Xiuzhu

This week, we read about how telecommunication development makes the city sentient and changes our perception of the world. Gabry talks about the wireless enables communication to happen between machine and machine, which makes use of “the imagined but unmapped space in the city” (p.53). I resonate with the point that the way we sense the world has been strongly altered by wireless communication. Kant defined time and space as two transcendental infrastructure upon which we generate our knowledge of the world. However, as all communication could be achieved by invisible infrastructure, we could no longer touch the entity which embodies “space” and “time.”As the idea of “global village” was gradually realized, the concept of “neighborhood” becomes obscure at the same time.

Because of the rapid development of the Internet, people’s knowledge of their living environment and arrangements for daily activities can be gained and achieved through mobile phones. When everything can be done online, we gradually lose a real and systematic understanding of the “nearby” in the real world. For instance, we read news about the big events happening every day in another continent, but we may not notice the shutdown of a local store near our residential house. It seems that we are living in a world that is abundant and bleak at the same time.

Speak from my personal feeling, the “disappearance of the neighborhood” has led to a state of “suspended” life. On the one hand, people can stay at home with peace of mind and see the larger world through the Internet, and keen to discuss the distant events; On the other hand, we have no communication with the deliverymen who work to satisfy our basic life demands, and our understanding of food and life need depends entirely on the numbers given by the e-commerce platforms. The popularization of the wireless service connects the people together on a global scale but at the same time impair people’s intimate feelings with their neighborhood. In that sense, the lives of modern people “float” through the Internet.

An important feature of modern society shrouded by technology is disenchantment. That is, things are no longer mysterious. The Internet makes information at your fingertips and makes it easy to build relationships. But also because people realize that “as long as I want to, I can”, what comes with convenience may not be curiosity, but inertia. Here is a question worths thinking: as the people become smarter and smarter, will the dwellers still could perform their subjective initiative, or will we be bounded by the city apparatus?

This week, we read about the thoughts on smart cities. With the rapid development of the internet, people have become more and more used to technology intervention in their lives. Although privacy is always concerned by internet users, the trend of letting all kinds of apps and websites gain our personal information has never stopped. The construction of a smart city cannot be divorced from the application of information technology.” According to what we read this week, the smart city operates in a way in which modern technology permeates every aspect of citizens’ lives. The operation of the city relies heavily on the calculation of big data. And as Shannon Mattern writes in her article, “Our current paradigm, the city as a computer, appeals because it frames the messiness of urban life as programmable and subject to rational order.” One of the most typical actions of building a computer-like is the health QR code we are using every day. As China stepped into the post-epidemic era, the control of the spread of the virus has become more and more restricted. The methods to gain information on citizens’ movements have become very systematic and complete. It is undeniable that the application of the “health QR code” effectively monitored the whereabouts of the citizens and thus enables the government to cope with the virus more timely. By this time, I believe most of the Chinese people have adapted to the ubiquitous “health QR code”, and would consciously show it before entering any public place, and cooperate with the efficient epidemic prevention measures brought by this technology.

However, as most citizens enjoy the safety brought by the “health QR code,” it may be hard for us to realize that this technology marginalizes certain groups of people. Although a huge impact always accompanies the arrival of new technologies on existing personal habits and cognitions, their impact on different age groups is extremely uneven: the young generation who have grown up in rapid development are often more willing and able to get started with new technologies faster, and then enjoy its convenience; while those older generations may need more time to get familiar with the new technology feel at a loss for the overwhelming, fast-changing technological products. A new report about how an old man was refused to take the bus because he didn’t have the cell phone to show his “health QR code” aroused public attention on the internet. People questioned the rationality of requiring a safe green “health QR code” to access all public facilities. However, similar cases are happening every day as the skillful application of modern technology and mobile phones’ possession becomes essential to make a living in an “intelligent” society. Not all people could afford a cell phone or could adapt to the new technology as quickly as others. Due to the lack of basic access to the complex online world, they are unable to express and speak at all, and they have become invisible in the modern technology-based society.

（volunteers helping old people to register the health QR code）

We may all imagine that living in a smart city means living in a more rational way in which everything runs orderly and efficiently. But there always remind question about who are the beneficiaries of the efficiency and convenience brought by the order. The construction of the smart city is based on the prioritization of certain standards such as degrees of familiarity with new technology and the ability to learn new skills. I believe we should be vigilant about such prioritization and always pay close attention to those people who might be eliminated in this process.

