My Students Imagine Change

My communication majors’ final assignment was to create a campaign, on something they really care about. Civil society groups are still rare in China, but growing. These kids’ big concerns: Rural children’s malnutrition. Consumer and environmental safety. Rights for migrant workers, who are illegal aliens in the cities they build. Internet censorship, which makes it difficult (to my mind, impossible) to function as a university student. Calmly, intelligently, they call for accountability, for reasonable and humane limits, in a chaotic society whiplashed by freewheeling development that often seems as out of control as a runaway train.

The other most popular imaginary campaign (three students did it), was to get international elections monitors to China. (No wonder after the Qiao Mu affair I described in Nov.)

Writes one: “We perceive ourselves as the seeds of democracy and belief in peaceful political reform.”

More snippets:

G, who’s spent the semester writing about how Party-sponsored social services could ease rural poverty, surprised with a final piece challenging corrupt local officials. His campaign demands the shut-down of a chemical plant leaking toxins in northeastern China, by mobilizing neighborhood parents: “Our children may grow up under the influence of chemicals and we shall do something.” Check out this “Question” from the campaign’s FAQ page: “I really want to join you. But I am afraid that I may be run over by tanks or be thrown into jail.”

D, who earlier wrote about his grandmother — a farmer who raised three generations of intellectuals and never had her own name — returns to the theme, campaigning for China’s 47 million rural “left-behind” women. Though farmers are 31 times richer than three decades ago, these women “suffer loneliness, a lack of self-development and self-actualization, illiteracy, and are without spiritual well-being.” He proposes “Self-study programs, access to the Internet, recreational facilities, as well as construction of libraries.” D reflects: “I felt gripped by a complex feeling. Perhaps this is my duty in the future. To do simple but meaningful work as an ordinary individual, while to witness and create history in [an] organization.”

Also safety-minded, V wants school bus safety. Just this November-December, 33 Chinese children died in school bus crashes. She calls for stronger supervision modeled after Canada and the U.S.: uniform use of yellow for buses, new laws including right-of-way, strict load standards. “Drivers should be specially trained and government should subsidize school bus companies.” Bus safety is just part of what China faces today, she reflects: “poverty, injustice and repression that need to be resolved.”

R’s economically savvy campaign wants to construct earthquake-safe buildings, plus adding local job training and locally-sourced materials to the mix. “Our aim is to make safe houses available to all who need them, develop local skills, and local demand.”

Y, a lovely young woman, wants to promote ocean health and, by extension, seafood safety. (Heavy metals are so prevalent in bodies of water here, the embassy dr. advised us not to eat fish while in China.) Y’s first aim is to make people care. “I’ll adopt a listener-oriented approach to get my message across, being expert enough to talk about the subject and interesting enough to make the audience stay until the end. I will add stories, in different voices that will resonate.” One story: a farmer who “dared not eat the rice he grew himself, since the linkage of several cancer cases and heavy metal pollution in the village was confirmed. …What will he have for meals tomorrow?”

What, indeed?

For the First Time, I Hear the “T” Word

“Why were students afraid to keep volunteering for the independent candidates?” — one a political scientist and colleague in my department, Qiao Mu, who teaches political communication. I was talking to a young person, discussing the recent district elections here for People’s Congress, and the intimidation Qiao Mu’s volunteers said they experienced–like being videotaped, asked their name by plainclothes police, and warned by their school counselors. (All that may have led to the upstarts’ defeat; I blogged about it earlier ). “I understand they were told to stop working on the campaigns, but why did they listen? What exactly were they afraid of?” I’m just trying to understand, best I can.

“Have you ever heard,” the young person answered, “of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations?”–earnestly, like I may not have. This is the first time anyone has used the “T” word.

Of course, I’m nodding, Uh, yeah.

“Do you know what happened to those students after?”

No.

The young person says that they (China’s brightest, since Beijing undergrads beat out tens of millions for these coveted spots) were sent to rural areas, never to work anywhere else again.

I’ve given up trying to make the image appear here–it won’t–of an Occupy Wall Street poster graphic where 2011’s Wall Street occupiers face 1999’s Chinese tanks in Tiananman. But please click for a stirring, complex (if contentious at like a million levels) graphic kicker. The Tiananman tank man in Foley Square. ows poster

PS: If you’re one of the 4,000 or so visits we’ve had here, THANK YOU!! Yet we only have 20ish actual followers. Stay in touch by cursoring to the right & clicking “Sign me up.”
PPS: The New York Times’ Sharon LaFraniere devoted a whole story to Qaio Mu’s brave run as an independent, and the suppression he endured.

Qiao himself also wrote an op-ed about it in the Wall Street Journal Online. He also catalogs the wrongs he suffered on ChinaElectionsBlog.net.

And I helped my friend Vincent Fang, a senior majoring in journalism (not actually my student, but my kids’ Chinese tutor and xbox FIFA football companion), write about it as well. Vince’s first-person piece (he was a campaign volunteer), “Democratic Election in China Through One Student’s Eyes,” got picked up all over the Web, & even translated into Chinese.