so i have been unable to access blogspot for the past little while as the site was recently blocked. thankfully, little trouble is back in town & was able to download some magic cyberslippers that allow my little laptop to appear as if it's somewhere over the government firewall with azure bluebirds. i realized today that the bbc is blocked as well & i wonder if there's some sort of suppression of expression storm brewing. more likely, this may all be related to the approaching 20 year anniversary of tiananmen (june 4th). it's always a sensitive time, but this year perhaps especially so. i still plan to go to the square on the anniversary if possible (as i've done in years past, trailed by the not-so-secret police).
between now and june 4th, things will be busy. and they have been. i realized that in my last sappy, drunk-on-lychees post, i may have given a false impression about this beautiful, complicated country. the government is not monolithic. the past few weeks have reminded me of all that the remarkable and inspirational work that is happening on promoting rights, equality, and justice. there are real openings for reform and progress. identifying such openings and running as far as you can while they are there seems to be the m.o. for activists, scholars, international orgs, and others here.
this city is, in so many ways, a far cry from the dusty metropolis i grew up in. partially as a result of an increasing number of small initiatives which shift the shape of things more than the incessant construction. such shifts are subtle, yet powerful. now that i have found a way to safely transcend the trappings of the government firewall (nothing subtle about that), i intend to get back to the business of considering these shifts.
for now, some more amusing mentions. 1 - my former school is a fat camp. i'm serious. the building that once housed the international school of beijing is now a facility for obese chinese children. as a comment on globalization, it is just too good. 2 - i may have a new food obsession that is borderline red-bean level serious. there is a ma la xiang gu - spicy fragrant bowl - place near us that a colleague and i have started frequenting for lunch. you pick what you want - dofu skin, glass noodles, golden needle mushrooms, greens, fish cakes - and then they fry it all up and add their amazingly delicious, spicy mala magic & bring it to you in a large bowl. it is so addictive that we have been known to go two days in a row and go every friday. so that is the most delicious thing i've eaten of late. 3 - after learning about a cat on twitter with more than 500,000 followers (thank you, CNN, for being absurd enough to consider this news), i am thinking about starting to tweet for the neighbour's cat, misha. misha is a most curious creature. literally. she spends most of her days stealthily making her way around the compound, spying on everyone. she often sits outside the glass door, peering in. i have also awoken to find her perched on the ledge outside the second-floor bedroom window, wide blue eyes alert, head cocked to one side, pondering. we are sure she is keeping files on all the neighbours and has a side job with the local paichusuo (police station). either that, or she is slowing planning a kitty revolution.
with that thought i realize i need to wait until i am in a more substantive frame of mind to say anything further. until then, apologies for the disappearance. more soon. meow.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
lychees and liberty
it's lychee season. which means i am attempting to write and eat lychees at the same time and dripping sweet lychee love all over the keyboard. (i secretly resent people who are disciplined enough not to eat at the computer.) this week in china has been bittersweet. yesterday was the one year anniversary of the sichuan earthquake, china's largest national disaster in decades. more than the earth opened then, as private citizens, the government, the army, corporations, and civil society all rushed to do what they could. there was such an outpouring of emotion. and for a moment it seemed as though all of these sometimes disparate entities were united in an authentic, albeit tragic, way. the spirit of volunteerism that gripped the nation in the days after 5.12 (as it's called in chinese) is something that NGO leaders and government officials still mention (in addition to mentioning, of course, the spirit of volunteerism surrounding the olympics). wen jiabao himself flew to the scene. everyone was equally shaken by the sheer sadness of it all.
but the equality didn't last for long. according to government estimates, more than 5,300 children died in the earthquake as schools collapsed. as suspicion arose about the high student death toll being the result of substandard school construction, the government began to try to suppress the opening created by the earthquake. this is all over the press, so i hardly need to reheat what you read for breakfast. it is disheartening that so many of the parents, lawyers, activists, journalists, and artists that have tried to ascertain the truth about the conditions in the collapsed schools have been harassed or detained.
yet i wonder whether the government will eventually no longer be able to rely on these tactics, whether one day detention won't do. among the many reasons i feel privileged to do the work that i do, the sheer resilience of china's civil society never ceases to amaze me. for a country that is so committed to suppressing it, civil society here continues to flourish. (and yes, there are openings and space for public participation, we operate in that space and work to expand those openings. but overall, this can be a challenging place to speak truth to power. or advocate. or organize. or even to hold a meeting about law firm pro bono.) this resilience amazes me all the more because of the uncertainty of it all. there's something so precarious about everything right now. perhaps especially now. this is a year full of sensitive anniversaries in china - the tibetan uprising, tiananmen, the 60th anniversary of the founding of the people's republic. as a result, there is a certain tightness. it's as if each of the limited open spaces for civil society engagement could suddenly collapse like those primary schools in sichuan at any moment. i was talking with a colleague the other day about some of the incredibly brave individuals who continually take on the government. and how baffling it is that some people can just seem to get away with real criticism. we questioned whether there was some safety in being high profile, whether that allowed certain people to get away with more. i wondered whether some people just cannot not push. whether such people wouldn't describe what they do as brave or foolish, or even think of it in terms of an adjective, but whether pushing is just who they are. she pointed out that anyone, regardless of who or how or why, can get away with it until one day they can't. of course no one knows when that day will come. if it will. some people suggest that political reform in china will naturally follow economic openness. i am not so sure. what i am sure of is that the will of a people, once stirred, is hard to contain.
similarly and less seriously, lychee juice, once transferred from fingers to keyboard, quickly becomes sticky. at least it smells good.
but the equality didn't last for long. according to government estimates, more than 5,300 children died in the earthquake as schools collapsed. as suspicion arose about the high student death toll being the result of substandard school construction, the government began to try to suppress the opening created by the earthquake. this is all over the press, so i hardly need to reheat what you read for breakfast. it is disheartening that so many of the parents, lawyers, activists, journalists, and artists that have tried to ascertain the truth about the conditions in the collapsed schools have been harassed or detained.
