Hi Jasmine! Loved the post, recently went back to China in the summer of 2023 and my parents are from the Zhejiang region, so a lot of what you said resonated with me. I kind of felt it would as soon as you mentioned diaspora angst - I think a lot of my friends who deal with that feel like they don't "belong" to a group, but I luckily feel strongly tied to both my Chinese and American halves and pretty comfortable with both (probably thanks to having a good relationship with my parents...)
One of the things that is hardest for me to describe to my friends about China really is how much you can feel technological and economic progress as a normal citizen The rate of change is so, so fast there - when I visited my grandparents, they confessed to eating out a lot less nowadays because so many restaurants have converted to fully digital menus, and they aren't nearly as comfortable with the QR code ordering and using Alipay as people who grew up with smartphones are.
I feel like I’m a little more optimistic about the future of China's cultural output, even in the face of extremely heavy-handed government regulation. It's definitely something you feel while you're there, but I would argue that you probably shouldn't be expecting that much cultural output from China right now, anyway?
It took Korea and Japan getting rich first before they were able to really do their creative work; my understanding is that kpop’s breakout into the mainstream consciousness arose after Samsung and Hyundai and LG ate the world, and the same for anime and Japanese food and philosophy - they became smash hits after Honda and Sony et al made Japan a major player.
I feel like China is on its way - it kind of feels like the country is an uncertain adolescent teenager, that feels the need to prove itself. When the country matures and feels secure about its place on the global stage (not educated enough on the topic to speak about when it might happen or the implications of this for the rest of the world), I think/hope that's when we'll see China's creative scene come into its own.
thanks for reading & sharing your experiences! it’s interesting to hear how older folks are coping with the change
I think the question re: creative work is whether censorship will decrease as China grows wealthier overall… hard for me to imagine good art that doesn’t flirt with subversion (and many people are already leaving the country). but I certainly hope things turn given the amount of talent!
"Instead, I looked toward writers like Peter Hessler. Hessler lived and worked in China for decades, so he’s no short-term tourist. But he’s also a longtime advocate of starting with ordinary people’s lives to understand China’s transformation."
I should point out that I did spend quite a bit of time in my post arguing that living in a place for years is very different than visiting it for a few weeks... 😉
fair, and that’s why i intend to spend more time in the future! but i think my main axis of disagreement was re: how much you can learn from everyday conversations with non-officials (of course just ordering food is not enough)
Speaking of changes, it's alarming to me the US is hostile to China after so many years of amity with China --why do people find this necessary?
When I say this, people think I am a Chinese troll.
Then when I say 'USians have much more personal freedom of speech than people in China' I get accused of other things. (But I am not saying anything about how China should be run, I just value this more than anything else about the US).
I really want to understand more about China but there's so much to understand. I could never scratch the surface. I am glad people have their needs met in any country, glad to see China flourish.
One thing people have always raved about China long before this modernization was the food. So it must be truly incredible now.
Allow me to answer as someone based in Shanghai, typing this from Shanghai: for older generations, yes they do. They just don’t talk about it. And it’s a controversial topic to start with, not as a one-sided narrative as some of you would imagine.
For the new generations born afterwards, for those of us who care, yes we do also remember. In absolute number we are a huge number of people, very likely millions. But in terms of percentage, we also only represent a low single digit percentage at best. (Not exact stats, just feeling) This is the effect of complete information blackout + frankly, not many people care about politics, the same way majority of people in US don’t really care enough to really “know”.
And for those of us who do know, it’s again a controversial topic. Definitely not a call to arms or something like this that some outsiders would love to imagine. It would be wrong to think (I know some of you living outside do) that if enough people “knows”, this govt will somehow collapse. That painful episode was way more complicated than what one word could depict, and most of us know how hard it was.
I would like to tell you why I enjoyed this so much, but frankly I don't have that much time, so I'll just mention that I'm fascinated by borders (physical, cultural, national, language, etc) and how we cross them (or don't), and in particular what it means to belong to multiple cultures. Great read, thank you.
