Personal Account of Journalist or Professor in Asia – education and deconstruction.com

Other Rivers

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The Book of the Week is “Other Rivers, A Chinese Education” by Peter Hessler, published in 2024.

In 1996, under the auspices of the U.S. Peace Corps, the American author taught a university course in Fuling, a small city in China. The students weren’t allowed to question the authority of their textbooks, which among other debatable historical statements, said, “..the Constitution of 1787 established the dictatorship of the American bourgeosie.” The government assigned most of the graduates to teaching jobs in rural middle schools. It’s unclear whether the culture has changed from that in the movie Not One Less, a portrayal of a teacher at a rural elementary school in China.

In 2019, the author moved back to China to teach at the elite Sichuan University, where tuition is about $700 annually. The College of Marxism’s building also housed the journalism department. The campus was full of security cameras. Nevertheless, China’s education environment was not so strict as it had been fifteen years prior.

The school’s instructors turned a blind eye to students’ subscribing to technology services (called VPNs) that encrypted their interactions on the internet– allowing them to view websites censored by the Chinese government– so as to better complete their assignments. But they were risking arrest by the government.

The author’s two American daughters began the third grade at a Chinese public school. They spent hours and hours learning the written characters of the Mandarin language. Their mother, whose great-grandfather was Chinese, helped them. Parents of their classmates posted to the instant messaging service called WeChat, day and night; hundreds of messages a day. The school used the parents as free labor, to communicate policies regarding homework assignments, uniforms, etc.

The nonpartisan Peace Corps had had a presence in China for twenty-seven years, when in the third week of January 2020, two Republican U.S. senators (Marco Rubio and Rick Scott), ignorant of what the Peace Corps was, with no authority over it, Tweeted that, going forward, there would be no more volunteers assigned to China. There were, at the time, twenty-seven Peace Corps alumni working for the State Department. The anti-China messaging had nothing to do with COVID.

Toward the end of January 2020, when the spread of COVID reached a certain level, under international pressure, the Chinese government imposed a version of martial law. People were confined to their homes, which tended to be enclosed with walled areas where the government could easily close exits and entrances. Residents could also thus be corralled and surveilled more easily.

In the city of Wuhan– the place of the first COVID case– about nine million people were affected by the lockdown. In early spring 2020, the quarantine was lifted. By mid-spring, the U.S. allegedly had a death toll ten times higher than that of China.

Daily, the author and other parents of school kids were required to report their children’s temperature beginning at 6:30am, and their temperature was to be reported four more times throughout the day. The school schedule included pauses for handwashing, and of course, the WeChat information-sharing never stopped.

One particular man who had a mild COVID case was quarantined for more than two months in a medical facility, even though his eight-day travel history (collected by spies) showed him to have infected ZERO individuals.

The author spoke with lots of people, some of whom, risking arrest, resisted certain aspects of the Chinese government’s oppression in everyday life. These rebels operated as scattered alliances of a few people, rather than as one large organized group, so they wouldn’t appear to be organized. This has worked for various terrorist groups through the decades, and was supposedly the case for the January 6 (American) protestors.

Read the book to learn much more about Chinese way of life, and its nature during the COVID pandemic through the author’s eyes.

tokyo junkie [sic]

The Book of the Week is “tokyo junkie [sic], 60 Years of Bright Lights and Back Alleys… and Baseball” by Robert Whiting, published in 2021.

Whiting was born at the dawn of the 1940’s in northern California. In January 1962, while in the U.S. Air Force, he was assigned to Fuchu Air Base in a Tokyo suburb. He fell in love with Tokyo and the culture of its people, despite its sexism, pervasive sex trade, hatred of foreigners, and government censoring of its media.

Tokyo was undergoing a makeover to prepare for its debut as the venue of the 1964 Olympics. During the Vietnam Era, American college campuses exploded in protest against the war. The Japanese government supported the war. By 1969, Japanese students were protesting, too.

Over the course of decades, the author witnessed how the city changed from a war-ravaged backwater to an economic powerhouse. After WWII, the U.S. maintained a military presence in Japan, and nursed it back to economic health. This process was reflected in Japan’s education system, which mandated rigorous, nerve-racking entrance exams, which had a decidedly capitalist bent.

