Quarantine

Today we saw the Summer Palace. It was amazing – you’ll see pictures when I get home. There were great views, a lake frozen solid that we could walk on, and – of course – plenty of reading time.

We had tea and ate at Laoshe Teashop while four women played music. There was also an extremely entertaining puppet show.

After that, we saw an acrobatics show, which defied reality as well as gravity. It was amazing. I didn’t know people could bend so much.

The cabbie on the way back tried to overcharge Melissa and me, but Melissa bravely knocked down the price as we got out of the cab. I was very proud.

Melissa has a very important test at 8:30 AM tomorrow morning. As it is now 10:10 PM, for preparation for her important test we will go out to celebrate her friend’s birthday.

- Joe

Joe against background of Beijing, circa 2009, on digital image

I’ve arrived in Beijing. So far I’ve been to the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and a lot of other places I can’t pronounce.

Melissa is happily living off of the money I brought her and plans to continue spending my money for the rest of my time here. Surprisingly, I don’t find Beijing to be much different from other major cities that I have been to. It has the same hustle and bustle.

Since I can speak to no one but Melissa, I haven’t been talking to anybody. Her friends are all very nice. I’ve been staying in a dorm room that belongs to two guys who currently have no need for it, which is very convenient for me.

The food here is really good. We had Peking Duck with Melissa’s tutee and his parents, which was goddamn amazing. The family was very nice and polite, and the restaurant was considered one of the best in the city.

I’ve been taking a lot of pictures and I’ll post them later.

I did not get quarantined, an improvement over Melissa’s experience.

It turns out that Melissa is pretty good at talking to people in Chinese, contrary to popular belief. She’s changed a lot from the stop-and-go, semi-retarded, incoherent Chinese which she used to speak, to an equally incoherent (to me) smooth-sounding Chinese, which other people seem to recognize.

I’ve been taking advantage of the time that Melissa has used to study by reading The Firm by John Grisham, which is ridiculously addictive. Don’t worry, Mom, the fluids test will be okay.

As many of you may know, I have finals after this trip. So at some point I will get some preparation in for those.

Meanwhile, I have been making sure to drink as much beer as I can, and have enjoyed getting lost in the backstreets of Beijing with my trusty translator and sidekick, stupidface.

I have also been raining questions upon previously-mentioned stupidface, who seems to have about one out of every eight or so answers. I have fallen back to reading the Wikipedia article and the Frommer’s guide to Beijing in order to find useful information and relevant context to the several sites that I have seen.

However, Melissa’s extensive knowledge of where to shop and drink has been extremely helpful for spending my money. She promises to ramp up these activities as soon as her finals are over, at which point I may convert the rest of the American dollars I brought into Chinese currency.

In other news, the first day I got here the weather was cold but clear, and the sky was blue, which Melissa exclaimed was a truly wonderful phenomenon, marking the luck of my journey. However, today, Beijing returned to its normal foggy, emission-wealthy atmosphere, leading me to question China’s sincerity in the Copenhagen talks.

However, while explaining to one of Melissa’s friends why nuclear plants are environmentally friendly, and simultaneously explaining to Melissa why windpower cannot power the entire country, I realized that perhaps China’s realism outweighs Obama’s hope.

Moving on. I have begun to get a grip on the possibilities of life in China and the nature of the systems at work here. I can see why the country has so much positive nationalism and respect for the Communist regime. However, there are limitations here which are subtle, but potent in the lives of the people. What is truly remarkable about the government is that they are able to operate successfully such a dumbfoundingly large population in an organized fashion, rivaling any other modern nation, all done with a government largely ruled by a small ruling class of nepitistic leaders. The question that comes to my mind is whether we can truly criticize a government that does one simple thing: work.

Over the next two weeks, I will see if this statement is at all accurate.

I will keep you posted as a guest blogger with exclusive control over this blog (I’m dictating here) for the next two weeks, because I’m damned sure that you’ve had enough of Melissa’s viewpoint.

- Joe (if you couldn’t tell)

Saturday, December 26th: 3:19 PM. I’ll be heading out to the Beijing International Airport in an hour to pick up my shuang bao tai. I’ve been looking forward to this day for awhile, and now that it is here, I find myself in a strange stage of panic. Not only does Joe’s arrival signify the end of my self-indulgen lifestyle in Beijing, but it also marks the beginning of the end of my stay in the city that’s been my home for the past four months. I’m not ready to go home yet.

My active engagement with this city has come in ebbs and flows. Over the past week, I have inundated my mind with the images of Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet, James Lipton, Oprah, the films of Jia Zhangke, the words of Evan Osnos, Charlotte Bronte, sundry Times journalists, and the sounds of Antony and the Johnsons, The New Pornographers, Andrew Bird, and – strangely enough – Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

And what a panoply it is! Indeed, I’ve barely taken the time to venture out  to the below-freezing middle and east areas of the city. Footage recorded for “the project” has mainly been of foreigner youth culture, national dance classes at the gym, my tutee and his driver, and the Jiaoda campus.

