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Post by joe on Jun 15, 2006 16:09:46 GMT 7
You know what, I think of every place in China as devastated. Almost all of it is a wasteland of one kind or another, including the fields where things grow. Nothing is clean. The only beauty is decay. Construction fails. The people are forgetful and blind.
This last is why a lot of Chinese are so lovely, but it's also why they can't think about much more than money and pride.
I'm growing afraid of the place. Not that that doesn't keep the days interesting.
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Post by Lotus Eater on Jun 15, 2006 16:35:43 GMT 7
Does this mean you see it as in it's death throes? I have my own term for it - but these shall remain secret, as like the rest of us on this site, I may write the definitive "Expat in China" book and want to use the term for my title. (Always good to have the title worked out first.) I see it more as a metamorphosis - and they are usually not pretty or tidy. The old gets cast off, the new is still untested, wet and messy. ??
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woza17
SuperDuperBarfly!
Posts: 2,203
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Post by woza17 on Jun 15, 2006 19:52:51 GMT 7
Joe have you ever watched Bladerunner?
I think that we all live in a fool's paradise or some of us do and the economic and global reality around us is just so overwhelming. The real heroes of our time are the ones that see this and are trying to do something about it. I am not one of those Do we have an ashamed smiley?
LE please write a book. I know a lot of foreigners have but yours would be totally different. I think China would give you special citizenship.
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Post by gretch on Jun 15, 2006 21:22:21 GMT 7
This last is why a lot of Chinese are so lovely Lovely, huh? Good choice of words there...you've been here too long!
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Post by Raoul Duke on Jun 15, 2006 22:15:11 GMT 7
No, I'm with Joe. A lot of Chinese ARE lovely people, at least once you get past the monkeys squatting outside the train station. And most are indeed blinkered by money and position. Right now I'm teaching mostly adult professionals. Getting a conversation out of them that doesn't quickly boil down to money is just about impossible.
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Decurso
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Things you own end up owning you
Posts: 581
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Post by Decurso on Jun 15, 2006 22:32:54 GMT 7
Nice post Joe.Can't argue.But I also can't say that unblinkingly wallowing in filth everyday doesn't have it's own special charm...
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Post by joe on Jun 15, 2006 23:20:29 GMT 7
Devastated is a good word. Wouldn't it be terrible if the people were tied by spirit to their land. This blasted landscape would be their mirror.
I don't think the end is nigh. I do think the Blade Runner society was far too cosmopolitan to reflect China. And it's hard to know if this is a metamorphosis or a delay. There are signs.
It's just the desolation crept up on me one day when I was working out what to do next.
I wonder if other countries have the same thing.
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Post by Lotus Eater on Jun 16, 2006 7:44:32 GMT 7
Maybe a different type of desolation. I find big cities - no matter how clean, neat, efficient etc - desolate. The continual rush to work, the traffic jammed commutes, the stultifying routines, the dead eyes of workers hurrying to pay bills, pick up the dry cleaning at lunch before beginning the next round of computer driven make work, fill me with desolation.
Here my perception is that Chinese people while individually less frantically busy, together generate a buzz of energy; there is a pragmatic acceptance of life that allows them to enjoy what happens; their lives that we see as difficult and limited still don't elicit the level of complaint that westerners generate from their much richer lives. From here I perceive a determination to survive that I don't see elsewhere, and this determination to survive is maybe what enables them to ignore everything else around them that we find tragic.
That all sounds really wanky, but I'm not sure how else to express it.
