Biao Yu (表 语)

"pingan aoyun quebao xiaofang anquan shi women de gontong zeren"
roughly: a safe and sound olympics, to ensure fire control, and safety is our common responsibility

Anybody out there interested in a Fullbright? I have the perfect topic for you! Biao Yus (roughly translated as (propagandistic/motivational/reminder banners). Biao Yus are uniquely Asian, specifically found, more or less, in China, Korea, and Japan. But nowhere as extensive or unique in their message as in China. If you walk around anywhere in China, you’ll soon notice these huge vermillion banners with white characters. They are blanketed everywhere, from campuses to freeway overpasses, used as street banners, and posted on guardrails, in buses, on walls facing streets, etc. In fact, what they say, and more important, why, is very interesting.

My time is severely constrained so I haven’t looked into these thoroughly, though I plan to when I get a break here soon….In any case, these Biao Yus effectively are reminders to the people to maintain a certain social order, to act according to some outlined principles. Some admonish people to be vigilant about thieves, others to keep the environment clean or respect rules in order to maintain order, how abiding by the one child policy is good for the country, etc. I’ve even seen one on a bus that said: Jin zhi fang pi! Farting is strictly forbidden!

Well, my project for the next seven months of my stay here in China will be to compare those of the city to those of the countryside. These undoubtedly are sponsored by the government in order to constantly remind people about maintaining social order and stability. I just wonder what it would be like to be constantly bombarded by these all your life. How they influence the subconscious, how those of the city differ in their message and goal from those of the countryside… They must have some unconscious affect; a Chinese friend concurred.

Even more interesting would be to use these as means to compare the three countries of Japan, China, and Korea. I asked my Korean and Japanese friends if the Chinese Biao Yus’ messages are similar and they said No, they are entirely different!

Now, this is a phenomenon entirely absent in the West. Could you imagine the government posting these banners constantly reminding you how to act in society? I asked my host sister about them, asking her if they are effective and why they are necessary, that in the West we don’t have them or need them. Her response: “How could you in the West not have them? How strange!” Thing is, the Chinese totally take them for granted. The city is so suffused with Biao Yus that they become something like a traffic sign per se. That is, you know what it says as well as its meaning but you only have to look at it and know. But it affects your actions….

"qian jia tong pu xiaofang qu, wan hu gong zhu xing fu lu"

roughly: a thousand households sing the song of 'fire control", ten thousand households together build a road of well-being.

beijing bicycle

My health remains in jeopardy not due to food or pollution but rather my bike ride to school, which consists of being cut off no less than five times each day on a bike that makes more sounds than a cacophonous sympathy....well, at least I don't need a horn. But that is China for you: people, people, and more people.

I guess the bike ride cold be considered exercise--I have to ride my shitty bike to and from school everyday (in total about an hour, which could probably be done in half that time with a new bike). Yeah, I knew my bike was total shit when even a Chinese guy laughed at it! Both my pedals have fallen off and I had to recently replace the back rim since the spokes broke and practically gutted my chain! Today in fact my front basket broke and is barely hanging on! And a car slightly siderailed my back tire—luckily I escaped without any scratches and only a dented rim. yes, the highlights of Beijing. Welcome to ordered chaos.

censorship

Well, I was going to leave the whole issue of the Middle Kingdom's (MK's) government's censorship of the media to others to lambast, but since they have decided to now block my access to all bloggers' websites (including my own), I've a little missive, and perhaps a lil' diatribe to boot. Since T square the gov't has cracked down on any and all forms of subversion, whether it be a particlur religious sect member (read FG), or any blogspot, whether subversive or not (the point is: no free speech). Not only that but the gov't has also pursued a policy of dangerous, all out, jingoistic nationalism, and has done so to such an insidious extent that the minds of young ones are being infected unawares. Whether it has to do with the Japanese deaf ears and closed mouths about WW II, or America's involvement in Iraq as well as its own human rights violations, the government censors and contrives tendentious news media, mixed with a pride that goes beyond nationalism. In fact, most MK nationals, especially the young, take serious offense if you offer a criticism of their country. Further, Uncle Lu (that is, in lieu of Sam; and it rhymes with the country's current leader) suppreses to the fullest extent freedom of the media in its own country. There are something of the order of 200+ protests daily in the MK, usually caused by the insuperable dichotomy between rich and poor, that NEVER gets reported nationally. If you are interested in learning more, go to the Reporters Without Borders website, http://www.rsf.org, (another blocked site) and look at the article about the all-pervading and censoring news press agency in the MK. This has also been confirmed by other sources, such as an Inner Mongolia local NGO claiming that both of their websites encouraging open discussion have been shut down; and a good buddy of mine who works for a local NGO has verified that the gov't is now cracking down on NGOs to ensure that none of their funding or work is directed towards promoting criticism or rule of law, freedome of speech, any type of 'subvesive' activity, etc...

