Tag Archives: shenzhen identity

Copenhagen 350

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On December 10, 2009, students and teachers from Green Oasis School, Shenzhen, joined world wide vigils to limit carbon dioxide emissions. Scientists say that 350 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere is the safe limit for humanity. Currently, we’re at 387 and rising.

10th grader, Ann Sheng organized students and teachers to march from the school to the park, including securing permits from the municipal government.

15 years ago, Shenzhen urban planners expected the population to use public transportation and bicycles. Today, Shenzhen has one of the largest car markets in China, and the city’s roads have been rebuilt to acommodate the huge number of private vehicles. 15 years ago, Shenzhen urban plans included green space and basketball courts. Today, those public spaces are now used as parking lots.

All this to say, already in Ann’s short life, air quality in Shenzhen has noticibly worsened. I hope her efforts and the enthusiastic support of her classmates and teachers help world leaders (yes I’m looking at you, Barack Obama and Hu Jintao) to reconsider their positions to represent the views of the people and not just car manufacturers.

pictures of the vigil, here.

the wizard of sz

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Participants in the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Biennial will

Explore the possibility of large-scale effective social mobilization in a time that lacks centralized force, spiritual solidarity and practical organization – Ou Ning, Biennial Curator.

In the context of Shenzhen’s thirty year history, the word “mobilization” resonates ironically. In 1966, Mao Zedong began the Cultural Revolution by mobilizing Chinese youth to prevent the restoration of capitalism through ongoing class struggle. In 1978, Deng Xiaoping initiated Reform and Opening by mobilizing the national engineering corps, architects, and reform-mind cadres to plan and build a Special Economic Zone, where elements of capitalism would be deployed to finance modernization projects throughout China. In other words, the construction of Shenzhen was a countermeasure to large-scale social mobilization during the Cultural Revolution and the city itself is the product of effective social mobilization under the auspices of modernization. Juxtaposed with the stated aims of the Biennial, Shenzhen’s history thus begs the question, “Why mobilization? Why now?”

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中国观澜版画基地: What is a cultural resource?

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Yesterday, Wenzi and I visited her classmate, Zhao Jiachun who works at the Guanlan Woodblock Print Base (中国观澜版画基地). Jiachun generously showed us the Base and briefly introduced its history.

Guanlan interests me for three reasons (in addition to the beautiful setting, pictures here):

Guanlan is, at the moment, a purely municipal government funded project. This points to the growing ideological importance of culture in Shenzhen’s identity – both domestic and international.

Guanlan is part of the movement to recuperate elements of Shenzhen’s pre-reform history as a cultural resource. What’s interesting is that this recuperation is happening village by village. Consequently, what emerges is a loose network of sites, rather than an overall “history” of the city. In this case, Guanlan is the third Hakka site incorporated into the municipal cultural apparatus. The first was Dapeng Suocheng (大鹏所城), a military installation in the eastern part of the city. The second was Crane Lake Compound, which is now the Hakka Folk Custom Museum (深圳客家民俗博物馆鹤湖新居) in Luoruihe Village, Longgang (罗瑞合村).

Guanlan is an example of using pre-modern architecture to incorporate international art production into local identity. More specifically, the experience of architectural difference (such as living in a Hakka compound) bridges even as it creates cultural difference. Thus, the Base invites foreign and Chinese artists for residencies. These residencies allow foreign artists to “understand” China / Shenzhen and incorporate these new experiences into their art. At the same time, these exchanges also refigure a local art form (woodblock printmaking) as international cultural heritage. Importantly, this kind of “experience” of the local past as a cultural bridge seems a global trend. In Switzerland, we visited Romainmotier, which also offers artist residencies in a beautiful, restored, pre-modern setting.

This has me wondering about the ideological relationship between past and present urban settlements: Is “history” now the location of “culture”, while the “present” is all about one’s location on a scale of relative modernity? In other words, do Shenzhen and NYC participate in the same “culture”, their real differences explained away as “levels of modernity”? While their cultural “difference” must be found by excavating the past?

