Poles in China
Who are the Poles who have decided to spend part of their life in China? What do they do and what do they think of this country? Does their opinion reflect, what is said in the Polish media?
Not quite.
That, what Polish emigrants say about China and what you can observe on Chinese streets differs a lot from the typical image of that country that Polish people have.
There is one thing, which is repeated like a mantra by all the people who have been to China more than once in the past decades, and it is a good thing: progress.
From a country, which at the end of the reign of Mao Tse-tung and his Cultural Revolution, was chaotic and impoverished; China, or at least its urban areas, has changed into a modern country. China still is and will continue to be a developing country, but the changes are visible month by month.
Chinese progress
Their society is becoming rich very quickly and it is very difficult to believe that, around 30 years ago the Chinese economy was in ruins and people suffered from famine. Today’s Chinese cities are modern, the streets are full of good cars, and the typical way to spend a Sunday is going out to the shopping centre. The present generation is the first one that has access to various consumer goods and the money to purchase them.
Transport is well developed in China with an extensive metro and bus system. Moreover, fast trains, moving at the speed of 250 km/h for example, connect not only the major cities, but also most of the Chinese provinces.
Foreigners in China
Living conditions for immigrants from the West are very good. The flats are spacious, most families have domestic help, and also often a private driver. Children are sent to international schools and kindergartens funded by companies which hire foreign workers. European food products are available at markets; there are also many Western restaurants and British-style pubs. The main problem in daily life is limited access to the Internet, which is blocked by authorities, but nowadays not only foreigners, but also the Chinese people can get round these limitations. The authorities block mainly portals and websites that have Chinese equivalents. The reasons for this, are two-fold: the intention to control information (censorship) and, perhaps more importantly, the desire to retain profits inside the country – a 400-million dollar customer-based economy.
China is a huge country, both in terms of area and population, which results in various large-scale problems that plague Chinese society.
What are the main problems that bother our compatriots?
The environment
The problem of air pollution is enormous and environmental degradation is the cost that often comes with this fast rate of development. What in Europe has already been somewhat stemmed, still gets worse in China. Yet, with increased awareness within Chinese society (mainly from large cities, but also more often from the provinces) the country is beginning to spend a huge amount of money to purify the air.
Today the big cities are shrouded in smog, during almost the entire year: the sky has a dirty colour and the sun rarely shines intensely. As a result of this dismal air quality, many children suffer from asthma, respiratory diseases, and allergies.
Regarding air pollution there is still a lot of work to be done, but the issue of the purity of cities is improving. The infamous “dirty” China is becoming cleaner. Perhaps it is not perfectly clean, but the centres of cities are very well maintained, the awareness of citizens has increased thanks to the authorities and campaigns, and a large number of municipal workers constantly clean the streets.
Social responsibility
A big problem is the lack of social responsibility. Throwing out the thrash is the least important example, but there is also no sufficient care of houses or public buildings, and, above all, of the citizenry in general. The social indifference shocks the people from the West, who were reared in the Christian doctrine of love and mercy for others. Confucianism teaches respect for parents, elders and superiors, but strangers “do not exist” and there is no altruistic need to worry others– if anyone faints on the street, there exists the very probable chance that he or she will lay there for hours without any help, and passers-by will ignore him. Maoism, which destroyed any social relations, served to reinforce these tendencies.
Ill-formed laws and their abuse caused certain problematic situations. For example, a person who had suffered an accident sued not the perpetrator for damages, but rather the stranger who unselfishly helped them.
Corruption
Another problem within Chinese society is corruption. It is difficult to run a business without resorting to inserting an envelope discretely into the right person’s pocket. The envelope cannot be given directly from hand-to- hand; after all, the receiver does not know anything about this transaction; yet, if the action is discovered, he/she will say that they do not know when and how the envelope got into their pocket. The Chinese government, in accordance with the philosophy of “make money, become rich and do whatever you want as long as we are in power,” does not fight corruption and does not follow the example of Hong Kong where it has been completely eliminated. It is only prohibited to carry domestic currency outside of the country of China and if there is an obstruction of this law then the guilty party can expect a public trial, even in some cases ending with the death penalty.
What is China like?
While living in China, one can dislike many things, however there is also much to admire. Chinese people in general, enjoy having brand-name clothes and love the latest technologies. They do not work for simply (or cheaply) a so-called “bowl of rice” anymore and the price of manpower has increased. Official statistics show that half of the Chinese population lives in cities and that, despite the poverty in many places, the standards of living are getting better every year. Despite the fact that Chinese citizens will not win the freedom of speech quickly, they are becoming increasingly aware of their rights – the censorship of information is, thanks to the Internet, easier to overcome, and getting news from foreign services has become the order of the day. The citizens are interested mostly in reliable information about diseases, such as avian influenza (bird flu), or information concerning water and air pollution. Political matters are not in the centre of people’s interest – they just want to live richly and comfortably, making it possible for a growing number of individuals in society.
On a charge of breaking human rights in China, one of our Polish interlocutors responded that, the basic human rights are the rights to have a home, food and work, and these are the laws that the Chinese government respects and strengthens. Of course, this is just an intentional simplification, but it reflects the Chinese reality to a large extent.
Many people in Poland have a prejudiced image of China as an under-developed communist country somewhere in Asia. It would be good to challenge this perception. If someone has the opportunity to go there, it is worth seeing today’s China with one’s own eyes – a country that one can ultimately like or dislike, but which should at least engender admiration for the progress that has been taken place there over the past few years.
The Poles living there, both ones in love with China and those who are dream of returning to their native country, agree about one thing: we can learn many things from the Chinese people, instead of simply focusing on its politics and criticism of the Communist government.
Photos © Martyna Nowicka & Mateusz Paprocki
