scruta

Jazz is like astronomy; pop is like astrology.

The keepers of both despise each other, but find themselves consumed with wonder:

One says, How could such knowledge of the universe be so precise and exacting?

The other says, How could so many people rally around something so simple? So generic?

When you say you understand the West, don’t speak to me in the tired platitudes of freedom or individualism. I cannot stand them; they stick in my mouth like cotton balls. They are tasteless and they choke all discussion, leaving nothing but sputtering and agonizing gestures that the offending words should be taken back.

Ask me: where are the communities of the West? And who struggled to forge them? And the families? The histories that bind them?

And when you come bogging on about the East, don’t begin with your blunted generalizations about relationships and duty and society and histories of 5,000 years. They are just glass panes you look through. They are ultimately the keepers of your own reflection. Through them you see whatever you want, or nothing at all.

Start with the individuals. Start with the iconoclasts. Start with the ones who stand outside, few as they are.

Understanding any people is understanding their struggle, especially the struggle with themselves.

The lid is attached just so to the slot at the top of the SWFC, holding the entire thing in place. Condensation collects in the dome of the sky and drops down suddenly in torrents, only to evaporate again. The process repeats and repeats ad infinitum.

I like to think that we are all grains of white rice flailing around in it - growing larger, more saturated and clumping together. We are full, gushing with starchy energy, burning quickly for whoever could find a use for us. We accommodate all flavors.

We’re happy this way. Although we know well how we’ve been bleached, made uniform, stripped of our husks and the hearty way we once faced the world.

I’m really uncomfortable with the non sequitur often batted about to justify a foreigner’s frustration when coming into conflict with Chinese culture - that it’s 5,000 years old.

I suppose the thinking is that Chinese culture is radically different, and the reason for its difference is that China is the longest surviving culture in the world. (Whatever that means.)  However, I fail to see how the length of time that a culture has had to develop is in any way indicative of its depth or its difficulty to be understood. There are plenty of people all around the world who find subcultures based around musical genres less than 50 years old such as hiphop and drum and bass absolutely inscrutable. Of course, it’s also important to note the reciprocal difficulties that many Chinese encounter with American culture, a somewhat radical off-shoot of European culture with a little over 200 years of history. (To be fair, this has gotten easier for many Chinese in recent years due to the constant inundation with American culture during their education.)

I would argue that the difficulty in understanding any culture has very little to do with how long the culture has been around per se. The difficulty in assimilation and understanding is a relative relationship having to do with the proximity that two cultures have in terms of their thought processes, values, etc. This could be related to the physical or temporal proximity of the cultures being compared (ex. China and the West), but it doesn’t have to be.

When people say something like “Don’t feel bad that you’re frustrated. China’s culture is over 5,000 years old!,” I’d like to think they are saying:

“China and the West have been developing as cultures relatively independently of each other for several thousand years. No wonder you feel frustrated!”

However, most of the time the statement is not used to alleviate or explain someone’s frustration, rather, it is used to diffuse argument and act as a conclusion, blocking further discussion. A foreigner might say, “Why do the Chinese have this social practice? I don’t understand.” And they’ll get back, “Take your time. You’ll get it. Chinese culture is over 5,000 years old.”

Although on the surface, the questioner seems to be reassured by their interlocutor that it’s just a matter of time. But what they have actually done is refused to justify or try to explain their values, thinking that at some level no explanation is possible or even worse, that the foreigner couldn’t understand, even if they tried.

Put simply, the idea is:

“Chinese culture is 5,000 years old. It is very complex. You couldn’t possibly understand.”

Really? I beg to differ.

Not all foreigners are devils;

Not all devils are foreign.

I saw the following advertisement in a subway station featuring Chinese blogging legend, Hanhan:

A rough translation into English:

I love the internet. I love freedom. I love getting up late. I love night markets. I love race cars. And I also love 29 kuai t-shirts. I’m not some flag-bearer. I’m nobody’s spokesperson. I’m Hanhan. I only represent myself. You and I are alike. I am Vancl.

Is it me, or has Hanhan sold out, and then utilized the ad to explain why he’s not selling out?

Despite the hypocrisy, this ad could also be said to represent an entire generation of Chinese born in the 1980s, the so called 80后. They are caught between their society’s near-moral imperative to pursue wealth, and their desire to define themselves as individuals in a dynamic, quickly changing world.

Can you have it both ways?

Hanhan seems to think so.

All day long Shanghai made me think of a drunken poet, reeling his bearded-head around, shaking it in the breeze, as if he knows something that I don’t. The white, wild tangles of his hair seem to say so.

It’s nighttime, and he has just finished engaging in a night of drinking and feasting at an outdoor pavilion by a lake. All around him there are half-eaten dishes of food and empty bottles of beer and baijiu. There’s a pit of embers burning off to the side where there had been a barbecue. Small wooden stakes are sticking out of the ground nearby, monuments to the festivities.

I don’t know where his companions have gone, or why they left him there to contemplate the lake in the moonlight.

I greet him in English, finding it somehow appropriate, “Hello.”

He just shakes his head again, the same way he did before, smiling as he does so.

“What are you doing here?”

