Daily life for most Chinese people

[knloregon]

OK, Chilton,

 

So show us the 'after' pictures... they don't live that way now, (because of the government pension) ----what does their kitchen look like now?

[chilton747]

OK, Chilton,

 

So show us the 'after' pictures... they don't live that way now, (because of the government pension) ----what does their kitchen look like now?

 

The kitchen remains the same. The government pension is small and the father likes to drink wine. Again, they are old school Chinese with no education and they know no other way. I absolutely hate my wife's father as he mad multiple attempts on her life, just because she was a girl and she ate too much food. I really think that you might not know how deep ingrained in these peoples lives poverty runs. I know I sure got an education, one that I was not ready for. B)

[knloregon]

----I'm sure thats true... and just getting your wife out of that situation is a tribute to you both-----but what about those left behind? ---(not a reference to the father) is there a way to help her mother? Does she have siblings who could benefit from your help?

[chilton747]

----I'm sure thats true... and just getting your wife out of that situation is a tribute to you both-----but what about those left behind? ---(not a reference to the father) is there a way to help her mother? Does she have siblings who could benefit from your help?

 

Her mother has been offered numerous times to get away from her father. Again, old tradition rules, she will not leave him. He hurts her periodically by breaking her limbs. Tradition runs deep, no matter the costs. I have offered my help but I have been told to stay out of her family business as tradition rules. I can only pray for them.

[weiaijiayou]

If you are really interested google the author and read some of his earlier work regarding his thoughts on China and the USA (the government in particular) and the ROW. Then you will see that, perhaps, some of this long rant is related to his bitter feelings for whatever happened between him and his employer....

 

I finally had time to read this article... I think you totally nailed the author's motivations and baggage. I feel a little sorry for this guy. When he didn¡¯t get the special recognition he thought he deserved at the university, he set off to find the ¡°real¡± China. Through black-and-white reasoning he deluded himself into thinking that, if the well-off people were jerks, then the poor people must be loving natives who want nothing more than to open their homes and hearts to this "laowai yeye" and listen, enthralled, to his humble descriptions of all his amazing travels and academic accomplishments. The way he talks about poor people in China reminds me of Margaret Mead and her portrayal of Samoans, which was also based on the experience of an outsider (in both cases, one who probably made the people feel like they were being scrutinized by an alien) who couldn¡¯t understand most of what was going on.

 

Overall the main point of this article seems to be that the author is such a cool guy -- he sees himself as "going where no laowai has gone before¡± (and from what I can tell this was his other motivation for going there: bragging rights). It is annoying to read his claims that he ¡°lived there¡± or that he really experienced the poverty that surrounded him (e.g., he says something like ¡°I¡¯m poorer than my students!¡±).

 

For this guy the poor people in Henan are a caricature. They¡¯re the selfless and accepting natives he needs to create in his mind to contrast with the privileged and stand-offish well-to-do who ¡°forced him out¡± of China. I feel bad for him if this is the way he needs to understand the complexities of China¡­

[amberjack1234]

If you are really interested google the author and read some of his earlier work regarding his thoughts on China and the USA (the government in particular) and the ROW. Then you will see that, perhaps, some of this long rant is related to his bitter feelings for whatever happened between him and his employer....

 

I finally had time to read this article... I think you totally nailed the author's motivations and baggage. I feel a little sorry for this guy. When he didn¡¯t get the special recognition he thought he deserved at the university, he set off to find the ¡°real¡± China. Through black-and-white reasoning he deluded himself into thinking that, if the well-off people were jerks, then the poor people must be loving natives who want nothing more than to open their homes and hearts to this "laowai yeye" and listen, enthralled, to his humble descriptions of all his amazing travels and academic accomplishments. The way he talks about poor people in China reminds me of Margaret Mead and her portrayal of Samoans, which was also based on the experience of an outsider (in both cases, one who probably made the people feel like they were being scrutinized by an alien) who couldn¡¯t understand most of what was going on.

 

Overall the main point of this article seems to be that the author is such a cool guy -- he sees himself as "going where no laowai has gone before¡± (and from what I can tell this was his other motivation for going there: bragging rights). It is annoying to read his claims that he ¡°lived there¡± or that he really experienced the poverty that surrounded him (e.g., he says something like ¡°I¡¯m poorer than my students!¡±).