In the past few weeks I’ve only made one excursion into the thick of Beijing sub-culture. A walk down a deserted street, a quick left into a small alley and a descent down an unlighted stairwell led me to the most entertaining drag queen performance of my life, resplendent with Chinese traditional dances, Jay Chou, and glam rock beats. Lithe young dancers and middle-aged men dominated the scene, singing songs and gan bei-ing (downing entire bottles of beer for laughs and money) for over two hours. Men happily snuggled together and fondled unabashedly - a nice break from the homogeneity of Beijing’s heterosexual culture.

Starting at 6:30 PM today, I will essentially be jolted out of what I like to call the “winter daze.” Ah! I’m still here and there is still so much to see – albeit as a consumer of a well-marketed and executed tourist industry. Over the next few weeks, I will take my final exams, tour around Beijing, go to Shanghai, and (hopefully!) go see the ice sculpture festival in Harbin, a city way in the north of China. And I’ve made a pre-New Years resolution resolution: rather than experience Beijing as a newcomer, I’m going to make an effort to document all of the idiosyncratic images I encounter, in hopes of recording some footage/memories of what Beijing is to me, four months later. It’s the only way to keep it exciting; and it’s also the only method to release this city’s inclination to make me a tourist. I just want to resist manufactured histories. Beijing is such a beautiful, vibrant, dirty, dry, large, bustling, empty, and burgeoning city. And I just want it to open up for me. When I go out with Joe to Mao’s mausoleum, Beihai, gugong, and the rest of Beijing’s ming sheng gu ji, I will see a Beijing I haven’t seen before. With my camera in hand, of course.

Seeing again. I have high hopes (and expectations) for it.

And when I go back home at the end of January, I won’t lose it all. I can’t!

When I get back to Asia at the end of February, will the language, my energy/desire to engage grow back like a starfish?

As many of you many know, I have been interested in documentary film for a very long time. And lately I have been toying with the idea of going into journalism/documentary filmmaking. The funny thing is, I have never actually produced my own doc; I’ve done work with development and post-production, but I’ve never put the whole thing together. So I thought that it would be a good idea to shoot some footage while I’m out here and do some editing at home, and actually make a film, before deciding to enter a journalism program or a documentary media studies program.

Long story short, I bought a digital camcorder today. It’s not a great one, but it wasn’t expensive either. And it only required one trip to the mammoth market, Zhongguancun (which is comprised of around 8 buildings), one trip down a scary set of stairs and through a labyrinth of offices and floors, and one bout of flirting with the salesmen (okay, I probably won’t go have that beer with them in Sanlitun tomorrow) to get a good price on it.

No one has ever heard of the brand,Ordro, and the model is from 2006, but it has a lot of nice features. So get ready for a lot of video viewing when I get home. EVERYONE HAS TO WATCH EVERY CLIP.

HAPPY FIFTH NIGHT OF HANUKKAH EVERYONE!!!!

I put a picture of a menorah outside of my room, an action which has resulted in my relating the story of the good ol’ Maccabees a good four or five times.

In the States, the day after Thanksgiving marks the commencement of holiday shopping and its attendant rampant advertising and discount campaigns. And, as much as we may not like to admit it, the month-long Christmas/Hanukkah fever is shared by many an American, unless you are Muslim or a Jehovah’s Witness.

Perhaps because the majority of Americans celebrate either Christmas or Hanukkah, the proliferation of Santa Clauses, christmas trees, elves, menorahs, and the ever-present Christmas song doesn’t stand out as strange,  purely commercial, or misplaced.

In Beijing, however, everyone – Chinese or expat – can easily view the holiday season in the same way that singles perceive Valentine’s Day: as a commercialized, commodity-driven month.

Cashier wearing a Santa hat

Except this one is full of discounts and sad, sad employees who grudgingly wear floppy Santa hats.

In The Village, one of Beijing’s most popular (and posh) shopping centers, a Smart Car and a Christmas tree are enclosed in a glass bubble. On the rim of the bubble, the message, “You could be the lucky winner of a brand new Smart Car!” is written in a happy, Christmas-y font. Ten meters away, at the entrance of UniQlo, a Japanese-owned clothing store, cutouts of Christmas hats and Santa Clauses block one’s view of the store’s interior. Inside the store, Christmas discounts abound (yay!) and foreigners are lined up, 10 or 20 at any given time, at the changing rooms or registers. Of course, there are Chinese people shopping too, but they are, I must say, the minority here.

And so, at first glance, there is a holiday fervor in the shopping area. But once one steps away from The Village, all of that dissipates, and one remembers that China is not a country in which holidays are celebrated in December. Chun Jie, the Spring Festival, isn’t until the end of January. On a second take of The Village’s Christmas trees and decorations, I couldn’t help but notice that while foreigners were walking past the decorations with smiles on their faces, the Chinese patrons walked by slowly, staring at the decorations,

Christmas decorations in The Village

as if they were looking at something that wasn’t their own, in a place that didn’t belong to them, in the midst of a celebration of which they were not a part.

