Sanitation Worker Protest

In a continuation of the theme from my last post, I just saw an article on the blog "Ministry of Tofu" about the sanitation workers in Nanjing going on strike for a day. I did not personally witness this event, but according to the article, the rebellion happened in my neighborhood. People everywhere are standing up for themselves. I love how the Chinese protest. Check it out:

Nanjing sanitation workers protest low wages by dumping garbage into the streets

Note: "sanitation workers" is perhaps a better way to translate the professional garbage collectors I mentioned in my last post. The recycling collectors, however, are still not a part of this group, since they are not a part of the government's work unit like the official sanitation workers are.

In other news, after the school bus crash in Gansu Province on November 16, 2011 that killed 21 school children and 2 adults, many Chinese are outraged over alleged corruption in the Chinese Department of Education. One way they are expressing this is by comparing the Chinese and American government systems and officials. Here is an interesting article about a set of pictures circulating around the Internet in China that compares the US to China and Taiwan to China. The English description below each set of pictures is indeed a translation of the red Chinese headlines in each picture.

My initial reaction to the pictures was that there are some things about China and the US that simply cannot be compared. In regards to the pictures of Jon Huntsman and Gary Locke, saving face is a HUGE deal for Chinese government officials--saving and losing face is an integral part of everyday life for most Chinese people over the age of 30 (it is a value that is supposedly dying out in more recent generations), but face is especially important for males over the age of 30 in positions of power. As a result, Chinese politicians are in a very different position to save face than US politicians. The key to the Chinese anger over these pictures is the "over the age of 30" part. As saving face is somewhat of an "out of style" way of thinking, the generation under the age of 30 (known as balinghou, or "born after 1980" in Chinese) who do not value face as much are the ones becoming outraged over arguably corrupt officials spending money on elaborate banquets and fancy, big American cars. Meanwhile, the balinghou are lauding US politicians for their down-to-earth attitude.

Furthermore, there are rich schools in China and poor schools in China, and there are rich schools in the US and poor schools in the US.  Comparing a well-funded school in a rich US suburb to a school in a poor, rural village in China doesn't help anyone understand our two societies. Or maybe it does help by pointing out what a ridiculous comparison that is.

Nevertheless, comparing US schools to Chinese schools with pictures certainly helps perpetuate the stereotype that all Americans are rich. I can't tell you how many Chinese people have asked me if there are poor people in the US, and act shocked when I respond with a "Yes." My post-doctorate in theoretical physics roommate, for example, absolutely refused to believe that the average household income in the US is $45,000 a year until I showed him the official statistics published online. "But that is such a low salary for a family! That's impossible! Americans must be richer than that!" he kept insisting. "No," I told him, "Most Americans are just barely getting by, especially these days..." The residents of Old Nanjing are even more persistent sometimes, insisting that America is better than China in every way (except for the food. Chinese food always trumps American food). 

This is a misunderstanding that needs to be corrected. I play to what I believe they must have learned at some point in school by explaining that as a capitalist country, we have a big gap between the rich and the poor (as having winners and losers of the economic system is the nature of capitalism), and there are many very poor people in the US. Most of the more stubborn Chinese people insist that poor Chinese people are much more poor than poor Americans, which may or may not be true depending on what social indicators you are comparing. I am actually still wondering where exactly Chinese people are getting this idea that all Americans are filthy rich, and I believe it must be from movies (James Bond, you're doing a terrible job representing real America!) and television shows like Friends and Gossip Girl, which are wildly popular here.

Chinese word of the day:

体现- ti3 xian4- literally "body present" (as in, body meaning your physical body (head, torso, legs) combined with present meaning now, on the spot, currently), aka to embody or reflect

Recycling trucks

I admire recycling and garbage collectors in China. Recycling collection in China is not considered to be a directly state-sponsored occupation, but rather involves individuals collecting scraps to turn in for a small profit at local recycling plants. This means that you often see recycling collectors digging through trash cans trying to find recyclable materials.

Most of the recycling trucks, even in the city, are pulled or pedaled manually (that is, the "trucks" either consist of a huge cart with two wheels that is pulled in a reverse-wheelbarrow style or a tricycle with a large "truck bed"). I'm always impressed when I see a tricycle driver cycling up a hill, with his or her truck bed piled high with cardboard, wood, plastic or other recyclable goods. Official garbage trucks are also often pulled manually, not unlike a huge wheelbarrow, especially in Old Nanjing since the alleys are too narrow for cars or trucks. Vendors ride tricycles with products, such as shoes, household products, or fruits and vegetables on a big platform in the back. Here are some pictures I've collected over the past couple months.

This is the tricycle of Old Nanjing's local recycling man, Gao Wei, who is probably the happiest person I've ever met. His placard say, "Household Electronic Recycling: Refrigerators, Furniture, Air Conditioners, Computers, Washing Machines," ect, ect... He rides his tricycle around the neighborhood collecting anything he can get his hands on, including glass and plastic. He makes about 300 RMB a day.

