K-Pop: A Completely Objective Analysis

For want of extracurricular engagment (having failed to make the Dragon-boat team on account of missing try-outs), I joined up with the "i-Ambassadors," a large group of students charged with organizing and participating in various cultural activities on campus. Though it feels weird, I am a "diverse" entity here and thus feel compelled to arrange some sort of event centering on American culture, whatever that might be. As usual this stems from not from any real solidarity with my country as it is (full of people who listen to Glenn Beck), but the idealistic, abstract notion of the U.S. as the greatest country in the world period. Or at least the greatest English-speaking country; For some reason China has not gotten the memo that Great Britain ceded this title to us a century ago. Besides losing its geopolitical badassery to us, the U.K.'s best cultural contributions have been appropriated by its other former possesions: New Zealand took all their Hobbits, Australia their acting chops, and aside from Dr. Who (which I only watch for the Daleks), Canada their Science Fiction. Yet the Chinese government insists on teaching British English and - as President Xi did last week - basking in its royally (hah) excessive diplomatic pomp and circumstance. I'll give Hong Kongers a pass for nostalgia's sake, since they were, in fact, colonized by the Brits up until about 20 years ago, but Mainland China should reconsider where it imports its Au Pairs from.  

However, the English-language thing is more a matter of practicality rather than genuince cultural interest. Chinese youth tend to look closer to home for their source of international culture, or at least that of the "popular" variety. As was evidenced by the large turnout at a recent Korean-themed festival on campus, which the "i-Ambassadors" were drafted to helped organize, K-pop is pretty in this part of the world. For the uninitiated, K-pop can be generally understood as any band of 3.5 conventionally-atractive Korean girls with light complexion, assembled by a committee of their primary demographic: 17 to 20-something Chinese males. But we are initiated, aren't we Bruce? Most of those "in-touch" in the West are familar with this phenomenon through the artist Psy, who ironically does not represent the ideal type, but his videos certainly do. 

But for the youth in this country, K-pop (and South Korea in general) represents a feminine ideal akin to our own Taylor Swift. The group above may not be the best example (they were instrumentalists, not singers, and pretty good to boot), but most groups possess the right kind of physical beauty, wear a just-immodest-enough wardrobe, and offer the barest minimum of musical skill to be instantly marketable without being too transformative and disruptive within the present socio-cultural equilibrium. That, and they aren't Japanese.   

And weeeeee'rrrrrreeeee baaaaaacccck!

    

After...what's it been, five years(?!), I'm back in China.*  Hong Kong actually, which is of course part of China,* at least more a part of China than Taiwan [Door flies open. Paramilitary troops swarm me]. The last time I was in this part of the world I was an English teacher at a college in a little town (pop. 1000000+) about an hour outside of Shanghai. Hong Kong, being a "Special Economic Region" of China,* is afforded certain privileges* Mainland cities are not, such as freedoms of speech/press/assembly, Facebook, basic due process, etc. Of course, all of this could change on Premier Xi's whim, but for the meantime, I am enjoying the SAR's freedom* in a new curricular pursuit - that is a PhD in Chinese religious studies. Later I'll go into detail about why I've chosen to get a PhD in Hong Kong of all places, most likely diminshing my already miniscule chances of getting an academic position down the road, but let it suffice for now that I am, praise Jesus, back in China.*

To be precsie, I am in Sha Tin, a "suburb," if you will, of Hong Kong city. Sha Tin is situated to the north in the vast expanse known generically as the "New Territories." I can only imagine they were given such an unimaginative name by the British to suggest they were created ex nihilo from the depths as opposed to being simply snatched away from the Qing Dynasty (which, to be fair to John Bull, everyone was doing in those days). Despite being in the sticks, Sha Tin is a fairly dense township with the mandated dozen or so shopping centers, regularly invaded by Mainlanders toting their rolling luggage. HK is basically just rainforest interspersed with shopping malls; All you have to do is get off the MTR and, hey presto, you're immediately in a Uniqlo, Dolce and Gabbana or some other damn store that I can't afford. Because Sha Tin is on the rail line that connects directly with the Mainland, my hunch is that many of the day-shoppers bound for Kowloon or HK Island are just like "screw it" and get off here for their designer purses and vitamins and mooncakes and such. The irony is that if Mainlanders come here for better quality, Hong Kongers go across the border to Shenzhen for the cheaper deals, kind of like a surbuban outlet mall. Everything is made up there anyway, but only the good crap is allowed down here.