Another aspect of Japanese culture that showed its emulation of the United States, was the popularity of its professional baseball. However, the Japanese put their own twist on it. They allowed a few Americans to play on their teams, but criticized them for doing too well or too poorly. Too much competition would make the opposing team feel bad, but a player yielding too much to an opposing team, would be told to do better for his own team. Cooperation and sacrificing for one’s own team were key aspects of play.

The author noted one positive behavior pattern the Japanese were taught from birth. That was– maintaining the highest respect for other people’s property, and for public property. Their “lost and found” returned personal items to their owners (even cash, without a penny missing!) as a matter of the right thing to do. Tokyo is one of the cleanest cities in the world because the people feel a collective sense of ownership of their streets, so they don’t “foul their own nest.” Ironically, their politicians are notoriously corrupt.

Read the book to learn much, much more on the author’s take on how Japanese culture changed following major historical events such as Olympics, financial ruin, earthquakes, tsunamis, and globalization.

Disoriented

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The Book of the Week is “Disoriented, Two Strange Years in China as Unexpected Expats” by Howard Goodman and Ellen Goodman, published in 2014.

In the autumn of 2009, Howard, a journalist, moved to Shanghai to work for the newspaper, Shanghai Daily. His wife Ellen went with him. They weren’t allowed access to social media, but as foreigners, they were able to get satellite TV channels HBO, CNN and BBC Worldwide Service. Ordinary Chinese people weren’t allowed access to any idiot-box information unsupervised by their government.

Anyway, unpredictably, channels were occasionally blacked-out due to censorship. Further, Howard was continually frustrated by government censorship of his employer’s product. Nevertheless, they were floored by Shanghai’s super-fast completion of construction on buildings and infrastructure that began in the late 1990’s.

According to the book (which appeared to be credible although it lacked Notes, Sources, References, or Bibliography and an index), in a few short years, an efficient, shiny high-speed rail line graced the skyline.

BUT, “It didn’t take long for one of the two new bullet trains to crash in Zhejiang Province, killing forty people and injuring nearly two hundred. In the aftermath, the Railway Ministry was revealed to be a pit of kickbacks, corruption, construction shortcuts, and debt, skimming profits and shortchanging safety.” Americans like to think the United States, unlike China, is NOT as greedy, power-hungry and lawless as all that.

Americans also like to think that their own country WOULDN’T ban all of its media from revealing ugly truths about itself in the interest of image-management (also called “optics”) the way China’s government did. In 2010, China didn’t televise the Nobel Peace Prize awards-ceremony because a then-imprisoned Chinese dissident was the winner. Howard’s newspaper did a workaround– reporting that the Foreign Ministry: was livid about awarding a prize to a dissident, and blasted Norway as the venue of the ceremony.

The United States government is currently grappling with Big Tech’s ability to control free speech. There is great difficulty in deciding where to draw the line when a man as provocative as a “Father Coughlin” type comes along and his power surpasses that of just national radio commentator. Obviously, there are worldwide repercussions if he is a world leader.

Along these lines, here’s a song most ordinary Americans are singing right now:

WOULDN’T IT BE NICE
sung to the tune of “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” with apologies to the Beach Boys.

Wouldn’t it be nice if our-courts-were nonpartisan,
then respect for justice would be strong.

And why don’t we apPLY the law-for-all,
then we’d have a better world ‘ere long.

Resolving conflicts makes us that much better.
We can’t possibly let violence stay, unfettered.

Wouldn’t it be nice if officials could take up,
all the issues IMportant to you,
and we’d get to have a say together, in our town halls,
we CAN see matters through.

But in recent decades we’ve seen hating.
We should ditch the rallies, and demand, real-debating.

Oh wouldn’t it be nice?

Maybe if, we lose the patronage and corruption,
we wouldn’t have to SUE.

Maybe then, we’d be rid of dangerous loudmouths, whose time should be through.

