A Real (Red) Cliff Hanger...

Red Cliff (赤壁) is Asia's most expensive movie ever though its turned that huge price tag into cinema success scoring big results across Asia, none more so than in China where lines at theaters have been far longer than usual. The movie is full of famous stars including Tony Leung, Takeshi Kanishiro, Hu Jun, Lin Chiling, and Zhao Wei and almost had Chow Yun-fat, though he may make an appearance in part 2. Of course this is to be expected as its directed by the celebrated director John Woo, who takes his first stab at historical drama.

The movie tells the story of the time leading up to the Three Kingdoms period, instantly familiar with all Chinese due to the classic book, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Cao Cao, the evil prime minister, usurps the power of the week Han Emperor and uses it to wage war against two southern warlords, Liu Bei and Sun Quan.

There is one way to best describe this movie, LONG. All told, it is to last over 4 hours, but part 1, which is currently in cinemas, clocks in at 146 minutes. Part 2 is expected out in January 2009 and will include a simultaneous release of a foreign version, in which parts 1 and 2 will be cut to a (far more manageable) two and a half hour movie.

Watching the movie, its quite obvious the scenes that could be cut as many of them end up inducing sleep in patrons. The movie moves extremely slowly and there are far too many scenes of horses running (and shots showing only the hooves) or blurry battlefield scenes with blood flying everywhere, it almost feels like deja vu much of the time.

What the supposed US$80 million budget bought John Woo, I have no idea, because the fight scenes and effects were similar to your run-of-the-mill historical series on CCTV. In fact, much of the time that's exactly what this movie felt like. My ultimate gripe with this movie, though, is that there is no ending. Stories should have a beginning, middle, and ending, and Woo forgot the ending. Of course that will come in part 2, but why (like only a tv series would) leave everybody waiting 6 months to actually see the end (okay, I know why, the money, but still!)? That's not even the issue, though, he could have kept it as 2 parts and still given it an ending, like stopping it right after the big land battle instead of letting it drag on.

If you're not a huge fan of Romance of the Three Kingdoms or one of the movie's stars, save your money and wait for the edited version. This unedited version is hubris of maniacal proportions, Woo's just lucky the audiences have been duped into coming out and watching it.

Admission of Guilt

I don't understand Tibet. I could talk for weeks about Beijing and different landmarks or "historical sites" that few know, I could talk for days about Chinese soccer and one painful event after another (most recently the 3-3 draw against Thailand, great prep for the Aussies!), I could even sit you down and talk for hours about politics and law, the tough cases and campaigns, the big victories, the bitter losses. I cannot talk to you about Tibet. I love music, I love fashion, but I have very little understanding of them, using Justice Blackmun's famous words "I know it when I see it", I know what I like, but I can't really tell you why. With Tibet, I have no idea where to begin.

There are only so many hours in a day and my brain can only hold so much knowledge, on Tibet, I'm indifferent. China is an interesting, huge country and there is a lot to see, for whatever reason, I've never really had an interest in going to Tibet. It's far, its high, its a pain to get to, its expensive, and as a foodie, its boring, yak this and yak that. If, one day, friends or relatives want to go there, I'd join them, but for me, I'd much rather go to Xinjiang, to Gansu, to other places. If not for Sabriye Tenberken and her work, I'd be even more indifferent to the situation there.

I went to university in a small, midwestern town which was unique in that the school is the US' preeminent university for Tibetan studies, the DL's older brother was a former professor and Eliot Sperling is one of the country's most respected scholars on Tibet. I came in knowing about Princess Wencheng and the Tang, about the Yuan, the connections between Tibet and the Ming, the Qing garrisons, the then DL sending representatives to the Nationalist government. The class was full of "Free Tibet" types who idolized Sperling, I came in looking for a fight, but the result was disappointing. I came out feeling even more confused about Tibet, on one hand, Chinese do have a legitimate claim, at the same time, Tibet also has a legitimate argument. Sperling was an excellent teacher and tried to play things right down the middle, the question really breaks either way, though he obviously leans toward the Tibetan side. It's all about a lack of understanding, if the Communists went into Tibet shortly after taking power in '49 and only set up the military there, or even just pushed their reforms only on citizens, instead of monks, things may have been different (then again, the Cultural Revolution would probably have broken the peace).

