China and Africa

Xu Jinglei's South African adventure

Thumbnail image for Lao Xu 03.25.08.jpg
Xu Jinglei at South Africa's Apartheid Museum

2008 is the tenth anniversary of the commencement of diplomatic relations between South Africa and the People's Republic of China. As part of its activities to celebrate the occasion, the South African government has invited actress, director and blogger Xu Jinglei to visit. Xu is planning to produce a book and documentary about the trip.

The team toured South Africa's Apartheid Museum today. Thoughtful, provocative and poignant, the museum opens with an exhibit of enlarged duplicates of racial classification identification cards and "pass" books, documents that black South Africans were required to carry to show their authorization to live and work in designated white areas under apartheid. Subsequent cinematic exhibits showed bracing examples of a government doing violence to its people, and of angry activists doing violence to fellow black South Africans who were suspected of being informers or collaborators.

While the Cultural Revolution (and other episodes from China's past) could warrant a museum whose purpose is to memorialize, interrogate and interpret a painful past, China has not yet devoted its resources to a project of public self-reflection along the lines of South Africa's Apartheid Museum. Your correspondent was therefore curious about the team's reaction to the presentation.

They apparently took it in stride. Apart from a comparison between apartheid South Africa's pass books and China's hukou, the team's remarks subsequent to leaving the museum reflected an almost unbridled enthusiasm for the country, its landscape and the friendliness of its people.

South Africa's honesty and respect for its past, however fraught, does not appear to have diminished the team's enjoyment of the trip thus far. Indeed, it may have amplified it.

Maya Alexandri is currently traveling as part of Xu Jinglei's entourage in South Africa, and will file reports about the trip for the next week.

There are currently 4 Comments for Xu Jinglei's South African adventure.

Comments on Xu Jinglei's South African adventure

Strike a pose against Apartheid, girl! C'mon vogue!

...and chengdude wins!

I love xu! iI dig this page to South African adventure

Why is she smiling so glamourously? I mean, no need to frown or fake tears, but you'd think she was posing for her dating website photo. Ah, a sense a propriety...

Post a comment

All comments are moderated and subject to review by Danwei contributors and editors, but well-grounded and articulate comments will be published regardless of which way they lean. Because comments published on any website ultimately contribute to the character of that website, we may decline to publish comments that are irrelevant, redundant, or that do not adhere to generally accepted standards of courtesy; if you are looking for a fight, there are plenty of other venues available online.


Some useful html: <b>bold</b>, <i>italic</i>,
<a href="http://www.danwei.org">link</a>

Media Partners
Visit these sites for the latest China news
090609guardian2.png 090609CNN3.png
China Media Timeline
Major media events over the last three decades
Danwei Model Workers
laomo2008fpA.jpg
Recommended blogs and new media
Books on China
AXL091030storiesforthcoming.jpg
Princess Der Ling: Two Years in the Forbidden City: Two years in the Forbidden City is largely a reminiscence of the minutiae of life for one of history's most powerful women, by one of her court attendants, a Manchu noble's daughter by the name of Der Ling.
Carl Crow's The Long Road Back to China: In 1939 Carl Crow - an American journalist, advertising executive and author who had lived in Shanghai for 25 years until forced out by the Japanese - travelled up the Burma Road from Rangoon to Chongqing on assignment for Liberty magazine - 'the most interesting assignment I have ever been given'.
Front Page of the Day
A different newspaper every weekday
From the Vault
Classic Danwei posts
+ New Weekly: Do Chinese kids know anything about traditonal Chinese culture? (2004.06): Q: Do you know what China's four great inventions are? Paper, printing, the compass and gunpowder 49.3% know all four, 37.3% get one or more wrong, 13.3% don't know at all (2004.06.12)
+ The horrors of SMS messaging (2007.09): Naraka 19 (地狱第19层), based on the Cai Jun (蔡骏) novel, gets neutered by SARFT.
+ China's illegal yellow press (2005.05): On the left is the front page of 'Military News', a newspaper without masthead, contact phone number or any kind of publication licence (required by Chinese law). The paper was purchased on the Beijing subway for two yuan, which is relatively expensive, as most of the city's daily newspapers cost only half a yuan.
Danwei Archives
Danwei Feeds
Via Feedsky rsschiclet2.png (on the mainland)
or Feedburner rsschiclet.gif (blocked in China)
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Main feed: Main posts (FB has top links)
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Top Links: Links from the top bar
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Danwei Jobs: Want ads
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Danwei Digest: Updated daily, 19:30