Tag Archives: cosmography

莲花山：lianhua mountain park

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with friends, i climbed to the top of lianhua mountain park, where deng xiaoping strides purposely into the future.

well, perhaps not toward the future. he is afterall standing in place. nevertheless it is fair to say that because the land beneath him continues to shift, he’s no longer where he started. deng now both overlooks and synthesizes the meaning of the environmentally conscious central axis, as well as the ever more expensive real estate of futian, including huaqiangbei, the rainbow glass buildings of the financial district, the huanggang checkpoint, and numerous gated communities.

it’s hard to know if this exactly is what he intendend when he approved the construction of shenzhen. it’s pretty obvious, however, that this is what current leaders say he meant. accordingly, lianhua park commermorates deng’s 1984 southern tour, when he proclaimed that shenzhen demonstrated the correctness of reform and opening. the next political step, of course, was not toward city hall, but toward the fourteen coastal cities, which began learning from shenzhen. importantly, the practices associated with learning (学习) in china include emulation. so that “learning from shenzhen (学习深圳)”　directed leaders in other chinese cities to do what shenzhen had done: dismantle work units, bring in foreign capital, set up labor and housing markets, and build an international city.

sweating in the heat and humidity, we climbed past a kite flying field through the remnants of a lychee orchard and into a palm tree grove to arrive at deng’s monument. there, banyan trees and unbrellas protected most visitors from the sun, while a few others posed in front of deng and the engraved mural of deng xiaoping’s words, “the development and experiences of Shenzhen have proved the correctness of our policy on the establishment of special economic zones (深圳的发展和经验证明，我们建立经济特区的政策是正确的).” deng wrote and presented this inscription on January 26, 1984. at the pinnacle, the decision feels correct. it saturates my senses and suddenly the park, the views, and the easy pleasures of kite flying justify deepening reform. “everyone should have a nice park,” i think unreflexively.

as an early reform joke had it: deng xiaoping comes to a fork in the road. his driver asks, “what should we do.” deng answers, “signal left (toward socialism), but turn right (toward capitalism).”

and that’s the rub. i don’t know how seriously people take the deng statue and plaque, which celebrate a rather banal political message: brought to you by deng xiaoping and the ccp, reform and opening good! instead i worry that propaganda may be as sweet as an afternoon in the park. for the curious, a people’s daily article on the 1992 southern tour sketches the ideological importance of the 1984 southern tour with politically correct reverence.

There are also good people in Henan

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On May 4, after two days in Guangzhou, I went to Zhengzhou, the provincial capital of Henan. Unlike in Xi’an, where I was introduced to how unlike the rest of China Shenzhen is, in Henan I unexpectedly encountered claims to how traditional Shenzhen might be. Admittedly, the route to Shenzheners’ Chineseness was twisted and ironic. Nevertheless, as my host in Henan said, “Chinese people are all more or less the same (大同小异).” Not a sentiment that my Shenzhen friends usually admit feeling. They do, however, admit that one always returns to one’s roots (落叶回根). What’s at stake then is how those roots get defined and who gets to set the terms. So, a brief story about the traditional Chinese value of hospitality, which begins with a defense of the basic goodness of Henan people, who have a reputation throughout China for being less than honest. Indeed, jokes about Henan people’s lack of education, shiftiness, and general unreliability circulate on cell phones and turn up in movies and mini-series. So prevelant is the Henan stereotype that my first conversation with most of the people I met in Henan was a variation on the following theme:

“You speak Chinese really well.”

“Really?” asked as modestly as possible.

“There are also good people in Henan.”

I laugh and agree that there are good people everywhere.

The pride of being from the birthplace of China’s oldest dynasties only came out in later conversations. Many of the prototypical images that Westerners hold of ancient China are, in fact, photographs taken in Henan, which was the cradle of advances in agricultural technology, copper and ceramic production, and architecture over several millennia. Luoyang and Kaifeng, China’s oldest imperial capitals are both located near Zhengzhou. So are some of the more interesting Buddhist sites from the Tang and Song dynasties. (For that matter, many of China’s most popular historical mini-series are set in Henan, where Wu Zetian established herself as the incarnation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion.) The gravitational center of the various silk roads, which stretched from Nara to Rome, was in Henan. Indeed, the Henan Provincial Museum is second only to Beijing in terms of the quality, quantity, and diversity of early imperial artifacts.

