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Escape Unemployment, Go Abroad

A couple of weeks ago I read an article in the New York Times that annoyed me more than just a little. Titled ‘For a New Generation, American Dream is Elusive’, the article profiled an unemployed 24 year old from Boston who, since graduating from college with a liberal arts degree, has been unable to find a job despite frantic effort.

Well, this isn’t entirely the truth. It seems that the guy, one Scott Nicholson, actually was offered a job for 40,000 USD a year but decided it wasn’t good enough for him. So he turned it down. His failures to land a corporate track position has led both his parents and grandparents to conclude that the American dream just ain’t what it used to be.

What galled me most was that the article intended the reader to sympathize with Scott, and in the comments section many actually do. Now I don’t know Scott and don’t want to judge him, but what on earth was he expecting? 24 year olds with a bachelor degree, no work experience, no real life experience, (likely) no language or other marketable skills simply aren’t going to hit the gravy train straight out of a liberal arts college. This is hardly news; I heard much the same thing when I graduated from college, one of the reasons I ultimately chose to go to China to teach English. And when I graduated the job market was considered good.

My faith in the intelligence of our generation was restored somewhat by this parallel piece, authored by another young American. Like Scott, Andrew Hudson graduated from college and couldn’t find a job. So he went to India and found work. And while he admittedly won’t make much money while abroad, he is still gaining invaluable life  and work experience and will be much better off when he decides to head back to the US.

Given my personal history I’m understandably bullish about going overseas to live- I’ve long encouraged most of my friends to do so, and several have. For me, I was pulled to China by a sense of adventure, not as a strategic maneuver. As a 23 year-old I didn’t think in such terms.  Yet the strategic advantages of going overseas are numerous. To wit:

- For a native speaker of English, there are always, always English-teaching positions available pretty much anywhere in the developing world. Even if teaching isn’t a glamorous profession for all, there are far worse ways to make a living, especially in the short term.

- It goes without saying, but learning another language is much easier when you live in a foreign country.

- There are many exceptions to this rule, but spending some time abroad- particularly in an unusual place-  usually makes one a more interesting person.

Not everyone has the temperament or desire to live overseas, so my prescription isn’t going to work for everyone. But a twenty-four year old like Scott Nicholson ought to know that sitting and e-mailing companies his resume isn’t the only way forward in the world.

Posted 25 July 2010 † matt_schiavenza § Education ‡ Comments (0) °

She Turned Me into a Newt! I Got Better…

I’ve been enjoying watching Republicans twist themselves in pretzel-like shapes in denouncing the proposed mosque to be built near the World Trade Center site. In the Washington Post, Newt Gingrich- for a time the most prominent Republican in the country- argues that we shouldn’t allow a mosque….until churches and synagogues are allowed in Saudi Arabia. Quoth the Newt:

Those Islamists and their apologists who argue for “religious toleration” are arrogantly dishonest. They ignore the fact that more than 100 mosques already exist in New York City. Meanwhile, there are no churches or synagogues in all of Saudi Arabia. In fact no Christian or Jew can even enter Mecca.

And they lecture us about tolerance.

First, Gingrich’s use of ‘Islamists and their apologists’ here is what’s truly arrogantly dishonest. Come on Newt. You know you wanted to say ‘liberals’.

Secondly, and more importantly, I find the comparison with Saudi Arabia here baffling. Conservatives are always saying how exceptional the US is, yet here a one of the movement’s prominent voices seems to argue that if the House of Saud refuses to allow religious toleration, then we should by extension follow suit. Whatever happened to the idea of rising above the standards set by countries that we quite rightly think of as backward?

To me, that the mosque has stirred up comparatively little outrage is a sign of the health of the American spirit nine years after 9/11- most people just don’t care and simply will carry on living their lives. Only demagogues like Gingrich- representing the vanguard of conservative ‘thinking’ on religion and politics- are truly out of line here.

Posted 25 July 2010 † matt_schiavenza § Uncategorized ‡ Comments Off °

Laos

Today is the sixth day of my trip to Laos, a trip that has certainly been a long time coming. I had originally planned to come to Laos in 2005, the year I took my first trip to Southeast Asia. Instead, I got stuck in Thailand. In each subsequent trip to Southeast Asia, as well during the years I lived in neighboring Yunnan Province, I had wanted to come but never got the opportunity.

