So today I went out to the exciting village of Paishang. I decided kind of at the last minute not to visit rebel village and instead picked one at random - this actually ended up being the neighboring village, and it isn't too far out of town. It took about 10 minutes by taxi to get out there. I got out, walked up to the first person (who looked extremely confused by my presence) and essentially said to him "take me to your leader". The villager probably wouldn't have been much more surprised by a similar request by an outerspace alien. Anyways, before too long, the village leader arrived, and I took about a half hour interviewing. Paishang is a small village of about 1600 people, most of whom are poor farmers. however, the progress that is happening throughout China seems to also be affecting this area - most people have running water (within the last 5 years0, and more and more people are building new homes. So it seems like progress is trickling down out here as well. The also took me to a "New Countryside" sort of Potemkin Village that is being built as a model for the village - about 200 people live there, and the government has provided qite a bit of money to upgrade the roads there and such. However, at the same time that I was there, the county government came by for an inspection of the model village. This included one of the two mean women who had I had the misfortune to talk to yesterday. The moment I saw her, I could sense that something had just hit the fan, and I was in for it. When she saw me, she was like "what are you doing here?" I explained that I was doing research on my own just as the one guy had told me I could. Actually, this time I had a good chance to talk to her, and she seemed to have a better sense what I was about by the end of my chat with her - even friendly almost. Still, I was amazed at the odds that made it so that I had the (mis)fortune to run into evil woman again.
After seeing the Potemkin village, the village leader treated me to dinner, and then I went essentially door to door talking to me. It wasn't much different from being a missionary - it made me think that missionaries here would baptize tons of people. however, people were extremely confused by my presence, and I didn't actually interview many people. In one situation, I ended up interviewing a group of 10 people at once - i know it's not a good way of doing it, but none of them were willing to go one on one. it was really hard work - and it makes me think that this is going to be a hard bit for awhile. Oh well. It's what I'm here to do.
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3 comments:
Hard in what way? Are people recalcitrant? Are they withholding information? Or is it just difficult to keep on your toes while interviewing? I love the "take me to your leader" line. It must be pretty remarkable to be in these kinds of areas that haven't had much contact with outsiders. It's been interesting watching you develop a research agenda. I have the distinct feeling, with both you and Rixa, that you are doing something very timely and important. Rixa actually just got interviewed by a magazine in the UK for her work with unassisted birth. She has another mag that is also interested. This was the second time that she's been interviewed, but the last one was just a newspaper. This is a higher-profile magazine with a target audience of women in their 30s. I find it remarkable that she is doing something that is actually changing the way that people think. You have a similar opportunity in China to both change the way that people view foreigners as well as break down misconceptions about China to westerners. I'm not sure how much of your research is going to be number crunching, but the qualitative information and observations that you've already made are invaluable. Being an "alien", I think, is kind of akin to the pioneering spirit of Isaac Freeze--it's like you're boldly going where billions of Chinese people have gone before....
Talking about western misconceptions of China...the May 19th-25th 2007 Economist's front page article was "America's fear of China." The article spoke of the paranoia and anti-China sentiment that pervades the American government. It frustrates me how many of the U.S. congressmen are convinced that China is a boogedy man. The article talks of "Asiaphobia among American's politician" and "China-bashers" in Congress. This kind of behavior freaks me out way more than China. If the U.S. politicians were smart, they would be scrambling to try and become best friends (in the economic sense) with China rather than turn relations into a USSR-like dramatization.
-melanie
It is hard in the sense that people obviously don't trust me/feel comfortable with me. And they withhold information. For example, the village leader takes me to the model village where smiling happy villagers are busy working......everything is good. No villagers pay taxes. School is free. Everyone has running water. The elections are run well. Of course the village leader wants to show the good side of his villager - but I was left feeling like I had totally missed the essence of whatever I was looking for - not saying that the villages should be brewing with discontent, but it's clear that they aren't idyllic Shangri-las either. And the villagers are reluctant to divulge information to me as well. However, every now and then I meet someone (I think they secretly think that they are subversive or something like that) who are "gan shuo shi hua" (dare to speak the truth). For example, my pedal taxi driver guy that took me today - he told me that he had to pay several thousand yuan a year in taxes, even though his official registration was as a rural resident (and according to law - at least his version of it, I'm not exactly certain what the specific requirements are for tax exemption (I had been under the impression that only farmers were exempt) - rural residents aren't supposed to pay any taxes.
Actually - being honest - I did get a sense of some things in the village. For example, when I asked what happened if the village government and the village party branch disagreed on how to carry out a project, the village leader said that they would have a meeting and needed the party's permission - which reveals that the elected officials power to act is limited by the party branch (however, this doesn't mean that they don't have any power - the party branch could in practise be a rubber stamp organization, similar to the governor-general in Canada). The villagers actually had set up their own system of running water separate from the village government. Candidates for elections were not nominated by the villagers themselves, but rather from some "higher level" that the villagers themselves weren't aware of. Elections were run by bringing the ballot box door to door (it helps increase turnout, which looks good for officials). An "old cadre" ran the actual election, carrying the ballot box around and such. Blah blah blah. Anyways, I suppose I did find some interesting things, but I need to find a better interviewing style to get the hidden answers that I am seeking.
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