Wendy Wu

On new years eve, I did a recount on my 2008. Amazingly I found out actually it was quite cheerful although I felt it was a bit up and down.  I even forgot that at Min’s wedding, she just passed the wedding bouquet to me instead of throwing it. Heheh, I knew it was cheating but the picture with me holding the bunch of flowers with a big smile sealed my 2008 in mood of love. I mean big love to friends and families. We Chinese say: The country comes first before the home. I was curious to click around for media comments on China’s 2008. For me, I felt greatly it was a year that the whole nation has gone through all the ordeals and won the national pride of the last three decades. Almost every single non-Chinese I met put the thumbs up for the spectacular opening of the Olympics. Thanks for Zhangyimou and his team for providing the first Chinese history master class to the world. Thanks to Chinese people who made it happen.

I first clicked on one media site which started to paint a gloomy picture with heaviest snow then moved on to the natural disaster of sichuan earthquake:”China’s momentous 2008– the terrible earthquake in Sichuan, which claimed as many as 90,000 lives.” I was puzzled. Am I so naive or is the media nowadays so sophisticated?

Actually I saw a different picture in Sichuan. Duriing my visit in Oct 2008, the spirit of the Sichuan children educated and touched me. There was no single moment that I would want to mentioned that damned disaster. We couldn’t do anything about the past. The important thing is looking forward. From my master-class with students, I have learnt that they all have dreams to fulfil. They want to have a decent job one day so that they would repay their toiling parents on the farm land. Shall we send our regards via media express to take the momentum of 2008 and wish their dreams come true?

What about the enormous solidarity and the wave of voluntary support being given to the victims? In Sichuan, I talked to a taxi-driver who actually transportated food and relief supplies to the disaster areas for a couple of days. I wished him good luck in 2009.

During my Sichuan trip, I saw the new building in Dujiangyan has risen to four storeys. In comparison, two years after Huuricane Katrina, during my visit in 2006, the railway line from New Orlean to the West coast  called the Golden Line, was still suspended. Because of that I had to cancel my original plan and lost one week of my holidays. I suspect this infrastructure might be handed on to Obama on 20th Jan.  But in China the new bridge that we drove cross was build within a week. Even my little niece, 11 years old girl,  wrote a small letter to Sichuan Children saying that “I can’t come along to help you yet, but uncles and aunties will be there for you. Please be strong. “  For that, we are indebted to the People’s Liberation Army’s hard but efficient help.
I’ve also talked to a NGO leader in China. Basically she didn’t think much of the credit crunch in her daily management work. I am a bit puzzled again. I thought I have learnt that we are supposed to keep things positive, one of the strategies to deal with disaster is to be resilient and change a negative situation to a positive outcome.

To further explore this issue, I followed up Dylon John’s recommendation in The Guardian about best place to go for Christmas Carols. I went to St. Bride’s Church just off Fleet Street to sense the atmosphere and  the spirit of Jesus Christ. The Christmas Carols were bit low with all the dimmed lights. I am not sure if it was just me, or whether there weren’t many happy faces in the congregation.

At the end the Vicar went on about the financial crisis. I was expecting a cheerful message to uplift the spirits of everyone looking forward the new year, like I went through so many years ago in Edinburgh ,where international people greeted and shook hands with each other, in particular to comfort those who can’t go home, with a sense of “you are not alone”. I was told that  this church is journalist oriented. I started to feel sorry for them now. Maybe too much pressure to finding negative stories every single day for the news headlines. I will make sure to prepare a new year card for the journalist too.

I turned on BBC radio. Oh my God, the credit crunch has been mentioned everywhere throughout 2008 and this is still not sufficient. Credit crunch again over the festive period and even included in Queens Christmas speech. Opening the newspaper, it is almost everywhere, the price reductions, the shop owners are facing the cold, the beginning of the freezing weather blah blah…Not again. Give me a break. I feel so depressed now. I need to go out to breath in some fresh air in Hyde Park.

I thought Jesus said God who will help those who help themselves. What is the point of moaning about the depressing issues all the way through?

Yesterday, I decided to go out for a walk before I return to work on Monday. Learning to shop is a compulsory lesson for everyone this Christmas break, enforced by the media. Arriving in Oxford Street, the mood was no different from last Christmas, there are big price drops anyway every year after Christmas. I went to a health food shop, where really good stuff remains at the same expensive price. The shoppers in general are quite happy with lots of shopping bags. While walking around, I was listening to BBC Radio 4, which started with a report on the political impact of Cuban music, a revolutionary style reflecting Chinese, African and European influences, on Cuba’s 50th anniversary.  I felt quite relaxed when listening to the music, and couldn’t help dancing. Then the radio moved on to the Saturday women’s special edition, interviewing ShaDingding about her debut in London. Shadingding’s record sold more than two millions copies and she is a Chinese contemporary icon. She was asked about her cultural identity and upbringing impacting on her music career, and how her granny’s tingting musical sound shaped her musical career. It all sounded very harmonious and cozy. However, the interviewer jumped on to the political topic of Tibetan issues. Gosh, have a break please. Leave us a moment to have a people to people dialogue. The weather was getting chilly. It was a bit far to Hyde Park. I had to switch off the radio and went home on the Tube.

The passengers on the Tube looked very tired. Someone is reading the Times, again, depressing news about Russia cutting off gas supplies. Somehow I felt my mind was tortured by the media here. Shall we not take responsibility to cheer the world up, to keep a positive attitude? Let us just try for once - Obama was elected by the American people.

This reminded me at Min’s wedding. There are thousands of English kids at a Morris (English folk) dancing competition. What a glamorous thing in our life. Let us go out, switch off the news channels, dance for Chinese new year, dance to Cuba music, dance for everyone’s new year….Make sure that Mr. Media is invited to our dance party, and matched up with our dancing Queen.

Posted on January 7th, 2009 by wendywu
Filed under: Media