The Collegian

Issue date: 2/28/08 Section: Features

Media Credit: Photos courtesy of Hujun Peng and Fritz Tsao

Media Credit: Photos courtesy of Hujun Peng and Fritz Tsao

Media Credit: Photos courtesy of Hujun Peng and Fritz Tsao

Hujun Peng, 10, pulled his head under the plastic sheet of a poncho, sitting on the steel bicycle seat behind his father, who pedaled the family bike back to their one-bedroom apartment in Shanghai.

In 1996, half the 600 children at Peng's school commuted to class on the back of a parent's bike. And they were the fortunate ones.

Only a decade earlier, when Peng was born, his family lived in a one-room government-assigned apartment. They shared the bathroom, kitchen and balcony with two other families and owned the only black and white television in the neighborhood.

"There was no heater, no air conditioner," said Peng, now 21 and a Hillsdale College senior who goes by Hodge. "In summer, we wore T-shirts and went to the cinema because they have air conditioning in theaters. In winter, you'd just wear more clothes."

His parents moved to the city in 1981 from the communist government-run farm where they had met, married and worked to earn $2.50 each every month. Stiff competition and the high-density population made city jobs scarce, so Peng's grandfather retired and gave his engineering position at the Shanghai-based Volkswagen plant to his son, Peng's father.

But even in the city, living conditions were poor. To buy groceries, they had to obtain ration certificates.

"When I was 3 or 4, nobody could get enough food," Peng said.

Yet by his early teens, the economy had grown so significantly that many foods were readily available. In 1996, the family bought an apartment with its own kitchen and a living room. And his parents started earning $150 per month.

"We didn't have to share anything with anybody," Peng said with a big smile. "We were pretty proud."

They moved once more in 2001 - this time to an even bigger apartment. But by then, the fast-paced change had become normal for the more than 20 million residents of Shanghai, a city three-fourths the land size of Chicago, Peng said.

China's transformation

The Pengs' moves point to the significant economic and political changes in China since the early 1980s. The country - still officially socialist - has by all but official accounts become a free-market economy.

"The single greatest instance of people being lifted out of poverty is the Chinese transition from communism to capitalism," said Associate Professor of Economics Charles Steele, who spent six months in 1998 teaching at China Agricultural University in Beijing.

For most of three decades after World War II, Mao Zedong ruled China as the leader of the communist People's Republic of China. With Marxism and the Soviet Union guiding him, Mao sought to destroy anything he saw as capitalist. By 1960, the economy had collapsed and an estimated 20 million people had died from starvation, Steele said.

"They started destroying stuff and called it economic growth," he said.

By the time Deng Xiaoping was named Mao's successor in 1978, leaders had grown desperate for something to stop the collapse. In a regime he called "socialism with Chinese characteristics," Xiaoping immediately started privatizing property and opening the country to foreign exchange, Steele said.

"Chinese agricultural output skyrocketed at that time because people had an incentive to work," Steele said, adding that many peasants had lived on $1 a day. "The bottom line is, they have a free-market economy in China [under Xiaoping]. It's not central economic planning anymore."

Construction and new transportation systems are marking the economic growth. China now operates the fastest train in the world, and more than half the world's construction cranes sit in Chinese cities. Builders construct skyscrapers - some of the world's tallest - by the block in a matter of days and weeks, said Professor of Psychology Fritz Tsao, who has visited his ancestors' country four times in the last three years.

"Change hits me over the head," Tsao said. "There has never been in all of human history the change seen in China right now. In three months you might not recognize things. It's extraordinary. It's dizzying. Literally, on a week by week, month by month, day by day basis, things change."

Freshman Xingshuo Liu, 17, grew up in Shenzhen on China's southern border. In 25 years, the city has exploded from a Hillsdale-sized rural population into a booming metropolis of 12 million people, she said. The reason: Shenzhen was named a free trade zone under Xiaoping.

"I feel like there's not a lot of history binding it," Liu said. Shenzhen has become a modern economic hub. Its fast-paced economy attracts young career seekers and has created a local culture heavy on business but light on art, tradition and family, she said.

In Shanghai, high schoolers actively trade on the stock market, driven by market incentives to seek their own wealth, Peng said.

"A lot of people don't know what [the stock market] is," he said. "They just rush in. That's why the Chinese market is so unstable."

"China is Wild West capitalism," Tsao said. "It's completely unregulated. It's almost scary."

But along with the benefits of the market, China also faces its struggles. Working conditions are often poor, Tsao said. Domestic and foreign newspapers have written about numerous instances of corporate corruption and dangerous products recalled after their widespread release into the market.

Looking forward

People are unsure how long China will maintain its official socialist standing.
"At least we will call ourselves socialist for a very long time - but it's actually capitalism," Peng said. "I guess they just don't want to change the name and call themselves losers."

But official titles don't deter Peng or Liu from plans to return to China to work some day.
"Since the financial market is getting more and more open, I'm sure there are more opportunities in the future," Peng said.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools