Thank heavens for small miracles, folks. Small miracles like globalization.

Why?

Well thanks to this most ornery of mega-planetary economic phenomena, one can always remain confident of somehow finding themselves at an English language bookshop in pretty much any large European city, regardless of the national language. And let’s face it, the very best fictional and non-fictional works today are churned out in the English language, folks, and there’s no debate there. Globalization means more English books available for the road-weary in all of us. Stranded hopelessly because of some geological narishkeit taking place on that lone frigid island somewhere off in the Atlantic. Anyways…

It’s with that in mind that I was happy to stumble across Jan Wong’s most excellent Chinese Whispers: A Journey Into Betrayal (336pp, paperback, British edition, US edition here, affiliate link) in one of my favorite Bern bookshops, Thalia.ch. Thalia’s housed in the “soussol” of Bern’s Loeb department store, located directly in front of the Swiss capital’s main train station, or hauptbahnhof, in case you’ll be passing through the city anytime soon. Note on language: don’t you just love how Swiss German, as a tongue, borrows liberally from the French? – hochdeutsch this throaty German is not, all you linguistic purists out there. Understandable, I guess, given how the country is trilingual (or nominally quadrilingual) and borders, ew, France. Still, I always chuckle whenever I overhear a Berner or Zuricher give directions to some wayward German or Austrian tourist while using the word strasse, or street. Instead of saying the word properly, as a Hamburger or a Berliner might, they drag out their variation’s a, roll its r, and do their level best to sound like Bill or Ted in some cheesy ‘80s flick. The word ends up sounding like straaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasse, which to indeed is an acquired taste; though my love of the Swiss, especially in the German-speaking cantons, remains as strong as ever. The worst part about Swiss German is how they cause all these hot Latin immigrants to gobble up the Swiss German accent hook, line, and sinker. They give them a disease they don’t want to have. It’s like rape. It’s like what mange cake (literally “cake-eating,” but what are otherwise white people) Torontonians do to their immigrants: they make bland white bread out of exotic Latinos and South Americans and it’s a damn cryin’ shame. Though I digress (but I’m entitled to since I’ve just returned from a marathon thirty hour combined train and bus journey).

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We’ve all seen Wo hu cang long/Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon several times in the past. We’ve been dazzled by the spectacular fight choreography, the captivating CG efforts recreating the Qing-era walled capital of Beijing, and, in my case, stood awestruck by the truly heartfelt relationship existing between Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun-Fat that completely stole the show (at least for me).

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It was an audio sort of evening last night as I got up to listening to several archived podcasts from Beijing’s recent Bookworm International Literary Festival (BILF), an engaging event which took place earlier this month (thanks to Derek Sandhaus of Earnshaw Books for the tip!) at The Bookworm.

Jonathan Tel’s pod, recorded at the shop, stood out for me. He’s the author of that snazzy cover you see hanging in the image above, a unique anthology of “semi-fictional” (i.e. not altogether false) short stories that has garnered quite a bit of play since the collection’s publication last summer (full disclosure: I haven’t read the book yet, so I’m not going to even comment on the content until I do so).

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Okay, so now that we’ve got that windbag blog title out of the way (how did I do, folks?), let’s get down to the brass tacks of the matter: the iconic and often-imitated-rarely-duplicated cinematographic marvel which was once Zhang Yimou’s Hero/Ying xiong, the 2004 swashbuckling flicker picture that dazzled and titillated, yet somehow didn’t intellectually connect.

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The picture above depicts how vehicular traffic is regulated on the road heading into China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region: plastic “dummy” cops standing sentinel adorning the soft-shoulder, meant to resemble the genuine article to deter traffic violators, wanton drunken driving, and reckless acts behind the wheel across the wide, flat expanses of the barren steppes of the wind-battered Mongolian plain.

Well, yesterday afternoon I finished off native-Missourian Peter Hessler’s third installment in his “angels abroad” China series, Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory (affiliate link), and I’m giving the book a very tall two thumbs up. This is 424pp of lean and mean non-fiction prosaic gold which you’re going to regret not reading. Did I mention you should go out and snag a copy today?

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I’m happy I listen to people when they strongly suggest titles to read. In the case of Lawrence L. Allen’s Chocolate Fortunes: The Battle for the Hearts, Minds, and Wallets of China’s Consumers, this was a particularly sweet suggestion and many thanks to Dan Harris of Harris & Moure Law, the perennial award-winning blogmeister and commentator at China Law Blog, or as we Generation Xers like to call it, CLB.

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Sure, I know, it took me too long enough, but I finally got around to seeing Jia’s The World last night and I’m still ruminating on how I should feel about it. I need a few more days.

In any event, today is a great opportunity to scribble a bit more about modern Mainland Chinese filmmaking styles, and why the art form is slow to make a decisive breakthrough into Western film-going markets.

Jia Zhang-ke/贾樟柯’s back story is an interesting one. His reputation as an indie Chinese filmmaker based in the PRC was fully cemented during his badboy days of shooting films outside of the State-approved film sector. Read the rest of this entry »