Monday 13 October 2014

Book Review: The Hobbit

I finished reading J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit to Mulan last night.

Once again, Mulan has thoroughly enjoyed the story.  And once again, ideas from the book spilt over into everyday life.  Mulan liked to tell Miya about what was happening in the book, and every once in a while she liked to recall the names of all 13 dwarves in the story (sometimes we missed a pair!).  Miya now knows some of them too, and if we start to say “Thorin”, she will finish his name “Oakenshield”!

Since The Hobbit is about wizards, magic, mythical creatures and the fight between good and evil, and, moreover, it is told from the perspective of the title character (who is an honourable, childlike, everyday person) it is tempting to compare The Hobbit with Harry Potter.  Or, more accurately, The Hobbit could be compared with the first few Harry Potter books, while The Lord of the Rings could be compared with the later Potter books.

When it comes to excitement levels invoked in Mulan, the winner is clearly Harry Potter.  But The Hobbit is not a far distant loser; it is just that Harry Potter was extra-special in how it took over general daily conversation for a while.

With respect to the writing style, The Hobbit is very, very good, and I have no doubt that it was exactly Mulan’s level right now.  I think this was a good time to read it to Mulan.  But as I have said countless times before, the writing style of Harry Potter is brilliant, in being perfectly attuned to children.  I think Rowling is much more sensitive to her readers’ psychology and is much more child-friendly.

How about the story?  The plot of The Hobbit itself is mostly rip-roaring adventure—fighting trolls, goblins, wolves, spiders and a dragon.  There is never a dull moment.  It is simple and direct and exciting.  There is not so much everyday life stuff like with Harry.  Tolkien is a little less sensitive than Rowling, and there is much more violence and death than in the first few Harry Potter books.  If parents are worried about protecting young children from violence, than Harry Potter would be much better than The Hobbit.  But I don’t think Mulan was too bothered by it all.

And the themes?  As I say, both books are told from the perspective of the title character, who is, importantly, the moral centre of the story.  The central character of both books is, essentially, not a physical or intellectual hero who surpasses the abilities of the other characters.  In fact, both are often a lot weaker.

In this sense, these two books are very different from many other sci-fi or fantasy books, where the central character typically has exceptional abilities (such as in Dune or Ender’s Game).  Both Harry Potter and Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit, don’t take charge to dominate.  They are often much more passive to let things happen to them.  And yet, when everything else is chaotically going on around them, they maintain their solid, moral cores.  When needed, it is their moral cores which allow them to quietly come to the front and lead, at least for the time it is needed.  It is these moral characters which, I think, are supposed to set the uplifting and encouraging tones of the books.

What then, is the moral centre of The Hobbit?  The important point is that Bilbo is supposed to be the one who doesn’t lose his head in the face of power or riches.  Pretty much everyone else around him, when offered the chance of power and wealth, gets greedy.  But Bilbo, even when he could have it, and even while clearly enjoying it, doesn’t get too carried away by it all, and is just as happy to not have it.  Bilbo, then, centrally, is not at all ambitious and is not much interested in building, or leading or acquiring stuff.

Bilbo, also, is polite and hospitable, though he also likes his privacy.  His sense of justice, which he sticks to even when it might bring him great harm, is focused on honest, open exchanges and no deviousness (his acquisition of the ring is the one big exception to this).  He is not at all prejudiced against other peoples or social groups, and is happy to make friends with anyone who doesn’t offend this basic honesty and decency.

But along with this, Bilbo still likes his simple creature comforts, of a bed and good (and frequent) meals.  He likes singing and dancing, and has a taste for poetry and books.

These three aspects—lack of ambition, politeness, and enjoyment of simple creature comforts—are the values which Tolkien is clearly advocating in the story.

But just as importantly, while Bilbo is loyal to his friends and acquaintances, he seems not much interested in social justice (unlike Harry Potter).  He stands by his principles when he encounters stuff in his everyday life, but nowhere does it seem that he goes very far out of his way to get involved with others in need.  He is content to keep himself to himself in his comfortable life.  It also appears that Bilbo doesn’t do much to earn a living, and he lives in the home that his father built.  He appears to have mostly inherited his simple, comfortable life, rather than earned it.  Bilbo, then, represents the somewhat self-satisfied, socially unaware and unmotivated middle classes, who might have one big overseas adventure and then return home again.

