(via Flickr/Roamme)

Welcome to Tea Time Chat, a real-time discussion between Tea Leaf Nation writers about the issues that matter to them. 

Tourism season is approaching in many parts of the world, so we asked our contributors their thoughts on a recent assertion by Chinese politician Wang Yang that the ‘uncivilized’ behavior of Chinese tourists abroad was damaging the country’s reputation. 

***

Liang Pan is studying political communication at New York University. He has lived in China, the Middle East, and the U.S.

There’s no excuse for spitting, urinating and littering in public places, but some Chinese tourists’ “uncivilized” manners deserve more understanding.

First, due to China’s low per capita income level and foreign countries’ rigid visa policies towards Chinese citizens, for many Chinese, an overseas trip is still a once-in-a-lifetime luxury.

A journey to European countries or the U.S. can easily cost a middle-income Chinese person from a big city like Beijing or Shanghai at least four months’ wages. Additionally, a Chinese person has to go through a very selective visa application review and visa interview process, which most citizens from “civilized countries” could never imagine. People usually don’t spend fortunes and endure bureaucracy just to behave themselves or be “civilized.” It’s more Spring Break than it is a museum visit.

Second, Chinese travel in groups. There is a language barrier, and tourist guides are needed; however, another major reason for group travel is, again, the visa policies: many developed countries don’t accept individual tourist visa applications from Chinese. The Chinese have to be bundled together and vouched for by a qualified travel agency in order to obtain a visa.

When people travel in groups, the code of behavior of the origin country can be observed within the social perimeter created by the group. It lowers the cultural pressure from an unfamiliar environment and lessens the travelers’ interactions with the destination society, much like an Africa safari in a packed bus instead of a solo excursion.

Lastly, cultural differences create awkwardness. Western eating utensil etiquette is perplexing to chopstick users. Ordering from Italian or French menus is like deciphering the Rosetta Stone for many Chinese. Table manners and dress codes are always intimidating to inexperienced travelers. Think of the knives, folks, and awfully translated Chinese menus presented by friendly Chinese to foreign tourists, instead of shaming someone who is “uncivilized” condescendingly.

***

Jessica Levine is a Johns Hopkins University graduate student with an emphasis in digital communication, and is based in Michigan.

Let’s make a few clarifications, here.

Wang Yang’s assertion that Chinese mannerisms, like speaking loudly (a hallmark of tonal Mandarin), will “damage the image of the Chinese people” is an overreach. Quietly, he is echoing President Xi Jinping’s lofty hopes for the “Chinese Dream” or what Xinhua described as the “renewal of the Chinese nation” à la polished, “professional competence” worthy of international envy.

To the claims of coarse behavior by tourists from the Mainland: The slurping of noodles (slurping’s a hat-tip to the cook) didn’t cause hoteliers in the Maldives to yank tea kettles from bedrooms in a fit of bigotry. No, the hospitality industry guns only for one color—green; for a buck, tourism bureaus happily overlook personal habits different from their own. But wreck something of value with the stickiness of boiled ramen? Or, litter a restaurant floor with spit-out duck bones?

Hardly tinged with racial overtones, these kinds of actions instead challenge overseas property and public health laws.

So, in a roundabout way, Wang’s call to “consciously obey social and public order and social morality” abroad hit the mark.

***

Christopher Magoon is a Philadelphia-based writer and graduate student who has lived in Yunnan and Beijing. 

Last week, a Chinese deputy foreign minister named Wang Yang made headlines by criticizing Chinese tourists’ “uncivilized behavior” while traveling abroad saying, “It damages the image of the Chinese people and has a very bad impact.”

This was not a gaff, nor was it a fringe official gone rogue—Wang’s remarks appear to have the backing of the Chinese state.  Wang is a seasoned politician who made a slow-and-steady climb through the party ranks to Guangdong Party Secretary before being named one of China’s four deputy foreign ministers.  His remarks came during a teleconference on a new set of tourism laws, hosted by the tightlipped Chinese State Council.  Rather than censoring Wang’s critique,state-controlled media published his urgings for more polite tourist behavior.

While notable for their intensity, Wang’s comments were not the first state-sponsored critique of Chinese tourists.  In 2006, Chinese media announced new regulations that made “travel agencies and tour guides responsible for Chinese tourists who are rude, dirty or generally behave badly in public.”

Wang’s remarks come in the wake of an explosion of Chinese international travel that has amplified the profile of Chinese tourists in host nations.  In 2012, China became the most important international tourism market in the world, passing both the United States and Germany in dollars spent abroad.  Western readers will not be surprised to learn of a backlash against spitting, line cutting, and loud talking in the U.S. and Europe, but many of the loudest complaints come from China’s Asian neighbors.  Recent reports from Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, and South Korea all voice complaints of the increasing flow of “rude” Chinese tourists.

Though somewhat bizarre, Wang’s remarks were a calculated response to a small—but growing—thorn in the side of a country that is desperately trying to improve its international profile.

(via Flickr/花花视界@厦门)

A recent survey of over 35,500 single ladies in China offers some insight into Chinese women’s attitudes towards men and marriage. The survey, which included questions such as “Why are you still single?” and “What kind of man do you hope to marry?”  shed light on the types of men that single Chinese women prefer, with some surprising results.

While 51.13% of the women surveyed regarded “getting married” as their goal, they reported that the top three male traits that made them prefer singlehood were men’s constant involvement in “ambiguous” love affairs, their tendency to talk a lot but accomplish little, and their stinginess. While these feelings may resonate globally, what set the Chinese marriage market apart were respondents’ attitudes towards men, as well as their expectations and standards for their potential future husbands.

When asked “What kind of men are you willing to marry?” the most popular response was “a divorced man who owns a house and car,” followed by “a successful 40-something man who has gone on a lot of blind dates but is still single.” Interestingly – and even a bit surprisingly – the least popular kind of man, coming in behind even “an unassuming computer programmer,” and “a handsome freelancer,” was the so-called “phoenix man,” a high-level corporate manager with a lot of relatives. More broadly defined, a “phoenix man” is someone who came from humble beginnings, made his way through school, exhausted resources of his family in the process, and was expected to change the fate of the family when he eventually succeeded.

