That PhD Life: When Chinese People Feel Shame

"Don't take pictures of my old, broken down store!" the shop owner of a second-hand clothing store yelled at me. When I insisted that her shop was beautiful, she squinted her eyes uncertainly at me and turned away to continue haggling a price with one of her customers. The owner, Wang Xiaohong, is a 74-year-old business owner in a jiucheng, or "old city," a neighborhood in China with narrow alleys and traditional courtyard home architecture. She has converted one of the old homes, or laofangzi as locals call the one to two story houses with tin roofs, into a thrift store overflowing with an inventory of boots, sweaters, jackets, and handbags.


The inside (above) and outside (below) of Wang Xiaohong's humble thrift shop, which is housed in a laofangzi.

Her attitude towards my research on urban redevelopment was at first one of both suspicion and shame. Like many of the neighborhood residents, she asked me one day, "Why are you doing research in this broken down slum? You should go to Suzhou [a famous and well-preserved traditional, ancient city in China] where the cultural preservation is admired! There is nothing to see here. You could never see such poverty and backwardness in America, could you?" I just responded by telling her that I love this unique and special jiucheng and I wish that everyone could have the opportunity I have to meet the wonderful and kind people there.

During my Fulbright grant in a second-tier city on the Yangtze River in China, I am examining the impact of urban redevelopment on the preservation of tradition and cultural identity. Due to skyrocketing property values, business deals between the local governments and private land developers, and the popularization of private residential compounds, China is demolishing jiucheng neighborhoods and displacing the residents to the suburbs at an alarming rate. My Fulbright research in Nanjing involves field-based ethnographic research that endeavors to conclude how urban reconstruction has influenced local identity and social behavior. As I integrate myself into the daily life of this jiucheng's residents, I am conducting participant observations to record the social norms of the different generations. The generation gaps provide significant diversity within the community and reveal transformations in local identity over time.

One particularly prevalent theme in notions of local identity is shame for themselves and for their neighborhood. For example, some insist that their dialect is horrible sounding, or "hard to listen to." Some even have the idea that Americans have better inner-quality, or suzhi, than Chinese people do. One resident insisted, "Americans are more civilized than Chinese people. For example, we don't even have private toilets in this slum. We all have to go to the unhygienic public bathroom to squat." The shame of their "slum" pervades many aspects of social behavior, one being that some feel China is losing face by having a foreigner do research in such a so-called "uncivilized slum" and insist I should go somewhere else. I still think their dialect is nice to hear and their neighborhood, especially the interpersonal relationships inside it, is beautiful.

Hou Bo and his neighbors preparing lunch in their laofangzi open courtyard. Hou Bo's grandson comes home from school everyday at 12:00 to eat lunch.


The residents are very cautious of pesticides and chemicals

As my research progresses, the locals have become familiar with my presence. They refer to me as their "good friend" and invite me to eat dumplings, play mahjong, or sit and chat with them. One day I said "Hello" to three people squatting by buckets of vegetables in their courtyard, and one reacted with shock, and exclaimed, "You can speak Chinese? Please sit down!" He pulled up a stool that would only be suitable for a small toddler in the United States.

His name is Hou Bo and he was born and raised in this jiucheng neighborhood. We chatted about how his life has changed since the Mao Zedong era. "Before reform and opening [in 1978], we didn't have enough to eat. Now we have enough to eat, but we don't dare to eat," he told me, referring to the food scandal scares that have rocked China in recent years. He showed me how they meticulously wash each piece of vegetable and take extra precautions against ingesting dangerous chemicals that might be in the food. As we chat, Hou Bo proudly teaches me useful phrases in the local dialect.

When I asked him what he will do when his house gets demolished, he replied with, "The government will give us money to move into an apartment building." I asked him, "Then do you wish to be demolished soon or are you afraid of demolition?" He furrowed his brows and shook his head sternly, saying "I would never in all my life wish for this house to be demolished. I think living in a high-rise apartment building would be very boring. You know everybody's door is always closed there, and you can't interact with people as easily as you can here. My hope is to renovate this old house someday, but I would never want to move away. I like living here, where I was born. The interpersonal relationships with neighbors are very good here." Many of the senior citizens in the neighborhood express regret that their neighborhood will be demolished in the next couple of years.

Hou Bo's kitchen

Hou Bo's living room/bedroom

Though the residents still find it suspicious that I have so much time to spend with them ("Shouldn't you be in class?" they ask me every time they see me), I have become good friends with many of them. Wang Xiaohong and I have become business partners of sorts, as I accompany her outside her shop a few times a week and I help her out with various tasks (she has trouble walking and she says her greatest fear is that she will end up in a wheelchair someday). She leads a simple life: "I make just enough money to eat and drink, and that's all I need. Even though I'm 74-years-old, I can't retire because I don't have a pension because I never had a work unit when I was younger. Now I have to take care of this business because I have no one to care for me. I'm so happy I've met you; now I have the daughter I've always wanted but never had." She no longer expresses shame in her shop, and every once in a while I can even detect a hint of pride when she tells me she started her business all on her own.