China’s China

“White House Agrees to Plan.”

“CNN Calls China ‘Goons’ and ‘Thugs.’”

Metonyms are everywhere. What the hell is a metonym (you flaming nerd), you ask? A metonym is a word that is used to stand for a given entity by naming a small or token aspect of it rather than the specific thing itself. To cite an example common to linguists, imagine a greasy spoon diner somewhere in the Northeast. A man comes in and sits near a window, orders a ham sandwich and a cup of coffee, and quietly sips his complementary glass of water while reading yesterday’s newspaper and waiting for his lunch. A shout is heard from the kitchen: “Hey, Flo! The ham sandwich needs water!” Now, of course it is unlikely that the sandwich itself requires wetting – gross. “Ham sandwich” is, in fact, a phrase used to refer to the customer himself, whose water glass has been drained. It’s like an abbreviation: “The [man who ordered the] ham sandwich needs [more] water [to drink]!”

The same device is common to, well, all speech, but is also frequently used in journalism, wherein “White House” stands more or less for the executive branch of the U.S. government, or perhaps more specifically to the acting President; corporate entities may absorb the actions of their employees, as in “CNN” for Jack Cafferty in the now-famous example above; and most obviously, the names of nations – “U.S.,” “China,” “India,” “Uzbekistan” all stand for…what?

In most cases, a nation-state name will be used as a metonym for representatives of that nation’s government, and most predictably, for the chief executive decision-makers, however starkly lit (Idi Amin) or shadowy (China’s ever-mysterious “Central Committee”). This metonymic device saves a lot of people a lot of terrible stereotypes on the part of others, or can – there have been many times when I have been grateful that people in other countries have been able to hear “U.S. military-industrial complex” and “U.S. governing bodies” in headlines like “U.S. bombs Iraq,” and didn’t attribute those two little letters to meaning me, or any other member of the American public in particular, for that matter. As with Cuba, Afghanistan, Germany, Nicaragua, Nigeria, and countless other places throughout history, certain courtesies are extended between citizens of one set of borders and another, not to entwine too closely our notions of what a government is and what cultural and human elements that government claims to rule. The state is one thing, the people, another. While this displacement of responsibility is, itself, questionable, those questions are for another time. What I am interested in now is this: what is the “China” I keep hearing so much about? How successful has the “communist” propaganda project been in terms of colonizing the hearts and minds of the citizenry? In the glare of the multiple spotlights of the Olympics, Tibet, a recent economic explosion, pollution, and arms sent to Sudan, to what degree is the world now looking at a government, and to what degree corporations (like in evaluations of the U.S.), and what about the Chinese people themselves, whoever they may be?

I read an interesting article recently in the NYTimes online (click here for the link). It was a critical look at the way Chinese students studying in the U.S. are responding to the Olympic torch relay protests around the world, as well as to the West’s overwhelming sympathy for Tibetans seeking independence. The students reported feeling dismayed, betrayed, and in some cases, converted from a previous affinity for Western liberalism into a staunch nationalistic allegiance to China and all its policies, foreign and domestic. They claimed that the “China” that was represented in the U.S. press was not the China that they recognized as their home, and they felt that American journalism was even more deeply biased than Xinhua, the Chinese government-owned press association. Chinese students had, on several occasions, taken to staging counter-protests against pro-Tibet rallies, drowning those chants with calls of their own, and waving pamphlets and banners containing often ill-supported claims, such as a (nonexistent) link between the Dalai Lama and Hitler, and acts of brutal savagery on the part of Tibetan Buddhists in the name of art (skinning young girls for drum heads, for example). A now well-reported incident was the clash at Duke between Tibetan and Chinese supporters, and the young Chinese woman who sought only to moderate the conflict. She ended up a social pariah, counted a traitor back home, and her parents were forced into hiding for their own safety.

While I am sympathetic to criticisms of American news media, I disagree that the Xinhua machine is less biased. I have no sense of whether or not what the NYTimes online says is indicative of the opinions of the majority of overseas Chinese. I do not know what most of those students really think. Knowing what little I do of their culture from this angle, I find it difficult to imagine the depth of culture shock they must endure when they enter into the rich and complex field of assumptions and practices that make up the fabric of American culture, youth, and academia, let alone navigating the dizzying barrage of American media without the analytical tools necessary to parse the sense from the sensationalism. I don’t envy them that experience; we Americans are not known for our careful balancing of options or delicate weighing of sides when discussing politics in public; we are frequently quick to judge, and we often express our fears racially: Japanese-American internment camps, attacks on Mexican-born laborers, and recently, an irrational terror of anyone with a remotely Arabic-sounding name are only a few examples. Again, who is “we”? I know there are plenty of wise, thoughtful people in the States, ones for whom ethnic diversity is an opportunity for celebration, tolerance, and great restaurants – not a threat. On the other hand, our history speaks for itself, and while I doubt there will be a sharp increase in anti-Chinese violence in the U.S., I wonder at how these Chinese students may be experiencing public attitudes toward the metonymic China.

When I left the States last summer, “China” was lurking at the corners of every conversation involving politics, economics, climate change, even sports. It was appearing on the covers of Newsweek, Wired, and Mother Jones, and wearing a variety of masks, from potential technological supergiant, to creepy, inscrutable, brainwashed world-poisoner. No analysis of the domestic job market was complete without some reference to China’s emergent middle class. No responsible fashionista showed off this or that flashy new little item without remarking on whether or not it was sweatshop made, “You know, like, in China?” Like Nike and stuff. China was the new black, the new pollutant scapegoat, and the punchline about communism vs. capitalism – who won? All of this, added to the upcoming plans for an Olympics like the world had never before seen, seemed to point the way for either imminent global domination on the part of the most populous nation in the world, or for some weird times ahead and some pretty dire international embarrassments – either ours or theirs, it wasn’t clear.

