http://shanghaiist.com/2005/08/19/post.php All comments for There's something happening here ... en-us 2009 shang_kenneth Wed, 07 Jan 2009 07:30:43 +0800 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss kenneth@shanghaiist.com kenneth@shanghaiist.com 60 http://shanghaiist.com/2005/08/19/post.php#comment-203865 http://shanghaiist.com/2005/08/19/post.php#comment-203865 Comments Mon, 22 Aug 2005 22:55:50 +0800 <p>Sorry my attempt before didn’t happen properly. I will try again (copy&paste): Obviously what is happening is terrible. However for controversy’s sake I will add my mother’s 2c into the mix. We are Chinese, but migrated to Sydney, Australia a long time ago. Recently on returning to China for a holiday, we visited Shanghai. My mother had previously been to Shanghai before in her youth and she was very much surprised by how modern and cosmopolitan Shanghai had become. She was impressed by the high-rise towers, wide roads and beautiful shopping malls that she saw, and how well they measured up to their Western counterparts (really she is a Patriot at heart). Recalling the dinghy houses and bumpy roads of her youth, she enthused: “Only the Chinese Government could accomplish something like this. In Australia you would see the citizens up in arms about every little thing and there’s no way that they would be able to make such great advances in so short space of time (or at all).” She was referring to a local Sydney incident in which the NSW Government wanted to build a new airport in the rural areas but the plan fell through because the local residents feared it might make the place too noisy. She had some vague notions of the residents of those dinghy houses she remembered being “chased out” by the determined Chinese Government, but of course she did not stop to think about the real pain felt by the people who had been dispossessed. In truth it comes down to the old modernist vs. postmodernist (I use those terms very loosely) approach to thinking. My mother takes a very modernist view on things which is reminiscent perhaps of the decade she grew up in: it’s all about grand narratives on progress, enlightment and advances in civilization. Of course in this era the postmodernist slant on things has become much more prominent: focusing on the stories of individual peoples and their stories rather than a collective civilization and rejecting the notions of grand advancement schemes, and now people obviously realize now that progress in terms of the dollar value isn’t really progress at all. That said… it’s completely beyond me how what is happening can be resolved. It seems terrible that these people who have done nothing wrong are being hijacked out of their land… Anyway I will stop blabbing. My very long 2c is over. Sorry guys! </p> http://shanghaiist.com/2005/08/19/post.php#comment-203864 http://shanghaiist.com/2005/08/19/post.php#comment-203864 Comments Mon, 22 Aug 2005 22:33:59 +0800 <p>people obviously realize that progress in terms of the dollar value isn't really progress at all. That said... it's completely beyond me how what is happening can be resolved. It seems terrible that these people who have done nothing wrong are being hijacked out of their land... Anyway I will stop blabbing. My very long 2c is over. Sorry guys!</p>