Asian Literature
How Beijing and Shanghai Become Mediums of Imaging Differing Meanings of Modernity and Tradition
Life in the cities of Beijing and shanghai nowadays is akin to life in most modern world cities. This has increasingly affected the local cultural set ups with modernization taking a toll on the traditional Chinese lifestyles. The connection between tradition and modernity in China has been a subject historical and literary studies .The relationship has been evolving beyond the conventional lethargy giving historians and literary scholars an avenue of delving into the realm of tradition in order to understand the lived experiences of the people substantively. Looking at the work of Madeleine Yue Dong titled the republican Beijing it is possible to understand the multilayered conception and arrangement of the political and cultural dimension of Chinese cities in the face of modernization. The treatment of Beijing as a midway between its imperial past and its future of communism and post communism does not clearly explain the various ways in which the citys past is connected to the life in the republican Beijing. The question of resources at the disposal of people helps Dong to write against the historical portrayal of modern cities of China that have been largely focused on Shanghai, which is one of the most urbanized and westernized cities in the peoples republic of China. In this work, the author argues that though Beijing is less prosperous than shanghai, it was also modernized in that republican period. This means that the understanding of the Chinese cities cannot be understood from the study of shanghai alone, although its effects on the modern china emergence was very catalytic (Alexei 23). Explorations of the link between tradition and modernity often show modernity emerging superior. Thus the position of modern condition complete with science capitalism and democracy have adopted a linear vision where conservative, static and superstition infused traditions remain on the lower side creating a utopian element of modernity. Chinese traditions in the cities were regarded as unitary, conservative and resistance to the dynamism of the republican period (Dong 3).
A number of embedded problems thus arise from the conceptualization of modernity because of the notion of westernization. This means that the Chinese cities are viewed as if they are responding to the precedence set by the west instead of creating their unique destiny (Alexei 18). It is now clear that the perceived traditional culture of the Chinese was constructed on the inverse of the western ideals. This means that modernity and traditions are related to each other. This means that a definition of modernity that is more value neutral would help in analyzing its bi polar relationship with modernity. The indigenization of modernity in the studies by scholars of Chinese culture indicates that modernity has always toppled traditions seeing traditions as an impediment towards the success of Chinese goals. Initial, western oriented modernity was unpalatable in a relative sense because some various aspects of westernization needed to be translated into a linguistic and symbolic implication understandable and sensible to the Chinese. This impeded the development of nationalism that is western defined. Various cultural movements have failed in their efficacy of helping the country to assert itself as a western nation. The new physical cultural dispensational movement had a deep integration in the process of creating the current nations and its perceived modernity. This leads to an exploration of how some of the Chinese activities mutated to become more western though there are some indigenous components that were retained in the transformational process. If truly, there is an existence of a western modernism that is judged by its relationship by its oriental colleague, then the perceived notions of compact Chinese traditions is just shaky (Alexei 20).
