The Shay Rebellion | Christopher Shay

I have a short first person account of the military presence in Xinjiang up on the Far Eastern Economic Review website.

It’s my second piece for FEER, but this is the first that you don’t need a subscription to read.

The Epic of Manas is twenty times the length of the Iliad and Odyssey combined. The hero, Manas, is a Luke Skywalker type hero to the Kyrgyz people: a quasi-magical protagonist that united a people against a vast empire a long long time ago. There are still Kyrgyz people whose sole occupation is to recount Manas’ rebellion against the Uighur Empire twelve centuries ago.

In contrast, the city of Manas is neither epic nor vast and is still largely Uighur. What brought me to this ho-hum Xinjiang town? Suntime Wine–China’s drinkable wine–has its headquarters in Manas. While on the bus ride to Manas, I found out that the interview I was depending on for my wine article fell through–China wouldn’t let me interview anybody, even for a soft piece on the future of the Chinese wine industry. I was left in a small town, regretting my decision to have come when I could’ve spent a night in a yurt next to the aptly named Heavenly Lake.

But it’s amazing how much difference a beer, three skewers of spiced lamb, and a walk can make. Manas was my first foray into a small Uighur city, and I was a rare American. The taxi-driver communicated to me that he’d driven French people before but never an American. The waitress tried to flirt with me in her very limited English—it involved mostly very attentive service and lots of giggling. The cook grabbed my notebook and tried to make sense of it by staring at the Roman alphabet as if it were a Magic Eye. A student, who’ll be attending university in Sichuan next year, walked with me across town just to practice his English. Once I relaxed, I realized that Manas provided exactly what I wanted from this trip, even if the stories were hardly epic.

I received an email from Princeton in Asia. They’ve offered me a position at a daily paper—

—in Cambodia.

I’d already decided I was going to stay in Hong Kong. I was absolutely sure. I’d made great friends, had great experiences, and even had a roommate lined up. I wasn’t ready to leave.

But, a job as a reporter at the Phnom Penh Post is just too good of a career opportunity, too good of an adventure to pass up. Plus, I hear one can watch the Tonle Sap River change colors at sunset from one’s choice of beer gardens.

I’ll be sad to leave Hong Kong, but I’m looking forward to hosting couch-surfing visitors in Phnom Penh. See you in Cambodia!

The Xinjiang Autonomous Museum focused on two things: Xinjiang’s history and its minorities. Unfortunately, the these two aspects of the region are kept completely separate from each other.

The Xinjiang Autonomous Museum is in a beautiful, newly renovated building with all the ingredients of a world class museum: impressive textiles, well-preserved mummies, and even a two thousand year old mooncake. But, the presentation of its wide-array of artifacts illustrated not just the Party line but also one of the ways minorities in China are disempowered by the presentation of an incomplete history.

The first exhibit to the left of the entrance is simply entitled, “The Minorities.” The exhibit is chocked full of beautiful textiles and hand-crafted instruments. Of course, the information about these groups is rather sparse. Even with new English translations, the only thing that comes across is that minorities really like to sing, dance, and wear colorful costumes. There are no words devoted to the history of the groups or dates on the pieces of art. Minorities in China, it seems, are completely ahistorical. Uighurs like to dance in circles, and Russians play the accordion—the way it has always been.

This is lack of history is further emphasized by the exhibit across the hall: “The History of Xinjiang.” In it, there is no discussion of minority ethnic groups, but the information placard does regularly include non sequiturs about how for over two thousand years Xinjiang has been an inexorable part of China. After all, there is a two thousand year old mooncake.

With this manipulation of history, it should be no surprise that many Han Chinese see Xinjiang’s minorities, in particular its Uighur population, as ungrateful. The PRC is pouring money in Xinjiang, and many Hans don’t understand what the minorities have to be unhappy about.

One Chinese tourist told me that Uighurs are “the blacks of China. He meant this in an extremely negative way—but perhaps unintentionally, he has a point. Some Americans, consciously or subconsciously, think of American blacks as being preternaturally attracted to music and dance. Some Americans even think of blacks as ungrateful for what America has given them. Some of this came out in veiled language during the Reverend Wright debacle.

