Oh the obstacle course of starting a business in China right now…

I know, I know, you’re like What? I thought this was an academic-tilted Chinese culture and lifestyle blog written from an expat perspective. Well surprise surprise, now it’s a doing-business-in-China-as-a-foreigner-during-seriously-tense-times blog, too.

our first sign…
let us know what you think, we’re still in the design-phase

Yes, I did it. Finally my dream is coalescing, the dream of helping my own country and it’s potential big brother (just kidding), I mean it’s potential ally in saving the earth sphere from unfitness-for-human-existence, My dream is help the US and China to get along for just long enough to actually help humankind evolve, rather than devolve. It’s a kind of private-sector cultural diplomacy, to make up for the dearth of public-sector cultural diplomacy.

I came to China in September of 1999, and slogged through the English teaching machine for ten years, teaching myself Chinese and how to think well enough to write down what I think. That last bit took a lot longer than I thought it would, and I’m still learning how to un-think so many thoughts I grew up around…thoughts about exceptionalism, thoughts about capitalism, thoughts about norms when it came to truth, goodness, and beauty. Then in 2009, I tested into an MA program in Classical Chinese Literature at Sichuan University, which turned into a PhD program, which then turned into a full-time faculty position.

I love going to work in a building that looks like this.

It was Chinese calligraphy that got me into all this trouble in the first place…my first love.

So, fast forward 22 years..and with the new book I’ve been writing, on the relationship between culture and the New Silk Roads…I realize that if you want something done the right way, well, you’ve got to find a good business partner, build a good team, and do it yourself. Fortunately, there are a lot of other great organizations here in China as well as in the US, and reaching out to other people who rely on culture first to save human civilisation is an enjoyable process.

What’s not enjoyable are the hurdles. Oh my goodness is it challenging registering a business here. Opening a bank account as a foreigner, even though I’m an A-level foreign expert, is like pulling teeth. It took me three afternoons of three hours each to finally get a personal account, in order to open a business account with the Bank of China. Before they realised I speak fluent Chinese I could hear them accusing me of money laundering, or of just wanting to get my money out of China. As if wanting to save money I’ve hard-earned and paid copious taxes on should be a crime. But I’m not complaining. I’m just expressing. It’s not easy. But it’s doable.

WeChat is open in China to new users again!!!

As we went on to build our social media platforms, we turned first to the biggest here in China. As in, if you don’t have a public business on WeChat in China, then you’re not doing business. So imagine my sadness when I found out that as a foreigner, I cannot open an account. Then imagine my sadness again when my business partner (who’s a Chinese national) told me that, while she could open a business account for Yanlu Arts & Culture, WeChat had shut down registration for new users. What a Saturnine feeling that is. To be young and nascent, and yet to have doors close on you.

But it’s over now. The South China Morning Post reports that WeChat is open to new users once again, and my business partner is on the case. We must take advantage of this window of time. The door could close again anytime, as Tencent (Wechat’s parent company) takes great pains to avoid the fate of Didi and Alibaba, both recently heavily penalised in China’s new tech and internet regulatory moves on its own domestic markets.

It appears that checked capitalism is not as fun, romantic, or utopic as Western (champaign) Marxists make it out to be. It’s hard. Really hard. To try and build a dream with big brother watching over us. Not complaining. Just expressing.

So that’s it for me for today, back to the book. Stay tuned for more adventures…blow by blow.

“Minxin Xiangtong ⺠心相通 and People-to-People Relations Along the New Silk Roads” with Sophia Kidd

Many thanks to so many of you who showed up last Friday night for this live talk.

Sophia Kidd of Sichuan University joined the University of Virginia to discuss the New Silk Road’s (NSR) fifth ‘pillar’ in her talk on Minxin Xiangtong ⺠心相通 and People-to-People connections along the New Silk Roads; giving examples of how P2P connections support and sustain other NSR objectives: policy coordination, facilities connectivity, unimpeded trade, and financial integration. This talk, held March 12, 2021, was part of UVA’s “Assessment of China’s BRI” Project.

Morning readings…in medias res… research on ‘culture’ paving the New Silk Roads (1)

Flipping through Xinhua and South China Morning Post this morning, I clicked thru a few headlines about Chinese State-Owned Enterprises calling in non-essential workers from Myanmar, US-China performativity on both sides, and also about the Oxford-trained presence in US President Joe Biden’s cabinet (this last from Peter Frankopan’s re-Tweet).

I’m also going through a book, Structures of the Earth: Metageographies of Early Medieval China by D. Jonathan Felt (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center). If you’re looking for an excellent source for not only quantitative analysis of the literary genre of geographical literature, then this book is the place. If you’re looking for a theoretical framework by which to think about China’s practices of geography as well as historiography, then this is the book.

Main gleanings, interesting edges as thought-blade:

“metageography”–according to Martin Lewis and Karen Wiggen, is “the set of spatial structures through which people order their knowledge of the world.”

D. Jonathan Felt, Structures of the Earth: Metageographies of Early Medieval China, Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2021, p. 3.

“Modern examples of global metageographies include Eurocentrism, the East-West model, the nation-states system, the geographic coordinate system, Wallerstein’s world-systems theory, and the first, second, and third worlds.” –D. JONATHAN FELT, STRUCTURES OF THE EARTH: METAGEOGRAPHIES OF EARLY MEDIEVAL CHINA, CAMBRIDGE: HARVARD UNIVERSITY ASIA CENTER, 2021, P. 3.

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“Too often Sinologists construct artificial divisions between Buddhist and “normal” Sinitic literature. But the prominence of Buddhist authors and Buddhist metageographies throughout early medieval geographical literature breaks down these divisions.”

D. JONATHAN FELT, STRUCTURES OF THE EARTH: METAGEOGRAPHIES OF EARLY MEDIEVAL CHINA, CAMBRIDGE: HARVARD UNIVERSITY ASIA CENTER, 2021, P. 53.

Key geographical genre of literature names and texts mentioned in first chapter of Structures of the Earth:

地理记 dili ji [records of the structures of the earth]
地方志 difang zhi [gazetteer]
杜佑 Du You (735-812 CE), Tang critic of medieval local geographies
中国 ‘Middle-Kingdom,’ aka China
华夏 Huaxia, Sinitic cultural/civilizational realm or ecumene
水经注, Shuijing zhu [Guide to waterways with commentary], by 郦道元 (d. 527 CE), an official of the Northern Wei (386-534)
佛国记 Foguo ji [Record of the Buddhist states], by 法显, cf: 法显传 Faxian zhuan [Memoir of the Eminent Monk]
洛阳伽蓝记 Luoyang qielan ji [Record of the monasteries of Luoyang], by 杨衒之
华阳国志 Huayang guozhi [Record of the kingdoms south of Mount Hua, by 常璩 Chang Qu
禹贡 Yu gong [Tribute of Yu]
史记 Shi ji Records of the Historian, by 表演司马迁 Sima Qian (ca. 145-ca. 86 BCE)
河渠书 Hequ shu [Monograph on rivers and canals]
货殖列传 Huozhi liezhuan [Memoirs of moneymakers]
管子 Guanzi [Writers of Master Guan]
山海经 Shanhai jing [Classic of mountains and seas]
淮南子, Huainanzi [Master of Huainan: ] (地形 Dixing [Terrestrial forms], and 齐俗 Qi su [Monograph on geography] chapters)
邹衍 (ca 250), created an alternative metageograhy based on a model of a Kunlun-centered world in which Sinitic civilization inhabits the southeastern corner of the earth.
地理志 Dili zhi [Monograph on geography), most topically comprehensive geographical text to date, by 班固 Ban Gu (32-92)
吴地记 Wu di zhuan [Tales of the land of Wu]
越地传 Yue di zhuan [Tales of the land of Yue], in the 越绝书 Yue jue shu [Lost histories of Yue]
顾恺之 Gu Kaizhi (ca. 345-406), Eastern Jin painter
江赋 Jiang Fu [River fu], by 郭璞 Guo Pu (276-324)
宋永初山川记 Song Yongchu shanchuan ji [Records of the mountains and rivers of the Yongchu reign period of the Song dynasty]
穆天子传 Mu Tianzi zhuan [Account of Mu, Son of Heaven]
张騫 Zhang Qian (d. ca. 114 BCE), went on a mission to the Xiongnu empire
扶南 Funan, a complex Southeast Asia state that arose in 3rd century, elevating the importance of political and commercial relationships in the Southeast Wu region in Yangzi basin.
三国志 Sanguo zhi, by Chen Shou has accounts of diplomatic missions to South and Southeast Asia
扶南传 Funan zhuan [Account of Funan] & 扶南异物志 Funan yiwu zhi [Record of the peculiar things of Funan)
北史 Bei shi [History of the Northern Dynasties]
南史 Nan shi [History of the Southern Dynasties]
边地 biandi [peripheral land]
道整 Dao Zheng, Faxian’s traveling companion
四海百川水源记 Sihai baichuan shuiyuan ji [Record of the source of the hundred rivers within the four seas], by 道安 Dao An (d. 385)
地理书 Dili shu [Geographical writing], by 陆澄 Lu Cheng (425-94)
地记 Diji [Records of the earth], by 任昉 (459-507)
健康 Jiankang (modern day Nanjing)、长安 (modern day Xi’an)、邺 (capital established by Cao Wei founder, Cao Cao, during the Three Kingdoms period) are the three main geographical centers of the 6th century
禹贡地域图 Yu gong diyu tu [Map of the regions of the tribute of Yu], by 裴秀 Pei Xiu (224-71)
畿服经 Jifu jing [Classic of the imperial domain], by 挚虞
Qualities of geographies: 旁 pang [extensive], 通 tong [thorough], 宣 xuan [comprehensive], 简 jian [scant in detail], 裁cai [reductive], 略 lue [outlines]
史通 Shitong [Comprehensive understanding of history], by 刘知几 Liu Zhiji (661-721)
图经 Tu jing [map-treatise]
职方 Zhifang [Zhou office of manager of regions]
周礼 Zhou li [Rituals of Zhou]
萧何 Xiao He (d. 193 BCE), saved the Qin maps from the fire that destroyed Xianyang so he could know the strategic points of the empire
末学 moxue [superficial studies]
疆理天下 jiang li tianxia [regulating the boundaries of tianxia]
元嘉六年地记 Yuanjia liunian diji [Geographical record of the sixth year of the Song Dynasty Yuanjia reign period]

