History and the Past: Incommensurate Partners

After returning to America, A and I have settled into a more regular routine, which means Chinese classes and yoga for her, and the dark unending cave known as the Beijing archives for me. My one New Year’s resolution was to be more forthright with my area of study and to cease obfuscating about what I am researching. To that end I told the archivists this week that I intend to study the Cultural Revolution. This garnered a very hesitant response, and I could tell that the archivists were on the verge of denying my request. Before they could drop the hammer I quickly asserted that I was a PhD student studying Chinese history (subtext: not a secret agent. I only function in that capacity in certain European countries). One of the archivists looked up at me and responded, “You study history? The Cultural Revolution is not history.”

If nothing else, post-modernism has taught us that history and the past are two wholly separate phenomena. The best historians bring a narrative structure to some small sliver of the past, and do it with a modicum of accuracy. There is no better way to describe the Cultural Revolution than as a massive political event that began 45 years ago, but that is absent from history. For all that people may talk about and write about the Cultural Revolution, it remains a taboo subject without an expressive outlet required for good history. And at a more basic level, archivists (and those above them) continue to deny access to information. So we’re left with memory (which forms the basic essence of the past), but not history (which attempts to synthesize information). In the case of China, the former is present and inexorably valuable, but the latter is sorely missing.

The Cultural Revolution is the closest China came to civil war since, well, the Chinese civil war. The problem, however, is that while the Chinese Revolution and the victory of the CCP has been well documented in history (albeit an adulterated state-driven version of that history) the Cultural Revolution was quickly swept under the rug in favor of quick modernization. While the History of the Cultural Revolution remains elusive, the memory of that event has proven powerful to the state, notable as a deterrent against unwanted protest, mass action and the Left. Any sort of Leftist tendency is often disrupted by the unspoken threat that the days of the Cultural Revolution may return. Hence the reason why China’s President constantly talks about a “creating a harmonious society” – and why he has slapped those words on everything in China. Compare that to the motto of the Cultural Revolution: “It is right to rebel.”

That doesn’t mean that in place of the Cultural Revolution there is only silence. Indeed, many people have risked quite a bit sharing their stories, and more people are willing to speak on the subject every day. As more material becomes available the Cultural Revolution will move out of the realm of memory and into the field of history. And that may actually be a bad thing. It depends on who does the writing, and how much the state interferes. The only thing worse than history denied is history ossified (a rhyme). Until we can match memory with documents, sources, texts and the various other materials that make historical pursuit a possibility, the History of the Cultural Revolution will remain unaligned with the past.

America and East Asia -- The Special Relationship

While I have only been following the American election season from afar (and I can't say I'm disappointed about that) I have noticed two very scary and frankly serious political ads that make me nervous (here and here). After watching these I'm forced to ask: what is happening America? Seriously, what the hell is happening?

Not surprisingly, there's some history here. Conceptualizing the United States beyond its borders usually leads one across the Atlantic, and for good reason. Those that colonized the United States came from Europe, and those that did a good deal of the manual labor came from Africa, meaning that America's roots lay across the Atlantic. But since then I would argue that the United States has pulled away from Europe, both figuratively (isolation policies for much of its history) and literally. The design of American history was sketched in Manifest Destiny, in which Americans moved across the continent and toward the Pacific. But that huge oceanic expanse would not stop them, and soon the American empire was being built in Asia, starting with Hawaii. As Edward Said has said, what the Middle East was to Europe, East Asia is to the United States. That has produced both good periods, and some very bad years. In the 20th century, the United States has fought wars against the Filipinos, Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians (and seen action in many more places in Asia). Besides Latin America, no other area has played a larger role in American history.

America's relationship with East Asia is dichotomous, simultaneously embodying mutual admiration and open hostility. But the hostility being displayed toward China in the past year is truly irrational. I use the word irrational here purposefully, mostly because this hostility is groundless and seems to have an unstoppable inertia. The American economy is permanently fused to China's (and vice-versa), and the destruction of one would cause a major disruption to the other. As James Fallows points out in response to the second video clip, a productive China is so much better for international stability than a stagnant Chinese economy (by the way, I completely disagree with Fallows's response to the first ad. Love Fallows, but he really misses the point of this ad, which I think is the pictures of Mao Zedong lining the classroom. There's only one message there. China is not only powerful, but they're dictatorial. It's meant to strike that Cold War funny bone. Be afraid. Verrrrry afraid).