Instead of being regarded as heroes who changed their own destinies, “phoenix men” have long been unpopular in the Chinese marriage market, especially among “peacock girls” – those from urban, relatively wealthy families. Women dislike what they perceive to be the men’s insecurity, fear of failure, penny pinching, inferiority complexes, and prioritization of his extended family over his own wife and kids. These are thought to be traits irreversibly ingrained in his psyche by the time he reaches adulthood.

Many Chinese believe that when you marry someone, you are marrying into a lifestyle and an entire family. In a country with conservative marriage traditions, many men and women still think divorce is shameful and that second marriages should be low-profile. China has some long-standing traditions when it comes to marriage, including especially tight family ties, living with the husband’s family after marriage, and having the wife serve his parents and potentially his entire family. In modern days, couples who live and work in more westernized urban areas are less likely to abide by such traditions, but they have not completely disappeared and may remain in the back of women’s minds like a time bomb.

Many single Chinese women therefore find it difficult to decide whom to marry. On the one hand, marrying a relatively rich divorced man is like taking a “secondhand” man, and they may feel they lose face by doing so. On the other hand, marrying an affluent “phoenix man” might embroil the woman in endless troubles with his extended family.

Netizens weighed in on the dilemma. One woman commented on the survey, “I personally think that you may lose face by marrying an old man [a divorced, middle-aged man], but at least you might have some security in life. He might also be less flirtatious [with other women]. A more stable life would bring you a sense of safety.” On Weibo, a Twitter-like social media platform, user @bt桃子 remarked, “One reason marrying a divorced man is better than marrying a single man is that you can see what his attitude toward marriage is: whether he is abusive, whether he is responsible enough, whether he likes to get involved in love affairs. It’s hard to learn any of this about a single man unless you’ve lived closely with him for a while.”

A comment by Weibo user @一帘花碎影 illustrated some of the main complaints women have about “phoenix men:”

Love yourself! Stay away from phoenix men! They bear the entire family’s hopes while in college, and get what they believe is a good job in a state-owned company with a salary of two or three hundred thousand a year. If you are not from a rich family, his entire family will think that you are not good enough for him. Down the line, his relatives will always come visit him, borrow money for all sorts of reasons, and make you help them get jobs. If you don’t help them, they will think he is an ungrateful child who has no appreciation for their sacrifices.

Women faced these tough choices in a variety of ways. A plurality of those surveyed reported that in their single lives they chose to devote themselves to their work. Almost half reported they had no sex life. A sizable 13.28% said they did not want to marry, while 23.87% said they were, “uncertain, tired, and might never love again.”

In the end, many Chinese women still find choosing a marriage partner very difficult. An easier relationship might come with other trade-offs, while a harder one might not be worth the energy spent. It is worth noting, though, that only single women participated in this survey, so it does not reflect the views of all Chinese women or Chinese society as a whole. Many couples are happily married every day: the marriage registration computer system recently crashed because of the large volume of couples who wanted to get married on May 20, a date that is a homonym for “I love you” in Mandarin.

One year after a very similar incident occurred in the waters between China and North Korea, North Koreans once again allegedly hijacked a Chinese fishing boat, kidnapping 16 crew members and demanding a ransom of 600,000 yuan, according to the Southern Metropolis Daily and the boat’s owner, Yu Xuejun.

Yu said on his Tencent microblog, another Twitter-like social media platform popular in China, that his boat the Liao Pu Yu No. 25222 and its 16 crew members were sailing in Chinese waters on May 5 when armed North Koreans boarded and seized the boat. The North Koreans then demanded a ransom of 600,000 RMB and required the ransom to be paid before May 19 (and later extended the deadline to 5 pm May 20). The deadline has now passed, while the whereabouts of the boat and its crew members remain unknown.

Pictures of the 16 crew members were circulated widely on Weibo (via Weibo/Fair Use)

News of this incident comes on the heels of reports that North Korea fired anther short-range missile from its east coast on May 9, following the launch of three missiles last Saturday, an act that exacerbated the already tense relationship between North Korea and China. Moreover, the alleged incident was not the first of its kind this year, and these incidents are occurring with increasing frequency, according to a public security official interviewed by the Southern Metropolis Daily. Last year, when North Koreans detained a Chinese fishing boat, the 29 fishermen were eventually released, the demanded 1.2 million RMB ransom was never paid.

The most recent kidnapping incident has triggered widespread discussion—with many expressions of anger—among Chinese netizens. Most posts on microblogs, BBS forums, and other online platforms reflected a strong sense of nationalism, with many advocating that the Chinese government take a hardline stance when it comes to foreign affairs. Sina Weibo user @清华吴大辉 wrote:

It is not unusual to see North Korean fishing boats entering our waters, but we never detain them. Russia, on the other hand, takes a much stronger stance. A few years ago, North Korean fishermen often slipped into Russian waters to steal fish, but Russia never compromised. Nearly 300 North Korean fishermen were caught and detained in 2006 alone, and North Korean fishing boats are no longer seen entering Russian waters. Mao’s child [North Korea] is like a spoiled child. If we do not reflect on this matter, we will have endless troubles in the future.

Another microblogger reflected on the implications that the incident had for China’s own government: “The hijacking of the Chinese fishing boat happened on May 5, and it has yet to be resolved. Is this the efficiency of our government? North Korea is monstrous and terrible, while China disregards human life; they really do suit each other.”

Yet more netizens saw the incident as an example of North Korea’s bad behavior. “A primary school student cut his neighboring classmate’s hand. The teacher asked him why. He said, because his hand crossed the line and was on MY desk; I meant to cut his clothes but I cut his hand accidently; please do not sanction me because this would not do anyone any good,” wrote Weibo user @黄秋生.