I admit, the issue is much more complicated than what I have mentioned here. A country whose population is 1.3 billion, who have suffered insults and egregious atrocities without much support perhaps has a right to assert its strength and maintain a system of despotic rule in order to promote serious economic growth, to make its people (at least some) rich and wealthy. Besides, how does one manage a polis of such size? I, for one, cannot imagine how else the countyr otherwise could be governed unless a serious revolution were to take place (which isn't impossible given MK's record). Some MK nationals believe Mr. Lu is slowly striving for such goals, yet I have to see it to believe it.

Well, then. Ahhh. that feels much better. Thanks for listening!

Congrats Chris!!

Quick shout out to Chris--Congratulations on your acceptance to Columbia!!! Never doubted it for a sec. Sorry to hear about the tuition, ouch! But in the end, well worth it for what your solid character and keen brilliance will contribute. Miss ya man.

Cheng Yu (成语)

What the hell is Cheng Yu?! They’re the perfect embodiment of three thousand years of Chinese wisdom, of a language constantly building up, changing, adding, amending, evolving, advancing, maturing, all the while in its own sphere, with little, perhaps no outside influence. A Cheng Yu, 95% of the time, consists of four characters which represent an idea that otherwise would take a sentence or two to describe. Most translate into sayings, expressions, or idioms in the English language; others simply wise sayings. And they mostly embody, in my opinion, the wisdom and experience of the Chinese culture. And there are thousands. Students in high school are forced to learn a tremendous amount of them (in fact, their final exam to graduate high school has one, and only one, which they must define and use, and describe its history); they are used in articles, in newspapers, in conversation. And in fact, the Chinese believe the more learned one is, the more adept his ability to use them in conversation—it is looked upon as admirable and sophisticated. There are dictionaries just for Cheng Yu, most extremely thick and heavy. I was lucky to find one, and only one, Chinese-English Cheng Yu dictionary. It’s amazing. And let me tell you, the moment you use a sophisticated Cheng Yu with a Chinese, they practically place you (a foreigner) on Mao’s right side.

The most interesting aspect of Cheng Yu is that they all have a story, anecdote, history, or poem behind how they came to be. Thus, its etymology is most important when understanding a Cheng Yu. If you don’t know the history or story behind the Cheng Yu, it is almost impossible to use it correctly. Of course, only the most learned can invent a Cheng Yu. Some are simple, with simple ideas and characters; and others just the opposite. Here are some examples (without the tones):

悲欢离合 = bei huan li he: the vicissitudes of life; separations and encounters; joys and sorrows; meetings and partings.

人之长情 = ren zhi chang qing: a constant occurrence in human relations; the way of the world.

做贼心虚 = zuo zei xin xu: a guilty conscience is a self-accuser; a guilty conscience feels constant feer.

劳臆结合 = lao yi jie he: strike a proper balance between work and play

曾经沧海 = ceng jing cang hai: one who has seen the grandeur of the ocean thinks nothing of rivers; having seen and experienced much

And one of my favorites:

倾国倾城 = qing guo qing chang: dangerously beautiful: a woman whose beauty would overthrow/collapse a kingdom.

