14 書香人物 P E R S O N A L I T Y & B O O K S SUNDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2008 • TAIPEI TIMES

[ HARD C O V E R : U k ] SUNDAY PROFILE

Hubble, bubble, CNN correspondent . toil and trouble photo: reuters J.K. Rowling’s ‘The Tales of Beedle the Bard’ keep the magic of Harry Potter alive

by COLETTE BANCROFT NY times news service, St Petersburg, Florida

arry Potter isn’t a character in The Tales of I stay away from ... the highly HBeedle the Bard, but that opinionated, highly ideological familiar name, with its lightning- bolt “P,” takes pride of place atop [demagoguery] that exists and the book’s cover. masquerades as journalism. I As it should. J.K. Rowling’s latest addition to the Potter stay in the fact-based reality. canon, published Thursday, doesn’t feature new adventures — Christiane Amenpour, journalist at Hogwarts, but it expands the magical universe she created in her seven enormously popular novels in intriguing new ways. Potter fans will of course have heard of The Tales of Beedle the Bard. The book, a collection of five fairy tales for wizarding children, played a crucial role in the final novel, Harry Potter and Going on guts the Deathly Hallows. The Tales of Beedle the Bard In that book, a very old copy of Tales was bequeathed by By J.K. Rowling CNN’s top reporter has spent nearly 20 years telling stories from all over the world but now, Hogwarts headmaster Albus 111 pages Dumbledore to Hermione as she prepares for a new show, she has the biggest global story on her doorstep Granger, and, ever the girl to do Children’s High Level Group/ Scholastic By Suzanne Goldenberg her homework, she spent much Staff reporter of the novel puzzling out the significance of one fable, The Tale of the Three Brothers research Tales didn’t exist outside the is another morning when Barack CNN. The program does not yet have an decimated by a plunge in advertising that helped Harry defeat the evil pages of Hallows until Rowling It Obama — still not officially president official start date, title, or even a format, revenues, and journalist lay-offs. Lord Voldemort. created seven hand-written, — is offering assurances that he can lead although Amanpour says she will still All of that has affected storytelling, The wizard Beedle purportedly illustrated copies of it last year. America out of the economic crisis, and travel for the show. “I am not going to sit as has the rise of the Internet, which wrote the five stories down in the Richly bound and garnished with Christiane Amanpour glances over her back and not be a reporter.” Amanpour sees as a leading culprit in the 15th century, but don’t fear any jewels, six of them became gifts shoulder at the television in her New That will be reassuring for many dying practice of serious journalism. struggle with their language in to her friends. York office. For a television reporter who Americans who see Amanpour as At a time when most members of the this book, a modern translation The seventh copy was came to personify a world in crisis in the their personal jolt of reality, a face media are desperate to show their Web 2.0 “from the ancient runes by auctioned to benefit the 1990s, covering the first Gulf war, Bosnia, synonymous with the reporting of serious smarts, Amanpour is defiantly unrecon- Hermione Granger,” as the title Children’s High Level Group, Rwanda, Haiti, Iran, and Afghanistan events: war, disaster, famine, AIDS. structed. She does not use a BlackBerry. page advises. a charity for kids that Rowling for CNN, the reflex is understandable. The With the rich timbre of her voice and She hardly ever blogs. She does not Face- Once again, Rowling co-founded (www.chlg.org/). world’s economic meltdown is undeniably her accent — Amanpour has an Iranian book. She is not even sure what Twitter is. demonstrates her mastery of Amazon paid a cool US$4 million the story of our age. father and grew up in Tehran and “It’s a quality of life issue. I am a communi- folklore and how it works. Where for that copy, and it became clear But something is not right. “To me, — when the CNN journalist arrived on cator. I need to talk to people,” she says. the novels are expansive, packed the little book had a mission. this is a major global emergency, but screen, she was decidedly different from It is hard to imagine Amanpour doing with characters and plot lines So now it’s in bookstores, in somehow I don’t feel it in my gut,” the journalists Americans were used to Britney Spears, or the soft-focus morning and all the paraphernalia of an a first US printing of 3.5 million Amanpour says, and plunges her hands seeing on television. She was a woman, chatshow circuit. She is also a rarity in alternate universe, the stories are copies (a modest number for a into her belly in a mock seppuku. It is for a start, and not a bland Midwestern the hyperventilating world of US cable spare and focused, none as long Rowling book). an astonishing admission for a reporter blonde. She was the first big star to come television. “I stay away from commentary as 20 pages. There are no real jewels on its who, for nearly 20 years, has been known out of CNN, which she joined in 1983 and I stay away from ideology. All this There are some differences cover, but the stories and Profes- for bringing a sense of heart to some soon after graduating from college. stuff that we have seen marching into between wizarding fables and sor Dumbledore’s commentaries of the most horrifying situations on the For many Americans, Amanpour’s the space of fact-based news over the the Muggle kind (Muggles being on them are little gems. planet. arrival at a story wearing her take on the Christiane Amanpour, left, CNN’s chief interna- last several years, the highly opinionated, nonmagical people), as Rowling The commentaries, the It would be all too easy to attribute 1970s foreign correspondent