‘Excuse me for saying so but the mainlanders have really made our lives tough.’ These days it seems that none of my Hong Kong Chinese girlfriends can resist raising this subject in our conversations.
A decade or so ago the most common view of their Chinese cousins was that they were all big spenders, splashing money on gold jewellery and luxury brands. I countered it by explaining that for the majority of Chinese, a visit to Hong Kong, or anywhere outside China for that matter, was a financial commitment and a bureaucratic hurdle. Those who made it were no ordinary visitors: besides needing to buy presents for the people to whom they owed, or hoped to owe, a favour, they were saddled with a long shopping list from their extended families and colleagues. Hong Kong was the shopping heaven next door for all goods exotic or ‘high end’, and although the mainlanders were generally looked down on for their uncouth behaviour, they were also the most sought after by retailers of luxury brands and travel agents.
And while the mainlanders were supporting the Hong Kong economy through conspicuous spending on luxury products, more and more Hong Kong Chinese were regularly crossing the border to take advantage of the lower mainland prices in housing, transport, food, clothing and various everyday items. In Shenzhen, there were ‘mistress villages’ where the affluent middle-aged men of Hong Kong kept their second and even third families.
The recent complaints from my friends have been rather different. While the big spenders continue to flow in, the humbler mainlanders are flocking to convenience stores to snap up everyday items, with baby’s milk powder the most popular purchase, especially since the toxic powder scandal. In fact, top quality milk powder is in such high demand that a quota system has been introduced. In recent months, residents from Shenzhen have been crossing the border for their daily supply of vegetables. Suspicious of Chinese food health and safety controls, mainlanders are taking advantage of the relaxed access to Hong Kong and the strong Chinese currency to safeguard their health, and have thus added to the territory’s inflation rate, stretched its resources, and put a strain on the conduct of everyday life.
The story doesn’t end there. Increasingly, mainland women are taking up beds in maternity hospitals because of their better facilities and services, and in so doing they are putting Hong Kong’s health care and financial system under great strain.
In the old days, the most popular programmes on Hong Kong television featured tips on where to get a good bargain in China. The other day when I was waiting for a friend in his office, I found a glossy magazine which was published in China but offering shopping guides to Hong Kong. And when I stayed with my sister, I overheard a conversation: ‘You shouldn’t have asked my dad why he’s buying batteries in Hong Kong. If he wants to, let him’. The old perception in mainland China that the grass is greener in Hong Kong is persisting, especially after the scandals surrounding the quality of some of its products.’
22 December 2011
19 December 2011
The narrow lane
His mother was a leading newsreader, his father a rising government official. In a couple of months, he would graduate from an ‘aristocrats’ school’ – so named because of its expensive fees and exclusiveness – and begin a new chapter of his life on a university campus. He had everything his less fortunate peers coveted.
Yet on the eve of the university entrance examination, his body was found in the school grounds.
His mother had been warned. Two hours before he was seen to throw himself from the fifth floor, he told her on the phone ‘I am not feeling great today’. Had she known that these would be his last words to her, the beloved son whom she fondly introduced to all her colleagues after his birth, she would have dropped everything to be with him.
Theories abound as to why he had chosen to end his fortunate life, especially at that moment.
Some observed that his privileged family background must have brought unbearable pressure on him to perform well at all times. Some maintained that since his parents were both public figures and preoccupied with building their own careers, he might have missed out on the healthy and regular dose of gentle counselling which is so crucial in the rocky journey of a teenager. Some argued that it was sheer peer pressure before the most divisive event of his life: the higher education entrance examination. Most believed that he was pushed to his death by the current education system, a system that deems getting a university place as the ultimate goal of one’s compulsory education, a system that glorifies only those who ‘get there’ and spells ‘shame on you’ to those who do not.
He was not the only victim of this examination. Such tragedies happen regularly, especially at those ‘key schools’ where only the top students are accepted. Although such tragic events are not always reported, complaints about the system are growing, and increasingly, parents are sending their adolescent children to study overseas, where the educational diet is perceived to be more wholesome and balanced. However, the majority of Chinese parents are not lucky enough to have this option. They must put their children through a system they do not necessarily agree with: each couple must constantly push their only child to score well at examinations, and as an insurance policy, stretch their own wits, influence and money to get the best education for their child in case its scores do not meet the near-absolute entry requirements of the ‘key schools’.
