Seth Faison, the former Shanghai bureau chief for The New York Times and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, spoke at Hamilton College on Thursday, April 7. Faison discussed his experiences as a writer in China for 12 years in a lecture titled "Chinese Shadows: A Writer Reflects on Peeling Away Layers of Secrecy in Shanghai."
Faison began his lecture by discussing his childhood, growing up in New York City. He recalled his home life, noting that his parents were passionate about The New York Times, and Faison "took in that spirit" and became an "addict" of the newspaper himself. He attributes his love of the newspaper to his adventurous spirit. "To an impressionable teen, the [newspaper] columnists are very authoritative," he noted.
After college, Faison dabbled in politics, but quickly decided that life as a politician would be too restrictive for him. A college friend had gone to Asia, and had written to him about his adventures in Asia, a then-mysterious and dangerous place, according to Faison. "It took a leap of faith," he remembers, but Faison ended up traveling to China to study the culture, learn Mandarin, and expand his own intellectual horizons.
He quickly learned how secretive Chinese society was; "people's interactions were discreet and indirect," Faison explained. It was this element of cultural secrecy that drew him in. After two years of studying in China, Faison journeyed to Hong Kong to become a journalist. He explained the ease of finding a journalism job in Hong Kong. Although he first though that journalism was a very superficial vocation, the job turned out to be a perfect fit for a young, curious man like himself.
After working in Hong Kong for a little while, he was sent to Beijing in 1988; Faison explained what great timing he had to be sent to Beijing at that time, approximately one year before the historic student movement that occurred in 1989.
Faison then discussed at length his experiences covering the student movement and described living through Tiananmen Square; "I think we were all permanently scarred by it," he recalled.
He spent the rest of his lecture explaining his journalism experiences in Shanghai and discussing the changing political, economic and social economy of China today.
Faison encouraged questions, comments and criticisms from the audience. An extensive question and answer session followed the lecture; students posed questions regarding homosexuality in China, his experiences as a journalist in communist China, his experiences working for The New York Times, and the current "competition" between U.S. and Chinese markets. Faison also provided more details about Tiananmen Square, describing the leadership within the student movement and the "secretive" problems at the top of the communist party at the time.
He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 as a member of The New York Times team covering the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing. Faison is the author of a newly published book, South of the Clouds: Exploring the Hidden Realms of China. His talk was sponsored by the Asian Studies Program, the Government Department, and the Edwin B. Lee Fund.
-- by Emily Lemanczyk '05
