Monday, April 28, 2014

Victory and Sorrow




My friends are hard at work in the house behind mine.  The group I successfully had cease and desist on Sunday are back at it, drilling, sawing, pounding.  China’s remarkable urbanization of rural workers building the cities they will eventually come to live in themselves, is well described in this fascinating Economist summary article, “Building the Dream."  http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21600797-2030-chinese-cities-will-be-home-about-1-billion-people-getting-urban-china-work
Indeed.  Two thirds of the nation, (1/6 of the planet or so) all 弃农经商[1] Immediate evidence a mere watermelon’s throw behind me. 

Close the windows, put on the headphones.  I have no ground from which to complain.  Who am I to stop the greatest urbanization project human kind has ever witnessed.  But come next Sunday, if they so much as hold a rasp up to the light, they’re gonna hear from me. 



Ah, but I’ve got Booker Little in my ears and he sounds beautiful and with a bit of preparation I can’t hear the builders at all.  I’ve come upon Mr. Little, who hailed from Memphis Tennessee through my pursuit of bass players.  I have been planning to mention and eventually will, Reggie Workman, who, of course played with Coltrane on many of the classic releases from the early 60s.  I will get around to writing about Reggie Workman, who sounds great in my ears just now, swinging with the New York drummer turned attorney, Pete La Roca whose been featured here before, Workman lead from the workmen and on to the trumpet player who heads this session, Booker Little. 

Before Reggie Workman I'd discussed the bass player Doug Watkins who died tragically at the age of 27 in 1962.  You need a different adverb I suppose to describe the death of surging virtuoso with the striking looks, who passes at the age of 23.  Booker Little came up in Max Roach’ band in the wake of Clifford Brown’s passing.  He died not long after this set I’m listening to, appropriately titled  “Victory and Sorrow” off the album “Booker Little and Friend,” recorded in 1961.  The cause was complications from uremia, otherwise known as kidney failure.   Apparently Max Roach was so shook up that another great brass luminary associated with him should pass so young, he wondered if he was somehow a jinx for trumpet players.  Amazing to consider making a lasting impact on a tradition, by that fledgling age. 

I’m a member for the Pacific Council on International Policy and my only real connection, as all the events for the Council take place on the other side of the Pacific, is the China news summaries I receive, compiled by the inimitable Bob Kapp, former head of the U.S. China Business Council.   And I love this list because it regularly brings in a dozen new news sources, like the Economist article above, that I might not normally consider.  Today’s trawl included an interesting piece on how China’s search efforts for the Malaysian Airlines jet have revealed that her blue water navy will run out of gas, projecting power much beyond Hainan.  China has no official allies with whom it can count on for refueling stations, should relations with our favorite hegemon, turn sour. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/22/us-china-navy-idUSBREA3L1P120140422 

It is interesting to consider who it might be that will actually assume the role as China’s first proper treaty ally.  Perhaps it will be in Tanzania, after building this fuel station.  Not that lack of allies ever stopped the Japanese Imperial Navy from projecting its power across this continent.  But China’s behavior in the South China Sea with Vietnam, and the Philippines, will not lead to any trusted affinities, any time soon in their immediate neighborhood.



Meanwhile Oliver Stone was in town, chiding the Chinese to come to grips with their own history and approach a Chairman with a fair, no holds barred, critique.   The hapless moderator tried to turn the subject to more moderate matters and Stone told her she was missing the point. 

"You talk about co-production but you don't want to face the history of China. You don’t want to talk about it," Stone said.  "Three times I've made efforts to co-produce in this country and I've come up short. We've been honest about our own past in America, we've shown the flaws."

Only partially true, but important nonetheless.  I once wrote a candid, farcical screenplay about Mao, that will never be made. I can sympathize.  Oliver missed the memo on the niceties of Chinese hagiography and the importance of stability over all else, but that’s not a bad thing.  Sometimes its good to have a bull in the China shop. 

Finally, I often quote a stat I learned a long time ago that United States enjoys 1/5 the population of China, living on five times the arable land.   Raw geographic comparisons of approximate comparability notwithstanding, most of China is mountainous, desert like and not capable of sustaining people.  This article in the China Dialouge blog adds insult to the injury of the aforementioned juxtaposition.  Apparently nearly 1/5 the arable land in China is polluted according to an official quality report, published last Thursday.  One can only imagine this is going to get worse, before it gets better.  Hence people leave the countryside and a life of cultivation to improve their lot, but also, presumably, because 1/5 the land doesn’t yield any more.  Or worse, it does, and people poison themselves, daily.  So much further to go . . .







[1] qìnóngjīngshāng:  to abandon farming and become a businessman (idiom)

No comments:

Post a Comment