The Paris Commune Revisited

A French journalist Amanda Morrow, after reading my essay "The Wall of the Paris Commune" (Divide, 2005), interviewed me on the phone last week.  Her article "Truth buried as Paris cemetery sculpture is mistook for famous wall" appeared on the website of Radio France International's English section today. I learned something new about the history of the Paris Commune through her writing.

As a side note, in the part she quoted me, there is a tiny misunderstanding (this is not a big deal; it's just my writer's fussy nature that drives me to make a correction).  When I visited Paris in 2004, the official map of the Père Lachaise I bought at the cemetery gate did not have two points referencing the Commune. It mentioned only one.  In fact, it was the map seller who told me that Chinese visitors had been seeing two different spots.  

In the interview I also told Morrow that I liked the relief sculpture titled "Victimes des Révoluntions" very much. It is a beautiful sculpture with the beautiful concept that it is devoted to all victims of revolutions, regardless of the side they took.

Victimes des Révolunt (photo by me, 2004)

UK Wants a "Cultural Revolution Just Like the One They've Had in China"

Just saw this from Shanghaiist: UK Education Secretary Michael Gove: Time for a "cultural revolution just like the one they’ve had in China".

I can't quite describe my feeling.  Words fail me at a moment like this.  So let me just point out one eerie thing:   Mr. Gove appears to be very well suited for the role of "Cultural Revolution" education secretary.  During that wondrous period, you know, uneducated people took over the leadership of China's educational system.  Universities were closed to the public for 10 years.  High schools closed for 6 years. Elementary and middle schools closed for 3 years. Not to mention libraries were sealed and books were burned. I can see why Mr. Gove thinks this was definitely the cause of China's academic success today.

Great. Let’s watch the UK have at it!

What Do You Know about Edinburgh?

I'll be heading to Edinburgh for a writing conference titled "China Inside Out." (I know, the resemblance between the conference's title and my blog's is curious, but I believe this is just a coincidence, with a slight possibility that they copied me. :))

The Chinese name for Edinburgh, 爱丁堡, always rouses the picture of an ancient castle, European style.  I've never been in Edinburgh before and I'm excited for this opportunity, not the least because "in October 2004 Edinburgh became the very first UNESCO City of Literature."

The conference, held in the University of Edinburgh from March 11-13, is "a celebration of Chinese Women Writers in English." Participants include:

• Writer and academic: Professor Shu-mei Shih, Dr Judith Misrahi Barack, Dr Margaret Hillenbrand
• Poet and fiction writer: Wang Ping
• Fiction writers: Xujun Eberlein, Liu Hong, Chiew-Siah Tei,
• Critics: Professor LuMing Mao. Dr Amy Lai
• Scottish writers: Lesley Glaister, Dilys Rose, A C Clarke, Dr Bashabi Fraser
• Convenor of the Women's Committee of Scottish PEN: Faith Pullin
• President of Scottish PEN and writer: Jenni Calder 

Food to Die For

In the March 1^st issue of the New Yorker, the most fun piece to read is "Where's Chang?" by Calvin Trillin. Despite being a big eater of Szechuan (Sichuan) cuisine, I'd never heard of Peter Chang before, but I’ve converted to a "Changian" afterwards. :-) I also didn't know a restaurant critic's writing could be as delicious as the food –  just read Todd Kliman's description of Chang's Roast Fish:

…really, a heaping plate of expertly fried fish, dusted with cumin, topped off with chopped ginger, fried parsley and diced chilies and served in a thatched bamboo pouch.

And John Binkley's comment on an off-the-menu special provided by Chang:

…crispy eggplant cut like French fries and salt-fried with scallion greens, a hint of cumin, and hot pepper. To die for!

Why not.  From now on I'll be searching for Peter Chang whenever I travel.

Calvin Trillin is such a poised essayist, who is capable of turning a food piece into a thriller. This essay about Peter Chang is structured like a detective story, following each clue from Chang's frequent disappearances and his loyal followers' persistent efforts at tracking him down.  

Those eaters' faithful following of Chang's authentic cooking seems to indicate an increasingly more sophisticated taste for Chinese food among Americans. As a Sichuanese living in New England, one thing I hate the most is the pervasive existence of take-out places that produce Americanized, fake Sichuan food. Whenever I hear an American praising that kind of food I immediately get a toothache. Worse, the majority of Sichuan chefs fall into the awful demand trap and cater to American’s taste expectations; as a consequence it has become very hard to find great Sichuan cuisine in the Boston area.

Fortunately, as I mentioned in a previous post, an excellent newcomer in the Framingham area is Red Pepper, whose chef is a down-to-earth Chongqing man nick-named Old Black, who really knows how to cook. He doesn't use cumin often, as cumin was not commonly used in traditional Sichuan dishes, but Red Pepper does offer a dish named "Cumin Flavored Beef with Chili Sauce," which sounds like a variation of something that might be on Peter Chang's menu. It tastes great.

Even Red Pepper sometimes caters to American tastes. When we lived in Sichuan, one dish Bob and I loved was Dan-Dan Noodles. Naturally that was the first thing we ordered from Red Pepper. The noodles tasted not bad, but were unlike their Chongqing namesake, without even the signature ingredient of sesame butter. The manager told us "Americans don't like real Dan-Dan Noodles," so they modified it.  Thankfully, under our persistence, they’ve added back the sesame.

On a related note, if you are interested in international recipes, it might be worth checking out Matthew Lubin's blog The Laowai Kitchen, written in both English and Chinese.

Where and What to Eat for Chinese New Year

Today is the lunar New Year's Eve and tomorrow starts the year of the Tiger. It is the Chinese tradition to have a great feast today (and for three contiguous days) to celebrate. If you are in the great Boston area, I recommend two restaurants that are the best for Sichuan cuisine:

• Red Pepper (重庆食府), (508) 620-9998, 17 Edgell Road, Framingham, MA (off Rt. 9)
• Chili Garden (川王府), (781) 396-8488, 41 Riverside Ave, Medford, MA

We are going with a bunch of friends to one of them. Can't wait!

One of the must-have traditional New Year dishes is smoked pork (腊肉). The restaurants above smoke the pork themselves to make this wonderful dish and it tastes great. Also, when you go to any Chinese restaurant, don't forget to ask if they have sweet-rice balls (汤圆), a must-have dessert to celebrate the New Year. Not every Chinese restaurant offers it, but good ones should.

 

smoked pork 

sweet-rice balls in rice-wine

四川凉粉 (Sichuan's cold rice noodles)

By the way, my old townsfolk in Chongqing believe a Tiger Year will be severe. I don't think the young generation would buy that. Apparently the older generations have a more pessimistic world view.

Among all the Tiger Years I have lived through, the one that stands out is 1974.  In January that year I finished high school, without any graduation ceremony. In May I was sent down to the countryside as an "insert," and labored in the fields with peasants for nearly four years, until universities re-started in spring 1978.  Life was really harsh in the countryside. But unlike many of my peers, I don't resent that time. I treasure that experience; it opened my eyes to the reality of how people at the bottom of society lived. One of the stories in my book Apologies Forthcoming, "Disciple of the Masses," has parts based on my own experience. Check it out.

