We are quite tired from our adventurous cycling, rafting and swimming around and in the lakes of Yangshuo. So we are resting, eating and doing a bit of last minute shopping before we return. Today I bought a pair of high powered binoculars that are about 50cm long. They will make an excellent tool for my amateur astronomy.

Jo seems to have some hayfever, but its nothing rest wont fix. Its been such an amazing trip. Everything has gone according to plan, well almost. And the things that didn’t have been amazing too.

China has so much to offer a ‘foreigner’. It is new and old. Politically rich with a vibrant community of ethnic groups and diverse agendas. It is also politically difficult, with its communist regime still all powerful.

If you ever get a chance to visit China, make sure you visit Beijing and Yangshuo, they for me are the best places I know of. I have alot of pictures from Yangshuo, I will upload some of them when I have time.

Our guesthouse sits next to a small canal in the middle of the village sized town and a view of a 200 million year old rock formation in the background. Yangshuo is very touristy, the term ‘global village’ has been used by tourist maps (I wonder if they have read Marshal McLuhan) but it is really beautiful and you can understand why a lot of people would want to come.

Jo and I took a tandem bicycle out of Yangshuo yesterday and rode it to the next village; Fu Li. This was much more authentic, without the hustle of people trying to sell you $5 Rolex watches. We sat at a corner store on tiny little stools and drank two cokes and offered cigarettes to a group of older men that were looking at us  from a few metres away. They then came over and sat with us and talked to Jo in Chinese. They asked where we are from and when we said ‘Ao-da-li-ya’, which is Chiense for ‘Australia’, they looked confused. It was obvious that they had never heard of it. Jo explained that it is south of China. Then we moved on, talking about a map of the local area we had brought, which they were fascinated by. Later they asked if we were Americans. We said “no” and left it at that.

We have now caught up with Jimi Barlow, a friend from Australia, and are sharing a room with him at the Magnolia. We are planning a 20km bicycle ride today, but this time without a tandem – they suck, especially when you are being overtaken by a 20ton Russian tip truck in a narrow tunnel.

I agree with the assertion that there is no such thing as ‘evil’… at least in the Hollywood sense of the word. However, I disagree with Dedlam’s familial metaphor of Chinese governance as justification of the Great Firewall of China. My view is coming from a democratic politic, which has many flaws, but nevertheless is a more reasonable position than justifying authoritarianism.

Civil disobedience and political critique in China are dealt with through censorship and violence to her own people [1]. This is not a Right of Governance, but an Abuse of Power. Self preservation by a regime is no justification for this abuse. The fact that many Chinese citizens are susceptible to demagogy and fallacious appeals to patriotism is further proof of a successful 60 year long campaign of misinformation and ‘re-education’.

We should be equally critical of capitalism’s perversion of democracy. Americans, for instance, are perhaps even more susceptible to demagogy than the Chinese (for example G.W. Bush’s irrational rhetoric after Sept. 11 and his subsequent reelection). It seems that power corrupts no matter what the political or economic system. This is why the checks and balances of a self critical democracy should be obtained and preserved peacefully whenever possible in order to diminish the opportunities for corruption.

China is capable of a free democracy. It will take time, but a political system that can withstand critique and disobedience is more likely to be creative, innovative and modern. I hope the people of China will create a democracy that suits its recent trend toward modernity. It seems that this shift will happen sooner rather than later. The old ways of Maoist Communism and 1978 style ’socialism with Chinese characteristics’ are fast fading. They will be replaced with a socialist democracy… with Chinese characteristics.

These predictions for the future are fraught; and may not come to pass, but I hope they do. Ironically they will probably not be achieved through revolution, but rather through education, as the old PRC realises there is more power in a free democratic people than the doctrines of Marx and Mao.

[1]: ie/ The Great Firewall of China, Tienanmen Massacre, etc.

Guilin is a dream; with 200 million year old rock formations surrounding the small city (pop. 700,000ish) its lakes, moats and rivers decorate a fantastic landscape. Picturesque rice patties that seem more like a gigantic earth art installation than functional agriculture encompass the city. The air is clean, the sky blue and it is a welcome relief after the smog and noise of Nanjing.

We were met at the apartment upon arrival by a local girl calling herself Wendy, who happens to have a degree in English and an Australian boyfriend. She invited us for drinks at the local expat trap, an Irish pub that is about as Irish as a Bulgarian sumo wrestler. We played drinking games until 1am until Jo and I returned to our apartment to sleep.

We are planning a 2 hour boat trip to Yangshuo next down the Li Jiang (Li River) in a bamboo boat. We have been promised that the flooding from days before will not affect us.

I have also added a map of our travels here and some recent pics (click on thumbs):

View Alex Goes To China in a google map

Today, Jo and I went to The Memorial for the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders. This was an important thing for me to do politically. When I lived in Tokyo in 2005 the “Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi … shrugged off Beijing’s complaints about his visits to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which honours Class A war criminal[s]…”[1]. At this time there were also claims made by families of victims who experienced the war crimes for compensation, which were denied by Japanese courts. For me this expressed the blatant war crimes denial and historical revisionism rife in contemporary Japan. To be able to witness the other side of the story in Nanjing today gave me some sense of resolution, although I think this feeling will be better served with cultural and political development in Japan.

