Partisan Gods

This just in: in an apparent PR coup, China's door gods have joined the ranks of the PLA. The afterlife communications secretary declined to comment.

Happy Chinese New Year

Obama coverage on CCTV

This is great:

For those who don't understand Chinese, here's a rough transcript:

Obama: "Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism..."

[simultaneous translation]

[fadeout]

[cue startled looking anchor] Wang Haiying (a correspondent), Wang Haiying...

Wang: yes?

Anchor: what economic challenges does Obama face?

Apparently they tried to do live coverage of the inaugural speech, but someone freaked out and pulled the plug when they heard that bit about facing down communism. If they had just left it alone, no one would have noticed, or better yet, it would have sparked a debate among ultranationalist youth about Obama's "attack" on Chinese ideals (actually, some people are arguing about that on the youtube page for this clip). Instead, they freaked out, and now it's all over the place. If they had stayed, though, I wonder what would have happened when Obama started talking about those who would crush dissent being on the wrong side of history.

The next question is, of course, who is going to get fired for this mess? Will it be the guy who thought it was a good idea to have a live broadcast of the speech without an advance copy? Maybe. But it's more likely to be the interpreter taking the blame. That's rough. We've got enough to worry about without having to do political analysis at 80 words a minute.

PS: props to Danwei.org for their coverage, and to Hoiking for posting the video.

Colors in Chinese!

I was very pleased to see this copy of Colors magazine for sale in Beijing the other day. I've been able to grab a copy or two before, but usually older issues in specialty stores. This issue is different for two reasons: it was at a regular bookstore (O2 Sun at Xiandai SOHO), and it's in English and Chinese.

I am happy to report that Colors has set up operations in China, and apparently has plans to publish regularly in China. If you haven't read a Colors magazine before, be sure to pick up a copy. It will change the way you see things.

This actually wasn't a huge surprise for me. Last year Colors put out an issue on Beijing, and I noticed that it was almost entirely done by local editors. That is a great issue and it's worth tracking down if you haven't seen it yet. I wondered at the time if they weren't taking the steps to set up shop out here.

We've seen some previous foreign magazies fail out here, as with Rolling Stone (twice, despite the efforts of the esteemed Hao Fang). I hope that Colors is here to stay. Spread the word, people.

Update on the Bombing and its Coverage (or lack thereof)

Gokunming.com has been doing a great job of keeping everyone posted, but I feel a need to do a followup on my last post regarding the bombing at Salvador's Coffee House.

Police have released evidence that clearly links the deceased bomber to the bus bombings of July. Evidence also shows that Salvador's was most likely not the target of the attack, and that the bomb was inadvertently detonated as the bomber left the bathroom (after ordering, I've been told, coffee and waffles).

Several days after the incident, Reuters finally picked up on the story. The headline was something like "Bus Bomber confesses on his deathbed". Basically, the bomb at Salvador's wasn't a story, and was barely mentioned. New York Times followed the next day with a short blurb to the same effect in their back pages. My letters to several major news outlets, including NYTimes and Wall Street Journal, all went unanswered, which is very disappointing.

So I guess we can all breath a bit easier now, knowing that there's one less maniac out there.

