Posted 10:39 AM by Gobbler
"...Serve the people whole-heartedly and never for a moment divorce ourselves from the masses." Chairman Mao Zedong, 'On Calition Government', April 24th, 1945

Friday night turned into quite a sticky affair in Yangzhou, city of dreams and involved, as friday nights are wont to do, a superabundance of alcoholic beverages. What is important to us here though is not principally the riotous time enjoyed by all, which can be summed up quite adequately as 'a riotous time enjoyed by all', but some bloke whom we met. Named Rob he was out for a few days in Yangzhou, a 'provincial town' (damn cheek) doing some research for Reuters before he returned to the cosmopolitan safehaven of Shanghai. Besides being a confessed and dedicated alcoholic he had some interesting things to say about Chinese peasants, their view of it all, and the inevitable and impending collapse of Communism in these here Chinese parts.

But stop. Its seems a bit ridiculous, but Im not sure i should be writing this. The secret police are on to me, they are monitoring my blog, they are watching my every move through tiny cameras hidden in my shoelaces and secreted about my room. Any minute now, or at any rate some time tonight while i am sleeping, they will burst into my room, confiscate my possessions and expel me from China for being a disturber of the peace or enemy of the state or some such drivel. I will be officially what i beleive they call a persona non grata.

Of course this will not happen, at least it is most unlikely, but what is interesting is that the idea has even occurred to me. I am hesitant to blog something that casts the whole getup here in China in a disparaging light, reveals an image of the beast that is not at all encouraging. Sure, I can waffle away to kingdom come about what i have been up to on my latest bicycle ride or trip to the park (incidentally did you know that Yangzhou park has a zoo in it as well as all the other great stuff?) but posit the idea that the Chinese State Apparatus has actively and willfully severed itself from its ideological roots over the last few decades and that, as a result, the Great Peoples Party, a construct of such grotesquely behemothic proportions, is now almost entirely without foundation and will crumble with astounding speed and destruction the moment a mere tremor rocks the earth about it. That at least is the theory. And now that i have started with it, Secret Police or no Secret Police, extradition or otherwise, I may as well press on. But just think for a moment. If I was in the UK i would have no such qualms, however temporary, about making such pessimistic comments about the government. on the contrary, i would probably have got so excited, as seems to happen in the UK, in criticising and slagging off what I had originally deemed the issue (in this case government) that I should probably have moved on to the monarchy and ended up with more general problems such as illegal immigrants and the latest plot turns in Eastenders. But Im not in the UK so lets stick to the issue in hand: China, the Chinese and their government.

Rob speaks fluent mandarin and has been going round Jiansu province talking to people about whatever issue it is that he is currently concerned with. The issue that concerns this blog is different; it is what the peasants have been saying to Rob. The ones he can understand, that is. He is, apparently, something of a magnet for disgruntled, miserable peasants, many of whom waste no time delivering to him an account of general misery that is the story of their lives. It seems that practically to a man the countryside peasants are miserable, dejected, demoralised. They hear stories about their country growing richer but precisely nothing happens to improve their lot. On the contrary, in real terms, due to the overall economic growth of the country versus the absolute stagnation of theirs, they are growing poorer in real terms, an impressive result for people who were penniless to begin with. Appeals by post to government fall on deaf ears and receive no reply. Appeals to local government is futile because it doesnt exist in any efficable form. What exists is some local leader who acts autonomously in his own area, much like a feudal lord or tribal chief, who doesnt give a rats arse about the people moaning below him. Theoretically he acts in the interests of the people in his pseudo-fiefdom but no system appears to be in place to ensure this and the local leader usually acts on the discovery that he can live a lot more pleasantly if he ignores everyone else. So the peasant is shoved firmly up that well known creek without that typically elusive paddle. Rob had talked to peasants who had, in their desperation, attended rallies to bring attention to their plight. Rallies are not taken well in China, it is illegal, and they always get arrested for their crime. They are supposed to go through the established channels of government, but as explained these vital links are often blocked by the stinking barrier of corruption, and there is no avenue of assistance left open to them. Thus there is nothing they can do, their situation shows no sign of improvement and all the while the country grows rich around them. They are not blind and deaf, they know this full well, and they know further that, for some reason that does not and could never make sense to them, they have been left out in the countryside to rot. Perhaps the next generation will see some improvement in fortunes but for them all they can look forward to is to live out their lives as virtual serfs in order that the country can continue to grow rich on their behalf.

