China: City and Country
I finished my internship in Beijing last week, and I’ve traveled down to my pseudo-hometown 1, Chang Xing. The trip down (by airplane from Beijing to Shanghai, then by car from Shanghai to Changxing) was a stark reminder of just how big the disparity is between rural and urban China. Where the streets of Beijing could be described as “teeming” during the morning and after-work rush hours, the busiest streets in Changxing are always occupied but never full. Though the car craze has also reached into Changxing (although I’m not sure it’s quite fair to call it a craze, as Americans families often own two or more cars), the roads are still evenly shared with bicycles, pedestrians and motorcycles.
Background, newly constructed county government center; foreground, my grandfather standing in front of a lily pond in a newly developed public garden. (courtesy of the ZDZ collection)
The most striking thing about Changxing, and the aspect of the city that my grandfather is certainly most proud of, is the abundance of green space. By his reckoning, there are nearly ten different parks in the center of Changxing city. They range from a wetland preserve that doubles as a “waterwork” to aesthetically control the spring and summer rains, to the professionally maintained flower garden adjacent to the government center, to a set of gazebos on the hills surrounding the city. Although I cannot speak authoritatively about China, I’m fairly certain that Changxing cannot be heralded as an example of a “hidden paradise” outside of the Chinese metropolises. It is more the result of a lucky coincidence of circumstances– a humid, subtropical climate courtesy of its location on the Yangtze River Delta; its presence in the historically (as well as currently) prosperous Zhejiang province; its recent prosperity and good planning; and, many other personal and circumstantial conditions.
Even in Changxing, it’s hard to ignore the rural-urban gap. Although it’s only a county seat– more a provincial city then a cosmopolitan megalopolis — its prosperity still draws hundreds and thousands of migrant workers from poorer, more rural locales. With the spate of construction that’s swept the city, they are mostly paid low wages to dig ditches, lay bricks, pour concrete and cart debris.
Changxing has adopted a preservationist attitude toward its natural bounty; around the newly developed government center, vast swaths of land have been blocked out for public green spaces. Looking around now, I find it hard to picture anything in place of the lush greenery– despite how striking the difference is between Changxing and dusty Beijing – and I feel that perhaps those dire and damned worries about the Chinese environmental death spiral are perhaps not so bleak after all.
- It’s a “pseudo” hometown because, although I’ve developed a certain affinity for the city after visiting it several times during the summers of my earlier youth, Changxing is more accurately described as “my father’s hometown.” In any case, most of my extended family in China is based in the Tai Lake and JiangSu/ZheJiang border area. ↩
