 Welcome to another episode of China is Not Our Enemy, coming to you from Code Pink. And today I'm very excited to talk to Ting's chalk. Ting's is an international activist and an artist trained in architecture. And after spending quite a few years as a migrant justice organizer in Toronto, Canada, she's been supporting various working class struggles and movements across the global south. But Ting's is currently based in Shanghai and contributing to popular political education projects and crafting designs towards the socialist future. She is the lead designer and researcher for Tricontinental Institute for Social Research and one of the editors of the Dongfeng Collective, which is why we really wanted to talk to her today because here we are, you know, stupid Americans about China being convinced that we should, with lies, that we should hate China. Instead, she's inside and she's not only inside but she's, you know, a culture worker. And so we want to hear more about the culture from Ting's. Ting's welcomed so much to our show and also just give us an idea of where you are, how long you've been there and kind of maybe what part of Shanghai do you live in? What's it like? Thanks, Jody, and thanks to the team for Code Pink for inviting me. So I'm in Shanghai right now, as you mentioned. It's a little bit late here. It's about midnight. And so, I mean, it's interesting you ask me that. Most people don't usually move countries in the middle of a pandemic, but that's what I did. My partner, I actually moved to Shanghai about five, six months ago. And as you mentioned, one of the main works I've been doing or projects I've been working on in the last years has been the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research in the area of the, I organized the art department, so both in production and research. And then since arriving here, a new project was formed out of both desire, necessity, and just curiosity as we were seeing the events unfolding here, moving here, and trying to transport some of the realities that we're seeing here that really are captured if you're looking at Western media. They're really captured not only the mainstream media, but even, I think, a bit lost to a lot of them, I think, our world, which is of the left of social movements and popular movements. It was kind of clear that there was a richer and a deeper story to be told. There was a kind of flattening of what is China, Chinese society, Chinese people. That wasn't getting through. So in the months of living here and with different colleagues and friends and comrades, a project was formed to form this Dongfeng Collective to gather a group of people who are curious and asking questions and reading and researching and trying to gather some of that and sharing that in a form that, hopefully, is useful for different audiences around the world. And right now we're doing it in English as well as Portuguese and Spanish and French and Italian and where we have kind of thoughts for other languages as well to specifically reach more of our audience across the global south, social movement bases, the kinds of organizations we're more linked to. So cool. So it's not just the United States that needs more education on China. It's not any world over. Yes. So since arriving, give me a couple of the things that have surprised you the most. You know, I think one of the first conversations I had when I arrived here was actually with an artist, as you mentioned, obviously, my area is more around culture and where culture intersects with politics and movements. I had a conversation with this artist from Shanghai and he agreed to chat with me. You know, I had come across his work online for some time and was curious, so we just had a chat. And basically what he did was he was in the first two months he was in quarantine, he started to paint two paintings every day. What was he painting of? You know, it's funny because he was using a traditional Chinese like oligarchy style. You might have seen kind of the wash paintings, very few colors, rice paper, but instead of kinds of landscapes or, you know, kind of, which are beautiful, he was painting interesting things, like a traffic officer, he's just eating a cup. Oh dear, it seems like we've lost Ting's for the moment. I wanna show you a little bit of her art while she finds her way back on the internet. She says, you know, she's told you about her art and her work for Tri-Continental. So maybe if we share a screen, we could look at some of Ting's art while we wait for her to come back. Oops. We're just, we missed you Ting's. We're showing, we were gonna show a bit of your art while you were gone. Welcome back. Great. Here, let me see if I get my screen back normal. Okay, perfect. Well, the good thing is whenever there are visuals, it always can fill space. Yes, there we go. Sorry about that. Where was I? Where did I cut off? You were saying that he started to paint like a policeman with something in his hand Yeah, so I mean, the portraits he was painting was about the real lives of people responding, coming together on the coronavirus and the responses. So he was using this very traditional style and he was painting exactly kinds of delivery workers. We're talking about workers in factory