I am sitting in the Beijing airport trying to get back to Harbin. Unfortunately, due to a series of canceled and re-scheduled flights, its going to be a long wait. I've heard it is really cold in Harbin. I am bracing myself, but really looking forward to returning to the quiet life that accompanies studying rice.
I spent the first few days of this week attending the Northeast Asia Economic Forum. It was a big conference with a lot of speakers. The day after the conference ended, all of the young people who had been part of the workshop got together to process and discuss the forum. Here is what I learned.
Americans are loud. About 30+ people from the workshop sat in a classroom and we gave group presentations. When the organizers tried to get us to use microphones, all of the Americans refused to use them. Each of the groups had an American in it. All of the Americans talked for our groups, myself included. After a couple of weeks of sitting around listening to talks, we had decided it was time to be heard. We summarized and critiqued what we had seen at the Forum, offered suggestions to improve the workshop for the next year, and pretty much led the last day of discussions. I observed (and participated in) this phenomenon with another American. She observed that yes we are loud, but we also get things done. In a sense, Americans are an authority figure, even just as workshop participants.
The workshop had about 33 participants from 6 countries (S. Korea, Japan, China, Mongolia, Russia, USA). The US is the one country that is a geographical stretch. But its inclusion in the region represents the broader and stronger political economic relations the US has. Of the 5 Americans, 3 of us are currently living in an Asian country and the other ones have previously and/or may in the future (well, if Josh is reading this, he's the exception to all rules). The US is involved in this region because our foreign policy. In the most general sense, we show up at conferences and meetings to listen and observe. After we have listened and observed, we insert ourselves into the situation and become an authority. At this basic workshop of graduate students and young professionals, the US presence was undeniable. From keeping up with current events in the world, I imagine its like that at a much larger scale as well. For better or for worse, Americans live in a privileged position in the world where authority is granted to us based on our nationality. We use this authority to make things happen.
I came to China first as a Peace Corps volunteer and now as an (aspiring) academic so I could both be a part of, but also be removed from, the world of international politics. I want to see and understand what happens in the rest of the world through processes of economic development, financial integration, and free trade. But I don't want to be directly involved in it because I understand the biases that one brings to a situation when working on behalf of a government or some other organization. Of course, I am not free from this at all by being an academic. But when I get a little closer to understanding how world politics operates, I want to distance myself. Whether what I am doing works or doesn't work, I don't want to be the American who comes in and gets the job done.
So I continue to wait to board my plane to return to Harbin where I can continue my role as an observer in the world of northeast rice. I don't have to lead any more discussions and try to get my beliefs across for a while. The workshop was a good break and a reality check from life in Harbin. But I am ready to go back and be quiet for a while.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
An American in Tianjin
I have been in the city of Tianjin for about a week, and I have another week here. Tianjin is about an hour or so away from Beijing and, although it is a major city in China, it is often overshadowed by Beijing. I am here for a workshop and conference on Northeast Asia economic and political relations. I am here partially because I would like to eventually do some post-doc work on Korean and Japanese views of Chinese rice, so I want to learn more about the Northeast Asia region and maybe make some connections. But there is something about being here in the midst of other American and Asian scholars that makes me more aware of my position as an American than I am in Harbin. Let's see if I am successful at putting my thoughts into words.
When I checked into the conference, the first question I was asked was what country I came from. The list of participants was broken up by countries. Among the 30 participants, I was one of the 5 Americans. So from the start, I was defined through my country. But, like most of the participants, I lead an international life within the NE Asian region. Aside from me, an American living in China, the conference hosts Mongolians living in Russia, Koreans living in the US, Chinese living in Japan, etc. But despite our international experiences, we have continuously been grouped by nationality.