Throughout Bilbo’s one-year journey in the story, he maintains this central moral core.  The main change in Bilbo’s character, from beginning to end, is that he begins to know himself more.  That is, rather than remaining naively simple, simplicity shows out as a conscious choice of character.  He also grows in self-confidence from his initial flustering and complaining to his later calmer acceptance of things.

In many ways, then, The Hobbit is a very good morality story for children.  Towards the end, when the dwarves, men and elves were lining up to fight each other over the gold in the mountain, Mulan (as I sure was intended by Tolkien) very rightly pointed out, in a very determined voice, that they should not be going to war over the gold.  Similarly, her sense of justice was clearly with Bilbo when he risked great personal harm in his attempt to broker peace between the sides.  And I am sure that she agreed with him about enjoying home and a comfortable life.

But because Bilbo is, basically, a lazy, self-absorbed, elitist lump when it comes to wider social issues, I think Harry Potter is far superior as a moral teacher for children.

The Hobbit is an awesome book, and essential reading for all children.  But it is still nowhere near as good as Harry Potter.

---

Note: when Mama read this she said that Bilbo sounds exactly like me.  I immediately protested, and said it was more like her.  I’m not sure who is right.  At the very least, I like to think that I am more socially aware!  But, like Bilbo, I suppose I do have a very British outlook on life, and similarly, my almost-ten-years adventuring in China has clarified to me my central moral core.  Now, like him, I am returning home.

Saturday 4 October 2014

Moving to New Zealand

For those who don’t know, the countdown has started for our move to Auckland, New Zealand.

Mama has already officially quit her job, and we are now a no-income family.

Our cats will depart first.  They are scheduled to be picked up and moved to Hong Kong quarantine on the 6th of November.  They will stay in Hong Kong for six months, before moving to New Zealand and staying in quarantine there for another two weeks.

We have booked our one-way flights, and we leave Guangzhou on the 12th of November.

Until then, we will be flat out (like lizards drinking) continuing to box our belongings.  (One of the hugely helpful things that my parents did while here in Guangzhou was to get us started with the packing.)  Sometime shortly after the cats leave, we aim for a truck to come and pick up our stuff and deliver it to a shipping container, which will hopefully carry everything safely to New Zealand.  With any luck, we will start to unpack in our New Zealand home before Christmas.


All this means that I will not be posting much (if anything) on this blog for the next couple of months.

Beijing

We have just got back from a two-week trip to Beijing.

My first time in Beijing was in 2006, and since then we have holidayed up there for a few weeks most years.  I think, on balance, I prefer Beijing to Guangzhou, though I still doubt I would want to live there permanently, with the (literally) killer smog.  (While Guangzhou pollution has visually decreased in the several years I have been here, Beijing seems to just get worse and worse.)

I especially like that Beijing is a more international city than Guangzhou, with all the diversity and pluralistic acceptance that that brings.  I like that I don’t feel quite so noticed, there.

One obvious visual difference is that there are more foreigners around.  In a (typically) packed subway carriage, we might see one or two other non-Asian faces every time, unlike in Guangzhou where we may go several journeys without seeing another foreigner.  We also see far more diversity amongst the Chinese faces, with a far greater display of Chinese ethnicities.

At one modern outdoor cafĂ©-spot that we stopped at with friends, I took the girls to play in the nearby public space, where there were several other children playing around.  At one point, a Scandinavian mother asked a Chinese boy if her children could please play with his toys.  She spoke to him very slowly and clearly in English, first asking if he understood her.  Her English was fluently excellent, but obviously not native, as she spoke to her children in another language.  He replied to her with a strong, native-level, American accent!  Pretty much all the children in the area were chattering to each other in standard American English.

Another sign of the international feel is that in my two weeks there I even saw, separately, a dozen or more adults on foot-powered, adult-sized scooters.  I like to zip around my local area here in Guangzhou on my scooter, but in my years of living here I have only ever seen a couple of other adults doing the same thing, and when I go scooting by I always get plenty of curious stares.  Apparently not so in Beijing, where adults on scooters is more normalised.

On two separate occasions, too, I saw small groups of cosplayers socialising in the public spaces.  I have never seen that in Guangzhou.

There are also plenty of adults out running in the evenings in lycra outfits.  Even the local Beijing men don’t seem to have a problem with wearing their tight, buttock-hugging, lycra leggings in public.  Here in Guangzhou, I am almost too shy to wear my lycra leggings outside, for all the staring it causes from the locals.

