shanghai dreamers. part two

A while ago I had posted about Quentin Shih's series of Shanghai Dreamers and now it seems relevant to bring it up once more. When Quentin emailed a few days ago, he pointed out this comment piece which had appeared on the Guardian's website, which deemed his work 'nakedly racist', and asked for my opinion. The news did not come as a total shock, I had previously read similar accusations on the internet, but the forum on which it was now posted had made matters more serious and Quentin was rightly worried.

Yet, as we scrolled down the numerous responses left by readers, it seemed, thankfully, that most did not concur with the author's rather weakly constructed argument. The way words such as 'racism', 'Orientalism', 'cultural appropriation' were bandied about, with seeming neglect of their charged implications, was a little unnerving. But it seems that Quentin, being a born-and-bred Beijinger, was protected by the fact that as a native Chinese, his work could not be seen as deriding Chinese people. Whereas I was thankful for these counter-arguments which defended my friend and the integrity of his work, both points of view, both sides of the argument, left me rather piqued. Neither had rightly grasped the subtleties of what he was trying to express because it was ultimately, as he had already postulated in his statement of intent, historical. Being so, it was a remnant of something that was unique to China, 'a certain Chinese style of group photography' which anybody who lived through that era, in the shadow of its legacy or who had fully understood its impact, would find poignant.

There is nothing that angers me more when one person, often living on the outside, attempts to speak for the entirety of China. 'I have lived in China for 'x' number of years, with 'y' number of Chinese friends', 'I am Chinese but now live abroad in such a country'... with the implication that 'from my personal experience' I (and only I) am able to pass judgement on the situation fairly. I cannot agree with such sweeping sentiments as I read in these comments sections because I never feel that anyone of us knows China well enough (or in fact, any country's situation) to be able to speak for it. The 'mindless consumerism' people see in Asia, how China's future as a superpower ought to pan out etc. etc., all seem to preoccupy the western media. Frankly though, I am sick and tired of reading about this obsession with what China ought to be like.

As anybody who has visited Beijing will know, the city is vast. Yet it is not just filled out with space, but with the many lives which play out daily within it. It is so easy to get caught up in the big mantra of 'China this', 'China that'... but ultimately it comes down to the problem of what this 'China' is shorthand for. As Quentin rightfully pointed out, whether or not his photographs was seen as racist ought really to be decided by people back home, not on some British website.