Gentrification, Forbidden City style

Call me old fashion, (go ahead, I dare you) but when it comes to historic cities, progress and gentrification is not always a good thing. Growing up in Brooklyn, I know a little bit about the subject, but New York City is a relative new-born in comparison to, lets say, Beijing where some houses date to the Qing dynasty (mid 17-early 19th century). Very little is being done to preserve these fascinating and historic areas in China, especially now with a booming economy and the Olympics on the way. And what's more frightening is, in an Orwellian twist of fate, buildings are being razed and history censored on purpose to eradicate the 1950s-60s Socialist projects-style architecture that is viewed unfavorably by the government today.

The explosion of construction activity that has transformed Beijing into a modern metropolis over the past decade also turned many of its historical neighborhoods — known for their narrow alleyways, or hutongs — into rubble. As grass-roots preservationists began sounding the alarm, the aging wood frames and tile roofs of the ancient courtyard houses that give these neighborhoods their identity were being supplanted so quickly by mighty towers that it was hard to pinpoint where they once stood...

The current wave of demolitions was under way by the early 1990s as free-market changes gained momentum, and real estate speculators saw potential profit in redevelopment. It accelerated after Beijing’s bid to play host to the Olympics was accepted in 2001 and the city began a substantial slum-clearance program to prepare for foreign visitors.

In the Qianmen area, for example, a once poor but thriving neighborhood south of Tiananmen Square that was home to many of the city’s teahouses and theaters, hutongs have been replaced by shopping malls and office blocks with ugly postmodern facades that already look dilapidated, although many are only a few years old...

As affluent foreigners and China’s new rich buy the houses, they are embarking on multimillion-dollar renovations that are robbing the neighborhoods of their souls...

The Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, who seems to be everywhere in China these days, has argued that designating specific buildings as landmarks creates a distorted version of history. Rather he has proposed carving out a protected wedge through the city in which all of the city’s historical layers, from hutongs on through the Communist-style projects, would be permanently preserved. The result would be a sort of living museum, a place fixed in time even as tumultuous changes unfold around it...

Harry Potter, leftist intellectual?

Harry Potter -- left-wing hero of the intellectual aristocracy against the materialist middle classes? Well, yes, according to the French daily Liberation...

[French philosopher Jean-Claude Milner] identified a reaction to the free-market revolution instigated in Britain by Margaret Thatcher's governments.

"Reading it, one has the feeling that J.K. Rowling feels, like many cultivated English people, that there was a real, catastrophic Thatcherite revolution [I’m going to add Reaganomics here for us Americans], and that the only chance for culture now is to survive as an occult science," he wrote.

Milner identified the "Muggles" -- inhabitants of the ordinary, non-magical world -- as the uncultured bourgeoisie who did well materially out of the Thatcher years and later under Tony Blair.

"In the world described by J.K. Rowling, there are the Muggles, who represent the Thatchero-Blairite middle class (going from the lower middle class to the upper middle class), and then the others: the people, cultivated people and the penniless aristocracy, people whom you would expect to find in public schools or at Cambridge," he said.

Milner said the disinterested world of culture upheld by Harry Potter and his friends at the elite Hogwarts Academy represented a form of opposition to the values of the profit-seeking market economy.

"As such, Harry Potter is a war machine against the Thatcherite-Blairist world and the 'American Way of Life'."

Ouch! I was all excited to hear that Harry Potter was one of us, a left-leaning intellectual, but come on British people! “Cultivated penniless aristocracy,” really? You look down on the Muggles for not being born to privilege? For being Middle-Class? Even I can’t be that snobby. We hate the Thatcher-Reagan political era too, but being born an aristocrat rather than working hard for what you have is not a virtue that we share.

Discipline, Hello Kitty style

I’ve been waiting a long time to be able to legitimately post a story about a Sanrio character, and here it is!

Thai police officers who break rules will be forced to wear hot-pink armbands featuring “Hello Kitty,” the Japanese icon of cute, as a mark of shame, a senior officer said Monday.

Police officers caught littering, parking in a prohibited area, or arriving late — among other misdemeanors — will be forced to stay in the division office and wear the armband all day, said Police Col. Pongpat Chayaphan. The officers won’t wear the armband in public.

The striking armband features Hello Kitty sitting atop two hearts.

Simple warnings no longer work. This new twist is expected to make them feel guilt and shame and prevent them from repeating the offense, no matter how minor,” said Pongpat, acting chief of the Crime Suppression Division in Bangkok.

“(Hello) Kitty is a cute icon for young girls. It’s not something macho police officers want covering their biceps,” Pongpat said…

*Sigh, a bunch of burly cops wearing pink Hello Kitty bands. What could be better?