A knife sharpener, from today on the way to lunch:

“Welcome the Olympics, be more civilized, establish a new atmosphere.”

“Civilized traffic”
When we first arrived and Tianjin was clearing out all the street markets, “hygiene” (卫生 / wèi shēng) was the big theme in most of the local propaganda banners. But this year “civilized” (文明 / wén míng) is about the only propaganda theme we see – and we see it everywhere; you can’t go outside and not see a civilized slogan on a building or vehicle or advertisement. It’s like they think people need to be told or something.

Today, on the way back from buying a pet cricket, I saw “civilized” on the flag used by the traffic cop who was standing in the bike lane at an intersection, making sure the bikes actually stopped for the red light, which is well before the time we usually stop. Red lights aren’t the same here. In North America, a red light is like slamming the door shut; it marks a very well-defined line. In Tianjin, a red light is like an early warning signal: “Hey those other people are gonna start going now, so you’d better speed up if you want to get in their way before they make it 2/3 the way through the intersection and get in your way.” At a green light, the cars and bikes start going, and then stop part way through the intersection because other cars and bikes and buses are blocking the way. Once those all clear, then you can go. Intersections are more porous here. Anyway, this traffic cop’s flag had something about “civilized traffic” written on it, and he used it to make us all stop at an arbitrary white line on the road because a little light changed colour, instead of just letting us go fill up the empty space in the intersection before us.

The “Eight Don’t Asks”
Mainlanders, especially the ones in government, love expressing policy in neat little lists: the Three Represents, the Four Modernizations, etc. They’ve been doing this for decades. Now, we have the “Eight Don’t Asks” (八不问 / bā bù wèn). If you’ve read Jessica’s most recent few posts, then you can already guess what the “Eight Don’t Asks” are targeting: eight things you shouldn’t say to foreign visitors during the Olympics. Someone else at Peaceful Rise has already translated a 八不问 poster:

Today I happened across a new series of posters on the neighborhood propaganda bulletin boards about etiquette to be observed during the Olympics. … Most delightful was a list of eight questions Chinese are not to ask us, which if observed, would leave these curious and enthusiastic hosts with essentially nothing with which to make conversation.

Here they are:

• Don’t ask about income or expenses,
• don’t ask about age
• don’t ask about love life or marriage,
• don’t ask about health,
• don’t ask about someone’s home or address,
• don’t ask about personal experience,
• don’t ask about religious beliefs or political views,
• don’t ask what someone does.

I’m sure our neighbours are disappointed. I sort of am, too. It seems like overkill. If they’d just said, “Don’t tell foreigners they’re fat or have big noses, or ask about money” that would have covered it. And what else is there to talk about – the pollutionweather? As long as people are friendly about it (and 99% of the time they are), it can actually be kind of fun playing outside your culturally acceptable boundaries.

Here’s what some of our neighbours, and others from our daily routines in the city, think about the Olympics. [Warning: Do NOT attempt to improve your Chinese by paying close attention to subtitles done by a 2nd-year Mandarin student! ;) ]:

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.]

If you’ve ever wondered what our Chinese sounds like to Chinese people, this movie trailer makes a fine dynamic equivalent:

Man I hope they’re selling $1 copies of this on the street soon!

(P.S. – if you can’t see this video, you can try its original YouTube page: Mad About English! – Official Theatrical Trailer 2008.)

If you’ve read the previous posts on Tianjin’s Nanshi hutongs, then a few of these photos and stories will be familiar, but not all. This was the cover story for a local ex-pat magazine this month, but the blog version has more photos and better editing. ;) I submitted this on May 5, four days after the residents’ final move-out date. I haven’t been back yet, but locals tell me it’s all gone now.

Click the photos to see them bigger. These aren’t the best photos from the gallery, but each one matches the nearby text. [LEGAL: All rights reserved.]

• Photo gallery: Tianjin’s hutongs, two months before demolition

Reduced to Memories: Tianjin’s historic and infamous Nanshi hutongs, and the residents who called them home.

A first and final look at an older Tianjin
“Nǐ gàn shénme?” （你干什么？) His voice startles me; the condemned low-rise apartment building I’m photographing is in such bad condition that I’d subconsciously assumed it was long abandoned. I look up; an older man stares down at me from over a second story railing. “What are you doing?” he asks again.

I try to explain myself in my poor, Mandarin-student Chinese: “I’ve heard these places will soon be gone, but I feel they’re special and have a lot of history, so I’m walking around taking photos.”