This week, we shift our attention from street food and food delivery to media infrastructure. I think this week’s reading resonates with McLuhan and Postman’s theory of media ecology. It would be insufficient for media studies to merely research the content without investigating the technological form and the material basis. In many cases, the media’s materiality plays n decisive role in how people recognize the world. In Signal Traffic, the author discusses the importance of thinking about the material base of our daily use of media and communication. As the author puts, “our current mediascapes would not exist without our current media infrastructures.” The establishment of media infrastructures such as cable, satellite, and the Internet is affected by complex economic motives and fraught with power relationships. A vast amount of labor and natural resources is needed to maintain it. Though invisible most of the time, the material base of the media has a great impact on human society from various perspectives. For instance, infrastructures could materially reconstruct people’s sense of temporality by altering the immediacy of information transmission. It also redefines the power structure by considering the geopolitics of infrastructures and the risk of content being surveilled or censored. In China, all telecommunications companies are owned by the state to ensure the communication signal’s stability and to exert control and senatorship people’s daily communication. What is more, the privilege brought by the distribution of infrastructures also contributes to the unevenness on a global scale.

（A person fixing the undersea cable）

One interesting example I want to discuss is the cloud service that is widely used by people now. Big technology companies like Google created the cloud service to provide people with online storage spaces. In China, Baidu also has a similar service named Baidu cloud, and most of the people under 50 around me are familiar with such service. One of the fundamental functions of the cloud is, of course, storing our personal files. However, in China, the cloud service also contributes to generating a huge piracy market in which people exchange audiovisual products. By sharing private links, one could share the file stored in his/her cloud to others. Some people take advantage of this function and sell pirated copies online, which makes it harder and harder for big streaming platforms to protect their copyrighted content. The build of the mobile network and the popularization of the Internet helps the distributors to disseminate audiovisual products on the Internet at a lower cost. However, the circulation of the pirated material goes against such purpose and undermines the distributors’ efforts. From this case, I think it is reasonable to argue that although there are certain logics built in the construction of the media infrastructure that would strengthen certain political and economic power relations, the users could still take an oppositional position to use in a way against its constructer’s will, and thus emphasizes the human agent’s intentions when using media technology.
The article here provides more information about the piracy issue of Chinese cloud service.

The article here provides more information about the piracy issue of Chinese cloud service.

There used to be a widespread phenomenon in Beijing called Kai Qiang Da Dong (开墙打洞), which would be “hole through the wall” if translated directly into English. The so-called Kai Qiang Da Dong means that the residents on the first floor of the residential building pierced through the original window’s bottom edge to turn the window into a doorway and let the doorway face the road. In this way, the original residential room could be used for commercial purposes. The housing could be changed into stores, barbershops, small restaurants, etc. Some people run the store by themselves, and some rent the space to others. There are many benefits to opening stores in a residential building. One of the most important advantages is that the source of the customer is guaranteed. Such commercial space usually provides day daily service to nearby neighborhoods, and the shop manager is always seen as an acquaintance of the customer instead of a merchant. Kai Qiang Da Dong is illegal by law because, as the window becomes a doorway, the room above’s support is weakened, creating a risk that may endanger the upper floors. However, the commercial space creates through Kai Qiang Da Dong undeniably provides much convenience to the neighborhood and offers jobs to low-class people living in urban cities.

 

The phenomenon of Kai Qiang Da Dong has appeared as far back as the 1990s but was largely ignored and acquiesced by the government until 2017. In 2017, the mayor of Beijing Cai Qi enacted policies to combat the behavior of Kai Qiang Da Dong. The government not only banned any further Kai Qiang Da Dong in Beijing but also torn down those restaurants and shops that were previously created by Kai Qiang Da Dong and restored the wall. According to Sohu’s news release, tens of thousands of shops and restaurants were forced to close down because of this government action. Such action was aimed to clean up the city but caused discontent among Beijing residents. Many restaurants that run for decades and enjoyed great reputations among their loyal customers had to change their addresses. It was especially an annoying shift for older people who were not familiar with internet technology and more used to local shops and restaurants. The torn down of those shops and restaurants is also the deprivation of their living space in the city.

(Banners with slogans of against Kai Qiang Da Dong put on the street by the government)

People who were affected even more badly than older people are those low-class workers in Beijing. Many of them didn’t own a Beijing Hu Kou and came to Beijing to find jobs. The torn down of the spaces created by Kai Qiang Da Dong is literally the destruction of their living basis. The shops and restaurants created by Kai Qiang Da Dong are usually small and run by families who work and live there at the same time. After no longer being able to run business in Beijing, many low-class families couldn’t afford to pay the rent and moved out of Beijing. Thus the combat against Kai Qiang Da Dong is also the action of dispelling low-class people in Beijing and blocking social mobility.

（Construction team demolishing stores created by Kai Qiang Da Dong）

In my own opinion, the combat against Kai Qiang Da Dong is the claim of power of the government authority. It indeed entails some good intentions of creating a more neat and clean city space. However, it violates the most basic responsibility that a city (especially a capital city) should take, which is enabling every resident to earn a living in the city. In this sense, the Beijing government’s action reflects the capital city as a place where the state apparatus exerts its power instead of a public space owned by the people.