Since I have been here, I have had plenty of conversations with people from all over about American politics. American or not, everyone seems to have an opinion about the American election. To be fair, this includes myself, though I usually succeed at keeping my opinions to myself until I gauge what the others think. Over the weekend, though, I had one aggressive person pick an argument with me about what is best for America. He had never been to America, and could not discuss anything about American social issues or even foreign policy; he was an economist and cared only about the economy. I almost felt like I was being attacked. It was a weird conversation and I wondered how I had gotten involved in it. I wished I hadn't because I would have rather preferred to have a more meaningful conversation than an argument. I think its great so many people around the world care so much about the American election-they should care-but I don't like feeling because I am American, I am available to be told what America needs to do.
This morning, the conference focused on history of the region. Over and over again, we (the participants) were told that we would be hearing the 'objective' side of history and the 'facts' so we could understand where the region is today. During the question period, I listened to other Americans asking the speakers to clarify how they were telling history objectively. I later discussed this with other Americans. Some other participants in the conference did not seem to be bothered by an objective understanding of history. Is it only in America that we understand the inherent controversies in telling history? Or is it that we have been taught critical thinking over and over again that we can't help but be critical of any speaker we hear?
Along the same lines, I have been getting in conversations with Chinese people here that I avoid in Harbin. In Harbin I like to forget about Chinese politics and just talk to people. At times, I am perhaps overly sensitive to not discussing Chinese politics. But at an academic conference about economic and political collaboration of this region, it cannot be avoided. Every time something about Chinese politics comes up, the Chinese people tend to get defensive and tell us to ignore the politics and focus on the economics. I personally do not think the two can be separated and find it difficult to have academic conversations when their national pride gets in the way. I am sure I have my own biases (such as finding it difficult to believe an 'objective' history), but I try to be open to hear what is said. I feel like this issue just pulls me farther away from having productive conversations with Chinese academics and I retreat to my American thinking.
Oh yes, I cannot forget, the best part of the conference should come later this week when the former governor of Alaska comes to talk about Energy Policy in Northeast Asia. Seriously, that is what he is talking about. I wonder if he is going to claim he is an energy expert because he comes from an oil state. And how exactly does Alaska's proximity to Russia allow him to talk to a group of NE Asian scholars?
When I checked into the conference, the first question I was asked was what country I came from. The list of participants was broken up by countries. Among the 30 participants, I was one of the 5 Americans. So from the start, I was defined through my country. But, like most of the participants, I lead an international life within the NE Asian region. Aside from me, an American living in China, the conference hosts Mongolians living in Russia, Koreans living in the US, Chinese living in Japan, etc. But despite our international experiences, we have continuously been grouped by nationality.
Since I have been here, I have had plenty of conversations with people from all over about American politics. American or not, everyone seems to have an opinion about the American election. To be fair, this includes myself, though I usually succeed at keeping my opinions to myself until I gauge what the others think. Over the weekend, though, I had one aggressive person pick an argument with me about what is best for America. He had never been to America, and could not discuss anything about American social issues or even foreign policy; he was an economist and cared only about the economy. I almost felt like I was being attacked. It was a weird conversation and I wondered how I had gotten involved in it. I wished I hadn't because I would have rather preferred to have a more meaningful conversation than an argument. I think its great so many people around the world care so much about the American election-they should care-but I don't like feeling because I am American, I am available to be told what America needs to do.
This morning, the conference focused on history of the region. Over and over again, we (the participants) were told that we would be hearing the 'objective' side of history and the 'facts' so we could understand where the region is today. During the question period, I listened to other Americans asking the speakers to clarify how they were telling history objectively. I later discussed this with other Americans. Some other participants in the conference did not seem to be bothered by an objective understanding of history. Is it only in America that we understand the inherent controversies in telling history? Or is it that we have been taught critical thinking over and over again that we can't help but be critical of any speaker we hear?
Along the same lines, I have been getting in conversations with Chinese people here that I avoid in Harbin. In Harbin I like to forget about Chinese politics and just talk to people. At times, I am perhaps overly sensitive to not discussing Chinese politics. But at an academic conference about economic and political collaboration of this region, it cannot be avoided. Every time something about Chinese politics comes up, the Chinese people tend to get defensive and tell us to ignore the politics and focus on the economics. I personally do not think the two can be separated and find it difficult to have academic conversations when their national pride gets in the way. I am sure I have my own biases (such as finding it difficult to believe an 'objective' history), but I try to be open to hear what is said. I feel like this issue just pulls me farther away from having productive conversations with Chinese academics and I retreat to my American thinking.