He stares at me for few seconds before saying, “Wait just a moment. I’ll put a shirt on and come down.” The realization suddenly dawns on me when he emerges tottering on his cane from the near pitch-black stairwell and tells me to follow him – I’ve just acquired a personal tour guide for Nánshì, one of Tianjin’s most fascinating but quickly vanishing historical neighbourhoods. Grandpa Wú leads me out and tries to help me imagine what the crumbling, rubble-strewn market streets were like in their heyday. At the best of times this wasn’t a comfortable, pretty part of town, but for him and thousands Tianjiners like him this soon-to-be extinct place with its soon-to-be extinct lifestyle was home.

What’s left of Tianjin’s Nánshì (南市: “south city”) sits between the Nanshi Food Street tourist market (南市食品街; nánshì shípǐn jiē) and the Hai River (海河; hǎi hé), southeast of the Old City (天津旧城; tiānjīn jiù chéng). It developed into an incredibly dense market area near the river where goods would come in, with all the best and the worst of the city crammed into a few square kilometers. Now, if you step out of the rubble and cross a few lanes of traffic, you’ll find yourself in the middle of a trendy new shopping centre with Western fast-food restaurants, thumping bass, and expensive clothing stores. According to the area’s remaining residents and demolition workers, Nánshì is getting razed and turned into a park as part of Tianjin’s colossal effort to “welcome the Olympics” (迎奥运; yíng àoyùn). New high-rises and building cranes already dominate the horizon in most directions. The people I talked with had until May 1st to move out. They’re given financial compensation with which to find new apartments. Most have already left, but it was still plenty crowded during my final visit in early April.

Reduced to Memories
During my five return visits to the area over a two week period during March and April, Grandpa Wú wasn’t the only local resident who went out of their way to introduce me and some foreigner friends to what was left of their neighbourhoods. Almost everyone was talkative, and the residents encouraged me to photograph what remained of this historical labyrinth of claustrophobia-triggering hútòngs (胡同: “alleys”）and suffocating street markets. People seemed eager to share what was left of the homes they’d known for decades, even as the place literally crumbled before our eyes. One woman invited me in to photograph her family’s home: two small rooms under a typical sloping tiled roof facing the rubble-strewn courtyard that they’d shared with sixteen other families. Another man, old enough to be a great-grandfather, made sure I didn’t miss the stone phoenix and other artwork carved into the main gate of their 200-year-old walled compound.

Far from being an authoritative statement on the people and history of this special part of Tianjin, this is a subjective first and final look at a way of living in Tianjin that will soon be extinct, informed mostly by street-level impressions and the comments residents chose to share.

A colourful place with a notorious past

Grandpa Wú leads me out of the maze of alleyways and walks me down the middle of a main street. A dumpling restaurant, a tea house, a beauty parlour, a pharmacy, and an “adult store” are the only businesses in operation that I can see. Most of the street is lined with rubble that sprawls out of old storefronts, now just skeletons of walls and empty windows; some broken mannequins lay amidst the bricks and stacks of salvaged roofing beams. A couple snack stalls, a three-wheeled key maker’s booth, and a “telephone bar” (a stool with a telephone on it) are sprinkled down the road. “This place used to especially lively,” Mr. Wú explains. “So many vendors and so many people you could hardly even get a bike through!” He laughs at the memory. We walk together a ways, stopping in the middle of an intersection. Parked bicycles crowd the entrance to a public bathhouse on one corner, where for 5元 ($0.71) you can spend all day soaking, napping and smoking with your friends. “Take photos freely! Take photos freely!” he repeatedly urges, and not for the first time, pointing at neighbours and old-fashioned store signs (你随便照; nǐ suíbiàn zhào).

Depending on where you stood, Nánshì could look and feel very different, though nowhere was it not cramped, and nowhere was it not swimming in rubble and garbage. I felt small wandering underneath the crisscrossing clotheslines hung between the stiff brick walls of low-rise apartment buildings. One family that had yet to move out said the apartments were built after the disastrous Tangshan earthquake in 1976, but these buildings were so trashed out by the time I saw them they looked more like they’d been through the Tangshan earthquake. Other sections reminded me of historical photographs of old China; classic one-storey courtyard communities with their sloping tiled roofs formed even tighter mazes of narrow alleyways and drying laundry. Some blocks still stood intact, others were entirely reduced to mounds of brick, and often a family’s living space bordered a desolate expanse of brick. The sheer number of bricks – shoulder-height oceans of bricks – was astounding. Kids played on them; older residents gazed at them as they walked between the piles, their faces inscrutable. In some places scavengers loaded them onto wheelbarrows and trucks, along with roofing beams. The only places where I could imagine echoes of the past were the market streets, where a fair handful of remaining street vendors showed that these well-worn lanes still had some life left in them.