If i read the World section of every newspaper and brand-name magazine in the USA, I’d never learned this much about China. Thank you for writing this.
Very eloquently written! RE: "But if you’ll allow me a single provisional generalization: I was surprised by how much the China I observed embodied the myths America tells about itself", these myth were once a reality, America used to be semi-politically and semi-economically decentralized. Much of centralization is actually fairly recent, it wasn't until between the late 1970s and mid 1980s that America mostly de facto (and arguably illegally!) removed the the capital flow inhibitors between states (it fully and de jure removed them with a set of policies in the 1990s centered around the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994).
Most ppl are normal humans just trying to prosper in whatever ways they can. It’s not the Russian, Chinese or Central American people that are problematic. It’s the bureaucrats that suck. People who crave power over others and want the subjugated to voluntarily dispense any autonomy in deference to their power are just not good people. Not here in America, truthfully not anywhere.
The leadership of the CCP is concerning. The expressed goals of Xi JinPing do not align with a free and open society.
Much of China looks beautiful. There is beauty to be found everywhere on earth really. Chinese culture is fascinating and it’s history isn’t really taught here. In fact we don’t really teach our own history anymore. Every country has its darker hours but the best we can do is learn from the past and effort to do better.
Dwelling or excessive ruminating on past failures isn’t helpful but trying to erase the past is a fools errand. I hope you understand that reasonable ppl don’t hold individuals responsible for the mistakes of their predecessors. My ancestry is 99% Irish but I’ve never been there and doubt I ever will. I am American, not Irish-American.
Okay, everyone is bit Irish on St Paddy’s Day. Top o’ the morning, blah blah, wind at your back blah.
I enjoyed your article and thank you for sharing it.
This is beautiful Jasmine, loved settling in with this long read today! And my husband and I will be spending a couple months in China this winter if you happen to know anyone locally with recommendations!
This was brilliant, so fascinating. I travelled through Yunnan and Sichuan in 2007 and it sounds like, at a base level, not much has changed (it was pretty Dalifornia-fied even then). Have you read Peter Goullart's The Forgotten Kingdom? Written by a Soviet exile who moved to Lijiang in the 1920s/30s. Recommend. Also, really interested in the guy who learned Burmese and wonder whether he found it difficult. I lived in Burma for several years and speak decent Burmese but *totally* failed to make any headway with Mandarin. Studied it for a year and never got further than the numbers and 'my name is Jill and I'm American and Irish'. I'm convinced it's the most difficult language on the planet. Great essay. More please! 🙏
I haven’t read it, but thanks for the recommendation! and had no idea Burmese was “easier” for english speakers than Mandarin haha. makes me feel better about my mediocre Mandarin for sure
Burmese is pretty easy, it’s only got three tones and a phonetic alphabet with remarkably consistent sound/spelling so once you know the sound of each “letter”, you’re away. Mandarin is SO much harder.
Loved reading this. My shallow self wants to know if you bought anything good while you were there! I am so curious about the perfume shops as well. Oh and 'the phobia of fashionable people' is an amazing title for something.
Hi Jasmine! Loved the post, recently went back to China in the summer of 2023 and my parents are from the Zhejiang region, so a lot of what you said resonated with me. I kind of felt it would as soon as you mentioned diaspora angst - I think a lot of my friends who deal with that feel like they don't "belong" to a group, but I luckily feel strongly tied to both my Chinese and American halves and pretty comfortable with both (probably thanks to having a good relationship with my parents...)
One of the things that is hardest for me to describe to my friends about China really is how much you can feel technological and economic progress as a normal citizen The rate of change is so, so fast there - when I visited my grandparents, they confessed to eating out a lot less nowadays because so many restaurants have converted to fully digital menus, and they aren't nearly as comfortable with the QR code ordering and using Alipay as people who grew up with smartphones are.
