Jemimah Steinfeld2013-05-23T20:31:26-04:00Jemimah Steinfeldhttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=jemimah-steinfeldCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Jemimah SteinfeldGood old fashioned elbow grease.Stop Criticising 'Girls'; Start Criticising Yourselftag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.20042682012-10-23T03:09:39-04:002012-12-22T05:12:01-05:00Jemimah Steinfeldhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jemimah-steinfeld/Girls, which premiered on Sky Atlantic last night. By now many of you have therefore probably joined the debate about how socially revolutionary the show is. While I do not wish to dwell on certain aspects, such as Lena Dunham's dress size or how the parents fund their lives, I want to chip in on one - race.
Girls features an exclusively white cast both in terms of its main characters and its peripheral ones, and this has been a source of much condemnation. But instead of criticising Girls and Lena Dunham, its writer, we should really criticise ourselves.
I am a few years older than Dunham but I also grew up in New York and went to a similar school and while the world she presents might seem jarringly white, it is not necessarily untrue. New York is a very ethnically diverse city but, like most of America, it is also a shockingly racially segregated one, born out of the heightened racial awareness that still overshadows the whole of the country. In my class of 50 pupils, there was not a single black student for the first seven years of my education, and hardly any black teachers. When I went to summer camp, the black kids would hang out together in one cabin and everyone else would form their own little cliques.
Freeman goes on to say that London is more racially integrated, from her experience. This might be true in some respects. Most significantly, in the UK we are always British first, our race and religion second, unlike across the pond where the use of a hyphen (African-American etc.) places the individual's past above their present.
However, while there is definitely racial mixing in London, the city is still far from a haven. Like New York, different areas are known to attract different groups and this collage affects interaction. I was raised in a predominantly white and affluent neighbourhood. It was also predominantly Church of England, while I was Jewish. I was always a minority at school unlike my religious counterparts in North-West London. As for black people, there were few. I could count their numbers on my hands.
The cause of this might be different to the US. Freeman suggests that in the US it is likely a product of heightened racial awareness. In the UK, I would fathom that a rigid class structure plays a big role.
It was only when I moved to Beijing that I discovered a true melting pot, in this case among the expats. I quickly forged strong bonds with an African-American from New Orleans, an American-born Chinese from Los Angeles and a Hong Kong-born British girl, whose parents were from Pakistan. It was a remarkably diverse group, so much so that we would often joke about being "The True United Colours of Benetton".
It was also with this group that I first watched Girls. Naturally the race issue came up. The conclusion was that while it was a shame the show was so ethnically monochrome, it was not far removed from the lives we had led before Beijing.
Upon reading Freeman's article this weekend I forwarded it on to them. "Yes, I'd pretty much agree. Unless you assimilate into "white" culture, you're floating on your own ethnic island," said the American-born Chinese of the piece. The African-American concurred. She had just visited New York and remarked, "When I was there this past week, I did not attend the normal "industry related" parties, where there is more diversity (but only to exclusive individuals). I attended the day-to-day events that represented NYC, and it was a very segregated club scene." It was noted that this was even the case in Brooklyn, where the show is mostly set.
Film and television can perform one of two roles: It can either reflect societal aspirations or it can reflect reality. Sadly, the reality of the world we live in today is still very segregated, both socially and racially. Lena Dunham should not be accosted for simply recording what she experiences, since she is the symptom not the cause.
I think we all sincerely wish that Girls was not a reflection of truth. In lieu of this, rather than expunging energy castigating the show, we should use said energy to question why seemingly avant-garde pockets of the globe remain segregated and, in turn, how we can make them more integrated. Only then can we confidently argue that Girls is outdated.]]>The Not Beijing Olympic Games: Messages of Unity and Division From Chinatag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.17190602012-07-30T10:33:23-04:002012-09-29T05:12:39-04:00Jemimah Steinfeldhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jemimah-steinfeld/
Then the opening ceremony happened and the competition became fiercer. The post-mortem was mixed, with some praising it as "spectacular" and loving Britain's sense of humour, while others thought Beijing's was frankly better. My opinion was once again called upon. Was I happy with the ceremony? Did it make me feel proud? Did I think, heaven's forbid, that it had the edge on Beijing?!
