Reports from Shanghai

My colleague and friend from Shanghai, Wang Weijia, passed me a link this evening to some broadcasts from UC Berkeley's graduate journalism school.

Several of them brought back vivid memories and further inspired my will to document the fascinating city on video. One, on Shanghai's startling growth and consequently alarming rate of evictions, is excellent; due, at least in part I am sure, to the journalist consultations with Weijia.

The link is here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/
wp-srv/photo/emergingvoices/
index.html?nav=cwleftnav

The one grievance I had with those I watched is that the segment on migrant workers is much too skimming, and unusually celebratory. I find it extremely difficult to believe - given the faces of migrant workers I saw, sat beside, and slept propped up against - that not one of them has anything negative to say about their situation.

One Shanghai jazz musician told me that there is a statue with melted, drilling eyes, symbolizing migrant discontent. And no one travelling for any length of time in China can ignore the train stations clogged with workers, the obvious wretchedness of - at least - some of their situations, of farmers forced of their lands, of 20 hour train rides home being unpleasant (as opposed to jovially accepted, which is how the report portrayed it). Some Chinese are afraid to seem upset about their situation.

The eviction story showed passionate, Shanghainese temper at its best; the migrant worker story showed Chinese ambivalence at its worst.

The most telling situation I can recall anecdotally, is the corner, street-level block near my apartment in Pudong, Shanghai, which was being transformed into a restaurant by migrant workers. By day, they worked in the small, dust-clogged area; by night, they slept in the same place but covered with mosquito nets. I saw one man saw glass on the sidewalk - shirtless, in sandals, with a limp cigarette hanging from his mouth, as sparks flew around his ankles. They would shower in the street and eat their meals from vendors around the corner.

I know how hard it must be for a foreign journalist, especially a student journalist, to work in Shanghai. I just think that this particular piece smacked of ignorant-orientalism; with a story angle that reflected a lack of local knowledge, quotes that did not account for dissent, a focus that ignored homeless migrants and safety issues; but I think, foremost, that I am personally bowled over by an exclusion of any visuals from the Shanghai Railway Station, to which a visit would drastically alter anyone's - even a foreigner's - interpretation of China's "newly mobile workforce."

Harbin: Disaster, yes; One of China's Biggest Cities, no

Originally posted to http://www.livejournal.com/users/marpow/ on [25 Nov 2005|11:41am]

The chaos in Harbin is unbelievable. People are fleeing a city over water pollution. The poor are left filling up bath tubs, the rich are fleeing to their second houses in the country or clogging the airports and train stations.

Foreign correspondents are cozying up in the city's best hotels.

A massive toxic slick drifting through the region's main water supply is a tragedy and I, for one, hope the China National Petroleum Corp. loses the upcoming court battle and is called to account.

However, I wish journalists would STOP CALLING HARBIN ONE OF CHINA'S BIGGEST CITIES.

Harbin's population is meant to be around 3.8 million. The total population of the entire region is meant to be around 10 or 11 million. This is far, far, far from one of China's biggest cities - especially considering China is estimated to have more than 100 cities with more than a million people. Suzhou has about 5 million, Chengdu has about 10 million, Chongqing has around 30 million, Shanghai has around 20 million, Hangzhou has about 6.3 million, just to name a few.

I don't know who ran the original story, though I'm assuming it was a wire service; but it seems that numerous papers (including the Globe and Mail, for shame) have picked it up and used it in their lead.

If journalists want to size it up, say "bigger than Toronto" or something like that, don't LIE and overstate an issue that does NOT need to be overstated at all.

I automatically think back to Scoop, and how Waugh portrays the journalists as ignorant of the local culture and widely overstate, exagerrate, and make up situations. This all leads, obviously, to a desire to have THEIR OWN story picked up and run in several papers, which this wire reporter seems to have accomplished.

I hope the journalist is happy with the momentary, ill-gotten fame, and that the wire service made a pretty penny, but now Harbin - a major city for sure, but small in comparison to others - is known under an international misconception.

