Tag Archives: musing

What is the purpose of cross cultural art exchanges?

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This has been a season of cross cultural art because I’m participating in the SZHK Biennale and have been translating for the OCAT International Artists Residency Program. I have had opportunities to talk with artists not only from the United States, but also Europe and heard questions and comments that are interestingly different from those of Western academics and business people, until recently my usual non-Chinese interlocutors.

Other than the fact that good, deep cross cultural artistic collaboration takes time and patience and a willingness to let go of preconceptions and even values, what have I learned?

Short answer: philosophically, we’re all of us still carrying way too much baggage and practically, translators are seriously underpaid for the work we do facilitating communication despite break downs therein.

Long answer: As a form of social praxis and value structure, art functions very differently in China and the West. I have written about these differences with respect to theater (here and here). Briefly, in the West, artistic praxis has been a means of overcoming four forms of capitalist alienation (as identified by Marx): Continue reading →

what does it mean to say, “我不反对”?

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On the face of it, the situation was quite simple. A Shenzhen museum had promised a group of foreign artists that they would hold an exhibition for work completed while in Shenzhen. However, because the Biennale has occupied the better gallery spaces, the question the group faced was, “Where should the exhibition be held?” Finding an answer to this question entailed too many conversations and frayed nerves. Why?

Simple answer: because saying “yes” seems to be easy in either language, but saying and accepting “no” gracefully are tricky in one’s native language, let alone cross culturally.

Longer answer: Professionals, both Chinese and Western, often find ourselves talking at cross purposes because we think we know what we are saying, especially when negotiating consensus on how a project should move forward. Continue reading →

… and it ends with Revelations

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Yesterday, I heard a rumor and a comment about that rumor, which have me thinking about the importance and fluidity of “reputation” in the absence of any trusted news media and the concomitant rise of weibo as a news source.

The rumor: because the Municipality overspent its universiade budget, this year small businesses will be taxed excessively in order to make up the difference. Apparently, small businesses have been targeted because they are the most vulnerable to government intervention. Private individuals have already been taxed and cannot be taxed again without causing unrest and large, state and/or foreign owned companies all have governmental connections and (in the case of foreign companies) China’s agreements to uphold its tax laws. In contrast, small business owners only have the government connections that they have made through bribes and schmoozing. Moreover, small business owners tend to swim alone, rather than organizing which means that they have neither collective bargaining power, nor use access to public media to air their grievances. Instead, they complain to friends, who in turn, pass the rumor along over tea and snacks with friends.

The comment: It’s difficult to confirm anything in China because important decisions, or rather, the justifications for important decisions aren’t documented and released into the public sphere because anything that can be written down isn’t the total story. My friend then explained that this is why she no longer reads newspapers for news. Instead, she reads newspapers to get a sense of government winds and reads weibo and blogs for news reports. But, when pressed, she also admitted that she doesn’t completely trust weibo or blogs. Instead, she evaluates (based on her experience) the likelihood of a report being true. And she’s aware that different personal experiences will make some people more or less likely to trust a particular report.  Continue reading →

突破：what is a break through?

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Lately, I have been thinking about how each of Shenzhen’s six officially lauded break throughs appears as an instance of slogan warfare. Concomitantly, I have thinking about creative destruction, both Marxist and neo-liberal variants. Roughly speaking, Marx defined creative destruction as the necessary destruction of property and means of production (including social relations) so that new wealth could be generated. In contrast, neo-liberal economists like Joseph Schumpeter have tended to define creative destruction in terms of innovation. A question of emphasis that also beats at the heart of moral value: Marx witnessed destruction and its fallout; Schumpeter saw innovation and its benefits.

So below, a brief survey of Shenzhen breakthroughs to track the shift from socialist to neoliberal political morality. As Marx and Schumpeter indicate, none of these break throughs have been morally neutral, legitimating both new forms of inequality and opportunity. Continue reading →

lecture notes – SCUT

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Yesterday, I participated in a Biennale event at 华南理工大学 (South China University of Technology campus slideshow, below).  The event was organized into three sections: SZHK Biennale 2011 Main Venue; SCUT professors who had participated in SZHK Biennale 2009; and a SZHK Biennale 2011 sub venue event, the Enning Road Transformation Study Group (恩宁路改造学术关注组), an alliance of students and residents to voice concerns about Guangzhou’s plans to raze this historically important part of the city.

