Book Review

The Limo-Ization of Beijing

Ian Buruma is the author of "Behind the Mask," a study of Japanese popular culture. He lives in Hong Kong and writes about Asian affairs, Buruma, Ian

1988

Overview

This is not to say that his view of contemporary China is neutral. But his personal reactions tend to be emotional rather than intellectual. Sitting in his Japanese taxi, after having breakfast at his ultramodern hotel, he has ''a sense of growing unease about the rapidity of change.'' In another hotel room, contemplating the Scotch in his minibar and the mixed nuts from Singapore and the coffee urn from Italy, he feels ''a sense of irritation.'' Listening to Westernized pop music, some of it imported from Hong Kong and Taiwan, he feels ''something like nostalgia'' for Maoist propaganda songs belonging to ''that era when political idealism, innocence, and collectivism rather than cynicism, skepticism, and individualism were the animating principles of Chinese life.'' It is true that most Chinese pop music, or disco dancing, or hotel interiors, are in dubious taste, but why should we get so exercised about it? After all, only a minute number of Chinese have ever been anywhere near such hotels or discos. Well, maybe, but, says Mr. [Orville Schell], apart from the deplorable lack of exoticism, these things show the bankruptcy of Chinese traditional culture, a lack of national pride, a loss of idealism, in sum a threat to the national identity that Mao, his attacks on traditional culture notwithstanding, tried to preserve. The traumas of the last 100 years or so, largely inflicted on China by aggressive foreign imperialists, have so ravaged China's immune system that a strong foreign virus (Mr. Schell himself puts it in these biological terms) can cause untold damage. In a chapter titled ''The Limo-ization of Beijing'' (how many Chinese have ever seen, let alone been driven around in, a limo?), he compares the Cadillac emblem to the ''figureheads carved on the bows of the great sailing ships that once fueled the opium trade between China and the West.'' Mr. Schell, it appears to me, is a cultural Maoist. I don't mean to say he is a hard-line Communist. On the contrary, he appears to be a decent American liberal. By ''cultural Maoism,'' I mean zeal for native values that are too often used to justify authoritarian policies. MR. SCHELL does not say so, but implies as much. His adjectives are revealing. The ruling reformists, especially the present party chief, Zhao Ziyang, are ''pragmatic,'' ''committed liberals,'' ''reasonable.'' They are praised for fighting valiant battles against the hard-liners and for allowing dissident intellectuals, in Mr. Zhao's ''reassuring'' words, ''to play their own roles in their own [ professional ] capacities.'' Mr. [Fang Lizhi], on the other hand, is uncompromising, radical, Westernized. Well, maybe, but does this mean that Mr. Fang is wrong?

• Publisher: New York Times Company
• Subject: BURUMA, IAN / Deng Xiaoping / Fang Lizhi / Schell, Orville