By teaching in English in China you learn a lot about China’s culture and people. In this series teachers talk about their experiences and impressions of China unrelated to their teaching work. We’ll cover topics like: China’s view of the world, gender roles and the career ambitions of China’s youth.
Have you lived in China and would like to contribute? Send your observations to: info@teach-english-in-china.co.uk
How Chinese people view the rest of the world
In a country the size of China with over 1 billion people living there, it’s very difficult to speculate on how they all view the rest of the world. Due to the strict censorship imposed by the Chinese government on TV, internet, newspapers and pretty much any kind of media, it’s not easy for Chinese people to get an accurate idea of what foreigners are like without actually meeting them.
The high cost of traveling abroad means the majority of Chinese people have never left the country and so have had very little opportunity to make informed opinions of the world outside of their country.
Stereotypes and misconceptions
American and British films and TV shows are very popular and can be found in most (counterfeit) DVD shops and markets, many assumptions and stereotypes of Westerners are drawn from watching such shows and some people have pointed out that the translations are often not accurate. British people are often thought of as being old-fashioned and conservative and Americans are stereotyped as competitive and more expressive than Britons.
To preserve ‘face’ the Chinese way of dealing with things generally avoids confrontation no matter how critical the issue, reputation is very important in China particularly in a business sense and as Westerners tend to be more concerned with honesty we are seen as more abrupt.
Confucianism encourages harmony and integration rather than self-reliance, as students and families tend to live closer together (even university students usually share a dormitory) most people are used to having very close relationships with friends and putting the wishes and expectations of others before themselves.
Many Chinese people find it odd that people live alone by choice and have very little consideration for what we call ‘personal space’. Space is extremely limited in most Chinese cities both in living arrangements and even just walking down the street, don’t be surprised if someone walks up while you’re waiting for a bus and stands right next to you!
Education
Western education is a major sore point when talking to Chinese students, the Chinese education system is much stricter and Chinese students have longer school days and more homework than in an average UK school. Chinese students are expected to be the best and excel in every subject, it is not uncommon for parents to spend more on education than accommodation so the majority of students are under a lot of pressure to be the highest achievers.
Many view Western education as more creative and less focused on respecting your teacher. Corporal punishment is common and many students and teachers find it unbelievable that this mode of discipline is not allowed in Western schools.
Chinese students learn by rote, which involves very little actual comprehension of the subject to begin with, more of remembering everything the teacher tells them and then practicing later. This fuels the belief that any student can succeed with enough studying, failure is often blamed on a lack of effort rather than ability.
Being approached
As a foreigner in China it is impossible to disguise the fact, you will be noticed and particularly in less touristy areas you are very likely to be approached by curious locals who might just want to look at you or find out if you can speak Chinese. Taking photos, asking lots of questions and pointing you out to their friends is also the norm!
Although, chances are, they will not expect you to be able to speak Chinese, they are always pleasantly surprised if you can speak a few phrases (even if you get it wrong) and will often respond by excitedly trying to hold a conversation.
Rural and urban
In the central parts of the major cities where tourists are more likely to visit, the locals seem to look upon Westerners as rich and so are more likely to charge a foreigner a higher price for goods than a local. As there are far fewer foreigners in rural areas the locals seem to be more curious and quite happy to just stare.
Cuisine and lifestyle
Due to the ever-growing presence of Western fast food outlets in major Chinese cities, the Western diet and lifestyle is generally viewed as being unhealthy! The differences between beliefs in what is good or bad for a person has left many Chinese people under the impression that foreigners are less concerned about their general health, along with many Chinese people who will go to hospital for the slightest ailment whereas many British will self-medicate mild illness.
Meals in China are often a big deal with the host providing more food than is required and everyone eats together and shares food, feeding your guests well shows generosity which is extremely important when socializing in China. Chinese people generally don’t like the Western habit of everyone ordering and eating their own meals, it is seen as less selfish when everyone shares and tries new dishes.
The same goes with drinking, when taking a sip of alcohol it is polite to raise glasses and drink at the same time as everyone else, drinking alone is seen as a sign of feeling disconnected with the people around you.
As a nation Chinese people are generally more active, schools have daily exercise sessions including Tai Chi and military –style marching drills. As activities such as computer games were generally seen as Western luxuries, many assume foreigners live more sedentary lifestyles.
