Ramadan 2019: Day 16-18

Day 16 Tuesday

In the morning, I blocked the person who was man-trolling my posts and also wrote posts celebrating Modi's electoral success on Faceb00k.

In the afternoon, Walid and I ventured to the MIT area because I was scheduled to meet a friend from college, as well as her parents. Walid and I parted at H-Mart. I felt nervous because I hadn't seen her since 2014 when she was interning in D.C. She looked good, with a new lipstick habit she picked up from Columbia University. She seemed to have enjoyed my company and her mother was very interested in my Ph.D.-student life. Her mother probably worried that her daughter might suffer if she went on the path of academia. I found out later in the meeting that she was working at a New York corporation. Her father spoke little and us three women enjoyed his non-intrusive presence. We parted ways, and I thought they went to their hotel in Allston.

When I tried to find Walid again in H-Mart, I saw his text that he was in the Cambridge mosque. I felt upset because I did not being in Cambridge on a busy afternoon by myself. I also felt that he ditched me. When I called him I was upset and informed him to meet me. Coincidentally, I also saw my friend and her parents buying sushi and food from the supermarket. My friend's father commented on my purchased good--a bag of frozen dumplings. They did not seem to be very free or talkative as before. When I finally found Walid at the door of H-Mart and we left for the red line, we ran into her parents again. I introduced them to Walid and he greeted them, graceful as always during such occasions. I was ill at ease and we later fought in the subway. I was ready to forgive him when we arrived at my home station. He helped me return my frozen dumplings to my fridge while I hurried to meet Manho at Malden Center. Manho was early as usual. The Vietnamese restaurant we intended to eat was closed on Tuesdays. So we walked around, saw the older-than-America First Baptist church and went to Ming's (See my post on Day 1 of Ramadan). Manho was very pleased by the cleanliness of Malden, in comparison to Boston's Chinatown.

We ordered seafood and veggies. We ate and chatted, even though Manho felt that it was rude to eat before Walid. At around 8pm, Walid broke fast with my friend, Manho, and I. Manho was happy to leave Boston; we celebrated his birthday. By the end, the waiters almost forgot about us as well as the dessert they usually served to everyone. But Walid remembered, and we ate our share of a taro sweet soup.

Here are some other observations we had about tea and eating habits, which I wrote in Chinese: 看得出成长环境的不同 比如喝茶的习惯我到了17才有 而我对象和文豪都是从小喝茶。另，文豪如果早点来 是有机会认识一个四姨太的小孩 结果没撞上。我和对象翻译了这个故事 他没反应到点是什么 . 还有Nutella 我到了德国才吃到 吃过ferroro 但没想到还有如此平凡的酱版。文豪以前吃过 他来到美国惊奇于人对花生酱的热衷 觉得pb&j是一种懒人的食物。对象说他某一天并不知该三明治的做法 但自己却“发明”出来了 所以也很难说到底是美国人造就了pb&j 还是环境使然

In the evening, I was too full to fall asleep. I delved deeper into my insecurities in regards to Walid's visit to the holy place of the mosque. The membership system seems very strict, even though it does not appear as such at the surface. The same issue occurred with a Sikh temple in Germany--diasporas guard such spaces with more scrutiny as well. Walid understood my concerns about his sudden departure today. We made up a scenario about if all humans became 5-year-old children, there would probably still be hierarchies among us. We fell asleep at 3am.



Day 17 Wednesday


I went to Zumba in the afternoon and Walid broke his fast at his work. Ahmad messaged me the day before, "My mobile has been dead for the last few days and I could not have it fixed yet." I found our friendship as resilient as ever, despite the presumed difficulties.


I chatted with Amina about a new e-magazine founded by Chinese youngsters that tried to carry on our legacy from our e-magazine (South Asian Hutong). She was bored by their electoral analysis, whereas I was a bit happier: at least some Chinese-speakers continued to study and write about South Asia, albeit from a more practical lens. We also chatted about the new social media industry of youtubers and gamers. She decided to attend a talk on Afghanistan.


