The Smell of Burning Coal

Check out this video about "the dirtiest city in the world." The images in the video from Linfen, China are so familiar to me and remind me most of my two trips to Fugu, China to stay with a friend and her family.

The gray skies, the trash everywhere, the cars... what sticks with me most, though, is the smell of burning coal. As I watched that video sitting in my living room, I had one of those strange experiences where I smelled burning coal as if I were in my friend's home in Fugu by their furnace. And that isn't the first time that has happened to me. When I first returned home from China, sometimes I would wake up in my dorm room and completely forget where I was. And then I would smell burning coal. I wasn't actually smelling it, of course, but I was remembering the entire experience of waking up in a strange world- one of pollution and gray skies and trash and cars- and smelling burning coal.

And yet, the people of Linfen- and Fugu and Lanzhou and the thousands of other polluted cities in China and around the world, still lead happy and normal lives.

History and the Future

I am in the middle of "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi. I read her second memoir "Things I've Been Silent About: Memories" when it first came out in 2008, and her descriptions of typical life in Iran during times of turmoil intrigued me enough to go back and read her first memoir.

Nafisi grew up in Tehran, studied in Switzerland and the United States, and returned to Tehran as a professor of English literature. "Reading Lolita in Tehran" compares certain novels to the revolution and women's rights issues in Iran in the 1970s when Nafisi taught at the University of Tehran. In reference to "The Great Gatsby" Nafisi says this:

"We in ancient countries have our past - we obsess over the past. They, the Americans, have a dream: they feel nostalgia about the promise of the future." (p. 109)

I have to admit that several times during my semesters abroad, I would listen halfheartedly to my Asian and Central Asian friends' recollections of history. On the outside I was smiling and nodding my head, but inside I was impatient and restless, waiting for the monologue to end. I wanted to hear about what life in their countries was like for them today and where their countries were headed for the future. The past? We can and should learn from it, but we shouldn't cling to it. What an American attitude!

"Sometimes I really wish I had a cold"

Here is an (unintentionally) hilarious article written by a Chinese official. He is discussing how people are very kind to him when he has a cold, and they go out of their way to help him. He insists that it is not because of his power, yet says that one man in particular who showed him kindness will be promoted. Yikes.

Side note: Getting a cold in China probably happens more often than in other countries (even among adults) because of close contact with so many people as well as environmental issues.

On Google and China

I read this article on the aftermath of the Google situation in China, and I found the reporting odd. The first half of the article is about a party that Chinese Google employees held, complete with cocktails and the Beijing elite. The second half starts with an interview with the host of the party - who does not work for Google anymore and says that the party had nothing to do with the company.

And, the most important part of the article, in my opinion, was buried at the end:

"You [Americans] don't appreciate the people who are here in China ... life is harder here. Life is different, and people in the States don't see that. They don't appreciate that," Tian [a former Google China employee] said. "They see their so-called principles are getting bent and they don't like that."

Americans' views on tolerance and acceptance are extremely skewed. It is okay to be intolerant of religion (because religious people are intolerant), but it is unacceptable to be intolerant of certain illicit activities (because that's judging others). We should be completely accepting and open of other cultures, but not if, like Tian said, our "principles" are being compromised.

America should leave China alone. We don't know what is best for their country. We don't even know what is best for our country.



By the way, the Chinese word for "tolerance" basically means "to have no choice but to stand something."

Laken Kye Farm: Photography Project

Yellow River Journalism

As part of my senior seminar project about views on journalism in Lanzhou, China, I interviewed journalism professors and students at Lanzhou University while I studied abroad there learning Chinese, and I made this documentary video to share their views with the world (or at least to whomever happens to watch this).

This is Yellow River Journalism: A Quest for Truth in Lanzhou, China.

Enjoy!

'I Want Putin'

I've been working on a research paper about Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for a few weeks now, and it's kind of changing my life. While my paper is about his celebrity status, I've watched some videos of translated interviews with Putin, and I really agree with his ethics in regard to international relations.

And, back to the celebrity status of Putin, I have an extreme desire to join his fan girls and get a "I Want Putin / я хочу Путин" t-shirt (doesn't that just look cooler in Russian?).

Here's a music video for your enjoyment.

And if you're more into the politics, here's a really long but wonderful interview with TIME magazine.