Finally, I’ve made it. I can say with certainty that Laos is worth the wait.

First, a little backstory as Laos is still fairly obscure to most Western readers. Laos is a small, landlocked, largely agrarian country on mainland Southeast Asian and was for many years the backwater of French-controlled Indochina. Like its neighbors Cambodia and Vietnam, Laos received its independence in the 1950s from the French but soon thereafter became embroiled in the American war in Indochina. As part of the so-called ‘Ho Chi Minh trail’, Laos was the recipient of a secret bombing campaign ordered by the Nixon administration intending to disrupt supply routes to North Vietnam. To this day, no country on earth has been bombed as much as Laos, and unexploded ordnance still dots much of the eastern part of the country.

Like Vietnam, Laos came under full Communist rule in the mid 1970s and remains a Communist state today. At many monuments I’ve seen signs and plaques pointedly referencing Laos’ friendship with other socialist states, such as its principal benefactor China.

Today, Laos is perhaps the least developed and poorest country in all of East Asia. There are no skyscrapers, modern highways, railroads, or much modern infrastructure anywhere in the entire country. Much of the population still lives in thatched-roof huts in the countryside, practicing subsistence farming. Lao cities are full of crumbling buildings left over from the French colonial days, and the evidence of Chinese investment remains scant.

The Lao people are gentle and kind- even the panhandlers smile and walk away when you reject their advances. Much of the population seems to siesta for about four or five hours a day, a practice that I’ve adopted myself. 

Luang Prabang, where I sit now, is a beautiful colonial town on the banks of the Mekong and one of the most charming places I’ve ever been to in all of Asia. The poverty and lack of development perhaps have not stopped this city from having some of the finest restaurants I’ve been to on the continent, all within a reasonable backpacker’s budget. Two days ago I visited a waterfall park full of Lao and foreign people and encountered a mixed group playing bocce ball together.

That, to me, is what makes this place so nice. Laos seems to have adjusted to tourism better than any of its neighbors by far, and the Lao people seem unperterbed by the masses of large, big-nosed pale-skinned foreigners who descend on their country year after year. If anything, they’re proud and welcoming. And judging by the beauty of their landscape, there’s much to be proud of.  

Granted, Laos ranks very low on most human development indeces, and poverty here remains rife. However, there is a certain immeasureable quality to the life here, one that I suspect will entice travelers, such as this one, to wish to come back.

Posted 13 July 2010 † matt_schiavenza § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (0) °

The World Cup and Coming and Going

One of my first memories of Kunming was from the summer of 2006, when I first came here on vacation after wrapping up my teaching contract in Fuzhou. With a couple of friends I walked into the Camel Bar, the second (third?) edition, and watched a World Cup game with a lively mixed crowd of expats and locals. The friendliness of the scene contributed to my decision some months later to relocate to Kunming to study Chinese. The rest, as they say, is history.

Now, it is 2010 and the World Cup has returned. Suitably, perhaps, the Cup will mark the end of my tenure in the Spring City just as definitely as it marked its beginning. In the past four years, the city has changed somewhat. The Camel Bar shut down and then re-opened near its former location.The number of bars showing games has multiplied. But the spirit remains the same- a large, international community watching the world’s greatest sporting event in a frenzied atmosphere.

In citing its internationalism I am forced to laugh at one of my stated reasons for moving to Kunming- that the city wouldn’t have so many foreigners. I was determined to live in a city where I wouldn’t be tempted to spend my free time speaking English in dingy bars, and for whatever reason thought Kunming would be a suitable place for such a purpose. In the end, of course, Kunming’s concentration of foreigners is what likely has kept me here for this length of time.

I used to feel a little guilty now and then about how much time I spent immersed in the laowai scene while living here. Maybe it’s the latent Catholic in me, but I sometimes wished I had made more Chinese friends, had learned more about Chinese culture, and, of course, had learned to speak and read better Chinese.

