China Digital Times

CHINA NEWS SECTION: Culture

• Xanliq Madrasa Demolished – Played Important Role in Kashgar’s History

  

  As part of the redevelopment of Kashgar’s historic old city, a medieval Islamic college, or madrasa, has been destroyed. From New Dominion blog:

  On 15 June 2009, around 10:30 AM local time, wrecking crews working on the “renewal” of Kashgar’s Old City demolished the Xanliq Madrasa. Eyewitnesses report that the medieval Islamic college, listed as an Autonomous Region-level protected cultural site, was knocked down without any protest or ceremony. According to speculation, the “royal” madrasa, apparently located in the yard of Kashgar No. 1 Elementary School, may have been torn down to make room for an athletic field.

  Mahmud al-Kashgari, the 11th-century scholar who compiled the Dīwānu l-Luġat al-Turk, is said to have studied at the Xanliq Madrasa in its heyday. In the 1860s, following a lengthy period of decline at the Xanliq Madrasa and in the Islamic scholarly community in East Turkestan in general, a wealthy merchant from Atush named Abdurusulbay funded its renovation. In exchange, the Xanliq Madrasa was to host primary schools funded by local luminaries. In 1883, it became home to the first experimental school in Xinjiang to mix Islamic and “scientific” curricula. This was founded by Abdurusulbay’s grandsons, Bawudunbay and Hüsäyinbay Musabayov. Although that school was short-lived, its successor, Atush’s Hüsäyniyä School, produced generations of students educated using modern methods. It also spawned a broad-reaching network of similar schools that played a major organizing role in pre-1949 social and political movements. Many of today’s Uyghur intelligentsia can trace their philosophical, political, and sometimes family roots back to the educational efforts that began at the Xanliq Madrasa. The ideology that arose from these movements still resonates today, often in opposition to official communism.

  Judging from online message boards, reactions to the destruction have been a mix of righteous anger and self-criticism.

  [...] Others, while angered by what has happened, have expressed frustration over Uyghurs’ own lack of initiative in protecting what they see as their history. A frequent refrain is, “If only we had held a protest, maybe we could have stopped this.” Such complaints are typical of those gripes found on message boards all over the Web. Others have pointed out that the very lack of a protest shows that Uyghurs, while mourning for the squandered legacy of their “Grandpa Mahmud,” actually possess a very weak sense of history. Certainly, no one seems to have bothered photographing the madrasa before, during, or following its destruction, and no one on the Web seems to know anything about it, save for Mahmud al-Kashgari’s having studied there.

  Read more about the destruction of old Kashgar via CDT.

  » Read more
  • June 18, 2009 6:45 AM

• All Eyes Inward

  

  By Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop at Newsweek:

  Until recently, the way Chinese artists got famous was to talk politics. The generation that grew up during the Cultural Revolution and the difficult years that followed was highly politicized and gained global recognition for its tongue-in-cheek images of Mao Zedong and Tiananmen Square, often rendered in eye-popping color. Wang Guangyi’s kitschy communist-style propaganda posters incorporated iconic consumer logos, such as Coca-Cola and Porsche, and Yue Minjun mocked the fast-changing world with his paintings of large-mouthed men grinning relentlessly.

  Though still hot, those new-wave artists are giving way to a very different group: the “me-first” generation, whose members talk about each other and themselves. Born in the 1980s under China’s one-child policy, they were still children during Tiananmen and are much less interested in politics and far more concerned with individuality.

  [...]Beijing-based artist Yang Na, 27, paints doll-like, seductive women who resemble avatars in online chat rooms. With out-of-proportion heads, false eyelashes, pouty mouths and perfect porcelain skin, her characters appear sprung from sexual fantasy and convey a message of seduction, but also one of superficiality and emptiness. “These women are a symbol of our era of consumption,” Yang explains. “Enveloped in a lifestyle of greed and excessive materialism, these girls look alike. But their interest in the latest fashion masks inner confusion and obsession, a kind of emotion only youth has. Being young means being both perfect and imperfect, gorgeous and sick, happy and despondent.”

  » Read more
  • June 16, 2009 3:06 PM

• Liu Hongbin, Out of Exile: Language, Memory and Imagination

  

  Since 1989, the poet Liu Hongbin has been trying to make his way back to China – Language, memory and imagination are part of the journey home. From the Index of Censorship:

  I finally boarded the plane, but just before it took off, a group of fully armed soldiers suddenly entered: ‘All Chinese citizens, please show your passports.’ I sat among a group of Japanese tourists. They produced their red passports. Then an army officer came over to me, ‘Are you from Tokyo as well?’ I nodded. He went past me. That was 9 September 1989, in Beijing.

