井底之蛙

Man with bird in Nanjing

Or actually old folks out on the street. I knew that lots of old Chinese people kept birds, and that taking birds for a walk was a popular thing for old men to do early in the morning. But where is the scholarship on Chinese bird-keeping culture? Well, I found some, a study by Ho-hon Leung¹Leung did a survey of Hong Kong bird keepers (all over 50, almost all male, most born on the mainland). Most of them lived with their children, who they claimed took good care of them, and most were married. So they are well taken care of, but seem to get little satisfaction out of home life.

This is where birds come in. They need to be raised and trained to sing, and there is a element of expertise here, so you can feel proud of your accomplishment. You can’t do that with dogs and cats, which in any case take up too much room. Plus, birds make it easy to meet people, especially other old men, since you all need to go out and walk your birds and of course talk to them and to the other birdmen. I suppose I could have guessed a lot of this, but I do find it interesting that birds are the chosen pet for this form of male bonding. I know at least in Meiji Japan dog-keeping was a very clear sign that one was a modernizer, and I wonder if anyone has seen anything the evolution of Chinese pet culture.

1. Ho-Hon Leung “The Lives of Elderly Bird-keepers: A Case Study of Hong Kong” in Chi, et al eds. Elderly Chinese in Pacific Rim Countries: Social Support and Integration. Hong Kong University Press 2001 There is a lot of interesting stuff in it, although it is more social science than a cultural studies approach [↩]

Via Easternity and Danwei, Cao Fei’s Second Life RMB City. If you want a nice view of what China is today, this is it. You would of course get a better view if you went on Second Life¹ and looked yourself, but apparently it is not done yet.

1. Even the guys from Danwei, who think Second Life is for wankers, think this is cool [↩]

Lots of stuff out there on Tibet. Maybe most interesting to me is the blog of 江达三, a 72 year old former PLA flyer who spent time in Tibet and is now blogging about the events there. China Digital Times translated one of his posts on the time in the 50′s when they rounded up a bunch for Tibetan troublemakers and demonstrated airpower to them by having planes fly over and blow up some drums of gasoline and drop a few bombs

This frightened “the spectators” like they’d never been frightened before, particularly the superstitious lammas and living Buddhas, who’d never seen planes before and, out of fear and respect, referred to the bombers as “spirit eagles” (神鹰; note: this is the Chinese phrase for condor, the birds involved in Tibetan sky burials). At that point they really believed the PLA was “Heaven’s Army” (天兵天将) A few people couldn’t take it and fainted, some pissed in their pants, and others shouted slogans at the top of their voice: “Long live the Communist Party! Long live Chairman Mao!” A truly strange and ugly scene.

That’s how to do shock and awe. One thing I found interesting is how he, like a lot of other Chinese commenters, links Old Tibet to feudalism. He compares it to Taiwan, of course, as another version of split-ism, and he hates the worthless Dali Lama and his clique 达赖集团又疯狂地唆使顽固不化藏独份子. Unlike Taiwan, however, Tibet is easier to link to Feudalism, and given the CIA connection in the 50′s, to Imperialism. It is easy to say that China wants to keep Tibet because of “Nationalism” but I think it helps a bit to think about what aspects of Chinese nationalism. If you learned in school the old May Fourth catechism that China was weakened in the 20th century by the evils of Warlordism, Feudalism, and Imperialism it is easier to see these things in Tibet. Before being “liberated” Tibet really was a theocracy, and the CIA really was involved there. If you want to fight the evil forces you found in your schoolbooks, Tibet is the place to see them. It’s a bit harder to call Taiwan feudal.

Some of the methods for fixing problems are old too. Jiang is big on the railway to Tibet as an important strategic link that will make it easier to control the place. (It’s railway imperialism!)