imagining china

If cities have gods, then so must nations. With the 24 hour NBC coverage of the Olympic Games, I can’t help but think what mythical being presides over the vast land of China? What is the spirit that guides this imagined community?*

Let me caveat all this by saying that I make this sketch of China from my very biased and limited viewpoint, amalgamated from my own impressions of the country, conversations with upper middle-class Chinese family and friends and perhaps a few taxi drivers and shop owners, and my reading of American media, which seems quick to pounce on China's weaknesses. Nevertheless, this is my opinion of China, a country for which I still feel a strange affinity for, perhaps indicated by my slightly inability to fully cheer for the American nearly all blond women’s gymnastics team.** The faces of the Chinese women’s gymnastics teams strike me both as familiar and foreign, reminding me of my elusive birthplace that I have only visited as a tourist.

On the surface, China’s deity stands proud. It has come a long way since the devastating mass famines of the 1950s or the social upheavals (the closing down of schools, the relocation to the countryside) of the Cultural Revolution. My parents left China in the mid-eighties. At that time, few families possessed any common household appliances that marked America’s successful 50s: microwave, refrigerator, television set, washing machine etc… However, when my parents returned in 1993 and 1994, they were amazed to find that nearly all their relatives owned them. They remarked that there was little they had that the Chinese did not (aside from having two children!). In little more than a decade or so, many, my extended family included, have risen out of poverty and have decent middle class lives, no longer living cramped six people to a room with no running water.

And visually, China’s cities reflect this economic success-- the impressive glowing skylines, the rapidly expanding network of highways, the sleek shopping centers and lively nightlife. As a result of both this and the continued nationalistic propaganda (if I’m not mistaken, elementary school textbooks still include numerous flattering portraits of Mao ZeDong and other key revolutionary heroes), many feel proud of what China has been able to accomplish from so little.

But China’s pride may also prove to be its downfall. Pursuing some unrealistic vision of modernization, China has been demolishing historic slum-like inner city neighborhoods and replacing them with sleek high rises and shopping malls. While America tries to lower automobile usage, China promotes it, restricting bicycle usage on certain streets. Its rapid industrialization has also filled the skies up with smog. Some may have profited from the economic development, but many remain left behind, supplying the labor for the sweatshop factories and filling in the informal economy.

Its nationalistic pride also suggests hidden insecurity. Though China lavishly demonstrates to the world its success and power, it also seems to yearn for praise and acceptance. Its previous attempts at manufacturing and coordinating a utopian society have failed. Communism in China was a disaster that killed millions. Previous state-down attempts at controlling the population with the one-child policy have created a new set of problems, with the increased pressure on only children to support their parents, and the outnumbering of males to females.

Perhaps China is so quick to curb criticism and repress free speech because it needs to continue to sustain its own myth. Exiled Chinese author Ma Jian, as cited in this article, comments that in China, there is "inflated pride; the fusion of years of nationalistic propaganda, with the economic powerhouse China has become, has created a feeling that it's now the centre of the world, and that foreigners come to them with begging hands." However, "the root of this desire to put on a great show stems from the authorities' own loss of faith in themselves. And they also realize that, despite the great rise in nationalism, the people don't believe in this empty ideology either."

And so China’s shiny, proud exterior façade (like the recently erected walls designed to hide Beijing slums) conceals an interior disillusionment and insecurity. While Chinese Olympic athletes who win gold take home glory and wealth, what happens to the 249,550 (with injured bodies and insufficient education) who do not?*** What other bodies are lost in the spectacle of those chiseled, carved and engineered Olympic bodies?

The state already disappointed the people with the collapse of the communist dream. Along with that, many promises, including health care, state pensions, welfare, jobs, justice, and equality, have been broken. Individual well-being is always curtailed for some purported collective good and elusive nationalistic glory. (Service and sacrifice for the nation is always enforced, rarely voluntary). While China celebrates hosting the Olympic games, factory owners are forced to close up shop, slum-dwellers suddenly find walls surrounding their neighborhoods, and students are told to stay away from Beijing during this time. When China was awarded the privilege (not the right) of hosting the Olympic games, it was partly for the hope of improving the human rights situation in the country. But many have commented that the situation has only worsened.

The Chinese people may rhetorically display plenty of nationalist pride in their imagined community, but their actions suggest otherwise. A spirit of practicality dominates the real China. From my aunt who questioned me on why I did not take a job with a higher salary, to a Chinese Chinatown bus companion who kept insisting that I must do business with China because I spoke both Chinese and English and could become very wealthy, it all comes down to money and security for oneself, and one’s family.

Students spend their childhoods and adolescence confined to classrooms and study halls, preparing for their college entrance exams. Other families make huge personal sacrifices in order to send their children abroad. Factory workers choose to work long, grueling hours in order to provide better for their families. Individuals rarely make true financial sacrifices for the sake of their nation. Over one billion people scramble to try to make ends meet, and improve their standard of living, perhaps without any thought as to whether or not they are serving or bettering their country.

And so perhaps China really is just an imagined community—a story , a fable, a myth, a distant deity to whom one pays homage, but certainly not a god who will come to one’s rescue, no matter how desperate the prayer.****



* The term “imagined communities” comes from Benedict Anderson’s definition of nations. He describes nations as imagined "is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion".
** Okay, I wrote that before the gymnastics all-around. I’ll admit it-- by the end, I was cheering for Nastia Liukins. After all I am a newly minted U.S. citizen! And if I don’t cheer for the US, what country can I cheer for? I can’t quite cheer for China, and Canada’s performance at this Olympics has been rather disappointing. “You have to be ambitious to win the Olympics,” says my mother, “The Canadians! They’re too laid-back!”. I also asked my mother which country she was cheering for more—US or China? She said it was tough, but the US more.
*** I’m averse to China’s state training of athletes where children as young as 3 can be taken from their families. But then I wonder about how sports often work in America—Children aren’t forced to train by the state, and yet only those who can afford the classes, the practice and the coaching make it to the top. I could spin it and say that atleast China gives children and families who have never had an opportunity a chance for Olympic Success. But once again, I must wonder about all those athletes who didn’t quite make it to the top but still had to subject themselves to the years of grueling training, injuries and separation from family. The New York Times article also suggests that even former medalists don’t always fare too well after the Olympics and the glory has faded.
**** I am cognizant of China’s demonstration (both government and individual) of care and compassion after the SiChuan earthquake, so I’m not saying that the government will not assist people at all. Once again, I am speaking of in general terms, so naturally exceptions exist.