  My girlfriend had come to see me off at the airport. She had been my companion after the terror of the massacre – and she was crying. I would never be reunited with her.

  I was about to leave my 27-year life behind: my homeland, where my father’s body would never be retrieved after his execution during the Cultural Revolution, and where my mother would count each day until my return.

  » Read more
  • June 15, 2009 9:07 AM

• Henry C K Liu: The Race Toward Barbarism

  

  Henry C K Liu is chairman of the New York-based Liu Investment Group. He writes on the Asia Times Online:

  Actually, East Asian societies often exhibit behaviors and attitudes just the opposite of the supposed salient features of Confucian modernity indicate. Indeed, having been humiliated by imperialism and colonialism for decades, the rise of East Asia, on the surface at least, blatantly displays some of the most negative aspects of Western modernism with a vengeance: exploitation, mercantilism, consumerism, materialism, greed, egoism and brutal competitiveness.

  Nevertheless, as the first non-Western region to become modernized, the cultural implications of the rise of “Confucian” East Asia are far-reaching. The modern West as informed by the Enlightenment mentality provided the initial impetus for worldwide social transformation. The historical reasons that prompted the modernizing process in Western Europe and North America are not necessarily structural components of modernity. Surely, Enlightenment values such as instrumental rationality, liberty, rights consciousness, due process of law, privacy and individualism are all universalizable modern values. However, as the Confucian example suggests, “Asian values” such as sympathy, distributive justice, duty-consciousness, ritual, public-spiritedness and group orientation are also universalizable modern values. Just as the former ought to be incorporated into East Asian modernity, the latter may turn out to be a critical and timely reference for the American way of life.

  » Read more
  • June 12, 2009 11:20 PM

• Authorities Intervene with Shanghai Pride

  

  The Shanghaiist has more details about the official disruption of China’s first gay pride event in Shanghai:

  At 4pm on Wednesday, officials visited Kathleen’s 5, which had plans for two film screenings, and ordered them to cancel the events because they lacked the proper film screening license. The films they’d intended to show were “s/he,” about a young girl’s sexual identity crisis, and “Destination Shanghai,” about the city’s sex trade.

  [...]Similarly, authorities visited Barefoot Studios, which was supposed to host the “The Laramie Project,” a play about gay hate crimes in small town America—and told warned them not to hold the event. Furthermore, one of today’s Pride events, the Open Bar at Shanghai Studio, was also canceled, though organizers say this was the venue’s own decision.

  Despite these cancellations and setbacks and the associated jitters, much of the show will go on. The organizers are busy finding new venues for some of the cancelled events. Co-organizer Hannah Miller tells us that The Laramie Project will find a new venue and run next Friday instead. Of all these setbacks and minor brushes with the authorities, Miller said “of course we’re disappointed, but it’s true we didn’t have a license. But the overall feeling is still positive and we’re still feeling optimistic. We’ll wait and see how the rest of the week goes.”

  Interestingly, an article at Shanghai Daily about this story appears to have been deleted.

  » Read more
  • June 11, 2009 11:11 AM

• Israeli Team Dates 18,000-Year-Old Pottery in China

  

  Israeli, Chinese, and American scientists have dated the pottery fragments excavated from a cave in Henan province to be 18,000 years old.  From the Jersualem Post:

  Early last week, the team reported that they had reexcavated the site and, using the most well-preserved ceramic fragments, been able to date the bowl to about 18,000 years ago.

  [...]Because pottery-making is not usually associated with hunter-gatherers, who foraged to eat and did not domesticate wild animals or plant food, the archeologists were surprised by their findings.

  [...Professor of archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jersusalem Yosef Garfinkel] said Wednesday that the significance of the dating of this 18,000 year-old bowl lay in the question of when pottery started. It is generally accepted that Israeli pottery is 8,000 years old, Syrian pottery is 9,000 years old and Japanese pottery - which used to be considered the oldest - is 12,000 years old. But now, it appears that Chinese pottery is even older.

  » Read more
  • June 11, 2009 10:03 AM

• Chinese Art Prices Show Signs of Stabilizing

  

  From New York Times:

  In May 2007, “The Sisters (Grand Family No. 7),” an oil painting by Zhang Xiaogang, sold for $1.16 million at Christie’s New York. Last month, it went under the hammer there again — this time for $722,500.

  That sale sent mixed signals. The 27 percent price fall mirrored the overall state of the contemporary art market; still, bidding was active, and the painting came through as the top lot of the afternoon’s offering of postwar and contemporary art, beating works by Damien Hirst, Keith Harding and Richard Prince. After its initial collapse, as the economic crisis struck, the Chinese contemporary market may be bottoming out.