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计划赶超变化–a new era in Shenzhen development

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赶 is often translated as “to overtake”, but can also mean “to drive away”. It first appeared in Chinese political discourse in 1957 when Mao Zedong responded to Nikita Khrushchev’s statement that “the Soviet Union would overtake the United States in 15 years” by saying that “In 15 years the PRC would overtake England”.  In 1958, Liu Shaoqi supported the Great Leap Forward with the idea of “Surpassing England and overtaking the United States (超英赶美)”. Indeed, in Shenzhen’s previous incarnation as Baoan County, there once were two communes named Surpass England and an Overtake America, respectively.

In many of the online interpretations of 赶英超美 (here and here, for example) Reform and Opening (改革开放) is offered as the correct policy for achieving surpassing and overtaking. This scenario is one way of understanding both the importance of Shenzhen (first and largest experiement in reforming and opening the planned economy) and why it is often experienced as “not Chinese”. Indeed, residents have often asked me how similar the United States and Shenzhen are.

赶 reappears in Shenzhen popular discourse in the late 80s and early 90s in the expression “plans can’t keep up with change (计划赶不上变化)”, which comments sarcastically on the governments inability to implement its urban plans. In Shenzhen, for example, the overall plans have been done in 15 year bursts. This has meant that what is planned isn’t built for years. More often than not, village developers and others have taken advantage of this situation to errect their own buildings. Thus, in the 90s, I frequently heard the expression “计划赶不上变化” to explain this situation.

During the 80s and 90s, de facto independence from government plans in Shenzhen resulted in a kind of pioneering exuberence that was often called “the Shenzhen spirit (深圳精神)”, but also found expression in slogans such as “little government, big society (小政府，大社会)” that moved with Shenzhen mayor Liang Xiang to Hainan in 1986 and which continues to inspire debates about changing the relationship between the government and the people (here, here, and here).

However, in conjunction with urban village renovation [administratively located in “Urban village (old village) renovation offices (城中村（旧村）改造办公室)]，the government has  recently begun razing buildings that were erected on these unused sites, justifying their actions (with or without compensation depending on various) with respect to the plan. This means that Shenzhen may have entered a period of that could be called “plans overtake change (计划赶超变化)”, whereby neighborhoods of several years are being razed to make way for roads and other public infrastructure (the subway) that have been planned for years.

I am interested in how “plans overtake change” because it describes several of the important contradictions that over time have taken root and flourished in Shenzhen.

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the meaning of work and the pursuit of 幸福

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I have been thinking about the familial as opposed to the personal value of work in Shenzhen. More specifically,I have been thinking about how happiness (幸福) is tied to family life and thus, how work is understood in terms of how it contributes to and/or impedes the creation and maintenance of families. For example, when people talk about why their jobs are important, they do so in terms of how it contributes to family life, rather than in terms of personal satisfaction. Thus, a “good” job provides a stable income and respectability for a family. If the job allows an individual to pursue and develop interests, so much the better. But if not, individuals may still derive (some) satisfaction from their jobs insofar as these jobs allow them to fulfill their responsibilities to their families.

This insight has allowed me to rethink how my students and their families understand my role in their lives (helping them get into top schools so that they can launch into good jobs), as opposed to what I think my job should be (helping them get into schools that will help them further explore, discover, and develop their passions so that they can find satisfying jobs).

1. The purpose of education: If the social value of a job is familial, it means that the goal of education is to prepare students for well-paid, stable and respectable jobs. These means that in an increasingly technology driven world, education would focus on the sciences and mathematics, despite (and often at the expense of) students’ interests in the arts and humanities. In contrast, if the social value of a job is personal, it means that the goal of education would be to help students figure out what their passion is and how to perfect it, whether or not that particular passion was economically viable.

2. The gender of the job: If the social value of a job is familial, it means that family roles become one of the most important criteria for choosing a career. Fathers/husbands must find jobs that allow them to provide for their families. Likewise, mothers/wives must take jobs that allow them to take care of the family. This means that men often end up taking jobs that they don’t like and women often don’t pursue jobs that they might enjoy in order to maintain family stability.