Day 18 Thursday

Riyadh

I went to a therapy session, which I am increasingly suspicious of the efficacy, but Walid finds that it might be helpful for me. He is more patient than me in many matters. On the way there, I read about the Greek architect Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis' contribution to Riyadh's current city layout. I was surprised the extent to which modernist aesthetics and urban standards affected parts of the world I was connected to. One could argue that Zaha Hadid was as much a child of "Iraqi" (premodern) art as she was of modernist architecture. What I found troubling about Chinese history is that so much of Communism is mixed up with modernist aspirations, such as Doxiadis-style architecture. Yet many of Doxiadis' architectural works were designed for repressing social revolts. Arguably, modernist architecture was not very effective in preventing uprisings on either side of the Cold War. I thought (in an abstract way), that modern architecture largely failed to live up to its expectations of engineering modern human societies.  After digesting this information, I experienced a breakthrough in my research presentation for the MESA 2019 conference. 

Riyadh Development plan

Al-Shaab Stadium, by Francisco Keil do Amaral and Carlos M. Ramos (and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation), Baghdad, c1966

ملعب الشعب، تصميم فرانسيسكو كيل دو امارال و كارلوس م راموس (و مؤسسة كالوست كلبنكيان)، بغداد، ١٩٦٦

After therapy, I saw a short exhibition for the Asian American Heritage month at the Brookline library and also took a short tour of the Brookline townhall.

I ate at a Pakistani restaurant called Nachlo. I expected a more vibrant eating environment but perhaps due to fasting, I was one of the two customers inside. I wondered when did Pakistani cuisine emerge in America as a distinct genre and how it must have fought hard in the face of competition from the more popular (North) "Indian" cuisine. The owner was a person who looked like he worked in Saudi Arabia and saved enough money to open his own store in America. The main person handling business was a young man Walid's age. I felt that his job was quite difficult. Another more reticent man who looked like me was not speaking. I felt judged for eating at a place where people were fasting. Another Bangladeshi man bought some food and asked enthusiastically about the store's offerings, such as sweets. I found it amazing that he, as a Bangladeshi person, had let certain bygones be bygones and found comfort in desi Muslim brotherhood.

I paid, left and went home. At 1am, Walid told me that he volunteered for free. I was quite upset about it, and I said that we are not in the position to offer that kind of help to workplaces, even if we find it ethically sound. I also read about Betty Shabazz and her fights with Malcolm about similar issues later, and I found my situation very similar to hers. 

Changing the Status Quo, One Friend at a Time

I did not have many friends who were interested in South Asian history politics as I am. I went to one talk on South Asian literature in Beijing but the people I met there were either diplomats or very new to South Asia as a topic. I did not lose heart and continued to attend talks. During Prof. Duara's talk on India and China's future roles in the Anthropocene, I tried to pictures of his Powerpoint slides but a person's head stood out in the front row, blocking some of the text. That person turned out to be Suhail, my future devil's advocate and yet another South Asia connection. 
Many of the thought-provoking questions after Duara's talk were asked by students all around the world. I decided to stick around during the tea break in hopes of making new friends. I started talking with a Pakistani, a student of the host China Agricultural University (CAU). Then a group of other foreign students joined, Suhail included. I asked him if he was Indian, he said that he was from Kashmir. I laughed and made a point about meeting Taiwanese abroad who never identified as Chinese. He is in his final year of the Development PhD at CAU and wrote about land grabs in China and Kashmir. Our conversation went smoothly, but he was eager to meet Prof. Duara. He said that Duara promised to chat with him after the talk. Suhail later explained that they both went to the radical Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and strongly recommended me to exchange there in the future. Suhail led me to the coffee room where the chat took place. Prof. Duara and Suhail immediately started intelligent conversations on Indian elections, Arvind Kejriwal, and female Dalit politician Mayawati. I was intimidated, but Suhail was very considerate and brought me into the conversation. As Woody Allen once said, "Eighty percent of success is showing up." I succeeded in making new friends through showing up at the university talk and the coffee table.

