Oh my God, Weimin Mo. What a great guy. The January 17, "DAMN you!" post started out as an email to Weimin. I asked him all those questions but then answered them myself with that post without waiting for his response. This was part of his response:
"First, let me ask you: Have you ever seen Chinese leaders on TV or in person talking to people and directly answering peoples' questions? I bet not. How many Chinese have you met who have a sense of humor? Very few, I guess. Have you met or seen on TV or in reality or read about Chinese leaders who gave impromptu speech and witty answers to reporters' questions. None. Why?"
Weimin would win the bet on the first question! The only time I can remember is... the old Paramount with the glasses, forget his name, came to the U.S., it must have been a long time ago because the reporters were asking him Tienanmen questions, and asking him the way American pencils ask questions of Paramounts, Hey, you in the glasses!. Some reporter shouted, "Where is Tank Man?" and this Paramount answered, "I don't know, Alive, I think" as he walked quickly away with whoever the president was. "Lame," I thought.
Paramounts do not talk to the people, Weimin's question hit the nail right on the head. And, it made me think, Chinese, pencils and all, do not ask questions well. I recalled my first trip to China in 2006. All excited, tired of course, but the adrenaline was flowing, got to the hotel and was curious as to what was on Chinese TV. Turned on the boob tube in the hotel room and flipped around the channels and landed on an interview conducted by a Chinese reporter of Afghan President Mohammad Karzai. Pause. Does Karzai not look like Ben Kingsley?
That is unbelievable. Unpause. So this Chinese guy was interviewing Karzai and improbably it must
have been in English or with English subtitles because I watched it for 15-20 minutes. The Chinese
reporter was all young and earnest and looking at his copy and, you see how Karzai's eyes are in the photo (the one at left), sort of "interview eyes" right? His eyes were not like that. His eyes were big, bigger than Kingsley's, big like he was trying to keep them open, to avoid falling asleep, or astonished that he was being asked these stultifying questions...It must not have been in English, I remember no questions or answers and remember too much about the body language. If I had understood content I wouldn't have been paying that much attention to body language. The interview was so boring, all the adrenaline I had on arrival was gone in 15-20 minutes. If I hadn't turned it off I would have gone into a coma. Pause. I have never seen two people look so much alike. Unpause.
Sense of humor: Weimin is absolutely right once again. The only Chinese or person of Chinese descent who I have ever shared a joke with is...Weimin.
Weimin explained that so much of this is attributable to Confucianism and the hierarchical relationships that set elaborate rules for interaction literally between everybody in Chinese society: son to father, children to parents, wife to husband, pupils to teachers, all the way up to the emperor, and down again. A subject ask the emperor a question? No. The emperor answer questions. What questions? There were orders given, not questions taken, not answers provided. It helps explain the emphasis in Chinese education on rote memorization. "These are the answers!" The Confucian rules also included semi-formal interaction, common to other royalty: everybody rises when the king or queen (or judge!) enters the room; king, queen or father sits at the head of the dinner table, etc. We all interpret things like this, as I did the interaction between the Chinese TV guy and Ben Kingsley. In that regard, China's red rulers were puzzled by this photograph (bin Laden assassination):
Why's Obama off to the side like that, like a young aide or something? Why isn't he sitting in that "executive chair" at the head of the table like that military guy. He, the military guy, is the most important one in that room. Obama looks like the aide to the military guy. A Martian looking at that photo probably would infer that from the placement of people. A Chinese, too.
So, Weimin put some meat on the bones of that post. Why has Song Binbin just made statements, just read her lines? She's a member of one of the Eight princeling families. Make statements is what princelings do. Answer questions? Princelings don't do questions. (The first thing I wrote on Morning Sun imagined Song being interviewed by the late Mike Wallace. Can you imagine?) Interact with people, people who are "beneath" her? Fat chance. I have written puzzled about Song's and the Remembrance gang's ineptness. It has been inept but, thanks to Weimin, it is no longer so puzzling. They don't know how.
That is not the only explanation, though. Song is smart, PhD from MIT...I am going to make a sweeping generalization: There is no PhD from MIT who is not smart...and MIT is in, like, America. Song lived in the US&A for years, worked there. Her son was educated at Stanford. She has had
more than a taste for American life, she really did live it. She certainly was exposed to the way
discourse takes place in a real people's republic. Did she learn nothing here? What would have made
her think that appearing incognito in Morning Sun, a film made by an American, for an American audience, was a good idea? Huh? And she saw the reaction from Chinese! The Chinese internet blew up over that, she was excoriated. She did better in Remembrance, nothing could have been worse than Morning Sun and she did apologize, but noShe didn't learn enough. She did better last week than she did in Remembrance but it was exactly the same words in her apology as in Remembrance. She did better last week because her emotion was sincere. So, after decades of silence, Chinese now have three public statements from Song Binbin. And Song Binbin is worse off with Chinese now than if she had never spoken in the first place. She didn't learn enough in America.
What is Song Binbin fighting for? What was her motivation to speak in the first place and then to keep speaking, to keep trying? I wish I knew, I truly wish I knew. The most obvious are "respect," "reconciliation," or like synonyms, but she has failed so abysmally that I have wondered whether there's some esoteric thing we haven't thought of, some "weird Chinese thing," I don't know. I truly cannot think of anything that she is fighting for to which these three public statements would be a means to an end. I bet she keeps trying. I bet she makes, or reads, more public statements. If she keeps "improving" at the pace of these three, she's going to be like Confederate General Robert E. Lee who won or drew many more battles than he lost but who ultimately had to surrender unconditionally.
"First, let me ask you: Have you ever seen Chinese leaders on TV or in person talking to people and directly answering peoples' questions? I bet not. How many Chinese have you met who have a sense of humor? Very few, I guess. Have you met or seen on TV or in reality or read about Chinese leaders who gave impromptu speech and witty answers to reporters' questions. None. Why?"
Weimin would win the bet on the first question! The only time I can remember is... the old Paramount with the glasses, forget his name, came to the U.S., it must have been a long time ago because the reporters were asking him Tienanmen questions, and asking him the way American pencils ask questions of Paramounts, Hey, you in the glasses!. Some reporter shouted, "Where is Tank Man?" and this Paramount answered, "I don't know, Alive, I think" as he walked quickly away with whoever the president was. "Lame," I thought.
Paramounts do not talk to the people, Weimin's question hit the nail right on the head. And, it made me think, Chinese, pencils and all, do not ask questions well. I recalled my first trip to China in 2006. All excited, tired of course, but the adrenaline was flowing, got to the hotel and was curious as to what was on Chinese TV. Turned on the boob tube in the hotel room and flipped around the channels and landed on an interview conducted by a Chinese reporter of Afghan President Mohammad Karzai. Pause. Does Karzai not look like Ben Kingsley?
That is unbelievable. Unpause. So this Chinese guy was interviewing Karzai and improbably it must
have been in English or with English subtitles because I watched it for 15-20 minutes. The Chinese
reporter was all young and earnest and looking at his copy and, you see how Karzai's eyes are in the photo (the one at left), sort of "interview eyes" right? His eyes were not like that. His eyes were big, bigger than Kingsley's, big like he was trying to keep them open, to avoid falling asleep, or astonished that he was being asked these stultifying questions...It must not have been in English, I remember no questions or answers and remember too much about the body language. If I had understood content I wouldn't have been paying that much attention to body language. The interview was so boring, all the adrenaline I had on arrival was gone in 15-20 minutes. If I hadn't turned it off I would have gone into a coma. Pause. I have never seen two people look so much alike. Unpause.
Sense of humor: Weimin is absolutely right once again. The only Chinese or person of Chinese descent who I have ever shared a joke with is...Weimin.
Weimin explained that so much of this is attributable to Confucianism and the hierarchical relationships that set elaborate rules for interaction literally between everybody in Chinese society: son to father, children to parents, wife to husband, pupils to teachers, all the way up to the emperor, and down again. A subject ask the emperor a question? No. The emperor answer questions. What questions? There were orders given, not questions taken, not answers provided. It helps explain the emphasis in Chinese education on rote memorization. "These are the answers!" The Confucian rules also included semi-formal interaction, common to other royalty: everybody rises when the king or queen (or judge!) enters the room; king, queen or father sits at the head of the dinner table, etc. We all interpret things like this, as I did the interaction between the Chinese TV guy and Ben Kingsley. In that regard, China's red rulers were puzzled by this photograph (bin Laden assassination):
So, Weimin put some meat on the bones of that post. Why has Song Binbin just made statements, just read her lines? She's a member of one of the Eight princeling families. Make statements is what princelings do. Answer questions? Princelings don't do questions. (The first thing I wrote on Morning Sun imagined Song being interviewed by the late Mike Wallace. Can you imagine?) Interact with people, people who are "beneath" her? Fat chance. I have written puzzled about Song's and the Remembrance gang's ineptness. It has been inept but, thanks to Weimin, it is no longer so puzzling. They don't know how.
That is not the only explanation, though. Song is smart, PhD from MIT...I am going to make a sweeping generalization: There is no PhD from MIT who is not smart...and MIT is in, like, America. Song lived in the US&A for years, worked there. Her son was educated at Stanford. She has had
more than a taste for American life, she really did live it. She certainly was exposed to the way
discourse takes place in a real people's republic. Did she learn nothing here? What would have made
her think that appearing incognito in Morning Sun, a film made by an American, for an American audience, was a good idea? Huh? And she saw the reaction from Chinese! The Chinese internet blew up over that, she was excoriated. She did better in Remembrance, nothing could have been worse than Morning Sun and she did apologize, but noShe didn't learn enough. She did better last week than she did in Remembrance but it was exactly the same words in her apology as in Remembrance. She did better last week because her emotion was sincere. So, after decades of silence, Chinese now have three public statements from Song Binbin. And Song Binbin is worse off with Chinese now than if she had never spoken in the first place. She didn't learn enough in America.
What is Song Binbin fighting for? What was her motivation to speak in the first place and then to keep speaking, to keep trying? I wish I knew, I truly wish I knew. The most obvious are "respect," "reconciliation," or like synonyms, but she has failed so abysmally that I have wondered whether there's some esoteric thing we haven't thought of, some "weird Chinese thing," I don't know. I truly cannot think of anything that she is fighting for to which these three public statements would be a means to an end. I bet she keeps trying. I bet she makes, or reads, more public statements. If she keeps "improving" at the pace of these three, she's going to be like Confederate General Robert E. Lee who won or drew many more battles than he lost but who ultimately had to surrender unconditionally.