yet i wonder whether the government will eventually no longer be able to rely on these tactics, whether one day detention won't do. among the many reasons i feel privileged to do the work that i do, the sheer resilience of china's civil society never ceases to amaze me. for a country that is so committed to suppressing it, civil society here continues to flourish. (and yes, there are openings and space for public participation, we operate in that space and work to expand those openings. but overall, this can be a challenging place to speak truth to power. or advocate. or organize. or even to hold a meeting about law firm pro bono.) this resilience amazes me all the more because of the uncertainty of it all. there's something so precarious about everything right now. perhaps especially now. this is a year full of sensitive anniversaries in china - the tibetan uprising, tiananmen, the 60th anniversary of the founding of the people's republic. as a result, there is a certain tightness. it's as if each of the limited open spaces for civil society engagement could suddenly collapse like those primary schools in sichuan at any moment. i was talking with a colleague the other day about some of the incredibly brave individuals who continually take on the government. and how baffling it is that some people can just seem to get away with real criticism. we questioned whether there was some safety in being high profile, whether that allowed certain people to get away with more. i wondered whether some people just cannot not push. whether such people wouldn't describe what they do as brave or foolish, or even think of it in terms of an adjective, but whether pushing is just who they are. she pointed out that anyone, regardless of who or how or why, can get away with it until one day they can't. of course no one knows when that day will come. if it will. some people suggest that political reform in china will naturally follow economic openness. i am not so sure. what i am sure of is that the will of a people, once stirred, is hard to contain.
similarly and less seriously, lychee juice, once transferred from fingers to keyboard, quickly becomes sticky. at least it smells good.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
backdating 2 - are we liberated?
please see my earlier disclaimer in backdating 1. a thousand pardons.
from may 2:
so what i neglected to mention in the calm midnight after my chaotic changsha nightclub caper was the earlier conversation i’d had with peng di during our post-dinner pre-whiskey stroll. between leaving the restaurant and stumbling upon some amateur outdoor local opera performances, we had many opportunities to pay tribute to chairman mao. changsha is mao’s hometown, and he is everywhere – statutes, busts, photographs abound, his fact is on handbags, t-shirts, dinner plates, buttons, cigarettes, and any other reasonably commercial surface. mind, you do see a lot of (somewhat ironic?) mao paraphernalia all over china, especially in tourist hotspots in beijing. but changsha takes mao iconography to a whole new level. in addition to his physical omnipresence, mao is heard everywhere in changsha as the locals are quick to share that their city has the (dubious?) honour of being mao’s hometown. mao's legendary larger than life persona lives on with the locals as well. a young woman who became my “little sister” because we share similar names (she’s zhang chunling and i'm zhang meiling (with matching lings)) was telling me about when the largest statue of mao was moved to a particular location on a hill just outside the city. even though it was winter and not the proper season, she explained, once the statue was placed there, azaleas started blooming like mad. i told her i didn’t believe it, but little sister insisted. there are even mao impersonators in changsha who perform in a nightly entertainment variety show. in sum, if you’re looking for some mao, head to changsha.
so as peng di, a wonderful woman from the provincial women’s federation (fulian), and i walked past a giant mao statue, i decided to ask her what she really thought about mao. during dinner, peng di and i had spoken about how she was awakened to her ideals and how she came to dedicate her life to women’s rights work. hers was an interesting story because it was so intensely personal with limited ‘outside’ influence. as she pointed out, she’s never left the country and doesn’t speak any foreign languages, and came to her realizations on her own. she would like to go abroad, especially now that she does so much cooperative work with international organizations, but couldn’t leave her husband and child behind. she would also like another child. but in both cases she is resigned to what is possible. peng di is incredibly progressive and thinks about her work from a rights-based perspective. i started off by saying that i know the official policy is that mao was 70% right and 30% wrong, but then i asked her what she really thought of him. i asked whether any percentage or right was worth the 60 million deaths and the tremendous suffering china endured under mao’s madness. i asked her what she thought from a human rights perspective. peng di replied by saying that mao liberated china and without him, modern china wouldn’t exist. i nodded. we walked another few paces and then she turned to me and asked, “are we liberated?” she made a vague gesture, “is this liberation?” then she laughed and said, “uh-oh, i'm a …..” she didn’t say anything to describe what she was, but moved her hands about and made a “woooo” sound. she laughed again, looped her arm in mine and said she wanted to talk more divorce in america. so we kept walking and the topic turned to divorce.
peng di’s comment about liberation was especially timely given that much of our dinner conversation had been focused on political problems related to our cooperative programs. talk of government approval got mixed up with the thousand-year old eggs, banter about political sensitivities simmered along with the spicy rice noodles, and chatter about the constant strain it places on our work was stir-fried into the empty-heart vegetables. is this liberation? her question about divorce was part of an ongoing conversation because the majority of domestic violence cases in china are divorce cases. all such cases much first be mediated (in fact there is a big push from the courts for nearly all cases to be mediated before they go to court as part of the emphasis on china’s “harmonious society”), which can be deeply problematic. from my perspective, one of the foundational principles necessary for just mediation is that the parties are on equal footing and this simply cannot be the case in a situation of family violence. the point peng di was getting at, however, was the tendency of the mediators to push for reconciliation and pressure that places on women, especially because there is still only limited awareness about the dynamics of domestic violence in most chinese courts. there is still great stigma attached to divorce and it is also seen incongruent with the “harmonious society” concept.
as our conversation progressed, i wondered about the “harmonious society” and i wondered whether it was really such a great aspiration. (can harmony be compelled? (is this liberation?)) in my hutong (alley) neighbourhood, there are placards everywhere discussing the construction of a civilized neighbourhood, with instructions on what that means. civilized or not, i haven’t yet described where exactly i’ve ended up in beijing…. of the many reasons i’m happy to be in beijing, i’ve never lived anywhere i’m so glad to come home to!
