Six Weeks In China

Tonight we went to the National Theatre to see a performance of the New Peking Opera, a fascinating fusion of classical Western, classical Chinese, and modern music and dance. I enjoyed it save the fact the sets were largely dependent on awkward CGI renderings projected onto a backdrop. It was an interesting experience, and I think most of the people I went with enjoyed it as well.

I got home to dealing with the insurance company about my March car accident in which I was nearly killed. I can't believe that things are still up in the air, that doctors haven't really been paid, whatever. I don't feel like dealing with this. I'm in China, after all.

I spent my evening on the internet. I really honestly derive more pleasure from few other things than the internet. Today's hot find is Naomi Klein's article in the most recent issue of Rolling Stone. I know it's Rolling Stone, but the fact that it's Naomi Klein totally cancels it out. It made me think about the games I play on the streets of Beijing -- picking out the security cameras. We see so many that it's not even worth it to count anymore. But sometimes I do smile and wave. Hey Beijing Police. I'm just a visitor here, but I know what you're on about.

Joking aside though, the whole thing freaks me out a lot. Klein mentions in her article that she had her passport scanned when she checked into her Chinese hotel -- I remember that, and she reports that when she inquired about it, it turns out that they send a copy of your visa and biopage to the police. Is this normal? Should this be normal? Why is it happening here? And when is it going to start happening elsewhere?

Also: I can't believe the article isn't blocked by the Great Firewall.

Tonight we went to the National Theatre to see a performance of the New Peking Opera, a fascinating fusion of classical Western, classical Chinese, and modern music and dance. I enjoyed it save the fact the sets were largely dependent on awkward CGI renderings projected onto a backdrop. It was an interesting experience, and I think most of the people I went with enjoyed it as well.

I got home to dealing with the insurance company about my March car accident in which I was nearly killed. I can't believe that things are still up in the air, that doctors haven't really been paid, whatever. I don't feel like dealing with this. I'm in China, after all.

I spent my evening on the internet. I really honestly derive more pleasure from few other things than the internet. Today's hot find is Naomi Klein's article in the most recent issue of Rolling Stone. I know it's Rolling Stone, but the fact that it's Naomi Klein totally cancels it out. It made me think about the games I play on the streets of Beijing -- picking out the security cameras. We see so many that it's not even worth it to count anymore. But sometimes I do smile and wave. Hey Beijing Police. I'm just a visitor here, but I know what you're on about.

Joking aside though, the whole thing freaks me out a lot. Klein mentions in her article that she had her passport scanned when she checked into her Chinese hotel -- I remember that, and she reports that when she inquired about it, it turns out that they send a copy of your visa and biopage to the police. Is this normal? Should this be normal? Why is it happening here? And when is it going to start happening elsewhere?

Also: I can't believe the article isn't blocked by the Great Firewall.

I might be wrong about this, but the report from Facebook indicates that I'm missing summer. I guess this isn't a problem really, since i'm in China, but at the same time, I'm seeing that parties and shows and things are going on, some of which are going on at my house. My friends are celebrating birthdays and I'm missing out. I guess it's good that I keep getting invited to these things in spite of my obvious absence. I still feel frustrated that I'm not going to be around for this stuff, even if it means more work for me.

Though before I left, a number of people pointed out that I would come home with a distinct advantage. I won't be sick of summer in June -- in fact, I'll be so ready for it that I'll make everyone keep enjoying it. The party scene here in Beijing is okay by me for the most part. There are some good clubs, some great bands, and some fun people. But by and large I feel like I have been going out and doing things I would never enjoy at home. The kinds of places that expats frequent in this city are pretty hit-or-miss.

At the same time, Beijing wins at being a big international city, it wins at culture, it wins at food, it wins at beauty. What if I just imported everyone here? Pipe dream, yeah, but just think how fun it would be. We're not feeling the hops shortage over here, is all I'm trying to say.

Anyway I'm sure there will be plenty of summer for me when I return to the states. In fact there might well be too much of it. That's okay. I'll be ready.

I don't know what you may have heard about Beijing's indie music scene. The influential club D-22 is just down the street from my hostel, and it's been instrumental in getting me to meet the people who are worth knowing in the city. The first night I went I met the owner of the club, Michael, who is a professor of finance at PKU. What a fascinating guy.

Justin's band, IDH, played tonight, and they were pretty great. Of course this necessitated some boozing, so I leave it up to you to imagine my current mental state. The sheer level of talent that Beijing is putting out these days is stunning. For a quick jaunt, check out Carsick Cars and Joyside.

I also met a great guy who teaches at the music school here in Beijing. Charlie teaches modern music history -- he teaches rock and experimental music, basically. We had a great conversation about the scene and about Michigan, where he spent some time as a kid. According to Charlie, Beijing is like Vice magazine before Gavin McInnes left -- Shanghai, which is also worth visiting, he tells me, is a little more like Nylon magazine.

