May Day: Save Our Sense

I may have to make a trip out to 家乐福 (Carrefour) and pick up a fan just so all the shit flying around will have something to hit. I'll have to go within the next week, though, or else risk being labeled an "anti-China" reactionary protestor. The anti-protest protests have begun, targeting KFC, Carrefour, and the Body Shop--and probably a lot of others I haven't heard about yet.

I first heard about the Carrefour boycott about a week and a half ago, and at that time the stated reason for the boycott was a simple one: France allowed the Olympic Torch protests to happen, so boycotting a prominent French company would send a strong message. Unfortunately, there must not have been enough people joining in the boycotts, so late last week SMS messages started circulating: Carrefour gave money to the Dalai Lama (who, of course, is the leader of a "terrorist" organization).


Now May 1st is set for the beginning of an extended boycott against Carrefour. And the mob mentality may have set in. Shanghaiist.com just ran an article about a 22-year-old American who was atacked by a mob of protestors after coming out of a Carrefour in Hunan province (or "Fulan" as the locals would call it). I have some misgivings about the article, such as the atrocious English written by "an Ivy League university volunteer programme" who would presumably be here teaching English. More in keeping with the sort of attitudes I've been encountering every day as of late are some of the sentiments expressed in the comments section, such as "he should have known that he was taking risk to do the whole thing at this time and place."


The comment that probably drives me the craziest is "When news or rumors pop out like this, the first knee-jerk reaction of you guys is blasting evil China and Chinese." Fair enough, some of the 老外 commenting on the story are knuckle-heads, but so are some of the 中国人. But lately, in every class, I've had to listen to the woe-is-us diatribe of how the PRC is a developing country that everyone steps on and takes advantage of and doesn't respect, while at the same time having to listen to lecture after lecture on how the Han are superior to other people, due in part to their 5,000 year old history. The whole country seems to be suffering from a sort of collective Napoleon syndrome, and it just gets sadder and sadder with each new update. Hopefully, the whole thing will start to disappear after the May 1st holiday, when everyone has to work the weekend to make up for the luxury of two days off.
And, now, KFC has made the list of places to boycott: "Worth mentioning that a few days ago and compared to boycott French goods, the famous American restaurant chains KFC has also been included in the boycott list, the 'charges' is 'the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution to boycott Chinese Olympic.'" (That last link's a bit diffuicult to read, but at least attempting to be fair.) As an American, though, I'm looking forward to the boycotts for two very important reasons: 1) I can make a 不吃肯塔基 sign and parade the streets--"Don't eat Kentucky," which looks a lot like "Don't eat KFC"; and 2) I can finally start selling some 我是巴哈马人 T-shirts to other foreigners (What have folks from the Bahamas ever done to China, after all?).

Just Nod Your Head and Smile

I tried to discuss the Olympic torch relay in class last night. My goal was to try to get students to focus on the meaning of the Olympic flame itself and some of the motivations 外国人 (waiguoren) might have for taking part in such protests. I pointed out that it had been a foreigner responsible for one instance of the torch's being extinguished.

"No, there were no foreigners--Tibetan's children," they insisted. I said that many of the protestors (such as those who hung the handcuff Olympic rings, those who chained themselves to the Eiffel Tower, and some of those who caused the torch to be extinguished) were foreigners, not Tibetans. "Children of the outside countries, not Tibet's children," I clarified.

My students then showed me the one picture published in the newspaper, saying, "See, Chinese woman want save flame, Tibetan terrorize flame, Chinese, Tibetan, China, Tibet," pointing back and forth between the two figures. "What about other pictures?" I asked. "You're saying this picture isn't real?" they accused me. "No, just that there are other pictures," explained; this one incident isn't everything. They didn't believe me. So, for the record (on a blog that can't be accessed in China without a proxy), the guy below is whiter than I am.

And this guy's pretty pale too.
And I don't think I need to point out that there aren't many Chinese as dark-skinned as the guy in the middle of this picture.

Again, though, my students can't easily get ahold of such pictures. I had to go to the New York Times and BBC to get them, and Chinese searches just don't route that way. And of course my students wouldn't think to do an English search on the issue; after all, the Western media always lies. (As an interesting side-note, yes, Chinese police do dress as indicated the one page in the youtube clip, but the 保安--bao'an, or security/paramilitary guards that monitor my neighborhood certainly do dress in camouflage and boots; who knows which are actually being shown in that clip.)

So, I'm done raising such issues in class. It's too much to hope for that people will be able to put aside the People's Daily and Xinhua official lines long enough to even complete a sentence.

Virtual Black-Out

So the riots in Lhasa have set off a string of other riots, and speculation about all of them is running rampant. One thing is absolutely clear as far as any of my Han students are concerned: this is all the fault of the Tenzin Gyatso--whom my students tend to view in the same light as most Americans view Osama bin Laden. According to them, the Tibetans are well-armed and well-funded terrorists, who take their orders directly from the Dalai Lama ... yep, Nobel Peace Prize winner (1989) and terrorist king-pin. Seems he's got quite the resume.

The purpose of this terrorism sweeping through the Middle Kingdom, as my students deduce, is to ensure that China doesn't host the Olympics (and never mind that once a host country has been selected, the games don't move). The simple solution to all of this, a few say, is "to get someone to him quiet and kill him." Nothing would ensure peace during the Games like wiping out a man honored throughout the world for his efforts to create peace.

Of course, my adult students are all highly educated individuals, show a good bit of reasoning skills, and are really among the top products of their nation's education system. It would almost be worth asking how they could be so (and so alone in being) out of touch with the rest of the world's perspective, except that the answer is written (or not written) on the front of every newspaper. We've entered an essential media blackout here in Shenzhen--one which runs from the papers to the Internet more than I've yet seen. The only real sources available in print or online are government organs like the People's Daily--only of help in finding out what the government wants us to know.

It's a strange thing: whenever people back home had asked about the government censorship they're sure I run into in China, I've always worked to defend China. Really, until a short while back, censorship has played a very small role in my day-to-day life; I've always been able to get loads of information on international politics, even when the North Korean nuclear snafu was going on, and if anything has been blocked, it's just been a few blogging sites, Wikipedia, and occassionally Youtube. Now, nearly anything of value is inaccessible without a proxy, and even with a proxy a large number of sites still won't load. Apparently, the minute news starts to affect China policy directly, this is when the Orwellian tactics kick in.

And it's sort of a sad thing as well. The steps the government is taking in response to the riots seem about the surest route to ruining the Olympic Games for China. Already we've begun to hear the chatter about boycotts by prominent leaders, and the disruptions to the torch relay are at least common knowledge here (though my students can't seem to differentiate between Western pro-Tibet protestors and the "Dalai clique" terrorists closer to home). Maybe the events will smooth over a bit before Opening Ceremonies, but the Games have picked up a few stains because of this that won't rub away. Nor does it seem likely China can look forward to kind receptions among media once the games begin: after breaking their guarantee of greater press freedoms in 2008, then lambasting most Western news outlets, it seems they'll be lucky to get honest treatment by the presses and far more likely now to get resentful treatment. Since nearly every Chinese person I know is emotionally invested in the Games' success and the "good face" it could bring China (the product of eight years of hype), I can't imagine anything less than a perfect Olympics leaving anyone happy.

I'm predicting a somber September in Shenzhen and parts further afield.