The United States is getting better—Obamania is one example of increasing tolerance. One reason for this improvement is the reinsertion of black figures into the teaching of American history. Increasingly, African-American history is not placed in a separate exhibit focusing on their musical and kinesthetic prowess, but rather, it is included as part of American history. An understanding of the successes and failures of the Civil Rights movement or the Black Power movement is necessary to understanding current day activism in any field. Today, WEB Dubois is taught to every Columbia student right between Nietzsche and Freud—and, the philosophical disagreements between him and Marcus Garvey are still being played out in minority politics. To know history is to know that it—whatever “it” is—can be done and what methods have been used in the past. It’s to know where people have been wronged and done wrong, and how the residues of this still affect policy. It’s to know that people can bring about change.

In Xinjiang, however, these understandings don’t look likely across any wide section of the population. China’s smart to focus on controlling the presentation of its history. The PRC’s claim to Xinjiang rests on the idea that the region has always been part of China or at least since the first century BC. A knowledge of the role minorities groups and leaders have played through the millennia would surely undermine this notion. For China, it’s best to show minorities as friendly people who enjoy dancing and not to bring attention to Xinjiang’s history of actual autonomous control by people labeled as minorities.

As I read Shadow of the Silk Road—a recent travel book by Colin Thubron where he traces an ancient trading route from China to the Mediterranean—I was struck by what didn’t match up with my own entrance into Xinjiang. Before Thubron embarks on his trip to Xinjiang, he meets a young Chinese man who warns that the train stations are full of “drifters and criminals,” and he must not go out at night. Thubron’s lesson from this chat: Xinjiang is a scary, exotic place even for the Chinese.

My students, on the other hand, are enthusiastic about my trip: “Great mountains and great minorities!” one student told me. Even the vice-president of Shue Yan University showed me his photos of Xinjiang that line the walls of his office. He even recommended that I go the swan reserve.

Sitting next to me on my plane from Shenzhen was not Thubron’s young man afraid of the people of Western China, but a young, Chinese lady who lived in Xinjiang. She wore a lovely perfume and matched her pale blue skirt and blouse to her dangly earrings. This was somebody who would fit in with my hippest Hong Kong students—not the exotic figure anticipated in Thubron’s book.

In Shadow of the Silk Road, Thubron discusses the role Xinjiang plays in the Chinese imaginary. It was considered a place filled with barbarians; after all, the Great Wall was built to keep them out. Though threatening to Han Chinese, Thubron paints a portrait that the minorities are now poor and disgruntled. In a section that makes Xinjiang sound a little like a people zoo, Thubron writes that the province is full of “threatened minorities.” Unlike the previous impression Thubron gives, this one is backed up by my students’ comments: “great minorities!”

But on the plane to Urumqi, I was the only minority; everybody else on the place was Han Chinese. Getting off the plane I hardly found the city that “still stokes the imagination of the Chinese population.” Urumqi, the capitol of China’s Wild West, is more like modern Denver crossed with New Jersey than Denver during the Gold Rush.

Xinjiang’s history would be exhausting to memorize. Parts of the current day Xinjiang have been captured and recaptured by Hans, Huns, and Hephthalites; Turks, Tokharians, and Tibetans; Yanqis, Yarkands, and Yuezhis. But never in its long history has the area been so sinicized. Urumqi is a lovely Han city not unlike other Chinese cities.

Maybe all of Xinjiang was once considered exotic, but today, there are more Han Chinese than Uighurs. Xinjiang has become part of the domestic tourism circuit—and why not? It has beautiful mountains, lakes, deserts, and—of course—“great minorities.”

In the early days of photography, many people claimed that photographs could never be art. In response, early photographers both consciously and unconsciously imitated Renaissance painting and sculpture—sometimes even going as far as dressing their models in togas. After all, that is what was considered art. It wasn’t for fifty years after the fixed image that photographers began to take full advantage of the medium and create a distinct aesthetic.

If you’ve ever watched the Honeymooners, a show from the mid 1950s starring Jackie Gleason, you see the same phenomenon. Television was relatively new, and people had yet to unlock its full potential. The can lighting, simple sets, fixed audience perspective, and exaggerated physical expressions had more in common with theatre and vaudeville than later television shows that the Honeymooners inspired.