Somewhere in the midst of all this, the Nánshì of yesterday earned itself a citywide reputation far exceeding what I’d imagined Grandpa Wú to mean when he said, “especially lively” (特别热闹; tèbié rènao: “especially hot-noisy”).

No Man’s Land （三不管）
The verb guǎn (管) means to take care of; to manage; to control; to be in charge of. It’s also what Nánshì is infamously remembered for lacking. Before Liberation (1949), part of Nánshì was called “Three No-guǎn” (三不管; sān bù guǎn). Exactly how it got this name is apparently up for debate, but neither option is flattering. One explanation says the three “no-guǎn”’s were: (1) no one to manage where people bury the dead, (2) no one to manage the fighting, and (3) no one to manage the cheating and kidnapping.* The other explanation points to three governments who refused to take responsibility for it. Sandwiched between foreign concession areas and Chinese-governed territory, the foreign concession administrations couldn’t agree on who had jurisdiction and the Chinese government of the day wouldn’t step in. It was an ungoverned no man’s land, a haven for organized crime and “black societies” (黑社会; hēi shèhuì), famous for its exotic street performers (卖艺的人; mài yì de rén) and entertainment offerings. Violence, prostitution, and theft were no strangers. I have yet to find a Tianjiner, university student or retiree, who hasn’t heard of “Nánshì Sānbùguǎn.”

“Nail Houses” （钉子户）

A tiny couple drags their sānlúnchē (三轮车: the pickup truck of bicycles) up a few steps, past two weatherworn stone lions, underneath the intricate woodwork of an old but still impressive traditional-looking gate. I follow them in and begin a conversation. They’ve lived in this walled compound for over 50 years, raising three children in a close-knit, semi-communal living space. Eventually, my three friends and I accept their repeated invitations to step inside their 20 square metres and sit down for a chat. An enlarged wedding photo from 1953 hangs over their bed. A small pigeon coup rests on a ledge underneath a grapevine trellis outside the window. This couple hasn’t left yet, even though a backhoe is tearing down the neighbouring apartments with as we speak. One of their sons is visiting, and he says they haven’t left because they’re still discussing the price per square metre. Workers smashing the walls of their immediate neighbours’ apartments with sledge hammers say the couple has until May 1st to leave. A quick walk through what’s left of the rest of the compound reveals that they aren’t the only ones taking their time moving out.

Their compound, which neighbours said was around 200 years old, has changed drastically over the course of two weeks. The stone lions and artistic woodwork have disappeared from the entrance. Just to the left of an old propaganda sign reading “Be more scientific, establish a new atmosphere,”** a backhoe punched a hole through the outer wall before rolling in and toppling every unoccupied living space. Back in the old days this compound had four sections that each held twenty families. By April 6, the inner walls of the all the living spaces had been transformed into a chest-deep ocean of bricks – except for three suddenly conspicuous houses, one of which belonged to the elderly couple. Although they still had three weeks to go before the move-out date, seeing these little homes besieged on all sides by a rising tide of rubble immediately made me think of the infamous “nail house” (钉子户; dīngzi hù) photos from Chongqing last year, which eventually made international news. But Nánshì, I suspect, will go quietly. No one I met seemed in the mood to put up much of a fight.

Accepting the end of an era
The vertical, parallel banners hanging on the front doors read, “In the New Year welcome the Olympics! God’s country, go for it!”*** A single Chinese character painted on the outside wall says, “Demolish.” An old black and white photograph lies in the dirt next to the pile of bricks that used to be the neighbours’ house. But the family living behind the Olympic door seems genuinely happy to chat. Curious, smiling neighbours from one lane over join our conversation, which is virtually identical to most of the conversations I’ve had in Nánshì, and prompts the same answers to my questions: That’s right, it will all be flattened in about two months. What? No, we haven’t found a place to move to yet. The young people are happy to move out. Some of the old people are maybe a little sad.

