Cultural issues

I have always believed that rural problems are not just political and economic but cultural as well. Never mind Marx’s theory of economic determinism, I believe that these cultural issues significantly impact the living conditions and lifestyles of rural villages and villagers, as well as their consumption patterns and life choices.

I have also long wondered, what exactly is culture in the rural context? Is there something we can call a rural culture? What kind of culture is specific to the countryside?

Everybody says that Chinese people are influenced by Confucianism, but in the villages, you see very little humanity or fellowship. All you see is selfishness, greed, stupidity and ignorance, the law of the jungle and infighting. What happened to the simple, pure-hearted, virtuous peasant of lore? What turned them into creatures like this?

Fights, quarrels and adultery are all are commonplace. Especially during the Spring Festival, gambling, drinking or petty grievances can lead first to quarrels, then to beatings and finally to grievous bodily harm.

After drinking, some people will wander around the village shouting abuse, insulting whoever they like, mouthing obscenities. Any family that has a lot of sons will have many willing fists, and can intimidate their neighbours.

Eighteen-year-old boys wear earrings, grow their hair long and dye it. Girls of seventeen or so adore [China Idol] Chris Lee and write on their schoolbooks statements like “I’m not mainstream.” These kids have never heard of the WTO, but they know about McDonald’s, online dating, and how to use QQ to find a girlfriend.

There are no newspapers in the village but just about every family has a television set. We’ve had cable for the last couple of years but because of the cable fees not everyone is hooked up. The county TV stations always broadcast provocative “Viagra” and breast enhancement ads. Adults and children both watch regardless.

In recent years, we have also seen the emergence of a new kind of [traditional Chinese] clarinet (唢呐) troupe. These troupes perform at weddings and funerals, and should be invited into the host families’ home - if you do not invite them in, you lose face and are looked down on. When I was small, the bands played traditional music, with a good variety of instruments. They worked hard to give good performances. But now, there are only a few bands left, and they have electronic keyboards.

Of course, the music is not what I want to talk about. My point is, these troupes bring dancing girls. Most are over 30, and past their best. In the evening they pile on the makeup, get onstage and bawl out some vulgar ditties, tell dirty jokes, and later flirt with the audience. It’s basically about sex. Sometimes they even perform a striptease.

The audience includes adults, children and the elderly, of both sexes. When the show starts, they all start chanting or shouting “get them off, get them off.” This happens even at funerals. And when it does, there is no hint of grief in the faces of family and friends or fellow villagers. If the girl doesn’t take her clothes off, the crowd might think that this troupe is no good, not giving them what they want. Personally, I think the scene resembles Lu Xun’s description of a crowd at an execution.

Some say it is question of religious belief. There is no doubt that in recent years, Christianity has fared very well in our area (and elsewhere), especially among older people. Every Sunday, they all go to the service.

More comments on education

Let me first say something about my own case. From childhood on, my father always warned me that country people only have two options if they want to get out of the village: join the army or go to university. At that time, university meant security, it meant you could wash off the mud of the fields, go to the city and become a “respectable person.” But nowadays, few people look at things in this way.

In the past, life in the village really was hard. Several dozen mu of wheat had to be harvested with a scythe, stroke by stroke, and at the mill it had to crushed with an ox-driven millstone. Several dozen acres of mint had to be constantly heated in huge iron pots for several days around the clock.

When I was at middle school (this was 1997), students who had good marks all sat exams to get into technical colleges. At that time, this was seen as good enough by country people. High school did not necessary lead to university, and if it did, that meant huge financial outlays. Our village had two high school students then. One sat retakes for the university entrance exam for several years but still did not get in; he then became a chicken farmer, and after failing at that, a migrant labourer – for a while, he was the laughingstock of the village. The other studied physical education, also spent several years retaking the entrance examination, and in the end got into a teacher-training college in the province. He went on to become a mathematics teacher, of all things, in a secondary school - a miracle if ever I saw one.

Because so few students in our county get to take university entrance examinations, many go instead to vocational or private colleges. (These colleges simply grabbed kids from the gates of high schools, which all got a cut when a student was enrolled). Country people do not understand the difference - they think all colleges are universities. But after graduating from these colleges, the students still end up as migrant labourers, and so ever more people have come to see the benefits of higher education as a myth. At the same time, the migrant labour myth has blossomed and spread. People think a high-school student turned migrant labourer can earn 8,000 yuan a month. There is, of course, some justification for this, but mostly it is wishful thinking.

A joke: A few years ago, there was a boy from a nearby village who got into Beihua University [in Jilin], on a military scholarship. To celebrate, his family screened four movies over two evenings and hung out a big red banner from the entrance of their home. It was the talk of the town.

“What kind of university is Beihua University?” one villager asked another.

“Who knows, maybe short for Beijing Qinghua University? What an achievement!”

“Tut tut, I hear that this university not only wants your money but also gives out money.”

I heard all these things from my father when I came back.

