Ape Rifle

Perhaps because of long-held stereotypes regarding the Chinese and communism, there has long been, at least at a superficial level, a portrayal in the West of China as a land of totalitarian control, a place of mass mobilization in which the countless masses march in step to the glory of Party and Country. Regardless of how accurate or inaccurate this characterization might have been in the past, it often lives on into the present-day “China Rising” paradigm. The country’s growing military might is visualized through the impeccable marching of soldiers in Tiananmen square, while its powers of production are displayed by countless, identically uniformed migrant workers assembling electronics at a countless number of identical workstations.

Certainly, these images are drawn from reality, usually to be found in the export powerhouses of the southeastern coastal provinces. This China is as real and relevant as any other, with its neat rows of high-rise blocks in instant new towns, with its mind-boggling infrastructure projects and highway networks. It is the China that, through determination and planning, has harnessed the material wealth of urban capitalism to serve the regimentation and control of socialism. It is the rising power that keeps Western politicians awake at night. It is the China of shimmering financial skylines and world dominance.

In April 2005, however, I found myself in a place quite far removed from that particular Chinese world. In the outskirts of Zibo, a mid-sized provincial city in central Shandong province, I explored a very different face of the country’s industrialization. Zibo, like many other cities in the country, covers a huge geographical area, enough to claim a decent swath of central Shandong. And also like many other cities in the country, it is in this vast space that the boundaries between urban and rural are increasingly blurred and ill-defined, lost in a swirl of cranes, peasants and pollution.

Using rapid urbanization as the weapon of choice, Chinese cities have been quite busy sprawling headfirst into their surroundings, barreling into and over older settlements, agricultural land and a decaying state-owned industrial infrastructure. The result of all this unchecked expansion is that in many areas, between the over-planned high-rise ‘modernity’ of the city centres and the isolated poverty of the rural hamlets, stretches a landscape that is industrial yet poor, urbanizing yet still somehow remote.

The area I found myself in was certainly not one of idyllic pastures. It was the domain of dusty roads and expansive scrapyards, of roadside stalls and fume-belching trucks. It was a land of haphazard white-tile sheds andelectric folding gates . Unlike its more centralized and superficially prosperous urban neighbour, this space was one of grit, faded signs, smokestacks and twisted metal. And more so than its purely agricultural counterpart, it bore the deep scars of China’s concerted assault on its own environment.

Unlike Masterplan China, the subject of so much awe, fear, envy and greed, this place was a chaotic, ill-planned affair. Perhaps this is the inevitable outcome of lax controls, systemic corruption and the astounding entrepreneurship unleashed by the country’s economic reforms. Sure, the ’state’ is heavily involved at some level in the growth of this peri-urban industrial world, whether through ownership or local official activity. And yet this was a world away from the showcase development zones and post-modern towers of Beijing and Shanghai, and perhaps closer to scenes from the Industrial Revolution grafted onto a dense Chinese rural society. It was urban yet not ‘modern’ in the stereotypical sense of the term; firmly industrialized but completely out of control. And through it all, there were certainly still farmers quietly tending to their fields.

Through the hospitality of an old acquaintance, I was afforded the chance to tour one of the factories in this area. After a bumpy drive through the dusty blend of melancholic villages and decaying industry so common in the outskirts of northern Chinese cities, we arrived at our destination. It was a small-scale manufacturer of replacement car parts destined for the North American market. Here, in the generic anonymity of the country’s hinterland (although Shandong is on the coast, most of it certainly is hinterland), China’s adventures in global production continued unabated.

This factory was a far cry from the high-tech export complexes so popularized in glossy news magazines. It was certainly low-tech, perhaps even antiquated by certain standards. The labour was decidedly manual, with shovels and wheel barrels responsible for much of the dirty work. Far from being rigidly regimented, this workspace was haphazard, cluttered and scattered randomly across a few cavernous workshops. The air was thick with metallic dust, enough so that after only a few minutes I worried in vain for the workers’ lungs.

The scene was one from an aged propaganda poster pushing for industrial production, albeit without the smiles and socialist optimism. If I was to guess, I would certainly place the age of the installation at several decades: it exuded a retro-Chinese industrial aura, complete with workers in old army jackets and blue ‘Mao’ coats. Of course, my guess is probably completely off the mark- in China, the combination of the speed of development and poor construction quality ages buildings to the point where something a mere few years old becomes a decaying relic of an age gone by. It’s quite possible that this ode to the glory years of socialist industry was built in the 1990s.

