Tiger Leaping Gorge & The Chinese Tea Party

From Marcus:

Tiger Leaping Gorge, one of the deepest gorges in the world, near the mouth of the Yangtze River:
"The snow on the top of the glorious mountain gave the luster of mid-day to the objects below, when what to my wandering eyes should appear, but a miniature tiger and stuff."

Tea Party, tasting rare Pu'er tea in Kunming, some more than 20 years old!

"The taste of the tea was good, especially before a big meal. One tea tasted like freshly peeled oranges. I was invited to assist the people who were pouring tea and were making the tea. First you had to put tea leaves in a cup, and then you poured water in another cup, and then you poured it in the cup with the tea leaves. Then you strained it into a jar, and poured it into cups. And people were giving me all these gifts, like orange tea and pu'er tea, and a special basket of bamboo to store it in. When I grow up I'm going to become a master tea maker."

Marcus is now engrossed in a program on Chinese television on how to speak English, so I think this is all for now....

Critiques

My students have been writing critiques of plays and movies and, again, this has been a wonderful learning experience for me. Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that "The Truman Show" is popular here, at least for those who download it from tudou.com.
I've also learned about some new plays, such as “Madame Bovary is Me.” Here's an excerpt from a student review.

The drama, in 15 acts, shows the dilemmas women face in modern life, mixed with the original plot of the novel "Madame Bovary." On the modern side, audiences can easily recognize caricatures of popular stars from actors/actresses' exaggerated performances. The 15 acts are performed in the form of TV talk shows. On the classical side, paragraphs of Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" are recited by performers between scenes, which brings audiences back to 19th century France.

Why does it link modern life with "Madame Bovary"?

"Everyone is Madame Bovary," playwright Edward Lam said in an interview published on a website promoting the play. "It doesn't matter whether you have read the novel or not. You can find such kind of woman everywhere now and 150 years ago, who are always filling their happiness and love with endless fantasy."

Lam gives the fantasy a more definite meaning in the drama--desire. "One day in 2006, I saw, in a subway station, countless ads were luring woman to go shopping. Modern society is eroding women. They love beauty by nature, but not all can achieve it. Once they have immersed themselves into the created dreams, they keep thinking it can become their everyday life. Ads and the media suggest beauty is every woman's right, but all are based on money. I hope women can understand they can gain their identity by other methods."

Lam attracts audiences with the imitations of popular stars and TV shows. The parodies are hilarious. For example, female stars like Chiling Lam, Jolin Tsai, Faye Wong, and popular TV shows like "Kangxi has come" and "Everybody Speaks Nonsense" are represented in this drama. Lam uses well-known figures and stories to represent the possible styles of a modern Madame Bovary.

Lam insists that modern media have a great influence on women. TV programs focus on female audiences. They cover everything women are concerned with, such as hairdressing, cuisine, housework, and stories about stars. Women have gradually relied more and more on the media. And the media, hand in hand with advertising, erode women’s values by creating a beautiful dream. In contrast, Lam has created absurd scenarios, where stars have common people's desire, weaknesses and sorrows. It serves as a mirror, from which women can recognize their common dilemmas beneath the shining surface produced by the media.

To some extent, dilemmas shown in "Madame Bovary is Me" are not just for women. Several female characters are acted by men.. It may hint that men and women are facing similar puzzles. Since all of us are living in a society full of temptation, the question "Am I lost in desire?" is not just for women.


Below is part of a critique of a film titled "The Equation of Love and Death":

"We are not attractive and no one cares about us,", said Lee Mi at the end of the film. Both Fang Wen and she are abandoned by the mainstream of the society, and their love is suspended under great pressure from their parents. Actually, the narrative perspective of the characters in the film demonstrates the fate of the poor and underprivileged in this changing society. Their anxiety about their status, their dreams and struggle to win social recognition and their pursuit of true love are all discouraged by cruel reality. In short, they can not control themselves and nobody cares about them, so they can only care about themselves, rescue themselves, or even exile themselves.
I think Lee Mi and Fang Wen’s story is a tragedy. On the one hand, the tragedy reflects the suffering of disillusioned people; on the other hand, the tragedy makes us respect their hopes. This movie warns us that there are some marginal groups whose upper mobility is cut off in our society.