I feel like I’m a little more optimistic about the future of China's cultural output, even in the face of extremely heavy-handed government regulation. It's definitely something you feel while you're there, but I would argue that you probably shouldn't be expecting that much cultural output from China right now, anyway?
It took Korea and Japan getting rich first before they were able to really do their creative work; my understanding is that kpop’s breakout into the mainstream consciousness arose after Samsung and Hyundai and LG ate the world, and the same for anime and Japanese food and philosophy - they became smash hits after Honda and Sony et al made Japan a major player.
I feel like China is on its way - it kind of feels like the country is an uncertain adolescent teenager, that feels the need to prove itself. When the country matures and feels secure about its place on the global stage (not educated enough on the topic to speak about when it might happen or the implications of this for the rest of the world), I think/hope that's when we'll see China's creative scene come into its own.
thanks for reading & sharing your experiences! it’s interesting to hear how older folks are coping with the change
I think the question re: creative work is whether censorship will decrease as China grows wealthier overall… hard for me to imagine good art that doesn’t flirt with subversion (and many people are already leaving the country). but I certainly hope things turn given the amount of talent!
"Instead, I looked toward writers like Peter Hessler. Hessler lived and worked in China for decades, so he’s no short-term tourist. But he’s also a longtime advocate of starting with ordinary people’s lives to understand China’s transformation."
I should point out that I did spend quite a bit of time in my post arguing that living in a place for years is very different than visiting it for a few weeks... 😉
fair, and that’s why i intend to spend more time in the future! but i think my main axis of disagreement was re: how much you can learn from everyday conversations with non-officials (of course just ordering food is not enough)
Dude, welcome to live in China for a few years.
Fascinating.
Speaking of changes, it's alarming to me the US is hostile to China after so many years of amity with China --why do people find this necessary?
When I say this, people think I am a Chinese troll.
Then when I say 'USians have much more personal freedom of speech than people in China' I get accused of other things. (But I am not saying anything about how China should be run, I just value this more than anything else about the US).
I really want to understand more about China but there's so much to understand. I could never scratch the surface. I am glad people have their needs met in any country, glad to see China flourish.
One thing people have always raved about China long before this modernization was the food. So it must be truly incredible now.
Bravo Jasmine. Great travel writing that captured the nuances of a complicated country. Does anyone in China know what happened on 6/4/89?
Allow me to answer as someone based in Shanghai, typing this from Shanghai: for older generations, yes they do. They just don’t talk about it. And it’s a controversial topic to start with, not as a one-sided narrative as some of you would imagine.
For the new generations born afterwards, for those of us who care, yes we do also remember. In absolute number we are a huge number of people, very likely millions. But in terms of percentage, we also only represent a low single digit percentage at best. (Not exact stats, just feeling) This is the effect of complete information blackout + frankly, not many people care about politics, the same way majority of people in US don’t really care enough to really “know”.
And for those of us who do know, it’s again a controversial topic. Definitely not a call to arms or something like this that some outsiders would love to imagine. It would be wrong to think (I know some of you living outside do) that if enough people “knows”, this govt will somehow collapse. That painful episode was way more complicated than what one word could depict, and most of us know how hard it was.
thanks for sharing this!
super interesting
Thanks Jasmin:-)
I really enjoyed your essay and getting the opportunity to 'visit' parts of China with you! I look forward to reading g about your future adventures.
I would like to tell you why I enjoyed this so much, but frankly I don't have that much time, so I'll just mention that I'm fascinated by borders (physical, cultural, national, language, etc) and how we cross them (or don't), and in particular what it means to belong to multiple cultures. Great read, thank you.
this is actually a very concise & elegant explanation! thank you for reading :)
Would that everything I do under time constraints be described as "concise & elegant," hah.
If i read the World section of every newspaper and brand-name magazine in the USA, I’d never learned this much about China. Thank you for writing this.
