Poznan Radio

[imomus]

Hisae had to renew her visa, so we jumped aboard the Berlin-Warszawa Express and went to Poznan. It was my first trip to Poland. Here, in the form of a radio programme, are my first impressions. As a Polish pope dies Hisae and I watch Wong Kar Wai's 2046 in Cantonese with Polish subtitles, look at paintings, sit in cafes, admire the architecture, read design books, lie in the sun on the central square... and try to figure out why the local skinheads are wearing White Power Poland t-shirts when we can't see a single non-white person in town.

Poznan Radio (mono mp3 file, 39 mins 17 secs, 17.9MB)

Comments

Re: Momus banned in China shock

[(Anonymous)]

A worrying proportion of the 150,000 (?!?) people in China teaching English are Christians. I've heard that some organisations offer to pay the schools and universities half their salaries to take them on. Whether this is known by the authorities or just another form of corruption I'd love to know.

There is a George Bush supporting munchkin here at our school who I have seen waddling into class with books of scripture. Probably as a result, I've had students in the class tell me smugly 'I'm a Christian'. I just refuse to acknowledge they've said it. I get the feeling that a lot of their classmates actually admire them - as the only other two 'young' teachers here are bible bashers and have been here a couple of years, the students see it as cool and western. Just last week, one of them wished me a 'happy easter' with the rejoinder 'although I'm not a Christian'. The feeling that I'm surrunded by people who assume that I am one just makes me want to sink into the ground and burrow my way out of here!

Incidentally one of the bible bashers, who has a banner with REAL MEN LOVE JESUS on it hung up above the Union Jack in his apartment, told a group of us once that the previous day he had told a Chinese woman asking for money for her baby 'to go and work'. Showing a remarkable command of the language (I think this was the real reason he told us the story) he said to her 'I have hands, I have a job. Go and find work to feed your family.' He then apparently procedeed to tell his class of 60 maritime students what he'd said. They all cheered.

That's the kind of Christianity that will catch on here - pitiless contempt for the 'weak', mixed with this kind of sickly cynical sentimentalism that appeals both to the communist leaders and to churchgoers the world over. An example of this western-style cynicism, after the tsunami someone in Beijing had a bright idea - now that China's just another capitalist country, how about making a charity record to raise renminbi for the victims? Now if We Are The World and Band Aid brought tears of rage and helplessness to your eyes, the video would have made you howl.