Please ignore THEIR rants. Please ignore THEIR rants.
Reform campaign FI-nance! Reform campaign FI-nance!

Oh, wouldn’t it be nice?

You know it seems the more we read world history,
the less the current situA-tion’s a mystery. So let’s READ world history.

Wouldn’t it be nice?
Bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah bop, bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah bop,
bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah bop, bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah bop…

***

Anyway, read the book to learn a wealth of information on what daily life was like for American expats in Shanghai and Hong Kong at the start of the 2010’s, and about the authors’ employment adventures, too.

City on Fire

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“The continuing protests drew upon deep-seated malaise, with a population who felt they were stuck with a leader they hadn’t chosen, running a government that didn’t listen to them, in a city whose housing they could not afford, and with wages and an economy that were going nowhere.”

The above happens to be about Hong Kong in 2019, according to the author.

The Book of the Week is “City on Fire, The Fight for Hong Kong” by Antony Dapiran, published in 2020.

The author described: the myriad complications (historical, political, cultural and social) of Hong Kong’s existence that led to its unrest and the unrest itself, in 2019.

In September 2018, a high-speed railway station opened in West Kowloon in Hong Kong, across the border from mainland China. The new hub made travel faster and easier. But around the same time, China’s government agency controlling immigration and customs and border-control, proposed a new law that offended the democratic-minded Hong Kongers who knew it would impinge on their civil rights. One aspect of the proposed law also dealt with extradition, which had become a hot-button topic after a murder was committed and the victim’s family had become politically active.

Legally, Hong Kong was supposed to be self-governing. Nevertheless, China’s human-rights abuses have been on the increase. Among other actions that have made Hong Kong less of a democracy– beginning in June 2015, Beijing (the seat of China’s government) sentenced a few hundred civil-rights attorneys to jail, so thereafter, dissidents have been less well defended.

The author related that a lot of violence all at once has erupted in Hong Kong in recent decades, such as in 2003 and 2014, for many reasons. The general cause is that Beijing was grabbing more power over Hong Kong. The latter year saw election-law changed so that only Beijing-endorsed candidates were allowed to try to get elected to Hong Kong’s government.

In 2014, memorable historical incidents received names such as Occupy Central protests, Umbrella and Sunflower movements. Hong Kong residents who resented Beijing’s political interference adopted a yellow ribbon as their symbol, while the opposition adopted a blue ribbon.

As 2019 progressed and Hong Kongers once again took to the streets in protest, they got better and better at resisting law enforcement’s weaponry: police batons, pepper spray, tear gas and rubber bullets. The protesters began wearing face masks or gas masks, goggles and hard hats. They communicated via social media. The protesters agreed to disagree, even though they fell into two factions: violent and non-violent, and were free to take part in whichever activities they wanted to.

A major aspect of firing of tear gas, is that it disperses crowds by: producing physical symptoms that cause in its victims an overwhelming urge to flee in a stampede– giving the illusion of a riot, of sudden movement that looks violent, angry and hostile, when moments prior, the large gathering might have been peaceful and even cheerful.

The media that served as the mouthpiece for Beijing, described protesters as “rioting.” When protesters’ actions were labeled as such, a court controlled by China was permitted to sentence protesters to up to ten years in prison.

Read the book to learn of: new methods adopted by law enforcement that generated more anger, resentment and violence among protesters; the unfortunate remarks that triggered international incidents; the 2019 turning point that sapped the morale of protesters; a November 2019 law that was passed by the U.S. Congress concerning Hong Kong; and why China doesn’t simply march into Hong Kong and entirely take it over.

By the way, here is a little ditty about why the U.S.A. continues to have democracy.

DEMOCRACY IN THE U.S.A.

sung to the tune of “R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.” with apologies to John Mellencamp.

We’re FROM different countries
but NEEDS-are-met even in the smaller towns.
Patriots in wars, D.A.R.’s, July 4th
going crack, boom, bam!

DEM-ah-cra-cy in the U.S.A.
DEM-ah-cra-cy in the U.S.A.
DEM-ah-cra-cy in the U.S.A.
yeah, yeah
Rule-of-law in the U.S.A.