Very eloquently written! RE: "But if you’ll allow me a single provisional generalization: I was surprised by how much the China I observed embodied the myths America tells about itself", these myth were once a reality, America used to be semi-politically and semi-economically decentralized. Much of centralization is actually fairly recent, it wasn't until between the late 1970s and mid 1980s that America mostly de facto (and arguably illegally!) removed the the capital flow inhibitors between states (it fully and de jure removed them with a set of policies in the 1990s centered around the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994).
super interesting, i’d wondered if america used to feel this way. thanks for sharing!
Come more often!
i plan on it! was great to meet you :)
PS- Great pics!
Most ppl are normal humans just trying to prosper in whatever ways they can. It’s not the Russian, Chinese or Central American people that are problematic. It’s the bureaucrats that suck. People who crave power over others and want the subjugated to voluntarily dispense any autonomy in deference to their power are just not good people. Not here in America, truthfully not anywhere.
The leadership of the CCP is concerning. The expressed goals of Xi JinPing do not align with a free and open society.
Much of China looks beautiful. There is beauty to be found everywhere on earth really. Chinese culture is fascinating and it’s history isn’t really taught here. In fact we don’t really teach our own history anymore. Every country has its darker hours but the best we can do is learn from the past and effort to do better.
Dwelling or excessive ruminating on past failures isn’t helpful but trying to erase the past is a fools errand. I hope you understand that reasonable ppl don’t hold individuals responsible for the mistakes of their predecessors. My ancestry is 99% Irish but I’ve never been there and doubt I ever will. I am American, not Irish-American.
Okay, everyone is bit Irish on St Paddy’s Day. Top o’ the morning, blah blah, wind at your back blah.
I enjoyed your article and thank you for sharing it.
This is beautiful Jasmine, loved settling in with this long read today! And my husband and I will be spending a couple months in China this winter if you happen to know anyone locally with recommendations!
ooh where are you going in china?
We’re still putting together the itinerary. I’m a sucker for c-dramas so I have a lot of fantastical spots on the list lol!
Substack has only really made it, when it makes it in China. You can ban an app, and censor a past and a future, but stories still need to be told.
i hope someday!
You never know, all we need to get are a few big Chinese writers: Liu Cixin comes to mind.
https://suno.com/song/9f0ae6c0-f36d-432b-bbfa-3c7721f597f5
This was brilliant, so fascinating. I travelled through Yunnan and Sichuan in 2007 and it sounds like, at a base level, not much has changed (it was pretty Dalifornia-fied even then). Have you read Peter Goullart's The Forgotten Kingdom? Written by a Soviet exile who moved to Lijiang in the 1920s/30s. Recommend. Also, really interested in the guy who learned Burmese and wonder whether he found it difficult. I lived in Burma for several years and speak decent Burmese but *totally* failed to make any headway with Mandarin. Studied it for a year and never got further than the numbers and 'my name is Jill and I'm American and Irish'. I'm convinced it's the most difficult language on the planet. Great essay. More please! 🙏
I haven’t read it, but thanks for the recommendation! and had no idea Burmese was “easier” for english speakers than Mandarin haha. makes me feel better about my mediocre Mandarin for sure
Burmese is pretty easy, it’s only got three tones and a phonetic alphabet with remarkably consistent sound/spelling so once you know the sound of each “letter”, you’re away. Mandarin is SO much harder.
I loved reading this!
Loved reading this. My shallow self wants to know if you bought anything good while you were there! I am so curious about the perfume shops as well. Oh and 'the phobia of fashionable people' is an amazing title for something.
omg YES I wish I could post photos in comments! the perfume store was a Tamburins popup in this 4-story showcase called HAUS https://www.gentlemonster.com/us/stories/haus-shanghai
also bought pearl earrings, a new yorker style shanghai poster, a fun straw hat, so much uniqlo (i prefer the sizing and selection in asia!)….
Ohhh Gentle Monster! I need to experience one of their stores.