Year of the Yang

February 19th was the lunar new year. It has variously been called year of the goat, sheep, or ram. I myself preferred "ram" because goat and sheep have negative connotations. But I now say "year of the goat."

Goats can symbolize virility, but because goats are promiscuous, they have been symbols of licentiousness. The goat is also the player on the team that makes a mistake and costs his team the match--the opposite of the hero. Sheep follow blindly, and are seen as timid. C.Y. Leung, Hong Kong's chief executive, was widely derided for calling on Hong Kong people to be sheep in the year of the sheep.  So "ram" seems like a good substitute. But when Americans say "ram," they are thinking of the male bighorn sheep; it is a different species of sheep, but it is still just a male sheep; the female is a ewe.  So it is not appropriate to say "year of the ram," as Chinese University's Art Museum among many others has done, because it excludes females.

Of course, this is only an issue in English; in Chinese the word yang 羊 includes both goats 山羊 (literally "mountain yang") and sheep 綿羊 (literally "wool yang"). Some scholars (see NY Times article here, for example) have noted that since goats were more common in northern China, while sheep were raised in the south, the original horoscope yang probably referred to a goat.

Goats and sheep are actually different genera, not just different species; they even have different numbers of chromosomes. But that does not mean every culture will name them differently; there are plenty of animals that are lumped together or distinguished as separate without regard to the linnaean taxonomy.  I suspect the reason Chinese uses a common word yang for both genera is that in traditional China, goats and sheep seem to have been raised in different parts of the country, so it was not necessary to distinguish clearly between them.

This is just an example of differences in what anthropologists call cultural domains. Different cultures divide the world in different ways. Many cultures do not make a clear distinction between the colors green and blue, using a word sometimes translated as "grue" to describe the two together. Taiwanese Hokkien uses 青 to describe both green and blue; this would sometimes confuse me when native Taiwanese speakers, while speaking in Mandarin, would point to something "obviously green" 綠 and call it "藍 blue."

It is laughable, then, that the folklorist Zhao Shu of the Beijing Institute of Culture and History tries to take this quirk of taxonomic difference and make out of it a general principle of Eastern v Western mentalities. The NY Times articles says:

He also drew a lesson about the virtues of Chinese tradition. “In Western culture, things are subdivided into more and more detailed categories, and that’s why Europe has still not been unified after so many years,” he continued. “If you want to say whether it’s goat or sheep, then why not also ask whether it’s a ewe or a ram? But Chinese culture has an inclusive spirit and stresses harmony.”

A wonderful "just so story," essentializing "the Chinese" as harmonious and inclusive. All revolutions and wars are wiped out as anomalies. Factionalism, also often seen as characteristic of China, gets wiped out by "Chinese inclusiveness." The fact that "rice" in Chinese can be 米 (polished rice) or 稻 (husked rice) or 飯 (cooked rice) but is only "rice" in English is ignored. It seems these ridiculous cultural generalizations will never be overcome. They are too comforting. And amusing.

Dongzhi in China

In the invention of tradition category, it seems that Dongzhi 冬至, or Winter Solstice (22 December), is becoming a new holiday in mainland China.  A friend recently forwarded me the following drawing.

What is interesting about this picture is that the party portrayed looks like a cross between New Year's Eve (with the streamers and funny glasses) and  Octoberfest (with the steins of beer). But Dong Zhi in Hong Kong is a very family-oriented holiday. Families try to have the meal together, and with grandparents and grandchildren there, there are no funny glasses or beer steins. The party in the picture is among friends and peers, not a family event. The characters say "Happy Dongzhi," but no one says that in Hong Kong.

Dong Zhi is celebrated as a special holiday in Hong Kong, and offices close early so that employees can go home and prepare large family meals. Though it is on the Chinese lunar calendar, it is not celebrated as a holiday elsewhere. It seems that as the holiday is being promoted in the mainland, it is being transformed from a family holiday to a peer-group holiday.  Some anthropologists have been arguing that there has been increasing focus on the individual in the mainland, and this "holiday" seems to fit that pattern.

Earlier religious symbols at the protests

Pictures from 11 October 2014, Mong Kok

The first shrine, near Argyle St. on Nathan Rd.

Not very nice: funerary offerings for CY at Admiralty.

15 November 2014, Mong Kok after re-occupation, when the shrine was rebuilt two blocks south.

Religion and Political Protest

I have been following the ways in which religious symbolism supports and influences Hong Kong's political protests for over a year now. The recent occupations have provided additional examples.

1) "Charm" 符

The picture on the left shows a piece of paper, in size and shape like the traditional "charms" used by Taoists. The writing is also like a charm, but it says "I want real universal suffrage" in Chinese plus a Twitter name for the movement in English. The umbrella is represented on top. Below are other "religious" objects captured one night in Mong Kong. Any comments and additional interpretations are welcome and appreciated.

2) The back side of the Protestant Christian chapel

4) Is there more to this cartoon than what I get?

