'I’m using a VPN (virtual private network), I have to if I want to see beyond what the Chinese government wants us to see,' Lester tells me
For the nth time, April finds herself in another Chinese city on a research trip. The Mandarin here is slightly different, and she has to ask the locals to speak slowly and clearly for directions to get to their biggest library.
China is vast, so vast that the climate is different from north to south. For some perspective, the distance between Beijing and Shanghai (both part of “Central China”) is roughly the distance between Pagudpud and Northern Samar, where the climate in the latter two is largely the same even in December.
Running is April’s primary sport, so the trips to cities and the hunts for libraries don’t faze her.
What fazes her, however, is the difficulty to access information even in a library. Any good researcher knows not everything is online, and that the truths to many claims lie hidden in dusty, browning records in state and local libraries.
In July last year, the Chinese Communist Party celebrated its 100th anniversary. It was also the year of numerous allegations in Western media outlets regarding issues of human rights and aggressive domestic and foreign policies in China, add to that the ongoing pandemic.
Any Filipino who keeps abreast with foreign affairs is likely versed in the narrative of rising, “Warrior-Wolf Diplomacy” in China, land of QR codes and hotpot, mecca of Shopee and Amazon bargains, the claimant to our islands, the hot topic on our feeds and papers.
The script goes roughly like this: China, despite its economic growth and uplifting of large swaths of its population from poverty in the last two decades, presents some threats to the established (or perhaps, Western civilization-established) world order.
These threats range from internal, like the censorship of media and the internet for its people and facial-recognition technology deployed to monitor citizens a la Big Brother to geopolitical, like the trade war with the US or its maritime disputes with its Asian neighbors over the South China and East China seas.
But we must not forget that every media outlet, from the editor down to the reporter, has an agenda. It’s only human to feel strongly for something that matters to one, and this applies not just to individuals, but to groups too. And I’ll come out clean: One thing I feel strongly for is the need for dialogue.
“I’m from Wuhan,” Lester introduces himself during our first English tutoring session. But before I can answer, he realizes what he just said. A beat passes, and we both break into laughter, as the static crescendos on Zoom.
Lester and April are Chinese masters’ students enrolled outside China. Owing to the pandemic, however, their “international exchange program” occurs largely through video call. Both have backgrounds in the social sciences and have an interest in pursuing a career in public policy.
They’re here with me because their European classmates often answer faster. It’s not that they don’t have anything to say, it’s that they just want to think faster in English, to find the right words before their peers do.
While this was the initial plan, it eventually dawned on me which were exaggerations by the media and which news bits were grounded in truth. Now, two students from a population of one billion has no statistical significance. But there are truths that can be derived too in the ethnological, that is, from a close, intimate immersion with everyday life.
Do they have any reason to hide the truth from me? Probably yes, but they’re using virtual private networks (apps that redirect one’s web traffic from one’s computer to an overseas server in order to access region-blocked content) to go to class, not just to meet me for tutoring.
“I wonder,” April tells me on a particularly cold January day in Manila, “why there’s no heating in my city, while my friends in Beijing take it for granted.” She’s indoors but wearing a jacket. “It’s warmer outside, actually,” she says, as sunlight pours into her room, “but then you risk getting sunburned.”Day 2, and as our laughter dies down, Lester admits that when he goes back to the Chinese internet, he can’t tell the jokes he just told me now. “But you absolutely must try this dish,” he tells me, on Day 3.
“It’s what we eat almost every day.”
And he’s not kidding. I open Translate, then copy-paste its English name and what comes up is a Central Chinese version of our sinampalukan, a meat dish based heavily on tomatoes, with a flavor profile bordering on the sour-savory. Not much of a spectacle compared to the noodle dish he first recommended (to tourists, I realized), but definitely warmer.
A week later, my list of movies-to-watch has expanded, thanks to April. She’s a big fan of procedural action movies, and recommends some from China. Thankfully they’re available on Philippine Netflix.
The media from any country likes to say 'China this, China that, Chinese these, Chinese that' but these people across my screen aren’t China. Yes, they are Chinese, but more than anything else, they’re Lester and April. History, or the news, likes to spotlight Mao and Marcos, even if it’s Lester and April who may just be affected the most.
Lester admits what no one wants to admit: that female pop idols present the ideal man’s girlfriend, not the ideal girl’s girl.
April is keener toward controversial topics, and Lester, while aware of them, is like any bro at a barbeque: not when the doneness is good and the beer is flowing. I meet with each of them separately. I’m honestly not sure if I’m helping Lester, but April tells me she’s able to recite more in class after two weeks.
It’s now our last week, and here’s what I know: Kunming has spring weather all-year round, just like Baguio, not too cold, not too hot. Yes, there are Chinese citizens who use VPNs to defend the Communist Party on sites blocked in China like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Taiwanese Mandarin sounds cute and girlish to mainland ears, even if the Taiwanese are not intending to sound cute. No, this is not propaganda, it’s just like how Ilonggos sound malambing to Tagalog speakers. And yes, April and Lester know what’s propaganda, even if some of their peers and neighbors might not be aware of its effects.
There’s also a lot of things I’m unsure of now: I’m not sure if the social credit system is the Big Brother the West makes it out to be. I’m not sure if those who harp about Xinjiang are aware of their own country’s issues with their indigenous minorities. I’m not sure if the lockdowns are as authoritarian as outsiders believe, and should they even be called lockdowns at all? I’m not sure if the Wuhan market is as dirty as certain outlets suggested in 2020.
The media from any country likes to say “China this, China that, Chinese these, Chinese that” but these people across my screen aren’t China, yes, they are Chinese, but more than anything else, they’re Lester and April.
History, or the news, likes to spotlight Mao and Marcos, even if it’s Lester and April who may just be affected the most.
*names changed to protect privacy. The tutoring organizer from their university requested that the school not be mentioned.