Oh yes, I cannot forget, the best part of the conference should come later this week when the former governor of Alaska comes to talk about Energy Policy in Northeast Asia. Seriously, that is what he is talking about. I wonder if he is going to claim he is an energy expert because he comes from an oil state. And how exactly does Alaska's proximity to Russia allow him to talk to a group of NE Asian scholars?
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Thirty Years Ago
1978 was a big year for China. China's entire political economic landscape is dominated by the reforms that began in this year. Deng Xiaoping took over after the death of Mao and initiated the policies now commonly known as Reform and Opening Up. Reform refers to domestic economic reforms which began in the countryside and moved China away from a Communist state-dominated economy. Opening Up refers to external reforms that began economic, trade, and scientific collaboration between China and foreign countries. Over and over again, Chinese celebrate the past thirty years by citing achievements in economic development and technological progress.
Understanding the way China is sets the stage for the changes that occurred in 1978 sets the background for my research. Producing quality rice is a way to get beyond the obsession with producing mass quantities of rice that came with Communism. As China celebrates thirty years of progress and success, 1978 is tauted as a new beginning. And thirty years ago in the US, new beginnings were also taking place but on a much different scale.
Thirty years ago today I was born. Although my life has paralleled China's reforms, I spent my first twenty years pretty much oblivious to what was happening in China. And now I am in the midst of a major research project examining the effects of these reforms through Chinese rice. This is not my first birthday in China. I spent my first birthday here seven years ago in Luzhou, Sichuan at Xingqi Ba (a place where everyone knew my name). It was the one place in Luzhou where I could always go to feel at home. I was back there the next year.
Last year on my birthday, I was in Colorado, thinking about how and when I would return to China next. The day before I had submitted a major grant proposal I had crammed into writing in just six weeks. I spent most of my birthday obsessing over the minor details I had (or had not) written into the grant. Well, it worked out just fine. I got that grant and now I am here.
I gave a presentation this morning at a conference. My presentation was about linking culture, economy, and ecology through rice in China. Before the presentation, the group presented me with a big poster everyone had signed and written in different languages. Embarrassingly, they also sang Happy Birthday in English and a variety of Northeast Asian languages (Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Russian-maybe some Mongolian as well). The presentation went well and now I can relax. What a cool way to spend a birthday.
Understanding the way China is sets the stage for the changes that occurred in 1978 sets the background for my research. Producing quality rice is a way to get beyond the obsession with producing mass quantities of rice that came with Communism. As China celebrates thirty years of progress and success, 1978 is tauted as a new beginning. And thirty years ago in the US, new beginnings were also taking place but on a much different scale.
Thirty years ago today I was born. Although my life has paralleled China's reforms, I spent my first twenty years pretty much oblivious to what was happening in China. And now I am in the midst of a major research project examining the effects of these reforms through Chinese rice. This is not my first birthday in China. I spent my first birthday here seven years ago in Luzhou, Sichuan at Xingqi Ba (a place where everyone knew my name). It was the one place in Luzhou where I could always go to feel at home. I was back there the next year.
Last year on my birthday, I was in Colorado, thinking about how and when I would return to China next. The day before I had submitted a major grant proposal I had crammed into writing in just six weeks. I spent most of my birthday obsessing over the minor details I had (or had not) written into the grant. Well, it worked out just fine. I got that grant and now I am here.
