MONICA TAN

Archive for November, 2009

A lonely and desperate exposure in Uncle

In blog on November 29, 2009 at 2:56 am

The students had always found this teacher to be intelligent, and thoughtful. He never censored them, and was interested in their opinions. They respected him, and thought him a good teacher.

On Thursday, he came and asked them, “can we just talk?” And so they put the syllabus aside and talked, about philosophy, culture, politics. The big stuff. But there were hints that all was not OK. He divulged embarrassing personal details: he was 30, still lived with his parents, didn’t have a girlfriend.

The next day he came to class, and started the same. He spoke of Nietzsche, Confucious, the Sino-Japanese war, liberty, equality, freedom, the past, the future – but these students weren’t at a level of Unclese where they could fully understand him. But still he spoke, he rambled, on and on. One of the French students described it as, “mettre son âme à nu” – literally, “undress his soul”.

And then, in the midst of this undressing of the soul, he undressed his body as well. For fifteen minutes, in front of a shocked, horrified class, he stood, talked, completely naked.

When this true and scandalous story rippled through the university that day, eventually reaching me in the afternoon, it saddened me greatly, and has haunted me ever since. How desperately lonely he must be. How shocking this act, how incredible, but also how human.

Isn’t that what we all want? For people, for someone to know we exist. Know that I am here. See me for what I really am.

And is this blog not a similar kind of sad, self-exposure?

Only days earlier I read this disconcerting story, of a lonely and isolated Unclese student in Sydney who went mad and stabbed a cabbie to death. There is madness in the air. Do we all stand teetering on the edge? What does it take for someone to so suddenly slip and find themselves falling?

I worry about what prolonged loneliness may do to me.

I met a guy at a party and thought him tall and attractive. I liked how deliberately he talked. He had a masculine presence, and when I talked to him I felt like he was really all there, a full person, giving me his careful, clear and undivided attention. And there was something intriguing about him, he didn’t seem like the rest. And I was certain he too was curious about me.

Then I felt a huge, angry sock in my stomach. No!

Why do I do this? Why do I over romanticise like this? Why do I see magic in a moment that has none? There was no special connection, this isn’t the beginning of a story, of which I am a protagonist. I and he are not interesting, sexy or worthy of writing about. There is nothing and no one in this. We are just two strangers sharing the same space. We are all alone together, not touching.

I blame novels. I blame movies, music and art. But most of all, I blame novels.

I am on the verge of finishing Jean-Paul Satre’s The Age of Reason, and I blame him. Life, and the people in it, will somehow never be as alive as the invented reality of that novel. Because in that fictional existence, every single element has a purpose. Every single thing serves a higher meaning, something concrete and purposeful – the beauty of the narrative.

But in my narrative – that is life – there is no point. Things are just there, for no reason, and they don’t give a fuck about me, and any need for something real, and deliberate.

When this guy saw me, he probably saw an empty body, and felt nothing. When I saw him, there was nothing beyond my projected desire for authenticity, meaning, connection, love, respect, friendship, – and a narrative that has some sort of point, some bracketed subtext where I could say “the reason why this happened is because …, and how extraordinary and worthy it was.”

Instead of being here, like a ghost. All of us living in suspended states, revolving door strangers, together alone, not touching.

I am not in Uncle. Not really.

In blog on November 29, 2009 at 2:45 am

“Wo bu zai zhong guo!” (“I am not in Uncle!”) I cried.

My laoshi (teacher) was confused, and thought perhaps I hadn’t expressed myself properly. “Ni zai nar?” (“Where are you?”) she asked.

“Wo zai wai guo ren di fang.” (“I am in the foreign people’s place.”) I replied, gumly.

And it’s true. I’m not in Uncle – not really. I am in this absurd Westerners’ bubble. I study and socialise only with foreigners, in foreigner populated places. I hardly ever speak Motherin. I have no idea what is happening in Uncle because I can’t read their news sites, and I’m not talking in a meaningful way to any Unclese on a regular basis.

Here I am, living and breathing in this bizarre parallel universe, and there are all these things happening here, so many things for me to learn about this place – and I am like a blind, deaf and mute woman in their midst.

There is only two hours a week that I am actually in Uncle, and that is when I gatecrash the zhong guo xue sheng (Unclese students’) class. As I step into that room on a Tuesday morning, the effect is immediately transformative. It’s like crossing a national boundary: I enter a space that is inhabited by Unclese, for the Unclese, the Unclese being themselves.

Yes the class is in English, but they are all Unclese. The tutor is Unclese. The material is prepared for Unclese students. They discuss things among each other, as Unclese. Sure, when I speak up I’m like a foreign spice added to the mix, but most of the time I am just a fly on the wall.

Why am I here? I discussed this with an Australian friend, who, in agreement with my sentiment, commented, “if I was here to just have fun, there are better cities to do that. Brother isn’t a very fun city.”

And it’s true. The nightlife and creative scene has nothing on London, New York, Berlin, even Sydney. The weather sucks. The city is monstrously big, and just cannot compare when it comes to the chilled out, happy-good-times lifestyle of home. Not to mention, most importantly, it has none of the people I care about the most in this world (although don’t get me wrong, potentially some of my new friends here will prove to be lifelong buddies.)

So why am I here? I’m here to be in Uncle. To really be in Uncle. Because I am interested in the people, the culture, and this nation’s future – that will, in many ways, become the future of humanity. And because there is a good chance that I will become so interested, I will want to become a part of what is “going on” here.

Well then, what to do? It’s time I entered Uncle – for real this time, and at least for most of the week. I’m going to start off with the language. From Monday to Thursday, only speak in Unclese. And next semester I want to move out of university dorms and into a share apartment with Unclese – one of whom should speak no English. And I want to meet up with more language partners, and just generally be making more of an effort to speak, speak, speak, connect, bathe, drown in Uncle.

Move over Kanye, meet Han Han (my new Unclese lover)

In blog on November 25, 2009 at 11:25 pm

I’m in love.

