a shameful waste of madhouse time

IMG_1241_edit (DIY guacamole at Luga’s in Beijing), originally uploaded by monkeyking.

I dont know much about Beijing’s food scene but i stumbled on this place while gawking at stuff in the Sanlitun village, and stopped in for a bite to eat because it’s really nigh near impossible for any Californian to resist the chance to eat Mexican or at least gripe about the lack of Mexican in China. Luga’s is quite nice, decent service, good location, good smoothies and cocktails, wifi, and of course, some good mexican meals. The DIY guac you see pictured might have done better with some more avocado in it but on the whole it was light-years of what we have in Shanghai. The tall skinny waitress ain’t too hard on the eyes either. Local Noodles gives Luga’s some fairly positive reviews, but there seems to be competition afoot in the form of The Saddle Cantina which is supposed to be right near by. Don’t know how that place is, never saw it while in Beijing. If it’s Mexican fare is better than Luga’s, I think there could be a case made for me moving to the BJ.

IMG_1225_edit/olympics volunteers in beijing, originally uploaded by monkeyking.

A phalanx of volunteers walking outside the Bird’s Nest after the morning session of athletics events.

IMG_1116_edit the uber beijing olympics fan, originally uploaded by monkeyking.

Drat, i didn’t get a picture of him yelling JIA YOU and leading the crowd in that chant ad nauseum, but at least I did get a picture of him after he’d stopped, presumably to let his vocal chords rest. This is from the one and only event that I attended–athletics at the Bird’s Nest.

Sure, why the hell not. Like Frank Yi said they copied his way.

I mean the publicly listed Chinese fashion sportswear company, Xtep, whose recent commercials during the Olympics caught my attention because of the music used. The song is called “It’s My Way” and it doesn’t take a New Jersey-born fan of 1980s hair rock to know that the song is a rip off of Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life”…I don’t know who the singer of the song is, but you can tell that they are going for the same kind of vocal style as well.

The commercial features some of the hottest youth stars from Taiwan and Hong Kong, including Nicholas Tse, the Twins, Jolin Tsai, and Wilber Pan, most of whom I thoroughly detest. From what I can tell on the commercial, their shoes look like shite too, but nonetheless, they are still a fairly big player in the China sportswear market, where they are still behind Anta and the now household name of Li Ning. And apparently they are also part of the Carlyle Group’s portfolio, which given the affiliations behind that group make me incredibly cynical about the world and reinforce an outlook which could be summarized thus: some shit capitalists are out there making shitty derivative products, and yet there are some powerful and elitist capitalists out there making sure that the former succeed for their mutual benefit.

Here’s a vid of the commercial, this one meant for the Olympics in particular:

and here’s the whole song:

A couple of thoughts on that commercial: firstly, it always get my goad when Taiwan and Hong Kong stars shil for mainland based products, just because if you are famous and from those parts of nominally free China, I somehow feel you ought to shil for some better brand–I mean what does it say about you that these shoes cost 150-300 RMB? On the other hand, I know that they’d never be remotely considered for brands like Nike and Adidas, who go for the real top-flight athletes. In that sense, Xtep is smart because they go for the youth demographic, for the fashion sportswear market, sell the image, sell the lifestyle. It’s not and has not been about the specs of the shoes for a long time.

It’s also ironic because the commercials plays on those common Olympic tropes of “1.3 billion people’s dreams and hopes”, which nauseates me to no end, and again, makes me wonder why Taiwanese and HKese stars would go for that. Oh yeah, maybe they are proud of the Olympics, and maybe they are getting paid a fuckload of money. Oh well Peijin, hold your nose and look the other way.

Last thought on this is the Wilbur Pan’s role in the commercial, where he plays the role of a street basketball player—that cheesy layup at the end and his knife across the neck motion—it’s like he’s some bad-boy gangsta baller, but I bet he’s a weakling on the actual basketball court. I doubt he really plays in the streets of anywhere, not even Taipei, where, if you know where to go, there are some ballers wid skeels. Wilbur is basically a pretty boy that likes to appropriate the tropes of hip-hop and b-boy culture to sell his image, which he can then parlay into record sales and concerts, sportswear and soda commercials. There is no need for him to be anything other than what he is. It’s one unified image, and all he’s selling are the various products that help him realize his lifestyle, one which, provided you outfit yourself with the same shit, you can have too.

Unfortunately, that’s another aspect of greater Chinese pop culture that I detest too—and I know that there’s no point in crying about the commercialization of hip-hope or black culture, that’s been the status quo for years and it’s not going to change. It’s just that to me, it’s even more meaningless when it comes from Chinese people. I know pop culture has an easy, lowest common denominator type universality to it, but somehow there’s a very atavistic and inchoate impulse towards Chinese purity that I cannot quite explain. It’s not that everything has to be traditional, it’s more that I was hoping that one day even in the realm of popular culture and lowbrow consumerism, Chinese people might do something that at least strikes people as having one or more iotas of originality.
Li Ning vs. Nike and Adidas, Lenovo vs. Apple, Baidu vs. Google—the west has a head-start and a superior advantage. Mimicry is a form of flattery. I talk of inspiration and originality, while these Chinese brands are locked in a fierce to the death battle for every percentage point of market share they can get.

