Reads for May 2016

Meet: SHAMELESS
微信最火爆的英文公众号

Shameless是目前微信上最火爆的英文公众号，堪称中国版Buzzfeed。Shameless上发布的《中国女人的床上表现》《如何在网上人肉你的约会对象》等文章流传甚广。今天，Shameless背后的神秘作者接受了我们的采访。

Shameless can be considered the Buzzfeed of the WeChat world, with erudite articles such as "How to stalk your date on the internet", "How to take a perfect dick pic," and "Chinese girls in Bed!!!" (from which we learned that Western women say "Oh yeah" in bed and Chinese girls say "Oh no" ［受不了了］and they mean the same thing). On this lovely day, the Master/Mistress of Shameless has agreed to sit down virtually for an interview. Let's see what's in store.

 1. Why are you hiding your identity, you spineless prick?
 你为什么要采用匿名的身份写作？

The first article by Shameless, 8 Types of Foreigners in Beijing, was inspired by people around me, and I was afraid they would take it too personally. Later on I realized people would make random guesses about my identity, then take sides and make a judgment. People tend to think that I hold certain positions on the topics I write about, and that I am very likely to be biased because of my race and nationality. In reality, I’m not trying to push any agenda. It’s very interesting to stay behind the curtain and watch the audiences’ opinions evolve. All I am doing is to provoke thoughts and lay out the results, like a social experiment.

我的第一篇文章《八种类型的北京老外》其实是根据我身边认识的人为蓝本而写的，为了避免不必要的撕逼，我才采用了匿名的方式。后来我发现，其实读者很喜欢在立场上进行站队。他们因此默认我也是根据自己的身份站了队的，于是他们不停地根据文章里的蛛丝马迹来臆测我的国籍和种族。然而实际上，我并不想做任何立场上的输出。之所以一直坚持做这个博客，我个人更加倾向于认为它是一种社会实验。我想一直呆在幕后，让读者的意见自己去发酵，然后再不带任何色彩地把结果为大家展示出来。

2. How much hate mail do you get, and what are some of the more interesting pieces you've received?
你收到过多少骂你的邮件？有什么特别有趣的吗？

In the first 2 or 3 months, I got 3 hate mails per week on average. I rarely get any emails ever since I integrated the comments feature -- instead I get hateful comments.

There are three types of hate mails/comments: the angry Chinese guy who thinks I’m stupid white trash, the sad Chinese lady who uses crying emojis to shame me, and the progressive hipster who points out the flaws in my logic and calls out my lack of credibility. 

My personal favorite is a comment I got for writing about US Elections. An American dude commented that it was totally “racist, narrow minded, and propaganda-filled”, while the whole article was actually a joke on how centralized the Chinese political system is.

在最初的两三个月，平均每周我都会收到三封撕逼的邮件。后来微信开通了评论功能后，撕逼的战火从邮件烧到了评论区。

一般情况下和我撕逼的有三类人：一是愤青型，不由分说地认为我是一个脑残老外；二是动之以情型，一般是女生，会发一些“你这么讲让我真的很伤心”这类的话；三是晓之以理型，会不停地指出我的逻辑漏洞，批评我的公信度。

我个人最喜欢的撕逼评论其实是发生在我写美国大选的那一期。一个美国读者留言说我的文章是在替中国政府给民众洗脑，但其实事实上我整篇文章都是在影射集权式的政治体系。

3. Follow-up: do you reply to your hate mail?
你会回复这些人吗？

I only reply to the ones that make me laugh. 
- You stupid foreigner, get the fuck out of China!
- [Tears of Joy Emoji] x 3

每当有人骂我骂的很搞笑，我都连回三个笑cry的表情。

4. How would you describe your sense of humor?
你怎么描述你的幽默感？

Simple. It’s either exaggeration or comparison. Or dirty jokes. Or fart jokes. 

My humor is not for everyone. It’s an acquired taste, like jazz, cigars, and wine. I’m known as a conversation killer on Tinder because of my weird, awkward, inappropriate jokes, so I apologize if we ever matched.

