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Strategies & Market Trends : China Warehouse- More Than Crockery -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (4854)	5/23/2005 2:58:11 PM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6370

China's Cultural Dynamism: Personal stories paint the big picture From Tiananmen to transsexuals, two American journalists share their experiences reporting "from the dragon's mouth" Monday, May 23, 2005 By Ryan Finstad AsiaMedia Staff Writer An American reporter with twelve years of experience working in China undoubtedly has covered a lot of important stories. But if you ask former New York Times Shanghai Bureau Chief, Seth Faison, what his favorite was, he'll tell you something unexpected: ¡°My favorite individual story was a profile about a transgendered choreographer in Shanghai, who I fell in love with and had a love affair with.¡± Faison and longtime Washington Post Beijing bureau chief John Pomfret, spoke on Thursday, May 12 at UCLA about their experiences as journalists in China in the nineties in a discussion called "Reporting China: Tales from the Dragon's Mouth." In their years abroad, they witnessed the advent of capitalism, power struggles at the highest level of government, numerous peasant riots and student protests, yet it was the personal stories about average Chinese citizens that bear most strongly in the minds of these reporters. Both Pomfret and Faison began their relationships with China as students during the 1980s. Faison started his journalism career as a reporter with the Hong Kong Standard and later the South China Morning Post. Pomfret started his career with a small Riverside paper, and later worked for the Associated Press who stationed him in China. While working for AP, Pomfret reported the student protests that occupied Tiananmen Square in 1989. He says one of his biggest regrets is that one of his sources for that story was arrested and sentenced to two and a half years in prison for "revealing state secrets." Pomfret and his source were in a car together exchanging information -- little did they know a public security official was recording their conversation with a directional microphone. After the June 4 crackdown on the protestors, Pomfret was expelled from China for "stealing state secrets and violating marshal law." Faison conjectures that his clear and accurate reporting on the incident made Pomfret an obvious target for retribution in its aftermath. Pomfret explains that the high point of his career came when he returned to China six years later and witnessed the astounding changes that had taken place since 1989. "When I left," said Pomfret, "there were really only four social classes. When I returned, there were hundreds." Faison says that the high of his career was seeing the vibrant spirit of the students who filled Tiananmen Square; he calls it "exciting, chaotic, disorganized and inspiring." During the buildup to the protests, Faison ventured to the home of Fang Lizhi, a famous astrophysicist and outspoken political dissident who encouraged students to demand political reform. Faison was present when the first students gathered in April 1989 and began their march to Tiananmen Square. After weeks of following the story day and night, Faison left Beijing for a vacation in Hong Kong. His inspired feelings about the protests abruptly ended when, two days later, he watched in horror as images of tanks rolling through Beijing invaded his TV screen. "I felt like a failure personally," Faison says of his absence during the violence. Both reporters say that China has eased restrictions on foreign journalists over the years. "On paper, the rules have not changed at all," says Pomfret. "They are just no longer enforced." The only places that Pomfret found to be truly off-limits to reporters were restricted military sites and the Tibetan province in the Southwest of the country. Faison says he used a second passport with a businessman¡¯s visa to avoid detection when traveling outside of big cities. A journalist or J-1 visa, he says, is a red-flag for hotel managers to alert local authorities to the reporter's presence. Pomfret remembers sleeping in his car or in substandard lodgings to stay under the radar of local public security bureaus. The two disagree, though, about just how much the attitude of average citizens to foreigners has changed. While Pomfret says that everyday people are more willing to speak with Western reporters than they used to be, Faison says cultural barriers will continue to make Western journalists' work difficult. "Chinese people are innately cautious when talking to a Westerner and have an instinct to protect and to not open up. It often takes the right guanxi (¹ØÏµ), or connections, to find what you¡¯re looking for.¡± Pomfret and Faison say that their biggest challenges as China correspondents were not finding sources and dealing with government restrictions, though. The toughest part was to write in a way that American readers not familiar with Chinese culture could understand. "What the New York Times and Washington Post want is someone who can interpret China," says Faison. "It's not just about access to information -- it's about explaining it to Americans." Faison¡¯s 2004 book, South of the Clouds, explores many of these issues in greater detail. He explains his affair with Jin Xing, a transsexual dance choreographer who attained the rank of Colonel in the People¡¯s Liberation Army before her sex change operation. The book delves deep into Faison¡¯s personal life in China and the many confusing layers of Chinese society. The discussion was hosted by the UCLA Center for Chinese Studies and moderated by its director, Richard Baum. Date Posted: 5/23/2005 asiamedia.ucla.edu