Bo's Story, and My Memories of Dalian and Chongqing...

Book Review

John Garnaut, The Rise and Fall of the House of Bo 

ISBN: 9780143569350

When I lived in Beijing in 2005-2009, all I heard about Bo Xilai was good.  At the time, he was everything any Chinese people would possibly asked for in a Minister of Commerce.  He was handsome, well dressed, and appeared very much at ease in engaging officials from any part of the world.  He was the poster boy for a China that was opening up its economy more and more.  His image symbolized a proud, promising, and modern nation, ready to be among the other economic giants of the world.

Indeed, Bo Xilai was at the time China’s fast-rising political star.  I remember visiting Dalian in 2007 and marveled at how awesome the city felt.  Not only was it clean and orderly, Dalian was such a nice break from the grey pavements of Beijing.  The sea, the breeze, the greenery, the food, the sights… The city also felt worldly, seemingly ready to open its doors to international engagement.  I remember eating really good Korean BBQ there, and shopping products that had been destined for other parts of Asia.  And throughout my time there, I couldn’t help but recognize that much of this could be attributed to Dalian’s former Mayor, Bo Xilai.

But in 2013, as I watched the news coming out from China from the comfort of my home in Jakarta, I was astounded by the political drama that was unfurling with Bo Xilai as its central figure.  He was on BBC, CNN, ChannelNews Asia; he was even on Indonesia’s MetroTV and TvOne.  And the drama was beyond my belief.  China’s most popular politician had fallen from grace.  Not only has he lost his position as one of the contenders in China’s future leadership, the political rock star was found guilty of corruption, bribery and abuse of power.  His sentence: life imprisonment. 

Colourful fans in Dalian, 2007 (Private Collection)

How did this all happen?  And how did it all happen so fast?

Indeed, although the news did make the headlines in Indonesia, it never really grabbed the regular political observers’ attention.  Of course, it’s probably different if you were someone who is particularly keen on developments taking place in China.

But in the western media, the Bo Xilai drama was dissected left, right, and center, and used as an examination of the problems that China was facing internally.  Moreover, Bo Xilai was many times portrayed as a someone who was willing to stand up to the heavy-handedness of the Chinese leadership at the time, led by President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao.

Everyone knows that the all-powerful Chinese Communist Party is rife with problems.  But the cruelty of Bo’s political assassination demonstrated just how dangerous politics is in this one-party country.  And for the western media and academia, this gave reason to comment on the high likelihood of political implosion in China.  A political implosion that could bring this gigantic economy to its knees, the way the Soviet Union unraveled and disappeared into history.

Hanging out in downtown Dalian, 2007 (Private Collection)

In his book, The Rise and Fall of the House of Bo, John Garnaut gives an excellent account of the Bo Xilai’s political successes, and of course, failures. Garnaut not only revealsthe nastiness that lies behind the rule of Bo Xilai and his family in Chongqing (where Bo was Party chief), but goes back into China’s history to outline the beginnings of Bo’s rivalry with the present Chinese leadership.

Through careful research, Garnaut provides a rich, flowing, and highly engaging narrative of how Bo Xilai came into power, and then lost it. Whatever good image I had previously had of Bo immediately became questionable, as accounts after another are revealed about Bo’s strong-hand rule.  On screen, Bo played the personae of a down-to-earth leader who is willing to stand for the rights of the people and the glory of the Chinese Communist Party.  However, behind the screen, Bo not only bended, but knowingly broke laws and regulations in order to gain financial profits for himself and his close inner circle.  

Garnaut also describes the rivalries that exist among China’s political elite today.  Rivalries that have existed not only in the post-Deng Xiaoping reform period, but those that went as back as the times of the People’s Republic’s first foundation.  Rivalries that began between Bo’s father, Bo Yibo, and Xi Zhongxun, the father of China’s present top leader, Xi Jinping.  And most of all, the rivalries that have pitted reformists and conservatives within the Chinese Communist Party in a cross-generational power struggle.

Taichi at Chongqing's central square, 2007 (Private Collection)

I recommend this book to anyone even slightly interested in China.  For many, the Chinese Government is seen as an impenetrable juggernaut.  Not only that, the totalitarian nature of China’s Stalinist state has created an image in which everyone in the government has a common voice on anything even remotely important in the country. 

The Bo Xilai drama reminds us all that divisions do exist among the Chinese elite.  And more so, these divisions run very deep, originating from decades before any of the present leaders were even in power.  For some, this may be an indication that democracy is well and alive in China, even if it is only within the Communist Party (as in, no public participation).  Meanwhile, for others, this drama clearly indicates the inexistence of any form of democracy in China.  Not only that, China is also devoid of other norms and principles that go hand-in-hand with democracy, such as transparency, equality, human rights, and anti-corruption.

Red China

My first in-your-face encounter with sex in China happened just a few weeks after I landed in Beijing.  And interestingly, I wasn’t even involved in this comedic episode. 

