MCLC: harmonious families inspire class warfare

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Han Meng <hanmeng at gmail.com>
Subject: harmonious families inspire class warfare
***********************************************************

Source: Bloomberg News (2/9/12):
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2012-02-09/beijing-s-harmonious-familie
s-inspire-class-warfare-adam-minter.html

Beijing¹s Harmonious Families Inspire Class Warfare: Adam Minter
By Adam Minter 

On Feb. 3 millions of Beijing families woke up to some odd news from the
All-China Women's Federation <http://www.women.org.cn/> -- the city¹s
oldest, and most important, women¹s organization. To be eligible for their
new "Capital Harmonious Family" award, a family living in Beijing should
<http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2012-02-03/021923874342.shtml> own a library of
at least 300 books, have an Internet connection and subscribe to at least
one newspaper. It also wouldn¹t hurt if your family traveled frequently,
ate out regularly and practiced a low-carbon lifestyle. It was an elitist
turn for an organization that was established in March 1949 to support the
Communist Party, the rights and equality of women, and strong families. In
the Confucian tradition, harmony in the home is considered a prerequisite
to achieving harmony in society. So, in the early 1950s, the ACWF
established the ³Five Good Families
<http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/report/82898-1.htm>² award for model
families that exhibited five virtues, such as ³marital harmony² and
unwavering support of the party.

In 2007, the Beijing branch of the ACWF renamed the honor the Capital
Harmonious Family
<http://www.bjwomen.gov.cn/a/gongzuoyuandi/ziliaozhongxin/wenjianku/2011/02
24/7072.html> award to comply with President Hu Jintao¹s comprehensive
vision for building a harmonious society that promotes economic and social
equality. It has been a popular, even iconic competition; the thousands of
families who have won it enjoy more prestige and respect from their
neighbors.

Over the decades, the criteria for winning the award have changed to
reflect both the party¹s objectives and the tenor of the times. In 1986,
when China was in the early flush of its economic reform, families that
sought the award had to ³be good at daring to reform
<https://webspace.utexas.edu/hl4958/contemporary-chinese-history/Judd%20-%2
0Rural%20Chinese%20Womens%20Conceptions%20of%20Gender%20and%20Agency.pdf>."
 When China was trying to enforce its ³one child² population-control
policies, the criteria changed to include ³be good at family planning.²

For more than four years, the Beijing ACWF has been working with the
Beijing Academy of Social Sciences to establish more ³scientific criteria²
to evaluate potential families for the award. On March 4, 2008, two
separate trial criteria -- one for Beijing's urban middle class, and
another for its poorer rural, or suburban, class -- were posted to the
Beijing ACWF's website. They generated no heat or interest from the press
or the public.

That is until Feb. 3, when the Beijing News's Wei Ming reported
<http://www.bjnews.com.cn/news/2012/02/03/180439.html> that the 27
evaluation criteria were close to being finalized. Ninety percent of the
criteria for urban families are relatively ordinary, reading in part:
³Family status is equal and not affected by differences in age, gender or
income; family members are satisfied with their position in the family.²
Hardly the stuff that incites Internet flame wars.

But in a fit of sensationalistic inspiration, Wei led the news story by
referring to the ³trendy² new standards in criteria Nos. 5 and 9,
respectively:

<<Family members spend leisure time together, frequently travel, dine out,
shop and engage in other family activities that promote family cohesion
and deeper feelings Š

The household has a computer, bookcase, desk and other learning tools and
study sites; family members have access to the Internet to acquire
information, and are frequently online; family¹s library totals 300 books
and above; subscribes to no fewer than one newspaper or periodical.>>

For a population that has become acclimated to thinking of its model
families as paragons of personal and civic virtue, hearing them now
defined in unambiguously material terms set off tempers. Reaction on
China¹s microblogs was swift and angry, with discussion of the criteria
remaining on ³hot topic² lists the past week.

