Before I showed her the paper, I asked her, “Did you know that today is special? The whole world is thinking about China. All the major newspapers have stories about China. Do you know why?” She didn’t. Her guess: swine flu.

Today’s Vancouver Sun, which I’d nabbed from the staff room before my morning one-on-one tutoring session, carried two decent articles and some photos to mark this historic day. I was curious about how much or how little my student knew about the event, plus I wanted her to see some decent representative examples of how Canadians think and write about China.

I didn’t argue or push it with her, as I didn’t think that’d be appropriate. I guessed correctly that she’d be interested in how China is portrayed in the local papers and was curious about her reaction. After a bit we discussed another unrelated story illustrating interesting aspects of Canadian society and before calling it a day.

(P.S. – Comments are closed on this one. This topic is still officially taboo in China and I’m not here to be political, so I’m not gonna risk getting blocked over it.

P.P.S. – If you’re concerned that I was being unethical with this student, please see this clarification of what actually happened.)

Related Posts:

• Nothing to My Name / 一无所有

©2010 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

My point here is that foreigners and Chinese need to tread carefully if having cross-cultural conversations about “racism.” Culturally we approach racism differently, and this combined with Mainlanders’ sensitivity regarding how Westerners view China means the potential for miscommunication and/or offense is immense.

Overweight Baggage Fees
The average foreigner and the average Mainlander typically understand “racism” in very different ways. It’s a loaded subject inside and outside China; each of our respective societies and cultures still struggle with diversity. Obviously not everyone in China thinks the same, and as Westerners we have our own historical baggage that hinders our understanding and handling of race and diversity today. The same commenter I quoted above says that we (non-Chinese) are often guilty of “using foreign concept to understand Chinese” and she’s right. All of us, Chinese and non-Chinese, have inherited ‘issues’ from our cultures and histories, and we bring that with us to discussions about racism (even the people-categories I’m using in this post reflect this).

Specific Differences
I’ve only just recently accidentally stepped on this particular conversational landmine, so what follows are just my initial impressions. It seems that when Mainlanders hear the word “racism” they think first of institutional racism, like Nazis and segregation and apartheid. They get offended because to them it sounds like we’re accusing “China,” their state/race/civilization, of deliberate and extreme racist policies (that are usually associated with foreign nations). But North Americans often first think of individuals’ behaviours, like a manager’s subconscious hiring preferences or a person’s choice of friends, and individuals’ attitudes and thinking (personal biases, prejudices, and stereotyping). The North American can’t understand how the Mainlander could expect to be taken seriously when denying the obvious existence of racist attitudes and behaviours among many individuals in China, while the Mainlander is offended that the foreigner would lump their nation in with segregated South Africa and Nazi Germany. Neither side does a very good job of communicating to the other, even when trying to explain.

Online Discussion Drama
Here are a few recent links to articles and ‘conversations’ about race issues in China that demonstrate how muddled this topic can be:

• A “foreigner” in my own country, “yellow” people, and other funny Chinese racial talk (ChinaHopeLive)
• Understanding popular Chinese notions about “racism” (help me out here!) (Fool’s Mountain)
• How should foreigners feel about being called “鬼子,” “鬼佬,” “老外,” etc.? (Fool’s Mountain)
• Chinese Racism: Yes, It Exists, But Why Won’t They Admit It? (CNReviews)
• Young, gifted and black: China unveils Ding Hui, its new Olympic hope (Times Online)

I don’t suggest you actually read through all the comments, especially on the Fool’s Mountain links; it’s not worth your time. But a quick skim will at least give a taste of what some Chinese with good English have to say about it.

©2010 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

“What do you think about China?” the older seed salesman suddenly asks me. He’s a balding man, with a kind face, who says his name is Zhou.

“Wo hen xihuan.” I smile inanely. “I like it.”
[...]
There’s a brief pause. I’m tired of asking the same questions, so I try to think of something new. “What do you want most from the West?” I ask Mr. Zhou.