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Post by Norbert Radd on Jun 16, 2006 14:17:37 GMT 7
Back in the USA, I got to visit a lot of refineries and ports. Maybe this is the first time a lot of you all are getting exposed to that
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Post by acjade on Jun 16, 2006 15:15:40 GMT 7
Back in the USA, I got to visit a lot of refineries and ports. Maybe this is the first time a lot of you all are getting exposed to that I grew up in Mid-Western Victoria. In a time of plenty and through times of drought. Over the road from the hotel was a railway station and a silo and a live stockyard. To this day I smell lanolin and I think I'm in heaven. Home. The dust storms, the lightening storms. They came every season. Some as a whisper. Some as an annihilation of the entire community. I've seen devastation. I know devastation as well as I know the eyes of my own sons. China is old and dusty. There is no phoenix among the ashes here until the decay is burnt away and the children can play and grow and think.
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woza17
SuperDuperBarfly!
Posts: 2,203
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Post by woza17 on Jun 16, 2006 16:25:55 GMT 7
In class this morning I was using an article out of 21st century and we went off topic and one of the students was telling me about his workmate that one day decided to hitchhike to Xinjiang with only 500rmb, He was a 35 year old Chinese teacher. He was away for 2 months. He wrote an article about his travels. Unfortunately he contracted stomach cancer and is in recovery but his travels are over. I really liked the story I thought it very inspiring. I also encourage the students to tell me interesting stories about China and they usually comply and it gets a converstion going.
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Post by Lotus Eater on Jun 16, 2006 16:42:27 GMT 7
If you want desolation and devastation - try visiting Pormporaaw, Aurukun, Napranum, Mapoon, Palm Island, Mornington Island and many other Aboriginal DOGIT communities. There is not only devastation of buildings and infrastructure, but also of hopes and dreams.
Here - I still see hopes and dreams. Annihilation does not come with the destruction of industry and the desolation of landscape but with the destruction of hope.
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Post by Mr Nobody on Jun 16, 2006 16:54:35 GMT 7
Well, what was in the bottom of pandora's box?
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Post by acjade on Jun 16, 2006 18:43:24 GMT 7
My great grandmother. She went to live among the aboriginal people after the death of her only son in the first world war.
Henrietta. Darling. I feel your pain, honey. Rest in Peace.
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Post by joe on Jun 16, 2006 19:50:05 GMT 7
Just to get the terminology straight:
The annihilation is mine in the company of their devastated land if it is their mirror. It comes from the feeling of desolation.
I agree that many, even most, big cities world-wide feel desolate. I think the Chinese are sufficiently vital a people that their land will be devastated without their cities becoming desolate, Hong Kong island notwithstanding, though they won't save them at all from sterility.
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Post by Mr Nobody on Jun 16, 2006 21:11:08 GMT 7
Bring me my broad sword and a cloth of gold, and as a talisman.
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Post by con's fly is open on Jun 22, 2006 20:41:59 GMT 7
The looming water crisis worries me. Could wreck everything. Other stuff I see as chronic crap you can learn to deal with.
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Jemair
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Post by Jemair on Jun 22, 2006 20:57:26 GMT 7
Sorry guys and I seem to be saying that a lot these days BUT hey what on blessed earth are you talking about China has some great places that have not yet been sh&ted upon just like every other fast developing society and all puns aside that's just what we have here in China and yes it is also true that the old will be put asunder and the young will inherit this mess but if we as teachers do our jobs properly everything will be just fine.
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Post by joe on Jun 22, 2006 22:19:32 GMT 7
Do the Chinese have myths of strength? Like Nobby called out, "bring me my...", my what for Chinese? The silly old stories we have and recognise when we watch, in the true sense of the word, romantic movies, the Chinese don't seem to have.
Is it in the schools? I know that everyone I know could tell me some classical story if they had to, or they could name some hero and his story, and they recognise them when Andy Lau acts them out in one of his endless re-run movies. But....
I ocassionally like to bring out the Scottish accent, just bacuz ah'ts sew m'otch fon, and bite your lip on the "f", but will any Chinese do some such thing?
In other words, "if we do out jobs as teachers" is an idea that draws on myths of strength and value and western history. What value they get from us will be seen through their eyes. And they live here.