In the past, I believed in enlightenment theory, that education was the key to transforming life in the countryside. I thought every child in the village should be aware, achieve self-awareness and have a clear understanding of the world around them. Then everything would work out. But now it is more about salvation than enlightenment. The wrecked villages of China need a saviour.

The truth is that very few university graduates would now be willing to return to help develop their home villages. Yes, you could say this is neglecting your roots, acting in bad faith. You could of course accuse me of these things. But you have to understand the difficulties. This trip back, I heard people say that university students are now being appointed to grassroots village official posts. It’s a sound policy, but only a half-measure, going through the motions for show. How can one or two people with book learning sort out the problems of a whole village, where the waters run so deep?

A fellow student was very keen to return to the county town after graduating, to become a local businessman. Our county town is now much like Shenzhen at the beginning of the 1980s. If you operate a wholesale company for a year you can make 100,000 to 200,000 yuan, although rent in the county town is around 1,500 yuan per square meter. But his parents would not allow this on any account, considering it a loss of face.

Four years ago, when I left my family and home to become a graduate student in Shanghai, I saw a myth welling up behind me, like a great mushroom cloud. It is often said that the tides of history drive the individual forward, and that is what it felt like. There is no way I can go back and puncture that myth, however difficult life away from the village may be. I think at least for those who come later, it’s good to retain some hope. If I went back, no doubt I would be seen as a tragic case by everybody. I would inevitably be treated as an example of what not to do. I would be held up as proof of the uselessness of study.

Was my departure a heroic conclusion or a tragic beginning? In The Emperor’s New Clothes, the child that speaks the truth is not always appreciated. Of course, you can accuse me of weakness. During this stay, I awoke suddenly one night, full of foreboding that, if I weren’t careful, I could end up like Wei Liansu or Lu Weifu.

It’s not that I don’t want to go back home, it’s that I went too far away, and have no way back now. As soon as I turned away, I realized that I had no way back. This is what I want people to understand.

Life in the countryside

Many people have mentioned the problem of gambling in rural areas, and there is indeed a lot of it in our area, especially during the New Year. When migrant workers have earned their money and come home, they get together to gamble. They gamble recklessly, and some people can lose a year’s pay. Gambling of all kinds occurs, and even women and the elderly get involved. The games include dice, mahjong, dominoes, and various card games.

Another aspect of gambling is the official corruption it engenders. For our local police, gambling arrests have become a new form of revenue-raising. No matter how small the stakes - one or two yuan, even 50 cents - they still haul people in. One winter’s day, my own mother was detained for playing dice. No matter whether you are a player or a spectator, you are still taken in, and afterwards your family is told to cough up such and such a sum for your release. This is frankly illegal, but it has been like this for many years. Of course, if you have connections, and call for help, then there is no problem. They will not dare to pick you up.

And now a few words on counterfeit goods. Once when I came back for the mid-autumn festival, I bought a bottle of Coca-Cola at a village shop and was surprised to find that it was a fake. A student who came back with me said that even toothpaste and washing powder in the village shops are fake. According to my father, when people in the village prepare for the New Year celebrations, the alcohol and cigarettes they buy are always counterfeit. The villagers have all grown lazy, and have even given up making their own steamed buns. Why is this? Because the shops now have everything you need, from steamed buns to everyday goods, meat, fruit and vegetables, bottled drinking water, and gas and telephone bill payment services. When I came back this time, I heard a neighbouring village even has a supermarket. Yes, a self-service supermarket, a mini-Carrefour - a sure sign that modernization has reached the villages.

Human life is a dime a dozen in the countryside. Two examples: In a hamlet at the back of us lived an old man who had studied privately, had fine calligraphy, told fortunes in the local market, and had some understanding of the works of Confucius and Mencius. Although he was over 80 years old, he remained active. A few years ago, he was knocked down by a motorbike while crossing the road and later died. In the end, the family reached a private arrangement with the driver, and 10,000 yuan in compensation was paid. I asked my father, how could it be so little? He replied, “he was over 80, how much longer would he have had left?” The value of human life is measured, it seems, by the number of years remaining.

In another case, in a hamlet not far away from my home, a woman of over 60 last year went to the village clinic for an injection. She had died before they withdrew the needle. This was clearly a medical accident, and it resulted in another private settlement, with payment of 45,000 yuan in compensation.

Now, how would these two matters have been handled if they occurred in the city?

Life in the country still seems to follow the currents of nature. Caught between the post-modern and the mediaeval, village life flows like a river without direction or restraint, and nobody knows where it will eventually run its course. Of course, these things matter little to the villagers themselves.

Thank you patient reader. I will say nothing more here about the many other issues affecting the countryside, such as public order and the care of children left behind by migrant workers. Indeed, I think I already said too much. Initially, I thought what I have written here is no more than common knowledge. But people often forget their common knowledge, or reinterpret it. So, here I hope I have, so to speak, repackaged the banalities of country life, for Chinese people everywhere.

There is no doubt that rural problems are firmly on the agenda now, the object of both scholarly and governmental attention. This is good news, but this attention is also an objective recognition that problems do exist on the land, and they are urgent.

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