05.24.10
Posted in Announcements, Barbershop at 6:04 pm by Benjamin Ross
As most readers know, this past winter I went through the process of applying to Sociology PhD programs. One requirement for all applications was a writing sample, preferably of an academic paper. Looking back through my files from undergrad years, I realized that most of what I had written back when I was in college (I graduated in 2003) wouldn’t suffice for the type of grad programs I was applying to. Since I wanted to focus my graduate studies on the urbanization of China, and to do so using ethnographic field methods, I decided to write a paper from scratch based on my experiences working in a Chinese barbershop. Now that the process is over, I’ve put the paper online in PDF format. You can access it at the link below. If anybody has any trouble viewing the file, please send me a note in the comments section.
http:/www.benross.net/images/blog%20images/10-05-24_essay/making_the_cut.pdf
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05.14.10
Posted in Pop Culture at 7:19 pm by Benjamin Ross
Ok, so if you want to watch 蜗居, and you’d rather not find out the ending, I suggest you stop reading this post. But for readers who don’t plan to watch the show and are instead relying on me to spill the beans, here goes.
So a major turning point happens about 2/3 of the way through the series when Xiao Bei finds out about Song Si Ming and Hai Zao. After much crying, bickering, and screaming, Xiao Bei agrees to take her back, although says he can’t guarantee that he will forget everything. The one condition is that she must never see Song Si Ming again. One slip up and Xiao Bei says he’ll leave. Xiao Bei is clearly shell-shocked by the knowledge that his girlfriend was cheating on him with a guy almost twice his age, but as time progress he slowly reverts back to his old self.
Meanwhile Hai Ping and Su Chun find themselves in a bit of a pickle as Su Chun is arrested for stealing designs from his work unit. (This was done in order to make money off them to appease his materialistic wife). Through a seemingly inexplicable chain of events and guanxi, Su Chun who had been facing several years of jail time is set free. Originally Hai Ping is led to believe that it is Mark (an American whom she has been tutoring in Chinese) is behind the dropped charges. Later she discovers that it was the work of Song Si Ming.
Hai Zao and Xiao Bei’s relationship gradually reverts back to normalcy until one day when Xiao Bei finds a text message on Hai Zao’s phone from Song Si Ming. The message is old, from before Xiao Bei’s discovery, but he is incensed at the fact Hai Zao had not deleted it. Xiao Bei walks out, and other than a brief flashback, this is the last we see of him in the series.
Hai Zao immediately flees to Song Si Ming. Song has an apartment for Hai Zao to move into and more or less takes her in as his concubine. Hai Zao stops showing up to work, and spends most of her days sitting around reading magazines and killing time waiting for Song to return. Song finds himself balancing his life between Hai Zao, his work, and his wife and daughter who become increasingly impatient with his constant absence.
While Song seems to be handling his personal life with ease, his situation at work becomes increasingly stressful as he finds himself involved with some sketchy real estate deals. It’s at this time he also is being investigated on corruption charges (this is the area where of the show where I had some difficulty figuring out the details, so if anyone would like to fill in the cracks, please be my guest).
The crescendo of 蜗居 begins when Hai Zao reveals to Song that she is pregnant. While Hai Zao’s reaction is to get an abortion, Song insists on her keeping the baby and she finally agrees. At the same time, Song’s wife, who is entirely cognizant of her husband’s extracurricular activities, demands a divorce, to which Song will not comply. As the stress at home and at work builds, Song takes a bank passbook with 5 million RMB and gives it to Hai Zao for safekeeping. He tells her that if anybody tries to take it from her, do not give it up.
When Song’s wife (we never learn her real name) finds out about the money, she pays a visit to Hai Zao. She demands the passbook, and when Hai Zao refuses to give it up, a skirmish breaks out. The altercation leaves Hai Zao passed out on the floor with her maid rushing inside believing that she is dead.
Later we find out that Hai Zao is ok, however her unborn child has been killed in the fight. Meanwhile, Song is at his corruption hearing when he receives an urgent call about the situation. He rushes to the hospital and en route his car is struck by oncoming traffic, killing him instantly.
We then flash forward three months. Hai Zao is in bed being spoon fed by her mother and refusing to talk. (Apparently she has not said a word since the day she lost her baby and Song Si Ming.) Hai Ping takes her for a walk and in a soliloquy lasting about 8 minutes, summarizes everything she has learned from the preceding events. Ultimately it had been Hai Ping’s greed which had caused the events leading to Hai Zao’s unfortunate circumstance, and the speech touches on these ideas as well as several positive notes on chasing dreams. (If anybody has a transcription, it would be worth posting, since this essentially sums up the message of the series.)
After her speech, Hai Ping receives a call from Mark who asks to see her immediately. Mark reveals to Hai Ping that before Song had died he had wanted to give a new life to Hai Zao and their baby, and had arranged for them to go to the United States. Mark also tells Hai Ping that he wants to invest money in her to open a Chinese school for foreigners in Jiangzhou. This had been Hai Ping’s dream she had alluded to in previous episodes, but for brevity’s sake I had not mentioned in past posts. In the last two scenes we see Hai Zao at the airport being sent off to the US and then a frame of Hai Ping in front of her new school.
蜗居 is a deep series, and I would be lying if I denied having any emotional investment in the show. You knew it had to end with a bang, but I really did not expect such tragedy. I also did not expect much hope to come from the unfortunate chain of events. Everything is still sinking in, and I’m going to try to post a few more analytical thoughts in the days to come. As Chinese is not my native language, and as I have yet to go through the online plot summaries, there may be several inaccuracies in my description of the show. Please feel free to make corrections where necessary.
