Years of Poems and Spirits

A letter I wrote to the Professors after reading an article on YanTan:

I was really moved by an article online: http://yantan.org/bbs/thread-87041-1-1.html. I don’t know why … just thought there is hope. Basically, the author went to a district in Sichuan after the earthquake and documented the struggle and formation of a new civic society. The article touched on several aspects in China’s civic culture I once thought was hopeless, for example, the destruction of an old tradition and the lack of a new, healthy ethos in this increasingly secular era, or the lack of trust among the populace.

What the story tells me is that if the threat and the promise of a omnipotent State is removed, and the life of people is returned to themselves, people generally will bring out their “social best”. In other words, people can be more trusting, more cooperative if they are entrusted with their own lives. This sounds so obvious but somehow, the world on the other side of the Pacific is so distorted, I never know whether the obvious is the reality or vice versa.

I wish I could hear more stories like this.

Somehow came across the subject of “湘西赶尸“. A very elaborate tradition it is! How the profession selects apprentice, the rituals and the mirage of dead man walking, etc. Secular observers suspected it was a guise for smuggling or other “feudalism leftovers”. But just reminded me of another set of photographs I saw somewhere about another ethnic group (a very small group living mainly in the woods, Tong, maybe?) in the SW. They too have a very elaborate ritual of burying the dead. Amy Tam’s recent work in Yunan also yields stories along the same line (e.g. parents pick a tree when a child is born which is to be used as his/her coffin when he/she dies).

It appears that the death culture is rich and deep in the SW. Just fascinating. Has anyone traced it back to ancient times? Say 楚辞?

Just read the outrageous news, “Leading Russian Rights Lawyer Is Shot to Death in Moscow”. The title says it all. What is striking is the nonchalant tone in the piece, as if being murdered in broad daylight is part of daily life for Russian liberals.

True or not, just got me thinking. A new term coined in China last year was “beggar-gang journalist” (新闻丐帮). It refers to journalists flocking to industrial accident sites, waiting to be bought off.  For example, there have been reports that some coalmine accidents were left out of news after reporters were seen getting paid off.

Each of the two above story may not be so interesting until they are placed side by side. It reveals something about each society, particularly what happens when ”civilized” disagreements cannot be reconciled.

If I read Norbert Elias right, historically, conflict resolution used to be violent. A side project of the modernization/state formation/social transformation is the “civilization” process after which physical violence is replaced with “war of words and symbols” (my phrase). Well, the journalists are perhaps the ultimate word warriors in this regard.

But sooner or later, the words will run afoul of the real world somewhere. How the societal dissonance is reconciled really tells something about the society. Both China and Russia are top-down, patriarchal societies, yet how they hold themselves together seems to be different: one resorts more to man self-interest, the other to man’s fear.

Needless to say, this is not about who is more right/better than the other. Just interesting to note.