All for a good lede. Sigh.

Also, CTV news carried last night what I thought was an excellent TV news piece on the Harbin disaster. However, even days after its been flooding the newswires...Harbin is still being called one of China's biggest cities.

http://www.shanghaidaily.com
/art/2005/11/25/217976/Cleanup_teams_battle_massive_chemical_slick.htm

A Weird Day for International Law and the Media

Originally posted to http://www.livejournal.com/users/marpow/ on [23 Nov 2005|07:32pm]

Rest easy.

They got Pinochet on tax evasion.

And as if this day couldn't get any weirder.

There are pseudo-jokey allegations that Bush had talked about - in jest or otherwise - bombing al-Jazeera in Qatar.

This makes no sense at all. But the U.S. actually did bomb - with a plane and rockets - an al-Jazeera television reporter. They killed him.

The situation is well-documented in Control Room - the powerful movie about al-Jazeera's attempt to cover the Iraq war.

They have a really intense plea to the media from the slain man's wife.

Her request was simple: tell the truth.

Earth to Earth to America

Originally posted to: http://www.livejournal.com/users/marpow/ on [20 Nov 2005|08:44pm]

Earth to America is to serious political discourse as the Earth to America crowd adoring a Vietnamese Astronaut-quoting Leonardo DiCaprio is to not hilarious.

Several things became apparent while watching this awful show:

1. Entertainers should never, ever, try to engage anyone, ever, on any issue; any.

2. The Left is rarely as funny as Rick Mercer or Rob Corddry, and should not inject what is obviously an immense amount of money into any large scale production which, once again, fails to rise above the comic level of, oh, I don't know, the state of the world.

3. No one watching this show, who does not already hold the hard-to-believe political message(Um, global warming is...bad? happening?), will come away with either: a) a solid grasp of the issue, b) a feeling of not wasting however long this show will praddle on for, c) a face sore from laughing or a heart, lit anew with caring.

4. David Letterman's #1 in the Top Ten will never be as funny as the preceding nine.

5. Steve Martin is still really good at playing banjo, but will never top the discussive, radical political analysis of King Tut.

6. That I am confused by Ray Romano being allowed disastrously unfunny reign over the stage for far too long, while Eric Idle is forced to share the comedic stage with Tom Hanks.

7. Oddly enough, entertainers acting on fake news shows as journalists are genuinely more funny if they talk about politics; because, Lord knows, we're in a bad need of good satirists. However, entertainers on entertainment shows posing as a forum for a serious issue are drop-dead unfunny in their attempt to be funny. In addition, politicians posing as entertainers who then pose as fake journalists posing as real journalists interviewing fake people on a real issue in a phony context on a real show which is totally fake, are not funny.

8. I've repeated myself by using the word "unfunny" more than once - I regret nothing; furthermore, I would proceed to use it several more times in reference to this show, without a second thought.

9. The attempt to woo the 'layman republican' with a country music performance is actually really funny, if not slightly offensive to Republicans. Apparently TBS figured that the condescending concept of Daisy Does America was not enough. I can imagine the producers sitting around a long, polished oak table and having one of them blurt out: "But wait, how do we get republicans on board..?"

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Finally, and rampantly off topic, if I oppose anything as inhumane and pointless, it's the death penalty. Singapore is silly for engaging in the practice and I hope Canberra takes the death penalty-using country to the International Court of Justice.

But how hilarious is it that Amnesty International has rallied to the noble cause of protecting...an Australian drug trafficker?

I remember being in high school and being told by Amnesty's office that our local chapter could not hold a fundraiser for the homeless, because lo and behold, Amnesty International's mandate does not extend to the homeless.

Yet, apparently, it extends to drug traffickers - as long as, you see, it is done in the name of "human rights". It's sort of like PETA getting Pamela Anderson to whore herself out for the anti-fur movement, but weirder, and less hot.

The First

Hi All:

I'm going to post some older entries into this blog from my other one; just to start things off, you know how it is.

Iain Marlow