Beautiful Ugliness: The Aesthetics of Jia Zhangke's Film _Still Life_

I just showed the movie Still Life (sanxia haoren) by Chinese director Jia Zhangke to my Dartmouth FSP students.  The viewing conditions were not ideal.  I suggest to anyone who wishes to view this film that they do so in as dark a room as possible.  The film itself is very dark, and so are the people.  I mean visually dark, but there is also a darkness to the subject matter and the characters.  Be warned, this is not a happy film.

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The Ullens Center and Chinese New Wave Art from the 1980s

Last night I attended the opening party for the new Ullens Center in the 798 Arts District in Beijing.  The Ullens Center takes up a large factory space across from the bookstore/cafe Timezone 8.  It has been nicely renovated and painted in white.  The center functions as a museum and knowledge center for Chinese arts, showcasing the Ullens collection. 

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All of Shanghai Under one Roof

One of the highlights of my week was seeing the play “Under a Shanghai Roof” 上海屋檐下, written by the famous playwright Xia Yan 夏衍 （1900－1995).  Xia Yan, ne Shen 沈乃熙， was born in the Zhejiang city of Hangzhou.  He took part in the May Fourth demonstrations in 1919 and traveled to Japan in 1920 to study, where like so many other young idealistic Chinese students, he was introduced to Marxist theory.  He joined the Guomindang in 1924 and after the “failed revolution” of 1927 he entered the Communist Party. 

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Battle of the Sexes: Shanghai Baby vs. Foreign Babes in Beijing

It recently came to my attention that Wei Hui's novel Shanghai Baby has been made into a film, starring Bai Ling as "Coco", the novel's protagonist.  Meanwhile, Rachel Dewoskin has turned her own non-fictional account of her stint as an actress in a 1990s popular Chinese TV series, Foreign Babes in Beijing into a film as well.  Interesting that both stories are being produced as films around the same time and that they both deal with female sexuality in China during the same era.  In one, Chinese women appear seductive, Western men are virile while Chinese men are weak.  In the other, Western women are attracted to virile, artsy Chinese men.  What a telling juxtaposition!  I'll get back to this theme at the end of this blog, but first, for those of you unfamiliar, here's a rundown of both stories.

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Public Manners in China and the Case of a Korean Blogger

Recently the Asiatimes published an article on a Korean journalist who wrote a rather unfriendly blog about the lack of public manners in China. The blog elicited a range of comments from other Koreans, many of whom felt that the blogger was being unduly racist towards his Chinese brethren. This is a discussion that most of us involved in the China field have been having for years and that will continually resurface. It always seems to come down to this: "the Chinese have private hospitality and personal warmth but lack public consciousness, while Westerners and Japanese have public consciousness but lack private hospitality and personal warmth."
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An Interview with Peter Hessler

Peter Hessler is a best-selling author and journalist. He has published two books of non-fiction on China, _River Town_ and _Oracle Bones_. He has also written feature articles on China for _the New Yorker_, _National Geographic_ and other magazines. Last November I met Peter in Beijing while he was researching an article on my friend David Spindler and his Great Wall project. This article was published in the May 21 2007 issue of _the New Yorker_ magazine. After meeting Peter, I was inspired to read his book _River Town_, which recounts his experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer and English teacher in Fuling in 1996-7. I found the book to be an honest, perceptive, and insightful account of what it's like to live in China as a foreigner.
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Final Remarks on the Usage and Abusage of "Laowai"

It appears that the H-ASIA thread on "laowai" may be finally drawing to a close (I may be speaking too soon--Ryan may still be holding a few posts in his mailbox).  As one of the editors of this list, and also as the person who inadvertently started this conversation by using the term in an unrelated discussion, I thought it might be a good idea to summarize the gist of the conversation we've had.  Basically, the discussion has revolved around the meaning and usage of the term "laowai" in China today.  

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On the True Meaning of Laowai

In my experience, the Mandarin word laowai, which literally means "old outsider," does not in fact mean foreigner in the strict sense.  A much more accurate translation for this term would be "Caucasian."  Japanese and Koreans are rarely if ever referred to in China as laowai, and neither are foreign-born Chinese.  Nor are people of African descent. 

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On Translations of Popular Chinese Literature

I recently read a novel, written by the Chinese author Zhang Henshui, called _The Shanghai Express_.  The original title in Chinese is pinghu tongche 平滬通車.  The plot is fairly sentimental, and for that matter, implausible.  I won't give away the story, but suffice it to say that a wealthy Beiping banker (Beiping was the name used for Beijing after Nanjing became the national capital in 1927) falls for a beautiful young southern woman while traveling on a train from Beiping to Shanghai.  What made this such a great read was the author'seye for detail. 

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Chinese Doublethink: The New Media Rules

According to a recent news item, as reported in the Asia Times, in preparation for the Olympic Games in 2008, the Chinese government has relaxed its grip on foreign reporters in China.  Time can only tell whether or not this will lead to freer reportage in practice.  It is one thing for the central government to issue such a proclamation, and another for officials on the local level to honor it. 

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Democracy in China?

Will China eventually become a democratic country?  How long would this take?  These are two questions often in the minds of Western journalists in China.  In a recent podcast interview with China Digital Times, New York Times journalist Howard French was asked what question he would most like to ask Hu Jintao if he was granted an interview.  He responded that he would ask him about China's democratic future. 

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