I haven't read Evan Osnos' new book yet. In the meantime, I'll take a stab at predicting what he'll call up as some of the motivating forces behind Chinese folks who you don't hear much about in the nightly American news hour. I just had his book zapped to my Kindle today and look forward to seeing how my predictions match up with his observations. After 6 years living in Beijing, my take on what animates the ambitions of Chinese today:
1) One billion customers to serve: I could not initially get my head around the number of different sportswear companies with the exact same logo as Nike operating in Beijing. I then considered the sheer number of people these days looking to buy sportswear, like Mr. Clean and the college kids playing pickup basketball on campuses all around the city. There can exist 4 different stores sitting on the street right next to one another, occupying the same market niche, because if just a fraction of a percent of the hundreds of thousands of passerbys decide to pick up a tanktop or runners at that store, they're set. As James McGregor describes in his book, while the story of the past several decades has been China as a producer, the story of future decades will be that of selling into and inside China--a reality to which the rest of the world is slowly waking up, but of which Chinese are acutely aware and positioned to seize advantage.
2) Adaptability as a way of life: Connected to the phenomenon of having so many potential customers at your doorstep, that businesses seem to pop up (and out) so quickly in Beijing is not surprising. Peter Hessler remarks in one of his books how being handed a business card in China listing 15 different proficiencies is not uncommon. Off the top of my head I can count 3 plumber/electrician/locksmiths within a 10-minute walk of my apartment. On most skybridges arching over the ring roads surrounding Beijing, you can find vendors selling everything from mobile phone stickers to socks. Particularly for the emergent middle class, things change so quickly, one cannot afford to approach making a living by siloing yourself and only doing one thing to get by. Businesses and families in the developed world are concerned that things are changing too quickly to keep up--commercially, psychologically. The level of adaptability displayed particularly by young people in China, is particularly extraordinary.
3) Searching for "something else": Walking to the subway through an affluent Beijing neighborhood a year ago, I heard an electric bike behind me accelerate rapidly and then swung in front of me. The driver was a kind-looking lady with glasses who asked if I would like a teaching job; they needed teachers immediately. I declined, but took her card, which read: "Holy Education." I asked if there was a lot of demand for ESL that mixed in Bible stories with learning about nouns and verbs. She said they couldn't find teachers fast enough. "It must be difficult teaching religious education in China, no?" She said that Bible stories are used as reading material without getting into the intensely religious parts--surprising, given the name of the company. In the past year or two, in conversations with parents and students, I have never heard more mention of Jesus than in any time past. Even those whoa are not expressly Christian had some very pointed questions during this past Easter, which is translated in Mandarin as "resurrection holiday." As affluent Chinese come to see how purely material metrics for success can often prove unfulfilling, and how particularly Christian spirituality can offer some kind of higher purpose, it will be interesting to see if Chinese families continue the search for new ways of living "the good life."
4) Used to the competition: In 2011, Amy Chua's book caused a stir with the suggestion that "Chinese parents" are superior in creating "stereotypically successful kids." I have met enough people here in Beijing to understand that China, like anywhere, seems to have just as many successful or failing people as anywhere else. An interesting learning experience was when I worked at Tsinghua University--one of China's two or three premier universities--and in my spare time helped students prepare applications for graduate schools in the US and UK. These were China's high flyers--students who competed against millions of other applicants to win admission to Tsinghua. When I mentioned the idea of a "safety school" to add to their list of MIT, Cambridge, Berkeley, and Yale, they simply shrugged it off. "I need to get into one of these places," they said. "Otherwise, I'll just stay in China, work and live at home." Why the obsession with only the top tier? "My parents would be disappointed with anything else." Many students had inculcated the desires of their parents and now could not differentiate between those and desires of their own. Regardless, they were--they are--extraordinarily driven and utterly unwilling to settle for anything less than their absolute best--which they are convinced is as good as anyone else's best, not just in China, but in the world.