Regardless, the surreal moment arrived when I was shown the finished product, neatly packaged in stylish boxes bearing the bilingual wording required by its destination: Canada. Here I was, faced with the marketing style and consumer demands of my home country amidst this scene of hard labour, grime and scrap metal. The car parts were packed into nice, blue boxes complete with logos and images, all piled neatly and wrapped to shipping palettes. I can not easily imagine the final end user across the ocean conceptualizing the environment in which these were produced. Similarly, I can not easily imagine them even caring. With all the hype about globalization bringing us all together, these little boxes were the sole link between what are, quite literally, two different realities.

In this peri-urban industrial landscape of Shandong, the relics of socialist industrialization efforts are being harnessed to serve a new master: the unquenchable consumer thirst of far-off peoples. It is a place in which globalization, which I suspect means nothing at all, is to be found in haphazard, low-tech workshops; in unplanned industrialization; in bastardized rural lands. It is a place where the imperatives of production and profit overpower the need for order, coherence or planning. Far from the showcase boulevards of China’s urban cores, this is where, in my opinion, the country’s raw capitalism is more purely exposed. As much as China’s industrial urbanization can be understood as a deliberate, top-down affair, it is places like this factory that remind me that the country’s drive for development is also most equally from the bottom up, let loose and out of control.

cross-posted at Urban Impressions

Sometimes, on quiet afternoons, I envy those for whom God, King and Country were (or still are) a reality. For better or worse, things made sense. There were causes to die for. Good and evil existed, mostly to fight each other. People had roles, as stifling as they may have been. Progress was real, objective and pure. Industry equaled emancipation. Consumer goods equaled pleasure. Cars equaled freedom. The good life was real, standardized and available, as long as you put in your hours to pay for it.

Say what you will about modernity, but at least it was numb bliss compared to the maelstorm into which my twenty-five years of reality swirl, as lost as they are well spent. I was born, raised and educated in the age of the post-modern. I have thus been taught to question everything I know, including those who ask questions. I have been encouraged to critically analyze critical analysis of a critique, and then receive criticism of my own analysis. I have been taught that ‘objectivity’ is a dirty word, laughable in its impossibility. I have seen that ‘truth’ is merely a matter of opinion, an unfortunate victim of circumstance. God? Dead. King? Replaced with instant gratification and the inalienable right to consume. Country? Just imaginary boundaries on a map. Oh, and I’ve also heard that Henry Kissinger killed irony.
Strangely enough, I have been taught that the means of modernity are still valid, to be chased and cherished. I have been encouraged to pursue the material pleasures of life, to build a career and contribute to consumer confidence. I am supposed to feed myself, sleep, defecate, work and maybe, if I get the chance, produce some offspring who will do the same thing as I, only with cooler gadgets in a different year. I am to devote myself to accumulation, to producing things people don’t need so I can afford to buy things I don’t need.

At some point in modern human thought, however, the means crowded out the ends. The determinism and objective good of modernity, the ends to which we were all supposed to be striving, well- they got gutted, disected and discarded. The ‘truth’ has been critiqued, ridiculed and forgotten. Subjectivity and experience are now the name of the game. I’m told how I should live, what I should want and why I should want it. What I’m not told, however, is why. Or for what.

When you think about it, post-modernism is a bitch. Everything is valid but nothing is true. All voices are considered but no one is right. Evil becomes subjective, and morals become marketable goods. Bring this all to its logical conclusion, and it’s quite possible that I don’t even exist. I’m just a figment of your imagination. The whole world could be in your head, not mine. How would you ever know?

That is why it is so tempting to be conservative, to pretend things mean something when they don’t. We all try to latch onto meaning: a place, a job, a person or a cause. Why? Well, not because they really do mean anything, but just because we need to latch onto something. I wish I could believe that gay marriage is wrong. I wish I could look at congested highways and bloated buildings and see progress. I wish I could pray to a loving yet vengeful God every night before falling asleep. I wish I could look up at my flag and feel my eyes moisten with pride. I wish I could believe that Jesus drove an SUV. I sincerely wish that I could see things in black and white, promoting Good ™ and crushing Evil ™.