i live in a historic part of beijing that still feels somewhat familiar despite all the upheaval this city has gone through in the last 15 years. the flat is nestled in hutongs behind the confucius temple and adjacent to the lama temple off a street – guo zi jian – that was originally build in 1287 and served as the intellectual center of the yuan, ming & qing dynasties. my little house is actually a converted grain warehouse – a loft-style duplex complete with an oven (a luxury in china!) and a little garden out front. it’s wonderful. tucked away amid the temples and down an alley, our compound is very quite and kids and cats are generally always wandering about. the residents are a mixture of foreigners and locals, although a bit heavy on the frenchies for some reason. the french presence has it’s perks – there’s a fantastic authentic bistro nearby, and shortly after moving in, a french butcher and cheese shop opened in our little alley, a source of great wonder to the hutong community. or at least it was a source of great wonder until a modern art gallery decided to put in an installation piece in a shop-front space (purchased for this purpose apparently) next to the local bing (a kind of bread) maker. the modern art installation has actually been a source of great wonder for everyone. (though only momentary wonder – i think the usual response is a look, a furrowing of the eyebrows, a shrug of the shoulders, and a moving on.) there is now a little placard explaining that ‘the arrow factory’ – a modern chinese art gallery – is exhibiting a series of unfinished installation pieces for no more than ten days at a time in this space. sans explanatory placard, one day walking home there was simply a storefront with televisions suspended at various levels showing a video of a hand doing calligraphy that never seemed to be complete. very curious. the current installation involves a small, low, mirrored table with a three lines of little colourful glass animal figures parading along, an elevated t.v. w/ a black-and-white image of two birds snuggling, and a row of brightly coloured discs suspended from the ceiling with invisible wire. it’s called “light”, but i’m not sure why. i don’t think it is affecting the bing stand’s business, but they are surely baffled.
sometimes our little area is just so gorgeously, tragically hip that i know i will never fully grasp the nuance of cool in this part of town. my house is walking distance from the drum tower, the bell tower, houhai – two of beijing’s lakes and one of my absolutely favourite parts of the city growing up. there’s also a very funky little commercial area that’s been developed amid the hutongs here called nanlouguxiang (nlgx), with cozy shops, quirky bars, trendy restaurants, breezy cafes & a real pedestrian culture. wandering around nlgx the other day i noticed a number of fashionable young chinese women with cloth cat ears attached to their hair with barrettes. ears? did i miss the fashion memo on ears? even if i can’t keep up, living somewhere so newly hip but steeped in history and tradition (the hutongs in this area will not be destroyed because there are so many historic sites among them), it means great restaurants, music, and shopping are all a nice meander nearby.
perhaps the best part about hutong life in my particular corner of beijing is watching the worlds in collision. i was walking home from work the other day and wandered pass a priceless exchange in the alley. a pigtailed little french girl of about five was speaking mandarin to a smattering of residents assembled on the street. this particular spot in the alley is a bit of a collection point for people. neighbours kind of drift there, squat or stand or pull up a stool, have a beer or sunflower seeds or nothing, chat and watch the world go by. the little girl was talking about a little chinese boy of about 18 months who was nearby and she was mainly addressing his mother. pointing at him she said to the delight of the assembled neighbours, “ta de kuzi huai le; ta de pigu lou chulai le [his pants are broken; his bum is hanging out].” the mother and the neighbours laughed and shouted the story down the street. the little boy was wearing split-bottomed pants, the common attire for little chinese toddlers and the alternative to diapers (which are very, very rare). the split-bottomed approach is actually good for the environment, potty-training, and it is kind of charming to see little baby bums all about beijing. ; ). the little french girl was a bit baffled by the laughter. after all, she was just doing his mum a favour and letting her know that she could see her son’s pigu. but her own mother stepped out of the butcher a few paces up from the alley collection corner, called to her, and she was whisked home to her converted grain warehouse to eat cheese and baguettes. i couldn’t help smiling to myself as i continued walking home in the gathering dusk. liberated or not, i feel incredibly grateful to be able to stumble across such scenes.
from may 2:
so what i neglected to mention in the calm midnight after my chaotic changsha nightclub caper was the earlier conversation i’d had with peng di during our post-dinner pre-whiskey stroll. between leaving the restaurant and stumbling upon some amateur outdoor local opera performances, we had many opportunities to pay tribute to chairman mao. changsha is mao’s hometown, and he is everywhere – statutes, busts, photographs abound, his fact is on handbags, t-shirts, dinner plates, buttons, cigarettes, and any other reasonably commercial surface. mind, you do see a lot of (somewhat ironic?) mao paraphernalia all over china, especially in tourist hotspots in beijing. but changsha takes mao iconography to a whole new level. in addition to his physical omnipresence, mao is heard everywhere in changsha as the locals are quick to share that their city has the (dubious?) honour of being mao’s hometown. mao's legendary larger than life persona lives on with the locals as well. a young woman who became my “little sister” because we share similar names (she’s zhang chunling and i'm zhang meiling (with matching lings)) was telling me about when the largest statue of mao was moved to a particular location on a hill just outside the city. even though it was winter and not the proper season, she explained, once the statue was placed there, azaleas started blooming like mad. i told her i didn’t believe it, but little sister insisted. there are even mao impersonators in changsha who perform in a nightly entertainment variety show. in sum, if you’re looking for some mao, head to changsha.
so as peng di, a wonderful woman from the provincial women’s federation (fulian), and i walked past a giant mao statue, i decided to ask her what she really thought about mao. during dinner, peng di and i had spoken about how she was awakened to her ideals and how she came to dedicate her life to women’s rights work. hers was an interesting story because it was so intensely personal with limited ‘outside’ influence. as she pointed out, she’s never left the country and doesn’t speak any foreign languages, and came to her realizations on her own. she would like to go abroad, especially now that she does so much cooperative work with international organizations, but couldn’t leave her husband and child behind. she would also like another child. but in both cases she is resigned to what is possible. peng di is incredibly progressive and thinks about her work from a rights-based perspective. i started off by saying that i know the official policy is that mao was 70% right and 30% wrong, but then i asked her what she really thought of him. i asked whether any percentage or right was worth the 60 million deaths and the tremendous suffering china endured under mao’s madness. i asked her what she thought from a human rights perspective. peng di replied by saying that mao liberated china and without him, modern china wouldn’t exist. i nodded. we walked another few paces and then she turned to me and asked, “are we liberated?” she made a vague gesture, “is this liberation?” then she laughed and said, “uh-oh, i'm a …..” she didn’t say anything to describe what she was, but moved her hands about and made a “woooo” sound. she laughed again, looped her arm in mine and said she wanted to talk more divorce in america. so we kept walking and the topic turned to divorce.
