2011 was a roller coaster ride. For China and its people, the year was punctuated with events that begged the question, “Who are we now, and where are we headed?” Here’s a look at five of the biggest stories that defined Chinese identity last year.
1. The Wenzhou high-speed rail collision
Speedy and innovative, China’s high-speed rail system had been a source of much pride for the country. The 300 km/hour bullet trains were remarkably built from scratch in less than a decade, and were a symbol of the country’s economic and technological prowess.
But on July 23, that feeling came to a screeching halt after one of these shiny new trains collided with another on a viaduct in Wenzhou. Forty people were killed, 172 were injured in the crash.
The accident highlighted an important point: What is the true cost of China’s breakneck pace of change and economic development? Is China prioritizing growth over its people’s safety? Qin Fang, a news anchor on CCTV, put it this way: ”As a mother, faced with the tears of Yiyi, I, nor anyone else, is unable to accept any hasty conclusion. We look forward to a review of the meaning of ‘development.’ We don’t want any more children to become orphans, nor any more parents to lose their children. That is the real ‘miracle’ we’re all looking for.”
2. Chinese ‘tiger moms’
A while ago I wrote about reactions to Amy Chua’s book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother among Asian diaspora. The story about a “tiger mom’s” journey through parenthood as an ethnic Chinese mother raising two daughters in the US sparked global headlines like, “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior,” and “Tiger Mom: Amy Chua Parenting Memoir Raises American Fears.”
Many issues were brought to light: Is this no mercy parenting style putting Asia ahead of the Western world? And if so, should the West feel threatened? Then again, are Chinese parents putting too much pressure on their children to excel? And does this, in some way, lead to Chinese children being servile, test-taking slaves?
3. China: The world’s economic saviour?
In China, it’s a well-known historic fact that the country was defeated by Western powers in the late 19th century, known as the “Century of Humiliation.” Two centuries later, the tables have turned significantly: European powers aren’t coming to Chinese shores on gunboats; they’re arriving with begging bowls in hand, asking cash-rich China to back their bailout plan.
In 2011, the global balance of power shifted east significantly. China was looked upon as “banker to the world,” and now it’s Europe’s turn to feel humiliation.
4. China gets (even more) social
2011 was the year Chinese microbloggers found their voice. In several instances, Chinese people flocked to social media to hold the government accountable for things like the July 23 train crash and controversy over air quality measurements. Although Chinese social media hasn’t had the same impact as in Tunisia, the US or Moscow – where the online platform has been used to organize public demonstrations – it has become an important tool for Chinese people to voice their concerns and force the government to answer to them. And this is significant in a land of censorship.
5. Little Yueyue
I don’t think anyone can forget the tragic story of Little Yueyue — a two-year-old child in the southern city of Foshan who was hit by a delivery van and then a truck, and left lying in the street for seven minutes as 18 people walked past her.
The video footage ignited a period of soul-searching in China, in which many wondered how society had become so cold and apathetic. Chinese netizens and the media cited a slew of possible explanations: lingering trauma of the Cultural Revolution, fears of legal action, the country’s pursuit of economic growth at all costs, and Chinese culture itself.
* What do you think? What other stories were important to Chinese identity in 2011?
Photo by Brett Harris
It should come as no surprise that China Twenty-One loves Chinatowns. I recently visited San Francisco, where I was able to see one claiming to be “the largest outside of Asia.”
For me, the promises of San Francisco’s Chinatown were great and many: the best dim sum in North America, a long history of Chinese immigrants, and an old-fashioned fortune cookie company at the heart of its alleyways. Could you imagine my excitement?
Even before stepping foot into Chinatown, I already felt the deep imprint that Chinese immigrants have left on the city. I couldn’t believe my ears when I was on the bus, for example, and stops were announced in three languages: English, Spanish and Cantonese.
We visited the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Company (apparently a tourist attraction in its own right) in the middle of Ross Alley — a strip once notorious for back-parlour brothels. Three ladies were hunched over fortune-cookie makers, slipping small pieces of paper between the still-hot baked wafers.
I loved the look and feel of this Chinatown. While Toronto’s has a lot to be proud about, San Francisco’s Chinatown really struck me because it was so reminiscent of Hong Kong’s hilly streets. The architecture is colourful. The shuffling of mahjong tiles can be heard from buildings you walk past.
Here are a few facts on San Francisco’s Chinatown, by numbers:
41: The number of alleyways in SF’s Chinatown’s 3.5 square-kilometre area
100,574: The population of SF’s Chinatown, according to the 2000 census
1848: The year the first Chinese immigrants – two men and one woman – arrived in San Francisco
300+: The number of restaurants in SF’s Chinatown
I returned to Canada in September. Since then, some of my friends and family have asked about my experience in China. At times, I find the questions overwhelming:
- “What’s China like?” … Where do I even begin?