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05.09.10
Posted in Pop Culture at 8:23 pm by Benjamin Ross
I just finished 蜗居. And rather than spending multiple days to write a be-all-end-all overly-protracted blog post, which often hampers the progress and content of this blog, I’m going to try to keep my thoughts short and sweet as I blog my reactions to the show.
Watching 蜗居 was one of the most rewarding China related experiences I have had in a while. For anyone willing to allocate a significant chunk of time to improve their language ability and understanding of modern-day China, I highly recommend 蜗居. Counting pauses, re-watches, and time for looking up words, I’d estimate it is around a 50-75 hour time commitment to get through the whole thing.
After finishing the show, my internal reactions felt as if I had just finished reading a long novel, rather than watching a television show. To be sure, much of this is due to the theme and character development of 蜗居, but it is also due to a particular characteristic of Chinese television show production.
TV series in China are generally not broken into seasons. Instead the entire show is filmed as one block, often thirty of forty episodes long. The disadvantage in this is that bad shows get a full run, rather than being canceled after a season or two. The advantage though is that it enables producers to plan out the entirety of the show all at once, rather than season by season. 蜗居 takes particular advantage of this fact. There are very few plotlines which are self-contained in a single episode, and the climax of the show occurs at the very end. Since there are no season breaks, it is unnecessary to build in extra climaxes at points where broadcasting would drop off for several months.
Thus, 蜗居’s 35 episodes, each lasting exactly 42.5 minutes are essentially a single long play movie, clocking in at just over 24 hours in length. The end of one episode often cuts off mid-scene leading directly into the next. Thus, watching 蜗居 is like reading a novel, in that one can pick up and leave off at arbitrary points, rather than taking each episode as a single unit.
Owing to this characteristic of the Chinese television industry, the producers of 蜗居 were not subject to the constraints of creating superfluous plotlines and climaxes. Instead, it allowed them to develop the story in a more natural fashion, along the lines of how a writer pens a novel. This presents a contrast to American TV shows, which even if they continue episode to episode (i.e. Lost, Sopranos), they still must be broken down into seasons with some resolve at the end.
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04.27.10
Posted in Pop Culture at 3:48 pm by Benjamin Ross
I’m now a little over 2/3 through 《蜗居》 and it is shaping up to be a truly captivating series. 《蜗居》 is not fast moving, nor action packed. The plot develops at an unforced, natural pace, relying little on sensationalism or action. Instead, 《蜗居》’s strength its complex and dynamic characters…whom I would like to introduce below.
There is no one central character in 《蜗居》, but if I had to approximate who figures most prominently in the plot it would be Hai Ping. Hai Ping is in her late 20’s (possibly early 30’s) and lives with her husband Su Chun in a tiny apartment in Jiangzhou, the fictional city where 《蜗居》 takes place. She is a graduate of a top tier university but is currently working in a dead end office administrative job.
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| Hai Ping with husband Su Chen |
Hai Ping’s tragic flaw is in her greed, although this manifests itself in what she wants for her family, not for herself per se. Namely she wants to buy a condo. The driving force behind this is her daughter Rang Rang. Since apartment is too small and their expenses tight, Rang Rang is being raised in their hometown by Hai Ping’s parents. Once a condo is purchased, the plan is for Rang Rang to return to her parents.
Hai Ping’s husband Su Chun is your typical Chinese Zhang San (John Doe). He has a danwei job as a designer which provides a modest income, drinks and smokes in moderation, is faithful to Hai Ping, but also does nothing to stand out as an exceptional husband or father. This is not good enough for Hai Ping, and she frequently berates him on account of his mediocrity.
Hai Ping’s sister Hai Zao has also moved to Jiangzhou upon graduation from college. Hai Ping too works an office job in Jiangzhou and lives with her boyfriend Xiao Bei. Seven years younger, Hai Zao is naïve, immature, and inexperienced compared to her older sister whom she frequently turns to as role model and advisor. Hai Zao’s has deep admiration and feeling of gratitude towards Hai Ping, which turns out to be her own tragic flaw.
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| Hai Zao with boyfriend Xiao Bei |
Hai Zao is prettier than Hai Ping and has attracted the attention of Song Si Ming, a married, wealthy, government official in his 40’s. The casual work relationship between the two evolves into a full-fledged affair, which the two manage to keep secret from their respective partners for some time. Hai Zao thus remains trapped in between two separate lives, her legitimate boyfriend Xiao Bei, and her sugardaddy Song.
Xiao Bei is Hai Zao’s boyfriend (and also my favorite character thus far). Like Su Chun he holds a steady job and is not independently wealthy. However, unlike Su Chun, he knows how to please women. Whether it’s cooking her dinner, taking her out window shopping, or sending cute instant messages to Hai Zao (whom he calls “Little Pig”) during the work day, Xiao Bei always knows how to make Hai Zao smile. Additionally, when it comes to serious matters such as finances or major decisions, Xiao Bei always has a prescience which seems behind his years. In short, he is excellent husband material…which is maybe why he is getting the short end of the stick? Xiao Bei is also perceptive and intelligent and it is seemingly only a matter of time until he finds out about his girlfriend’s affair.