Showing posts with label society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label society. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Americans Promoting Study Abroad
Just last week, Jeffrey Wood, an APSA Scholar who participated in APSA's flagship Summer Scholars 10-week immersion program (we have 90 kids this summer, up from 50 last summer), had the chance to interview First Lady Michelle Obama, who was passing through Beijing with her mother and daughters. Jeffrey, who is now enrolled at George Mason University, is currently studying abroad here. Not a bad way to spend your time away from studying Mandarin, eh?!?
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Chinese dream
Each generation of Chinese leadership adopts a mantra that is designed to represent the spirit of that administration. It becomes a refrain during speeches and public statements. Hu Jintao extolled the dual virtues of "scientific development" and a "harmonious society," highlighting the need in the last decade for expansion in Chinese science and technology, and use of that R&D in managing an increasingly connected and demanding citizenship.
In that last decade, China has risen to become the world's 2nd biggest economy, with the world's greatest number of internet users, and largest number of mobiles phones in use: 1.22 billion. Against the backdrop of China's well-publicized problems with pollution, human rights, and other issues, there is much for the leadership to be excited about as the "Chinese miracle" pushes ahead. In this spirit, it would seem, Xi Jinping has begin to use the phrase, "the Chinese dream," as his administration's calling card earlier in 2013.
"The Chinese dream" is a cryptic message with different resonances. Riffing on the dreams of other countries, such as America, how might the Chinese dream compare? One thing is clear: whereas previous leaders have emphasized more practical, pragmatic language and present change, Xi's dream is about a better future.
Construction sites are ubiquitous all over China, and Beijing is no exception. The markings on protective walls surrounding these sites are managed by local propaganda departments for display of advertisements suggesting slogans and other messages: right now, it's "the Chinese dream." When I first saw these go up earlier in the autumn of 2013, I was impressed how minimally clean and tasteful the design was, as opposed to the Hu administration's busy and less thoughtful aesthetic.
The above writing in large characters could be translated as "wish luck to the motherland," with an image filial piety accompanying to the right. Ian Johnson's analysis of the Chinese dream propaganda in the New York Review of Books points out how propaganda these days is moving from an emphasis on Communist to more traditional, Confucian values that were vilified just years before:
One of the most interesting posters is the above, zhong guo hao qi! literally, "nice move, China!" The image is of two children playing chess. As Johnson observes, the major question here is: what is the nature of the game that China is winning? Who is the opponent?
It is easy to read especially the above as thought engineering, but to be honest it seems like most locals at least in Beijing pay very little regard. Whereas folks outside China might envision millions of Beijingers wandering city streets, eyes agog as the brainwash takes them over, Johnson's blog shows many of these posters are viewed cynically, some even defaced and ripped--a high crime that, if the vandal was caught, would certainly lead to detention or worse. Especially as a foreigner, it's easy to read the "good move, China" poster as an statement of China's aggressive intentions to "win the game," be it international diplomacy or a more domestic concern. I would instead look at it as a representation of Party neurosis that the government feels the need to manufacture a reality they are not certain is actually happening. As Jonathan Spence writes, "modern China" has not yet arrived, but the search is underway, with many trying to shape what that place may be, in word and action.
In that last decade, China has risen to become the world's 2nd biggest economy, with the world's greatest number of internet users, and largest number of mobiles phones in use: 1.22 billion. Against the backdrop of China's well-publicized problems with pollution, human rights, and other issues, there is much for the leadership to be excited about as the "Chinese miracle" pushes ahead. In this spirit, it would seem, Xi Jinping has begin to use the phrase, "the Chinese dream," as his administration's calling card earlier in 2013.
"The Chinese dream" is a cryptic message with different resonances. Riffing on the dreams of other countries, such as America, how might the Chinese dream compare? One thing is clear: whereas previous leaders have emphasized more practical, pragmatic language and present change, Xi's dream is about a better future.
