Flying past multistory shopping malls and office buildings made of glass, with names written in both English and Chinese characters, on an eight-lane highway, as the DiDi driver brought me from the Beijing Capital Airport to the PKU Global Village, is my first memory of being in China. Everything, from the platform I used to book the car, to the Alipay payment, completed with just a passcode, to the Teslas and other electric cars that shared the highway with us, to the skyscrapers just outside the window, seemed to me a tangible symbol of the transitions that have reshaped China over the past four decades.
These transitions happening on a macro scale across the country have also been mirrored on a smaller scale in each province. In our trip orientation, Xu Laoshi encouraged us to think about “Henan in transition,” introducing the concepts of modernity, sustainability, and humanity as its guiding principles. As Henan, represented by the character zhōng, or “center,” has been a core region of the state since imperial times, I found these principles offered an interesting lens through which to reflect on the companies, historical sites, and museums that we visited, and what they revealed about the process of development in Henan, and more broadly, the process of development in China as a whole.
“Modernity” is neither a simple nor a straightforward concept to define. In the West, I think it is regarded as more or less synonymous with Westernization, and is primarily defined by innovations in science and technology. This type of modernity I felt most powerfully when we were watching the final historical drama at Zhiyou Henan, as Wu Zetian and Du Fu came to life first on the wall, and then before me, through technology I could not dream of understanding. The special effects lent the drama an ethereal quality, captivating and beyond anything I had ever seen before. My camera roll filled with videos as I tried to make sense of how the actors appeared and disappeared from the stage like smoke. It was hard to remember that in spite of my wonder, for the cast and crew at Zhiyou Henan, these effects were simply part of an everyday routine. Only through this realization later did I begin to fully appreciate the speed and scale at which technological innovation has become a defining feature of modern Chinese society.
Just like everything else, I think “modernity” has its own duōmiànxìng, with an equally important facet being the preservation of cultural heritage. The countries we acknowledge as “modernized,” like France, Sweden, or Japan, all have several historical sites that receive protection from the state, offering tourists as well as its own citizens a deeper understanding of the country’s cultural and historical heritage. In this sense, I think China is no different from any other “modernized” country. In Dengfeng City and Luoyang, we toured several sites of historical significance, including the Shaolin Temple, the White Horse Temple, and Longmen Grottoes, all of which are designated as ‘National Priority Protected Sites,’ and attract the attention of domestic and international visitors alike. As we watched the Shaolin kung fu demonstrations, burned incense and prayed to the statue of Guanyin, and took pictures with the 17 meter tall, hand-carved Vairocaina Buddha, the broad appeal of these landmarks became particularly evident to me, as I overheard exchanges in English, German, Thai, Japanese, Russian, and countless dialects of Mandarin all around me. To me, the cultural tourism industry we saw in Henan seemed clearly indicative of Chinese modernity in terms of both economic development and commitment to cultural preservation.
When I think about sustainability in relation to our Henan trip, I have mixed feelings. My perspective is likely influenced by growing up in the US, but throughout the trip, I was struck by the lack of a strong sense of sustainability, particularly in people’s daily habits. This is in no small part caused by the fact that not only in Henan, but across all of China, tap water is generally unsafe to drink directly. As a result, people constantly buy bottled water and other beverages to meet their daily needs; however, these bottles are made of plastic, and generally see very little reuse. I was further surprised by the simplicity of the waste sorting system I saw in Henan, and that the recycling of plastic bottles, while possible, was not enforced at all. In a country the size of China, the quantities of plastic discarded daily as a result of the reliance on bottled water and casual attitude toward recycling seem to me to present an image, both domestically and internationally, of limited sustainability at best.
Another feature of daily life that I believe undermines the potential for sustainable development is the wàimài culture. While I found wàimài to be incredibly convenient when I was in Henan, especially after long, rainy days of travelling, the amount of packaging materials and single-use products that are associated with every order, especially on a country-wide scale, create similar volumes of excessive plastic waste. Although I was only observing these patterns in the context of Henan, I think the issues of sustainability and sustainable development must be addressed through a national, top-down approach, as the widespread reliance on bottled drinks and express delivery services have become a central feature of life across China, and very little infrastructure appears to be capable of improving current practices.
Yet I do not think sustainability was an entirely absent feature from our stay in Henan. The area where it was most apparent to me was public transportation, and specifically, in the bicycle rental services. I was first struck by the sheer volume of bicycles available for rent in Beijing, but assumed it was a unique feature of Beijing that corresponded with its status as a first-tier city. However, in every city we visited in Henan, regardless of their tier, I found myself encountering a well-organized bicycle rental system. The accessibility, price, and convenience of the services made them perfect for a group of foreign college students, and left me with one of my happiest memories from Henan, the simple thrill of biking around Anyang at night. For one hour of exploration, we paid only two yuan, or approximately 30 cents. In this regard, I think Henan serves as an accurate representation of the progress that China has made in developing sustainable transportation, though, when all factors influencing sustainability are taken as a whole, one cannot call China a fully sustainable country.
The concept of rénwénxìng, which translates approximately to humanity in English, seems difficult to preserve in the context of development at the speed which China has undergone since the 1980s. Indeed, across East Asia, the work culture is often portrayed as grueling by Western media, with China frequently characterized by the “996” schedule, or working from 9am to 9pm, six days a week. I was particularly curious to see where rénwénxìng might have been preserved in Henan, and think the clearest example we saw of how Chinese industries and businesses are balancing the treatment of their employees with the speed of China’s development was at the Pangdonglai headquarters in Xuchang. From the store’s motto, “Create love, share love, and spread love,” to its unique working policies that the manager giving us the tour described, such as offering employees generous benefits, and ensuring they work shifts of no longer than four hours at a time, it is easy to see how Pandonglai’s business model diverges from that of mainstream Chinese corporations. By investing so heavily in its employees, I think Pandonglai uniquely modeled how business can navigate development and sustain a people-centered approach.
In the media, news, and even academic papers, China’s development is often characterized as tūfēiměngjìn, a fixed expression which loosely translates to advancing by leaps and bounds. I agree with this assessment in some aspects, such as the robot service workers which brought food directly to our room in Xuchang, reducing one’s active contribution to the energy it takes to open the door, to the interactive exhibits we saw in the Yinxu Museum, where Shang artifacts seemed to physically step out of the screen, technological experiences that have no parallel anywhere in the world.
However, at the same time, in every city we visited in Henan, the number of bicycles, scooters, and mopeds on the street seemed to equal, if not surpass the number of cars. In parks, crowds of older people reliably gather to play mahjong and people of all ages face off at opposite ends of a ping pong table; fresh produce is still sold on the streets, in informal markets that serve as a locus for neighborhood aunties and uncles. As you pass these parks, as parents zip past you on their bicycles, with young children on the back, a sense of the China of the 1970s and 1980s, when Reform and Opening was just beginning to be introduced lingers. Our experiences in Henan made it impossible to deny that China’s modernization is already firmly underway, however, they also made it clear that the process of transition has certainly not rendered the country unrecognizable.