are now being caged.


never-used air-conditioner casings

赤湾天后宫：vexed tradition

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tianhou brigade

In 2004, the Tianhou Museum and the Nanshan Mazu Culture Research Association edited a volume of couplets and poetry that had been written in honor of the Tianhou. There were two first place couplets:

赤湾伊始，敞帮门，发舟旅，西洋七下，铺开海上丝绸路；
天后岂终，携郑坚，邀邓公，南洋千寻，赢得人间锦锈春。（作者：种显泽）
(In the beginning, Chiwan opened its gates, sent out Zheng He’s ships to the four oceans, establishing the maritime Silk Road;
In the end, Tianhou lead Minister Zheng, greeted Lord Deng, a southern port of 1,000 miles, earning a brilliant spring.　by: Zhong Xianze)

赤湾旭日膦人精，
天后慈云笼海疆。（作者：吴北如）
(Chiwan dawns, looks toward humanity,
Tianhou’s benevolent clouds cover the seas.　by: Wu Rubei)

These two poems illustrate the contradiction between official culture and local belief that enables the Chiwan Tianhou Temple to operate. Legally, the Temple grounds constitute the Tianhou Museum, where the Nanshan Mazu Culture Research Association is based. Specifically, in Shenzhen, the largest and most public temples are officially museums and research centers. However, the contributions and activities of believers sustain the spaces as temples, especially on important holidays. Thus, in the first poem (and it was actually the gold first prize, the second poem was the silver first prize) emphasizes the Temple’s political importance, linking the voyages of the Ming eunich Zheng He to the open policies of Deng Xiaoping. In contrast, the second poem celebrates Tianhou’s divine benevolence.

Helen Hsu and others have written about the post-Mao resurgence of tradition throughout Guangdong. In Shenzhen, this resurgence has taken an interesting twist precisely because even though there are locals working to promote Tianhou, the museum and research association have been headed by immigrants from northern cities. Consequently, the two poems don’t only manifest a contradiction between “official” and “unofficial” culture—although many westerners like to paint Chinese public life in terms of an opposition between the Party and everybody else—but also between urban and rural belief systems, as well as northern and southern traditions. For most of the museum and research staff (and there are fewer then there were when I first went to the museum in 1997), allowing people to burn incense is a concession to local superstition. And yes, northern urban attitudes about Guangdong traditions can be as condescending as it sounds. Publicly, however, they take the route of the first poem, understanding Cantonese history and traditions within the scope of imperial China. At the same time, the few believers I’ve talked to, follow the route of the second poem, focusing on belief, and remaining quiet on the issue of national politics.

That said, there’s enough history at Chiwan’s Tianhou Temple to satisfy everyone, unless of course you don’t care about either imperial history or Tianhou’s benevolence. The temple was built at the end of the Song Dynasty, but achieved national prominence during the Ming Dynasty, when the Minister Zheng He led his famous maritime voyages to establish a maritime trade routes. During the second expedition, he and his crew ran into inclement weather of the coast of the Nantou Peninsula. Zheng He promised to restore the temple in return for Tianhou’s help in surviving the storm. She did help him and in the 8th year of the reign of the Yongle Emperor (1410), the Chiwan Tianhou Temple was restored.

The fame of the Chiwan Tianhou’s benevolence spread throughout the country and throughout the Ming and Qing Dynasties, believers—both official and unofficial, northern and southern, but all predominantly sailors or fishermen—continued to restore and add to the temple. At the beginning of the Nationalist era, Chiwan was the largest Tianhou temple in Guangdong with over one hundred and twenty buildings in the complex. Once the communists liberated Bao’an County (Shenzhen’s territorial precursor), the PLA moved into the facilities. In 1959-1960, many of the wood, tiles, and bricks from the temple were used to construct the Shenzhen Reservoir. It was only in 1992, that the recently established Nanshan District government began to restore the temple. The museum was officially opened in 1997 as part of efforts to prepare for the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty. It was, as many said at the time, recognition of the common cultural origins of Shenzhen and Hong Kong.