China The City and Its Relationships to the Countryside
Prior to their contact with the west, Chinese cities especially Shanghai and Beijing had a striking integration with the rural areas. All the traditional Chinese cities use to have very close ties with the countryside (Pratt, 20). However, after the contact with the west, a strong divide between the cities and the countryside emerged especially due to the changing patterns of office holding and merchant activity along the ports and the eastern edge had a lot of influence on the structure of most Chinese cities (Elvin, 6). This means that the cities were the roots of modernization of China, adopting a European design where the cities are usually separated from the countryside. The economic growth of the country promoted urbanization especially in big cities like Peking and Shanghai. Thus they became the forces that engineered economic and Cultural Revolution that led to modernity. Chinas initial encounter with contemporary industrial revolution was at the cities, though it took China so long to become modernized when compared with Japan. This was because of Chinas initial response to the western influence that was a bit lukewarm The big question that posits in the reason why a gap emerged between the rural and the urban areas at the onset of modernization, if there was no much disparity between the urban and the rural areas before the emergence of western influence. This gap began to emerge in the late twenties and early thirties especially at the time there was a serious economic decline in the rural areas. Before this time, life in the cities was not much alluring and most people preferred to live in the villages and the small countryside towns but the economic slump of the countryside made the cities a more viable alternative. The movement to the cities was drastic and men moved with their whole families and one of the cities that were affected by this situation earliest was Shanghai (Pratt 20). The modern city set up was a recipe for the destruction of the traditional social order, relationships and morals which directly attacked the essence of being a Chinese. However, others who still favored the countryside also saw the rapid commercial development of the cities as a way of jumpstarting the economic well being of the rural areas. The policies in the mid fifties that created the formal allocations of hometowns prohibited people from blindly flowing into the cities without an employment certificate. However, this plan was not effectively implemented. The Collectivization program of 1956 led to the loss of private land creating vast differences between the rural and the urban areas (Pratt 22). This led to the inflow of peasants into the cities to escape from the harsh rural miseries. The government, scared by massive migrations implemented measures that were meant to hold people in one place. This was known as the Hukou system. This brought a fundamental shift in values whereby blue collar work was snubbed by many and an urban status became a social class marker and not the intellectual achievements. Late in the imperial period the rural families would survive through economic diversification whereby they engaged in small industrial activities plus sideline agriculture to be able to move up the social and economic ladder. The notion of peasant before the western contact was non existent but as westernization crept in, the notion of peasantry became established. This made people to believe that rural dwellers were backwards and they were an impediment to national development. This belief that the Chinese rural society was made up of feudal peasants was quite discriminative bearing in mind that the area remained the heart of the sense of what it meant to be a Chinese (Pratt 22). Thus the rural masses have acquired an identity as second class citizens of the peoples republic of China.
An analysis of the things that happened to the immigrants after the economic liberalization of the 80s shows that there was a creation of a multilayered urban society that comprised of the original urbanites and the peasants. Due to their hard work especially in the informal sector, some of them became wealthier then the original urbanites because of their discovery of space that had been left by structural mistakes in the economic set up. The exploitation of these spaces helped them to retain powerful social links with their extended family members in their native villages. This helps in the reinvigoration of the contemporary connections between the city and the rural areas (Alexei 22). The migration to shanghai by the peasants created undoubted bias for the urbanites. There was a specific trend where the immigrants form the much wealthier parts of Jiangnan went to become urban elites while those from the poverty ridden Subei became the urban low class. After the migrations the immigrants were encouraged to work hard to acquire riches so as to move away from the perceived peasant status that was visualized as an inhibitant toward the path to modernity. This led to the reinvention of the peasants who wanted to shrug that sorry identity and they largely avoided jobs and customs that would link them to that identity. However, those who were not ready to shrug off their identity would continue involving themselves in traditional practices without any difficulties. Backwards customs were associated with submissiveness and led to the lower perception of the peasant immigrants.