Palgrave Macmillan, Ou Ning, and Culture Paves the New Silk Roads

Palgrave Macmillan has a new series, Contemporary East Asian Visual Cultures, Societies, and Politics, edited by Paul Gladston.

The series opening book, Utopia in Practice, by Ou Ning documents one of the first pushes in China’s new unofficial ‘internal emigration’ movement, where urbanites retreat to the countryside to rediscover what their land and culture has always had to offer, integral to a sense of well-being.

The series’ second book will be mine, Culture Paves the New Silk Roads, and I’m giving a related talk on Friday Mar 12 at 8 pm EST (5 pm PDT) for University of Virginia’s Assessment of Belt and Road Initiative project. I’ll talk about a chapter from my book focusing on the people-to-people pillar of China’s New Silk Roads. Register using the link below. FREE. And please, ask questions. Questions are like gold for the intrepid speaker…

https://virginia.zoom.us/…/WN_5vluiVU-RpCsL5y9XKqXtg…

Utopia in Practice: Bishan Project and Rural Reconstruction (Contemporary East Asian Visual Cultures, Societies and Politics) 1st ed. 2020 Edition

Identity Labor

China is a destiny, a growing, and a torture all at once. The expectations of ‘identity labor‘ required of living in skilled contexts in a foreign country, well…it adds character.

This isn’t going to be a long entry, just a milestone, a rock placed in just such a way by the side of the road so as to mark one’s progress.

I met a new friend online. During these days, weeks, and months of COVID-19, I imagine many of us have met a new friend online. It’s a special way to enter into the existence of another. Seemingly random, easy to dispose of should it no longer serve our own daily narrative, and yet; more often than I could ever imagine; incredibly rewarding at times.

My new friend was asking me why I had bound my own life so inextricably with the rise of China, why I had spent twenty years working in its education sector, getting my graduate degrees there, and even now working a job remotely, from my desk here in Bellingham, WA, at a Chinese university.

