“One look and this smacks of the old concessions during the Qing Dynasty, but there is one big difference. Back then the foreigners made us do it; this time we are doing it to ourselves.”

The bad press motivated local consultancy firm Maxxelli Real Estate to take over the PR and management for the development and I recently took a trip to Tianfu International with Maxxelli’s boss Peter Kuppens to see what is really going on there.

I have to admit, I was very impressed. The homes themselves are beautiful two- and three-story houses with impeccable interior design. The complex has a huge swimming pool with hot tubs and a spa center and an on-site multimedia building offers movies in 3D. A staff member was watching Avatar alone and as soon as I stepped in he jumped up and addressed me in English. He looked like a farmer in a uniform but he had obviously been rehearsing his lines for this very moment:

“Welcome to Tianfu International Community, sir. Would you like a tour of our complex?”

Although Peter was my guide for this particular trip, the man followed us around and pointed out the espresso machine (Very good coffee, sir) and urged us to go upstairs and check out the lounge area.

In a lot of the comments in the previous story, the idea of a “foreigner only” housing complex was lampooned. But most of the lampooning was done by young China vets with no intention of spending 30-40k yuan on anything, let alone for rent. The complex isn’t targeting young bums like me and my friends.

Wealthy white collars with corporate packages. That’s who this complex was built for and three families – two Dutch and one Belgian – have already signed on for a year. For Chengdu vets, it might seem preposterous to spend 30k on a home, no matter how beautiful the interior, how warm the pool, how 3D the theater … but I spent a year in Shanghai and it’s already been happening there.

What this really means is that Chengdu is coming up.

Finally Get that Card Game Going

In Shanghai I played a lot of Texas Hold-em with a lot of expats. We played 5/10 and 10/20. What this means is that the big and small blinds were at a minimum 5 and 10 yuan (Check the rules of Hold Em for details). Pots could quickly reach 2000, 5,000 and even 10,000 yuan.

Here in Chengdu most crowds play for 0.5 or 1 yuan on the blinds. Big pots might reach 100 yuan. Tiny, tiny potatoes. The major reason why is because Chengdu expats still number in the low thousands and most of us are living simple lives on simple salaries. More developed towns like Shanghai have more than enough expats who make big money to fill dozens of card games. Whenever one of them gets shut down by the police, another pops up.

What I’m getting at here is that with an increase in wealthy expats with 30k to burn on a home so wifey can maintain upper middle class status, we might finally get that card game going.

Taitais

Speaking of wifey: in cities like Shanghai and Beijing, the foreign “Taitai” (太太, wife) is a fixture of the scene. She usually gets dropped off in a fat Chrysler van, a couple kids in tow, shops till she drops and then has a baller meal at a place like Goga.

They enrich our lives. With taitais around, we can expect better restaurants (micro-brews anyone?), more young kids at the Bookworm, better international schooling, various support groups (knitting, wine tasting, cougar tutorials) to complement the snazzy “Single Malt Club” that we already have. Every international city of any standing has the socialite scene and the scandal that comes with it. We’re being gentrified and we should welcome it.

Hell, Chengdu Living might get itself a weekly post from an embedded high society columnist.

Adam Mayer arrived in Chengdu and got to designing buildings right off the bat. We met shortly before Sascha interviewed Adam for this post, which cast him as a pioneering foreigner blazing the Chinese trail of urban development: American Architects Finds Freedom in Chengdu. Since then we’ve become friends and it’s always been a pleasure to muse about Chengdu’s future.

His unique position as a foreign architect in the city affords him a phenomenal platform to witness one of the largest building booms in human history. And since Chengdu has been among the fastest-growing cities in the world for years now, it’s a land of incredible opportunity for architects and urban developers from around the world.

A year after arriving in Chengdu, Adam’s work is beginning to materialize around Chengdu. I thought this would be a great time to ask him a few question about what he’s up to and where Chengdu is headed.

Interview with Adam Mayer

Chengdu Living: For those who don’t know you, who are you and where are you from? What are you doing in Chengdu?