 

For this guy the poor people in Henan are a caricature. They¡¯re the selfless and accepting natives he needs to create in his mind to contrast with the privileged and stand-offish well-to-do who ¡°forced him out¡± of China. I feel bad for him if this is the way he needs to understand the complexities of China¡­

I never said that I was in love with the author or agreed with his philosophy on life in China or anywhere else for that matter of fact but what I got out of it was how the people lived and where they and the conditions that they lived in. But it seems as though you are one of those people that are determined to deny that there are poor people in China that live a very meager life. Most of you guys will proclaim that there are a few of them living in caves in very remote mountain area and that there is only two or three hundred of them right. My guess is that you were an english teacher in China straight out of college is that right?

 

Larry

[david_dawei]

In a total of 8 months in china, I've hardly stayed at a place with running hot water; I had memories of shaving with cold water just as we did during boot camp drills. At least I had a mirror. One place had no kitchen; another I wish didn't have one; A kitchen with no frig; everything is left out. Better eat it tomorrow or it eats you. Where else can I be forced to go get fresh food everyday. Gotta savor it.

 

Hallways so full of smoke from cooking pots that you hold your breath through six flights; all the broken windows don't help the hallway except to chill you during winter on each flight. Often one had to walk in the dark in the hall as there is no light at night. And don't dare touch the railings are they haven't been cleaned since the republic was established.

 

Spit on the streets, toss your trash anywhere you want; kids pissing on the sidewalk which you have to walk around. Restaurants with floors so dirty you figure it's easier to just to toss your trash as well on it to get into the true groove of things. At night, when drunk, the entire city is a bathroom for your own use. At least I heard that rumor... I wouldn't know. Gotta savor it.

 

Public bathrooms? I've never seen a bath in one yet but most need a bath 3x overs; even those in the mall. Sometimes no stalls. Squat next to a guy who is close enough to shake my hand. And he'll likely offer me a cigarette if I look his way. Yep, I know where his hand has been so might as well take it and the light, then take in a long drag...where else in the world would this happen to me. Gotta savor it now. The worst in the world were in Yunnan (sorry to say Jin); so foul you could smell them two blocks away. The locals just piss on the sides of the street instead. I had to venture into one... just to confirm it's repulsiveness is all the smell made it out to be... yep... not cleaned since the republic since I could tell. The street seemed more hospitable to use. Somehow I got back on bathrooms, or lack thereof... gotta savor it.

 

Some houses didn't have a bathroom; there's an outhouse to go to. One had pigs running underneath to take care of the waste. One pool hall said they had a 'mens only' bathroom. I found out why; it's a bucket with a handle tethering on a water line. I saw some courageous girls go in just to show they can hold up half the world. I'm thinking it's the heavier half. Another pool hall had a 'bathroom' in the hallway; where a water fountain used to be, was now a hole... it was routinely honored with some 'water'. I always liked the bathrooms in the restaurants where there is only one bathroom; unisex stalls. When you ask your neighbor if 'she' has any tissue you realize it's definitely the heavier half. I guess a book could be written about the bathroom experiences... but I just feel like I gotta savor it.

 

All in all, I wouldn't trade it for any other experience. Why would I? Why would I complain? I guess if I were expecting china to be more red carpet or cater to my needs, attitude, and expectations. But I never did and never will. gotta savor it...

[chengdu4me]

My wife comes from a poor inner city environment. Two miles from city center in Chengdu. Concrete seven story walkup. No electricity, no natural gas, no water, no plumbing. Not because they can't afford it..they can't, but because it is not there. The homes are nothing more than concrete caves. All cooking is done outside. Have to gather wood from broken shipping pallets behind stores every meal. In earlier years, food came from restaurant leftovers that were thrown out. Yes, my wife's family grew up eating out of garbage cans. There is no way to cool or heat the home. The facility to take a shower is about a 1/2 km from the house and that is the only source of water. So, to cook, you haul the water. This is how she lived for 45 years. Her mother, father, her and her four sisters in this two room home the size of a one car garage. Her Dad worked everyday as a steel worker, but to support a family of six was impossible on his pay. Dad is gone now, and Mom lives better because of his pension and help from us kids, but she is still in the concrete cave..won't leave..it has been her home for 50 years...

[A Mafan]

And yet, as bad as these stories are, there are worse stories in China.

 

And as bad as the worst stories are in China, there are worse stories in India, or in Myanmar, or Laos, or rural Alabama, or inner city New York.

 

And as bad as those stories are, there are worse about people taken hostage by insurgents in central/south America, or US military POWs held by the Vietnamese, or political prisoners in any of 3 dozen nations worldwide.

 

Yet people live through it.

 

Some people live their whole lives in it.

 

Interestingly, it doesn't seem to be as unsanitary as we westerners seem to think. At least, no one seems to die from it, or even get sick from it very often.

