A recommendation

I don't often do this, but.....

Well, a month ago, you may recall, I recommended a couple of very funny posts on Leah's American-based but (often, slightly) China-focused blog.

So, now, I'd like to recommend 'Dave' - or 'davesgonechina', as he likes to refer to himself. 'davesgoneloopy' often seems more appropriate these days.

A couple of years ago - I think while researching a possible holiday, which did not ultimately take place - I turned up a fascinating blog on Xinjiang, one of the western provinces of China. Well, actually it is an 'Autonomous Region' for the Uyghur people, one of China's 56 officially recognised ethnic minorities. The 'autonomy' doesn't really count for much, since there has been a vigorous colonization programme over the last 50 years - 'Han-ification' - which means that the Uyghurs are now outnumbered in their homeland by ethnically Chinese Han people. Anyway, 'Dave' (an American, I suppose, although he's niggardly in giving out any biographical details) was teaching out there, and had started up this blog called 'Musing Under The Tenement Palm'. And it was fascinating: consistently well-written, intelligent, concerned, formidably thorough in its research (there was a particularly good series of articles on the bingtuan out there - a kind of paramilitary 'pioneer corps' which had managed most of the initial Han colonization and is now a 'state within the state' with an elaborate adminstrative and judicial apparatus of its own; it also happens to control most of the economy of the region). Alas, Dave's excellent blog ran into problems - I don't know whether they were personal, technical, or censorial - and disappeared.

It was gone for a year or 18 months, I guess. But at the beginning of this year, suddenly he was back. I think he's now in the southern coastal province of Fujian - which is kind of a pity, because I miss the commentary on Xinjiang. However, the relocation doesn't entirely explain the radical shift in the 'personality' of the blog. Whereas the old 'Tenement Palm' was pretty serious stuff, mostly on the culture and politics of western 'China', and of Central Asia generally, its reincarnation - now styled 'Mutant Palm' - is far more diverse, more left-field, more goofily eclectic. 'davesgoneweird'!!

However, though less educational than his previous blog, it is still well-written and extremely entertaining, and provides fascinating insights into Chinese 'pop culture'. He admits that he's doing it largely as an incentive to improve his Mandarin skills; so he's spending a huge amount of time trawling the Chinese Internet for interesting tidbits. In this post, for example, he investigates the recently burgeoning Chinese fascination with Ufology, and discovers that they now have an emerging Erich von Daniken figure of their own in the ludicrous (but soon-to-be-very-wealthy) Zhang Hui. And here he links to a video of a trio of young Chinese guys calling themselves 'The Crazy Migrants', who make hilarious home-made, lip-sync'ed music videos; this one makes fun of Zhang Yimou's latest turgid martial arts epic 'Curse of the Golden Flower' (how can you not love a post entitled 'Crazed Migrant Workers Spoof Gong Li's Breasts'?!).

I am impatient with or disappointed in the majority of 'China blogs'; many of them, in fact, I actively dislike. They tend to be tedious, self-important, and indifferently written. They are often far too obviously pleased with themselves, and, in particular, prone to exult in their prowess in getting to grips with Chinese language and culture. Dave's not like that: he wears his erudition lightly; he has a very unobtrusive blog persona. He just likes to share cool stuff that he's found.

He is, therefore, well worth recommending to my other readers. I just hope I haven't jinxed him. At the moment, 'Mutant Palm' is on Blogspot, so there have been problems of access recently; and he hasn't posted anything in over a week. Come back, Dave; I miss you.