³They are selecting families that enjoy life among the upper and corrupt
classes,² wrote Little Loach <http://t.qq.com/ai1129988132>, the handle of
a user on Tencent Weibo, China¹s second-most popular microblog. ³Not
harmonious families.²

Han Xiao <http://t.qq.com/wo199005108>, another Tencent Weibo user, wrote
a more affecting response:

<<While those who struggle at the bottom of society worry about their
livelihoods, or are busy paying the medical bills of the old and the cost
of raising children, people with excellentliving conditions
<http://topics.bloomberg.com/living-conditions/> are showing off that they
can surf the Internet Š through so-called competitions.>>

A poll on Sina Weibo <http://vote.weibo.com/vid=1416419>, China's most
popular microblog, recorded that 81 percent of the respondents rejected
the new criteria entirely.

Despite tremendous economic gains over the past 30 years, few Beijing
families can afford the cosmopolitan lifestyle the ACWF outlined. Party
officials, however, are often perceived as affluent, living beyond the
means of those not in, or connected to, government.

Li Xu <http://t.qq.com/ciisyl>, a Tencent user, expressed the sentiment of
many Chinese microbloggers when he wrote:

<<Everyone, and even every family, has a singular definition of happiness.
After all, harmony, in its true state, is a natural thing. Why should it
be limited by criteria? Don¹t encourage society to despise the poor and
curry favor with the rich.>>

Read enough commentary on Tencent and Sina Weibo and two things become
very apparent. First, most microbloggers haven¹t bothered to read the rest
of the selection criteria for urbanites, which largely emphasize
inter-family relations and patriotic values. And second, most either
haven¹t noticed -- or don¹t care about -- the separate, condescending
evaluation criteria the Beijing ACWF has established for poor families
living in Beijing¹s rural suburbs.

It¹s a pity that they don¹t. While the urban standards suggest the gap
between Beijing's wealthy elites and its middle class, the so-called
suburban standards reflect the elite's perceived distance between
Beijing¹s middle class and the country¹s expansive underclass.

The first few suburban evaluation criteria, like the urban criteria, are
unremarkable: Harmonious families should value family, honor the elderly
and seek to increase knowledge. Halfway through the list though, things
start to diverge significantly.

Whereas urbanites are encouraged to have a library of 300 books,
suburbanites are merely encouraged to have a study space with an undefined
collection of books. While urbanites are encouraged to recycle,
suburbanites are encouraged to develop good personal hygiene and avoid
letting their dogs and cats run loose.

Personal virtue is important to both groups, but whereas urbanites are
encouraged to love their neighbors, volunteer and help the elderly,
suburbanites are reminded that harmonious families do ³not engage in
superstitious activities, cults or prostitution, gambling and drug abuse.²
Beijing¹s urban residents, most of whom live within a brief stroll of
opportunities to partake in gambling and prostitution, are not required to
meet a similar standard to be judged harmonious. Were such a standard
required of them, no doubt online reaction would be strident.

But the urban middle class doesn't seem to be offended by the elites'
condescension toward the rural Chinese.

Data is spotty, but it is estimated that the average income in China's
cities, minus the wealthy, is three times higher
<http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-01/20/c_131371091.htm> than
income in the countryside. This gap is the most profound gap in
contemporary China: Economically and culturally, China¹s urban middle
class resembles more the elite class than their poor country cousins.

So why, then, don¹t Beijing¹s so-called suburbanites object on their own
behalf? Presumably because they belong to that half of China that lacks
access to the Internet
<http://www.east-west-connect.com/rural-chinese-internet-usage-2011_10_27>
and other (modest) public means of dissent. But even if they had such
access, would China¹s upwardly mobile middle class really care to listen
and sympathize? Until their voices are heard as clearly as those of
middle-class netizens, the silence says as much about the distance between
Beijing and the countryside as any data set.

(Adam Minter is the Shanghai correspondent for the World View blog. The
opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the author of this blog post: Adam Minter at
ShanghaiScrap at gmail.com.