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Link. Is this a good introductory video for China?
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Jul 7, 2013 04:43
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BCR posted:Link. To start with, it seems the GDP stuff at the beginning is really outdated, I guess that video was taken some time in 2009-2010. Unfortunately, everything he rests his argument on is based on what we now know were a much of bad loans during that period and absolutely none of it was sustainable. The rest of it seems extremely essentialist and indefensible except for the most basic facts. He starts talking about how one country, two systems is so unique and works so well, when we all know how that ends up and gets into a bunch of other weird tangents. If anything the video is a good encapsulation of how China has been mystified and otherized during the 00s in the West. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Jul 7, 2013 |
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Jul 7, 2013 04:55
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Didn't like it very much. I don't agree with his dismissal of his the "nation state" at all, it sounds very clever but it is just mystification. Review the current public discourse within China today and you'll see the kind of balls to the wall, unapologetic nationlism which you found in the Edwardian period in Britain. I really don't agree with alot of what he says about the "civilisation state" either. The government in China, now, enjoys legitemacy because it stuffs people's mouths with gold so they don't ask awkward questions. There have been plenty of times (in the C20th alone) in which "the state" didn't embody any sense of guardianship or was in any way analgous to the notion of some vast and contiguous "civilisation". Dr. Baggins posted:"For 1000 years, the power of the state in China has had no serious rivals." Tosh. This guy has forgotten the Qing Dynasty and recent periods when China had no effective state. He sounds like he is trying to formulate some kind of postmodern, ultra-culturally sensitive apology for authoritariansim. Dr. Baggins posted:The Chinese market has remained larger and more sophisticated than anything in Europe since the late C17th? He'll be talking about the the vast and unknowable Orient next. Yes, China is a big place and lots of people live here but come on. Dr. Baggins posted:A long history of state infrastructural projects in China...three gorges'... ...but it can't be described as a "nation state". His first and third point don't sit neatly together for me. Dr. Baggins posted:...little Westerner... In popular discourse, yes. But in informed circles, no. I really don't like his reduction of the West's engagement with other cultures to Cecil Rhodes style colonialism. He is actually arguing that countries like China and Japan, which went so far as to totally cut themselves off from the outside world for hundreds of years, are more culturally sensitive than the West? How does this sit with his understanding of Han racial superiority? Dr. Baggins posted:...people in East Asia know more about the West... People in Henan certainly don't know anything about the West. Holy crap, if you read about the history of English teaching in China there are reminders again, and again, that the ideal format for language learning is based around a concept of the language as a tool and the culture (if it is studied at all) as an object. There is no sense of dialogue and, at times, an active desire to exclude Western ideas from the acquisition of technical prowess. Dr. Baggins posted:China has a huge number of people and no space... No, China has vastly asymmetrical economic development. It has plenty of space, there's just no reason to live there. Sorry. Now that he's gone into "China =cyberpunk future Asia" I can't watch anymore. GuestBob fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Jul 7, 2013 |
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Jul 7, 2013 08:03
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GuestBob posted:Didn't like it very much. Barely made it through, it was particularly tough when he started going on about the HSR network and that weird monorail/bus thing that never made it. However, really does buy into all the myths and stereotypes of the "unknowable and unstoppable east." I wonder where this guy is now. Anyway, China is already facing considerable questioning of the legitimacy of its leadership, and as growth drops it will only become more so. Also he doesn't even seem to mention environmental damage or demographic challenges, I wonder why. Basically, he bought into the image presented by Communist Party if you have high growth at no matter the cost or source and combines it with causal if not ahistorical assumptions. Too bad for him he is quite wrong about most of everything.
