Our new blogosphere

[T]his infamous and exceedingly unstable individual ... has been trying with all of his sick might to peddle this "story" all over Beijing and China.... Unfortunately ... you have given him what he craves obsessively, an audience that has no chance to fact-check his over-long, obtuse ravings.... He is a pariah at every school that mistakenly hired him.... I can assert with authority, and direct sources, that his story is flat-out lunacy and paranoid fabrications stemming from his inability to teach or communicate with "normal" human beings.... Please, all who read this, do not accept this slandering of a fine university and a fine group of dedicated Chinese educators--it simply is not true.... I know that by publicly debunking this sick fool I will now become a target of his bizarre abuse.

Damn you, Uriel--go away. For your own sake. Before you go too far and get yourself into serious trouble, if you are still in China.

Writing blogs, or "web logs," is described by the New York Times as

a once marginal activity of Internet enthusiasts that has become squarely mainstream, with an estimated three million active blogs online [counting only those being written in the U.S.]

A vast majority of bloggers are average citizens who draw from their personal experiences -- and often the personal experiences of relatives, friends and colleagues -- to create a kind of memoir in motion that details breakups and work and family issues with sometimes startling candor.

While personal blogs have been around for years, their proliferation has caused a wrinkle in the social fabric among people in their teens, 20's and early 30's. Inundated with bloggers, they are finding that every clique now has someone capable of instantly turning details of their lives into saucy Internet fare.

"It's like all your friends are reporters now," said Douglas Rushkoff, a blogger and author.

Heather Armstrong, a 27-year-old Web designer from Utah, wrote about her job and her co-workers in her blog, often hyperbolically.

When her bosses were alerted that Ms. Armstrong was writing about her office life, they fired her, she said. She is now much more careful about what she publishes in her blog, and she had a word of caution for bloggers who write furtively about others. "If you're publishing under your own name, they'll find out," she said. "I was extremely naive."

Being found out is no deterrent for 18-year-old Trisha Allen, a blogger from Kentucky. She has been blogging for roughly a month, and spends most of her time reporting candidly on her friends and on her relationship with her boyfriend.

A recent entry reveals that the couple are not quite ready for children -- though "we have had two scares" -- and that Ms. Allen's preferred form of birth control is the pill, even though, she wrote, "I am starting to hate it, because it has screwed up my menstrual cycle wickedly."

Deirdre Clemente, a blogger from Brooklyn who is now a a student at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan, frequently uses her relationships as fodder for her blog.

That became an issue for a recent boyfriend of hers, a 34-year-old Manhattan hedge-fund manager who feared that having his name in the blog could compromise his business relationships.

During his eight-month stint as a nameless regular on Ms. Clemente's site, he said, "it was an odd feeling that there was a camera on me." Friends and relatives who knew about the site followed his relationship online, he said.

"On occasion my mother would send me an e-mail saying, `How was the play?' or, `Sounds like you had a nice weekend away,' " he said.

The proliferation of personal bloggers has led to a new social anxiety: the fear of getting blogged.

[Excerpted from "Dating a Blogger, Reading All About It," New York Times, May 18, 2003]

Slate Magazine's Jack Shafer comments gloomily on two widely read blogs:

Several times a day--oh hell, a dozen times a day--I click my way to Gawker and Wonkette for a couple of minutes of reading that usually elicit more guilt than pleasure. If you've yet to visit these blogs, imagine them as the twin offspring of a date-rape incident between Drudge Report and the original Spy magazine.

Gawker collects links to the day's news and gossip about publishing, New York celebrity culture, advertising, the Paris Hilton video, the art world, public sightings of movie stars and rockers, and adds a signature cutting remark to tie things up. Wonkette performs a similar service for the news and gossip from Washington, although sexing up news from think tanks and politics is by far the harder assignment.

I have no personal beef with either site. But after several weeks of consuming every cartoon obscenity, bludgeoning wisecrack, and meta-knowing, callow riposte served on these two blogs, I've been asking myself: Are these blogs a part of the better world we hope to leave to our sons and daughters?

Well, yes, if we intend for our children to grow strong from sucking bile instead of milk.

