Chinese Indie Film

There was a Chinese Independent Film Festival held here on campus this last weekend, and I had a chance to go see one of the films, which was a great opportunity. The one I saw was called “Walk on the Wild Side”, directed by Han Jie.
This film was a look at the lives of people living in a mining town in rural China, and at the lives of three young men in particular. Xiping (pronounced “shee-ping”) and his two friends Erbao and Liuliu are in a sort of gang together. What exactly the nature of this gang is, besides getting drunk and involved in hooliganism, is never totally clear (it isn’t a drug gang). The story follows the boys from committing a crime together which forces them to leave town, and what happens to them on the road in their travels together. Loyalties are tested, relationships are torn, and all three characters struggle to find their way, together at first and then individually in a country that is changing in many ways, and still highly traditional in others. Xiping himself returns home at the end of the journey, possibly having learned something, or possibly having decided that the world is the way it is and one cannot escape one’s past. The end of the film was interesting in that it was ambiguous and open-ended; it allowed the viewer to read into it heavily. (There was a Q&A session at the end of the film that I couldn’t stay for, but I wanted to ask the director what his intent or meaning in the film’s ending was)
The film was very rough and unstructured. The camera word appeared to be done primarily with handheld cameras, and the plot felt very loose and open. In many ways, both in terms of the dialog (Han Jie himself wrote the screenplay) and in terms of the cinematography, it felt like a documentary. The scenes and characters were shown frankly in their surroundings and actions; honest and unflinching depictions of adultery, families, sex, rape, loyalty, murder, theft, benevolence, all amidst a stark and very harsh backdrop of realistic poverty. The director (who said that he drew heavily on his own experience in making the film) did an excellent job of transporting the audience to this place and into the lives of his characters, of making the audience feel what his characters feel.
Though less structured, it isn’t to say the film was without some profoundly intentional moments. After a high school student gets badly beaten by Xiping and his friends, one of the younger students comes and puts his finger in a pool of blood, staring at it frozenly despite his teacher yelling for him to return to class. Later when Xiping returns home and the owner of the mine, who is the father of one of Xiping’s friends, asks where his son is, Xiping replies quietly after a few moments of silence, “We lost each other along the way. And Liuliu won’t be coming home again.” The most powerful and moving scene to me at the end of the film seeing Xiping break down and start crying while in bed with his girlfriend. The film had a somewhat bleak emotional tone throughout, and the Chinese in general are somewhat restrained; such a depiction of real emotion leant the film a powerful kind of honesty.
I felt the film really reflected some of the struggles of a society grappling to find itself amidst both growing wealth and persistent poverty. Getting a chance to see a picture of today’s China, away from the polished Hong Kong martial arts films and outside the glittering districts of Shanghai, was very powerful.

Spring Gala '07

The Spring Gala was Saturday night, on Easter weekend, and as it was last year, it was a great time. But this time, there was one reason that stands out above all others for why it was so great. My girlfriend Stephanie flew into town to surprise me.
Last year’s event was a really good time, but I remembered when I was leaving thinking to myself, “I’m definitely going to have to try and find a date next year”. Having Stephanie be able to come was the best thing I could have imagined. She was only here for the weekend, but we had an absolutely great time together, and being able to get dressed up and go to the big formal event of the year here at my school together meant a lot to me. Knowing that Steph put a considerable amount of time & energy into the surprise, including taking a red-eye and flying all night, was just amazing.
As formal events (and Easter weekends) go, this was the best one I’ve ever had, and I will never forget this weekend.

