卦Trigram 2.0

Do you Twitter? I was converted a year or so ago. It’s one of those things that seems pointless before you join, but once you’re a part of it… it becomes a stream of fascinating comment and insight.

I mention this because I’ve been blogging less and less frequently here. Niti has told me several times to get my act together and start writing again. In fact, I’ve been struggling to have something to say. Every blog needs a focus, and this blog has evolved over time. I talk about technology, social media, virtual worlds, biotech… All things that interest me but, if you’ve read me even intermittently, over the years you’ll see that my main creative motivation has been cyberpunk – simply because if I hadn’t been reading William Gibson and Bruce Sterling twenty years ago, I would never have become involved in either technology or business. Time has passed, though, and the cyberpunk future has arrived, and become our present. Even the cyberpunk giants aren’t writing cyberpunk any more, because where do you go from here? This has really become clear over the last two years, which is the period when my blogging started to peter out… Where to go next?

Which brings me back to Twitter. One of the people whose insights I enjoy the most is Paul Denlinger, author of the China Vortex. He’s been ‘Tweeting’ a lot recently about “Shanzhai”, the huge industry here in China that manufactures fake products… although actually, it’s more complex than that. Here’s what one user on Metafilter had to say about Shanzhai:

In Chinese, Shanzhai (山寨) literally means “mountain stronghold” and connotes a place with limited accessibility — i.e. beyond the reach of authorities. In the past couple of years, it has come to refer to the manufacture of illicit tech gadgets by unauthorized factories: show us your shan zhai ji! But shanzhai can be used more broadly to describe knockoff culture, cheeky brand subversion, grassroots industrial creativity, and a certain DIY ethos. The latter may be best exemplified in these videos of a “Shanzhai Glider” in action.

There are a number of videos on YouTube of “amusing” things from the Chinese hinterland – such as a truck driver imitating “Initial-D” style drift-driving, a farmer who makes robots, a home-made glider… I can’t link to these because at the moment YouTube is blocked in China so I can’t double-check the videos. Take a look, though. The thing is, I don’t watch these and think “Wow, look at those funny Chinese peasants and the weird things they do!”, which seems to be the general attitude on the internet. I think “Wow, look at the talent and innovation that’s untapped, and held back by isolation and poverty. Look at what it can do when given inspiration, using only what’s available!”.

If we take this meaning of ‘shanzhai’, ie “grassroots industrial creativity, and a certain DIY ethos“, then we’re talking about exactly the same thing that Niti saw in India, where it’s called ‘jugaad‘. Niti tried for a while to popularize the phrase as a design concept for bottom of the pyramid marketing; it didn’t really take, but then it didn’t have the economic weight of the Chinese shanzhai industries behind it…

In my case, this takes me back to my cyberpunk roots – because what better example can there be of Gibson’s much-quoted line, “The street finds its own uses for things“?

So, here I am in China, I’m from an internet & knowledge background, and I’m interested in development and green issues. Once I read some of Paul’s ‘shanzhai’ thoughts, I realized – here it is, the new focus: “shanzhai green“. In other words, China’s rural population have tremendous talent, which they can use if given ideas. Shanzhai means implementing innovation with the best tools available – be it traditional knowledge or the latest digital technology. Most often, it will be a mix of both. Shanzhai skills can be used to help rural development. Shanzhai skills can be used to protect the environment. Putting shanzhai skills to use in the pursuit of sustainable development? Let’s call it… “shanzhai green”.

Now I know what I want to blog about….

I’ve just come back from a wedding in Manchuria - in Liaoning province, that is, part of China’s northeastern rust belt. Getting there from Beijing was fascinating; it took only four hours on the super-modern electric train to Shenyang. From there, it was a forty-minute drive to the town where the wedding took place. Here the post-industrial decay showed clearly – despite the broad streets, and a bold new SOHO complex, most of what I saw was decaying apartment blocks, hardly any traffic, hardly any lighting on the streets at night. On the night we arrived, I fancied a beer before hitting the sack; I asked the hotel concierge if there was a bar nearby. He looked at me in total astonishment. No, there were no bars of any kind, anywhere nearby. He was right, too.  In the end, I found a hotpot restaurant, and enjoyed  a 3RMB bottle of local beer, and very nice it was too!

The wedding was astonishing – the bride is  of the Manzu ethnic minority group, and an only child. The parents had splashed out on a traditional wedding parade through the town streets. We started at 7am, perhaps to avoid traffic, but I’m told that Chinese weddings do normally start early.

A caravan driver wearing (fake) skins, and with a knotted whip led the way, loudly cracking the whip to alert people to get out of the way. He was followed by a fawning jester, and by the female matchmaker. Then came the (French) bridegroom on horseback, in flowing yellow robes. Next, a phalanx of dancing girls carrying red lanterns on poles preceded musicians playing drums, gongs, etc. Next came the bride, who was carried (well, rolled along on castors, but it looked like they were carrying her) in a traditional sedan chair by four big men. The bride was wearing a traditional red wedding dress and veil.  At the rear of the procession was a group of bodyguards in (pretend) armour, bearing broadswords. Finally, there were a group carrying the traditional large, triangular dragon-pheonix banners.