Though China is North Korea’s sole major ally as China, and their relationship has been described as a friendship forged in blood, tensions between the two countries have been high in recent months, ever since North Korea carried out a nuclear test in February. Many Chinese do not perceive the China-North Korea relationship as it is depicted in government propaganda, and believe that Beijing should take a firmer stance against its “old friend.” Deng Jinwen, the former editor of Study Times, a well-known communist newspaper, explicitly suggested that China should “abandon North Korea, considering it has already become a negative equity for China.” Leading critics think that Beijing has indeed begun taking a different approach towards its former ally.

However, Deng was suspended after his article was published in the Financial Times on February 28. The Global Times, a mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist Party, issued an editorial on April 12 entitled, “To Advocate Abandoning North Korean is Too Naïve,” a move that made clear it that despite prevailing public opinion, Beijing is still committed to maintaining its current relationship with North Korea: a friendship “forged in blood.”

Vice President Biden giving the commencement speech at the University of Pennsylvania (via White House Photos)

It’s commencement season in America again, and quite a few heavy hitters have already spoken. On Tuesday, the Guardian published its first speaker roundup, featuring Vice President Joe Biden, First Lady Michelle Obama, and former president Bill Clinton. Yet it was a speech by Vice President Joe Biden that seemed to draw the most attention among China’s netizens.

On May 13, at the commencement ceremony for the University of Pennsylvania, Biden began by cracking a few jokes about Penn’s skyrocketing tuition and received immediate laughter from the audience. It was “by far the funniest of the recent commencement addresses,” according to the Guardian. Biden’s speech touched on many  subjects: climate change, gay marriage, immigration, and technological innovation, to name a few. He reassured the graduates that claims about America’s decline were unfounded. “The future is in your control,” he urged at the end, “Don’t listen to the cynics.” And the crowd roared.

Not all Penn graduates were happy about what they heard, however, especially those who were made very uncomfortable by Biden’s two references to China. On May 14, Zhang Tianpu, a graduating senior at Penn and a Chinese citizen, wrote an entry on renren.com, China’s Facebook, in protest against Biden’s speech. The post soon went viral and was shared and read by more than 30,000 Renren users.

What exactly did Biden say about China?

Zhang transcribed Biden’s two references to China for the benefit of those who weren’t present at the ceremony. In the middle of his speech, Biden touched on the American fear that “the Chinese are going to eat our lunch.” “But ladies and gentlemen,” the Vice President continued, “their problems are immense, and they lack much of what we have.” After listing Americans’ advantages in terms of its education system, legal system, venture capital markets, and technological innovation, Biden concluded that the key to all these is was the ability to “think different,” as Steve Jobs famously suggested. Then came Biden’s first China comment, which rubbed many Chinese students the wrong way:

“You cannot think different in a nation where you cannot breathe free; you cannot think different in a nation where you aren’t able to challenge orthodoxy, because change only comes from challenging orthodoxy.”

Biden’s second China reference came at the end of his speech. He spoke of his ten-day visit to China, at the end of which China’s then President-to-be Xi Jinping asked what the Vice President thought. Biden shared his response: “I said he’s a strong, bright man, but he has the look of a man who is about to take on a job he’s not at all sure is going to end well. I mean that seriously.”

Why were the Chinese students not happy?

“Vice President Biden’s speech made thousands of Chinese students and their parents who were present very disappointed,” Zhang wrote in his post.

Two things irked Zhang in particular. Firstly, when Biden said, “you cannot think different in a nation where you can’t breathe free,” he referred to China as a “nation,” not a “state.” So, Zhang observed, “We the Chinese people are slaves by birth, and can’t think independently…Isn’t this explicit racism? In-your-face racism, even!” [Update: This may have been the result of a misunderstanding, not an intentional jab. In colloquial American English, the distinction between "nation," which means a group of people of common descent, and "state," which means a governing entity, is not clearly made. In Chinese, the distinction is clearer. H/T to commenter Gray Hat.]

What added fuel to the fire, according to Zhang, was that Biden said all this during a commencement ceremony at which Zhang and all the other Chinese students were celebrating diplomas they had earned through four years of hard work.

“I don’t care if what he said about China is correct (I don’t dare to make the call either, or else this post would have been a goner—I’m sorry), but despite knowing the occasion—a commencement ceremony at an international university—and the presence of so many Chinese students, Biden didn’t give us even a bit of face,” Zhang wrote, “Having paid the same amount of money, studied equally hard, and even earned better grades than the Americans, why should we sit there and listen to his bullshit? This is not only a stain on the reputation of the University of Pennsylvania as an internationally reputed institution, but also makes America lose face as well. Only cowards praise themselves by attacking other countries.”

Chinese students react online

Reactions to Zhang’s post varied, and mainly came from Chinese college students, both in China and abroad. While some disagreed over whether Biden’s assessment of the U.S. was intentionally naive and optimistic, most found his remarks on China more or less true. Zhang initially transcribed Biden’s speech because the video of the speech, hosted on YouTube, wasn’t accessible from China due to the blocking of the site by the Great Fire Wall. One Renren user remarked, “I also want to roast Biden, but the author should perhaps ask the Party to unblock YouTube first.”

While many seemed confident in China’s future and mocked Zhang’s insecurity, some commented that they understood Zhang’s reaction, though they may not have shared his feelings. Lei Tao, a Chinese student at Penn who was also present during the commencement, wrote: “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with what he said, nor should it count as an [unreasonable] attack on China, because everything he said was true. It’s just that the occasion he chose to say this wasn’t very appropriate, and some Chinese students couldn’t accept it. Now, I was present [during the speech] and listened, but I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

Some didn’t think Zhang needed to make such a fuss over Biden’s comments. One of the more popular comments on Zhang’s article read, “What’s all this compared to what they said during election season!”

The controversy and the challenge

Among all the Ivy League schools, Penn has perhaps one of the largest Chinese student communities. It was therefore no surprise when many Chinese students at Penn who shared Zhang’s sentiment got together and penned an open letter addressed to the Vice President. On May 16, a signing session for the petition took place on campus. In his post, Zhang also shared the email address of Penn President Amy Gutmann’s, inviting more Chinese students to write her in protest. According to Zhang, Amy Gutmann should have taken into account the possible reactions Penn’s thousands of Chinese students might have to Biden’s China remarks and done something about it.

