BEIJING - I received an email from a Chinese friend who touched down recently in Buffalo. She wants to experience Christmas in New York and she asked me if I could offer any suggestions on homestays for a taste of American life and customs. I started to think about it. I first thought of Craigslist, something my sister has used for temporary visits in New York. But then I thought that maybe someone would take advantage of her, being a foreigner. Knowing that she is Christian, I thought that maybe she could try and find a homestay through a church. I thought about it some more and wondered if a family would really want to take on a homestay at this time of year. My mind filled with thoughts about the “stressful” holidays. Thinking about her situation I thought about spending “the holidays” in China, both US holidays and Chinese holidays.
It probably has something to do with the fact I spend much of my time on a high school campus in suburban Beijing surrounded by corn fields, but there is a certain calm this year as the US holiday season revs up that I have never had before. Part of it no doubt is not being a part of the crowds that make pilgrimages to see family and friends. Other than a few hours on the Beijing subway to buy some apple pie as my way to celebrate Thanksgiving, I have avoided holiday travel. For all but two of the past thirteen years Thanksgiving has meant riding trains, planes and automobiles, with distances ranging from 3,000 miles (5,000 km) to a mere 1,000 miles (1,600 km) . Yet as I thought about it, I think it’s not so much the travel that I am relieved from, but rather the materialism and consumption.
One day when I was talking to a Chinese student I was told that I cannot be a socialist because I am from a capitalist country, Chinese can be socialists because they come from a socialist country. Being in China I think that my socialist leanings are definitely awakened. Yet I came to China not so much seeking an alternative to capitalism as seeking an alternative to what I saw as American individualism. Sticking to tradition, I like to mention at least one book/article every blog, and so I highly recommend Red China Blues by Jan Wong who was one of the two first foreign students in the People's Republic of China, and recounts her time in China starting in the 1970’s arriving as a Maoist romantic seeking alternatives to capitalism.
Two years after Mao Zedong’s death China’s leader at the time Deng Xiaoping initiated a series of primarily economic reforms known as Opening and Reform that have led to 10% annual growth over the past thirty years. The reform was accompanied by a series of slogans attributed to Deng. The one I hear most often is “to be rich is glorious,” but the one that I like better is “poverty is not socialism.” This quote gives me pause. When I was in college a roommate used to tell his friends that he had a Marxist roommate when I was satisfying my social science requirement with a class on Marxism. After getting his Ph.D. in Philosophy, Marx sought refuge in London which placed him arguably at the epicenter of advanced capitalism in his time.
I wrote on a friend’s Facebook wall that it seems I’m having a Marx moment. As I research the environmental challenges that China faces quite often I come back to the issue of consumption and how to grow the Chinese economy even faster. What gives me great pause is the contrast between those my parents age who were provided jobs and apartments by the government, and those my age who struggle to compete in a free market. I remember from this spring as my teacher said that the government asked him what he wanted to do, he replied teach Chinese, so they gave him a job teaching Chinese, they also provided an apartment. As the picture above attests to, those my age now compete head to head to find work after graduating from college, taking whatever they can find. A teacher of mine yesterday took a civil service exam among a million others as a means to explore all options.
Yet to come back to the holidays, it seems that in China, at least the spring holiday (Chinese New Year) is one time when someone hits the pause button. Even the hum of the workshop of the world is reduced to a mere murmur as millions upon millions return home, often to villages in central and western China. Even some of the 24hr internet cafes I frequent in Beijing closed for the holiday. While in the United States, the biggest holiday season from 
Halloween to New Year’s is a period of celebration through consumption. I think my favorite holiday in the United States is the 4th of July, because aside from the weather its one holiday that is not really the beginning or pause in a mad consumption cycle. It was quite weird to celebrate the Chinese new year for eight days, spending it with friends and their families eating, traveling, watching TV and singing Karoake. The eight day pause is what allows factory workers to spend multiple days on the train going home. There was gift giving, but much simpler, adults giving children red envelopes of money. I think that if in the US there was more celebrating and less consuming I would probably miss the holiday season more. And just as I finish this blog up goes the Christmas tree near by apartment here in Beijing, there goes this blog, time to shop, shop, shop.
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