Any assessment of the sites should first commend the entrepreneur behind them, publisher Nick Denton, for bringing commerce and innovation to the blogosphere. Next, you'd have to salute Gawker and Wonkette for their abundant wit. At least a couple of times a week, Gawker and Wonkette publish items that cause me to shout aloud, "I was going to think of that!"

Then why do Gawker and Wonkette leave me sick at heart?

Because despite the demonstrable talent that goes into both sites, they insist on handing out rote poundings to their subjects with a monotonous sadism that makes few distinctions among worthy and unworthy targets.

Now, where I came from, if you intend to kill the puppy for fun, you must first make friends with it for a few days so there's a whiff of surprise when the slaughter arrives. Not so with Gawker and Wonkette. They're so fixated on the hunting of the snark that they're prepared to flame everybody to a crisp.

It's telling to compare Gawker and Wonkette to their cultural antecedent, which, of course, is Spy magazine. In its late '80s heyday, Spy speared many of the same phonies and celebrities and morons that Gawker and Wonkette dice daily. But at the time its satire and irony were rare in the media. Today, with The Daily Show, David Letterman, Bill Maher, Dennis Miller, Keith Olbermann, et al., choking the airwaves, snark and smirk are the default mode.

[Excerpted from "The Heaving Pukes Who Write Gawker and Wonkette," Slate Magazine. Posted March 11, 2004, at http://slate.msn.com/id/2096976/.]

The ordinary blog is pretty awful stuff. A couple of months ago a young Canadian woman who teaches in China emailed me a lengthy commentary on my Inside China's Diplomacy School, which she'd just finished reading, although "with all of the tangents you went off on during the telling of your tale," she'd found it "hard to concentrate on the story."

"If it ever makes it to hard copy," she offered, "you might consider editing them out." (I graciously conceded that point.)

After a generous dollop of further comment she concluded:

I realize I don't know you and you don't know me, and you're probably well accustomed to reading these kinds of e-mails. I'm sure mine is less insulting than some and more insulting than others. I'm still interested in your response. I'd like to see how dissect what I've written in an attempt to discredit my opinion.

If I'd needed any ammo for a counter-strike, I wouldn't have had far to look. It's amazing how oblivious some people are. I bore the young woman no ill will for her bold foray into my inbox, but I was obliged to educate her as to her own vulnerability to critical readers. She was a blogger -- and her blog overflowed with the kind of impossible-for-a-reader-to-want-to-know banalities that seem the hallmark of many blogs:

My trip to Canada was a wonderful success! ...though I must admit: it was a tad too short, and when I got back to Yuncheng yesterday, I wondered what the hell I was doing here. I hope that feeling goes away, and SOON!

I managed to see almost everyone I wanted to see while I was back home, and I managed to do just about everything I wanted to do as well.

Much to my dismay, my mom has switched to Baker's Dozen for her morning coffee needs, so I didn't drink as much as I wanted to.

The flight to Winnipeg wasn't so bad in and of itself, but the landing was REALLY bumpy and I thought for sure we were all going to die.

My Dennis is fantastic, we went out lastnight for night market and karaoke (welcome back to the swing of things!) but found it too hot to sit outside, so found a restaurant with a ceiling fan.

I was home and in bed by 11 because I may or may not still be suffering JET LAG, and now here I am, 9am Friday (I think!), waiting for Dennis to come back from his exam so we can go buy a ceiling fan to cool off this godforsaken apartment. My air conditioner cools off my bedroom from 32 degrees to about 27 degrees, but the rest of the place is SWELTERING. It desperately needs to rain here.

Love you all for reading me, and I'll keep up with the updates as the news happens. Check for new photos, my dad bought me a digital camera!!

While such ramblings are pretty painful, I can easily understand the inclination of a Westerner in China to broadcast his or her experiences. I myself set up my mailing list during my first China experience, in 2000 (see Western Teacher, Chinese College). The whole world there is so weird, the cultural gap so gaping, the wealth of incident and anecdote so abundant, one only hopes the folks back home won't reject it all as unbelievable fiction.