It seems like an apt analogy, at least as far as Beijing goes. Things are very slapdash here. People can get away with whatever they dream up. The worthwhile local music here ranges from Sonic Youth on out into left field until you're not sure what you're listening to. Kids here can play the guitar, and their pent-up energy isn't from Montreal winters, it's from growing up in a Communist society -- one which still is paranoid about modern rock music. Charlie helped organize a music festival that got canceled thanks to the government's worries about image and the Olympics.

This city is fascinating, dynamic, downright bizarre. I feel like I'm ready to be repatriated here.

I'm having a hard time updating this blog. This could be for one of two reasons: either I am doing nothing lately, or doing everything lately. I can't tell. Part of it is, I've been sick and as a result too exhausted at the end of the day to even think, let alone write. Part of it is, I've been feeling a little restless here, counting my good days with my bad, thinking about getting home.

We've been doing less sightseeing and having more class, which I'm a fan of, since I've come down with my first cold since October. Usually when I'm sick I stay in bed for the duration of the illness, since it usually only lasts a day or so, and it happens so rarely I can afford to miss things. Unfortunately I really can't afford to miss a lot of Beijing. This city is huge and exciting and things are happening all the time.

Monday night Voni and I went to buy bikes. We had to cop out and go to Wal-mart, which I'm a little embarrassed about, but at the same time it turns out to be very very difficult for people who don't speak Chinese to find a used bike in this city. Not a decent used bike, but a used bike at all. We managed to swing brand new city cruisers for 250 kuai, which included a front basket, a lock, a bell, and a sharp but innocuous looking black bicycle. Everything in Beijing is flat so you only need one gear, and your bike can be as heavy as you can stand to ride because you never actually need to try. But even in rush hour traffic you're traveling twice as fast as pedestrians and frequently faster than cars. Last evening, on our way back from the Peking University campus, it was raining, and we beat some other kids who were taking a cab.

We've been seeing plenty of sights, too: Great Wall, Forbidden City, Beihai Park, a houtong tour by rickshaw, Jingshan Park, you name it. It's been interesting to see how much Beijingers use their public green space. In Jingshan Park, there were a bunch of older folks listening to music, dancing, and waving around these long ribbons of colored cloth. Some of my tripmates joined them, and they were overjoyed to have others get in on the fun. It's funny, in this city people tend to be pretty stoic, but when they're happy, they're ecstatic.

We had our first dialogues on Monday, as well. The Peking University students have been really receptive, excited, and talkative. I think it's going to be a good couple of weeks getting to know them.

Whenever I travel to a new city I find that it's sometimes hard to come up with what music best fits it. I learned today after classes that Kid A by Radiohead is, in fact, what Beijing sounds like to me. Or rather, what it looks like it sounds like. I think I'll be listening to a lot of Kid A in the next few weeks.

Yesterday we went on a tour of the Houtong alley neighborhoods in Beijing. It was interesting to see all the old buildings, the buildings that were built in the 15th and 14th centuries that people still live in. I was struck, though, by the fact that the government has been paying people to rebuild and restore their homes in this historic district while many similar historic districts have been destroyed by construction.

The other thing that made me the most uncomfortable was the fact that we were observing the inner workings of this neighborhood as tourists. It was made perfectly obvious that we were, being carted around in rickshaws and taken to a man's family home that he has turned into a tourist destination. I was especially uncomfortable because it seemed very contrived. It seemed the reason that this particular neighborhood was being preserved was because the people were willing to collude with being made into a tourist attraction.

I felt very self-conscious about being an outsider. It seemed intrusive, artificial, unnatural. I felt like I was using these people, even though they had opened their home to us, because there is the very real possibility that making themselves into a tourist destination is one of their only economic recourses to support their families. Like Greg said, "this place is a zoo." The animals in a zoo don't really have a choice to be on display, but they do benefit from the care and feeding of their keepers.

It made me question why it is we go travel to other countries. Are we in it just to observe the city? Are we in it to really understand the way people live? Are we there as bolsters to the local economy, or merely nuisances to local people trying to live their lives? How can we reduce the cultural footprints we make. And how is tourism itself an act of Western hegemony? These are questions Miriam and I bounced around while we were looking at the courtyard house we had been allowed into.

I am privileged to be able to travel from my home to this country. It might be my motherland (and I do think of it as such, in a way), but I am a stranger here. I am privileged to be able to think about these things at all. But isn't it my responsibility as a person in this privileged position to reject making my gracious hosts into animals in a zoo?

This is an ongoing crisis of faith for me. In many parts of the world, tourism is the major source of income for families who have virtually nothing else. I wonder, though, if tourism isn't just like an aid package: it helps many in the short term, a few in the long term, but cements the dependence of developing nations on the developed world. The only way to counter the negative effects of globalization is to consciously help the less privileged pull themselves up, rather than pull the less privileged up without their consent to or knowledge of our methods.

I've always disliked being a tourist, because I don't think you can really come to know a place on a double-decker bus tour or seeing the scenic spots only. But the "authentic" things we're looking at here seem to have been turned into a stop on a bus tour or designated by the government as a scenic spot. I'm feeling very ambivalent.