Not sure what to think from here. Maybe better solution would be to put on some Bon Jovi, which always reliable source of low dosage escapism:

• http://tinyurl.com/5r5dxs Tibet album may have spurred China iTunes block #
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Chinaelections.org has an interesting essay on the rules pertaining to public assembly and protest in the PRC. This was written before the Games, and in light of all that (didn’t happen) during the Games, the information here might be worth reviewing to get a better legal and historical context for why commies love repression.

The author divides the legal conditions for protests into two categories: those that are protective and those that are restrictive. Although I think the categories make sense, I am not sure that I totally agree with how he divvied them up. For example, he considers article 21 of the Assembly and protest law to be protective. The article says, according to what he’s quoted, that when there are unforeseen circumstances the police responsible for regulating traffic with relation to the protest route can change the protest route—ideally that means that the routes aren’t changed at the whims of the police, but of course, this is China, and if you the protester wanted to take a route in front of Disneyland, where there are loads of people, or in front of the government offices, where there is a lot of symbolism and media, do you think the Chinese police would actually let you? Hell no. They would steer you into some street where the chefs squatting on the road or the old men playing chess could get a clear look at your and political demands and banners, but for the protester that might just be defeating the whole point.

The author claims that there are certain articles that aim to both be protective and restrictive. Article 8 says that there has be someone in charge, someone to be held legally responsible for whatever happens during the protest. This person has to deal with the red tape and provide information such as the purpose of the protest, the mode of protest, the banners used, the slogans to be shouted, the number of people, number of vehicles being used, the number of speakers or amplifiers being used, the time the protest starts, the route including where it starts and ends, the legally responsible person’s name, occupation and address.

Now I suppose on a general level you could say that having someone responsible, is better than having huge spontaneous crowds of hoi polloi that you can’t really pin down.

All that information is a catch-22: you have to tell them everything to get an approval to protest, but if you tell them everything truthfully you run the risk of being rejected. And then there’s the issue of who in their right mind would want to be one of the official organizers or people responsible, knowing what the system in China is like? It’s a huge risk to take.

Onto some of the restrictive conditions: Article 15 states that you can only participate in protests and demonstrations in the place where you are registered to live. Article 16: government employees cannot take part in protests that go against their duties and responsibilities—I surmise that this legalese means, in the real world terms, complete loyalty to the government. No whistle-blowers, no biting the hand that feeds you. Article 34: without special approval, no foreigners can take part in protests or demonstrations of Chinese citizens.

Restrictions on place: no protests or demonstrations 10-300 meters from government offices and organizations, such as NPC offices, military committees, the People’s Supreme Court, major military facilities, airports, air facilities, train stations, etc. Provincial and local governments have their own regulations as well: Lanzhou stipulates that all protests and demonstrations in the city squares must be approved by the municipal government, etc.

Time restrictions: Unless given special permission to do otherwise, all demonstrations must be held between 6am and 10pm.

Modes of protest restrictions: in general, all demonstrations must be peaceful and legal. They cannot go against the interests of the country, society or general collective interest or impinge on the legitimate rights and freedoms of other people. They must be peaceful: no weapons, explosives. All demonstrations must be follow the conditions filed in the application, i.e. use the slogans and banners that they applied for, start and stop at the time stipulated in the approved application, etc.

The author levels several criticisms against the rules. Regarding the time restrictions, the author says that the 6am-10pm rule contradicts the rules regarding the “immediate protest rules”: that is, Chinese citizens have the right to protest after some unexpected “event”—a demolition, a ruling, a murder, diplomatic brouhaha, badly called football match, etc. However, given the nature of these events, they could be happening sometime between 10pm and 6am—and therein lies the contradiction.

Modes of protest: you are not allowed to let people join–the people that are legally allowed to demonstrate are the ones that were included by name or organization in the application. Of course, this is quite different from how most protests and demonstrations work, both in China and elsewhere: other people, not affiliated with the sponsoring group, join, whether it be for fun or solidarity. However, doing so in China would, legally speaking, automatically render protest illegal.

The “content” of the protest: this one is perhaps the most devious one, because it states that you cannot protest against the country’s laws, the country’s territorial integrity and unity, etc. Of course, no one would ever be dumb enough to hold a demonstration calling for Tibetan independence, but this means that you might not even be able to legally protest against a law that you think is unjust.

On having your application rejected: if your protest application is rejected, you can re-apply once, and after that you have to take it to court. However, the People’s Supreme Court has decided that it’s better NOT to allow people to take the issue to court. Therefore, after having your application rejected twice, you have no further legal recourse and are, as they say, shit outta luck.