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| Hai Zao with other boyfriend Song Si Ming |
Song Si Ming is not the bullheaded, chain smoking, pleather man-purse toting, tinted window Audi driving, alpha male know-it-all Chinese bureaucrat that we all love to hate. He is well-mannered, soft spoken, doesn’t smoke, and has yet to be belligerently drunk on camera. Outwardly he treats others with respect and has the calm demeanor which would seem to make him an ideal family man. At face value, Song is likeable guy, one who seems to have retained a sense of humbleness regardless of his immense financial resources. Song seems to have everything a man could want, good job, beautiful wife, healthy kid, etc. Yet as he looks at himself in the mirror one morning, he realizes how old he has become. With all his money and success, he still feels a void in his life—a void which can only be filled by the object of a new obsession, Hai Zao. This proves to be his downward spiral as his obsession with Hai Zao tears him from his family and sends him on a mad quest for control and power. Cognizant of Hai Zao’s connection to her sister, on multiple occasions Song uses his money and power to bail Hai Ping and Su Chun out of otherwise formidable situations. Ironically though, it is often Hai Ping, not Hai Zao who is uncomfortable with this tacit arrangement.
Thus we have the bulk of the cast. There are several other minor characters, but the majority of the plot focuses on these key individuals. I’ll try to keep posting as I finish up the show. The deeper I get, the juicier it becomes.
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04.17.10
Posted in Announcements at 11:00 am by Benjamin Ross
Back in October I mentioned that I was in the process of applying to Ph. D programs. Well, the yearlong process of researching departments, studying for the GRE, hunting down professors, sorting transcripts, writing essays, submitting applications, and waiting for responses is finally complete.
This fall I am going to begin a masters/Ph. D program in Sociology at the University of Chicago. The focus of my studies is going to be Urban Sociology, and I plan to tailor my research towards the urbanization of China.
Over the past thirty years China has been the site of the largest rural to urban migration in human history. Similar to how European rural peasantry poured into North American urban areas in the decades around the turn of the 20th Century, Chinese peasants are now flooding Chinese cities at unprecedented rates. The migrants come to work in factories, on construction sites, in restaurants, barbershops, or any of the multitude of new jobs necessary to support China’s export market and nascent consumer classes.
In the wake of the United States’ own urbanization, the 1920’s and 1930’s saw a explosion of new sociological theory and research. Much of this body of research was conducted in Chicago, which was the de facto Shenzhen of the early 20th Century. Using models from American urbanization as well as current work done in China, I am hoping to examine the Chinese urbanization process and its corollaries as they are unfolding today.
For the first two years of my program, I will essentially be a fulltime classroom student. Years three and four will be spent teaching classes and starting independent dissertation research. From that point on, the focus becomes finishing (and hopefully someday publishing) the dissertation. This is where it’s difficult to predict a timeframe. Officially, funding for the program lasts 5 years, but the general consensus from current students and faculty is that 6 or 7 years is more realistic, and also preferred… hence the asterisk in the title.
While the American Midwest will now be my home for most of the remainder of the decade, I will likely be spending several summers, or possibly a semester or three, conducting fieldwork in the Middle Kingdom.
School starts in the end of September and at that time I plan to move to Hyde Park where I will probably remain for the first year or two in order to be close to campus. In the meantime I will still be interpreting, watching Chinese television shows, and hopefully blogging as well.
And yes, in case anybody was wondering, my writing sample for grad school applications was about Chinese barbershops. I’ll try to post it in the days to come.
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04.05.10
Posted in Pop Culture at 9:26 pm by Benjamin Ross
After finishing Fen Dou and taking a short break from Chinese television shows, I am now 11 episodes into a new series, Wo Ju (蜗居). Broadcast in 2009, Wo Ju has been the most popular and controversial series to come from Mainland China in some time. Due to its controversial subject matter, Beijing TV pulled the plug on Wu Ju ten episodes in, and Shanghai moved it from prime time to a late night time slot. Many people (myself included) have thus taken to the Chinese Internets to watch the series in its entirety.
I am currently 11 episodes into Wo Ju, and the following is a brief synopsis and analysis of what has gone down so far. (There are some minor spoilers coming, so if you don’t want to know the result of the first 11 episodes, I’d suggest you stop reading here.)
Wo Ju begins with a couple, Su Chun and Hai Ping, who both grew up in rural China, have recently graduated from top tier universities and moved to Jiangzhou, a fictional Chinese city reminiscent of Shanghai. They live in a tiny studio apartment and work low-level, white collar jobs, providing just enough income to scrape by. Yet they are happy just to be together, content that they are “making it” in the big city.
The story then flashes several years into the future. Su Chun and Hai Ping are still in the same studio apartment living the same post-college lifestyle. In the interim however, two major changes have occurred. First, Hai Ping’s sister Hai Zao, seven years her junior, has also graduated college, and at Hai Ping’s encouragement is looking for a job in Jiangzhou. Secondly, Hai Ping is now pregnant, further compounding the stress of living in a cramped studio apartment.
Hai Zao soon finds a job as well as a boyfriend (Xiao Bei), and begins her own life in Jiangzhou. Once their baby (Rang Rang) is born, Su Chun and Hai Ping face the spatial limitations and inconveniences of raising a child in a studio apartment. While visiting Jiangzhou, Hai Ping’s mother is appalled at their living conditions and convinces Hai Ping to allow her to take Rang Rang back to the village. The plan is for Rang Rang is to be raised in the village until Su Chun and Hai Ping can afford to purchase a condo. Hai Ping is reluctant to give up Rang Rang (Su Chun is indifferent), but realizes there is no better option.
Again we flash forward several years and Su Chun and Hai Ping travel back to their home village where Hai Ping spends every moment with her beloved daughter, now a toddler. However, she is discouraged to find that Rang Rang hardly regards her as more than a stranger, having been raised her entire life by her grandparents. This brings Hai Ping to a sudden realization. She and Su Chun must no longer delay home ownership. For the sake of keeping their family together, they need a condo, and they need it now! But the problem is that neither she nor Su Chun have enough money for a down payment. This problem is continually exacerbated as real estate prices escalate.
