Evidence of Progress In China

Many heart-rending stories are coming out of China in the aftermath of the deadly earthquake in Sichuan province that likely killed more than 50,000.

One thing that's interesting is the relative openness of China to reporting of the disaster from the western news media. (Contrast: Myanmar.) It wasn't that long ago that the Chinese government's response to a natural disaster like this would be to clamp down on the media and try to control all reports of the catastrophe.

Today, China continues to look more and more western. The Chinese premier goes on television to discuss rescue efforts, does a few flyovers, and (unlike our President during Katrina) stays in the area to direct relief operations.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported today that ordinary Chinese citizens are opening their wallets to contribute to private relief efforts, just as Americans do when the going gets rough.

And while the Chinese government is directing search and rescue, as it should, there are reports of many volunteers, such as a doctor from Tangshan--a city destroyed in a 1976 earthquake--who decided on his own to go to the earthquake zone and provide whatever help he could.

These are all signs of an increasing "middle-class-ness" in China, especially in the more prosperous cities, with values that mirror those of the middle class in western societies.

Another value of the middle class in many nations is nationalism. In the Chinese, it manifests when westerners try to tell them what they should do with Tibet.

Will these emerging values eventually lead to a clamor for democracy, and a potential showdown with the Communist Party? Or will Party leaders who share similar values eventually allow the country to morph into a multi-party system? Those are some of the issues this massive nation will likely face in the coming decades.

Chinese Law and Order

While in China, we got a few glimpses of what Chinese law and order is all about.

First off, China does have crime. It's a big country, with over 1 billion people--nearly four times the population of the U.S., so there's bound to be a few problems. But China does not have the kinds of serious, violent crimes that plague some parts of America's big cities. Murder is rare. Most of the stuff you read about in the English language Chinese newspapers are fairly petty property crimes. You certainly feel safe walking the streets of a Chinese city at night (in part, you're practically never alone on the street).

We also witnessed, first hand, a police effort to crack down on trademark fraud, which is pretty rampant in China. While leaving a restaurant, we noticed an altercation across the street. A man was screaming and yelling at four police officers in a small leather goods store, while two women tried to restrain him. The police were carrying numerous cartons of goods out of the store and putting them into their police cars. A Chinese relative explained to us that the screaming man was the store owner, that he had gotten mad at the trademark police for asking questions about some of his goods, and so the police had decided to confiscate a large number of items, further enraging the man. Well, at least there's some enforcement.

Prostitution also exists in China. There was a "massage parlor" around the corner from our hotel, and the Curmudgeon's brother-in-law was solicited outside it by an overly made up young lady. "Hello, you want massage; you want sex; hello?" Whether the Chinese police will crack down on prostitution in Beijing before the Olympics, or turn a blind eye to it (on grounds its just another part of the tourist trade) is yet to be seen.

In some areas of Chinese life, the people don't seem too worried about the police. For example, at one point we were on a road jammed up due to construction activity. As vehicles jockeyed for position across lanes, medians and shoulders, a couple of police vehicles trying to get through had no luck. No one moved over for them.

There also doesn't seem to be much in the way of enforcement of speeding laws. Chinese drivers careening down the highway didn't slow in the slightest upon sighting a police car.

When Chinese police do pull someone over for a traffic violation (as we saw twice) it is incumbent on the driver to get our of his/her car and come back to the police officer to discuss the matter and get a ticket.

And when the Chinese need a big police presence, they certainly can get it. When leaving, we noticed that there was no traffic on the five-lane wide inbound airport road. It soon became apparent that a huge number of police were blocking all entry ramps and had closed down the road. After three or four eerie miles of empty highway, we finally spotted a motorcade of some foreign dignitary rushing into town. (You'll sometimes spot the same thing around here on the Dulles Access Road, but with fewer police.)

During part of our trip, Beijing was experimenting with a traffic control program they intend to use during the Olympics, under which most drivers will be allowed on the roads only every other day--even numbered license plates one day, odd the next. When we arrived at the Beijing Airport from Chengdu, our bus driver was not there to meet us, creating a bit of consternation. After a couple phone calls, we found him, on his way--he was quite contrite, as he'd forgotten about the restriction and went out with an even license number on an odd day, without the proper waiver form. He was pulled over by police. The good news is that we made up for the lost time because the road into town wasn't nearly as jammed as usual.

One of the things we didn't get to experience was what it's like to pay a parking ticket in China--could it possibly be worse than in D.C., where the process can take all day?

Our Chinese Family

One of the reasons we keep going back to China is our extensive family over there. Unlike most Americans who visit China and see the various sites from a bus, but have little interaction with everyday Chinese, we spend a good deal of time with these family members, including seeing their homes and learning of their activities. (And eating! In China--as in many societies--when you get together with relatives, it centers around food, lots of it. We'll write later this week about our experiences with Chinese banquets.)

Mrs. Curmudgeon's father, who goes by the initials "S.L.," is our family connection to China.

S.L. was born and raised in the town of Zigong, right in the middle of China's Sichuan Province. In pre-revolution China, S.L.'s father was a salt merchant, Zigong having a long and distinguished heritage as one of the world's leading salt producing regions by virtue of sitting on top of a huge reservoir of salt brine tapped by ingenious Chinese drilling methods. S.L. grew up in China's privileged class, in nice homes with many servants. He was given a first rate education and even travelled a bit--locally, within the province--as a youth. But then World War II intruded with the Japanese invasion of China and S.L. joined the army to fight for his homeland.

