Sorry for the relative blog silence of late.  Traveling home was time-consuming.  And, once here, family duties, work and jet lag have demanded my time.  Today, however, I  have found a moment to write…

Let me expand upon an observation from my trip to China.  It is something that had struck me when I was there in October 2006: rapid economic, social and cultural change has created a certain desire to reclaim Chines "roots," a sense of historical continuity with some sort of authentic and, I suppose, unchanging aspect of Chinese-ness.  This time around I saw this manifest to two ways.

First, when I went out to the 798 art district and walked through the exhibition by Qin Yufen, I noticed how her work was described as drawing upon her Chinese roots as a means of extracting meaning in the midst of globalization.  I should emphasize that this point was made by a German commentator in a statement at the outset of the exhibition and was not something that Qin herself was saying (I don't know what she might say).  But what struck me was how her work (whatever her own intentions) was being used as a symbol of sorts, standing for the possibility of maintaining some sort of cultural authenticity in the face of global cultural flows.

It should also be noted that in the particular exhibition that I saw (see photograph below) cultural Chinese roots were not obvious. The work was abstract to a point of being rather detached from any particular cultural referents.  (And I should say, I liked the installation).  I have no doubt that her other work, even the body of her work, includes more obvious Chinese elements.  It just wasn't evident in the piece I walked through.

Let me throw out a second experience before making a broader cultural point.

While walking through Nanluoguxaing one day I was accosted by a couple of young Chinese college students.  They were doing some survey research on perceptions of how Nanluoguxiang had developed in recent years.  One key aspect of their questions was the extent to which the street had essentially crossed some cultural line, moving from being essentially "Chinese" to something more "foreign."  One question was quite explicit: they asked for a determination of the balance of "Chinese" and "foreign" culture on the street.  I answered 70% "Chinese" and 30% "Foreign." (which is also the CCP's official assessment of Mao's good and bad points: 70% good, 30% bad; not sure if my interlocutors caught the reference…).

In any event, as I was responding to their questions, I was thinking that many Chinese people would likely have found my assessment laughable.  The place, with its bar and boutique culture, would appear to them to be so "foreign."  The commerce and decadence would be seen as clearly un-Chinese.  To my eyes, however, the preservation of traditional architecture and the very large presence of Chinese business owners and consumers made this much more of a "Chinese" location than, say the Chaoyang district with its modern high rises and international chain stores.  But different people will see things in different ways…

Now, let me try to tie these two observations together.

Both the art exhibition and the survey of Nanluoguxiang, it seems to me, are expressions of a more general desire to name and preserve Chinese "roots."  This is a completely understandable desire.  Any country that experiences as rapid socio-economic change as is going on in China today would also be cast into a search for something more culturally permanent and settled.  It is precisely when things are changing so drastically that we want to hold on to something that seems more permanent.

That being said, however, I think the search for authenticity is ultimately futile.  We cannot hold on to the past, indeed, if we think about it for a time, we probably do not want to hold on to the past.  There was never a time in the past that was wholly settled and pure.  Societies are constantly changing.  Cultural transformation is continuous.  We can pick a time in the past and try to isolate it and call that the "real" China, or the "real" America, or the "real" France, or whatever country we wish to consider; but that moment is itself a culmination of prior transformations; it is the result of many changes that have come before.  Why try to isolate one particular moment out of a much broader process of constant cultural flux?  Such desires to make the past into a kind of changeless purity tell us more about our present anxieties over the rate of socio-economic change than they provide an accurate picture of an ever-changing  history.

I guess, in this, I am fundamentally un-Confucian: there never was a golden age of the past when the sage-kings had it all right.

Again, I do not mean to suggest that Qin Yufen or the students I met are wrong to seek out some sense of "roots" (if that is what they were doing).  It is a project taken up by many people in many different cultural contexts.  I just don't think some sort of ultimate cultural authenticity can be discovered.  Culture is never "pure."

Also, I think the Daodejing would ward us away from being too self-conscious in such pursuits.  If we are too explicit in our efforts, too concrete in our definitions about what is and is not "Chinese culture" (or any other "culture" for that matter), then we are likely to compound our failure to discover authenticity.  We just have to let culture happen, just let art happen, without over-intellectualizing it.  Indeed, I wonder if that is closer to how Qin herself works.  Does she plan out specific interactions of Chinese and global images, or does she just do her art in a manner that naturally expresses such combinations?  I imagine it is the latter.

So I will leave off here with passage 24 of the Daodejing, which we can read as a commentary on how to manage the anxieties of very rapid cultural transformation:

Stretch onto tip toes and you never stand firm.  Hurry long strides and you never travel far.

Keep up self-reflection and you'll never be enlightened.

Keep up self-definition and you'll never be apparent.

Keep up self-promotion and you'll never be proverbial.

Keep up self-esteem and you'll never be perennial.

Travelers of the Way call such striving "too much food and useless baggage." 
Things may not all despise such striving, but a master of the Way stays clear of it.