Ape Rifle

I’ve noticed that Western media has been on a real ‘China Miracle’ binge as of late. The Globe and Mail, one of Canada’s leading newspapers, gets in on the act with a special section titled, very originally, China: Rising. It seems to have been a while in the making, with dozens of articles covering the wild times in the ‘New China’ we know and love (and,yes, sometimes loathe). Here you will find the usual talk of China’s inevitable world dominance balanced out with much less sensational fare about nationalism, social unrest and even video games. Articles I found particularly interesting were Instant Modernity (looking at China’s urban hyper-makeover), and Wenzhou: Capitalism Unbound.Of course, no self-respecting China special would find itself without some article on Shanghai. China:Rising’s entry is one of the more balanced ones I have read, quite unlike the quasi-propaganda over at Time Asia.

Whenever talk of China’s boom/rise/infinite market is involved, Shanghai invariably surfaces to rear its oversized head. But is Shanghai really the best place to showcase the ‘New China’? I have my doubts.

Now, don’t start fretting: I’m not about to go off on a rant about how Shanghai doesn’t represent the rest of China. You could argue the city does represent China as most of the country’s wealth appears to have been spent building it, but most people wouldn’t: they would agree that Shanghai is not very representative of what the Middle Kingdom is. Cased closed.

However, you would likely find more favour by suggesting that Shanghai definitely represents what China wishes it could be. I can see how this makes a Western journalist’s job easy: “Story on ‘New China’? Ok. Ticket to Shanghai? Check. Huge skyscrapers, glitz, Ferraris, wild lifestyle, super rich, Pudong, vision of the future, China has no bounds? Check. Story submitted.” In much of this, they conveniently forget to mention that Shanghai, is..well…a completely engineered showcase.

I guess, as mere humans, we are quite easily fooled: bright lights, tall buildings and expensive cars are enough to do the trick. Substance is often too complex to handle, so we ogle the style and go home satisfied. If a place has tall buildings, it must be going somewhere (never mind if they are actually used for anything). I guess, as a result of my trademarked cynicism, my opinion on Shanghai lies much closer to this commentary (last article on the page).

Maybe I’m weird, but Shanghai just didn’t impress me all that much. Sure it’s huge, crowded and lively, but so is every other city in China (Chongqing, anyone?). And then there’s Pudong…ahh, Pudong, the beacon of capitalism rising. This faux Jetsons Manhattan was just plunked down out of nowhere, and it shows. The place for now seems resigned to being a large and garish light show for tourists gawking from across the river. It is not city so much as carnival attraction; once over there among the monumental skyscrapers, you sort of realize, well… nothing is really going on. It’s an empty shell of an urban landscape.

All that glitters is gold…or not

Think of a monumental World Fair display, letting us all in on what the future looked like in the 1950s. They could have saved a lot of money and trouble and built it on a slightly smaller scale. Like one that fits in a glass case, perhaps. A whole city rises with no other apparent function than to signal that China has arrived: this is Pudong as the world’s largest propaganda piece. Figuring out how untold millions are actually supposed to live and prosper in such a ‘model city’ seems to be of secondary concern.

Quite frankly, I find talk of Shanghai overtaking the likes of New York, London and Hong Kong (which it is likely most trying to best) quite ridiculous, at least in regards to the next 50 years minimum. What Shanghai hasn’t quite figured out yet is that you need something behind the facade. Being new isn’t an end in itself. Being ‘modern’ doesn’t quite cut it anymore… you also have to be interesting.

Maybe when we are done with these cranes, we can use them to build some culture

Ouch. Ok, I know I’m getting a bit harsh here. It’s just that Shanghai has always represented the worst of modern China to me: the complete triumph of style over substance (and often sanity), the obsession with flaunting wealth and how a few bright lights manage to hide much darker realities.

I know some will inevitably say: “You don’t understand Shanghai” or: “You haven’t visited the real Shanghai!” or still: “Shanghai isn’t just Pudong!”. But the point is, by being so superficial I am in fact celebrating the very essence of the city: its glittering superficiality. About 98% of the pictures of Shanghai I have seen in various media outlets are of…you guessed it…the Pudong skyline. I’m sure the planners would like nothing more than to recreate this skyscraper trophy case on the older side of the river as well (and judging by what Puxi looked like when I was last there, I’d argue they are succeeding).

I’ve seen a much better side of modern China among the multitude of smaller stories across the country. A kid whose family was too poor to buy shoes made it to university; a man who fought over a bag of rice during the Cultural Revolution now makes a decent life for himself and his family…these are the real success stories of the ‘new’ China, not a bunch of empty skyscrapers.

