A blizzard has been forecast. Schools close. The streets are quite empty, grey-white and barren. Beijing has gone a bit haywire. The schools are closed. These kids aren’t complaining about a day off in the snow. Photo: Fang Yongbin / news The craftsmen in the apartment above where I live are among those who have come to work today. A steady course of drilling is transported through the concrete. For being so steady, the sound of drilling is the least meditative in the whole world. It is a sound that never gives you peace. It’s the same in the office. Drilling is also done there. Everything old can be removed with an air drill. Constant drilling. It’s like China can’t stop rushing – or stressing – towards modernisation, for something newer and better. The old can be removed with an air drill, and the new gets old quickly. Retro is cool until the rediscovery of the past is perceived as out of date. The timeless actually has a bad case in contemporary China. Everything can be digitized. Also that which is retro. In seconds you can scroll through decade after decade. You can press buy and have clothes, replica items from eras and fashions that never existed in a closed China in the 50s, 60s and 70s delivered within a few hours. Retro can also be new packaging of Mao slogans, photographs and posters from the Cultural Revolution, and designer garments with cuts from the time when everyone wore almost the same clothes. We from the West often find it fun to dive into this world that we were never part of. In all this, the discussion of what is okay and what is not okay is quite absent. The unbearable sensitivity of existence Balancing what is sensitive and what is not sensitive is nevertheless one of the great exercises as a foreigner in China. Most of it is perceived as sensitive. Not wanting to say anything in order not to say anything wrong is a common spinal reflex in everyone we approach, as soon as they realize we are journalists. Economy, school and health. Close to history, whether it is the time under Mao or the time during the pandemic, or the time right now with an uncertain economy and high unemployment among young people. Taiwan. Relations with neighboring countries. Everything is sensitive. Is there something we can talk about? So open about. In China. The question is somewhat important to me because I am on my way to an early New Year’s reception organized by the State Council Information Office. Part of the political machinery of the Communist Party and the government which in Chinese is still called the Ministry of Propaganda. Up with the mobile cameras! The State Council is rolling out its New Year celebrations for journalists. Photo: Philip Lote / news It is mostly about showing that we are there. Ensure that those who have invited do not lose face and that we – that is, news – are invited to as many important political events under their auspices as possible in the coming year. Snow talk The snow has fallen in unusually large quantities in recent days. We can always talk about the weather. But can we – with the big climate summit in Dubai, COP 28 just finished – talk about climate? The climate issue has the extra quality that it is a topic on which China and the West quite agree, right now. The park service is mobilized to make the park accessible. Photo: Fang Yongbin / news Climate builds a bridge between China and the West and, in that sense, is actually something more than the biggest global challenge of our time. But what about ordinary people? Do they feel they can talk about climate? Li Jun plays with daughter Xinran and son Xinyue in Ritan Park in Beijing. Ni hao! Hey, I just want to know what you guys think about all this snow? – This is a bit violent for Beijing to be. It’s been a long time since we’ve had something like that, but when we were little there was often snow that went up to our calves, says the father of a toddler, holding his hand just below one knee. Li Jun and the children finish two snowmen. They live right next to the Ritan Park in Beijing Photo: Fang Yongbin / news Duration In the park, you quickly feel that people have something of the same experience as people at home. That the weather is not quite the same as before. Without being able to put it into any statistics, they are a bit of an extra item for days with unusual weather. – There are several extreme shifts. It is warmer when it is hot and colder when it is cold. There are days with a lot of rain and floods. Li Jun is probably thinking of the great flood that hit Beijing and the surrounding area this summer. Fan Guoqing, 62, does pull-ups on an exercise machine in the park, somewhat un-Chinese, immodestly agreeing to be in good shape. Photo: Fang Yongbin / news Fan Guoqing is a pensioner who comes to the park every day regardless of the weather, and likes to talk about the latest. – In north-east China, where I grew up, it is not as cold anymore. When I was a child it was not unusual for between 30 and 40 minus, but the first snow never stayed. This year there was a lot of snow early and it stayed. – Unusual. At other times of the year there are more landslides than before, says the pensioner. Both Li Jun and Fan Guoqing are a little afraid of climate change. – But it is in the future, says Li Jun. – I think that pollution from industry could be the cause, but I also think that industry has given us the prosperity we have today, he says as he attaches the carrot nose to the snowman he has made with the children. – People are aware of it, but climate change is not something they talk about very much, says a young man, Wen Ming, who works for it publicly and is working on one of the exercise machines next door. – Climate is not the personal problem people think they have to solve tomorrow, in their everyday life, says Wen Ming (28). Photo: Fang Yongbin / news Everyone speaks quite freely and uses their full name without hesitation. Time for propaganda A few hours later I am at the National Museum at the Heavenly Peace Square. Loaded with opinions from the people, I am ready to make small talk about the climate at the New Year’s reception. In case someone should ask about impressions from the past year. A Pakistani journalist films during the speech of Propaganda Minister Li Sholei. Photo: Philip Lote / news Propaganda Minister Li Sholei enters a stage and gives a speech about China’s progress and successful events shared with foreign journalists, before going down to shake hands with a bunch of selected journalists. This year they are American. New York Times, CNN tell those who manage to push forward to see. Given the cold front between the US and China over the past year, this is also climate policy. Unexpectedly in the confusion In the not-so-popular confusion, I am unexpectedly right next to the government’s spokeswoman for Taiwan issues, Zhu Fenglian. The woman who handles China’s public communications about the self-governing and democratic island. The island’s Communist Party reserves the right to reunify with China by military force and the US has said it will defend. I am putting both climate and sensitivity aside. Greets and asks in what I hope is a cheerful tone. – Do you have a favorite in the election in Taiwan? She smiles and laughs a little surprised. After all, China does not recognize Taiwan’s self-government, and she knows that I know exactly that. – I hope someone who can contribute to a peaceful solution wins, says Zhu Fenglian. What happened? A small admission that there is actually an election in Taiwan on New Year’s, January 13? I even get a photo with the spokeswoman. Snapshot and a slightly grainy political souvenir. Photo: news Satisfied with the evening, I wonder if I am exclusively a political geek or if I made a small snip here and there, and that it is sometimes more correct to be a little rude than to be careful with everything that is sensitive.
ttn-69
“Hello! I just want to know what you guys think?” – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