I got the sense when my new friend asked me about my China-pull, that what she really wanted to know is when it would all end. When would I come to my senses, and just get back to my own culture and society once and for all. So I answered her in a way that expressed the pros and cons of China for me.

China made personal growth inevitable. Just the passage of time, itself, offers ample opportunity for growth. There is the growth one goes through in a developing nation, dealing with aggravation and inconvenience of systems that arise from wholly other logical imaginings of the world. With no privacy, faulty utilities, lack of consumer goods, and no-one who understands or accepts you for who you are; living in a foreign country can take its toll. Hence the growth. It takes vitality and will towards personal transformation to live gracefully in a foreign society. So the torture…that’s the growth factor. I am not complaining. After all, I signed up for every minute of this.

Life in China has changed a great deal in the course of two decades. Water, electricity, gas, or internet are still prone to outages, because the infrastructure is being renewed constantly. However; there’s usually notice, so one can cook one’s meal early, or wash the dishes before the water is turned off. Maybe the notices were always there, but now my Chinese is good enough to read them. The consumer goods are all there now, too; as the world’s supply chains lead inevitably, either in manufacture or consumption, to Beijing; or Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Xi’an, Chongqing, or Chengdu. I used to ride around on my Flying Pigeon bike for an hour and a half looking for a cup of coffee; at last falling into a hot cup of rich aroma from the McDonalds on the priciest commercial street in the city. Now, I can take out my phone, open the Waimai app (similar to Doordash or Yelp), and have any number or flavor of coffee sent to my door within 17 minutes.

Coffee (or anything) door-delivery is very convenient in China with apps such as Waimai 外卖

Another thing that has changed, and this is key, is my role in China. Twenty years ago I was a common English teacher with a B.A. in philosophy. In other words, I had no skills whatsoever to make a living with in my own culture; so I used the cultural capital I had at the time, one of the most basic skills I acquired early in life–that of speaking my mother tongue–and hawked it for the monthly salary of 2300 RMB. Back in 1999, that was about three hundred US dollars. After ten years of that, during which I taught myself a number of disciplines, including how to speak, read, and write in Chinese; I tested into graduate school. Shortly after beginning my MA in Chinese classical literature, I began moonlighting in the fine arts sector as curator of Chinese performance art. Thus, for the past ten years, I’ve been moving through and living in skilled contexts. At school, my conversations with colleagues and teachers are about high-level knowledge at the breaking edge of Chinese philosophical, metaphysical, aesthetic and literary achievement. In the community, my conversations with, interviews of, articles about performance art, painting, sculpture, installation, film, television, and arts management all require lexical dexterity, with every new conversation bringing into my life a new word, idea, value, or reference point.

The work which aged me, sickened me, and drained me of most of my life force in moments of self-doubt; has been the work of ‘identity labor.’ Doing a quick search online, either in google or in an academic data base; the notion is unsurprisingly bound up with discourses on ‘performativity.’ Without going any more deeply into defining or explaining what the term tends to mean, I will express how identity labor feels to me. It is exhausting.

“Well, why can’t you just be yourself?”

“If they don’t accept you then to hell with them.”

In China, you are never yourself. You can never say the words that arise naturally within you. You can never sit in the seat that feels right, or wear the clothes that express who you are. Of course, you can do all of this, and more; in fact many discover new potentials of who they are by transcending not only cultural norms in China; but cultural norms as well. If you work in skilled contexts in China, you are who you are in relationship to others. What you say does not mean what you said. It means what it means in relationship to the last thing you said, and just importantly to the next thing you will say. You may not sit in the seat with the best view, next to the person you want to get to know, or with the best airflow. You must sit around the table in a social or professional hierarchy, in a spatial milieu.

While mainstream media and China pundits are busy condemning or condoning ‘China’ as some monolithic thing which we can or can’t accept; Chinese people are awakening within highly skilled contexts, and ideas arising out of rigorous practise and thoughtful contemplation. Knowledge workers and symbol creators are coming of age in a feedback loop between grassroots social, political, economic, and cultural development; and a highly centralised central government which tempers diversity of social, political, economic, and cultural messaging. Its this foil, between the top-down and the bottom-up, that I attend to.

I think it’s important we support the artists and scholars of a (re) emerging cultural power.