Happy New Year everyone!

Hot Peppers for Thanksgiving

Monday night Bob and I had dinner with Jonathan Tel, author of The Beijing of Possibilities, in a Chinese restaurant named Chili Garden (川王府). This is one of the few truly authentic sources of Sichuan cuisine in the Boston area. (Numerous Chinese restaurants here advertise themselves as Sichuan, but provide only dishes catered to American eaters who don't know what they are getting.)  Another authentic Sichuan cuisine is Red Pepper (重庆食府) on Rt. 9, which we go to most frequently, because it has a great Chongqing chef and is closer to us.  Chili Garden and Red Pepper have different specialties and varieties; the dishes in both restaurants are mouth-watering. Not surprisingly, many of their dishes are cooked with hot peppers as the dominant spice. Try them for Thanksgiving if you want to go for something non-traditional.

  A Chengdu restaurant prepares hot peppers for lunch (photo by Xujun)

I had thought I was pretty knowledgeable about Sichuan's, especially Chongqing's, history. So much for my conceit.  One thing Jonathan mentioned during dinner surprised me: he said all chili peppers came from South America, and the Chinese history of eating chili peppers is only about three to four hundred years old.

I was suspicious; in my mind we Sichuanese had been eating hot peppers since time immemorial. Digging further after returning home, however, I had to admit Jonathan was right. Apparently, chili peppers migrated into China at the end of the 16^th century, and the first written record of them was found in Ming Dynasty's '草花谱' ("grass and flower album"). They were called 番椒 ("fan jiao," meaning "foreign pepper") at the time. In Sichuan we call hot peppers 海椒 ("hai jiao"), which makes perfect sense to me now because 'hai' in this context means "overseas."

It seems only appropriate to have a post about food today. Tomorrow, for our vegetarian daughter's sake we are going to have a turkey-free Thanksgiving dinner. While Bob is going to cook all those traditional veggy dishes such as cranberries, sweet potatoes and beans, I will cook a Tofu dish spiced with chili pepper. Not your traditional Thanksgiving dish, but neither the turkey nor the chili pepper tradition has been going that long after all. The White House's hypocritical tradition of pardoning one turkey (and eating another) is even shorter. Anyhow, Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

"The Beefiest" (最牛) and "It Sucks"

Yesterday, Damjan of the Asia Healthcare Blog had an interesting comment on my post "The Beefiest Translation." He asked, "[H]ave you explored the possibility that this vulgar expression has been coopted into a more socially acceptable form due to its popularity with Chinese youth?"

The Beefiest Tug-of-War, with100,000 Participants 
(最牛的拔河 from bbs.huanqiu.com)

It made me wonder. Are there similar examples in English, of expressions that were once considered vulgar but have come into mainstream use in the same or a slightly modified form and divorced from their past vulgarity? I asked Bob the question, which seemed to fascinate him. He was pretty sure that accepted vulgarisms existed in English, but couldn't come up an example right away.

Bob then asked a good friend whose college major was English. The friend passed the question to his librarian wife. The knowledgeable librarian mentioned the word "sucks", which used to be prohibited in polite company but is a common word today (as in "This book sucks").

The friend inspired me to dig around the internet a bit further and I found a Slate article titled "Suck It Up – A defense of the much-maligned word" by Seth Stevenson. It is so curious that all the reasons the author listed in defending the word "sucks" can be applied to the case of '最牛'.  Stevenson's defense begins with the following:

Sucks is here to stay. And what's more, it deserves its place in our lexicon, for a couple of reasons. First, it's impossible to intelligently maintain that sucks is still offensive. The word is now completely divorced from any past reference it may have made to a certain sex act. When I tell you that the new M. Night Shyamalan movie sucks (and man, does it suck), my mind in no way conjures up an image of a film reel somehow fellating an unnamed beneficiary.

The similarity between the two cases in two different languages is striking. Even the way each expression's past reference to vulgarity is alike, as well as the ways in which their current usages are divorced from that past. The most notable disparity might be that "sucks" is used only with negative connotations, while '最牛' can be used either negatively or positively, with a slant toward the latter.

The librarian friend also mentioned a big change in young adult literature over the past five years: it has gone from being very straight laced to being much more explicit in language and in situations. This is equally interesting. Does this mean a cultural trend toward more tolerance for vulgarity, or more indulgence of our youngsters, than ever?

Whatever it means, how an expression becomes socially acceptable is independent of one's will. In the case of '最牛', because it has already been broadly used in China, I'm more interested in finding a better translation for it. So far, based on the discussion stemmed from my previous post, we have a few good candidates:

"the niuest" (h/t Matthew)

"the ballsy-est" (h/t Mouseneb and Anonymous)

"the beefiest"

But again, which translation will be most accepted is beyond our will. We can only propose and see. For now, I'll probably continue to use "the beefiest."

By the way, I asked my sister Maple, who lives in Shanghai, to help me find the origin of '牛逼' (niu bi), and she sent me this link http://iask.sina.com.cn/b/7421922.html.  For those of you who know Chinese, have fun reading.

Another Reader's Vertigo

Note: In response to the post "The Vertigo of Foreign-born Chinese," reader aliaeb left the following thought-provoking comment. I'm posting it in its own right because cultural identity is such an important issue, across cultures and worth further discussion. – Xujun

-------------------------

aliaeb said...

By now, this is an old discussion, but I've only just gotten to it. American politics and post-colonial orientalism set aside (these are topics I might not be very good at discussing), I find the issue of cultural/national identity an utterly confounding, endlessly engaging one. As the inconclusive questions posed at the end of Drifting Leaf's letter imply, there is no answer to the "who am I" of a migrating world citizen born of immigrants. Consider, for one, the excellent and inconclusive novels written by so many Chinese authors who now live abroad or in exile in Paris, Berlin, London and the United States (高行健,趙振開,馬建,哈金). These authors all explore issues of cultural identity, memory and loss, but none say anything affirmative with regard to these issues. I myself am an American with a very mixed European background (which is very typical, right?). I think I've failed, however, at fully identifying with any one cultural heritage, including that of American nationalism. I have studied Chinese language, history and culture for a quarter of my life now, and live abroad in Taiwan with no definite plans to return home. Additionally, my partner is from Hong Kong, and I feel very strongly inclined to start speaking Cantonese in addition to Mandarin. I worry, though, about who I will become. My partner doesn't celebrate any holidays, and I worry about my future children being bereft of either a Christmas or a Chinese New Year. If they are born in Hong Kong, will they be Chinese? Will I be called an expatriate or an immigrant? Are our Children destined to be even more confused than we are with regard to their identities? These are important questions to ask, as world citizens are growing ever more mobile, and our understandings of ourselves ever more complex. I apologize for leaving such a long comment so late in the game, but these are questions I ask myself every single day, and it was a relief and a strange satisfaction to read such a thoughtful letter by someone dealing with the same confusion.