Politics
Chinese people are fairly protective when it comes to the government and laws of their land, some are critical of foreign ideas and suggest that Western politicians and organisations should stay out of Chinese business but as time goes on some are more open to the idea of improving relationships with other countries.
Politics and the government are rarely discussed amongst Chinese people, as there is no democratic voting system the people tend to feel that they have no way of influencing the way the country is run and therefore don’t see the point in discussing it.
Some issues are particularly sensitive and some Chinese people may refuse to discuss them altogether, especially to do with the death penalty and the One Child policy.
By Lindsay Webber (worked in Xi’an 2009-2010)
Real Value of Chinese RMB
Globally, the Chinese RMB seems to be heralded as the strongest currency. Mass
media screams that China is a financial power growing from strength to strength, with a
completely different financial trajectory to the rest of the world. Yet, amongst these
hypothetical claims lies a nation where the reality is that poverty is more common than
wealth. The real value of the RMB is shadowed by grand claims of China’s wealth, and does
not relate to the common Chinese person or family, and their day to day life. The truth is
that the worth of the Chinese RMB is totally subverted by global claims of the country’s
wealth, and this article will explore what actually, is the real value of the RMB.
In a country so large in so many ways, with such huge differences geographically,
socially and financially, it is hard to draw a single image that applies 100% of this vast
nation, though there is one aspect of this ever fluctuating image that I can etch with
confidence. Compared to Western standards, Chinese RMB is like Monopoly money. We, as
visitors to a country so opposite to what we understand as normal, view the Chinese RMB
simply as a means of exchange in order to acquire what we want- weather that is a drink,
some food or perhaps paying for transport, we don’t worry about how much anything is.
From a Western perspective, there is no concern over the cost of basic things, no thinking,
‘should I really be spending this?’ Inevitably, anything like the aforementioned in China is
disproportionately cheaper than what the Western world expects, therefore Chinese RMB
quickly assumes its ‘Monopoly Money’ status. So from the perspective of a non Chinese
person, the real value of RMB is small. Secondly, Westerners find it shocking that the
highest denomination of note available is 100 RMB- equivalent to around £10/ $15. Just on
this evidence alone, we start to see that ‘The Real China’ cannot be this thriving economy
that it is being portrayed as. If the country was going through a financial boom, it would be
essential to introduce at least a 200 RMB note, in order to keep up with the demands of
spending. However, this is not the case, and furthermore, 100 RMB notes seemed hard to
spend in a lot of places. As things are so cheap, it is almost a curse to only have 100RMB
notes- shop keepers are so reluctant to take them, ticket machines often can’t take them,
and market stall owners may not even have enough change to accept them. Based on this
real evidence, it is hard to suggest that the value of RMB is the same globally as it is
domestically, or locally.
Of course, there are exceptions to the above. Wealthy cities in the East have a
surplus amount of designer clothes shops, car companies and a plethora of grand hotels.
However the actual amounts of people who can afford to spend in such a frivolous way are
in the minority. It is interesting to note how empty many of the designer clothes shops are,
compared to the normal shops and markets, which are a frenzy of activity in comparison.
Despite how many super car dealerships there might be in Hangzhou, you will still see the
vast majority of people using public transport, taxis or obviously cheap and dated vehicles.
Equally, most transactions seem to take place with cash, very few places advertising the
ability to accept card. Of course, market stalls (where the majority of shopping is done in
more rural parts of China) don’t accept card, which goes a long way in supporting the
argument that if China is in the midst of an economic boom, the value of this to the citizens
is minimal. The common person has still not entered the world of high brow retail, and
doesn’t even need to worry about using credit or debit cards, despite apparently living in
one of the most financially secure countries.
So how does China’s supposed positive financial development actually effect the
Chinese population, the citizens, and the life blood of the nation? Again, different regions
of China will see different results, but it is safe to say that essential things like health care
and education are no better than they were before the financial boom. There is still no free
health care, and Chinese people still regularly say that doctors and medicine are too
expensive. It seems that the people, who have built the ‘New China,’ see none of the fruits
of their labour. Again, due to the size of the country, there can be no blanket answer to how
national financial development has effected peoples’ lives, but if you consider that people in
the developed areas of Eastern China have not seen a dramatic increase in the quality of
their lives, it is highly unlikely that people in the Central and Western provinces have either.