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Jul 7, 2013 09:09
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Guestbob has spoken so I don't have a lot to add, but yeah this is pretty bad. Many of his details are correct but he goes off in the wrong directions with them. Yes, China is more diverse than uninformed westerners tend to imagine but then he goes and calls it a state when it's actually been many different states, sometimes divided and sometimes incorporated into foreign states and sometimes a unified state. The continuity of China as nation-state is a convenient myth that the Chinese like to tell themselves; just look at how periods of disunity are relatively ignored and the treatment of "foreign dynasties" which were really periods in which China was a territory incorporated into a larger empire ruled by other people, but the modern Chinese blithely ignore that and just see it as China getting bigger. So I mean yes, he's right that China throughout history is more of a civilization and less of a nation, but then he calls it a state and falls flat on his face. Also I find it hilarious that the Chinese subtitles decided to translate "civilization state" as "文明国家" which has a very very specific, very flattering, and not at all the same meaning in Chinese. But basically he's still trading on the mysterious orient that simply can't be understood without wise folks like him (how convenient) and it's extremely annoying because Chinese people eat that poo poo right up. Yes, China is different than the west and will continue being different from the west. This anxiety is like 160 years old now China, you can let it go.  Lack of freedom of expression and propagandizing tends to lead to the same arguments circling around and around and around, never resolved.live-posting edits as I watch the rest of it: He didn't have the balls to come out and say that the Han ethnicity is a fictional ethnicity but he danced right on the edge. I don't buy at all that the current Chinese government enjoys more legitimacy than any Western state, when people aren't allowed to express opinions that challenge the legitimacy of the state. That's like asking a room full of armless people for a show of hands. Yeah wow he's making this wishy-washy argument conflating modernity and history when he talks about the conception of the state. He limits the western experience to post-republican revolution but is very happy to cast the Chinese experience back to the last 1000 years, where the Chinese state has "never been seriously challenged" which is complete bullshit. Seriously, the last 150 years of Chinese history are a long litany of rebellions and revolutions and state collapse, how could you possibly conclude that the state has never been seriously challenged without turning to mystic essentialism? His unwillingness to be honest about historical comparisons really sink is argument. What, we can go back to the Grand Canal for the Chinese ancient reverence for state infrastructure projects, but we're stuck considering the post-French Revolution West? What about Roman infrastructure projects that were contemporaneous with the Grand Canal? Oh God he won't stop talking about "the West". So essentialist. "The West is rapidly losing its influence in the world."  This right here tells you all you need to know about this guy's engagement with his audience.Oh God "Civilizations which had been ignored, which were not heard, which were not listened to, which were not known about will..." ahaha could you say something more Orientalist? Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 10:33 on Jul 7, 2013 |
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Jul 7, 2013 10:11
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Ardennes posted:I wonder where this guy is now. He is a columnist for the Guardian. :edit: and visiting Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing. karthun fucked around with this message at 11:25 on Jul 7, 2013 |
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Jul 7, 2013 11:20
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karthun posted:He is a columnist for the Guardian. The only decent columnist they have is Charlie Brooker. Tania Brannigan is okay I suppose, but there are a litany of poo poo posters like Zoe Williams who either write about stuff they did that morning on the way to the shops or vast geopolitical issues about which they know nothing (and which they thought about on the way to the shops). Add George Monbiot to the latter category too. Really, the Guardian needs less London and more Manchester.
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Jul 7, 2013 11:41
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Arglebargle III posted:
I'm curious about this statement. I know the whole thing about ethnic groups in China, etc. etc. But how is an ethnicity fictional if it is something that people, for whatever reason, identify as? Aren't all ethnic groups fictional since they are all created from different internal and external influences causing a group to identify (or be identified) in a certain way? Are you making the argument that Han didn't exist as some monolithic ethnic group in the past, and it's formation is a more recent thing (In which I would agree with you), or something else? Honest question, not trying to do some  thing.quote:and visiting Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing.