These are the laws as they hold for Chinese people, in “regular times”—one could reasonably expect the Olympics to be different, even if only because the Chinese love nothing more than putting on symbolic shows for the west. But as we saw, there were limits: no protesting on anything related to Tibet. Those that went ahead with that were either deported or given a ten day detention after which they were deported. As for other planned protests that ought to have been held in the official protest zones:

But Western media have reported that Chinese citizens who applied for a protest permit instead were arrested.

IOC president Jacques Rogge told reporters Sunday that 77 protest-zone applications were received in a city of 16 million and a nation of 1.3 billion.

“We found that unusual that none of these applications have come through with a protest,” he said, adding that Beijing Organizing Committee officials told him the protests didn’t occur by “mutual agreement.”

On this point, I have to agree with most of the western media commentary. Some people were detained for just asking or applying to protest. I don’t think the Olympics ought to be overly politicized, but on the other hand, if Beijing decides that they are up to holding this most prestigious of international sporting events, they have to follow the accepted standards, and one of those standards is some respect for free speech and the right to demonstrate. But basically, everyone saw the opening ceremony and was ooh-aah’d into intellectual submission. Everyone got caught up in the sports and Beijing got away with this huge PR coup with nary a challenge.

• back to shanghai and the smell of cats and maggots #
• http://cul.hebnews.cn/jd/2008/0822/bdb70d961be7e0d6011be7ef84ae038d.html the most famous reputed homosexuals in Chinese history–a list #

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• BMX is fun…but if this is a sport then why isn’t bowling an olympic sport? #
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I was watching the Australia-China women’s basketball last night and listening to the commentary, I finally snapped: I’ve just become to sick of hearing them say the same things over and over. Most of the time it’s stuff along the lines of:

我们在跟世界一流的队的对抗中可以发现自己的不足。
我们跟世界一流的篮球对还是有一定的差距。
亚洲人不能光靠速度取胜，外国队也很灵活的。
经过跟世界一流的队的对抗我们可以不断提升我们各方面的素质、水平。

yadda yadda yadda. It’s like they barely talk about the game. They don’t try to be funny. Some commentators do, and I appreciate that, but that sure was not the case last night with the Australia-China game. Whenever China is really far behind—Australia had a twenty point lead most of the game—they have to talk about why this is, they have to take on this developmental perspective which is fine and valid in itself but really detracts from the viewer’s (or should i just say MY) appreciation and enjoyment of the spectacle (game+commentary) as a whole.

And it’s been repeated throughout the Games, and forms the standard interpretation of events at any sporting event where China loses or gets its ass kicked by another team. In that sense, it’s nothing new and why I’m yammering on about it is beyond me, and perhaps beyond you as well. It just irks me.

While I’m in the mood for getting things off my chest, I might as well add that I hate the whole “1.3 billion” (十三亿）business, which usually modifies something like “dreams of”, as in “the dreams of 1.3 billion people” (十三亿人的梦想）or in “the Olympics of 1.3 billion people.”

I’ve been traveling to China throughout my whole life, starting in 1980 at the tender age of three. I’ve been around Chinese people my whole life, though not necessarily mainland Chinese. And yet, because I grew up in America, where the individualist ethos is so strong and ingrained (the pioneers and explorers are part of our cultural-historical narrative), I simply just cannot fathom this collective ethos, this insistence on the unity–indeed, homogeneity—of the group. Everyone is their own person, their own individual, but somehow when you get to these public announcements, like ads on TV or the speeches of China’s leaders, you have to adopt this “1.3 billion” rhetoric, snap your fingers and somehow they all fall into line into some intellectual phalanx formation. I just think it completely laughable for anyone to speak of the entire nation as one. I would find it insulting. Even in the aftermath of 9-11, when we were all New Yorkers, this kind of rhetoric was not present. There was a kind of national unity and solidarity, but that was in response to attack and tragedy. You could never imagine anything like “the dreams of 300 million people” intoned the same way it is over here.

As I write these last sentences, I am watching a Toyota commercial where the audience is told: “You are no like no one else. But you have to have your own style.”

• the english breakfast at the bookwork is pretty tasty #
• sorry i mean the english breakfast at the bookworm in beijing #
• @cmar55 you are more of a bobo than a hippie #
• choosing my confessions…like a hurt lost and blinded fool #
• finished reading Athol Fugard’s “Valley Song” #
• @terencelau http://tinyurl.com/62otpx a post from my blog #
• quick observation: bookworm patrons love apples, coffee, iphones, and a Dell here and there #
• annoying man at bookworm scatting to himself: can you please shut the fuck up #
• @catshanghai vmware fusion 2 beta #
• americans and brazilians in hostel say: japanese/chinese hate each other: must be some feud from 4000 years ago: uh…NO? #
• the 20km female walking medallists are all FINE #

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