June 30, 2008
He was little or nothing but life.
Nerdily enough, the Chinese texts we’ve been reading have provoked me to write this post about heritage sites and the paradox of maintaining tradition through architectural preservation. The point of this post is, I’m a huge nerd.
First of all, the academic Chinese are obsessed with the idea of globalization, probably better defined in their eyes as the IDEAL of globalization. The essay we read claimed westernization and anglophilia were both at the root of modernization and also globalization, and perhaps the Chinese should redirect their cultural preferences and societal inclinations towards their own roots rather than towards western roots. It all made pseudo-sense, only the essay was written by a Chinese scholar. In English. It was then translated into Chinese, and that is what we read. Peculiar, and moderately hypocritical.
No one is against preserving the Great Wall, since it just looks spectacular and no one in their right minds is going to oppose preservation, and no one in their right minds is going to build another Great Wall the same way it was built before. Sometimes I believe in things very plainly, that is, if it looks cool and cost lives, it should probably be maintained if only for the sake of those who were forced to build it. Many of the sites in Beijing should be maintained this way, without doubt and without debate over whether preserving an ancient facade will really preserve and ground ancient tradition and history. We all go to the Great Wall for the sake of taking pretty pictures and proving how widely we’ve traveled; no one goes to the Great Wall to learn much. We all climbed as far as the twelfth tower, posted photographic evidence on Facebook, and spoke some Chinese. We admired inwardly that emperor’s insanity and some of us probably felt a little bad for the oppressed laborers who laid the stones one by one. Maybe it’s enough to know greatness exists; there is no need to pinpoint a source.
Monomaniacal pursuit of outward preservation is also scary. Political figures are using preservation of heritage sites as a platform. Scholars are arguing about it like they would argue about nihilism or something. We preserve the site, we lose the history. We insist on better historical education, we learn about sites vanished to dust and sand.
In conclusion, I don’t know what I’m talking about. But I am entirely dissatisfied.
Filed by Shan Wang at 4:29 am under China,Random musings
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