Meanwhile, Hai Zao has been doing very well for herself, both at work and in her personal life with Xiao Bei with whom she is now cohabitating. But as an attractive, young female Hai Zao must deal with 陪酒, an annoyance common in the Chinese business world for young women like her. 陪酒 refers to accompanying her boss to face-garnering business meetings (over meals, on the golf course, etc.) for the sole purpose of drinking and socializing with his potential business partners. Hai Zao despises this aspect of her work and even contemplates quitting her job. Ironically though, through these social engagements she strikes up a seemingly innocuous relationship with one of her boss’ business partners, Song Si Ming, a wealthy married, businessman in his forties (for point of reference, Hai Zao is still only a few years out of college).
Su Chun and Hai Ping meanwhile continue to struggle with the financial realities which subject them to living in a cramped studio apartment and subsisting on instant noodles. They still cannot afford a down payment for a condo, and Hai Zao, who credits all her success and good fortune to the help and guidance of her older sister, feels compelled to rectify the situation. The issue comes up in casual conversation between Hai Zao and Song Si Ming, and Song Si Ming cordially offers to loan Hai Zao the money for Hai Ping’s down payment. It is apparent, but not spoken, at this point that Song Si Ming has an interest in Hai Zao which extends beyond platonic and business relations. It is also apparent that he has something which Hai Zao, or more specifically Hai Zao’s sister Hai Ping needs, cash. Thus we have the setup for a situation which has to potential to become quite juicy.
Up to this point, I can already tell that by all measures that Wo Ju is a show of much higher quality than Fen Dou. The acting is better, the production level is of relatively high quality (I haven’t seen a single overhead mic yet), and the story line is much more realistic. (The plot of Fen Dou was about as plausible as your average Harry Potter flick). But what I like most about Wo Ju so far is that it showcases real problems and conflicts which are regularly encountered by Chinese urbanites, such as corruption, infidelity, and the housing bubble. It portrays them in a realistic light, and without cheesy miracle fixes and crackpot story lines to undermine the plot’s integrity. I still have 24 episodes left, so I’m sure there is much more action ahead. I’ll try to keep everybody posted.
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03.26.10
Posted in Society at 8:20 pm by Benjamin Ross
This Saturday at 8:30 pm, millions of people around the globe will be joining together to turn off their lights for one hour in order to raise awareness about climate change. According to the official US Earth Hour website: “The movement symbolizes that by working together, each of us can make a positive impact in this fight, protecting our future and that of future generations.”
As somebody who thinks a lot about the future sustainability of our habitat on the planet Earth, this Saturday I am going to spend the night in my apartment in Chicago…with the lights on!
The past decade has ushered an unprecedented interest in environmentalism. We now have hybrid cars, solar power heating, even eco-friendly picture frames. Earth Hour aims to “symbolize” that “each of us can make a positive impact,” and symbolize is exactly what it does. It is symbolic of the bumper-sticker environmentalism which has swept over the world, blinds us from the true causes of environmental degradation, and makes a farce out of the entire movement.
Being “green” is not about token actions, such as turning off lights, recycling, or driving a hybrid, all of which are commonly billed as ways to “make a difference.”By all statistically relevant measures, living a sustainable lifestyle boils down to two questions. 1) Where do you live? and 2) What forms of transportation do you use? Both of these questions are tied to a single concept which should be the center piece of the environmental movement: density.
New York City is the single most environmentally sound place in the United States. With 27,440 people per square mile, New Yorkers consume less energy and produce less waste per capita than anywhere else in the country, and it has nothing to do with turning off lights, recycling, or solar-powered fuel cells. New York is energy efficient because it is dense. In the words of David Owen, author of “Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability”
Living closer to one’s daily destinations, Manhattan-style, reduces vehicle miles traveled, makes transit and walking feasible as forms of transportation, increases the efficiency of energy production and consumption, limits the need to build superfluous infrastructure, and cuts the demand for such environmentally doomed extravagances as riding lawnmowers and household irrigation systems.
On measure after measure, America’s older, denser urban cores such as New York, Boston, San Francisco and Chicago, consume far less energy and produce less waste than national sprawl bombs such as Atlanta, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Phoenix. The worst offenders of energy inefficiency are suburban regions, the defining characteristics of which are extreme low densities (sprawl) and a dearth of public transportation options.
Transportation is tied directly with density, and this is why it is number two of two on the list. In addition to its direct effects (pollution and energy consumption), how we transport ourselves is a key factor in the density (read efficiency) of our cities.
American cities haven’t always been plagued by sprawl. Rather, the unraveling of American urban density has been facilitated through the widespread proliferation of private automobile ownership which first swept the nation in the years following World War II. Cars enable Americans to live further apart from one another than any other civilization in the history of urban humanity. Over the last 65 years, cars have given rise to the explosion of suburban developments which have taxed our energy reserves more than ever before.Concurrently, the resulting low densities enabled by cars have been the death toll to many American public transit systems which rely on density in order to be economically viable.
High urban density allows people to live carless and to rely on subways, buses, bicycles, and their own feet to get around. Reliance on these forms of transportation also keeps populations dense, as without cars it is impractical for populations to spread so thin. The cycle is self-perpetuating. Density encourages carless living which encourages density which encourages carless living. This is what makes New York City dense, efficient, and conveniently accessible without a car. For most newer American cities (those whose major growth periods occurred after World War II) and most suburbs, the opposite is the case. Car ownership encourage sprawl, and sprawl then encourages car ownership, which encourages more sprawl.
