Mo' money, mo' problems

At the end of last year, I meant to write a blog with some sort of summary about my year teaching in China. For all sorts of reasons, my “year” teaching in China has turned into two. Yet, there is still a post it note on my desktop about writing a sort of summary blog. I was reminded of it last week when on a trip with a student and the subject of it came up. We were riding on a bus through the outskirts of Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province. Henan province is northwest of Jiangsu, but more importantly is in the second line of provinces in China. By this I mean the row of provinces that border the coastal provinces, which are the most developed. So in places like Henan, and Zhengzhou, which is an emerging city, one can really see China’s development in process.

There are myriad works written about China’s economic and social development over the last 30 years. They are undoubtedly written by people much more intelligent and better informed that I. So, I don’t know that I have much to offer. Essentially, though, I think I ought to try to answer the frequent question “what’s China like?” as I saw it after a year here. Such a question is broad, so my answers ought to be. But to be succinct, China is busy. Busy building, busy selling, busy making, busy buying: in essence busy consuming.

This busyness worries and intrigues me. It worries me because I don’t believe that China can consume the way we do in America. I’m not sure that they want to do so, but most of what I see tells me they do. There’s no doubt that China is growing rapidly, wealth is increasing, and its society is modernizing, albeit much slower than the economy. The most common reason students have missed my classes this semester has been to attend driving lessons. Now surely every student that is taking driving lessons isn’t going to be driving his own car upon graduation…but the trend is shifting that way in China. And the roads are already crowded and the smog already thick. Chinese people love to display their wealth (I’m not saying Americans don’t). There may be many reasons for it, but I mainly attribute it to the fact that wealth is so new here. The fall of Imperial China, the civil war and Mao’s regime pretty much ruined any chance of China joining the Industrial Revolution. So, instead, now, China is doing its industrial revolution and its technological revolution at the same time. This means a family can go from farming rice to surfing the web on their smart phones in not too much time. With such a dramatic shift, why not buy the flashiest phone there is.

More precisely, I worry because the way America consumes is highly irresponsible (in my opinion). I generally believe that as the world continues to grow and consume naturally resources, the pressure on these finite resources will increase, causing tensions to escalate. I also believe as the gap between poor and rich widens, the moral question surrounding this gap will become more central in our lives. America puts a lot of pressure on natural resources, especially per capita. The wealth gap in America is huge, not because our poor are poor, but because our rich are really rich. China puts a lot of pressure on natural resources, but not so much per capita. Its wealth gap is huge because its poor are really poor and its rich are becoming really rich. Chinese people are very diligent and very nationalistic, thus if they put their minds to something, they most certainly can achieve it-if you don’t believe me consult an Olympics medal count from the most recent games. I am worried because if China tries to consume like America, which it really seems like they do; I think they will be able to do it, but only with huge conflicts that result from natural resources allocations and massive problems that come from unequal wealth distribution. China’s potential consumers are the most numerous in the world, so the problems and conflicts will be bigger; this is why I am worried about it.

Much of the reason I returned to China (besides the good pay for easy work) is that I am intrigued by the way China is developing and how it will choose to deal with the problems that, in my opinion, are nearly inevitable. Being here has allowed me to see the main of the advantages of an authoritarian government: when a public measure needs to be implemented, it is done so with amazing speed and efficiency. Of course, whether or not the public measure is beneficial or just is not weighed on by the public. In my opinion, which is obviously heavily influenced by my life in America, the efficiency isn’t worth the lack of control. Not at all, especially in the long run. China won’t be able to continue to open up its economy and grow its wealth without re-addressing some of the issues it put down via the Tian’anmen Square Massacre. Most of my students say that they just want a stable life, but yet also show an amazing propensity for coming to class with the newest cell phones, portable video players and name brand clothing. I’ll trust their actions on this one. I am very intrigued to see how the government responds to these desires while still keeping its incontestable grip on power and maintaining what it calls a “harmonious society.”

I recognize that this post may seem too serious and that I touch on all sorts of issues here that may be controversial, but I don’t know that I did a good enough job of expressing to friends and family when I was home this summer my general impression of living in the world’s most populous country. As you might expect, China is busy. It’s on the move, hustling here and there to get rich and gain power. I’m sure that about every country on Earth (except Bhutan) is doing the same thing, but it’s right in your face over here. It’s what I see every day.