Lao Xu, in the midst of an exhibit about multi-racial migrants to Johannesburg, at South Africa's Apartheid Museum
2008 is the tenth anniversary of the commencement of diplomatic relations between South Africa and the People's Republic of China. As part of its activities to celebrate the occasion, as well as to promote South Africa to Chinese tourists, the South African government has invited Chinese blogger extraordinaire, Xu Jinglei, to visit. The multi-talented Xu is not only one of the world's most-read bloggers, but is also an award-winning actor, director, and editor-in-chief of the e-zine, Kaila. Ever prepared to make the most of an opportunity, Xu is planning to produce a book and documentary in conjunction with the trip. Your correspondent is part of the team traveling with Xu.
One day into the trip, the experience is already yielding moments worth pondering. Last night, a not-altogether inebriated, but certainly impassioned, debate ensued when a team member drew comparisons between Tîbêt and apartheid.
A chance to clarify the issue arose when the team toured South Africa's Apartheid Museum today. Thoughtful, provocative and poignant, the museum opens with an exhibit of enlarged duplicates of racial classification identification cards and "pass" books, documents that black South Africans were required to carry to show their authorization to live and work in designated white areas under apartheid. Subsequent cinematic exhibits showed bracing examples of a government doing violence to its people, and of angry activists doing violence to fellow black South Africans who'd been (or who'd been suspected of being) informers.
Although the Cultural Revolution (and other episodes from China's past) could warrant a museum whose purpose is to memorialize, interrogate and interpret a painful history, China has not yet chosen to devote its resources to a project of public self-reflection along the lines of South Africa's Apartheid Museum. Still, it was a pensive group that emerged from the museum: "South Africa and China are similar," observed one team member. "People who aren't from Beijing [waidi ren] have to carry their hukou and identification papers with them everywhere now."
But any hint of melancholy in the pensiveness soon abated. Leaving the museum grounds, one team member commented that South Africa would be a great place to film a commercial. Shortly thereafter, another team member wondered how anyone could want to move away from a country as beautiful as South Africa. Later, Xu remarked that she felt comfortable in South Africa, adding that the people were kind and friendly, and that the day had been perfect and full of surprises.
South Africa's honesty and respect for its past, however fraught, does not appear to have diminished the team's enjoyment of the trip thus far. Indeed, it may have amplified it.
This article is from Danwei.org
Read the complete post at http://www.danwei.org/china_and_africa/xu_jingleis_south_african_adve.php
Posted
Mar 25 2008, 05:02 PM
by
Danwei - Media, Advertising, and Urban Life in China