He shakes his head again.

“Are you composing poetry?”

Another shake.

I know I’m looking at Shanghai, but I’m compelled to ask, “Will you tell me who you are?”

And another.

I grow frustrated, and sit down next to him at the table, contemplating the mess: crab shells full of ashes and cigarette butts, fish bones piled like offerings to a lowly god of the nearby lake, gobs of pork bellies swimming in seas of purple, coagulating goo, tiny pieces of diced garlic that had once sat in a sea of green vegetables…

I notice that he’s now looking at me, watching me survey the mess. I ask him again, this time almost pleading with him, “Who are you?”

He shakes again, but this time points with his hands, out towards the lake then back across toward the table, as if that gesture itself could relate all that he is - a move from the lake and the forest beyond in the moonlight, full of promise, pristine and untouched to the glaring fluorescent lights just above us and the junkyard of scraps that lay below.

I saw the following two ads on the subway in Shanghai (I apologize for the poor photography):

The ads were interesting for two reasons. First, the prominence of English in the advertisements was clearly directed at a very particular market, foreigners in Shanghai. I guess Qingdao has finally reconciled itself as the “beer of expats.” Second, the relationship between the message given in English and Chinese was markedly different.

Here’s the Chinese from the first ad:

The Chinese loosely translates: “In China, if you’re late drink three glasses [of beer]. The punishment is a form of politeness; The taste is a form of refreshment.”

The commentary on the custom in the Chinese is conspicuously absent from the English version.

Rewritten: 在中国喝酒，会说“青岛啤酒”，可能比会说“你好”更重要

The Chinese loosely translates: “When going out for drinks in China, being able to say “Qingdao Beer” could be more important than being able to say “hello.”

Here the Chinese emphasizes the importance of “Qingdao Beer,” instead of suggesting how much fun it is to learn to say “Qingdao Beer” in Chinese.

In English the ads target a market seen as wanting to learn Chinese and improve understanding of Chinese culture. In Chinese, the ads target a market where it is trying justify itself as a brand important in social interactions, especially interactions with those who might find “青岛啤酒“ more important than “你好”.

There was an old philosophy buddy of mine who I ran into several years after we had studied together in university. Someone told me he was a DJ. Someone told me he had been floating for years now, living a life of contemplation and drugs. He asked me plainly, “What is the right way to live?” I found myself speechless. I had spent so long away from that question that I didn’t know how to answer. At the time, part of me was ashamed.

Even now, I still feel like I can’t answer it, but I don’t feel ashamed. I now know why I can’t answer it. I feel I can only answer this question with another question. With many questions. How to describe them?

I think of Socrates, and I think of spelunking. Socrates instilled in his finest students a love for caves. But Socrates never gave us the light for them. He gave us a lamp, a lit lamp, but with little fuel. Socrates was weak and feeble.

These questions are the lamp, requiring other things, other questions, which occasionally produce brief, momentary bursts of light.

We hoot and holler into the darkness crying, “Where are the matches? Where is the flint? Where is the flame?”

The Ruins of St. Paul’s left me with a strange feeling:

It’s the remains of a church in Macao, burned to the ground in the 19th century, which have been tastefully adorned by several Portuguese architects and plenty of money before the Portuguese returned the city to China. I suppose it makes sense, making the last vestiges of their rule into a ruin for tourists to gawk at. This is how the legacies of all rulers and conquerors end - names on stones constantly beset by flashbulbs, peace-signing, giggling tour groups, and the endless rattle of trinket sellers.

That’s not to say that this place is no longer holy, no longer the site of interesting and varied religious rites. Of course, most people participating in this religion have no idea that they are participating in it. But such is the power of this religion.

It is most visible when you walk inside the remains of the crypt. It’s a small unattended room at the back of the complex, visited by only the most inquisitive of travelers. The once dark and damp repository of bones is now a bright room of granite, illuminated by a giant skylight from above. There are two levels to it, one more of a balcony, the other a pit. It’s like a theater. It makes you feel as if you are at a performance.

Sure, the trappings of Christianity are there, too. An emaciated, black, cast-iron cross sits in the light above, next to what appears to be a black collection box, with a cross for a handle, inlaid almost as an afterthought. They have Gregorian chants looped on loudspeakers hung overhead. The bones of Japanese martyrs lie in the walls encased in glass. They do not bear resemblance to anything human. They could be the legs of cattle or pigs. Oh, there’s still some sort of traditional reverence for them here, I suppose, but it’s stretched as thin as the cross before me.

When I walk on the balcony, I notice the spread of coins out upon the remains of the masonry, everywhere obscuring the stone that lies beneath, outshining the cross, focusing my attention away from the music. If this is a holy place, where people come to remember and pray, then they do so by throwing coins.

I throw two, chucking them like little frisbees, aiming for the flattest, best preserved parts. I miss both times, but I love it all the same.

What do I think while I throw these coins?

I don’t. I think only about the thrill of throwing, about the light of the moment, the weight of the coin in my hand.

It’s an amusement, harmless, quiet, free.

This is how I participate in the world’s newest religion, throwing money in the amphitheaters of ruins, filled with the icons and martyrs of the past.