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Jul 7, 2013 11:59
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DaiJiaTeng posted:I'm curious about this statement. Arguably, the American name for a fictional ethnicity is "race." "White" is a made up ethnicity that's made up of many lineages and national/regional cultures. Han Chinese is in practice mostly a racial classification, and it exists for the same reason other racial classifications exist - to promote national unity and help single out and suppress troublesome outgroups (e.g., blacks in the US). OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 15:03 on Jul 7, 2013 |
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Jul 7, 2013 15:01
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Cream_Filling posted:Arguably, the American name for a fictional ethnicity is "race." "White" is a made up ethnicity that's made up of many lineages and national/regional cultures. Han Chinese is in practice mostly a racial classification, and it exists for the same reason other racial classifications exist - to promote national unity and help single out and suppress troublesome outgroups (e.g., blacks in the US). Do you consider imagined communities of race to be totally negative then? I suppose you draw a variety of lines across China on the basis of linguistic and dialect groupings and what kind of opera people listen to, but the Han/non-Han distinction is more important than any of these (in my opinion). Social differences in China, now there's a topic.
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Jul 7, 2013 15:44
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GuestBob posted:Do you consider imagined communities of race to be totally negative then? I don't think that imagined communities of race has to be totally negative, but at the same time I don't think they can be good under any circumstance.
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Jul 7, 2013 15:49
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doublepost
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Jul 7, 2013 15:57
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The 'Han' and 'White' equivalency is actually fairly accurate, now that you bring it up.
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Jul 7, 2013 16:03
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MY CHINESE GIRLFRIEND instinctively refers to anyone who isn't Han, but is from China as "not Chinese."
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Jul 7, 2013 16:09
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What about all the almost but not quite Han groups, like the Zhuang? Most of the time you wouldn't even know they're not Han unless they tell you.
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Jul 7, 2013 16:13
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GuestBob posted:Do you consider imagined communities of race to be totally negative then? Well arguably the distinction has been made important - being made-up doesn't make something less impactful considering the kind of work and influence it takes to create a new identity classification like that. But I feel that Han/non-Han in modern times is, like many other racial systems, an attempt to try and establish something that crosses social lines in order to unite people against racial minorities or other ethnic groups that are considered politically troublesome by dint of being insufficiently assimilated (i.e. existing and not destroyed or rendered politically powerless), in addition to the general benefits to nationalism, etc. Being a people and not just a nation is more powerful, so starting from the 19th century nationalist movements there's this myth of Han Chinese being a single ethnic group that's always ruled China with common origins, shared history, and ancestral territory that they must rightfully rule. It makes being Chinese not just a stamp on a passport or one of any competing identity allegiances but something that you physically are - something immediately visible and immutable. See, for instance, people who say that non-Han Chinese citizens whose families lived in the area longer than the modern nation has existed are "not Chinese" but ABC Chinese-Americans who only speak English "are Chinese" and, hell, even the differing legal treatment and standards for foreign workers who are ethnically Chinese looking versus white looking. Also, the degree of history manipulation this takes is honestly far more than even that found in American race classifications. The same goes for lots of other things. "Dialects" that are mutually unintelligible and often structurally distinct are called "languages" in the rest of the world, considering how similar the romance languages are to each other. I think manufactured identities like this are often harmful because usually they've been manufactured for a purpose, and usually those purposes are all about building power and crushing other identities. Being Han Chinese doesn't really say a whole lot about you, and the only shared interests that really exist are the privilege created that is reserved only for other Han Chinese. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Jul 7, 2013 |
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Jul 7, 2013 16:14
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MeramJert posted:What about all the almost but not quite Han groups, like the Zhuang? Most of the time you wouldn't even know they're not Han unless they tell you. I guess they're sort of like white hispanics. Culturally, ethnically, and linguistically distinct but often accepted as white because they can physically pass for white. Or else groups like irish-americans or italian-americans were they were once not considered white and considered physically distinct but are now considered within the range of acceptable whiteness, now that they're no longer a group with a strong identity that's considered a threat to the state or the primacy of the majority ethnic group. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Jul 7, 2013 |
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Jul 7, 2013 16:22
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That's what I was saying, Cream. Basically, when you get down to it, the parallel is pretty tight.