And here's an excerpt from a critique of "XIAOWU":

Finally, it is the real relationship between people displayed through XiaoWu in the Fenyang town that shocked us most.
The silence and embarrassment when XiaoWu gave the gift to Xiaoyong, the secret war between XiaoWu and HuMeiMei on the street, his father’s request for XiaoWu to donate five thousand yuan to finance the marriage of the second brother, and the home warmth between senior police and XiaoWu. These never appeared in other Chinese films, but they are so real and met with what we see in real life. They always occur in many corners of society, and they are deep- rooted in social life, rooted in our social ways and habits. Once they were put on screen, we got unprecedented shock and experience.
Now, people are accustomed to classify JiaZhangke as one of the sixth generation directors born in the 90s such as ZhangXiaoshuai andJiangWen. Their style is different from the fifth generation, such as ZhangYimou and ChenKaige. The fifth generation directors put the ethnic customs and the imagery of ancient China into the international film word, with a nation-state knot(???).
The Sixth-generation directors follow traditional realism, but make a new interpretation of realism at the same time: they demonstrate the political enthusiasm in the producing; they pay attention to the theme of urban young people's political beliefs, ideals and the suspicion of so-called ultimate concern, the dissatisfaction and confusion in the future; the leading actors of films are often marginal in our lives.
The new generation directors describe young people’s lives with distinct personal insight and experience. They choose the flowing live tide(??) to reflect the main situation of the society, and strong youth soliloquy and personal tensile force(???) can be seen in the film.
XIAOWU is Jia’s classical work. It is full of reminiscence. It tells the story about common people’s lives and their emotion. It appropriately illuminates the style of the new generation in their early days.. So XIAOWU is the magnum opus of the sixth generation’s works.

In Tianjin (buying chop); Longmen Buddhas;Shaolin(rubbing Buddha, headache cure, turtle ride); with Prof Xu in Kaifeng; countryside; Great Wall

Road Trip

Jews first came to China from Persia as early as the 8th century via the Silk Road. Some of them settled in what was then the Chinese capital, Kaifeng. They brought a Torah with them, built a synagogue and followed Jewish law, including keeping kosher. They were treated well by the Chinese and the local Muslim community. Marco Polo met some of them in Beijing in the 13th century and Jesuit missionaries visited them in later centuries. A series of floods from the Yellow River repeatedly leveled the synagogue, which was last rebuilt in the 17th century. After a few more generations, the Kaifeng Jews, like the Mongols and Manchus and other foreign peoples who had come to China, were almost totally assimilated.
Western scholars have long been fascinated by this small community, which never numbered more than 2000 people. It also has been studied by some Chinese scholars, most notably by Xu Xin here at Nanjing University. Prof Xu originally taught American literature when he became fascinated by Jewish writers like Saul Bellow and Phillip Roth. He founded the Judaic Studies Center here and has written two books about Kaifeng Jews. He now runs one of the most successful programs at the University and has raised $15 million from foreign donors so that he can send his students to Israel to study Hebrew, hire visiting lecturers and attract hundreds of undergraduates and dozens of graduate students to his courses.
I have known about Xin's work for years and got in touch with him as soon as I learned I would be teaching at Nanda. Marcus's Hebrew tutor and my Chinese tutor are both graduate students in his program. I lectured in one of his classes some weeks ago and we began talking about making a trip to Kaifeng. Xin arranged an invitation for me to speak at the Judaic Studies program at Henan University in Kaifeng. Xin was kind enough to come with Marcus, Irene and me on the trip.
We took a fast evening train from Nanjing and arrived in Kaifeng in less than five hours. Our hotel had overbooked so they upgraded us to their "VIP" suite, a huge room with a jacuzzi in the middle. After breakfast, Xin took us to a Kaifeng theme park. The city is relatively small for China and doesn't have much industry, so it's trying to attract tourists. The Milennium City Park has pavilions, rivers and squares where performers act out battles, acrobatics and arts and crafts. My favorite was the fire eater. At one point, he drank a bowl of maotai (strong Chinese liquor) then spit it up in the air at a burning stick, shooting flames high in the air.
But the real reason Xin took us there was to see a small two-story house in the park that told the story of the Kaifeng Jews. He had helped put together the exhibits based on his research. It included copies of their Hebrew writing that showed evidence it had been transcribed from spoken words rather than from another text (the "lameds," l's, had been written as "raishes," r's), a copy of the steles that told some of the history of the community, a small model of the synagogue complex, and sketches of some members of the community. Later that day, we visited the site of the former synagogue, which is now a hospital. Xin also took us to visit the family of Guo Yan, who still identify themselves as Kaifeng Jews. The family doesn't follow any Jewish practices but, with Xin's help, greets occasional Jewish guests from around the world in their small home in a narrow hutong. Xin got government approval to put up street signs identifying their street as "Teaching the Torah Lane. Guo's family has some pictures and art work in their home and sells paper cuts, including one based on the design of the synagogue. They also have a website.
That evening, I spoke to about 100 students and faculty at the university. My topic as "Who is a Jew?" and I discussed how difficult it is to answer the question since Jews have adapted and changed their traditions, languages, beliefs and practices in different societies over thousands of years. The students seemed knowledgeable and asked good questions, including one I always dread answering. Why did Hitler and the Nazis hate the Jews and murder them? I answered with a question. We all know that the Chinese people have a rich history and culture and are a wonderful people, I said. What would you say if I asked you why people hate the Chinese?
We enjoyed our VIP suite for another night and then headed off to visit the legendary Shaolin Temple. Marcus and I are off on another road trip today to Tianjin--I'm lecturing on journalists in American film at Nankai University. Irene will pick up the story of Shaolin and the Longmen caves when we return. She's got her final in advanced acupuncture and moxibustion this week so she's staying in Nanjing.

