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.