My school, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, is nice because it feels like an actual university. Instead of mandatory military drills and mass dances, there are actual student organizations, sports clubs, and social justice groups like the Umbrella ("-ella, -ella") army faction. My best gauge for a college's high quality is how uncool I feel, and here I definitely feel like a bit of a square. There's even a goldarned Dragon Boat team. That I could actually join. Which would be a dream come true.

It...is a bit of suitcase school - the native students seem to commute instead of living with the Mainlanders, Taiwanese, and other outlanders who are more or less stuck with subsidized living on-campus because Hong Kong is the San Francisco of Asian rental markets. Unfortunately, most of the Americans and Europeans here are exchange students. You can tell them apart from the long-term internationals because they are usually the ones spoutting ignorant, racist cultural commentary or discussing their next downtown bender when you pass their table in the canteen. I'm all for demonstrating just how baller Westerners are at liquor, but go to Soho on any given night and you will see modern colonialism at its absolute worst.

Then again, this city and the shady pub named "XXX" I went to the other night probably wouldn't even be here if not for the Limeys and their mercantilist shenanigans. Manifest destiny, ya'll.

*sort of

Closing Out One Chapter (Two Years Later)

It was brought to my attention by a good friend of mine (and one of six followers of this blog), that I had implied in my previous post that there would be another ultimate post to cap off my 1.5 year stint in the middle kingdom. Since that time, I have gone into seminary, survived my first year, been back to China, and am now over halfway through my second year of school. So admittedly it seems a bit silly to come back and finish a story that has long since finished. After all, no one, probably not even my colleagues still in China (or South Africa or wherever the Hell they are) will even notice that I've written a new blog. But I suppose now, even if the memories are a little faded, the time to sit and reflect will have made my recollection all the more poignant.

So here it is.

I miss you China. Deeply. I am a patriot. I love my country and I love democracy. But I still miss China. Hyde Park has its fair share of Chinese, but it just isn't the same.

I miss the roller coaster ride every time I ride a cab. I miss being able to afford riding a cab. I miss the stinky air and smog. I miss the insufferably optimistic red banners and Monty Python marching music at collegiate sports events. I miss KTV. I miss the endless blocks of boutique shops with 10 articles of clothing. I miss the blatant ripoff brands of Polo and Nike. I miss the old men and women constantly eating their seeds and gross dried fish. I miss the men hiking up their shirts to keep cool and the mothers holding the babes over the trashcan to poop. I miss being paid to give lectures or lawnmower racing and comic books. I miss being peer pressured into taking shots of the nastiest liquor ever fermented. I miss listening to Jackie Chan sing on the radio. I miss the quarantine of hundreds of students during swine flu outbreaks. I miss the the fireworks outside my apartment window, in the middle of the day, announcing yet another goddamn wedding. I miss the teachers taking a smoke break during an inter-departmental basketball game. I miss the nouveau riche paying me obscene amounts of money and/or taking me to fancy restaurants in exchange for educating their daughters.

...and so on. And yes, I still miss reading that phrase twenty times in every single essay a student wrote for me.

Leb Wohl

Shangri-La: Land of the Sky

This will be my penultimate China post--probably a good thing seeing as I've been away from China for several months now. Finally I can get to talking about Chicago and being a student again. Or maybe not...I still haven't decided yet if I want to blog about something not quite as blog-able as travel.

