Born from flowers: Mao and the Dalai Lama

Tibet is a region much bigger than the autonomous administrative region called as such. It expands basically across most of himalayas and the plateau north east of the mountain chain.

In north Yunnan, most people speak tibetan and consider themselves as tibetan more than as chinese. Yet most of them don't need to hate Mao Tse Dong to love the Dalai Lama, even if History gave each of them quite conflicting purpose (Mao brought back Tibet into China in 1949 and followingly he did his best to crush tibetan culture, forcing the supreme authority of Tibetan Buddhism into exile in 1959).



I was trekking there with Gu San, a local guide, and as we went past some beautiful wild flowers, one of his friend accompanying us said very seriously in Tibetan that both the Dalai Lama and Mao were the kind of people born from flowers.

He was clearly granting as much respect to both. As a matter of fact, earlier that day, we saw in the private temple of the house of Gu San, two pictures sitting next to each other, respectively of Mao and the Dalai Lama (while this is strictly forbidden to have and show portrait of the buddhist leader in China!).

Gu San explained it by saying that to old tibetan generations and for some of the least educated, Mao remains as the man who abolished slavery (which a majority of tibetan were into), and of course the Dalai Lama is still considered as the supreme religious authority despite the PRC efforts to make him fall in oblivion.

Yao Ming, my anti japanese hero

As a frenchman I was disserting and overintellectualising why Zidane was a hero in the mythological sense of the word. In between men and gods: too good just to be another human being, yet failing to reach perfection unlike gods.

Hence his headbutt to Materrazzi during the last worldcup final, turning him into a hero.

After endless explanations and details, I asked back my chinese fellow xplorer Melody, who was closest to a hero status in China according to her.

'Yao Ming for sure'
'What made him a Hero?'
'He once made a press statement where he commited himself to never advertise any japanese brand'

Things change fast in China, but the inertia of History is strong...



Nb: For those that are not into basketball, Yao Ming is a major NBA player and the symbol of the emergence of global chinese stars (a title he shares with Liu Xiang, world champion of 110m hurdles... and the everlasting Jackie Chan; these three being used and overused as endorsers by a dozen major chinese and western brands each)

Yo!

Small Town, Big Ambition

After traveling on highway and country road for around 6 hours by bus (normally it should take us 3 hours but the heavy rain in Chongqing caused serious traffic jam), we arrived in a small town named Zhu Tuo.

Zhu Tuo, with about eighty thousands inhabitants is built around two parallel main roads only, 20 minutes’ walk at most from one end to another for each of them. One is the old bumpy stone road, with traditional houses made of old brick with tiled roofs. The other is the cement road, developed 3 years ago, along which are standardized newly built 5 storeys apartment buildings with balconies.

You move from one to the other in a few second, feeling like your traveling through times in a Society that suddenly switched from status quo to fast change. Then right on the bypath heading from the old road to the new one, a sign in-between dragged my attention. The sign leads to a 200-meter street with tiled floor. On both sides of the street are stores mainly selling fashionable clothes and daily necessities. On the sign was written ‘Pedestrian Street’.

In a remote town rarely having crowd shopping and vehicles going by, here is a local government suddenly willing to turn the small town into a big city in no time.

This post is courtesy of Melody Zhu

Different generations, different worlds…

Sui Mei Jie*, 32-year-old, mum of 2 kids, not giving her name until asked.
Wang Wen Ting, 22-year-old, fresh graduate, spontaneously introducing herself as Angela.
They are relatives – aunt and niece. They both were born and grew up in the countryside (not from the same province though), and later moved to big cities to seek for more opportunities.
But behind their similarities, what differentiate them says a lot about how the attitude to life of country side Chinese women is evolving.

Following the steps in life vs Choosing her own life
Mei got married at 26, giving birth to two kids– a 5 years old daughter and a 3 years old son. She complains how naughty the two kids are, especially the boy she finds too hard to control. She felt surprised when asked if she ever had considered not having kids: ‘that is how life should be, growing up, getting married and having kids’.
Her niece, Angela gives a totally different answer. To herwhat matters most is to have her own career and be financially independent. She doesn’t think of getting married, not mentioning having her own kid. Maybe she’s too young? But girls at her age in her hometown already did both not so long ago.

Fatalistic vs Proactive
Seven years ago, Mei heard that Dongguan (one of the main manufacturing cities in Guangdong province, which itself is the heart of the Made in China) was quickly growing with many factories settling down. So she came to Dongguan with her husband, to make a better living. They did benefit from the fast growing economy at the earlier time, however, the cost of living has been growing much higher in the last two years, while salary level remained stable. How does she feel about that? She just shakes her head and replies, ‘There are no other ways’. She just accept the tracks she put her life on and seems to show little commitment in trying to react to the situation.
Angela came to Chongqing four years ago to obtain higher education. She believed that better education could help her better survive in the fast changing society. Being a fresh graduate from Chongqing University, she has been working full time as sales in a local internet company for 8 months. There was not many assignment in the last semester so she wants to move to gain more work experience else where. She is thinking of quitting the job in 2-3 months and go to Dongguan to seek new opportunities. She thought she could learn more advanced knowledge there and work in what she describes as a more professional environment. She is even ready to see her salary reduced in the short term because it’s more competitive there. But she knows she can over compensate in the long term.

Finally, when asked if she would recommend to Angela to go to Dongguan, Mei refuses to give her opinion. ‘I don’t want to be responsible for her going there’. Once again two opposed attitudes to life reflecting changes in mentalities over the past ten years in China.

We will keep in touch with Angela and Mei, and see them again in DongGuan in a couple of months.


*Sui Mei Jie is the woman described in the previous ‘So Be It’ post

This post is courtesy of Melody Zhu

The ad that every chinese remember

In every country there is an ad that everybody seems to remember as they saw it yesterday, even when it has not been broadcasted for years. Here is what we heard about when we asked in Shanghai and Chongqing about people's favorite ads...



By the way, Nippon Paint is a Singaporian brand, not a japanese one...