This weekend was the first time I had been back in a while. Not a believer, I chafe at paying the 15 rmb museum entrance fee, when the museum isn’t all that great. However, the changes suggest that elegant political poetry notwithstanding, the believers have slowly taken over and there may be times when visiting Tianhou is worth the price of admission. There are now monks on duty, telling fortunes and instructing people how to pray. There are rooms filled with multiple castings of the same god, where believers light incense. And one of the museum exhibition rooms has been turned over to photographs of important religious events at the temple, the largest being Tianhou’s birth on the 23 day of the third lunar month (this year, may 9). Indeed, the photography seems much in the spirit of the poetry competition: the museum staff’s attempt to get control of the space back, this time through public cultural events.

According to the Xin’an County Gazetteer, the Chiwan Tianhou Temple once held pride of place in the eight scenic areas of Xin’an (Bao’an County’s name during the Ming and Qing Dynasties). The other seven were: 梧岭天池，杯渡禅宗，参山乔木，卢山桃李，龙穴楼台，螯洋甘瀑，玉律汤湖. I don’t know what or where most of those sites are (although wuling must mean the wutong mountains in the east) and look forward to mapping them. However, what’s interesting here is the way historic records follow names rather than places. History as documentation and re-inscription with a vengence. In 1983, when the SEZ was established as administratively separate from New Bao’an County, all of the history from Bao’an county moved into Bao’an, even though most of that history had taken place in (what is now) Nanshan District. Chiwan, Shekou, and the County Seat at Nantou were the important historical sites. However, to find out pre-reform information on them, one must cross the second line into (what is now) Bao’an District and head to the Bao’an District Library. I remember talking with the editor of the last ever Bao’an Gazetteer. He did his research and oral history throughout the SEZ, but his office was in Bao’an County. At the time, I needed to carry my passport with me so that I could cross back into the SEZ after a visit. Of course, this is simply another variation on history in the Pearl River Delta, where scholars of Hong Kong history continue to refer to the SAR’s territorial precursor as Xin’an, without noting that the name changed in 1913. (Sometimes I suspect that Shenzheners’ attempts to annex Hong Kong by way of historical documentation is only matched by Hong Kong people’s efforts to write themselves as historically distinct from Shenzhen. Everyone sidesteps the issue by writing these historic trajectories from the Opium War on, where Hong Kong grows out of Xin’an, and then Shenzhen emerges out of Bao’an.)

This time, I kept noticing industrial parallels between the containers stacked up just outside the Temple Gate or loaded just beyond the Temple Walls and the brigades of god images. Little statues of Tianhou, Guanyin, and the God of Wealth were everywhere and never just one, instead in any room, there were shelves of the same statue, almost like a religious market, except they were all receiving incense. Brigades on view here. Questions about the vexed relationship between political-economy and faith, merely posed.

for it is thou

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for it is thou

before boarding a plane back to north carolina, shirley and i enjoyed a sunday afternoon with the dead in st. michael’s catholic cemetery, happy valley, hong kong. shirley memntioned that local graves have been moved for building projects; we speculated on how safe the cemetary was from developers. but mostly we walked in restful silence. shenzhen now has commercial cemetaries that cater to hong kong and taiwanese families seeking resting ground. for a price, of course. what’s more, most chinese people don’t spend sunday afternoons with dead strangers, preferring to visit relatives and friends on specific days. quite obviously, cemetaries are for the living and the living have different relationships to the dead. and yet. i begin to think that the point might be otherwise, or rather think that the point cannot be reduced to cross cultural ethnology, although such analysis helps and is more often than not fascinating, but rather the point is to ask what death teaches each of us, here, today. r.i.p.

