Streets a sea of bicycles, not a car in sight.
A population of people sporting, if not Mao jackets, then the simple uniform of a Chinese farmer.
In cities and countryside alike, people so fascinated by the 35-millimeter camera (now considered a simple contraption) pointed at them—and equally so by the foreigners holding the camera—it was quite possible they had rarely if ever seen the likes of my mom or her camera before.
That was a time when the eyes of China’s people were being opened to the surrounding world after a long period of isolation. Once my eyes were opened to the world outside the bubble I grew up in the States, the first time I was introduced to China, that was the China I met. A country just emerging from years of economic stagnation. The photos and stories my mom brought back from her trip here, just years following China’s 改革开放 or “Reform and Opening-Up” began in 1978, helped to form my mind’s eye image of the country. While the China of the early 80’s, the China my mom saw and then showed to me, was undergoing breakneck-speed changes, the images I saw of that era depict a static snapshot of China, a country trapped in time. Looking back at those photos and comparing to Nanjing nowadays (30 years after Deng Xiaoping first initiated the reforms that catapulted China out of the past and into its current status on the global stage), the country is barely recognizable.
2008 has been a banner year for China. With the Beijing Olympics this summer, the tragic Sichuan earthquake this spring, record snowfalls past February, contaminated milk powder and pet food, not to mention the not insignificant role the country plays in the world economy, China has hit international headlines this year more frequently than ever before. This past week marked yet another significant China-related event, although one apparently more important within the country than beyond its borders: on December 18th, China celebrated 30 years of “Reform and Opening-Up.” In a sense, at least according to official calculations, is the end of important chapter in the course of the country’s long history and the beginning of a new one.
31 yeas ago, Chairman Mao, while ailing, was still officially at the helm and the Cultural Revolution was about to run out of steam. 1978 rolled around and saw the passing of Mao Zedong. Deng Xiaoping stepped in to fill his shoes and set China off on a road to economic and political reform. December 18th of that year saw the start of the reforms that are being remembered this week. While I didn’t witness the effects of the reforms as many of the people living around me here in Nanjing have witnessed over the years, even though I’m not old enough to remember the start of the reforms, I was still welcomed to take part in the celebrations.
This week, I was welcomed to stand side by side with the people whose country I now call home, to look back at the changes and to look forward to the future… Oh my, I sound like a party official. Perhaps the sappy over-the-top rhetoric I’ve been hearing all week has sunk in. But really, even from an outsider’s perspective, the changes China has undergone are astonishing and worth celebrating. The Chinese Communist Party has played their cards well over the past 30 years and deserve some bragging rights. That’s not to say, though, that things here are happy and 100% perfect. By no means; there’s still a long way to go.
This past week, I wasn’t just a vicarious participant in the 30th anniversary celebrations of China’s “Reform and Opening-Up.” In addition to overhearing countless official speeches every time there happened to be a radio or television in the vicinity, I also experienced the celebrations in a more personal manner. In fact, if you had turned your TV on the __th and flipped to Nanjing’s city station, you might have even caught a glimpse of me on the air (the only obvious foreigner in a studio audience of over 1000).
The day before the official anniversary arrived and I didn’t even realize it. That I attribute to my growing indifference to official broadcasts and banners that I still have trouble understanding. Because, had I been paying attention, I would have seen that word about the 30th anniversary of China’s reforms was all around. That day, a Japanese friend of mine gave me a call. “A friend of mine gave me these two tickets to a concert this evening.” Ruri-san explained in a mix of Chinese and Japanese. “Any chance you’re free to go with me?” She had no idea what kind of music would be featured at the concert. But since I had no plans and enjoy Ruri’s company, I decided to take her up on the offer.
Later that day, Ruri and I met at the subway station and took a taxi together through crowded city streets during the evening rush hour. On our way, the traffic flow was further slowed by the grand opening of a restaurant along our route. Like many new establishments in China, the owners wanted to start things off with a bang. Literally. The sidewalk in front of the entrance was spread with a red carpet, lined with colossal bouquets of flowers, and set with spread of fireworks that went off continuously for the fifteen minutes or so it took us to pass by. The night sky, darkness already muted by the light pollution of the thousands of neon signs lining the surrounding streets, was lit further by bursts of light and color from the fireworks (dangerously close to the surrounding buildings and street-side passerby’s, so I thought).
Despite the delay (and a fun and colorful delay it was), we made it to the Nanjing Broadcasting Corporation’s theater with time to spare, thanks to Ruri’s punctuality and planning (how Japanese…). It was only upon entering the theater that we finally figured out what kind of concert we were actually going to see: it turned out to be a commemorative program of China’s 30 years of reform.
Nanjing’s TV station seemed to pull out all the stops and spared no expense to commemorate the event in true Chinese style. Like the mass coordination of people into performance art as seen in this summer’s Olympics, the station invited a large-scale orchestra (all Western-style instruments, however), a number of local celebrities, and several choirs from around the area (the number of singers on the sidelines adding up to over 100) to take part.
When the start time printed on our tickets rolled around, the choirs were still in rehearsal mode and the announcer was still shouting directions from the sidelines. Coordinating such a large number of people seems to be China’s forte, so the people on stage all seemed to take directions well. The audience, on the other hand… not so much. The evening’s multi-media show interspersed live music and song with enthusiastic announcing and seamless film clips. In sync with these supplemental films, the MC wanted the audience to shout, “Nanjing, Ni hao!” (“Nanjing, Hello!”) at the appropriate time. It took countless tries and we still hadn’t gotten it quite right, but it was already time for the show to start, officially.