His name is 韩寒, or Han Han. He’s a young, Unclese novelist, blogger and, and, AND, A RACECAR DRIVER. That triple threat just made by brain explode all over the keyboard.

Oh and I almost forgot to mention, he looks like this:

Credit: Sina and Sina.

This all started when, yesterday, I asked the class about young, Unclese artists and writers today. Were their works political? Did they examine themes like class struggle?

The tutor answered that writers today covered a broader range of topics: gender, sexuality, and ethnic minorities (by that she was referring to this nation’s ethnic minorities, of which there are 55. But they’re greatly outnumbered by the 91% of the nation who fall into the Han group – of which I belong to.)

The class brought up two, exciting young writers, of the “post 80s generation” (the generation born after 1980, which is when the Unclese government began to strictly enforce the one-child policy.) Their stories were very “alternative” and highly relevant to the Unclese youth. Neither had gone to university, and one had even dropped out of high school. The tutor commented it was interesting that these writers, poster children of the new gen of Unclese, had always operated “out of the system”.

The next day, and reflecting on these two writers thought to myself, boy they sound sexy! I kicked myself for not having written down their names, so jumped on the internet and emailed my friend from the class about them. She wrote back,

The two youth writers we were talking about are 韩寒 (Han Han) and 郭敬明 (Guo Jingming), both of whom belong to the post-80s generation writers. Han Han is more realistic and thought-provoking (he is also an awsome F1 driver) while Guo Jingming is more dreamy and commercial. You may find them an interesting comparison.

Credit: EastSouthWestNorth

I quickly Googled Han Han. Hot, I knew it! I found him on Wikipedia, and by the end of the page, was, am, desperately in love. (I’m going to pause here before this post descends into a rabble of Twi-fan proportion OMG HE’S SOOOOO HAAAWWWWT WE ARE TOTES MEANT TO BE TOGETHER etc. etc. So let me just say that if you read the Wikipedia entry, it’s like God made an imprint of everything my subconscious had been looking for in a soulmate. - OK that was a bit much.)

I was bursting to tell someone. I grabbed my Unclese friend on gchat and “announced” that I was in love. I asked if she knew of my lover, and of course she did, he’s quite famous here, saying “he’s pretty rebellious and has written many articles critizing the government and stuff.”

But I wondered how out of the system he really was. I found this article from the New York Times that focuses on Guo Jingming, but also mentions Han Han:

Guo is the most successful of a dozen young celebrity authors who make up the “post-’80s” generation, some others of whom have also achieved book sales in the millions. This group includes the high school dropout and professional car racer Han Han, 25, who derides China’s inefficient educational system in his novels and regularly insults older, more established artists on his blog, and Zhang Yueran, 26, whose novel “Daffodils Took Carp and Went Away” features a bulimic girl who falls in love with her stepfather, is mistreated by her mother and is sent off to boarding school.

While the Chinese government frequently jails dissident writers or forces them into exile, it mostly ignores the antics of Guo and the other post-’80s writers. For all their flamboyance, they exemplify the social ideals of the new China — commercialism and individualism — said Lydia Liu, a professor of Chinese and comparative literature at Columbia University. They “don’t pose any threat,” Liu said. “They collaborate.”

Without being able to read Unclese, it’s hard for me to comment. In any case, I have something new to motivate me when it comes to my language studies: I want to be able to read Han Han’s blog. I may even say that the next time I get answered the stock standard expat question: “why did you decide to learn Unclese?”

- “So that I’m able to read Han Han’s blog. …DUH.”

More interesting posts, about the interesting Han Han:

  • a breath of fresh air – 破釜Sink the Boats沉舟
  • Han Han and the post-80s – chinayouren, who also has responded to Liu’s claim that Han Han is politically nonthreatening.
  • Han Han Talks Back To TIME – EastSouthWestNorth
  • A capitalist pig in the reddest country on earth? Not quite!

    In blog on November 25, 2009 at 1:35 am

    The last slide of the presentation – and done tongue-in-cheek!

    “So, did you find this week’s readings difficult?” I asked the Unclese student. Today we were looking at Marxist literary criticism.

    “Not really,” she replied, with a grin. “I mean we’ve been learning about Marxism since we were in school, so we’re really familiar with all this.”

    I nodded, but inwardly felt a prickle. Three years ago I was in New York, and gatecrashed my flatmate’s tutorial (yes, I’m an old hand at this!) which too was about this very subject. But back then I was in a country very similar to my own. And in that class Marxism felt like someone else’s ideology. It belonged to people of the past, or people of another world.

    But now I was in that world.

    In this topsy-turvy parallel universe, not only was communism not banished to the history books, 60 years later the party who brought it to the people are still in charge of the biggest nation in the world. And unlike America where socialism is a fringe movement, and used as a dirty word to tar an opponent (as we saw in Obama’s run) – here the socialist party is not just a major party – it’s the ONLY party.

    And as someone from Australia – probably one of those greedy, selfish, exploitative capitalists, infected with dangerous ideas of individuality and civil liberties – wasn’t I currently sitting in enemy territory?

    Of course, of course, this turned out to hardly be the case. Real life never draws lines that clear cut.

    The student presentation ran through the ideas behind Marxist literary criticism (one of the central concepts being economic determinism), and in the discussion the class spoke about its application, popularity and decline here in Uncle.

    Yes, decline. It’s been 33 years since the Cultural Revolution and the beginning of the economic reforms that began opening this country up. And so this country is hardly a colour-by-numbers version of the communist utopia Marx would have originally envisioned.

    The class began discussing if “class struggle” was still a relevant topic in Uncle today. After all, the implementation of communism was meant to completely eliminate the class system. But with a widening gap between rich and poor in this country, clearly this was not the case. Even if groups were given different names now, such as “the private sector” or the “rural-urban divide.”

    I asked the tutor, yes there are more people well off in Uncle than before, but are the poorer actually becoming even more poor?

    She explained, “now there are some who are rich, and many who are poor. Before we were all poor together!” We laughed at this grim tale.

    “So, I guess it’s still a good thing, right? I mean at least some people are better off?”