peng di’s comment about liberation was especially timely given that much of our dinner conversation had been focused on political problems related to our cooperative programs. talk of government approval got mixed up with the thousand-year old eggs, banter about political sensitivities simmered along with the spicy rice noodles, and chatter about the constant strain it places on our work was stir-fried into the empty-heart vegetables. is this liberation? her question about divorce was part of an ongoing conversation because the majority of domestic violence cases in china are divorce cases. all such cases much first be mediated (in fact there is a big push from the courts for nearly all cases to be mediated before they go to court as part of the emphasis on china’s “harmonious society”), which can be deeply problematic. from my perspective, one of the foundational principles necessary for just mediation is that the parties are on equal footing and this simply cannot be the case in a situation of family violence. the point peng di was getting at, however, was the tendency of the mediators to push for reconciliation and pressure that places on women, especially because there is still only limited awareness about the dynamics of domestic violence in most chinese courts. there is still great stigma attached to divorce and it is also seen incongruent with the “harmonious society” concept.
as our conversation progressed, i wondered about the “harmonious society” and i wondered whether it was really such a great aspiration. (can harmony be compelled? (is this liberation?)) in my hutong (alley) neighbourhood, there are placards everywhere discussing the construction of a civilized neighbourhood, with instructions on what that means. civilized or not, i haven’t yet described where exactly i’ve ended up in beijing…. of the many reasons i’m happy to be in beijing, i’ve never lived anywhere i’m so glad to come home to!
i live in a historic part of beijing that still feels somewhat familiar despite all the upheaval this city has gone through in the last 15 years. the flat is nestled in hutongs behind the confucius temple and adjacent to the lama temple off a street – guo zi jian – that was originally build in 1287 and served as the intellectual center of the yuan, ming & qing dynasties. my little house is actually a converted grain warehouse – a loft-style duplex complete with an oven (a luxury in china!) and a little garden out front. it’s wonderful. tucked away amid the temples and down an alley, our compound is very quite and kids and cats are generally always wandering about. the residents are a mixture of foreigners and locals, although a bit heavy on the frenchies for some reason. the french presence has it’s perks – there’s a fantastic authentic bistro nearby, and shortly after moving in, a french butcher and cheese shop opened in our little alley, a source of great wonder to the hutong community. or at least it was a source of great wonder until a modern art gallery decided to put in an installation piece in a shop-front space (purchased for this purpose apparently) next to the local bing (a kind of bread) maker. the modern art installation has actually been a source of great wonder for everyone. (though only momentary wonder – i think the usual response is a look, a furrowing of the eyebrows, a shrug of the shoulders, and a moving on.) there is now a little placard explaining that ‘the arrow factory’ – a modern chinese art gallery – is exhibiting a series of unfinished installation pieces for no more than ten days at a time in this space. sans explanatory placard, one day walking home there was simply a storefront with televisions suspended at various levels showing a video of a hand doing calligraphy that never seemed to be complete. very curious. the current installation involves a small, low, mirrored table with a three lines of little colourful glass animal figures parading along, an elevated t.v. w/ a black-and-white image of two birds snuggling, and a row of brightly coloured discs suspended from the ceiling with invisible wire. it’s called “light”, but i’m not sure why. i don’t think it is affecting the bing stand’s business, but they are surely baffled.
sometimes our little area is just so gorgeously, tragically hip that i know i will never fully grasp the nuance of cool in this part of town. my house is walking distance from the drum tower, the bell tower, houhai – two of beijing’s lakes and one of my absolutely favourite parts of the city growing up. there’s also a very funky little commercial area that’s been developed amid the hutongs here called nanlouguxiang (nlgx), with cozy shops, quirky bars, trendy restaurants, breezy cafes & a real pedestrian culture. wandering around nlgx the other day i noticed a number of fashionable young chinese women with cloth cat ears attached to their hair with barrettes. ears? did i miss the fashion memo on ears? even if i can’t keep up, living somewhere so newly hip but steeped in history and tradition (the hutongs in this area will not be destroyed because there are so many historic sites among them), it means great restaurants, music, and shopping are all a nice meander nearby.
perhaps the best part about hutong life in my particular corner of beijing is watching the worlds in collision. i was walking home from work the other day and wandered pass a priceless exchange in the alley. a pigtailed little french girl of about five was speaking mandarin to a smattering of residents assembled on the street. this particular spot in the alley is a bit of a collection point for people. neighbours kind of drift there, squat or stand or pull up a stool, have a beer or sunflower seeds or nothing, chat and watch the world go by. the little girl was talking about a little chinese boy of about 18 months who was nearby and she was mainly addressing his mother. pointing at him she said to the delight of the assembled neighbours, “ta de kuzi huai le; ta de pigu lou chulai le [his pants are broken; his bum is hanging out].” the mother and the neighbours laughed and shouted the story down the street. the little boy was wearing split-bottomed pants, the common attire for little chinese toddlers and the alternative to diapers (which are very, very rare). the split-bottomed approach is actually good for the environment, potty-training, and it is kind of charming to see little baby bums all about beijing. ; ). the little french girl was a bit baffled by the laughter. after all, she was just doing his mum a favour and letting her know that she could see her son’s pigu. but her own mother stepped out of the butcher a few paces up from the alley collection corner, called to her, and she was whisked home to her converted grain warehouse to eat cheese and baguettes. i couldn’t help smiling to myself as i continued walking home in the gathering dusk. liberated or not, i feel incredibly grateful to be able to stumble across such scenes.
backdating 1 - comments fom changsha
so once upon a lifetime when i briefly attempted to be a corporate attorney in a big, bad firm i worked on a case related to the backdating of stock options. i therefore know what i am about to do is dubious. nonetheless, i want to include my first two beijing briefings on this blog. so please excuse the backdating.