Were Biden’s China comments too nationalistic to be part of a commencement speech? Is the University of Pennsylvania, as a private, international institution, degrading itself or losing its autonomy, as Zhang suggested, by accepting Biden’s politically charged speech? Scores of politicians have done the same before Biden, using occasions such as commencement ceremonies to illustrate their political points. It’s not even evident that Biden meant to make his speech particularly political—his second China observation seemed as personal as it was political.

Zhang never expected his post to attract so much attention. It was meant as “a simple rant,” as the author stated in a later, revised version of his text. But one thing is certain: Biden’s speech annoyed many like Zhang, simply because they felt they deserved to end their college experiences on a happier note. As Zhang mentioned in his post, only 60-70% of Biden’s audience that day were American citizens. As American college campuses become more international, not to mention more Chinese, this incident may serve as a good lesson for both US colleges and politicians in their future speeches.

(Via Flickr/randomix)

Several days ago, the state-run People’s Daily ran a piece entitled “The Post-80′s Generation is Dispirited: Early Decline Cause for Alarm,” arguing that while China’s youth born after 1980 have far and away better material conditions than their forbearers, they face “spiritual confusion and a loss of identity.” The piece concludes by noting that a country’s youth are its future, and that it is the duty of the younger generation to address this problem. In response, social media celebrity and social critic Zuoyeben (@作业本) penned an essay on the real cause of this issue. The essay quickly became the top trending post on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter, drawing more than 100,000 retweets and 29,000 comments in just a few hours. Tea Leaf Nation has translated the essay below in full.

In response to the People’s Daily: Why Is the Post-80’s Generation Dispirited?

Several days ago, the People’s Daily ran a story about how the post-80’s generation was dispirited, and how their premature decline in spirit was a source of concern. In this article, I will discuss this issue, using myself as an example.

When I was in elementary school, I was moved to tears by [such Communist heroes as] Qiu Shaoyun, Lai Ning and Lei Feng. At all times, I was prepared to sacrifice myself and become a martyr for the establishment of the motherland, spilling every last drop of blood. I thought my red neckerchief [symbol of the Young Pioneers, a Communist organization for children] was more important than my own life, because you told me: it was dyed red with the blood of martyrs. Back then, I wondered, how did martyrs keep their blood so fresh and red before they died?

It wasn’t until later that I learned, that stupid neckerchief was five cents worth of dye and ten cents worth of cloth that you sold to me for three dollars.

In the history books, you outlined the crimes of the Japanese, and made me want nothing more than to swim over to Japan and blow it up. You talked of how countless martyrs, Party members, and soldiers sacrificed themselves to win the War of Resistance against Japan. Back then, I was so deeply moved, I was angry I hadn’t been born several decades earlier, so that I could ride boldly into battle with just my knife and my horse. It’s a good thing I wasn’t born back then, after all, or who knows where I would have died.

In your anti-Japan dramas, seven or eight-year old kids could kill a lot of [Japanese] devils, and guerrilla units could charge at them with machetes to kill soldiers holding machine guns. Each died after being stabbed once – and sometimes you could kill two with one thrust. Were these devils stupid? You could kill more devils with a machete than a machine gun.

In secondary school, the education system was in the process of requiring teachers from schools not affiliated with the government to obtain licenses. Most of those teachers who had taught for decades were laid off. Those who remained, besides the few who understood a little bit about education, were usually the sons or daughters of powerful or rich people, and obtained licenses through their connections.

Those idiots beat students just as often as they ate. In my third year of high school, the PE teacher beat me within an inch of my life because my morning exercises were not up to par. My homeroom teacher slapped me across the face because I fell asleep in class. My art teacher knocked down my painting and easel because I cut class. The principal kicked me to the ground and wouldn’t allow me to stand up because I was late to school. What I’m trying to say is, back then, almost all teachers beat students, as long as they had some kind of physical advantage.

Of course, these days you’ve made some progress. You don’t beat secondary school students, you just get a hotel room with primary school students. [Editors: the reference is to the recent news that a primary school principal took six girls to a hotel room. Sexual attack is suspected.]

The physical scars of this are not even the worst part. You didn’t let us read novels, you didn’t let us date. What’s most despicable is that you took our private letters. Even taking them was not a big deal, but you would read them and then throw them away. This is an invasion of privacy. Do you understand that opening other people’s letters is illegal?

You approach education as if you had to force-feed us, always making us “recite the whole text,” learn from [Maoist model student] Jiao Yulu and to be wary of Western brainwashing. What use is it to recite the whole text? What are we supposed to get out of studying your examples and models? Do we deceive ourselves? Is there any meaning in “political thought education” for middle school students? Where is the value in making college students study Marxism, Leninism, Maoist Thought and Deng Xiaoping’s theories?

How is college different from vocational school? As long as you have money or connections, you can go to any college in the country you like.

How many of your professors do real academic research? Or have done real academic research? The world has already developed to this point, but you still require students to attend classes, or fail.

After I graduated, I entered the job market, and nearly drowned in a sea of other job-hunters. Is your employment assistance office just for show? After I found a job, I saw most companies didn’t pay requisite insurances. During the period in which I was unemployed, you forced me to sign a fake employment agreement, then you shamelessly declared to the outside that your employment rate was over 98%….

After entering society, your regulations beat people about the head until they bled. You collected so much in taxes that companies figured out ways to steal and evade them.  What about the employees, then? There wasn’t a single law that could fully ensure that citizen’s rights in the workplace were not infringed upon.

Why must we continually pay taxes for five years before we are allowed to buy a house? Why must someone who makes 3,000 RMB a month in this city, where property costs more than 10,000 RMB per square meter on average, pay individual income tax?

When going to your various departments to fill out paperwork, you hold up endless hoops for us to jump through. When I went to obtain a certificate of unemployment, I had to go back and forth more than ten times between three different offices, traveling over 200 kilometers in total.

