Some Feedback after Watching the Documentary Beijing or Bust

Alas, thus spake the X-guitarist of the legendary Chinese heavy metal band, Tang Dynasy, Kaiser Kuo, in his matter-of-fact tonality regarding the state of affair in modern China:

let's be thankful there isn't one,(a vision and ideology strife for a nation), and that the ad-hoc pragmatism aimed at raising income levels and creating what Beijing modestly calls a “xiaokang” society while putting out the innumerable fires is, well, good enough for now. I'm glad that ideology is a dirty word for most Chinese people I know, and if we have to endure a generation or two of near-naked materialism, so be it.
----Nov. 27th, 2004, from his web journal: http://kaizor.livejournal.com/

I read this short excerpt out of an entry on his web journal after I saw his appearance on this show last night on PBS called Beijing or Bust, in which a handful of Asian Americans talked about their experience in Beijing juxtaposing their lives against the backdrop of a rapidly changing China. Kaiser, being one of the most outspoken apologists of the current social landscape of China, actually appeared in quite a few Western programs, one of the others I saw before was in this British-produced world travel show called, Globe Trekker, in which a Brit-blonde damsel paid a visit to Beijing and briefly interviewed him in a voguish/ avant-garde pub. Kaiser, in his idiosyncratic and over-confident expression, delivered a speech exhorting the Western folks to have a new look at China, and heralded the grandiose peaceful horizon of the so-perceived PAX-COMMUNIST-CHINA, and I quote: “everyone thinks that this is the ultimate ‘police-state’, and …there’s no such thing.” [sic]

This same type of melodramatic sentiment pervades the show Beijing or Bust inside-out. Kaiser, who was one of the main characters in the film had gave the most input on current issues of China, all of whom embraced/acquiesced/consented the overall social-political landscape of China. This led me wanting to further investigate Kaiser’s thoughts via the internet, which led me into his web journal and surprisingly encountered one of the most outrageous comments coming out of an America-educated Chinese: “I'm glad that ideology is a dirty word for most Chinese people”. My God! Since I used to bear deep admiration for the Beijing rock-scene and used to admire his X-Band Tang Dynasty, which always represented to me as the paradigm for anti-establishment and rebels of accepted norms, whose ultra-nationalistic disposition had unreservedly caught my enchantment during my youthful years. And yet, today, having witnessing his and other fellow company’s sensational and yet total pro-Beijing stance has left me in utter stun, let alone disappointment… Isn’t his participation in one of the most incendiary rock band, named Tang Dynasty the very manifestation of the most grandiose ideology a descent Chinese might possess?

The halfhearted approach and kitschy representation of the show is fittingly summarized as one of the interviewee’s comment on current Chinese society: “lots of (fanfare) appearances, no substance”. Its airing was very much in accord with the tremendous amount of media attention of the so-perceived idea of “China Rising”, which was in itself generating much lucrative capital as well as cultural curiosity. (Let’s go Beijing! Beijing Olympic 2008! Beijing Welcome You!) Lots of tongue-in-cheeks and vertiginous smokescreen are being fabricated into this mirage of a nascent superpower. “This is the Wild Wild East”, thus proclaimed one of the interviewee, and images of Western tourists flooding the hooker-saturated streets of San Li Tun, Beijing, pretty much encapsulated the exotic-savvy minded foreigners’ infatuation with today’s China.

I was terribly crestfallen after watching the whole show aired in this intellectually oriented channel, PBS, whose sole obligation should’ve been bringing public awareness of social-political justice in any given environment, and yet, this particular show had totally degenerated toward much celluloid of pinups and tabloids of banal platitude, in another words, utterly inconsequential and full of sensationalism.

It FAILED to address the essential dilemma facing China today: not a word was being poignantly directed toward the ruling dictatorship—CCP! When the film shows footages of the 1999’s “legit” demonstration of angry students protesting in front of the U.S. embassy in Beijing due to NATO air-raid of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, it only scratched on the surface of an ostensible rising Chinese nationalism. No mentioning whatsoever about the whole scam was fired-up by surreptitious Reds’ agitation, the very Tour de Force of Commie treachery. Any sensible human being will easily see that after the bloody crackdown of the 1989 Tiananmen incident, which was a bona fide student demonstration, the only two so-called “legit” demonstrations, (which meant they’re being reviewed and AUTHORIZED by the city’s police bureau) and received large (planned) media attention was the 1999 one, which was aimed against the U.S. and the 2005 nationwide demonstration, which was aimed against the Japanese! Come on, is anyone still awake? I’m about the only little boy who’s sensible enough to point out that the emperor doesn’t have any clothes on! Has everyone all fail to realize the shameless chicanery and ferocious brutality of CCP? How come not a single footage was addressed about the thousands of suburban and rural riots against local oppression and the ruthless liquidation of FaLunGong practitioners and human rights activists?

The central thesis of the film is that China is modernized and transforming rapidly, so that once upon a time, there’re these six Chinese-Americans wanting to embrace their roots at the expense of their conscience and national integrity. I want to just remind others that while there might be these few handfuls of foreign citizens who wanted to obtain something like a residential alien status in China, on the other hand, there’re still thousands and thousands of Chinese who are fleeing the Reds’ confinement and longing for a better life in the Free World. Now that’s some authentic and substantial gumption which is worthwhile exploring, rather than keep perpetuating this stereotyped and empty myth of “China Rising” as if the People’s Republic of China is really going to be entering the status of a superpower? I mean seriously.