from april 23:
it's 11:31 on a wednesday night & i've just returned from an evening at a changsha hotspot called song-song. i ended up there after having dinner w/ a woman we work with from the hunan provincial all china women's federation (fu lian), peng di, at a bustling local restaurant inside a rebuilt old palace. changsha is most famous for 1 - being mao's hometown & 2 - burning itself down. during the japanese invasion of china, in an effort to prevent the japanese from getting anything from changsha / making any profit from the city, the city leadership decided to burn everything before the japanese arrived. so 3,000 years of history went up in smoke. and the japanese never made it to changsha. [remember this story if you ever feel as though you've made a really big mistake.] so anyway, we ate in a reconstructed version of one of the ancient palaces. we then met up with some representatives from the national fu lian and some local police from the sex crimes unit to drink whiskey-mixed-with-iced-tea, eat fruit, play dice, listen to hiphop and enjoy a variety of performances (i found the covers of 'hotel californ' and 'country road' charming, the canto-pop sufficiently cheesy, and i was thankfully leaving as the 'naughty nurse and doctor' dance performance act was beginning). this was the end of a long day.
i'm in changsha to connect with a few members of the chinese anti-domestic violence movement / partners of ours, to observe a judicial training sponsored by the australian human rights commission, and to see some of the work being done locally in relation to DV / protection orders (this is probably the most progressive province in the country on DV issues). [another changsha story i can't resist sharing: when chairman mao was making a trip back to changsha during the cultural revolution, the local officials had to chose a place for him to be photographed at the train station when he arrived. this was deeply problematic. if he was to the west, that was problematic because it showed support for capitalism. if he was to the north, that was problematic because relations w/ the soviet union were bad. if he was to the south, that was problematic, that was bad because relations w/ vietnam were bad. if he was to the east, that was problematic because it showed respect for beijing over the countryside. there was no politically tolerable place for the chairman to stand. so he didn't move in any direction once he got off the train for the picture & was photographed in front of stalls selling chilies in the main hall.] it's been good to be here - our women's rights work, which is currently focused on combating domestic violence, is now one of the areas i'm responsible for. we had a really successful training program for chinese police in february, and are in the process of developing a training program for judges. being at a local court today was incredibly moving as i was able to see the impact of our february training program. there is a bit of a revolution brewing in china vis-a-vis the public security response to DV and it is humbling, overwhelming, inspiring to play some small part in supporting that..... (i could go on in more detail about this, but will spare you in the interest of space. glad to share more if you're interested!)
aside from women's rights, we also work on environmental rights, criminal justice, promoting public interest lawyering, civil society capacity building, social policy advocacy, and have a few other projects here & there. (i was meant to be returning to beijing to attend a meeting we're co-sponsoring on representing child victims of domestic violence / sex crimes, but the local partners have decided to discuss a recent, horrific case from southern china where a group of government officials are charged w/ sexually abusing little girls and it would stifle the conversation if a foreigner were there. this happens not infrequently (i can't attend our programs because i look foreign). i sometimes find it frustrating, but i also understand.) so anyway, that's what's occupying my time in beijing. the work is challenging, my colleagues are fantastic. i feel this type of work is the reason i went to law school and i am so happy to be back in beijing. (my inner scripts are more wholly my own there than anywhere else, really. even after all the changes in the city.) it's also nice to be speaking chinese again. though i learned the hard way that i am not quite up to giving articulate speeches on the fly. or at least not at 9:00 am on saturday mornings when the 2 minute welcoming remarks from the chinese partner become an eloquent speech about the importance of volunteerism & NGOs festooned with stories about his daughter's positive experiences volunteering during the olympics. yes, i was tempted to try to make a joke and talk about my daughter's positive experiences volunteering during the olympics, but i sensed the assembled govt officials and NGO leaders weren't the right crowd for that sort of humour. instead i expressed what an honour it was for us to support this work and our thanks and said i couldn't possibly have anything more to say on substance because director huang had already said it all.... from now on when i have to speak formally, i prepare in advance. it's also been nice having shaphan in beijing. things with us are wonderful. i feel very lucky to have ended up once again in the northern capital.
for now, back to changsha. after leaving the court teary and thoughtful about how a group of thoughtful, committed individuals really can make a difference, we travelled across town to a community services center. the woman leading our tour of the center was more hip than i could ever hope to be - short, crimped hair, skin-tight black plaid trousers tucked into high-heeled, tall black leather boots with leather blows and sequins on the sides, a pale pink, slightly wrinkled (untucked) blouse. the outfit was completed by the headset she was wearing to guide us. it was all fairly straightforward until we arrived on the floor that was meant to provide services for pregnant women and educate them about being healthy during pregnancy. my buoyant mood was abruptly shattered by the site of a large, clear jar with a fetus inside floating in formaldehyde (or some sort of preservative). i thought i was going to be sick. until i saw the larger jar with a larger fetus - 32 weeks i found out. it was just so awful and confusing ("they came from the hospital" whatever that means and were there for "education purposes" whatever they could be). i left that room quickly. we saw the arts center and then there was a presentation about their anti-DV work which included a performance of the small play they'd developed as an educational tool. and the day moved on....
the jarring moment i describe is something that is simply part of life here. one minute you're walking to work enjoying the morning sunshine and some (relatively) clean air, happily eating a redbean bread, smiling at dogs and babies and loving china, and the next moment you're stepping in a filthy puddle of restaurant slop that splashes all over you and cursing china. one minute you're moved by the immense will of one local court to effectively combat violence against women in the community, the next you're somehow staring at a decaying fetus in a jar. one minute you're trying to avoid the pig's blood dish at dinner, the next you're being encouraged to climb on the stage and dance to jay-z in between acts at a chinese club.
those moments are always little opportunities for reflection, growth, discovery, inspiration. or laughter. or tears. or both. oh the unbearable lightness of it all. ; ). ok, with that it's clear that it is too late for me to try to say anything further.
from april 23:
it's 11:31 on a wednesday night & i've just returned from an evening at a changsha hotspot called song-song. i ended up there after having dinner w/ a woman we work with from the hunan provincial all china women's federation (fu lian), peng di, at a bustling local restaurant inside a rebuilt old palace. changsha is most famous for 1 - being mao's hometown & 2 - burning itself down. during the japanese invasion of china, in an effort to prevent the japanese from getting anything from changsha / making any profit from the city, the city leadership decided to burn everything before the japanese arrived. so 3,000 years of history went up in smoke. and the japanese never made it to changsha. [remember this story if you ever feel as though you've made a really big mistake.] so anyway, we ate in a reconstructed version of one of the ancient palaces. we then met up with some representatives from the national fu lian and some local police from the sex crimes unit to drink whiskey-mixed-with-iced-tea, eat fruit, play dice, listen to hiphop and enjoy a variety of performances (i found the covers of 'hotel californ' and 'country road' charming, the canto-pop sufficiently cheesy, and i was thankfully leaving as the 'naughty nurse and doctor' dance performance act was beginning). this was the end of a long day.
