China on display II

[B]SHANGHAI[/B]—There are now a few English language stations on China’s TV landscape. The traditional ethnocentric and xenophobic ethos, contained in the people’s depiction of itself as the Middle Kingdom, and the extremely communal socialism practiced by the Mao era, is giving way to an openness brought about by the liberalization of commerce and industry.

Satellite watchers outside of mainland China are familiar with CCTV 9, the official English language broadcast station of the nation. From my modest hovel of a hotel in Pudong, I can also watch CETV1 and ICS programs. The latter seem to favor programs from international sources. There are also sports channels, which require not much translation. The coverage of CCTV Olympics tends to be visually self-explanatory.

Most of the TV programs originate from Shanghai with one station emanating from Guangzhou (Canton). All are regulated from Beijing. Hong Kong-made dramas are preferred, and Putonghua-dubbed Korean dramas are very popular. This Saturday in July, the commercially produced story of Mother Teresa is surprisingly being aired.

Much of Chinese TV delve in images out of the past, with the Taoist motif of unity with nature prominently extolled, and the Buddhist traditions of martial arts and meditation as the backdrops for introducing contemporary issues and struggles. Movies familiar to astute Western audiences will not miss the allusion of a resolute Qin Shi Huangdi as analogous to the firm though often unpopular stance that personalities like Mao Tse Dung and Deng Xiao Ping had taken in propelling their people out of Imperial China and doctrinaire communism.

The creative tension between mandarin Shanghai and proletarian Sheyang, imperial Beijing and industrial Dalien, cultural Nanjing and commercial Zhenzhen, rural revolutionary Mao and urban cadre Chair Zhou En Lai, has been a prominent and permanent feature of Chinese socio-economic-cultural profile. Seeking the harmonious balance between the opposing forces of the yin and the yang has undergirded Sino thoughts even before Kung Fu Tzu (Confucius) came into prominence.

Thus, much of Chinese behavior is often seen positively as collaborative, cooperative and conciliatory, negatively, as obedient, compromising and docile. In short, the social model is that of the extended family structure of which there are clearly defined levels of subservience and obeisance, of acquiescence and authority. For an outsider, “Chineseness” is thus best approached as a land of mystery, a never-ending enigma, before one can acquiesce to the illusion, or pretense, of crystal ball clarity.

I’ve heard it said that only American tourists flock to Paris in August while the locals head for Nice. It is also claimed that only the ignorant tourists, domestic and overseas compatriots, who come to Shanghai in July. For Shanghai and the plains of Jiangsu in July is hot and muggy, with nary a drop of rain. The flies and the mosquitoes proliferate and the knowledgeable head for the cool hundred islands of the West Lake in Hangzhou in the neighboring southern province of Shejiang.

I am not much of a tourist when I visit another country, though timing-wise, I confess to being 2-on-2 on Paris and Shanghai. I do follow the advice I give my students who go on vacation to other countries to be travelers, to intentionally become a part of the local setting they find themselves in, to be empathetic to the cultural setting as much as one can stretch one’s imagination, and gain understanding of the local response to the universal human condition of personal identity and vocation. Most tourist gawk from a distance, geographical and psychological, and if they have courage, they nibble at the edges but keep to their bottled water.

Shanghai is one of those cities who still feel comfortable in recommending immediate consumption of their tap water. That’s quite a feat for a metropolis of 20 million people and a continuing bout with water pollution it its streams, rivers and estuaries. In fact, what one passes through one’s taste buds is a defining trait of the culture. So far, the challenge to one’s digestive system has stayed this side of trouble. My friends who visited me in Saipan could not say the same.

I had meant to revisit Jiangsu province northwest of Shanghai where I sojourned in March in a late winter solitary journey and retreat but the impact of globalization, and the rapid rise of the cost of fuel has caught up with me. The bus fare only four months ago from Shanghai to Sheyang was 75 yuan; it has since been raised to 200 yuan. That’s a 166 percent raise, presumably, an adjustment to the rise of energy cost. It means that the Chinese government is passing on the cost of fuel to its domestic consumers in spite of its huge balance of payment advantage it its foreign currency exchange.

With the increase of transportation cost comes the increase of all locally produced consumer goods. What used to be a bargain has suddenly become a pain in the backpack. So I chose to travel on the cheap, picking the least expensive housing on the Internet. Lucid that the distance between Internet advertising and reality could be as deep as the Marianas trench, I was not prepared to dwell in the ambiance of my chosen habitat northwest of the Pudong airport a good 40 km away from the Huangpu River and the Bund.

Not unlike any other metropolitan area, once one understands the public transport system, the challenge of getting around is not as formidable as facing a Himalayan tiger, even without the assurance of facility in written and spoken language. I would have stuck with my original schedule of backpacking it to Wuhan, Chengdu, Beijing, Tsingdao, and Hangzhou. But Beijing decided there were too many local folks flocking into the capital city in anticipation of the Olympiad that mobility from outside has become restrictive, making it difficult for my traveling friend and translator Won Ching On to travel. Though I pass easily for a Fujianese, my attire and demeanor is an immediate giveaway for a foreigner who is hardly welcomed these days poking a camera and hacking on his laptop re the aftermath of the Sichuan earth tremors.

But Shanghai is at once an ancient, contemporary and futuristic city, rivaled only within the constellation of Sino-luminating locales by its Special Autonomous Region cousin Hong Kong. So, Pudong and the Bund remains the backdrop of our reflection as we watch China on display in the global stage this summer.