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Rural change and the charm of anonymous urban life
By Wan Lixin |
May 26, 2012, Saturday
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In Andrew Lam's article published on this page today, he contrasts the family-based, personal questions of the inhabitants of his ancestral village in Vietnam with the American focus on what you do for a living.
It must be pointed out that these kind of rural manners emerge naturally in a closely knit village - which is not unlike an extended family - with little tolerance for pretensions and ostentations. They like to go straight to the point.
Twenty years ago, when I was fresh from college, the first questions any villager would ask me included (usually in this order): How old are you? Do you have a date? How much do you make? Today, their questions would also extend to my son, my wife, and my home: its size and price. These are all true, important questions.
Given the ease with which such prized information can be obtained and then freely disseminated and discussed among fellow villagers, there is very little that needs to be, or can be, concealed. Privacy is largely unheard of.
Take the example of Wu Ying, an iconic business woman before she was found to be a fraudster.
In a final verdict on Monday, her previous death penalty was upheld, but with a two-year reprieve, which means she has been spared the worst.
When she was lauded as a 20-something beauty billionaire, there was a great deal of secrecy and speculation about how she made the pile. Wu cleverly fuelled and profited from the speculation by ruthlessly squandering her fortune.
After she was imprisoned, it suddenly occurred to some reporters to trace her to her rustic roots, and some villagers recalled she had a weakness for petty theft while still a girl. Would it be possible for her to play the Ponzi scheme trick on her fellow villagers?
As the saying goes, the child is the father of man. When we lose sight of a man's (or woman's) past, and decorum warns us against prying into others' past, and present, we have to be on constant guard against our clients, colleagues, public servants, and fellow wayfarers.
In the anonymity of urban life, it is easy to start anew.
The Guangzhou-based New Express Daily reported this week that for eight years 39-year-old Zou Binyong had lived the life of a high-flying official. He was entertained and paid bribes by nearly a hundred people, ranging from business people to provincial minister-level officials, all because he falsely claimed to be a senior official at the powerful National Development and Reform Commission.
On Monday, a report - complete with photographs - of his visit to Hunan Grains Group was still displayed prominently on the company website.
With a high-ranking official, as Zou was supposed to be, "What do you do?" would be an unlikely question. The only thing to be done by surrounding sycophants is to please him.
Now all this turns out to be a comedy, only because Zou turned out to be an impostor.
In the urban context, everybody is protected, like Zou, by his/her cocoon of insularity. This limits all human interactions to the superficials.
"What do you do?" is the safest question that can be contemplated, though even this can be sensitive in some context. That leaves weather as the only safe topic.
Unlike the village in Vietnam that Lam mentions in his article, rural China is in the grip of heady changes.
The catalyst for the changes is the demographic shift, as a result of rapid urbanization.
During a visit to my native village in north Jiangsu Province last month, all I saw of one neighbor' family was the grandmother and her four grandchildren.
Her husband mans the gate at a nearby construction site, her younger son works at another construction site in Shandong Province, returning home a couple of times a year. Her two daughters-in-law work at nearby factories, but such are the work hours that they rarely see their children during their waking hours.
Her elder son was to leave for Brunei within the week, as a construction worker earning 6,000 yuan (US$950) a month. After 18 months, the money he brings home will go a long way towards building a lou (a storied building). That is the only style now tolerated by local village government, though their old residence can well last another 50 years.
That lou would cost them at least 300,000 yuan.
It must be pointed out that these kind of rural manners emerge naturally in a closely knit village - which is not unlike an extended family - with little tolerance for pretensions and ostentations. They like to go straight to the point.
Twenty years ago, when I was fresh from college, the first questions any villager would ask me included (usually in this order): How old are you? Do you have a date? How much do you make? Today, their questions would also extend to my son, my wife, and my home: its size and price. These are all true, important questions.
Given the ease with which such prized information can be obtained and then freely disseminated and discussed among fellow villagers, there is very little that needs to be, or can be, concealed. Privacy is largely unheard of.
Take the example of Wu Ying, an iconic business woman before she was found to be a fraudster.
In a final verdict on Monday, her previous death penalty was upheld, but with a two-year reprieve, which means she has been spared the worst.
When she was lauded as a 20-something beauty billionaire, there was a great deal of secrecy and speculation about how she made the pile. Wu cleverly fuelled and profited from the speculation by ruthlessly squandering her fortune.
After she was imprisoned, it suddenly occurred to some reporters to trace her to her rustic roots, and some villagers recalled she had a weakness for petty theft while still a girl. Would it be possible for her to play the Ponzi scheme trick on her fellow villagers?
As the saying goes, the child is the father of man. When we lose sight of a man's (or woman's) past, and decorum warns us against prying into others' past, and present, we have to be on constant guard against our clients, colleagues, public servants, and fellow wayfarers.
In the anonymity of urban life, it is easy to start anew.
The Guangzhou-based New Express Daily reported this week that for eight years 39-year-old Zou Binyong had lived the life of a high-flying official. He was entertained and paid bribes by nearly a hundred people, ranging from business people to provincial minister-level officials, all because he falsely claimed to be a senior official at the powerful National Development and Reform Commission.
On Monday, a report - complete with photographs - of his visit to Hunan Grains Group was still displayed prominently on the company website.
With a high-ranking official, as Zou was supposed to be, "What do you do?" would be an unlikely question. The only thing to be done by surrounding sycophants is to please him.
Now all this turns out to be a comedy, only because Zou turned out to be an impostor.
In the urban context, everybody is protected, like Zou, by his/her cocoon of insularity. This limits all human interactions to the superficials.
"What do you do?" is the safest question that can be contemplated, though even this can be sensitive in some context. That leaves weather as the only safe topic.
Unlike the village in Vietnam that Lam mentions in his article, rural China is in the grip of heady changes.
The catalyst for the changes is the demographic shift, as a result of rapid urbanization.
During a visit to my native village in north Jiangsu Province last month, all I saw of one neighbor' family was the grandmother and her four grandchildren.
Her husband mans the gate at a nearby construction site, her younger son works at another construction site in Shandong Province, returning home a couple of times a year. Her two daughters-in-law work at nearby factories, but such are the work hours that they rarely see their children during their waking hours.
Her elder son was to leave for Brunei within the week, as a construction worker earning 6,000 yuan (US$950) a month. After 18 months, the money he brings home will go a long way towards building a lou (a storied building). That is the only style now tolerated by local village government, though their old residence can well last another 50 years.
That lou would cost them at least 300,000 yuan.
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