Sing In Beijing

ETS!,

Beijing, the capital of China, is a city of roughly 15 million people. People live everywhere that it is possible to lay one's head. Public parks are virtually nonexistent, excepting the vast historical tourist attractions. There is a ubiquitous haze hanging over the city composed of a variety of pollutants. These include coal soot, auto exhaust, dust, and numerous others. There's been a large influx of peasants recently who man the fruit stands and crowd the public buses. The people are everywhere by day, but for reasons of safety shut themselves up at home when darkness falls. This leaves the streets pleasantly empty, at which time a foreigner can walk about for some peace and quiet. However, the evenings are quite dangerous, and a lone foreigner walking about is likely to attract the attention of criminals as well as police, who may want to ask what he is doing or see his passport.

Many neighborhoods are in a state of complete ruin. Bricks are often scattered all around the streets in areas where construction is going on. Apartment buildings are generally blackened with soot on the outside, although the residents keep their own places close to spotless inside (don't ask me how). New buildings seem to sprout up overnight, built on almost no foundation and without any relation to the surrounding area taken into consideration. These buildings all have a very similar boxy style, and are usually of a standard size and color, creating a very disorienting perception of deja vu. Navigation is therefore rendered difficult, due to not being able to rely on visible landmarks. Fortunately, the road system, which is largely based on a concentric series of loops around Tian An Men, is fairly simple.

Keeping oneself clean in this city is no easy chore. It is necessary to wash your hands frequently, and each time this is done large amounts of dirt are produced. Even if you don't touch anything, you still need to wash them every two hours at least. Of course, keeping your clothes clean is another important and time consuming matter. Washings must be done almost every day to keep the dirt inside one's house from fast building up to an intolerable level. Have you ever wondered why Chinese people take their shoes off when they walk in the house? Well, try walking around in Beijing for a little while and you will wonder no more.

Eating is an adventure. Not only is it confusing and mysterious, but it can be quite dangerous as well. Hepatitis and other food-borne illnesses are common. Only the strong of stomach can survive here. The soft and spicy nature of the food presents more problems to the Westerner, who is used to food that must be chewed more and requires intestinal effort to expel. The oily, scorchingly spicy, and unsubstantive dishes in China have a way of shooting through one's peristaltic system at high velocity. On the other hand, they can be really tasty and quite nutritious. The roast duck is really good, and many of the other dishes are creatively and exquisitely flavored. No one can deny the high state of Chinese eating and cooking culture. The vast complexity and diversity of Chinese food is not to be understated, either. Scorpion, pig's foot, pig's ear, chicken feet, rat, dog, carp, pigeon and pig blood are a few examples of the Chinese ability to make use of just about anything that moves as nourishment.

Entertainment is largely centered on eating and singing. A typical Chinese night out will start with a large and lengthy dinner. While eating, the drinking begins. The two typical intoxicants are beer and bai jiu (white liquor). The bai jiu is very potent, roughly 60% alcohol. It is drunk straight in small cups to cheers of gan bei (bottoms up). After enough bai jiu has been consumed, most of the company should be pretty tipsy and red in the face. Then they get started with the karaoke. This is a very popular pastime, and almost any sizable restaurant has one of these machines. First a VCD is inserted into the karaoke machine, which projects a music video onto a large TV screen. Then some drunk guy grabs the microphone, waiting for the lyrics to pop up. The music starts and the lyrics come onto the screen, and whoever has the mic belts out his version of the song. Many Chinese actually sing quite well, but unfortunately the acoustic quality of the restaurant and karaoke machine are rarely up to snuff. Add to that the fact that the singer is most likely quite intoxicated, and nine times out of ten the song gets butchered. After prolonged exposure to this abuse, one can become quite uncomfortable. However, the humor of the situation is well understood by everyone and the whole experience turns out to be a warm and effective way to loosen your collar after a long week of work in this hectic place.

--Bill Price, Beijing

If Only...

Dear ETS,

I just came across John Chapman's letter to ETS! from Jan. 20, and was inspired to write to you folks. I think John is so right, and so articulate--he said what I have been thinking and feeling about the left and the alternative press, only in a more gentle way than I can muster. I was really disappointed in ETS!'s response. I feel you really missed most of John's points. Too bad because, like John, I believe ETS! plays an important role. I think you could gain a lot by really thinking about what he is saying.

My thoughts on the issue, which are less gentle than John's: I think that many leftists, particularly those who run alternative media (not by any means singling out ETS!) find a certain comfort--and especially an identity--in always opposing, in always pointing out what's wrong, and portraying the corporate world and government as "the enemy" as opposed to "the people." I find that this approach is taken almost exclusively by white male leftist activists. If you look at publications run by and put out for communities of color and feminists, you simply do not find this approach. There is attention to what is going right, as well as what is messed up. There is more attention to affirmation, building community, recognizing each other's efforts and accomplishments. There is even acknowledgment when the powerful do something right. This doesn't mean you should criticize the powerful less when they do something wrong. It means that the world is not black and white, it is made up of people, and we need to have life-sustaining approaches if we are to move toward a life-sustaining world. Yes, negativity and harsh criticism and sarcasm and all that has a place in moving toward a life-sustaining way, but not in and of itself, not without the rest.

Hey, read John's letter again. I think it points to a lot of the reasons the left has lost so much steam the past couple decades. I'll keep reading ETS!, but I sure do hope you open your eyes and ears a little bit to what he was saying. Instead of writing a "response" to what he wasn't saying, you should have asked the articulate, thoughtful guy to write for ETS!. If you had writers and thinkers like that, I'd go out of my way to find the paper--and would probably even subscribe!

--Adriene Sere, Seattle

Maria replies: From reading your letter, I'm getting a sense that you're not a regular reader of ETS! That's unfortunate, because if you read us on a regular basis you'd know that what I said to John in January is true: ETS! carries a lot of info on local groups and what they're doing. From Stump Talk, which carries info on environmental groups in nearly every column, to features written by guest writers who are working on projects, to the Activist Calendar in every issue, ETS! tries to focus on organizations that are working to make deep changes in our society, as opposed to minor tinkering with the status quo. A lot of that deep change will involve criticism of corporations and government--it's impossible to avoid it. Hopefully, you're not looking for something more "pro-corporate" and "pro-government?" That's simply not what we do.

There a statement in your letter that's troubling and needs to be addressed. The women on our staff don't identify ourselves as "white male leftist activists," so we're not sure if your critique is supposed to apply to us, or is simply meant to bash white men for being too negative. We hope that wasn't your intent.

Finally, we can't stress enough that ETS! has limited resources and a weekly deadline, and that limits how much stuff we can print and how much time we can spend on each article. Also, we're always short on funds. People call, write us, and tell us continually that they like ETS!, but few of them make donations of time, information, or money-- and even fewer actually subscribe. We could run a Local Heroes column (which we've wanted to do for over a year now), if we could afford to, and if we could find regular writers to do it. Like any other volunteer organization, we need help: the time, effort, and input of volunteers ... and we need more subscribers. We're a resource; we're out here trying to do something--and it would be really nice if we had your help.

ETS! encourages comments, feedback, tips, corrections, and info! Please keep them as concise as possible so we can print as many different voices as possible: ETS!, P.O. Box 85541, Seattle WA 98145, or e-mail ets@scn.org.