The difference is that while the old posters touted Communist values, the new ones largely replace them with pre-Communist Chinese traditions—drawing on traditional folk art like paper cutouts, woodblock prints, and clay figurines to illustrate their message. This is a redefinition of the state’s vision from a Marxist utopia to a Confucian, family-centric nation, defined by a quiet life of respecting the elderly and saving for the future.Why move from espousing political values and instead emphasize traditional culture in Party imagery and language? Johnson explains the value in having the two blend together:
Almost all the art used in the posters, with its depictions of traditional dress and poses, used to be derided by the Party as belonging to China’s backward, pre-Communist past; now, these aesthetic traditions are a bulwark used to legitimize the Party as a guardian and creator of the country’s hopes and aspirations.
It is easy to read especially the above as thought engineering, but to be honest it seems like most locals at least in Beijing pay very little regard. Whereas folks outside China might envision millions of Beijingers wandering city streets, eyes agog as the brainwash takes them over, Johnson's blog shows many of these posters are viewed cynically, some even defaced and ripped--a high crime that, if the vandal was caught, would certainly lead to detention or worse. Especially as a foreigner, it's easy to read the "good move, China" poster as an statement of China's aggressive intentions to "win the game," be it international diplomacy or a more domestic concern. I would instead look at it as a representation of Party neurosis that the government feels the need to manufacture a reality they are not certain is actually happening. As Jonathan Spence writes, "modern China" has not yet arrived, but the search is underway, with many trying to shape what that place may be, in word and action.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
China fear-mongering
In exchanging a couple of emails with alumni friends getting prepared to visit China this spring, I am reminded of some of the conversations I have with people new to China, or who ask me about my impression of the country. "What's it like?" many folks will ask hesitantly. "It must be a crazy place..." It is a "crazy" place: in urban Beijing, I tend to think of the striking mixture of the great trappings of mega-rich cosmopolitan Chinese alongside the rural traditions of recent arrivals and the migrant masses. But I get the sense that the "crazy" meant by friends and relatives who have not spent time on the mainland circles around other factors: the police state, politics, "big brother" looking over your shoulder.
I am not an apologist for this place. The China experience particularly of an American passport holder is very very different than the China experience of some other expat communities. The biggest "experience gap" is between expatriates and Chinese citizens. Human rights violations and legal abuses here are very real. China's "have it both ways" approach of asking for recognition as a "developed" country at global political summits, but a "developing" country with an evolving rule of law doesn't do anything to help get its domestic agenda accelerating to a more equitable legal and economic situation for the majority of Chinese people.
As a foreigner, unless you really screw up, the elements of the police state that you experience amount to a dismal amount of bureaucracy surrounding visa applications and housing registration and not much else. For the relatively few who venture into Chinese-language social media, there is a more day-to-day aspect of censorship that feels more immediate. VPNs are getting better and better and allow access to international websites and other opinions. I do think, however, that you can see an irrational "Great Red Terror" in many people outside of China when they remark on their imagining of what life must be like for an expatriate living in Beijing, a fear that is not backed up as you move through everyday life in this country, interacting with people and families on a 1-on-1, face-to-face basis.
I am not an apologist for this place. The China experience particularly of an American passport holder is very very different than the China experience of some other expat communities. The biggest "experience gap" is between expatriates and Chinese citizens. Human rights violations and legal abuses here are very real. China's "have it both ways" approach of asking for recognition as a "developed" country at global political summits, but a "developing" country with an evolving rule of law doesn't do anything to help get its domestic agenda accelerating to a more equitable legal and economic situation for the majority of Chinese people.
As a foreigner, unless you really screw up, the elements of the police state that you experience amount to a dismal amount of bureaucracy surrounding visa applications and housing registration and not much else. For the relatively few who venture into Chinese-language social media, there is a more day-to-day aspect of censorship that feels more immediate. VPNs are getting better and better and allow access to international websites and other opinions. I do think, however, that you can see an irrational "Great Red Terror" in many people outside of China when they remark on their imagining of what life must be like for an expatriate living in Beijing, a fear that is not backed up as you move through everyday life in this country, interacting with people and families on a 1-on-1, face-to-face basis.