I gave a presentation this morning at a conference. My presentation was about linking culture, economy, and ecology through rice in China. Before the presentation, the group presented me with a big poster everyone had signed and written in different languages. Embarrassingly, they also sang Happy Birthday in English and a variety of Northeast Asian languages (Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Russian-maybe some Mongolian as well). The presentation went well and now I can relax. What a cool way to spend a birthday.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Koreans and Organic Rice
I spent the past couple days on organic rice fields. I actually did not know the fields I was going to were organic until I was there. I also did not know that most of the employees on the fields were Korean. I knew I was going to go with a group of people visiting from Korea, but the organic rice and the Korean workers (both unexpected) might have been a coincidence. I think , however, there is something to say about why we went to see them together.
Wuchang is a town just an hour and a half south of Harbin. All people tell me the highest quality northeast rice comes from here. I visited on my own about a month and a half ago, but did not make it a formal visit. This time, I was happy to go with people who were going with their own mission. Two of people were South Koreans from a televisions station, making a program about Chinese rice, so they wanted to learn about rice and get footage for their program. There was another South Korean rice researcher, my professor (ethnically Korean, but a Chinese citizen) and a Chinese driver. Six of us that drove from Harbin to Wuchang and spent two days visiting farms, fields, government offices, research institutes, and mills. None of us spoke one common language, so car rides and meetings were filled with Korean, Chinese, and a little English going back and forth. Korean is a very beautiful language to listen to; I wish I could speak it.
Its the end of harvest season. Paddy fields were drained of water beginning in early September. As a result, the rice still in the ground was brown and drying. When we got to the fields, workers were chopping them down to let the stalks lay out for about ten days. This helps make it easy to remove the grain from the plant. The workers were skilled and had the act perfected to a rhythm. I wish my pictures could capture that rhythm better.
The workers on these fields get paid 6 times what workers on 'average' rice farms get. The production of japonica rice in the northeast really got underway at the end of the nineteenth century. Most of the skilled laborers then, and in the following century, were ethnic Koreans living in China. Today, the northeast of China is host to over 2 million Koreans. Koreans are one of the most well-off minorities living in China.
The Koreans who came on the trip with us told me that organic rice is still very small in Korea, as it is in China. Why, of all the rice fields that we visited, then did we go to organic fields? Probably because they are exemplary of the best fields and practices to grow rice here. Last summer, I was taken to organic soybean fields in Jilin (the province just south of Heilongjiang) when a Dutch researcher was visiting. Again, I tagged along with a professor as she led a Dutch researcher to the organic fields.
When I first wanted to study food and agriculture in China, I wanted to study the developing organic industry here. I had problems with that idea because, to the average Chinese, organic is not an important influential factor (but 'quality' is). I felt it would be more of an international industry than a local food movement. It is. And when foreign researchers request to be taken to the Chinese countryside, we are led to the best fields to show the best agriculture China is capable of. For the Koreans who visited, it worked out well that they could communicate with the workers in Korean and they got to see the best rice fields in the northeast.
Workers in the fields. 
You can see the grains up close here.
Ready to be milled...
This machine is separating the poor quality grains (usually broken or not fully formed) from the rice ready to go to the market.
The final product. The top left green circle claims this is organic rice (its hard to read).
Wuchang is a town just an hour and a half south of Harbin. All people tell me the highest quality northeast rice comes from here. I visited on my own about a month and a half ago, but did not make it a formal visit. This time, I was happy to go with people who were going with their own mission. Two of people were South Koreans from a televisions station, making a program about Chinese rice, so they wanted to learn about rice and get footage for their program. There was another South Korean rice researcher, my professor (ethnically Korean, but a Chinese citizen) and a Chinese driver. Six of us that drove from Harbin to Wuchang and spent two days visiting farms, fields, government offices, research institutes, and mills. None of us spoke one common language, so car rides and meetings were filled with Korean, Chinese, and a little English going back and forth. Korean is a very beautiful language to listen to; I wish I could speak it.
Its the end of harvest season. Paddy fields were drained of water beginning in early September. As a result, the rice still in the ground was brown and drying. When we got to the fields, workers were chopping them down to let the stalks lay out for about ten days. This helps make it easy to remove the grain from the plant. The workers were skilled and had the act perfected to a rhythm. I wish my pictures could capture that rhythm better.