He doesn’t hesitate. “What we want most is respect,” he blurts out, as though he has waited all his life for a foreigner on a bus to ask him this question. “Yes, we want respect more than anything. I want to go abroad, like you people when you come here. You come to China, and we respect you because you are wealthy and civilized. That’s what I want too. I want to go to your country, and be respected, and get a good job there and not be looked down on.”

The old couple seem slightly surprised by both the passion and the eloquence of Zhou’s response, but they are nodding their heads. So is everyone else.

– Rob Gifford, China Road (2007), p.200.

©2010 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

There are two editors, and in this case the (apologetic) American editor passed on the Chinese editor’s objections to me, which were mostly about offending patriotic sensitivities (paints a “too negative” image of China) and less about being politically careful. The American editor suggested several edits, including that I “really butter it up” regarding people not singing the national anthem and not cheering as much as I thought they would (it was “too negative” to mention these things). In ‘protest’ (for fun), I submitted this over-the-top rewrite, which they printed:

As the flag was raised the entire park immediately stood up for the national anthem. At first I was surprised that most people chose to stand respectfully rather than sing. But in hindsight, the piqued crowd was more likely struck speechless by the sight of their flag and national anthem being honoured before the entire world.

In the local atmosphere surrounding the Olympics, China’s “image” in the eyes of foreigners was (and still is) an intense concern. The same week that the article was rejected I received an hour’s worth of similar complaints about my previous articles from one of my teachers.

I’m posting this to give you a local snap shot of what can be considered offensive in Tianjin these days. It’s an unavoidable part of our China experience; people’s (hyper)sensitivity — especially our friends, neighbours, and teachers — is something we’ve had to navigate carefully during the Olympic summer.

Some caveats: While a lot of people here have similar feelings to this particular editor, there are also lots of other magazines in China publishing deliberately edgy material. There’s plenty of variety of opinion in China. Also, the degree of censorship varies from city to city and is largely determined by the particular tolerance level of local authorities. Tianjin is more conservative than many other areas.

Just skim down to the red text to see the naughty bits.

Watching the Opening Ceremony… with a few thousand Tianjiners!

It’s the sticky, steamy, most auspicious night of 08-08-08, and six foreigners from four different continents have decided to join thousands of Tianjiners in Tianjin’s “Milky Way Square” (银河广场 / yínhé guǎngchǎng) on Yǒuyì Lù (友谊路). We’re convinced there’s only one way for non-ticket holders to truly experience the most anticipated Opening Ceremony in the history of the Olympics: immersed in a crowd of excited Mainlanders. We unfold our 8 kuài folding stools, let some friendly fellow spectators take our picture, and settle in for a night we won’t soon forget.

You can watch a video of the crowds’ reactions to different segments of the Ceremony online at www.YouTube.com/BigNoseForeigner. Neither the video nor these accompanying photos do the scene justice. They only show part of one crowd, but because of how the park is designed there were actually three large separate crowds around the double-sided screen.

Spectating the Spectators
The last time I was with this many outdoor spectators I was on the beach in the next Olympic city: Vancouver, Canada. It was the Symphony of Fire, an annual international musical fireworks competition. But in Vancouver, large dense crowds often mean booze, marijuana, and some inevitable rowdiness. These few thousand Tianjiners behaved much more civilized than the Vancouverites; they were a giant Sunday school class by comparison. But it was still lots of fun watching them watch the dazzling and inexorably interminable Ode to Chinese Civilization-minus-the-20th-century that was the 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony (开幕式 / kāimùshì).

The crowd applauded when the honour guard took the Chinese flag from the 56 minority children and marched smartly toward flag pole. As the flag was raised the entire park stood up for the national anthem like I expected, but hardly anyone sang! I thought they’d be going nuts. In Vancouver – where our meager patriotism mostly involves affirming that we’re not Americans – people would have been hollering O Canada half-drunk by that time. Maybe the outdoor sound system was too low, or maybe it was just too hot and humid. At that moment Tianjiners were piqued but respectfully restrained.

