link roundup: themed version

[kradeelav]

'man, this world is a little fucked up' edition

What Really Happened to Jack Ma - "We know more about the whereabouts and the condition of Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Putin’s prize prisoner, than we do about Jack Ma."  

Joe vs Elan School - via queenlua - in a nutshell, it's a autobiographical webcomic about a dude who escaped one of those "juvenile delinquent schools" that straight up applies cult and torture tactics (I should know, I've read the manuals). heavy content warning for indoctrination and psychological/physical abuse.

but other than just ... being gutted by the story for a few days, the design/comicker side of the brain is also floored at the skill and artistic talent of the technical side of things. How he applies such fucking raw emotion, raw indoctrination to the reader via simple color (red/black/white, shape, texture, composition is ... unforgettable. I almost want to study it but i literally don't think I can reread it.

The Onion Predicted America's Pullout from Bagram - this article feels very surreal on a lot of levels (as somebody who's political consciousness started at 9/11).

and one more:

“What people really want is tactile information, to be in touch with their physicality, to be able to communicate, and to grow, to touch one another and be touched. To get away from the somnambulism of contemporary life. We get all this information and there’s absolutely no way to react. You’re reading some horror in the newspaper while eating your doughnut. And if you were a natural animal you’d at least scream for fifteen minutes or chop the sofa to bits–assuming that you can’t go and change the thing that the media tells you is an outrage. So we’re trapped with all these fears of real impotence.”

— Carolee Schneemann in Youngblood’s (1970) Expanded Cinema, p.370

Comments

[draculard]

Ooh, thanks for the Jack Ma link -- I saw the Reuters article mentioned (a few months back, I think?) and I remember being really frustrated with it. Ever since he disappeared it's reminded me of two of my Chinese teachers, both survivors of Tiananmen. One of them had a huge crush on Jack Ma; she was a 60+ year old ethnic Mongolian who was always very strict and dignified, but her face lit up when she talked about Ma, and she got all flustered about it. I remember I'd never heard of him or Alibaba before, and she showed me some videos of him and I thought, "Wait, really? What's so cool about this guy??"

I'd love to talk to her about this. I'll call her Zheng and the other Tiananmen survivor Lao -- both of them ethnic minorities and intellectuals. They met on the lawn of the American embassy after the shooting started; Lao was helping the injured, and he ran into Zheng and grabbed her with blood on his hands and told her, "Do you speak English? Go into that embassy right now and tell them you're a teacher. Get out of here." He was 20 years older than her, spoke a lot of different languages, spent time underground in the Vietnam War, working against the Chinese military and helping refugees.

Anyway, Zheng listened to him. Being ethnic Mongolian, she was part of a big family in Beijing, and her father was an activist. When she was a kid, he got taken from the street and returned to her house with his legs mangled, and he could never walk again. So yeah, she took Lao's advice and got her visa, and Lao followed -- and by complete coincidence, they got accepted for jobs at the same foreign language school decades later! They weren't in contact or anything, they didn't even know each other's names. They just somehow migrated to the same place.

Reading about Ma, especially now, I can see why they both admired him. I'd just love to get their opinions on this, with their particular history, and both of them witnessing the Tiananmen Square massacre. And Lao, too, because he lived through Mao's early days, when the Red Army was coming around to tiny villages and taking their steel, and then he lived through the Cultural Revolution as an intellectual/scholar.

[kradeelav]

That is an ... incredible story about both Zheng and Lao, good god. Thank you for sharing. I imagine there's volumes that could be said about their experiences and the hell they've lived through, particularly Lao through the Cultural Revolution. Not to discount Zheng, either - having the ability, luck, and sheer gumption to fling herself into the unknown is, well, something we could all use, even if she had to do it out of desperation. Would encourage you to reach out to them - not even about just this, but I bet they'd appreciate talking to somebody that remembers them that well.

(You know some really interesting people, and it reflects well on yourself, imo.)

[draculard]

I know, right? I wish I could, but the school they teach at makes them sign a contract promising not to speak to students after graduation. It's supposedly a security thing. Some teachers and students ignore it, but they can lose their job if caught, and knowing Zheng and Lao, I don't think they'd risk it.

They had so many crazy good stories, man. I liked all my teachers, but those two were definitely my faves. Really strong personalities, great teachers, and lots of history to tell.

[queenlua]

+1, thank you for sharing the story about Zheng and Lao because wow that is amazing stuff.