非常简单。无非是对比和夸张，再就是黄段子……

我的段子类型是只有有品位的人才能欣赏的，就像雪茄，红酒和爵士乐一样。-____-|||

我经常在tinder上抖包袱，但由于太奇怪，基本上对方就不会回复了……所以如果你曾经在tinder上碰到一个讲话很奇怪的家伙，抱歉啦。

5. Some might say you tend to make fun of women more than men. Is this true? And if so, why do you think this is? Are men more difficult to make fun of? Or do you actually hate women more?
有些人认为你以女性为搞笑对象的文章更多，是真的吗？如果是，你觉得是为什么？是因为以男性为搞笑对象比较难，还是说你自己讨厌女性？

It is absolutely true that I make fun of women more. I make fun of women more because I write about women more, and I write about women more because women are more interesting. Women are sexy, cute, sneaky, emotional, sensitive, and crazy. I can tell you that I am secretly a feminist, but I am not going to tell you that it’s because I believe feminism helps dudes get laid. Yeah, fuck my sense of humor.

你说的没错。我之所以写更多的搞怪女性的段子，其实是因为我本身写的女性话题就更多。我之所以写更多的女性话题，其实是因为我觉得女性更有话题点。女性是一个复杂的群体，她们让人疯狂同时她们自己也很疯狂。我可以说是一个女权主义者，但我不会告诉你其实是因为我相信女权让女性变的更加性开放——一个典型的shameless风格的笑话，呵呵。

6. What are your most popular pieces and why do you think they're so popular?
你最受欢迎的文章是哪些？你觉得它们为什么会这么受欢迎？

Top 3 posts in terms of views are How to Drink with Chinese, Chinese New Year Survival Guide, and 5 Types of Chinese TV Dramas, all highly related to Chinese culture. Shameless may have the largest foreign reader base, but WeChat is still dominated by Chinese users. An article can’t go viral unless it catches the attention of the massive Chinese readership, even though most of them may not understand the style of Shameless.

阅读量最高的三篇文章分别是《如何和中国人愉快地喝酒》，《中国农历新年生存指南》，和《五种类型的中国电视剧》。这三篇文章之所以阅读量高，是因为和中国文化息息相关，导致大量的中国读者分享，加速了传播。

7. Do you wish to start any other projects once Shameless has gone bust? (Follow-up: Do you hope Shameless will go bust so you don't have to think up a new "Top 5" article every week?)
你会在Shameless做不下去了以后做一些其他的项目吗？另外，你会不会默默地希望Shameless有一天做不下去了，这样你就不用每周写一个“五种类型的xxx”了？

I do secretly hope Shameless would go bust when I feel frustrated and uninspired, but most of the time I feel there’s still a lot to write about. I’ve been trying to set up some side projects lately, such as videos and live broadcasting, not because I foresee Shameless going bust soon, but because I want to share more with the readers in different forms of content.

每当我没有灵感或者写烦了的时候我就很希望不再继续做Shameless了，但大多数情况下我还是觉得有很多话题还可以写。我目前也在做一些其他的小项目，不是因为我觉得Shameless做不下去了，而是我想为我的读者带来更多类型的内容。

8. Where is the best place to go in Beijing for:
在北京你推荐什么地方，如果你想：

- Unwinding after work?

Drink fake Long Island Ice Tea at Haven.

- Complaining about life to a stranger?

Sneak into someone else's booth at Sirteen.

- Finding a quick lay?

Pick up whoever is drunk AF at ELEMENTS.

- Finding a slow lay?

Borrow a lighter from someone while waiting in line for the bathroom at Migas.

- Finding some meaning in life?

Meditate on the crappy red sofa at DADA.

- 消除工作一整天后的疲累?