Progress and Poverty

My time studying Economics here at Columbia has been strange in some ways, as I’ve found many things in Economic theory to not be very good descriptors of the problems they’re trying to address. (An example, in my macro class, when addressing the issue of “where economic growth came from”, they’d studied it and broken it down into growth from labor, growth from capital, and growth from technology. The first two can be measured somewhat, but the third cannot, and this is where a very large portion of the growth comes from. So they defined technology growth as being whatever isn’t the first two types. And some genius got a Nobel prize for coming up with this. *shakes head*)
But recently, in my last semester, I came across a piece of work that makes all the pain and nonsense in some of the other classes worth it; it’s something that reminds me why I got into studying Econ in the first place. The book is called “Progress and Poverty” by Henry George.
Henry George (1839-1837) lived in California and was concerned with the question of why poverty seemed to be increasing and getting worse in spite of all the progress brought about through the industrial revolution. His answer, in simple form, was that poverty comes from landowners restricting access to land (and for George, land meant “natural resources”, so iron ore in the ground and a good fishing stream were all land in his mind), such that people must pay them for access, and landowners set the rates (collecting “rent”, in economic terms). He said most men, given natural resources, could make something out of it, at least enough to survive on and usually more than a surplus. But if they don’t have free access to resources, they’re in bad shape.
The answer to this problem for George was what he called the single tax. He proposed taxing the value of land (not real estate, which is land and buildings, but just the value of the land), and nothing else. This type of system has a number of advantages. In Economics, all taxes are known to have adverse effects, because they give people an incentive to use less of something. But if you tax land, people will still use it because it is in fixed supply. The benefits from the added value of some types of usable land (a mine is more valuable land than a desert) will go back to the community through the taxes, and basically helps to encourage better & more equitable access to land.
This system, which today is usually called Land Value Tax (LVT) has several other very powerful advantages, and it has very few drawbacks. The only real big objection is that it will decrease land values, which make up a large source of the wealth in any country. And those who own land have a strong incentive not to let this happen.
However, the important thing to consider is that much of that loss in value is just a loss in book value. And because there would be no other taxes, you’d be able to put land to more productive uses. And it could go a long way towards solving some very large inequalities.
I read through the book, it’s old but it’s well written and isn’t very long, and have been deeply influenced by the idea, the more I’ve thought about it. I’m planning to write a paper on it for my class, since this system is used in some places like Taiwan. It was very inspiring though to come across one big idea in my studies here that captured my interest; I’m glad to know it hasn’t all been utility functions and OLS regressions.

Wine in Harlem

A few weeks ago I had a chance to go to a private wine tasting at a wine seller in Harlem. The event was only open to the GS class, and I had the chance to see a bunch of friends there I hadn’t seen in awhile. (Half the people in this picture are people I know) There are always a lot of events happening around campus at a school this big; one of the things you have to learn when you come to NYC is that you don’t have time to do everything you’d like to. But this event was important to me for three main reasons: because wine is good, because I needed to get out and see some friends, and because it was in Harlem.
My uncle Jon was the first person who really taught me to appreciate wine. I remember at a party he was throwing, he had opened a new bottle, but after tasting it he promptly took the bottle & poured it out. I was quite surprised but he just shrugged and assured me that “life is too short to drink bad wine”. I’ve tried to remember that maxim since then.
It had also been awhile since I’d gone out and done anything with my classmates. I’m realizing now that my time here at Columbia will be over far too quickly, and before I really know it. Especially as this was an event for GS only, being able to get out and do it was important to me, and I did have a good time seeing some folks I’d been a bit out of touch with.
The third important reason was because the wine shop was in Harlem. Harlem (which is just north of Columbia and the Morningside Heights neighborhood) is a neighborhood I’ve always wanted to know more about. It represents such an important & historic area for the development of black culture in America, and for New York City too. Harlem is another place that I’d wanted more of a chance to try and connect with while I have been here, and that has also been lacking. Part of it is due to time, but part of it is due to the historic tensions between Columbia & Harlem. I’m sad to say it, but this is one area our school falls way short; Columbia has historically not been at all a good neighbor to Harlem. When the neighborhood was in decline, the school really turned a cold shoulder to it, and recently as it has experienced a resurgence and boom in the real estate values, the school has moved to buy up a bunch of the land. Which doesn’t seem so terrible, until you consider that the community in Harlem fought through the tough times and invested into their land and their real estate, and much of the rest of New York didn’t want much to do with it, until it became valuable, and now they’re interested in annexing it. For all the smart people here at this school, they couldn't find a way to simply be a good neighbor to those near them; very unfortunate.
Even though I haven’t had the chance to connect with and get to do many events up in Harlem, I was glad to be able to do the things I could, such as this. Besides, how can you say no to good wine that's free? I’d still like to go to a show at the Apollo, the famous Harlem theater, where James Brown got his start, I still may go try and do that before I leave the city …