i'm in changsha to connect with a few members of the chinese anti-domestic violence movement / partners of ours, to observe a judicial training sponsored by the australian human rights commission, and to see some of the work being done locally in relation to DV / protection orders (this is probably the most progressive province in the country on DV issues). [another changsha story i can't resist sharing: when chairman mao was making a trip back to changsha during the cultural revolution, the local officials had to chose a place for him to be photographed at the train station when he arrived. this was deeply problematic. if he was to the west, that was problematic because it showed support for capitalism. if he was to the north, that was problematic because relations w/ the soviet union were bad. if he was to the south, that was problematic, that was bad because relations w/ vietnam were bad. if he was to the east, that was problematic because it showed respect for beijing over the countryside. there was no politically tolerable place for the chairman to stand. so he didn't move in any direction once he got off the train for the picture & was photographed in front of stalls selling chilies in the main hall.] it's been good to be here - our women's rights work, which is currently focused on combating domestic violence, is now one of the areas i'm responsible for. we had a really successful training program for chinese police in february, and are in the process of developing a training program for judges. being at a local court today was incredibly moving as i was able to see the impact of our february training program. there is a bit of a revolution brewing in china vis-a-vis the public security response to DV and it is humbling, overwhelming, inspiring to play some small part in supporting that..... (i could go on in more detail about this, but will spare you in the interest of space. glad to share more if you're interested!)
aside from women's rights, we also work on environmental rights, criminal justice, promoting public interest lawyering, civil society capacity building, social policy advocacy, and have a few other projects here & there. (i was meant to be returning to beijing to attend a meeting we're co-sponsoring on representing child victims of domestic violence / sex crimes, but the local partners have decided to discuss a recent, horrific case from southern china where a group of government officials are charged w/ sexually abusing little girls and it would stifle the conversation if a foreigner were there. this happens not infrequently (i can't attend our programs because i look foreign). i sometimes find it frustrating, but i also understand.) so anyway, that's what's occupying my time in beijing. the work is challenging, my colleagues are fantastic. i feel this type of work is the reason i went to law school and i am so happy to be back in beijing. (my inner scripts are more wholly my own there than anywhere else, really. even after all the changes in the city.) it's also nice to be speaking chinese again. though i learned the hard way that i am not quite up to giving articulate speeches on the fly. or at least not at 9:00 am on saturday mornings when the 2 minute welcoming remarks from the chinese partner become an eloquent speech about the importance of volunteerism & NGOs festooned with stories about his daughter's positive experiences volunteering during the olympics. yes, i was tempted to try to make a joke and talk about my daughter's positive experiences volunteering during the olympics, but i sensed the assembled govt officials and NGO leaders weren't the right crowd for that sort of humour. instead i expressed what an honour it was for us to support this work and our thanks and said i couldn't possibly have anything more to say on substance because director huang had already said it all.... from now on when i have to speak formally, i prepare in advance. it's also been nice having shaphan in beijing. things with us are wonderful. i feel very lucky to have ended up once again in the northern capital.
for now, back to changsha. after leaving the court teary and thoughtful about how a group of thoughtful, committed individuals really can make a difference, we travelled across town to a community services center. the woman leading our tour of the center was more hip than i could ever hope to be - short, crimped hair, skin-tight black plaid trousers tucked into high-heeled, tall black leather boots with leather blows and sequins on the sides, a pale pink, slightly wrinkled (untucked) blouse. the outfit was completed by the headset she was wearing to guide us. it was all fairly straightforward until we arrived on the floor that was meant to provide services for pregnant women and educate them about being healthy during pregnancy. my buoyant mood was abruptly shattered by the site of a large, clear jar with a fetus inside floating in formaldehyde (or some sort of preservative). i thought i was going to be sick. until i saw the larger jar with a larger fetus - 32 weeks i found out. it was just so awful and confusing ("they came from the hospital" whatever that means and were there for "education purposes" whatever they could be). i left that room quickly. we saw the arts center and then there was a presentation about their anti-DV work which included a performance of the small play they'd developed as an educational tool. and the day moved on....
the jarring moment i describe is something that is simply part of life here. one minute you're walking to work enjoying the morning sunshine and some (relatively) clean air, happily eating a redbean bread, smiling at dogs and babies and loving china, and the next moment you're stepping in a filthy puddle of restaurant slop that splashes all over you and cursing china. one minute you're moved by the immense will of one local court to effectively combat violence against women in the community, the next you're somehow staring at a decaying fetus in a jar. one minute you're trying to avoid the pig's blood dish at dinner, the next you're being encouraged to climb on the stage and dance to jay-z in between acts at a chinese club.
those moments are always little opportunities for reflection, growth, discovery, inspiration. or laughter. or tears. or both. oh the unbearable lightness of it all. ; ). ok, with that it's clear that it is too late for me to try to say anything further.