Cultural Identity: Perspective from a Malaysian Chinese

Note: Chiew-Siah Tei, the author of Little Hut of Leaping Fishes, is a Malaysian Chinese living in Scotland. We met and became friends during Hong Kong's Literary Festival in March. The following is her response to Drifting Leaf's letter regarding the issue of cultural identity, see yesterday's post "The Vertigo of Foreign-born Chinese." Comments are welcome. (And thank you, Chiew-Siah!) – Xujun

Dear Xujun,

I read your Singaporean reader's letter with much thoughts. Confusion of one's identity is a common issue among persons who live outside their cultural roots, be they Chinese, South Asians, Africans and the like, especially for those who are not first-generations. History has determined our fates. It is impossible to go back in time and amend, but there's time to understand, and with that to accept the unchangeable facts. By acceptance, I don't mean we should defy our cultural roots, but recognise and inherit the culture, while at the same time, acknowledge the country we were born and grew up in to be our homes.

As a fourth-generation Chinese from Malaysia, I can understand how she (I'm under the impression that that's a lady) feels. I myself was once confused, too. After all these years, I've come to realise that, over my adolescent years, I had never doubted my identity as a Malaysian and Chinese, and that I was part of the multi-cultural society, and Malaysia was my home. Here in Malaysia we have a unique Malaysian Chinese culture, which I embrace. Some might say the language, the cultural practices, the food, etc, are no longer authentic, but then, this is the authentic Malaysian Chinese culture! My confusion, however, came later during my university years and after entering society, when I became aware of the racial inequalities, and even became a victim of the unjust policies. It's the politics and the politicians that have confused us, not the country or the culture, and that is part of the reasons of your reader's confusion, as she mentioned of her disappointment at the Singaporean leader.

Today, here in Scotland, I can loudly declare that I am Malaysian; there's no doubt about it. I follow news from home and am closely in touch with friends in Malaysia who are fighting against political and social injustice, giving them support as much as I can, as well as trying to do my part through my writing. This way, I don't feel detached from the country - I would if I were to moan and completely alienate myself from it. I see Scotland is the place I work in, where I can acquire certain degree of freedom, which I will be never be able to enjoy in my own country.

Your reader has no reason not to be proud of the cultural displays at the opening of the Beijing Olympics - in fact I was in tears watching the ceremony. I, like her, a Chinese, recognise our root culture that was once, and still is, a splendour.

My thoughts might be quite different from most people, but I think after all these years, I have grown to see things more clearer. I hope your reader will be clear of her doubts. Accept and understand, these are the two things I wish to stress. In fact, writing my first book has helped me to understand the history and learned to accept it.

Regards,
Chiew-Siah

The Vertigo of Foreign-born Chinese

Note: Yesterday I received a letter from a Singapore reader, who raised an important question about the sense of cultural identity for foreign-born Chinese. Her description of Singapore also surprised me a bit. I'm posting the letter below with permission. Whether you've had similar experiences (as a foreign-born member of some culture) or not, please feel free to chip in for a discussion. We'd love to hear your take on the issue. – Xujun

------------------------------------

Hello, Ms. Eberlein,

I read the post about “China’s image abroad, a preschooler’s perspective” and was shocked by it. However, I am not sure if I should be concerned by China’s image abroad or not. I have very mixed and contradictory feelings about the country.

When I am overseas I am sometimes mistaken for a Chinese national but I am actually Singaporean Chinese. My family migrated to Singapore sometime in the earlier half of the 20^th century during one of the most turbulent periods of China’s history. I believe that my grandparents probably thought of themselves as Chinese, not Singaporeans but later developments in the mainland made it impossible to return. My parents and I are born in Singapore. Unlike the rest of my family, I have never been to China.

Reading your entries, I feel that you still care very much about your homeland though you are an American citizen. May I know how you see yourself? For overseas Chinese whose family did not undergo the Communist period and is unfamiliar with life under the CCP, mainland China is quite incomprehensible. Singapore is not a Chinese country but it does have a 华人社会 of its own because over 75% of the population is of Chinese descent. However, with the influence of British colonialism and other local cultures, the local Chinese culture has evolved quite differently from say, Hong Kong which is 90+% Chinese. We use English in our daily lives, are very westernized and are quite weak in our command of Chinese. Most of us are from Southern China and speak southern dialects at home (my parents cannot understand each other because they speak different dialects so they speak mostly putonghua).

The government has banned all Chinese regional languages in the mass media in the hope of encouraging us to speak putonghua for business purposes. Since there was a lot of regional rivalry between different groups of Chinese in the past, this does have an effect of uniting the local Chinese community but I feel we are slowly losing our identities.

When I was growing up in 80s Singapore, the country was becoming a first world country and there was a sense of optimism and hope in the air. I literally witnessed tall buildings going up and I feel that there was a real sense of togetherness in those days amongst all Singaporeans. Since we were a brand new nation with a heterogeneous population composed of immigrants, the government tried very hard in schools to instill a sense of national identity. I believe that a Singaporean identity would have coalesced naturally but as I grew older, I realize that government policies have consistently led to its erosion.

I feel totally alienated from Singapore nowadays and so do many Singaporeans. As you may know, Singapore has a one-party rule system. As an ordinary Singaporean, I have no say in the way Singapore is run. The wealth gap is growing, we have no labor laws that protect employees and no social safety net. The people who run this country are paid high salaries but the economy is going down the drain. As a result stress levels are ever-increasing and growing numbers of Singaporeans are migrating. Singapore society is becoming increasingly more fragmented and true Singaporean culture is allowed no room to grow.

As such, I’m considering migrating overseas.

If I do succeed in becoming say, a New Zealand citizen, what should I call myself? A Singaporean New Zealander, Chinese New Zealander or just plain New Zealander??? Although I have never been to China, I’m quite attached to Chinese culture/customs (I can read/write Mandarin though not very well) but China itself will be quite alien to me if I go there. I can see myself going there to visit my ancestral hometowns or for travel but not actually working/living there. So my links to my ancestral land are quite problematic yet I am unwilling to let go of my Chinese identity totally for nostalgic reasons because I was brought up celebrating Chinese festivals and customs and they are a part of me. When I see old CCTV/HK/Taiwan TV programs, it brings me back to my childhood. I’m not sure how far I should identify with or support China though. I love classical Chinese culture but the present China/government has quite a negative image.

So what am I? Someone totally adrift without any homeland, roots or culture? If I do go to a new country as an adult, I think I am too old to ever assimilate totally. Especially since I am a visible minority who looks Chinese.

Sorry for such a long letter but I liked your blog entries and can see that you are a thoughtful and intelligent person and wanted to hear your opinion about foreign-born Chinese. I am too embarrassed to discuss this with my best friend though she is aware that I hope to migrate. I have talked to many foreign-born Chinese from all over the world and a lot of us are quite confused about our identities. When we watched the 2008 Olympics, we were uncertain whether we should feel proud of China or not because we are foreign citizens and am not sure if we can lay claim to Chineseness. I believe you still love China despite all its political problems.

Drifting leaf

------------------------------------

Postscript: After reading the letter, I asked about Singapore's political censorship. Drifting Leaf answered:

"In Singapore, there are 3 big taboos: race, religion and politics that no one dares to talk about.

