Last Wednesday, just as I was engrossed in Pan's book, I learned that my uncle Wang Xiaorou had died of a heart attack on a train between Shanghai and my hometown of Changchun. Unlike the subjects of Pan's book, my uncle lived a rather ordinary life largely unscathed by run-ins with the Party, but one just as deeply marked by the vast historical shifts documented in the decades since Mao. And to me, dabo represented the best of China. A high school student at the time of the Cultural Revolution, he was one of the millions of youth who joined the Red Guards, some of whom staged armed conflicts in Changchun and around the country in the mid 1960s. Then, during the rural re-education movement in which my grandparents and other intellectuals were targeted, he joined my father and their entire family for several years of labor in the rural farmlands around Changchun.
I remember as a kid that whenever my parents and other adults would get to talking, the conversation almost always came to the wenhua dageming, but it was not until recently that I had any inkling of what a chaotic and dangerous time my parents lived through. After one of the greatest famines in human history instigated by Mao's Great Leap Forward, along with waves of violence and persecution, China was finally opened up under Deng Xiaoping in the early 1980s, and my father and several brothers came to the United States to earn their PhDs and a better life.
But being the oldest of the family, my uncle stayed behind to take care of my grandparents and pursue a career as an electrical engineer. The 1980s and 1990s saw lean times for Changchun, an industrial city in China's rust belt which was hit hard by the dismantling and privitization of state-owned enterprises. Life was uncertain, with massive unemployment and salary stoppages that often lasted several years for those lucky enough to retain their jobs.
But my uncle's sense of optimism was not dampened by the hardships he experienced during these decades of upheaval. With an easy smile and quiet graciousness, he was a man untempted by the quick profits and shady dealings that have enriched so many during the past decade of privatization, relying instead on the the hard work, technical rigor, and unimpeachable personal conduct that I grew up thinking were the hallmarks of the Chinese work ethic. About ten years ago when he was in his early 50s, my uncle helped found the Chaoyang Testing Instruments Corporation, which produces high-precision industrial testing equipment. Riding the economic boom of the 1990s and 2000s, business steadily grew as the company attracted foreign investment, expanded operations, and achieved millions in revenues with my uncle at its helm.
However, I also have no doubt that he understood the compromises necessary for living a normal life in China. My parents often regale me with stories of the pervasive corruption that infests every facet of daily life. "Giving gifts" and trading favors is customary for every transaction from getting your child into high school to receiving medical care. And although I find the majority of ordinary Chinese in my parents' generation to be extraordinary earnest and principled, no one is innocent of feeding the entrenched system of bribery, fraud, and guanxi.
Indeed, most of the subjects of Pan's book also begin as mild-mannered, ordinary Chinese who while struggling under the burden of injustice, initially dare not challenge the status quo. But eventually, the nagging discomfort of living in a system so rife with contradiction, repression, and corruption finally becomes an urgent drive to take a stand against the seemingly insurmountable Communist machine. What makes Pan's work great are his deep insights into the inner forces which drive his subjects and his understanding of the convolutions and internal inconsistencies that have defined both the Chinese Communist Party and the larger society in the last half century
As this great yet mortally flawed nation continues its rapid march onto the world stage, the big question is, who will win the fight for the soul of China? Will it be honest entrepreneurs like my uncle, who are taking advantage of the economic freedom Deng Xiaoping and his successors have fostered, but who know better than to challenge the Party's rule? The idealists, who are driven to action by the corruption and injustice that poison all aspects of society and tyrannize the lives of millions? The thoroughly despicable party cadres and shady businesspeople who continue to fleece the public? Or perhaps worst of all, the fattened little emperors of the younger generations whose moral, physical, and intellectual laziness would put the most jaded American slacker to shame?
The battle is too close to call at the moment, and Pan's ambivalence is palpable in the book's final chapters, which leave murky the ultimate impact of its heroes on the course of China's future. Despite the hopeful theme throughout the book of the power of the individual to affect change in one of the most authoritarian regimes on Earth, the fundamental lesson is that change is anything but inevitable, and much more effort is needed to push forward the craggy boulder of reform. In the end, paraphrasing from Paul Collier's excellent book on international development, perhaps the best we can do is to recognize that even in the most corrupt and oppressive societies, there are still many heroes who fight for justice on pain of grave personal sacrifice. And we must support them as much as possible in their struggles against great odds.
2 comments:
Sorry to hear about your uncle. This post was a great read, I grew up hearing many of the same stories. I need to go get this book. Thanks for the rec.
不費勞力而得者，唯貧困而已..............................
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