But I can’t. First, because it is too annoying. Second, because I exist in a society that has run out of things to do with itself. It is in the throes of self-destruction, a victim of its own success. Through some evolutionary fluke, through the wonders of mass production and antibiotics, we’ve had a glimpse beyond the misery of basic survival. And what do we see? A scary void staring back at us. If a society has enough time and energy to contemplate itself and its actions, well then it is doomed. Were we really meant to get here?

And so there are a number of us in this afterglow of history, overeducated and aimless. We are too smart and too witty, or at least we think we are, to believe anything or anyone. We abuse our bodies and numb our minds- why? Well, why not. We seek meaning in visceral rushes, in moments. We live life not for the experience, but rather for the memories of the experience, the chance to capture something real and show it to others on a screen. We are all trying to be our own independent film, in which everything is impossibly stylish but nothing makes sense because it doesn’t have to. We all want to be different. We decry society but enjoy the fruits of its labour.

We are the ultimate hypocrites, mocking the world that has allowed us to flourish. We have not only confused style and substance; we have made substance stylish. We are political, worldly and wary, dismissing tactics as erroneous and any strategy as hopeless. We question our lives as much as we live them. We forget to savour the moment by instead thinking about how cool that moment must be. Through the haze of gin and tonic, our powers to sound intelligent impress the less mentally fortunate (and the more sober).

Our education is a joke we played on ourselves, and we know it. Our ideas are big precisely because we know they will never work. In this world, nothing does. Everyone is out for a dollar, or for themselves: compassion for others depends on profitability.

Inevitably, through all of this, it all comes back to the same question:

What is the meaning of anything?

And like all those who came before us, we have absolutely no fucking clue.

So we sit overlooking a summer sunset and a city in the throes of perpetuating itself. The soundtrack to our lives plays on a small scratchy radio. As the next drinks are poured and consumed, a calm glow overcomes us. We look out at the world, we look at our friends, and we smile.

Why? Because for that one moment, things are real. And absolutely wonderful.

In the very early autumn of 2004, as my departure for the London School of Economics rapidly approached, I took stock of both myself and my wardrobe and decided I needed a new pair of shoes. London is a fashionable place you see, full of fashionable people wearing fashionable clothes. After spending two years in mainland China and, well, a lifetime in Canada, I figured my sense of style would surely struggle to measure up to Europe’s mecca of wide-knotted pastel ties and layered, faux-worn street chic. Being a representative of Montreal in the British megalopolis, I would need to show off my hometown’s laidback fashion saavy, full as it is of cool kids doing cool things in cool places. But as an avid walker and regular urban wanderer, I would also need something comfortable and durable. No one looks cool with bleeding feet.

Of course, like countless other urban hipsters before me, I expect my coolness delivered to me on a silver, capitalist platter. Corporations love people like me: I’m looking for that unique and saavy style, and yet I am perfectly content with letting mass production and marketing both imagine and create that product for me. I’m sure there are tons of little funky shoes stores with unique and low-scale designs, yes, but it’s not like I’m going to spend the effort to sort through all of them. Multinational sportswear company, lavish me with your concocted urban ruggedness and tales of spiritual fulfillment! I’ll just make sure to look away when I pass someone wearing the same ‘unique’ shoes as I am.

So this is how I came across the Columbia Tolovanas ‘buffalo casual oxfords” (whatever that means- honestly, who comes up with these names?). They offered me everything I was hoping for: urban chic; subdued simplicity; comfort;heck, even a silly name. I saw them and was instantly hooked. To me, these shoes said, loud and clear, “look at me, I’m so cool that I barely know it”. I doled out the cash, and proudly displayed my new sense of style to, uhm, anyone who actually bothered to look at my feet.

Columbia Tolovanas: New

Looking at those Tolovanas in their impossibly perfect “only for marketing” state, I can just imagine myself standing somewhere in London- probably one of those ‘it’s so rundown it’s actually a super expensive condo’ neighbourhoods- smiling while I vaguely look up at the sky in some pseudo-Soviet propaganda pose of the ideal post-modern, urban youth (maybe I’d have a bag or laptop covered in stickers in there, and obviously I’d be wearing layers of earth tones and be super attractive).

But looking at my Tolovanas now, in February 2006, I can only stand in silent awe of all that they’ve seen, done and stepped in.