- “What was it like interacting with locals?” … How do I sum up a billion people in one answer?
- “Facebook is blocked?! How do you live without it?” … Thank goodness. I get more work done.
Someone also recently asked me, “What do you think is China’s biggest finance/economic story right now?” There are many to choose from – whether the Chinese economy will collapse, its hot property market, the global rise of Chinese brand names – but one that’s particularly interesting to China Twenty-One is related to the euro zone crisis.
Let’s preface this with an important part of China’s own view of its history. The story goes that in the 19th century, European powers muscled their way to unequal treaties with China and took over pockets of territory (ie. Hong Kong). It is an important memory in Chinese psyche – one of humiliation at the hands of foreign powers.
Now, the tables have turned. Europe is teetering on its own financial mess, and whom are they hoping will come to their rescue? China, of course.
Certainly, the last thing that China wants is the euro zone to collapse, considering the EU is its biggest export market. But Chinese officials aren’t willing to just give part of their $3.2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves away; in return, they want more clout at the International Monetary Fund.
“We are willing to help, but we are not a charity,” an anonymous source with leadership ties told Reuters. “The United States and the IMF also attach conditions (when they help financially troubled countries). It is not unreasonable for China to do the same.”
So here we are. Two centuries later, China has recovered from its “Century of Humiliation” and now being seen as a banker to the world. Foreign powers are no longer coming to China on gunboats – they’re arriving with begging bowls in hand.
Suzhou wedding market is China's largest with 1,000 shops
We hear so much about how wealth is rising in China. And this change has had a phenomenal impact on the population – including the way young couples splash out on their weddings.
“Couples are trading gold rings and qipaos, for diamond rings and white gowns. Instead of asking friends to host their receptions, they hire professional MCs,” said Zhang Hongxia, a Peking University professor. They also spend thousands of renminbi on their wedding photos, going as far as producing “MTV videos” that document their entire love story.
I recently wrote about changing Chinese wedding trends in “Love don’t cost a thing, but weddings in China definitely do” for The Toronto Star. Check it out here.
No matter how much flack Amy Chua has received, how many times she has been called a monster, or the amount of negative press about Asian parenting this year, there is one excellent outcome from Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother: A chance for Asian diaspora around the world to air out their ethnic identity issues.
Two interesting articles I’ve read lately: “Paper Tigers” in New York magazine by Wesley Yang, and “Asian American Like Me”, in which Erin Khue Ninh hits back at Yang’s article on the Huffington Post.
Battle Hymn became lost in a marketing ploy. Not long after Shanghai shocked US educators with top test results, Chua ignited a media firestorm because her book was presented as a guidebook about how Chinese parenting is superior to Western methods. But Yang’s article sweeps in and picks up on Chua’s true examination – the failures of her parenting and upbringing: Asian-Americans are often ill-prepared for the real world after a childhood of acing tests; they are timid and caught below a Bamboo Ceiling because they’re not raised to be leaders like their white peers.
Take this excerpt from Yang’s article:
Chu has a pleasant face, but it would not be wrong to characterize his demeanor as reserved. He speaks in a quiet, unemphatic voice. He doesn’t move his features much. He attributes these traits to the atmosphere in his household. “When you grow up in a Chinese home,” he says, “you don’t talk. You shut up and listen to what your parents tell you to do.”
I cringed when I read that last sentence. Why? Because I was raised in a Chinese home in Canada – and that’s not how my story (or my sister’s) has played out. Sure, we weren’t allowed to go to sleepovers, practiced piano and went to Cantonese school every Saturday morning instead of watching Saved by the Bell. But our parents speak up all the time, to the point where it can actually be quite embarrassing when we’re in public. The decibel levels my mother reaches are nothing like the “invisible” Asians that Yang describes, and – in many ways – that’s shown me the power of my own voice.
Not every Chinese household is the same. We are not simply a generation of servility, hard work and good grades. These traits are not inherently Chinese or Asian, but telltale signs of Made in America/Made in Canada visible minorities. It’s precisely the point Ninh makes in her retort to “Paper Tigers”:
What Yang misses, though, in calling these the values and behaviors of Asian people — is how very American they are … Because, what, are the industries of China, Japan, and India made up entirely of underlings? Are these societies wholly comprised of doctors, lawyers, accountants and engineers whose parents insisted?
… The Asian immigrant parent’s vision of the model child — obedient, faithful, professional-managerial — is none other than American society’s vision of the model minority.
In all these conversations about Asian American identity or fears of schools becoming “too Asian”, this is what we have to remember: Not every overseas Asian is a test-taking slave. A household in China is very different from a Chinese household in North America. And we are not all overachievers – or non-assimilating loners – who are doomed to fail after school ends. Young Asian diaspora should not be made to feel that they are frauds – many do well in school, their careers and understanding their distinct identity. They deserve that happiness.