Having said that, there were some interesting historical revisionist notions put forward by the Chinese governments influence on the exhibition. For example the claim to Taiwan being a province of China was made strongly (ignoring the past 20 years of democratic autonomy). Also the implication that China defeated Japan during WWII; omitting the atomic bombings by the USA. I guess every culture has its own version of history, and somewhere in between is what really happened.

Perhaps one day China will have a memorial for the millions killed by Mao Zedong and the PRC, or the west officially remembering the hundreds of thousands killed by the USA and its allies (including Australia) in Iraq and Afghanistan in the past 7 years. Or we can imagine a world where Japan builds its own museum educating its people about the Nanjing Massacre.

Jo and I went for a walk through the French Concession and saw a group of people watching a band with a woman singing a traditional folk song. Everyone was smiling and enjoying the hot, humid evening. This experience up to this point was very pleasant.

But then a stocky man in a white shirt walked through the crowd and went up to the amplifier and started turning the dials. This changed the pitch of the song, but failed to achieve his aim, I later realised, of silencing the music. The crowd started to get nervous, shifting on their heels and whispering to each other. Then two policemen dressed in riot gear (helmets with visors and body armour) pushed through, but stopped at the edge of the circle of people. The woman singing boldly finished her song with a lasting cadence which drew applause from the mildly defiant audience. Once the applause began the policemen stepped forward writing on a pad (I assume it was an infringement notice). The crowd then began to dissipate, yet some bunched around the policemen and protested politely. The man in the white shirt began unplugging things. I wanted to help in some way but failed to think of anything that would not make the situation worse. I was concerned that the scene would escalate and I wanted to get Jo (and myself) away from the scene. Regrettably, I didn’t have my phone on me or I would have photographed it surreptitiously to witness the event.

In some ways the most oppressed members of this situation were the policemen. My optimistic nature hopes that the policemen didn’t want to do what they did. When they waited for the song to finish I detected a sense of regret in their body language. But the fact remains, after Nuremberg – this is no defense. The freedoms of speech and expression simply do not exist in China, not even in modern Shanghai, and while there are still those willing to enforce the status quo the situation will not change.

When we arrived in Shanghai we were really tired. It was 7.30am and we couldn’t check-in to our hotel until 10am, so we hanged around a Chinese fast food joint and ate some MSG while we waited.

After we checked-in and got some rest, we had a look around. We are staying near Huaihai Rd, the French Concession and The Bund in the heart of Shanghai. These areas are very westernised but in quite different ways. The Bund is like the city from a Hollywood remake of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon The Jetsons. The French Concession is a bizarre version of Paris circa 1930 complete with Art Deco and Baroque architecture. And Huaihai is another one of those International shopping malls with every designer label you can think of plus a few local brands that have made enough money to afford the rent.

Some of the highlights of this area have been away from the tourist traps. We went to a pet shop down the road that had frogs, squirrels, chinchillas, crickets, turtles and much, much more. Also Jo and I went for a late night massage (fearful we would be offered a happy ending). Instead we got a traditional Chinese massage. My masseuse was small and young and yet her hands were so strong I am sure she could crush a skull with a casual clench of her fingers. My back still hurts, but in a good way. I can feel the tension from dragging luggage around and sleeping on strange beds melting as my back heals.

On Friday Jo and I are going to Fudan University to meet some artists, teachers and students at the Shangahai Institute of VIsial Art (SIVA). There is a 5 hour itinerary for the visit including lunch. I am looking forward to the opportunity to see how arts education functions at this university. Perhaps I will do part of my PhD there…

Overall I have to say I think I prefer Beijing to Shanghai. My Beijing experience was more grassroots and communal compared to my impressions of Shanghai. Shanghai has a more corporate, commercial feeling. The common comparison of Shanghai being like Sydney and Beijing more like Melbourne is probably accurate. These are only first impressions though, and judging them this early is a little premature.

Hot, wet and noisy; Shanghai from on high.

So far we have been to 798 Art Zone, Tienanmen Square, The Great Wall, Wangfujing Dajie and Nanluogo Xiango. We are thinking about going to Beijings underground city (a nuclear bomb shelter built by Mao in the 1970s to house 40% of Beijings population) and perhaps The Summer Palace. These things are important historical and cultural sites which are also quite entertaining. And yet having said that, the most interesting part of this trip so far has not been the monuments and tourist sites. Rather it has been observing the banal, ordinary lives of the people in Beijing.

The streets are not as busy as I would have expected. They are dirty, but not as much as I would have thought. My expectations are constantly being challenged. Generally the Chinese are warm and friendly without any hint of racism or xenophobia. If anything they are too accommodating to foreigners (perhaps because of the opportunities a comparatively wealthy westerner may represent in the new economy).

Traveling with Jo has also been a bit of a coup for me. Her Chinese is quite good and she knows her way around. For instance, we have not had any problems finding delicious, hygienic food. She is even teaching me Chinese with a patience I wish my secondary school teachers had possessed. And because of her skills we have been able to fit comfortably into a sort of way in China that is both challenging and pleasurable.

Overall my impressions of Beijing are such that I know I could live here. The challenge would be to find meaningful sources of income that develop my artistic, academic and technical vocation. But if I can manage that, then a longer term adventure in Beijing would be awesome.

The centre of Beijing; urban life in Dongcheng