Prof Prasenjit Duara, me and Suhail

After the chat, Suhail and I quickly started bonding over many topics. We went to several more talks by Duara in Beijing. We shared the skepticism of vague policy rhetoric such as "development," we both liked Gramsci, and we both questioned Weberian religious theories. He once volunteered at an AIDS organization, as I am doing now. We both found Chinese politics to be rather depressing. I confessed to him that I struggled between choosing an academic career over a journalist one. He said that I would make a fine journalist, while my temperament suits an academic one as well. He said that the world needs conscientious people like us to change the status quo. I found that very motivating. Like me, Suhail would often escape the security check before entering subways in Beijing, claiming to be a rebel in any country. Unlike me, he is more bold when doing it. He would also leverage his foreigner appearances and get away with many more tedious restrictions such as pushing a motorbike through PKU's campus or getting his way when it came to an expedited doctor's appointment.
"Suhail" is an Arabic term meaning easy-going, which is very true to his actual personality. He also received a new name in high school, ghulam nabi (servants of the Holy Prophet), from a religious elder when he was very sick and the doctors could not help. He claims to be not a very good Muslim, because he does not pray five times a day and used to drink, but he insists on fasting. It builds his character and strengthens his willpower in trying times. I also admired those who fasted across all faiths and found his story inspiring. 
Suhail sometimes would joke that he is an agent sent to China to train the military and help liberate Kashmir. I knew about the bloody Kashmir conflicts, but I had little in-depth knowledge. He recommended that I read Curfewed Night, by his friend and journalist Basharat Peer. I have been absorbed by the literary nonfiction since and offered to translate it to Chinese. While I wept and sighed through chapters, I found it intriguing that the press still moves relatively freely in Kashmir, compared to Xinjiang where drastic measures include cutting the internet.
The paragraph about trauma really spoke to me, because I had just finished watching True Detective, which was filled with traumatic events:

I spent my afternoons reading and tried to write in the evenings. But I had no distance from the experiences I was trying to process and shape in words. I sulked, turned irritable, and had pointless arguments with friends. I called Shahid, we met in our favorite cafe near the city centre. "This is common among people who come into contact with trauma victims," Shahid said and suggested I should try not to write for a few weeks. "That won't hep. I have to finally get back to writing it down." (153)

Peer's experience reminded me of the author Iris Chang who committed suicide after writing The Rape of Nanking, a book on the Nanjing Massacre. It also reminded me of therapists who had to see their own therapists after listening to patients' disturbing thoughts or worries. I wondered in the subway, how many people would bear to hear about these events. Most would probably rather talk about business and the weather.
After being exposed to traumatic events even just through text, I became irritable as well. I almost got into a fight with Suhail today over giving directions for the right cafe over the phone. I am terrible with directions but I never admit that when I am giving them. Fortunately, he was true to his easygoing name and we hugged to greet each other. Without the support of friends, intellectuals will not be strong enough to face history or fight the status quo. I am very grateful that I had the guts to stick around after the talk and met a true friend.

The Economics of Reading and Writing in this Day and Age

I have been reading much discussion surrounding young artists and writers about how to earn a living with their craft. As Keith Gessen put it, “There are four ways to survive as a writer in the US in 2006: the university; journalism; odd jobs; and independent wealth” in an early piece titled Money. On writers with odd jobs such as copy-editing, he commented, “You have no social position outside the artistic community; you have limited funds; you call yourself a writer but your name does not appear anywhere in print.” Gessen is similarly critical of journalism, in which writers risk falling into bad magazines that “vulgarize your ideas and literally spray your pages with cologne.”
Hannah Horvath in Girls Season 2 Episode 6 gives in to the pressure and takes a faux-journalist position at GQ mag. She appears utterly shocked that fellow advertorial content writers for once published in more established literary venues. She briefly considers quitting the GQ gig because she still wanted to produce real writing. "I'm just realizing how easy it is to get seduced by the perks and the money and the free snacks, and then suddenly I wake up in 10 years and I'm not a writer anymore," she exclaims, but does not actually leave. Stephen Elliot of the Daily Rumpus also writes about balancing financial concerns with art-related ambitions. Specifically how he stitches his finance together in the Newsletter and the trials of his last Kickstarter funding venture for Happy Baby.

“Someone asked me yesterday, or a couple of days ago, how do I get by. And I answered that I was all small time. I was responsible for this online magazine I created, and I'd written some books, though it had been awhile. I made a movie I didn't get paid for and another movie is being made out of one of my books that I would be paid for but wouldn't ever see. I said I was looking forward to being interviewed and asked what I thought of the movie so I could say, I don't know, I've never seen it, but I hear it's good. I told her I taught classes on occasion. You see, just a little bit here, a little bit there. Occasionally I would airbandb my place. Little things, stitched together. But I wouldn't call it a quilt.” 

