Beijing Newspeak

I don’t envy the foreign media’s task of bringing the Party congress to the masses in their prospective homelands. One good friend of mine back in the UK, who does have a keen interest in news about China, sent me a text yesterday which said, ”There’s a full-page spread in the Guardian today on the 17th for the second day running. I made the mistake of reading it yesterday - I’m not going to be so foolish again! Whenever the grauniad journo used the word harmonious I felt the need to sub in quotation marks.” Its no slight on Guardian correspondent Jonathan Watts, it’s just that Hu Jintao’s speech was less spicy than a chicken korma.

Reuters found themselves having to churn out several stories each focusing on a few pars of Hu’s address, introduced by headlines that wouldn’t surprise a jungle dweller. “China’s Hu says Communist Party must stay in charge”, “China vows to rebalance economy, nurse environment”, “China must host good Games: president”. Newspapers picked their angles which led to non-conformity on Google news. The New York Times headline read, “China’s leader closes door to reform” while an AFP story was accompanied by the headline, “Hu flags political reform for China”. In another story, AFP tried to inject energy into Hu’s phraseology with “China to go eco-friendly: Hu”. The Times went easy on their readers with an all-you-need-to-know-about-the-congress article in a question and answer format which actually worked very well. The Telegraph’s Richard Spencer has the luxury (though it seems he has to do twice as much work as a result) of being able to write the news story and then conveying his feelings through his blog, describing the congress as a “festival of dull … dull, that is, except for the surroundings, which are spectacular in a makes-you-sit-up-and-stare sort of way”.

By Tuesday, Reuters were alert to anything that veered from the norm. From the press conference in which the media started to get to know - in the kind of way you get to know celebrities at Madame Tussauds - the expected future leaders of China, Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, Reuters had, “‘Consumption is playing a bigger role in driving the economy than investment. Investment growth continues to fall to what we would expect. These are good changes,’ said Xi, wearing a pair of trousers which appeared a bit too short for him.” It seems as if the Shanghai Party boss has one more character trait than Hu Jintao already - expect the trouser fact to be included in all media profiles of Xi when/if  he becomes president.

Going back to that Times article, Jane Macartney’s answer to the question, “Do ordinary Chinese care about the congress?” seemed spot on.

Put simply, no, not really. Most Chinese feel that politics has little to do with their lives. They are relatively happy with the current unspoken deal between party and people. That is, the party will leave the people alone to get on with the business of making money and living a more comfortable life if the people leave the party to govern.

So most people think there’s little point in meddling with politics and feel it all happens very much in secret and what’s the point of bothering about it.

This post on Danwei addressed the same issue and included this quote from Chinese blogger Zhai Hua:

In sum, rather than investigating how concerned the people are about the 17th Party Congress, it’s probably more valuable to look into whether the 17th Party Congress is concerned with the public.

Again, probably true but I thought I would spend a couple of hours strolling around Qianmen’s remaining hutongs yesterday afternoon anyway, asking the “laobaixing” what they thought about the congress (with the help of a friend whose language ability is a couple of light years ahead of mine).

It had been a while since I had conducted a good old-fashioned vox pop. My last one was asking desperate-looking sorts in betting shops in Chiswick (SW London) what they thought about the mind-numbing, wallet content-sapping dross that is virtual horseracing. They all claimed it was a fix. But they still gambled on it anyway.

The police presence around parts of Beijing this week has been extraordinary. Over in Xuanwumen (Xinhua land), officers have been sitting playing cards in a street that has been cordoned off from the public. The registration plates of their vehicles herald from provinces all over China - it looks like any petitioners from Shandong that decide to make an appearance will have a free ride back home. At Qianmen, the size of the blue-uniformed force is comical and apart from the officers searching people exiting the subway on the south side of Tiananmen, they have absolutely nothing to do. Their sheer numbers do succeed, however, in deterring sly foreigners from stealing one of the hundreds of yellow and red posters welcoming the congress which would make cracking souvenirs. I nearly pilfered an “Eight Honours, Eight Disgraces” poster from Xinhua last year but got cold feet at the last minute.

First up was a souvenir seller with cheeky dimples and a winning initial sales pitch. “Hey, Mr Handsome, you like Mahjong?” After we steered the conversation to the “shi qi da” (the big 17th), she replied, “It doesn’t matter to people like me, I am not important enough. All I care about is making money, enough so I have food and clothes. Your mother like scarf?” (Last bit in English).

Next up was a young DVD vendor, who ended up costing me 160 yuan for Zhang Yimou’s greatest hits. He said the congress didn’t really affect his life and he didn’t have time to watch it on television. One of the only things he had in his DVD store was a television. Then, the 60ish popcorn seller who was reading the congress pages of a Beijing newspaper. He said he was interested in the congress but it would take a long time for the common people to feel the benefit of government policies. “Look at me,” he said, as clarification.

We took a right into an area of hutongs east of Qianmen which are slated for demolition, stopping by a group of men squatting by a pile of those seed things (can’t remember the name) that are used to stuff pillows. Are you discussing the shi qi da? “Too busy drinking,” one man with a bottle of baijiu said. And after a few niceties, he said to my friend, “I like you, I want to fuck you.”

We found our final interviewees at a newspaper stand - a man and a woman in their forties. The man didn’t want to talk but the woman didn’t mind. “It’s great that the government is starting to care about the common people,” she said, beaming.

So there you go. In this case, a vox pop around Qianmen really was of limited use. But it was good fun anyway. It also served as a useful reminder that I should study a lot more Chinese and that every “laobaixing” you meet can’t be expected to pour out their hearts to a couple of foreigners after a minute’s conversation. When I was researching a story about the redevelopment of Qianmen several months ago, a few people we interviewed said to my Chinese translator, “Why are you helping a foreigner to find out the bad things about China?” Others, on the other hand, were very forthcoming.

Shuffling around Qianmen is also far less dramatic than clicking a mouse. Last night, Bullog.cn had a notice saying, “Due to this very sensitive period, we can’t let you talk about politics anymore, very sorry.” One response was:

The People’s Congress is the whole country’s representatives meeting time, during this time all the people have to shut their fucking mouths. Look, what can you do when you have been castrated? If you have been castrated, how can you fuck? All you can do is be fucked.

Now that sells newspapers.

Excellent link: http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/10/16/china-tough-blogging-the-communist-congress/