226:文化南山

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the 226: lumbering between chiwan and nine streets

in the 1990s, nanshan district tried to jumpstart the district economy through culture. in a sense, the effort was premature, as the city has only just started seriously investing in culture. nevertheless, it seemed a good idea at the time. there were two cultural pushes in nanshan. one was commercial, the other historical. commercial culture took the form of theme parks; window of the world (世界之窗), splendid china (锦绣中华), and happy valley (快乐谷) are all located in overseas chinese town (oct or 华侨城, itself both a street administration area and a major international conglomorate), which is located at the border between futian and nanshan districts. in addition, the oct corporation built the he xiangnian (何香凝美术馆) museum and a cultural center (华侨城文化广场), both state of the art cultural centers.

historical cultural development took place in western nanshan, along the eastern banks of the pearl river. nantou, the county yamen during the ming and qing dynasties is located there as are the ruins of a cannon fortress, a rebuilt tianhou temple, and the imperial grave of zhao bing, half-brother to zhao xian (赵显), the last emperor of the southern song before the establishment of the yuan dynasty. (at the grave site the bing character is written with a sun on top. however, i can’t find this character in my computor software. i searched online and came up with two alternatives, which may be an indication that most software programs don’t have this character. anyway, online the sun is either removed and the child emperor’s name is written 赵丙 or the sun and bing are separated as in: 赵日丙.)

the theme parks have thrived, but the historical sites have not fared as well. in fact, shenzhen’s purple tour bus (line 3) regularly travels between the luohu train station and windows of the world (世界之窗), the line ending even before the historical sites begin. consequently my favorite tour bus is the 226, a bus line serviced by double-decker buses so old they have wooden seats and often don’t have air-conditioning. fun stops along the 226 route include: nantou (site of the old yamen, which combines historic remnants, abandoned reconstructions, and new village life), nanshan courthouse (near canku new village, site of a small temple to the god of cantonese opera), shenzhen university, shekou (including shuiwan new village, which was one of the first villages to be rebuilt and so examplifies mid 1980s new village architecture and building scale), seaworld, and chiwan port.

this past weekend, i took the 226 to two stops: end of the line and the left cannon. the end of the line is near chiwan port, part of the large network of ports that together form “shenzhen port”. at chiwan port, a security guard asked me to refrain from taking pictures, but didn’t actually ask me to erase already taken pictures. when asked, he said there were no reasons why i couldn’t take pictures, it simply wasn’t permited. so when i turned a corner, i started snapping again.

this stop is also walking distance to the imperial grave, which is marked by a statue of zhao bing and loyal imperial minister, lu xiufu (陆秀夫). after the yuan had defeated the southern song, the last two southern song emperors fled to guangzhou, where the government was re-established. however, zhao rixia (赵日正) was executed in 1278, when zhao bing assumed the non-existent thrown. however, the following year, the yuan armies defeated the last southern song loyalists, following which liu xiufu carried the eight-year old emperor into the ocean to commit suicide. the imperial grave was restored in 1911 and marked with eight characters: 大宋祥兴少帝陵. the zhao family geneaology tells how the grave site was identified: at foot of the mountain, an old monk went to inspect the coast, suddenly seeing a floating corpse, a flock of birds hovering above. when he brought the body in, its face was as if alive, and the clothing uncommon. he knew it was the imperial corpse and ceremoniously buried it on the sunny side of the mountain (山下古寺老僧偶往海边巡视，忽见海中遗骸漂荡，上有群鸟遮居，设法拯上，面色如生，服式不似常人，知是帝骸，乃礼葬于本山麓之阳). this whole story gets retold as the origin of “kitten congee (猫仔粥)”, a speciality of fujian province.

after visiting the imperial grave, i took the 226 back toward the left cannon stop. the left cannon in question is one of eight cannons that the qing placed above the mouth of the pearl river to defend against pirates. the remnants of a small fortress remain and a statue of lin zexu (林则徐) has pride of place in the plaza. li zexu used the left cannon in his efforts to rid the area of opium, efforts which eventually led to the opium war. this is one of the few remaining mountains in nanshan, and the peak has been left for walking and admiring the chiwan port.

what i love most about this site are the fengshui trees that have grown up the side of the fortress. and although the left cannon is a designated patriotic education site (爱国主义教育基地) not many people visit, making it one of the few relatively uncrowded green spaces inside the city. photos of my chiwan tour here.

赤湾: selective naturalizations

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relatively isolated from the rest of shekou, the geography of chiwan has recently undergone massive restructuring as outgrowths of containers replace mountains as the defining feature of the landscape.

shenzhen port consists of nine terminals: shekou, chiwan, mawan, yantian, dongjiaotou, fuyong, xiadong, shayuchong and neihe.