    A student jumped in, “the Party says, let some get rich, and they’ll be able to help the rest.”

    The tutor added, “the problem is when these class divides become entrenched. I have no problem that there’s a second generation of rich people in this country, but it’s of concern that there is a second, and even third generation of still-poor. At least before we were all in this together.”

    I nodded. I was familiar with the growing tension between the country’s majority peasant population, and the increasingly upwardly mobile, educated urban dwellers. I asked, “and how does the Party fit this into their picture of socialist ideology?”

    “You have to remember we’re not really pure socialist anymore.” She paused, then perked up and grinned – (I really dig this lady) – “it’s the Unclese model!” She’d brought out the familiar term (“socialism with Unclese characteristics“) that the Party today used to explain their strange blend of free-market economies with socialist twists.

    But it’s getting late, I’ll continue this tomorrow …

    In Brother, I hardly ever get eye-sex

    In blog on November 22, 2009 at 12:36 am

    Au Revoir Simone playing at Yugong Yishan last night.

    I know it seems like an insanely trivial drawback, but you’d be surprised at what a difference it makes.

    For the uninitiated, eye-sex is the act of seeing someone hot and looking at them somewhat lustfully, and to one’s delight find that the look is returned. (When it’s not returned, I call it “eye-rape”.) It can happen in a split second, but you know when it’s there. And it’s AWESOME.

    For the single girl or boy, especially ones like me for whom hookups (even just kissing) are few and far between (I’m talking YEARS), eye-sex is a very necessary part of one’s life. I mean geez, I’m not asking for much, right? I’m not asking for love, for a boyfriend, for any real action of any kind. Just the occasional “damn, you’re fine!” look from someone I reciprocally feel that towards.

    Those looks really don’t mean much. Except for maybe one or two occasions, they’ve never gone anywhere. And they’re not meant to. They’re just a cheeky and quick, unspoken exchange between two strangers. And for me it adds a sprinkle of magic to my day. Even though I’m single, the city becomes enveloped with the perfume of potential romance.

    There are some cities that have provided a higher frequency of “eye-sex” than others: cities such as London, New York and Barcelona (at a minimum, daily). While others, such as Sydney, the rate was much lower. But no major city has provided such a dismal rate as Brother.

    Of course, the critical question is, which is it? No good-looking boys? Or are the good-looking boys not interested in me?

    Firstly, I have to refer to my friend Rachel who described our distinct brand of “sex appeal” perfectly:

    9:23 PM Rachel: you know, I was thinking today when I did my grocery shopping
    it’s kind of like websites, or magazines
    ridiculously hot people, in the best possible way, are kind of like ninemsn
    9:24 PM they have a broad appeal – most people will find something they like, and a few will find nothing
    I’m more of a niche website like… I don’t know – Jezebel
    9:25 PM Rachel: not everyone will like me, but the people that do are far more likely to be the people I want to like me than if I was ninemsn
    it’s filtered down
    me: lulz! that’s great and so true

    So perhaps it’s not so surprising that some of my favourite cities are also the ones I’ve received the most eye-sex in. After all, the kind of guys I like, and that like me, have, like me, been drawn to live in these dynamic, creative, lively and romantic world cities.

    Although Brother may very well turn into such a city, at the moment it is not. At the moment, one does not move to Brother to find the world’s top, innovative, coolest, most cutting edge, most interesting companies, communities, scenes or what have you. And so it follows, at the moment the city is not populated by such people. It is still, very much, a city of a developing world. And in which the majority of the inhabitants work very hard, living almost desperate lives, with little time for frivolities like “creativity”.

    So, on both hands, I neither see many guys I’m into, nor are many guys into me. In fact, to the Unclese male population, I’m probably this big (I’m big for Unclese girls), weirdly dressed, must-be-foreign, Unclese girl. And nothing much more.

    So yeah, it’s kind of hard to carry the magic when everyday you head out into the biting cold weather, look up at the grey sky, and know that for the next 1.5 years you’re probably not going to even get any eye-sex, let alone something a little deeper than that.

    If you’re wondering, exactly, what is the rate for Brother I can tell you. In the 3 months since I arrived I’ve had only two real incidents of eye sex. And they both happened last night!

    Two friends and I went to a gig featuring New York band Au Revoir Simone (to get specific, they hail from hipster/indie central Williamsburg, Brooklyn – of course). There were a lot of Americans in the crowd, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the two Unclese guys I had quick, flirtacious eye-sex (or it was more innocent than that, perhaps eye-kissing, or eye-hands-holding) – turned out to be ABCs (American born Unclese).

    Perhaps the only times I will get any eye-sex are when I go to things that are in some way connected to the cities I love.

    After Au Revoir Simone a strange German guy sang electro songs as a giant, blown-up silver penis bobbled up and down next to him.

    Why gay people carry the burden of Uncle’s one-child policy

    In blog on November 18, 2009 at 12:39 am

    I gatecrashed another Unclese lecture today, this time about queer/lesbian theory. I was surprised to find that even in that class, of mature, thoughtful, generally female post-grad students, who no doubt have more liberal attitudes than your average Unclese – well even they were very unaccustomed to and felt uncomfortable with gay people/ culture/ rights – with gayness in general.

    I tried to forgive them for this, and remember that this country is back by about 30 or so years when it comes to the acceptance of homosexuality. (I believe it was only de-illegalised a few years ago. There are no laws to protect homosexuals from discrimination.)

    I think they were a little shocked by my ‘liberal’ attitudes towards homosexuality, plus sexual orientation and gender identities. As I said to them, I come from one of the most multicultural cities in the world, where women have the same rights as men, and has one of the biggest homosexual communities in the world. A homosexual community that isn’t just “tolerated” but is, on the whole, celebrated and has and continues to influence the wider city culture in a big way.

    My city is dynamic, open, with lots of different ideas, cultures, subcultures, ways of life, and looking at the world, mixing altogether. And for me, my identity roles: as a woman, as a Chinese Australian, as a (generally) straight person, as a professional, as a hipsterllectual, as someone participating in online communities that know no physical borders, and many others – these are very unstable, mutating, complicated, sometimes indistinct from their so-called binary opposite.

