Lao Ma, unlike you, spends most of his time waiting to die. He plays cards and thinksabout dying. He smokes a lot. He hangs out with his grandson — who doesn’t think so much about dying — and he looks for swans on Cao Zi Lake. But he spends the final weeks of his life worrying about what his family is going to do with him (his body, more exactly) after he dies. Lao Ma wants to be buried, not cremated, but the local government has banned burial, and requires cremation.
Director Li Ruijin, in his film Fly With the Crane 《告诉他们，我乘白鹤去了》, spins a wealth of emotional power into minute, concentrated doses, most of which are administered in the form of miraculously long, wide-angle shots that are like visual treatments for your various reservations about morality and the relentless walk of time. But his story is rather simple: Lao Ma’s fellow retiree, friend, and card-playing partner dies, gets buried, but then exhumed by the local authorities before he is finally carried off to be burned. Lao Ma finds his only ally in his grandson (adorably played by Tang Long), a cross-generational partnership that gives life to the film’s most exceptional and stunning moments, not least the final, excruciating closing scene.
Li is a delightful sculptor of symbolic networks, which he traces with irony, if not subtlety. Ma is haunted by the white smoke billowing from the village’s several chimneys. And he frequently climbs roofs to stuff the chimneys, to the mounting frustration of the middle-generation.
He is constantly, ironically reprimanded for smoking (“like a chimney”; yes, I almost wrote it) by his children. And it is the middle-generation which forms the invisible core around which the film revolves. For Fly With the Crane, the old and young are both relatively powerless against the dictates of the middle-aged: the town officials, for Lao Ma; and the parents, for his grandson. In a sort of way, Li’s work is about both a powerlessness of youth and a powerlessness of age.
It seems Lao Ma and the children have the only imagination and playfulness in the film, a theme we might intuit is related to Ma and the children’s lack of power. Lao Ma insists on the presence of white swans in the lake, which nobody has seen, but with by which his grandson is entranced. Ma’s grandson and his friends bury their young heads in the sand as a game, a wonderful wink at Lao Ma’s desire to be buried himself. (They don’t smoke, though).
It’s a slow film, like Lao Ma himself. The world of the film is moving faster than the camera, and so we share Lao Ma’s sense that time is leaving him behind, and that, just like him, we can’t keep up.
Fly With the Crane was recommended to me by a friend for its soundtrack by Xiao He (born He Guofeng), himself known for his highly experimental debut album Performance of Identity, the style of which Xiao He carries into Li’s work. Incredibly, Xiao He is on Spotify in the United States, where he has either six or seven monthly listeners, depending on whether I count as a monthly listener after researching for this bit. You should check him out.
Director: Li Ruijin Release Date: 29 August 2012 (Italy) Run Time: 99 mins
Source Material: From Su Tong’s Tell Them I Have Gone with the White Crane; Su Tong also wrote Wives and Concubines, famously adapted by Zhang Yimou as Raise The Red Lantern
Awards: Venice Film Festival, Nominated for Best Film (2012); Hong Kong Int’l Film Festival, Nominated for SIGNIS Award (2013)
Where to watch: You can find it here, with English subtitles… though you’ll want to turn off the text crawl by moving this slider to the left:
The Taobao Maker Fair is a big deal. To be completely honest, I couldn’t understand why. The surface description I first received of the fair seemed kind of unremarkable: online shops come together to show the stuff they sell. Packing a day bag for the trip to Hangzhou, I could only ask myself, why is everybody so excited about this?
Turns out, for good reason. The Maker Fair highlights the let’s-do-this attitude and innovation coming from China’s new wave of young millennial entrepreneurs. The products are dope: 4D racing simulations, folding electric guitars, punk rock tattooed bananas, and everything in between. Then there’s a whole stage with who knows what happening. Cosplay competitions, Ultraman robot battles, etc.
What’s more is that, overall, the crowd is undeniably hip. China’s cool kids came out in droves to see what was up at this year’s Maker Fair. Top it all off with the She-Era Global Conference on Women and Entrepreneurship, occurring during the fair at the same location, and you have a recipe for success. Here’s six things that went down at this year’s fair.
