Saga and Beata have made another installment in the avant-gard series of seasonal poetry. Now it's time for winter. Or rather, "Winter's last butterfly."
A strange sight in Hong Kong are examples of collective action, performed in public. Like the above -- a crazy, meandering, queue to the Apple store to by the latest Ipod.
Laura, working for QS Publishers, who publish the "Guide to World Universities" wanted me to say something about what it's like to work at a Chinese university. This is what I said.
We went to a truly remarkable art exhibition today -- seven installations on the theme of Confucius by the Chinese artist Zhang Huan. I cannot remember the last time an exhibition left such an impression on me. It was an event, something happened in those three rooms, and I'm glad I didn't miss it.
The first room had a gigantic statue of Confucius made in silicon which looked perfectly life-like. If Mr Kongzi had started talking I would not have been surprised. Clearly he is alive and doing very well in today's China. The second room had three large paintings made from ash showing the ocean, the disciples of Confucius and of Jesus. The gray colors looked desolate but clearly the old images still survive despite all the destruction China has endured. The final room had a large cage with a violent and erratically moving zombie Confucius. A large tree was trying to sprout again, but it was not planted properly and many of the branches were wilting. Monkey were jumping around in the cage, or they were jumping around before they were removed -- presumably they didn't much care for the life as museum exhibits.
I normally don't like performance art which I find too jokey and too clever, but this is serious and moving stuff. Zhang Huan is surely one of the greatest artists alive today. He has that unique gift of seeing what others don't see and of being able to present it to others to improve on their vision. Consider the below: Zhang Huan meditating in a public toilet in Beijing, smeared with honey, waiting for the flies to land. It is Buddha's rejection of the world, and his deep concern for the world -- all presented in a contemporary Chinese context.
I'm delighted China has artists like Zhang. There is nothing derivative about his work, it is an expression of a mature and self-confident person -- a China mature and self-confident enough to question itself and its future. And he lives right here in Shanghai!
I always had this idea that I would like to teach a course on Marxism here in China. Yes, it's just like carrying owls to Athens, coal to Sheffield or selling snow to Inuits. Cool, no? This course will probably never see the light of day, but this evening I'm at least giving a one-off lecture -- on The Communist Manifesto, no less.
So, am I basically in favor or basically against? Well, that's probably the wrong question. Marx was without doubt the greatest social scientist who ever lived, only Adam Smith can really compare. Weber, Durkheim and the others look pale by comparison. Too bad Marx was so horrendously wrong about so much, and too bad he was taken seriously by such a lot of people with such a lot of power.
I wonder what Marx would have thought if he had seen China today? Given the lack of workers' rights, and the tension between social classes, he would surely have decided that what China needs is a Communist Revolution!
Saga and Rima did this new great video. "Yesterday I was an igloo of self-destruction ..."
I'll be giving a talk at the Bridge Cafe in Beijing on Thursday, October 27 at 7 PM. The topic is European imperialism and the need to forget the past. If you're in Beijing please stop by. They printed up a nice poster too.
Oct 28 update: the talk went well I think. There were some 100 people crowded into a coffee-shop in one of the university districts. Everyone listened politely, no one left during the talk, and there were lots of questions afterwards. I only wish I had had more of a nigh-club act. That setting called for some song and dance.
I never quite realized what an explosive topic this is: a couple of Chinese students got very upset with that they interpreted as my attempt to undermine their patriotic pride. Of course they can feel proud of their nation if they like it that way, but I have the right to worry about the consequences. Patriotic pride has a bad track record; the young generation is storing up problems for themselves. Or perhaps better: problems are being stored up for them.
Well, almost. According to today's New York Times:
Lawyers for Columbia University alerted the district attorney’s office that they did not want Mr. Strauss-Kahn to stay with his daughter, who lives in graduate housing on 112th Street, according to a lawyer briefed on Columbia’s position.
I stayed in that building for a summer! It's just outside of Columbia U campus and down towards Riverside Drive. I was off from Yale and didn't want to go back to Sweden. Instead I explored the city and sat in the Hungarian coffee-shop by St John the Divine writing over-due term-papers. It was hot and very New York: kids making water features out of fire hydrants, salsa music coming from passing cars, confused homeless people, cockroaches in the bathroom.
Actually I have some tips for Strauss-Kahn if he really wants to stay there. I sublet the apartment from a friend and security was not happy with that arrangement. I had to lie my way into the building every evening and quickly sneak out in the morning when the guard was looking the other way. Well, I was 25. It was great fun.
Lexington Books, a very reputable academic publisher in the US, is going to publish Diane's PhD. Isn't that really great news? It took her 10 years to do and for a while there it wasn't quite clear whether she'd ever finish the damn thing. In fact, many of the horror stories I tell prospective PhD students are derived from Diane's experiences. Now of course, it is suddenly all worth it.
This is how Lexington Books introduces itself on its web page:
At Lexington Books we take great pride in our unwavering commitment to publishing specialized research essential to advancing scholarship at a time when many academic publishers have abandoned this part of their programs. We continue to publish high-quality monographs and edited collections by established and emerging scholars, works that may not have a wide audience but make a significant contribution to scholarship in the humanities and social sciences.
How Diane that sounds! And remember, only one percent of PhDs are ever published as books.
People are telling me what it's like to be a government official in China. This is what they say:
