The Shanghai and Rio spring cleans

10Feb10

No more of these to be sold on Ipanema?

It seems it’s not just Wujiang Lu and Shanghai’s historic houses that are suffering a severe shake up, or, in many cases, total demolition. In hastily tidying up the city for the 2016 Olympics, Rio de Janeiro’s beaches are also subject to spring clean at the hands of mayor Eduardo Paes’ “Shock Order” programme, the New York Times reported today.

The Times’ Alexei Barrionuevo said,

Citing health reasons, the mayor has outlawed the sale of boiled corn and freshly cooked foods like steak and shrimp on the sand. And for still less obvious safety reasons, beachgoers are prohibited from playing paddle ball or kicking a soccer ball near the water’s edge between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Pets at the beach? Forget about it.

…

In the program’s first month, city officials confiscated 2,375 items on the beaches, including portable grills, drinks, push carts, clothes and cooking utensils. Shock Order agents also arrested 62 people over the past two weekends for not availing themselves of the 4,000 chemical toilets that have been set up around the city for Carnaval — twice as many as last year.

For anyone who has hit Rio’s beaches, it’s hard to imagine them without the array of clothing, food and drinks vendors selling everything from towels to skirts, pastries to shrimp, freshly-made caipirinhas to huge coconuts. But it’s not all bad news, as Barrionuevo reminds us: “In the case of maté, a Brazilian iced tea sold by vendors shouldering small metal kegs, the reaction proved too strong and a ban was relaxed.”

The results appear to be mixed: while the jobs of these vendors are clearly at risk, many of Rio’s residents are welcoming the change and asking it be extended beyond Avenida Atlantica to their own neighbourhoods. Unlike in China, then, it seems these attempts at a clean up aren’t based simply on ’sanitary’ aesthetics.

Filed under: Brazil, China, Culture, Environment, Politics, Shanghai, Society   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: 2016 Olympics, Brazil, China, New York times, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, Shock Order, Urban Clean-up

Estou com saudade…

10Feb10

A praia do Leblon, Rio de Janeiro

It’s Carnaval month in Brazil, and I’m only too sad to have missed it by, well, six months. So I’m putting my saudade into this post (and yes, I’m listening to Tom Jobim while I write).

I spent the summer of 2009 in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, doing research for my MSc dissertation. Just over a month in the country left me both wonderfully revitalised and seriously embittered. I returned to London with a bizarre broken heart, desperate to continue experiencing more of the country I’d only partially discovered, as well as angry at not only how many problems face the country, but also how they’re so often overlooked in the northern hemisphere. The problems are not as rife as we are led to believe, but they certainly are far more serious.

I will be the first to admit that I did have a particular perception of the country before I set foot in it. I’ll place the blame on the bossa nova and samba tracks clogging up my laptop battery, and stories from others of samba 24/7 and capoeira on the beach. But the northern/western perception of Brazil consists of the following: Rio de Janeiro first, and then Rio itself comprises samba, Ipanema and Copacabana, football, favelas and muggings. (For the record, the closest I got to danger was hearing a couple of distant gunshots from my room one night. Pure luck had it so that I was never mugged or in the presence of someone pointing a firearm at me.)

From the very small section of Brazil I saw, it was clear that stereotype and the reality did not match up. Perhaps because I was a) not there as a tourist, and b) routinely speaking to civil society actors and NGOs, I found the country’s social inequalities to be more noticeable than bronzed bodies dancing to samba drums in Copacabana. The side-by-side living of the extremely rich and extremely poor was unmissable. Rio’s Sao Conrado area is as plush as they come, with a vast beach on one side and mountains housing glamorous condos on the other. Right next to it sits Rocinha, the biggest favela in South America.

The attitudes beneath the divides also struck me. I was fortunate enough to stay in the relatively safe area of Leblon, but I found the lush district to house a certain type of person living in a bubble, likely to blame all of Rio’s crime on the kids of the favelas that sweep down into the city, but who also apparently get ‘enough government support because creches have been built in the slums’. Missing was the realisation that the strategic kids who rob the rich do so because they are utterly desperate. This trivialisation of poverty was also found in the tourist traps of favela tours (I spotted one tour car and could not tell the difference between it and a safari truck). Admittedly, however, most Brazilians I met looked upon such tours with total disdain.

Yet, in spite of all of this (and I’m only touching on one of Brazil’s several social problems), I did adore the parts of the country I saw. True to form, Rio de Janeiro is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever had the pleasure of living in. Brazil is an extremely welcoming place, the atmosphere is relaxed, and you definitely feel as though you’re in the midst of a country going through exciting and organic transitions (just looking at the politically-charged graffiti strewn across Rio or Vila Madalena was proof of this). It was refreshing to be in a developing democracy that, unlike the UK, was not stagnating but growing up.

I’ll conclude with a link to one of my favourite bossa nova tunes, which I listened to as I strolled along Ipanema beach on one of my first days in Rio. Some cliches you just shouldn’t avoid.

Filed under: Brazil, Travels   |  1 Comment
Tags: Brazil, Musings, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Saudade, Social Inequalities, Travels

HIV phobia: China’s new epidemic

10Feb10

Photo from BBC News

One report that caught my roaming eye today was BBC News’ Chris Hogg’s tale of HIV phobia in China. Hundreds of anxious patients are worried they’re suffering from a “new disease with HIV-like symptoms”. So convinced was one that he refused to acknowledge all seven of his HIV tests that came back negative. Doctors at Shanghai’s Pasteur Institute repeated to him that it was his extreme guilt over having had sex with a prostitute that was doing his immune system zero favours.

