First Episode 66: 蜗居 Dwelling Narrowness

[Guest realmayo]

Help please! I'm half way though this, like it a lot, quite surprising to watch some of this stuff in a regular TV Chinese TV show. My Chinese isn't good enough to understand everything, so I'm hoping someone who's watched it and can remember can explain: a couple of episodes ago we saw for the first time some hardcore government guy had a talk with another where they discussed one of the main characters -- they were talking about the government chap who's having it off with the pretty girl. And in the episode I've just finished this has become a full-scale secret investigation. But I didn't understand why they decided to investigate him in the first place. Can anyone remember? And can you tell me without giving anything away about what happens during the investigation and during the rest of the show? I'm assuming it's just general corruption but that is only a guess and I don't know if there's anything more significant that I missed. Thanks!

[yonglin]

But I didn't understand why they decided to investigate him in the first place.

You haven't realized he's like... extremely corrupt? How do you think he can live such a fancy life style being a mere government worker? The construction industry in China needs to get land leases from the government to build anything in the first place. So the guy running the construction company needs to have good guanxi with some government official to get land access. Why do you think they went on the golf round?

[Guest realmayo]

So what you're trying to say is: in the meeting they said that his level of corruption was excessive?

[yonglin]

So what you're trying to say is: in the meeting they said that his level of corruption was excessive?

As far as I'm aware, corruption is illegal in China.

[Guest realmayo]

Perhaps you're not aware that corruption is believed to be widespread among Chinese officials? I know you're trying to help, but what I'm trying to understand is why the guy's being investigated by those secret investigators. Why pick on him? -- is there a special reason why they've chosen him for investigation: eg if his corruption is excessive, or if he annoyed someone, or if he was just unlucky. This TV series, which seems to be quite "knowing" about lots of aspects of Chinese life, presents his activities as fairly commonplace and unremarkable ... or have I misunderstood something?

[yonglin]

It's not like I'm living under a rock or anything -- of course I know that corruption is widespread in China (and other countries), especially among government officials. This doesn't mean it's ignored by Chinese authorities.

If you follow the news, you will find that it's not rare for top levels of the party to orchestrate crackdowns on corruption -- they bring on a high-profile case and then take it to court, mainly in order to show that the government really is trying to do something about corruption. These cases aren't necessarily much worse than your "average" corrupt government official. The idea is that the "good people" in the party (usually higher-level officials) want to demonstrate to the public that they're trying to get rid of the "bad people" in the party (usually lower-level officials). That is, since you want to maintain that the party isn't "bad" in itself, you need to find some way to explain why it sometimes does bad things (e.g., take bribes). The obvious solution is to find a scapegoat and get rid of that person. I think this is the main point of these crackdowns.

I'm not sure whether it's explicitly stated who tipped off the investigation team (I couldn't understand every part of the series). But I would think that in general, you could probably find corruption if you scratch the surface of about any government official (especially if they deal with land leases), and then it's just about collecting some tangible evidence. In that sense, my interpretation is that Song Siming was just "unlucky" (it could have happened to any corrupt government official, but happened to him). That said, the fact that he was involved in the high-profile case alluded to throughout the series probably didn't help.

I think the fact that corruption is treated as "unremarkable" is the entire point: it's such an integral part of society that no one really reflects on it anymore. Then, once in a while, the government comes in and puts on a show to demonstrate that they're trying to do something about it. This has some real effect for approximately one or two individuals -- for the remaining 1.3 billions, it's business as usual.

[doraemon]

You can easily tell that Song Siming's corrupt from the thrifty lifestyle he lives with his wife and daughter (so no one suspects him of bribery)in contrast with the lavish and wasteful lifestyle he provides Haizao with.

[Guest realmayo]

Sorry my original question was so unclear. I simply wanted to know if there was any special reason he was being investigated. After all, lots of officials take bribes and kickbacks and they're not all investigated. Anyway I guess if no one knows then it's not important to the plot or anything, so never mind.

[rob07]

The Song Siming character is based on a real life Shanghai party boss who went to jail for corruption, Chen Liangyu. Chen Liangyu was a protege of Jiang Zemin and a key member of the Shanghai clique. It is generally thought that the reason he was jailed for corruption was that he posed a real political threat to Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao. He was corrupt of course, but that wasn't the problem in and of itself.

This context would have been very much on the minds of the author of the book, the producers of the TV show, the politically sophisticated viewers of the TV show and the censors. So the TV show has to take the position that the people investigating Song Siming are staunchly upright moral heroes who live only to serve the people and have a zero-tolerance attitude to corruption of all kinds, no matter what.

Have a look at Chen Liangyu's wikipedia entry, although don't assume that things will end in the TV show in the same way as they did in real life.

[Guest realmayo]

SPOILERS (but I'm assuming given earlier posts that anyone reading here is prepared for spoilers)

OK, finished this today. Definitely glad I watched it. Doesn't exactly end happily for too many of them though does it? Couldn't work out at the end if the older sister uses the money from SONG to set up her school, or returns it to the government. Whatever, the school is bound to fail: the bearded American, who admittedly has excellent listening abilities, did not improve his spoken Chinese one jot despite months (years?) of one-on-one tuition with her. Still, he gets a pretty girl at the end I suppose.

Had no idea until I read it that 小贝 is played by the same actor who starred in the last Chinese TV series I watched, 《奋斗》. I'll put that down to his excellent acting...

I don't know if anyone who's watched 《蜗居》 remembers, but there's these very ominous two notes, the second lower than the first, played on the piano when anything bad is just about to happen, which is pretty much a constant the final few episodes. So I think I need some sappy Taiwan drama next as an antidote:　perhaps I'll take in 《不良笑花》 again, and then put it up as a First Episode: it's a glaring omission on Renzhe's otherwise excellent list.

[Steingletscher]

I just finished transcribing the first episode of this show and will probably continue until I have done the first 6. I was too lazy to look for the uncensored version since I could easily download the censored one via PTV. There doesn't seem to be too much demand for it, but I'm doing it as was a way to practice my listening by first forcing myself to look at everything said and then watch and rewatch over and over until it I can hear very clearly what they are saying. I don't know how long it will take to do all 6, but I'll probably get it done by the end of the year. 

 

As for the show, I don't particularly like it and all of the characters disgust me in some way, though are way more realistic then 奋斗's (which I just finished recently). Plus the topics the show raises makes it more relevant and useful to learn in today's China.

 

By the way, is the uncensored version of the show any better? Does it really make a lot of difference?

 

 

蜗居 (Censored) 1.rtf

[roddy]

Excellent, will add a link to the first post so newcomers find it easily. 

[Steingletscher]

I finished the second episode. Again, it is the edited 33 episode version as opposed to the 35 uncensored one. Looks like I won't be finish the first 6 by the end of the year, or even one a week, but I'll get there.

蜗居 (censored) 2.rtf