I was spending the evening at a friend’s place when at 9 o’clock some really loud banging came through one of the walls of the bachelor suite.  I listened carefully, and sure enough, there were cries from a guy and a girl. I smiled at my friend and shook my head, and we continued to watch TV.  At 10’clock, pounding sounds started to come from the apartment just above my friend’s.  I looked at him; this time he gave a laugh.  30 minutes later, sounds came from behind the wall adjacent to the toilet.  At midnight, they came from behind the kitchenette wall, the pots and pans hanging on it shaking.  And finally, to top it off, at 1 in the morning, I could hear two people making out in the corridor.  My friend woke up from his sleep and said to me, still with his eyes half closed: “Welcome to China”.

It’s true.  Whenever people discovered that I had been single throughout my 3.5 years stay in Beijing, they’d smile and say things like: “Must’ve been a whole lotta fun, huh…?”

Well, living in China was indeed a whole lotta fun.  The Olympics was fun.  Seeing pandas was fun.  Travelling to Urumqi, on the Silk Road in the western parts of the country, was also fun.  So was the icy-landscape of Harbin up north.  And many more escapades in this country of 1.3 billion people.  But, in all honesty, I never really had a chance to experience that “fun” China the others seem to refer to.

I’m not going to be a hypocrite. I’ve had my share of karaoke nights; although in all of them, I remember going home alone, in a taxi cab, trying to keep my dinner inside my stomach.  And yes, the red light salons were only a corner away from my apartment on the 4^th Ring Road, yet I always preferred to cut my hair on my own. 

On the subject of sex, it didn’t take long for me to understand that China is a country of paradoxes.  A place where lewdness and cleanliness co-existed.  Where the pure and filthy lived side-by-side.  Where tradition crashes head-on with modernity.

From the Beijing nightclub scene

This, among others, is one of the arguments in Richard Burger’s book, Behind the Red Door: Sex in China.  Writing as a journalist, nonetheless making numerous references to academic and literary resources, Burger delves into the history and present day nuances of sexuality in China.  Not only that, Burger also explores other issues related to sex: marriage, family, gender, homosexuality, etc.  For me, this book is an interesting narrative on the old and new China.

Among others, Burger elaborates on the One Child Policy, and its impact on China’s demographics.  How this policy has given rise to large numbers of infanticides, predominantly of female babies.  And how it has caused a gender imbalance among the population.  In a 2010 study, it was predicted that China would experience a bride shortage by 24 million in 2020.  When that time does come, I wonder from where would the Chinese men would start to find their brides?

Going through the book, I kept on highlighting sections after another, as I was introduced to new statistics, information and twists in better understanding China.  For example, did you know that in the first three months of 2011 there were around 465,000 cases of divorce in China? That means that during that period, there were around 5,000 cases of divorce per day!  This therefore begs the question surrounding many Chinese people’s claim of their country’s traditional perspective on marriage and family lives.

As well, did you know that there are at least 7 tiers of prostitution?  Starting with the top tier, “ernai” (or the second wife) to “xiaogongpeng”, who are basically lower level prostitutes serving migrant workers in shanties that dot the country’s many urban areas.  While prostitution was very much part of day-to-day lives up until the Qing Dynasty, the advent of communism stopped this business.  Just like communism’s view on religion, prostitution was seen as opium for the masses, and therefore must be crushed.

I enjoyed the book immensely.  The narrative flowed well, in simple English.  In particular, the book gave me much information on the different aspects of life that I never got to experience first hand while living in China.  This includes dating a local girl (let alone be in familial terms with any of them) or holding a membership at a lavish karaoke bar.

Indeed, to understand the country, it is hard not to study the issue of sex (and everything else on its tangent).  Because, for many, at the most basic issue is this, and an understanding of how it is understood and approached in China would provide a better perspective of the country and its people.

China is a country at the crossroads between tradition and modernity.  The dilemma that arises form this situation can be found in many aspects of the Chinese life. 

Locals and foreigners mix in the crowd

While rhetorically remaining strict on pornography and prostitution, both could be found within a mouse-click.  While government officials constantly preach traditional family values, we only need to look around to notice that these values have actually been turned on their heads. Most Chinese youth still dream of finding the right person to marry, have kids with, and raise a family.  But most of them are taking more time to marry, preferring to just co-habit with their respective partners well into their thirties.

Some say that this is the result of foreign influences on the Chinese culture.  At least this is the line that many Chinese officials like to expound.  However, as Burger elaborates, when we look into the history of the country, many of the vices associated to the western culture had actually existed in China previously, and in a very grandiose way.  Of course, Chinese Communism attempted to cleanse the people of these supposed “bourgeois habits”.  But even then, the many communist propagandists (including Mao Zedong himself) were sexual hypocrites.  As a result, when the country was shoved into the present-day globalization, these supposed vices seem to resurface with a vengeance.