3. Who decides what one does: If the social value of a job is familial, it also means that parents, spouses, in-laws, and lovers all have a say in what one does because what one does is understood to be an expression of one’s commitment to these relationships. For example, a man who pursues an engineering career has expressed both the potential and the desire to take care of his family because engineering is a proven middle class job. In contrast, a man who pursues a passion for painting has demonstrated neither the potential nor the desire to care of his family because earning a living from painting is difficult. Likewise, a woman is rarely evaluated in terms of her success, but how that success impacts family life. For example, after a woman has a child, the child’s welfare comes before her job. Moreover, problems that children have are often explained in terms of mothers’ inability to manage both work and family responsibilities, regardless if the mother works long, underpaid hours to help meet ends meet, or has chosen to pursue a demanding career, which requires long, well paid hours to meet professional goals.

4. There is more sympathy for folks who are trying, but failing to fulfill their responsibilities to their families through respectable jobs than there is support for folks who trying, but failing to fulfill their family responsibilities by pursuing their interests. Thus, men find their interests are limited by their ability to earn and women find their ambitions are constrained by household responsibilities.

5. Insofar as creating and maintaining a family is considered to be and bring about the highest happiness (幸福), it’s an open question as to how helpful it is when I encourage students to follow their dreams rather than to obey their parents’ instructions.

Hmm.

going, going, gone …

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Shenzhen’s mayor Xu Zhengheng (徐宗衡简历) has been arrested for graft and yesterday the resume of the new  mayor Wang Rong (王荣简历) was broadcast on televisions throughout the city, including on street corners, buses, and taxis.

And not even with much of a wimper, let alone bang. What has been interesting is the lack of conversation about the scandal. Maybe people haven’t spoken to me about the topic because I’m foreign, but it could also be because Shenzhen people take corruption to be business as usual. When the topic did come up, most complained that Xu Zhengheng had gone too far (太过分), or that maybe somebody was gunning for him, or maybe that possibly didn’t have any friends in Beijing. The general consensus, however, was that if Xu Zongheng had  had been content with five million, even 10 million, all would have been well. However he just “went to far”. Indeed, I heard graft figures as high as “several hundred millions (上亿)” for himself and even more for his “network”. Rumors rumors…

The most interesting analysis came from one of my better connected friends who said that this case showed that there was a clear difference between “the people’s will (民意)” and “righteousness (正义)”.  He thought the arrest of the mayor was a good sign (of oversight) and expected to see more arrests follow.  However, in his opinion tolerance for graft and corruption had a deep history in China, so taking a few million, especially if you worked hard for the city wasn’t a problem, but in terms of making China a “just” society more had to be done. He also thought this general tolerance for some level of graft explained the difference between the amount of tax revenue the city generated and the actual amount of money going in and out of the banks. How, he wondered, could the government know, come to terms with, and actually regulate all the economic activity in Shenzhen, let alone Guangdong and the rest of the country if at every level the “people’s will” allowed for leaders to take an unreported portion of the profits for themselves?

Shekou Tempest Updates

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Twenty years after the Shekou Tempest, reporters interviewed the two protagonists, Li Yanjie (李燕杰) and Zeng Xianbin (曾宪斌). In retrospect, it seems clear that the two were already walking different roads, which headed to two different versions of contemporary Chinese society, one neo-traditional and the other neo-liberal, both with a nationalist twist.

Li Yanjie continued and deepened his neo-traditional ethical teaching and, over the past ten years has re-emerged as a cultural critic. On his blog, he occassionaly contemplates the meaning of life in highly poetic prose that receives enthusiastic accolades from his readers.

For young people, love is a sweet word. From ancient times to the present, how many people have added to its beautiful colors and poetic imaginary! In those beautifully moving romantic poems, we can frequently feel the noble and healthy way that our Chinese people love.爱情，对于青年人来说，是一个甜蜜的字眼。古往今来，曾有多少人赋予她以美的色彩、诗的意境啊！在那些优美感人的爱情诗歌里，我们常常可以感受到我们中华民族高尚、健康的爱情格调。

Ormosia blooms in the south, but who knows how many branches this year?