It’s not that all of early photography or the Honeymooners was bad art—quite the contrary—but they show that it takes time to figure out what to do with new media technology. It should be no surprise then that people are still struggling to wrap their minds around the internet.

On Friday, I attended the 6th annual Chinese Internet Conference hosted by the University of Hong Kong, which explored different understandings and uses of the internet in China. The conference included business advisors, journalists, famous bloggers, and academics, and at times, people were just throwing out ideas to see what stuck. In some ways, the Conference was in the Honeymooners stage; there were some great ideas and insights, but people—bloggers excluded—stuck in the language of the past.

There was one presentation in particular that brought to mind early photography and the Honeymooners. Lokman Tsui, a grad student at the University of Pennsylvania, argued that the term “the Great Firewall”—the regime of internet censorship in China—was actually a continuation of Cold War ideology, a sort of “Iron Curtain 2.0.” Tsui pointed to proposed American laws aimed against against the “Great Firewall” that tried to prevent internet “jamming.” “Jamming,” of course, is a radio metaphor; one cannot “jam” the internet. The words, Tsui argued, politicize the American understanding of the internet.

So why does it matter that American understanding of the internet in China is informed by the Cold War? If early photos can sell for millions and the Honeymooners can be ranked the #3 greatest TV show, perhaps a Cold War radio analogy can be useful for understanding and implementing internet policy—especially for our less tech savvy members of Congress. Our notion of the internet is already moving away from Cold War radio analogies. Young people today may never even listen to an AM/FM radio ever again. They may only understand the influence of Cold War era Voice of America in terms of internet analogies. Surely, we’ll develop a new language for the internet and internet regulation. It just takes time.

Also, if not the “Great Firewall” then what term is better? Tsui’s response was hardly satisfying: “As an academic, I’m good at putting up problems.” That’s akin to noticing a photograph of person in a toga standing on marble pedestal has something in common with Renaissance sculpture. It’s nice that someone noticed, but it doesn’t push us any closer to developing a new language of the internet.

Other possibilities to use in lieu of “the Great Firewall”? Gamers in China apparently compare internet regulation to controlling the supply of “digital opium,” but my personal favorite was put forward by Jeremy Goldkorn of danwei, calling internet censorship in China a “net nanny.” It’s a cute moniker that better reflects the feelings of many using the internet in China. Here’s hoping that the term sticks.

After she finished her exam, she handed me a bottle filled with 128 hand-folded origami stars. It would bring me good luck, my student explained.

On Friday morning, I really wanted some good fortune. Not sure how to properly activate a bottle of lucky stars, I rubbed it; I kissed it; I even uncorked it and sniffed it to better absorb the luck fumes.

In the taxi to the interview, there was a two dollar coin on the floor. I resisted the urge to pick it up. In Hong Kong, the two dollars would be considered the property of a ghost. Taking the money could lead to bad fortune, and that morning especially, I wanted Hong Kong’s ghosts on my side.

But while waiting for the job interview to start, I realized that I’d forgotten to wear red underwear, which is considered lucky in Hong Kong.

Yesterday, they informed me the job went to my friend—this, despite the fact I was wearing my red boxers when they called. I did everything I could to get the position. Well almost. Next time, I will bring the stars with me to the job interview.

In 1902, Rainer Maria Rilke went to the zoo and wrote about a panther pacing in his cage. Though Rilke’s panther has a “great will,” so long as he’s trapped, the desires that exist deep in his limbs can never be realized. There are moments when one can see the tension in the panther’s body and his eyes dilate with memories of freedom—reminders of the elegance and ferociousness of a liberated panther, reminders of what could be.

Tonight, four us—all men—went to see Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 played by the Hong Kong Baptist University Orchestra. Nearly every week, a group us guys goes to a classical music concert, and as we teach ourselves about the music, we bond over our shared experiences. I’ve dubbed us “the Mahler Men,” and I had high hopes for this concert.

Written in the two decades before Rilke’s poem, Mahler’s first symphony is full of instructions that could describe Rilke’s pacing panther—”dragging like a sound of nature,” “solemn and measured”—as well as possible descriptions of an uncaged panther: “tempestuous,” “vigorous,” “with great ferocity.”

