On Not Caring About China

Apologies are in order for those who rely on a daily dose of BerlinerBlog to combat the malign tedium of contemporary life. I've had a striking, well-dressed visitor in town, one who's appeal is neither to be sneezed at nor to be multi-tasked.

But I return with fresh enthusiasm and a very important message:

I don't care about China.

Of course, this revelation brings with it an apartment-complex of guilt and self-doubt. Am I radically out of step with my generation, missing the vernal Asian forest for Europe's shabby trees?

The Beijing Olympics have unleashed a predictable tsunami of commentary in the West devoted to describing, dissecting, and sometimes decrying China's rise. And yet I remain dry, untouched by this particular media deluge. I'm embarrassed to confess I haven't read a single China-related article in the last month.

My lack of interest in the Middle Kingdom must be reckoned one of my dirtiest intellectual secrets. Abstractly, of course, I'm aware I should be interested in China. And I've tried before, taking seminars with Jonathan Spence, grilling American friends about their abroad experiences, grilling Asian friends about their childhoods. I even claim to have enjoyed The Emperor and the Assassin.

I admit these things with very real trepidation. As my witty visitor aptly put it, at our university, undergrads uninterested in China were treated like a "persecuted minority". Which I find funny until the phrase cashes out its humor and leads my madly associative mind to consideration of the Falun Gong, the Uiguhr, and any number of other persecuted Chinese groups whose plight only inspires me with cranky boredom.

But everytime I try to think myself into an intellectual relationship with China, I'm always frustrated. That's because my problem, I've come to believe, is fundamentally libidinal. I'm just not attracted to Chinese people, not sexually at any rate. Any every intellectual interest, I've become convinced, relies at least in part on a libidinal motor. Is it really possible for a straight man to develop a serious academic interest in the Far East, indeed, to devote his entire life to oriental study, unless he's sustained by a sexual attraction to East Asian women?

Looking at the Yale history faculty provides some clues, and not just regarding East Asian specialists. The army of old white men who research in what is arguably the best history department on the planet is flanked by a cortege of younger spouses, many of them academics in their own right, who overwhelmingly hail from the very countries their older mates have dedicated their lives to studying. Although the department itself may seem stunningly undiverse, adding wives to the picture reveals a large number of latina and east asian faces. The link between sex and scholarship here would seem to be self-evident.

And here I sit, pathetically excluding myself from this love-fest, sexually innoculated against what looks less like 'yellow fever' than like a golden touch. For the future belongs not only to the Chinese, but even more, perhaps, to the horde of sinophiles readying themselves for the orgy to come.

Eventually, of course, taste will recalibrate itself to economic reality and Asian males will see their sexual stock rise sharply. There's always a time gap, though, and I've come of age to early to take advantage of the looming libidinal realignment.

There's no honor in being a lagging indicator.