Friday, May 8, 2009
from the customer service department
earlier this week, on monday to be precise, i was walking home from work in very low spirits. this is noteworthy because i am rarely in very low spirits. i have a few hypotheses. (1) maybe it was because i had a disheartening day on the frontlines of the rule of law reform in china. a conversation about the need to harmonize the state secrets law with the recent open government information regulations, accountability problems, and the fact that most courts are interested in avoiding responsibility for anything really illuminated for me how an independent judiciary is crucial for the rule of law. the rest, to some extent, is window dressing. with that insight, i had this strange sinking feeling of futility. unpleasant. (2) maybe it was because i suddenly missed my nyc friends after seeing pics from a dear friend's trapeze-and-cupcakes themed 30th bday party. (3) maybe it was because little trouble is out of town and i missed him. little trouble is my boyfriend. that is the literal translation of the current iteration of his chinese name - xiaofan. the pronunciation has more or less stayed the same, but the characters have varied. i believe that the latest version - little trouble - has staying power because it is not difficult to write and because it suits.
for any of these reasons or all of them, i was walking home full of woe. i was not charmed by the aggressive restaurant pushers along ghost street who tried to pull me into their establishments. i was so busy wallowing in my woe that i forgot to return the grinning greeting from the elderly, simple gentleman who is always sitting at the end of the alley with his neighbourhood volunteer red armband on, watching the to-ings and fro-ings. i arrived at my doorstep ready to go inside and write melodramatic emails or listen to sarah mclachlan. or both. (not a good place to be.)
instead, i discovered the following notice waiting for me:
Dear tenants:
Tomorrow (May.5th) after 9:00 am, the men from Sanitary Station will come to spray insecticide. Please close your window and tidy away your clothes ahead of time.
By the way, about the H1N1 Flu, please take care of yourself, if you have a fever, catch cold or some other flu symptoms, and please inform us on time.
Thanks for your cooperation!
Yours sincerely,
Customer service department
4th May.2009
i burst out laughing. the heaviness of my day seemed to dissipate and the world just seemed a little bight lighter. i love the 'by the way" bit about the swine flu. china, as i am sure you have heard, has taken what some might call a pig-headed approach to the swine flu problem. there was the detention of all mexican passport-holders, some paranoid potential airport procedures developed, and a nasty spat with the mexican government about who was to blame in the first place. nothing like a disease from pigs to bring out the best in common humanity. what was it you said, anne? we're all dark on the inside, there is no light? ; ). the "by the way" in the customer service department notice was so good that i almost didn't mind the idea that men were going to be spraying insecticide on my laundry if i didn't look out. (when i shared this notice with little trouble, he focused on that and convinced me to be sure to have left the compound before the spraying commenced. i explained that i had shared the notice with him to laugh about the bird flu bit, not stress about whatever terrible potions were going to be poured on the rosebushes. i'm not sure if he found it quite as funny as i did. what can i see? he's a germaphobe. i'm addicted to street food. i think there is balance in there somewhere.)
luckily for me, though, even if i were to "have fever, catch cold, or some other flu symptoms" and decide to report that to the customer service department so they could check me into the nearest holding cell, i have reason to believe that it would generally be a pleasant experience. while i don't think any of the various civil rights issues that were raised by the government's iron-beaked response to SARS ever really resonated much within china, and while clearly sino-mexican relations have seen better days, there seems to be an effort to make quarantine comfortable this time around. as the china daily reported, those currently in quarantine in hong kong are being "showered with gifts": http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-05/05/content_7743569.htm
gift showers? these are downpours:
coming home to discover that notice and have it shake me to my senses was just the sort of sudden shift in perspective that convinces me god has a sense of humour. (well, that and things like the advertising campaign that was apparently launched by the hong kong tourism board just before SARS broke with the slogan: "hong kong, it'll take your breath away".) (it was a very short-lived campaign.)
my perspective held for the rest of the week. now i am off to contemplate chinese-style spicy chicken wings and mashed potatoes at the hot bean cooperative. yum.
for any of these reasons or all of them, i was walking home full of woe. i was not charmed by the aggressive restaurant pushers along ghost street who tried to pull me into their establishments. i was so busy wallowing in my woe that i forgot to return the grinning greeting from the elderly, simple gentleman who is always sitting at the end of the alley with his neighbourhood volunteer red armband on, watching the to-ings and fro-ings. i arrived at my doorstep ready to go inside and write melodramatic emails or listen to sarah mclachlan. or both. (not a good place to be.)
instead, i discovered the following notice waiting for me:
Dear tenants:
Tomorrow (May.5th) after 9:00 am, the men from Sanitary Station will come to spray insecticide. Please close your window and tidy away your clothes ahead of time.
By the way, about the H1N1 Flu, please take care of yourself, if you have a fever, catch cold or some other flu symptoms, and please inform us on time.
Thanks for your cooperation!
Yours sincerely,
Customer service department
4th May.2009
i burst out laughing. the heaviness of my day seemed to dissipate and the world just seemed a little bight lighter. i love the 'by the way" bit about the swine flu. china, as i am sure you have heard, has taken what some might call a pig-headed approach to the swine flu problem. there was the detention of all mexican passport-holders, some paranoid potential airport procedures developed, and a nasty spat with the mexican government about who was to blame in the first place. nothing like a disease from pigs to bring out the best in common humanity. what was it you said, anne? we're all dark on the inside, there is no light? ; ). the "by the way" in the customer service department notice was so good that i almost didn't mind the idea that men were going to be spraying insecticide on my laundry if i didn't look out. (when i shared this notice with little trouble, he focused on that and convinced me to be sure to have left the compound before the spraying commenced. i explained that i had shared the notice with him to laugh about the bird flu bit, not stress about whatever terrible potions were going to be poured on the rosebushes. i'm not sure if he found it quite as funny as i did. what can i see? he's a germaphobe. i'm addicted to street food. i think there is balance in there somewhere.)
luckily for me, though, even if i were to "have fever, catch cold, or some other flu symptoms" and decide to report that to the customer service department so they could check me into the nearest holding cell, i have reason to believe that it would generally be a pleasant experience. while i don't think any of the various civil rights issues that were raised by the government's iron-beaked response to SARS ever really resonated much within china, and while clearly sino-mexican relations have seen better days, there seems to be an effort to make quarantine comfortable this time around. as the china daily reported, those currently in quarantine in hong kong are being "showered with gifts": http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-05/05/content_7743569.htm
gift showers? these are downpours:
- The Immigration Department has been directed to extend the guests' visas if they expired during the quarantine period.
-The guests have also been offered free stays at other city hotels, calling cards, a travel card each valued at HK$100 and a free ride to the airport.