One Westerner blogging in China that I've just come upon made me laugh out loud with recognition:

How Dare I!

August 03, 2004

How Dare I!How dare I actually go up to the counter at a shop and expect to be served first? Who the hell do I think I am? Some kind of imperialist despot, oppressing the poor Chinese, burning down their palaces and enforcing the opium trade?

Honestly, I am such a bastard sometimes. To think that I actually expressed dissatisfaction that the man who arrived a couple of minutes after me was able to buy his stuff before I did. It's his country, it's his right. I should know better too, it's the third time in a week.

Perhaps it was my mistake to actually stand at the counter in the shop: after all, the best place to exchange your money is leaning over the boiling pot of eggs. My mistake.

And while on the subject, how incredibly uncouth of me to push past other people standing directly in my way in a busy train station. Even if I did do my best to walk sideways and cause the minimum of fuss, clearly it is something I have no call to do. How dare I, especially given the gentle courtesy of everyone else you encounter in a train station.

Please, please someone help me. I see the error of my ways and want to find a way to behave more politely to people in future. Or is there something wrong with me - do I smell or something?

[from http://philip-sen.com/disorientated/]

One potentially wonderful feature of blogs is the capability for readers to post responses (although the blog's proprietor can disable the feature -- which, as we will see, can be troubling). A Chinese reader posted the following response to "How Dare I!" The absence of rancor, the regretful acknowledgment of national shortcomings, the suggestion to "adjust," or endure -- not to mention the amusing malapropisms -- are typically Chinese. I was touched:

Today,I loitered to your website and saw this artile.I want to tell you,not only on you,an Englishman,but me,a Shanghainese also meet such institution everyday whenever going out.Especially at the peek-time bus stop,tube station and someplaces which should be waited in line.

I remembered you have writen an article titled dumpling accident. There is a word in one of the comments I think can explain why the cutting in line situation is so common in Shanghai:There are almost 12 million people inhabiting here.How can a person get the opportunities by waiting?

Plus no strict administration compared to the huge traffic flows,so each living in Shanghai has already oposs a lot of "skills" facing the morning competitions.

And not everywhere has the same case.But I have to say that it is a uncivilized phenomenoun and hard to be sovled.The civilization level of Shanghainese is behind the development speed of this city.

You really think too much about these problems.As a Shanghainese,I have to say sorry to you.There is nothing wrong with you.I met many travellers here complaining the cutting-line situation happened everywhere.But I suggest you had better adjust yourselves to this.Don't be so sensitive.

Posted by lucy at August 7, 2004 01:39 PM

Another Western teacher's blog also makes me laugh -- it's all so recognizable -- though he's rather a mean fellow:

Thursday, July 01, 2004

Yesterday, I went to the municipality of Suixi, which is closely adjacent to Huaibei. This wasn't my first trip to Suixi. I have been there at least 5 times before for various reasons, but this was my first trip to Suixi Experimental School, a primary school.

The city of Suixi looks no different than the city of Huaibei--vastly industrialized, shabby buildings, trash in the street, and pollution everywhere.

I went there as a favor to my Foreign Affairs Officer. He knew I didn't like doing this kind of thing and was well aware of my reluctance, but the wife of one of the administrators of the college was a teacher at Suixi Experimental School, and considering there aren't any foreigners within at least, or maybe more, a 70 mile radius, I was chosen since she had requested "a foreigner."

But these were primary school students, and I didn't want to be walking into another situation of "monkey in the zoo," hence my reluctance. I had never really done a speaking engagement at a primary school, plenty of middle school speaking engagements,yes, but no primary school gigs. This was my first.

The school sent a van to pick up Mr. FAO and me, and away we went on the 20 to 30 minute ride. Our van entered the middle school gate where a statue of three school children stood, as a testament to socialistic education.

Upon our arrival at the school building, 8 small girls were holding flowers for us.

I was quickly ushered upstairs to a conference room, where Mr FAO and various leaders and teachers immersed themselves in cordial discussion and staring at me. I looked around the conference room. On my left was a painting of Mao Ze Deng and Deng Xiao Ping. On the wall across from me, was a painting of Lei Feng. Behind me, were about a dozen Red China flags. None of this surprised me, because I see this all the time in every school I go.