sewing, the PPE, protective equipment, security guards taking a little nap because they've been working overtime. And so these kinds of portraits, I think and also the experience of moving here during this time definitely showed a vision. It's very clear. You do not see in the Western media and you do not see pretty much ever in a portrayal of China and how the story was being told during the crisis, during the height of the crisis and even afterwards. I was just doing a little test right now. I was just trying to Google what you see when you see China. The kinds of images that usually come up are big industrial infrastructure scale projects or people in masses or you're talking about state leaders but very rarely do you get these kinds of portraits about remembering that Chinese people are actually just human beings and there's a lot of them. It's not 1.4 billion people but those portraits and stories are never told. And we know a lot of the way that the media works and especially kind of an imperialist form of media is that the first thing that is denied is the people's humanity, is the people's ability to be seen as people who are organizing, who are responding, who are responding in a very collective way that they aren't just the victims of history at all. And they're not just victims of their government or victims of a society. So I think in terms of a roundabout way of answering your question of the surprises was encountering and having this conversation with this artist is a good reminder about what the focus should be on. And he actually said a few things I was asking him as well as the world at that point was entering into their moment of crisis, what is also the role of cultural workers and artists? And one of the things he was saying, well, we can reflect the situation also positively to bring unity to share the experiences of people as they are living them. And he said a nice thing too. He said, whether you're in quarantine home, whether you're caring for people or being cared for, whether you're working at your easels or with your pens and pencils, we're all kind of soldiers in this battle against a united battle against the pandemic. So I think that was quite useful. And for anyone who's interested also, his paintings were featured in a three-part research series publications from Tracontinental. Actually, I have it here. It was- Oh, cool. So his paintings are online. You'll see some of them if you wanna check it out on Tracontinental's website. And some of his words are there as well. And that's the issue that you did about the lies around coronavirus, correct? Yeah, so the Tracontinental team put together, I mean, it was very clear during the early moments about what the reports about what was happening, the responses to the coronavirus was inadequate, let's say, by Western media. Not only was there a lot of kind of xenophobia, not only in Chinese people in the state, but there was also just a lot of things you didn't know about how the response was from the level of the neighborhood committees to the level of the state, how resources were deployed, how China was able to break the chain of infection in a relatively quick way. So this was a publication that came out to address some of these issues, to bring to broader audiences what we couldn't be seeing elsewhere. So what's it like in your neighborhood? Just maybe a little bit about how is this neighborhood different than your neighborhood in Sao Paulo, for example? I mean, I think it's one of the things I'll say. I mean, I had the privilege and through the kind of political work I've been doing to live in various places, get to know various places. And in terms of one of the things that also surprised me, I would say, and also relates to the neighborhood, I guess, is that I never felt like I could, right now it's midnight, I could just walk outside. I could go and pick up some things at the cornerster as a woman and walk there. And that's something I think I, even my body had forgotten it could do. And this is in many parts of the world. There are some things I think for me as a woman, definitely there are moments I was quite surprised of security walking around on the streets. I think that would be one thing. The neighborhood itself is kind of a, a 90-style popular public housing, very comfortable, lots of trees, modest, but has like, here it's a pretty impressive amount that the amount of time they spend on landscaping. And you'll see like overpasses, like huge overpasses and they'll have little containers with like plants on them, like on the highways, it's really quite something. Yeah, the green, the care for nature is profound. And even the care for ancient nature, some of the places that you go where they, you think about a museum and they're showing art, but if you go there in China, it's the whole thing is cared for. All pieces of the container are important, which is something I hadn't ever experienced. Yeah, I had the experience in Beijing recently to go to the Red Brick Art Museum. It was my first time there. And it's exactly that it's, it almost feels like the art you see inside, which is a very contemporary art museum. It was reflections on kind of the state of exception and different artists responding to that. But on the