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Jul 7, 2013 21:22
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Cream_Filling posted:Being Han Chinese doesn't really say a whole lot about you, and the only shared interests that really exist are the privilege created that is reserved only for other Han Chinese. Everyone else got to wear their snazzy costumes during shi ba da, but not the Han. The Han have no colourful clothes, or traditional songs, or dances: they are the adults, the minorities are the patronized children. Speaking of the Guardian, here's a thing: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/31/china-africa-students-scholarship-programme [edit] Tangentially, if you are interested in the education side of this issue (the role of Chinese universities and Chinese education policy in a globalised marketplace), then this is an interesting read: http://academiccouncil.duke.edu/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/Agora-China-Report1.pdf The real questions is, did Liverpool and Nottingham slip the MoE a red envelope to open the door for them, or to close it behind them afterwards. And how much is NYU paying for a look through the keyhole? GuestBob fucked around with this message at 04:14 on Jul 8, 2013 |
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Jul 8, 2013 00:48
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GuestBob posted:Everyone else got to wear their snazzy costumes during shi ba da, but not the Han. The Han have no colourful clothes, or traditional songs, or dances: they are the adults, the minorities are the patronized children. GuestBob posted:Speaking of the Guardian, here's a thing: Yeah I've always wondered what was up with this obsession with overseas campuses. It sounds like a dumb way to dilute your reputation while losing money. Which, in other words, makes it extremely appealing to higher education management, who are insanely trend and fad driven. There was the claim that the NYU Shanghai venture had something to do with Chen Guangcheng leaving NYU, but it's hard to get a handle on that. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 14:28 on Jul 8, 2013 |
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Jul 8, 2013 14:25
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Arglebargle III posted:Also I find it hilarious that the Chinese subtitles decided to translate "civilization state" as "文明国家" which has a very very specific, very flattering, and not at all the same meaning in Chinese. e: For content re: gaokao http://www.economist.com/blogs/analects/2013/07/college-entrance-exams quote:But not all students take the test seriously. One long-running phenomenon is the “zero mark essay”. These are answers to the main question in the compulsory language-and-culture section, which receive absolutely no points. Many of these are later published online, and since the essay questions are different for each province there is always a range. Several of them flop because of an excess of pluck, not idiocy. Vegetable fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Jul 8, 2013 |
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Jul 8, 2013 22:34
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Vegetable posted:What's wrong with it? It literally translates back into "Civilization state/country". The original term is clunky and meaningless, it's not the translation's fault. 文明 in modern Chinese is universally a positive adjective. It doesn't mean civilization, it means civilized in the sense that they have manners and act in a dignified and appropriate way. This is debatable, to say the least.
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Jul 8, 2013 22:45
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Longanimitas posted:文明 in modern Chinese is universally a positive adjective. It doesn't mean civilization, it means civilized in the sense that they have manners and act in a dignified and appropriate way. This is debatable, to say the least. http://www.iciba.com/%E6%96%87%E6%98%8E http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E6%96%87%E6%98%8E
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Jul 8, 2013 22:58
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Yup, I'm scratching my head at purported Chinese speakers confusing the meaning of 文明 or 文明国家.
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Jul 8, 2013 23:07
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Cream_Filling posted:BTW, just curious, is this a quote from someone? It looks vaguely familiar but I can't put my finger on it. No, but it isn't exactly a new idea.
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Jul 9, 2013 03:36
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Cream_Filling posted:BTW, just curious, is this a quote from someone? It looks vaguely familiar but I can't put my finger on it. Somewhere earlier in the thread there were comments from someone about how the only thing the various minorities in China are known for is dancing and costumes. That may be what you're remembering.
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Jul 9, 2013 03:52
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pairofdimes posted:Somewhere earlier in the thread there were comments from someone about how the only thing the various minorities in China are known for is dancing and costumes. That may be what you're remembering. Ah okay, I thought it might be an in-joke/thread meme referencing some blogger or Global Times editorial or something. Which I guess is a compliment because it sums up the attitude very well.
