CHINA TRIP Day 10: Get Weird.

Thursday, May 27

In class, our lecture picked up where we left off yesterday in a continuation of Chinese culture and history. I definitely walked away having learned new things. For example, I don’t really remember Zhou Enlai from my past studies on Asia and so I was surprised to learn that he was more beloved as a leader than Mao. Especially since Mao’s portrait hangs above and museums dedicated to his leadership and person surround the center of the city. At the same time though, Zhou Enlai took power after Mao’s death, which also ended the Cultural Revolution. Anything Zhou did that in any way countered the Cultural Revolution would give hope to the people. Despite his mistakes though, Mao has to still be revered as a leader since the China of today started with him.

I feel that if one particular aspect of Mao’s time as the leader of China is still present today, it would be the government’s concern with the perpetuation and preservation of the party. This is evident in their policies and various systems, be it economical, political, or social. As Dean Moses mentioned in his lecture, and in our discussions after the visit at CCTV, the media and news reporting in China is a clear example of the government’s methods of self-preservation. It seems that no matter what is being discussed about China, the government is somehow always connected. Dean Moses addressed the problem with news in China being unreliable and attributing it to self-censorship. The motto seemed to be that censoring oneself in compliance with the CCP is key to survival. I wasn’t surprised, then, when we discussed the lack of live television broadcastings and how the questions members of the audience asked at CCTV were all preplanned. They even had to redo one question after Secretary of State Clinton had left because it wasn’t said in the way that the program directors wanted.

I was excited to be visiting a news/media firm in China, particularly an international one that would be focused on real news. While it would have been interesting to visit a Chinese firm, given our experience at CCTV, I wouldn’t be optimistic in getting any government-related questions answered honestly. However, our afternoon visit to Reuters was not as media-focused as I thought it was going to be. Phil Smith went through Reuters’ history and gave us some of his own personal background. I never really pay attention to international news, and so his experience with the explosions in Dubai put into perspective the kind of news Reuters publishes. I was impressed with how unfazed he seemed retelling the incident from experience on location. I probably wouldn’t have believed him if it weren’t for the pictures.

Phil explained that Reuters’ success in China was largely in part to the type of firm and work that it does. He said that government officials like the fact that Reuters is a firm that reports fact-based news and is not country oriented. From that information I assumed that Reuters’ seemingly unbiased, global, and international position made it acceptable to the CCP. I can see how the positioning helps in that regard, but what if the fact-based, international news is about China? With a firm located in China, they would be able to really find out the facts behind the government’s claims to any particular event. I wondered, then, how Reuters would have reported the events that occurred in Tibet or Tiananmen Square and if the government would be so accepting then. Phil mentioned that they’ve never been followed or censored at Reuters when reporting and I wasn’t sure I believed that it’d be due to the government favoring them because of their unbiased positioning.

I was a little disappointed because we read about reporters needing to be registered and permission to write-up news stories and special permission to travel as well. Even though the government has relaxed those rules, I still wanted to get a first-hand perspective on censorship, because that is what I would associate with China and communism. For the most part our experience in China has been fairly normal and while there are certain sticky situations that could occur, especially with censorship of the Internet, for the most part China doesn’t seem very difficult to deal with.

I appreciated Phil Smith’s willingness to answer our questions and discuss more global issues with us. While I was more interested in the internal structures of China, especially with regard to media, Phil definitely embodied Reuters’ international positioning. We discussed the global recession and China’s economy in comparison to the West. He mapped out what we already knew about the differences between Asia and the West. Asia would need to move from having a manufacturing-based economy into a consumer-based economy, like the West, if the global economy is to be more balanced. I didn’t know that Australia would actually begin the map with its raw goods-based economy. I liked how simply Phil explained it, “Just follow the money.” Australia begins the process by exporting raw goods to manufacturing economies in Asia who then produce goods for consumption by the West. I don’t think it’d be possible for the West to try to move backward and begin producing and manufacturing more goods since it is so much cheaper to produce them elsewhere. It is also difficult to convince countries in Asia, particularly China, to consumer more imports. China certainly is proving to be a complex, yet interesting country that needs to be carefully observed.

Later that night the plan was to go to Club Mix, which the boys had looked up. We couldn't really find anyone after we got back from shopping so it ended up being Colleen, Catherine, Laura, JiaHua, Tim, Shane, and I. We taxi'd to the nearest subway station because it was raining and waited for a bit at the station but because of the multiple exits we figured we'd at least look for Mix and then relax at a bar or something in the area before the planned meeting time at midnight. We found a cute, zen little place called Alfa and the forty minutes or so went by quickly. It turns out the boys got there around 11:30 or so and just hung out, looking for us in the bar area. We rallied to get to Mix by midnight but we didn't get there until 12:!5 because it took a bit to get all the girls out of Alfa. The boys left around 12:25 so we literally just missed them. I felt bad when I found afterward. When we went in, however, we went around both sides looking for them and then figured they would see us on stage if they were still in the club. We danced for a while and I remember the bouncer kept nudging us to move down to the end of the stage to prevent random guys from hopping on. The music was too loud and techno-y for my taste and there were a lot of random, old, creepy Chinese men. So not my scene.