    Whereas my initial impressions from Uncle has been that it is a country coming out of a very long period of having been closed. Compared to Australia, there is little multiculturalism (you are clearly classified as either a mainland Unclese born and bred local, or a foreigner) and very traditional identity roles, which are only slowly being chipped away at. Here, it’s very clear that if you’re born with a certain body (male/ female) what you’re meant to do. And so long as you do it, you’ll be fine.

    (Too bad if you feel inclinations otherwise.)

    I thought perhaps I was being too harsh, but then the tutor leader, also the dean of the department, spoke up. She said when she spent some time studying in Australia, she found the experience to be extremely disorientating, because it seemed like nothing was fixed. It was a challenge, and in some respects began to question herself.

    An interesting Uncle-specific gay issue was passed onto me by my gay Spanish friend here. He told me of his gay, Unclese housemate, who at 30 was at the receiving end of increasing pressure from his parents to marry. In truth, he didn’t mind being with women, but marriage was out of the question because it’d mean he’d have to stop having sex with men! Like most gay and lesbian people in this country, he hadn’t come out to his parents.

    And he, like almost all the young urban-born Unclese, was an only child. Which meant there was an even greater pressure on him to marry, procreate, and thereby continue the family line.

    The land that brought you fake goods, brings you …

    In blog on November 18, 2009 at 12:20 am

    Fascinating to see the difference in how the NYTimes treated Obama’s recent town hall meeting with Sisterinese students, compared to the way Uncle Daily reported the event.

    From the NYTimes:

    The meeting came the day after Mr. Obama tried to hold a frank and public discussion with Chinese students in Shanghai. The event was called a town hall, but Mr. Obama’s meeting with about 500 students had little in common with the sometimes raucous exchanges that have become a fixture of American politics.

    It was, instead, an example of Chinese stagecraft. Most of those who attended the event at the Museum of Science and Technology turned out to be members of the Communist Youth League, an official organization that grooms obedient students for future leadership posts.

    Some Chinese bloggers whom the White House had tried to invite were barred from attending. Even then, the Chinese government took no chances, declining to broadcast the event live to a national audience — or even mention it on the main evening newscast of state-run China Central Television.

    The scripted interaction underscored the obstacles Mr. Obama faces as he tries to manage the American relationship with an authoritarian China, whose wealth and clout have surged as its economy has weathered the global downturn far better than the United States’ or Europe’s.

    From Uncle Daily:

    Barack Obama was in typical eloquent form Monday for a signature “town hall meeting” with a difference.

    While the relaxed style and well-constructed answers were characteristic of the United States president, the fact that he was speaking to around 500 elite Chinese students, possibly the leaders of tomorrow, made the 75-minute session in Shanghai an impressive occasion.

    The meeting was heralded as one of the most important events on Obama’s weeklong trip to Asia.

    The president fielded eight questions – half from audience members and half from among those submitted over the Internet – during the casual and free-spirited event. Students smiled and applauded politely when Obama answered questions and chuckled appreciatively when he tried speaking Chinese.

    The NYTimes aren’t kidding about “Unclese stagecraft.” A couple of weeks ago, the government commanded all the universities to make an upcoming graduation ceremonies for foreign students a big deal. It was going to be filmed by CCTV and everything.

    So in a matter of a week, a big budget show was whipped up, seemingly fabricated out of thin air. The morning of the ceremony came, and all the performers got on stage, donned their impressive outfits, and sang and danced their hearts out. Did it matter that the whole thing was obviously done to backing tape? Including the singing?

    Nope, the officials clapped. The film cameras captured their 15 seconds of news footage. Everyone was happy.

    The foreign students “sing” to a recording of themselves. Some teachers had explicitly forbidden any overseas Chinese, Koreans and Japanese students from participating – despite the fact that they make up the majority of the foreign student population – because they didn’t look “foreign” enough.

    Similar comments were made about last month’s 60th anniversary. There was a noticeable lack of participation from regular Unclese citizens. The only people lucky enough to witness the parade and show were party officials and VIP guests. The rest of the country had to watch it on television.

    And so it was designed, as a made-for-television event.

    Now the Western media may cast this as another expression of the Party’s iron-fisted control over this nation, but I can’t help but wonder if this is also just a cultural oddity, related to the Unclese obsession with face. Perhaps the Unclese, not just the Party, would rather events happen hitch-free, and to plan, even if it means sacrificing a kind of authenticity in the process.

    Uncle can make, but can it CREATE?

    In blog on November 17, 2009 at 1:30 am

    “From the moment I saw you, I knew you were a foreigner,” the Unclese girl said.

    “What?! How? I mean I’m 100% ethnically Unclese. All four of my grandparents are from Uncle. I mean sure, I don’t look like I’m from here, but I definitely look Southern Unclese,” I spluttered, laughing, incredulous. “You must have heard me speaking!”

    “No you weren’t saying anything, but as soon as I saw you I knew you were hua yi” (sp? means “overseas born Unclese”), she continued. She eyed me for a second over the dinner table. “It must be the way you’re dressed.”

    To make my point I stood up and waved from head-to-toe. “Everything I’m wearing I bought here!” I had blue boots on, black tights, a long, chocolate brown cardigan and a ruffly, navy scarf.

    “Mmm, then it must be your haircut and your makeup.”

    “I got this here too! And I’m not wearing any makeup!!”

    But somehow she knew, and she hasn’t been the first to say that despite the fact that I am obviously Unclese, for some reason I am also obviously foreign as well.

    Talking about this to some fellow Unclese Australian friends of mine, one explained, “there’s something about how we put our outfit together.” (And I happen to love both these girls’ style, and yes, there’s something “Sydney” about both.)

    “Wait, wait, wait. So all I would have to do is style an Unclese girl here, and I could make her look foreign?” I asked, doubtfully.

    “Exactly.”