I wasn’t surprised when residents occasionally complained about the amount of compensation, but I was surprised at how they generally seemed not negative toward the situation. As a 21st century North American, it’s hard to imagine myself in a similar situation and virtually impossible to imagine being happy about it. Yet on the whole Nánshì’s residents seemed to imply that overall, moving out is a good thing. This wasn’t a great place to live as far as facilities go; it’s rundown, crowded, dirty and noisy. And maybe considerations of individual preference and sentiment just can’t hold a candle to the feelings of immense national, cultural, and racial pride that come from playing even the tiniest part in hosting what many Mainlanders hope will be the greatest international party in world history.

We say goodbye to Nánshì, step across the road, and sit down outside a Starbucks on the corner of Nanshi Food Street, the plastic, tourist-friendly allusion to the famously vibrant street markets of Nánshì’s past. Both the tourist trap and the crumbling neighbourhoods with their depleted population and last gasps of street-side commerce are literally a stone’s throw away. It’s jarring to sip overpriced, bourgeois status symbol drinks in full view of that place and its people, with whom we’d just spent several hours. The four of us, all North Americans, realize that this scene says something profound – about us, about China, about our cultures and countries – but our young minds can’t yet put it into words. Maybe one day. In the meantime, I look forward to seeing Mr. Wǔ again. He’s invited over for dumplings, after he’s moved in to his new place.

• Photo gallery: Tianjin’s hutongs, two months before demolition

* “乱葬岗子 (随便埋死人) 没人管；打架斗殴没人管；坑蒙拐骗没人管”
** “讲科学，树新风” (jiǎng kēxué，shù xīnfēng).
*** “新年迎奥运神州齐加油” (xīnnián yíng àoyùn, shénzhōu qí jiāyóu).

We’re gone for a couple nights to celebrate our 6th anniversary! Happy weekend to all.

A pile of Chinese celebrities sing together in this (pretty cool, I think) Olympic welcome theme song music video (English subtitles). This is the impression millions of Chinese hope the world will have:

The (unofficial) subtitles on the video are a little Chinglish-y, but in an endearing, “so China” kind of way. Plus, Jackie Chan is so cute; how can anyone not like Jackie Chan? They even give Tianjin a few seconds of face ;) (we live right near where they took those TV Tower shots!).

And here’s the “live” (ahem) version, which was somewhat controversial, not because of the lip-syncing, but because of the they way they rather obviously avoided giving closeups to particular celebrities who had fallen out of favour. Our teachers thought it was stupid that they did that. But everyone still loves the song.

There are many different hopes, dreams, and worries associated with the Olympics, inside and outside of China, and everyone knows China’s had a rough time on the P.R. side of things. Despite all the conflicting messages, mutual suspicions, and controversy (conveniently outlined by a China-friendly foreigner here), we hope that when it’s all over, there will be a lot of satisfied 老百姓 in China.

One of my interviewees recently said,

…the Chinese people are extremely concerned with [the Olympics], however, Heaven isn’t helping out. After the Great Sichuan Earthquake happened, a lot of Chinese people lost confidence.

This is apparently a rather widespread, popular sentiment. Lately there’s been an unusual amount of firecrackers going off, especially in the evenings. It’s normal to hear the occasional wedding or funeral, but for the last two weeks or so it’s been more often than usual. So we asked around, and it turns out there are two different current firecracker-lighting concerns.

We only have sketchy details on the first one. Apparently this is the time of year when the Ghost King (鬼王) of Hades (阎王) – or something along those lines – comes to steal people’s virgins/children/unmarrieds (not so clear on the details). Parents are giving their children peaches to eat because “peach” (桃子) sounds like “escape” (逃), and they’re lighting off firecrackers to scare away the evil spirits.

But this year there are are additional firecrackers. People are trying to ward off China’s bad luck (运气). Rumours are circulating via text messages and the internet about how this is such an ill-fated year for China, with so many disasters coming in a year with so much at stake (all the national face and worldwide prestige invested in the Olympics). Turns out people are blaming/fearing the number 8 and, believe it or not, the Fuwas.