China’s education system is in dire need of reform. This is a view which is universal and has been expressed for a very long time. Until this happens, there will be more victims like the elite student who took his own life because he was terrified of ‘failure’.
Yet on the eve of the university entrance examination, his body was found in the school grounds.
His mother had been warned. Two hours before he was seen to throw himself from the fifth floor, he told her on the phone ‘I am not feeling great today’. Had she known that these would be his last words to her, the beloved son whom she fondly introduced to all her colleagues after his birth, she would have dropped everything to be with him.
Theories abound as to why he had chosen to end his fortunate life, especially at that moment.
Some observed that his privileged family background must have brought unbearable pressure on him to perform well at all times. Some maintained that since his parents were both public figures and preoccupied with building their own careers, he might have missed out on the healthy and regular dose of gentle counselling which is so crucial in the rocky journey of a teenager. Some argued that it was sheer peer pressure before the most divisive event of his life: the higher education entrance examination. Most believed that he was pushed to his death by the current education system, a system that deems getting a university place as the ultimate goal of one’s compulsory education, a system that glorifies only those who ‘get there’ and spells ‘shame on you’ to those who do not.
He was not the only victim of this examination. Such tragedies happen regularly, especially at those ‘key schools’ where only the top students are accepted. Although such tragic events are not always reported, complaints about the system are growing, and increasingly, parents are sending their adolescent children to study overseas, where the educational diet is perceived to be more wholesome and balanced. However, the majority of Chinese parents are not lucky enough to have this option. They must put their children through a system they do not necessarily agree with: each couple must constantly push their only child to score well at examinations, and as an insurance policy, stretch their own wits, influence and money to get the best education for their child in case its scores do not meet the near-absolute entry requirements of the ‘key schools’.
China’s education system is in dire need of reform. This is a view which is universal and has been expressed for a very long time. Until this happens, there will be more victims like the elite student who took his own life because he was terrified of ‘failure’.
14 December 2011
The bright future of China
‘Those of us who were born in the eighties are the unluckiest!’ declared my niece one day.
To anyone who could remember some of the upheavals of the past, not least the cultural revolution and the political and economic reforms that began in the late 1970s, the remark showed a shocking lack of perspective. Her own mother, who was born in 1961, was deprived of a formal education and then in the early 1990s was among the first to lose their jobs when the state decided to reduce its financial burden and sell off a large number of industries.
Yet I could still understand what my niece meant.
Her generation entered university in the decade after 1999, when China began a rapid expansion of its higher education sector. Competition in the graduate job market grew ever more frenzied. My niece graduated in 2009, along with six million others and at the moment of a steep economic downturn that has had continuing repercussions around the world.
Unable to find satisfying full time employment, she opted for an internship in a regional media group, to discover not only that the job was unpaid but that all the expenses she incurred as a sports journalist were to be covered from her own pocket. Despite her hard work, she was also obliged to surrender every single penny of the ‘red envelope’ which is given to a journalist by the organiser of a press release. Worst of all, without a degree in journalism or media studies, even though she graduated from one of the top universities, my niece had poor prospects of a permanent job in this multi-media group, however able she proved to be. She was even told that she was lucky not to have been forced to pay the ‘management fee’ – a payment extracted from interns by many other media companies in China.
Her desperate financial situation improved just slightly after she took up an internship at a local sports channel and was allowed to keep some of the contents of the red envelope. But there was no immediate improvement in her prospects of gaining permanent employment.
‘Old people, old policy: new people, new policy’ is a phrase on the lips of many an old media colleague of mine. The old policy provides job security and benefits for those who had gained permanent employment in the state-owned media before 1998. Regardless of their skills, the state-owned media companies are obliged to keep them in employment. And those in high positions are guaranteed a good pension, handsome medical insurance and other perks. The new policy, if it can be called such, merely exploits those like my niece, who are young and vulnerable.
Feeling permanently insecure at work, and faced with steep inflation and a continuous rise in house prices, it is no wonder that those born in the nineteen-eighties – who should be the bright future of China – complain that they were born in the wrong era.