At no point was the event judged in isolation. In an article in The Guardian on Saturday, leading Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who helped design Beijing's Olympic Bird's Nest, did perhaps the strongest compare and contrast. "The Chinese ceremony had so much less information and it wasn't even real," commented Ai in one of his many damning phrases.
This battle seems particularly ironic in Beijing, the city that crowned the motto "One world, one dream" and plastered it across all its big tourist sites. Aren't we all supposed to get along and unite behind the Olympic spirit?
But then, who are we kidding? For all the talk and symbol of unity, in reality the Olympics are first and foremost a competition between nations, a battle over which country can win the most medals, and in this case, who can be a better host.
"Even if one didn't know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principles," he wrote.
Orwell makes a good point. International team sports breed a particular strain of nationalistic sentiment that can quickly go from pride to conflict. When you group people together, turn them into representations of their nation rather than just individuals and vet them against each other, blood is going to be drawn.
While Londoners and Beijingers fight over whose Olympics are better, the US has simultaneously been offended and offensive over their made-in-China uniforms and many Israelis are less than impressed by the Olympic Committee's decision to not commemorate Munich 1972. Add to that London's blunder over North Korea's national flag and mysteriously removing Taiwan's one, and you have a whole lot of hurt feelings going around, to say the least. Simply put, the Olympics are diplomatic minefields and minefields are explosive.
And yet in spite of this, there is room for unity. Most Beijingers are still very excited when I say that I am from London and their questions are more playful than hostile. At least superficially there is a bond between us, a sense that while we might be from different sides of the globe, we both know what it is like to host an Olympic Games.
After all, international events like the Olympics create a global dialogue and provide common reference points. Countries come out of their shells and connect with others and in so doing, we get to know a little bit more about everyone. Sometimes it is the good, sometimes it is the bad and sometimes it is the plain ugly, but at least it is something.
They are as much fun as they are games. Just don't forget who scooped the first gold medal at London 2012 - China. ]]>People in China Get Hot About Women's Hemlinestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.16825362012-07-18T10:24:39-04:002012-09-17T05:12:07-04:00Jemimah Steinfeldhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jemimah-steinfeld/
Last month Shanghai Metro asked women to don more clothes when taking the subway. In a post on Sina Weibo, China's biggest microblogging site, Shanghai Metro said they need to avoid revealing garments if they want to lessen their chances of being sexually harassed.
This month it is Guilin's turn to enter the ring. At Guilin Merryland Theme Park in China's Guanxi Province female visitors have been offered discounted tickets if they wear less. Nicknamed "Love Miniskirt," the two-month campaign allows female visitors to a half-price park admission if they are in skirts shorter than 38 centimetres.
The two incidents have attracted a lot of talk, and in some instances action. In Shanghai, women stormed onto the subway, armed with signs vocalizing their discontent. Over at the theme park, plenty of scantily-clad women entered its grounds, leaving others tut-tuting from the outside.
Opinion has been divided over the incidences.
"It's a humiliation. You can see how Chinese society is consuming women's appearances and sexuality," commented Mandy Guo, who works at a media company in Beijing.
Her colleague, Wong Shutong, was equally incensed, if unsurprised. "I've heard of some bars that launched a similar campaign, saying girls wearing bikinis could enter for free. It is just a joke for men, who will obviously love it."
But Xiang Xiangping, a student at the Communication University of China, adopted a different, more light-hearted approach. "If women can get a discount without losing much dignity, why not wear a miniskirt?"
Debating women's attire is nothing new to China, where the worlds of politics and fashion have frequently converged. As the old Imperial order crumbled, so did the century's old fetish for foot-binding. Then, decades later Mao championed a form of androgynous clothing for women in the hope it would help them "hold up half the sky." By the end of the century a new fashion had emerged, or rather new fashions. Deng Xiaoping's phrase "to get rich is glorious" manifested in city high streets that could rival those of New York and London.