But, in the end, I guess stories of small, everyday miracles don’t sell newspapers. Ones about amazing wealth and flashy buildings trimmed in gold, however, do. So, unfortunately, I’m sure I’ll be hearing about Pudong and its neon glow for years to come. If only it wasn’t so damned forced.

I guess I should just come out and say it: ever since I left China, my blogging has felt very forced. I’ve managed to get my travel journals posted, but they are not nearly as elaborate nor as detailed as I would have liked. (For a real travel journal, check out Dan Washburn’s trip through China…simply amazing stuff!) Writing them was much more of a chore than a pleasure. Despite this I persisted, hoping to find some kind of personal closure on my time in China. My travels in the Northwest was an extended goodbye to a country that I won’t soon forget, and yet my record of it here feels rushed, rambling and a bit more negative than it probably should be…heck, I don’t even think I spellchecked them.

So what happened? I think I am tired of blogging. I admire people like John Pasden who put in the time and effort to produce consistently high-quality blogs, because it’s an energy I just can’t seem to muster anymore. I think one of the major problems affecting my motivation is the very nature of Ape Rifle as a blog: it was conceived and built around my experiences as an expat in China. It was started primarily as a way for my family and friends to keep track of my adventures and whereabouts so that I no longer had to bombard them with mass e-mails. Over time it evolved, thanks to increasing awareness of the Chinese blogging community, into more of a general rant on all things China that occasionally delved into a bit of photo-blogging. It was fun.

Adapting this site to London has been somewhat harder than I anticipated. First and foremost are the time constraints: I’m just much busier now than I was back in China. When I have a few hours to spare I feel like I should be catching up on my reading or going out to take advantage of all the social connections LSE has to offer. It’s harder and harder to picture myself blogging extensively when, soon, I’ll have to be focusing on writing that is handed in and graded rather than posted on the internet. Ape Rifle is falling lower on my list of priorities.

Secondly, I just don’t know what to write about. I don’t want Ape Rifle to become one of those “I woke up in the morning, went to class, had a coffee, checked the time, went to class” blogs. Frankly, my daily life as a student just isn’t all that interesting. The only culture shock I’m experiencing here is trying to get the PIN number for my new cashcard.

Could I write about London in general? It’s an absolutely fascinating city, but it’s so huge, sprawling and heterogeneous that I don’t even know where to begin. It’s an overwhelming experience just be asked what I think of it: how are you supposed to answer that question? Perhaps with another question: “Which London?” Because there seem to be hundreds of them, hailing from different eras and all piled on top of each other.

To be truthful, I haven’t even seen a tiny fraction of the place yet beyond the school and the area I live in. I’d love to wander and explore, but so far this hasn’t really happened beyond a day or two of solid photography.

If Ape Rifle is not dying, then it is at least pretty ill. Sinosplice recently had a post related to the more general China blog death; some of my favourite sites (especially on the Sinosplice network) have been dormant for months (or half-heartedly updated at best), and Living in China has apparently been swallowed whole by the mechanical anonymity of Living on the Planet. I think I have been infected as well: more and more, I feel Ape Rifle is an idea whose time (and best days) have come and gone. This blog grew within the context of blogging in and about China, and my relocation has tested my will to continue along these lines. Should I still even be part of Sinosplice? It gets much harder to offer perspectives on China when you no longer live there.

So where to go from here? I don’t know. China and all its development issues are very relevant to my courses and I will be studying Mandarin throughout the year, so perhaps there is still a chance that I can maintain some connection to China on this site. However, I have a feeling this will mostly lose out to London student life and the exciting city I now find myself in. Instead of forcing myself to stick to China, maybe I should just let loose and see where my writing whims take me. I promise I will somehow get around to a post on my first impressions of London, I think I owe my final few readers that at least.

If Ape Rifle does die, or evolves beyond recognition, I’ll still cherish it as a great time capsule of my second year in China. I hope you will too.

This is something that I’ve been meaning to blog about for a while but never got around to it as things such as life in London got in the way.

As many of you may know, the Chinese government has declared war against online pornography and other wares unbecoming of a civilized and all-around well-off society.

Usually I just ignore these ambitious government drives to clean up whatever is decided to threaten social stability on that particular afternoon. China’s sporadically enforced “war on copyright infringement” means the DVD vendors keep their copies under the counter for a few days every year rather than on it.

But in this case the policy has hit rather close to home and the punishment is rather serious. I, along with others who have taught at this school, are wondering whether it was one of our students. An internet Porn King in our midst…who says Chinese students lack drive? It would certainly explain how they could afford those cell phones.