To anyone who could remember some of the upheavals of the past, not least the cultural revolution and the political and economic reforms that began in the late 1970s, the remark showed a shocking lack of perspective. Her own mother, who was born in 1961, was deprived of a formal education and then in the early 1990s was among the first to lose their jobs when the state decided to reduce its financial burden and sell off a large number of industries.
Yet I could still understand what my niece meant.
Her generation entered university in the decade after 1999, when China began a rapid expansion of its higher education sector. Competition in the graduate job market grew ever more frenzied. My niece graduated in 2009, along with six million others and at the moment of a steep economic downturn that has had continuing repercussions around the world.
Unable to find satisfying full time employment, she opted for an internship in a regional media group, to discover not only that the job was unpaid but that all the expenses she incurred as a sports journalist were to be covered from her own pocket. Despite her hard work, she was also obliged to surrender every single penny of the ‘red envelope’ which is given to a journalist by the organiser of a press release. Worst of all, without a degree in journalism or media studies, even though she graduated from one of the top universities, my niece had poor prospects of a permanent job in this multi-media group, however able she proved to be. She was even told that she was lucky not to have been forced to pay the ‘management fee’ – a payment extracted from interns by many other media companies in China.
Her desperate financial situation improved just slightly after she took up an internship at a local sports channel and was allowed to keep some of the contents of the red envelope. But there was no immediate improvement in her prospects of gaining permanent employment.
‘Old people, old policy: new people, new policy’ is a phrase on the lips of many an old media colleague of mine. The old policy provides job security and benefits for those who had gained permanent employment in the state-owned media before 1998. Regardless of their skills, the state-owned media companies are obliged to keep them in employment. And those in high positions are guaranteed a good pension, handsome medical insurance and other perks. The new policy, if it can be called such, merely exploits those like my niece, who are young and vulnerable.
Feeling permanently insecure at work, and faced with steep inflation and a continuous rise in house prices, it is no wonder that those born in the nineteen-eighties – who should be the bright future of China – complain that they were born in the wrong era.
12 December 2011
Sexual liberation?
‘From now on, JIAO Richu will be known as YANG Richu,’ our teacher announced to the class one gloomy and chilly day. Like 9/11 or the Great Tsunami of 2004, events which make everybody remember where they were when they first heard about them, I remember that it was 1974, and I was in Year One. It felt as if we had just been hit by an earthquake. A divorce or re-marriage was unheard of until then, and stayed out of our vocabulary throughout my education and well into the late nineteen-eighties.
In the early ninety-nineties when a high school friend broke up with his sweetheart, I was asked to help ease her pain, and for years, he wore a guilty look whenever he saw me. In those days, if you dared to go out with anyone, it was expected that you would eventually marry them.
Some fifteen years later in a bar in Beijing, a high school friend asked me if I had been in touch with a certain classmate. He wanted to tell her the long-kept secret that he was in love with her, as were many of his classmates – a fact that he had only just learnt at a reunion party.
‘Have you tried asking Tan?’ Tan was a classmate who went out with the best friend of this girl and they got married soon after university. Surely Tan would know the whereabouts of his wife’s best friend.
‘How dare anyone ask such a private question?’ another school friend jumped on me. He didn’t say another word, but he was evidently mindful of the divorce rate, which since the nineteen-nineties had positively surged.
In fact, what is surging is not just the divorce rate but also the number of those among the younger generation who are choosing to co-habit. When my sisters and I were going out in the nineteen-nineties, my mum would stay up until we got home, even though we were then well into our twenties and my eldest sister was a single mother in her thirties. It was expected that a girl should keep her celibacy until the day she was married.
These days, however, it seems the last concern of anyone who knows my niece that she is living with a man whom she has just met on an internet dating site.
There was a time when divorce and co-habitation were considered as social evils or forms of ‘spiritual pollution’ that were imported in the films and music of the West. But these days, they seem to be accepted as an ordinary fact of life.
In the early ninety-nineties when a high school friend broke up with his sweetheart, I was asked to help ease her pain, and for years, he wore a guilty look whenever he saw me. In those days, if you dared to go out with anyone, it was expected that you would eventually marry them.