The defining variables for energy efficiency are density and transportation, and any environmental movement which lacks a focus on these issues is missing the chance to bring about real change.
Ok, so you get my point. Being “green” is all about density. Now then, what’s so bad about Earth Hour? What’s wrong with raising awareness and encouraging the whole world to work together?
To rectify our current environmental concerns, awareness and cooperation are not what is in need. People are more aware about climate change and the environment than ever before, and are willing to work together to bring about change.In our 21st Century Culture of Environmentalism, we are constantly bombarded with Greenspeak telling us to“reduce, reuse, recycle,” “buy organic,” “love our mother,” and minimize our “carbon footprints.” These simple, easily quantifiable, (and easily marketable) acts make us feel that we’re all “being green.” And to be sure, many of them are, to a nominal extent, good for the earth. The problem is that in creating a Culture of Green, we have excused ourselves from the responsibility for the primary causes of most of our energy-related problems: location and transportation.
The poster child for this national psychosis is the hybrid car, corporate America’s most egregious invention since the light cigarette. There is no such thing as a “green” automobile, even if it runs off of organic, recycled fairy dust. Cars are disastrous to the environment, not because of the fuel they consume, but because of the sprawl they facilitate. Regardless, automakers have toted hybrid cars as the panacea to the energy crisis, lulling customers with a false sense of civic responsibility.
Awareness and cooperation are only effective if they are coupled with an understanding of the real causes of the problems at hand. As in the case of the hybrid, civic responsibility can even be sublimely turned against itself with effective marketing.
No, what we need is not more awareness and calls to cooperate. Our cumulative world conscious are already overflowing with warm feelings and intentions. What the environmental movement needs is real solutions to our energy consumption woes. What we need is a push for an energy efficient lifestyle, consisting of dense urban living and minimal dependence on the automobile.
How is this accomplished? The first step is to consider where you live. It’s unrealistic to ask everybody to move to Manhattan, but it is feasible to envision a gradual exodus from our wasteful suburbs. If you live in a low density suburban enclave where you can’t shop for groceries on foot or conveniently access public transportation, your lifestyle is not “green.” No matter how many lights you turn off, how much you recycle, or how tricked out your house is with solar panels and other “greenware,” you are still living a wasteful lifestyle compared to urbanites who don’t embrace any of your pro-active environmental measures. Sure, you’re saving some energy here and there, but it’s all gravy compared to the inherent inefficiencies of the suburban lifestyle. If you want to make a real difference, where you live matters a lot more than what you do. To truly live “green,” one must live in a dense urban core.
If you do live in a dense urban core, the second step is easy: Get rid of your car. Notice I did not say “drive less.” One major cause of sprawl is car storage (parking). American cities waste thousands of square miles of otherwise useful urban space in order to store their automobiles which remain idle 95% of the time. Fortunately, if you live in a city with a dense urban core, you will find car disownership to be both practical and economical. A 2009 study by the American Automobile Association estimates that the average American spends $9,000 a year to support their car habit. This, not to mention the amount of time you can now allocate to more productive activities (walking, reading, studying, extension of work day, etc.) once you quit your job as an unpaid chauffeur and switch to manpower or public transit for your transportation needs.
I recognize that moving to a new location or even a new city and giving up car dependency for the sake of the environment might not be the most convenient way to show your support for Mother Earth. But that’s exactly the point. Being “green” isn’t always convenient (as we are reminded by a former Vice President). Real sustainability is not about making people feel warm and fuzzy inside because “hey, we’re all in this together.” It’s about affecting changes which significantly decrease the amount of energy required to support human civilization.
Environmentalism is not about token acts of “greenness,” and it’s not involved enough to allow for the creation of an entire subculture. Caring for the earth is about where we live and how we commute. Taking the focus away from these two issues only reinforces that the inefficient lifestyles of suburbanization, sprawl, and car dependency will persist in the decades to come.
The keys to solving our environmental problems rests on our understanding of their ultimate causes. Therefore, this Saturday at 8:30 pm, I plan to stay in my urban 3-flat Chicago apartment, in front of my computer…with the lights on. I’m going to be spending the hour online, reading about more ways to revitalize American urban cores, increase density, and support future capital improvements to our mass transit infrastructure. Only armed with knowledge can we educe lifestyle changes which affect the future sustainability of human civilization. Together we must fight the bumper-sticker environmentalism imploring to “go green,” while distracting us from the real causes of environmental degradation.
For those of you keeping the lights on this Saturday night, here are some reading recommendations which will further explain the intertwined issues of density, sprawl, transportation, and energy efficiency. Enjoy your Earth Hour, and make it productive.
Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability by David Owen
Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream by Andres Duany et al.
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
Asphalt Nation: How the Automobile Took over America and How We Can Take It Back by Jane Holtz Kay
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03.13.10
Posted in Pop Culture at 2:11 pm by Benjamin Ross
Back in late November, I set the goal of watching an entire Chinese television series 《奋斗》, and blogging about the process. I made good on half the deal. I finished the series about a month and a half ago, but thanks to several trips, grad school selection shenanigans, and other prioritizing, my blogging accounts dropped off. Watching 奋斗 was a tantamount experience, both linguistically and culturally, and I didn’t want to leave everybody completely hanging. So here are some of my thoughts. This post does contain a few spoilers, so if you plan to watch the show, proceed with caution.