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Jul 9, 2013 04:07
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Vegetable posted:文明 has two meanings, one of which is what you described. The other is literally civilization, as in 文明古国 (Ancient civilization). Yeah but a Chinese speaker is not going to read it without a positive meaning. I'm not saying it's a wrong translation, merely a flattering one. You're right that it's hard to translate things that don't make a lot of sense in the original language though, maybe it was unfair.
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Jul 9, 2013 05:10
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In other news, Clive Palmer (aussie mining magnate, and aspiring polititian) is amazing.The Australian reported posted:In one recording, Mr Palmer twice told a CITIC Pacific executive to “tell your chairman to stick it up his arse”. quote:“I've had enough of you, so just pack up all your f..cking gear and get back to China,” Mr Palmer reportedly told the executive. I think the deal is that they are delaying payment for ore provided and not paying any ground rents owed on mines they operate.
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Jul 9, 2013 06:19
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Anyaus posted:You people give me the shits. This is an unusual application of this expression.
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Jul 9, 2013 06:37
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Arglebargle III posted:Yeah but a Chinese speaker is not going to read it without a positive meaning. I'm not saying it's a wrong translation, merely a flattering one. You're right that it's hard to translate things that don't make a lot of sense in the original language though, maybe it was unfair. I'm Chinese and I hate how the word is used  When it comes to how public space is trashed in China it hits my nerves.Longanimitas posted:文明 in modern Chinese is universally a positive adjective. It doesn't mean civilization, it means civilized in the sense that they have manners and act in a dignified and appropriate way. This is debatable, to say the least. Ugh using 文明, wenming or to be "civilized" is just a mainland thing. Using it as an adjective in everyday Chinese speech is ridiculous  China just likes to lump everything into some slogan or lofty ideal and bombard the streets with Propaganda. Be civilized for this, be civilized for that! The worst offender is the public service announcement in buses. Chinese buses posted:China is a civilization of 5000 years of politeness and courtesy, give your seat to the elders and handicapped Seriously? You can't just be direct and tell people to give your seat to those in need? You have to prescribe to some artificial construct instead of a genuine human need/compassion? For all the friendly reminders of civilization, people sure do like making GBS threads in the streets  loving communists have such a big chip on their shoulder; for all their newly acquired wealth and arrogance, they are so backwards. Screaming civilization left and right just shows denial Compare to this cheesy commercial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wy1FldnVtU It's direct, and simple to understand. Plus there's an old British guy doing the voice over  In my mind, this is GuestBob https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0n5Bk0RBsc I just saw a few more. And wow this one is dark https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5npDcvvnIE0 caberham fucked around with this message at 06:54 on Jul 9, 2013 |
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Jul 9, 2013 06:41
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GuestBob posted:This is an unusual application of this expression. 'Don't give me the shits' is a common expression in Australia and New Zealand. It has nothing to do with food poisoning. Usually.
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Jul 9, 2013 06:43
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Those old PSA's are awesome. Check out all these sweet corruption ads and how the mainland doesn't treat corruption at all: This one is directed at bosses with the idea "your company will die if you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFP1GI0rQPg "Your baby formula will be poisoned with melamine if you are corrupt" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2PUitsRSX8 "Hey you, British civil servant. Don't be Literally Peter Godber" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoxNcejnIEg And here's your real GuestBob: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV3QdfNOewk edit: Speaking of 文明, somebody responsible for designing PSAs was really pissed about littering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TW7jzJE0W0
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Jul 9, 2013 07:18
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Vegetable posted:文明 has two meanings, one of which is what you described. The other is literally civilization, as in 文明古国 (Ancient civilization). You are technically correct, but Arglebargle nailed it. No Chinese person is going to read it without a positive connotation, so it is definitely a flattering and suboptimal translation. This is in no small part due to the CCP's constant propaganda-related use of the word.