The number 8 is usually considered a lucky number because “eight” (八; bā) sounds like fā (发) from “get rich” (发财). People pay extra to have it in their phone number or on their license plate. The Olympics are scheduled to start on 2008-08-08 at 8:08:08pm (Take that!). However, people are saying that this year, 8 is a very unlucky number. The most popular reasons involve playing numerology with the dates of this year’s disasters:

• Spring Festival snowstorm disaster. Date: 1/25. 1+2+5=8.
• “Teabet” riots. Date: 3/14. 3+1+4=8.
• Shandong train collision. Date: 4/28. 4×2=8.
• Sichuan earthquake. Date: 5/12. 5+1+2=8.

And forget 666 as the Sign of the Beast. 888 is the sign of the (now evil) Fuwas! All but one of the Fuwas has associations with a disaster (talk about wolves in sheeps’ clothing!):

• Nīni (妮妮), the green one, has a kite on her head, representing the kite-flying tradition of Weifang in Shandong province (train collision).
• Yíngying (迎迎), the yellow one, is a Tibetan antelope (riots).
• Huānhuan (欢欢), the red one, is the Olympic flame, and that worldwide torch relay turned into a public relations disaster.
• Jīngjing (晶晶), the black one, is a panda. Panda’s come from Sichuan (earthquake).
• There’s still no dirt on Bèibei (贝贝), the blue one (she’s a fish), though horrible rain storms starting on March 26 (2+6=8!) caused bad flooding in various places.

Global Voices Online has translated a Chinese blogger’s take on all this, which also neatly summarizes the 8/Fuwa superstitions.

And in case you’re thinking this is all superstitious nonsense, we both came down with colds after sleeping ‘under the stars’ on the Great Wall. Turns out the Chinese lunar calendar for that weekend said, “To avoid catching a cold, avoid sleeping outside at night.” Ha! So there!

P.S. – And in case you were wondering what the 2008 Olympics are really about, that translated blog post from Global Voices Online is quite revealing:

…But we should not associate these disasters with the Olympic Games. After all, the Olympics are China’s glory, the glory of the Chinese people, and the honor we’ve earned…

P.P.S. - I bring this up not to make fun of people, but just to point out how a lot of Mainlanders are personally invested in the Olympics and their country; a lot of people here care a lot on some level about the country as a whole.

P.P.P.S. – Don’t forget to click the Chinese characters to see the pronunciation and definition!

The paragraphs below come from Liú Wěi, our friend who watches the bicycle park where we exercise (among other security duties). He’s the one on the right.

Three days after the Sichuan earthquake I was interviewing him for the Regular Zhou column (where I write little profiles on Tianjin’s 老百姓 for an expat magazine), and I asked him what he’s most concerned about right now, meaning his life, living circumstances, and future plans, etc. But instead of talking about his job or family or his personal hopes and dreams he gave me several minutes about the earthquake and the Olympics. I’ve roughly transcribed and translated/paraphrased/mangled the interview (with a lot of help), and the earthquake/Olympics portion is below. (Keep in mind this poorly translated oral Chinese.)

What I’m currently concerned about is the Sichuan province earthquake. This time the earthquake is unanticipated and sudden. Our China nation’s Prime Minister has already arrived at the scene to fight the earthquake and help disaster victims. This is an extremely difficult affair, an especially big affair. The entire country’s citizens are paying close attention to the circumstances of the earthquake disaster area’s common people. A lot of common people, the government businesses, and private commercial businesses all extend help, helping them have money to rebuild their own homes,. Whoever has money sends money, whoever has strength sends strength, whoever has things sends things. This shows the united spirit of the Chinese people: “When one place has trouble, all places provide help.”

I right now care a lot about the Wenchuan, Sichuan province great earthquake affair. According to statistics the death toll has reached more than 10,000*. A lot of people are without a home to go back to and sleep outside. These things foreigner reporters are all aware of, the influence is tremendous… the situation is unfavourable.

China holding the Olympics utilized a lot of manpower and financial and physical resources. The Chinese Olympics committee chairperson Liu Qi is confident regarding managing this Olympics well. The Olympics doesn’t assist China’s common people very much. It mainly expresses China’s place in the world, by showing that China can run this Olympics well. Furthermore the Chinese people are extremely concerned with this matter, however, “Heaven isn’t helping out.” In Sichuan province this Wenchuan great earthquake appeared, afterward very many Chinese people lost confidence. I feel we ought to transform our sorrow into strength, and strive as much as possible to manage this Olympics well.