Upon arrival in China, I was impressed most strongly by two things: one, there are countdown clocks all over Beijing marking time down to the second the Olympics kick off; two, there isn’t a damn thing communistic about this place, except for perhaps the attitude toward authority. Money is on everybody’s mind, how to earn it, how to spend it, how to make more than everyone else. The surge toward an ever-stronger middle class here is overwhelming on the ground level. I may not be familiar with the economic forces at play within the country’s industries – I recently heard that there has been a sharp downturn in manufacturing lately, and I’m surprised – but I do know what the youth, the One-child Generation, have been internalizing since birth, have been drinking in with their milk and Coca-cola, and that’s the new Party slogan: “To get rich is glorious.” And man, they mean it. Air quality, environmental concerns, labor rights, human equality – none of these things are of interest. My students have a crass commercial interest motivating their every move. Question: “Why do you study?” Answer: “To make more money.” To buy a car, to buy a house, to live richer, fatter, higher on the hog with each generation, and honestly, who can blame them? The West has done nothing to support the idea that perhaps there are things more valuable than economic gain, that perhaps the trend we’ve been following since the Industrial Revolution has not been entirely to everyone’s benefit, that maybe, just maybe, we’ve gotten ourselves into some very serious shit with this whole climate change thing. We keep making cars and driving them; with what moral superiority do we suggest that they please don’t?

In any case, this is what my students believe. They believe that the world is progressing in a wonderful direction, that technology will solve all the world’s problems, that science is too difficult and so they’d rather go into business (is this sounding familiar?), that China is all set to be the next superpower, and that soon everyone around the world will be studying Mandarin, rather than English. They are certain that the Olympics are all about peace and harmony, and that China as a government is benevolent and all about peace and harmony, and that the Chinese people want nothing other than peace and harmony and to own cars and to dominate the world economically, regardless of what strain on labor or resources that may entail.

They also believe that there is One China, that the Dalai Lama is a terrorist, and that France is a very bad place where they attack young girls in wheelchairs, but that Paris is very romantic, and they’d like to go there and fall in love. They think that Beijing’s Olympic ceremonies will be the icing on the cake when it comes to proving the dominance of the Chinese way of life. They squeal when they think of how lovely it will be. They can’t imagine why anyone would want to spoil such a lovely, harmonious event with their chaotic scuffles and protests and they don’t think the West really cares about Tibet. They think the protestors in France were paid by the Dalai Lama. They think that the West hates China because it doesn’t want to concede that China is the new superpower, and that everyone wants them to fail so that China will look bad in the eyes of the international community. Few of my students have ever heard of Sudan. They say that only Western countries protested the torch relay, and are unaware of the protests both in Japan, and also in South Korea, where Korean students were attacked by Chinese counterdemonstrators.

My impression is that the Chinese people, at least the young ones that I see every day, are feeling very much like pouting. They haven’t been the cool kids for so long, now that they finally get to have a party with lots and lots of guests, they don’t want anyone to spoil their balloons and hats and blowy-whizzy-kabobs with things like politics, or even reality. What I sense is a great, collective stamping of feet and clenching of fists, without much real conviction behind it. However, what appears now to be a defensive whining could flame easily into much more volatile resentment, without some better dialogue and clearer information lines between the East and the West, or the East and the East, for that matter. Twice this week I’ve been snarled at as I rode past on my bicycle: foreign devil!” What is old is new again.

Somewhat predictably, there is a small fashion outbreak going on, a flurry of sloganized t-shirts, most with uncharacteristically clear grammar, which makes me wonder who printed them. A couple of weeks ago, a storm of “I heart China” shirts hit the streets, simple white tees with pronounced black lettering and big red heart-shaped Chinese flags blooming across the chests of youth all over town. Since then, there have been a variety of others, from the inflammatory “SHUT UP!” with a big CNN in a red circle with a slash, to enormous silhouettes of (red) China, complete with Taiwan, of course, and the bold words, “ONE CHINA = ONE FAMILY.” This afternoon, a student of mine shyly invited me into the hall so she could present me with what she called a “sensitive” gift. She pulled one such t-shirt out of her bag, and handed it over with a hug, whispering, “I will miss you,” before darting back into the classroom. I turned the shirt over and read “Tibet IS, WAS, and always WILL BE part of China,” (not my capitals). I found myself profoundly grateful for her gift, partly because it indicated such trust, and I was genuinely touched, despite my own political beliefs. Mostly, I was psyched to have acquired such an artifact of the times without having to pay for it with cash and conscience.

I guess what has been most instructive for me here has been realizing that the “China” I read about in the States is a complex mess of factors; it feels unstoppable from the inside, rolling and loaded with a weighty and awesome inertia, and little if any sentience regarding its course. I think, too, I placed too much faith in my belief in the distinctions between state and folk. The media machine is great here, the strength of conditioning put into play early in childhood through education, just like anywhere, and by the time most of these students reach adulthood, their will to analyze or criticize has been mostly if not entirely eradicated. On the other hand, protests do occur: just yesterday, a small group of citizens came together to march against the construction of a new petrochemical plant in the north of Chengdu. Yet even with this consciousness, there is a much tighter, much stronger national identity of Oneness than I had been willing to accept. I had previously assumed that America had become a nation of followers and sheep, unwilling or unable to think for themselves. This may still be the case, but there remains in the U.S. enough of a culture of dissent and a value on rebellion and innovation to provide a stark contrast with what I see here. While the view from the outside allows for references to the mistakes of the government, the issues of the people, the strength of the economy – from the inside, an injury to “China” is an injury to all.

~ by knifemaker on May 5, 2008.