You see, in the end I wasted little time trying to be some poster boy for a mythic urban wanderer and ended up being a very real one. My Tolovanas were subjected to a range of pavement,stone, rock, dirt, mud, brush, rain, water, concrete, alcohol and, yes, probably even a drop or two of urine somewhere in there (not to mention whatever else I might have stepped in at some point). More recently, they have been subjected to the street salt ravages of Canadian winters. I took them to shoe hell as they took me through a year of extensive walking in London; a crazy four days in Belgrade; a three-week trip through China;a weekend in Scotland; a ten-day trip through Western Turkey; a beautiful weekend in Paris; two weeks in Brussels (and a day in Brugges); and finally everyday life in Montreal (and also some random side trips that I’ve failed to mention). I honestly think these shoes have seen more than I have.

Although the Tolovanas took a beating, they survived the onslaught. Perhaps this is why I grew to know them, to cherish them, to wear them any chance I got. Sure, the heels were a bit shredded both inside and out, but they refused to smell bad or fall apart. They ceased to be Columbia Tolovanas - those mythical beauties - and instead became, quite simply, just my shoes. In fact, more recently they somehow became my only pair of everyday shoes, rain or shine, sleet or snow, office or bar. In their worn out state I had claimed them as my own, and we were inseparable.

Columbia Tolovanas: Not So New
Of course, not everyone shared my fondness for these shoes. For quite some time now, comments have ranged from the blunt, “you need to get new shoes” to the even more blunt, as in “you look like a bum”. I fought the comments and the questions, and my trusty Tolovanas continued to pound the pavement and snowbanks with me (I did give a little, however, and stopped wearing them in my dad’s office).

Last week, however, the visit of someone very special to me gave me the final push I needed to retire the Tolovanas (I probably don’t need to mention that she was also one of the people who ‘recommended’ that I purchase new footwear). So I returned to my trusty shoe vendor, debating what kind of avant-garde style I want to project in these post post-modern days of early 2006.

And these are the shoes I settled on.

Columbia Kiwandas: New

As I move comfortably into my mid-twenties, I’ve had years now to realize that our world works largely on superficiality. I might be a great guy, but who in a position to give me any sort of responsibility or gainful employment is going to take me seriously if my shoes look like I just slept in a dumpster? As much as I long for the carefree days of youth (well, uhmm, younger than I am now), I might have to keep my hair tidy and make sure my footwear demonstrates both capitalist confidence and a readiness to sell my soul and look good doing it. The Columbia Kiwandas (I swear, who comes up with these names, anyways?) fit the bill. I stayed with Columbia since the tenacity of the Tolovanas showed the Chinese migrants who put them together might have actually known what they were doing. I went with the Kiwanas because I need a suave, more polished leather look while still keeping an ounce or two of urban chic je-ne-sais-quoi in there.

Perhaps, in a deeper sense, my shoes are symbolic of my life, both in its past actions and current choices. The Tolovanas, in their battered state, represent the me of 2004 and 2005, running around the world eyes wide open all the while busting my behind to make sure I produced some good quality work to back up my fancy Masters degree. I barely stopped to catch my breath, and frankly didn’t often much care for the superficiality of my appearance (much to the consternation of some, I’m sure).

The Kiwandas, on the other hand, are symbolic of me in early 2006, as life continues to unroll its uncertainties. I’m a man in search of a bit more stability, maybe even a place to truly call home for a while in which I can gainfully pursue an endeavour in my field and build up both my experience and sense of responsibility. And in our superficial reality, that seems to go with wearing nicer clothes. My carefree youth is certainly no more.

However, the Kiwandas retain in some form that urban wandering look of the Tolovanas; they, just as I, are not quite ready to go completely slick and corporate, if ever. To get out there in the world, do amazing things and maybe help a person or two along the way; that is a fire that still burns inside me no matter how hard I try to extinguish it. The Kiwandas represent my attempt to conform a bit more to ‘established’ life paths and expectations while struggling to maintain the integrity of my own ethics and opinions. Maybe by slapping a little brown leather onto my footwear, I’ll subdue the urge to wander down dusty paths and jostle my way through countless muddy bus stations in the wild hinterlands of our world. Maybe I’ll get a ‘real’ job.

Or maybe, by the summer of 2007, the Kiwandas will look even more battered than the Tolovanas.