 

As bad as that picture seems that was displayed by Chilton747, there are millions of people who aspire to that level of ostentatious wealth!

 

Some things can't be fixed with just money. They can only be fixed by raising standards incrementally, generation by generation.

 

Then again, some things that look broken aren't. We can't and shouldn't force things on people out of pity, or due to our emotional reactions of how we think we'd feel if we lost everything we had and were forced to live "that way."

 

The best we can do is work hard to create as many opportunities for people as we can, so that those who are not satisfied with squalor can work their way up and out of it.

 

...Chinese chauvenism is a huge obstacle to the rural being able to improve their lives.

 

I just hope people really question themselves to make sure their compassion isn't really pity, condescension, and self-righteousness masquerading as magnanimity. Not that anyone here is engaging in self-righteous, condescending pity...

[weiaijiayou]

I never said that I was in love with the author or agreed with his philosophy on life in China or anywhere else for that matter of fact but what I got out of it was how the people lived and where they and the conditions that they lived in.

I believe what I said about the author¡¯s motivations is true and relevant in explaining his views of Chinese people. I¡¯m not sure why you would take offense to it. I was talking about the guy who wrote the article, not you...

 

But it seems as though you are one of those people that are determined to deny that there are poor people in China that live a very meager life. Most of you guys will proclaim that there are a few of them living in caves in very remote mountain area and that there is only two or three hundred of them right.

Are we seriously back to this? Where did you get this idea that anyone here would deny that there are hundreds of millions of poor people in China? How could anyone argue with that fact? They would have to claim that China¡¯s research bureaus and the World Bank are lying in order to exaggerate the number of poor people. To understand my views on the subject you have to understand that change does not equal state (this works in most people¡¯s brains). A condition can improve and still be bad. I¡¯m the guy from the China Model thread who said 1. conditions are too bad for too many people in China and 2. conditions have improved a lot for most Chinese. For each of these points I gave actual evidence (i.e., information that a reader could check) to support what I said.

 

My guess is that you were an english teacher in China straight out of college is that right?

What would this have to do with anything? (and no, you are not right.) Do you believe the quality of an argument and its evidence depends on who says it? Otherwise I don¡¯t know why you are getting personal. Are you trying to suggest something about my motivation and ability to understand China? You¡¯re clearly insinuating something about English teachers. Let me ask you. How much Chinese can you speak? I would bet money that when in China everything you know and understand is filtered through your wife. Have you ever personally carried on a conversation about anything substantial with a regular Chinese person who hasn¡¯t had the opportunity to study English? Even the person who comes in to clean your room at your 2 star hotel or the person who sells you vegetables? I highly doubt it. I just don¡¯t see how based on this type of experience you feel you can look down on someone if they teach English in China (which I have never done ¨C although I have volunteered at a kindergarten).

 

I think that this will probably be my last post on CFL. I¡¯m getting too annoyed with the discussions on the topics that most interest me...

 

Just for closure, I do want to thank everyone who helped with my questions about the visa process back when that was ongoing.

[NewDay2006]

And yet, as bad as these stories are, there are worse stories in China.

 

And as bad as the worst stories are in China, there are worse stories in India, or in Myanmar, or Laos, or rural Alabama, or inner city New York.

 

 

Very true. I thank God everyday for the roof over my familes head. I was very poor when I was growing up, we always had enough, but I didn't live with my mom from 4-8 years old because she could afford to take care of me. I was sent to South Carolina to live with a family of someone in her church.

 

My Mom asked me months before she died, did I hold that time against her... I said no, I just figured it's what she had to do. Still, I know many had it much worse than me.

[Guest Pommey]

Larry I dont think anyone denies there are poor in China anymore than anywhere else in the world.

Just its kinda interesting some like to post pics of it and shuve it down our throats as if a particular problem in China.

The USA is the richest country in the world and I have to say from my obsevations some of the poorest people I have ever seen and a social net / health care system that sucks big time.

Lets not live in a greenhouse and throw stones'

Lets give you a example , just yesterday we gave our dinning room set to a woman her who lives with her disabled son, why did we do that you ask ? because they were eating off the floor.

So please people dont give us us this onesided crap. The chinese will help their poor, go take pics of our poor and do what you can too help our own.

 

JMHO

[david_dawei]

Larry I dont think anyone denies there are poor in China anymore than anywhere else in the world.

Just its kinda interesting some like to post pics of it and shuve it down our throats as if a particular problem in China.

The USA is the richest country in the world and I have to say from my obsevations some of the poorest people I have ever seen and a social net / health care system that sucks big time.

