quelquefois

James Fallows painted a bleak picture of what it’d be like to visit TAM Square on June 4. So when I decided to visit today, I decided to forgo bringing my Canon 5d and brought my compact camera, instead. Indeed, more plainclothes security than visitors that day. Some followed us, others tried to photograph us, but all-in-all a very uneventful day (as expected).

Guard standing at one of the entrances to the Square

Sea of umbrellas

Just standing around with umbrellas, very inconspicuous

Tons of 武警 (wujing, special police forces)

Let today be known as the day the Chinese government impaled the internet with its mighty spear of technology and added Flickr, Twitter, Hotmail, bing.com, live.com to its repertoire of blocked sites. Other sites blocked in China include: Blogspot, Tumblr, YouTube, WordPress, China Digital Times, and Huffington Post.

56minus1 speculates this may have to do with Ai Weiwei joining Twitter. Lostlaowai says it has to do with that special 20th anniversary on Thursday.

Whatever the reason, this isn’t making my “I hate China” week any better.

Edit: an exhaustive list of all the websites “down for maintenance” has been compiled. Check it out here.

Yesterday, the WSJ posted an article called “An Expat’s Exotica.” It basically contends that expat havens such as Beijing and Shanghai are no longer considered “exotic” by Western standards because so many Westerners now live there and because these cities can now accommodate the familiar Western lifestyle. The author exalts those who veer off the beaten path, living in exotic places such as Changsha, Hunan or Wuhan, Hubei. He highlights a woman named Janie Corum, who is “pioneering the vast region for American businesses, striving to create a more comfortable environment (emphasis added),” paving the way for Westerners to discover China’s “remote corners.”

This is the most ridiculous piece of journalism I have encountered in a while. That people still label countries (or parts of countries) as “exotic” is beyond me. Granted, much of Asia is still a mystery to many Westerners, but that is no excuse to call a culture exotic.* If anything, it a) just proliferates the need among Westerners to “understand” a supposedly mysterious and remote culture by infiltrating or dominating a foreign civilization (a la imperialism, colonialism), and b) perpetuates the notion of “Orientalism,” a European concept invented to label Asia as a place of exoticism, romance, and ancient mystique (see, for example, Edward Said’s Orientalism).

While there is a need to understand different cultures, and while a great way to understanding those cultures is to immerse yourself within it, it is not acceptable to frame those cultures as “the other,” something so profoundly new and in contrast to ordinary Western customs. The colonialistic/taming-the-exotic-for-the-West actions that follow this mindset that this article suggests we (as Westerners) do should not be spread, but countered.

Any thoughts, comments, critiques, counter-arguments welcome.

*I admit, Chinese people also exotify Westerners to some extent. To many Chinese, they are all blonde-haired, blue-eyed moneyed beauties. However, in my experience I have yet to encounter a Chinese person who has wanted to explore the free West and debunk their mysterious, rich, contemporary lifestyle.

A few days ago, I found out that one of my male Chinese friends has gone to another city in China become a “duck” (鸭子, 男妓). I was actually quite unfamiliar with the phenomenon and even laughed when someone told me he went to go 养鸭 (yang3 ya1, raise ducks, a euphemism for male prostitution), because at first I thought he became a duck farmer.

The name “duck” complements their female counterparts, who are called chickens, (妓女). According to The Observer, more and more Chinese women “buy a duck for a few hours of chatting, drinking and flirting.” While ordering a duck used to only be prevalent among middle-aged women, increasingly more younger women are also finding ducks to accompany them through a night of drinking, karaoke, or more.

I became curious as to the life of a duck in China and searched some blogs and forums.

One 19-year-old said on a forum:

I am a 19-year-old duck. My family is poor. I am a high school graduate, and it is imperative for me to find a woman to take care of me, I can do whatever she wants me to do!…I can visit your home every day to serve you. My information is as follows…

I want to find a woman to accompany me for life, doesn’t matter if you’re older or younger, just love me! I will be with her forever.

