Ashley Jane Ogden
December 7th, 2010
Book Review:
“Postcards from Tomorrow Square, Reports from China”
James Fallows wrote “Postcards from Tomorrow Square, Reports from China” between 2006 and 2008. He and his wife were Americans who moved to China, where he wrote for an American publication The Atlantic Monthly. Many Americans can probably relate to his writing because he confronts Americans’ view on China and says what is right and wrong about our view on China. He looks at the whole picture, from the politics and economies, down to the clothes, food, and personality of the Chinese culture. The main theme that emerges from this book is that China has many different faces. There are many aspects that make up China, as a whole, that are vastly different from each other. There is every type of person and every type of belief within China, good and bad. People in China range from rich to poor, from individualistic to collectivistic. This complexity of the Chinese people and their culture is what this book tries to illustrate. Each chapter of the book focusing on one unique aspect that makes China what it is.
Fallow’s book is written in a relaxed tone as if he was having a conversation with you personally. At the same time, he is able to pack a lot of information and facts into the text. For a reader that is not very familiar with China, this can be overwhelming at times, but worth it on the end. The information presented in the book is very interesting and relevant if you want to get a better understanding of the Chinese worldview. The Chinese worldview is complex, just as any countries’ is, so there is no way that you can even get a slight grasp on their entire worldview. What I got out of this book mainly is that the Chinese culture is diverse; the Chinese culture is made up of many different types of people, events, places, and beliefs. The generalizations that Americans (and the World) have about China are somewhat true, but there are also many exceptions to the rule. What is surprising is that there are parts of the Chinese culture and China that similar to the US, and at the same time there are parts that will never reflect the America culture.
The relationship between China and America is one of the most fascinating international relationships in the world today. There are intertwined in more ways than one and have become dependent on each other in some aspects. However, although they are so closed connected, they each have somewhat misleading views and ideas about each other. Americans have an idea about what China is and it is mostly wrong. It seems that the Chinese are more similar to Americans than we, Americans, would like to admit. While reading “Postcards from Tomorrow’s Square” by James Fallows, this fact became very apparent to me. There are many big differences between the countries that were not surprising, but the amount of similarities was the biggest surprise to me.
Although China is a socialist society, there are many aspects of their culture that reflect a democratic society. Fallows states that one day they might become a democratic society, because there are villages that already follow democratic rules. On the other hand, at the national level it sometimes seems as if they will always be a socialist country. Just as the politics varies throughout the country, so do its people. There are rich individuals in the country that act very much like rich individuals in America. There is also a group of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists developing within the country, and they even have their own version of Las Vegas. Throughout this book, the generalizations I had about China got confirmed and proven wrong at the same time. It was also very surprising to learn that an Irish businessman, who lives in China to do business, has not tried to learn the Chinese language. Liam Casey said that people, who try to do business in a language that is not their first, will lose their concentration of the deal at hand.
One thing that China is doing that reflects the American culture is their reality TV. “Win in China!” is a Chinese reality TV show similar to America’s “The Apprentice”. It demonstrates the individualistic attitude that some Chinese people have. Participants on the show compete for money from venture capitalists to use in their entrepreneurial endeavors. I thought that this was surprising considering the Chinese Socialists roots. Reality TV shows like this one, are promoting and helping entrepreneurs and encouraging young people to travel abroad in order to gain international experience.
At least one entrepreneur in China is already succeeding, proving that the Chinese government and society will allow China to become a more individualistic society. I am talking about the man that built Broad Town. Complete with its own Egyptian-style pyramid and mini Palace of Versailles, it reminds me of Silicon Valley’s Google campus. The employees never leave because everything that they could ever need is provided onsite. This is a great demonstration of not only the individualistic attitude of some Chinese (mainly the rich people) but also the collectivistic attitudes of most of the Chinese workers. The people that work at Broad Town have tremendous company loyalty. Their work is their life; they almost never leave the “campus” or town. For them, it is not slave labor but instead it is a chance to get out of country poverty. Many of these laborers leave their families to work at companies like Broad Town. In America I think it would be harder to find women that would willingly leave their children for a higher wage. I believe this is one reason why Chinese factories are so successful: they have very loyal employees. In America, young people usually move jobs many times before maybe settling at a company that they like. This is not the case in China, as least the way this book describes the situation, people work at a company for their entire life and their work is their life.
One of the most interesting chapters in “Postcards” described Macau, China’s own Las Vegas. The Chinese people naturally have a personality that makes them more susceptible to the allure of gambling. This was surprising to me because, the assumption is that Chinese people like to save money and bargain on prices. The idea that they have a very profitable town based on gambling income, contradicts my pre-existing assumptions. It was very surprising to learn that Macau is as profitable as it is. What was not surprising was the amount of money laundering and scandal that goes on in Macau. The stereotypes of any developing country are that they are corrupt, unjust systems. You can tell that China is trying to get away from that however, because of the new regulations that they are imposing on VIP rooms to get the scandal out of China.
The $1.4 Trillion Question was informative on the Chinese policy about the American dollar. It was interesting to know that every US dollar exchanged in China is bought by the Chinese government and goes to the government’s savings fund. This is how they were able to collect the amount of American money that they hold. America and China are on opposites sides of the saving’s spectrum. China saves about 50% of what it makes and American does not save anything. Perhaps, these two countries can learn something from each other and meet somewhere in the middle. Maybe that is where these two countries will eventually find equilibrium, hopefully. The current arrangement has been convenient for both sides, but will not last for long.
At the end of his book, Fallows makes an interesting point. He says that the Chinese not only has many faces within the country, they also show a different face to the rest of the world. It was very interesting to see Fallow’s take on the government in that sense. It seems like the Chinese government is too caught up in their own day to day business and they have a carefree attitude on what the rest of the world thinks of them. They come off as being less than what they really are. They act like a rebel, not considering what their reputation will do for them, good or bad. During the Olympic Games, they went back on their promise to allow free internet access, without the firewall. Fallows seems to think that this was not a strategic plan, but just a change of policy at the last minute that reflected what the government really wants.
I learned a lot from this book, things that will be useful when I visit China. In every chapter of this book, I learned something new that I found very intriguing and insightful into the overall worldview that the Chinese people have. There is not a single snapshot that you could take of China that could show the true essence of China. Maybe you could take a thousand snapshots that look nothing alike and then combine them into a collage and call that the essence of China. Fallows did a good job of connecting with the reader but writing from the view of an American with pre-existing ideas about what China is. Throughout the book he did a good job to tackle a lot of diverse issues from politics to individual people and their worldviews.