Monday, October 21, 2013
7 things you learn about the non-China world while living in China
- A well-ordered traffic system isn't as important as you might think. Oddly, one of the things that scared me the most about the more recent Die Hard where Timothy Oliphant organizes a fire sale is that--oh man!--the traffics lights would all be screwed up. Then you come to Asia and see that, despite traffic lights working most of the time, people don't really care about them and a surprisingly number of people aren't dying because of this (at least by my last count).
- Parenting skills are not innate. You take for granted that, despite also carrying on some of the baggage from the generation before, your parents are utilizing a set of skills and knowledge in raising you than Among more affluent families China is still coming up the curve in areas like, especially during Spring Festival, not letting children play with high explosives.
- "Hot mess" is also a business model. Constant change leads to constant preparation for opportunities that present themselves every day. Oftentimes, we develop services that we're selling before most folks inside our shop even know this is something our company does. Once we have customers, then everyone plays catch-up. It's a fun, if not ulcer-inducing model. If I had a nickel for the number of times, on 3 minutes' notice, I've been told I'm going to do something I could not have fathomed doing before that moment... New arrivals at our organization are constantly blown away by how quickly situations change and how one has to adapt on the fly. Those that cannot don't last long.
- Fashion makes absolutely no sense. The English-gibberish tshirts sported by young people in Beijing are silly--but are they more silly than paying $125 for a hooded sweatshirt because it says the word "Hollister" on it? "But the quality is excellent..." Not that excellent. As I've heard from a lady, there is something about Asian women that sometimes enables more aggressive fashion choices to work out well for them. As some folks from Shanghai will observe, Beijingers dress a bit like they just grabbed whatever was closest in a pitch-black closet that morning and ran out the door. What's more amazing than dressing like this is that sometimes it leads to outfits that, to fashionable people, "make sense." (So I've heard.) Don't get it.
- Weird food is relative. You're teaching the terms "often, sometimes" and "never" in a class about food. In asking about "foods you often eat," student flatly responds: "doves." More interesting than the student's response is how unfazed you are with their constant dining on the international symbol of peace: you just had one last month in Shenyang. at a curbside dove joint where the wait staff would twist their heads off in front of you (proof of freshness) and grill them up chuanr-style. Could have had a shot of blood on the side. You passed.. Maybe weird food isn't relative.
- We're all just animals. You can't help but realize this when you see how unapologetically open people are about spitting, farting, urinating, and defecating in public or semi-public. In the elevator today an otherwise coy and unassuming woman let go of a sharp, short burp that made me jump. Better out than in, I suppose. Just as the book title says, "everybody poops." Everybody also does everything else that involves expelling body gasses, liquids, and other semi-solids.
- Economics trumps politics. The residue of the Cold War, the lingering sense of a great Communist menace that many think they perceive (particularly in the US) is absolute horsewash. China is more rabidly free-market capitalist than the US was even in the days of the robber barons. Ever since Deng Xiaoping proclaimed, "To get rich is glorious," China has been a place where the "honor's in the dollar." Many politicians get into the game, not because of the power and influence they yield (usually not much), but because the chances for kickbacks and bribes that occur at different bureaucratic bottlenecks.
- Parenting skills are not innate. You take for granted that, despite also carrying on some of the baggage from the generation before, your parents are utilizing a set of skills and knowledge in raising you than Among more affluent families China is still coming up the curve in areas like, especially during Spring Festival, not letting children play with high explosives.
- "Hot mess" is also a business model. Constant change leads to constant preparation for opportunities that present themselves every day. Oftentimes, we develop services that we're selling before most folks inside our shop even know this is something our company does. Once we have customers, then everyone plays catch-up. It's a fun, if not ulcer-inducing model. If I had a nickel for the number of times, on 3 minutes' notice, I've been told I'm going to do something I could not have fathomed doing before that moment... New arrivals at our organization are constantly blown away by how quickly situations change and how one has to adapt on the fly. Those that cannot don't last long.
