The Useless Tree

The Perils of Modernization

  • As Chinese society becomes less Confucian, Japanese society becomes more Daoist

    OK, maybe that's a rather sweeping title, but it is the idea that comes to mind when contemplating several recent articles simultaneously… First, on the China front, we have this story in the People's Daily today: "Millions of young people… Continue reading

  • The Breakdown of Family Duty in China

    China is becoming more like the United States, and not in good ways.  I remember back in the 1990's, people like Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew argued that "Asian Values," which for him were always rooted in Chinese culture, contrasted sharply… Continue reading

  • Nothing good will come of this

    That is: the destruction of the old alleyways – hutong – around Gulou (the Drum Tower) neighborhood in Beijing.  I understand the complaints of local residents, who have to put up with substandard housing, but a more organic, grass-roots process… Continue reading

  • Modernization and Westernization

    I raised a big question in one of my classes last week: is modernization Westernization?  We had a good discussion.  They had read a chapter from Stuart Hall and Bram Gieben's Formations of Modernity, and a chapter from David Harvey's… Continue reading

  • Can a Black Person be Chinese? – Update

    Last September I wrote a post, "Can a Black Man be Chinese?," that attracted a fair amount of attention. I followed this up with a briefer thought, "Can a Black Woman be Chinese?"  Interestingly, Evan Osnos, at the New Yorker,… Continue reading

  • Modernization is not Americanization

    David Marash, a veteran journalist who just spend four months in Shantou, notices how American consumer culture has become common in China: In the United States of the late 1940s and 1950s, people once-shackled by Depression-era want and caution and… Continue reading

  • Is Confucianism the answer?

    Here's a sad story, from the Straits Times (Singapore): BEIJING – A TWO-YEAR-OLD boy was orphaned in the southwest Chinese city of Chongzhou when his parents drank pesticide after a nasty row. The tragedy, reported in the state media last… Continue reading

  • Can a Black Woman be Chinese?

         A brief follow up to my earlier post about immigration, identity and race in China.  A commenter, darts, makes a point that I want to bring forward for further discussion.  Here it is: Sorry if the below seems excessively… Continue reading

  • Modern Mimicry

    Here's a post that I liked, over at The China Beat.  Timothy Oakes builds on accusations that China is "faking" its way through modernization, the lip-syncing and video enhancements of the Olympics being the least of it.  He didn't go… Continue reading

  • Can a Black Man be Chinese?

    I wrote something about the possibilities for increased immigration and expanded multicultralization (yes, I'm making it a verb) in China.  I even submitted it to a journal, which today told me they would not publish it.  Without time to work… Continue reading