And this is happening in Jiang su province, one of the very richest in China. What of the others, the millions of others, hundreds of millions in fact, who still live in conditions uniformly unchanged since before the glorious peoples revolution 55 years ago? Ok so theres no problem as long as they dont know any better, but wont they find out one day? Especially with the rapidly improving infrastructure allowing quick movement of people and information. And when they find out, mayent they be a trifle upset at the Chinese businessmen in Shanghai, Beijing and elsewhere, each of whom has more money than tens of thousands of them put together? Wont they think that someone has played a very dirty trick on them by allowing such progress to occur without even so much as giving them running water or electricity, that that someone is those who run the 'Peoples Republic' that they live in, and decide to get their own back? That would be half a billion and more irate people. By what rationale could the government suppress that sort of rally? Arrest them? It would be 'Bye-bye, and thanks for all the rice.' No wonder the govt is, i hear, trying to shift 100s of millions into the cities. God knows what theyre mgoing to do there. Make a lot more crap plastic things for us to buy i suppose.

Let me be perfectly clear about something, my dear Comrade Secret Policeman Liu, this is not my view. I find it interesting, it appears a possibly but I do not advocate it. But it made an interesting conversation, and if i was one of those peasants I dont suppose i would be voting CCP at the next election.

Posted 11:58 AM by Gobbler
The Dinner Party

It was a Tuesday, as days often are. i find that they most usually crop up about once a week, (although sometimes it seems oftener) and this Tuesday was no particular exception. No exception at all in fact. Well, of course I say that it was no exception, but in a way it was exceptional, but not simply through virtue of it being a Tuesday. As Tuesdays go it was an entirely uniform Tuesday, I daresay it was just like most other Tuesday, as and when they occur; it was what happened on Tuesday that was exceptional and not the day itself. It all began at a little after half past three in the afternoon.

"By jingo!" I remarked to Rubrick, who is by now sufficently well accustomed to wierd English people to understand such ridiculous phrases, "Lets have a dinner party!" And so we did.

After the recent relative successes of our two culinary creations 'Yin guo chiao fan' (English fried rice) and Yin guo chiao mein (English fried noodles) we went for a more cosmopolitan 'NATO chiao fan' (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation fried rice) to take into account the fact that Rubrick isnt very english. As I was head chef the process of realisin the dream of a gastronomic masterpiece essentially involved putting large quantities of disperate ingredients(meat, veg, rice, condiments, spices, powders, sauces etc) into a wok and cooking them for a bit. Six came to dinner, including Bill the Waiban, and it was from here that the problems stemmed.

Bill arrived, took one slightly shocked look in the wok and immediately asked where the other dishes were. I had little luck in attempting to explain to the troubled Chinaman that one dish was really quite enough if of suitably epic proportions, and it became clear that he was not grasping the fundamentals of what i was saying when he looked in the fridge then the microwave then elsewhere for these illusive and indeed elusive other dishes saying in condescending, (you might even say sententious tones) "Oh Nick, one dish not enough. Where you put other dish? I hungry." No more dishes appeared, he looked most disconcerted. But, happily for our little story, far worse was to come.

Imagine, if you will, going over to a friends for dinner. This is not a common thing nor is it some kind of huge do. The food is largely quite unpleasant and the cooking will afterwards be described as something of a disaster. At the time of the party do you A) Declare loudly and with feeling that you cannot remember tasting anything quite so disgusting and that you must remember never to accept such an invitation to dinner again.
B) Satiate your disgust of the food and the whole affair by slighting it with lashings and lashings of the coarsest sarcasm so as to make it clear that the whole thing has been a disaster but that you dont really mind.
C) Keep stum, plough on, offer polite and encouraging remarks such as "mmm, a great effort, very good, mmm"

Probably you will opt for C. Not so Bill, who seemed so determined to douse the proceedings with spite and contempt that he could not make up his mind between between options A) and B), such that at one moment he would declare with a heavy and acrid sarcasm "Oh! This delicious! How did you do it? Why you not work in restaurant?" and the next moment ridicule the effort "Nick and Rubrick, you not chefs. Why did you not buy the food from the restaurant downstairs? then it would taste nice." to only a few seconds later poke a little more fun with "Ok, I finished. I cant eat any more, its so delicious. I keep the rest to look at it to remind me how delicious it is." His piece de resistance was getting his girfriend to turn up with some food she had picked up on the way...

Absolutely charming.

No more dinner parties for him.

And you know it wasnt even that bad. It wasnt outstandingly delicious but it wasnt unpleasant. At least thats what Jon, Chris and Caroline said, although of course they mauy have opted for option C as noted above. But rubers and I thought it was entirely tolerable, and our tastebuds cant be that bad, can they? A part of me wanted to throw the ungrateful little turd out of the window. Im not sure how rubrick felt, he remained quietly aloof as usual. In the end I took the view that his unwarranted mini-tirade was character forming and all part of lifes rich tapestry. I shall throw the impertinent sod out of the window the next time.

And that was Tuesday, much like tomorrow. As its been a week since there was blog, there is still wed, thur, fri, sat, sun and mon to be covered. But not tonight.