There is a lot of building work at the moment in China, so there is a large amount of
financial investment coming from somewhere, but how does this impact the population on
a local level? New developments seem to spring up as far as the eye can see, province to
province, each city building new blocks of flats or offices all being advertised with sketchy
English clichés promising a better life. It is this development that I believe signifies the huge
gap between the apparent and real value of Chinese RMB. The people who are working on
these building sites are undoubtedly not going to benefit from the final product. For
example, local people building offices for a global company are going to be redundant once
the building is complete, or at best attempt to secure a menial, poorly paid and unskilled job
within the building. It becomes frustrating to see how much money is being invested in new
developments, yet the people who are working on the sites still clearly lack the correct
safety clothes, and are putting themselves in danger for the sake of big business. Of course,
regeneration is essential in order to develop society in many ways, and one would like to
think that there would be a knock on effect of putting new companies in Chinese towns or
cities, but the reality is far away from that. Chinese global wealth doesn’t stop to look at the
wellbeing of the people completing the hard labour, the people enabling wealth to settle in
China. As already mentioned, there is a distinct lack of health and safety equipment on
building sites, and clearly no investment into the communities where these people must be
living. So in this case, the real value of the RMB is the hourly wage that the builders are
being paid, which is inevitably nothing in comparison to the amount of money that
whatever they are building will make for one or two global business men or women.
Another interesting area to explore in determining the real value of Chinese
currency are the quite real micro economies that develop in much poorer areas of China.
Imagine a place where everything that you buy is made or grown in the same place. Nothing
is bought in from outside companies, and everyone needs the same sort of things on a
regular basis. This, extremely simplistic lifestyle based on exchange instead of profit, is
something that I have come across a lot in my various different trips around China. Again,
this way of life supports the theory that there is almost a domestic and global value of RMB.
Towns where the only commercial outlet is a market easily develop a micro economy. The
products on sale are grown or created by hand, and the people buying them are other
manufacturers of similar products. For example, the bread seller is inevitably going to buy
grapes or lychees from the fruit stall, and vice versa. So it seems more logical to create a
system of barter, thus totally devaluing Chinese RMB altogether. Equally, many shops in
these rural places don’t use a formal till, as Western culture expects. Therefore, one can
only assume that the rigid structure of cashing up and tracking sales that Western business
is based on doesn’t exist in these parts of China, so again, a micro economy develops, where
shop owners use the money they take at the end of the day in order to exist to the next day,
and not to profit to higher levels. It seems in some parts of China that the actual hard cash
might never leave small villages. If people are circulating cash just in order to acquire basic
things that they need, then money is just a legal means of doing so. No profit is being made,
no investment into the locality, and certainly no support towards the national financial
boom!
Overall, it seems that China is battling with a split between modernisation- keeping
up with Western competitors’, playing a lead roll in global finance, and low level domestic
spending, based on necessity not greed, wages to pay the bills, not to save in order to get a
better life. The real value of the Chinese RMB is only something that can be seen by people
who live in, or have been to China and lived amongst this strange hybrid of being told how
wealthy the country is, yet still only pay the equivalent of 5p for as much bread as one could
eat. No amount of being told how explosive the Chinese economy is makes up for the fact
that millions of people can’t afford health care, wages are low and society is not vastly
improving.
By Josephine Donohue (worked in China summer 2011)
The rich-poor divide
In 1979 Deng Xiaoping famously said that ‘to get rich is glorious’, starting a tumultuous and rapid
era of modernisation and growth in China as the premier ushered in a new form of economic
development, a ‘socialist market economy’, and the country’s fastest period of growth in history and
indeed, the fastest period of growth for any country in history.
China’s modernisation was unprecedented, and its economy is predicted to overtake that of the
USA after already overtaking Japan to become the second largest in the world. Things have certainly
come a long way since the mayhem of the Mao era initiatives and today China projects an image
of unparalleled and momentous growth, an air of stability in an otherwise downturned global
economy, but this leap forward is far from having achieved equality in the country and while the
rich get richer, the poor stay poor. Combined with the country’s huge environmental predicaments
and poor human rights record, China still has a long way to go before it can truly have achieved
modernisation.
