The East is red

Tomorrow, July 1st, marks the 90th anniversary of the Communist Party of China and will be celebrated nationally in Beijing. Festooned red gatherings have already occurred this June in Nanjing, Shanghai, and other historic cities but the celebrative red will fly majestically around the country this first day of July, first for its ideological implication, but more deeply, for culturally affirming and inflaming an otherwise sedate demeanor.

The China Daily earlier this month had Li Zhongjie, deputy director of the Party History Research Center of the CPC Central Committee, commenting on the second volume of the History of the CPC, which features major events of the CPC from 1949 to 1978, including the Great Leap Forward of 1958 and the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76. The former is used by Western textbooks to point to the party’s failure to achieve economic parity with the developed world, which is more xenophobic than anything else since industrializing agro-tenant Zhongguo at the time hinged more on parting the Red Sea rather than holding a quiet but methodical Sunday picnic at the park. The latter was a time of turbulence when many suffered extraordinary hardship acknowledge in the publication’s account of positive contributions as well as analyzing the causes of policy failures and the misjudgment of Party leaders.

The Wall Street Journal is not so charitable with the recent Henry Kissinger On China recollections detailing the diplomatic journey of US-China relations since 1971 when he and Nixon surprised the nation and the world with the re-establishment of diplomatic relations and the eventual recognition of the mainland as the legitimate representative to global bodies rather than the then Kuomintang-led government in Taiwan. “Too reverential and nostalgic” is the overall critique on this monumental memoir.

Paul Midler’s 2010 Poorly Made in China lends more to China-bashing by those already inclined as it tromps through the recent era of commercial productivity that resulted in China’s ascendancy into the ranks of the top economies of the world while flooding Neiman-Marcus and the Avenue de Champs Elysees with China-made products. We recall as a child, “Made in Japan” meant cheaply made goods, primarily because the nation post-WWII factories produced cheap goods to gain market share and heal its manufacturing sector.

The fact that China has self-consciously gone after fraud and corruption in its business dealings seems not to matter much to the self-righteous pretensions and hypocritical practices of puritanical structures that produces phantom wealth at the expense of the masses. Unfortunately, the bubble that accompanies most real estate development in speculative financial centers has invaded China’s housing development as well, and that bubble is what the current CPC, whose members are better suited for building dams than construing financial shenanigans and auditing loopholes, is trying to deflate.

Our interest is, however, not on the geopolitical implication of “red” as it is on its functional celebrative quality.

We led some 20 foreign students this semester from Nigeria, Ghana, France, and Kampuchea on social economy delving in the social process with the backdrop of the U.S and China economies. Movemental grassroots U.S. beyond the tea party is currently flaunting the phrase, “from Wall Street back to Main Street,” words mouthed by President Obama in the last political campaign. China Premier Wen Jiabao recently told Great Britain that in forging China’s future path, “confidence is more important than currency and gold.” Which is to say that using the two countries as backdrop, the course was hardly London School of Economics’ vintage.

It was the 200-some university students into the world of oral English that caught my fancy. Crises of confidence pervaded the classroom atmosphere as students who have been studying reading and writing for 10 years could not string a spoken sentence together, if their mein chow depended on it. This is mostly because of “face” where students are afraid to be laughed at by peers if they make a mistake. It also stems from the Confucian practice of the “expert” teaching the novices classical things, and passing an exam later by returning the memorized right answers.

We went existential in our pedagogy so we got everyone to extemporaneously introduce themselves up front (I clicked digitized photos to get names and faces together), and had everyone sing English songs, particularly Chinese ones with English translations.

Previous oral English classes were notorious for absenteeism. We broke the pattern. When the winter days finally waned and the hallway class panes and windows finally opened to let the air flow, teachers and workers peeked into our classes wondering what was going on. The students seem to have found their ringing if not riotous voices!

The CNMI hosted Zhongguo ren awhile in its ill-fated discovery and dependence on a commercial loophole in the garment industry, and when the imported and exploited workers were no longer needed, some stayed. Now, their compatriots are targeted by the tourist industry while China’s deregulated airline industry cast an eye on the islands. It is time to heed Kissinger’s advice: be an authentic partner with China! Real partners, for indeed, the east is still red!

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