我目前关心的是四川省地震的事，这次地震是突发的 没有预料到的，我们中国国家的总理已经到现场指挥 抗震救灾的事。这是一件非常艰难的事，特别大的事 。 全国人民非常关注这次地震受灾地区的老百姓的情况 。 许多老百姓，政府机关和企事业单位都伸出了援手， 帮助他们重建自己的家园, 有钱出钱，有力出力，有东西就出东西。这体现出来 中国人民的团结精神，一方有难八方支援。

我现在非常关心四川省汶川大地震的事。据统计死亡 人数已经达到一万多人。好多人都无家可归露宿在外 … 这些事情外国的记者都知道，影响很大。…(lots of countries help Sichuanren)…特别不顺…

…中国举办这次奥运会动用了很多的人力财力物力， 中国奥委会主席刘祺对办好这次奥运会很有信心。 奥运会 对中国的老百姓的帮助并不是很大。它主要体现出 中国在世界的地位代表中国有能力办好这次奥运会。 而且中国人民也非常关注这件事，但是天公不做美。 四川省出现这次 汶川大地震之后，很多中国人对这次奥运会失去了 信心。我觉得应该化悲痛为力量，尽力 办好这次的奥运会。

*This was three days after the earthquake. Right now the death toll is already or nearly in excess of 80,000, if I remember right.

The four of us sat outside at a Starbucks patio table with crumbling 南市 on our left and a new plastic tourist trap to our right, enjoying bourgeois status-symbol drinks and discussing the previous two hours we’d just spent walking around the half-demolished neighbourhoods and talking to the people still living there. That felt more than a little weird. It’s bizarre to step across the street from all that right to an upscale tourist centre Starbucks, but that’s China. Trying to figure your place in this kind of scene and what it all means… this world is a gong show.

Much of what I’d seen in my first visit was reduced to rubble. Back-hoes were active, tearing down walls here and there, and so were little kids, playing ball in street. We talked to more people. The old couple who said they weren’t going invited us in to sit down and chat. One of their sons was there. This couple is one of three families still left in this compound, which the neighbours said was over 200 years old. They raised three children here, with 20 square metres to their name. Turns out they’re trying to negotiate a better deal. They were offered 4000元 per square metre ($583), which sounds alright, but not when you’ve only got 20 square metres and you’re looking to buy in Tianjin’s inflated housing market. Everything’s been turned into brick piles except for the three still-occupied houses. Some old propaganda signage on the outer wall of their compound says, “Think scientifically, establish a new atmosphere” (means: don’t be superstitious).

People are taking everything of value, like roofing beams, and hauling it away on trucks, three-wheel pedal carts, or big Chinese wheel barrows. I’ve never seen this many bricks all in one place. China has to be the brick capital of the world.

The verb guǎn (管) means to take care of; to manage; to control; to be in charge of. It’s also what Nánshì is infamously remembered for lacking. Before Liberation (1949), part of Nánshì was called “Three No-guǎn” (三不管). Exactly how it got this name is apparently up for debate, but neither option is flattering. One explanation says the three “no-guǎn“‘s were: (1) no one to manage where people bury the dead, (2) no one to manage the fighting, and (3) no one to manage the cheating and kidnapping. The other explanation points to three governments who refused to take responsibility for it. Sandwiched between foreign concession areas and Chinese-governed territory, the foreign concession administrations couldn’t agree on who had jurisdiction and the Chinese government of the day wouldn’t step in. It was an ungoverned no man’s land, a haven for organized crime and “black societies” (黑社会), famous for its exotic street performers (卖艺的人) and entertainment offerings. Violence, prostitution, and theft were no strangers. I have yet to find a Tianjiner, university student or retiree, who hasn’t heard of “Nánshì Sānbùguǎn.”

There seemed to be two distinct styles here: low-rise apartment buildings that that the residents said were built after the disastrous Tangshan earthquake (1976), and typical one-story Chinese semi-communal homes.

I ran up an abandoned, older two-story wooden building and nicked an old abacus from the piles of junk. Someone’d made cooking fuel by rolling coal dust into black baseball-size balls. There were some wanted posters for a murderer, and one family’s screen door had a Noah’s Ark themed towel as the screen: “the animals went in two by two.”

These photos were taken on 08 April 5-6. The 南市 gallery has been updated once again!

These last few photos were taken by our friend, Beth, a physio-therapist from the States volunteering with our NGO’s disabled children’s project.

View the ever-expanding 南市 gallery here.

I don’t know what they’re showing in the news back home, so we just wanted to post a quick note saying we’re fine and Tianjin is real relaxed and there’s no danger, etc.