An Unfortunate Incident

On Christmas Eve I was saddened by the news that my favorite café in Kunming, Salvador’s Coffee House, fell victim to a bomb attack. Luckily, none of the patrons or staff were seriously injured, though the bomber died of his wounds later that day.
In my nearly nine years in Kunming I have always viewed the city as a safe place, much safer than most American cities, and safer than many Chinese cities as well. The idea of a bomb attack that apparently targeted foreigners still seems ludicrous.
Salvador’s has been an important part of the community, and was heavily frequented by locals and foreigners alike. The American owners are friendly and easygoing, and have a very enlightened approach to business’s responsibility to the community.
The specter of foreign-targeted violence is very unsettling, as are a few other things that I’ve recently noticed.
First, and probably the most baffling, is that no major international news outlet (with the exception of South China Morning Post, based in Hong Kong) has picked up the story. Why would that be? It was a bomb, someone died, the city was recently victim to two bus bombings that remain unsolved, and foreigners were targeted in a region that is heavily dependent on international tourism. THIS IS A STORY!
I have a few theories as to why they haven’t picked up on the story yet. The first is that the bomb failed to produce a large body count. Sensationalism sells. The second is that the incident fails to fit into the “story-arc paradigm” that so dominates the international press these days. When the bus bombings took place, you had tons of reporters writing things like “China faces growing security risks during the approach to the Olympics”. Reporters were also quick to point their fingers at a farmer protest in southern Yunnan, because newsworthy stories can only be understood in light of other events that made the news. With the Olympics over and things calming down in Tibet, this incident is rather hard to explain. The third theory is less odious, but doesn’t let the international media off the hook. The bomb hit Salvador’s on Christmas Eve, when a lot of newsdesks are stripped down to a skeleton crew. By the time they notice that news actually happened during their time off, the story will be too old to report. Regardless, every China desk should be ashamed for failing to find and report this story.
Another unsettling development is that even before the bombing, Kunming was feeling less and less like a safe city. Two buses were bombed at morning rush hour earlier this year. A man was recently shot by police snipers after a five hour hostage standoff in a Kunming Carrefour. I myself was present at the Box, a bar near Salvador’s, when some drunken men stormed the place with crowbars. I also recently witnessed a massive gang fight in Kunming’s disco district which local security guards and police were helpless to stop. What the hell is going on here?
The Box incident, though paling in comparison to the recent terrorist attacks (there, I said it), is an interesting case. When police were summoned to the scene, they actually caught the guys coming back to finish the job. Nevertheless, the young men were questioned and released. Then an officer came in and proceeded to grill us about why these people (whom we’d never seen before) would be so mad at us. After releasing our assailants, he was basically trying to lay the blame on us. Perhaps he was angry that we had disrupted his drinking session. One of us noticed that he was not wearing any identification, which is a violation of police procedure. We asked for his badge number, and he threatened to arrest us for not carrying passports (surely a much worse offense than attempted assault with a crowbar). He eventually conceded only that his surname was Yang, and that he is an officer at the local Wenhua Xiang police station.
I am very familiar with that police station, as it is right next door to Kunming’s largest purveyor of pirate DVD’s. I wonder if perhaps this kind of attitude towards policing might be contributing to the growing atmosphere of lawlessness in the city.
I’m rambling. Back to the unsettling things. The most recent unsettling development is taking place on Gokunming.com, an excellent Kunming expat blog that has been following the Salvador’s attack and doing a good job. At the beginning, the comments section was an outpouring of sympathy for the people at Salvador’s. This seems to be quickly degenerating into a flame war, as shameless ultranationalists are pointing the finger at foreigners. One comment told all foreigners to go home before “bringing more danger to our country”. Another told us all to “fuck off and die”. I really wish these people would realize that they’re not doing their country any favors. If they really cared, perhaps they would direct some of that anger at the people who put so many innocent lives at risk.

That is my rant. Now to the important stuff:

I love Salvador’s and all of the people there. I am overjoyed that they are all okay, and I can’t wait to go back down there for a cup of excellent coffee as soon as the place reopens. My heart goes out to their family members who right now can only worry from the other side of the world. Let’s all stay positive.

Something fun

This is just great: signs of the times

Supergirl Li Yuchun and her 50 cent Army (With Update at Bottom)

I've been following an interesting exchange recently on Danwei . I'm sure that everyone is familiar with the Chinese netizens who flood web postings about China with all kinds of comments, usually 'defending the nation's honor' against perceived bias and whatnot. Some of these people are believed to be employed by the Chinese government in what one sinologist terms the '50 cent army'. He believes that these people are paid small amounts of money per post they make supporting certain stances held by the party. Of course, the majority of these people are not in anyone's employ, but the theory makes sense. Check out any Economist article on China to see what I mean.

The interesting thing is, this is a huge phenomenon in the Chinese netsphere. Chinese celebrities have their own armies of netizens, paid and unpaid, to shower them with compliments and flood negative coverage with scathing criticism. One of these, I found out yesterday, is Supergirl Li Yuchun.

An article about a recent listing of Beijing heroes by Time Out Magazine has been flooded with dozens of comments that basically heap her with praise. What makes it interesting is that Danwei is a hangout for people who constantly scrutinize Chinese media, whether it's for a hobby, professionally or as academic research. It's like a mycologist getting a fungal infection.

Anyway, it's worth taking a look. In the meantime, I am currently hiring conscripts for a 50 cent army of my own. Apply within...

Update: the 50 cent army seems to be taking it easy with Danwei. I estimate they've only made about 70 posts since the story started last week. That's understandable as the article wasn't negative, and it was, after all, in English. While I was playing around in the postings, I came across a woman named Lili who is researching this specific phenomena. She shared a very interesting anecdote:

Actually, I have seen these kinds of wrecks many times. The worst time was Li's haters attached her fans' Baidu Post (BBS or public forum), using program generated curse comments. The auto-comments could reach 60-100 pieces per minute. Her supporters learned to use the same strategy to defend. Eventually, they drove Baidu servers, the biggest internet engine in China, to collapse for a few days.

That's just awesome. 

What's Going on Here?

Note: Update at bottom


I just had an amazing bike trip through Yunnan for the holiday, which I'll hopefully get back to soon. Today, though, a little bit about the Chinese art market.