- Fashion makes absolutely no sense. The English-gibberish tshirts sported by young people in Beijing are silly--but are they more silly than paying $125 for a hooded sweatshirt because it says the word "Hollister" on it? "But the quality is excellent..." Not that excellent. As I've heard from a lady, there is something about Asian women that sometimes enables more aggressive fashion choices to work out well for them. As some folks from Shanghai will observe, Beijingers dress a bit like they just grabbed whatever was closest in a pitch-black closet that morning and ran out the door. What's more amazing than dressing like this is that sometimes it leads to outfits that, to fashionable people, "make sense." (So I've heard.) Don't get it.
- Weird food is relative. You're teaching the terms "often, sometimes" and "never" in a class about food. In asking about "foods you often eat," student flatly responds: "doves." More interesting than the student's response is how unfazed you are with their constant dining on the international symbol of peace: you just had one last month in Shenyang. at a curbside dove joint where the wait staff would twist their heads off in front of you (proof of freshness) and grill them up chuanr-style. Could have had a shot of blood on the side. You passed.. Maybe weird food isn't relative.
- We're all just animals. You can't help but realize this when you see how unapologetically open people are about spitting, farting, urinating, and defecating in public or semi-public. In the elevator today an otherwise coy and unassuming woman let go of a sharp, short burp that made me jump. Better out than in, I suppose. Just as the book title says, "everybody poops." Everybody also does everything else that involves expelling body gasses, liquids, and other semi-solids.
- Economics trumps politics. The residue of the Cold War, the lingering sense of a great Communist menace that many think they perceive (particularly in the US) is absolute horsewash. China is more rabidly free-market capitalist than the US was even in the days of the robber barons. Ever since Deng Xiaoping proclaimed, "To get rich is glorious," China has been a place where the "honor's in the dollar." Many politicians get into the game, not because of the power and influence they yield (usually not much), but because the chances for kickbacks and bribes that occur at different bureaucratic bottlenecks.
Monday, May 6, 2013
Labor is the Most Glorious
This morning's Chinesepod lesson finds Jenny and John explaining a song in honor of May Day (May 1st, International Labor Day). The version of the song I hear is sung by a youth chorus, apparently suggesting to young people not to make like the "butterflies that play all day" but instead like the "magpies that make new homes" and the "bees that collect honey." In other words, "love to work and love to study."
Jenny, the podcast's local Chinese teacher, explains how this song was very popular in here kindergarten and primary school days. When pressed by John to ask how she feels about the song, she dodges and repeats that it's about trying to get students to love work and not play too much--without much effect. While all Chinese in her parents' generation would have known the song, Jenny remarks, its popularity and influence today is less strong.
Jenny, the podcast's local Chinese teacher, explains how this song was very popular in here kindergarten and primary school days. When pressed by John to ask how she feels about the song, she dodges and repeats that it's about trying to get students to love work and not play too much--without much effect. While all Chinese in her parents' generation would have known the song, Jenny remarks, its popularity and influence today is less strong.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Elevators
Local folks in my building, usually ones that are past middle age, sometimes grab the elevator going up only to take it back down to the ground floor. At first, the 14 seconds that this adds to the process of leaving my apartment kinda irked me. (Typically, they will hit both up and down buttons to hedge, then the elevator stops to pick them up, then we stop again going back down.) I then realized that many of the old people taking the elevator up and then down again grew up in a time of amazing uncertainty and radical change, and that there would be no passing up of any opportunities on their watch to get in a perfectly good elevator passing their floor, whether it's going up or down. And then there's the distinct possibility that some of these guys are still profoundly amazed that the same China that experienced famines and so much upheaval is not a place where an electrical cable closet can move your up 300 feet in the air in like, 14 seconds.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Hustle and bustle
Every Sunday morning cars pile up along curbs in front of the farmer's market around the corner from our apartment. Despite having 2 malls right next to the Taiyanggong subway shop, tons of people choose instead to buy their weekly groceries outdoors, at the old-fashioned, dirty and disheveled stalls and carts, even in the cold of late wintertime. Throngs of people bouncing off one another, not apologizing but just accepting the bounces, with leafy tops of spring onions sticking out of canvas bags. People are smiling, today they were enjoying the sunshine and what the local gov't refers to as a "blue sky day."