In case you’re wondering what on earth we’re talking about, there’re lots of stirred-up, angry folks in China right now. The Chinese term is “angry youth” (愤怒青年); fènqīng for short. In English they’re just called fenqing.

Carrefour (the French Walmart) is being boycotted/protested in cities across the country (because it’s French), and CNN is bearing the brunt of the (vitriolic) anti-Western-media sentiment for misreporting on certain recent events and for airing certain comments from an outspoken commentator. One American in an inland city was punched around a bit hasseled on Sunday by a mob when he tried to exit a Carrefour.

Our teachers and language helpers are talking about it in class. One of them forwarded me one of the many patriotic/anti-Carrefour text messages going around people’s cell phones. It says:

Carrefour showed its hand, buy 500 get ’250′ ["250" means "idiot"]. One supermarket and one lofty and unyielding character face one another in confrontation, in the end who wins?! All who don’t go, in order for the world to look up to China. Now must all in one heart please pass this on

家乐福出手了，买五百送二百五。一个超市和一把 傲骨 的对垒，到底谁赢？！谁都别去，为了世界看得起 中国。这次一定要齐心请转发

Some of our teachers are “boycotting” Carrefour, but one complains that Tianjiners are so cheap that that Tianjin can’t pull off a real boycott like other Chinese cities because Tianjiners will shop where it’s cheapest no matter what (ha! – so Tianjin). Because Tianjin is a special economic zone on the coast, it’s a little more cosmopolitan than many inland cities (…I can’t believe I just called Tianjin cosmopolitan! :D ) We aren’t expecting any trouble.

Anyway, we don’t know how this is all being reported back home, and just didn’t want people to worry in case the coverage of overly sensational.

If you’re interested about the situation, here are some interesting, pertinent links in suggested reading order:

• The Olympic Torch Tour As Public Relations Disaster
  English translations of the Chinese news media, with images. Shows why France is a special target.
• CNN’s failure to apologize rapped
  Explains why people are hating (and hacking) CNN right now. See also China strongly denounces CNN host’s insulting words. Both from China’s English language news media.
• Attack on an American volunteer by anti-Carrefour mob in Zhuzhou, Hunan
  Zhuzhou is nowhere near Tianjin.
• Dissenting Chinese voices have a hard time. Here’s one guy’s response to his “fenqing” critics (translated to English).
• “2008 !China Stand Up! 2008,中国，站起来！”
  A fenqing music video (with English subtitles, how thoughtful!) that gives you a dose of fenqing sentiment, opinion, and inspiration.
• Anti-CNN.com (English/Chinese)
• carrefourS.com.cn (the anti-Carrefour site)
  “Everyone take a look at the videos below, our China’s current plight, after watching do not be upset, do not cry, take everything and transform it into struggle”

If you’re wondering why Mainlanders are apparently so hypersensitive, I suggest starting here:

• Why Mainlanders are taking it personally, racially, and facially – the short answer

[Updated 08-05-02]: Text messages are playing an interesting role in Chinese society, from calling the patriotic masses to rise up (quoted above) to funny social satire, as seen here: “The text message as satire.”

No politically-oriented comments allowed – thanks.

If you have friends who are Mainlanders or you’ve been watching the news, then you’ve probably noticed that a lot of Mainland individuals are having remarkably strong emotional reactions to the less-than-glorious reception that people in some nations gave to the Olympic T0rch relay. Accusations of racism are among the milder responses.

(NOTE: This is about culture – specifically how certain aspects of Mainland culture and history affect Mainlanders’ relationships to non-Chinese – not politics. If you want to discuss politics or current events, go elsewhere. If you want to discuss the cultural factors highlighted by recent events, then welcome!)

It’s only a small minority writing death threats or comparing misquoted Western media personalities to Nazis or forcing the parents of “race-traitors” (汉奸 – specifically a traitor to the Hàn race) into hiding like some sort of sick re-run of the 1970s. (But what else is the internet for, anyway?) We don’t personally know anyone doing this kind of stuff. But individual Mainlanders here and around the world, including our friends and teachers, are taking it as a personal, racial insult that a few thousand foreigners dared sully the Olympic T0rch relay with public criticisms of particular government policies. Mainlanders living North America have expressed how they now feel unwelcome; as if Canadians don’t want them, and maybe they should just go back and serve their motherland. Obviously, these protesters have pushed a large, sensitive cultural button.

