KAPOK: To go or not to go?

Culture as a concept is notorious for being both wide in scope and pretty vague in meaning. In most encyclopedic volumes, the first reference to it appears in Cicero’s writing as “cultura animi”, the cultivation of the soul or mind, thus an agricultural metaphor expressing the unique capability of a human being to enrich himself or herself, and therefore develop and realize their full and highest potential — philosophically speaking.
In the nineteenth century, romanticism gave culture a particular twist, less universal and more exclusive: culture became closely associated with nations and the ferment of national identities. Along with sweeping modernity arose the distinction between “high” or noble culture vs. “low” or popular culture, thus the reference to cultural specificities and a hierarchy of culture were the grammar of national exclusion and social division. The excess and brutality of the reign of ideologies in the twentieth century, among which nationalism fared on par with Communism and Nazism, led to a critical reappraisal of the notion.
In the words of the famous American anthropologist Clifford Geertz, culture is “a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life.” The important idea here, contrary to what Samuel Huntington simplistically professed in his “Clash of Civilizations,” is that culture is not reified or solidified knowledge: it changes over time and transformations derive from outside borrowing, and thus acculturation and accommodation. Nevertheless, as Geertz puts it, “culture is simply the ensemble of stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.”
Then why on earth would the United Association of Food and Beverage Merchants of Macao (UAFBM), the association that organizes the Macao Food Festival, decide “not to feature any Japanese food stalls coming from Japan” because of the “relatively high tense political atmosphere between China and Japan” over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands? Isn’t the food festival supposed to be about culture? Didn’t the UAFBM receive close to MOP 10 million from the Macau Foundation for its “project in support of the preservation of eateries in Macao” in August alone? Isn’t Mr Chan Chak Mo, the president of the UAFBM, also a functional member of the Legislative Assembly representing, precisely, culture? What’s the story then?
First, UAFBM doesn’t really deal with culture: not once, in its statutes, is the word culture in Chinese mentioned. Worse, article 2 states that the purpose of the association is to “love the motherland, uphold the ‘one country, two systems’ principle” and of course defend the legitimate rights and interests of the members of that particular industry. Mr Chan: where is your cultural background and why is the Macau Foundation providing your association with funding? And why would “one country” understood narrowly prevail over the “second system”? Mr Chan Chak Mo is concurrently the managing director of Future Bright Holdings, one of the heavyweights of F&B in Macao (which also operates on the mainland…) listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, that operates 24 restaurants and 10 food court counters, including quite a few Japanese ones: no wonder then that the Festival’s Japanese corner is going to be filled by over twenty restaurants run by Macau operators! 
If I were my usual self I would merely say: boycott the Macao Food festival! This meddling of politics into culture and especially food culture — remember I am French, almost as inquisitive and demanding for food as a Chinese person can be — is a disgrace, a shameful and insidious act of self-absorbed petty business interests draped in bloated half-baked patriotic disguise! But then, not all the food stalls participating in the event are responsible for the misguided verdicts of Mr Chan’s association, so I will be reasonable: boycott all Future Bright stalls at the festival! Shanghai 456, Cafe Lan, Madeira or Oishii Ichiban and Edo don’t need and certainly don’t deserve your Patacas!

Published in Macau Daily Times on October 26th 2012

KAPOK: The Blame Game

From a purely heuristic point of view, the Lau Si Lo resignation rumor has two virtues. On the one hand it allows us to reflect on the ins and outs of a rumor: who has an interest in spreading it? Why and how does it spread? Ultimately, that might be conducive to doing something about it. On the other hand, it entices a debate on responsibility, blame and citizen empowerment.
In his little book aptly entitled On Rumors, American law professor Cass Sunstein distinguishes between four main types of rumor propagators: the ‘narrowly self-interested’, the ‘generally interested’, the ‘altruistic’ and the ‘malicious’. The narrowly self-interested ones are in the game for personal gain, either for money or to get ahead in a competitive environment. The generally interested ones seek to attract attention and to raise eyebrows in public, for the benefit of a group interest. The altruistic have a different playing field: they vie to promote the public good and are often genuinely outraged by what they denounce through the spread of rumor. Finally, the malicious just want to inflict pain, to injure others for the sake of doing so. What all of these propagators have in common is that most of them are no way near knowing the truth, and can offer little or no evidence of what they profess. Also, a rumor will be spread by different propagators at the same time, and so the question remains: what makes a rumor “successful”, if by successful we mean spreading widely, even though it might very well be false?
Sunstein thus emphasizes the importance of what he calls ‘prior convictions’: “whether people believe a rumor depends on what they thought before they heard it.” Firstly, because our beliefs are ‘motivated’ by our hopes, goals and desires. Secondly, because the rumor adequately or less so fits what we already know. Thus “thresholds” for accepting rumors are different from one place to another. Then the transmission of the rumor comes into play, mainly as a result of ‘social cascades’: firstly ‘informational cascades’, imperfectly informed or totally ignorant, one finds it increasingly difficult to resist what one hears from others; as well as ‘conformity cascades’ - one does not want to be seen as socially inapt by escaping peer pressure in not believing. Of course, ‘group polarization’, and thus the strengthening of one’s own convictions through discussions with like-minded people also play a role.
As of now, while reading the newspapers and discussing with friends who know presumably little about the Lau Si Lo case, I would acknowledge that there are only three types of propagators, as I haven’t read or heard any purely malicious comments regarding Secretary Lau’s potential dismissal. What is striking though is how nobody has really challenged the rumor, except for the person concerned and his boss, who have offered up to now only a mere denial or muttered response — and rightly so as the pace of government cannot be the same as the media’s.
Extensive ‘prior convictions’ seem to be giving an additional momentum for this rumor to stick and amplify: starting with what we know for sure — a very critical CCAC report regarding the LRT and the nullification of all the La Scala land grants by the government in September — all the way to what society widely postulates since the unraveling of the Ao Man Long scandal in 2006 — that corruption, conflict of interests and clientelism are original sins in our policy.
What is to be done then? How can rumor be fought in an environment where the culture of irresponsibility is tolerated, the lack of responsiveness on the side of public authorities is putative, and extremely powerful individuals are completely unaccountable, either through elections or vivid grilling by a truly muckraking press? At the end of the day, responsibility has to be shared in a community and we all must assume part of the burden. Nothing new under the sun here: both Socrates and Confucius were advocates of this individual imperative! You and I are also to be blamed for not being demanding enough…

Published in Macau Daily Times on Friday 12 October