Adam: I’m an architectural designer from California, USA. Currently I am a Senior Project Architect at the firm Cendes in our Chengdu office. I’ve been living in Chengdu for a year.

Chengdu Living: What led you to China or Chengdu?

Opportunity to work in the world’s largest market for new buildings is what initially led me to China. I landed in Chengdu because at the time I moved to China (about 2 years ago) there was a shift happening with development moving inland from the coastal regions. Chengdu has been a big beneficiary of the Central Government’s push westward and development activity doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon.

Chengdu Living: What are you working on now?

Currently I am working on a few different things. One project is a proposal for a new 450,000 M² mixed-use project in north-central Chengdu. The project includes a 5-story shopping mall with three 120-meter residential towers and a 200-meter office tower. I am also designing a retail center just outside of Guangzhou and a residential complex in Tangshan, Hebei province.

Chengdu Living: How has working in the architecture field in this region differed from what you expected?

The Hailrun Complex in downtown Chengdu

It is not much different from what I anticipated. Project schedules are usually on an accelerated track, which takes some getting used to after working in the U.S. where contracts allot more time for architects to do thoughtful design work. In most cases, we don’t have the luxury of time with projects in China so design and production need to happen quickly.

This has to do partly with the fact that property developers have a time limit in which to build on land they have successfully bid on. The reason for the time limit is to discourage land speculation and promote urban development. Accelerated project schedules are not unique to the architecture industry but are rather a reflection of China’s overall rush to modernize and develop its cities.

Chengdu Living: What are the greatest challenges of working here? The greatest advantages?

The greatest challenges for a foreigner working in China are definitely the language and cultural barriers, though these are hurdles that can be overcome through spending some time in the country getting to know its customs and proactively studying Mandarin. The greatest advantage is simply the fact that China, as a huge developing country, offers a lot more opportunity for new buildings at this point in time than its developed world counterparts.

Chengdu Living: What advice would you give to Western architects working in China?

Be patient and know what the type of client you are working with. Not all clients are created equally, especially in China where everyone from factory owners to rural village chiefs are getting their hands into property development. In many cases these first-time developers don’t know what they are doing and rely on architects not only for design but to educate them about the development process as well. This can be a burden and time-consuming but it can also be a good opportunity provided you get lucky and the client has an open mind.

Established private Chinese development companies and overseas developers from places like the U.S., Hong Kong and Singapore usually have a better idea of what they want and put more emphasis on design quality and the finished product because they have a reputation to maintain. State-owned property developers are another thing altogether and can often be cumbersome to deal with because of their size and inefficient managerial culture.

Chengdu Living: What will Chengdu look like in 5 years? 10? 20? What’s the rate of change and what do you see for the future of China’s urban development?

Parts of Chengdu will look completely different in 5 years. Areas like the South Hi-Tech Zone and outlying areas outside the 3rd Ring Road will continue to urbanize and eventually merge with the city. In Chengdu’s Central Business District, DongDaJie (东大街) will be a canyon of commercial office towers stretching all the way from Chunxi Lu to the East 2nd Ring Road. The expanding subway system will help tie the city together. Further down the line, Chengdu will continue to evolve and add new buildings to the urban fabric.

Transportation in downtown Chengdu on a late summer evening

This is not to suggest that Chengdu will lose its inherent charm in its path towards modernization. Rather, Chengdu government leaders are aware of what makes the city a unique and attractive place not only with Chinese people but with foreigners (and more importantly, foreign investment) as well. They are trying to capitalize on this allure by promoting what is called a ‘Modern Garden City’. What this essentially means is that government planners are looking at ways to tie the city in with it surrounding natural environment by encouraging preservation of green belts in developing areas. Furthermore, non-profit organizations like the Chengdu Urban Rivers Association (CURA) are engaged in working to find solutions to cleaning up the city’s rivers by encouraging sustainable approaches to agriculture in outlying areas.