But at this performance the panther never escaped. Like the poem, there were moments of tension, and there were places where I could see great ferocity. Though there were a few missteps notably in a bass solo and in the brass section, what really separated this performance from an inspiring, professional one was the inability to let the cat out.

Unlike Rilke’s panther, who never tried to leave the cage, the orchestra attempted to free the music. But to play with great ferocity doesn’t just mean to play loudly, one has to play fearlessly.

Sure, it was a disappointing concert, but it was also the first classical concert where I could confidently point to specific moments and aspects of the performance that should have been better. I actually knew when they messed up. Oddly, it felt good. It’s exciting to have proof that you’re learning. You don’t need to be an expert to enjoy classical music, but it’s fun to know that the contrabassoon player had a great performance. I mean it’s cool enough just to know what a contrabassoon is.

Why didn’t I think of it before? Priya Venkatesan taught a required first year writing course at Dartmouth, which means she and I taught very similar courses, and I have to give her credit I never could’ve come up with her idea. Priya Venkatesan threatened to sue her students for criticizing her. She sent her class an email:

… I regret to inform you that I am pursuing a lawsuit in which I am accusing some of you (whom shall go unmentioned in this email) of violating Title VII of anti-federal [SIC] discrimination laws…

It’s brilliant. First off, this a good technique to make your students pay attention: “Hey class, pay attention and agree with me, or I’ll sue you.” Plus, they’ll be too busy freaking out to notice the grammar errors in the email. Apparently, the students disrespected Venkatesan by being intolerant of her views. Unfortunately for academia, the press has called her views “post-modern” and part of “French narrative theory,” rather than the more accurate label—stupid. If I had followed her example, I could have waltzed into class and said anything I wanted, and my students would’ve been forced to listen to me. There’d be no need to lesson plan.

Second, she reportedly missed about three weeks of class and stopped grading papers. Think of all the free time I’d have to travel around Asia if I didn’t have to lesson plan, attend class, or grade papers. I could learn to cook, spend time learning Chinese, or maybe even take massage lessons. Now it turns out that Dartmouth is making her class pass/fail. This means she didn’t need to do any grading at all. Her entire class is passing. For every hour of class there is about three hours grading, and Venkatesan found a way to around this whole system. Supposedly, she has left Dartmouth and is now at Northwestern, another elite university.

If you read her students’ reviews, they clearly hated her. But on the bright side, she’s writing a book about the whole experience. I could even imagine the autobiography of a delusional crackpot academic selling well. Her emailed finished:

… I am also writing a book detailing my experiences as your instructor, which will “name names” so to speak. I have all of your evaluation and these will be reproduced in the book.

Have a nice day.

Priya

Have a nice day, indeed.

I learned most of my Chinese history from playing Nintendo.

Before the age of ten, my neighbor and I had familiarized ourselves with the names of the important figures in China during the second and third centuries. Liu Bei, Sun Quan, Cao Cao, Cao Ren, and Cao Pi—we knew ‘em all. Combined, we spent countless hours and (our parents’) dollars playing Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a role-playing game where you attempted to unify China. Somehow—even without Wikipedia or the internet—we learned a bit of the actual history. Though, we always chose to play as the Cao family not for any historic reason, but because we thought Cao Pi—and this provided hours of entertainment—was pronounced “Cow Pie.” Come to think of it, the idea of “Cow Pie” conquering China is still funny.

I bring this up, because at dinner with some of my students, Romance of the Three Kingdoms came up in conversation. It turns out it’s an important historical novel based on actual events—not just an era acting as fodder for video games. Wanting to come off as more knowledgeable than I actually was, I asked a few educated questions: “Now, I know Cao Pi was Cao Cao’s son but how was Cao Ren related to Cao Cao again?” I impressed a couple people—briefly—but then someone inevitably asked how I knew the plot of a massive tome written in the 14th century. Sheepishly, I had to admit that I learned it from a video game.

But, they had too! While I learned my Chinese history from the first RotTK, a couple of my students learned from the much more sophisticated ninth installment of the game. It doesn’t sit completely right with me for a generation of people to learn Chinese history from a Japanese video game, but if you’re going to play video games anyways you might as well learn something that you can later teach your English teacher. Right?