  At the Christie’s Hong Kong spring auctions, also last month, 34 of 38 lots offered in an evening sale of Asian contemporary and Chinese 20th-century art sold for a total $19.9 million, more than double the low end of the pre-sale estimate — which was pitched conservatively to avoid scaring off possible bidders.

  » Read more
  • June 10, 2009 1:45 AM

• Erudite Confusion

  

  Scholarly debate continues over the meaning and significance of the words of Confucius, China’s most influential moral and political philosopher.  Yu Dan’s newest book, Confucius from the Heart, is drawing criticism from other intellectuals.  Chitralekha Basu writes for the China Daily:

  Several academics from Peking and Tsinghua universities are highly critical of Yu’s work, seeing it as no more than a watered-down, feel-good, apolitical version of The Analects. Professor Daniel Bell of Tsinghua University has dedicated an entire chapter of his book, China’s New Confucianism, (Princeton University Press), to Yu’s work.

  His charges are quite damning. Yu is accessible but problematic, says Bell. “She doesn’t just dumb down but also depoliticizes, making use of Confucian language to promote Taoism.” He also alleges that Yu’s depoliticized version of Confucius falls in line with the government’s policies. “At the end of the day, Yu’s interpretation supports the status quo, which may not be the Confucian view,” says Bell. “If Yu downplays social responsibility and political commitment she might not be committed to Confucian thought.”

  “But the depoliticizing was deliberate,” protests Yu. “If we try to understand Confucius in terms of politics, we cannot learn much, because back in Confucius’s time the foundations of society lay in feudal ethics whereas contemporary society is built on modern rules. There’s no comparison between the two. I feel only the part of Confucius that allows us to talk to different cultures in a harmonious way is relevant to contemporary society.”

  » Read more
  • June 9, 2009 10:20 AM

• Shanghai to Show Pride with Gay Festival

  

  As reported earlier, China is having its first gay pride celebration event. From the BBC:

  There will not be a parade. The organisers took legal advice which suggested that might get them into trouble with the authorities.

  Instead, there will be film screenings, talks, an art exhibition and a large, all-day party at a privately-owned venue.

  Gay sex was decriminalised in 1997 in China. Before that, people used to be prosecuted under “hooliganism” laws.

  Homosexuality was described officially as a mental illness in China until 2001.

  » Read more
  • June 8, 2009 12:35 PM

• Chengguan Arrives In Liberty City

  

  Known for their violent tactics in China, the chengguan (or city administrators) are getting international credit in the new version of Grand Theft Auto. From EastSouthNorthWest:

  Recently, the American online game “Grand Theft Auto 4″ began to offer a “Chinese chengguan” skin to users.  The main character Niko Bellic wears a uniform with the Chinese words chengguan (城管) on the back to become the rule of the streets.  He drove an armored car with the words “Administrative Law Enforcement” (行政执法) to clean out the street vendors in Central Park.

  Thus, the unwelcomed chengguan of China are now famous overseas.

  

  I am a municipal administrator in Liberty City. I have just completed my training in China. Today is my first day on the job!

   

  See also ChinaGeeks post for more pictures and translations.

  » Read more
  • June 8, 2009 12:21 PM

• Former Tiananmen Soldier Depicts Crackdown Through Art

  

  From AFP:

  An eerie realism permeates Chen Guang’s oil paintings of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, for he was one of the first soldiers to arrive in the square on the night China’s democratic hopes were crushed.

  Now a member of Beijing’s alternative art scene, 37-year-old Chen’s hair is greying, but he is determined to pass his recollections on, giving rare testimony of the event from a soldier’s perspective.

  “My friends, my family, my army buddies, all tell me not to touch this subject. That’s how sensitive it is,” he said.

  » Read more
  • June 7, 2009 8:45 PM

• chinaSMACK: Gaokao University Entrance Exam Stress Relief in China

  

  Papers and books rained like confetti on Thursday as Chinese high school seniors preparing for the high-pressure university entrance exam celebrated their last day of school.  chinaSMACK has pictures and a video:

  From NetEase:

  It is almost time for the “gaokao” [university entrance exam] and yesterday morning and the third years [final year of high school in China] at our school had a pledge ceremony. Afterward, the third year students began to throw their exam papers, their books. At first people tore them into pieces, later they were throwing entire sheets and sheets, and even later they were throwing bundles and bundles. It was spectacular. It was a release from the stress of the third year.

  I am just a first year. If our our school’s seniors can get a better score, then they would have done so many exam papers justice.