Some fifteen years later in a bar in Beijing, a high school friend asked me if I had been in touch with a certain classmate. He wanted to tell her the long-kept secret that he was in love with her, as were many of his classmates – a fact that he had only just learnt at a reunion party.
‘Have you tried asking Tan?’ Tan was a classmate who went out with the best friend of this girl and they got married soon after university. Surely Tan would know the whereabouts of his wife’s best friend.
‘How dare anyone ask such a private question?’ another school friend jumped on me. He didn’t say another word, but he was evidently mindful of the divorce rate, which since the nineteen-nineties had positively surged.
In fact, what is surging is not just the divorce rate but also the number of those among the younger generation who are choosing to co-habit. When my sisters and I were going out in the nineteen-nineties, my mum would stay up until we got home, even though we were then well into our twenties and my eldest sister was a single mother in her thirties. It was expected that a girl should keep her celibacy until the day she was married.
These days, however, it seems the last concern of anyone who knows my niece that she is living with a man whom she has just met on an internet dating site.
There was a time when divorce and co-habitation were considered as social evils or forms of ‘spiritual pollution’ that were imported in the films and music of the West. But these days, they seem to be accepted as an ordinary fact of life.
09 December 2011
One salary, three jobs
‘Still the same: one salary, three jobs. How do you think I’m feeling?’ my friend retorted when I asked her how she was. She is always on the go and barely has time for chit-chat.
As a journalist who has won many awards, she thrives on challenges and has been juggling her career and her family for the last twenty years. But even for a veteran workaholic like her, this is simply too much. ‘I have no problem with the increase of complaints that comes with more commitments. The trouble is, nobody seems to care that I’m burdened with three full-time jobs, something I don’t deserve and haven’t asked for.’
Indeed, each of the three jobs which have been heaped on to her shoulders demands her exclusive attention. She is a senior social journalist, whose job means that she should be on the street every day in order to investigate and report on stories. She is the head of English programmes on the radio station. And she is the producer of a weekly sixty-minute live discussion forum that involves senior government officials responding to the pent-up frustrations of the callers, who see it as their last resort for getting heard.
‘Why do you allow yourself to be so blatantly exploited?’ her editor asked in exasperation when my friend returned to the office after being made the head of English programmes. Until the very last minute of a meeting of top managers, the appointment had been kept secret even from her. It was typical of the broadcasting station that nobody was ever consulted, and the appointment was announced at the end of the meeting as if it were a mere afterthought.
Although a competent journalist, my friend speaks hardly any English. Yet when she shared with some close colleagues her anxieties about the immense challenges she was facing, it was suggested to her that she was taking the linguistic and editorial aspects of the job far too seriously. ‘Let the English editors sort out the linguistic aspects. All that’s required of you is firm journalistic control. Make sure everything runs smoothly without any major hitches. You should be aware that this is how all but one of your predecessors worked.’
So on top of all her other duties, my friend has been landed with the unpaid responsibility of managing a multi-national production team without herself being able to speak English fluently.
The other day my sister observed that the cause of so many safety disasters such as that of the toxic milk powder lies in the fact that a position which requires technical expertise is usually given to a layperson.
As a journalist who has won many awards, she thrives on challenges and has been juggling her career and her family for the last twenty years. But even for a veteran workaholic like her, this is simply too much. ‘I have no problem with the increase of complaints that comes with more commitments. The trouble is, nobody seems to care that I’m burdened with three full-time jobs, something I don’t deserve and haven’t asked for.’
Indeed, each of the three jobs which have been heaped on to her shoulders demands her exclusive attention. She is a senior social journalist, whose job means that she should be on the street every day in order to investigate and report on stories. She is the head of English programmes on the radio station. And she is the producer of a weekly sixty-minute live discussion forum that involves senior government officials responding to the pent-up frustrations of the callers, who see it as their last resort for getting heard.
‘Why do you allow yourself to be so blatantly exploited?’ her editor asked in exasperation when my friend returned to the office after being made the head of English programmes. Until the very last minute of a meeting of top managers, the appointment had been kept secret even from her. It was typical of the broadcasting station that nobody was ever consulted, and the appointment was announced at the end of the meeting as if it were a mere afterthought.