So in many aspects, Chengdu is a very progressive city in China when it comes to environmental and quality-of-life issues. I don’t think this is an accident as the city has a long tradition of being tied closely with its natural surroundings. The fertile soil of the Chengdu Plain along with the ancient Dujiangyan Irrigation System have shaped a culture over thousands of years that places high value on agriculture, influencing the strong culinary and leisure paradigm we still see today.

Chengdu Living: You’ve recently started authoring a blog called China Urban Development: what’s that about and what motivated you begin publishing it?

After doing some research about urban development in China I noticed that there is a dearth of accurate information about what is going on here. Of course, there is no lack of reporting about China’s development in the Western media- not a day goes by where publications like the New York Times or the Guardian don’t report something about China. Yet oftentimes the focus is just on how big or fast everything is rather than providing any real insight to what is going on here on the ground.

On the other side of awe-struck reporting is the ideological, agenda-based bashing of China by some pundits in the West. This really infuriates me because it does nothing to enhance understanding between China and the rest of the world and can actually be a detrimental influence on international relations.

So as an outsider working in a field that is directly related to urban development, I feel it is my responsibility to try and provide a more balanced picture of what’s happening this moment in China. I am by no means an apologist for the negative aspects of China’s development and I do acknowledge that there are tremendous challenges to overcome.

That being said, I am very bullish about China’s future and strongly believe that development is ultimately a positive thing for Chinese people and the world.

Do you have any comments on development in Chengdu or greater China? Leave them in the comments below. Then check out Adam’s excellent blog China Urban Development. 

An Economic Reality Check

I thought the following quote was really interesting because as any American might tell you, the standard of living in the U.S. far surpasses how Chinese live, yet the U.S. is faltering while China rises. I feel a lot of this yapping is psycho-somatic, self-inflicted doldrums. And I am not sure why. Why would a country with a massive landmass, a relatively small population and the most creative and talented people around basically throw in the towel and give up?

So the quote below was kind of a wake up call:

“I also know that some of you are skeptical about America’s future prospects.

With that in view, I would like to suggest that I respectfully disagree with that view and will allay your concerns. Let me put this in perspective so you can understand why the American people are also confident about their future. America today is by far the world’s largest economy with a GDP of almost $15 trillion, about two and a half times as large as China’s, the second largest; with a per-capita GDP which is more than $47,000 – 11 times that of China’s. I’ve read that some Chinese are concerned about the safety of your investments in American assets. Please understand, no one cares more about this than we do since Americans own 87 percent of all our financial assets and 69 percent of all our treasury bonds, while China owns 1 percent of our financial assets and 8 percent of our treasury bills respectively.”

Joe Biden & Xi Jinping in Dujiangyan

But then that was followed by the “Innovative & Green Revolution” rhetoric during Obama’s great run for the U.S. Presidency in 2008. I have seen little to prove that the government has any meat behind its words, and perhaps that is what helps drive the overall malaise: people waiting for the government to “do something”.

“In the 20th century, the wealth of nation was primarily measured by the abundance of its natural resources, the expanse of its landmass, the size of its population and the potency of its army.

But I believe in the 21st century, the true wealth of a nation will be found in the creative minds of its people and their ability to innovate – to develop the technologies that will not only spawn new products, but create and awaken entire new industries.”

Freedom & Liberty Are Good for Business

That empty claim was followed by this jab at rote learning and static systems (not the attempt at making Sichuan University feel better):

“A system that trains students not merely to learn and accept established orthodoxy, but to challenge orthodoxy, challenge their professors, challenge the ideas put forward to them, encourage individual thought and innovation; a system that not only tolerates free expression and vigorous debate, including between citizens and their government, but celebrates and promotes those exchanges; a system in which the rule of law protects private property, provides a predictable investment climate, and ensures accountability for the poor and wealthy alike; and a system with universities that remain – notwithstanding, and this is a great university - the ultimate destination for scholars from around the world.”

Wouldn’t it be great if politicians actually followed up on what they said?