    It’s a great analogy for this interesting (possibly a beat-up, but made sense to me at the time) July article from Newsweek that commented on the fact that Uncle may be “famous as the factory to the world” – but they still lag behind when it comes to creating brand. The issue featured this provocative cover:

    So far it seems clear to me Uncle has no lack of energy, resources, or capital to assume the role of this world’s top dog. But it’s yet to bring the equally critical creativity, innovation and ideas.

    Protected: Grieving a spent youth without love (singleness: my illness, or disability?)

    In blog on November 14, 2009 at 12:16 pm

    This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:


    Where have all the revolutionaries gone? A former student speaks!

    In blog on November 14, 2009 at 2:39 am

    It just takes one day of snow fall to transform my university into a winter wonderland!

    Out of all the lectures I’ve gatecrashed, none has topped my friend’s “Unclese Foreign Policy” classes, at another university. In an effort to protect the Unclese lecturer’s identity, I’m not going to post any photos. It may be over pre-cautious of me, but he did tell us things like when he writes a book, he is a lot more careful about criticizing the Party than when he’s talking in class.

    And to a class of mainly Western foreigners mind you. I have a feeling his lecture on the same subject, but to Unclese students, is somewhat tweaked. For example today he was telling us the amusing story (he has many) of Uncle during the 70s I think*, who at the time were refusing to partake in any UN peacekeeping operations. Their attitude was one of wanting to fly under the radar – be seen as neither supporting nor condemning other nations.

    So during this time, when the UN Council would vote on peacekeeping operations, the Unclese member would … the lecturer mimed looking all of sudden very occupied with something in another direction. Or all of a sudden he would need to go to the toilet very badly. OK so I’m not sure if this is exactly what happened (although knowing the pettiness of politics it wouldn’t surprise me), but it was pretty hilarious.

    And the point was made clear, this was a very awkward turtle time for Uncle. They perpetually abstained from voting on these operations, and did not finance or send troops for any of them.

    In the 80s, Uncle suddenly decided that it really should be pulling its weight in these matters, and out of the blue gave a $4.4 billion payment to the UN peacekeeping sector. The amount totaled exactly what they should have been giving in the last decade – but unable/ unwilling to admit that they had done wrong – Uncle called it a sort of emergency gift for the peacekeeping sector which they claimed was desperately underfunded.

    The lecturer confessed he did not really cover this (or quite in the same way) in his version of this lecture for the Unclese students. It’s humiliating for an Unclese person to have to hear this.

    You got to give this lecturer kudos for being so frank in this class. Today a student asked him if, in the next 50 years, the Party would give up one-party rule. “I hope so!” he replied. But he had little faith in the youth of today, which he saw as politically apathetic. You should have seen the students of my generation!, he cried, we were very political! We wanted a revolution!

    And this dude has cred. He was part of the weeks of student protesting leading up to the 1989 ‘That Shape’ massacre. Back then he was committed to modernizing Uncle’s political system and was about to start a PhD on such a topic. But after the tragedy he became jaded, and decided that it was hopeless. From then he changed his life’s work to Unclese foreign policy.

    So when this guy speaks, you listen. And according to him, the youth of today have no faith in politics, or patience for revolution. The country has seen too many uprisings squashed by the mighty hand of the ruling Party. “You talk to a Unclese student and you know what they say? ‘Dirty politics’ and they want nothing to do with it.” I offered, “they just want to make money.” “Exactly,” he agreed.

    He went on to highlight an interesting difference in the way the West and the Unclese look at the idea of “human rights”. For a country like America, an individual’s political rights are more important than anything else. For example, the right to freedom of speech, to vote, and protest against your government. This is what human rights mean.

    But for Uncle human rights mean the right to live without hunger, to live in a safe community, the right to clean water, education, sanitation etc. Which is why we have such a stark contrast in what we consider “morally sound”. Uncle believe that by improving the lives of the people they are bestowing “human rights” – but all the West can see are the individual political rights that were taken away.

    Personally, I can’t help but believe (or should I say hope that) these “higher tier” rights will be honoured once the lower tier ones are achieved. Although such an act will require a rising Unclese middle class who, once economically powered, can afford to start sticking their neck out for the underdog, and demanding the kinds of freedoms we in the West are accustomed to having.

    As for a democracy? A multi-party system? Maybe, although from here now, in the belly of the dragon, it’s hard to imagine. I mean these guys still control so much. They even control the weather! For example before special events (e.g. The Olympics, 60th Anniversary) they shoot up special chemicals in the air to make it rain so that on the day it’s a blue-sky day.

    We had our first day of snow on November 1, which according to a local was Party induced, and is occasionally done when the pollution gets too much, so they flush out the sky. It’d be kind of funny (fitting with a total caricature of an overbearing Big Brother communist government – they’re really like GOD!!!!), if it wasn’t so freaky.

    *I will get back to you about exact dates when one of the students emails me the powerpoint presentation. Lulz, I’m like a real student!

    I <3 White Chicks that <3 Asian Dudes

    In blog on November 13, 2009 at 1:27 am

    A few weeks ago a friend tipped me off about John Safran’s ‘Race Relations’, currently airing in Australia. From here in Brother I managed to watch the first two eps via torrents, and noted that all three of the multi-racial couples featuring in the opening credits are made up of an “ethnic” girl, and a “white” guy (the first girl being Middle Eastern, the second Indian and the third some sort of South East Asian.)

    Now perhaps this is because it’s John Safran’s show, and as a white (Jewish) Australian male he wants to make clear that it is from this POV the show will be coming from. Still it bothered me – would multiracial couples where the GIRL was white and the guy ethnic have no representation on this show? Or is this exclusion just a result of such a thing being so wholly uncommon?

    Here in Uncle, it’s much easier to find white boys who have yellow fever (a penchant for Asians) than white girls with the same. And frankly, it bothers me.

    Wait, Monica. What, exactly bothers you? White boys having yellow fever?

