This
‘Australian Centre on the Chinese World’ has produced a remarkable work, which
is available as a free download on line, tracing the evolving notion of
civility in China, which it traces in articles and photos, over the course of
this year. I’m only 20 pages in,
on the 246-page work, but it is already interesting, to see a view into China
organized this way. Walking around
in Beijing one is confronted daily with signs intoning populace to “be
civilized.” And what precisely
might that mean? What do you pluck
from when the tradition encompasses “all under heaven” or tianxia?
Going over some of the discrete events, like Xi Jinping’s
resuscitation of the Ming Dynasty imprecation “four dishes and a soup,” the
movie I never saw, but confronted 700 ads for, which looked like something odd
and pivotal, “Lost in Thailand”, the movie I did see with my daughters “Tiny
Times” that was so unbelievably bad and implausible that I couldn’t even laugh
at it ironically I was so gob smacked that something this banal might speak to a contemporary Chinese "moment." The promotion of “The China Dream” with ads and rhetoric, protest
of journalists in Guangdong and so on, all woven together; these all begin to craft a
narrative from what had been daily news to something like a historical
trend. I think I’m going to enjoy
making my way through.
One thing that will not be discussed is the phenomenal and
distinct trombone playing of the one Bennie Green who is sliding away in the
air. Born three days before my day
in Chicago in 1923, Bennie Green came up in a musical family and learned to
play at the famed Du Sable High School there in the windy city. I’ve long been a fan of the big bone
sound. I think I became most
enamored listening to Newyorican salsa where every band, certainly Willie
Colon’s and Joe Battan’s (who’ve both been featured on this page before) which
each had three big trombones upfront, creating a unique brass assault. For bop I can only name one or two
trombone players, and the defining stylist was always J.J. Johnson. Bennie Green retained and cultivated
his own unique, more bluesey attack.
And the mix on this song “Melba’s Mood” profiling him trading off with
Charlie Rouse on tenor recorded there at Rudy Van Gelder’s New Jersey studios,
compiled on this “The Capitol Vaults Jazz Series” is majestic.
I write to you from a wicker chair at our compound’s indoor
poolside. All my ladies are
splashing about, having a good time.
I’m staying dry as the only real bathing suit I have, a grey floral
affair, which I got about two month’s back at the YaShow knock off market near
my office, for about US$8.00, developed a hole the progressed to a tear which shows
no signs of stopping and would look positively pornographic were I to be
prancing about with it on here in public.
This reinforces a lesson that, were I to be contributing to
the “China Yearbook” I might mention.
In China, for basic consumer goods, like apparel, you can buy very cheap
things that do not last or frightfully expensive things, that might. There is no “Target.” Even though jeans and sneakers and
everything else are made here, I tend to buy them back home, as (I imagine, at
least) I know what I’m getting and they tend to last longer. You appreciate the remarkable power of
“the American consumer” who is willing to trade job security and wages, for
quality bargains at the store. The
Chinese middle class is still finding its way, between the rich, who can pay
whatever it takes and everybody else.
The Chinese consumer, myself included, has much less power, it seems, to
demand value and quality at a reasonable price.
A hackneyed example, perhaps, but we really do have some
civilizational work to do. The
gent over in the lap lane with the fancy cap and goggles has just loudly
expectorated. The sound
reverberates around this faux Roman interior drawing more than a few eyes over
in his direction. And . . . it has
been spat out. Lovely. Thanks. I’m not going to say I have never pee-ed in a pool. But were I to do so it would be
discrete, and the evidence would quickly be diluted to irrelevance. This gent’s contribution had an
auditory and presumably lasting viscous quality making discretion impossible.
So is the man who pees discretely civilized, while the man
who hawks loudly an oaf? I’m sure
most reasonable people would point to the hygienic concerns violated in both
instances, as the proper civilizational benchmark. But in our day to day lives, as it concerns the choices we
all make, being civilized often has more to do with decorum, than anything
scientific. Having swum in this
pool before I also know that it is a far cry from 清新自然[1] as there is enough chlorine in the mix
to strip the enamel off my children’s teeth, so I think the ladies won’t
encounter anything living, either way.
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