A friend returning to Beijing from studying over in the Bay Area mentioned over dinner how one of the biggest things he missed was Chinese restaurants--not for the food, which he missed, but more for the "busy atmosphere." People having overloud conversations with one another, glasses clinking, chaunr sticks all over the ground, fuwuyuan hurrying between crowded tables, barking orders to one another--in other words, a chaotic mess. The locals, as well as out-of-towners who spend more than just a 60-day tourist visa's worth of time in Beijing, know this scene. At first, you might like the city despite it, but eventually those who stick around, or tourists who want to come back, like China because of the mess.
A friend returning to Beijing from studying over in the Bay Area mentioned over dinner how one of the biggest things he missed was Chinese restaurants--not for the food, which he missed, but more for the "busy atmosphere." People having overloud conversations with one another, glasses clinking, chaunr sticks all over the ground, fuwuyuan hurrying between crowded tables, barking orders to one another--in other words, a chaotic mess. The locals, as well as out-of-towners who spend more than just a 60-day tourist visa's worth of time in Beijing, know this scene. At first, you might like the city despite it, but eventually those who stick around, or tourists who want to come back, like China because of the mess.
Friday, March 1, 2013
CONTRADICTION: Manners
Confucian codes or morals and behavior are stringent on the way one is supposed to treat foreigners. I was part of Beijing-based event recently whose motto, "不亦乐乎," is based on the Confucian phrase, "有朋子远方来，不亦乐乎" translating as something like, "isn't it a pleasure when friends visit from afar." As I see it, this is interpreted by most Chinese as seriously rolling out the red carpet when they have visitors: whether it's a foreigner from outside China, or a distant family member or traveler passing through, it's not uncommon to see someone give up their own bed and sleep on the floor while you get to crash in the most comfy place available. Once you've entered into a relationship with someone--be it in business as a client, as a guest, as a friend--there are these very intricate, highly developed rituals of how you're supposed to defer to, give way to, and help out one another.
Lacking any kind of relationship with someone, however, seems to make these rituals and cultural prescriptions moot. On sidewalks, on subways, in other public places, some people display what appears to a foreigner as a frightening lack of consideration for strangers. As Hilary Spurling quotes of Pearl S. Buck, "the Chinese can appear to be thoughtful in big ways, but not as thoughtful in smaller ways." People spit while walking in front of you, jostle you sometimes necessarily sometimes not necessarily in getting on and off the subway, parents sometimes let infant children crap and pee right on the sidewalk, or even inside public areas. I emphasize some people, as increasingly cosmopolitan Beijingers are starting to scoff more and more at this stuff, but it's still pervasive enough that it will be one of the most striking things most notice about China as new arrivals. I couldn't believe, in trying to get on the elevator a moment ago, an elderly man made eye contact with me as I was inputting the door code in the lobby, then as I was coming through the door the elevator was already closed and going up. At the end of the day, none of these little annoyances are a big deal individually, but they compile to produce an everything-stinks "China day" every once in a while.
