- Item #C512
- ISBN: 0938960512
- ISBN13: 978-0-938960-51-5
- Copyright 2007
- 381 pp.
- Form: Paperback, Trade paperback (US)
- Also available in: Hardback, $44.00
- Price: $24.95
Through Chinese Eyes, 3rd Edition
Tradition, Revolution and Transformation
By Edward Vernoff and Peter J. Seybolt
Blurbs
Content Sample
Click HERE for Table of Contents (PDF)
Editor's Introduction: The reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s, and intensified during the 1990s, brought unprecedented prosperity to millions of Chinese, particularly those living in large cities. They also created a new middle class and an ethic of rampant consumerism that had never before existed on such a grand scale in modern China. The following 1988 article, by The New York Times reporter Elisabeth Rosenthal, described the new phenomenon:
TEN YEARS AGO, this group did not even exist. Today its core of independent businessmen has been joined by a growing number of private-sector lawyers, artists and employees of joint-venture companies.
It is first defined by what its members have: cell phones, washing machines, computers and, increasingly, cars and homes. On Saturday nights they go to concerts; in winter they vacation in Thailand. But the rapid accumulation of material things has left its psychological mark as well, infusing this group with a kind of independence and carefree optimism that has not existed in China for decades.
"For many people, the change in the last decade has really been tremendous-so tremendous it's hard to measure," said Conghua Li, an analyst at Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group in Toronto who was born in Beijing. "Every time I go back I'm shocked and surprised, mostly in a good way."
There is no one statistic that defines this group, which broadly includes both company presidents (who seem to have it all) and young professionals who have just bought their first computer (and want it all, someday). They are people who work hard for what they achieve, for the most part without the family ties to the Communist Party leadership that have long defined China's most privileged class.
The group portrait is best created like a pointillist painting from 1,000 small fans: Ten years ago, 95 percent of passengers on airline flight in China were foreigners; today, 95 percent are Chinese. Ten years ago, extremely few Chinese had stayed in five-star hotels; today about 10 percent of bookings are from Chinese travelers paying their own way. In 1990, there were no cellular phones in China. Now there are almost 17 million.
The middle class is admired by college students who hope to join its ranks, and after years of ambivalence the Communist Party, since its congress last fall, has embraced it for its contributions to China's modernization ....
"The social status of people like me has improved a lot in the last few years," said Fang Zeng, 33, a soft-spoken real estate developer. "And that's a really big change."
Last year, Mr. Fang represented China at an international business conference and was tapped to be a delegate to his local Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, an advisory body of distinguished non-Communist Party members.
Mr. Fang and his wife, who teaches at Beijing University, each own their own cars. For next year's vacation, they are deliberating between Europe and Australia. They have donated money to establish university scholarships and children's libraries in Beijing, among other causes. And, although they now live in a one bedroom apartment provided by Beijing University, they are contemplating ownership once they have a child.
"I could never have imagined I would be where I am today," said Mr. Fang. "I have so many capabilities and choices .... "
Although Chinese entrepreneurs began accumulating money in the late 1980s, it was not until the mid '90s that the accouterments of middle-class life--cell phones, microwaves, a wide range of cars--were readily available for purchase in China. Then the middle class really took off.
Life has also improved for many in the countryside. In the following section, Mobo C. F. Gao, a native of Gao Village in Jiangxi province, reflects on the dramatic changes that have taken place in the village.
FOR MOST OF the villagers in the 1990s there was a noticeable improvement in the quality of life, reflected in things such as clothing, housing space and other consumer goods .... Throughout the 1960s and 70s Gao villagers used very few consumer goods that they could not make themselves. Even a washbasin was made of wooden boards strung together with bamboo strings. In 1962 my father managed to buy an enamel washbasin at the cost of something like 3 yuan. He said it was for me to use at high school when I had to board there. No one was allowed to use the basin and it was safely put away for three years until 1965 when I took it to high school. My father, an avowed Buddhist, never spent a cent on buying something for himself except matches and incense. He used these not to burn joss sticks before the Buddha but to light his tobacco. He grew his own tobacco and he smoked heavily. Very often, he would use a wooden stick instead of incense in order to save money. My elder sister's favourite story of how my father scrimped and saved was his refusal to use an umbrella. He would explain that every time an umbrella was used its life got shorter. Usually, Gao villagers could only afford paper umbrellas painted with tung oil, made by a local craftworker. Only the well-to-do could afford a cloth umbrella.
There was very little that Gao Village would buy from the shops, the nearest shop being some 3 kilometres away. They would have to buy matches, salt, soap, kerosene for lamps, joss sticks, some red paper for writing couplets for the Spring Festival, and rationed sugar if they could afford it. But Gao villagers would make their own soya sauce from soya beans. They would make sugar from sugar cane or from sweet potatoes, or even from rice ....
THE LANGUAGE OF CONSUMERISM Commercial terms are widely used in Shanghai's daily vocabulary. It serves as proof of the penetration of commerce into social life. During the 1950s and the 1960s, a sarcastic remark to mock one's poor hearing was "You have a 20 percent discount ear?" Since the late 1970s there has been a popular remark in Shanghai: one's girl/boyfriend is called an auction clinch, a term used in the decisive settlement of an auction. "Have you got an 'auction clinch?" means "Have you got a girlfriend?" An "account" also means one's girlfriend. This is the most obvious example that commerce "stains" affection.
Source: Yang Dongping, "City Monsoon: Cultural Spirit of Beijing and Shanghai," Chinese Sociology and Anthropology, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Winter 1996-1997), p. 49.