Please pick several, as ormosia most symbolizes love.

红豆生南国，春来发几枝，愿君多采撷，此物最相思。

After a few more examples of romantic poetry, Li Yan Jie continues:

But how many young people today don’t know anything about this. After watching a few foreign films, they intentionally imitate those scenes of embracing and kissing, and some even are like this in public during broad daylight. 可是，现在有些青年人却不知道。看了几部外国故事片，就专门模仿那些拥抱、接吻的镜头，有的人大白天在公共场所也这样。

And then he concludes:

To maintain the purity of love, we need lofty ideals of love and to  pay attention to romantic civilization. 爱情的格调要高，还得注意恋爱文明，要保持爱情的纯洁性。

Complete post, here.

Zeng Xianbin’s neo-liberal ethics blossomed into a career as a real estate development planner and professor at the Qinghua University Professional Management Training Center ( 清华大学职业经理人培训中心).  I have been unable to find a blog under his name, but that may be because he sells video-cds of his lectures, and they aren’t cheap.

What is interesting is that Zeng Xianbin transformed his career as a journalist into that of a lecturer, much like Li Yanjie. And, like Li Yanjie, Zeng Xianbin has focused on living in the new era. However, unlike Li Yanjie, Zeng Xianbin has understood each of these changes to be an opportunity and pursued them as such. Indeed, his first opportunity was his comments on and understanding of how Shenzhen reformed public housing by gradually eliminating subsidized housing in favor of a housing market. He now provides ideas for how to use the market to provide suitable housing for low and middle income families.

Even more interestingly is that both men have shifted their ethical focus away from society and placed it firmly on the individual. Ethics has become self-expression, which may be more properly be understood as a kind of self-control (自治能力), whether in the pursuit of love or  money. Which returns me to much earlier thoughts on Confucian businessmen or 儒商。

the shekou storm – translation

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Throughout the 1980s, Beijing and Shenzhen were symbols in and locations of debates about the development of post-Mao society. In many ways, Beijing symbolized and produced theories of reform and opening, while Shenzhen symbolized and actualized these theories. However, as the saying goes, plans can’t keep up with change. Roughly a year and a half before the demonstrations in Tian’anmen, the Shekou Tempest demonstrated that the government was serious in its intention to reform and open all of society, including politics as usual.

In tribute to the efforts of young people in both cities, and the sincerity of the questioning, I have translated “Questions and Answers about the Shekou Tempest (蛇口风波问答录) by Zeng Xianbin (曾宪斌) because the article reminds us how important Shenzhen was (Shekou especially) to the hopes and dreams that characterized Chinese youth during the 1980s. The article also illustrates at what cost Shenzhen’s post Southern Tour (1992) development has come; once upon a time, Shenzhen residents had the rhetorical skills and ethical compulsion to debate the social implications of going capitalist.

Ironically, many of the early Shekou gold diggers, who once believed it was possible to make money and contribute to society, now sould like old leftists – too many people have come to Shenzhen only to make money without contributing anything to society. This emphasis on working for society, rather than oneself seems to be the important thread that links Old Shenzhen to the Chinese Revolution; New Shenzhen, post 1989 Shenzhen, is something else again.

Questions and Answers about the Shekou Tempest

by Zeng Xianbin

Reporter’s note: This is a small debate that took place half a year ago and was later reported in several newspapers. Today this newspaper [People’s Daily] introduces the event and some related opinions, as well as providing space for more comerades to participate in the discussion, together exploring the question of youth political thought work.