Lacking any kind of relationship with someone, however, seems to make these rituals and cultural prescriptions moot. On sidewalks, on subways, in other public places, some people display what appears to a foreigner as a frightening lack of consideration for strangers. As Hilary Spurling quotes of Pearl S. Buck, "the Chinese can appear to be thoughtful in big ways, but not as thoughtful in smaller ways." People spit while walking in front of you, jostle you sometimes necessarily sometimes not necessarily in getting on and off the subway, parents sometimes let infant children crap and pee right on the sidewalk, or even inside public areas. I emphasize some people, as increasingly cosmopolitan Beijingers are starting to scoff more and more at this stuff, but it's still pervasive enough that it will be one of the most striking things most notice about China as new arrivals. I couldn't believe, in trying to get on the elevator a moment ago, an elderly man made eye contact with me as I was inputting the door code in the lobby, then as I was coming through the door the elevator was already closed and going up. At the end of the day, none of these little annoyances are a big deal individually, but they compile to produce an everything-stinks "China day" every once in a while.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
CONTRADICTION: Haves and Have Nots
When you drive out of downtown Beijing, before you're outside of the 6th Ring Road you begin to pass through villages where you can see the development of recent years has not yet come to pass. Storefronts vary between brick or concrete blocks to tin-roofed shanties selling groceries and mobile phone charge cards, and everything is surrounded by farm fields. The people here aren't destitute, but they are generally the part of Beijing making less than the city average of about 5,000 RMB (~$800 USD) a month--probably much less.
And then there's the haves. Grabbing lunch just now at 7-Eleven the guy behind me asked for a box of condoms from behind the cashier. Not a totally uncommon request, but it was asked in a kind of brazen way that's uncommon with locals here. He was wearing a baseball hat, common for Korean folks especially and Wangjing, but more and more for internationally-inclined Chinese locals as well. Walking outside I was impressed to see him driving away in an Bentley with no license plates--a sure sign of government connections, which I guess is ubiquitous for most rich folks here.
It comes up quite often in staff discussions, how unfair it must seem that foreigners make such high salaries for jobs like English teaching in comparison to Chinese white-collar workers doing work of equal or more difficulty and making fractions of foreigner pay. Then again, you see locals driving around in Bentleys and begin to see that the have-nots here are just surrounded by what must appear like ridiculous opulence at times, and there's not a whole lot to do about it.
We had an employee post a very damaging message yesterday on our company microblog site that gets circulated to all of our clients. It was known for a while that he wasn't happy with his pay, though he was being reimbursed at market with relatively decent working conditions. To be honest, can you really blame young Chinese professionals for the resentment they must harbor against all the riches they see around them? Thinking about it more, this is the same vein that Mao must have tapped into in inspiring popular support for the Communist revolt.
And then there's the haves. Grabbing lunch just now at 7-Eleven the guy behind me asked for a box of condoms from behind the cashier. Not a totally uncommon request, but it was asked in a kind of brazen way that's uncommon with locals here. He was wearing a baseball hat, common for Korean folks especially and Wangjing, but more and more for internationally-inclined Chinese locals as well. Walking outside I was impressed to see him driving away in an Bentley with no license plates--a sure sign of government connections, which I guess is ubiquitous for most rich folks here.
It comes up quite often in staff discussions, how unfair it must seem that foreigners make such high salaries for jobs like English teaching in comparison to Chinese white-collar workers doing work of equal or more difficulty and making fractions of foreigner pay. Then again, you see locals driving around in Bentleys and begin to see that the have-nots here are just surrounded by what must appear like ridiculous opulence at times, and there's not a whole lot to do about it.
We had an employee post a very damaging message yesterday on our company microblog site that gets circulated to all of our clients. It was known for a while that he wasn't happy with his pay, though he was being reimbursed at market with relatively decent working conditions. To be honest, can you really blame young Chinese professionals for the resentment they must harbor against all the riches they see around them? Thinking about it more, this is the same vein that Mao must have tapped into in inspiring popular support for the Communist revolt.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Costner: Inertia
It occurred to me today as I was walking across the flats in town center that folks just float through here. I will be charging hard down the street when a Chinese man will make eye contact with me, there standing right in front of my path of movement. He's moving slow and is moving in such a way that we will collide in just a moment. I slightly alter course and charge by, him looking at me, mostly expressionless but maybe grinning very slightly, content that he has ceded nothing and I have moved to make way for him. I am not sure whether this float, this kind of inertia toward which bodies in motion tend to stay in motion in China, I am not sure from where it comes from. I do know that the woo shoo arts of martial combat that in which I see the young men partake involves not so much the use of force, but the use of your opponent's force against them. Using the force from the system to beat the system: this does not seem unlike what happened with the man today.