Although a competent journalist, my friend speaks hardly any English. Yet when she shared with some close colleagues her anxieties about the immense challenges she was facing, it was suggested to her that she was taking the linguistic and editorial aspects of the job far too seriously. ‘Let the English editors sort out the linguistic aspects. All that’s required of you is firm journalistic control. Make sure everything runs smoothly without any major hitches. You should be aware that this is how all but one of your predecessors worked.’
So on top of all her other duties, my friend has been landed with the unpaid responsibility of managing a multi-national production team without herself being able to speak English fluently.
The other day my sister observed that the cause of so many safety disasters such as that of the toxic milk powder lies in the fact that a position which requires technical expertise is usually given to a layperson.
06 December 2011
Maybe I shouldn’t have left China
‘Maybe I shouldn’t have left China,’ Gao wondered aloud to me one day, with a sense of loss in his eyes. The recession has left him unemployed for more than seven months.
Charming and athletic, Gao was once considered in China to be among the lucky few. It was no secret that without qualifications or obvious talents, he was parachuted into a state media corporation because of his father’s position. His inherited good fortune seemed to be completed in the early 1990s when he got a passport to study English in Sydney. This was a ticket to heaven, a privilege that for almost the next ten years was reserved either to those fortunate enough to be awarded government grants or those, like him, with overseas connections. It was also understood that the people who seized this chance would never return to their native land.
After nearly twenty years living abroad, Gao was made redundant in his adopted country. Middle-aged and with two sons in private schools, he decided to try his luck back in China. A senior international tax consultant, he was confident of getting a handsome offer in his native country.
Yet despite the many interviews, the offers never materialised. And now he was broke.
Meanwhile, his younger brother, who has enjoyed none of his overseas training or experience, seems to have everything he could dream of. He is a CEO of one of the largest state-owned international trading companies and his property portfolio is such that his family of three have difficulties in deciding which one of them is their main residence.
Even though his father retired years ago, he is spending his time between a city apartment and a country house.
Only Gao, once the crowning glory of his family and the envy of his peers, hasn’t a clue where his future lies.
His experience epitomises the dramatic reversal of fortune that has occurred in the last two decades between those who have acquired overseas experience and their once envious peers who stayed behind. Indeed, while the former might be envied for their fluent English or international qualifications, it is for the most part the latter who are calling the shots in today’s China. And with the Chinese economy continuing to lead the field, more and more of the latter are enjoying the sort of lifestyle that is punctuated by frequent overseas holidays.
The other day, I heard from my fellow overseas Chinese that those back in our native land have a saying about us: ‘They may speak mightily but they spend humbly’. We are now, indeed, the poor relations. Our overseas passports might still be coveted, but our wallets certainly aren’t.
Charming and athletic, Gao was once considered in China to be among the lucky few. It was no secret that without qualifications or obvious talents, he was parachuted into a state media corporation because of his father’s position. His inherited good fortune seemed to be completed in the early 1990s when he got a passport to study English in Sydney. This was a ticket to heaven, a privilege that for almost the next ten years was reserved either to those fortunate enough to be awarded government grants or those, like him, with overseas connections. It was also understood that the people who seized this chance would never return to their native land.
After nearly twenty years living abroad, Gao was made redundant in his adopted country. Middle-aged and with two sons in private schools, he decided to try his luck back in China. A senior international tax consultant, he was confident of getting a handsome offer in his native country.
Yet despite the many interviews, the offers never materialised. And now he was broke.
Meanwhile, his younger brother, who has enjoyed none of his overseas training or experience, seems to have everything he could dream of. He is a CEO of one of the largest state-owned international trading companies and his property portfolio is such that his family of three have difficulties in deciding which one of them is their main residence.
Even though his father retired years ago, he is spending his time between a city apartment and a country house.
Only Gao, once the crowning glory of his family and the envy of his peers, hasn’t a clue where his future lies.
His experience epitomises the dramatic reversal of fortune that has occurred in the last two decades between those who have acquired overseas experience and their once envious peers who stayed behind. Indeed, while the former might be envied for their fluent English or international qualifications, it is for the most part the latter who are calling the shots in today’s China. And with the Chinese economy continuing to lead the field, more and more of the latter are enjoying the sort of lifestyle that is punctuated by frequent overseas holidays.