奋斗 and I have had a rocky relationship. If it were my facebook girlfriend, our relationship status would be “it’s complicated.” Several episodes in I wrote the beginnings of a scathing blog post condemning 奋斗 as the worst television series I had ever watched. The plot lines are predictable; the characters static and subject to compulsive, unsounded, obsessions; the humor relies on formulaic, repetitive devices which could have been written by a class of high school sophomores; and the climax of the series involves an extended English quote from a Lionel Ritchie song. Yet I watched the series to term, enjoyed it, and was emotionally invested in several of the characters. In short, it was entertaining.
As a critic, one complaint which I consistently felt (and echoed on many Chinese message boards) is that the main characters’ “struggles” (奋斗 means “struggle”) are aided by a multitude of fortuitous situations and coincidences. Here are just a few.
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| The 奋斗 gang, clockwise from the top left, Lu Tao, Xia Lin, Xiang Nan, Huazi, Yang Shao Yun, and Mi Lai |
Two of the main characters have parents who are multi-millionaires with endless supplies of money, real estate, and employment opportunities. When the going gets rough, fu baba always comes to the rescue with a financial bail out, a new job, or a free loft to house the whole gang.
Xia Lin, the girlfriend of the main character Lu Tao, frequently wavers back and forth between whether she will pursue her opportunity to study in France. Unlike Lu Tao and Mi Lai, Xia Lin’s family is not wealthy. Yet, in the world of 奋斗 going to France to study abroad apparently doesn’t require much money. It also doesn’t require a visa either, as Xia Lin (and Mi Lai, Lu Tao’s ex-girlfriend) each make sudden decisions to study abroad. As one Chinese forum post put it “It’s as if France is next door to Beijing.”
Another character of humble origins, Huazi, pursues life as a small business man. He begins by opening a barbershop, then a cake shop, then a Thai restaurant, then a pool hall, all of which are wildly successful, and simultaneously managed by only he and his girlfriend. Speaking from experience here, running a successful barbershop in China takes many years of training, hard work, and building a customer base. Competition is cut throat, and most new shops go out of business within a year of opening. The chance of somebody with no tanning opening up four different enterprises in four different industries, and being wildly successful at all is laughable at best.
Another objection I have to the show is its message: put simply, the goal of life is getting rich. These values are promulgated by Yang Shao Yun, one of the female leads, and one of the most despicable characters I have ever seen on television. Yang Shao Yun falls in love with Xiang Nan, one of the main male characters, and against the warnings of their friends, they marry a few weeks later. As their marriage progresses, Yang Shao Yun continuously scolds and belittles Xiang Nan, whose salary of “a mere 10,000 RMB/month” isn’t nearly as much as Lu Tao’s. She also despises Xiang Nan’s car, an Autuo, and wishes that like Lu Tao, Xiang Nan would buy an Audi. On multiple occasions Yang Shao Yun threatens divorce, only to be talked out of it by a teary-eyed Xiang Nan, whom she continues to nag and berate. Their relationship is a continuous downward spiral of arguments and threatened divorces until finally Xiang Nan shocks everybody by agreeing to a divorce.
Once the divorce settles, Xiang Nan meets a new girl, Yao Yao, who is a successful attorney, and independently wealthy. Initially, Xiang Nan is intimidated by his new sugarmama, but these fears subside as Yao Yao reaffirms to him that she loves him for who he is, not for his bank account. In a symbolic gesture, she sells her Toyota sports car because she prefers to ride in his Autuo. Meanwhile, Yang Shao Yun falls into a bout of loneliness and depression, wishing she had Xiang Nan back. I took pleasure in watching the bitch crash and burn in the mess she had created. This also provided hope that 奋斗 was providing an anti-materialistic message after all. However in the end, just as Xiang Nan and Yao Yao are walking into the marriage bureau to apply for their marriage license, Yang Shao Yun shows up crying. The two reconcile and get married. Ouch! Bam! Kick in the junk! I wasn’t expecting that at all, and it left me questioning the motives behind the themes of the show.
奋斗 is geared towards China’s “80’s generation,” those born between 1980 and 1989. I would imagine though that much of 奋斗’s appeal is to rural Chinese of that age group who have never lived the city life as portrayed in the show. Remaining in their villages, 奋斗 provides a glimmer of a fantasy city world where opportunities abound and the streets are paved with gold. Most Chinese urbanites with whom I have discussed 奋斗 have dismissed it unappealing for the same reasons listed above. It’s too unrealistic and glamorizes the ugly, materialistic side of modern China.
As an American, watching 奋斗 was an invaluable experience. It improved my spoken Chinese, tweaked my listening, and provided a cultural window into the lives of Chinese 20-somethings, even if they were caricatures of real people. If I was Chinese, I probably would have never watched the show in its entirety, but using it as tool for cultural and language learning, it served its purpose.
I am now in the process of watching《蜗居》, a popular 2009 Chinese television show, which according to many of my Chinese friends is the most realistic TV program to come out of Mainland China in a long time. As I progress, I’m going to try to write more about 蜗居as well as the process of learning from television shows, which I am increasingly convinced is THE way for advanced speakers to continue improvement. I’ll try to make good on my promise to keep up on the blog this time around.
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02.25.10
Posted in Travel Log (US) at 7:36 pm by Benjamin Ross
“The Mistake on the Lake,” the city where the river caught on fire, the home of Drew Carey: Cleveland bears the brunt of more jokes than any American city not known as “Motown.” Most of what you’ve heard is probably true, but this does not mean that Cleveland isn’t worth exploring for a weekend. Located at the convergence between the Midwest and the Rust Belt, halfway between New York and Chicago, Cleveland has exerted its fair influence on the course of American history. The latter half of the 20th Century saw much of this past glory wane, leaving much of the city as historical artifacts of American prosperity. Over the last weekend in January, I visited Cleveland for the first time since my baby teeth fell out. Here’s a photo log from my trip.