People ooh’d and aah’d at the artistic performances, yelling “hǎo!” (好 / good!) at especially impressive parts. Repeated shots of former president Jiāng Zémín (江泽民) and his wife Wáng Yěpíng (王冶坪) provoked a curious response from the crowd, as if they were laughing lightly in a good-natured sort of way.

Parade of Nations
The more exotic costumes and ethnicities provoked responses from the crowd. Particularly dark Africans and particularly fat women would cause scattered giggling or comments from a minority of the spectators near us. When one of the African flag carriers smiled big into the camera a guy sitting next to me said, “Wow, look at his teeth!” Close-ups of particularly glamourous female athletes got a reaction every time from some in the crowd. George Bush was given plenty of screen time, and he seemed to get a mild but positive response. Of the individual foreigners the biggest cheers probably went to LeBron James of the U.S. men’s basketball “Redeem Team.”

Taiwan’s athletes received big cheers from the crowd. Japan didn’t get booed much – just a handful of loud-mouths who were joking around, and they got disapproving looks from their neighbours.

Team Canada came out, and who did they have with them but the ubiquitous Dà Shān (大山) – “the most famous foreigner in China”! As a Canadian language student in China I have a special, complicated relationship with Dà Shān, whom I’ve never met. During my first few months of language study in Tianjin, it seemed every other sidewalk conversation went basically like this:

“Where are you from?”
“Canada.”
“Oh, Canada! Dà Shān’s country! Do you know who Dà Shān is?”
“Yes.”
“Your Mandarin isn’t as good as his.”

I took another couple months before I learned to say, “Yeah, and I hear his Mandarin is probably even better than your’s!” Dà Shān is the ultimate language and culture acquisition role model, with his flawless Mandarin and mastery of traditional Chinese stand-up comedy. As annoying as it is to be constantly compared to his virtually unattainable standard, he got a good rise out of our crowd that night, and I was proud to have him representing the Canucks.

Team China
By the time China’s athletes finally appeared we’d been there sweating for about three hours and the crowd had thinned a little. People’s newspaper seats were baked with sweat into the pavement. But when Yao Ming carried in the Chinese flag, flanked by a pint-sized earthquake hero from Sichuan, the fatigued but happy crowd loved it. People started cheering, clapping, waving flags and chanting “Zhōngguó jiāyóu!” (中国加油 / Go China!). People also loved seeing wider shots inside the Bird’s Nest that showed how big the Chinese team was.

During the final hour the cheering and enthusiasm really picked up, but only in pockets and for a minute or so at a time. I don’t know why but our self-appointed cheerleaders couldn’t get the whole crowd into it all at once. A couple times a small group around the TV crew would cheer with wild abandon while they were being filmed, but in general I was surprised that the crowd wasn’t more enthusiastic than they were. I assume it was simply a matter of heat and fatigue – four hours is a long time! – although neither could stop people from celebrating as the cauldron was lit in epic fashion.

Reading the Chinese Tea Leaves
The Ceremony is a key part of the carefully crafted self-portrait that China’s rulers have anxiously placed before their own people and the people of the world (two very different audiences in some respects). Mainlanders, for their part, are seeing their nation being redefined. For better or for worse, China’s methods of trying to craft this gilded self-image for the rest of the world are making a bigger impression on the rest of the world than the projected image itself. There’s no doubt that the 2008 Opening Ceremony was intended to send some messages. I’m not qualified to interpret these particular tea leaves, but I still have some questions: There was plenty of Confucius, but where was Chairman Mao? For that matter, where were the 19th and 20th centuries? Why were the lyrics to “Song to the Motherland” (歌唱祖国), which were mimed by nine-year-old Lín Miàokě (林妙可), rewritten? And what do those edits mean? Some say the giant painting drawn throughout the performance makes oblique, politically-coded references to Mao, but the nations of the world colourfully trampled all over that painting.

I don’t know what it all was intended to mean, what the average Mainlander understands it to mean, or what it really does mean in the big picture. But I do know it meant a lot to a lot of people, and I appreciate our gracious Tianjin hosts for allowing us to experience it with them. Thanks Tianjin for a memorable night!

