Communism in China: A Personal Observation

I must admit that one of the intrigues of travelling to China was to witness, first had, a culture and country under communist control. After travelling in China for 6 weeks, I think I can fairly say that the communist control is not as evident as I had initially thought it might be.

In Shanghai, where I spent my first 2 weeks, I would venture to say that is was not apparent at all, with the exception of the Mao statues and 'little red books' for sale by the hordes of street vendors, the new religion is capitalism and the deities, cold hard cash. Beijing was different. The wide, cold concrete expanses of Tiannamen Square and the neighboring streets adorned with government buildings were much more reflective of my preconceived notion of what a communist state would look and feel like. That being said, when you ducked into, and lost yourself in the labyrinthine hutongs, all sterility of Beijing soon evaporated in the hussle and bussle of daily life. In the lives of ordinary people, I have found the effects of communism hard to see, especially when passing shoeless, black-footed homeless people sleeping in the street, something I naively did not expect to witness in a socialist society. As time passed and I witnessed more subtleties of daily life, I noticed that the communism in China is often manifested in more elusive undertones of Chinese culture, rather than overt and demonstrative displays in daily life. One such source of observation is the Chinese media.

Of the 10 or so state-controlled Chinese cable television networks (CCTV), one broadcasts in English. Having the misfortune of being sick for a day I had the opportunity to watch the Chinese programming offered by the state. If I could summarize the programming with one statement, I would say that China was at the centre of it all. International news always involved China, sports highlights from around the world always featured Chinese athletes (I was momentarily excited to see highlights from the NBA, only to have them cease after reviewing the latest performance by Yao Ming). Arts programming featured young and promising artists working in the traditional Chinese methods. The common thread woven throughout was the primacy and sacrosanctity of Chinese culture.

Back in Shanghai, I was sitting in People's Park one afternoon and I overheard a discussion between 3 young Chinese students and a man from the UK. From what I gathered from the conversation (okay I was eavesdropping) was that the Chinese girls were trying to argue that China was in fact, the centre of the world because if you looked at a map of the world (from China), China is smack dab in the middle. Somewhat amused, the European man tried to point out that the position of a given country on a map is relative to how it is printed, stating that by that logic Europe would be at the centre of the world from a Western perspective. This debate did not go very far, as the group soon dispersed with every one's personal perceptions still firmly intact. Looking back at that conversation, I questions any one's ability to convince those girls otherwise.

China in Chinese is Zhongguo, directly translates to 'middle kingdom'. I have been told that it is extrapolated by popular Chinese belief to mean the centre of the world; if China continues to grow and prosper at its current rate, the same meaning might hold true for the rest of the world as well.