在Haven酒吧喝一杯假酒做的长岛冰茶。

- 跟陌生人抱怨人生？

在Sirteen偷偷溜进别人的卡座。

- 快速约一炮？

在ELEMENTS看谁醉的最厉害就带谁走。

- 慢慢调个情？

在Migas排队上厕所时以借打火机为由搭讪。

- 寻找人生的真谛？

在DADA的破烂红沙发上冥想人生。

9. Anything else you wish to say?
你还有什么想和大家分享的吗？

I am very proud that my parents actually read Shameless every week, and my dad has provided a lot of constructive feedback. My dad is cool. Be like my dad. Follow me on WeChat.  
我的爸爸妈妈也是Shameless的忠实读者，尤其是我爸爸，经常会提出很多建设性意见。我的爸爸妈妈太酷了，请向他们学习，关注Shameless吧！

Gender Equality in China - in the words of one humble observer 

Posted May 12, 2016

Cas Sutherland, whose work we first showcased last September, is a model global citizen. Dedicated to the cause of gender equality and h*#man r*ghts, Cas keeps involved in activities around Beijing and greater Asia, blogging at Zhendegender.com.

1. You are a professor here in Beijing. And you blog about feminism, mostly in a Chinese context. You interview fascinating female movers and shakers. Does this sound about right?

Yes, I am lucky to teach at a progressive Chinese university. I see roomfuls of young, mostly female, students every week, and I get to talk to them about issues that are meaningful to me, in the hopes of instilling the student with an understanding of the nuances of the world both in and outside China. I think I learn just as much from them as they do from me. It really is a two-way learning process.

I usually frame my work as blogging about gender, which includes feminism but encompasses a range of other issues too, including LGBT and women’s health issues. All of these issues interact, which is where we get intersectionality (or intersectional theory) – a contemporary feminism that examines how various cultural and social categories (such as race, gender, class, sexual orientation, etc.) intersect. 

I’ve been writing about gender and women’s issues for a few years now, but only recently has my focus turned specifically to China and Asia. Living in China does not necessarily make it easy to write about China, and the women’s rights movement here is controversial and highly political. This makes it a fascinating and necessary topic to write about, but also holds potential dangers for anyone openly involved. The project is pretty new. So far I’ve published interviews with Chinese writers and activists, who are already in the public eye, but I’m planning to feature interviews with people from a wide range of backgrounds. My only problem now is getting around the language barrier.

2. How do you follow feminism in China, and even other parts of Asia? (such as Burma.) How do you keep up-to-date? 

Coming to Chinese, Burmese and other Asian feminisms as an outsider means a lot of background research was involved to build a base of knowledge. Having intelligent young Chinese students and friends is a huge source of information and inspiration. Most of my research I do simply by talking to people with similar interests – engaging with people on a topic that they enjoy is my favourite way to learn and to challenge my own ideas. I’m also part of a large group of Beijing-based Feminists, who arrange regular meetings to discuss various issues.

Attending events about related topics has been very useful too. For example the annual Bookworm Literary Festival and the regular events listed on Legation Quarter invite experts, both foreign and Chinese, to speak on contemporary Chinese issues. Many events about China will touch on gender relations in some way, whether or not the event is specifically about a related topic. If I’m curious about the way gender relates to the topic, I will ask. I’m one of those people who sit at the front and always ask questions!

3.  If you were to look back on this time in history 50 years, what would you say is happening with females in China right now?

From my perspective, now is a time of major change. Feminism has gained serious momentum in the past 5 or 6 years, and a specifically Chinese feminism is emerging. Women’s rights issues are more widely regarded as important; issues surrounding women’s health are being taken more seriously and sex education is making progress in schools. LGBT rights have moved forward with the announcement that gay conversion treatment is illegal, and the first hearing given to a gay couple demanding their relationship be recognised as under marriage.

That said, progression continually comes face to face with deep-set traditional values that seem to have little grounding in contemporary life yet hold an established place in Chinese culture. Sex-selective abortion continues in its prevalence (13 mil. per year, 60% are unmarried women) and insubstantial (4 months) maternity leave is forcing women to leave their jobs. A large wage gap prevails in a majority of jobs and women’s education is stigmatized (Female PhD students are viewed as a third gender). Gender equality will continue to be a problematic issue with such a huge gender imbalance in China.