We-can-speak FREEly with our families.
We-can-joke with our friends.
With chances to work and succeed,
the future’s in our hands.

Some are Left and some are Right.
Plenty of entertainment to watch to-night.
With freedom of religion,
you know that we just might,
be-enjoying-life in the U.S.A. Hey

We have choices everywhere.
The-roots-of-our founding, we can’t igNORE.
When we HAVE a lapse in governance,
brave speakers help our system enDURE.

There was Abe Lincoln
Margaret Chase Smith
Shirley Chisholm

(They were heroes!)

Daniel Ellsberg
Karen Silkwood
Dan Choi

(They were heroes!)

Spotlight on Ed Snowden
and-Roosevelt, you know, EleaNOR.

Grokking in the U.S.A. Hey

TABloid-drama-queens in the U.S.A.
KEEPing-up-with-the Joneses in the U.S.A.
First-World-problems in the U.S.A. yeah, yeah

Evolving in the U.S.A.!

Chasing the Dragon

The Book of the Week is “Chasing the Dragon, Into the Heart of the Golden Triangle” by Christopher R. Cox, published in 1996.

In 1994, this book’s author– a journalist, Jay Sullivan– a Vietnam veteran, American intermediary Barry Flynn, and local assistants, embarked on a shady adventure in Shan State, an embattled but little-known territory of Burma.

The author sought to interview the King of Opium and Shan State separatist– Khun Sa– at one of his mansions in Shan State, western Laos or northern Thailand. Khun Sa moved among them surrounded by bodyguards; for, there had been more than forty attempts on his life.

At the time of the book’s writing, Burma produced more than 70% of the earth’s illegal opium. Poppies are the most lucrative cash crop ever because they can be turned into heroin or opium, which is compact, portable and resists spoilage.

Sullivan sought to find out from Khun Sa whether there were Vietnam-War servicemen who were still missing-in-action or prisoners-of-war in Thailand or Laos, so he could contact them. As a Vietnam veteran himself, he had made numerous trips to the region through the years to salve his survivor’s guilt. He had yet to find concrete evidence of any veterans left behind. His quest was kind of a lost cause, as greedy local residents were only too happy to take bribes, breed deceit and swindle the victims’ families.

The trip was shady because it was illegal for foreigners to go to Shan State without permission. They had to bribe people-smugglers to transport and guide them. The trespassers risked their lives. Multiple, reputedly hostile people and animals, tropical diseases and inhospitable terrain in Shan State provided evidence that the author and his companions had a death wish.

The author described events that, along with Thailand’s corruption, have resulted in a horrible safety record, that has precipitated needless deaths and ruined lives. One thing leads to another. More specifically– shoddy, non-fireproof housing-construction does poorly in accidents and natural disasters. This leads to or compounds problems like flooding, landslides, and fires.

In 1988, a variety of different groups fought to claim the land, including multiple native tribes, the Burmese army, local militias, Communists, narco-insurgents, exiled Nationalist Chinese soldiers, and dacoits. AIDS was ravaging the whorehouses (which were supposed to be illegal, but the cops were paid off to let them be) in populated areas of Thailand.

Also, unsurprisingly, opium production was outlawed in Thailand in 1959. And at the book’s writing, Thailand had no official laws against money-laundering. Thailand proclaimed itself to be crime-free; never mind all those heroin and opium addicts in its slums. Around the same time, there arose a Nigerian Connection.

Beginning in the late 1980’s, “Ironically, Thailand’s poppy-eradication and crop-substitution programs, while decreasing the availability of raw opium, had driven hilltribe addicts to more potent, more accessible heroin that was produced just over the border in Burma.” The nation curbed the drug trade just enough to keep the financial aid coming from the United States. There was also honor among thieves in the black markets of baht, teak, jade and rubies.

Read the book to learn the suspenseful saga of the author’s adventures, as well as a wealth of regional history, the life story of Khun Sa, and about the complicated web of relationships among all different groups with different goals that enhanced the intrigue of the circumstances (hint: According to Khun Sa, “The KMT had received financial support from Taiwan and the CIA, the Communist Party of Burma [CPB] was underwritten by neighboring China, and the Burmese government received foreign aid.”)