When I went to obtain my driver’s licenses, the instructor gave me all kinds of hints that I should give him a bribe. When it was time for me to be tested in reverse maneuvering, he told me three minutes into my allotted ten minutes that time was up.

When I went to get a replacement ID card, it took you over a month to deliver it to me. When I go to the bank, the unresponsive tellers act as if I’m stealing their money.

There are all kinds of ridiculous overcharges for my cellphone.

When I surf the net or mess around on Weibo, you freely delete my posts, which in and of itself isn’t a big deal, but you also invite people to “drink tea,” monitor them, or send them to re-education through labor camps for nothing more than a tweet.

If I want to buy a house, I can’t afford to eat or drink for thirty years.

When I buy stuff, fake goods, low-quality goods, toxic goods and unsafe items are everywhere.

If I want to buy a foreign-made car, I have to pay two times its original price.

“Primary school food meets sanitation standards, lamb meat is lamb meat, the rivers are clean, and there aren’t 10,000 pigs in the river. The air we breathe isn’t poisonous; you don’t have to wear a face mask.”

Now that I’ve grown up, you even dare to put poison in infant milk powder. The stench of the rivers is awful; the air is filled with the smell of the End Days. Housing prices are rising faster than anything, agents are evil, landlords are cunning, and renting an apartment has become like a battle.

I don’t care that your organizations are bloated beyond recognition, but why must I obtain a ‘temporary residence permit’ in my own country?

So you tell me. I belong to the post-80’s generation. How is it possible for me not to be dispirited? It’s enough of a f**king accomplishment that I’m somehow still alive!

(Via Flickr/°Florian)

Almost half of all Chinese report feeling “more anxiety,” now than they did five years ago. What, exactly, is driving these concerns, or increasing reports of these concerns? Avid followers of China-related news might immediately think of censorship and other restrictions on freedoms, yet reports show that the main sources of anxiety in China lie elsewhere. Furthermore, recent coverage of these concerns has revealed changes in the expectations, dreams, and demands of many Chinese.

Several days ago, a 24-year-old employee of Ogilvy in Beijing died from sudden cardiac arrest, which initial reports say occurred after the employee worked overtime for one straight month. His last post on Sina Weibo, a popular microblogging platform, went viral, drawing countless comments from other overworked netizens, many of whom noted that China had become the number one country in the world for death by overwork.

Studies show that many Chinese are unhappy with their jobs – or lack thereof. This year, millions of Chinese students are graduating and face what is reportedly the worst job market in history. Even if they are able to find a job, their worries will not end. A recent Regus study showed China ranked first among 80 countries in workplace stress.

A video produced by Tencent News depicted sources of anxiety felt by Chinese in the workplace: financial troubles, interpersonal relationships, and endless overtime. While the short video included facts and figures about stress in China’s workforce, it focused on individual stories – a 26-year-old who believes he will never be rich enough to buy a house, and a low-level office worker who dreams of emigrating. Chinese increasingly see their anxieties and dreams as individual matters, rather than collective issues.

As China’s growth slows, the idea of a national revival – the Chinese Dream, as it is known in official parlance – stands at odds with the hopes and fears of the average Chinese, creating further cognitive dissonance. While state-run media and government bodies continue to focus on positive news about officials’ achievements and economic development, most Chinese have become far more concerned about food safety, the quality of manufactured goods, and the safety of medicine.

Given the number social media-driven exposés that have drawn public attention over the past few years – on corrupt officials, rat meat scandals, and fake condoms, among other issues – it may be that increasing transparency is making it impossible to ignore issues that once simply flew under the radar. China’s rapidly growing middle class is already making its voice heard on these issues, and it is expected to swell to 40% of the population by 2020.

Despite the fact that anxiety has increased, Chinese overwhelmingly feel they are better off than they were five years ago. Cases like those of Mr. Li, the Ogilvy employee who reportedly died from overwork, may draw more attention because society increasingly values individuals’ lives and dreams.

Lin Zhao’s grave (Via Flickr/auess)

On April 29, 1968, a young Chinese dissident named Lin Zhao was secretly executed by firing squad. In 2013, on the 45th anniversary of her execution, her name resurfaced in the public sphere, as news broke that police had prevented people paying tribute to her at her grave.

Lin Zhao was an ardent Communist in her early years, but she was labeled a “rightist” while studying at the Peking University during Mao’s 1956 “Anti-Rightist Movement.” This movement followed the “Hundred Flowers Campaign,” during which the intelligentsia were invited to criticize the Communist Party and then persecuted for doing so. As Lin became more and more outspoken in her criticism of the regime, she was expelled from school and founded an underground publication, which earned her a prison sentence of 20 years. She served only eight years of that sentence before being secretly executed in 1968 at the age of 35.

Lin’s story is moving, not least of all because of the fine prose through which Lin spread her ideas. Her inability to stay silent was such that when deprived of a pen and paper in prison, she used her own blood to write on walls, clothes and white sheets, compiling a total of 200,000 words.

In an official paper advising authorities to prolong her imprisonment, it was reported [Chinese] that “during her imprisonment, [Lin Zhao] used hair clips and bamboo sticks to pierce her skin, using the dirty blood to write extremely anti-revolutionary, extremely vicious letters, notes and diary entries …openly smearing the socialist system as a bloody totalitarian system that plunders all it takes to be a human being…[while] she talked about herself as ‘a freedom warrior fighting against tyranny and a young resistant.’”

A picture of Lin Zhao circulated widely on Weibo, with the caption, “If one day we are allowed to speak again, don’t forget to tell everyone, there was once a person named Lin Zhao who was killed for loving them too much.”

Lin was shot during the height of the Cultural Revolution. The epilogue of her story added a touch of farce to her tragedy. Two days after the execution, two policemen appeared at the door step of Lin’s mother, demanding that she pays the five cents that she “owed” the government for the bullet used to execute Lin.

A martyr in the making

Despite the theatrical nature of Lin’s story, she remained in obscurity for twenty years following her death. The Shanghai High People’s Court officially cleared her name in the early 1980’s, and her letters written in blood were put on display for a brief period of time before they were permanently archived.