4. What are the latest major achievements and deeper challenges to feminism in China at the moment?

One of the latest achievements to gender equality in China is the domestic violence law, which came in at the end of 2015. It basically means that the police are obliged to intervene when they get reports of domestic violence, where previously the authorities were instructed not to interfere in peoples’ private lives.

Another ongoing controversial issue is the arrest and detention of the Feminist Five in March 2015. The day before International Women’s Day last year, seven campaigners were arrested for planning to distribute fliers about sexual harassment on public transport in Beijing and Guangzhou. Five of them - Wei Tingting, Zheng Churan, Wang Man, Wu Rongrong, and Li Tingting (known as Li Maizi) – were detained for 37 days. They quickly became a vanguard for women in China.

A year later, they went back to the site of their detention to have their one-year bail revoked and to collect their belongings. Three of them went back with their lawyer, but the case against them was not dropped. This means that they could be prosecuted at any time in the next four years.

These young women are not the type to balk at the threat and their detention kick-started an unprecedented era of widespread feminist activism across China. However, the on-going political opposition to the women’s movement, and the dangers associated with it, could be a major obstacle to the future of Chinese feminism.

5. You use this phrase 'global feminism' - what's that all about?

 I think it is pretty clear by now that feminism is making waves the world over. Here in China, not only is there a burgeoning curiosity to learn about the way feminism operates in the west, but China is claiming feminism as its own. While the label ‘feminist’ means a person who believes we must work toward gender equality, women and men in the UK are experiencing very different challenges to gender equality than those faced by people in China, Burma or elsewhere in the world. While labels can be useful, feminism means different things to different people. I see feminism as a tool for change – it must be applied in new ways in different contexts, and however much we support one another, we cannot fight other peoples’ battles for them.

I use the phrase global feminism because disconnects between western feminist strongholds and developing world feminism can often be misconstrued. There is no reason a western feminist 'we' must set the agenda for a developing world feminist 'them'. Chinese activists are navigating the way toward gender equality using a contemporary Chinese feminism, on their own terms. Nonetheless, Chinese feminism still embodies the principles by which feminists around the world are bound together.

6. I read on your blog that a super-badass feminist Xiao Tie may be in some sort of trouble. What gives?

 She is indeed a total badass. Thirty-year-old bisexual LGBT activist Xiao Tie is the director of Beijing’s LGBT Centre and one of Beijing’s most prominent young figureheads. Her campaigns for LGBT rights have gained international attention, most notably those protesting ‘gay conversion’ treatment, that is still a widespread problem in China. The authorities are aware of those facts. I don’t think she is in immediate trouble, but she has been prevented from attending events (ie. a discussion of Women’s Rights in China at The Bookworm’s Literary Festival this March) with the threat of detention. This threat could be realised at any time, so she has to monitor her every interaction, whether in public on or social media.

Xiao Tie is among a group of young activists of both sexes who campaign for gender equality and LGBT rights. The ‘Feminist Five’ and their allies are prominent figures in the press (both national and international) and are thus potential targets for the authorities, wumaodang (the fifty cents party) and criticism from Chinese citizens. They are fully aware of this risk, but they are not likely to stop working towards what they believe is right for the country.

7. Is the Chinese word for 'feminism' as stigmatized in Chinese as in English?  

This is a really fascinating and complex topic that I actually covered with my students this week. There are two Chinese words for feminism, sometimes used interchangeably. Both hold somewhat different connotations as each emerged in a specific historical context.

An early translation was 女权主义 ‘nuquan zhuyi’ (women’s power or rights + ism), denoting a militant demand for women’s political rights reminiscent of the earlier women’s suffrage movements in the West and in China. It has distinct militaristic connotations.

The women’s movement later took a very different direction, and the identity of Chinese women thus came to be defined by state organisations, like the ACWF (All China Women’s Federation), exclusively in terms of an official discourse on gender. Use of the term ‘feminism’ was rejected and ‘forbidden’ within this discourse from 1949.