1. Stage full of dancing Pikachus
Why would this happen? Who could have predicted it? Not us. Hearing a rustling of audience interest by the stage, we amble over just in time to see six enormous Pikachus emerge from behind a giant steel door, and burst into a choreographed dance routine over EDM music. OK, next thing.
2. Vera Wang shows everyone her video
Vera Wang was in the building, looking flawless for her speech at the conference on women and entrepreneurship. She spoke to the audience about the importance of entrepreneurial spirit for women as individuals, the necessity of elevating women economically across the world, and the failures and successes that defined her own journey to become a global fashion icon. At the conclusion of her speech, she screened a short film featuring her with the different loves of her life: Paris, dance, ice skating and fashion.
3. Breakout skate performance, and also Tech Decks
Inside the fair at a modest skating store exhibition, a bunch of skaters suddenly arrived with boards in hand. Shredding commenced soon thereafter. Local skaters hit a bunch of tricks on the shop’s interactive storefront, designed specifically for the purpose. Afterwards, people gathered to hang around and style out with the provided Tech Deck finger skateboards, which you haven’t seen since 2007. Just watch these four seconds of unbelievable real life footage:
4. Jack Ma is a rockstar
There’s no other word for it. Jack Ma, “the Steve Jobs of China”, founder of Alibaba Group, and the richest person in Asia, took to the stage to deliver the keynote address for the conference on women and entrepreneurship. The entire crowd erupted into furious applause as he walked out, complete with screaming girls and people trying to take selfies with him from 200 meters away. Jack Ma is a powerful speaker, and long story short he killed it. He delivered a long and nuanced speech on the urgency of empowering women, and the strengths of women as leaders and innovators. He opened the stage to a video call from a colleague, showing his awareness and ability to step out of the spotlight at the keynote address of his own event in order to let a female voice shine. Afterward, he went overtime in his Q&A segment to have conversations with members of the audience, much to the excitement of the visibly nervous question-askers. Everybody loves Jack Ma.
Photo: VCG
Phew, what a cool conference. And that’s not to mention:
5. Suuuper cool neon future aesthetic throughout the whole event
I just feel like this should be addressed. The promo video for this year’s fair showed a young guy making his way through a gritty, futuristic, Bladerunner-esque city, bumping into all kinds of crazy characters and innovative gadgetry along the way. I was expecting the actual event to look more like a conference room with booths and tables and email signup sheets, but the fair really brought it. The whole place was decked out as an immersive neon cityscape, and each individual shop was just as cool.
Photo: Alizila
6. Taobao unveils new staff-less store concept, Tao Cafe
Another popular attraction at the fair was the Tao Cafe. Customers can scan their smartphones on entry, and the store will track you with facial recognition cameras (kind of scary). Pick up what you need, and walk out. That’s it, your items have been paid for automatically, with the help of our soon-to-be machine overlords.
All in all, the Taobao Maker Fair was sick. We wandered through nonsense spectacles, cutting-edge technology, and thought-provoking brainstorming on the importance of female entrepreneurs, all in a matter of hours. And there was a free-flow cocktail reception on the roof afterwards, which was much needed. It was tiring, but we’ll be there next year, and so should you.
The “VPNs are going to be blocked in China” story seems to get written at least once a year. Eventually, it might actually come true. In a story first reported by Bloomberg (citing anonymous government sources) but since corroborated by South China Morning Post, China’s major state-owned telecom companies have been ordered to block access to VPNs beginning February 1, 2018.
If you’re living in China and reading Radii, then you probably already know what a VPN is, but for anyone else reading (Hi, Mom! I’ll be home for your birthday!), a VPN refers to a Virtual Private Network. This is a system that allows computer users to circumvent China’s Internet censorship (commonly referred to as the “Great Firewall” [GFW]) and access blocked parts of the global Internet such as Facebook, Google, YouTube, the New York Times, and PornHub.