"The internet in Singapore is also censored somewhat but not as comprehensively and severely as in China.

"Local political humor site. The website is run by a Singaporean couple who migrated to New York.

http://www.talkingcock.com/html/index.php

"Singapore has gotten into rows with China a couple of times by the way. Once, it was over our unofficial diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Plus, we are too close to the US.

http://asianfanatics.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=40996&mode=linear

http://www.talkingcock.com/html/article.php?sid=1536 "

Comments from Behind the Great Firewall

[I'm still in China. Today I received the following note through the Contact page. Because the Great Firewall prohibited me from viewing or commenting but not posting on my own blog, I'm making a special post for those comments. Discussions are welcome. -- Xujun]

Comments from hsknotes:

I'm in the mainland so I can only access your site through secure-tunnel. (If you know of a better alternative that would allow me to post comments directly in response to post, that would be much appreciated.)

Anyway, here are a few comments I wanted to leave, but couldn't. By the way, I'm an American who is currently living in Beijing working as a translator.

Comment 1:

Does anyone in the English speaking world even know where or what Canton is? What are we from the 70s? Peking, Canton, Chungking fell off the map for English speakers at least 20 years ago at the latest.

As for Charter 08, I don't even know why the government tries to block such things or even takes actions against a few of the signers, the impact and push for that kind of thing is non-existent in China. The rioting in the countryside where the real disquiet and unrest is is so out of sync and out of touch with the rhetoric coming out of the foreign (overseas) intellectual community that it's bizarre. Its more disturbing that the overseas intellectual community still even bothers or thinks that their declarations make any difference.

Comment 2:

Ok. About "awkwardness". I myself work as a translator and also had the experience of reading Chinese literature in translation (and loving a lot of it) before I ever knew any Chinese. Years later when I got around to say, looking at what Howard Goldblatt does to modern Chinese literature in translation, I was frightened. 师傅你越来越幽默 becomes Shifu, You'll do anything for a laugh. What the fuck is that? Was he planning on putting a footnote on the cover?

Ok, back to the point at hand. When you pick a book translated from any language into English there's a certain amount of "local flavor" you can stand without it being 拗眼? Sometimes, when you're translating you feel like you can go pages and translate things freely, because every other word isn't piled with chengyu or beijing slang (Wang Shuo's writing for example). When I translate his work, there is no choice like you have, to think about a phrase. From the first word to the last line of much of his work there's nothing there that cleanly "translates" to english. When people like Goldblatt take Mo Yan or even Wang Shuo and make it clean and "Nobel-worthy" they're essentially rewriting it in nice smooth English of their own creation. That is bad, very, very bad.

Ok, once again back to your issues. You obviously have to choose the "english" phrase as opposed to the "literal" chinese one. The problem here is that you're thinking the "literal" chinese phrase carries some sort of meaning when the truth is that even in chinese, these "stock phrases" are incredibly unimportant. No serious chinese-to-english translator in a million years should ever consider translating "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" into Chinese literally, but Chinese people live under this delusion that chengyu and "phrases" somehow operate differently in their language. They don't, they operate how all these "historical sayings" worked in European languages till about 50 to 100 years ago. Allowing the "chengyu" and other related sayings to be translated "literally" for "effect" or "flavor" when there is no incredible and abiding reason (for example, someone says the "sticks and stones" line and then has rocks thrown at them, but even then a footnote explaining the phrase is well-deserved) is mistake, a giant mistake that ghettoizes, ethnicizes, and just is one whole pile of otherness and things good translations shouldn't get into. Awkwardness, strangeness in "language" is the enemy of any good translator or writer. Your well intentioned search for flavor and "effect" should come across from characters, style, story, etc. Given all that, tons of the translators still feel it's ok to throw in a few "non-translations"/"literals" for effect. To anyone who knows the original language it's almost always an eyesore/embarassment, but to people who don't, its always up for grabs. The point is your readers don't know anything, I could translate 200 pages of "literal" translations of Wang Shuo's hoodlum dialect mixed with slang and refined Chinese and I can guarantee you not a single person would like it. On the other hand, I could pull a Goldblatt and make shit up and that's also horrible. The point is, be very, very careful and never try to "ethnic up" something. Look at Naipaul's comments about the young Indian writers writing in English and doing the whole exoticism shtick. He rightly calls a spade a spade and sees it as horribly crass boutique multicularism gone marketing. Don't do the same with translation, and the literal chengyu translations go scarily close to that. It's why people who know chinese feel so incredibly uncomfortable when they see things like that.

Here's a link to some of what I'm talking about with Naipaul.

http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/naipaul_04_06.html

(from hsknotes)

The Mosuo Walking Marriage on Lugu Lake (2)

by Maple Xu

(Maple's travel log continues from The Mosuo Walking Marriage on Lugu Lake (1)...)

On the long distance bus to Lugu Lake, two men sitting behind me had been chatting about "walking marriage." One man asked, "Mosuo men can 'walking-marry' freely, but they don't get to live with their children, wouldn't they be too lonely in old age? Who take care of them when they get old?" The other replied: "The abundant romance of youth, is worth the loneliness of old age. Everything has a price after all."

The two men did not know all the facts. Though Mosuo men live with their mother, and are not responsible for rearing their own children, they have the duty to help bring up the children of their sisters. In a Mosuo family, uncles are the decision makers on external affairs. They have an adage, "The biggest flying thing in the sky is eagle, the biggest walking thing on the earth is uncle." When they get old, their nieces and nephews attend upon them until their death.

Lugu Lake

A friend once told me, his Mosuo friends couldn't understand why the Han people have terms like "lonely old widows" and "five-guaranteed households" (五保户"). They don't understand why Han families are full of domestic fights, even violence and family wars. Those are things they just can't imagine. The Mosuo people living along the Lugu Lake are proud of the auspicious and peaceful ambience in their family life; in this respect they think they are superior to any other race.

*

One morning I was photographing a sunrise at the lakeside, and ran into a bunch of tourists waiting for a bus to return to Lijiang. A fifty-ish northern woman was talking volubly. She said, "Yesterday I asked the young man rowing the boat, 'You sing and laugh all day, do you ever have an unhappy moment?' But he asked me back, 'What is "unhappy"?' I wasn't convinced and again asked a girl who was washing her hands in the lake, 'Are there times that you feel unhappy?' She replied, 'Unhappy? Why unhappy?'"

At this point the northern woman got very excited and raised her voice, "Look! They don't even know what unhappy means! They are always happy!" Her companion replied that nobody can always be happy. The woman argued, "They don't suffer extramarital affairs or property disputes like in our Han families, why shouldn't they be always happy?"

Her friend teased, "Sounds like heaven, then why don't you stay here?" The woman said seriously, "I really wish I were a Mosuo woman!"

That was the moment I understood why my friend has lived here contentedly for ten years.

*

Last night at my friend's teahouse, we warmed ourselves by a fire and chatted. The landlord came by, and I tagged him. "I have many questions for you," I said. He sat down by me and said good-naturedly, "I'm happy to answer any question."

My friend's tea house on Lugu Lake

- First question: How come you and your wife live together?