“Openness, free exchange of ideas, free enterprise and liberty are among the reasons why the United States, in my view, is at this moment the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. It’s why our workers are among the most productive, why our inventors and entrepreneurs hold more patents than any other country in the world, why we are reinvesting in the fundamental sources of our strength — education, infrastructure, innovation …”

This is what happens to Sino-US relations when the politicians stop talking. It can get ugly fast.

Biden On the Burden of the Elderly

The following was in response to a question from the audience: “What concrete measures will America take to reduce its deficit?”

“The bottom line is we have to deal with two elements of our economy.  One is what we call entitlement programs – long-term commitments to our people in the area of particularly Medicare.  That is the safety net we have for people once they reach the age of 65 to be assured that they have health care.”

Biden never mentioned the second element, which I assume was either corporate tax loopholes or a plan to divert Wall Street bonuses to the needy. Biden strove for common ground with the Chinese – in this case overpopulation and its burden:

“I was talking to some of your leaders, you share a similar concern here in China. You have no safety net. Your policy has been one which I fully understand – I’m not second-guessing – of one child per family. The result being that you’re in a position where one wage earner will be taking care of four retired people. Not sustainable.”

Meanwhile in the United States you have Pro-Lifers angered at Joe Biden ‘not second-guessing’ China’s one-child policy.

How Much Weight Does Biden’s Speech in Chengdu Carry?

Perhaps not much, but we will see. But as Forbes said, at least Biden didn’t make a huge gaffe, right? I don’t know why, but I find myself caring a little bit more about politics again. After a long hiatus due to severe disgust, I find myself talking about Michelle Bachmann and Ron Paul and repeating to myself a greasy politico’s words:

I believe in the 21st century, the true wealth of a nation will be found in the creative minds of its people and their ability to innovate.

And, since 2006 he’s been the co-author of China Law Blog, one of the best China blogs in the blogosphere.

So when Eli invited me to attend his lecture in Chengdu hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce, it was a no brainer. The topic alone was intriguing and something I knew little about: China’s 12th Five Year Plan.

Lecture at the Chengdu Sofitel

I hadn’t attended a lecture like this before so I wasn’t sure what the atmosphere or presentation would be like. Here’s how it went down:

• The event was hosted in the Sofitel Chengdu, one of the most luxurious hotels in the city
• Tickets cost 180 yuan and included a buffet dinner in the hotel
• About 25-30 people attended the lecture
• Apparently I under dressed; most people were there in suits
• The talk itself was fantastic. The line between Chinese culture and state institutions is a fascinating interplay and Steve is at the center of it. His fluency in written Chinese helps when he burns through hundreds of pages of government documents to understand the system.

Read the Transcript for Free

During the lecture most people in the room were taking notes. However you won’t need to do that (or pay the 180 yuan cover charge) to get the same information since it was posted on China Law Blog in it’s entirety. It’s absolutely worth the read if you’re interested in learning about where China is headed and why. Check that out here before you read the interview with Steve Dickinson below.

Interview with Steve Dickinson

Chengdu Living: Who are you?

Steven: My name is Steven Dickinson, I’m partner at Harris & Moure, resident in Qingdao, China.

Chengdu Living: We know you as one of the authors of China Law Blog, tell us a little about that. When did that get started?

Steven: Well, it has an interesting start. Dan Harris and I (the other author of China Law Blog) have known each other since 1986, we both practiced law together in a big Seattle law firm. He went one way and I went another and in the early 2000′s we decided to get back together to try to do a program in China. It was Dan’s idea, not mine, to use a blog as our primary vehicle for creating our identity in China.

My idea was, I’ve been working in Asia since 1984, and consistently the law is misunderstood and misreported. Not just in China. Japan, Korea, Taiwan, it’s all misreported. And so I agreed that I would do that with Dan under the agreement that I would be able to write about what’s really going on in Chinese law.

The real impetus for the blog and what kept it pushing forward was Dan Harris, not me, because Dan blogs every single day. I blog less often because I tend to do quite detailed pieces and he does more topical, you know, current information kind of things.