Feminism returned to China during the 1980s, and the new translation proposed in the 1990s was 女性主义 ‘nuxing zhuyi’ (femininity + ism), which emphasises gender inequality rather than women’s rights, and is seen to have a richer set of cultural and political meanings than the earlier term.

The word feminism is stigmatised in the west because it connotes previous incarnations of feminist thought that have since become less popular. Thus the need for naming developments in feminist thought in ‘waves’. Second wave feminism – the bra-burning era – is part of the reason contemporary feminism is often treated with such reticence. Fourth wave feminism (which is where we’re at now), encompasses intersectionality (or intersectional theory) and operates on the basis that feminism can and should work for every – and I mean every – individual within their own unique social context.

My students tell me that女权主义 ‘nuquan zhuyi’ holds connotations closer to second wave feminism, and 女性主义 ‘nuxing zhuyi’ is probably closer to fourth wave feminism. It depends who you talk to, but from what I understand, ‘nuquan zhuyi’, the stronger of the two, is used much more often, whether colloquially or among writers and feminist thinkers, even though the word is not recognised by the Party.

8. How can we [any reader] help the situation? 

First off, get informed. Learn about the nuances within gender equality movement wherever you are in the world – by reading, attending events, asking questions – and challenge your existing views by talking to people about theirs. Second, go to events and support the cause – whether it is a charity event at the LGBT center, an discussion run by Lean In Beijing, or an event that gives you the chance to talk to experts about what more you can do. Many of the organisations will take donations and are eager to find volunteers. You can even buy a Chinese ‘this is what a feminist looks like’ t-shirt from Xiao Meili’s Taobao page.

SCRATCHING BEIJING
What is 'Scratching Beijing', besides the coolest event series on the Beijing block?

Write-up by Alice Nairn

Scratching Beijing is an ongoing performance night held in Beijing, run by three friends from far-flung places. It started in 2014, when Thanh Le Dang, in search of a creative community through which to experiment and develop new work, decided to hold her own performance night. She was joined by Anna Ruth Yates and Alice Nairn, who became involved in this first performance. After this, the three of them came together to form the scratching team. Since this first show there have been a total of 8 Scratch nights featuring over 30 artists, as well as 3 ‘Scratching Youth’ kids' performances.

Spanning different genres of expression, Scratch Nights have included theatre, fine art, poetry, video art, spoken word, and contemporary dance. Each show is held in a different venue and lasts for one night. This brings a different energy to each show and keeps it fresh.

Scratching is about getting new ideas out there and engaging in the artistic process. Working with artists to begin new conversations and collaborations, we aim to keep things original.

Our latest show “Lucky” brought together a mix of artists from all over the world. This event, which took place at the venue Fruity Space, featured seven artists.

South African musicians “SEED”  (Lianne Halton and Claudio Rebuzzi) welcomed the audience with their

mix of classical guitar, jazz, and world influences. The music was brought to life in a wonderful collaboration with the visual projections of Pamela Murray. 

Simon Shieh (click and scroll to bottom for Simon's poetry and interview), a regular on the Beijing poetry scene, shared a selection of his poetry with the musical accompaniment of Dan Taylor, improvising on guitar. Next, collaborating with the audience through a live Wechat group feed, Simon provided the audience with the first line of a poem, and audience members texted the group in response to create a virtual poem. This was presented live via a projection of the group conversation.  

On the walls of the space, the audience was met by new works of French photographer Julie Chiang; beautifully presented  projections of her nude portraits and landscapes.

Anna Ruth Yates presented a new artwork titled “ Supernatural Rhizome” of delicately spray-painted lotus pods with shining blue seeds.    

Performed by Thanh Le Dang “Rita”, and unwed, late 20-something Chinese girl, was first introduced to the audience through a dating video, in which she introduces herself to possible western suitors (the audience).  Later this character was brought to life in a live performance in which Rita is at a bar, shares her thoughts and confessions with the audience. 

READ ARCHIVE