In September 2019, on my way to Jintaixizhao subway station in Beijing, I received an unusual call from Sheet: An editor was trying to convince me to write a weekly column about China for the newspaper. At that moment, as I walked, listened and observed my surroundings, I began to see the city, the country and the people with different eyes.
The exercise of writing regularly —to understand and at the same time explain—has changed my experience in China. It forced me to read compulsively, be more curious, exchange impressions and test ideas. Stimulated by the craft, I had great conversations with Chinese people: how Confucian is China today? What do you think of your billionaires? What makes young people interested in joining the Communist Party? Today, as I say goodbye to readers to take new directions, I reflect on the experience.
Getting to know China requires humility. It is something colossal as an object of study. The more I read, the more I distrust those who claim to be China experts. You can get to know Chinese culture (and look there) or a certain period of thousands of years of history or the economic situation of the country.
Given the difference between our historical and cultural repertoire and that of the Chinese, the need to face the challenge with humility is even greater. I remember that, near the place where I worked, there was a Christmas tree that resisted the passing of the months. By the middle of the year, I couldn’t contain myself and asked if they weren’t going to pick her up. The answer was: but she is so beautiful, why take her away?
The influence of Western culture is very limited in China (or, as the most acidic say, China was not culturally colonized). The Beatles, the French Revolution or even Jesus Christ say practically nothing to the Chinese. My point here is: the reverse is obviously true. With the exception of Confucius and Mao, the names of Chinese heroes and idols mean nothing to us.
The historical references there do not echo here. I remember my amazement upon learning about the Taiping Revolution in 19th century China, in which more people died than in the entire First World War. To be a good observer of China, a “China watcher”, is already quite an ambition, believe me.
Even acknowledging the difficulty, I must say that the lack of knowledge about China in Brazil and in the world is absolutely incompatible with the importance of the Asian country. What’s more, coverage of China often favors the exoticization of the country —what’s weird is what generates news (Christmas tree in August flirts with that, I admit). However, this coverage bias distances us more than it brings us closer to the China we need to know.
The analyzes lack sobriety. At the outset, many stumble over the basic risk — that of romanticizing or demonizing China. Starting from one or the other does not produce anything useful. Opinions have become even more passionate after the pandemic. I realized that the space to speak with balance was closing. When reading the column, many readers sought to conclude whether I was for or against China — which was never the point.
It must be possible to recognize the value of an initiative (the fight against poverty, for example) without this being perceived as an endorsement of the country’s political regime. Equally important, it has to be possible to criticize in peace, and the space for that has been decreasing as well.
Subjects on China abound. It’s the place where things are happening — that was the feeling of living in the country. I close my cycle in Sheet, but there is a long list, on my computer, of “ideas for columns”: smart cities, China-Latin America relations, regulation of algorithms, internationalization of the Chinese currency and so on. What happens in China has global repercussions. I will continue to follow all these topics, but now only consuming news and analysis. Ufa.
With redoubled conviction after more than 150 texts, I conclude the last one by returning to what I wrote in the first one: getting to know China better is increasingly necessary to understand the world at a minimum. Thank you, Daigo Oliva, for that phone call that changed everything.
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