outside, it is basically just a magical garden. So both inside, outside, exactly what you're talking about. Very, very embodied experiences, let's say of art. So let's talk about Dongfeng. I mean, here you are, you're, you have a desire to raise up some stories that the world is not seeing. Tell us some of the surprises in searching and maybe some of the gems you have to leave on the cutting room floor. Yeah. I mean, I think, yeah. So Dongfeng, it's a pretty simple concept of how we approached coming up with this weekly digest of news sources from China or on China, mostly from China. I mean, you asked me what was surprising. One of them was talking about the experience of pandemic and the responses and the kind of, kind of how much this society still remains a very collective one in its, you know, in treatment of its people and its responses to crisis. So that's one thing. The other thing is definitely a really big shock of how poor our knowledge is for those coming outside of China to China about just basically anything. And so we started reading and reading a lot. And, you know, I like the campaign title, you know, that you have, just China is not the enemy because it seems like a simple phrase to say, but then it almost still, it feels necessary to say that, you know, it feels necessary in this moment to say that because we have very little news that brings that voices that are actually from China to the world. So we take 15 stories. We take dozens of stories in a team and we read them, we share them, we kind of, you know, do pitches about them. And then we choose 15 every week where we do little short summaries and do links. So they have different themes. So geopolitics obviously can be avoiding geopolitics in this moment, the key theme of our day to national politics issues, so national issues, there's economy and also issues like you brought up environment, agriculture, big questions that we have and health. Then the debates around science and technology. And then an other aspect, which is people's life and culture, which I already talked a little bit about a big part of, you know, you'll see if you read the digest, at the end, at the last section of every digest is always trying to bring some of this cultural element, bring some of these more real life people's stories. Get the links in the chat, try continental and... And then we also have, you know, actually this week we just launched a weekly video that's also trying to bring more of these visual elements to highlight the stories and photos. And all these things brings a little richer discussion to the point of the digest. But in terms of gems, it's like quite hard. We learned so many things in this process. I think one of the things, for instance, I mean, I think you're also your listeners or viewers and members of CodePick are interested in stories about women. You know, we try to bring some of those too from historical figures that we're learning about. There's a comrade who passed away. Her name is Wang Ding-Gou, who was part of the Long March. It was in 1934 where the Communist Party and thousands and thousands of soldiers had to flee persecution and they walked for one year across thousands and thousands of kilometers. And she is a story she just passed away. So she is recounting the story of how she was part of the theatrical group, you know? Doing these kinds of journeys and being in the army meant you had to really employ culture in a necessary way. You know, how to keep the morale up, how to entertain people on like, you're crossing mountains filled with snow and valleys, you know, and many people didn't make it and many people couldn't stand the hardship. It was amazing because we learned about her because she had actually been sold to her husband when she was 15 years old. And she escaped. She ran away when she was 20 to join the party and, you know, lifelong committed member until she died. I think she was 104 years old. So we hear, we see kinds of lots of stories like this that are just absolute gems. And I think there's another story that really impacted me is about a, it's a story called the Red Detachment of Women. It's also around the time of the 1930s. It's based on a real story, but it became essentially a popular culture mythology. You know, it has filmed since the 60s, it has become a National Ballet and now it's become a huge production that plays nightly in Hainan, which is the southern province, it's an island province, the most tropical area of China. So it's like palm trees and beaches and all beautiful things like that. But beyond the beauty of that, it's also a place where the first armed group of women decide to leave, they're all peasant women who were like, you know, basically enslaved by feudal lords, decide that they need to organize and they need to fight against, you know, the National Party, they had to fight against imperialism. And that's become, I mean, there's a play, I actually had a chance to go see this play. And you'll see it fits like 2000 people moving stages, big lights, like you're in the middle of the whole deal. And you're seeing kids, families, multi-generational families go there. You'll see people even arguing with the play as if they're watching like a soap opera. It's like very popular, very