- If that wasn't enough, each of them will today also get a "gift set", with free movie coupons and admission tickets to Ocean Park, Hong Kong Disneyland and Ngong Ping Cable Car.
the most important thing, according to hong kong secretary for commerce and economic development rita lau ng wai-lan, is that "tourists take back with them a good experience of hong kong." awash in gifts, how could they not?coming home to discover that notice and have it shake me to my senses was just the sort of sudden shift in perspective that convinces me god has a sense of humour. (well, that and things like the advertising campaign that was apparently launched by the hong kong tourism board just before SARS broke with the slogan: "hong kong, it'll take your breath away".) (it was a very short-lived campaign.)
my perspective held for the rest of the week. now i am off to contemplate chinese-style spicy chicken wings and mashed potatoes at the hot bean cooperative. yum.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
strength in the differences between us, comfort where we overlap
so, in spite of years of my not being here, neither an inch nor half a globe too far, i've finally decided to start gathering my wandering thoughts. perhaps it took coming back to beijing for me to finally brave blogging, because returning to the most formative city of my youth was coming full circle and proffered a profound opportunity for reflection, introspection, and mediocre poetry.* or perhaps it simply took learning that the u.s. embassy uses twitter to send out updates on pollution levels in beijing. (if the embassy is hip enough to twitter, surely i can blog.)
although this is my first 'post', i have a bit of a storeroom full of thoughts and plots that i hope sharing here will allow for some sort of katharsis / epiphany / amusement. i realize as i tried to complete that sentence that i don't have a particular agenda. "all red on the inside" refers to a failed effort i made to express the idea of common humanity to a group of chinese classmates in 1997. i'll share the complete story at some point. at the time, i was seeking to convey a concept of the universal - that we are all, regardless of country, race, religion, culture, more alike than different. the image failed then (they thought i was talking about communism). but my faith in the universal hasn't faltered.
this thimbleful of thoughts, then, will consider themes of universality, reveling in our beautiful differences and appreciating the soft spots of common overlap. (that's a very lofty way of saying i will write about anything / everything and it will likely touch on cross-cultural themes because so does life.) being the creature that i am, a public interest lawyer newly returned to china, be prepared for pontifications on justice and jiaozi.... in fact, maybe i should write exclusively about justice and jiaozi. or maybe just a justice and jiaozi weekly dish - the most interesting legal issue of the week and the best thing i've eaten. hmmm. so far this week it was a particularly delicious doushabing** on tuesday morning and a real appreciation for an independent judiciary on monday afternoon (a topic i intend to return to in detail at some point).
with that, comrades, it begins.
*i write mediocre poetry. no, i am not being humble, just honest. i like to think of it as a unique niche talent. many, many people write poor poetry. (many people also write self-indulgent poem-like, clammy things that are best thrown into the ocean.) a small handful write excellent poetry. (a very, very small handful of people write transcendent, beautiful poetry that stays with you always.) a few people write good poetry. a few people write fair poetry. hitting the sweet spot of mediocrity is actually quite special and harder to achieve than you think. it's a delicate balance to strike that perfect chord between good and bad. yet somehow, i have been blessed with a talent for writing mediocre poetry. on occasion, i confess, i falter and a poem ends up sliding down the scale to bad (or even worse - melodramatic). perhaps once, i faltered and produced an almost good poem. but generally, without to much effort, my poetry is soundly mediocre. i never plan to write a poem. usually, a poem just comes to me and begs to be written and i ignore the poem as long as possible and then when i cannot contain it any longer, i write it. i think of them like unruly baby swans.
** red bean bread. i am kind of obsessed with doushabing. red bean in general, really. speaking of red bean, it occurred to me while walking to work this morning as i was eating doushabao (red bean steamed buns), that if you were to cut me open, i might bleed red bean i eat it so much. then i realized what a ridiculous thought that was and wondered how it ever occurred to me to even think it. then i was almost hit by a bicycle.
although this is my first 'post', i have a bit of a storeroom full of thoughts and plots that i hope sharing here will allow for some sort of katharsis / epiphany / amusement. i realize as i tried to complete that sentence that i don't have a particular agenda. "all red on the inside" refers to a failed effort i made to express the idea of common humanity to a group of chinese classmates in 1997. i'll share the complete story at some point. at the time, i was seeking to convey a concept of the universal - that we are all, regardless of country, race, religion, culture, more alike than different. the image failed then (they thought i was talking about communism). but my faith in the universal hasn't faltered.
this thimbleful of thoughts, then, will consider themes of universality, reveling in our beautiful differences and appreciating the soft spots of common overlap. (that's a very lofty way of saying i will write about anything / everything and it will likely touch on cross-cultural themes because so does life.) being the creature that i am, a public interest lawyer newly returned to china, be prepared for pontifications on justice and jiaozi.... in fact, maybe i should write exclusively about justice and jiaozi. or maybe just a justice and jiaozi weekly dish - the most interesting legal issue of the week and the best thing i've eaten. hmmm. so far this week it was a particularly delicious doushabing** on tuesday morning and a real appreciation for an independent judiciary on monday afternoon (a topic i intend to return to in detail at some point).
with that, comrades, it begins.
*i write mediocre poetry. no, i am not being humble, just honest. i like to think of it as a unique niche talent. many, many people write poor poetry. (many people also write self-indulgent poem-like, clammy things that are best thrown into the ocean.) a small handful write excellent poetry. (a very, very small handful of people write transcendent, beautiful poetry that stays with you always.) a few people write good poetry. a few people write fair poetry. hitting the sweet spot of mediocrity is actually quite special and harder to achieve than you think. it's a delicate balance to strike that perfect chord between good and bad. yet somehow, i have been blessed with a talent for writing mediocre poetry. on occasion, i confess, i falter and a poem ends up sliding down the scale to bad (or even worse - melodramatic). perhaps once, i faltered and produced an almost good poem. but generally, without to much effort, my poetry is soundly mediocre. i never plan to write a poem. usually, a poem just comes to me and begs to be written and i ignore the poem as long as possible and then when i cannot contain it any longer, i write it. i think of them like unruly baby swans.
** red bean bread. i am kind of obsessed with doushabing. red bean in general, really. speaking of red bean, it occurred to me while walking to work this morning as i was eating doushabao (red bean steamed buns), that if you were to cut me open, i might bleed red bean i eat it so much. then i realized what a ridiculous thought that was and wondered how it ever occurred to me to even think it. then i was almost hit by a bicycle.
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