But anyway on to Shangri-La (the village formerly known as Zhongdian)--quite possibly the greatest tourist gimmick ever pulled off. You take a largely-Tibetan village, located on the edge of the real Tibetan plateau (but not actually in Tibet so it's easy to go to) and you rename after a mystical place in a work of fiction. Voila! The magical place of Shangri-La. Not exactly. It was certainly different. The landscape was eerily bare, the Old Town wonderfully quaint and less-touristy, and the air was very, very thin. Yu Yun, as well of the vast majority of Han tourists there, had trouble breathing. I suppose it was a little easier for having been raised in Appalachia. And maybe my infantile asthma had the odd side-effect of making my lungs more efficient.

I will let the pictures speak for me, but there were some interesting things of note that I learned there. First the famous Shangri-La liquor tastes the exact same as any other Baijiu I've ever tasted. Second, there apparently is no current Dalai Lama, according to the monks I spoke to at the local. monastery. Strange, I could've sworn there was one. Enjoy:




Leb Wohl

Yunnan Pt. 3: Close to the Edge

On Day 3, we journeyed north towards Shangri-La. On the way we had decided to stop and see the famous Tiger Leaping Gorge before they decided to build a dam there and destroy the whole thing. Originally I had thought that we could hike the length of the Gorge, spending the night in a guesthouse along the path, but soon I realized that A. We had limited time and B. We were not good hikers. So the plan was to stop at the Gorge, take a mini-bus to a scenic point, and then get on our way again to "Poor Man's Tibet."

After weaving through the mountains north of Lijiang, our bus dropped us off in the miserable little town of Qiaotou. The only industry in the town, it seemed, was the "Tourist" (-scam) industry. At this point LP failed us completely: There weren't any buses, the sketchy people told us, because of road work. But we could take a gypsy cab for about 300 RMB. I thought it was a scam at first, but it was obvious that we had no other choice if we wanted to see the damn thing. We paid a driver and then roared off down a gravel road.

Immediately we had to stop and wait for fifteen minutes for them to finish doing something to the road--clearly there was construction, but still 300? But then we were off again passing several other gypsy cabs along the way. Good, at least we weren't the only ones foolish enough to do this.

But we were foolish, or foolhardy at least. It turned out that it cost 300 because it was so ridiculously dangerous. The "road" was in a horrible condition due to the construction, and was littered with construction equipment that our crazy driver had to navigate in our top-heavy vehicle. For most of the journey we had a sheer 100-meter drop to our right. Oh, and we passed several waterfalls to our left. Caution: You May Get Wet.

But despite the danger, it was well worth the trip. The Gorge was stunningly beautiful--much more spectacular than the Three Gorges Area (and cleaner). Opposite us was the massive face of Snow Mountain, the other side of which we had ascended the day before.

We stopped about halfway through at a little "toll" area. You paid some money to the people who controlled that portion of the trail and then you could walk down to the river. While our driver waited up top we climbed down, passing bored-looking Naxi youths selling sports drinks and colas to passers-by. It was a pretty trail that took us through bamboo and through blasted-out rock, but tricky and steep--safety is interpreted much more loosely in China, if you can't already tell.

At the bottom it leveled out and we followed the river up to some rapids. The trail passed into someone else's jurisdiction, so we had to pay more money to walk out onto a boulder in the middle of the river. But still, worth it:

But climbing out of it really sucked.
Leb Wohl.

Yunnan Pt. 2: Playing with Fire

The night after our ascent up Snow Mountain, we visited Shuhe, another "old village" north of Lijiang, for their annual torch festival in honor of some Dongba deity (Dongba being the traditional Naxi faith). Shuhe was a lot like Lijiang, but smaller and cozier.