On January 13 this year [1988], Shekou, Shenzhen organized a “Youth Education Experts and Shekou Youth Symposium”. Participants included Comerades Li Yanjie, Qu Xiao, and Peng Qiyi, three political lecturers from the Chinese Youth Thought Work Research Center and seventy Shekou youths. The media has already introduced this symposium. Even if evaluations of this discussion were mixed, nevertheless there was concensus about one point: its meaning exceeded the actual tempest itself. During the first and middle parts of July, this reporter split his time between Beijing and Shenzhen, interviewing people involved such as Li Yanjie, Qu Xiao, Peng Qingyi and Yuan Geng, asking them to answer questions about which readers are concerned. In order to insure that the reader gets objective, verifiable facts, this reporter has recorded only the questions and answers. The reader must judge the rights and wrongs of the case for herself. Continue reading →

starter teapot

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starter teapot

Originally uploaded by maryannodonnell

72 hours into the rain, rain go away and I am taking pictures of the starter teapot that Xiao Chen recommended, rather than go outside.

Xiao Chen had told me that if I “raise/nurture (养-yang)” a teapot then I will develop affection for it (发展感情). Even if it’s a relatively cheap teapot, like a 20 rmb machine producedteapot or a 180 rmb handmade starter (pictured), the act of caring for the teapot will become affection for it. Lo and behold, it’s true.  A week into the process and I’m considering naming my teapot, Terrance T. Pot, or something equally ridiculous.

To make my tea, I first rinse Terrance with hot water, then add the leaves, which I wash twice, before I pour myself a cup of fragrent pu’er tea. I don’t discard the rinse water, but pour it over Terrance so that it will become 润 (run), a word which may be translated as moist, or smooth, but might be usefully thought of as “flush” as  run also describes the characteristics of well-cared for skin. With each rinsing, Terrance’s color subtly changes and I find myself fascinated by the new colors and different textures; I even note the gradual change in temperature, from too hot to touch to cool smoothness.

This long weekend of intense communion with my teapot and I now understand how is it possible to develop feelings for an online pet – just check in with it every now and again and 养 it. In fact, it is also possible to buy various clay “pets” for your tea set. To yang a tea-pet, give it frequent tea-baths, much as you would a beloved teapot.

Throughout Shenzhen, many have hobbies that are, in fact, yang-ing an inanimate object. I have friends who take care of jade objects by frequently handling them; the oil on their skin nurishes the jade, which like a teapot also becomes run through care.  Others prefer to yang a living creature – a plant, a pet, or even a mistress.

What and how one yang-s is culturally coded and recognized; it is a way of creating an identity. Cultivated people yang things like teapots, jade, potted plants, and tropical fish. Many spoil dogs of various kinds, giving them names reminicent of childrens’ nicknames, Precious and Treasure and Baby. Others yang projects and relationships. Signicantly, the number of mistresses that a man can yang is a symbol of his ability (能力).

There are, of course, deeper implications – caring for a goldfish, or your house, or small patch of earth will lead to love for your goldfish, your home, and your world. Parents, of course, yang their children, who in turn will yang their parents in old age. I believe that this is precisely where 玩儿 (wan’er/playing) seems to diverge from yang. Wan’er is just for fun. In fact, it’s possible to say 养着玩儿 or “nurishing for fun”. In this sense, a person or an object – like a teapot – is just a plaything.

rumor has it

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Shenzhen inhabitants basically tell two kinds of stories about where they came from – 老家 (laojia / hometown) stories, which wax nostalgic for the warm human relations of their villages and 内地 (neidi / hinterland) stories how bad the situation is back in the interior of China. Yes, hometown and neidi stories can be about the same place, but usually a hometown story is about a specific place and a neidi story is about a general condition.

In all origin stories, whether nostalgic or resentful, Shenzhen is the foil. On the one hand, unlike a hometown, Shenzhen is said to lack 人情 (human sentiments). It is difficult to make a living here because people will exploit and take advantage of you. Hometown stories explain why someone is unhappy – usually lonely and alone – in Shenzhen. On the other hand, although realizing one’s dreams in Shenzhen is said to difficult, nevertheless it is possible; in neidi stories, what comes across is the impossibility of realizing one’s goals back home. Neidi stories explain why the unhappy are still in Shenzhen.

Yesterday, I heard an extreme and disturbing neidi story. Continue reading →