This is the back of Gao Wei's tricycle, advertising all of the recycling services he provides, such as picking up your old washing machine when you are moving. 

Gao Wei going through the garbage looking for recyclable goods. He also collects garbage bags he finds on the street and goes through them each day, finding things to recycle (Chinese people will typically just throw everything together, leaving it up to the recycling collectors to separate everything out).

High-quality vs. Low-quality People

As a budding geographer, I love to read about how spatial arrangement affects politics (one familiar example to most Americans is "the red states versus the blue states" spatial pattern in US presidential elections). Luigi Tomba is one of my favorite political scientists because his research on China includes an analysis of spatial relationships, especially of residential segregation, to describe political phenomena in China. As The China Beat frequently posts book reviews, I was inspired to post an article review with my own commentary, experiences, and pictures.

Tomba's article "Of Quality, Harmony, and Community: Civilization and the Middle Class in Urban China" is absolutely brilliant. His articles are always well written with fluidity, vivid imagery, and even a little humor, qualities that are usually hard to find in academic journals. This particular article takes common rhetoric—the notion that there is a need to create a more civilized Chinese society—and analyzes it in the context of segregation, urban governance, and political reform.

Tomba argues that the government is not just encouraging its citizens to become more civilized (wenming, 文明) and is not just sitting back to let market reform take its course. Rather, he writes, the state is "actively promoting the engineering of new, diffused, and responsible economic elites."[1] The creation of such a responsible and consumption-driven class is crucial for the CCP in maintaining political legitimacy on the road towards a more capitalist system. As a result, Chinese cities have been intentionally segregated between the haves and have-nots, with the haves enjoying political autonomy within their gated communities (xiaoqu, 小区 ) that such rich, educated citizens "deserve." Meanwhile, the have-nots remain dependent on the government-controlled Resident Committees (jumin weiyuanhui, 居民委员会) and exercise little to no political rights. For example, rich citizens enjoy homeowners' rights, while the poor don't dare to dream of owning a home.

How is the government actively taking part in the creation of this so-called socially responsible and consumption-driven upper middle-class? First of all, the Chinese state encourages its citizens to be more civilized through extensive public signage. You can see this everywhere you go in China, from the toilets that say, "Be civilized, flush the toilet"; to the jumbotrons that flash, "Welcome the 2014 Youth Olympics to Nanjing! Let's build a civilized city"; to the bus and subway signs that read "Ride a civilized bus, Move to the back" or "Ride a civilized subway, form a line and let people get off before you get on"; to the signs that warn "Don't litter! Let's a build a clean city we can all enjoy as one urbanite family." This type of language is so common in China that you become numb to it after a while. Here is an example: 

This is a bus stop sign that reads:

Lighten up and make this ancient city green by planting trees and flowers; Prepare a new and beautiful Nanjing

Abide by social ethics; Protect and uphold the appearance of our urban environment

Love deeply (literally "hot love") Nanjing; Launch new construction in Nanjing; Beautify Nanjing; Promote a prosperous Nanjing

Share one blue sky together; Construct a new homeland together

Build an elegant environment; Live a longer life

We can use voluntary actions to replace the current situation with extreme cleanliness

Create a civilized city; Ride a civilized bus; Be a civilized person

This one is for my Mom Part III- More Kitchens!

Kitchens again! Noticing a theme? I mentioned in an earlier post that I would upload pictures of a wealthy family's kitchen in a demonstration of China's insane diversity and the rich-poor gap. I promised and I shall deliver. As a reminder to all my readers, and myself, China is an incredibly diverse place and these kitchens are not meant to represent an entire group of people. China's diversity is apparent in more ways that just it's 55 ethnic minorities. Geographic region plays a huge role, the most well-known being the east-west development gap. As I've discovered in my research in Old Nanjing, however, an entirely different way of thinking and way of life can be discovered within the so-called "neglected" or "backward" (not my words!) parts of urban areas in the east as well, even in Jiangsu, one of the wealthiest provinces in China. Anyway, point being, these kitchens are not representative of all Chinese families, just a select few.

The pictures of the nice kitchen are from a penthouse apartment of one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Nanjing. Every Saturday I do a language exchange (2 hours of Chinese and 2 hours of English) with a 13-year old boy at this ridiculous apartment. He goes to the Nanjing Foreign Language School, which is considered the best middle school in Nanjing. Here is a picture of the school notebook he uses:

 

I love his notebook because it captures the conflict that China has found itself to be in: torn between the old and the new, the domestic and the foreign, Chinese and international. As it is an official "Nanjing Foreign Language School" notebook, it encapsulates the feelings of so many of the students planning to go abroad for college: How should I be open to foreign things, ideas, and cultures, while maintaining a Chinese identity? How does a country and its people develop its economy and raise its standard of living without sacrificing its people? I also thought of my own research topic- How have Chinese people maintained their "Chinese soul", that is, their sense of identity and cultural traditions amongst such rapid change? How has urban housing redevelopment and structural change (homes to apartments) changed social and cultural behaviors?