On seeing this disconnect, I realized that I really don’t like the holiday season in China. I like China’s holiday seasons. I really loved it when every single store and home put out a Chinese flag during National Day. And I loved it when all of the small stores sold moon cakes during the Moon Festival. But Christmas? (Hanukkah is way beyond the capacity of these international corporate designs.) I don’t like it. Not one bit! And I especially don’t like it when Chinese employees are made to wear Santa hats!!!! Do they have a choice? In the States, do all employees have to abide by their companies’ costume policies?

I’d rather not have a commercial holiday season at all. Just knowing that Hanukkah

Cooking latkes at Maria's

 is going on right now is good enough for me. I don’t have a menorah, but I did make latkes!!! Tonight, at Maria’s, most of my friends got together for a holiday party, at which I made latkes from SCRATCH. We also ate salad, Swedish pancakes (American crepes), fruit with melted chocolate, and Danish sweets. The meal was 1/4 dinner fare and 3/4 dessert. It was amazing.

OK – so that’s the one thing – LATKES. I can’t do without them during the holiday season.

My very own latkes!

If you haven’t read about World AIDS Day, please do. This entry is lighter, placed as an afterthought, really.

This week, I took a few photos of my immediate surroundings and meals. Take a look at the photos, then tell me what you think. I’ll leave my comments for later – I don’t want to ruin the images with my chitchat.

Napping on the roadside

Changing a lightbulb

Poster for an upcoming production of Jane Eyre

(Green) eggs and tofu

Before going to China, I had to get an HIV test. If the results had been positive, I wouldn’t be in China right now. Terrible, right? Funny thing is, before October 30th, 2009, if a Chinese person tried to get into the States with positive test results, s/he wouldn’t be able to get in, either.

China is one of the remaining six countries that bans foreigners with HIV/AIDS from entering the country. The ban may be lifted for the Shanghai expo which will take place next year, the China Daily reported today.

HIV/AIDS is a global issue, but it seems as though China and Africa have received the most attention from the global media outlets in the past few years.

For World AIDS Day, the Global Times published a feature on the current status of HIV/AIDS in China, which includes an update on issues relating to stigma and homosexuality in China. Also, the Xinhua News Agency, the Party’s central media mouthpiece, published a timeline of China’s improvement on these issues (you can find it in the Times feature).

Here are some of the important dates:

June 1985: China’s first AIDS case is reported when an Argentine-American traveler dies at Peking Union Medical College Hospital.

1990: China HIV/AIDS Prevention Committe established.

1998: HIV infections are reported in all 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, with drug users accounting for 60-70 percent of reported infections.

1999:  The Ministry of Health unveils a new regulation concerning rights of HIV/AIDS citizens: their privacy should not be infringed and medical organizations should not refuse to treat them.

2003: On World AIDS Day, Premier Wen Jiabao becomes the first Chinese premeir to shake hands with an HIV-positive person.

2004: President Hu Jintao talks with AIDS patients in Beijing and shakes hands with them on November 30.

2006: The first HIV/AIDS Prevention Rule is put into practice on March 1.

When reading this, two things stood out for me: one, it is really shocking how quickly the disease spread in China (the mainland currently has an estimated 740,000 people living with HIV/AIDS, though only 319,877 cases have been recorded, according to the Ministry of Health), and two, I was dismayed at the fact that  “shaking hands” (really, the act of touching) was still newsbreaking in 2004 – even though formal acts such as the handshake hold more weight in China than they do in the States.

And, even with all of the reform, the stigma present in Chinese culture and experienced by HIV/AIDS victims is still overwhelming and debilitating. Actually, the UNAIDS in Beijing keeps a statistical record of this. If you want to check it out, read the The China Stigma Index Report, which was released in 2009. Out of a survey of 2000 people, 48.2 percent of those interviewed feared that if their statuses were exposed, other people would not engage in physical contact with them. Perhaps more upsetting is that 49.4 percent feared that they would not be allowed to be near other people’s children.

As noted in Xinhua’s release, breaches of privacy are against China’s policy. However, the Index reported that ”One third of all respondents said that their status had been revealed to others without their permission.”

So, China still has a lot to deal with when it comes to HIV/AIDS. I don’t know how it can effectively deal with this crisis without also dealing with the stigma of homosexuality. My good friend here has a new boyfriend who is a student at the renowned Beijing Film Academy. Before meeting him, he had told me that he was “shy.” But, what I saw in this third-year amateur auteur was a frightened individual. And though my friend is more open about his sexual preferences than his partner, he, too, has to keep things under wraps in the dorm, lest some of the vocally homophobic male students on the floor discover his sexual identity.

So, as open as China wants to be to the “world,” that is, the international HIV/AIDS community, it still has internal issues of great magnitude. 

But, before anyone begins to look to China for HIV/AIDS problems, make sure you look at your own country first. It wasn’t until this year that the United States ended its two-decade long discrimination against the world’s HIV/AIDS victims. Is “HIV/AIDS victim” synonymous with “irresponsible individual”? Anyway, on October 30th of this year, Obama signed the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Extension Act, lifting a 22-year ban on international HIV/AIDS victims, the Washington Post reported. So, rah-rah. Honestly, I’m not clapping any hands until I see some serious immigration reform and some federal- no, Obama - support of gay marriage.