Schadenfreude

This post is dedicated to Chris (check the sidebar for his link), since he spurned the idea for this blog's entry. I was on truthout.org the other day and came across Paul Krugman's use of the word 'schadenfreude' to describe the democrats gloating over the Republicans' demise. So I immediately went to wikipedia's wiktionary, which has a wonderful history of the word. It is borrowed from the german where Schaden means damage or harm and freude means joy. It describes pleasure taken from someone else's misfortune, sometimes described as the most beautiful kind of joy (according to wiktionary, Lisa accuses Homer of feeling schadenfreude when Homer gloats about Ned Flanders being on the verge of bankruptcy). Do you agree? Think about it, especially as it relates to competition, and how much competition is built into our system. Not to mention China's--imagine trying to out-compete 1.3 billion people (which leads to some very interesting, if not frightful, facts about Chinese teens' social life, the government's intervention in many aspects of one's personal life, etc...). Excuse the tangent there. As I was saying, schadenfreude...yes..its apparent English equivalent is 'epicaricacy', but who the hell wants to use that!? It sounds like some sort of malevant medicinal practice carried out by epicurians or some crazy s$%t like that. Hard to believe that English did not have its own word (but then again, is that possible?) as do almost many other languages to describe this feeling.

Some of My Heroes

Gandhi, Julio Caesar Chavez, Robert Jordan, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Nelson Mandela, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Siddhartha, Tupac Shakur, Chico Mendez, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Martin Luther, Socrates, Aborigines, American Indians, Noam Chomsky, Karl Marx, Abe Lincoln, FDR, Lenin, Leonardo Da Vinci, Bernard Kouchner (founder of Doctors without borders), Eliot Spitzer (NY attorney general), Epictetus, John Locke, George Soros, Larry Flint, Michael Moore, Wangari Maathai, David Suzuki, Aung San Suu Kyi (Burma), Dalai Lama, Bono, Desmond Mpilo Tutu, Hugo Chavez, Jim Yong Kim(Partners in Health)...

It's Crazy!

As a friend recently put it, "that's the way chinese do business i guess, no clear logistics AND certainly minimum transparency...it's crazy!!!" So the other day I got the old 炒鱿鱼--that is, my fish was fried. Promised a job till January, my boss told me that the company can no longer afford to pay me, blah, blah, blah. Which isn't a big deal except for its convenience: it was located at my university. So on to search for another one in the endless sea of jobs teaching English...at least I still have the other, also located on campus, which pays quite decently (in fact, it pays more than I was ever paid working in LA).

In China, a clear and bright day (rare in Beijing) can quickly turn into a storm (Chinese proverb). Accountability usually flies out the window, with baby and all, and one is left wondering sometimes how the hell a country of 1.3 billion manages. There is ostensibly some order to the chaos, and I am slowly figuring it out (that is soon to come....). If you ever want to get a taste of the closest a developing country can get to chaos, come ride you bike in Beijing at 5pm on a Tuesday. I dare you. Only the brave who yearn for adrenaline rushes, madness and mayhem, would do it, oh, and the average Beijing citizen, be he a grandpa with his child on the back smiling at you or a seven year old girl coming home from school.

Speaking of bikes, you can buy one for 10 bucks, brand new. But have no fear, it will slowly give way. The spokes will get caught in the chain, your axle will snap, or you'll get hit by somebody who's half asleep or is particularly angry at foreigners that day because Koizumi visited the shrine again. Don't be surprised if your pedal, or both, fly off (probably into somebody elses spokes or chain) and you just let it go (that is, the pedal-the other guy is used to it) because they are 20 cents each. If you decide to take it up one notch, and go for, let's say a fifty dollar bike, well, it will be stolen. so don't even go there.

Nevertheless, it's a great exercise for your reflexes. And, it's crazy!

Mongolia and China, two polars

In Mongolia I thought the question "Mal cyrag targon tabtai you?" (Are your animals fattening well?) was just one keyhole into the door of the Mongolian culture. And indeed it was. Now that I am in Beijing amongst 20 million (versus the 2000 or so in Tariat--the village I volunteered in as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mongolia between 2002 and 2004) I am looking for a keyhole and have yet to find one. More to come on this...

inspiration

I was recently inspired to start this blog by a man who speaks and acts from the heart, whose admirable principles guide his words and actions, not vice versa. And does so to his heart's content....I can only hope to learn from his examples and pursue a life of sound, solid principles, fair actions, and perhaps most importantly of all, compassion that stems from being human with a heart and the faculty of reasoning.

So I dedicate this blog to pursuing the principled life...