Tibet's just not black and white, it wasn't before 1949, it wasn't in 1959, it wasn't in 1989, and after these protests in 2008, it still isn't. I never really thought China had an "original sin", like the US and slavery, and while the effects of slavery are far deeper in the US, is the Tibet issue China's "original sin"? It's certainly a major volcano that is constantly simmering, but rarely explodes. I still don't understand how different Tibet and Hawaii are and I like what Jeremiah said at one point (I believe on Peking Duck), China should just give up the historical claims to Tibet, no matter how strong or weak you think they are, and say, screw it, it's ours, period. If they treated the monks better, if they weren't insistent on such strict control of the religion, most civilians and even some of the monks would accept the situation. It sometimes feels like the government is waiting for the DL to just die, but this situation needs to be taken care of before that, if the government forces a successor, that could be the tectonic shift that causes the volcano to erupt.

I come from a family of cadres and soldiers, of Party members since before the Party took over "New China." Yes, I'm more likely to take the side of the Party, but I won't do it blindly. There is enough historic evidence that claiming Tibet as a part of China is nothing overly radical. At the same time, Tibet as cause is all about Hollywood liberals (I shouldn't be so hard on them, they were often the best contributors to campaigns I worked on), hippies, and new agers who are just looking for a cause celebre, are looking for something "new." They like to think about Tibet in black and white terms, they like to look at the DL and his talks of peace and think about the "suffering of poor Tibetans", ignoring how a previous DL massacred fellow Tibetans so one sect could take over. The DL is a religious leader, but in the West his connection to the religion and what that means is ignored. Instead, hippies (and neo-hippies) and people like Richard Gere have turned him into an innocent, new age self help guru who goes around wearing a gold Rolex, not the leader of a major world religion. I can't understand, I simply cannot understand the "Free Tibet" people. How can it be wrong of me to take the side of the Party, when the flock on the other side blindly believes in something that many Tibetans in Tibet don't fully support.

If there is one thing I learned from Professor Sperling, it's that this issue isn't black and white, the real answer needs to come from China and the DL, Han and Tibetan trying to work things out together, protests will not lead to a solution, but only more misery and embarrassment.

Postscript: Sometimes I don't even know why I keep this blog. I've been thinking about how to write this post since last night, got up extra early, beat the sandstorm that has enveloped Beijing, and started writing. I clicked send and started looking around the web, only then did I find out that China Law Blog basically said what I wanted to say, did so more clearly, and in fewer words.

A Strange Moment, Passed...

The events of 1989 affected my family deeply in a number of different ways. People willing to help the students or who were close to the students suffered silent (and not so silent) embarrassment and retribution at work and in their community. I've heard stories about some of the partners who I work alongside and their connection to the events of that summer, always on the periphery, but they knew what really happened.

That said, it was kind of strange at lunch yesterday when I mentioned the location of my new apartment only to be told by the partner I was eating with, "Oh, there...I had a friend who was injured there, well...was shot there."

Looking out from my office window at JianWai and ChangAn in the distance, it still feels like there are ghosts in this city.

January Book Review

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Hopefully, this is to become a monthly feature, renewing a (brief) tradition from the old xanga blog. I fear that next month I'm not going to have very many books to talk about because I haven't been doing too much reading (and I actually still have 50 or so pages of the MacFarquhar book). I'll start out by talking about the Mamet book, Wicked Son, because that is the only one that doesn't fit into any of the other categories. It was a good quick read that hit home, but in a lot of ways doesn't really apply to me, so let's move on...

