Last Weeks in Kunming

Hey folks,

Sorry for the long absence, but for a couple of reasons, I haven't been able to blog. First of all, Blogger was blocked by the CCP in the last few weeks I was in China, mostly to avoid trouble on the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen, so I wouldn't have been able to post anyhow. But honestly, I haven't been writing anyways. I was just busy doing work and then, since I was traveling with friends, it was hard to get away to the computer for an hour to jot stuff down, especially without a working laptop (GRR). I'm back in NYC now, safe and sound and since I'm unemployed for the summer, without much to do at the moment. I'll try and take a few hours to write about the last few weeks in China, and I'll break it up into two or three posts to make it more manageable. It's obviously not as good as recording stuff as it happens, but oh well, what can you do.

Like I said, most of my last two weeks in Kunming were spent writing and finishing up the two required papers for my class, one based on the field research I did at the mosque, and one that was a literary analysis of Lu Xun's "The True Story of Ah Q". Writing those papers was rather daunting. First of all, I just had limited time, since Chinese class and homework reliably took up most of the day, and pretty much the whole rest of the time after spring break, I was burnt out beyond belief. I really, really do not like language classes. I never have. I see them as a means to an end, and while I love communicating in a foreign language, I just loathe the process, and can never focus in class. That fact really hit me the last couple of weeks, where I just ran out of gas. Also, it's really hard to do good research in China. We had a very, very small English library (and at least I was doing a project focused on a primary text) and our internet resources were limited both by connection speeds and the Great Firewall. Finally, I didn't have a damn computer, which meant sitting in sweaty web bars for hours writing a paper next to a guy playing DotA. Lots of fun. But actually, in the final analysis, I was kind of happy to write my papers. It was the first real culture learning I did there, and it really improves the study abroad experience to have some idea about what has shaped the place you are culturally. Plus, I was reading a lot about the Late Qing/Early Republican period, which I find fascinating and will probably do some work on at some point. They're not the best papers I've ever written by far, but they're far better then they could have been, considering the limited effort and energy I put into them, and the limited resources I had access to.

I actually saw two movies in theaters in my last two weeks in Kunming. The Chinese movie theater experience is interesting and kind of funny. Since most movies come out immediately on cheaper DVDs, almost nobody goes to movie theaters in China. Also, the seats are assigned: you buy a ticket for a very specific seat. It's kinda creepy to see the state film bureau approval screen show, one of the reminders you get now and then that despite your relative freedom as a foreigner, you are in an authoritarian state. And, as always, the Chinese pretty much seem to have no regard for any sort of cinema etiquette. In Nanjing, Nanjing, a film concerning the RAPE OF NANJING, for chrissakes, we heard no fewer than seven or eight cell phones go off, and sometimes, not only would they answer, but enter into prolonged conversations (In Mandarin: "Yeah, I'm watching a movie right now...Nanjing, Nanjing...it's pretty good"). And best of all, at a climactic scene of Nanjing, Nanjing, we heard the predictable hock...and lord knows where that went. I'm just glad I didn't have to clean it up.

So, my first movie experience was probably the most interesting: the Rape of Nanjing movie Nanjing, Nanjing by director Lu Chuan. For the last month or so I was in China, I kept seeing ads for this movie everywhere, and heard about it from pretty much every Chinese person I talked to, including my language partner. It became very clear to me that someone in the government was pushing this movie hard. So I wanted to see it in Chinese theaters to gauge the Chinese reaction and see exactly what messages were being conveyed. I was expecting a total propaganda flick, but actually, Nanjing Nanjing is really quite fine for the most part, with good performances and stunning cinematography, done in a verite style that, it should be said, borrowed heavily from Saving Private Ryan. I thought that the director did a good job portraying the Japanese humanly (an accomplishment that earned him death threats from Chinese nationalists). Almost all the soldiers in this movie on both sides seem like adolescents, scared and confused, trapped in an awful game that they simply cannot fathom. However, even though the film was well made, with a topic this likely to inflame the public, you ask the always tricky question of whether there are some films that shouldn't be made. Also, the film contained more graphic rape scenes than I have ever seen. After a while you wonder if it is appropriate to depict so many of these terrible scenes or if it crosses the line into exploitative or worse, incendiary. Finally, the position of women in this film is particularly interesting. At one point, a woman is viciously criticized for refusing to cut her hair and disguise herself as a boy to prevent rape by the Japanese, and is later thematically punished by getting raped. As is too often the case in Chinese art, the woman must sacrifice her feminine identity for the good of the nation.