Although Henan now has the largest population in China (roughly 100 million or so), it does not boast large cities. Zhengzhou, the provincial capital has a population of only 3 million, give or take. Kaifeng, once the largest city in the world, now has a population of less than one million. (This is not only because Kaifeng lies in the Yellow River floodplain, but also because the Yellow River flows roughly thirteen meters above the city. In Xinxiang the river hangs twenty meters above the city. In the rest of the flood plain, the Yellow River flows five meters above land. Should the dykes break, as they did when Chiang Kai Shek blew them up to prevent the advance of Japanese troupes during WWII, tens of millions might die. For several millennia now, local governments have maintained a system of dykes. At the same time, sedimentation has raised the river bed. Consequently, officials and commoners alike have been afraid to invest in Kaifeng.) In contrast, all of Guangdong’s major cities have populations over eight million, while Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Guangzhou, Zhongshan, Foshan, Zhuhai, and Macau encircle the Pearl River Delta. Thus, unlike Xi’an or other Chinese cities, urban culture in Henan is not so sharply distinguished from peasant culture. Most Henan residents live in tightly knit villages, which may have 20 to 30,000 inhabitants. Yet a friend pointed out that this population distribution means that if Henan’s urbanites seem provincial, then Henan’s peasants seem unexpectedly sophisticated. My host was a village entrepreneur, who had moved his factory from the rural area to Zhengzhou’s growing industrial suburbs. His approach to history was less reverential, than practical, a point of view that clearly disconcerted our guide at the museum.

Museum Guide (MG), looking pointedly at me: This seeder was invented 3,000 years ago, long before Europe had begun to centralize agriculture.

Village Entrepreneur (VE): We still use that in my village.

MAO: I thought agriculture was centralized under Mao.

VE: Yes, but the plots are too small for mechanical tools. So we even have to harvest wheat with a hand-scythe.

The MG continued to talk about advances in agricultural technology as if the VE hadn’t spoken. Important for imagining this dialogue is to remember that the MG spoke in standard Mandarin, while the VE spoke with a heavy Henan accent. This linguistic difference clearly marked the MG as urban and the VE as rural, or sophisticated versus provicial. Indeed, with his wife and close associates, he spoke in his hometown dialect. Yet the VE seemed unimpressed by the MG, who had to work and ultimately failed to establish her cultural authority. A little later, the MG directed us to a stunning display of ceramics, including Junci (钧瓷), a style that began over 1,500 years ago during the Tang Dynasty. The VE interjected that during the Cultural Revolution, villagers stumbled upon artifacts like that all the time, but immediately smashed them, destroying the four olds (四旧).

The MG glared.

And so it went. Site-seeing with a peasant-entrepreneur, I also learned that the Yellow River, national symbol of China was “heartless 无情” because when it flooded people died; that commercialization had ruined most of Henan’s famous monasteries, although it was still worth learning Shaolin style gongfu; and that any of the four olds that had been smashed in his village during the Cultural Revolution would provide a lot of seed money for a factory or new house.

More striking than either the village entrepreneur’s gritty practicality or skeptical pride, however, was his generosity. When he was too busy or unable to take me site seeing, he arranged for his driver to 陪 (péi) me. The driver took me to various landmarks, bought my tickets, made sure I have a guide at every site, and when I was hungry escorted me to restaurants, where he ordered local specialties for me to sample. Though out the day, the village entrepreneur called to confirm that I was enjoying myself and to ask if I needed anything else.

My friends in Shenzhen were unsurprised by such generosity. In fact, they found it to be typical Chinese culture.

“Chinese peasants,” a friend explained, “are still the most warm-hearted and welcoming. If they normally eat on 10 RMB a day, when a guest comes, they’ll spend 100, skimping by on 2 or 3 RMB a day to make up the difference.”

“Isn’t that exhausting?” I asked.

“Of course.”

There was a pause as each of us waited to figure out where the other was heading. A fine line often separates hospitality from questions of face; being exhausted so that one’s friends might be comfortable can be understood as either good or bad, depending on context. Clearly, I did not want to imply any criticism of my host. I finally asked if my friend shared the village entrepreneur’s strong sense of hospitality.

“Of course,” she answered immediately, “even though I’ve lived in Shenzhen for almost twenty years, I’m still a traditional Chinese woman at heart.”

“So there are good people in Henan,” I teased. Before I left, she had one of the many to warn me about Henan people’s shady ethics.

She waved off my teasing. “It’s like this,” she joked, “they’ve just had more time than other places to perfect making fake goods. They even produced fake junci ceramics during the Tang.”

“Ah,” I said, dropping the issue.

Below are pictures of me with my hosts in Henan. We are standing at the site where Chiang Kai Shek blew up the Yellow River Dyke (left). My driver enjoys lunch (right).

