History crossroad opens new doors of personal choice
Print Edition
The 1970s provided the first crack in the door opening China to the outside world — a policy shift that was to cause a tidal wave of change, transforming a backward country into a global economic titan.
It was the decade when the “cultural revolution” ended, when the nation’s founders Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai died, when the one-child policy was initiated, when ping pong diplomacy led to restoration of China’s seat in the United Nations and when the national college examination was resumed.
The days of hardship were over, and the whole nation was poised to grow and prosper. People born in the 1970s were the first in many years to cherish dreams that were attainable, with a little luck and a lot of hard work.
“The 1970s generation bears the hallmarks of that era,” says sociologist Gu Xiaoming from Fudan University.
“They are distinctively open minded, yet traditional too. They are brave enough to try new things but still old-fashioned in terms of self-discipline and values,” he adds.
Indeed. They are a generation of contradictions.
They were the first generation to embrace the computer age but were forced by parents to practice ancient calligraphy. They were the first generation to buy Western pop albums and foreign magazines but were also conservative and patriotic.
Their childhoods were filled with songs like “I Love Tian’anmen Square” and “Shining Red Stars.”
“Children were eager to join the Young Pioneers,” recalls salesman Lu Bingkun, 34. “I firmly believed the pioneers’ red scarves were dyed with our soldiers’ blood.”
“I remembered I cried when I missed out on the first group admitted to the organization. That was a huge humiliation for a student back in those days,” Lu adds.
Many parents who bore children in the 1970s went on to lose their jobs as market-oriented reforms began to puncture holes in centralized planning.
The children grew up only too aware that they could no longer rely on the state for everything and had to develop their own sense of responsibility.
The people born in the 1970s are today emerging as the mainstream of politics, literature, sports, science, business and the arts. They were influenced by overseas culture, listening to foreign rock music, reading Western literature and viewing Hong Kong gang films.
“I knew one guy living in my neighborhood who was segregated by police because he watched Hong Kong porn videos at home,” says Zhu Zechen, 33, a rock-and-roll fan who borrowed albums from his classmates and mimicked hip-swiveling guitar-playing with a pillow.
Kong Lingkai, 38, remembers depleting family savings to buy a radio that cost 147 yuan (US$24). “We could faintly pick up programs from Taiwan,” he says. “Once I even heard a Teresa Teng concert on the radio, and occasionally we could hear Christian preachers, which was quite exciting for us at the time.”
Many of China’s currently most successful playwrights, film directors, architects, musicians and writers were born during the 1970s. These include filmmaker Jia Zhangke, who won the Venice Film Festival’s top award Golden Lion for “Still Life,” four-time Olympic table tennis champion Deng Yaping, and actress Zhang Ziyi, who starred in the Oscar-winning film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”
“They experienced all the twists and turns,” sociologist Gu says. “From them, you can see a China that was painfully undergoing reform and reshuffling. They are the generation with stories to tell.”
The 1970s generation possesses traditional morals and a strong sense of responsibility for society and the country, yet they tend to be skeptical about everything.
“The 1970s is a torn generation,” Gu explains. “They can’t act like they don’t care, as did the generation that followed, because they do care. They don’t want to return to the hard, restrained times of their parents. They have tasted freedom. They are a complicated group.”
As China opened up to the outside world, young people had the opportunity to go abroad. Many went to study overseas, where they worked hard and lived in thrift. They are not a generation given to showy wealth.
Jane Zhang, 35, was among those who chose to go abroad.
After graduation from a medical school, she and her husband went to the US for further studies. They finished school, got married and had two boys in the US. In order to gain permanent residency, the couple didn’t return for 10 years, and Zhang missed her grandmother’s funeral.
Many of her classmates who chose to stay in China now occupy high positions in Shanghai’s big hospitals, but Zhang remains a researcher without any clinical experience, and her husband is still working on his medical license in the US.
“I just wanted to go abroad to see the world,” she says. “If you ask me today whether I regret my decisions, I will tell you that I don’t. I made my own choices.”
Gu says the 1970s generation witnessed the deconstruction of China’s old system and ideology. “As new things took their place, these people often were lost and confused,” he says. “But they also had choices their parents could never have dreamed of and were able to determine what kind of lives they wanted to lead.”
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