It was not until 1995 that a cameraman at the state-run Xinhua news agency named Hu Jie heard about Lin’s story and was captivated by it. He secretly worked on a documentary of Lin until he was fired, perhaps because of the project.

The making of the film was a race against time, as the prospect of arrest by the Ministry of Security was more than a remote possibility. Hu interviewed Lin’s schoolmates, her uncle, and her lover, who kept a collection of Lin’s prison writings, which were written first in blood and then transcribed by Lin into paper after she obtained it from the prison authorities. Others contacted by Hu declined to appear in front of the camera, including two of Lin’s guards at the prison. The film was finished in 2003 and circulated underground.

In 2004, Hu Jie’s film was covered by Freezing Point, a progressive Chinese journal shut down in 2008 for its liberal positions. Since then, several mainstream media organizations – none of them state-run – have covered Lin’s life in one way or another. However, Lin Zhao remained far from a household name.

Later in 2004, a grave site containing a piece of Lin’s clothes and a bit of her hair – Lin’s body was never recovered – was constructed in her hometown. The site gradually became a small shrine, and an increasing number of people began to go there to pay homage to Lin. Authorities became aware of this, and installed a surveillance camera near the grave. On April 29 of this year, around 120 mourners gathered at the grave, and were met by 200 security officials.

Changing public sentiment

Several years ago, many wanted to look forward and put aside the ugly parts of China’s history, as can be seen from a comment on Hu’s documentary on YouTube: “Mr. Hu is still living in the past. Let us move on. China is changing, changing fast, and changing for good…Mr. Hu, pay a visit to Shanghai. You will be surprised how advanced and modern Shanghai is now.”

The comment was posted in 2008, when most prevalent narrative in society was one of growth. Economic development brought about improvement in living conditions for most people, or at least most city-dwellers, fueling optimism about the future and reluctance to face the past. But over just a few years, this narrative was shattered by skyrocketing real estate prices, shocking corruption scandals, and startling food security crises.

The tricky part of silencing activism in China today is that whenever the authorities try to obstruct it, the obstruction itself makes the news. The news of police obstruction spread online via microblogging platforms that afternoon, and generated waves of eulogies, postings of Lin’s poems, and personal reflections on online forums. On the anniversary of her death, posts about Lin Zhao were retweeted tens of thousands of times, and trended on Sina Weibo, a widely used social media platform.

That Lin’s criticism of the regime has resurfaced is due in part to the nature of her writing. Her poems and prose often promoted universal values such as freedom, democracy and justice, which remain relevant to this day. When the silencing of Lin in prison was reenacted in the suppression of the memorial at her grave, the resemblance to history became too obvious to ignore.

In a certain sense, people living in today’s China may be more drawn to stories like Lin’s now than in years past. It is hard to say whether public sentiment led to massive sympathy for Lin, or whether Lin herself fueled the ever-increasing outcry for freedom – both may be true. Written in blood, Lin’s story has had an impact that she herself could never have foreseen.

Ai Weiwei and associates in front of the Chengdu Bureau for Letters and Visits. Via Flickr/wu fake

A news article published in early May suggests that reform may be in the works for China’s long-standing petitioning system, also known as the Letters and Visits system, which is often associated with scandals involving cruelty and inhumanity. On May 9, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported that in March, the State Bureau for Letters and Visits had ceased issuing rankings of provinces by the numbers of petitioners from each province. Subsequently, some provincial and township authorities also dismantled similar lower-level ranking and evaluation systems.  Though seemingly trivial, the change has serious implications.

 A glimpse into China’s petitioning system

The history of China’s petitioning system is as long as that of Communist China. The system is designed to allow the state to listen to and resolve citizens’ complaints and grievances. The State Bureau for Letters and Visits, as well as associated bureaus at every level of local government, are charged with receiving letters, calls and visits from citizens, directing citizens’ issues to the government bodies that could assist them, and supervising the settlement process. In theory, citizens are not allowed to petition higher-level bureaus unless their issues cannot be resolved by lower-level authorities. In practice, visiting the petitioning bureaus in an ascending order of authority, from the local to the central government level, is often viewed by petitioners as a last resort, to be considered when all other means (including the legal system) fail to bear fruit.

According to a research paper published in the China Quarterly, the second half of 2003 and early 2004 saw a surge in petitioners coming to Beijing, largely because they observed that the new Hu-Wen administration seemed to have a much more accommodating and populist attitude. Probably in response to this increase in petitioners, the central government amended the Regulations of Letters and Visits in late 2004, mandating that the evaluation of public servants take into account their performance in dealing with letters and visits. Around the same time, the State Bureau started ranking provinces by how many petitioners from each province came to Beijing, and provincial governments began to do the same with lower-level authorities.

A vicious cycle

The rankings were originally intended to encourage provincial- and township-level officials to solve petitioners’ problems at the local level. How well civil servants perform in this department has become an increasingly important factor in their evaluation and promotion. According to the Southern Metropolis Daily, in Yongzhou City, Hunan Province, the rankings have been considered as important as GDP performance. In some regions, it has become all-important for officials to prevent petitioners from reaching Beijing: even one case of a local reaching the central-government level bureau could diminish a local official’s career prospects. Thus, local officials are under pressure to stop people from petitioning higher authorities in any way they can.

For years, provincial and local authorities have been accused of abducting petitioners from Beijing by force. Many informal prisons, known as “black jails,” have been set up in Beijing by or for the government to detain petitioners. Hard labor camps and mental asylums are used for these purposes as well. In September 2010, Caijing Magazine reported that a private security company called An Yuan Ding was hired by many local authorities to intercept petitioners, imprison them in secret camps, and send them back to their hometowns. Additionally, in 2009, Xinhua News Agency reported that local authorities devoted considerable amounts of money to bribing the Central Bureau of Letters and Visits to delete petition registrations. Expenditures related to petition interception, including transportation, hiring fees, and bribery – tend to add up tremendously. For example, provincial and township governments in Hunan Province reportedly spent more than one million RMB dealing with Tang Hui. In this regard, the petitioning system has become not only a hotbed of human rights violations, but also a drain on public finances.

