Absurdity, Allegory and China

It’s difficult to get the state-sponsored Chinese media to take the least little bit of a breather from hyping the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games (190 days away and counting – the digital counters are everywhere), an event that is trying its best to supplant the Berlin 1936 Olympiad as being the grandest display of hyper-nationalism [...]

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Laobaixing: the common folk; the People in the People’s Republic of China; the cab drivers, office workers, migrant workers, small shopkeepers, beauticians, food sellers, the people on the street. In essence, it’s all those who are trying to make the staggering adjustments to survive in a nation that once tried it’s best – at least [...]

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Woman Amid the Oddities Look closelyand you’ll see a persona middle-aged womanbeside her bicyclewaiting at attentionfor the sun to riseover the humped spineof the saucered building. Perhaps this timeshe will scream. © Jim Gourley, 2008. Technorati Tags: gourley China Tianjin poem Olympics

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This past Monday, December 31, I took the light rail from Tianjin to TEDA (Tianjin Economic Development Area), the largest of the Tianjin development zones and major port for northern China. Six kuai (80 US cents), not a bad ride. There has been and continues to be large amounts of money poured into developing what [...]

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Fm. the Feets Don’t Fail Me Now file: In a grim follow-up to my New Year’s post offering up cautionary advice on resolution making, China’s national football team, (aka Guozu, which literally translates as ‘National Feet’) in complete disregard of my heart-felt warning, publicly promised to qualify for the 2010 World Cup with an oath [...]

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I am not a man of or for the seasonal expression of Resolve. Far too many official and potentially damaging implications are tied – as in a noose – to the concept of swearing something, either off or on, under the arbitrary guise of a date change. If January 1st, then why not March 29th [...]

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