I was given a lot of cigarettes and drank my tea quietly, and played dumb foreigner.

Playing the dumb foreigner requires a certain mindset:

1. You don't say a goddamn thing--nothing in English, and nothing in Chinese.

2. You smile, and you smile a lot.

3. You act like you don't understand anything.

4. When you are asked a question in English, you respond directly, and don't volunteer any additional information. You say, "Yes" or "No" to a question, nothing more.

5. Here's the toughest point, and one that you have to accept: You allow them to take control of you. This means they will touch you, pull on your shirt, hold on to you as you walk down the stairwell, and generally treat you like you are a toddler. They don't really mean to be offensive by this, but they assume that you aren't very knowledgeable about anything except that you possess the remarkable capability of speaking English.

Eventually, after playing dumb foreigner, one of the teachers, a rather attractive female, sat next to me, and opened two books.

"You should read from these books, and have the students repeat after you."

"Okay, let me look at them," I said, opening the book and seeing it was very basic:

Johnny likes apples.

Do you like bananas?

I go to school by bus.

"Okay, I can do this!" I proudly proclaimed.

"Really?" She asked.

"Oh, gosh, I think I can!" I responded.

Finally, it was showtime. They led me down the stairs, and into a large room filled with 200 screaming children ranging from 7 to 9 years of age. First, though, Mr. FAO, the school leaders, and I were greeted with the eight flower girls wearing those red neckerchiefs that communicate both fear and ridicule to me and given a sharply dressed party salute.

Then, I was given a microphone.

One of the leaders said, "Mr. Hank, you should walk around and ask students questions!"

"Okay!" I said with a big grin.

The children truly were lovely and precious, but hey they were seven years old for god's sake. Do you think they give a crap about English?

I went up to one precious girl.

"Hi, what is your name?"

She had a puzzled look on her face.

"How old are you?"

She had a baffling look on her face.

"Okay."

"Ni jiao shenme mingzi?"

This she understood.

"How old are you?"

This she still didn't understand.

"Ni ji sui le?"

She understood this.

Anyway, it pretty much went like that for the next 45 minutes.

Then, I read out of the book, and the students repeated it after me.

That's pretty much how my afternoon in Suixi went. I did this performance twice for a total of 400 students.

To tell you the truth, I kind of enjoyed it. No political questions, no drills of asking me to sing, and the children, though they were wild, I loved them.

Afterwards, I was treated to a large meal and baijiu and cigarettes of course and the leaders trying to get Mr FAO to allow me to return there on a regular basis, but he protected me, and stated, "If he has time, he might."

[Excerpted from http://www.sinosplice.com/~laowaimono/]

Other parts of this teacher's blog reveal him to be somewhat bitter. It is a fact that many Westerners in China feel disdain for most Chinese, including Chinese who are well-intentioned. (I never had this attitude and hope no one would infer otherwise from too superficial a view of my writings.) It's an uncomfortable contrast that while contempt is a prevalent feeling among Westerners in China, the innocence and earnestness shown in Lucy's post above are typical of the Chinese.

But then, our culture is the one in which "Wonkette" thrives.

But I was going to relate a troubling instance of blog feedback shutdown.

You won't find it by googling on "China blog censorship". That gets you 28,400 results, but of course the censor in most cases is the Chinese government.

In my new story, the censor is the gentleman who labelled me a "sick fool" and my tale of China's diplomacy school "flat-out lunacy and paranoid fabrications."

The fellow just completed a year teaching at the SAME school.

He's a blogger.

And he's a fighter for freedom of speech -- though he also seems to get into fights in courtrooms and bars, usually around the topic of O.J. Simpson. Sometimes he injures himself without any help, e.g. around swimming pools.

Oh, and he sincerely believes in civility.

Plus, freedom fighter though he is, he managed to persuade a fellow blogger who also loves free speech to suppress negative info about the diplomacy school from his site.

I invite you to read about Joe Bosco, Blogger.