The upside from the perspective of the Party for blocking VPN services is, of course, greater control over China’s Internet Sovereignty, which has been a major issue for Chairman Xi Jinping. By all accounts, Xi believes the previous Hu-Wen administration was dangerously lax in its controls on expression, organization, media, and Internet guidance. The recent use of overseas news outlets and social media by opponents of Party leaders (looking at you, Guo Wengui!) has also raised the stakes for controlling access beyond the Great Firewall.
The result of all this has been a series of policies which can be best classified under the technical terms “Random Dickishness in Areas of Expression and the Media” and “General Internet Fuckage.” This has led, somewhat inevitably, to the rumored VPN ban, which had previously been considered something of a nuclear option for China’s net ninnies.
Nuclear options are nuclear for a reason: they come with significant costs, which I’ll list below in increasing order of importance.
— It will be an enormous inconvenience for international residents, visitors, and companies in China who rely on VPNs to do business with the rest of the world. This matters very little in the government’s calculus of banning VPNs. It won’t matter one bit whether foreigners still can post on Instagram or not. In the grand scheme of things (think: 1.4 billion people) there are too few foreigners as a percentage of Internet users, and if the last five years have taught us anything, it’s that the Chinese government under Xi Jinping could give two spoonfuls of gopher shit about what makes the foreigners in China happy.
— It might rekindle the controversy over whether China’s Internet protocols represent an unfair trade barrier under WTO rules. Last April, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) listed Chinese Internet rules as a potential trade barrier. It’s one of the few tools at the disposal of foreign governments to pressure China on the issue of Internet censorship. On the other hand, the Chinese government generally wipes its ass with WTO threats. The government has also argued through its various organs that they will continue to censor the global Internet so long as that global Internet contains values which the Chinese government deems “Western” and “Dangerous.”
— It will somewhat inconvenience Chinese Internet users who need VPNs to do research, apply for schools overseas, and to do business globally. I say “somewhat” because many Internet users in China never use a VPN. In an article published in the MIT Review last year, Beijing-based journalist Christina Larson argued that China provided some of the world’s best Internet experiences (in terms of domestic Internet ecosystem) and some of the worst (in terms of global connectivity). The suitability and ubiquity of so many of the domestic Internet platforms and sites makes it easier for the government to block overseas equivalents. Who cares about Facebook and Instagram when you have WeChat?
But many people, particularly those who travel overseas or have returned from abroad, do use VPNs. This group – while relatively small as a percentage of Internet users – are for the most part members of China’s urban elite, a rising middle and upper class of increasingly sophisticated consumers and citizens who have been among the Party’s biggest supporters. (Party: “We keep the peasants on the farm until it’s time for them to clean your house and deliver your takeout!” Urban Elite: “We won’t notice that our kids can’t run 100 meters outside without coughing up blood and that the apartment we bought 10 years ago is already falling apart!” Together: “DEAL!”)
But what happens when that same urban elite can’t complete their kid’s application to Dartmouth because some stray bit of code or keyword on the Dartmouth site is causing that page to be blocked? Despite the relative small size of this group, the Party takes an outsized interest in keeping the urban elite on their side. Will this group be happy to have junior seek his future at Hebei Polytech because they can’t access certain sites or services overseas? Maybe. Maybe not.
— Porn. There’s a lot of porn on the Chinese web that can be accessed without a VPN. (So I’m told). But Chinese porn aficionados have surprisingly cosmopolitan tastes. A few years back Japanese AV star Sola Aoi broke the Chinese Internet, and she continues to be a huge draw for millions of Chinese porn lovers. As a wise man once remarked, if you took porn off the Internet, there would only be one website and it would be called bringbacktheporn.com. It stands to reason that banning VPNs is going to cramp the style of PRC porn viewers. At the end of the day, you can take away people’s human’s rights. You can take away their oxygen. But try taking away people’s spank bank and they will get cranky at you.
— It may not even be technically possible. I’ve talked to a few IT folks here in Beijing who are skeptical about whether the government – even if they wanted to – had the ability to complete cut off access to all VPNs. On the one hand, these people know far more about the technical side than I do. On the other hand, never bet against the Chinese government in overcoming long odds on great leaps of stupidity.