With that agreement, that we would use the blog to talk about what China’s really about in terms of the legal system, that’s been our focus with the blog.

Chengdu Living: How long has China Law Blog been published for?

Steven: We started in 2006, and we’ve been going continuously since then.

Chengdu Living: Since 2006 what has been the greatest benefit or surprise of the blog?

Steven: Well, the benefit has been, Harris & Moure is a very small operation. I mean, it’s a boutique international law firm and without the blog, Harris & Moure would be meaningless. No one would care about us. But because of the blog, we now have a stature in the world of law and business that we would never have without the blog, so the blog has been very valuable to us. That’s number one.

Number two, we’ve met many interesting and pleasant people through the blog and that’s been a big benefit for us also.

Chengdu Living: Was the blog created with a business motivation or was that an ancillary effect?

Steven: There was a business motivation, but in 2006 blogs were pretty new. We had no notion of what blogs would become or how blogging would become integrated into the business world, so we’ve kind of developed with the blogosphere together.

We were kind of a leader in certain elements of the blogosphere but again that was Dan Harris, doing the leadership.

Chengdu Living: It’s interesting that China Law Blog is a category and yet it has such a broad appeal in the China blogosphere. Was it intended to be for a wide audience or were you thinking it would be for people in the industry and legal trade?

Steven: In terms of what we were thinking and what happened, that’s interesting. In the United States, China Law Blog has been voted several times as the best blog in the legal area, period. Nothing to do with China. And the reason is that most legal blogs are frankly, without any personality and quite boring. Where our blog has our two personalities and we let the personalities show through. Most lawyers don’t allow that and so most law blogs have never succeeded for that reason. And it’s still that way, there has not been any improvement in the law world on the blog side. But we’ve enjoyed it, it’s been fun for us.

Chengdu Living: Among readers and clients what are some of the greatest misconceptions that people have about China or China Law?

Steven: There’s a couple. The first is that, we’re Americans and much of our readership is from the US, Canada, and England. And much of what’s strange about Chinese law is because it’s civil law, not common law. So a lot of what we have to explain is that Chinese law is based on a completely different legal tradition. And that’s the area that I enjoy working with, because it’s been my area of research and interest for a long time.

The other, of course, is that most foreigners believe that China doesn’t have any law, period. And so a lot of what we’re doing is just making clear to people where the law is in China and how it affects their daily life and the fact that there really is law here and it needs to be used effectively and creatively. So most of our readership is completely blank. That’s why they enjoy what we write so much, because they’re coming at it from complete blank.

The other group we have are people who think we’re full of nonsense and are critical of what we say. And they’re fun to deal with, too. Because there’s two groups like that:

• There’s the Chinese people who think that what we say about China is based on the fact that we don’t understand China. Everything I write is based on Chinese sources, so that’s a funny comment, I believe.
• Then there’s the other group where we’re not China cheerleaders or detractors, we’re kind of in the middle. And the China cheerleaders don’t like what we write.

Chengdu Living: You do a great job of staying neutral.

Steven: Yeah, that’s our goal. To be as neutral as we can while still being true to our real beliefs.

Dan and I are politically very far apart but we both like and are willing to accept foreign countries and foreign cultures. And we don’t expect them to be clones of our own culture and that’s what gets us through a lot of these things. To have a genuine, not just respect for, but a genuine affection for foreign cultures, and we both have that feeling about China.

Chengdu Living: Thanks for answering our questions.

What do you think?

Have you heard of China Law Blog before? How do you feel about China’s 12th five year plan? If you have an opinion, leave it below.

The hukou system has become a major source of social tension in the last thirty years as rural residents have watched their urban cousins grow wealthy while they languished in poverty – major inequalities exist between rural households and urban households in terms of the benefits, subsidies, insurance and aid they receive from the state.

A migrant worker surveys new constructions

The program here in Chengdu is a one-of-a-kind experiment in China to see what effects the unshackling of the populace through elimination of one’s hukou as the basis for receiving government benefits could have on poverty alleviation and social stability.