interactive in that way. And then when you leave, it's people, all the women actors, hundreds of them dressed in their red army outfits and all the kids are going up, taking photographs and selfies. And I thought I was like, this is incredible. This is incredible, but a story from the 1930s about women fighting against patriarchy, fighting against feudalism, fighting against landlords, fighting against imperialism is a relevant story for little kids to take selfie. It's not Mickey Mouse, you know? So there's something incredible to think, like that kind of interest in what they call here red culture, like a socialist or leftist culture, certainly things you won't see ever in news about what China looks like. But I think, I mean, I've been talking more about the cultural, the historical cultural aspects, but just to point out how also culture has evolved and stayed relevant with people. This is a story maybe from the 30s, but they've kind of reinvented in a way that's very much of 2020, that speaks to the young people of 2020, that I think is pretty incredible. And that's not even to speak of- Well, I think what's interesting about that is that the government is willing to have a piece of theater that's about an uprising. You know, as a group of revolutionary women, it's not what people want the story to be told about. They don't wanna know about that. That's super interesting. You know, one of the things that I noticed, a couple of the feedbacks that I've gotten on Dongfeng was I remember one issue, the cover photo was a trans newscaster on one of the biggest broadcasting companies. And some of the people around me were just like, trans exist in China. Like that was the shocker of that. That's how silly everybody's view. I remember when I was taking photos of wedding parties and there were lesbian couples and people just didn't believe me that that existed in China. So even just the basic, you know, I think there was an article recently about a sex change at the work and how the guy was won a case. And, you know, the struggles go on in China as they go on around the world. And it's not what people think about China. And I think one of the other things, even someone who runs a, you know, pretty radical think tank was just like blown away by the fact that so many Chinese people, I think it's over 90% understand the dangers of climate change and are pushing their governments, their local governments to do more. You know, let's, you know, climate change, that's not, you know, how sometimes when I talk about China, people are like, but they're the ones destroying the planet that these are people from the United States who have the biggest footprint in the world. But what have you seen about taking care of the planet? I mean, I think, I mean, I think with the, the environment question, which I mentioned, like it's something that we came with a lot of curiosity. I mean, there's, there's, there's, we have one section that's on agriculture and environment. We put them together and because they're pretty inseparable. You know, we started this conversation when you made it, you made a joke about Monsanto, you know, this, we know critically, the survival of the planet, survival of the people are, you know, completely interconnected. There's a few things we've been quite surprised. I think that the government here is really aware that there are environmental issues, you know, and that the kinds of, you know, the biggest issues people face right now are things from air quality to food security, to food safety, to, you know, and all those things. And so we've been kind of following the stories of how that's been responded to. One of the surprises, for instance, this that came out, I think last, last issue or two issues ago was that, well, I'll just give a little context. China has 1.4 billion people. It's to give a context is 20% of the world's population, but it only has 8% of the arable land, so the farmable land. That is a mathematically, it's a question, you know, it's a lot of, to feed people has always historically been one of the greatest challenges of this country. So it requires a lot of growth in other places. But in the middle of all this, it's a, you know, it's a food insecure time, let's say. Two weeks ago, there was a, we launched a story about Kafka, which is one of the state owned, one of the biggest food and agriculture companies that they've announced that they're gonna start, for instance, tracking where the soybean comes from, because soy consumption and a lot of soy production in a lot of the world actually gets exported to China. That's not news to anyone. But they're actually starting to track it with the end of saying, oh, we're not gonna start, we're gonna stop buying from any place that is illegal deforestation areas. So they've highlighted specifically places like the Amazon and you know, other protected areas in Brazil. I mean, this is not a small statement for being the largest soy importer of the world of doing this. And why is that also important? Because there's a lot of questions about, you know, securing enough grain to feed the people, you know, securing enough soy, securing for the animals and all that. This last week, we also put out a story about food grains. So that's his rice and