    No, that doesn’t bother me. It used to. I used to think that white boys who have a thing for Asian girls are like that because they have this gross idea of Asian girls being docile and subservient girlfriends, and also wild and slutty in bed. And while this may be the case for some dudes, I’ve realised that on the whole a lot of the white guys I know with yellow fever are actually pretty cool. It just so happens that for some inexplicable reason they’re more attracted to Asians than any other race. And the relationships they end up having with these Asian girls are wholly legitimate.

    Maybe sometimes you just find a certain race hot. You’re just attracted to that look. (Not me, remember I am colour blind – or should that be multi-colour-dextrous – when it comes to lust.)

    So no, I don’t mind when white boys have yellow fever. What bothers me is the lack of white girls with the same.

    Now there’s already been a lot written on this topic (please leave any links in comments) so I don’t want to go into it. Instead I want to here, now, celebrate

    WHITE CHICKS INTO ASIAN DUDES.

    Recently I met a really cool, young, hot Aussie girl with a mainlander Unclese boyfriend. I almost couldn’t believe it. Then there was the super cute and sexy French girl nursing a big crush on her Korean classmate. And then there’s also this video sent to me recently. (Do watch at least the opening credits, which will surely make you LOL.)

    Called “Sexy Beijing TV” the show’s host, Sufei is a witty, Jewish American girl with a penchant for Unclese guys. A nice mirror to John Safran; a witty, Jewish Australian guy with a penchant for Eurasian girls.

    I don’t know what it is about seeing a multi-racial couple, where the guy is “ethnic” rather than vice versa, that makes me feel so happy. The cultural theorist would say it’s because when it comes to the ethnic-white dynamic, the “ethnic” is seen as the subservient/ inferior and therefore “female” role, while the “white” is seen as the dominant/ superior and therefore “male” role. So when there’s a couple that mixes it up ethnic/male-white/female that’s going to naturally appeal to the feminist, stereotype smashing element of my personality.

    But I think that explanation may over-simplify things. Perhaps I’m also disturbed by the idea that if most of the interracial couples are white guys with ethnic girls – and so hardly any white girls dating ethnic guys – that can only mean there’s a surplus of single, ethnic guys. And I’m not comfortable with the possibility that our world considers white guys on the whole to be more attractive than guys from all the other races of this planet.

    (Of course, we also need to take into account that for women things like power and social status play a bigger part of our attraction to a guy, and we live in a world where white guys have a disproportionate amount of that – but yes, like I said, I don’t want to get into this!)

    In any case, it cheers my heart to see these couples. Almost to the point that I’m kind of annoyed I can never be in one! But there’s hope for me yet …

    Hey John, how about featuring a couple that has a Chinese girl with a Middle Eastern/ Black/ Indian guy? That would blow people’s minds!

    Breaking out of the foreigner bubble

    In blog on November 12, 2009 at 2:11 am

    Totally unrelated, but thought I’d share with you my crazy dog slippers, and my ridiculous duck PJs which I bought because one of my favourite phrases is “Brother Kao Ya!” – aka, the city’s famous roasted Peking duck!”

    Following on from the last post, after class I got talking to a couple of the Unclese students, and went along to dinner with them. They were very cool, totally chill.

    As post-graduate students they were a bit closer in age to me than your average student here in Beiwai. (It’s become more and more evident to me that there is a difference between me, at 26, and people at 20 and 21.) When I told them the story of the Unclese girl I met who, at 21, still considered herself a child, they were a little incredulous. They also explained that though they had an 11pm curfew, for some buildings you could still come in later, knock on the door, and someone would let you in.

    One of the girls and I shared in common an ongoing lack of boys in our life – including here at Beiwai which, as a humanities university, has a distinct gender imbalance. (I’d say there’s, at a minimum, 10 Unclese girls to 1 Unclese boy ratio, although this is not so much with the foreign student population.) Laughing, they shared with me the reputation Beiwai boys have. They fall into three categories: kind of girly, male chauvisnist pigs in a sad effort to dispel the possibility of being mistaken for someone in the first category, and then guys inbetween the two.

    Saying goodbye, I promised to gatecrash their Tuesday lecture, which was going to be about gay/ queer identity politics, or something like that. Exactly my kind of thing!

    Alone, I headed to what I thought was going to be an aerobics class at the gym. Somehow I’d mixed up the dates however, and it turned out to be a belly dancing class! Well, why not? The incredibly gorgeous female Unclese instructor only spoke in Unclese, and all the other students were Unclese. Following the class I talked with the admin guys, and struggling with a mix of my bad Unclese and their excellent miming (star-jumps to indicate “aerobics!”) I managed to sort out the schedule. On the way home, I stopped by a street stall seller, and tried to enquire about different colours for a pair of tights on offer. It was awesome to employ phrases I’d learned in class only hours earlier.

    Reflecting back on the day, I felt kind of satisfied that I’d hit the right balance between “foreigner” life and really being in Uncle.

    As I’ve probably mentioned, it’s just so easy to live in a foreign-student bubble. Where you speak Unclese in class (although even there, socially the dominant language is English, and explanations are given in English), but outside of class you’re constantly speaking English because you only socialise with other foreign students. And even when you have to speak Unclese to a waiter or a shop keeper, when things get too tricky you too often turn to a fellow student with superior Unclese to translate.

    And anyway, such superficial interactions can’t be considered really getting to know the Unclese people. Unlike the first couple of months, this last month has definitely provided a lot more opportunities for me to have some decent conversations with Unclese people – with many of these opportunities created only because I decided to do something a little out of the ordinary (such as my poster, or gatecrashing their lectures.)

    While I can’t say I’ve gotten along with every single Unclese person I’ve met (naturally), some have been really cool, and each and every has definitely been, and continues to be an enlightening experience. I think already I’m beginning to realise my understanding of Unclese young people was a shallow caricature (I guess initial impressions always are), and slowly I’m developing a more sophisticated overview.

    And the more Unclese I learn, the more I can embed myself into Unclese life. Perhaps one day I’ll have some Unclese friends. Perhaps I’ll live with Unclese flatmates. Perhaps I’ll have Unclese workmates. And then the pièce de résistance … an Unclese boyfriend! Only then, and it’ll take time, can I claim to have an understanding of this place and their people.