In general, I am downright terrified by the Chinese attitude towards the Japanese. The intensity and the blindness of the hatred, and the fact that it is being actively encouraged by the government as cover for the government's own failings (it's no surprise that Nanjing, Nanjing and the government support it received came mere months before the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen). It should also be noted however that it's not fair just to ask the Chinese to forgive and forget, either. I think Americans have little concept of the extent and brutality of the Sino-Japanese war, and also, the bottom line is that the Japanese, unlike the Germans have never apologized or even acknowledged the atrocities (in a disturbing conversation with my Japanese roommate, he denied that the Rape of Nanking ever occurred). But after seeing so many Sino-Japanese war serials, and hearing so many Chinese speak openly of their hatred for the Japanese, you hear the peculiar and terrifying drum beat of a nation that, rather than examine the failings of their own nation, creates a racial scapegoat. It's something we've seen before. And it disturbs me to the extent where I predict that if the CCP were to fall in the near-distant future (which I doubt), it would be replaced not with a democratic government, but with a nationalist/fascist government that would go to war with Japan. And I am quite serious about that.

Also, I saw Star Trek, which was pretty cool. This time, we were the only people in the theater, so there wasn't much of a China experience, although the Chinese subtitles were often very funny (it's amazing the wide variety of English expressions which were translated simply as "haode", which means "alright"). What did I think of the movie? Eh, I didn't think it had much of a brain, it was just action, none of the philosophy or political stuff that draws me to the Star Trek franchise. The plot was pretty simplistic, and I HATE time travel plots. It also might have been that as a Trekkie, I just didn't like to see certain things happen, and couldn't enjoy the movie as a result. Plus, I felt weirdly exposed seeing it with a bunch of non-Trekkies (who didn't even know what the Kobeyashi Maru test was...fuh). Simon Pegg as Scotty and Zachary Quinto as Spock were great casting choices. But in any case, I left with mixed feelings.

Sad saying goodbye to my language partner. I really felt that by the end of the semester we had become pretty good friends, and I hope she feels the same way. It'd be great if she could manage to come out to NYC after she finishes her semester in Canada in the fall, although she might decide that it's too expensive. It really saddens me that it's simply out of the question, even for those who can manage to get a study abroad in the states, to travel to the extent that we did in China. I had one last good moment with her, discussing Chinese history. I mentioned that it was awfully bloody, with a lot of people boiling other people alive (actually, not knowing how to say boiled alive, I said "hot potted alive"). Western media lies, she said. Actually, I countered, I read that in Sima Qian's History Classic. Oh, she said, well, it's not all like that. That's only some of it.

My last weekend in Kunming, I made sure that I got my papers done early so that I could visit my favorite places in Kunming. I made sure to make some time to sit in Cuihu Park for a while and read. Sitting in the peaceful park, watching the Chinese sing folk songs and dance in unison and be their social, quirky selves, I saw how I would very easily miss more than a few things about China. You know, when you're studying and just living day by day all alone, you focus on what's difficult about China, and there's a lot that is. But China is also a lovely country, with some very nice places, and from time to time, it's a great place to be and to live. I also thought about how I could have lived differently in China. I never really got settled in China, and I spent most of my free time hanging out with my classmates, never really reaching out to the Chinese or other expats. That's my fault and it's a sad thing. But then, it's also hard to do that in only four months. Most of the expats said you really have to be in China for a year before you start to love and understand it. It was funny also going to Kunming bars and clubs on my last weekends and seeing familiar expat faces, realizing that even someone as marginally part of the community as me could recognize the expat stars of Kunming. It's an interesting life, I think, and it attracts interesting people, but I could never imagine living so far away from America from so long. But who knows? Every time I told an expat I was leaving, they asked me when I would be back, which always made me kind of laugh, since I was so eager to return home at that point, I couldn't imagine ever coming back. But now I'm back, who knows, maybe I'll come back to China one day. I wouldn't rule it out.

My last week and a half, I traveled from Kunming to Guilin, then from Guilin to Guangzhou (Canton), from Guangzhou to Nanjing, and then finally, from Nanjing to Shanghai. If I can shake off the lethargy inspired by jet lag/American comfort, I'll post about it. Stay tuned.