- That's because we have three brothers but no sister, and our mother died early. A family must have a woman as the household head; I'm the oldest brother, so my wife has to live here and take the responsibility of managing the family. Actually, "walking marriage" isn't the only form of marriage. There is another form: man and woman live together with either one's family. The principle is that the relationship is based on love, to marry by will, to leave freely. If the relationship is terminated, then each side returns to his or her mother's family. Unlike me, my two brothers are in walking marriages, and my youngest brother is the village head.

- How did you decide on your wife?

- Our love is no different from you Han people. When I was young I dated three or four girls. Only after I had children with my wife did the relationship become stable.

- How do you end a relationship?

- When the woman stops opening her door, or the man no longer comes in the night, the old relationship is ended and both sides are free to start a new one. It's all natural.

- How does a woman's family view her man in a walking marriage?

- The man comes to the woman after dusk, and leaves before dawn. At first he would avoid running into her family members. In the morning if you see sheepish men passing by, chances are they are returning home after a night of the walking marriage. The lovers will stay shy, even pretending not know each other on the street, before they have children and their relationship goes public. If you observe closely you will see that, in the night, no matter who knocks on a door, no one inside will open it for you, unless you shout out that you are an outside visitor, then an elder or a child will come.

- Since a man does not have the legal obligation to raise his children, wouldn't that give men too much freedom and women too much work?

- Mosuo women are the happiest members in their family. The female house head has all the power, including control of property and money. Her siblings take care of the children together with her. Even in sexual relationships women take initiative. On the surface, men have all the freedom, but once he is rejected by his girlfriend, there's nothing left for him except a "spring dream." There is a Musuo adage, "Men's heaven, women's world."

- Could a man be walking-marrying to three women simultaneously?

- (Laugh) Where does his time or energy come from? When I was dating my wife, we had a 20-kilometer distance between us. It was only because we were young and energetic that we lasted. Although there is no rule on how many walking marriages one can have, you must terminate one relationship before starting another. Custom and tradition do not allow two relationships simultaneously; an unfaithful man is going to be despised. This is no different from you Han people.

- Would you enter another walking marriage?

- Certainly not. What age does what things. Most Mosuo people settle down after they have children. Furthermore, I'm very satisfied with my present life. My wife is good in every respect!

What he said made my thoughts fly to the Mosuo life style. All relationships are based on love. A big matriarchal family with tens of members is filled with joy and peace. Children are loved by multiple mothers. Elders calmly enjoy their final years with a loving family. In another thousand years, will we Han evolve to such an ideal state? But the vanguard Mosuo people already began the heavenly life 1500 years ago. #

(All photos by Maple Xu, ©Copyright 2008, Maple Xu)

Chinese Humor Posters

A friend sent me the following photos. If you can read Chinese, you're guaranteed to get a few chuckles out of them. The English translation on some of the posters is incorrect, so I provided my own. I'm afraid though, the humor may have been lost in translation.

"Everyone pretends to be proper; I'll have to pretend to be improper"

"Dare to love, dare to elope"


"Carrying talent is like being pregnant, only time can tell"

"Oh love is like a ghost - more people believe in it than encounter it."

On "Translationese"

Lucas Klein correctly asserts in his Rain Taxi review of Apologies Forthcoming that the value of my writing "is to convey to an American audience the emotional complexities of individuals amidst the historical change of recent Chinese history." I find consolation that a discerning reader and reviewer has recognized my intention in realistically portraying individuality of Chinese people even in a time of collectivism.

In terms of writing style, on the other hand, Klein raises an interesting – and recurrent – issue. He writes:

Written in English, the stories often narrate with an awareness of the distance between the circumstances told and the circumstances of their being read. While the narrative voice tends toward a native fluency, quotations of speech or writing often come across in a kind of translationese. At its most productive, the styles of English and Chinese are blended, as when a character in "Second Encounter" is described as having "to spend too many lips and tongues in explanation." Too often, however, the stylistic switch locks the Chinese language into an essentialized otherness, and Chinese speakers come across as linguistically clumsy.

Not coincidentally, the same issue of "translationese," or "Chineseness" in English writing, has concerned other readers and reviewers as well, for example in Cliff Garstang's review, see discussion in an earlier post titled "On Chineseness". In that post the same example is mentioned ("to spend too many lips and tongues in explanation") – what a coincidence! – though with an opposite view.

I appreciate very much Klein's recognition that such stylistic switch is by design. He has noticed, again correctly, my purposeful use of the "translationese" style in dialogue, as opposed to the more standard English expressions in the narrative voice. And he isn't the only one. Matthew of Waiguoren Critic of South China, for example, writes in his review:

One quirk of Xujun's writing is the dialogue. It's not typical dialogue by American standards, but it is a close translation of Chinese speech, which helps to portray more of the culture to readers.

Obviously, my dialogue-writing approach has met with different reactions. My rationale is exactly what Matthew points out, that the "Chineseness" in dialogue can help portraying realistic characters in the context of their culture. As Chinese, in our real-life daily dialogues, folk adages (俗语), two-part allegorical sayings (歇后语)，and even 4-character idioms (成语) are a common occurrence. To me, nothing reflects the thousands of years of Chinese culture more than the language. So why not use it with as many of the native idiosyncrasies in place as possible when writing in English? There is also, of course, the intentional effect of "otherness" – in Klein's word – to be considered.

Interestingly, there is often an English saying corresponding to a Chinese adage with nearly identical meaning and connotation. For example, in English "shoot yourself in the foot" and in Chinese "drop a rock on your own foot" (搬起石头砸自己的脚) . Apparently, when the English invented guns Chinese were still using rocks as weapon :-). If I invoke such a saying in a Chinese story dialogue, which form should I use? Naturally and without hesitation, my choice would be the latter. The reason, again, is the cultural context.

Do I sound convincing? Still, things are not that simple. I have heard several readers and reviewers expressing their feeling of occasional "awkwardness" while reading my book, for example see the latest Amazon review by Linda Austin. And they do have a valid point.

The problem as I see it is not the "translationese" but how to blend English and Chinese expressions in a seamless way, and that is the hard part, as the two languages are, well, not designed for blending. But this is not to say improvement is impossible. One way to do it might be to break long lines into short parts, to make the "translationese" appear more like accent and with less frequency.

Right now I'm proof-reading Apologies Forthcoming for its Asian edition (again in English), which is scheduled for publication by Blacksmith Books around the coming holiday season. I see this as an opportunity for improvement. If anyone who has read my book found a particularly awkward expression, I'd appreciate it very much if you could tell me.

Okay, I've just found one myself, in "Disciple of the Masses":

Then he told her, “They’ll be here. Don’t worry. Who’d have eaten a leopard’s gallbladder to disobey Chairman Mao’s instructions, huh?” He laughed.

Perhaps I should change " Who’d have eaten a leopard’s gallbladder to disobey Chairman Mao’s instructions, huh?" to " Who’d dare to disobey Chairman Mao’s instructions, huh? Unless he has eaten a leopard’s gallbladder." What do you think?