I will take up the practice and ethics of 陪　(péi) more systematically in a later entry. In the meantime, please visit some Henan sites and check out Kaifeng’s many and diverse lions.

bethesda presbyterian church

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i am travelling in the u.s. this month and have finally settled enough to take the odd picture. i am posting them to fieldnotes because they contextualize where i am and how i see when not in shenzhen; just as images from other chinese cities bring shenzhen into sharper focus, i suspect images from my american life will bring the photographer into focus. these images were taken at a church located about four miles from my parernts’ house in north carolina, a place that strikes me as built of trees and sunlight (when i’m looking up), and somewhat menacing (when walking through the beautifully situated burbs). please visit bethesda. i’ll post more images from north carolina over the next few weeks.

Lake Fengze

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Two days ago, I jumped on a 234 and made my way to Lake Fengze, which sits between a small chain of mountains and the Northern Loop. Along with developing real estate on land reclaimed along Shenzhen’s southwestern coast, developing real estate along the Northern Loop represents a sizable chunk of construction within the SEZ.

Before I wax poetic about the size of the construction sites and the magnitude of the city’s vision, a bit of geography is perhaps in order. Imagine a giant bird, stretching its wings for flight. The mythologically inclined have identified this bird to be a roc, and nicknamed Shenzhen, “Roc City”. At any rate, the city lies just north of the Hong Kong, joining the New Territories on a strip of land between Huanggang (in the west) and Wenjingdu (in the east). This area might be thought of our bird’s breast. The roc’s western wing extends into the Pearl River Delta, its tip at the Nantou Peninsula. From Nantou, one soars north to Guangzhou. The roc’s eastern wing juts into the Pacific Ocean, its tip at Nan’ao. From there, one heads north to Chaozhou.

Given the importance of river trade to China’s pre-modern economy, and that of the Pearl River to South China’s economy, folks living on the western wing have traditionally been better off than those living on the eastern wing. Indeed, this inequality seems to have constituted the area’s political-economy and cultural geography for at least a millennia. On the one hand, for roughly 1,000 years, the county seat was situated at Nantou, while Nan’ao was home to relatively poor fishing villages. On the other hand, Cantonese speakers, who remain culturally hegemonic in Guangdong Province, have occupied the western lands, while Hakka speakers have inhabited the eastern tip.

The construction of the Canton-Hong Kong railway in 1913 began to unmake this cultural geography, shifting wealth and influence from the western wing to the breast. The railway enabled the British to bypass Guangzhou and transport goods from the Mainland to Hong Kong, where they controlled the harbor and shipping. The first railway station on the Mainland side was Shenzhen Market. It bears mentioning that these two different forms of spatial integration produced two kinds of cities, riparian cities and colonial ports, which depended on the railways (there by shifting control from folks along the rivers to whoever owned the railroad). That is two say, the Canton-Hong Kong railroad was a means of redirecting wealth from Guangzhou (a riparian city) to Hong Kong (colonial port). Shenzhen emerged as part of this spatial reordering of China’s traditional political-economy. Nevertheless, until the early 1980s, when Reform and Opening completely altered the area’s demographics, this demographic distribution held more or less true: relatively wealthy Cantonese in the west, relatively impoverished Hakka in the east. These groups seem to have mingled on the Roc’s breast, where Cantonese and Hakka villages abutted one another. (For the classic analysis of urbanization in imperial China, check out G. William Skinner, “Marketing and social structure in rural China, Parts I, II, and III”. Journal of Asian Studies 24, 1 (Nov. 1964): 3-44; 24, 2 (Feb. 1965): 195-228; 24, 3 (May 1965): 363-99.)

So, historically two forms of transportation have connected what is now called Shenzhen to Guangzhou, the most important urban center in the Pearl River Delta region for 2,000 years (give or take). The older form of transportation was by water, connecting Nantou to Guangzhou. Significantly, villages with rights to the banks of the Pearl River also had small docks from which they could set sail. The younger of the two forms of transportation is the railway, which Hong Kong to Guangzhou by way of Shenzhen. In 1953, when the newly established government transferred the county seat from Nantou to Shenzhen, they acknowledged the growing importance of the railway for integrating the political-economy that would come to define socialism in the PRC.

The construction of superhighways at Lake Fengze represents an intensification of the political and economic integration enabled by both riparian and rail transport. Since the establishment of Shenzhen, the development of infrastructure has been central to the construction of the city. Indeed, on both the western and eastern wings of the roc, the city has built ports that are capable of handling large amounts of containers and combined, their capacity exceeds that of Hong Kong. Moreover, better rail lines have been put in place, although they are now used primarily for transporting human beings. However, the main thrust of development has been constructing roads that link previously isolated villages and market towns both within Shenzhen and to Guangzhou and Hong Kong. (For example, Nantou used to be an hour’s bus trip from downtown Shenzhen, in the belly of the roc. With the opening of Binhai, it’s now a twenty-minute express ride.)