Confucius Lives Next Door

The Book of the Week is “Confucius Lives Next Door, What Living in the East Teaches Us About Living in the West” by T.R. Reid, published in 1999.

In the mid-1990’s, the author’s American family moved from Colorado to Japan for a few years. The author described the cultural differences between his native country and East Asia, and provided extensive details on Confucius’ teachings.

In August 1994, the author’s ten-year old daughter, with her fairly new Japanese friend, took a day-trip un-chaperoned to Tokyo Disneyland. It was an hour and a half each way during which they encountered approximately 27 million strangers, and arrived home after dark. They had to change trains at three different crowded stations. On a daily basis, the author’s daughter had a long commute to elementary school five and a half days a week: a bus, a train, then another bus. Japanese parents had few worries about their children’s safety when they were out and about, even in urban areas.

The Japanese education system up until high school treated kids like little adults in giving them chores. They were expected to achieve group-oriented goals or else endure public shaming. The teachers did, on occasion, allow the classroom to erupt in total chaos. But just for several minutes. Then it was back to serious brainwork during the entire calendar year, except for three weeks of vacation in August.

The author sat in on Japan’s cultural ceremonies that were celebrated uniformly nationwide. One of them was on April 1. That was the day new graduates began work at big-name employers, where they lived in corporate villages. They were required to deposit their paychecks in their employer’s bank. Their lives were obviously highly structured and group-oriented. This kept them off the streets and out of trouble, unlike in the United States.

“But it is inevitable that some whose careers are creatively destroyed will stumble into marital discord, poverty, crime, drug abuse, and other social ills…
[Joseph] Schumpeter himself wrote that capitalism will eventually disintegrate because societies will no longer be willing to pay the social price.”

Along these lines, the author kept commenting on Americans’ cultural reputation as seen through the eyes of East Asians. Malaysia suggested establishing a “reverse Peace Corps” whereby Malaysians could volunteer to “… show Americans how to get along without murdering each other.”

Samuel Huntington’s 1996 book “The Clash of Civilizations” turned out to be correct. Huntington theorized that nations would have more tribal warfare rather than less, in the years after the Cold War. In recent decades, the United States has had more and more difficulty in distinguishing between
tourists and terrorists.

The author pondered whether Americans had too much freedom. He observed that the law-and-order East Asians lived squeaky-clean, straight-and-narrow lives through adhering to Confucius’ code of behavior; the trade-off was that they might have too little freedom. Some of the usual elements of democracy were lacking in their lives, BUT– they felt safe in their homes and on their persons, everywhere in their countries, any time of the day or night.

Read the book to learn about the additional aspects of the Japanese lifestyle from which– the author felt– Americans could take a lesson.

Lost On Planet China

The Book of the Week is “Lost on Planet China, The Strange and True Story of One Man’s Attempt to Understand the World’s Most Mystifying Nation” by J. Maarten Troost, published in 2008.

SIDENOTE: Just as there is hyper-awareness among foreigners of the opaque, dreadfully polluted air in China’s urban areas, there is hyper-awareness of the oppressive COVID political ideology SPOUTED 24/7 BY HYPOCRITES in the United States. The masking and “six-feet apart” rules are simply minor inconveniences piled on by ruling authorities to give the appearance that there are actions ordinary Americans can take to stop the spread of the disease.

However, the major inconveniences for everyone– cancelling big social events, or allowing sports with no fans, and closing schools– are meant to prevent people from gathering in large numbers in one place so that they will be less likely to die in terrorist attacks or shooting sprees. Violent political unrest has become more and more likely (in America!), given the nature of the most recent presidential administration.

Americans have been made hyper-aware of the fatal, contagious viral disease of COVID through scare-tactics that were NEVER used during previous epidemics of fatal, contagious, viral diseases. Take the flu epidemic in 1957. Incidentally, at that time, there were fewer viral treatments for patients, and patients then were just as ignorant about medicine as now: Rosalind Russell, a Broadway and movie actress, wrote, “That second Auntie Mame winter [in 1957 on Broadway] I had the flu three times myself, took antibiotics like popcorn, and kept going.”