Here is a video of a girl’s tour to the previous Kai Qiang Da Dong restaurant and her interview with the restaurant owner.

 

This week, we read about several discussions around street food, pushcarts and vendors. Bluestone articulates the different developmental stages of pushcarts in New York City, whereas Ray focuses more on how vending reflects the level of social justice and society’s plurality. It is always accepted that street food provides liveness to urban space, but few people look deep into how such liveness is created. In this post, I would like to share some of my thoughts about why street vending and pushcarts could vitalize the city.

One factor that could account for such a phenomenon is that consumers could witness how their dishes are made when buying food on the street. I had my undergraduate study at the Communication University of China, and there is a street full of street peddlers near the west door of the university. One thing I enjoyed most during my undergraduate study was watching those vendors cooking their food. Unlike in the restaurant, where the whole cooking process is hidden in the kitchen, vendors have no choice but show how they cook the food. Some vendors may even make cooking as a performance to show how professional they are and attract passersby. The cooking process’s transparency is essential for street food because the vendors have to promote their food by using appetitive sources and a strong smell. The word “Liveness” in China is called “烟火气”， with a direct translation of “the smoke produced by cooking.” This word shows that traditional Chinese regard the cooking smoke as a symbol of cozy daily lives. Cooking smoke is never a pleasant thing to most people, but it indicates such a beautiful and vivid view of life in a traditional Chinese cultural context. Perhaps food is meant to be created in a messy and informal environment in the Chinese cultural gene.

（The street full of pushcarts near my university）

Another reason whystreet food could contribute to urban space’s livingness recalls the memory from our childhood. When I was a high school student, I had only little pocket money every month and couldn’t afford to dine out in a restaurant. But street food is much cheaper than the dishes served in the restaurant and always target student as their most important consumers. There were always pushcarts with all kinds of street food near the school gate, and I just couldn’t help to buy some of them on my way home. Thus, street food for me carries a nostalgic meaning. Even now, when I pass some pushcarts, the first idea floats into my mind would be, “I’ve seen that (or I’ve had that) in my high school period.”

It is exactly because I am witnessing how vendors put their labors in cooking and those memories around food from my childhood that make me feel empathetic for the vendors. For the last few years, the Beijing government issued policies against pushcarts food and informal food stores in the city. I understand such actions are meant to clean up the city, but I didn’t enjoy its result. Beijing indeed became neater, but it lost so much vigor in this process. I agree with Ray’s point that a city should be a public space that allows people from all social classes to earn a living. Sometimes an organized city is built upon the exclusion of certain groups of people and the elimination of the collective memories of previous generations.

 

The authors of this week discuss about the important position of food in Chinese culture. Swislocki states in his article that “few other cultures are as food oriented as the Chinese”. Indeed, for Chinese people, the meaning of food goes far beyond the notion of the feed. Dietary habit is closely connected with one’s self-identity. As the old saying goes, “the feed is the most important to people” (mín yǐ shí wéi tiān). China has a large population and the most diverse natural landscape in the world, which provides its people with numerous raw food materials. Although people in different regions have formed their own unique eating habits and styles, no Chinese will deny the importance of food in their lives. Thus, it is easy for the nation to promote national identities from the perspective of food.

In 2012, CCTV produced a documentary named A Bite of China, which enjoys tremendous popularity among the audience and raised hot debate on social media. One factor that contributed to the success of this documentary is that “eating” is an eternal shared topic and also an important factor of forming cultural identity. On the most superficial level, A Bite of China provides alternative satisfaction for people’s appetites. Since all the food displayed isordinary food, which creates a communicative platform without boundaries and eliminates class distinctions. Another important success factor is that the documentary adopts a “story telling” strategy. Unlike other food documentaries who focus on the culinary techniques, A Bite of China tells the stories of people involved in the process of food production, preparation and dining. A Bite of China reproduces the life of ordinary Chinese. In each episode, several groups of characters are selected, taking the actions of food producers as narrative clues. Their personal experiences are shown in the documentary centered around food. The characters in this documentaries are normal local people, such as farmers and small merchants. Through watching those stories, one could easily recognize him/herself with those people and resonate with them. As Benedict Anderson put, nations is a “imagined political community”. People identify themselves as the community member through participating some collective rituals. To my understanding, watching such documentary is just like joining a particular ritual, in which the audience could feel pride for their own culture and resonate with the image of the people in national memory.

From a political economic perspective, the production and export of A Bite of China carries the ideal image of the nation. According to the producers, they shot more than 70 locations for 13 months to create a great map of Chinese cuisines with a sense of rich cultural heritage. For China, this documentary promoted Chinese soft power. It not only shows China’s cultural history, but also reflects the current life of the Chinese people and the rapidly developing Chinese society. In this sense, A Bite of China is a perfect card to introduce China’s images to the world and show its process of modernization.