From western to eastern wingtip, three main arteries integrate Shenzhen. The first developed was Shennan Road, which runs between Delta waters (in the south) and the Meilin Mountains (in the north). Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Shenzhen semis, trucks, and private automobiles rumbled along this one road, hauling products and persons to the Hong Kong border crossings at Wenjingdu, Luohu, and Huanggang. Small, often single lane tributary roads funneled these same products from Market and village enterprises. In the early 1990s, however, construction on Binhai road and the Northern Loop began. Binhai road was carved out of Delta waters; it is the mainstay of the city’s land reclamation project (for a partial intro to the land reclamation project, see: ).

The Northern Loop has been carved out of the mountains; it is part of an attempt to make useful land that had previously been given over to orchards. The expression “moving mountains to fill the sea”, which usually refers to the land reclamation project also points to the razing of the Meiling Mountains. From an airplane, one can see huge tracts of flattened land. Up close, when driving along the northern loop, one can see dump trucks lined up to haul the rocks and dirt to places in need of landfill. (Although this scene was much more common ten years ago, the level of construction is still quite remarkable.)

Designed to increase the volume and velocity of road traffic, these new and improved roads radiate out of Shenzhen in every direction—not only to Guangzhou and Hong Kong, but also toward Huizhou, Meizhou, and Chaozhou. Within the city itself, the single lane tributary roads have been widened and it is not uncommon to see semis lumbering between the remains of palm tree orchards and upscale housing developments (that take advantage of the natural beauty of former agricultural lands). Shenzhen and Hong Kong are cooperating to build the Western Corridor, which bridge the Pearl River and link the cities in the West.

Yet the historic geographic political-economy dies hard. At the national level, a colonial product of railways and ocean port shipping, Shanghai has emerged as the country’s dominant port city. Indeed, port cities have fared better than inland cities, most of which were established when riparian transportation integrated China’s regional economies. In Shenzhen, specifically, the eastern wingtip continues to be relatively poorer than the western wingtip.

In the late 1990s, the City designated a new urban district, Yantian to actively promote tourism and manufacturing to develop the eastern part of the city. One of the first projects completed was a four-lane tunnel through Wutong Mountains, which provided a natural barrier between the roc’s eastern wing and its belly. However, even with state of the art roadways, tourism and manufacturing have not been as compatible as planners might have thought. On the one hand, Shenzhen residents enjoy spending their weekends on the beaches in Yantian, the most beautiful in the city. In the evenings, they go to Yantian to dine on fresh and cheap seafood. On the other hand, the new district has not only encouraged the construction of factories, it has built a large, international port. And it is not unusual to see cars full of beach towels and umbrellas caught in a traffic jam with semis. More obviously, however, is simply the difficulty of dividing a finite strip of coastline between shipping, manufacturing, and leisure activities.

Why does all of this roadwork matter? Or perhaps the question might be phrased: what makes these contradictions so poignant?

Shenzhen was built with an eye to integrating China into world capitalist exchanges. Yet in order to achieve the kind of integration sought, China has also had to reconstruct the urban order of things. In places like Shanghai and Guangzhou, this has entailed an intensification of historic geographic inequality. In contrast, in Shenzhen, globalization has predicated a transvaluation of that same inequality—it is the first new city to challenge the hierarchy of Chinese cities. In this sense, Shenzhen is a new kind of Chinese city, admittedly built out of old landmarks and geographic habits, but nevertheless quite different than its predecessors. Unlike in Shanghai and Guangzhou, where the urban elite are very often the decendents of that city’s historic elite (whether traditional or communist), in Shenzhen the nouveau riche are exactly that: a new group of elites, who thirty years ago didn’t expect to be where they are because they knew their place in the older order. More importantly, Shenzhen’s elites have risen out of the construction of this environment. In building the city, they have constructed themselves as a new kind of Chinese subject.

For a look at Lake Fengze roadwork, please visit: http://pics.livejournal.com/maryannodonnell/gallery/0000f086

shenzhen’s place in the heart

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Over the national day holiday, I went to Yan’an and Xian. Yan’an, of course, resonates throughout Party history, while Xian “makes you proud to be Chinese”, as a friend said before I left. Both are located in Shaanxi Province, center of the central plains heartland, which for millennia has defined belonging to various Chinese polities (or so it seems in retrospect.) It was my first visit; after ten years in Shenzhen, I finally complied with my friends’ exhortations to make a pilgrimage to “authentic” China.