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Post by acjade on Jun 23, 2006 5:03:06 GMT 7
but if we as teachers do our jobs properly everything will be just fine. I'd like to believe that and on some days when I'm discussing 'issues' with my students I have a sense that it's possible. But Chinese culture is based on corruption. Look closely enough and you'll find it in your own classrooms... particuarly at university level. Find out the class moniter and you'll learn he/she's the party member whom, apart from other things, is responsible for collecting the kuai which the students put in the collective pot. The moniter skims the cream and buys inferior products for your/their classroom. From everything from wall maps to chalk and dusters to mops and brooms. Okay. Corruption and snouts in the tough is hardly unheard of in our own countries of origin. Just recently Mr. Nobody posted a few humourous lines about being an Australian. One of them mentioned the Lord Mayor's tarred road. That's true in my experience. The first family home my parents built after retiring from business was in a suburban Ballarat street in which lived the mayor. And guess what. The road was kept in immaculate condition up to one block past his residence. Similiarly during the last two years of secondary school I sat next to one of the daughter's of the then (Liberal) Premier of Victoria. After I matriculated he was sent down for doing land deals. But it's different here. There's almost an explicit curriculum here as well as implicit one. The party members get the positions of power and it's their 'right' to skim the cream. Corruption more than anything is what is preventing an environmental clean-up.
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Post by Mr Nobody on Jun 23, 2006 5:37:31 GMT 7
You have a powerful point there. I didn't know about the skimming, but the monitors here always seem to be the rich kids, too.
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Post by Lotus Eater on Jun 23, 2006 7:39:56 GMT 7
Yes the important positions go to the party members, and that includes at universities as well. The class monitors are party members - but here not so much the wealthy ones - but the ones who really work hard in the organisation. I've also had monitors voted out by the class because they weren't doing their jobs, so that is a step forward.
In my favourite citation (IRIS) there are also more companies being established now without party members as the boss - approx. 30% from memory.
What I find fascinating here is that you actually have to work hard to be a party member - pass exams, attend regular meetings, demonstrate that you are a 'good citizen' - i.e. do a lot of volunteer work for the party, attend interviews etc etc. Some of my students spend a fair bit of time on this. It's almost like another whole course - and a much tougher one than we teach! They are amazed when I tell them in Oz I could be a party member by just handing over some money and filling in a form.
I also have friends who say - can't be bothered, yes, know I will never be University President, but I am not interested in doing that, attending all the compulsory meetings etc etc.
But I think there are winds of change. Students are realizing that guanxi is not the best selection method, that knowledge and experience are more useful in companies, that corruption is counter-productive. It is changing here as well - teachers are protesting the new housing allocations based on quanxi, and actually going en masse to the President. It will be interesting to see the outcome of that.
My students use their class money at the end of semester to go out to a restaurant and get very very drunk!! This semester one class wants to go to the best Japanese restaurant and try the food. They will invite the Japanese teacher and me to go with them. They figure they should try it at least once.
i don't think us doing our jobs will make so much change, but it will be more driven by economics. That was the driver for change in the west for non-productive methods of business management and given the competition in the global market, the Chinese will very soon realise that quanxi and corruption are actually holding back competitive development.
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Post by Mr Nobody on Jun 23, 2006 9:08:20 GMT 7
Good analysis. I will quote you on that sometime. (IRIS)
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Post by joe on Jun 23, 2006 15:21:16 GMT 7
What I find fascinating here is that you actually have to work hard to be a party member - pass exams, attend regular meetings, demonstrate that you are a 'good citizen' - i.e. do a lot of volunteer work for the party, attend interviews etc etc. And have workbooks demonstrating your grasp of Party doctrine. In priniciple it's a good system for allowing the best people to select themselves for activism within the Party. And I have a gigantic ship over here going cheap, Neige Titantica, good condition, used once, something about a little old lady. That's Ha Jin's novel In The Pond. I don't know of course, but I don't think such protests are all that new. I suspect Chinese have done things that way for hundreds of years, if not 5000.
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