If the last 30 years are any indication of what happens when Chinese are released from bondage, then the impact of these reforms could be singularly transformative.

The Basic Chinese Social Unit

For a Chinese family, their hukou defines not only where they are from, but what class they belong to, what opportunities are open to them and how far they might be able to climb in the future.

For rural migrants – the oil that has kept the Chinese economic engine greased – the hukou is like an iron collar and a great wall wrapped into one woeful burden. In order to do anything in China, you have to produce your hukou.

If you have a rural hukou, but you are trying to get married, have children, apply for insurance, get a job, or send your kids to school in the city, it could be much more difficult for you. You might have to pay higher fees, you might not have access to that service at all and you might have to make runs back to the location of your hukou to gain approval, documents or signatures that still might not help you get what you need.

Rural officials are often much poorer (and therefore more corrupt) than their urban counterparts, so the benefits (unemployment, stats-subsidized insurance, housing allowances) are usually inadequate for anyone living in the city if they even exist at all.

If you have heard the term “floating population” before and were not exactly sure what that meant, now you know:

Rural workers who left their hometown for work in the cities were technically non-persons, unable to go to school, sign contracts, rent a home, go to the hospital or any other basic service, because according to the hukou system as it was originally envisioned, a person lived, worked, played, was cared for and eventually died within spitting distance of where they registered their hukou.

The system is the quintessential tool of control in China and even though it has been de facto ignored as long as peasants kept sweeping streets or assembling keyboards, the inequality remained.

The whole nation is watching closely to see what happens over the next few years as Chengdu takes off the iron collar and breaks down the wall that kept farmers and urbanites separated for so long.

Why the Reforms?

When the Chengdu government announced their plans to unify the hukou system by 2012, they released a document, ”The Unification of all Greater Municipality Hukou (Chinese),” which is a detailed account of the problems they encountered with the system and the solutions they are planning to enact.

Basically, the government studies show that rural residents have little access to government aid while urban residents enjoyed much greater access and also much greater benefits. In order to meet the demands of the “Enrich the Countryside” campaign and further the goals of the “Unifying Urban and Rural” program as well as contribute to the creation of a “Harmonious Society,” the city had to do something about all those broke, hungry and increasingly angry farmers out there with their noses pressed against the glass of the rapidly growing urban areas.

Some of the inequalities the government hopes to straighten out include the differences between medical insurance, housing benefits, unemployment benefits and education.

In the past, a farmer had a plot of land of a certain size and that was that, no matter how many children he had or how many people were in his family. Under this system, a farmer’s son would grow up without land of his own and automatically enter the ranks of the un-(or under-) employed, but with no system in place to protect him or help him find work. According to the city’s plan, by the end of 2011, urban and rural unemployment benefits will be unified and a landless farmer will be considered unemployed, thereby giving him access to urban unemployment benefits.

These employment benefits also cover discharged soldiers. Soldiers who returned to their homes in the city could expect unemployment benefits and help finding a job, but soldiers returning to a rural home were met with the same lack of help that every other farmer suffered under until these recent reforms. Under the new rules, a discharged soldier receives help no matter where he is from, unless he has land – land under the Chinese system is the equivalent of a job.

There used to be three basic types of insurance that the state offered: insurance for urban residents, retirement insurance for rural residents and insurance for rural residents working in the city. The insurance offered to rural residents was not only small, but very simple: a farmer paid a few hundred yuan per year and when he retired could expect to see 50 yuan or so a month. Urban dwellers have much more sophisticated and useful insurance programs and now with the unification of the hukou, the migrant worker insurance has been scrapped and rural residents now have access to the same insurance that urban residents have.

Farmers also had no access to government subsidies that helped urban dwellers rent or buy homes, under the new system they can apply for these benefits with their ID card, instead of their old hukou.