It's nearly impossible to estimate the size and health of the global art market, because so much of its volume is carried out between private individuals and galleries, which are all in private hands. The auction market is considered a barometer of market health, but it is a slippery one, because as some say, "it's only the tip of the iceberg". We get good figures from them because many of the big auction houses are public companies, and because the auction events are always highly publicized, but no one is even willing to guess what fraction of the total art market their sales represent.

Nevertheless, we have to keep feeding the habit, as much of the market watches what happens at these auctions and adjusts prices accordingly. This has especially been the case in China, where so many of the collectors are speculators, and there are rampant rumors of price manipulation through insider bidding. China's art market has been soaring in recent years as Chinese private collectors and finance have jumped in, where only a few years ago the vast majority of Chinese contemporary collection was done by foreigners.

As I watched with the Puer tea market and again with the Chinese stock market, many of these new entrants seemed to believe that the market for their particular good was not subject to the laws of economics. Works by top flight artists are now selling in the millions of dollars, and efforts by newcomers to discover the next big thing have driven up the prices of much less established artists, even ones who haven't yet graduated from art school. Though I think that in the long term Chinese art will continue to be very strong, we're definitely in for some kind of correction, basically a smack in the face to remind people that the laws of physics still apply.

So I wasn't too surprised to see Sotheby's fall auction in Hong Kong fizzle. We are, after all, in the midst of a global financial crisis. Though top artists like Zhang Xiaogang (my fave) and Cai Guoqiang had pieces that sold for over USD 2m, almost a quarter of the lots failed to sell, and the ones that did only clocked in at the low end of their estimates. I think that this is a good thing. We need to start weeding out those artists who see painting as merely a license to print money, and those galleries and collectors who appraise artists solely based on their potential to go up in price. That makes room for true artists to do what they do best: art.

The confusing thing though, is the reaction I've seen on the internet. The auction results have of course garnered a lot of media attention, being written up by Wall Street Journal and all of the art websites. But one site in particular caught my attention. A recent newcomer, Artintern.net is a well designed bilingual website on the Chinese art scene. The Chinese coverage is excellent, and their English writing is better than a lot of other bilingual sites which have popped up recently. So I was surprised to see yesterday the headline, in English, "Chinese Contemporary Art Sell of Sotheby's (sic) is Still Strong". It cited another website, Artzinechina.com, as saying that sales still remained strong, citing only the high prices that did make the cut, and not one word about the failed lots. Their Chinese mirror site got it right though, citing a "disappointing performance". What's going on here? Was it a bad editing job, or are something else? I checked Artzine, which says on the top of its news page that the Sotheby's auction had a "surprisingly poor showing". One of the first sentences that Chinese students of English learn to say is "My English is very poor", so I doubt that they could have misread the article.

Update: Artintern has caught the mistake, and now has not one, but two articles about the poor Sotheby's results.

Gen Dequan

Gen Dequan, the famous Dai folk musician, passed away last night of an apparent brain hemorrhage. He was a master of the Hulu, a reed instrument fashioned out of drinking gourds which is popular among the Dai and many other ethnic groups throughout Yunnan and Southeast Asia. He was fifty years old.
Known as King of the Gourd, Gen Dequan was instrumental in popularizing the folk music of the Dai people, and making their music a household name throughout China, synonymous with the cultural diversity of Yunnan Province. Throughout his career he toured many cities and countries, sharing the musical traditions of his people.
I was fortunate to know him. We first met on the Yunnan Revealed tour in 2005, when I was tour manager and he was a performer. He came again with us to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 2007. He was a good man and a phenomenal musician.

Virtual City, Empty Fortress

Hosting the opening ceremony

Last weekend I made a journey to the virtual city. Though it doesn’t really exist, the portal to this city was on the west side of Shanghai. Shanghai was boiling with artists that weekend that flocked there for the three major art expos that happened last week. Though the city definitely plays second fiddle to Beijing in the China art scene, this time it was host to probably the most important art happening of the year with thousands of artworks and dozens of satellite exhibitions.

Virtual City was one such satellite exhibition. It was conceived by Yuan Gong, Shanghai real estate mogul-turned supersized art patron. He recently established the Yuan Gong Art Museum, Artra Space and Yuan Gong Art Organization at a complex of buildings on Gubei Lu near the old Hongqiao Airport. He’s been tossing around money and doing some really cool stuff over the past few years.

Visitors descend on the Virtual City

The concept behind Virtual City was to manipulate the environment in a way that created an impossible space, one in which the physical environment interfered with reality in absurd ways, and in which virtual reality expanded the experience into another dimension. The complex was filled with installation, sculpture and new media works by over fifty artists, and the complex itself was transformed by a web of obstructions and labyrinths which made navigation all but impossible.