And some responses are as follows:

218.28.106.*:

I despise you

6202687:

Fuck!!! There’s no other way! I only have this skill! It’s so sad, it’s not easy being a duck! And I have to take medicine every day, and now I have to change my kidney. I have been a duck for 3 years already. It’s okay when I meet a beautiful girl, but an ugly one…#$@#%!! let’s not talk about it. I once met a 40-year-old woman, looks not too bad, but she wanted too much. One night I didn’t rest, did it 12 times, each time was 1 hour long. The second day I bent my waist, held the wall, and had to go two hours before being able to leave. You think this is easy?

磨力游:

Males and females are the same!

横扫の千菌:

I’m speechless, you cheap embryo, you make men lose face. Don’t think that because of your innocent little face you’re great. So you’re attractive, but can you spend money and use credit cards? Fuck, even selling yourself online now. Shameless!

218.28.78:

I support you!

Other websites have blog-like entries detailing their first experience or their experiences being a duck. Some are drawn in by the prospects of making a year’s worth of earnings in mere months, others feel like they want more freedom in their life. Though it sounds fun to hang out with women and drink and play all night, like any other profession in this field, there are drawbacks as well: sexually transmitted diseases, depression, being tricked/kept from leaving, being stigmatized in society, among many other concerns.

There’s also a video made about [gay] male prostitutes in China:

I texted my duck friend–who hasn’t told me his new direction in life yet–though I haven’t heard back from him. I hope to get some inside knowledge, but I’m not sure whether he’d consider it losing face to speak to me about it. In the meantime, his 叔叔 (literally uncle, but also means older friend, does anyone know if this also means “pimp” in duck vernacular?) called me the morning after I sent the text, and said that he went home for the night, saying “这里没活干了,” “There’s nothing left to do here tonight.”

Soooo cheesy, I love it. Who doesn’t love it when masses of people gather and dance together?

I really don’t know where some of my ideas come from. For example, in order to keep from growing a resistance to medicine’s effectiveness and subjecting my body to unnatural chemicals, I have adopted the take-if-you-really-need-it approach to medicine. It’s as if my taking a few days or weeks of medicine will change human DNA for generations to come. But seriously, it’s not a bad idea, right?

But recently, I have found that bad things (be it sickness, bruises, or men) don’t go away by themselves. I thought I could trust my body or time to heal blemishes and wounds, but I was wrong.

I. Sickness
Last winter in Harbin, I made my third trip to one hospital (fourth trip overall) after the doctor made me take a CAT scan and a breathing test. I was suffering from breathing problems. She told me that I needed to spend at least one week living in the hospital to get medicine administered via IV for my sickness. Excuse me, what? Are you just trying to milk me for my money? I refused to pay exuberant amounts of money for something that can be solved without needles.

Upon arriving in Beijing, I saw a special Ears, Nose, and Throat doctor at a private hospital. He reviewed the x-rays, CAT scans, and breathing tests from Harbin and said, simply, “You have bronchitis and sinusitis.” Was it really that easy? How come my disease was a complete mystery in Harbin? Then, upon taking three weeks of antibiotic prescriptions and starting antihistamines on a daily basis, I was almost back to normal.

II. Bruises
In November, I went snowboarding and, not realizing that snow in China (did I say snow? I meant ice) is nothing like the snow at Lake Tahoe, bruised my knees pretty badly. In fact, in retrospect I’m pretty sure that I had ruptured a blood vessel. I left it alone and hoped that, like all bruises, it would improve with time. However, last week, there had been no noticeable improvement in my legs. In fact, the bruise had spread to other parts of my leg.

In December, I went to a special doctor that deals with fracture wounds. They deemed nothing wrong with me, warned me to be more careful, and stuck a smelly herbal compound they created on my knee, told me to keep it on for five days, and that was that. The bruise faded, and the swelling subsided.

III. Men
Men (and women) also don’t go away without medicine. Sometimes that medicine is “ignore” or truth (e.g., “No, I do not want to be your girlfriend.”).

So, I have learned that medicine–be it a [smelly] homemade Chinese herbal remedy or a dose of truth–can do lengths, and there are certain circumstances when they are welcome saviors to dire situations.