Given their bleak prospects, why do waves of petitioners still making their way up through the letters and visits system? For many, the reason is neither that they could manage to elude local officials hunting them, nor that upper-level letters and visits bureaus were willing to address their demands. As rational players in the game, they can sense how fearful the local officials are of their actions, and they use petitioning as a way to intimidate and threaten the officials. The more local officials are panicked by petitioners sneaking off to Beijing, the more determined petitioners are to do so, and the more likely petitioners feel it is that their requests will be answered, not by the ones to whom they petition, but by the local bureaucrats who are following them. To protect themselves, the local governments will do whatever they can to restrain petitioners, yet petitioners try to make their way to Beijing precisely in order to alarm the local officials. This results in a cycle in which the conflict between the petitioner and the official can easily escalate.

Finding a way out

In recent months, there have been several signals that reform is underway to address the inhumanity associated with the petitioning system. In December 2012, several weeks into the Xi-Li administration, tens of thousands of petitioners were rumored to have been released from Jiujing village, one of the largest petitioner concentration camps in Beijing. In January and May of this year, top-level officials from the State Bureau of Letters and Visits and the Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Central Committee of the CPC made public speeches against intercepting citizens who “petitioned legally.” As for the news reported on May 9, though it remains to be seen whether the termination of rankings is temporary or permanent, the public and media are willing to believe the situation is improving. As of May 14, both state-run mouthpieces like the People’s Daily and the Xinhua News Agency and liberal media like the Oriental Morning Post, Beijing News and Caijing Magazine had published positive editorial pieces.

Still, the termination of rankings could be a double-edged sword. Many petitioners use the system as a bargaining chip in their struggles with local authorities, since bureaucrats fear they will petition higher-level authorities. Now that petitions are no longer a vital concern for local authorities, officials may ignore the demands of petitioners entirely. A truly functioning petitioning system should not only prohibit the inhumane treatment of petitioners, but should also effectively empower citizens. Currently, the bureaus of letters and visits are neither able to force other government organs to respond to petitioners’ requests, nor monitor the settlement processes.

Ongoing reforms should include the enhancement of the institutional powers of bureaus of letters and visits. On the other hand, the citizens flooding the petitioning offices, which are considered a last resort, reveal the ineffectiveness of other channels for hearing complaints and grievances. Enhancement and clarification of the roles of the People’s Congress, NGOs, the arbitration system and the judiciary branch could lessen the burden on the petitioning system. Such work would be difficult and involved, but it is also necessary if China aspires to set up a safety valve to address citizens’ concerns effectively.

Former “comfort women” in Korea rally in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, August 2011. (Claire Solery/Wikimedia Commons)

On May 8, the Japanese government announced it would honor the 1995 war apology, a decision widely interpreted as a diplomatic gesture aimed at smoothing ties with China.  Tensions between the two countries have recently escalated due to events such as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s suggesting a possible revision of the 1995 apology, key cabinet members visiting the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, and Abe questioning the validity of describing Imperial Japan’s wartime acts as “aggression.”

Despite such efforts, war-related issues have once again returned to haunt the Japanese foreign ministry.

“In the circumstances in which bullets are flying like rain and wind, the soldiers are running around at the risk of losing their lives…if you want them to have a rest in such a situation, a comfort women system is necessary. Anyone can understand that,” Toru Hashimoto, mayor of Osaka and co-founder of the rightwing Japan Restoration Party, stated on Monday, according to the BBC.

The term “comfort women” is a euphemism for women who were forced into prostitution to serve Japanese soldiers during WWII. Most of them were from China, South Korea, Japan and the Philippines, but some were also from Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Taiwan.

Beijing and Seoul outraged

The Chinese and South Korean foreign ministries immediately issued statements rebuking Japan over Hashimoto’s remarks, which seemingly contradict Japan’s formal apology toward comfort women issued in 1993.

“There is worldwide recognition…that the issue of comfort women amounts to a wartime rape committed by Japan during its past imperial period in a serious breach of human rights,” said a South Korean foreign ministry spokesman. “Our government again urges Japan’s prominent officials to show regret for atrocities committed during Japan’s imperial period and to correct their anachronistic way of thinking and comments.”

“The conscription of sex slaves was a grave crime committed by the Japanese military…We are shocked and indignant at the Japanese politician’s remarks, as they flagrantly challenge historical justice,” stated Hong Lei, spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry.

Hashimoto’s comment triggered outrage among Chinese citizens as well.

“To turn an act of sexual perversion into a political tool and to use it as a way of flaunting Japan’s greatness—this is a disgrace for the Japanese people,” commented user @ 阿SU_不加V on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter. “We should make [Hashimoto’s] wife be a comfort woman,” wrote user @gbinhe.

Reopening old war wounds

Some see Hashimoto’s statement not as an isolated incident but as yet another proof of Japan’s return to militarization and imperialism. Liu Yang, a social critic and writer widely followed on Weibo, warned:

Little Japanese Osaka Mayor argues in favor of ‘comfort women.’ Little Japanese Prime Minister Abe, dressed in army camouflage, poses in a jet numbered ‘731’ and shouts ‘Long Live Japan!’ All these incidents show that the Japanese people have practically gone mad—the world must be on the alert and look out for little Japan coming out to bite us again.

Mixed responses at home

Various Japanese ministers quickly stated that Hashimoto’s views do not reflect those of the government, attempting to minimize the diplomatic damage. “Abe cabinet has the same sentiments as past cabinets,” announced chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga,reiterating the government’s commitment to the 1993 apology toward comfort women.

Japanese online reactions to Hashimoto’s remarks, however, range from supportive to denunciatory. Their comments often contradict each other—some assert that the comfort women were coerced into prostitution, while others maintain that they volunteered—thus demonstrating the lack of consensus over the issue.

Some users on Ni Channeru, a Japanese online discussion forum with over 11 million users, nodded in agreement with Hashimoto’s assertion. “Of course comfort women were ‘necessary’—that’s why they existed in the first place. Plus, it’s not like the Japanese army forcefully dragged them into Japan,” wrote one user.