But, for all its child-like obstinacy, HIV phobia isn’t entirely unjustified. These patients aren’t listening to their doctors due to mistrust, hardly earth-shattering given China’s long track record of covering up fatal diseases (e.g. Sars). And, sadly, the grave truth is that AIDS certainly is spreading throughout the country: government officials say around 700,000 people in China are living with the disease, and some 50,000 new infections occur every year. Meanwhile, concrete knowledge of HIV prevention remains incredibly low, not least in rural China.

The reality is that a well-informed discussion of sexual matters is slow to catch up with China’s increasingly liberalised younger generations. China is dealing with this at two grave extremes: at one end is the intense crackdown on online pornography and ‘harmful’ content, and on the other end of the spectrum lies the ill-informed public, from the disease phobes to the sexually curious (and active) and the actual HIV sufferers. Thanks to this lack of a balanced middle ground, sex education remains incredibly poor (once the sexual organs are covered, school’s out).

This is proof of China’s immaturity in dealing with a topic that, far from simply being ‘unhealthy’, may well bear serious consequences if it is not approached in a responsible way. Traditional taboos and Confucian values of male dominance and the consequential female sexual frigidity and ‘purity’ still hover. Extreme policies breed extreme results, and so it is no wonder that, without the appropriate guidance, HIV spreads and cases such as mistaking teenage pregnancy for weight gain occur.

As CNN reported, the government is working to curb the spread of HIV, namely through running educational campaigns to inform high-risk groups, such as sex workers. But deepening such knowledge amongst China’s curious younger generations by revitalising the country’s sex education is equally vital if positive steps are to be made in reducing paranoia and increasing responsibility. Sadly, though, overcoming social and cultural taboos is far easier said than done, and it may be a while until attitudes mellow down.

Filed under: China, Culture, Shanghai, Society   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: BBC News, Censorship, China, CNN, HIV in China, HIV Phobia, HIV/AIDS, Sex Education, Sexual Health, Society

Liu Xiaobo: “I hope to be the last victim of China’s endless literary inquisition.”

09Feb10

China Digital Times today posted Liu Xiaobo’s poignant final statement, originally written two days prior to his sentencing on Christmas Day 2009. The whole piece is worthy of your attention, but here are a few excerpts that stood out to me:

I look forward to my country being a land of free expression, where all citizens’ speeches are treated the same; here, different values, ideas, beliefs, political views… both compete with each other and coexist peacefully; here, majority and minority opinions will be given equal guarantees, in particular, political views different from those in power will be fully respected and protected; here, all political views will be spread in the sunlight for the people to choose; all citizens will be able to express their political views without fear, and will never be politically persecuted for voicing dissent; I hope to be the last victim of China’s endless literary inquisition, and that after this no one else will ever be jailed for their speech.

Simply for expressing divergent political views and taking part in a peaceful and democratic movement, a teacher loses his podium, a writer loses the right to publish, and a public intellectual loses the chance to speak publicly, which is a sad thing, both for myself as an individual, and for China after three decades of reform and opening up.

I still want to tell the regime that deprives me of my freedom, I stand by the belief I expressed twenty years ago in my “June Second hunger strike declaration”— I have no enemies, and no hatred. None of the police who have monitored, arrested and interrogated me, the prosecutors who prosecuted me, or the judges who sentence me, are my enemies. While I’m unable to accept your surveillance, arrest, prosecution or sentencing, I respect your professions and personalities (…) For hatred is corrosive of a person’s wisdom and conscience; the mentality of enmity can poison a nation’s spirit, instigate brutal life and death struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and block a nation’s progress to freedom and democracy.

I firmly believe that China’s political progress will never stop, and I’m full of optimistic expectations of freedom coming to China in the future, because no force can block the human desire for freedom. China will eventually become a country of the rule of law in which human rights are supreme. I’m also looking forward to such progress being reflected in the trial of this case, and look forward to the full court’s just verdict ——one that can stand the test of history.

Freedom of expression is the basis of human rights, the source of humanity and the mother of truth. To block freedom of speech is to trample on human rights, to strangle humanity and to suppress the truth.

But my love for you [Liu Xia] is full of guilt and regret, sometimes heavy enough hobble my steps. I am a hard stone in the wilderness, putting up with the pummeling of raging storms, and too cold for anyone to dare touch. But my love is hard, sharp, and can penetrate any obstacles. Even if I am crushed into powder, I will embrace you with the ashes.

I do not feel guilty for following my constitutional right to freedom of expression, for fulfilling my social responsibility as a Chinese citizen. Even if accused of it, I would have no complaints. Thank you!

Filed under: China, Politics, Society   |  1 Comment
Tags: China, Democracy, Dissent, Freedom of Expression, Liu Xia, Liu Xiaobo, Politics, Tiananmen

Break in transmission

30Jan10

Sincere apologies for the intermittent postings of late, but it’s going to continue through the next month. I’d barely been handed my certificate for not losing the will to live through an intensive Chinese course before I hopped on a plane to Kuala Lumpur, my home for the next 10 days. After that, long-lost friends will be descending upon the Middle Kingdom, giving me another chance to mess up my body temperature by briefly returning to Beijing.

This is also a good time to say a huge thank you for all those who have been following and commenting on this humble blog. I appreciate every bit of support and discussion.

So, until the end of February…春节快了！

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