sustainable china

What do you do, as a Chinese film board, when the Hollywood science fiction film Avatar smashes Chinese box office records in its first three weeks in theaters, when online chat sites are buzzing about the uncanny parallels between the fictional film plot of developers raping the land and forcibly evicting the people and real life in China?

As this report makes clear, Avatar vs. Confucius in China, some Chinese netizens are calling for a boycott of the Confucius biopic, arguing that the government is only promoting Confucianism in order to help suppress political dissent. In contrast Avatar is seen by Chinese people as a fable regarding the power of the state over local communities:

“What is ‘Avatar’ about?” asked one contributor on the Web site Mop. “It’s about the government’s forced evictions of people, and about them risking their lives to protest. No Chinese director dares to touch this topic.

The report goes on to note that an estimated 30 million people, that’s nearly the entire population of Canada, have been evicted or relocated during China’s rapid economic development. On top of this China has an estimated “floating population” of some 100 million migrant workers who live in poor conditions on the edge of China’s gleaming cities. It’s doubtful that James Cameron imagined that he was making a movie about China, but Avatar may well turn out to be one the most significant mythologizations of China’s economic development.

James Miller attending the Laozi Conference in the Great Hall of the People

I’m at the First Summit on Laozi and Daoist Culture, which is taking place this week in Beijing. The Summit is the work of Prof. Hu Fuchen, one of the leading scholars of Daoism, and a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. This morning, we had the opening ceremony, which was held in the Great Hall of the People. It was my first time in this magnificent building.

The purpose of the conference is basically to promote Daoism throughout China and the World. It is being funded by a wealthy donor, and has received backing at a high level from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Read the rest of this entry »

• Interview with an American training to be a Daoist priest: Center for Spirituality and Sustainability at S. Illinois U http://bit.ly/1JOMfQ #

• An exhibition introducing the Taoist traditions of ethnic people in northern Vietnam opened in Hanoi on October 21. http://bit.ly/3LopcJ #