Others took a defensive stance, arguing that one cannot pass judgement on past incidents based on current standards. “At that time, prostitution was not illegal. Therefore, we cannot call it an illegal act now,” one user contended. “That would be ex post facto law (retroactive law; judging an act based on a law that was adopted ‘after the fact’),” another chimed in agreement.

“Besides, the same thing happened during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, too. That shows that comfort women were probably truly necessary,” wrote another.

Many Japanese users, however, Many Japanese users, however, sharply criticized Hashimoto. “Shut your mouth—how dare you say such things and pretend to know what it was like [to be a comfort woman],” wrote one user. “It doesn’t matter what the laws said then. Prostitution is prostitution—it should be denounced. An army involved in it of course deserves to be shunned,” insisted another.

One Japanese citizen questioned Hashimoto’s moral integrity in a Yahoo! Japan blog post:

No matter how you defend [the comfort women system], evil is evil. Mr. Hashimoto cannot hide his lack of respect for human rights. He is a lawyer as well as politician…His comment that ‘comfort women were necessary’ is an affront to women and it is unbelievable that someone who has studied law should utter such words. Does the thought, ‘what if my daughter were to be used as a comfort woman,’ not occur to him at all?

Although rightwing extremists tend to attract more attention in international media, their views do not necessarily represent those of the government or the country at large. The issue of comfort women—and war atrocities in general—is one that has yet to be resolved, both in and outside of Japan.

Via Flickr/BriYYZ

[Note: The following is a Tea Leaf Nation op-ed, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of the editors.]

On November 29, 2012, at the end of his visit to “The Road to Revival” exhibition, which showcased China’s achievements in modern and contemporary history despite foreign invasions and exploitation, the newly appointed General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee Xi Jinping stated: “Everyone has his own ideals, aspirations and dreams. Nowadays, the ‘Chinese Dream’ is a hot topic; in my opinion, realizing the revival of the Chinese nation is the greatest ‘Chinese Dream.’” Four months later, in Xi’s presidential inauguration speech, he mentioned the term “Chinese Dream” nine times and indicated that his mission was to make that dream come true during his term.

Soon thereafter, the “Chinese Dream” became a buzzword in China. In the blogosphere, the Chinese people are busily making their wish lists of Chinese dreams. There are petitions for affordable housing, cleaner air and non-toxic foods; there are appeals for more political participation, freedom of speech, and transparent government; there are international wishes for a China that never has to take its cues from the U.S. and never has to hesitate to use force to assert its territorial claims.

Xi’s “Chinese Dream” rhetoric seemingly inspired the whole country to explore the outlook of a rising China. Some people have wondered whether the “Chinese Dream” will compete with the dream of the world’s top superpower: the American Dream. However, even a quick examination of the two dreams will show that the two are different concepts based on different philosophies.

The American Dream represents the individual ambitions of early settlers and later immigrants to survive and thrive through their own hard work in a virgin land, where social stratification had not yet taken form. It captures the spirit of the constitutionally enshrined truth that all men are created equal, and draws a roadmap for personal success: hard work.

The “Chinese Dream” of national revival as defined by President Xi is based on the historical grudges and unfulfilled ambitions of a once downtrodden nation. It is a patriotic sermon on collectivism. The formula prescribed by President Xi to make the “Chinese Dream” come true is the upholding of socialism with Chinese characteristics, patriotism and the unity of the nation.

The universal appeal of the American Dream is based on the fact that the U.S. is a country of immigrants. Anyone from anywhere in the world has a shot at becoming an American. The “Chinese Dream,” on the other hand, is derived from the unique historical experience of the Chinese nation and is based on the assumption that the nation is led by the Chinese Communist Party.

To a certain extent, this awkward comparison can be attributed to the misleading translation of “中国梦” (Zhong Guo Meng) into “Chinese Dream.” The word “Chinese” is somewhat ambiguous: it implies “China’s” or “the Chinese people’s.” To posit that the revival of the Chinese nation is the “greatest common factor” in the dreams of the Chinese is the result of a top-down political summation by the CCP. This so-called “Chinese Dream” has nothing to do with what the average Chinese person wants on daily basis. A more accurate translation of the buzzword might be “China Dream” or the “National Dream of China.”

In fact, China’s state-run English media initially waffled back and forth between “China Dream” and “Chinese Dream.” Later on, after President Xi Jinping stated that “the ‘Zhong Guo Meng’ is the dream of the Chinese people,” the translation “Chinese Dream,” took the lead and became the official term for the concept in the government’s international communications.

State media and CCP pundits have rushed to elaborate on the philosophical implications of the “Chinese Dream,” a catchphrase associated with no concrete matters of policy planning or legislative proposals. The Chinese people have been mobilized to carry out dream-talks, in which they are encouraged to align their private aspirations with the grand strategy of national revival. This push is similar to President Hu Jintao’s “Harmonious Society” campaign and President Jiang Zemin’s “Three Represents” campaign, propaganda movements intended to unite society and consolidate political capital for the then-leaders.

When President Xi Jinping came to power, China’s political and ideological landscape looked rugged. The fall of Bo Xilai revealed a cruel power struggle at the top of China’s political hierarchy. Vested interest groups, such as state-owned enterprises and the CCP princeling faction, were alleged to have hampered institutional reforms, and reformists inside and outside the CCP had become more verbal about their frustrations with the lack of system-wide reform for a political system that seemed increasingly incompatible with the further economic and social development of modern China. A social media-led exposé of abysmal government corruption severely impacted the Chinese people’s trust in the CCP.

To start with a clean slate, President Xi needed a campaign that could unite a politically and ideologically divided country. The “Chinese Dream” promotes nationalism, and nationalism promotes unity. Through the “Chinese Dream” campaign, the CCP explicitly summons the Chinese people to dream the same dream as the Party and shelve their differences, so that the nation can forge ahead as a united whole. But, for many, the real “Chinese Dream” may be to have a dream that is separate from the Party’s mandates, and, further, to have the resources to realize it.