THE CITY: Sept 11, 2004
(This is might be a grim entry. Sorry! I will definitely include more details about daily life soon).Playing catch up. Catching up with the first world. Fake designer handbags. Disastrous?
China has been both lovely and bewildering. What I realize more than anything now is that I should be more tolerant of those who don’t have the same opinions that I do. I too easily dismiss them as ignorant. People cannot always be held responsible for their lack of awareness. (ie lack of sensitivity to their own condition, to the disruption of art) Especially those whose individual knowledge access is disrupted or just plain denied by the government. (But also, I should not doubt the kind of ‘awareness’ obtained in school as merely elitist Western views. There are basic problems in the kind of development here.
But the question is really: if development is so cruel to the human being, what is the alternative? Take it slower and miss the future? Create better systems of social welfare and wealth distribution? Better education … is that impossible in this country, where censorship is ok?)What I see in Shanghai is an eagerness to be a world-class city at such a speed that the society and future will inevitably bear the debt. I wondered why the faces on the street don’t see it. These faces seem either content or staidly passive to such sudden, life-altering moves. They’ve stood through sweeping social change, and are not destructively self-reflective, without a sense of anger. (Is this because the pervasive poverty that existed just less than sixty years ago, if not less, is such a stark stark contrast? So many more people with the improved opportunity to take care of themselves and their families, to live comfortable, modern lives?)
Instead, the city is a beacon of progress -- the hopes of a nation entering the global stage, by image first. The first step is to look like an international city. Under education makes tastes in this respect quite “counterfeit” – inauthenticity, and inauthenticity is not just a Westerner’s construct. This is not a light-hearted disruption of the elitism of so-called intellectual property rights. This is a matter of quality and human welfare. This irks me so much – the city is compromising its own cultural development for the sake of speed. Quantity over quality. Architectural mass production. (Inherent low quality—there is not enough time for design development.) A blatant co-opting of styles that seem (to the uneducated eye) progressive.
This then leads to (I think) business. Which means, earning enough money to satisfy and maintain that image. Cleanliness, health, improving progress at basic levels are very low level priorities. (If they are intending to reach a certain per capita level in hopes that it will eventually disperse – when would that happen? Who is worth so little to step on along the way?)What interests me about desire is why it exists. Shanghai desires to be a world-class city. Why? To reach a standard of living so eventually everyone can have an equal opportunity to live a comfortable, healthy (well-educated?) life? (Money=communal wealth?) To make more and more money as an urban entity for those who accumulate the benefits at the price of the rest? To gain international prestige and acceptance for the pride of the nation? To bury the shame of what it is not?
China has been both lovely and bewildering. What I realize more than anything now is that I should be more tolerant of those who don’t have the same opinions that I do. I too easily dismiss them as ignorant. People cannot always be held responsible for their lack of awareness. (ie lack of sensitivity to their own condition, to the disruption of art) Especially those whose individual knowledge access is disrupted or just plain denied by the government. (But also, I should not doubt the kind of ‘awareness’ obtained in school as merely elitist Western views. There are basic problems in the kind of development here.
But the question is really: if development is so cruel to the human being, what is the alternative? Take it slower and miss the future? Create better systems of social welfare and wealth distribution? Better education … is that impossible in this country, where censorship is ok?)What I see in Shanghai is an eagerness to be a world-class city at such a speed that the society and future will inevitably bear the debt. I wondered why the faces on the street don’t see it. These faces seem either content or staidly passive to such sudden, life-altering moves. They’ve stood through sweeping social change, and are not destructively self-reflective, without a sense of anger. (Is this because the pervasive poverty that existed just less than sixty years ago, if not less, is such a stark stark contrast? So many more people with the improved opportunity to take care of themselves and their families, to live comfortable, modern lives?)
Instead, the city is a beacon of progress -- the hopes of a nation entering the global stage, by image first. The first step is to look like an international city. Under education makes tastes in this respect quite “counterfeit” – inauthenticity, and inauthenticity is not just a Westerner’s construct. This is not a light-hearted disruption of the elitism of so-called intellectual property rights. This is a matter of quality and human welfare. This irks me so much – the city is compromising its own cultural development for the sake of speed. Quantity over quality. Architectural mass production. (Inherent low quality—there is not enough time for design development.) A blatant co-opting of styles that seem (to the uneducated eye) progressive.
This then leads to (I think) business. Which means, earning enough money to satisfy and maintain that image. Cleanliness, health, improving progress at basic levels are very low level priorities. (If they are intending to reach a certain per capita level in hopes that it will eventually disperse – when would that happen? Who is worth so little to step on along the way?)What interests me about desire is why it exists. Shanghai desires to be a world-class city. Why? To reach a standard of living so eventually everyone can have an equal opportunity to live a comfortable, healthy (well-educated?) life? (Money=communal wealth?) To make more and more money as an urban entity for those who accumulate the benefits at the price of the rest? To gain international prestige and acceptance for the pride of the nation? To bury the shame of what it is not?
posted by Miss J at 11:50 AM
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