Land Reform

OK, I'm on a roll here. One of my students did an extra story about one of the central issues in China today, land reform. Here's part of her story:

--, an apprentice in a barbershop on Guangzhou Lu, had to leave his family five years ago. His home is in Shihu village of Chaohu county, Anhui province. His two little brothers are still living there now.
When I asked him why he left his family, he shook his head and kept silent for a while.“ Money!My family needs money !”he said.“When I graduated from high school, I went to Nanjing to look for a job. I wanted to study in university but my family didn’t have enough money for it because my two little brothers also needed money to pay tuition. As the eldest son, I felt that I must help my parents lightening the heavy burden on them.”
--- said his parents were farmers and once had more than ten mus of farmland. They mainly planted wheat, paddy rice and some other vegetables. His parents could only earn four hundred yuan every month by cultivating the land when --- was in middle school. The money didn’t cover their monthly expenses,so they had to borrow money from others and then fell deep into in debt.They wanted to sell the usage rights of their land but this was prohibited by the law.
One day two village officials came to his home and said that the local government needed to expropriate their farmland to build industrial parks and would compensate them for the loss with three thousand per mu.
“We dared not refuse and that was a large sum of money indeed," --- said. "We could use the money to pay the debts. So we transferred our farmland to the government. Later we learned that the government sold the land to some developers for ten thousand per mu."
__ and his parents left home and became migrant workers.
“Now I earn eight hundred yuan every month and the barbershop is my home in Nanjing. There are also several boys and girls like me in the shop. We work in the daytime and sleep on the sofa at night. We lack social security and face prejudice from others.”
I asked him what his family would do if the country returned their land and they had private ownership.“Sell our land at a higher price and become residents of the city,” he said.

On October 19, the Communist Party Central Committee issued a policy document as a guideline to further rural reform and development. Many experts and scholars believe that farm ownership will change soon and farmers will be allowed to mortgage and sell their farmland. But those changes don’t actually appear in the new Party document.
“At present, China's rural land reform has its bottom line,”said ---, a sociology professor at Nanjing University.

In ---’s view, rural land reform should be a long-term process. Permanent land use rights are equivalent to private ownership and that can’t be achieved in the current conditions, --- said.
“The breakthrough in the reform of land property rights depends on the level of economic development and the development of democratic politics,” he said. According to domestic law, farmland is collectively owned, but meted out to farmers in small plots by leasing contracts.
“Collectively owned” is a vague concept. In fact, the country is the true owner of the land. The local governments usually use the rights to buy the farmland back from farmers at a very low price in the name of “the collective” and sell the land at a higher price to a land agent. This expropriated land has become the government's main source of revenue. If farmers become true masters of the land, the government will lose a major source of income.
And if farm ownership becomes private,more and more farmers will give up their land by mortgaging or selling it and then move into the cities. That will bring more pressure on the already overcrowded cities. If the farmland is sold to developers, this also might further threaten the country's food safety and significantly reduce food production.

The new Party policy, --- said "will break the monopolizing right of government purchasing land... Simply speaking, farmers will not have to sell farmland usage rights to local governments at an unfair price but can sell them to users directly at a reasonable price.”
But this change, he said, is not "land reform" in the strict sense. The government has just adopted some more liberal policies. The current system will be kept stable and unchanged for a long time.
“In addition, ideology is a big problem,” ____said.“Allowing farmers to become true masters of the land means private ownership. In essence, it is contrary to the socialist public ownership and may be seen as the collapse of socialism.”
“How to make farmers have their own land and houses and benefit from land value-added gains is not only an economic issue," he said. "It must be seen as the fundamental rights of farmers as citizens. If this problem cannot be solved, it is impossible to solve the other problems in Chinese rural land reform.”

Milk Scandal

I don't think many of my grad students here will become journalists--most are worried about supporting their parents and (surprise) journalists aren't well paid--but they are doing some terrific stories. I've got them working in teams to investigate different angles on the milk scandal.
So many things come together here: rapid economic growth, corruption, limited government regulation, the plight of the peasants, health care and the lack of a social safety net.