Pesach Seder

Finally had a chance to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time while I was here in New York. I went and joined the main Jewish student group here on campus (Chabad) for Pesach Seder, or Passover Dinner. (Pesach means Passover, and Seder technically means “order”, so the literal translation would be something a bit more like “Passover Service”, like Easter Service in a Christian church).
Being a Christian, most of what I knew about the Jewish people before coming to New York was from the Bible, which is to say, I didn’t know much at all about how Jews live or what being Jewish is really about these days. For a long time, there were more Jews living here in NYC than anywhere else in the world, including Israel, though that has changed recently. But that still means there are a lot of Jewish people here, and trying to connect a bit and learn something from & about them was one of my real hopes & priorities in coming to NYC.
Sadly, up till now, I’ve found my time so dominated by studies and other concerns that I just haven’t had time for it the way I’ve wanted to. I have made some Jewish friends here at the school, in particular my friend Akiva, who is an amazing guy and someone I respect a great deal. Akiva is Israeli, meaning he was born & grew up for much of his life in Israel; it also means that he served the mandatory two? years in the IDF. However he is an atheist, so he couldn’t tell me too much about Jewish life. He also explained there is a significant difference between Israelis and other Jews, which made the whole affair even more confusing.
The Seder was an open invite that was sent out to the Columbia community by Rabbi Blum, who leads Chabad. The dinner itself was held in the rotunda in Low Library, which is where most formal events on campus are held. There were probably 40-50 people there, of which (as far as I could tell) I was the only non-Jewish person there.
The dinner itself was fascinating. There was a booklet laid out at each seat (printed in both Hebrew and English) that laid out the basic order of the service. The entire thing was almost 3 hours, but the condensed version went something like this: reading of blessings, ritual hand washing, drinking wine (or Martinelli’s in our case, since there were underage students there), eating the “ritual” Pesach meal which includes Matzah (an unleavened bread/cracker type thing), hardboiled eggs, potatoes, and bitter herbs (lettuce w/ horseradish), more hand washing, more wine, a real meal with chicken, vegetables, and potato cakes, more readings, more blessings, more wine, and finally a few more readings/blessings. The entire dinner was served by a wait staff, so the pieces of the ritual meal are already on the table and then everything else is brought out to you. The Matzah (and this is of course just my opinion) tastes pretty terrible, and I’m not big on horseradish so I wasn’t about the bitter herbs either. The traditional Pesach plate also includes a chicken shank, which interestingly the Rabbi said sits in the place of what would have been a nice fat piece of roasted lamb before the destruction of the temple. For whatever reason, since that time Jewish communities have used the chicken shank instead, which I feel is definitely a step down given that I love mutton and don’t like looking at bones of any type when I’m eating. The wine cups are set on little saucers because apparently it is tradition to fill the cup to overflowing, and then pour some parts of the cup out at different times throughout the ceremony.
The reading of the blessings was also very beautiful. I’ve always found Jewish songs and spoken oration to be extremely moving, they’re a strange combination of sorrowful and profound. Wish I understood Hebrew.
I was disappointed not to have gotten a chance to speak with Rabbi Blum, either during or after the meal, but it looked as though he was occupied and it was nearly 11 PM by the time it was finished. I’m extremely glad I had the chance to participate in it, I feel that I learned a great deal, not all of which I could put into words. I’d like to extend my thanks to Rabbi Blum, Chabad, the wait staff, and to two other friends from GS, Gabby & Danielle who kept me company while we were eating and helped explain some of the customs & nuances to me. It would have been quite a lot for a Goy to try and take in all on the first time …