(P.S. — Expat magazines in third-tier Chinese cities are a good opportunity for nonprofessional writers to get some practice because the standards are relatively low. I use it as a no-pressure way to work on a style of writing that I’m not accustomed to, and practice oral Chinese (in the interviews). )

©2010 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

Every society, including Mainland China, has an over-arching public narrative through which the society describes itself and its place in the world. The author I’m quoting here describes and then critiques the global narrative shared by Western societies, that is, the Big Public Story that modern, liberal, democratic Western nations and peoples use to understand the world and the role of their nations in the world. Although the author isn’t writing with China in mind, I think it’s worthwhile to read the quote below and consider where and how China fits into the West’s understanding of the world. Discovering the roles that China is currently playing in the West’s “Big Public Story” helps explain why the West never seems happy with China.

The excerpt below comes from Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (1996), an award-winning book on forgiveness and reconciliation. The author, Dr. Miroslav Volf, is a Croatian writing here in reference to the 1990’s Balkan ethnic bloodshed. I’ve quoted from a section titled, “The Dubious Triumph of Inclusion”:

The desire to distance “Europe” — “the West” and “modernity” — from the practice of ethnic cleansing is, however, driven by more than just the simple displacement mechanism by which we locate evil and barbarity with others so as to ascribe goodness and civilization to ourselves. It has as much to do with certain aspects of our philosophy of history as with our moral perception of ourselves. What makes ethnic cleansing seem so “nonmodern” and “nonWestern” is that is it starkly at odds with the major public story we like to tell about the modern democratic West — a story of progressive “inclusion.” Here is a version of such a narrative of modern liberal democracies as described by Alan Wolfe:

Once upon a time, it is said, such societies were ruled by privileged elites. Governing circles were restricted to those of the correct gender, breeding, education, and social exclusiveness. All this changes as a result of those multiple forces usually identified by the term democracy. First the middle classes, then working men, then women, then racial minorities all won not only economic rights but political and social rights as well. (Wolfe 1992, 309)

To put it slightly differently, once “hierarchically segmented” societies gave way to what sociologists call “functionally differentiated” societies, inclusion became the general norm: every person must have access to all functions and therefore all persons must have equal access to education, to all available jobs, to political decision-making, and the like (see Luhmann 1977, 234ff). The history of modern democracies is about progressive and ever expanding inclusion, about “taking in rather than … keeping out” (Wolfe 1992, 309). By contrast, stories of ethnic cleansing are about the most brutal forms of exclusion, about driving out rather than taking in. Hence, they strike us and “nonmodern,” “nonEuropean,” nonWestern.”

But how adequate is the modern story of inclusion’s triumph? I pose this question as an insider who wants to help build and improve rather than as an outsider who wants to destroy and completely replace. To a person, such as myself, who experienced “all the blessings” of communist rule, the suggestion that there is no truth to the liberal narrative of inclusion and the claim that its consequences are mainly unfortunate sounds not only unpersuasive but dangerous. Similarly, most women and minorities would not want to give up the rights they now have; and most critics of liberal democracies would rather live in a democracy than in any of the available alternatives. The progress of “inclusion” is one important thing to celebrate about modernity.

Yet, though the narrative of inclusion is in an important sense true, like some magic mirror which gives the beholder’s image an instant face-lift, it was also crafted in part to “make us feel history has a purpose that in some way corresponds with a more positive understanding of human potential,” as Alan Wolfe rightly underlines (309). but how would the face look if the mirror were to lose its magic? How would the face look in a mirror that was not made by us in order to court out vanity? In the mirrors made in the sweatshops of “submodernity” (Moltmann 1995b) and held by the exploited and emaciated hand of “the other” a mean streak appears on the face of modernity, acquired through the protracted practice of evil. Those who are conveniently left out of the modern narrative of inclusion because they disturb the integrity of its “happy ending” plot demand a long and gruesome counter-narrative of exclusion.

