Goodreads Doesn't Have It, Data Migration: Post-Chineseness
When we think of China, we may think of historical China. But current China is a different beast entirely. Ever since the Cultural Revolution, when moments of true craft and meaning where thrown away for a twisted sense of social justice, China has become something new. This issue is very complex as well. China is a huge, massive empire of land still and continues to be that way. But just like Korea, there are so many differences in regions and provinces that there is no particular person you can point to and say "that there is someone purely Chinese". In this book, there is excellent analysis of the constant tension between a pluralist inclusion wherein "altercasting" is used to slowly link people together that takes on a more indigenous bent. Then, there is the sinological Chinese that is lacking in rigorous social method, reductive, and excessively political. What comes to mind is a rich constellation of stars and then the idea of a "galaxy"; yet galaxy is meaningless when one considers that there are more orderly miniscule gravities such as solar systems, moons and planets, etc., that better describe the specific situation as opposed to a heap of generally-together things called a "galaxy". This is the concept behind China. This book does a really excellent job unpacking this huge and difficult dynamic, including an excellent analysis on Singapore, Myanmar, and even speaking on a residual feeling of emptiness from the Cultural Revolution that I believe even somewhat explains North Korea. North Korea and Korea itself are rather excluded from this text, which I don't find ok. But this text will really help you understand the thought process of China which is not rigorously concrete but deeply relational without necessarily being conversational; coherent, yet somehow lacking in a deeper global coherence. ..almost as though the entire nation is kept together by some sort of dark matter of "reflexive altercasting", conscious and continuous "China-making" while encouraging a falling apart into "China-losing" through the sharing and relocation into the indigenous, specific identity. And that all of this is part of the real "China". Probably the best text on understanding the real, deep, and new way of being a nation that constitutes the mystery of Chinese international relations.