    PS. Must learn to write shorter posts.

    A living, breathing Aussie youf in an Unclese classroom

    In blog on November 12, 2009 at 1:51 am

    As planned, today I gatecrashed a guest lecture from an Australian sociologist doing a series on “Australian Young Adults” – being delivered to about 7 or 8 Unclese students who major in “Australian Studies”. Today focused on the way more and more young adults in Australia are still living at home with their parents, and the tension that arises when a desire for autonomy and privacy, meets the reality of living in someone else’s house, and having to abide by someone else’s rules.

    There wasn’t much that was new for me – after all I’m a living example of this. But if you are interested, just click on the images below to view some of the powerpoint slides:

    What was more interesting for me was the second half of the class, which turned into a discussion. We gathered around, with the lecturer opening up by introducing me. I talked briefly about my own experiences as a young adult and the tensions I’ve had with asserting a sense of independence and “adultness” while living under my mum’s roof.

    A student asked us if Australian young adults experienced a sort of identity crises while going through this transition period. The ensuing discussion led me to an opportunity to put forward one of my theories:

    People in the West have a strong sense of self. It’s like, who am I? What am I meant to do with my life? What’s so special about me, and what do I offer this world? I want to be famous, I want to be rich, I want to be a somebody, I want to leave a legacy. What’s my personal destiny? What’s my individual purpose?

    And the thing about someone from the West is that they’re all too often paralysed by choice. Without (m)any social mores forcing them to pick one over the other. So this results in a sort of neuroses, and yes, an identity crises.

    Whereas in my conversations with young Unclese students – tallying up to about 8 or 9 now – it seems like they all just want to get “good jobs.” And ‘good’ is synonymous with ‘well paid and stable’. It almost didn’t seem to matter what the job was – so long as it was ‘good’.

    And same with life in general. Take, for example, a mother in Australia. It’s not uncommon for her to feel some kind of pressure to be a career woman as well – to have a life beyond her roles as a mother, to have interests beyond the home. Whereas in Uncle, which is a far more conservative country, identities are based in tradition – simple and fixed – and the majority of people adopted them without question.

    When I put this to the students, one spoke up, offering a different picture. She said that at the moment she was definitely going through a time of confusion about what she should do with her life. Should she work as a translator for an international company, or work for the government? Or perhaps as a freelancer? What would be best?

    But still I felt there was a difference. An Unclese student here completed their degree and then applied for a job that naturally followed on from that degree – with the only question they seemingly had to pose to themselves being do I work for an international company? Or the government? And then once they do land that job, that’s it. They’re set.

    But a student in Australia might not even get a job that directly relates to their degree. They might consider taking some time off and go overseas. They might change companies, roles or even industries multiple times over their lifetimes. And for them, it’s not just about finding a well paid, stable job. It’s about pursuing what you’re really passionate about. What you love. One didn’t just work, one had to find MEANING in one’s work.

    The lecturer added that yes, in our world it’s not about getting the best job, it’s about getting the best job FOR ME. Best suited to my personality. And in work, it’s not just about what can I do for the company. It’s about what can the company do FOR ME.

    Such is the luxuries of living in developed world!

    I put forward another conception I had of Unclese culture: that the children were very obedient to their parents. And that their parents exercised a high degree of control over their children. So in terms of career, the children did as the parents desired, and there was a very narrow set of ‘respectable’ career choices that one should aim for.

    This was certainly something that was more evident to me in the Unclese families I knew in Australia, compared to the Caucasian Australian families. And as an illustration I told the story of a Unclese Australian friend who had long felt the burden of her parents’ expectations – the pressure of which had inspired her to complete five years of medicine … before she worked up the courage to pursue the field that she really wanted: in acting.

    Again, there was some disagreement among the Unclese students. One piping up, that her father didn’t really know what the job market was like, so was happy for her to make her own decision as to what job was best.

    I wondered out loud, perhaps my understanding of Unclese culture via the migrant experience in Australia was not indicative of Unclese culture as a whole. After all, maybe Unclese migrants were different – in that they sacrificed a crazy amount, experiencing a lot of difficulties in moving to a new country, often with the end goal of offering their kids the kinds of opportunities they never had – or at least not without a lot of struggle – in mind.

    So naturally these hard-working, ambitious Unclese migrants are going to exert a certain kind of pressure on their kids. Was your average mainlander just relieved when their kids manage to acquire any kind of stable, well paid job? Rather than be the big shot lawyer/ doctor/ accountant that Unclese parents in Australia/ Britain/ America all want for their kids?

    All in all, it was absolutely fascinating to be given the chance to put to the test some of my initial impressions of the Unclese youth. And hopefully for them to meet one of these Australians they’ve been studying so hard about!

    Gatecrashing Brother’s ‘Australian Studies’ classes

    In blog on November 11, 2009 at 2:37 am

    Gatecrashing other people’s lectures is quickly becoming a regular habit of mine. As much as I love learning Unclese (no, really) I still need the kind of brain food that you can’t get from endless memorising of han zi (Unclese characters), or running through dialogues describing mingtian’s tianqi (tomorrow’s weather.) And I’m not going to pass up this golden opportunity to peek into Uncle’s university education system.

    A couple of weeks ago I happen to meet a Unclese student majoring in Australian Studies, lulz! So of course I asked if I could gatecrash, and this morning turned up to a class that introduced six Unclese students to Australia’s colonial past. The Unclese lecturer, and who must be mentioned had all but flawless English, had no problem with me sitting in, and introduced me to the others as an Australian, “who might hopefully be able to share some of her experiences with this topic.”

    “Well I can’t say I was there in person,” I joked.

    But much of the content was familiar to me from primary and early high school years of history: the transportation of Britain’s convict population to their Southern outpost, and then the gradual burgeoning of an independent nation. I relived the horror I felt as a 12 year old, hearing the tales of mass deaths at sea, the cruel floggings (she even had a picture of what a live one looks like) and hangings, and the generally harsh conditions those early Australians lived in.