The Mosuo Walking Marriage on Lugu Lake (1)

by Maple, guest blogger

(Note: Some of you already know that Maple is an avid traveler and photographer. This is one of her latest travelogues, posted in two parts. See also her Dream Left on Covered Bridges 廊桥遗梦, and Yuyuan Taiji Celestial Village. - Xujun)

[in translation]

Ten years ago, what first brought me to Lugu Lake was a travel magazine photo. In that photo Lugu Lake was like a sparkling gem, inlayed on the northwest Yunnan highlands, the water's radiating reflections and the mountains' rich colors comprising an unsurpassed beauty.

I did not know much then about the rare continuation of the Mosuo people's matriarchal tradition. At the time Lugu Lake was a newly developed tourist attraction. The entire village had only one or two guest houses, two-floor wooden lodges made by the locals. Upstairs were bedrooms. On the ground level was the spacious central room, in the middle of which a huge fire pit burning wood day and night. On the fire buttered tea was boiling; in the fire fresh potatoes and corn were roasting.

Lugu Lake

In the house I stayed at there was an old grandmother, who sat in a big wooden bed cushioned with a thick sheep wool blanket, and smiled at me kindly. She did not speak Mandarin, and I didn't know the Mosuo language, so the only thing I could do was to smile back at her. We smiled at each other for probably a couple of minutes or longer, but neither of us felt awkward. Then she went to the fire pit and dug out two cobs of roasted corn, deliciously aromatic. She patted the residual ashes off the cobs with her furrowed hands before giving them to me. I obediently sat by her and ate. She looked at me; the warmth of a tender affection in her eyes made me remember my late grandma.

During the next few days I noticed that men and women in the house all revered the grandmother. When eating they held the best food to her first. When sleeping they kept the warmest place for her. For everything they asked her opinion first.

I asked her son, This place is called a "girls kingdom," does it mean women have the highest status? And he told me about the Mosou tradition of "A'xia," or "walking marriage." The man and woman in such a relationship each lives with his and her own mother. The man comes to the woman at night and leaves at dawn. All their children are raised by the woman. The two sides have no ties in terms of production, living, or properties. Their relationship emphases love, and they marry freely and part at will.

I was not impressed. Such a marriage is not protected by law. Wouldn't things fall into chaos? A woman can have many men and a man can have many women. Children don't even know who their real father is.

Mosuo woman

But the son said to me in all seriousness: Don't you Han people also have unfaithful men? The situation does exist among Mosou, some men to have "walking marriages" with several women. However usually a man has a relationship with only one woman at a time. When a couple fall out of love, the man simply stops "walking" to the woman, there is no property dispute or custody fight. It's not like you Han people who turn into enemies because of a divorce.

In every Mosuo family, the household head is the oldest woman. The grandmother in the house I stayed had two sons and three daughters. The oldest daughter had been in a "walking marriage" for three years already and they had a boy. Her other two sisters were still young. Both brothers were in their twenties and every night they went out for their "walking marriage." The older brother had a daughter, raised by the baby's mother.

Mosuo cats

I was both confused and curious. That night I begged the oldest daughter to take me to their "guozhuang" dance party. Mosuo women are natural sopranos. The woman's singing of "Qinhai and Tibet Highlands" stunned all the Han tourists.

At that time the Lugu Lake area did not have street lights. The oldest daughter and I walked home in the dark, behind us were a bunch of men holding touches, chatting and laughing. I asked, Is your boyfriend among them? Is he coming to you tonight? I want to see how handsome he is. She laughed bashfully, pointing a finger at me but couldn't talk. Not until we reached the door when she whispered to me that it was still early, time for men to drink and chat. He would come late in the night, after everybody at home had gone to bed.

I became more curious. You two already have a son, how come you are still so shy about it? Her face turning red and she laughed again. She pulled my long hair and complained, Why are you asking about everything? I'm not talking any more. Her expression made me yearn for the Mosuo love.

I imagined myself as a strong Mosuo man, on a night with a bright moon and thin stars, rowing a boat carved of a whole tree trunk, from the island in the lake, knocking my lover's door. Not for money, not for status, not even for progeny, just for love, pure love.

Mosuo man

That night by the fire pit, I asked my host's youngest daughter, Your sister's son is only a few months old, and she needs to work in the day, tending her walking marriage in the night, who takes care of the baby? The girl looked surprised by the question. We all take care of him, she said, whoever has the time. He's OUR son.

Children call all women at home "Ama." The grandmother, aunts and uncles are all their guardians.

~

Now, ten years later, I arrive at Lugu Lake again. It has become a hot tourist attraction. The lakeside is full of bars, shops, and hotels. Tourists do not come in groups of two or three carrying backpacks; they pour out of buses and cars. Using the words of a friend, who has been running a teahouse here for a decade, "It is horrible!"

Fortunately there are still misty waves on the lake of the horse hoof shape. Fat clouds in the blue sky are still exaggeratedly gorgeous. Water reflecting mountain, mountain shimmering with dew, Lugu Lake is still like a fairyland. Perhaps even more fortunate, the transportation is still backward. From the nearest travel center Lijiang is 200 kilometer and takes nearly10 hours winding up the mountains. I don't want to imagine, if there were a highway, or an airport, what would happen to Lugu Lake.

Mosuo dog

What would happen? My teahouse owner friend replies, Of course my business would be even better. Apples and walnuts from the mountains would be easier to sell to outside.

Don't you know that the ancient town Dayan in Lijiang has been destroyed by the endless development of tourist business? Do you want Lugu Lake to become the next Dayan? I say to my friend.

You don't understand, my friend pats my shoulder tolerantly; Mosuo people have the instinct of self-preservation. What you worry about won't happen here. (To be continued)

(All photos by Maple Xu, ©Copyright 2008, Maple Xu)

Harvard Student Observing Beijing's Gay Club

(Introduction: Samantha Deng, who speaks fluent Chinese, is a Harvard student studying abroad at a renowned university in Beijing for a year. The following is an excerpt from her report for a Medical Sociology observation project, posted with permission. – Xujun)

Destination is a Double-Edged Sword

by Samantha Deng

Building designed to escape rather than attract attention

Destination ("目的地") is the most well known gay bar and nightclub in Beijing. Located on Gongti West Road, it is directly across the street from a strip of popular nightclubs, bars, and restaurants frequented by expatriates and locals alike. I visited the club on a Friday night in November with two other girls and arrived around 10:30 at night.

Unlike its flashy neighbors with their ground-to-roof neon lights and large flat-screen televisions, the exterior of Destination is very modest and discreet, seemingly designed to escape (rather than attract) attention. The building that houses the club is about six stories high and looks modestly residential.

At the time of our arrival, all the windows were dark, and the blinds were drawn. A dark brown stone wall about two meters tall surrounds the building and blocks the first floor windows from view. On the building is a small lighted sign with the club’s name in English and Chinese. There are two doors facing the main streets but are sealed off with a red string on which hang small gray signs that point the visitor left with the words “酒吧入口” in Chinese and “Enter” in English.

A male staff member dressed all in black stood near the blocked doors and helpfully directed confused visitors to a gate on the side. Through this rusty iron gate, one stepped into a small courtyard, and on the other side – effectively in the back of the building – one finally sees the entrance to the club, guarded on either side by traditional Chinese stone lions.