I also prefer the Beijing weather to that of Guangzhou.  Or, at least I have preferred the weather during the times I have been there.  I have yet to experience a Beijing winter, though that is definitely on my future to-do list.  (I find it so intriguing to read on the signs by lakes “no swimming, fishing or ice skating”.  Wow, frozen lakes and outdoor ice-skating—that is so outside my experiences!)

Local Beijing food is much better, too!

But closely following the smog problem, the next killer issue with Beijing is the cars.  Each time we go there, it is worse, in my opinion.  I remember when I visited Kaohsiung in Taiwan many years ago being surprised to see that motor scooters used the footpaths like car parks.  They would ride up onto the footpath and park, side-by-side, by the dozen, along every street.  In Beijing, it is the cars that use the footpaths as car parks.  If the footpaths are wide enough, they drive along them like roads to find their preferred spot.  If the footpaths are narrower, then they just turn in and mount the curb, covering the entire width of the footpath.  This time in Beijing, we felt that this has all become too much.

Why were we up in Beijing?

Mostly, it was for the oldies.

Firstly, it was for Mama and the girls to say goodbye to Laolao (Mama’s mum).  With us soon in New Zealand and her in China, we won’t see much of her for a while.  Mama and the girls stayed at Laolao’s place for the entire time we were there.

Secondly, it was for Nainai and Yeye (my mum and dad).  They have just returned to New Zealand after a month here in China.  They spent half their time here in Guangzhou, then they took the fast train up north for a bit of stereotypical China-sightseeing.  They stopped off in Xi’an for a few days, visiting the terracotta warriors in their pits.  Then they had a week in Beijing.  I was their tour guide to the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and Temple of Heaven.  I had a day off when one of Yeye’s old students took them to the Summer Palace.

For the week that my parents were in Beijing, I stayed with them in a two-bedroom apartment about 30 minutes’ walk from Laolao’s home.  I visited Mama and the girls each day, but it is still the most I have been separated from the girls in their lives.  After Nainai and Yeye flew back to New Zealand, I moved back into Laolao’s crowded home with them.

But truth be told, I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Beijing, too, and it wasn’t just a duty trip for the oldies.  These iconic Beijing locations are still breathtaking to experience, even though it was my third time on the Wall and to the Temple of Heaven, and second in the Forbidden City (and about my dozen-th time in the big T-Square—where the security gets tighter with every visit).

I think my most enjoyable times were spent in the Olympic Forest Park.  Laolao lives within walking distance of the 2008 Beijing Olympic centre, and I went three times to the park—once with the girls and twice on my own.  Each of those three days were clear, blue-sky days, and the autumn weather was very mild and pleasant.

It was a great feeling, of course, to walk past the “Bird’s Nest” stadium and “Water Cube” swimming centre.  (Though in my opinion, the area is now, six years after the event, starting to look a little rundown, with rust, weeds and broken bits.)  But the best bit by far is the little slice of heaven of foresty-park in the middle of the city.  It really is quite remarkable.

The park itself is huge, and one can walk for many hours along the paths, beside the lake and through the trees.  (I wouldn’t quite call it a forest, as the trees are planted a little too regularly and with big gaps between them.)  The park can get pretty crowded, but often I was still able to find secluded spots out of the way to lie down and read in peace and quiet.  One time I saw a chipmunk scurry past me as I sat quietly on a rock.  (At the Temple of Heaven, my parents and I watched a squirrel for several minutes as it darted around up and down trees.)


In the Olympic Forest Park, I finally understood why the sports shops in China sell tents.  I have always wondered, because I have never known Chinese to be big campers.  But the big grassy fields in the park were an eye-opener.  In the weekends and public holidays, hundreds of locals set up their tents for the day, side-by-side like a camping ground, where they relax, picnic and play games.  I have never seen this happen in Guangzhou.


In our two weeks in Beijing, we experienced the change of season, from mid-high 20s autumn temperature, to slightly more icy hint-of-winter weather.  While we were on the Great Wall the temperature dropped to 14 degrees, and the mist closed in around us.  In our final few days there, I swapped my shorts for longs, and I even appreciated the sweatshirt I brought with me.

Back here in Guangzhou, we are back to summer again.  It will be nice to have two Chinese autumns this year.