A Good Friend Arrives

Finally, after several months, one of my very good friends—and my current roommate—has arrived in Beijing. One of my friends, in what I think to be an apt description, stated that his arrival was like the guy running towards the castle in Monty Python’s “Search for the Holy Grail”—that is to say, it seemed like my friend had been “almost here” forever. Nonetheless, he’s here, we’re living in a new place, and all is well in Beijing.
And I have a student named “Quarter.” A name he gave himself because, well, he thinks that an American quarter is “a lot of money,” or “cool,” or something. In class yesterday, he sat next to Angel, another one of my students who took the liberty of naming herself.

Migrants on the Move

While riding my bike passed one of the larger hotels in the city one day this week, two things immediately became apparent: 1) there were more cops around than usual; and 2) the migrant workers who frequent that area of the city everyday were conspicuously absent. Because I rarely see roadblocks and lots of cops standing around doing nothing, I decided to ask one of the cops what was going on. Predictably, he ignored me and waved me away. Next, I asked a man exiting the hotel if he knew what was going on. “Maybe there’s a meeting here today,” he mused. Finding this response less-than-acceptable, I decided to ask another cop who was stationed 25 meters down an alley what was going on. “A leader is coming here soon,” he told me. When I asked him who this leader was, he responded, “I’m not too clear about that.” Regardless of whether or not the second cop actually knew who was scheduled to arrive at the hotel that afternoon wasn’t of interest to me. What was of interest was that, no more than 50 meters down the alley passed the second cop was a whole slew of migrant workers. So, while the workers had been taken away from an area in which the “leader” may have seen them, they were still expected to be at work, in the shadows, building Beijing.

Stereotypes

Stereotypes are divisive—hatred, bias, and racism are all rooted in stereotypes. A prevalent stereotype is that, for the most part, the Chinese are racist. Due to this widely held belief in the West, I was very eager to teach a class about stereotypes to a group of Chinese adults this past week.
The class I taught on stereotypes was small—I only had two students and, while their English was comprehensible, they both had very limited vocabularies. To start the lesson, I listed several stereotypes about Chinese people—good at math, not a lot of fun, hardworking, no sense of humor, etc. While the students agreed with some of these descriptors, there knew people who didn’t fit into any of the categories. Good, I thought, they may be beginning to understand that stereotypes are, for the most part, mean and false.
Next I asked the students which characteristics they would use to describe Jewish people. Unfortunately, the list contained all of the usual suspects—good with money, rich, and clever. I found this use of clever to be interesting, so I pushed the students and asked how to say clever in Chinese. They both responded, cong ming, which I understand to mean smart, not clever. After explaining that stereotypes were not always true and that I knew a lot of jews who did not fit into any of the categories they listed, I asked them what they thought about black people.
The list about black people was, in a word, nauseating. According to my students, black people are: dumb, good at sports, wear funny clothes, American, ugly and foul-smelling. Wow. After both lists—the one about jewish people and the one about black people—were on the board, I told them that I was jewish. This was, indeed, shocking for both of them. “you don’t look jew,” they said. “well,” I responded, “not all jews look the same.” Next I asked them if they knew any other jews or even a single black person. “no,” they obviously responded. Next I told them that I actually knew a lot of jews and black people who did not exhibit any of the characteristics they had listed.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that either of them was able to draw the connection I was trying to make between stereotypes not being true for all groups.
The reason that these deeply ingrained stereotypes are so powerful—and so important—in a place like china is that most Chinese will never have the opportunity to meet a foreigner, let alone a jew of black person. Therefore, the vacuum of actual information is filled by stereotypes that are based on hearsay and falsehoods. I don’t want to drum this incident into a grand theory on Chinese xenophobia and notions of Chinese superiority, I simply want to say that in a country that is for the most part very homogenous, it is very hard to disprove stereotypes.

Groups to watch in '07 and beyond

As a news junkie, I’ve been reading a lot of year-in-review articles and predictions for 2007 lately. While I don’t pretend to be a prognosticator, I thought that I’d like to stretch out which groups in China I think will be worth keeping an eye on the months and years to come. This is not an exhaustive list, but just a cursory one that I’ve cobbled together since coming to Beijing. Moreover, the list is not meant to highlight the big power brokers but, rather, the demographic groups that, if sufficiently stirred up, could lead to big social and political changes in the country. Finally, I’d like to issue the caveat that I have not traveled through much of China. I am the first to admit that, following for months on the road this summer, my take on these groups may be radically different. It should also be noted that the first two groups on the list, migrant workers and the disgruntled farmers who stayed on the farm, draw from the same population. For better or worse, this following is what my gut and readings tell me:

1. Disgruntled Farmers/Peasant Leaders
Scholars estimate that there are thousands of acts of resistance in rural China throughout the course of a year. Moreover, the number of protests—which can range from a few people to dozens and more—has been rising steadily since the mid-1990s when the urban elites began enjoying the fruits of the economic opening of China that had been initiated in 1979 by Deng Xiaoping. For interesting scholarly works on peasant resistance movements in general, I suggest James Scott’s work. While the literature on peasant resistance and pushes for democracy in China at the grassroots level in becoming more substantial, I am unable to access these texts from mainland China. Nonetheless, it seems to me that the peasant resistance movements going on in most parts of the country tend to be local in nature. That is, they seem to revolve around problems related corrupt or inefficient local cadres. Indeed, these individuals seems to be upset that the economic growth that is transforming life in the cities and the international position of the Chinese state has not positively impacted their lives at the grassroots level. It is interesting to note that, given the fact that these protests generally target local corruption, the central government seems to favor these protest as a way to discover, and then punish, the most inept and corrupt local cadres. Indeed, the lack of an independent media means that the central government is sometimes forced to rely on the citizens themselves protesting the ineptitude of local cadres. While this strategy is currently working, I believe that it has a short shelf life. Once the protest morph from being about corruption and local greed to the problems faced by peasants who are struggling to survive, the blame will not be directed at the local cadres but the Party and the State as a whole. Indeed, the Party seems to realize this—the Chinese language Government-sponsored version of the top priorities for the Party and State listed dealing with the employment, living conditions and happiness of the nongmin, or rural poor and peasants, as the top concern of the government in 2007.

2. The mingong, or migrant workers.
The Chinese word for migrant worked is a combination of nongmin, or farmer, and gongren, or worker (this word generally has an unskilled connotation to it). Even within the language it is clear that the millions of peasants fleeing the farmers and flocking to the cities in search of work and a better life make up an important demographic in contemporary China. Indeed, this group is a logical outgrowth of the upset rural peasants. While these individuals live in the cities, they are ghosts. They are look at, but rarely seen. While biking through the central part of Beijing yesterday, I decided to stop and look around an area under construction. The construction site borders one of the most expensive hotels in the city and is on a major thoroughfare. Yet despite its central location, the gongren that work at this site are hardly noticed by the thousands of Beijingers that pass by them everyday. Before a construction team boss yelled at me and told me to leave, I’m pretty sure that I was able to steal a glance of the tents where many of these men spend nights in the subzero Beijing nights. Moreover, these new work in $1 hardhats and cheap shoes that don’t have enough support for a simple walk down the street let alone digging 6 feet underground in a huge hole.
An anecdotal story involved a group of young and old migrants from Sichuan. (It is interesting to note that men from the same areas of the country tend to look for work together.) These men, ranging in age from 20 to 60s, were trying to put a steel electric pole up next to a preexisting wooden one. In order to do this, a young man scaled the wooden pole using jerry rigged, lumberjack-like shoe attachments and no harness. Once he scaled the 20 ft. pole, he threw a rope over the electrical wires. He pulled one end while the other was attached to the top of the steel pole—essentially making the electrical wires the point at which all of the tension lay. On the other side, 10 men pushed and pulled at the steel pole in an attempt to lift it. Near by, 3 old Beijingers discussed trivial affairs while several workers in the background squatted, smoked, and took a break. The scene was also colored by an interesting machine handled by three men that seemed to do little more than add pollutants into the already murky and thick Beijing air. No more than 50 feet in front of the site was one of the nicest hotels in Beijing. No more than 50 feet to the side stood the ruble from what used to be a hutong. The local outdoor public toilet from this part of the city had two words written across the front in red spray paint: the character chai, meaning to tear down, and the English word fuck. If I could upload pictures to this blog, I would attach one of this scene.
This scene is, indeed, a typical slice of life for these men. In fact, it could be argued that these men are some of the lucky ones—they have work on what looks to be a large and long-term project. Yet while the work guarantees a place to sleep—even if that place is a tent—and food, which may be rice and a few veggies, it does not guarantee that these men will be paid for the work that they do. As they move to the cities, many of these men become disillusioned with the lack of work, petty corruption and the squalor in which they live and work. While most of them still make enough money to send some back to the farm to support their families, I get the sense that these individuals are struggling to survive in the new free market China. Even though many of these men seem to face these hardships with a mei banfa attitude, or one characterized by tough Should these people be stirred up, it could mean serious social unrest. (A recent article talking about the plight of these men and their living conditions was published in the Wall Street Journal, should you want another account.)


3. Students and Recent College Graduates
As I’m assuming everyone is familiar with the events of 1989, I’m not going to rehash them—you can look them up for yourself if you’re not completely clear about the vague reference I’m making. To be sure, students, if sufficiently agitated and stirred up, are one of the key ingredients for starting a revolution or creating serious tumult—the other key group, of course, are the peasants.
I think that the students and, more specifically, the newly minted college graduates are another key group to watch is because many of these individuals cannot find the high paying jobs they had expected to find upon entering the work force. While the economy is becoming more open and market based by the day, access to good jobs is still based primarily on guanxi, or relationships and who you know. Should this not change—and I don’t see it changing as all of the elite have an interest in giving their one child access to a lucrative job—those students who excelled at school and yet are unable to find a good job due to their lack of guanxi could become very agitated. In a country that is bucking norms and has been changing its social order and ideology continuously for more almost a century, the centrality of guanxi could become a key battleground in the months and years to come.

This, then, is my take on the groups to look out for in the months and years to come in China. As I said before, I am no Chine scholar nor do I pretend to be—I didn’t take any courses related to China while an undergrad—but this is how I see it.