Migrant workers arrive in Chengdu at the train station by the thousands carrying personal cargo

A Final Step Toward Total Urbanization

That the government would be abolishing the hukou system purely to correct inequality seems hard to swallow in today’s China. The move will also speed up urbanization, a major goal of the nation since 1979, and this is perhaps the most important consquence of hukou reform, from the government’s point of view.

If farmers flock to the cities en masse and alter their hukou status from rural to urban, that theoretically leaves the countryside open for development. Development of the countryside has been a very difficult thing to pull off, despite “Enriching the Countryside” and “Urban and Rural One Entity” campaigns, because China’s developers and local officials routinely collude to drive farmers off of their land with the least possible compensation. In order to speed up urbanization and remove the obstacle of angry farmers, local governments across China hope that eliminating the differences between rural and urban hukous will act as an attractive enough carrot to lure farmers away from their land.

But as officials in Chongqing have learned, Chinese farmers are “once bitten, twice shy”. Hukou reform in Chongqing has stalled as thousands of farmers have refused to alter their hukou status out of fear of losing their land for the smoke and mirror benefits of being a bona fide urbanite. Rural residents would rather hold on to their land and fight it out with developers (or simply plant food), than risk giving it all up, so the city has switched gears and focused on “turning” rural students into urbanites instead …

Even if the government’s plan works and farmers throw their rural hukou (and land) away and move to the city, the impact might be less than desirable. Online critics of the plan point out that under the new system, rural schools will stand empty as rural parents make a mad rush for urban schools. Another major concern of netizens who reacted to the story is the clause that allows “outsiders to apply for a Chengdu hukou,” a clause that has many worried that benefits will be stretched thin by an influx of non-Chengdunese.

Chengdu officials make a point of saying that under the new system, all distinctions between urban and rural hukou are abolished, which means urbanites can also move to the countryside and buy land, farm and in effect “trade classes”. Instead of inspiring urbanites to consider life on the farm, statements like these only fuel farmers’ concerns that the whole hukou reform thing is just another land grab.

A Long Time Coming

Hukou reform has been on the agenda for years.

Holding up a "Household Register" hukou booklet

In 2007, a China Daily article remarked that the hukou “has become neither scientific nor rational given the irresistible trend of migration” and just a few months ago, Professor Kam Wing Chan of the University of Washington wrote a post for the East Asia Forum that gathered a lot of the snippets about hukou reform from around the Chinese media, including a joint appeal for serious reform from several provinces.

And in this response to Chengdu’s pilot program, the authors argue that the hukou has actually contributed more to inequality, poverty and suffering than anything else, stating: “The best hukou system is no hukou system.” There is even an English-language blog, Hukou Reform, that tracks the progress China has made thus far in abolishing this arcane system of control.

Without the hukou, people will be able to move freely and shed their previous class distinction and assume another based on their own desires. In the West, we take this freedom for granted, but in China moving to another city has always been a huge deal because all of the basic social services that ensured a retirement in relative peace and quiet were based on one’s hukou. Mobility — legal mobility — does not only present many economic opportunties but also social issues as well:

As mentioned above, many city dwellers who have voiced their opinions online fear an even greater influx of farmers which means a greater strain on traffic, housing, government services, education etc. Will there be a measurable move out to the countryside? Will people pack up and move en masse to the city? Or will people basically stay as they are and just apply for the new benefits? Can farmers even afford to buy in to the urban insurance options? Will this only affect those farmers who have already left the land behind and can now officially become the urban resident they were  “pretending” to be since they came here years ago to work?

Although it is clear that the hukou system as a tool of social control is obsolete, the impact of “hukou re-unification” is much more difficult to discern. The problems lie not just in the system, but in China’s underdeveloped insurance industry, irrevocably corrupted lower levels of government and the deep class divisions that permeate the society.

Perhaps Chengdu’s pilot program is a step toward social reconciliation, itself the first step toward a measure of equality in any society.

This post was authored by Sascha, an American writer living in Shanghai who’s lived in Chengdu for 10 years.