The other day, I heard from my fellow overseas Chinese that those back in our native land have a saying about us: ‘They may speak mightily but they spend humbly’. We are now, indeed, the poor relations. Our overseas passports might still be coveted, but our wallets certainly aren’t.
01 December 2011
Loss of control
A deputy controller of one of the most popular broadcasting stations, his star was on the rise.
The shock caused by his recent suicide was vivid on the face of everyone. Many could not help but ask if I knew ‘that good natured, humble and honest looking fellow’.
The exact details were anybody’s guess, but it seems that his mistress of six years was pregnant and wanted to become his wife. Blackmailed by her, he had a quiet word about his dilemma with the Director General. Since he was already the father of a child with his wife, the undesired pregnancy not only posed a threat to his career but had much larger implications. If it became known by the authorities, not only would every member of the station’s staff lose their annual family planning bonus, but the promotion of the DG, who was nominally also the chairman of the family planning committee, would be blocked, leaving a permanent blot on his CV. In other words, everybody in this multi-channel media group, with a workforce of several hundred, would suffer: on family planning issues, the employees of an organisation are all in the same boat. To get round the regulations, and also to get a ‘certificate of authorised birth’, the only options for the deputy controller were to submit his resignation or, in order to keep his job, get a divorce, surrender the custody of his first child and enable his second child to be born under legal conditions. Apparently a devoted home maker, his wife of many years was outraged by such a proposal. She made a scene at the station and ridiculed the DG for breaking up a marriage while the station was promoting family values. She threatened to report the matter to a higher authority for the violation of basic law.
The next thing his colleagues heard was that the deputy controller had jumped from the twenty-third floor luxury apartment he shared with his family.
Growing up in a country where over fifty students are normally packed into a classroom, and as many as ten young women were until recently forced to live together for a good part of their university education and share facilities with ninety others on a single floor, I have long been sympathetic to family planning policy. Over the years, I have argued that it has been of benefit in a country where many still believe that a woman has an almost religious duty to give birth to a son. The policy was never watertight, indeed I know of many who used legal loopholes to have more than one child.
Yet in giving outsiders a political and financial stake in the intimate lives of individuals, the policy seems almost barbaric. This tragedy has made me think twice.
The shock caused by his recent suicide was vivid on the face of everyone. Many could not help but ask if I knew ‘that good natured, humble and honest looking fellow’.
The exact details were anybody’s guess, but it seems that his mistress of six years was pregnant and wanted to become his wife. Blackmailed by her, he had a quiet word about his dilemma with the Director General. Since he was already the father of a child with his wife, the undesired pregnancy not only posed a threat to his career but had much larger implications. If it became known by the authorities, not only would every member of the station’s staff lose their annual family planning bonus, but the promotion of the DG, who was nominally also the chairman of the family planning committee, would be blocked, leaving a permanent blot on his CV. In other words, everybody in this multi-channel media group, with a workforce of several hundred, would suffer: on family planning issues, the employees of an organisation are all in the same boat. To get round the regulations, and also to get a ‘certificate of authorised birth’, the only options for the deputy controller were to submit his resignation or, in order to keep his job, get a divorce, surrender the custody of his first child and enable his second child to be born under legal conditions. Apparently a devoted home maker, his wife of many years was outraged by such a proposal. She made a scene at the station and ridiculed the DG for breaking up a marriage while the station was promoting family values. She threatened to report the matter to a higher authority for the violation of basic law.
The next thing his colleagues heard was that the deputy controller had jumped from the twenty-third floor luxury apartment he shared with his family.
Growing up in a country where over fifty students are normally packed into a classroom, and as many as ten young women were until recently forced to live together for a good part of their university education and share facilities with ninety others on a single floor, I have long been sympathetic to family planning policy. Over the years, I have argued that it has been of benefit in a country where many still believe that a woman has an almost religious duty to give birth to a son. The policy was never watertight, indeed I know of many who used legal loopholes to have more than one child.
Yet in giving outsiders a political and financial stake in the intimate lives of individuals, the policy seems almost barbaric. This tragedy has made me think twice.
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