With all that’s been going on in April, I haven’t yet had the chance to reflect on everything I did in March. My roommate and I set off for Shenzhen on March 2, after not sleeping a single wink the night before. It always makes sense at the time (and believe me, I do this 90% of time I have flights in the morning), but I am also always wrong. We checked in, found our gate, thanked our lucky stars that Beijing International Airport does not have armrests between its seats, and passed out for XX minutes until the plane was ready to board. Everything that morning was fuzzy. I managed to clock out of consciousness the second passengers were allowed to put their seats back.

Almost at the gate!

Passed out.

The Hong Kong leg of our conference was spent trying to balance spending time downtown (e.g., Hong Kong Island) and sleeping, as our dorms (yes, dorms) were way out in the New Territories. Despite being in the middle of nowhere, Fulbright did treat us with by arranging dinner and cocktails one evening at the U.S. Consulate General’s House.

The view was stunning. Can I live here? Please?

Oh my god. Nomnomnom.

Macau was a memorable experience, though it was unfortunate that it was raining the majority of the time. The Macau Tourism Board gave every Fulbrighter a red hat that said “MACAU” and had a stitching of the Ruins of St. Paul on it. Though it provided insufficient protection against the rain, it painted an ironic picture (we had become one of those tour groups with color-coordinated outfits) and a few laughs with it, too.

Torrential rain
Soaked through

The Red Sea

We listened to an innumerable amount of droning, monotonous lectures about history, politics, culture in Macau. Despite the many hours wasted spent listening to these lectures, we were given ample time to explore Macau. What better way to explore Macau than to eat Macanese cuisine and go to casinos? Macanese cuisine (Chinese + Portuguese + seafood) was delicious, and I have to admit, their egg tarts are the best I’ve ever had. I was able to wander around the Venetian, the world’s largest casino, though I didn’t gamble. There was an actual man-made canal inside the casino with artificial lighting that made it look like it was daytime. It was ostentatious and over-the-top, but how can it be a casino if it weren’t?

The Venetian

I think this woman’s expression exemplified our lecture series well.

All-in-all, a successful conference. I was able to catch up with many other Fulbrighters whom I haven’t spoken to or seen for a while. It was inspiring to see and hear what everyone was doing with their projects, as well as any happenings and developments–personal and professional—outside of research.

I am notoriously bad at writing about events when they are relevant. But hey, at least it’s still April (barely). On April 1, I called my mom and told her that I was recently released from prison, and had to leave the country within 7 days. To say the least, she believed me and started to worry. Eventually, I said in a shaky voice, “可能是 (Perhaps it’s)。。。是因为 (it’s because)。。。APRIL FOOLS!”

She screamed at me, and later told me that her legs were shaking for me, because she knows that something like that could actually happen. Last year, I did something similar, when I told her that I joined the Army and would be deployed to Iraq after I graduate. I know, it’s cruel. I’ll think of something less nerve racking next year, even though she told me she wouldn’t fall for anything next year. We’ll see.

But my mom made a good point the following day: that things like this are possible. It was a stark reminder to indeed watch out for what I say and write.

The situation for young Chinese couples is pretty bleak. That is, if they want to have a sex life.

Many young Chinese couples, such as university students, if not living in 4-8 person dormitories at school, are living with their parents at home. If they have a boy or girlfriend, where are they to spend time together? Some opt for hotels that have hourly rates (often dubbed “love hotels,” a popular term in Japan and Korea), some alienate their roommates by fooling around in their dorm room, some wait until their parents aren’t home, and others opt for public spaces such as parks or behind buildings. It’s amusing (albeit also troublesome) that actions meant to be done in private are now done in public.

The dearth of privacy in China was aptly pictured last night on my bike ride home, when I saw a couple on one of the largest streets in Beijing, 建国门外大街, doing it behind some scaffolding. Nevermind all the cars driving by, but there were even construction workers working not even 100 meters away from the couple.

Photo via douban.

does your professor respond to your e-mails by SMSing you.