the hand, having writ, moves on

8/6/2019 The Hand, Having Writ, Moves On

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The Hand, Having Writ, Moves On

Jacquelyn Suter

Peking you simply would not be able to recognize except by its monuments. Perhaps a visitor

to the 2008 Olympics, astonished at Beijings modernity, remarked such? No, this quote is not acontemporary one. It was actually written in 1916 by a British journalist who, even at that earlydate, was amazed by the pace of transformation. It was at that time, too, that the old ImperialCity walls were first breached by new roads, a thrust to the heart of Chinas ancient system ofspatial arrangement called feng shui. It wouldnt be the last.

Tracing the contours of the obliteration of its own heritage and once revolutionary goals is the aimof an extraordinarily engaging book, Out of Maos Shadowby Philip Pan. It is an eloquent andvivid look at three of Chinas transformative events: the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), thestudent demonstrations at Tiananmen Square (1989), and the current rise of what Pan callsauthoritarian capitalism.

Lets first imagine Tiananmen Square, where so many of Chinas historic events have taken

place. In 1949, Mao proclaimed the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China atop theGate of Heavenly Peace fronting the Imperial Palace. He looked out upon what was then asimple public park which in due course he would enlarge enormously. Many acres of oldneighborhood were destroyed to create what we now call Tiananmen Square the worlds largestpublic space.

Half a century later, in 2001, thousands of Chinese joyously and spontaneously congregated inTiananmen Square to celebrate the announcement that Beijing had been awarded the bid to hostthe 2008 Olympics. University students sang patriotic hymns such as Without the CommunistParty There Would Be No New China.


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In between these two events, there occurred another. In 1989, students again amassed inTiananmen, but singing patriotic Communist songs would have been inconceivable. They weredemonstrating for democracy and putting their very lives on the line to do so. What makes Pansbook such a fascinating read is that he relates history through the stories of people who wereparticipant to these events.

And in 1989, one of these people was the General Secretary of the Communist Party, ZhaoZiyang. He sympathized with the students cause and accepted their criticism, and as he spoketo the students in the Square, his voice trembled with emotion, and there was a hint of thetragedy to come in his words. We have come too late, too late. After he left the scene, he wasnot seen again. He was ousted from his post by party leaders who then crushed thedemonstrators by military force.

When Zhao died in 2005, after fifteen years of house arrest, web sites and blogs were instructedto repress news of his death. The Struggle for the Soul of a New China was already in full swing

the subtitle of Pans book. The year 1989 was a pivotal moment for China, but with Zhaosdeath a flickering moment for political change had expired.

Sometimes art imitates life. Students, dont stir up any more troubleIf you march to the

Square, it will be the end of the new liberal General Secretary, Zhao Ziyang. This quote is notfrom Pan, not from actual events but it could be. Its from a recent novel, Beijing Coma, by theyoung writer, Ma Jian.

As Pan relates the historical events of Tiananmen, Ma Jian weaves a compelling story of thosesame events in fiction as they very well might have played out in real life. Ma Jians novel issimilar to Pans history in another way: it looks both backward to the hopefulness of 1989, andforward to the new China of today, what Pan calls authoritarian, or predatory, capitalism.

In the decade of the 1990s, Beijing undertook one of the biggest and most radical make-overs inthe world in order to present itself as a modern, capable, forward-leaning country divorced fromits tradition-laden past. This meant eliminating large swaths of property in central Beijing to makeway for newly-widened streets, shopping malls, and buildings of stunning international

architecture. The scope of this upheaval was massive: Between 1991 and 2003, a half-millionfamilies were evicted.

At that time in Beijing, the government held rights to two-thirds of the land in the central city. Theremaining third was held by private homeowners. In order to quickly facilitate development, thegovernment sold their land rights to private developers who, in the early years, could buy land-use rights for about 10% of a projects final value. The incentive was thus strong to quicklynegotiate with current residents to move out and with private owners to sell.

But the price of creating this new China, was destruction of old neighborhoods, called hutongs,comprising quaint courtyard houses that had defined life in old Beijing for centuries. MichaelMeyers The Last Days of Old Beijingis one mans poignant and often humorous account of howthis transformation took place in his neighborhood.

Meyer, an English teacher Little Plumblossom by his Chinese name whose curiosity led himto live in an old hutong, relates the individual stories of these residents and how their livesrevolved around when The Hand would appear on a neighborhood wall. The Hand referred tothe Chinese symbol for raze which would mysteriously appear on a hutongwall overnight. Putthere by a faceless and unaccountable bureaucracy, The Hand determined when a house or awhole neighborhood would be slated for destruction.

Meyer tells us that the destructive activity during the years of the Cultural Revolution, in whichcitizens were indoctrinated to destroy the Four Olds (thoughts, culture, customs, habits), may


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have ironically laid a foundation to accept ongoing change and turmoil they recalled thedestruction as a positive even fun collective act. On the other had, many of these residentshad a strong motivation to forget the recent past instead of remember it.

A New York Times columnist recently commented astutely, Everything that starts out as acultural revolution ends up as capitalist routine.

Indeed, most Chinese dont appear nostalgic as they drive their newly-acquired cars to the HappyFamily supermarket chain none other than the Chinese version of the French-owned Carrefour.Meyers believes the Chinese associate crumbling buildings with past national decline rather thanas something historical to be preserved. But at least one Chinese in Meyers book tookexception, I often say that on the entire earth, there isnt a nation that could, in the name of theOlympics, destroy its own cities, and its own history.

Ma Jian in Beijing Coma says, people only escape into the past when they have no where left togo. Clearly, China feels it has yet many other places to go.

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the hand, having writ, moves on

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