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Jul 9, 2013 13:58
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Longanimitas posted:You are technically correct, but Arglebargle nailed it. No Chinese person is going to read it without a positive connotation, so it is definitely a flattering and suboptimal translation. This is in no small part due to the CCP's constant propaganda-related use of the word. On its own the term can be confusing but you're reading disingenuousness where there is none. The translation is erratic in parts (translating Korea as North Korea) but it's on the whole actually really good and conveys much of the original speech's nuances.
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Jul 9, 2013 14:50
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The debate is academic anyway given that the idea of China being a "civilization state" as distinct to a nation state is nonsense in the first place
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Jul 9, 2013 15:19
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Fist of Foucault posted:The debate is academic anyway given that the idea of China being a "civilization state" as distinct to a nation state is nonsense in the first place Yeah, even in English the term is disingenuous bullshit so whether that's amplified by the translation is secondary to the main source of bullshit.
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Jul 9, 2013 18:17
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If anything I am more interested in the Western source of that bullshit, I was recently watching Rising Sun and that seemed to be a interesting (if almost entirely negative rather than positive) version from the early 1990s. Basically, it is about complete otherization and historicity, in this case it is for seemingly "positive" reasoning but it is still there. Neither Japan or China are allowed to exist in the same rules as the West because they are fundamentally different and therefore everything we know about how the world works should be thrown away. When in reality we all know that China and Japan obey the same rules as any other nation states in the broad terms, they aren't apart of some "magic orient" that seems to be reinvested every generation.
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Jul 9, 2013 19:10
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I think a lot of it is just ignorance because lot of people have a weirdly fractured and inaccurate view of both Chinese history and Western history. Like this guy talking about how China 2000 years ago didn't think of itself as a nation state missing the fact that nobody thought of themselves as a nation state 2000 years ago because the term didn't exist and only makes sense in the context of relatively recent developments in western philosophy and governance. The other thing, of course, is the long-standing idea of orientalism. Orientalism was originally characterized as a tool of imperialism because it sort of de facto assumes an otherization. In part, it basically says that these other peoples are slaves to culture and tradition, a bunch of superstitious savages who are inherently inferior to freethinking, rational westerners and who cannot be understood or engaged as peers by the analytic tools of the western mindset. Often with the implication that they must be rescued and saved from their wretchedness. The new expressions of this movement seem to try to do away with the implicit superiority by claiming that it is the west that is close-minded and thus unable to fully appreciate or judge the east. Still the same differentiation exists, except now it's being used to imply that the speaker is simply more broad-minded and freethinking than his cultural peers, and that any attempt to actually understand the east is doomed to failure without his guidance and expertise. Orientalism becomes individualized as a tool for advancing one's social status by claiming access to something beyond the reach of the ordinary person. Or, in the case of the Chinese government, it becomes a tool to deflect criticism and recruit greedy or credulous foreigners eager to look smart and tolerant. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Jul 9, 2013 |
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Jul 9, 2013 19:48
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Cream_Filling posted:I think a lot of it is just ignorance because lot of people have a weirdly fractured and inaccurate view of both Chinese history and Western history. Like this guy talking about how China 2000 years ago didn't think of itself as a nation state missing the fact that nobody thought of themselves as a nation state 2000 years ago because the term didn't exist and only makes sense in the context of relatively recent developments in western philosophy and governance. Of course, the dangerous part is that it works, and the general public in the West is led to believe what these "experts" tell them which in many ways helps otherize a people that aren't nearly as different as they (the orientalists) pretend to be. Humanity is facing very similar challenges at this point, from Egypt to Russia the United States to China there are different takes but it is obvious economic and political power is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands against the best interest of the populace. There is a real history there that shows many of the similarities across the 20th and into the 21st century, that discredits non-sense about a "civilization state." China is part of the world as any other country at this point, maybe not as fully exposed in certain ways but to be honest, I think english penetration is higher in China than Russia to throw out an example.
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Jul 9, 2013 20:09
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