There's the Land and People...and the Government?

I was born in New York City. I'll give people that one when they argue that I can't possibly understand the beliefs of someone who comes from the country. My parents and grandparents came here in the 80s, almost right after the reforms of Deng Xiaoping took place. I had uncles and cousins who remained there. During the Cultural Revolution, my father and his parents were forced to labor in communal farms as part of the reeducation programs instituted by Mao Zedong on members of the "bourgeois." But my family didn't own any mansions or run any large businesses. They were far from the comfortable upper class. Rather, my grandparents were elementary school teachers living in a country engulfed with ideological paranoia.

The traditional Marxist theory follows an academic historical course, where society and government change through the abolition of social classes and the guidance of the learned. The Maoist theory puts this large transitional responsibility in the hands of the peasant class. One of the more fallible decisions of Mao, the Cultural Revolution, was the direct result of this belief, but its results were far more destructive than its intentions and negatively impacted many groups of people, including teachers and university academics in the country. The state believed in a degree of order, that opposition, whether idealistic or physical, was imperative to the progress of the state. And they were right. The government sought to write out history by literally writing out memories of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and other moments in Chinese history where ideas of freedom and individualism were quashed, and since, the people have accepted this trade-off of personal liberties for the good of the state.

I visited my relatives who were still living in China two years before the Olympics were held in Beijing. They lived in an inner-city apartment building in Guangzhou. The city looked like a more crowded version of Los Angeles. Bikes, cars, and people all merged on the large, busy boulevards while urban strife was apparent in some of the dark street corners. On one week, my grandmother took me out of the relatively comfortable city to the rural countryside, where my father and his parents had worked over 40 years ago. There, portraits of Mao were as common as the rice paddies they tilled. Here, the farmers told me that they didn't care that they couldn't say anything against the government or have the basic rights that we have. As long as they had enough food on their table and enough money coming in, they didn't care if they lived in a democracy or a dictatorship.

This contrast in ideas makes us two different countries as a whole. While Americans value history and the legacy of abstract ideas like freedom, the Chinese are pragmatic and value order and stability, no matter how it is obtained. In the early years of the communist takeover, ideas became central in uniting the people. Mao valued metaphors of the land that blended the beauty of its natural elements to the government and its communist ideology. Then, it was the idea of a peasant revolution and worker revolution that united the people. Now, the fervor of the cause has faded to a large thumbs-up for leading China to economic stability albeit the loss of traditional communist philosophy. But this is normal. The guiding philosophy that ruled China before the 20th century was the Mandate of Heaven, which was a very order-driven, stability-driven concept. In a sense, it is still working today, as people can argue that China's economic strength is a benevolent indicator that the communist government should continue to stay in power. Moderation is a large part of our history and culture, even in government.

In my criticism of the Communist Party, you can argue that I'm not Chinese, and I would be deeply offended. The concept of being Chinese is muddied with centuries of political change. Now, the question is whether the land, the people, and the government are the same. My father argues that he loves the country, its history, its culture, and he remains dutifully bound to his heritage, but he staunchly opposes the government and its restrictions on economic and personal freedom. Since when was being Chinese about being communist? During the 2008 Olympics, in one symbolic moment during the opening ceremony, a group of children handed over the Chinese flag to a People's Liberation Army soldier, a stark message that the people and the state are one, even in a country where the government is constantly changing. China is celebrating just 60 years in a vast 5,000-year history, and who knows how long this era will last? For now, I grapple with understanding different sides of a nuanced debate and finding the point where my Chinese background and my American life can coexist without people telling me that I am one and not the other.