Thinking back, though, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I now have friends from countries around the world, and have learned much from all of them. I’ve had many wonderful experiences while living in Kunming, from traveling around Yunnan Province by bicycle to drinking and dining in the city with friends. I like to grouse about Facebook, but the fact that more than 200 of my friends are ones I made while in Kunming is a testament to the rich tapestry of people I’ve come across here.

I’m often asked why I chose to live here rather than in Beijing or Shanghai or Guangzhou or Shenzhen or wherever. I will admit that occasionally I’ve asked myself the very same question. Certainly, I’m envious of friends in those places- ok, maybe not in Shenzhen- for the rich array of culture on hand, for the economic opportunity, for the cosmopolitanism that Kunming cannot offer.

My flippant reply is that as a Californian, I can’t live anywhere with a harsh winter. But this only muddles rather than illuminates the truth. Kunming offers something that I find unique- the diversity of a big city combined with the intimacy of a small town. I like being able to walk down the street and run into people I know. I like being able to see all of my friends at an nighttime event, if only because there’s nowhere else for anyone to go. I like sharing in excitement when the little trappings of cosmopolitanism- a good ska bad, a real cappucino- arrive in our town.

So upon further reflection I find that there’s really no reason to feel guilty at all. Growing up in the Bay Area, I had friends from all over the place- something that enhanced, rather than diluted, my very American childhood. And in Kunming, being able to wander to a table and participate in an argument about Italian soccer followed by sitting in while a different table dissects the finer characteristics of Yunnan ethnic minority groups has truly made the past four years special.

And in the end, my fondness and understanding for the Chinese language, people, and nation itself has likewise grown immeasurably. That’s the ultimate issue, isn’t it?

So tonight I shall traipse down to the bar street and watch more soccer, surrounded by screaming partisans of Japan or Paraguay or whomever. And I will think that these nights, in the warm Yunnan air, are almost as good as it can get.

Posted 29 June 2010 † matt_schiavenza § Me ‡ Comments (2) °

Beijing

I recently spent a few days in Beijing, a city I hadn’t visited since the beginning of 2008- a lifetime ago in laowai years. As always, a trip outside Kunming calls for a few observations.

- For the first time ever, I visited Beijing in decent weather. Normally my visits to the city coincide with either harsh winter or scorching summer temperatures, necessarily limiting my desire and capacity to explore the city on foot. On this occasion- barring one day of rain- the skies were blue and temperatures perfect. This made a big difference in forming my impression.

-The local food in Beijing is best avoided. As a Kunming-bred friend of mine says, Beijing restaurants to take all the flavors available around the country and replace them with heaping mounds of salt. I had a bowl of daoshaomian, a favorite noodle dish of mine, and nearly wept when I tasted it. Give me southwestern lajiao every day.

That being said, Beijing has an array of cuisine on offer befitting a great capital city. And the prices are reasonable, too. I had passable Mexican food with real guacamole and didn’t have to pay through the nose to get it. One regret from not staying longer was being unable to sample all the fine food on offer.

- So how is Beijing in comparison to Shanghai? This, my friends, is a question that arouses fanatical opinion in China. As a person who has lived in neither city and a resident of the hinterland, I don’t really have a dog in this fight. What struck me more was how similar the two were to one another, and how different both were to Kunming. I truly felt like Rip Van Winkle walking around, gaping with amazement at the dazzling array of, well, stuff there was to buy and see and do.

But alas I am not Switzerland; neutrality is not an option. And I must place my lot firmly in the Beijing camp. This isn’t really a slight to Shanghai, which is a helluva city in its own right and one I look forward to seeing again. But Beijing has better retained its essential Chinese-ness in the process of its development than has its southern counterpart.

While in Beijing I stayed at a chain hotel in Shuangjing, a fairly non-descript neighborhood just off the third ring road. Within walking distance of my hotel was a Starbucks, a French bakery, and the other trappings of a major international city. Yet also nearby was an ordinary Chinese neighborhood with noodle houses, Sichuan fry-up dives, a few gritty looking bars, and the normal hum of daily life so common in China.

