China's version of the American
dream By Richard S Ehrlich
JINGHONG, China - Punk fashions, shopping
malls and Mandarin-language rap are helping China
create a sanitized, government-controlled parallel
universe that mimics the outside world.
The apparent goal is a nationwide cocoon
displaying the West's popular archetypes, but
cloned and manufactured locally, so Chinese will
perceive their society as open and prosperous, and
not
be attracted to free speech, political parties and
other taboo issues.
Even in Jinghong, in
China's deep south on the Mekong River in Yunnan
province, near the border with Laos and Myanmar,
struggling urbanites are starting to live a
Chinese version of the American Dream.
They watch television shows that have the
look and feel of dynamic US broadcasts, despite
oppressive censorship. Dinnertime TV includes
local game and talent shows, peppered by
advertisements to make bikini-clad women sexier
and blemish-free. Einstein's face sells a tonic.
Photos of skyscrapers provide a backdrop for
flogging instant noodles to harried workers.
A deft mirroring of American-style TV came
when President George W Bush and other officials
visited Beijing in November. Suddenly, US Attorney
General Alberto Gonzalez was being grilled on
China Central Television's (CCTV) English-language
talk show about the severity of Homeland Security,
the Patriot Act, electronic eavesdropping and
Americans torturing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison
in Iraq.
"Another major point of
contention is whether terror suspects enjoy the
law, or the full protection of law, given to US
citizens," CCTV's Dialogue host said to Gonzales,
without a hint of irony over China's lack of legal
protection for its accused.
Foreign
influence also appears in impressive documentaries
against pollution, deforestation, crime and other
generic concerns.
Soap operas maintain
political correctness by placing decadent,
fedora-hatted Chinese men alongside coquettish
Chinese women in corrupt Shanghai during the
1930s, safely before the bloody purges by China's
late communist leader Mao Zedong. Other dramas are
set further ago, during China's ruling dynasties.
Science-fiction spaceships zip to other planets
where Chinese battle strange creatures amid
dazzling special effects and stunning computer
graphics.
China also absorbs Hollywood
films, dubbed into Chinese. But Jinghong's newly
constructed movie theater in a spiffy, two-story
mall attracted few people willing to pay 30 yuan
($US3.75) for a ticket to watch a
Mandarin-speaking Harry Potter and the Goblet
of Fire.
Jinghong's poor still eke out
hardscrabble lives in brick hovels and dank homes,
working in grimy factories and cramped shops and
driving rickety, rattling tractors for
agricultural tasks.
Many Chinese still
loudly cough up mucous and spit it out in public
with annoying frequency. But throughout this
small, modernizing town, cell phones are common,
and many people drive new, Chinese-made cars.
Residents window-shop for locally produced
clothes, which often juxtapose punk, futuristic,
stone-wash, fur, and plain bad taste, all in the
same outfit.
A lone teenager slinks by
wearing baggy pants, a ski cap and sweat shirt,
copying the MTV look with made-in-China threads,
but having nowhere hip to go. In some shops,
Minnie Mouse adorns bra cups. Betty Boop appears
on knee-socks. But American icons are rare among
the latest Chinese animated characters and other
illustrations printed on this season's clothing.
Self-conscious about what defines the good
life, most advertisements in shops and boutiques
display larger-than-life photos of Caucasian men
and women. Wily entrepreneurs manipulate the lures
of impulse buying, because Chinese covet many of
the same items as their counterparts in the West.
Feeding Jinghong's seemingly insatiable
quest for shoes, countless shops display endless
racks of wall-mounted Chinese tennis shoes, high
heels, dress shoes and other trendy footwear that
blatantly rip off designs by Nike, Reebok, Hush
Puppies, Church and other foreign brands.
McDonald's has not yet arrived in
Jinghong, capital of Xishuangbanna prefecture, but
copycat local restaurants sell hamburgers, French
fries and Coca-Cola alongside fast food dishes of
pork, noodles, chicken, rice and other Chinese
favorites. The night market offers traditional
fare, including glistening brains, live squiggly
larvae, fried frog on a stick and majestic-looking
fungus.
Similar to American and European
cities, many public walls are smeared with
graffiti. But in a land where dissent and cults
are punished, most sprayed scrawls merely list
12-digit telephone numbers.
"People paint
their phone numbers on walls all over the city
because they want to sell something, such as
furniture, or clothes, or a motorcycle," a
waitress explained, gesturing at several hurriedly
painted numbers. "If you look next to some of the
numbers, there are Chinese characters written,
describing what is for sale."
Most of the
graffiti suffers the insult of having one digit
blackened by a competitor, ruining chances that a
customer might call. Fresh 12-digit numbers
promise alternatives.
The government,
meanwhile, hopes to make money from a pathetic,
segregated, human theme park. The "state grade
AAAA scenic spot and a noted tourist brand name in
China" displays some of Yunnan's minority ethnic
Dai tribe, in Ganlanba town, 25 kilometers east of
Jinghong.
According to the shaky English
in its brochure, the so-called Dai Garden includes
"five natural Dai villages joining together and
forming an integral whole with the Dai culture and
customs accumulated for over 1,000 years".
Authorities built a wall around the small,
simple villages and its temples, and charge
Chinese and foreign tourists to enter for a
stroll. "Every afternoon from 3:20 to 5:00, over
100 beautiful Dai girls would give you a grand
song and dance performance rich in the Dai
flavor," the brochure promises. During the
performance, Dai females splash water on visitors,
which "make you wet from top to toe, and happy all
your life, as well as leave you a lingering
impression on your mind".
Dai villagers,
who live in wooden houses raised off the ground by
thick beams, dodge photographers but sell cheap
souvenirs. One Dai vendor, after making a sale,
tried to lure more business by mischievously
whipping out a thick magazine illustrated with
nude Chinese females in rural settings.
Jinghong's bookshops also sell such
publications, usually titled "Human Body Art", or
other euphemisms, to avoid anti-pornography laws.
Lest anyone forget which country they are in, the
books are available next to large, wall-hanging,
2006 calendars portraying 12 versions of Mao.
Richard S Ehrlich is a
Bangkok-based journalist from San Francisco,
California. He has reported news from Asia since
1978 and is co-author of Hello My Big Big
Honey!, a non-fiction book of investigative
journalism. He received a master's degree from
Columbia University's Graduate School of
Journalism.