He came to the U.S. near the end of WW II, as part of a unit of Chinese soldiers sent to train with American troops for liaison in what, at the time, was expected to be long additional fighting against the Japanese, including in China. When WW II ended and the Chinese civil war and revolution began, he stayed in the U.S., married a bright, rebellious Midwestern red-head from St. Louis, earned advanced engineering degrees, became a U.S. citizen and raised a family.

Left behind in China, however, were a number of siblings with whom S.L. had very little contact or information before Richard Nixon famously opened the door to China in 1972.

In 1973, S.L. made his first trip home--after more than 25 years away--taking his then teenage son with him. It was a tough trip--China was still quite backward and paranoid at the time. But S.L. was able to re-establish contact with his siblings (and his mother, still living at the time), who had all migrated to either Beijing or Shanghai by that time.

Over time, S.L. has established regular contacts with his siblings, all of whom have made at least one trip to the U.S., as well as S.L.'s numerous trips to China. Despite some tough times, especially during the brutal Cultural Revolution period, S.L.'s siblings have been remarkably successful, and their children and grandchildren are now reaping the benefits of China's rapidly expanding economy.

Because all of our trips have included time in China's capital, we've seen the most of S.L.'s sister from Beijing, who turned 80 during our recent trip (the occasion for an entire day of eating and banqueting). Her husband, who was one of S.L.'s best friends growing up in Zigong, long served as the chairman of the Dept. of Philosophy at prestigious Beijing University (pictured below). They live on the campus, and every time we visit they have a somewhat larger apartment with more electronics and other modern conveniences. Their three daughters are all married, with families (one lives in Boston, where her son is a budding tennis prodigy).

On our trip, we took two of S.L.'s grand-nieces from Beijing with us to Sichuan, where they'd never been, to see the old family homestead in Zigong, as well as other parts of the Province. One of the nieces is a rising junior in college, where she is studying computer animation. Our boys were instantly taken with her computer games and the fantastic images she has created on her own laptop. The other niece is entering college this fall as a freshman, where she also hopes to study computers.

The two nieces, both of whom speak a smattering of English, reminded us of young college-age girls here. Indeed, when we went to the beach this summer with the Curmudgeon's niece from Raleigh, NC, who'll be a freshman at Johns Hopkins in a matter of days, she spent most of her time hanging out with a friend, speaking in code, staying up late and generally avoiding the rest of our group. The Chinese nieces were the same--whenever we got off our tour bus, they'd quickly disappear, but always show up on time for meals and our next departure. They appeared genuinely awed at the sights they'd never seen, and like young folk everywhere wondered exactly what their connection was to the legion of more distant relatives who seemed to materialize at every stop.

In Zigong we got together with one of those more distant relatives, one we'd met on our previous trip and who exemplifies the potential for success in modern China. In this case, it was the daughter-in-law of one of S.L.'s cousins (maybe even more removed than a first cousin--it's hard to keep it all straight). She and her husband (who was out of town on a business trip) own a chain of department stores--more than 30--as well as some other businesses. Judging by the flagship store on the main drag in Zigong, these are very nice stores and doing quite well. And judging by her five-level, modernly furnished and heavily staffed apartment, we'd say they are doing quite well, too.

Liu, as we'll call the cousin-in-law, is quite a dynamo. Carefully turned out in the latest designer clothes, she made us look like a bunch of frumps. She treated us to a lovely banquent lunch in a private room at the nightclub on the top of her department store, and later that night to drinks in the "beer garden" at the hotel where she also has a part ownership interest. Liu has two children, a boy and a girl, and wants the most for them. She wants them to go to school in the U.S., at a top-30 college. They're being educated now in private schools and taking various preparatory tests. She and her husband want to start a business in the U.S.--exactly what was a bit vague (or maybe lost in translation), and to buy a home near whatever school the kids end up at. We're sure they have the resources to do so. They're also exploring an IPO for their company. They're part of China's new elite, and they're fun to be around.

Back in Beijing, at the end of our trip, we caught up with another of S.L.'s siblings, his sister from Shanghai, who was trained as a botanist and whose husband ran an electronics factory early in the Chinese capitalist revolution. They live comfortably, but not extravagantly by any stretch. Their son came to the U.S. for college and never left--he now lives in Columbia, Maryland with his new Chinese bride and does technology work for a major U.S. defense contractor.

Of course, the visit of S.L.'s other sister to Beijing served as the excuse for yet another banquet, with many toasts and a new round of strange dishes (we enjoyed one that reminded us of the pulled pork barbecue back home).

At these gatherings the Curmudgeon always wishes he could speak Chinese. Or that someone would come up with a device--they will in the future, we're certain--you could clip on your ear that would translate any language into perfect English. We could learn so much more if only we could converse freely with all these relatives. (Occasionally, we'll task S.L. with serious translation duty in these exchanges, but it's tough on him to keep up for very long.) Instead, there's a lot of smiling, nodding and pleasantries, such as "Ni-hau"--Chinese for "how are you?"

There are other relatives we didn't get to see. S.L. has two younger brothers living in Shanghai, and another brother who was in Shanghai, but who passed away a few years ago. One of the brothers has an amazing capacity for language, speaking English, German, Russian, Japanese and both major dialects of Chinese. A metallurgist by training, he's into all kinds of foreign exchange programs with Shanghai. His similarly gifted--and outgoing--daughter lives in Paris where she works for one of China's travel services (and helps us arrange these trips). The other brother is a sports coach, and his strapping sons, whom we've seen little of, are athletically gifted. Next trip, we'll have to go through Shanghai and catch up with that wing of the family!

Meanwhile, it's good to be back home, despite the sweltering heat. We're almost over the jet lag and the boys have been glad to eat food they can easily identify. Soccer season's beginning. School's a week away. Where did the summer go?