Mooncakes and politics

Happy mid-autumn festival everyone! Fireworks! Everywhere, all the time, even in bright daylight! Today we eat mooncakes (man, they're so expensive! I think mostly because of the fancy packaging. Chinese are the masters of kitschy boxes, I might just stay here forever) and gaze at the moon as it rises over the Yangzi... Sorry my blog has been all about me, me, me lately (well, it is my blog) and not about China so much. I guess I haven't gotten out all that much yet. The commute hotel-Chinese class-office-canteen-office-canteen-hotel didn't take me out of campus apart from my occasional trip to the supermarket for water, beer and yogurt (need to get my calcium somehow - the yogurt is actually pretty decent and there are way more milk products on the shelf now than 2 years ago). Right now I'm pretty broke, but with my next paycheck I'll get a bike and hopefully get out more. It doesn't exactly help that I'm moving even closer to the office, I suppose :) My walk is now cut from 5 to 3 minutes.

A couple of days ago I managed to invite some of the students (who had helped me re-arrange my furniture, although they're all fragile little creatures; I think it's them who need a Kung Fu school more urgently than me!) out for a beer. Well, Fanta and beer, only one of them drank and turned bright red after the first sip :) But we got talking and it was quite interesting to get their view on China. It's amazing (at least to me) how critical the cultural revolution and Mao are portrayed everywhere. I mean, even on the State media. I don't think we in the west have a good understanding of the relationship the Chinese have with their past. They can perfectly well understand the cruelty and stupidity that happened under Mao, but still admire him as the father of China. And it's not just about "he did 30% right and 70% wrong." But it doesn't compare to Germans saying "not everything was bad under the Nazis" either. I don't really know how to express it, but I think there's less of a black/white attitude here. Or if there is white, there's also always black, you know, yin-yang. I also think it's a matter of pride. The Chinese know the cultural revolution and great leap forward were catastrophes, but it's not our business to judge that. I think it would mean a great loss of face to have Westerners tell the Chinese they were "wrong." I mean, think about it. Germany after WWII was certainly a humbled and defeated nation. But they inflicted mass murder on other people, the Chinese did it "only" on their own. So, I think a lot of the "not everything was bad under Mao" attitude is really a "stay out of our business." But I'm really intrigued by the notion that maybe Chinese culture is better at accepting wrong doings of the past and live with them instead of just denouncing them as overall bad. But well, what do I know? :) Maybe some of my Chinese friends should tell me whether I'm wrong?

I don't remember there ever being a negative portrayal of the early East German leaders, like Ulbricht, in later times. Well, maybe I was just too young, but I had the feeling the GDR system was more continuous. One of the Chinese students said that it's ok to criticise the cultural revolution, because Deng Xiaoping came to power later on and he had suffered from it. They seem to view the leaders of their country more as monarchs and say a lot of their governing style (like eliminating enemies, but also banning supporters) is like that of the old Chinese emperors.

Ok, enough politics for today. Gotta go enjoy the 27C and sunshine :) after a rainy spell we're finally enjoying a really lovely late-summer here. Funny aside, as I type this I'm sitting in a cafe (where I get my daily fix of Illy espresso) and the guy next to me is from Montreal! :)

I ended up spending 中秋节 zhong qiu jie (mid-autumn festival) with my boss and her family in the really beautiful (but expensive to get into) Wochou Lake Park. Then we went for dinner and had amazing crawfish. The day ended with me barely stopping the 2-year old daughter when she wanted to try my hammer on my laptop... I think I've had enough of small children for a while.