    It was surreal to be hearing these familiar tales … but now in a neon-lit classroom of Beijing, with six other Unclese girls – none of whom had never stepped foot in Australia, but were busy taking notes on “Port Arthur” and “Governor Phillip” in the margins of their textbooks.

    Of course it wasn’t all doom and gloom. As the lecturer pointed out, life was hard for all poor people back then, even in Britain. And when along came pardons, tickets-of-leaves, and emancipation, Australian became a place for some to start anew. She pointed out that out in the harsh outback, people learned to rely on one another, and from this a strong cultural value emerged: mateship, and equality. That is, judging people by their actions, rather than their social status.

    The Unclese students, though somewhat more reserved than Australian students, also asked some thoughtful questions, and I was impressed at their level of English. The lecturer had delivered the whole seminar in English, and there were more than a few sophisticated turns of phrases.

    Very quickly, because it’s late, one thing that was definitely new to me, and I can’t believe I’d never known of, was the story of Mary Reibey. She’s the face on the 20 dollar bill – and is one impressive lady.

    Tomorrow I’m gatecrashing the lecture on “Australian Youth” (double lulz!)

    Women & Children: the 11pm curfew for Unclese students

    In blog on November 10, 2009 at 12:51 am

    “Don’t you get angry?” I asked over lunch with the Unclese girl who had responded to my poster. She lived in a dorm room that strictly enforced an 11pm curfew – every night of the week. “I mean you’re 21, they shouldn’t be treating you like a child, and telling you when to go bed.”

    “Oh but they do treat us like children, and …” she replied, “I think we are still children!”

    I looked at her thoughtfully, and paused before speaking. I considered the fact that I was talking to a girl who, in all likelihood, had never had sex, had never been so much as tipsy, and had never gone to a nightclub or a music festival. She, like most Unclese students didn’t really party, or drink, have crazy one-night pashes, or dance like a spastic till ridiculous hours of the morning.

    For an Unclese student, socialising on the weekend means shopping with friends, outings to parks and nature reserves, and most importantly eating together (dinner often at 6pm or earlier). It’s a weekend reminiscent of me at 13. On a special occasion there might be karaoke (non-alcoholic drinking.)

    But a typical weekend was more than likely to be occupied by one thing: study. And lots of it. The infamous Unclese work ethic can be no more evident than in the Unclese university student, who, 7 days a week, every waking hour, works him or herself to the bone. Desperate for one of the country’s highly sought after and none-to-common “good jobs” – in either an international company, or even better the government (“more stable” they all say) – each student attempts to outdo one another with tireless work.

    I bit my lip and asked gently, “are you scared of the outside world?”

    “Yes!” she replied, emphatically.

    “Well you shouldn’t be!” I replied, equally enthusiastically.

    Now, let me contrast this with another Unclese student, who too has an 11pm curfew. I met her at a Couchsurfing event in my first few weeks here in Brother. And when she told me of the curfew, I spluttered in disbelief.

    “But what do you do?! I mean sometimes we don’t go out until 11pm!”

    “Well we stay at the club, till about 3am. Then we go to McDonalds and have a snooze till about 6am, by which time the dorm opens again so we can go back,” she replied with a sigh.

    I laughed – I liked her way of thinking.

    “Oh my god, you should totally hold a protest over this!” I said, half-ironically, half-serious.

    “Trust me, we’ve written all sorts of letters arguing why this is wrong, but they don’t care,” she replied, resignedly.

    This girl belongs to a new breed. A new breed of Unclese students who use gmail and proxies to access (the blocked) Facebook, shop at H&M, watch Gossip Girl, and yes, go to clubs. She is not the only one I’ve met, and I wonder what it is that separates them from the more typical student.

    I am at a Korean BBQ restaurant with a mix of Unclese and Australian students. The Unclese girl opposite me is very pretty, slim, and hip. She is doing her masters in international relations and knows how to speak Arabic. I ask her if she finds going out in Brother expensive.

    To give you an illustration of the insane prices of the clubs here:

    2.5 kuai ($0.4 Aussie) = price of a big bottle of Tsinghua beer on the street
    30 kuai ($5 Aussie) = price of a small bottle of Tsinghua beer in the club

    Another illustration:

    1400 kuai ($230 Aussie) / month = amount a foreign scholarship student receives for living allowance. And all of us consider this amount “impossible” to live on, and must supplement it with a job or savings.
    800 kuai ($130 Aussie) / month = amount a Unclese scholarship student receives for living allowance. And they still manage to SAVE some of this.

    But back to the pretty Unclese student. I’m asking her if she finds the clubs in Brother expensive, as I can only assume these more “international”* Unclese students must be rich, or somewhat well-off.

    “Well there are always ladies nights,” she replies with a twinkle in her eyes. “Free entry, and free drinks!”

    *As I’ve written previously, I do not consider them to be more “Western”, but more “International”. This is what globalisation (not cultural colonisation) looks like. It’s what happens to the people of a country which was previously closed from the rest of the world – both politically and economically isolated – but now is opening up. At least, so goes my still half-baked theory.

    Halloween 2009 in Brother

    In blog on November 6, 2009 at 3:11 pm

    So my evening’s pride and joy were these glasses I bought, and then covered the glass in foil:

    Only problem was I couldn’t see out of them. So I’d put them on for about 5 seconds, and then take them off and just hold them, or hang them on my collar – over and over again. Until, of course, I lost them.

    For 20 kuai (about $3.5 Aussie), my friend and I had our hair done.

    Our hairdresser totally nailed the “Chinese princess from the future” and “pirate” concepts. I think my friend’s costume idea was a stroke of genius, because Brotheringers tend to speak with a lot of “rrrrrrrrs”, and sound like pirates.

    This is what the whole thing totaled:

    Some of the amazing costumes from the night:

    At about 3.30am we came out of the warehouse party only to find it snowing like mad. Pretty special!

    The next day I woke up to see my uni covered in a layer of snow:

    And just a flashback to 2008, where instead of dressing up as a “serial killer” I went as a “KILLER CEREAL!!”