a tale of 2 cities, 2 police forces

Last week I listened intently to what was happening in my hometown of Pittsburgh as the G-20 meeting was held there. Protesters from around the US gathered in Pittsburgh to demonstrate their distrust of the financial leaders of the world's 20 biggest economies. I have my own issues with protest politics these days. (I don't really want to get into it.) When given the opportunity to speak and lay out an argument, the protesters are spot on. However, in big meeting situations like these, their points get lost as mainstream media attention turns to police force in riot gear and anarchist protesters in black masks.

Having grown up in Pittsburgh with a lot of friends still there, it was interesting to hear what the people of Pittsburgh had to say about this meeting. Through online status updates and tweets I am able to summarize the following points:

*Most people were pleasantly surprised at the lack of traffic in the city, despite having to take new routes to work.

*Many people were thankful for getting to work from home for a day or two.

*Some people took the time to go for a walk and talk to different groups and report online. One of my friends talked to anti-abortion activists standing next to Free Tibet protesters. He was not sure how either was exactly connected to the G-20. He offered to trade his free Pirates (baseball) shirt for a free Free Tibet t-shirt, but that did not happen.

*Some people were annoyed at the noise of helicopters and blamed it on the protesters. Others were disappointed about the image Pittsburgh was showing the world with their disobedience.

*Other people posted this as their status: To the people of Pittsburgh who are annoyed at the potential damage the protesters might cause, think about the damage the G-20 has already caused.

As I heard stories of downtown Pittsburgh being empty, having cleared out like a ghost town, I walked on the streets in Beijing to see a similar situation unfolding. I have been busy the last few days observing the world around me unfold as more police officers take the streets, more civilians wear volunteer security arm bands, more Chinese flags are hung from businesses and homes. I had a man knock on my door, offering a free Chinese flag for me to hang.

I won't lie; there is not really much of a comparison to make between a national holiday and an international financial meetings. No matter what one thinks of the protesters, what is lacking here are the voices of any protest at all. Instead, flags, national songs, and performances are celebrating the unity of a nation, masking the discontent of groups not included. I have a friend in Xinjiang this week. There is no internet at all there, nor can she send any text messages, both to prevent mass communication of messages.

UPDATE: After I wrote this, I saw this article in the NY Times. Perhaps its description of Beijing is more accurate than mine.

Thirty more days

I write this as I sit on the roof of my hutong apartment in Beijing. From the roof of this one-story house, I can see into the courtyards of my neighbors where dogs are sunbathing and laundry is drying. I hear sirens and bike bells and motorcycle horns. I cringe at the sound of car horns. On a daily basis cars attempt to drive down these alleys, just as wide as the cars themselves. They push people and bikes and dogs off to the edges of teh alley; they are, to borrow the metaphor from a friend, the artery-cloggers of Beijing's hutongs. But this is a society where tradition and modern sometimes clash and other times co-exist. In thirty days when I get on a plane to the US, it is witnessing these aspects of China that I will miss.

Unfortunately what I won't miss are the times when I have to leave my role as an observer and participate in the chaos of Chinese society. I've been relaxed and secluded in Beijing and have pretty much let all of the challenges that I faced when doing fieldwork in Harbin get behind me. But there are a lot of bureaucratic challenges that a foreign researcher faces in China. There are also a lot of social pressures that one faces being a foreigner and a stranger. Sometimes I was able to work past that idea of being the foreign stranger but other times, it was a tough wall to break.

So I feel like what I am saying is that I like the environment in China where I can live in a gentrified hutong apartment and feel like I am a part of the 'old Beijing' while also separating myself when I do not want to be a part of it. I value the Chinese friends that I have made here, but to live in and participate in Chinese society on a daily basis is a pretty exhausting experience. I hope to spend my last 30 days here enjoying the things I like about China and avoiding the things I don't like.

China Prepares for the Big Siz Zero

On October 1, China celebrates its 60th Birthday as the People's Republic. Beijing is in the midst of preparing a huge celebration for this momentous occasion. As a result, we are feeling the effects of it. For the last few weekends, Tiananmen Square has been closed off as performers practice for the parade and performance. I have seen a large tank filled with soldiers in a big intersection near my house on the weekends (a tank is so symbolic for China). Today traffic is closed off on major roads as the parade is practiced. For the next few weeks, old men who like to fly kites and let their pigeons out of cages to fly are forbidden to do so anywhere near the Square in the center of Beijing. Apparently all university students in Beijing are going to be required to attend the actual performance on October 1. It will be broadcast on Chinese TV. I actually don't have a TV so I might have to miss it.

If its anything like the Olympics, I am sure I will be able to buy a DVD of the performance the next day. I will just make a plan not to go anywhere too far from home those days.

random rice fact

The other day, my roommate and quizzed each other using the trivia questions from the game Cranium. Cranium is a really fun game. We have the game in our possession at the moment and are itching to play, but we need 4 people to play the game. Sadly, I don't think many of the pop culture references translate to Chinese, so we would need to play with other westerners. Instead of playing we have resorted to reading through the trivia questions and feeling like we are learning something.

So here is a question she asked me:

True or False

Throwing rice at weddings is bad because the rice expands in birds' stomachs.

My response: that is so true!

The actual response: False. I did research online about this. Apparently Ann Landers propagated this rumor in the 1960s. Both bird and rice groups have proven this wrong.

On a game-related note: bi-lingual Pictionary is super-fun! We played with a group last week of mostly both English and Chinese speakers, though we had one English only and one Chinese only speaker. A lot of checking electronic dictionaries on iphones was necessary because there are a lot of specific vocabulary.

Summer Ends

Well, its technically Labor Day weekend in the US right now. I say technically because that does not really affect me here at all. However, it is symbolic in marking the ending of summer. The weather in Beijing is an indication that summer is over; its been cold and rainy all weekend. This is good for my marathon training (6 more weeks!) and its been an overall relief to the hot and humid August weather here. Thinking about summer makes me think about how I've spent the last 3 full summers in China, plus 2 weeks in China 4 summers ago.

This is kind of amazing to me, especially because I like to think of summers as time to go camping and spend time outdoors. China is not quite conducive to these activities. I have to admit when I think about it, I'm a little bitter at how long I have spent here, giving up the activities that I like to do this research project. But as I look at how I have spent the past several summers in China, I can see progress in my research and it is rewarding.

2006. I came to Beijing for 2 weeks to visit a friend who lives in the countryside outside of Beijing and to work with her family on their farm. It was a good way to introduce me to country life in China and to start to think about what types of projects I could do.

2007. I stayed in Beijing for 2 months doing preliminary research on rice production at China Agricultural University. I did get to take a few trips outside of Beijing to see the countryside, but I spent the entire summer thinking about future summers I could spend actually being in the countryside for an extended period of time.

2008. I was in Harbin taking language classes. I got to spend some time in the countryside, but not that much. I was feeling quite productive, however, because I was in a classroom learning about rice production and building the necessary vocabulary to do my project.

2009. This was the summer I finally got to spend in the countryside where some of the best rice in China is produced. I spent a lot of time traveling back and forth to Harbin (about 1n hour and a half away) so it wasn't quite the ideal living and working on the countryside that I had anticipated, but I got to learn a lot. And I learned this summer that summers in Harbin are very nice and might even balance out the cold winters.