The pace of change has been dizzying and in it people have definitely become confused.
"Before women were restrained by traditional values, but now there is no idea what the mainstream is in terms of clothes," said Xiang.
"Some women want to dress in a sexy way, like Gan Lulu, who uses her naked body to make herself the focus of the media, but I like to be conservative" added Guo, who avoids wearing skirts on public transport that are above the knees upon hearing of a man who sexually harassed women on a Beijing bus route.
Commenting on Shanghai Metro's clothing warning in a recent editorial in Global Times, Xue Xinran, who wrote The Good Women of China, said that Chinese women have struggled to grasp feminism properly as a result of such recent and fast change. "China only opened up to the world 30 years ago. Most Chinese women then had no time to embrace the concept of feminism because they were working hard to guarantee basic living conditions and discover the joys of life," Xue said.
This might explain why the SlutWalk movement, which spread throughout most major cities of the world last year and got as far as Hong Kong, failed to cross the sea, despite similar issues being present on the Chinese mainland.
But it looks like times are changing. To get rich might be glorious; certain aspects like the battle over hemlines, less so. All of the girls interviewed were divided about how they should dress and the implications of clothing, yet all united on a common principle: women should be free to wear what they choose without being either awarded or harassed.
It will be interesting to see where the battle will go from here, shorter, longer or simply up to the individual to decide.]]>Harvard Researchers Say: 'Chinese People are Individually Free but Collectively in Chains'tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.16049602012-06-18T06:40:07-04:002012-08-18T05:12:12-04:00Jemimah Steinfeldhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jemimah-steinfeld/woman lying next to her bloody aborted baby, the event alone was sadly not unique in the history of China's one child policy. The scale of the online public debate that ensued was though. Nationwide chatter reached such proportions that Chinese officials subsequently apologized and three were suspended. It begged the question: why is it that some issues are taboo on China's Internet, while others that seem to reflect abysmally on government policy can circulate freely?
According to a study conducted by Gary King, Jennifer Pan, Margaret Roberts at Harvard University, published on 16 June, the answer lies in the outcome. Contrary to popular belief, scathing criticism of the regime and its leaders is tolerated if the criticism is unlikely to lead to collective action. The study, entitled "How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression," states:
...government policies sometimes look as bad, and leaders can be as embarrassed, as is often the case with elected politicians in democratic countries, but, as they seem to recognize, looking bad does not threaten their hold on power so long as they manage to eliminate discussions with collective action potential...
In short, online activity that could escalate beyond control is a big no-no, but individual criticism and comments on small scale protests are fine, since they're unlikely to disturb China's "harmonious society." In one example, a blogger describes the city government as being "without justice" and one that "trades dignity for power," amongst other negative slur. Pretty scathing, but with no hint of collective intent it remained uncensored. Another post allowed to run, which is particularly interesting given last week's abortion scandal, reads:
The [government] could promote voluntary birth control, not coercive birth control that deprives people of descendants. People have already been made to suffer for 30 years. This cannot become path dependent, prolonging an ill-devised temporary, emergency measure. . . . Without any exaggeration, the one child policy is the brutal policy that farmers hated the most. This "necessary evil" is rare in human history, attracting widespread condemnation around the world. It is not something we should be proud of.
These posts are commonplace, a conclusion drawn from wading through millions of them on 1,382 Chinese websites for six months last year. Their existence is not the result of sloppy workmanship on the part of the censors: a huge team labor 24/7 to ensure no potentially explosive material goes unnoticed and approximately 13 percent of all social media posts are censored. Instead, they reflect larger calculations by the government. Big brother is still watching, but big brother has bigger fish to fry. And these fish can even be their own fans. A post accusing dissident Ran Jianxin of corruption followed the party line. Since the dissident's death in police custody triggered protests in Lichuan, the post was removed.
