Howard French: Why the Expo is like a colon exam, and other things

As part of Glamour Bar’s series of talks “Cosmopolitan Conversations” moderated by blogger, professor and author Jeffery Wasserstrom, Howard French takes the stage to chat with Wasserstrom about “Reporting China.” With China often in the world's headlines, who are the right people to cover the country and how should they approach it? 

We stopped Howard French to find out.

CNNGo: So, how did you come up with the topic for Sunday’s talk?

What’s the topic? [smiles and laughs]

CNNGo: It's “Reporting Shanghai,” looking at how academics and reporters cover China and Shanghai.

Ah, it relates to a conversation I had with Jeffery Wasserstrom when he did his book event at Columbia. We talked about his experience with journalists when they interviewed him. He said they always want to narrow the focus of their question, and want you to give definitive answers. For him, historians want to speak in broader terms with greater sweep and to hedge; history allows for that. We had a long conversation about that, and that’s where this conversation topic comes from -- this part of our dialog.

After all I’ve done in Shanghai, to not go to the Expo would be perverse. Even though I don't wasn't to go, I feel like somehow I should just do it. It’s like, excuse the analogy, a colon exam. [laughs] You don’t want to go, but the moment comes when you just have to do it.— Howard French

CNNGo: Jeffery Wasserstrom is clearly on the academic side of the fence, but where do you fall? You are a reporter, but also now a professor at Columbia University.

I have always had certain rules for myself as a journalist. Although I recognized the kind of approach [Wasserstrom] has encountered in his experience with journalists, generally speaking, that is different from the way I try to work.

[Wasserstrom] spoke quite amusingly to me about interviewers who tried pin him down [in a definitive answer]. In those situations, it sounds like the reporters themselves had fairly defined ways of thinking about or answering certain questions.

This reminded me of a personal rule I have. When I’m setting off on a story, of course I have a notion when I set out -- why else would you go to Chengdu or wherever if you don’t have an idea? -- of what I’m going to do or find there. For a diligent reporter, that idea is based on research: you’ve talked to people before you left home, you've seen what has been written on the subject; you have a general sense of things. My rule is, if I don’t get beyond that general sense of things when I hit the ground, then I have failed. That is what keeps me -- or any good reporter -- from that defined way of writing. 

CNNGo: How do you see the influence of new media -- bloggers, Twitter, etc. -- on reporting in China?

In terms of the way China is written about? I think the blogosphere is an important space for coverage -- but it’s more than that. There's coverage in new media that have expanded the space of traditional coverage, but beyond that, social media -- Twitter being one of many examples -- has played an important role here on a few different levels. 

In the reporter community, new media has impacted the exchange of ideas. If you see something, you flag it and everyone who follows you sees it. It’s a multiplication of eyeballs that’s taking place. But at the social level here in China, it has also been important in terms of giving people ways to create their own narratives and escape -- and I’m not talking about democracy and censorship -- but escape automatic or direct government control.

If you think about where this country is coming from, in the span of less than one lifetime, it has come from a place where there was a monolithic story to one where there are a multitude of stories and people can have a multitude of ways of telling their stories and creating narratives. Additionally, they’re able to find people to follow them and buy in on those narratives they create. Those people then improvise and add onto those stories. I think that this space is very important and a healthy development for society. Although the democracy versus censorship debate is a piece of that, this is an issue much broader than that; it’s oxygen for society in a broad sense. 

CNNGo: Any ideas on how this will be manifested in China’s next generation?

I don’t have a terribly meaningful prediction on that. I don’t have the ability to look into a crystal ball, but I would say that the government agrees, and the evidence of that is things like the government creating real name registration for bloggers and various other things. It’s very clear that the Chinese government sees this as a big wave that’s coming and they’re trying to get ready for it. The government is playing a game of “fingers in the dyke” -- plugging leaks as they spring in every different direction -- and is doing so furiously, but the dyke is leaking more and more. 

CNNGo: Will the dyke break?

I don’t know if it will break, but the leaking isn't stopping. The leaking seems to be picking up. That’s as good a prediction as I have. 

CNNGo: While you were the Shanghai bureau chief, what stories were you happiest to put your byline on?

Probably the stories about the growth of civil society in China, the growth of the awareness of citizens’ rights and the way this has manifested itself.

I wrote about this topic broadly across China, but the most immediate way we saw this was the movement that sprung up around the MagLev extension and some other property redevelopment issues related to big transportation projects that I covered closely. I found it remarkable the way people responded to that. People reacted with a kind of awareness of their rights that seems very familiar to me as a Westerner. They’re saying, “Look, I mortgaged my life to buy this place, this is where I live, and you’re not going to take it. Who said we need a train? We have a train. Why do we need another one?” 

Lots of profound questions emanate from this movement. We see people asking these questions now, and they’re not students who went overseas and studied some Western manifesto, it’s totally organic based on what citizens themselves felt about their own situations, how they are invested in their own lifestyles and what they want from their government.

CNNGo: Is this a linear progression? 

We’re back to the "plugging holes in the dyke" analogy again. I have to say that I think the government here is pretty clever. They see that sometimes it’s better to cede ground than it is to throw up a wall. That it's better to stay ahead of the wave sometimes, even if it means losing a little bit of control, than it is forcing the issue and losing total control, sparking something that could get out of hand.