Category 1 - Politics
The political books were all written by prominent Democrats and were all pretty much the same thing written by 5 different authors (2 of the books had 2 authors) to make 3 times the money. The Democrats need to win back the social issues, blah, they need to regain their image of being strong on national security, blah, they need to work to reunite the country, blah. Okay, I don't mean to downplay these things, they are all crucial points, but I think after reading them over and over and over again, I slowly lost how these are important commentaries on the direction of our country and instead saw them as an oversimplified picture being sold to those outside of the much talked about "gang of 500" who dream of being "players" in that "gang" and so buy such books. Fortunately, I have a great library at hand so I didn't have to pay for any of these books. As I said, many of the points are very valid and fortunately the Dems were willing to implement a lot of them and win back Congress this past year, but things may start to come apart again in late 2007 as the primary bulldogs sink their teeth into each other.

Category 2 - Cookbooks
Once you've read one Jamie Oliver book, you sort of know what to expect, but I like his recipes because they are pretty simple, usually turn out good, and the books/recipes are well written. The Asian Grill and The Irish Pub books were good for some ideas and possible alternatives to certain recipes, but the Asian recipes are closer to fusion and if you're looking for an Irish cookbook, I'd recommend one of the Paul and Jeanne Rankin books (though, admittedly those are more focused on "new" Irish cuisine). Now, Dok Suni is like a new bible for me. I love Korean food and for whatever reason, I've always had the impression that its so much easier to prepare than Chinese food, and Dok Suni made it seem even simpler than I'd imagined. It has all of my favorite dishes and for the most part, the recipes are good at creating authentic Korean flavors. The problem is that some of the recipes seem to leave some things out and so unless you have a Korean mother (or Korean friend or another Korean cookbook at hand), its definitely a process of trial and error before perfecting it, but isn't that what cooking is anyway? Then again, if you're struggling, there is always the website, My Korean Kitchen, which has never let me down.

Category 3 - CHINA
I know, I know, what you've all been waiting for, right? Over the years, I've read what feels like almost every book out there on China and so its hard to find new ones that I like, but this month I've been a bit surprised. The book on Li Lisan, Before Mao, almost lived up to the drama and romance that the dust cover promised. A google search for Li Lisan turns up around 15,000 hits, though it appears many are connected to this book while a search for Mao Zedong turns up over a million hits. Inside China, Li's far from a well known figure, despite the extent of his work and dedication to the Communist cause. I only heard a little about him from grandparents and relatives that had a vague memory of him from his days in Dongbei. This is sad at almost every turn and, in that sense, sort of reminded me of the movie, "To Live."

Chinese Lessons, by John Pomfret, was an interesting romp through China's history, touching on everything from the Cultural Revolution (through the stories of his classmates) to the reform and changes of the early 80s (when he first arrived in Nanjing), to Tiananmen (where he was a reporter), to the changes of the 90s (through the stories of his classmates), up to the present including, for good measure, F---- Gong (with his return as a reporter). I am convinced a "popular" book can't be published on China in the West if it doesn't talk about the Cultural Revolution, Tiananmen, or F--- Gong, and this one hit on all three. In doing so, however, it offers an interesting look at the country for those who are just getting to know China. For those "old China hands," there isn't very much, but it can be interesting to notice the same "types" of people that Pomfret talks about (the lovable loser, the person who keeps on fighting in the face of adversity and finds happiness in the end, the ethically challenged with a desire to reach the top) amongst one's friends and colleagues.

MacFarquhar's book, Mao's Last Revolution, is not something that the average person would want to pick up. Unless you have an intense interest in the Cultural Revolution, have a lot of time on your hands, and/or are a scholar, there's no reason for you to start reading this 462 page monster (609 if you include the notes). I guess its interesting to see things through the eyes of the Party (the authors focus more on the leadership than anything) instead of the common people, which is typically what you see in the Cultural Revolution memoirs published in the US. Then again, most of the leaders suffered equally (or worse) than those "common people." It also shows how out of control things were around the nation, instead of those other books which can only focus on the area where that person was, and how little control the central government had over things.


So out of all the books I've read this much, my main recommendations are for Dok Suni if you like to cook and want to learn about Korean food and Before Mao, a great nonfiction story that almost reads like fiction about love of a principle and love of a woman. If you're looking for an introduction to China, pick up Chinese Lessons, but otherwise you may want to consider something else.