I didn’t find this in Shanghai. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough, but what I saw was a city eager to shed its Chinese-ness rather than embrace it. Of course, ‘out with the old’ is as Chinese a concept as face, chopsticks, and dragon boat races. But in the opinion of this humble correspondent Shanghai looks a little too much like a shanzhai Hong Kong*, with the exception of the magnificent architecture along the Bund that is truly one of Shanghai’s great trademarks. It’s difficult to imagine a hutong in Shanghai, for instance, being used for anything other than a German beer garden and Gucci outlet.

In writing this, I am trying to avoid the easy temptation of romanticizing pre-development China, a trait associated with spoiled rich-country writers the world over. Given where it was 30 years ago, contemporary Shanghai is a staggering, momentous tribute to China’s economic miracle. But it feels so disconnected with the rest of the country that the effect is almost jarring. Beijing seems to possess a better mixture of quotidian Chinese life and the international sophistication the country has embraced.

- As much as I enjoyed my time in Beijing, it was good to get back home to Kunming. On the drive home my taxi got stuck in a traffic jam caused by two men who had parked their cars in the middle of the road and engaged in a furious fist fight. The short guy with the cap had a quick jab, but he was foiled by the tall guy’s swift uppercut, though before long the boxing match descended into good old fashioned rolling-on-the-ground brawling. Ah- it’s good to be home.

Posted 28 April 2010 † matt_schiavenza § Travel ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: , , ,

Liberals, Conservatives, and Open-Mindedness

At Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen asks his readers whether self-identified conservatives are more ‘closed-minded’ than self-identified liberals.

To me, the answer is quite plainly yes, and not only because I am a liberal who dislikes conservative values. Once upon a time, the conservative movement actually contained useful ideas about domestic, economic, and foreign policy that provided an intellectual balance to liberalism. This balance no longer exists, in large part due to conservatism’s abandonment of intellectualism.

What has happened over the past generation is that the conservative movement has effectively embraced anti-intellectualism as its guiding creed. This began with the election of Ronald Reagan as President and has reached its apotheosis with the rise of Sarah Palin. In the conservative mind, Palin’s lack of knowledge and expertise are virtues rather than liabilities. Her very simplicity makes her somehow more authentic.

This dislike of intellectualism has led conservatives to adopt an essentially reductionist set of policy ideas. Economic policy? Cut taxes and everything will be fine. Environmental policy? Drill baby drill. Foreign policy? Perpetual war, uber-patriotism, obsessive veneration of the military, and other fascist trappings. Domestic policy? Guns and God.  That’s basically about it.

A generation ago, when conservatism still had intellectual integrity, the answer to Cowen’s question might have been ‘no’, or at least ‘not necessarily’. Nowadays  closed-mindedness isn’t just a characteristic of conservatism, it’s a principle.

Posted 10 April 2010 † matt_schiavenza § Navel Gazing § Politics ‡ Comments (2) °

China Divide, This Site, and Me

A couple of announcements for a lazy Saturday morning in hot and sunny Kunming, China…..

Keen followers of the China blogosphere may have noticed that there’s a new kid on the block: China/Divide. Combining the talents of Stan Abrams of China Hearsay, Kai Pan of CN Reviews, and Charles Custer of China Geeks, China/Divide has already become a go-to source for smart, witty analysis on all things China.

To my delight, I have been invited to join the team. My first contribution, a piece discussing the recent thaw in Sino-American relations, is now live. Go and have a look.

Some of you- ok, maybe just close friends and family members- are probably thinking, “Damn, Schiavenza. You already write for Lost Laowai, China Intelligence Online, Yunnan Magazine, and MattSchiavenza.com. Don’t you think you’re stretching yourself a little thin?”

Perhaps. There is only so much time to blog each day, and only so many things to blog about. As a result, I’ve decided to change the direction of my personal site and make it, well, more personal. Since its launch in summer 2007 I’ve consciously tried to devote this space to thoughts and reflections about China, deviating only occasionally into rants about US politics and other subjects. Doing this has brought focus to my writing as well as a group of intelligent and interesting regular readers.

So while I still plan to write often about China, those posts will likely appear elsewhere. This space, then, will become a repository for the millions of other things clamoring around in my brain. In the past I’ve wanted to write about books, baseball, movies, politics, and other subjects but refrained in an effort to maintain the China focus on this blog. Now, posts about those things will begin to appear more regularly.