The way this relates back to your question is I think the government is preparing for people developing notions of citizens' rights, they understand that this is something they’ll face as more and more people become property owners and what we consider middle class. They’re already thinking, “How do we respond to this without giving up the game?” One way they do this is by selectively ceding ground in different ways.

CNNGo: How did being a photographer (see his website www.howardwfrench.net for some of his work) enhance your coverage and experience of Shanghai?

In terms of my coverage in Shanghai, it’s because of my photography that I became familiar with and deeply aware of the property stuff that we were talking about.

I spent immense amounts of time lingering in local neighborhoods in central Shanghai that were being condemned and demolished, and people were being relocated in kind of an arbitrary fashion. I became interested in the subject visually, and as I got deeper into the subject, two things happened. First my photographic appreciatition began to evolve, and second, my understanding of what was actually going on was changing as a result of this. It had a very deep effect on the way I came to see how this city works.

Although I stepped away from photography when I became a foreign correspondent, I came back to it when I went to Japan. While I was here I was working very closely with a photographer there named Steward Isett. I learned by watching the way he would do things. One of the things I found that became important for me as a reporter was the importance of lingering. As a photographer you really have to linger around your subject to get the right moment.

For many reporters there’s a tendency to be in a rush; you’re rushing from this thing to that thing, you have a deadline and you have six people to see. Watching the way [Isett] and other photographers worked -- really lingering to get the right chemistry, the right atmosphere, the right moment -- taught me a lot as a reporter. Of course you can’t apply those lessons in every situation -- breaking-news stories are still breaking news -- but it did affect the way I think about features very deeply. You’re not on a deadline, don’t rush through this place. Sit down with the people; eat a meal with the people and hang out at their house. Everything doesn’t have to have an immediate pay off. Dig in a little bit, wait and see what happens.

CNNGo: Your photo-based book on Shanghai’s old architecture that’s slowly been taken down is called “Disappearing Shanghai”. A lot of the changes you cataloged were in the name of the 2010 Expo. Do you have plans to go?

When you put it like that, the answer’s “no.” I may end up going, but I don't have plans to go there.

The government is playing a game of “fingers in the dyke” -- plugging leaks as they spring in every different direction -- and is doing so furiously, but the dyke is leaking more and more.— Howard French

CNNGo: What would draw you there?

I’m teaching here for the summer so I might take my students there. My wife is also coming in a couple of weeks and I might take her there.

There’s a piece of me that feels like after all I’ve done in Shanghai, to not go to the Expo would be perverse. Even though I don't want to go, I feel like somehow I should just do it. It’s like, excuse the analogy, a colon exam. [laughs] You don’t want to go, but the moment comes when you just have to do it.

CNNGo: Do you think Shanghai will come out better for having the 2010 Expo?

There are physical improvements in Shanghai that have been remarkable and need to be recognized like the new Metro lines and the expansion of the various aspects of the transportation system. Those are pluses and needed to be done. You can quibble about the way they were done, and there are all sorts of process questions that arise, but Shanghai needed a really big upgrade of its transportation system and it has gotten that, not only because of the Expo but in part because of it. That piece of it I have no problem recognizing.

I was just interviewing someone recently and his hotel was at the end of Renmin Lu, just before you reach the Bund; a new hotel I had never seen before although that neighborhood was one I used to explore all the time.

As I’m sitting waiting for the person I’m meeting in the lounge, I notice the hotel’s sweeping bay window overlooking one of my areas; one of the areas I had really invested myself in getting to know and document. It was a really sad moment for me. The place was… it was a little relic of what it used to be. The rest was just junky stuff, either bulldozed or junky stuff that was thrown up rapidly.

So when you ask “What do you think about the Expo” my response is that some of the decisions related to it, in my opinion, were not really great decisions. This is not even based on the “process problem” we talked about earlier with citizen consent. That’s not really what I’m talking about. What I mean is that they razed historic neighborhoods under the pretext that “You have to do it for the Expo,” then in some of these places they didn’t do anything for the Expo, and in others they put up stuff that clearly in three or four year they’re going to want to take down again and put something new. They lost a lot but in many of these place, I don't know what they gained.

CNNGo: In a recent piece you wrote, you mentioned the public education and “civilization” campaigns that were going on pre-Expo. Coming back now that those have been under way, is Shanghai more “civilized” than when you left it?

I have very mixed feelings about these campaigns. As I watch them unfurl, I try to imagine what it would be like if I was a Chinese person, there seems to be something insulting about this stuff. I imagine it’s really insulting having someone wave a baton and say “be civilized.” What does that mean most of the time? It means putting on a front to impress foreigners, in ways we have decided, whoever “we” is, are correct.

I don’t really think it works, but on another level, it's insulting. The people who are saying “be civilized;” are they more civilized than anyone else? I’m not convinced of that. 

July's other Cosmopolitan Conversations at the Glamour Bar (all events are RMB 65 and include a drink):

“Reporting Shanghai with guest speaker Howard French,” Sunday, July 11, 4pm

“Seeking Truth From Facts with guest speakers Zhang Lijia and Graham Earnshaw,” Sunday, July 18, 4pm

“Broadway in Shanghai: David Henry Hwang and Leigh Silverman,” Saturday, July 24, 4pm

“Writing China, Blogging China with guest speaker Evan Osnos,” Sunday, July 25, 2:30pm