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| On July 2, 1796, a settlement on Lake Erie was founded and named after General Moses Cleaveland, leader of the Connecticut Land Company. The first “a” was later dropped, allegedly to make room for a newspaper ledger. The Cleavelend statute stands in the center of Public Square, the geographical center of Cleveland. No word on whether or not local teenagers have ever removed its head. |
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| My host/tourguide for the weekend was Ron Sims II. You might remember him from such films as The Haircut and No Size Fits All. Ron and I lived both lived in Fuzhou from 05-06, and did a fair amount of exploration of the Middle Kingdom together. Long before he was the famous “Black Man in China,” Ron, a native Clevelander, is a well-known Cleveland graffiti artist. Here he is striking a pose next to one of his murals near the West Side Market. |
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| Cleveland, first and foremost, is an industrial city. Although its peak industrial output days are past, a significant amount of production is still occurring on the Cuyahoga River. |
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| Cleveland’s downtown industrial center is known as “The Flats.” Located along the bank of the Cuyahoga, The Flats has seen occasional phases of attempted redevelopment as an entertainment destination in Cleveland’s drive to revitalize downtown. |
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| Sunset in The Flats |
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| Behind The Flats is Downtown Cleveland. Like The Flats, Downtown’s more bustling days lie several decades in the past. Cleveland’s population peaked in 1950 at 914,808, and by the 2000 census, had shrunk to 478,403. Much of this population decline was due to affluent Clevelanders fleeing to the surrounding suburbs. |
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| Cleveland is a prime example of the havoc suburbanization has wreaked on American downtowns. Once a thriving city center rivaling Chicago, much of downtown Cleveland is now empty and abandoned. Despite attempts to revitalize it, as well as three major sports venues in its immediate vicinity, downtown Cleveland remains an urban hole with little integration with the suburbs where much of its former population and economic activity now resides.
As Ron describes it, “Most suburbanites are only Clevelanders on the weekend. They come downtown for a ballgame and then get in their cars and head straight back to their suburban existence. They never leave a very narrow corridor on any trip.” |
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| Much of Downtown Cleveland looks like this: Tall, empty, grey buildings; a few cars; no people. |
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| here’s another |
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| and another…the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland |
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| Tower City Center, this former rail terminal, was the tallest building in North America outside of New York City until 1964. Today, Tower City is the main retail center in Downtown Cleveland, and is also the focal point of Cleveland’s public transportation system. |
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| For a city with so many problems, Cleveland’s downtown is surprisingly well-planned. Public transportation, highways, and tourist attractions are all centered around downtown, and there is convenient pedestrian access to office space, restaurants, and all three sporting venues. |
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| Downtown Cleveland also sports a beachfront along Lake Erie |
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| Cleveland Browns Stadium |
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| Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame |
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| Cleveland is home to a small Chinatown, which was formerly consolidated around this building near 20th and Superior (see the faded letters on building facade). Today, Cleveland’s Chinatown has migrated south to “Asiatown,” where it is mixed with a Korean enclave. Cleveland’s Chinatown is sizable enough to support several exclusively Asian grocery stores, however most restaurants and other business cater to both American and Chinese patrons in order to maintain a large enough customer base. |
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| Still known as Ohio City, the land west of the Cuyahoga River was once a separate city from Cleveland. It was annexed in 1854 and its West Side Market is one of the top attractions for tourists and locals alike. |
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| the main hall at the West Side Market |
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| view from balcony |
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| Anther gem of the Near West Side, Ron took me to Bank News on Clarke, an old time magazine shop. |
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| Much of the floor in Bank News consists of stacks of magazines which look like they haven’t been sorted since the Reagan administration. In the back corner is an old school pornography room with magazines and posters which are probably just as old. Random piles of boxes are littered around the store, and the air is rank with kitty litter. Yet, Bank News is a surviving fossil of the days when most current information was disseminated in physical form. Their selection is massive, with magazines covering every topic imaginable.When paying for his magazine, Ron asked the proprietor, “How’s business?”
“I have no business,” he replied in a thick Eastern European accent. |
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| Most of the Cleveland’s housing stock consists of single family units such as these in the St. Clair Superior neighborhood. As Cleavelanders fled to the suburbs in the second half of the 20th Century, thousands of vacant houses were left behind. Cleveland now is home to some of the cheapest urban real estate in the US. In many neighborhoods, three and four bedroom houses can be purchased for under 100k. |
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| As a response to increasing violence in St. Clair Superior, a local Yoruba woman built this labyrinth next to a local school. Allegedly violence began dropping soon after its construction. Although its designer has since died, the labyrinth survives intact and neighbors still leave offerings of fruit in its center. |
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| Cleveland has a rapid transit system, “The Rapid,” but you wouldn’t know it unless you specifically sought it out. The “Red Line” runs east and west and connects downtown with the airport, but many of the areas serviced by the Red Line are sparsely populated, and generate little ridership. Two other lines, the blue and green, connect several suburban ares to downtown. With only one line serving the city proper, and no free transfers, it would be nearly impossible to rely on the “Rapid” as a primary means of transportation. With a similarly under-equipped bus system, car ownership in Cleveland is practically a necessity. |
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| This is a “Polish Boy,” a Cleveland specialty. A hot dog, often served on a hoagie, is topped with french fries, cole slaw, and BBQ sauce. Add pork shoulder meat, and you have a “Polish girl.” I ate about one of them per day on my trip. Food in Cleveland is cheap, and a Polish Boy typically goes for between $3 and $4 and an extra dollar or two for the Polish Girl. |
Cleveland is not for everybody. If your travel fancies include entertainment, modern architecture, and active street life, Cleveland is not the place to go. But for an extant slice of American industrial history, with an urban Midwestern feel and cheap eats, Cleveland makes for an interesting weekend trip.