safari suit tional correspondent, her husband James Rubin highly ideological [demagoguery] that points out in her introduction. introduction tells us, were a Amanpour’s sense of detachment from — a boxy jacket with two large pockets and their son. photo: AFP exists and masquerades as journalism. I For example, “Beedle’s surprising discovery “among the the economic crisis to her elevated status over the chest — in itself still signifies draw a line and I stay in the fact-based witches are much more active many papers that Dumbledore at CNN, where she rates a light-filled what in CNN billing is known as “a major too far and our Western governments reality,” she says. in seeking their fortunes than left in his will to the Hogwarts office with a fine view of news event.” ... finally got their act together and did Despite this Amanpour has been our fairy-tale heroines ... witches Archives.” while less famous colleagues toil away Now Amanpour is 50. She has a son, something about it,” she says. “But they upfront in criticizing US media for their who take their fates into their It’s a pleasure to hear the old in the windowless newsroom. Nearly who is eight, and a husband, James Rubin. might not have done if we were not insularity, and for not devoting enough own hands, rather than taking wizard’s voice again. He writes two decades of frontline reporting and Motherhood made Amanpour more reporting it.” space to foreign news. She also has a prolonged nap or waiting for of The Wizard and the Hopping serious-minded documentaries, have conscious of the risks of her job — but it For Amanpour, those days are gone. a sensibility that is closer to that of someone to return a lost shoe.” Pot, “A simple and heartwarming moved Amanpour from the world of didn’t stop her. Now when she goes out “I think the type of storytelling doesn’t journalists in Britain and continental But, like all genuine folk tales fable, one might think in which working journalist to one more usually on a story, it’s with a little prayer. “I’ve exist any more. It just doesn’t.” The Europe. “Objectivity is not treating each not the sanitized, safe, boring case, one would reveal oneself to occupied by celebrities and public saints. said: ‘Please God, please God, let me get unrolling of the economic crisis on our side equally, not drawing a false moral modern versions these stories be an innocent nincompoop.” Her interviews are arranged by teams of through this, I’ll never do this again,’” she television screens is arid and flat, she equivalence,” she says. “It’s covering all bristle with everything from He reminisces about an publicists who flinch when she utters a says. “And then I do it again.” says. “There is a lot of jargon, there is no sides, giving all sides a hearing but not bodily fluids The( Wizard and the ill-fated dramatic production of single swearword. But while Amanpour was moving storytelling. I want to see the pictures necessarily drawing false conclusions Hopping Pot) to bloody murder The Fountain of Fair Fortune, Or perhaps that sense of dislocation from one big story to the next, of what is going on. I want to see the because if you do that in these kinds (The Warlock’s Hairy Heart). comments witheringly on those could be down to Amanpour finding the journalism changed. For her, as for many people. Storytelling is as simple as that.” of situations, in my view, you’re an And like all fables, they who rewrite or censor fairy big story on her own doorstep after years of her generation who covered the war The notion of US power has also accomplice.” have moral points to make, tales to “protect” children and of trying to make viewers care about in Bosnia, no story since has ever come changed. In Bosnia, she was criticized Amanpour hopes to continue with and their recurring themes are ruminates on the nature of love. the misery of people in far-flung parts of close. “The world really mattered,” she by some fellow journalists for crossing the kind of journalism she has been universal: humanity’s struggles He is also shockingly the world. She moved to City says. “I got the story in the A block of journalistic lines in blaming the doing — and if that doesn’t work she is with prejudice, power and disingenuous in his commentary earlier this year, the first time she has our news for day after day, week after Serbs for the conflict and pressing prepared to find another way. “I am 50 death. Hating others for their on The Tale of the Three Brothers, lived in the US in nearly 20 years — and week, month after month, year after year for international intervention to years old now and I strongly believe in race, creed, whom they choose which played that critical role in will be putting down roots by hosting her and in the end so did people at ABC, end the war. Now the very notion second acts. I don’t quite yet know what to marry inevitably turns and Hallows a discrepancy that will no own show. CBS, NBC. So did people at the BBC. that the US, as a superpower, has a mine is,” she says. “I don’t know whether poisons those who hate; power doubt have dedicated Potterites Starting in mid-next year, she will Our news environment was more open to duty and an obligation to intervene there will be a post-TV. The one thing I do always puts those who crave it in racing to re-read the books, heat have a nightly half-hour slot on CNN this kind of storytelling back then and in in times of human catastrophe, has know is that I ain’t going to be dragging peril; death, no matter how strong up the message boards and solve a International. A one-hour version will be the end it made a difference — and once been discredited by the war in Iraq. some carcass around the world beyond its one’s magical powers, is final. new mystery. shown on weekends on the US version of Srebrenica happened it was a massacre Meanwhile, US newspapers have been sell-by date.”