Jim Croce caught the flu during what his wife wrote in her book, was an “epidemic” that caused a serious financial loss from his concert series on college campuses in 1972. Students were loath to attend cultural events (but there were no restrictions on doing so) for fear of catching the flu.

Croce recovered in a week, but his wife DIDN’T mention that: he was tested for “the flu,” he saw a doctor, or that he reported his illness to the local government. Along these lines, in the 1970’s, an indeterminate number of people WEREN’T COUNTED in flu-epidemic statistics even though they had flu symptoms– because they weren’t tested for it, didn’t see a doctor, or didn’t report it to the local government. In 2020, the vast majority of people who felt sick got tested for COVID, which led to an immediate reporting to medical or political authorities!

Thus, for the above and other reasons, then as now, statistics on fatal, contagious viral diseases, aren’t all that accurate. A book that makes this point in general, published in 1954, that also teaches readers about how to spot bias, spurious causation, and all manner of misleading nonsense in a range of topics including politics, medicine and economics, is: “How to Lie With Statistics” by Darrell Huff. The highlights include: pp. 28, 35, 39-41, 64, 83-85, 118-119 and 131.

Anyway, the author of the above Book of the Week traveled to various provinces and regions of China around 2005– he failed to specify how many months he was there– leaving his wife and two young sons, two and four years old, in the United States. He wrote he was looking for a livable part of China for his family for a year. While there, he met up with a friend fluent in Chinese, who showed him around Beijing.

The friend taught the author where to get pirated software and pornography, and how to bargain. For, the prices of all goods and services exchanged in the country are negotiable. He also got assistance in hiring a young female translator, whose schooling had taught her only positive aspects of China’s history in recent decades. She had no clue about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

When the author remarked on the air pollution in China, various Chinese people responded to his criticism by saying Los Angeles had smog. Another cultural aspect of life in China, aside from being forced to accept the pollution, was China’s government’s legal insistence that couples have only one child in their immediate families; preferably a boy. Parents of a child of marriageable age met in the local parks to find a spouse for their one child.

The author also conveyed his (unpleasant) experiences of riding on China’s railways, and seeing “…streetlamps decorated with swastikas, a sight that always succeeded in startling me. But, in fact, in Buddhism it is a symbol for love and mercy…”

Read the book to learn: the history of China of the 1400’s, and of the author’s adventures in China proper, Hong Kong and Macau. Through the eyes of the multi-racial author– who is Canadian, Czech and Dutch– the reader might get the impression that Chinese society is sociopathic.

But, when one thinks of the two-word phrase ending in “spree” the first words that spring to mind in AMERICAN English are: shopping, spending, shooting or killing. While it is bashing China, perhaps America ought to reflect on how the rest of the world views it, and “remove the plank from ITS OWN eye” first.

Iron and Silk

The Book of the Week is “Iron and Silk” by Mark Salzman, published in 1986. This short paperback reveals the culture of Changsha, capital of Hunan province in China, in the early 1980’s through the eyes of the then-22 year old American author.

Salzman traveled to the city of Changsha, population approximately one million, to teach English for two years, beginning in the summer of 1982. Living conditions were primitive, as were the educational resources for the author’s students (aspiring doctors) where he taught– Hunan Medical College.

The author’s boss, who roomed with her housekeeper, lived in a tiny, un-air-conditioned apartment with bare cement walls and floors, and one bare light bulb per room. She behaved like a mother-figure toward him, critiquing his behavior and clothing.

The school had only one copy machine and only one individual was empowered to use it; in his absence, documents were hand-written over again. The absence of telephones meant people visited each other personally anytime.

Read the book to learn more about the author’s adventures with Chinese bureaucracy, censorship, and how he sharpened his martial arts and calligraphy skills during his teaching stint.