CONTRADICTION: "Modest" and "Proud"
In trying to express to students in class that they deserve to be proud of the good work they accomplish, I received some unexpected pushback. "Chinese people are very modest," or so I've heard from several friends in expressing how the quiet and reserved nature of Chinese folks when it comes to receiving compliments puts this feature on display.
That said, there is no doubt that Chinese folks are in many ways a very prideful people, no more so than when it comes to pride in history and culture--with good reason. Five thousand years of cultureal development (albeit a development fraught with fits and starts), with one of the world's oldest continuously-existing language systems, with a capital city spotted with ancient temples and alleyways winding among modern skyscrapers... I'm proud to be a Beijinger and I'm not even Chinese! On a personal rather than societal level, the self-effacement that comes in receiving compliments has its reciprocal: loss of face in instances of embarrassment. The nervous smiles that one sees accompanying people here when they do something as simple as drop a chopstick on a restaurant floor, or stand out for having done something minimally foolish or silly, displays a discomfort that makes even the observer squirm sometimes. This nervousness about appearances associated with maintaining face, to me, reveals something about an individual pride that seems to revolve around maintaining a "harmonious" appearance and lifestyle with people and things around you.
With that said, people here go about living incredibly stressful lives in the context of a confusing and developing city and society with an ease and grace that astounds me. Everyone here is bound by a sense that life in China is very difficult; I guess expats sometimes forget that they are not the only ones getting screwed by the system and annoyed by the crowds. It's amazing that most Chinese folks, most of the time, bear this burden with a Zen-like unflappableness that I'm still trying to approach. I believe this "unflappability" comes from a healthy lack of egotism, a kind of modesty: "I am not the center of the world, and I have to accept that there are things that are out of my control, do what I can, and move on. If I don't, I'm gonna drive myself and everyone else nuts." The Western sense of individual empowerment and agency doesn't help expats in China very much in these stressful instances, because ego usually enters into things: "I am being inconvenienced. The system is screwing me."
That said, there is no doubt that Chinese folks are in many ways a very prideful people, no more so than when it comes to pride in history and culture--with good reason. Five thousand years of cultureal development (albeit a development fraught with fits and starts), with one of the world's oldest continuously-existing language systems, with a capital city spotted with ancient temples and alleyways winding among modern skyscrapers... I'm proud to be a Beijinger and I'm not even Chinese! On a personal rather than societal level, the self-effacement that comes in receiving compliments has its reciprocal: loss of face in instances of embarrassment. The nervous smiles that one sees accompanying people here when they do something as simple as drop a chopstick on a restaurant floor, or stand out for having done something minimally foolish or silly, displays a discomfort that makes even the observer squirm sometimes. This nervousness about appearances associated with maintaining face, to me, reveals something about an individual pride that seems to revolve around maintaining a "harmonious" appearance and lifestyle with people and things around you.
With that said, people here go about living incredibly stressful lives in the context of a confusing and developing city and society with an ease and grace that astounds me. Everyone here is bound by a sense that life in China is very difficult; I guess expats sometimes forget that they are not the only ones getting screwed by the system and annoyed by the crowds. It's amazing that most Chinese folks, most of the time, bear this burden with a Zen-like unflappableness that I'm still trying to approach. I believe this "unflappability" comes from a healthy lack of egotism, a kind of modesty: "I am not the center of the world, and I have to accept that there are things that are out of my control, do what I can, and move on. If I don't, I'm gonna drive myself and everyone else nuts." The Western sense of individual empowerment and agency doesn't help expats in China very much in these stressful instances, because ego usually enters into things: "I am being inconvenienced. The system is screwing me."
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