Lets not live in a greenhouse and throw stones'

Lets give you a example , just yesterday we gave our dinning room set to a woman her who lives with her disabled son, why did we do that you ask ? because they were eating off the floor.

So please people dont give us us this onesided crap. The chinese will help their poor, go take pics of our poor and do what you can too help our own.

 

JMHO

I'm not exactly sure who your beef is with since Larry did not post any picture but Chilton did, to show his wife's living conditions.

 

The threads in the MK about a disillusioned western who things china should be up to HIS standards. It's not about the US. That could be another thread if you wanted.

[Eric739]

I am not sure I understand the argument here. What started out as a very poignant and personal piece turned out to be interpreted totally different.

 

I don¡¯t think the article was in any way self-serving or done out of spite to the writer¡¯s ¡°employer.¡± There have been many such articles, even books. River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze is a wonderful book that describes China from an outsider point of view. It has the same flavor of the piece amberjack quoted.

 

The observation that an English teacher would have any less insight into poverty than a native is absurd. In fact, it could be argued someone new to the situation of poverty would have an even better perspective than someone jaded by years of living in squalor.

 

And yes, there are poor people everywhere and metrics help understand degrees of it. But that does not change the hopelessness people feel when living in such conditions.

 

¡°Some people live their whole lives in it.

 

Interestingly, it doesn't seem to be as unsanitary as we westerners seem to think. At least, no one seems to die from it, or even get sick from it very often.¡±

 

I do disagree. People living in squalor may not know their condition because they have not lived elsewhere. But they do die from it. I was also a rural paramedic for the military in Laos and Cambodia. I was the so-called village doctor for several tribes there. They do die of some of the most terrible diseases. Worms and parasites ate their insides. Infections, including tuberculosis, are a main problem, especially of the mouth, ears and legs. Try walking in the jungle without any protection for a while. If they cannot get medical care under these conditions, they die slow horrible deaths.

 

And I do think you can get the flavor of poverty by reading such stories and they don¡¯t have to be about China, although that is the country we talk about here. Poverty is a universal condition.

 

The book China Wakes by Nick Kristoff and Sheryl Wudunn is quite a good read, albeit a bit dated. They talk of visitors to the rural areas looking out upon groups of children approaching their car. From afar the children look as if they were wearing a brown coat of some kind. When they got closer to beg for money, food, anything, they saw the children were naked; the ¡°coat¡± was a layer of mud. When the local CP was not looking, they were told many of the children would never see the age of 25.

 

Connecting that story with my own observations of an old Moslem man wiping himself with his left foot and smiling in triumph to a group of us soldiers. The difference between culture and sanitary conditions becomes quite manifest in that one scene. Were we being judgmental or self-righteous? No. We were not trying to change him or anyone. I don¡¯t think pity is the motivation for a lot of idealistic challenges in this world.

 

It¡¯s empathy. If you don¡¯t have it, you won¡¯t ¡°get it.¡±

 

I often hear that people who live in poverty often don¡¯t want to change. I think that feeling is an excuse for allowing you to be aloof from it, to allow distance. And that¡¯s OK too. I did the same when I went to work. I carried just enough cash for lunch so I could pull out empty pockets to a beggar to show I truly had no money.

 

I studied and worked so-called poverty programs for many years and seen poverty in many, many countries. There are no experts in poverty and more than there are experts in anything. And poor people will deny their poverty out of pride.

 

But what I think the writer is really nostalgic about is his experiences in China, not necessarily poverty. My wife misses Fushun and having been there several times, and seen the same scenes described here, I wondered why. And then I remember Thomas Wolfe saying you can never go home again. You want to, but you can¡¯t.

 

FWIW....

[amberjack1234]

My wife comes from a poor inner city environment. Two miles from city center in Chengdu. Concrete seven story walkup. No electricity, no natural gas, no water, no plumbing. Not because they can't afford it..they can't, but because it is not there. The homes are nothing more than concrete caves. All cooking is done outside. Have to gather wood from broken shipping pallets behind stores every meal. In earlier years, food came from restaurant leftovers that were thrown out. Yes, my wife's family grew up eating out of garbage cans. There is no way to cool or heat the home. The facility to take a shower is about a 1/2 km from the house and that is the only source of water. So, to cook, you haul the water. This is how she lived for 45 years. Her mother, father, her and her four sisters in this two room home the size of a one car garage. Her Dad worked everyday as a steel worker, but to support a family of six was impossible on his pay. Dad is gone now, and Mom lives better because of his pension and help from us kids, but she is still in the concrete cave..won't leave..it has been her home for 50 years...

Your wife and mother in law appreciates you very much I am sure Larry. You are a good man.

 

Larry