Migrations from the Countryside to Cities
Urbanization in china has been on the rise especially after the end of the Cultural Revolution. The relaxation of rules regarding mobility of the people aided in this. The opportunitie4s for people to move to urban areas grew and this has happened in the last thirty years. This has created a disparity between the prosperity of the urban and the rural populations. The rate of urban development of cities like shanghai has also accelerated and this rapid population growth has been responsible for the Chinese economic boom in china. The government is therefore struggling to provide amenities for the increasing numbers of urban dwellers. The growth of economy can also be said to contribute to the high level of rural urban movement because of the large amount of opportunities that are created by the emerging industries attracting rural dwellers. During the regime of Chairman Mao, there were very stringent restrictions on movement from rural areas to urban areas (Dong 40). Urbanization was not so much pronounced because of the socialistic nature of the regimes that concentrated people in the rural areas to work in social groupings. The only big cities with large populations were Beijing and shanghai. China was actually the first country on the world to have cities which were known as walled cities. They remained as centres for administrative purposes and not trading centres. Chairman Mao would send intellectuals from the cities to the countryside to learn about social life from the peasants. This created an instance of reverse urbanization where people were actually moving from the urban areas to the rural areas. There were strict policies that governed migration and the government had set a benchmark for the number of people who would be allowed to move to the urban areas. But the rise of Deng as the communist leader saw the rise of urbanization because the migration rules were relaxed meaning that there were no strict restrictions on rural urban movement (Dong 40). Deng also set up an agricultural revolution in the countryside that ensured that there was enough food to be consumed in the cities. This is another factor that promoted urbanization because the availability of food was another factor to be considered before allowing mass movement of people into cities. The increase of food supplies led to the relaxation of migration rules by the Deng administration but the agricultural reforms left many agricultural workers unemployed. These people moved to the urban centres in search of jobs. The emerging industries could absorb a large number of workers who were streaming from the countryside. By 1982, 30 percent of the Chinese population was living in the urban areas. The elevation of some towns into cities in the mid eighties also led to the increase of the number of people who were living in the urban areas. During this time, the cities were booming with a variety of new industries that presented good opportunities for the rural folks (Dong, 44). By 1985, Shanghai had more than five million people. Currently, it is among the few cities that have a population of more that 10 million people. Deng reform systems favoured smaller cities because bigger ones like shanghai and Beijing were already saturated with high populations. The problem with the smaller cities was the irrational use of land that created a myriad of economic problems that were to afflict them soon afterwards. Though urbanisation has been praised for the current economic glory that china has been enjoying, the rise of the population has not been proportional with the rise in the number of social amenities meaning that there is extra pressure exerted on the existing facilities. The infrastructure is also wanting as the one that was there before the population rose cannot handle the current high levels of population. This is especially significant in the transport systems where the Chinese in the cities have to use bicycles because the existing infrastructure cannot support a large number of vehicles that the increasingly wealthy urban population owns. Another impact of urbanisation is the widening of the gap between the prosperity of the rural dwellers and the urban dwellers. The urban dwellers are wealthy while it is documented that 80 percent of the rural Chinese population live in abject poverty (Dong 67). This is because of the little returns from the land used for agriculture while those who move to the urban areas even to do menial jobs usually get a decent amount of money that enable them to live comfortable lives. The segregation of chinas population into urban and rural serves to discriminate the rural dwellers. Experts suggest that if more people were encouraged to move to the urban areas, it would be a boost for the Chinese economy because the labour is still needed in the urban areas and the pay is lucrative. However, this seems to be a contradictory situation because the current economic crisis in the world has hit china very hard and thousands of industries in the urban areas have closed down leading to loss of jobs. Some of the urban dwellers have relocated to the villages because the economic conditions have become uncondusive. However, the depression of economies in the world is almost coming to an end meaning that it is possible that more migrations will take place as china seeks to assert itself as a world industrial and economic superpower. Therefore the government should be prepared to react to the pressures that the increasing urban population is bound to bring to the existing social amenities (Pratt 45). The infrastructure must be expanded in proportion to the needs of the population and this creates a businesses opportunity for the private sector because they will be able to mobilise resources to partner with the government in the provision of infrastructural and other services. Urban infrastructure in China has for along time been viewed as an issue of social welfare with the government taking complete control and financing ever aspect of infrastructural development (Alexei 23). However, the rapid acceleration of mobility towards the urban areas has forced other players to come into the process of improving urban standards because the traditional ways of providing the services cannot suffice to meet the growing needs of the urban population. This calls for the public private partnership to create a solution that is workable.
In conclusion, the study of cities cannot be conducted without looking at China. The country has the highest number of cities with a population of above one million people with shanghai holding a record 19 million people while Beijing has 17.4 million people. In fact the two are now being referred to as mega cities. The treatment of Beijing as a midway between its imperial past and its future of communism and post communism does not clearly explain the various ways in which the citys past is connected to the life in the republican Beijing. Future estimations indicate that more than 300 million more people will have moved into the cities by the year 2015. This will create investment opportunities worth trillions of Yuan that will propel china to greater heights of economic prosperity that have never been witnessed before.
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