Ultimate Tian’anmen dissident speaks from the grave, but who will listen?

May 16, 2009 | Category: China, Internet censorship, politics | 1 Comment

[Originally written for my "Reporter's Notebook," i.e., blog, at GlobalPost]

China watchers have been abuzz all day with news of a forthcoming book, “Prisoner of the State,” based on tapes secretly recorded by Zhao Ziyang, the former head of the Chinese Communist Party who was stripped of power and placed under house arrest after opposing the military crackdown in Tian’anmen Square in 1989.

Media large and small have greeted the book with blanket converage, including a fulsome review by Paul Mooney in the Far Eastern Economic Review and an impressive presentation of the tape recordings (with transcripts in Chinese and English) on the Washington Post website. While some in China will surely try to label the book a hoax, the tapes appear to be authentic.

zhaobook

[For those dismayed at the attention the book has received, suffice it to say that Zhao is considered a mensch by many who followed his career (no small feat for a Chinese government official) and there was considerable worry after he died that he had taken his insights to the grave.]

There’s no point in re-hashing all that’s been written about the book already. But I feel compelled to note it here because we are fast approaching the 20th anniversary of the Tian’anmen Square crackdown (June 4) and Zhao—or rather, Zhao’s death—is what first started me thinking seriously about how the event is remembered, and not remembered, inside China itself.

Zhao died in January of 2005, apparently after suffering multiple strokes while under house arrest. I recall it vividly because the day after he died I found myself sitting in a classroom with several Chinese journalists on the UC Berkeley campus, listening to a lecture on media in China. One of the journalists was slightly older and visbly shaken by the news. It emerged he had been on the square, a college student protesting for democracy, in 1989. When the professor asked him to offer his thoughts on Zhao, he made to talk, then covered his face and offered a muffled apology.

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Tags: book, CCP, China, dissident, history, propaganda, protest

Beijing by way of Nashville by way of Sichuan: Abigail Washburn

February 11, 2009 | Category: China | 3 Comments

This one’s been a long time in coming. Abby is one of that rare but thankfully growing species of artist bridging the Pacific from West to East. She’s probably most famous in the US for her collaboration with Bela Fleck (who appears in the video), but she’s better known over here as the girl who actually, against all odds, made Mandarin bluegrass work. I originally filmed this in August for the Wall Street Journal, but it got lost in the post-Olympics, pre-Election shift away from China coverage. Luckily the GlobalPost took to the story and decided to put it up.

Abby makes a powerful argument both for and against “world music” (a genre I have to say I’ve never much liked): “It’s such an interesting phrase…because it really represents fusion music. It’s about taking this aspect of Arabic culture and this aspect of Eastern European culture [and throwing them together], whereas I think the future of global music is in having human beings spread across two cultures, or several cultures, and combining the music internally before it even comes out.”

I certainly hope so.

Enjoy.

Her website is here. And the website for Casey Driessen, the mind-blowing fiddle player who also appears in the video, is here.

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Tags: Art, beijing, bluegrass, culture, diplomacy, globalpost, Mandarin, music, Nashville, Sichuan

Mandarin Oriental: We Hardly New Ye

February 10, 2009 | Category: China, Media | Leave a Comment

I’d originally meant to post this photo on my “Reporter’s Notebook” (read: blog) over at GlobalPost, but then the post morphed into a story and the editors decided to go with more dramatic art. It’s true, I arrived a tad too late to see the real explosions. It was tremendously entertaining nonetheless (Note: I can say this without being an asshole because no one died, or at least, we think no one died, and anyway these days there’s a seems to be a sort of karmic justice in a building intended solely for the filthy rich going up in flames).

For those who want the full photographic story, fellow resident alien Caroline Killmer, who lives near the now crispy Rem Koolhaas creation, has a fine set of pics on her photoblog. She also posted a brief (but vivid) video to CNN’s iReport.

More of my photos here.

Multimedia: The Old School

February 2, 2009 | Category: Art, China, Media | 3 Comments

As a multimedia reporter, I admit I am occasionally given to bouts of smugness. I may get no respect from the grizzled guardians of old journalism, I tell myself in these moments, but I am the vanguard, the future—-the intrepid journalistic do-it-all wading into the torrent of 21st century technology to bring the world a new form of storytelling.