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Now, visiting Guangzhou, especially with Guangzhou people is pleasurable because they love their city. They also love to compare their city to Shenzhen, which is interesting for what it tells us about the different ways we create a sense of belonging to “our” cities. The conversations I had highlighted important differences between the creation of urban identities in Guangdong Province’s two most important cities. Continue reading →

Education and the production of educated masses

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This is a speculative post from yesterday’s walk through Shenzhen University. What struck me in the rubble and organization of public spaces was how much was dedicated to creating mass audiences. Not just not enough for people to be present to observe and thereby constitute political hierarchies, but also that knowledge mediates the rituals of inclusion. Moreover, collectively watching sporting events seems to (1) create massive masses and (2) reminds us that we learn more through the body than we do through eyes and ears when they are pinned uncomfortably in plastic seats. And yes, all these bikes collectively used and then forgotten over summer vacation. For the over 40 crowd like moi, these images tell how extensively China’s political-economy has been restructured from cities of cyclists on their way to work units to cities of recreational biking and cars.  Impressions of technologies for creating educated masses, below:

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Old Shenzhen

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Last Friday, took friends on an almost tour of Shenzhen — almost because the tour was planned, but then it rained and so we drank coffee instead and talked about what we would have seen… Anyway, here’s the point. I mentioned some of the “really old” areas and when asked, “how old?” answered, “25-28 years.” And the reply was, “Hmm. That’s not old in Europe.”

It’s not old in Shenzhen either. There are Ming Dynasty ruins to be walked in Zhongshan Park, next to Nantou (or Jiujie) and there are traces of 1,000 years of salt and oysters to be pursued; archaeological digs suggest pre-historical human settlements in the area. However, in terms of post Mao reforms, 1980 architecture is as old as it gets and the first compounds were not finished until 1981-82.  Continue reading →

on loneliness

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Before she came to Shenzhen, my neighbor taught middle school English in Heilongjiang. Her son learned well and came to Shenzhen, where he was able to use his skills. Indeed, his ability to speak with his American boss in English remains a source of pride for Teacher Liu. And like many who came to Shenzhen, he brought his mother as soon as he could. However, opportunities in California called him and now Teacher Liu lives in Shenzhen, alone, reading, watching TV, and taking walks in the courtyard. Her daughter calls, but doesn’t believe a foreigner can speak Chinese; I have promised to meet her the next time she comes to Shenzhen.

Teacher Liu decided not to return to Heilongjiang because she is older and the weather here is better. At one time, she thought she would take care of her grandson, but her son and daughter-in-law left and are waiting for a more opportune time to have a child. When I ask why she doesn’t join them in California, where the weather is also nice, Teacher Liu shrugs and says, “They’re good, the two of them. I don’t want to go.” Nevertheless, she is alone and lonely and desires a way of participating in the community. “If I had something to do,” she repeats, “then I could be useful.”

Teacher Liu’s loneliness speaks to me. In part because my parents are older and elsewhere. In part because I too depend on the goodwill of friends, rather than deep kinship ties. And also in part because I see something fundamentally human in her condition. The care she takes to dress nicely, to go for walks, and keep her apartment clean — the work is the work that makes us recognizably human.

Japan Talk

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Yesterday at lunch, a friend from Hong Kong talked about the influx of Japanese and how there was now speculation about how the local housing market would be impacted. This led to speculation that soon Shenzhen might also see Japanese home buyers. Someone then commented that the problem had been caused by arrogance — the Japanese thought a dike would be enough to protect them, when they should have sited the nuclear plants well above the coast. Then partial sentences about Japanese national character and a pause in the conversation, which was broken when someone commented, “The Japanese really are to be pitied.”

My friends are of an age that they were raised to hate Japan. Indeed, a large component of their nationalism has been anti-Japanese. No matter how bad CCP abuses of power have become, nor how strongly they support anti-corruption efforts, nevertheless every National Day, they have celebrated winning the War against Japan and remembered Japanese atrocities in Nanjing. So yesterday was interesting because my friends were actively processing anti-Japanese sentiments along with a strong ethical sense that victims of disasters are to be pitied and helped. Their ethical sense carried the lunch.

Obviously human empathy can be engaged before tragedies of this magnitude occur; my friends had been amazingly sympathetic for Wenchuan earthquake victims, for example. Yet yesterday’s lunch conversation  has me wondering about how much tragedy or meditation or ethical training is needed to get each of us out of the complacent antagonisms that define us as individuals or activists or patriots. And as citizens, how do we learn to hold our leaders more accountable for nationalistic hate-speach even when (and yes because) we have come to believe so much of it?

吃一堑长一智 – lessons from being robbed

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Yesterday, while waiting for my rice to be weighed at the Coastal City Jusco, my purse was robbed. The thief made off with cash, a camera, my keys, bankcard, and Shenzhen metro pass. Unexpected and disquieting. What did I learn?

First of all, I learned the proverb, 吃一堑长一智 (chī yī qiàn zhǎng yī zhì), which literally means in taking a moat, you gain knowledge. A bit of wisdom a la trench warfare, where for the military to take a city, they lost a lot crossing the moat. It seems to be used, however, in the way I might say “live and learn” or Oscar Wilde once said, “Experience is the name we give to our mistakes”. Continue reading →