The workers on these fields get paid 6 times what workers on 'average' rice farms get. The production of japonica rice in the northeast really got underway at the end of the nineteenth century. Most of the skilled laborers then, and in the following century, were ethnic Koreans living in China. Today, the northeast of China is host to over 2 million Koreans. Koreans are one of the most well-off minorities living in China.
The Koreans who came on the trip with us told me that organic rice is still very small in Korea, as it is in China. Why, of all the rice fields that we visited, then did we go to organic fields? Probably because they are exemplary of the best fields and practices to grow rice here. Last summer, I was taken to organic soybean fields in Jilin (the province just south of Heilongjiang) when a Dutch researcher was visiting. Again, I tagged along with a professor as she led a Dutch researcher to the organic fields.
When I first wanted to study food and agriculture in China, I wanted to study the developing organic industry here. I had problems with that idea because, to the average Chinese, organic is not an important influential factor (but 'quality' is). I felt it would be more of an international industry than a local food movement. It is. And when foreign researchers request to be taken to the Chinese countryside, we are led to the best fields to show the best agriculture China is capable of. For the Koreans who visited, it worked out well that they could communicate with the workers in Korean and they got to see the best rice fields in the northeast.
Workers in the fields. 
You can see the grains up close here.
Ready to be milled...
This machine is separating the poor quality grains (usually broken or not fully formed) from the rice ready to go to the market.
The final product. The top left green circle claims this is organic rice (its hard to read).
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Leeks Everywhere
I love the change of seasons! There are so many great stories I have to write about. Since its been way too long since I have posted photos, I have some good ones to share that speak for themselves. Its getting cold here in Harbin and people are preparing for winter. Most evident in their preparations are the leeks lining the sidewalks here. Literally everywhere you look in residential neighborhoods, leeks are sitting outside drying in the sun. If dried properly, leeks can last through the winter.
As I was running this morning, I saw a line of people behind a truck. They were buying big bundles of leeks from the back of the truck, strapping them to the backs of their bikes, and heading home to (presumably) lay them out in the sun. As soon as the leeks are done, I was told yesterday, cabbage would be next. Sure enough, this morning I saw some Chinese cabbage out next to the leeks. By next week, it might all be cabbage.
Here is the little store below my apartment building lined with leeks, waiting for the sun.
This woman was tearing off the outside layers of the leeks and laying them out. When I stopped to watch her, she handed me one and told me to keep it. Then she told me it wasn't enough and I needed more. I had to insist that I was going somewhere and could not carry them with me.
I believe the bundles are held together with dried, braided rice stalks.
As I was running this morning, I saw a line of people behind a truck. They were buying big bundles of leeks from the back of the truck, strapping them to the backs of their bikes, and heading home to (presumably) lay them out in the sun. As soon as the leeks are done, I was told yesterday, cabbage would be next. Sure enough, this morning I saw some Chinese cabbage out next to the leeks. By next week, it might all be cabbage.
Here is the little store below my apartment building lined with leeks, waiting for the sun.
This woman was tearing off the outside layers of the leeks and laying them out. When I stopped to watch her, she handed me one and told me to keep it. Then she told me it wasn't enough and I needed more. I had to insist that I was going somewhere and could not carry them with me.
I believe the bundles are held together with dried, braided rice stalks.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Happy Birthday, China
Today was a national holiday to celebrate China's birthday. The People's Republic of China turned 59 today. Most people have the week off.
Chinese people in general are very proud of their country/culture and like to remind me that America is only 200 years old, while China is over 2000 years old.
The next time I am told this, I may remind a Chinese person that the Chinese government is 59 years old.
China celebrates a holiday where the Communists won and created a new country. But today China is desperately trying to move away from its association with Communism.
Chinese people in general are very proud of their country/culture and like to remind me that America is only 200 years old, while China is over 2000 years old.
The next time I am told this, I may remind a Chinese person that the Chinese government is 59 years old.
China celebrates a holiday where the Communists won and created a new country. But today China is desperately trying to move away from its association with Communism.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