Seven people staffed the well-lit room one first enters. Two were men dressed all in black who visually scanned every visitor walking in. The entrance fee was 60 RMB, and the ticket stub is redeemable for a drink up to that price inside. Based on my experiences, this price is comparable to middle-ranged clubs in the city, but it may nevertheless be expensive for the average Beijing resident and prevent frequent visits.

The club does not have separate restrooms for women and men; instead, each floor has one restroom that has both urinals and stalls. This arrangement is most likely a reflection of both the dearth of women visiting the club and the lack of sexual threat between people of different sexes here.

Women far fewer and noticeably less vivacious than the men

At its fullest, Destination held close to two hundred people, the overwhelming majority of which was male. The handful of women that were present was scattered in male-dominated groups and were noticeably less vivacious than the men.

The majority of men at Destination are the Hip Youths type, look to be in their late teens or early twenties, and exude an air of familiarity, even ownership, in the club.

One young man who typifies this came in a small group of about four. He wore a fitted white t-shirt with a colorful design in front and tight black jeans. Upon arriving in an upstairs room, he saw that a large vacant sofa, plopped himself down, and loudly beckoned his friends to join him. A moment later, he recognized another group of young men standing near the bar and rushed over, loudly exchanging greetings and hugs.

Another core type is the Older Men, though far fewer than the Hip Youths, they nevertheless occupy central positions within the club. In their early- to mid-thirties, the Older Men dress more conservatively than the Hip Youths in looser fitting clothes and are generally less active. They seem to frequent the bar and know other people there. One group that consisted of perhaps four foreigners and a slightly larger number of Chinese sat at a bar for a long time chatting animatedly with each other. More than once, one member would stop someone walking past that he recognized and the newcomer would stop to talk with the group. Both the behaviors of the Hip Youths and the Older Men described above suggest the existence of a “community” at Destination.

There are also Peripheral Observers and Outsiders. For example, during the course of the night I saw two old men who were at least sixty years old. They were in the club separately talking with a few young men, and neither stayed very long. The Outsiders, numbering very few, are people in the club who are not gay. One white heterosexual couple, for example, danced affectionately on the dance floor for about ten minutes before exiting. Another example was a twenty-year-old Korean man who did not realize that Destination is a gay club before entering. He expressed shock and slight disgust upon discovering the sexual orientation of the men around him.

"Five minutes into our acquaintances, he bluntly asked me to marry him"

We spoke with three men, who were of the Older Men type, for over an hour. They have been to Destination many times and befriended each other at the club. They did not know that we were at the club for an observation study, and they may have assumed that we were homosexuals as well.

Walter[1]

Walter is a 30-year-old pop-music composer originally from Shanxi. Except for a small black round stub on his left earlobe, he bears none of the stereotypical “gay” traits. He is about 1.8 meters tall, broad shouldered and fit, and his hair is cut in a neat buzz cut. He wore a long-sleeved black shirt with jeans. He readily told us about his experiences as a gay man in China and expressed his views on politics, culture, and homosexual life. Despite his openness, however, even after a full hour of conversation that touched upon many sensitive topics, Walter disclosed only his last name and nickname and withheld his full name, suggesting an impulse to preserve anonymity.

From the very beginning, Walter emphasized how lonely it feels to be a homosexual in China, repeating the phrase “孤独” two separate times. Consequently, he loves going to gay-concentrated places like Destination and saunas around Beijing to be with other gays. Even though these places present high-risk situations, he feels relaxed there. Despite the existence of these locations, however, he expressed disappoint in the gay scene in Beijing. Like many gays who are not native to Beijing, he had high expectations for this international city but found too many restrictions when he arrived.

For Walter, strained relationship in the family is a large factor causing the sense of loneliness. Although he criticized the religious-moral casting of homosexuality as a sin in the West, he nevertheless applauded Westerners’ recognition of homosexuality as being a distinct separate category from heterosexuality. He, however, gets no such recognition from his family. His parents had described his behavior as “disgusting” (“恶心”); his sister, who is less socially conservative, had expressed regret that he cannot marry and have children (and thus continue the bloodline). Walter’s description of his family members’ opinions implied that they only see and condemn the deviant behavior without recognizing the innate difference between homosexuals and heterosexuals. In doing so, his family members are effectively denying him twice: with respect to both his homosexuality and his moral judgment.

Walter’s own views on homosexuality are a combination of the theories that sexuality is genetically predisposed and that it is environmentally cultivated. He argued that since ancient times, people have always displayed an aesthetic appreciation and attraction for the body, whether male or female. His sexual attraction for the male body, he implied, is only an extension of that primitive impulse. On the other hand, he off-handedly remarked that had Hu Jingtao grew up in a more socially liberal society in the West, the Chinese president would be gay (Walter pointed to Hu’s effeminate gestures and high-pitched voice as evidence). Walter phrased this assertion in such as way to suggest that Hu is not currently in the closet, but rather, he did not have the space to develop his homosexuality in China.

Walter’s overall attitude toward Chinese politics and society was critical. He especially cited the education system for the stifling constraints it imposed on children and criticized the Chinese government for masking many cruelties it performed to present the Olympic Games. He described himself as a deviant who has always been last ranked in his class in school. However, Walter remained optimistic about the future. He argued that Chinese culture is very “vibrant” (“活跃”), as evident by the dominance of the color red, and can readily embrace differences.

Charles

Charles is a man from Chongqing also in his early thirties who works in media. Short, stout, and bald, he wore a white t-shirt and jeans. After approximately five minutes of our acquaintances, he bluntly asked me to marry him. He explained that his seventy-year-old mother’s only wish in life is for him to get married, and he would like to do so to make her happy. He promised that he will financially provide for his bride his whole life and will willingly grant a divorce should she fall in love with another man. As with Walter, his family’s inability to understand that homosexuality extends beyond just behaviors that defy filial piety (namely, not marrying and having children) was causing Charles much stress.

Victor

Victor is a golf club executive from Taiwan who wore a buttoned-down long-sleeve shirt with rainbow-colored stripes. He did not speak with us much, preferring instead to converse with Charles or poke fun at the loquaciousness of Walter. He willingly bought drinks for his friends. Victor said that he comes to Destination about once a month.

A Double-Edged Sword

This visit to Destination offered a peek into the homosexual community in Beijing. On one hand, places like Destination offer gays who feel alienated in their everyday life a space to show their sexuality openly and to be with others like them. On the other hand, these gay-concentrated places also pose major health risk for their visitors. As Walter pointed out, the jubilation of finding other gay men may prompt some to engage in unsafe sexual behavior that result in the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS. In addition, the sense of total relaxation may cause these men to engage in other unhealthy behavior: the three men we spoke with smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol without stop for the entirety of our conversation, which lasted over an hour. The other men near us were also chain-smoking, and the bar tenders even gave out free cigarettes.