Or not, as it turns out.

This past Saturday was the last official day of China’s Spring Festival vacation. To mark the occasion, I went to Ditan Park in the northeast corner of old Beijing to catch the last day of the Spring Festival Temple Fair. I went with the vague hope of catching a Beijing Opera performance, which my neighbor told me was available this year. Instead, after twenty minutes jostling my way through the crowds, hands held boxer-like in front of my face to protect myself from the inflatable animals people were wielding like spears, I ran into the man pictured above, whose name (according the placard in the picture) is Chen Qihuan and whom I now humbly respect as a professional forebear.

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Tags: Art, beijing, multimedia, performance, Spring Festival, traditional culture

24 hours on a Chinese train, in pictures

January 27, 2009 | Category: China | Leave a Comment

Managed to get this little slide show up on the GlobalPost site just in time for Chinese New Year and the inevitable train scandal mayhem. Significantly, the photos come from a trip I took to Chengdu in December, on a train filled with people who’d decided to head home a month earlier than usual. There turned out to be two major reasons: 1) to avoid getting caught up in the aforementioned mayhem; and/or 2) to avoid getting swept out to sea in the financial crisis.

The fact that the global economy’s recent faceplant has forced hordes Chinese people to head home early isn’t news, but I think (or hope, at least) the photos shed some additional light on the story. As always, I invite your feedback. (Check out the full-sized version here and higher resolution versions of the photos here)

New Gig: Global Post

January 19, 2009 | Category: China, Media, politics | 3 Comments

It’s been a long time since I posted anything here and a big reason is a new job I’ve taken as the China multimedia correspondent for Global Post. For those who don’t know about it (and I imagine that’s most of you), GP is a new online news venture founded by Charlie Sennot, ex of the Boston Globe, and Phil Balboni, a journalism business whiz who made his name with New England Cable News. The idea is fill the gaping hole left with the closing of foreign news bureaus over the past few years. You can read more about it here and here.

My first report for them is a video on how people in Beijing see the United States in light of Barack Obama’s election victory, part of a series called “For Which It Stands” outlining the international challenges Obama will face once he takes the oath. Have a gander and let me know what you think:

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Tags: beijing, globalpost, obama, video

Friend’s refrigerator, 2 days before Thanksgiving…[UPDATED]

November 25, 2008 | Category: food | 3 Comments

Behold:

and photos from the actual meal here and here

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Tags: food, indulgence, refrigerator, thanksgiving, turkey

Photos of Art: Caochangdi/草场地

November 21, 2008 | Category: Art, China | 1 Comment

Just returned from a very mixed attempt at beach vacationing (Thailand, about which more later) and have now finally gotten around to posting some long overdue photos. This set is from a trip my girlfriend and I took a couple months ago to Caochangdi, the village outside Beijing commandeered by Chinese uber-artist Ai Weiwei as a supposed alternativre to the Soho-ification of the 798 Art Zone, née Factory 798. The village’s name (草场地, literally “Grass Field”) suggests a rusticity and Woodstocky spontaneity I’m not sure it has, but…well, see for yourself.

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Tags: beijing, photos, village

Obama + San Francisco = Bongorific

November 7, 2008 | Category: California, politics | 3 Comments

3 Comments | Permalink

Tags: 2008, election, obama, politics, san francisco, video

Video: Olympics Over

August 26, 2008 | Category: China, Media, Olympics | 6 Comments

As this video suggests, my tenure as a hired gun on the Wall Street Journal’s Olympics video team is essentially over. Three weeks lugging a camera around Beijing by day, staring dry-eyed and drooling at a computer by night…If only I were a full employee, I’d have the health insurance to pay the team of chiropractors and opthamologists I’m going to need to turn me back into a functioning human being after I pack up my gear and drag it back home.

Having said that, the pain had its pay-offs: We managed to produce 27 videos, more by far than any other US newspaper. And I now have a much clearer sense of what a strange dance these American titans of print are doing with multimedia. I’ll try to write more on that score after I’ve had a chance to recover…

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Tags: beijing, food, Fuwa, video, WSJ

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About the Author

Josh Chin is a freelance journalist based in Beijing. He also once worked as a sous chef in a French restaurant in San Francisco. Neither job has been good for his health.