3) A service in the Christian chapel.

5)Banners from the official Taoist Association are still flying over the Mong Kok protesters.

6) This shows the banners in context.

7) The area of Nathan Rd near the chapel and Guan Gong.

8) This is the Guan Gong altar.
Guang Gong is worshiped by both police and
triads, and businessmen too. More on this
in a future post.

9) Not exactly in the shape of a charm; what is it?

10) Two captions on either side of a bus stop are in the form of a 對聯 and say
"Adversity tests the strength of  character" and "Umbrellas show the people's hearts."

11) At the foot of the altar; seems to by
a typical family earth shrine.
Anything I'm missing?

12) The altar top and offerings.

13) Banner on the left side (stage right)

14) Another view of the altar area, with fengshui bushes on each side.
Note earth shrine on left, and pack of incense sticks available for anyone
to use at no cost (like in many a village temple) on the side of the altar table.

15) Banner on the right side of altar (stage left).

16) This is an enlarged "fortune" from a temple from the corner of the banner
(above) but I don't fully understand its content or the comments on the sides.

The view of Hong Kong from the USA

I often have little patience with the patriotic Chinese students who claim the US media is biased against China, or does not really understand China. I actually don't meet many such people; I generally just hear about them, or read about them in news stories. But I sometimes hear myself saying similar things about the media when journalists talk about Hong Kong. I had one such awkward moment when Jon Stewart had his very funny bit about the Hong Kong protests. Coming a few days after the Alibaba listing, he remarked something to the effect of, "The Chinese are not only doing Wall Street better than us, they're now doing the "Occupy" better than us too!"  Most of us who heard that did a double-take, because of course Hong Kong, at least in this case, does not see itself as "China." Of course Hong Kong is part of China, but the protesters are asserting rights of local autonomy, so it suggests some confusion on his part to lump Hong Kong with "China." It ruins the joke, if you understand Hong Kong. I guess most Americans just laughed.

Then today on Fresh Air, David Edelstein said the following in a review of Laura Poitras' movie Citizenfour about Edward Snowden.

Poitras is very protective of her subject. She doesn't show Snowden a few days later praising Hong Kong's, quote, "spirited commitment to free speech and the right of public dissent," which would be cringe-worthy in light of the current crackdown on Hong Kong pro-democracy demonstrators.

Well, why is it actually "cringe-worthy"? The protests are now in their 28th day, and are blocking very busy streets in three neighborhoods in a major city. There is no crackdown on free speech, or on the right of public dissent. I honestly can't think of any place in the world that would allow protesters to occupy public places like streets for four weeks. In the case of Occupy Wall Street, the protesters occupied Zuccotti Park because it was privately owned. Edelstein does not seem to understand the issues in Hong Kong: it is not about free speech, but about election rules. The protesters are occupying public spaces to pressure the government. I can't imagine any city in the US allowing such an occupation (well, maybe Berkeley and a few other places, but not New York or Chicago).

I don't say this to defend the Hong Kong government, but to defend Hong Kong society. Many in the pro-establishment camp in HK claim the protests make HK look bad, and Edelstein's uninformed comments suggest they might be right. Others have noted that the civility of the protests honor Hong Kong. But that is only true if Americans do not jump to the conclusion that there is no free speech or dissent in Hong Kong, just because they see riot police and some scuffles on TV. Hong Kong is very different from Mainland China. But uninformed comments and superficial views from the US make the patriotic Chinese right in arguing that Americans are hypocritical, because oftentimes Americans argue for the rights of protesters overseas but would never allow such protests to continue at home. The least the Americans could do is recognize the remarkable civility and peacefulness of the protests (for the most part), and the remarkable tolerance of the government (for the most part).

Of course, since many Americans think Hong Kong is in Japan, maybe I'm asking too much.

The two roads of protest

The umbrella movement has had two choices. One was to try to force the government’s hand to produce a more democratic system for the 2017 elections. Occupy Central tried to use the threat of civil disobedience to make the NPCSC promulgate democratic rules. On this, they failed. Some conservatives claim their very threat made the NPCSC fear allowing more democracy in Hong Kong, so had an opposite effect of what was intended.

The alternative was to create paradigm shift, to change public opinion so much that the government would have to change its position and allow more democracy. The political scientist Kuan Hsin-chi has written:

Gandhi put it nicely that a Civil Disobedience (CD) movement (more precisely, he called it satyagraha) succeeded not because of the powerful pressure exerted directly by the acts of the CD participants on the government, but rather because of a "change of heart" of the majority of the people who eventually became convinced of the morality represented by the movement. Once this change of heart happens, the government has no other choice but to agree to a change. In a nutshell, the impact of CD on social or political development is indirect, rather than direct. Social or political change often starts with advocacy of the minority against the powerful establishment with the indifferent majority of the people caught in the middle. Winning their heart is crucial for sociopolitical development.