Now, I have been to Beijing, even lived for a while in the capitol, but that brief stint was not enough to convince my friends that I have understood the cultural verities that define their homeland. All this to say that Shenzhen isn’t considered part of China, not ancient China, certainly not mythic China, not really even modern China, which is typified by Shanghai’s cosmopolitan facades. Instead, Shenzhen exists as a strange aberration—a necessary concession to global forces, but not really Chinese. Or at least this is what I have gathered from conversations about the limits to my research project. According to friends, it is possible to study the political-economy of reform and opening in Shenzhen, but not to learn anything meaningful about China’s culture.

On our way to Yan’an, we stopped at the Yellow Emperor’s grave and lit incense. The grave is located in a lovely area, with old, old pine trees and birdsong. Chinese Emperors have always understood the importance of burial fengshui, I was told, and this theme would repeat itself in Xi’an and its outskirts, where terracotta soldiers and bronze horses protect the first Qin Emperor’s grave. But first to Yan’an, where we stayed in a three-star hotel.

In the mythic landscape of Mao Zedong’s rise to power, Yan’an symbolizes many things—how the peasants gave refuge to communists fleeing Nationalist persecution; how the communists persevered for years before liberating China; the establishment of Mao Zedong Thought as a Chinese supplement to Marxist-Leninism. We visited a Song dynasty pagoda, which throughout the Cultural Revolution represented the Yan’an years and thus remained undamaged by Red Guard fury. We also went to Yan’an years museum and followed the progress of WWII from the point of view ill-equipped peasant soldiers holed up in caves.

Beyond these myths, however, Yan’an has represented rural poverty and the collective will to build a socialist utopia. Stereotypically, Yan’an peasants lived in caves with few amenities. They were malnourished, uneducated, and determined to give their children a better life. Yet, red tourism has brought wealth to some in the area, while others continue to live in relative poverty. Busloads of tourists come for a day, rarely longer, to look at where Mao, Zhou Enlai, and Zhude lived and planned the revolution, but we walk past crumbling courtyards and dingy residences. Today, those peasants in search of a better life, I am told, are better off working in Shenzhen factories, where at least they can earn a wage, rather than place their hope in agriculture. When I ask why no one wants to be a peasant, my friend gestures to the decrepit and unsanitary housing, asking rhetorically, “Would you want to live here?” And of course the answer is no.

From Yan’an back to Xi’an by way of the Hukou waterfall, an important national symbol. I’m sure on a warmer, less windy, certainly drier day, I would have appreciated watching the Yellow River surge from the central plains toward the eastern coast. However, on that particular day, I cowered in the lobby of the large hotel that has been built right next to the waterfall and even so, I left with a head cold. My friends, however, were undeterred and photographed themselves standing right at river’s edge, smiling through the spray of icy water. It was, as they reminded me, the first and possibly last time they would come. I agreed it was a rare opportunity, but except for a perfunctory walk past the falls, remained inside.

In Xian, the college classmate of a Shenzhen friend had agreed to show me the city, and over the next three days, humbled me with her generosity. He Lei picked me up at the hotel every morning at 9 a.m. and then brought me to the most famous sites, purchasing all tickets and picking up the tab at every meal. When I tried, rather lamely to pay, she scowled and promptly ripped the bill out of my hand. Xian born and raised, she wanted me to love the city as much as she does. Indeed, the grandeur of the terracotta soldiers and refined beauty of Huaqing hot springs provided a backdrop for her enthusiasm. When I reported back to my friend, she nodded knowingly.

“People back home still care about people. They’re not selfish like in Shenzhen.”

“So why did you come?”

“I don’t know anymore, either. At the time, I wanted to try something new. To see more of the world.”

“And now?”

“Now? Now I live in Shenzhen and dream about retiring back in Xian.”

He Lei pointed to another aspect of that hard truth, which is less extreme than that governing daily life in Yan’an.

“Most Xian people live in substandard housing. They don’t earn very much money. So they have to leave. But nobody wants to. Xian makes you proud to be Chinese.”

That then, perhaps, constitutes the fragile but all-too-vexed thread that sutures Shenzhen to the central plains. People not only want to improve their material standard of living, but also to preserve where they came from because they define themselves through the love they feel for their hometown. So they come to Shenzhen, this place that is “not authentic China” in order to get back.

Even on those days it didn’t rain, the sky remained overcast, and that grey infuses all the pictures I took while in Shaanxi. For a sense of a place considered by many to be one of Shenzhen’s most radical antitheses, please visit: http://pics.livejournal.com/maryannodonnell/gallery/0000e49d.