This caused pandemonium as we walked through the streets – people came running to see, and leaned out of homes and shops to watch. Buses screeched to a halt, and cars slowed to watch, causing instant storms of horn-blaring from those behind. The biggest worry was the taxi drivers coming from behind: there’s a wedding procession? So what, I’ve got work to do! Press down on the horn, and keep going! Let those darned revellers look out for themselves! Fortunately the groom’s horse took it all in its stride, and didn’t buck or bolt, which was my biggest worry!

I was struck by the reaction of old women when we passed them – they almost all went into fits of delight and curiosity, wresting to glimpse the bride, pointing and chattering loudly and enthusiastically. We speculated that these are the ones who remember such wedding processions from pre-1949? Pre-Cultural Revolution? days. I should ask when these stopped becoming common.

I took a lot of pictures and video on my Nokia N73, until the memory card filled up. I regretted then that I hadn’t taken my EeePC – I learned on my trip to Pingyao in May that it only takes a couple of minutes to swap out the Nokia’s SD card into the EeePC’s card slot, transfer the pictures and video to a USB memory stick, and then start filming again. The perfect combination for the “citizen journalist”?

After the wedding feast,  we changed, and made the trip back to Shenyang and Beijing. I was only away for a day and half, but it still felt strange to arrive back in the ‘Jing’s traffic congestion and smog. It was a really different perspective on China, and has encouraged me to get out and travel a bit more than I have to date.

I’ve just moved in to my new apartment, on the inner side of Beijing’s north-western Second Ring Road. This road was built where the city’s ancient defensive walls used to stand, so “inside the second ring road” means “inside the historic part of the city”. One of Beijing’s little mysteries, by the way, is that there is no First Ring Road…

My apartment block’s not historic, except perhaps for the people: when the old alleyways and courtyard dwellings were to build shopping malls etc, the local residents were relocated in these housing areas. They’re rather cheaply built – bare concrete stairways, and no elevators (and didn’t I feel that this morning, when I was carrying my boxes and bags up to my 7th-floor place – I climbed those stairs twelve times, each time with a heavy load!).

Today’s been a lovely late summer day: blues skies, the air getting dry now, compared to the humidity of July and early August. I was coming back from my evening meal at the Guloudajie dumpling joint, looking up at the stars as they came out… and then realised, hey, I can see the stars! At least in these areas, and especially in these apartment complexes, Beijing has definitely joined the Dark Sky movement, with plenty of screened halogen lights, sending all of their light downwards – not up into the sky…

It’s also interesting that the apartment complex has lots of “flower beds” around – which is to say, I don’t think anything much was ever done with them, except perhaps some sickly grass. However, almost every available spot has been colonised somehow, bu residents planting all kinds of flowers and other plants. Sometimes occupants of ground-floor flats have planted vines outside, training them up to almost entirely cover the windows. I can see the advantages – extra privacy and insulation, flowers, and so on, but it must still be a little strange to live there! Anyway, another Western trend that’s got some coverage lately, Guerrilla Gardening, also has its Beijing equivalent!

So, the Olympics have come and gone,the Paralympics will start soon, but the city and it’s local culture – which didn’t get so much attention – continue to grow and thrive in ways that the rest of the world could learn from.

Over the past four years or so, I’ve written a number of posts on China’s role as a destination and a source of cultural influence. China hasn’t just been drawing the MNCs, the investors, the outsourcers, and the rest of the big battalions of globalization. It’s also been drawing the artists, the freelancers, the global nomads, and the dreamers – all those who recognise that change is brewing and want to be a part of it, no matter how small, or who seek the opportunity to reinvent themselves, or to find a niche for themselves that they couldn’t find wherever they came from. It’s this that separates China from Singapore, for example, where they prefer established artists who are already successful, and where up-and-comers are co-opted early on because there’s no way to get a platform without government or corporate sponsorship.

Amongst the foreigners here in Beijing – I hesitate to say ‘expatriates’, which is too loaded a term – there’s a common meme that Beijing now is like Paris between the wars, a society in flux, open to new ideas, prosperous whilst still cheap to live in; I have to agree, and it means that this city – and Shanghai, and Kunming, and Xi’an, and many others – are drawing in young, creative, adventurous people, who are engaging in a fertile exchange with the local scenes. Many of these people (I suspect) will be culturally influentual in the future, and are being shaped and influenced by China.

So, having felt all that for a while, it’s really interesting to see something on the same lines appear in the IHT today: For a new generation, land of opportunity may lie in China, not the US.

Just a few photos, taken to test my new Nokia N73; I decided that what I wanted was an affordable phone that can take good quality pictures, and the N73 seemed to fit the bill.

The very first, taken at the counter where I bought the N73. Note the prices of the local-brand phones; even cheaper ones were also available.

Brand names are so important.

Construction and (not so) clear air.

I’m just acting as part of the echo-chamber here, but this article from Ogilvy suggests the rollout has begun, and will really impact from next year. Cool.

The area of Beijing south of Qianmen is, after Houhai, my favourite part of the city. I’ve spent many happy times there, enjoying the crowds, eating in the tiny restaurants, drinking with friends, being invited in to locals’ houses, exploring the mix and match of the architectures of different periods…. As you can see, I love that area. I was sure that when the Forbidden City was awarded World Heritage status, this ancient area would also be protected, as part of the required “buffer zone”. Sadly, it seems not.  I’m very, very sad.

There’s a great article and video about this area on Danwei.

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