wheat and all those things. Even though there's great production here, despite the big floods, you might have seen some stories about historic floods here that was devastating for a lot of the crops. There's big fear about food shortage and also with the heightened, you know, kind of tensions with the US is a real threat of, you know, a food war even. But just a few days ago, Xi Jinping came out with a new campaign and a big campaign about food waste. Basically, reprimanding and saying to the whole country, listen, you know, everyone's arrived at a level of consumption that we've never seen before, but this food waste is not acceptable. You know, we're talking about on average, it's 11% of food being wasted per person. You go out to restaurants and meals. This is food to feed millions and millions of people if it's from the waste. So what I thought was really interesting is you used the main kind of slogan or saying, which in fact, my mom drilled into my head since I was a kid, really drilled, which is that every grain of rice is a sweat of a farmer. So I have like both Mao and Xi Jinping's voice in my head now. So reminding me. But I mean, even in a few days, the amount of campaigns, what does it look like from social media platforms? How are they responding to it? How does it, you know, how does actually get played out? It's pretty decisive. It's something that people will respond to and are hearing and makes a difference. So those are a couple of surprises about, you know, about the environment and food issues. And what about just recycling? Tell me about your own personal recycling. Yeah, oh my goodness, recycling here. And my partner is Brazilian and there's less recycling in Sao Paulo where we lived. And here now it's like, you know, it's a real strong duty, you know. They're just to give you an example of how it's organized in this small community. It's like, you know, very set hours and then you'll have, you know, your organics, you'll have your different types of recyclables. You then you have your non-recyclables. There's people who help you there. There's a little hand washing station to help you wash your hands afterwards. It's pretty quite organized, but it's been impressive because this is still a pretty new concept here, you know, to think about use of plastics. This is all about public education as well. And of course it's been heightened by the fact that once the coronavirus means that there's been a lot more deliveries like the rest of the world deliveries and consumption of plastics. So what two of the big campaigns has been against banning plastics in a lot of these delivery as well as like utensils or the kinds of cups and chopsticks and that kind of thing. To organizing mass recycling composting systems and they're going to start with, they started in Shanghai, Beijing and big cities but they're going to launch them in the 80 big cities soon. So these are kinds of, you know, pretty nation-wide projects that they're part public education that will take time to also change the habits of people. But I love the hand washing station. I think it's really helps encourage because, you know, sometimes you have all this organic stuff and you just wash your hands a little bit before you go to work. Oh my God, that's so lovely. What are some other of the rituals that you noticed that are different from say your life in, you know, Toronto or Sao Paulo or South Africa that are, you know, it's just that you feel the cultural difference. It was beautiful like what it is to be a woman. What about public transportation? Do you find that different or the same? I mean, Shanghai, I think since I lived near a subway line, it's a pretty, I mean, with all the days I take transport, one thing, unlike any other city I've ever lived in is I've never seen a, I've never seen one of those delays. I mean, I'm making a joke but I think overall the city, Shanghai is one of the kind of wealthy year, very cosmopolitan cities. So it has a really developed infrastructure for that. I don't know, in terms of other kinds of daily life, things that don't have anything that comes to mind. There's so many, I guess, that sometimes on the top of your head you don't really think about it at the moment. And has there been a lot of interest in Dongfeng? Have you found, are you getting a response from the readers? Are you getting, usually when you have an audience they kind of want the what they want. Are you hearing from your audience that more is missing than what you're delivering? Yeah, I mean, overall, I think the response has been overwhelmingly very positive. I think even more positive than the whole team working on this has expected. And it was very quick that the project has grown, I mentioned all the language it's in and there's already other languages coming up. We're starting to do videos and we're already planning other forms to share the content. I think it's just clear right now, there's been a, not just right now, but for a long time, there's been a huge hunger and absence of information coming, not mediated just by through New York or through Washington or through London, but actually some sources and voices coming from here. And what is interesting is that a lot of the information is there, but it takes a lot