Taking the high speed train from Shanghai to Beijing, I was astounded by the level of efficiency,
the perfect timings and the scale of the system that hurtles passengers up and down the country
at over 300km per hour. I tried to fathom a similar level of efficiency in Britain, of high speed trains
rattling along from London to Edinburgh, but realised only here could such a modern and effective
system be kept working so smoothly, in part because of the huge funding needed from a central
government for such an initiative and the unimaginable numbers of workers needed to construct the
high speed rail in the first place, let alone keep it working in such an orderly manner.
For the time being I was a passenger in modern China, being hurtled through the country alongside
high flying businessmen aiming for their millions, the rest of the country just a blur passing by
through the window, but the cost of such a journey, pricey compared to your regular trains and
buses got me wondering more about those locals who wouldn’t be able to afford to make use of this
exceptionally modern infrastructure and experience such a trip.
Obviously plenty could afford to, or else such a project would be untenable, but what it
demonstrated to me, or rather, what it got me contemplating and thinking of, was the huge gap
that exists in China between the rich and the poor. While such huge projects of modernisation are
undertaken by central government, some areas in the country still struggle well below the poverty
line. In addition, whilst China has more billionaire’s than France and as many as Britain, most
made under the motto that to get rich is glorious in the last decade or so, the average per capita
income is only $1000. The level of disparity is huge, and this level of disparity is not geographically
distributed equally either. While the East coast and special economic areas get rich, the Western
regions attempt to catch up while facing their own problems of extensive immigration from different
provinces and ethnic and political tensions.
A first impression of China as an economic miracle, modernising incessantly into the future is
surrounded in its own murky haze of pollution. While many in China are rich and while these huge
projects are undertaken, many are also still stuck in poverty, trying to catch up with the rest of the
country which has left them in the dust of their modernisation, trying to gain a slice of the economic
miracle they have contributed to building.
And it is the story of migrant workers which is the most harrowing. China’s success has been on the
back of cheap labour. While the high rollers cruise around in Lamborghinis (as I was so surprised
to see my first few days in Hangzhou) and shop in high priced, top end fashion stores (check out
Shanghai’s East Nanjing Road) the factories and construction sites teem with manpower brought in
from the countryside. It is this force that turned the country around, that built the skyscrapers and
laid the train tracks, but who face the most discrimination, having few rights in the cities they have
travelled to and few to speak up for them.
Ai Wei Wei, the famous artist and ‘dissident’, recently described Beijing as ‘a city of violence’.
In part, this was a reference to the plight of these migrant workers, who have fewer rights than
permanent residents in the city, with less funding given to them to for healthcare and education
amongst other issues. All is not lost however, as recent protests show these groups are finding a
voice and importantly, not being entirely ignored or simply suppressed by the government. It will
take a long time though before these groups manage to gain the equal piece of that economic
miracle they constructed but the country is seemingly beginning to address this huge gap in wealth
that was created by its own relentless march towards a future of modernity.
Progress may be slow, but the issue of the rich poor divide is at least being addressed. Indeed, when
President Hu Jintao came to power he made it a priority of the country. The emergence of a more
powerful middle class seems to demonstrate this as well. The class may be small currently but it
is purposeful and growing. I found this first hand when teaching near Hangzhou. The majority of
my students would be termed middle classed. They weren’t excessively wealthy but they weren’t
numbered among the poor. They were the middle class urbanites and the majority of them were
intelligent and opportunistic, able to engage in political and social discussions with me, well aware
of the problems in their country and importantly, wanting to address them. If the rest of the country
has the same mindset as these students then China will be able to address its issues of economic
disparity while still striving ever further towards the modernised state it is aiming for. It will of
course have to also address concurrent issues, such as its questionable human rights and pollution
and environmental problems but the drive of a successful middle class will help achieve this, I
believe. It is integral for the continued growth and stability of the country that they sort out their
huge divide, but only time will tell how successful they will be.
By Richard Collett (worked in Hangzhou, summer 2011)
Career ambitions
What it particularly striking about the young children of China is their fevering ambition to become something. Not just anything, but something big. Their passionate fire can be seen within schools as well as outside of school in their everyday lives. Whether its businessmen or writers, doctors or lawyers, ambition is high in the People’s Republic. As far as career ambitions within the medicinal sector goes, alterations in both the Chinese medical system and compensation of medical doctors have meant that the career aspirations of Chinese medical students have become more diverse. Shantou University Medical College has conducted evaluations and instituted programs to enhance student preparation to enter a variety of medical careers. A survey was conducted to assess the medical career ambitions of 85 students and their association with family background, personal skills, English language proficiency, and interest in biomedical research were all considered factors affecting their career goals. It was found that Chinese students aspire to do both traditional as well as non-traditional medical careers.
It must be noted that a substantial minority of students are now interested in non-traditional careers such as medical teaching or research. Nevertheless, poor displays of aptitude in the English language as well as a sufficient lack of computer skills may limit the academic and career opportunities of many young Chinese students. Career ambitions have also changed among medical undergraduates. Although many still wish to pursue a traditional “clinical doctor” career, many are now interested in research and teaching careers. The factors discussed above as well as extracurricular support may have played a role in this shift in medicinal focus.
China’s career ambitions do not stop with the children, but can be seen to continue into adulthood. With the Chinese Leaders boasting boosts in the Chinese economy over recent years and observations of immanent decline of the US economy and its not-so-powerful-anymore dollar currency, China looks set to overtake the US as a leading world superpower in the not-too-distant future. One word that symbolises China, particularly in the East, is construction. Shanghai has grown immensely in just a 20-year gap and is rising as city of intense energy and ambitious symbolism. China’s ambitions are great and great they will seem to be in years to come.
Although Chinese ambitions can be seen through its children as well as a country, they also shine through the Chinese military. China’s first aircraft career in the Navy ran its first trial on August 10th, 2011, made by the Chinese naval department. This was clearly an action intended to build up China’s military power and prestige, craving recognition. In Beijing, several disputes have arisen regarding the South China Sea and Indian territorial boundaries. This hunger for military and political superiority has rubbed off on the younger generation, who want to be a part of one of the richest nations on the planet, overtaking ‘the West’ and its allies. Neighbours of China are particularly worried as China’s focus on artillery and developing defence technology is causing a growing vision of anxiety in others making up the international sphere.
In Beijing, checking capabilities, training and research analysis is going on. China’s military power compared to the US is limited, but in the last five years, there has been rapid expansion and support on making and designing artilleries. China is the world’s most manpowered country and China’s targets on military development have instilled great fear among other countries.
Mao Zedong, more often referred to as Chairman Mao, once famously proclaimed that “women hold up half the sky”, but to many of today’s Chinese career women, it feels as though their high-flying career ambitions have feet of stone in treacle. “Yeah, we hold up half the sky,” recently stated a female senior manager for a multinational pharmaceutical company, “but there are 5,000 years of history dragging us back”. She and more than 125 representatives of multinational and Chinese-based corporations gathered in Beijing recently to learn the results of a new study by the Center for Work-Life Policy. But even as the conference celebrated the “many strengths highly qualified Chinese women bring to their employers”, participants of the celebrations were quick to recognise the forces threatening full employment of this vital bowl of talent.
“There’s a huge price to pay for family values,” implied Cezary Statuch, Vice President of Medical Emerging Markets at Bristol-Myers Squibb. It has been said that “every woman in China knows that being a good daughter or daughter-in-law unquestionably trumps satisfying personal career ambitions, no matter how successful that career may be”. This view is not only observed in China but can be noted in British and American society too. “In our culture, we take care of our parents,” says one executive in the financial sector. “Whenever they need me, I will be there”. This includes relocating to be near them (as this woman plans to do), taking a less-stimulating job to free up time to spend with them, or leaving the workforce entirely.
It is for these reasons that many women in the Chinese workforce feel compelled to choose between their personal family lifestyle and their career as the Chinese conscience seems to be that personal affairs compromise their prospect of a successful work and business career. It could be said that this view is slightly exaggerated as J. K. Rowling, dubbed “the most influential woman in Britain”, managed to publish seven Harry Potter volumes while also going to teach over in Portugal, marry a Portuguese television journalist, have a daughter, Jessica, divorce her husband and return to Britain when Jessica was just three months old and go to live in Edinburgh to be near her sister, Di. Despite having a family and a personal life, she is still an extremely successful career and businesswoman. There have even been speculated rumours surrounding Rowling suggesting that she owns more money than the Queen.