That places like Destination represent both a psychology alleviation of pain and a space for perpetuating public health dangers suggests that the reduction of these health risks require more than just direct education about the illness. The observations from Destination indicate that a more effective and permanent solution to curb the spread of sexually transmitted diseases among gay men, especially HIV/AIDS, would address the social stigma that homosexuality carries in Chinese society. When gay men can be themselves and display romantic behavior in public just like heterosexuals, the lure of unsafe sex in bars and sauna will no doubt diminish. Social acceptance of homosexuality is thus an important step in preventing psychological and physical harm for this large social group.

[1]The names of these three men are altered to conceal their identity.

A Church’s Guide for the Election

Across street from my house, there is a flat-top, square-ish building, looking rather modern. If it were not for the sign in front of it, I wouldn’t have thought it a Christian church. For the ten years since I moved to this quiet suburb, I had never set foot in it.

Now I’m taking a journalism class, one of the assignments is to establish a “listening post.” The idea is to visit a community you are less familiar with, so as to increase the understanding of diversity. Since I never knew what this church across street was doing, I decided to pay a visit to it this morning. That is, a Sunday morning when it’s running a service.

At 10 am sharp I walked into the church. On a desk in the hall lay some handouts. I picked one up; it’s titled “Values Voter Guide for 2008 Presidential Candidates.” It highlights issues debated between McCain and Obama, 21 of them all. A simple “Yes” or “No” column indicating each candidate’s position on each issue. Not surprisingly, on 16 of the issues listed, the two candidates take opposite positions. They agreed on three of them, while the remaining two issues were alternately addressed by only one of the candidates.

At first glance, this list is quite impartial. It does not spell out a recommendation, and the issues listed are quite informative. The Guide only asks you to compare the candidates. I was impressed.

Walking into the nave, for a moment I suspected I was in the wrong place, or at a wrong time. The stage looked ready to start a musical, or some Broadway performance. A glass room located on the left side of the stage housed a man with a full set of shining silver percussion instruments. In the center of the stage were a pianist, two guitarists, and a row of seven men and women waiting to start singing.

And singing they began soon after I took my seat. The choirmaster, a black man with beautiful voice, called for the audience to stand and sing with them. A large pull-down screen hanging above the stage, showed colorful moving pictures with the lyrics. People raised their arms and sang enthusiastically and repeatedly: “I’m desperate for you, I’m lost without you…We live to glorify your name.”

They stood and sang for 40 minutes. When they finally finished, the priest took the place of the choirmaster and explained the voting guide. He called his audience to “vote for our values, not by the party line.” He then went on to say “we don’t want the government to redefine the values of our families; God defines it, Jesus defines it.” And he said he puts his hope in God to place the right man in the government.

As he continued, I read the handout again and realized that he was calling for people to vote for McCain and Palin, mostly for Palin, who was viewed by some people as representing American family values.

During the next hour the priest preached Revelation 12 to 14, and he emphasized diversity.

Later, on the way home, I wondered how diverse the church members actually are. Will all, or most of them, listen to the priest and vote for McCain? Do most Christian churches want McCain and Palin to lead America? If the result turns out to be the opposite, is God wrong, or are the churches wrong?

Mischievous Dubbing (恶搞): US and China

Saturday Night Live's latest, 7-minute parody is an excellent and uproarious summary of Thursday's vice presidential debate. The best performer is Tina Fey, who looks totally like the real Palin, to the turn of her hair, or lip. CNN has a good comment on this – "It's starting to feel like Tina Fey is running for vice president."

Considering that Fey's normal picture is quite easily distinguished, I'd say she has the talent of an Oscar actress. She parodied Palin's body language and facial expressions extremely true to form; I had a very hard time telling her from Palin. But what made me laugh the most was how she captures Palin's incoherent and evasive speaking style. At one point the Fey-Palin says, "We are not afraid to get mavericky in there, and not got to allow that, and also to the great Ronald Regan." This way of randomly throwing together words and phrases without regard to grammar or meaning, was exactly my impression of Palin's speaking when I watched the debate Thursday night. Palin is worse than George Bush in this regard – though both appear uncultured, and Bush probably more often pronounces words incorrectly, he at least seems to genuinely mean what he says, even when I am almost sure he does not. Given how old McCain is, I would be extremely worried if McCain got sick and this lady became our president. Apparently this is also a main reason that many of my Chinese friends won't vote for McCain. Call it a shallow and intuitive way of reasoning. But what more can common voters do if not judge based on impression? I think McCain made his biggest mistake by choosing such a (...) running mate.

Now let's return to entertainment, and China. Such parody of public figures is one of those things I enjoy about America, a relaxed political culture that is missing in China. But in recent years, there has been a sort of Chinese equivalent called "e-gao" (恶搞), or, as a direct translation, "mischievous dubs." The Chinese Wikipedia interprets the term as "to disintegrate a serious topic and reconstruct it as prank entertainment, either comedic or satiric in style." The main difference to me, however, is that the Chinese dubbing videos, usually based on domestic and foreign movies and TV shows, almost never name real individuals, and avoid mocking political figures. Instead they focus on fictional characters or events, entertainment products, or businesses. Another notable feature is that nearly all of those Chinese dubs use the original video clips but switch the voices and subtitles, a creative approach to cut down the cost. The wide availability of the internet, of course, provides the platform for the "mischievous dubs" to reach its audience.

Apparently, in China the first notable "mischievous dub" occurred in December 2005, when an as yet unknown man named Hu Ge parodied the reputed director Chen Kaige's new movie, "The Promise," changing the story of an ancient Chinese prince to a modern murder case. Hu's short dub film spread apace, receiving more applause than the original movie. Chen Kaige, who apparently was unfamiliar with parody culture, bristled with anger and threatened to bring a copyright lawsuit against Hu. In February 2006, at the Berlin International Film Festival, where he was about to launch "The Promise" for Europe, director Chen said in indignation to reporters, "To be a man one can't be so shameless!"

The case attracted attention from lawyers nationwide, most predicted Hu would lose the lawsuit. From outside however, Richard Stallman, the founder of Free Software Foundation, concluded in an interview with a Chinese blogger that "Parodies like this one are legally considered 'fair use'. Courts have ruled that you don't need to get someone's permission before you make fun of him by parodying his work. It is lawful, pure and simple." The Chinese neitizens, meanwhile, were split. Supporters of each side argued noisily online.

In the end, there wasn't a lawsuit after all. The public debate calmed down after Hu made an apology to director Chen. But the damage was done: Hu's dub film started China's parody culture, which quickly became popular, and was everywhere by the summer of 2006. "Finally one day, someone could no longer stand it." NetEase reported in August 2006. The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television issued an "anti-parody" regulation. NetEase mourned the new pop culture's immature death by publishing the list of the "top ten mischievous dubs." It also suggested, "If we can't mischievously dub, at least we can kind-heartedly dub."

Mischievously or not, despite the regulation, Chinese parodies did not simply go away. As recent as last month, a new one surfaced on YouTube mocking the Hong Kong movie Red Cliff and making fun of a Chinese company named Zhifubao. It is hilarious if you understand Chinese. (Thanks to Ji Haidong who pointed it to me.)

What I'm hoping though is to see political parodies like those on SNL begin to appear in China. The day when that happens would mark a new era of China's political culture.