Well, I’m far enough ahead on my work for grad school that I figure I’m ready for the the show: I’ve entered the 3 day novel writing contest. We’ll see how this goes. Tentative title: Beijing Palimpsest.
In other news, I’m transitioning my stuff from this blogger site to one hosted on my own website at letterred.com. It’ll make it easier to post, and more fun for me. But not until I write my novel.
Love to all,
Will
…by which I mean the sandwich shop behind my old building near 东四十条 station. Criminality is serving coffee at a place where the toilet looks like this:
So, on Sunday, I’m returning to the US. A fourteen-hour plane ride, with, now, four bags. I’d started with three bags, but I bought a hanging bag for my three new tailor-made suits (pictures to follow). Lisa Tailor, at 三里屯 3.3 Mall did a good job, although the buttons they used were cheap…
My feelings on this are mixed. Like my long-ago trip to Japan, the pain was just immense at times. Beijing is a tough city, I’ve had a tough time here, although I’m glad I ate the bugs at Wanfujing. I only wish that I was this guy. Very much the best “foreigner” blog I’ve read. He’s not especially insightful or such a beautiful writer, but he’s as open to experience as anyone I’ve read.
(His blog reminds me strongly of JR Ackerley’s Hindoo Holiday.)
This MSNBC article (from the Washington Post) discusses the post-traumatic stress one solider is suffering after acting as an interrogator in Iraq, and torturing prisoners on behalf of the US Government. Unsurprisingly, on his return to the US, he finds himself haunted by his actions.
Some interesting quotes from the article-
“What are you going to do? You just want to get back at somebody, so you bring this dog in. ‘Finally, I got you.’”
“At every point, there was part of me resisting, part of me enjoying,” Lagouranis said. “Using dogs on someone, there was a tingling throughout my body. If you saw the reaction in the prisoner, it’s thrilling.”
After September 11th, I felt like torturing someone, too. And apparently, the President is hot to keep on torturing people, despite expert evidence saying that it produces bad intelligence, and despite the fact that in breaking the Geneva Conventions it exposes Americans all over the world to reciprocal behavior.
In his classic essay, Grief and a Headhunter’s Rage, sociologist Renato Rosaldo discusses how the accidental death of his wife illuminated the puzzle of a Philippine tribe’s headhunting ritual. When in mourning, the men of the tribe would seek out, kill and behead a member of a rival tribe. Rosaldo had previously proposed a complex “head economy” to explain this behaviro, which members of the tribe themselves found incomprehensible.
When his wife fell to her death in an accident in the jungle, he suddenly found himself feeling not only sorrow, but overpowering anger. Finding someone and cutting off their heads seemed suddenly like a very good idea.
It should be no surprise that when immersing young American soldiers in a guerrilla war, atrocities of various kinds happen. Human nature makes acts of revenge and atrocity inevitable. A Serbian soldier interviewed several years ago about war crimes said this-
“It was war; sometimes a baby falls on your knife.”
But just because abuses will happen doesn’t mean that they should be condoned. What’s particularly revolting about the war in Iraq and the “war on terror” is that soldiers are acting as proxy torturers on behalf of the President, members of his Cabinet, and a significant portion of his constituency. By condoning torture, this Administration acts like a malevolent drug dealer, feeding the violent, addictive habits developed by soldiers in war.
The angry men in the administration are using the armed forces to play out their own fantasies of revenge. American soldiers are acting on the behalf of sadists, psychopaths, and idiots, and suffering for it.
The authorities blocked blogger again. Probably because of some FalREDACTED GonREDACTED post somewhere- the Great Firewall isn’t very discerning, and cuts off whole chunks of the Web when a single offending site attracts their attention. So I’ll be a little slow getting things up on the site- I can still post, but I can’t actually go look at this site, unless I fire up the ol’ Tor.
Ah, well. Like most things done by the Authorities over here, there’s a heavy dose of face-saving involved with censorship. They know that it’s not difficult to circumvent their system, but it would be intolerable from the perspective of honor and internal party polhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifitics to allow it to go uncensored.