In China, among the 1,000 men and women surveyed by the CWLP (Centre for Work-Life Policy), 95% of women already have elder care responsibilities. Every woman interviewed knew someone who put her career on hold to care for an aging relative. Adeline Wong’s story is typical. When her mother and aunt fell ill a few years ago, Wong left her job with one of the top venture capital firms in Taiwan. She stated “it was a very good career, but I quit and spent several months taking care of them”. Was this a choice or bare necessity? Every case is different. However, more than half (58%) of Chinese women also provide financial support to their parents or in-laws — an average of 18% of their annual income, the CWLP data also shows. In China, where state support for the elderly can’t keep up with the soaring cost of living, contributions from adult children and other siblings in the family aren’t only appreciated, but necessary.
The pressure of being a good daughter or daughter-in-law can be crushing as “daughterly guilt” affects an extraordinary 88% of the women surveyed. Adding to a high-achieving woman’s burden, China’s one-child policy, implemented in 1979, means that women in their twenties, thirties, and early forties have no siblings to share the load. Some would argue that the one-child policy could be having a grave impact on the success of China’s female workforce. Additionally, China’s rapidly aging population, (similar to that of the UK, France, Italy and Portugal as well as other parts of Europe), will only intensify the existing problems facing China and the subsequent lack of career ambition, particularly among females.
It’s not just caring for the elderly that’s affecting Chinese women. Motherhood magnifies these issues further. Julia Zhu, a senior manager with Sodexo China (a world leader in Food and Facilities Management services), who drops off her two-year-old daughter with her in-laws every Sunday evening and picks her up on Friday says, “of course, I miss the chance to be with my daughter, but working mothers have to focus more on work”. It is becoming obvious that the work ethic and thus career ambitions in China differs from case to case. Still, despite such simplicity implicated by Julia, even very ambitious women acknowledge feeling torn between their career and their child with 86% of women feeling maternal guilt at some point in their lives.
Pully Chau, Chairman and CEO of ‘Greater China Draftfcb’, claims that Chinese women have what she calls, “a cultural inheritance for multitasking”, and indicates that “we’re used to being good moms, good daughters, and good leaders. That makes us able to sustain high performance in tough times”. In this sense, she seems to suggest that motherhood should enhance career ambitions and performance. “Still”, she concedes, “we need the little compromises”.
Despite this, China is witnessing a rapid pace of change within its social, political and economic landscape and offers an opportunity for forward-thinking companies to gain competitive advantage with female-friendly policies. Among the suggestions and solutions is the concept of “flexitime”, which is still relatively alien to China, despite its other modern advances. One way to remove the stigma associated with flexible work arrangements, suggests Rosalind Hudnell, Chief Diversity Office Director for Intel, is to “detach it from working mothers and telecommuters, and apply ‘intermittent flexitime’ that could apply as much to someone whose job entails late-night telephone calls to California as to someone dealing with ailing elders”.
Denice Kronau, who is Siemens’ Chief Diversity Officer, adds that “flexible career paths would also be a huge help to women torn between career and family care”. Opportunities for re-entry after taking a break are virtually non-existent in Chinese society at present. Women sadly joke that “the chance of finding a job after dropping out of the market is even smaller than that of finding a wealthy husband”.
Bessie Lee, CEO of GroupM China’s suggestion is to “get the entire family involved” in the woman’s career. Her company regularly invites family members to show-and-tell sessions where the family of the woman in question works and helps them to see and learn about her work environment. Such events create a clearer picture of what the woman’s work entails and emphasises the message that what she is doing is “valuable and worthwhile”, as China’s educated women have an incredible amount of talent to offer their employers.
By Mary Isaac (worked in Shaoxing, summer 2011)
China’s self image and patriotism
I think it would be difficult to suggest that the whole of China has the exact same views, for example, I travelled to three different cities in China and they were all different when it comes to ‘China’s self-image and patriotism’. For example, I noticed the sense of patriotism to be significantly stronger than Hong Kong, a part of China that was only recently part of the British Empire. Plus you also have to take into account that I, myself, am British, and it is my belief that, where I am from, the percentage of people that are considerably patriotic is noticeably lower than the USA for example. Within the United States it is difficult to travel through a village or town without seeing the American flag hanging in pride from someone’s window or garden, however, this is not as commonly seen within the United Kingdom. The reason I mention my own countries patriotic levels is because we always compare one country to our own, and so, for me, China tends to appear substantially patriotic, however, someone from America may only state that China is fairly patriotic. I can simply state what I observed from my time being there and allow these experiences to be interpreted in whichever form is deemed necessary.
