Best China Blog Awards Winners : A Chinalyst interview with Absurdity, Allegory and China

More interviews coming up introducing some of the bloggers behind the blogs that won the Best China Blog Awards 2008. We asked the bloggers to tell us a little bit about themselves and their blogs. This time it's with "Absurdity, Allegory and China" that made it to 3rd place in the Best Personal Blog category.

Background

Blog : Absurdity, Allegory and China

Blogger : Jim Gourley

Slogan : The Kingdom from another angle.

About the blogger (from the blog) : "I’ve been living in Tianjin, China for the past decade and have spent a good deal of time in Beijing, watching as both of these cities have boomed. In recent years I have also spent a good deal of time in the Qinghai province countryside partnering with a local middle school on the Tibetan-Qinghai Plateau in an attempt to increase educational opportunities for students in western China."

Blogging platform : Self-hosted Wordpress

Age : 51-60

Years blogging : 2

Years in China : 9-15 years

Originally from : USA, Philadelphia though I have not lived there since 1968

 The interview

Q: What was your main motivating force for beginning your own blog?

I love to write and having been doing it for a lot of years. I’ve also been living in China for more than a decade now, and I feel that some of my experiences are worth sharing. The leaps and bounds that technology has taken in the last ten years have made blogging an accessible and usable tool for getting one’s ideas and opinions into the mix. I am a writer, and I want to be read. Blogging has allowed me a field to bat things around in. I have worked hard at it, and I have had a modicum of success.

I also enjoy photography, and blogging has allowed me a chance to get my photos into the mix, too. At first I used photography as a note-taking tool, but it has easily become as important to me as the writing.

Q: What is your blog mainly about? Please tell us a little bit about the general topics you usually discuss in your blog.

My blog is about whatever I feel I want to write about, though it is mainly focused on China, though not exclusively. I’ll also write about baseball, which I love, as well as American politics, if the spirit moves me. And now with George Bush finally in last days, I feel a little more positively moved. I will also post poetry, others’ poems as well as an odd one of mine from time to time. I felt for a long time that because “China” was in my blog’s title that I should only write about things Chinese, but I’ve gotten over that. It’s my blog, and I can write about whatever I feel. If people don’t want to read it, that’s their business. I want people to read it, but I am going to write what I think I need to write about. I write much more than ever gets onto my blog, since much of what I write is not for the blogosphere.

Q: What does blogging mean to you? What importance or contribution does your blog have, if any, to yourself or the community?

I am not sure what my blog means to the community, since it is hard to actually gauge what the “community” is. Or rather, what community I am a part of. I have no idea what my blog means to others, outside of my immediate family and a few friends. They seems to like it.

Blogging has become a large part of my life, though there are times when other aspects of my life take precedent. I spend a bit of time in Qinghai province, and when I am there I find that blogging can be difficult, though I try my best to keep good notes, so that when I return to Tianjin I can quickly fall back into step. And then there are other times when I just feel the need for a little break.

But generally blogging has become a good way for me to address the world in ways that I want to address it. I am not sure how important my blog is for other people, but it allows me to have a voice. It is also a voice that I trust is not a harmful one. Angry, at times, yes, but I am not out to do any damage. Doing damage is far too easy. I always hope that I am being constructive, even when others may feel I am not. I also don’t have any over-inflated notion that my blog is vital. If it were not here tomorrow I feel quite sure that very few would take notice, and the rising tide would rapidly cover it’s tracks. There’s a freedom in knowing that, that allows me to not take myself too seriously. But serious enough to always try my best, to write my best.

Q: How would you generally describe the Chinese expat blogosphere? Do you personally know any other China expat bloggers? In your opinion, what contribution or role does the China expat blogosphere have, if any?

I think the China expat blogosphere is as wide and varied as you would find anywhere else in the world, which means it covers the spectrum from “important and informative” right on down to “digital trash.” That’s what blog’s are about everywhere. I find that I use blogs as a way of narrowing things down and getting to information that I would not find if I only used the corporate news sites. Aggregators are great ways of getting a quick look into specific areas that are current and vital. Once you trust a blog, you will invariably go back to it.

I have met several other bloggers, though living in Tianjin is not living in Beijing, fast train notwithstanding. So, unfortunately, I rarely get together with any others to discuss things. I am pretty much on my own, though it is great to read, respond to and email those I feel a connection with. There are a lot of good, smart people out there in the middle of a lot things that I only wish I could be involved in. I think that there are some excellent expat blogs that give us insights into worlds that, at times, I could not even dream of. They contribute to our attempts to understand not only China, but also the warp and woof at the edge of a world in overdrive and hyper-transition. They give us a clearer picture of the innards of the loom.

Q: Do you have any favorite blogs about China you would like to recommend?

I think that there are many good blogs, and I am sure that there are a lot that I’ve never heard of, though the best ones usually end up surfacing, since there are so many people out here looking. There are, of course, the biggies, and Danwei is one I always read since it covers such a wide spectrum of news and culture. I also always manage to hit the China Law Blog, Shanghai Scrap, and several others which give me a rounded as well as eclectic view of what’s happening in the world I am living in. But the one I never miss, since I am interested in history, is Jottings from the Granite Studio. Reading good writing about history is as timely as reading the news. Also ChinaSmack has gotten my attention, along with everyone else’s here lately; it opens a window into the Chinese blogosphere that most of us wouldn't get if it were not there doing what it does.

Q: What do you think about life in China, the Chinese people and Chinese culture? How would you generally describe your experience in China?

As I said above, I have been in China for more than a decade, and I wouldn’t have stayed if I didn’t like the country and the people. Culture is culture, which means that it is always of great interest to me. That one is more or less than any other is an argument that I never get into, since more often than not it ends up being a question more interested in a nationalistic answer than in one that actually deals with culture. I will say that I think that Mengzi kicks ass.

My experience in China has been everything I would expect from life: wonderful and odd, heartbreaking and hopeful, maddening, beautiful and frustrating. I could do with a lot less pollution than Beijing and Tianjin dish out, but still I stay. There is something that keeps me here, despite the very real health issues of living in extremely bad air.

Q: What advice would you give someone considering coming to work, study or live in China?

As I said above, I don’t like to give advice, but that’s what I ended up doing. And so here I go again. Leave “home” at home. Don’t be another butt head spreading your self-centered ideas of good news and the right way to do things to China and the Chinese. Or to the Indonesians, Italians or Turks. The world is not what it is back home, wherever “back home” is. If you’re coming here, leave your tourist (and missionary) heads at home. Be quiet and watch, and keep your stuff safe. If you do “stupid,” there’s a good chance you’re going to get grief in return. This is not a secret, though to many it always seems to be. And no one will listen to this either.

Also be sure to check out Jim's beautiful China photography on Flickr. Thanks, Jim.