———————

Luhmann, Niklas. Funktion der Religion. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1977.
Moltmann, Jurgen. Public Theology and the Future of the Modern World. Pittsburgh: ATS, 1995b.
Wolfe, Alan. “Democracy verses Sociology: Boundaries and Their Political Consequences.” In Cultivating Differences: Symbolic Boundaries and the Making of Inequality, edited by Michele Lamont and Marcel Fournier, 309-325. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992.

I see two roles that China currently plays in the West’s global narrative, and both of them make Western nations and peoples feel very uncomfortable. Within the confines of the Western Big Public Story, (1) China’s presence as an authoritarian state with a hierarchical society directly opposes the Western Story’s ‘happy ending.’ Obviously, this is a bad thing in the eyes of modern, liberal, democratic Western nations; it’s a direct contradiction of their core values. But, (2) the presence of millions of China’s poor, exploited workers making products for the West exposes a dark sub-plot in the Western Story (what Volf calls a “counter-narrative”). This exposes the West’s selfish hypocrisy and makes the West look bad in its own eyes. Either way, China’s presence messes up the happy story that the West wants to tell about itself.

Of course China has its own self-centered global narrative. China also has a Big Public Story, an over-arching narrative that Mainlanders use to understand the world and the place of China and the Chinese people in the world. Much of the conflict between China and the West happens because each culture is working out of a different Story. China interprets foreign nation’s and foreign people’s actions according to whatever roles are available to foreigners within China’s Big Public Story, just like the West does to China. I think identifying and understanding the differences between these different narratives is one big step on the long road toward getting along better, and perhaps even a more just world.

I’m curious what you other Westerners think about the public narrative we’ve inherited.

For some creative, active responses to the damning Western counter-narrative of exploitation and economic oppression, see the conversations and activities of some our friends who hang out at Toward Simplicity. You can also check out Where Am I Wearing? and meet the author who traveled the globe trying to locate the specific factories that made his clothes.

For more from Dr. Miroslav Volf (but less academic), try:

• “To Embrace the Enemy.” A post-9/11 interview from that September in which Dr. Volf discusses his ideas on forgiveness and reconciliation in light of the 9/11 attacks.
• A Religion & Ethics PBS interview in whicn Dr. Volf discusses violence, forgiveness, reconciliation, Christian-Muslim relations, and related topics.

P.S.
I adapted this post for Fool’s Mountain, and asked their Chinese readers two questions:

1. How does the Western “Big Public Story,” as described here, sound to you? Or, how do you think it would sound to most Mainlanders?
2. How would you describe China’s “Big Public Story”? In the big picture, how does China understand its place in the world, and its place in world history up to this point? If China achieved its ‘happy ending,’ what would that look like?

You can see what becomes of that discussion here.

©2010 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

Everyone’s names, ages, and vocations are listed at the end.

Things to notice in the responses:

• 了解 (liǎo jiě). This literally means “to understand,” “to realize,” “to find out,” and I translated it “get to know” in the subtitles. Foreigners 了解-ing China is probably the most frequently expressed idea in the video.
• The hospitality perspective. Many Mainlanders understand the Olympics in terms of Chinese hospitality, like inviting honoured guests over for a banquet, and this shapes their expectations of themselves as the hosts and all the rest of us as the honoured guests.
• China’s place in the world hierarchy. People see the Olympics as raising China’s position on the world stage, gaining face in relationship to other nations, being esteemed more highly by other nations.
• “Our China.” This is a common way of talking about China here: our China, our China’s culture, your America, etc.

You can see how friendly and accommodating Tianjiners are, though the accents indicate that some of these folks moved here from other provinces.

Of course there is much more to be said about what the Olympics mean to China, but I thought it’d be fun to just let the local “Old Hundred Names” (老百姓 / lǎo bǎi xìng / ‘regular Joe’) speak for themselves.

[UPDATE JULY 20: Fool's Mountain, a site dedicated to publishing and discussing Chinese views in English, has published a second version of this post in which I asked their Chinese readers for their reactions. See Tianjin's LaoBaiXing on the Olympics.]

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