Curfewed Night

The Book of the Week is “Curfewed Night” by Basharat Peer, published in 2010. This is a personal account of someone who grew up in the 1980’s in Kashmir– a region that is partly in India and partly in Pakistan. The author’s village was in the Indian portion. The people grew rice, mustard and apples. His grandfather was the headmaster of the local school.

The author’s family was Muslim but espoused some modern, Western values. His grandfather allowed him to read American comic books of superheroes. He also read Urdu and Farsi poetry, and played cricket with other boys.

In early 1990, militants killed hundreds of pro-Indian Muslims and Pandits in Kashmir. The militants were teen boys agitating for Kashmir independence. At fourteen years old, the author got caught up in the excitement of fighting for the cause. His family convinced him not to join in. They wanted him to be a civil servant. He kept his impulsiveness in check, but knew some young men who did not– who died or returned alive from the war, but ran into some serious problems.

The men who were eager to fight had to go to Pakistan for training in small arms, land mines and rocket-propelled grenades for a year or two. They learned to use an assault rifle– an AK-47 (aka Kalashnikov) and throw a hand grenade. By 1992, wealthy families were sending their kids to other continents to get them out of the war zone. Although the author’s family couldn’t afford to do that, it did send him to boarding school in Delhi.

Read the book to learn what happened to Peer, about religious conflicts in Kashmir, and the violence of the separatist movement, which continued for more than a decade.

China Underground

The Book of the Week is “China Underground” by Zachary Mexico, published in 2009. This is an American journalist’s account of China’s state of affairs in the early 2000’s.

The author interviewed citizens in various walks of life to get a bead on the economic, social and cultural atmosphere in the nation. He found that entrepreneurs abounded in the “new China” but corruption and vice fueled a large portion of the economy. Bribery of government contacts was a crucial factor in making money.

Government censorship of all entertainment was draconian. People might have been getting richer, but they still feared getting arrested for exercising free speech. In early 2007, China’s prisons were filled with more journalists than any other nation’s– thirty-one to be exact.

The author encountered a leader of a Black Society gang that ran rackets in construction, karaoke bars and seafood importation. He also met a prostitute and a Nigerian drug smuggler, both of whom would stop their illicit activities once they earned sufficient money to do so. He visited a brothel disguised as a beauty salon, as prostitution was supposedly illegal. There was a black market in gay porn flicks. Another interesting factoid: The pay-by-the-hour hotel was located right next to the university in Wuhan. For, six or eight students lived in a two hundred square foot dorm room. Two hundred thousand students populated the campus. Wuhan is one of China’s highest-temperature cities in summertime, about one hundred degrees Fahrenheit daily. As in all the cities, it has visible, lung-assaulting air pollution.

Smoking was a given in public places of shopping, eating, drinking and touring; even hospitals (!) Many apartments sported solar panels to heat their water, so when the sun failed to shine, there was no hot water. The author learned that he could go to a public bathhouse’s sauna to take a shower, relax with drugs or alcohol, and/or a comfort woman.

As of 2007, the country still lacked widespread use of credit cards, so it was shut out of a whole host of economic sectors, such as online transactions, travel booking, entrepreneurial opportunities, etc. The Chinese education system focused on regurgitation of facts but neglected to teach understanding of concepts. Cheating was rampant; even plagiarism was pervasive at the best universities. No one wanted to lose face in a scandal with bad publicity, so officials looked the other way.

Such were China’s priorities.

All of this contradicts the belief that if a nation like China is evolving at a fast pace economically, then it must also be moving in a positive direction culturally and socially. Explosive growth has actually led to extreme income disparity, and resentment among the lower classes. Additionally, the rats in the “rat race” have an indifferent attitude toward deaths resulting from a lack of health and safety regulations, because that is the cost of economic progress in their society. However, even during the early stages of their industrial development, most other countries valued human life to a much higher degree than China.

Read the book to learn of the craze called The Killing People Club, the author’s interactions with a rock star, a filmmaker, and a graduate student, and much more.

Side Note: This blogger was bothered by the author’s frequent use of the word “couple”:

“…couple more overpriced beers…”

“…happens a couple times…”

“…for a couple hours…”

“…a couple other guys…”