to, you know, both experiences of being here and observing and following, but also reading through and collecting it all. We've received really amazing personal feedback, you know, from Cuba to, you know, Spain to Portugal to South Africa to Morocco to pretty much like dozens and dozens of countries. We've gotten responses not only from, you know, activists from social movements to leaders of social movements to academics, journalists. It's clearly a necessity. And right now we're living in a new world. So it's kind of why we have China is not our enemy because there's this big vacuum with no definition, which makes it very easy to throw tomatoes at, but it's super serious for us in the United States because at a time when, you know, global superpower should be getting along and solving these really intense problems. We're watching hate and lies driven, you know, and what time we have left, why, what would you say to the audience of like, why should they make sure that China is not our enemy? Like, what do you see? How do you, what do you see and feel there? Do you feel an enemy? Do you feel concerned? Do you, I mean, I always say about my husband that he lives in the future or at least the future I want to live in. What is something that really could communicate that, you know, China is not only our enemy, it could be a really great friend. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I think that the, yeah, I like what you said in terms of living in the future. I simply feel like I've been transported into the future. I mean, I think I'll use an example. Like this week, one of the stories was that among the many, many, many different groupings that have been put onto this foreign mission list by the US, now they've added Confucius Institutes, which is, you know, a grouping of educational institutes, culture sharing institutes, you know, where people get to learn across universities, campuses and school campuses, how to exchange with another culture. I mean, that's essential. It seems very clear if that is kind of put on a list of our enemies, there's something really misguided about how we can foster kind of human understanding about a different people. I mean, if learning about calligraphy or the poetry or history of another society, let alone it's people's daily life experiences, realities, concerns or aspirations, what they think about is denied, then I mean, that is, that's pretty tragedy. And I feel like we should feel angry about that. You know, we should feel like we're being denied a possibility to engage. And certainly, I mean, from the experiences that we've had here, coming here at this time, there's so much learning to be done from here. There's so much that is impressive about how society organizes itself, how the people are put ahead of all else, how even the economy, you know, how people band together, the kinds of values, the kinds of, how the values are deployed in a systematized way, in a way that, you know, is actually organized, it has planning and all these things. I mean, we're seeing just basically this, this mass of people who are impoverished, who are generally black and brown, who are in many of the places in the world and the capitalist world that has all this abundance being thrown to the side right now, you know, if there's something that we want to learn, of course we have to be on the side of the people. So that's all to say, it's a loss for everyone of us if we don't get to learn more about what has happened here, exchange more and we hope we can, you know, as Dong Feng Collective be a bit more of that bridge, provide a little more information, learn, hear, get feedback about what are the kind of burning questions and try to fulfill some of that because that bridging is more necessary than ever. Oh my God, what a beautiful way to end because it's really, you are a peacemaker there. What you're creating with Dong Feng Collective is the pastapies, so super grateful. I wanted to just, you know, when we say that someone's an artist, we have an opportunity to show a little bit of your art and I just wanted to share the screen and show some of your tri-continental covers and let everyone know that they can follow you on Instagram at Ting's Chuck and also that we've put in the chat where you can subscribe to Dong Feng Collective and also the tri-continental and there's the issue that she showed you the photographs out of is a great way to get smarter about China and COVID and I just, you know, last night there was a big party in Wuhan and it was trending in the United States. It was a pool party and when we talk about the future it was there where, you know, Americans were looking at it kind of in crazy envy of just huddled altogether dancing and at a pool party and someone from China said, this is what happens when central government acts decisively to crush COVID, the whole city locks down, the hospital's built in seven days, 11 million tested and three months later we live in normal and I think that was a hard tweet to read when we're at the most desk a day here and in so many places around the world. So thank you Ting's, thanks for joining us. You're amazing, thanks for all the beauty you bring into the world and all the connection. Thank you, thank you, take good care.