Chinese netizens now even have an answer to why their seemingly innocent, non-political posts are sometimes deleted. Following the Japanese earthquake and the subsequent meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear plant, a rumour spread through Zhejiang Province that iodine salt would counteract radiation exposure. To offset a hectic dash to buy the salt, all online content was removed.
This is a fascinating exposé in a country reputed to repress freedom of speech at all times. Apparently only two topics -- pornography and criticism of the censors themselves -- are always blocked. Others are "free rein" it seems, so long as they don't pave the way to Tiananmen.]]>Can Chinese Football Tackle The World?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15797172012-06-07T22:46:52-04:002012-08-07T05:12:03-04:00Jemimah Steinfeldhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jemimah-steinfeld/
discovering his passenger is from the UK. The comment is remarkably common, alongside
references to the Olympics and the Queen. The Chinese love football. They even claim the
sport was invented in their country, and tens of millions tune in weekly to watch national and
international matches. Yet their record on the field does not reflect their enthusiasm off the field.
When China first qualified for the World Cup finals in 2002, they failed to score in any of the
three matches. In fact, Chinese football is so woefully bad that it even features in national jokes.
During a famous tainted milk scandal in 2008, the joke ran: "Sanlu milk, the exclusive milk of the
Chinese national football team!"
But this has not stopped Guangzhou Evergrande recently appointing a new manager, Italy's 2006
World Cup winning coach Marcello Lippi. Nor has it stopped former Chelsea striking partner Nicolas Anelka joining Shanghai Shenhua as their player-manager. And now speculation is high
that Didier Drogba is in talks with the same Chinese team. Does the signing of big international
talent signal a turning tide for Chinese football? Could the nation be as proud of their own game
as they are complimentary of the UK's?
The answer is - unlikely. Chinese football suffers from problems both at the top and the bottom
and a look at football quickly turns into a look at Modern China in general.
One of the biggest issues is corruption. At the end of April, former Chinese Football Association
(CFA) chief Xie Yalong stood trial for taking bribes in China's northeast. Xie had been the CFA
chief for three years before handing the job to Nan Yong. Nan was also tried on bribe-taking
charges around the same time.
These are just two examples of many senior government officials, referees and players who have
been convicted of match fixing in the state-run Chinese Super League (CSL). Corruption has
become commonplace, with large sums changing hands to engineer results. Speaking to a referee of an amateur team in Beijing, he said that he wished not to be identified when commenting on the
sport. "Otherwise they will look for me," the man said. It seems corruption reaches right down to
the grassroots.
It has another effect too. "Chinese parents are not willing to invest time and money in their
children playing football because the national level is corrupt and not that good," the man added.
In a country where most families only have one child, investing in football is a gamble not worth
taking. "You see kids interested in football, but they are not being coached," commented another
man, who runs a football league in Beijing.
For both the men, finding facilities is difficult. China is crowded; pitches are rare and usually
artificial. Ball quality is not great either. The common man's sport is simply not that common.
But there are glimmers of hope. In an editorial in the BBC, Mario Bozic, another of Shanghai
Shenhua's foreign players, said the staggering wages that have been offered could not be the sole
reason foreign talent is arriving in China, since these men are already rich. "Maybe they want to
teach Chinese people how to play real football," Bozic speculated.
Either way the huge salaries, which are much higher than in the past for all involved, will take
away some incentive to match fix. Today's game has been described by industry insiders as the
cleanest in decades and there is nothing like killing chickens to scare the monkeys, as the Chinese
commonly say about public crackdowns.
Meanwhile, investors are splashing out on better facilities in a bid to get more Chinese involved.
The scale might be small, but the English Premier League wasn't built in a day either.
Last July Xi Jinping, China's current Vice President, who is tipped to be the next leader,
publically announced he had three wishes for Chinese football. He wants China to qualify
for another World Cup, to host a World Cup and finally to win a World Cup. These are bold
wishes. That is not to say they are unattainable, not least with the current tactic of introducing
international talent. Brazil 2014 might soon be a goal within sight.]]>