I just read on Danwei that there are major protests on now in Xiamen. Could have something to do with it. I honestly think that environmental issues will be the big demREDACTED issue for China for the next decade. Chinese people have just become too wealthy and connected to ignore some of the wretched pollution foisted on them by collusion between government and industry.
I think it’s far past time to get this straight. The most recent NYT article on the Bush administration’s use of torture illustrates, if more proof be needed, that the Republicans in power in the executive branch are psychopaths and sadists.
The Times also recently revived the old Mommy Party crap in a headline. Googling “Mommy Party” brings some reasonable refutations, as well as this quaint conservative view from 2005.
The New York Times deserves blame for keeping such an obvious piece of Republican propaganda in play. And, from where I stand, Democrats really are the Parent/Adult/Smart/Patriotic Party, and Republicans are the Baby/Teenage/Stupid/Traitorous Party.
We can see this with the issue of torture- it’s not only morally repugnant, dangerous to Americans and American interests, but ineffectual. It’s role is to satisfy the perverse appetites of sadists and psychopaths, and there is a clear strain of sexual gratification that accompanies it. Those who endorse or defend it politically are acting like children, or psychos, or are stupid.
My main point, however, is that liberals remain stuck playing with propaganda formulated by the right.
How about this on the torture issue-
George Bush and his administration are incompetent failures.
Starting a war for a bad reason makes you a mass murderer.
Torture is worse than murder, and deserves the same punishment.
Torture is morally equivalent to slavery.
George Bush and his administration, will go to jail once they’re out of office, because they violated the law in horrible ways.
Why don’t we hit those talking points a couple times?
The slogans need work*, and smart guys will be quick to point out that I’m overstating the case. The opposition has yet to show such delicacy, and their very successful efforts to corrupt American democracy, not through rhetoric but through illegal and unethical actions inside the Executive branch, remain uncorrected and unpunished.
*”Waterboarding is a waterboarding offense”
*”Torture is treason”
*”Torture means the terrorists win”
*”Bush = Pinonchet”, or maybe “Bush loves Putin” the B + P appeals… These aren’t very good either.
Looks okay, right? Blogger doesn’t really give you that many choices…
I’ve been taking video since I’ve gotten here, with my digital camera. The pictures are beautiful (for a still camera), and since I’ve been writing a little about the movies, I thought I’d post some of the most interesting clips. Unfortunately, I’ve had to compress them all to hell, to get them up on the site-
A day at the park. I doubt this would fly in the US, due to fears of suffocation.
A nautical tchotchkie seller on the Li River.
Workers demonstrating the stretching of silkworm cocoons. Listen in the background and you can hear Happy David discuss eating silkworms. More on that soon.
Crossing the 天桥 next to Yashow Clothing market.
More to come…
I’m sorry, I’ve been busy lately, but I’ve got things to talk about, really. I haven’t written anything about my recent trip to Lhasa, of which I have pictures, nor have I posted the videos I’ve accumulated…
They were shooting yet another movie in front of my building today. I live out at 阳光都市 (Sunshine Metropolis!), aka “Sun City”, a pretty tony apartment block between Sanlitun bar street and Dongsishitiao subway station, that’s popular with film crews. I’ll post those photos, and others, soon…
Hopefully, I’ll get a chance this weekend to write up a couple of reports on la vida china.
Love and Kisses,
Will
Supposing for a moment that this blog were about personal glory, rather than the betterment of others. What would be the point of requiring some kind of log-in to comment on a post? It’d be silly- I never log into anything if I can help it. The New York Times is lucky to have me in their databank as a 90 year old millionaire Uzbeck prosthetics engineer, and I only caved to them because you can’t get the print edition over here.
It was with unjustified dismay, then, as I watched day after day go by without so much as a Viagra ad posted to the comments. Sometime yesterday morning, however, Alexis Turner, a better netizen than I, actually logged in to post a reply. It was her heroic sacrifice that made me realize what was going on- the comments section was closed to casual readers.
Well, no more. The comments are open to all, and soon, no doubt, will become a palimpsest of wild commerce, negative attention seeking, and hypergraphic babble. Mom and Dad are welcome to post, too.
Love and Kisses,
Will