Here's part of one story:

The milk industry in China has grown dramatically in the past ten years. That rapid growth has involved high risks, a ----- professor at Nanjing University says, and those risks can be linked to the Sanlu milk scandal,
Professor ---- recollected the history of the milk industry from 1998- to 2007 and defined it as “The Great Leap Forward” of China’s milk industry”. Sanlu led the way in aggressively producing and marketing its milk. But high speed also means high risk, --- says.
“Melamine is the result of unceasing experiments by people to produce fake milk,” --- says.
Sanlu doesn’t have any farms or cows. They just collect original milk from milk stations or milk peasants. Seventy percent of the profit goes to Sanlu and 20 percent to the milk stations, leaving only 10 percent for the peasants. If the peasants or milk stations want to increase their profit margins, they add water and chemicals to the milk, --- says.
In addition, the demand for milk continues to exceed the supply. --- suggests that inbreeding among cows may have reduced their productivity.

From a story about advertising:

Most parents today believe formula milk products provides all the minerals needed for babies’ wisdom and robustness and it must be better than breast milk. People get this opinion from the heavy advertisements on television or in newspapers that are repeated over and over again.For example, one TV advertisement of Sanlu infant formula says:“It’s mothers’ achievement to have greater children. Our products make babies smarter, healthier, greater.” Another one uses such words:“The choice of thousands mothers. Let wisdom create future.”The scene on TV shows lovely little babies playing with toys with English letters happily and as their mothers watch joyfully.
As most Chinese have only one child today, the whole family usually does whatever they can to make their baby stronger and smarter. The only thing they’re afraid of is if their baby falls behind others. As long as a product can help, they will not care about the price.
“Those advertisements touch young parents easily,” Dr--says. She a little helpless. But she says that, in fact, no infant formula contains the perfect combination of proteins, carbohydrates and fats to enhance brain development as well as breast milk does.
Dr --- says that a rule approved in 1995 prohibits companies which produce infant milk powder from advertising their products or promoting them on the packaging, banning any images of babies and requiring a statement that promotes breast feeding.Most companies ignore this rule, she says, and no government department has taken action.

Another group of students wrote a moving account of a peasant family which brought their sick baby to Nanjing Children's Hospital for treatment after their local hospital failed to remove the kidney stones. The baby is recovering now and the government is paying for his care, but they haven't been reimbursed for the 10,000 yuan they paid the local hospital or the loss of income when they had to leave their farm for two months.

And the legal system hasn't come up with a solution yet since courts have been dismissing individual lawsuits and not permitting class action suits.

He's so handsome

I watched the election results this morning at the John Hopkins Center for Chinese and American Studies. As the early voting was being announced on CNN on a screen behind me, I commented briefly on how new media and technology changed the way this campaign was covered. Then a Chinese student spoke. She (like so many Chinese I've talked with) said it won't make much difference who wins but she likes Obama because he's so handsome. Then, as the result became clearer, a Chinese professor lauded Obama for making history. "Perhaps 20 years from now," he said, "we can have an election like this in China."
****
Random observations on the street:
--a stylish young woman in a black leather jacket, gray wool pants and heels strolls down Guangzhou Lu (the street just outside where we live on campus) past the Adidas store chatting on her cell phone in her left hand. In her right hand, she holds a large handbag, a small shopping bag and a very large chicken.
--Marcus got new winter slacks for school but without cuffs. Nina set out Sunday to find a tailor shop but came upon a chainsmoking grandma with a sewing machine who worked in a small shop next to the student cafeteria. Nina called a Chinese friend who passed on her instructions to grandma. She sewed cuffs for three pair of pants in less than an hour for 12 yuan, about $1.50.
--Nina reports there's a fascinating shell game on the sidewalk outside. Passersby keep betting and keep losing as the young man hides a coin inside a teacup and somehow makes it disappear
******
I've done a few more guest lectures at other universities in town as well as to Judaic Studies classes here. Also showing some films ("Shattered Glass" to journalism students, "To Be or Not to Be" (1942) at Judaic Studies). Marcus continues to set new records with his Playstation Portable and we find time for the golf driving range, badminton and ping pong. He's also making amazing progress on his Torah portion with his Israeli tutor. My Chinese is getting better and Nina is now taking a qi gong class as well as working in the clinic every morning and taking traditional Chinese medicine classes every afternoon.
Next week, the director of Judaic Studies is taking us to Kaifeng, the ancient capital (and, many centuries ago, the site of a large Jewish community) where I'll give a lecture. Then we'll tour Kaifeng and also travel to Luoyang (historic caves and Buddhist rock carvings) and Shaolin Temple, the birthplace of kungfu.
Time to go pick up the boy and tell him about the election results.