But in truth, I don't care about the accuracy of these ads, nor about their effectiveness. Nation-states (especially those in decline) need enemies, and politicians need to blame others for their own failings. What I detest is the inevitability of America's current relationship with China. It's like watching a car wreck in slow motion. We can unpack every mistake and identify every missed opportunity. What we can't seem to do is stop it. I say this from personal experience. I've had more than one person tell me they're interested in Chinese history because they want to study America's future enemy. I'm baffled by this, but so many Americans have simply accepted that the United States and China are and will be enemies for a long time to come.The American government is no better than the American people. Many officials are content to attack China because it's easy, and because it delays addressing the problem, which is the fundamental decline of the United States. Real reform would require the voters to eschew both parties in favor of radical realism, but instead Congress and the Obama administration have decided to blame China. Example: Instead of currency wars, mutual recriminations, and hostility over America's high rate of unemployment, how about making a real commitment to green energy, an industry that could provide millions of jobs in the United States. The message is clear: There's nothing wrong with the United States; there's something very wrong with China. Real reform dies at the hands of the Yellow Menace.

There is much to criticize in Beijing, and the Communist Party is not helping its cause (in so many ways). But as Henry Kissinger has said (I don't want to quote him, but I must) the true test of the 21st century is going to be China's rise to power. If the United States can find a way to co-exist and recognize the benefits of a prosperous China, then that transition will go smoothly, and Americans will be reminded of the periods in their own history when relations with an East Asia country were positive and productive. If they believe cheap politicians, or if they get choose anti-intellectual jingoism over real reform, then this will be a very difficult century for the United States.

National Day and Mao Zedong

Unconfirmed reports- Norwegian salmon is being bought in bulk in Beijing today, as a way of Chinese saying thank you to the Nobel prize committee...

From October 1 to October 7 the city of Beijing, this hot, crowded, polluted, fire-breathing city, was peaceful, quiet and eerily empty (for Beijing). Most Beijingers had exited the city in favor of a vacation. Almost everyone gets a week off to celebrate National Day, which is October 1. It was on that day in 1949 that Mao Zedong stood atop Tiananmen and declared that the People's Republic of China was formally founded.

61 years later and what has become of Mao's revolution? The China that Mao knew would be little recognizable to the Chairman today. Of the many changes, what would have particularly outraged Mao, if I may speak for the Chairman (a very dangerous proposition), is the abandonment of one of his core principals: permanent revolution. Mao believed that a society in conflict, big or small, was a society that could properly resist the restoration of capitalism. So every couple of years the Communist Party would launch a major campaign to force out capitalist-roaders, rightists, revisionist sympathizers, imperialist aggressors, sheep's in wolves clothing, and their running-dog friends (all actual names that I have translated while doing research). Meanwhile, how is National Day celebrated today? Quietly, with signs encouraging China's citizens to make their country beautiful, and to work toward a harmonious society. This is, in a very important way, the true abdication of Mao's revolution.

Can we still, therefore, recognize the remnants of October 1, 1949? Here we arrive at a very important bit of recent news- Liu Xiaobo became the first full Chinese citizen to win a Nobel prize. This announcement was greeted rather poorly in Beijing (despite the fact that for most of the 1980s and 1990s, the Chinese authorities were obsessed with winning a Nobel). For those of you who haven't kept up, Liu is currently serving an 11 year jail sentence for subversion. Even before the announcement, however, the Chinese government warned against awarding the prize to Liu. Beijing fell back on one of its tried-and-true methods of trying to control public debate: Officials suggested that awarding the prize to Liu Xiaobo, a man who had "broken" the law in China, would be tantamount to the West interfering in China's internal matters.

As I live and breath! There's Mao's revolution. It has a pulse, as faint and sometimes imperceptible as it may seem. Some explaining: From 1949 to 1976, Mao and the Communist Party launched some truly disastrous campaigns that caused untold suffering. And yet, for some, Mao is a national hero. And the reason is that October 1, 1949 not only represented the beginning of the Communist reign in China, but it also officially ended 100 years of Western semi-colonialism (OK, maybe this ended in 1997 when Hong Kong was returned to the mainland). The point is that from 1839 to 1949, China was severely abused by the Western powers, and then invaded by Japan. Things got so bad that China could not stop the British from importing tons and tons of opium, the summer palace in Beijing was burnt to the ground by a foreign army, and Chinese law was no longer recognized in cities like Shanghai. This was not India, but it was close. There's a strong argument to make that the parasitic policies of the West in China so weakened the state that they could not resist the Japanese invasion in 1937. That invasion killed 21 million Chinese citizens, the second highest death-toll in World War II.