  

  Chinese high school seniors preparing for the gaokao toss their books and papers on the last day of school.

  » Read more
  • June 6, 2009 12:33 PM

• The China Beat: Historical Bafflement of the Chinese People

  

  From overseas political analyst Liang Jing, translated by David Kelly of the University of Technology Sydney and posted at The China Beat:

  One of the most significant cultural phenomena in Chinese society in recent years is the growing interest in history. Everyone—elite and general populace, leftists and rightists—shows an unprecedented enthusiasm for understanding China’s past. And in 2009 a series of major historical anniversaries, including the 90th anniversary of the May Fourth Movement, have pushed China’s “historical fever” to new highs. One of the major reasons stimulating the keen interest in history is that the “reforms” that followed June Fourth, returned China to a “pre-liberation” scenario almost overnight: bureaucratic corruption, moral bankruptcy, social injustice; to the point that, in some important aspects, such as higher education, the status quo in China is not as good as the KMT era, and many phenomena that people thought could not happen again, such as prostitution and the sale of official posts, not only occur, they do so on a far greater scale than in the past.

  History has played a big joke on the Chinese, who having experienced countless sufferings and paid the price in countless lives, rather than gaining social progress with their bloody struggle, have turned full circle to find themselves back where they started. How exactly did this come about? Not only the elite, but also many ordinary people are puzzled by this problem. This historical puzzlement of unprecedented numbers of people is what drives China’s historically unprecedented “public history movement.”

  The heroes emerging from this enlightenment are a group of intellectuals who have consciously and unconsciously enhanced the public’s knowledge of history. The role they play in promoting China’s social progress may far exceed that of the elite in control of the current political discourse. Two figures who, in my opinion, well represent these “modern heroes”, are Yi Zhongtian, and Shi Yue, who wrote Things Ming under the pen name Dangnian Mingyue [Moonlight Back Then]. One thing these two writers of very different age and experience have in common is use of modern mass media, to tell ordinary people, honestly and wittily, the true logic of the Chinese history in layman’s language. They not only subvert the “proper history” as repeatedly distorted by China officialdom, but also upgrade the “unofficial history” of China to new levels, because their telling of Chinese history is imbricated with the spirit and values of modern civilisation.

  See all of David Kelly’s previous translations for CDT.
  

  » Read more
  • June 6, 2009 11:41 AM

• Eye on Gay Shanghai: Mainland China’s 1st Pride Event

  

  The first gay pride event on mainland China is set to begin on June 7, 2009.  From the Shanghaiist:

  Amidst all the hubbub of an unmentionable anniversary, the LGBT community has been planning it’s own great leap forward. Shanghai has been chosen for Mainland China’s first Gay Pride event - Shanghai Pride!

  [...]Shanghai Pride runs from this Sunday, June 7 to June 14th with a variety of events including films, food, hot body contests, poetry, panel discussions, wine tasting, drag queens, and parties. Don’t miss the raffle that benefits Chiheng Foundation AIDS Orphans project.

  See Shanghai Pride’s website for more details and a full schedule.

  » Read more
  • June 6, 2009 10:54 AM

• YWeekend: For the Company, Shut Your Dialect Mouths!

  

  The Foreign Expert has translated an article at YWeekend disparaging the use of local dialects in the workplace:

  Recently, a small, privately held enterprise in Wuhan issued a “prohibition against dialects” to its workers, stipulating that “speaking one sentence in Wuhan dialect will be penalized 10 yuan,” which immediately caused a heated debate on the Internet. Some people said everybody is a local person, so what is the problem with speaking dialects in the office? Is it worth it to make such a big deal out of it?

  A fine for speaking in dialect — maybe this is actually going too far, but companies have issued this kind of ruthless scam, assuming that it is beyond bearable. Offices are full of a wide variety of dialects — it is a stage for dialects and they show in turns. It is not fashionable for workers to answer the telephone in Mandarin: companies greatly water-down their public image. Local coworkers are in dialect cliques, and the cost to outsider coworkers is that, even if they do their best, it is impossible for them to blend in… can these problems be resolved with ten yuan?

  It seems that the most popular cities in China for working are only Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and some others. These developed cities are full of strife and myriad young people’s dreams, and struggling workers who cannot speak Mandarin find it very difficult to find their place. But according to current trends, only being able to speak Mandarin and foreign languages is not enough to dive into the heart of the “enemy;” outsiders still must take on a “fourth language” to be able to have a clear shot — doesn’t this make things difficult for people?

  Read the original YWeekend article here (Chinese).

  » Read more
  • June 4, 2009 5:09 PM

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