I shall begin with Beijing, where my journey began, and the capital of China. If you think about London, and the amount of flags and cheap ‘I (heart) London’ articles there are, you can imagine Beijing to be the Chinese equivalent. I will begin with the influence of the media. On the television during adverts I noticed an advert in which a song is sung by charming young Chinese children that was played quite frequently. I later learned, through research, that the song is called ‘I love Beijing’s Tiananmen’. In this advert (which wasn’t advertising anything in particular) the great Tiananmen Square was shown along with the Forbidden City and the picture of Chairman Mao.
Forbidden City
I will point out, whilst on the topic of Tiananmen Square, there are only a few people that know about the protesting that happened in Tiananmen Square. Information cannot be found on the internet with websites saying that they cannot be connected to at this time, almost as if the government doesn’t want the general public to know that they are purposely blocking certain websites. I would suggest that they refuse to mention this incident, as it would damage their self-image of being a proud and controlled nation.
Referring back to the media, I’m guessing that the song on the television was quite a well-known song in Beijing, and maybe most of China; however, it also shows how the importance of patriotism is generally pressured onto children. I also noticed this strong feeling of self-pride, in reference to their country, within some of the children when teaching.
Another ‘image’, or ‘images’, of China that I noticed during my travels, mainly but not exclusively in Beijing, were pictures of Mao. The most prominent being the one on the wall of the Forbidden City that I mentioned previously. However, if you found yourself in a market you would easily find plenty of paraphernalia surrounding Mao, be it posters or even badges. Mao Zedong, or often referred to as Chairman Mao played a very large part in the Chinese Communist Party and being the founding father of the People’s Republic of China; it is no surprise that his pictures are in quite a few places.
Another symbol, related to Mao, is the communist symbol. I noticed this in many places in Beijing, but also in a lot of places in Xuzhou, the city in which I taught.
I will point out, however, that this year (2011) was the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, so it would be understandable for there to be considerably more symbols scattered around China than there would be normally. I did also notice the symbol on the television a lot, on what I assume was the Chinese news. I personally would suggest that this is China being fairly patriotic; as it’s not very often you see the British flag or any other symbol floating around on the television.
In contrast, Xuzhou was not as overwhelmingly patriotic, however, more so than the average city in England. There were still communist symbols dotted around in places; furthermore you would still easily be able to find some sort of Mao memorabilia in a marketplace. Having focused primarily on patriotism within this paper, I will take time now to also mention China’s ‘self-image’. Not only was I able to see the ‘self-image’ of the general working-class, but also from the children’s perspectives of those that I taught.
I was able to learn from a visit to a museum with the children in Xuzhou that the government has a very strong influence on what the Chinese population can know. For example, this museum was based on the civil war, between Taiwan and mainland China. Looking at the ‘facts’ stated it was clear to see that the history was retold from a very one-sided point of view. I don’t know if this was to simply deter the population from the real facts, or simply because they were proud they wanted to exaggerate what happened. Either way, the children appeared to be very impressed. I also noticed at one point that the children were re-enacting fighting with guns, and when I discussed this topic with them I learned that a lot of them would be willing to join the army and fight for their country. I’m assuming this type of belief must have been put onto them via their parents or through other influences. All I can assume is that their self-image of China is that China is a country to be very proud of. I didn’t see any strong attitudes suggesting “China is the best” or other extreme beliefs, however, as most of the children I taught wanted to travel and see England, thinking that England would be amazing to see.
Finally, there is the other end of the spectrum: Hong Kong. Whilst here, I noticed no references to Mao, or and communist symbols at all. They also use the Hong Kong Dollar more so than the RMB, showing that they are almost still trying to separate themselves from China. They also have a different view of foreigners, in both Beijing and Xuzhou I was stared at as if I had green skin and one eye, however, in Hong Kong; no one seemed to bat an eyelid. Hong Kong seemed to be a lot more relaxed than the rest of China when it comes to ‘self-image’ and ‘patriotism’, and this is probably due to the British influences.
To conclude, depending on where you are in China there may be more or less observations of both self-image and patriotism. In my opinion, however, China is very patriotic, and people generally seem to have a high self-image of their country, regardless of what other countries may think about them and the way their country is ran.
By Amelia Lane (worked in Xuzhou, summer 2011)