[ so f t c o v er : H on g K on g ] Republican China rewritten ‘The Age of Openness’ is Frank Dicotter’s fresh perspective on an era more commonly portrayed as a catastrophic interlude in China’s history

By BRADLEY WINTERTON In fact there’s a lot of evidence Republican China, treated here by that befell China during the period constitutional government. What in international organizations, Contributing Reporter that China had for centuries been him for the first time. As a result, in question. “The point of this he’s against is the Marxist view — some 40,000 students going For some time now the historian remarkably open to the rest of this book is a polemical overview book,” he writes, “is not to provide still popular with many university- abroad to study annually, and the Frank Dikotter has been arguing the world, and the concept of a of his essential position on the era, exhaustive evidence for this view based historians even when the cosmopolitan mind-set introduced that the Republican Period in “closed” society was largely a fabri- and as such attractive for those [i.e., that the Republican era was rest of the world has turned its to China by foreigners working in China, far from being a bleak era cation of foreigners who wanted to who might not have time to get open, diverse and so on], but to back on it — that violent revolution the International Settlements. characterized by weak governance, prize it open still further, especially to grips with his more detailed, avoid bland consensus, provoke can bring equality, happiness and The greatest effect of this small rampant warlords and foreign in the field of trade concessions. specialist treatments. critical thought and encourage prosperity, and is the only answer book, assuming it gets published in domination, was also, despite its Dikotter, though remaining Dikotter enters the fray with readers to think creatively.” to the manifest evils of capitalism. a Chinese-language edition, will be real woes, a time of considerable Professor of the Modern History all guns blazing. What’s the point, The old view, then, was that Other positive features of in China itself. There the decadence promise and no small achievement. of China at London University’s he asks, of assembling more and China from 1912 to 1949 was Republican China the author of the Republican era is holy writ, This of course is good news here School of Oriental and African more evidence supporting pre- autocratic, militarized, inward- points to are the establishment but this author likes nothing so in Taiwan, officially designated Studies (SOAS), is now based at existing assumptions? Far more looking and frequently starving. No, of Shanghai as the Hollywood of much as opening minds. as being a continuation of the the University of Hong Kong. His useful is to go to the archives says Dikotter. Politically it was, for Asia, and also as its effective jazz I once interviewed Frank Republic of China founded on the argument in favor of the Repub- with an open mind and see what’s a time at least, more democratic capital, the steady increase in Dikotter, and afterwards walked fall of the emperors in 1912. lican era as a time of increasing there, and what it tells us. than many comparable countries farmers’ incomes between 1870 through Taipei’s Ximen District A major implication of what openness and internationalism, not It could be argued, of course, in Europe (and almost everywhere and the early 1930s, widespread with him. It was a Saturday Dikotter argues is that the current to mention reform, has been mainly that Dikotter too has an axe to else in Asia), less militarized per religious diversity and toleration, evening and, as he looked at the push by Beijing to make China presented in two books, Crime, grind — that saying that Repub- head of the population than might the surprisingly global perspective youthful crowd and the mass of a globalized society is nothing Punishment and the Prison in lican China was full of promise, be supposed, with considerable of education even in remote areas, merchandise on offer, he said new. Rather than breaking with Modern China (2002) and Things and this was all destroyed by THE AGE OF OPENNESS: stability and continuity in local and the increasing availability smiling, “Now this is what I really a long tradition of being closed Modern: Material Culture and the Communists, is as much a China before Mao government even if the central and popularity of Western foods approve of!” to the outside world, what the Everyday Life in China (2007). political platform as arguing the government was weak, and (diversification again). All these He’s known to be working now current leadership is actually doing The advantage of this new, opposite, that China prior to 1949 By Frank Dikotter with a remarkably international contrast strongly with the situa- on another topic, this time inside is returning to the direction in shorter book, part of Hong Kong was impoverished, corrupt and 131 pages perspective. tion that developed after 1949. the Mao era. There’s reason to which China was headed between University Press’ Understanding helpless and that the Commu- Hong Kong University Press What Dikotter is in favor of is Particularly important in think, therefore, that The Age of 1912 and 1949, but which was China series, is that it pulls together nists saved the day. He’s at pains, prosperity at a grass-roots level, this account is the international Openness may be his last word, abandoned when Mao Zedong (毛澤 his main conclusions and adds to though, to avoid this accusation, human rights, political pluralism, perspective of the elites — for the time being at least, on 東) and the Communists took over. them chapters on other aspects of and often refers to the disasters representative institutions and respected Chinese jurists working Republican China.