— Finally, banning VPNs cracks a carefully constructed façade: that the way the party manages the Internet is totally normal by global standards. This is somewhat related to the best Internet/worst Internet paradigm Larson wrote about in her MIT Technology Review piece. The first rule of the Great Firewall is that you don’t talk about the Great Firewall. You never show it in action. As James Fallows wrote nearly a decade ago – in what may turn out to be, in retrospect, the golden age of internet access in China:
In China, the connection just times out. Is it your computer’s problem? The firewall? Or maybe your local Internet provider, which has decided to do some filtering on its own? You don’t know. “The unpredictability of the firewall actually makes it more effective,” another Chinese software engineer told me. “It becomes much harder to know what the system is looking for, and you always have to be on guard.”
For the elite few (the key being the word “elite”), blocking access to the VPN makes it clear – if there were any doubt – that it’s the Party who has a problem with what you’re looking at. The unsubtle message: foreigners can look at this stuff, but the Party knows best and the Party thinks you’re too (fill in the blank: stupid, irresponsible, unreliable, naïve, batshit crazy) to look at the same stuff. It’s their own government telling its people that they’re not to be trusted. That won’t sit well with some people.
For me – and for most of us who live here — this is will be a major fucking hassle. Not a deal breaker by itself, but in the context of random drug testing of foreigners in their own homes, the urban “renewal” of Beijing which is burying every trace of the city’s unique local culture or history, and a general policy which prohibits residents – foreign and local alike – from enjoying “nice things,” the decision to ban VPNs just feels like one more kick to the balls. This won’t matter to the government – if anything making the foreigners feel like they were kicked in the balls is likely be chalked up as a “side benefit” – but in the long run this shit matters.
China has always been at its best when it was most open to the world (See: Dynasty, Tang) and at its worst when it turns inward (See: Revolution, Cultural).
The 1980s television documentary River Elegy – which itself seems like a relic as ancient as the glory days of Tang-era Chang’an – once argued:
The character of an autocratic government lies in its mysteriousness, its despotism, its arbitrariness. On the other hand, it should be the character of a democratic government to be transparent, to honor people’s opinions, and to be scientific. We are now moving from murkiness to transparency. We have already moved from being closed to openness.
If this decision to ban the use of VPNs is enacted, it will be clear in which direction the Party wishes to travel. As for now, the prevailing wisdom is that the block might be yet another false alarm. There are also questions of feasibility of a total block leading to the possibility that a ban might be enforced only against domestic VPN services as opposed to the overseas VPNs.
I came home early. You had pulled all our furniture away from the walls, the better to scrub every vestige of dust from existence. But you weren’t scrubbing. You were reclining on the sofa in the dark. I thought you were sleeping, until you stirred, and sat up. But you continued to stare into space.
To me, within the four walls of our tiny apartment you were either guest or interloper, depending on my mood. To you, the roles were reversed. We both had our own scripts, our own lines. When it came to cohabitation, they didn’t match up. When it came to life domestic, my attempts to take responsibility for the simplest task were dismissed with one of your favorite catchphrases:
“Men aren’t meant to do that.”
You always kept my mug filled with hot water, even though I only drink cold. You expressed fascination at my preference against the millet gruel that formed the basis of your meals. If I were constipated (which you’d know through observation), you would take it upon yourself to secure foul-tasting herbal remedies that never worked. Boundaries were for other people – it was fair game even if it was crammed in a drawer, wrapped in plastic under the bed, or tucked in the pocket of my jeans. I eventually gave up trying to reorganize your reorganizations of my living space.
Washing the dishes, you would look over my shoulder and gently point out what I was doing wrong. Folding my clothes, you’d come with tips on how to do it your way – which, of course, was superior. My every offer to cook, or sweep, or mop, or polish was met with the same confident response, voiced with the sagacity of a Taoist monk:
“Men aren’t meant to do that.”
On that afternoon, in the gathering gloom of our badly lit walk-up, you continued to stare, silently. I attempted to make conversation. I knew today wasn’t just another day. Two weeks earlier, in a halting, broken phone call during a trip to New York City, with me within earshot, your son made an announcement. You and your husband were waiting in our apartment when we got home. That night, you had a tearful, loud conversation across the thin partition that split the apartment’s only bedroom from the constricted sofa bed you and your husband occupied. He left the following day, the tension unresolved.
