(no subject)
hoops - balled with the locals in guilin this morning. we all had a good time - there were the obvious verbal communication issues, but a backdoor cut at bps is a backdoor cut anywhere. it was a fun 3-on-3 affair, but it's so damn hot and humid in guilin that i was soaked after only about 30 minutes. i only had time for a coupla games up to 11, and being the "new" guy i didn't want to hoist up all the shots, so i was just a distributor. can't lie too much, the games weren't grand, nor too competitive - but it was nice to get my hands on a basketball after a while away from it. no highlights to really report on, except that i worked my spin move (it's really shaun's spin, but i'm sure he took it from someone else too...hahaha) once and earned a few "waaah"'s from the crowd.
books - i work in a bookstore, so that sparked some interest in me to check out the bookstore in guilin. now you can tell quite a bit about a community based on the books they consume and the differences with indigo books is quite telling. some obvious differences are the huge sections on agricultural technology, and agricultural techniques - big big sections. never heard of 'em in a toronto bookstore - for obvious reasons. another section that was huge was the architectural engineering area; there are architecture books at indigo, but more of the coffee table book variety, this was hardcore engineering. guess it's not surprising considering the feverous development going on in guilin and many parts of china, really.
there are 3 things that stood out in particular:
- Nietzsche in Chinese! i almost bought it merely for the novelty of it - that and i've been trying to explain nietzsche to my mom for ages now, but can't get through. so a chinese edition of his works might help.
- there is no "self-help" section. the "helping industry" hasn't poisoned this bookstore yet, and hopefully it never will. this is merely conjecture, but i wonder if the gross poverty in guilin has anything to do with it. they have very tangible complications in life to deal with while the yuppies in the yonge and eglinton area need phantoms to preoccupy themselves with an otherwise boring, albeit comfortable, life. ok...that was a bit of an unfair statement - depression can be crippling, but i wonder what the rate of depression and other psychological maladies might be in places like guilin. i know it seems like i'm implying depression is somehow imagined - that's not what i'm trying to say, but i guess what i might be trying to get at is the triggers that open up depression. in any case, maybe a lotta people in guilin are depressed - i just don't know about it.
- the amount of "counter-hegemonic" literature. there were so many books dealing with human rights atrocities and democracy. there appeared to be a lot of literature on political economy that is highly critical about china. granted, beyond the english titles, there was nothing else in the book i could read. i'm not suggesting china isn't authoritarian - but just that we have not only passive victims but active denizens who offer up resistance - however minor and insignificant it might turn out to be.
anyhow, i'm in yangshuo now - which one might equate with banff in alberta. it's purely tourists here. i think 50% of the people i've come across are tourists - well, that figure probably dropped when me and ted took a long sojourn out to the backwaters of yangshuo. china has thus far been surreal in the sense that the great modernization campaign has created many city centres resembling that of any "western" cosmopolitan hub - but that development is in process. there is so much construction going on at such rapidity, that even the most casual observer can note the odd transition phase. we have new, sprawling buildings all along a strip only to abruptly cut into a slower, village setting. it's a surreal feeling, that with one step, one enters a totally different world. the global and the local unmediated - only for so long of course. the local is soon to take on new meaning for these individuals in the coming years - heck, they've got the train into tibet up and running now.
books - i work in a bookstore, so that sparked some interest in me to check out the bookstore in guilin. now you can tell quite a bit about a community based on the books they consume and the differences with indigo books is quite telling. some obvious differences are the huge sections on agricultural technology, and agricultural techniques - big big sections. never heard of 'em in a toronto bookstore - for obvious reasons. another section that was huge was the architectural engineering area; there are architecture books at indigo, but more of the coffee table book variety, this was hardcore engineering. guess it's not surprising considering the feverous development going on in guilin and many parts of china, really.
there are 3 things that stood out in particular:
- Nietzsche in Chinese! i almost bought it merely for the novelty of it - that and i've been trying to explain nietzsche to my mom for ages now, but can't get through. so a chinese edition of his works might help.
- there is no "self-help" section. the "helping industry" hasn't poisoned this bookstore yet, and hopefully it never will. this is merely conjecture, but i wonder if the gross poverty in guilin has anything to do with it. they have very tangible complications in life to deal with while the yuppies in the yonge and eglinton area need phantoms to preoccupy themselves with an otherwise boring, albeit comfortable, life. ok...that was a bit of an unfair statement - depression can be crippling, but i wonder what the rate of depression and other psychological maladies might be in places like guilin. i know it seems like i'm implying depression is somehow imagined - that's not what i'm trying to say, but i guess what i might be trying to get at is the triggers that open up depression. in any case, maybe a lotta people in guilin are depressed - i just don't know about it.
- the amount of "counter-hegemonic" literature. there were so many books dealing with human rights atrocities and democracy. there appeared to be a lot of literature on political economy that is highly critical about china. granted, beyond the english titles, there was nothing else in the book i could read. i'm not suggesting china isn't authoritarian - but just that we have not only passive victims but active denizens who offer up resistance - however minor and insignificant it might turn out to be.
anyhow, i'm in yangshuo now - which one might equate with banff in alberta. it's purely tourists here. i think 50% of the people i've come across are tourists - well, that figure probably dropped when me and ted took a long sojourn out to the backwaters of yangshuo. china has thus far been surreal in the sense that the great modernization campaign has created many city centres resembling that of any "western" cosmopolitan hub - but that development is in process. there is so much construction going on at such rapidity, that even the most casual observer can note the odd transition phase. we have new, sprawling buildings all along a strip only to abruptly cut into a slower, village setting. it's a surreal feeling, that with one step, one enters a totally different world. the global and the local unmediated - only for so long of course. the local is soon to take on new meaning for these individuals in the coming years - heck, they've got the train into tibet up and running now.