This doesn’t make sense to a lot of Westerners. North Americans, and I’m assuming Western Europeans as well, generally draw a sharp distinction between our government’s actions and ourselves as individuals. We don’t necessarily take it personally that someone might not like a particular policy of the our nation’s government. We routinely publicly criticize each other’s government policies whenever we’re not already busy publicly protesting our own government’s policies. Sure, people might get worked up, but the idea of it being racist doesn’t even enter our minds. When our governments get publicly embarrassed it’s more entertaining than anything else.

Not so for Mainlanders. That crucial distinction doesn’t exist. But why is it so personal? And why so extreme? Why is the CNN office in Beijing requesting all it’s non-essential personnel to stay away due to threats of violence? It makes us want to say, “Hey, welcome to the world, now stop being so touchy. If you can’t handle criticism, then you can’t play in the big leagues.” What’s the deal?

There are reasons. And I think being aware of them goes a long way to helping Westerners learn to better understand and communicate with Mainlanders. Of course there’s tons more to say, but here are three of the biggies, as far as I can tell anyway.

The Short Answer: Wounded Nationalized Face
The short answer explaining Mainlanders’ reactions to recent events has three parts that go together.

1. Culture
First, China is a ‘face’-oriented culture. You can think of ‘face’ as “one’s degree of standing (and amount of power) in the social hierarchy” (too simplistic, but good enough for now). The way that ‘face’ expectations work in Chinese culture – the nature of ‘face’ culture – leaves them unable to ‘handle’ certain kinds of public criticism; their only recourse is to fly into a rage and demand that ‘face’ be returned to them. What’s happening now internationally with Mainlanders’ reactions to the less-than-perfectly-glorious torch relay is a national-scale version of what happens on the sidewalk somewhere in China every day: someone feels they weren’t given the ‘face’ owed them and a public shouting match/fistfight ensues. We saw one on our first day in Tianjin, on the way in from the airport.

There are Chinese scholars who argue that the current state of Chinese ‘face’ culture is a major hindrance to Chinese individuals’ personal happiness, and to China’s constructive participation as a nation in the global community. Mainlanders’ current reactions to public criticism from outsiders is a perfect example.

2. Identity
Second, individual Mainlanders feel criticism of their government as criticism of themselves as a people, a race, a culture, a nation. Their individual, racial, cultural, and political identities are emotionally fused; individual identity is nationalized. The national identity/face has a closer relationship and bigger impact on Mainlanders’ individual self-conceptions than national identity, honour, and pride do for Westerners – even Americans and the French.

This is part of a Confucian cultural framework, and it’s thousands of years old. And although Confucius himself has fallen in and out of favour many times over the last several decades, this particular deeply-seeded cultural aspect is quite useful when those in charge need to rally the people around the flag, and it’s been deliberately cultivated over the last several decades.

3. History
Third – and foreigners have to be aware of this if they want to have any hope of understanding China – Mainlanders are still pained by the humiliating wounds inflicted by Western powers in the 19th century. When foreign powers took economic advantage of China by force, it was a devastating blow to national face. China is in the long process of regaining the ‘face’ lost in those historical episodes, but they have a long way to go and success is still uncertain. Mainlanders as a nation are desperate to prove to themselves and the world that they’re a great, superior nation/race/civilization, but they know they haven’t arrived yet, and are therefore still insecure about it. But the Mainland is absolutely determined to never take crap from Western powers ever again.

So when foreigners publicly and rudely tell China’s rulers how they should conduct their national affairs, these foreigners are pushing the “Remember the Opium Wars! The Century of Humiliation! The Unequal Treaties! Remember what THEY did to US! NEVER AGAIN!”-button. That’s a very sensitive and powerful button. It operates on face-principles, and the individual ‘faces’ of a billion-plus Chinese are directly connected to it.

If we take these three factors and put them together backward, we have a wounded, nationalized face . And that’s a big part of why individual Mainlanders are so touchy right now.

P.S. – This is the short answer. Of course the short definitions I’ve given above are inadequate, and there are thoughtful dissenting Chinese voices out there, and there is so much more to say. I have thousands and thousands of words in drafted posts on these topics of face and foreigners and nationalism, but it’s such a complicated situation that I don’t know when they’ll see the light of day. We’ll see.

(Remember: this is about culture, not politics. If you want to talk politics, don’t do it here.)