In the whole of Qinglin brigade, with 593 households and a population of 3,610, there were only thirty-six watches, twelve bicycles, twenty-five sewing machines and thirty radios by 1978. Nowadays, however, small consumer items such as gloves and socks, or a torchlight, a hat or a scarf are no longer thought a major consideration in the family budget. There were only two bicycles in Gao village in the early 1980s. Now there are forty-two. There are also a couple of colour, and twenty black and white television sets.
Because of the "consumer boom" in the area since the late 1990s, many villagers have set up small stands selling a variety of goods. A typical stand is made of a small shelter with one opening facing the road where the traffic comes and goes. These can be locked up at night and they are just big enough to store all the goods on sale, which. are displayed on three sides. There is a counter at the front, usually with a family member sitting behind it who serves customers. They cannot be called street corner shops because there are no streets in the villages. There is only one road running through the villages to the Boyang County Town and all the shops are installed along this road. A kilometre away to the east of Gao Village, there are now half a dozen shops along the road. About 2 kilometres to the west of Gao Village there are another half dozen shops set up along the road.
A number of factors contributed to the consumer boom in Gao Village, but an increase in agricultural income is not one of them. The principal factor is the cash income from young Gao villagers working as migrant workers. To the present day, around 30 per cent of the people in the area have left as migrant workers. If each migrant worker sends an average of 100 yuan a month back to Gao Village (which they in fact do ... ), the cash income from ninety-eight Gao Village migrant workers in 1995 would amount to 117,600 yuan. This is a huge amount of money for Gao villagers, on top of which the absence of these migrant workers alleviates a substantial burden on village resources.
Another important factor is that some consumer goods are simply much cheaper now than, say, ten years ago, thanks to the industrial boost since the 1980s. An ordinary watch costs around 50 yuan, or even less, nowadays, whereas its cost was at least 100 yuan before 1978. Today's prices are such that if inflation is taken into account a villager should be able to buy a watch at a cost equivalent to 12 yuan fifteen years ago, whereas the actual price at that time was set at 120 yuan! This is just one example of how the government fixed the price of industrial goods to the disadvantage of rural residents. This price change applies to other consumer goods as well, such as bicycles, radios, rubber boots, garments and television sets.
Dramatic changes have also transformed urban social life and have given rise to new forms of recreation and entertainment. These changes were described by Beijing University mathematics student Shan Dandan:
IN THE LAST decade great changes have taken place in Chinese life-styles. A great variety of recreational items are now available, and more and more people are spending their spare time going our in search of fun. Newspapers have even devoted column space to let readers know when and where they can spend an enjoyable evening.
In the 1950s, '60s, and early '70s, most Chinese were busy with the demands of work and family. In their free time they usually visited friends or relations or went to the park or to the movies on rare occasions. Black-and-white television starred appearing in ordinary homes in the late 1970s, and after dinner many people would settle in for an evening of TV. There were, however, only two or three channels across China to choose from at the time.
Dancing was the main leisure activity in the 1980s. At middle school and college, students would try only a few tentative steps at ballroom dancing, then known to many Chinese as collective dances. Soon waltzes and tangos became popular on college campuses, giving way in the mid 1980s to disco and tamer forms of rock music, despite disapproval and criticism from older generations. At the same time, many middle-aged and older people indulged in nostalgia and took up waltzing again, a form of dancing very popular in days past, even in China.
Dancing started to lose ground, however, in the 1990s due to an increase in the number of ways that people could spend their spare time. Business is slow now not only in dance halls, bur also at the box office. Many major cinemas have replaced their theaters with snack bars and lounges, while new compact disc technology offers movies with far better sound and pictures than most cinemas. Now when a Chinese couple, usually a pair of starry-eyed teenagers, go to the movies, they must pay anywhere from 15 to 30 yuan, whereas only a few years ago the price hovered around 50 fen (100 fen per yuan) for a single admission.
There are also many private video parlors springing up, showing a variety of Kung Fu films, soppy love stories and gory horror flicks. Since these showings are usually pretty inexpensive, they always attract large audiences. Pop singers from Hong Kong and Taiwan are favorites among young people on the mainland. In the last years waves of new stars have come and gone, with a new face on the charts almost every other day. Since its first appearance in China in 1986, karaoke has seemed unstoppable. More and more people prefer to hold weddings and birthday parties in karaoke halls, as they think singing the latest pop tune creates a lively and cheerful atmosphere. Karaoke also allows many people to indulge in fantasies about the entertainment world.
Many restaurants now turn into karaoke halls in the evening. All the big hotels in China have a karaoke lounge, and many businesses have purchased a karaoke machine to liven up the lunch hour. Karaoke machines have also won an honored place in many ordinary homes, allowing families to compete to see who can sing the best (or worst).
China had no nightlife to speak of in the past. Now large cities are no longer desolate and deserted at night, what with all-night movie theaters, bars, night clubs, and neon decorated dance halls. People who have worked hard all day come here to relax and enjoy themselves. Parties at home, a traditional Western pastime, are now practiced by fashionable Chinese. Cocktail parries and masquerades are popular among the young. Having a party at your home is a sure sign of "being in the swim," but at the same time it is practical in the sense that it is a heal thy means of recreation as well as social intercourse. Some people have opened music salons in their homes. In Shanghai, China's largest city, there are about 200,000 compact disk purchasers. Some of these often get together and compare their CD collections.
Older people nowadays are fond of group-related sports. These activities are fun and healthy at the same time. Many young people in China also like to spend time exercising. Some activities, like bowling, golf, and indoor swimming, can get pretty expensive in China, but more and more people have the money to afford them.