I was there to serve as one of the hosts for the opening, as well as general translator. I had friends in the show and friends who came out to see me, and between them and the needs of the event, I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off. The obstructions created by the space and the massive crowds – especially around the installation with a live exotic dancer on a mechanically bouncing bed – made the day next to impossible. I was constantly cursing the labyrinths and hidden stairwells as I ran back and forth, and I barely had time to look at the artworks. But of course I knew that this feeling was exactly what the curators had intended.

One of the creepier works on display

I did have time to see some of the stuff, though. Unfortunately much of the work would have been unremarkable if it weren’t for the stellar presentation. The best artwork of all was the exhibition itself. Two pieces, however, stood out. One was “Sounding off for 5.12”, an interactive media installation about the May 12th Sichuan Earthquake by an artist whose name escapes me. A crushed truck had been removed from the wreckage of the earthquake and shipped to the exhibition space, where it was placed in a cavity in the floor. It was covered in stripped down speakers and lights, and more importantly, an array of motion and sound sensors. The speakers and lights reacted to the sensory input from the audience, and emitted sounds and lights accordingly. The most striking thing about this installation was the sound. Two separate sounds were recorded. The first was the sound of every car horn, factory whistle, siren and other noisemaker in the country, which were sounded off in unison during a nationwide day of mourning for the nearly 70,000 victims of the earthquake. The second sound was that of survivors hammering away at the ruined buildings looking for scrap metal they could sell to supplement their food rations. These were sounds of solidarity, sounds of despair, and sounds of the invincible human spirit. I’d like to spend some time alone with the piece some day.


Cang Xin's tower
The second piece that struck me was a three-story scale model of Shanghai’s new World Financial Center, the tallest building in China, in wax. It was a perfectly executed replica by artist Cang Xin and his crew of workers. The building was in an atrium inside one of the compound houses. As it towered over the other artworks and by the various balconies, it was being slowly melted by a massive torch suspended over the artwork. I always have trouble reading into Cang Xin’s works, but there’s never a dull moment with that guy. In fact, though it was much different from a lot of his other work that I’ve seen, I knew it was his without even looking at the label. The first thought that ran through my mind was “only in China”.

Before long I was pulled away to catch a really cool experimental dance piece directed by Wen Pulin, followed by an academic forum. The original idea was that I would translate for any foreigners who wished to attend, but they were all lured to other exhibitions by the free booze. Since I was seated at the main table, it would have been rude to leave, and besides, these were some of China’s top critics. I had translated many of their essays, and was keen to get to know them a bit better. The forum was quite interesting, because on top of some of China’s best critics and curators, there was also a philosopher, Philip Zhai, who happens to specialize in the philosophical concepts and issues of virtual reality. He had captivated our dinner and drinking session the night before, and did the same with his opening remarks at the forum. He argues, among other things, that as virtual space becomes a larger part of our lives, it may one day become more important than the real world, and when that happens, the virtual will become the real, and the real, virtual. Interesting guy.

Halfway through our forum, the speaker was interrupted by the sound of approaching sirens. Someone joked that maybe Cang Xin’s wax tower had set the building on fire, and we all laughed. The forum continued for another hour or so, during which time I got a text message from a friend, San San, Ms 33, saying, “We’ve been evacuated to the parking lot and are trying to decide where to go next. When are you finished up there?”

San San is an attractive young artist and event promoter that I met on a previous trip to Shanghai. She had a piece on the roof of the same building as Cang Xin’s piece. Her installation was a cluster of small structures covered in clippings of newspaper headlines and other media info, in a statement about how much media shapes our world these days. She had kept a fire extinguisher next to the work as she put it together all week, just for safety’s sake. When she finished the artwork, she decided that she liked the fire extinguisher, and also covered it in newspaper, placing it in the center of the installation.

That made her the guardian angel of the virtual city. Sometime in the afternoon, the torch above Cang Xin’s artwork managed to burn through the ceiling, surprise surprise. Falling embers ignited the entire wax tower, which promptly collapsed and sent flames flying everywhere. My good friend, Huang Zheng, true to his style, helped evacuate the audience members, and joined with Cang Xin in trying to put out the flames; a job made that much easier thanks to San San’s fire extinguisher. The two men were the last to leave the building just as the fire brigade arrived.

Imagine the firefighters’ rage when they found they had to navigate a labyrinth to get to the fire site and that there were no evacuation routes. Our forum was in a building on the other side of the compound, oblivious to the whole thing. When we finished the discussion, we were astonished to find that the labyrinths, the obstacles, the entire virtual city had disappeared without a trace (except for maybe a smoldering blob of wax) on orders of the fire brigade. I congratulated the curators on a job well done. They had succeeded in creating a truly impossible space. Had it ever really existed in the first place?

Oh and by the way, San San retrieved her fire extinguisher. Maybe one day when she makes it big we can put it in a museum next to Duchamp’s urinal.