After World War II, the Communist forces fought a civil war against the ruling government. The Communists were far outnumbered, and controlled not one Chinese city. But over time, more and more people came to the Communist party (or at least grew apathetic enough not to resist their march to Beijing). The party won many converts by claiming that that the ruling government in China could not safeguard the country against future foreign threats.The Communist, so argued Mao and his colleagues, were the true nationalist party in China and had always stood up to foreign influence. When the Communists took over in 1949, they reminded everyone of the party's anti-imperialist history by building the Monument to the People's Heroes (pictured below) right in the middle of Tiananmen Square. Around the monument are twelve panels, each of which depicts an epoch in China's modern history. The panels begin in 1839 with the start of the Opium War and end in 1949 with the founding of the People's Republic. The two are inexorably linked. For the Communist party, they are the alpha and omega of modern Chinese history

So the party may have abandoned almost everything that Mao bequeathed, but they've held onto his anti-imperialist tradition, and it has proven invaluable in the past twenty years. In my opinion, the real story here is not Mao's ability to use an ideology to his advantage. In all fairness, the Communists were the most vocal opponent of imperialism. Before World War II, Mao attempted to forge an alliance with his enemies in the government in order to strengthen China's defenses, but he was rebuffed. Back then, however, the party was mostly peasants, poor workers and small-time intellectuals. Joining them in their fight against imperialism were usually regular citizens and desperate students, some of whom went on a hunger strikes over the government's policies (a method repeated in 1989). The West, by the way, has not forgotten its old roles, and continues to rely on an imperialist foreign policy. The United States has filled in quite nicely for the Europe of the 19th and 20th centuries. However, the story here is that populist anti-imperialism has been co-opted by elites and brandished in such a way as to crush dissent and insure conformity; a story that can be told over and over again throughout history. The 1949 revolution may lie cadaverous in the annals of history, but part of its spirit lives on today, and is being used for nefarious reasons.

That National Day and the announcement that one of China's citizens had won the Nobel Peace Prize (something that should stir more national pride than some silly holiday) came a week apart is of extraordinary coincidence. And while the state founded in 1949 is so very different from the state that lives on today, one should not be so quick to completely dismiss Mao's revolution. The current iteration of the Communist Party may have abandoned Communism, but they have not abandoned Mao himself. Indeed, Mao speaks through the party whenever the government decides to silence dissent and then accuse foreign governments of interfering in Chinese politics Now, however, the guise of "anti-imperialism" is being used to manipulate public opinion about a man who has challenged the very party that Mao controlled. In doing China has only confirmed the divorce between the populist anti-imperialism of the early 20th century and the party that these sentiments empowered..

The Monument to the People's Heroes. Around its base is a history of modern China, beginning with the Opium War and ending wit the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Functioning once again

As I predicted (in my head) I am not very good at keeping up with this blog thing. It seems that if it comes down to writing or watching an old episode of The Wire, good old Lester Freeman and co. always win.

Most of you are following my wife's blog, which gives a much more detailed (and frankly better) synopsis of our daily happenings than I can provide here. I'll give a quick update: After wading through the expansive bureaucracy here in Beijing (have you heard that China's bureaucracy is tough to get through?), registering with the police, applying for my residence permit, registering at the university, and finding an apartment, we are officially settling into a (semi) regular routine. Andrea's Chinese is improving daily, and I'm plunging into my research.

Allow me to throw out some random thoughts I've had over the past three weeks (bullet points engage!)

• The subway system. Where have you been all my life?!! I haven't spent any significant time in Beijing since 2007, when there was basically three subway lines. Now?? Five lines, plus an airport express and an Olympic village tram. Most probably can't appreciate this, but there's even a subway line that goes into the university district. What used to take about an hour to get from the universities to the center of town is now about 25 minutes. Nothing makes me happier than the picture below. It may be too late for me to take advantage of this on a regular basis, but for all future CIB students, this is a true blessing:

