Alex Goes To China

Arriving in Yangshuo by bamboo raft, overcrowded bus and finally electric powered tricycle is an experience in itself, but once you are here you can see why the local travel guides (who should be avoided like the plague) carry business cards that state: “Guilin is a beautiful place in China. But Yangshuo is better.”

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.

Here are some images in (sort of) chronological order from the trip so far. We are nearly halfway though our journey and so far we have been to Beijing, Shanghai and Nanjing. We were planning to go to Guilin today, but the flood alerts are changing our thinking. Not sure what we are doing now… in the meantime, please enjoy my photos (click on the thumbnails below for larger images):

In 1937 Japan invaded China. In Nanjing over the period of 6 weeks an estimated 300,000 people were brutally murdered by the invading army. Thousands more were maimed, raped and had their lives turned upside down.

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.

Let me start this critical blog with a preface; Shanghai is an amazing city. Modern, eclectic and fascinating. The people, food and culture are all buzzing energy and humour. The Xiao Chi (particularly a savoury pancake made by street vendors whose name I do not yet know) is to die for and the sights and sounds are amazing. But that said there is still dark sides to the city which are not well hidden. Poverty, lack of basic hygiene and political oppression are rife in Shanghai. In the short 5 days Jo and I have been here we have already witnessed an obvious travesty of social freedom.

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.

One of Jo and my reasons for going to China was to see which city we might live in, in the future. Another reason is to have a holiday; and by ‘holiday’ I mean ‘be a tourist’.

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