In the town square there was a large circle of people dancing around a giant torch. Peddlers sold personal torches of bundled-wood that you could stick flowers into. Yu Yun bought one and personalized it with her own vegetation:



At first I thought we were supposed to wait for the fire to reach the bottom of the central torch, and then light our torches from it, Olympic-style. But each time I though it the thing was going to burst into a bonfire, I was sadly disappointed--the flames just very slowly burned downward like a candle. Regardless of whether we were supposed to wait or not, people began lighting their own and then sharing. It was difficult at first to catch Yun's on fire, but later we discovered we had been going about it all wrong:


After we spent about half and hour appreciating the fact that we were in a tight crowd of people (including many children) playing with fire, we decided to leave. Yun's torch took forever to burn out so we had to douse it in one of the little canals next to the street. I donated the leftover tinder to a group of poor pyromaniacs:

Leb Wohl.

Yunnan Pt. I

Northwest Yunnan province, a high, mountainous region close to Tibet, would be my last trip this semester. The landscape around Lijiang, the area's biggest city and our first stop, turned out to be not much different than my beloved Appalachia, but it was still the cleanest, most beautiful place I had yet been in China. Yu Yun was amazed by how blue the sky was. Our hostel was nestled in the Lijiang Gu Cheng, or old town, which we explored that evening after we arrived. I had been to several old towns in China, one of which was featured in a well-known action movie.


But in Mission Impossible III Tom Cruise wasn't really running through the streets of Shanghai, but through the little water village of Xitang, and hour and a half away. This is because Shanghai doesn't look that Chinese anymore. Or anywhere in China for that matter. The "old towns" are architecturally authentic but have been so commercialized they are hardly "ancient" anymore. Xitang may have looked exotic on film but that's because most of the denizens (tourists and merchants taking tourists' money) where removed to make it look what like what Americans expect China to look like. Unfortunately this includes Old Town Lijiang as well, though on a much bigger scale. But despite how tourism and capitalism has fundamentally changed old China, new old China, and the Euro-backpackers that infest it, still has a lot of charm in a different sort of way, especially in remote Yunnan where industrial pollution doesn't obscure it. Epcot it ain't.

A very authentically Chinese sight

A outside Lijiang city the old life still holds sway. The fields and roads are sparsely populated, save for the Naxi villagers growing their corn and potatoes. I often saw Naxi women, in their eclectic modern-traditional dress, carrying huge baskets of crops on their backs to a fro. As part of their traditional matriarchal culture, Women were, and to some extent still are, the literal backbone of the Naxi workforce. Mini-buses carting tourists between the area villages often speed by, but it is nothing compared to the thousands of green, honking taxis clogging Changzhou's cement arteries.


Natural beauty also surrounds Lijiang. Though the immediate mountains were not so imposing, Yulong Xueshan (Jade Dragon Snow Mountain) looms, perpetually cloud-covered, in the distance.

Natural Beauty

Yu Yun and I rode horses part of the way up its slope on the second day. Our guides were of course Naxi women, the sames ones who told us how hard-working Naxi women are, from which I inferred how lazy their husbands must then be. (Apparently only in Southwestern China do they openly admit a truth that other world cultures deny). We did not get very far up the mountain. After two hours our guides started leading our horses up a tight, steep path and the animals started to slip on the loose rocks--we had not taken the way up Lonely Planet advised, but had seemed reasonable--but by then it was apparent that we were the only tourists going up that far along this particular route.





Apparently our guides were just waiting for us to tell them when to turn around. Or maybe they were curious just how reckless a dumb foreigner and naive Han Chinese would be in the wilderness. After all, they weren't the ones on horses. To be more specific, one geezer horse that only had one more season before retirement, and a stubborn junvenile that attempted to eat everything green in sight. Not the party you wanted to take up on the "adventurous" side of the mountain, unless perhaps you were the Donners. Eventually Yu Yun decided that we had gone beyond our insurable limit and so we told our guides to turn the horses around--but not before we had gone far up a dangerous path, making it all the more difficult to get back down.

Leb Wohl.