• Speaking of subways, two stories: First, I left my wife standing on a subway platform while the train pulled away (with me on it). I'll spare you the details, and just say that when I yell "run" it's not a joke. Second while on another trip on the subway I was peering at the subway map on the train when suddenly I feel a sharp whack on my arm. I look down and realize that an 80 year old man has just rapped me on the arm and directed me to take his seat. When I explain (in Chinese) that in fact the next stop is mine and I'm also exiting the train he doubled over in shock. White guy + some Chinese is a potent combination in this country. Also, personal space is cultural. Some countries have it; this country doesn't. 
• Some fascinating propaganda around the city these days. More pictures will follow, but I'll make two observations. First, signs urging people to register with the police* are in both Chinese and English. I found this to be emblematic of Beijing's status as one of the truly global cities in the world. The large number of foreigners in this city has forced the city government to print signs in both Chinese and English. Second, if you want to understand what's going on in China today, there are few words more important than 文明 （wenming).  It literally translates to "civilization", and there are signs everywhere- in both English and Chinese- promoting this concept. Right outside our apartment is a huge sign urging all to "create a more civilized Beijing." How may one do this? The suggestions range from being kind to women to not running people over with your car (and a whole lot in between). This word has also popped up in several conversations with local Beijingers- who usually say that Americans are so civilized and Chinese people aren't. Clearly these people have never seen what the NJ Turnpike looks like at 5:30 on a Friday. Still this word is a constant source of fascination. When so many people claim that their country is uncivilized it belies the idea that a nationalistic China is waiting in the wings to claim global hegemony (much more on this later, but I think the problem may be both in our perception of China, and in the futility of Western social science attempting to explain some aspects of Chinese society). 

* All residents have to register with the police in China, no matter who you are or where you live. Registering gives you access to almost every public service in China, from education to (free) public health care. No registration, no services. This has created a massive problems in China in which immigrants from the countryside move to the cities without a job in hopes of striking it rich. Without an official job, however, you can't register with the police and are therefore shut out of these basic services. Literally millions of people are officially "invisible" to the state- unregistered and unaccounted for. It seems harsh, but I always wonder what's the alternative? Lift the registration system and then have millions more people flood into the cities? Obviously the best solution is to improve conditions in the countryside, but that is taking some time. Any solution to this problem has to figure out how to manage 1.3 billion people, most of whom want to strike it rich. 

• Finally, happy Mid-Autumn Festival! My first big holiday in China. It was a beautiful day here and Andrea and I sat on a rooftop in Houhai, ate some good food, and looked at the moon (as proscribed by, well, someone). 

So much more to say, do, and write about, including how Beijing has changed, our neighborhood, Sino-American relations, Sino-Japanese relations, and an attempted paean to Beijing, which I have once again realized is my absolute favorite city in the world (sorry B-town). 

For now, I'll leave you with a picture of the new skill I learned. No big deal, just took a little practice. Andrea snapped this picture of me practicing:

Departure

Goodnight America. You look beautiful tonight, but all I want is to see the sun rise on the Pacific Ocean.

Scavenger Hunt

Back in 2007, a friend and I set up a mini-scavenger hunt for ourselves in China. In our time there we had never seen either a fire truck or a pregnant woman. The latter was probably due to our obliviousness. But the fire truck- honestly, those are hard to miss and we NEVER saw one in four months. Then on one magical evening we stumbled upon one in Shanghai while trying (for an hour) to hail a cab. It was pure magic.

Anyway, for 2010-2011, here's my next challenge. Can Andrea and I find this item in Beijing? He's been there twice in past year. I think our chances are good.

The Preamble

In ten days we will be leaving for Beijing. I’ve been waiting for this for five years. This will be my fourth and longest trip to China, but the previous three adventures have all been to study language or to keep undergrads out of trouble (oh ye! nefarious and beautiful language. You are a drug; bringer of joy and misery. The gods will curse me for not keeping up with it, and I’ll be drinking prune juice instead of green tea in the first two days of our trip. How do you say green tea again?). More importantly, this is the first time that my wife will visit  China, which makes me exceedingly happy. Each previous trip has come with a very sad departure, and I’m glad that I won’t have to say goodbye to her this time (saying goodbye to friends and family will be hard enough). To say that this is a major change would be to narrate our life story. A six year long-distance relationship. We get married, we don’t live together. We live together, then we move to Beijing. The vicissitudes of a graduate student.

I must say that I never much considered myself to be a blog person. Writing brings anxiety, which makes sense for my chosen profession. Like a trapeze artist scared of heights. But in the past year I’ve found so many good blogs (here, here and here) that I figured I’d give this a whirl. I’ll try to write about Beijing and our perspective of living in China with as much honesty and vigor as I can muster. I’ll probably also write about America. Nothing clarifies American society more than leaving it. Plus traversing the Pacific is like growing from the present into a distant and hazy future.

For now, some frequently asked questions that have come up:

1.      Are we packed yet? No. But we’re close. I just ate baked beans for lunch. It was the last thing in the cabinet

2.      Where will we live in Beijing? We don’t know

3.      What will Andrea do in Beijing? We don’t know

4.      What will I be doing in Beijing? Research for my dissertation.

5.      Will I be done with my PhD when we return from China? No. No no no.

6.      Will we be making a baby in China? No. Please stop asking.

And away we go.