With that out of the way, I’ve got another announcement to make, one which will likely not be news for most of you. Beginning this fall, I will be a student at Columbia University in New York City, pursuing a Masters in International Affairs. Leaving the Dragon for the Apple will be a big change, no doubt, and I’m sure I’ll have a lot to say about it. Though I’ll be sad to be leaving China after six wonderful years, I’m excited about this new challenge in my life and feel now is the best time to go for it.

Anyway, I hope all of you stick around for the ride- writing this blog has been one of the best things in my life both personally and professionally, something that would not have been possible had you not popped in with comments. Once again- thank you very much.

Now, back to regularly scheduled programming…

Posted 10 April 2010 † matt_schiavenza § Me § Self-Promotion ‡ Comments (3) °

Can Do People

Yesterday while attending my first yoga class in well over a year, my teacher kept using the term huiyuan to signify those- not me- who were able to do the positions properly. The term appears to me to be a combination of 会 and 员, literally ‘can person’. Yet when checking on Wenlin the term 会员 has only one meaning: member.

Does anyone know whether this is an actual term, or was my teacher simply making words up on the spot? In any case I found it a clever use of the language, and aspire to be a yoga ‘can person’ myself.

Posted 08 April 2010 † matt_schiavenza § Language ‡ Comments (3) °

UPDATE: Dylan in China

James Fallows also picks up on the Bob Dylan in China story and now has an interesting rejoinder provided by Zachary Mexico, the former Kunming laowai whose book China Underground I reviewed in this space last July:

I have it on good authority that the Chinese government did not deny Bob Dylan permission to play in China. It was the Taiwanese promoter’s outlandish financial requests that made the tour unrealistic.

If there’s anyone I know of who would be in position to know this thing, it’s Zach, so this could well be the case. If so, I’d like to issue a hearty apology to the culture warriors at Zhongnanhai for my insinuation that they were behind this travesty. Who knows? Maybe Hu Jintao was more of a Beatles guy than a Dylan fan.

Posted 06 April 2010 † matt_schiavenza § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (0) °

Stay Bobby Stay

According to the Guardian, Bob Dylan will not be permitted to play concerts in Beijing and Shanghai, thus scuttling his proposed East Asia tour:

China‘s ministry of culture, which vets planned concerts by overseas artists, appeared wary of Dylan’s past as an icon of the counterculture movement, said Jeffrey Wu, of the Taiwan-based promoters Brokers Brothers Herald.

Dylan fans denied the chance to see their hero might also blame Björk, who caused consternation among Chinese officials two years ago byshouting pro-Tibet slogans at a concert in Shanghai, Wu told Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post.

The verdict scuppers Dylan’s plans to play his first dates in mainland China. The singer, who plays around 100 concerts a year on his Never Ending Tour, had hoped to extend a multi-city Japanese leg with concerts in Beijing, Shanghai, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong. All these would now be called off, Wu told the newspaper.

I think I own or have listened to most of Bob Dylan’s music, and I’m struggling to remember if China, Tibet, Taiwan received any mention at all in his lyrics. Dylan also hasn’t been a counter-cultural icon since the early ’60s. When the hippie movement blossomed in the latter part of that decade, Dylan was living on a farm in Woodstock, New York and making folk/country albums like John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline.  In other words, he hasn’t raged against the machine since before the Cultural Revolution was in full swing.

I also find the Bjork connection dubious. Ministry of Culture apparatchiks are understandably not paid to keep up with Western pop music, but had they seen just one of her videos they’d have realized that the Icelandic ice queen isn’t exactly a bellwether of mainstream Western culture. If anything, her embrace of Tibetan rights would almost be enough to discredit the movement.

Once again, the Chinese government reveals its inept approach to international public relations regarding the Tibet issue. Moreover  I doubt even the most rabid fenqing would have been riled up by a near-septuagenarian folk singer entertaining a few thousand nostalgic boomer laowai.

Posted 05 April 2010 † matt_schiavenza § Current Events § Music ‡ Comments (2) °