Prisoner of Shangri-la

Films: The Corporation, Inside Man, Why We Fight, Mission Impossible III, The Island, Kekexili
Books: 1984, Brave New World, The Universe in an Atom, The True Story of Ah Q

What do all these films and novels have in common? Well, overt in many and hidden in the rest is a voice of social critique, images of a dire future, an alternate present, or just a plain commentary of the many wrongs of the world. Each one seems to offer another puzzle piece to a larger vision - a vision that I have yet to fully realize. For example, The Corporation links themes from Inside Man and the Island by 1) showing how many corporations profited heavily off Nazi Germany just like the rich philanthropist in Inside Man who built his wealth on such an enterprise 2) how in The Island clones have become a vehicle for harvesting body parts which relates to the fact that since the 1970s in the US living organisms can be patented and licensed for profit.  The link between MI:3 and Why We Fight is a bit more clear: the villian in MI:3 uses Ethan Hunt to create “terrorists and wars” in order for large governements to subsequently invade and rebuild those countries for the benefit of sustaining the millitary industrial complex.

1984 and Brave New World however focus mostly on governments and ways of governing and controling societies and people, Both authors have incredible vision and imagination, their narratives continuing to be relevant to modern society. Anyways, I feel that finally I’ve begun to come back to society at large, trying to construct for myself an image of how governments, societies, individuals, environments, and economics interact on a global basis, to struggle to understand how we as a civilization came to where we are and to see where we might be headed.

My first week of teaching done! It’s early evening as I write this in my “fly” pair of 5 kuai slippers I bought at the supermarket matched in style only by a skimpy (or mid-thigh length) pair of boxer-briefs. To much information you say?

But I digress…I have to say that this will be a pretty relaxing job, I think. I’ll only have between 12-14 classes a week of 45 minutes each with plenty of free time to read, do yoga, cook my own food, learn Tibetan/Chinese, meditate (fingers crossed), and generally establish a life here. Though I haven’t really made any friends yet, I hope I will once I start learning the language. My first Tibetan class is this Sunday morning and I’ve been trying to study some Amdo dialect on my own. The central Tibetan that I studied in school and the Amdo dialect spoken in Tongren are mutually unintelligible.

Plans for the weekend? No clubbing here. Might wander around the town and the monasteries snapping photos and buying some odds and ends to fix up my apartment.