China's locomotive

This morning the autumn tiger (two consecutive days in September with highs above 95°) finally left Wuhan. In fact, we’ve had many more than two days of high heat and brutal humidity. Today, the tiger was vanquished by cool winds and rain. The contrast is almost dizzying, although coming back to China after thirty years away, it’s a minor contrast compared to many others.

Our first residence at Wuhan University, 1979 (now torn down): no heat, no hot water.

The Tastee Coffee Shop that's replaced it.

 Such as traffic. When we lived in China in 1979-81, there were few cars. People rode bicycles. We rode all over Wuhan on our bikes, mostly on two lane roads. Now there are four and six lane overhead expressways all over town and traffic jams which develop at a moment’s notice. In Beijing, there were 77,000 cars in 1978; now there are 4 ½ million.

You’ve probably heard about the 100 kilometer-long traffic jam north of Beijing that lasted for a week. Bicycles are almost a relic. Most commuters (2/3, I read somewhere) used to bike to work. Now it’s less than 1 in 5, and this hardy remnant complains about the dangers of riding bikes amidst ferociously assertive car drivers and scooter riders.

Another contrast: money. Back in 1978, most university professors made 50 or 60 yuan a month -- about $30-40 at the then-exchange rate. They had free or almost free accommodation and medical care, and not much else to buy besides food, which was rationed then. Now, they make $5000 to $10,000 yuan, or $750-1500 a month at current rates, but must buy an apartment and car.

The price of apartments in the high rises that have sprouted all over town is a constant source of discussion. People talk like New Yorkers about the cost per square meter for apartments; even a small one can run a million plus yuan in Wuhan, a bargain by Beijing or Shanghai standards, but the price goes up every week.

Official statistics in China aren’t always reliable –the inflation rate is claimed to be 3.5%, but everyone says it’s much higher and cite examples of prices doubling every few months.

Even the government, however, admits that property prices are out of control, officially said to be up by 9.3% in August, with new home (i.e. apartment) prices up by almost 12%. There are, indeed, fears of social unrest as prices jump while salaries are stagnant; there have been worker suicides and strikes in foreign-owned factories like the ones that assemble parts for I-Pods.

Nevertheless, there’s an air of prosperity and push that wasn’t present back in 1980. There are impressive new buildings, like the Foreign Language Building on the Wuhan University campus, a contrast to the grey relic that was our classroom building back then.

The old Foreign Language Building at Wuda (from a 1980 slide)



The new Foreign Language buildling (picture by Luo Cheng)

There’s the impressive new Hubei Provincial Museum nearby, just winding up a traveling exhibit of paintings from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

 

Hubei Provincial Museum, Wuchang. Photo by Yang Yasha

  There are Starbucks (8 in Wuhan), McDonald’s (many), Walmarts (3 in Wuhan), and multi-level shopping malls, crowded with domestic and imported merchandise (and intriguing signage in English, such as the one in my local Walmart pointing the shopper to “Alice Mo’s mat,” apparently a reference to car floor mats). You can get Lay’s potato chips, Ragu spaghetti sauce, or a pretty fair Chinese cabernet.

And so it goes, in contrast to three decades ago, when we got our vegetables from a state market and had to produce ration tickets to buy meat. You can get DVD’s of American TV sitcoms (I bought seasons 1-4 of 30 Rock for $3 yesterday) or go to an I-Max showing of Inception, which I did the other day in the company of some of my former students, one of whom is an I-Max executive.

That great scene in Inception of the runaway locomotive careening through city streets, scattering people in all directions, seems to me a good metaphor for China’s economy today. The Wuhan of thirty years ago was a sleepy place where people rode bicycles to work and made about the same salaries.

You can still glimpse that Wuhan down old residential alleys where people sit on stools gossiping, smoking, and playing Chinese chess.
But out on the big commercial streets there’s that runaway locomotive going who knows where. It’s an exciting ride, and certainly for me great joy to have the opportunity to talk about the changes with my former students of thirty years ago.

With three of my former graduate students at a "Hubei specialties" banquet.