Articles from the new n+1 collection MFA v. NYC also talk about the rise of fellowships and how it affects writers. A more personal example: I recently heard from a China-based American freelance journalist in his 30s was not only willing to ask his parents for money when he visited the East Coast, but also looked forward to financial support in the five-figure range. They would to see their grandchildren, he reasoned, and would thus pay up for the sake of the grandchildren. Times are dire for journalists and writers. 

I guiltily finished reading George Packer’s New Yorker article Cheap Words, because I rely on Amazon for books with increasingly low retail prices that affects the quality of new and upcoming writing. Packer makes the case that Amazon’s predatory bargaining strategy pressured publishing houses to give Amazon nearly fifty percent of a book’s list price, while only twenty-five percent goes to “for editorial counsel, production costs, publicity, paying the author, and whatever profit might be left over.” Similarly, Amazon’s algorithm mass approach and has decreased the distribution venues for serious fiction and nonfiction work. Even back in 2006, Keith Gessen bemoans that publishers meet potential writers “armed with Nielsen BookScan” to match a book with their short-term sales and popularity. Gessen writes, “The very precision of the numbers numbs the publishers into a false sense of their finality. They cannot imagine a book good enough to have its sales in the future.” He would probably agree with Packer that this short-term approach reduces the number of potential “mid-list titles—books that are expected to sell modestly but whose quality gives them a strong chance of enduring.” I pondered on my loyalty to Amazon and my ethics of consumption. Then I realized, since I write for some publications for free, I am also a victim of this digitization trend, the karmic repercussions of buying Amazon distributed books balances out. Packer also finds it amusing that the harshest critics of Amazon in the publishing world still use the service. 
The discussion about free content also looms large in the blogosphere. Publications such as The Atlantic and Though Catalog expect writers to contribute for free, which is an issue I wish George Packer delved into more. He briefly mentioned that some e-book writers only make 500 dollars a year, but not on how online writing affects the publishers’ economics. Hannah Horvath also dabbled in the e-book publishing industry briefly, until her editor fell through... When staff writers of magazine institutions openly discuss the issue of writing for free, almost no one mention any form of unionization or collective action. As Packer and MFA v. NYC points out, no writer is ever just a writer anymore. They are celebrities, professors, or other affiliates of academia. Even if the freelancers considered forming a union, they would not be able to exercise forms of strikes such as stopping production. You are “doing what you love,” a classist term called out by a Jacobin article as a privileged upper middle-class terminology. Or, the more common argument is that when you write, you can promote your brand or your own cause. As a result, self-promotion and self-expression is blurred with art, opinion is blurred with factual articles. 
 On the consuming end of the spectrum, Packer does not seem confident about the future of reading for leisure, citing the rise of addictive iPad apps. Packer argues vaguely for some kind of public good and think that people ideally should read for their own betterment. But he focuses only on the individual consumer aspect and does not touch on the situation of library (though he does mention that librarians are a dying species). N+1’s excellent two-part piece Lion’s Winter (1) & (2) on New York Public Library laments the digitization of library resources. Board members of NYPL believe that they are democratizing reading, an effort also championed by publishers in favor of Amazon’s way of distribution. NYPL board members argues in the populist vein that they can increase studying space for regular readers by reducing obscure books. But the author Charles Petersen shows that the individual researcher cannot find many physical resources since databases of scanned, “obscure” books of NYPL are now only accessible to enrolled students and academics with institutions. In this case, while public libraries are not profit-seeking like Amazon, they also have to bend to efficiency measurements, such as organizing with data that rank which physical books are most popular and should be kept on shelves. 
The Amazon effect investigated by George Packer and others share the same theme with the public library changes. As Jeff Bezos said, “Amazon is not happening to bookselling. The future is happening to bookselling.” Bezos would definitely think that the future is also happening to (public) library management. I would recommend reading the two articles in succession. But that reading sequence could also leave the reader quite depressed about the future of letters and arts. Maybe Hannah Horvath has the better chance of finding her dignity as a writer in the end; Keith Gessen and Stephen Elliot certainly have kept on writing and making art.