The problem for the protesters is that they have viewed their movement as seeking to force the government. They believe they already represent the majority opinion. But there are many who believe Beijing will not yield. The People’s Daily has made it clear that Beijing views any compromise as a sign of weakness. Leaders feel they cannot compromise or it will encourage similar civil disobedience in other restive areas, from Xinjiang to Tibet. China already has thousands of protests flaring up every year. (Nevermind that this approach also makes the situation in Hong Kong seem even more hopeless and frustrating, and can lead to tragedy.)

The occupation of parts of Admiralty, Mong Kok, and Causeway Bay inconveniences some people. Others are simply offended that the protesters are breaking the law with impunity. Unfortunately, many who did or would support the movement have grown exasperated with the protests. And because the protests are spontaneous and the leadership is so diffuse, protesters are not focusing on educating the public about democracy and universal suffrage. They fail to rebut the pro-establishment’s anti-democratic arguments about “national security” and the “irrelevance of international standards.”

In the first few weeks of the protests, the idealism of the protesters awakened Hong Kong. Many who resignedly accepted the power of tycoons and the gradual imposition of undemocratic elections as inevitable were awakened and inspired to protest and take action to create better institutions. Many were embarrassed that it took students to wake them up and take a stand. The danger for the protesters is that the longer “occupations” drag on, the more the public’s frustration and anger at the protesters themselves will grow. Believing that they could force change on the government, the protesters have not pursued the Gandhian approach of trying to change the views of the indifferent majority to the pro-democratic cause. 

Many people sympathetic to the students wish they would declare victory and end the occupations, with the possibility of further protests in the future. But the protesters are determined to wring some concessions. They feel they have not achieved anything, because they define success and changing the government's policies. And in fact, if the protests end, there will be no changes; the government and Beijing will simply believe they were right and they won. 

The government has tried to argue that changes can be made in the future, that this is a long process. The protesters note that this has been said before, and they thought they were going to get "universal suffrage" when Democratic Party members accepted a compromise for the 2012 elections. They no longer trust the argument that changes can be made in the future. CY Leung's comments two days ago "that if the government met the pro-democracy protesters’ demands it would result in thecity’s poorer people dominating elections" only casts further doubts on the government's sincerity in promising more democracy in the future.

The comment also reminds us that democracy was nowhere achieved simply from the benevolence of the elites. As "the masses" increasingly viewed the system as unfair, protests for more say in the system erupted, and the elite were forced, step by step, to extend democracy. So maybe the students and other protesters are right that their only choice is to continue to occupy parts of Hong Kong. They are gambling that at some point, the elites will decide they have more to lose from constant protests than they do from elections. That might not be true in this round of protests, but the protesters have history on their side. Even Chiang Ching-kuo, the son of Chiang Kai-shek, decided to allow multi-party elections in 1986, realizing that the protests and problems of authoritarian rule were not worth the costs. In addition, the state was stronger once it had the mandate of the people through real elections. So it is hard to say the protesters in Hong Kong are wrong, though many worry about how these protests can end. And we worry that the result may be Hong Kong losing even more autonomy.

In the meantime, the government and protesters are deadlocked.

Farce of the Elite

One of the more absurd details, among the thousands of small and large incidents swirling around the protests, was the attempt by Derrick Pang of Chung Wo Development to punish Hong Kong University by cancelling its HK$20,000 scholarship to the university. The head of the HKU student union is quoted as claiming "this is a form of political suppression on academic freedom and the school's autonomy." Well, not really. A donor can give money for any purpose it wants, though of course a university can reject the money if the strings are too onerous or political. But Derrick's letter is a classic example of elite petulance.  Below is a copy (it is even amazing that he chose to release the letter).

This case illustrates one of the more astonishing aspects of Hong Kong elite culture and philanthropy. The scholarships the rich give to universities are mostly of this tiny size: HK$20,000 is only US$2,564. The HKU scholarship is for two students, so each student is getting just US$1,282 per year. Tuition at HK's universities is HK$42,000 per year, so the scholarship is only covering a bit less than a quarter of a student's tuition. I'm always astonished to see the long list of these tiny scholarships awarded, each with a company or person's name prominently attached, as though it was bringing prestige. I would think these small scholarships would be considered embarrassingly small.

I find the letter really captures the elite point of view. It accuses the university of leading to a divided Hong Kong, when of course the division comes from the government's failure to come up with a moderate election proposal that could marginalize the more radical protesters. The focus on "sound and effectual law system" ignores the frustration that decades of inaction on democracy and inequality have led to. I have no idea what the "political expediency" is that Mr. Pang refers to, but it is clear that in his hot-headed and grandstanding gesture aimed at "punishing" HKU, he has only hurt the students who would have otherwise gotten the scholarship, since none of the money went to the university anyway. Thus, we have another gesture (like a class boycott) that muddles its symbolism. But since it was not much money anyway, and not need-based, no big loss.

This story was in the blog feed of the SCMP yesterday, Sunday, but today it has been removed. I found it at HongWrong.com. I can't imagine why the SCMP removed the story.