Your son was getting married. To a man.
Men aren’t meant to do that.
I offered you tea, then wished I hadn’t. My offer rang out as another reminder that the roles you’d scripted for me, and for your son, were now subject to change. Men – least of all guests – weren’t supposed to offer to pour tea for women. But all bets were off. You sighed.
I sat beside you. The questions began. A trickle at first, then a flood, as the faulty dam, built on sand and hope, gave way to a cold, dark reality. Men couldn’t marry, you insisted. They couldn’t have children. We were both good boys, from good families. What kind of future would we have?
Tears pricked your eyes, your diminutive, rounded frame vulnerable beside my Nordic bulk. You’d spent the years since your son left for college preparing for the final stage of a Chinese woman’s transfiguration: from dutiful daughter to devoted mother to, finally, omniscient grandmother. The first two stages had gone flawlessly, you were so close. Months later, I would be by your side when your mother was dying, when you first beheld your grandchildren. But that balmy October afternoon, so early in our relationship, that was the only time I ever saw you weep.
I loved your son. I was devoted to his happiness. But that happiness was the source of his mother’s pain, unfurling itself before my eyes.
“My sky has turned black,” you said. I reached for your hand – we’d never touched before – and held on to it, feeling your callused fingers, the warmth of your palm. To my surprise, you did not pull away.
You knew the answer, but asked anyway. Couldn’t we change?
I responded the only way I could – with the truth. It took a long time, as I tripped over my second language, my sense of helplessness. You listened. Your eyes dried. You let me keep hold of your hand.
“I don’t know if I can accept this,” you said.
“I hope you can,” I replied.
We sat, and listened to the sound of children playing beyond the mosquito blinds, starling-clouds of dust swirling in the rose gold evening light.
You let go of my hand, stood, and started dinner. I offered to help.
A Spanish national will be deported from China after having sex with a woman on a Chengdu street in the city’s business district. The incident occurred on the night of July 6th.
The young man is apparently a 25-year-old named David. In the video — here’s an uncensored one (NSFW, obviously) — the almost-certainly-drunk couple engages in adult activities beneath the very poor and inadequate cover of some foliage while enthusiastic and vocal onlookers chant “pa-pa-pa” (you know, the sound of sex) and offer raucous encouragement. One man can be heard off-camera saying “jiayou” — a ubiquitous Chinese cheer, i.e. “Go!” — while the couple are in the act.
What’s on Weibo again:
Police later arrive at the scene and arrest the Spaniard for ‘violating public security.’ In the video, the young man is heard responding to the police in broken English, just saying: “I don’t know.”
The woman is heard speaking in Mandarin, saying: “I am together with him.”
Global Times later reported the suspect “will be detained for 10 days and then deported according to Chinese law, local police in Chengdu said on their official Weibo account Saturday.”
This guy had it all planned out. Buy a bottle of beer. Knock out clerk by smashing bottle over her head. Take cash from register. Profit.
And then reality said to him, “MMMM, nah.”
When do you think he realizes that all is not going to plan? When the female clerk takes the beer bottle over her head and, far from fainting, simply covers her head like a pro?
When a second employee — possibly the manager? — shows up and is like, “Hey, what’s going on?” And the man has to be like, “This is a hold-up! Give me your money!” And the manager looks around like, “A hold-up? With… a beer bottle?”
Or can it be that the full brunt of his stupidity, the utter hopelessness of this venture, doesn’t become apparent until this moment, when he steps on the counter and attempts to remove the cash from the register…
…attempts to remove the cash from the register…
…attempts to remove the cash…
…and eventually just says AwwwwFuckit:
You’ll notice that at the end, with a cash register in hand, this grizzled criminal still has the bearings to grab the sausages he purchased. I mean, they’re already bagged, might as well, right?
Crime is hard.
Does this deserve the Benny Hill treatment? You Bet this deserves the Benny Hill treatment.
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