For independent travelers, Cleveland is not an easily traveled city. With a sprawled, decaying urban core, and minimal public transit options, it’s not easily navigable for the unfamiliar and the carless. But with friends in the area, it is certainly worth a weekend trip. Only an overnight bus ride from the Windy City, I’m sure I’ll be back again, if anything, just for another Polish Boy.
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02.13.10
Posted in Down in Chinatown, Travel Log (US) at 12:03 pm by Benjamin Ross
During my 3.5 years living fulltime in China, I set the goal of exploring as much of the country as possible. Before I returned to the United States, I had visited all but 6 of China’s 27 provinces, the majority of its provincial capitals, and tens of rural towns and villages. The way such extensive adventures were possible was by stringing multiple locations together on a single trip, and traveling between them over land. Sometimes I would start at home in Fuzhou and travel a circular path, leading back to where I started. On other occasions I would fly to a distant city, and slowly make my way back via trains and buses. A third option was to fly to one city, then travel over land to another, from which I would fly home. Due to China’s population density and predictable transportation network, this form of traveling was practical, thrifty, and allowed me to see more of the country than had I visited destinations one at a time.
It’s now been over two years since I returned to the United States, and my travels in China have left me curious as to how feasible this method of travel would be in my home country. In my early twenties, I traveled extensively through the U.S., mostly by driving. Now that I have repatriated, and given up car dependency (which I urge all to try) the time was fitting to test long distance ground transportation in the United States.
The itinerary for my recent trip to the East Coast was to fly to Boston on December 23, and then from Baltimore fly home January 7, leaving two weeks to meander down the coast. Though long distance ground transportation is the default in China, it remains foreign to most Americans, especially those not on the East Coast. While most Americans still prefer their jetliners and private automobiles, a unique marriage between China and the United States has blossomed on the East Coast: The “Chinatown bus.”
The “Chinatown bus” refers to several Chinese-operated bus companies (the ones I tried were 2000 New Century and Fung Wa) running networks throughout the Eastern United States. The buses provide frequent (sometimes hourly) transit between major cities including New York, Boston, Providence, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, with fares rarely exceeding fifteen dollars. Using Chinatown buses, I traveled from Boston to New York, and then from New York to Philadelphia, and finally Philadelphia to Baltimore, all for a total cost of 37 dollars. I did not purchase any of my tickets in advance, and my longest bus station wait was twenty minutes.
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| on way to Baltimore, via Philadelphia -> DC Chinatown bus. |
Trips on the Chinatown bus are standard service without frills. Like China, there are no bathrooms on the bus, no wireless Internet connections, and minimal excess legroom. There are also no karaoke videos, farmers carrying bags of dead fish, or random stops to avoid police bus-overloading checkpoints. (America does have its perks.)
Aside from occasional mechanical failure, the main difficulty Chinatown bus riders report is finding the bus drop off locations. In some transit points, such as Boston’s South Station, the Chinatown bus picks up and drops off inside the official station, running ticket booths side by side with American bus companies. In other locations, such as East Broadway in Manhattan’s Chinatown, buses operate out of makeshift bus stops and storefronts. Additionally, for those traveling within New York City, an ad hoc Chinese-operated bus services whisks passengers between the three Chinatowns for only $2.50 each trip.
The Chinatown bus service is nothing new for East Coasters. On the contrary, it has become the way to travel cheap from city to city. According to Jennifer 8. Lee’s The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, the Chinatown bus began as a service to shuttle Chinese restaurant workers from Chinatown to Chinatown between Boston and New York City. Buses were patronized almost exclusively by Chinese passengers until college kids got wind of it, and began using them to return home for vacation. It was then a matter of time until the Chinatown bus phenomenon went mainstream. In each of my Chinatown bus experiences, the drivers, conductors, and ticket sellers were all Chinese, while a majority of the passengers were not.
Chinese in America have a long history of occupational specialization, first arriving as railroad workers in the 1860’s. When railroad jobs waned, Chinese entrepreneurs opened cleaners or curios shops. In the 20th Century, the invention of American Chinese food led to a boom in the demand for restaurant workers. This boom continues today and ultimately was the impetus behind the Chinatown bus’ emergence, now providing new employment opportunities for blue collar Chinese immigrants who traditionally worked primarily in the restaurant sector.
Much as Chinese restaurants influenced the way Americans eat (Lee claims the US has more Chinese restaurants than McDonald’s, Burger Kings, and Wendy’s combined) the Chinatown bus is now reshaping transportation on the East Coast. Whereas compared to flying, long distance trains offer only of nominal cost savings, the Chinatown bus offers comparable transit times with significantly cheaper fares. Its popularity has caused American bus companies to lower their own prices in order to remain afloat against their “made in China” competition.
Will the Chinatown bus ever become a major player in the American long distance transit industry, as the Chinese restaurant has with fast food? Probably not. Mass transportation efficiency, both long distance and short, is a function of population density. Barring major changes in land usage and urban planning, the East Coast will likely remain the only region of the country where long distance buses are a practical alternative to planes or private cars. So for the near future, Chinatown style bus transit outside of the East Coast will probably still require a trip to the Middle Kingdom. But for backpackers wanting an overland excursion, the East Coast and its Chinatown bus network allow for the ideal budget adventure.
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