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