To a swell of bright lights and dramatic music, the choirs filed onto the stage, followed by the orchestra and trailed by the MCs. Beginning with an ode to Deng Xiaoping and his early initiatives that kicked off the era of reforms, the program then followed the changes that China in general and Nanjing in particular underwent in over the past 30 years. See, in my analysis, China’s Communist Party tries to replace religion with communist philosophy and God with the Party or a leader that embodies it. Until the reforms rolled around, China’s surrogate God was Chairman Mao. Since then, no leader has quite matched the charismatic appeal that Mao held for all those years. But, at least judging from the content of the concert’s program, Deng Xiaoping can be considered the hero of the era of reform.
Deng Xiaoping: his face appeared countless times in the course of the concert. China: the country has seen countless drastic changes in the course of the last century. After the monumental changes marked by the fall of the last emperor and the rise of the Communist Party into its current position of power, it’s reasonable to say that China’s—and indeed the world’s, for that matter—era of most rapid change occurred during the era of reform over the last 3 decades. After realizing that the old system (combining a highly-centralized, planned economy with doors closed to foreign policy) wasn’t working well, the Chinese people resolutely embarked on this historic journey of reform spearheaded by Deng Xiaoping.
After an opening ode to this late leader, riding a tide of patriotism (with plenty of propaganda thrown in), the evening’s program took the audience through a play by play of the changes that have come to China and Nanjing in particular over during this span of time (mind-bogglingly brief in comparison with the sweeping span of Chinese history). Between songs, innumerable staggering statistics—regarding China’s development and zooming in on the growth of Nanjing as part of it—were rattled off by the announcers. In terms of the number of people who call the city home and the standards of living they enjoy. In terms of construction. Business. Transportation. Production. Education, etc. Both the city and China as a whole have grown exponentially. Its no wonder that from an outsider’s perspective, well-developed cities like Nanjing are unrecognizable in light of their former incarnations: even locals who have lived through all this change still find it hard to believe.
Several events and shifts in policy have shaken and shaped the country over the past 30 years. While significantly more subtle than the wars that shattered China in the early 20th century, the repercussions of the reforms are no less revolutionary. Beijing has been the main stage for all this action, but one such key occurrence happened not far from here, in the neighboring province of Anhui. Shortly after the reforms started in December of 1978, 18 farmers in the town of Xiaogang agreed to sign a secret agreement through which they decided to divide community-owned land into individual pieces, something unheard of at the time. Due to the success of these radical farmers, news of their community contract spread, secret no more. This small town in Anhui soon attracted the attention of Deng Xiaoping. He supported the model of land ownership they’d set up, later using it to reshape China’s rural areas.
It’s not just within the country that China’s changes are apparent, however: a lot of these changes were driven by the very same forces driving China’s booming economy. Consider: here’s a country that went from what was virtually a closed-doors policy in the late ‘70’s to become the world’s largest exporter in a span of 30 years. Foreign trade now accounts for roughly 70% of the nations GDP. The set-up of the special economic zones, encouragement of foreign investment, and stepped-up emphasis on exports are all forces fueling China’s supposedly socialist-style planned economy. This formerly isolated nation with an undeveloped economy has now become one of the key players in the global economy, intertwined so inextricably with the world economy that the recent financial crisis that originated in the U.S. is being felt deeply here too.
This occasion was certainly not one for focusing on the downsides of economic globalization though. All 100% positive, insert propaganda as needed and edit out the negative. In spite of the program’s overly upbeat dramatic sensational tone, or perhaps because of it, there was a palpable sense of restlessness in the audience. Many members of the crowd sitting around Ruri and me, all Chinese and mostly old enough to remember pre-reform China, seemed reluctant to sit through the concert, so there was a continual stream of people going and coming. Before the rousing song towards the tail end of the program singing the Party’s praises, around a third of the spectators were already out of their seats making their getaways. There seemed to be an unspoken attitude among the audience, “Yeah, 30 years, big deal. I’ve seen countless programs like this before. For all these reforms, its still the same old story.”
I, on the other hand, the one apparent non-Asian in the crowd and probably one of the few who had never seen such a spectacular sensational program being filmed for live TV broadcast, was impressed. In terms of the tides of time and the lifespan of countries, especially a country with a history as long and rich as that of China’s, 30 years is but the blink of an eye. In the blink of an eye, for a country to undergo a growth spurt and emerge almost unrecognizable: now that’s pretty incredible. Ruri and I remained in our seats until the end of the program, the only ones still sitting as the 100-member choir and the full orchestra belted out a song with a title that translates, “China, China, the Bright Red Sun Will Never Set on You,” as the audience around me became mobile and everyone else in the crowd was on their way to the exits.
Revolutionary reforms like those that have changed the face of China over the past 3 decades are often remarkable when viewed from afar: change is often astonishing from the outside looking in (as in the case of this silly foreigner hoping to get a grasp of Chinese culture). But for a person who lived through that change and (whether willingly or not) dedicated their sweat, blood and tears in its name, remarkable change can be converted into a mundane and unremarkable piece of the past.
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