I rode from the Sichuan Gymnasium Station (省体育馆) to Century City (世纪城) taking pictures all the way. Rather than tell you what it was like, I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Entering the Sichuan Gymnasium station

Well dressed ticket man grants me entrance

No cigarettes, vendors, littering or begging on the Chengdu subway

There were almost no passengers in Chengdu stations at all on the first day of operation

A map of stations along the first line of the subway

Large LCD screens show information inside stations. Plus, man in panda suit comically falls down the escalator

Passengers bags pass through a metal detector before descending to the train platform

You can easily see inside the control room in each station

Walking down the stairs to the train platform

Waiting for the train on the platform, the goofy panda appears again

Stations feature bold lettering indicating your current station

Boarding the northbound train which goes to Chengdu's North Train Station

As the train arrived, this guy stood directly in front of me and made this gesture

Upon stepping inside the train for the first time I find it filled with passengers

LCD's inside trains loop footage created by the train authority. Goofy panda once again.

Indicators above the door show current and next stop with a series of blinking lights

Exiting the station I pass through a corridor lined with huge backlit photos

Two subway workers joke as they exit the Sichuan Gymnasium Station

My journey ends as I say goodbye to the employees at the subway entrance

Overall I’m really impressed with the Chengdu subway and can’t wait to see the impact that it has on the city.

Subway Details

Official Opening Date

October 1st, 2010

Hours of Operation

7am – 9pm

Price of Tickets

2-4 yuan depending on origin and destination

Stations on the First Line

Shenxian Lake
North Train Station
Renmin Beilu
Wenshu Monastery
Luomashi
Tianfu Square (the subway’s largest station and hub)
Jinjiang Hotel
Huaxiba
Sichuan Gymnasium
Nijiaqiao
Tongzilin
South Train Station
High-Tech Zone
Financial City
Incubation Center
Haiyang Ocean Park
Century City

Questions or comments about the Chengdu Subway? Leave a comment!

My Affinity With Chengdu

All my friends in China refer to Chengdu and me in the same breath and I am proud of that. Wherever I go, people say I speak Sichuan dialect and I am proud of that too. I am an alien in China and for me having a place that feels like home is important.

I have been moving from place to place all of my life and I fear that I will never find a place that I can truly call my home, but when I fly into Chengdu’s Shuangliu International Airport, breaking through the cloud blanket onto dusty south Chengdu, I feel good. I start beatboxing to myself, find the nearest cabbie and start spitting my dirtiest Sichuan hua. The cabbies are awesome because they take it in stride and just hand me a smoke.

I love Chengdu. But I gotta go.

I took a job editing Chinatravel.net in the antithesis of the ‘Du: glitzy, glamorous Shanghai, hereafter known as The Hai.

Representing

You know how you can tell a German apart from an Englishman or from an American with just a glance at his bearing, clothes, facial expression and the look in his eyes? The same thing exists for laowai.

When I see a Kunming laowai walk down the street I know it when I see it and he knows it too. He might be a little bit dusty and his dress code screams “Fuck a 9 to 5!” and when he swings his head around at the scent of Southwest cuisine a lone dreadlock might crack a passerby in the jaw. I know he is from the Spring City and he knows I am from the ‘Du.

When I see Beijing foreigners walk around I can usually tell that too, because although they tuck their shirts in and most likely do not sport dreadlocks, there is a grittiness about them that bespeaks underground clubs and a circle of friends dominated by thinkers. Laowai from the provinces inbetween Chengdu and the coast have that special lost look about them that says: I may have forgotten my mother tongue and my stomach can’t handle Mom’s cooking anymore.

The Shanghai Vibe

Shanghai is different from the rest of China in a way that isn’t exactly cool, although laowai in Shanghai would say that Shanghai is by far the coolest city in China.

There are a lot of ex-frat boys and MBA grads here: East coast boarding school cats with trust funds and famously rich grandparents and I have never identified with them or their hand-me-down sense of superiority. The Hai also has a large population of young, beautiful foreign women. This is a very unique thing in China, because as we all have noticed, beautiful foreign women don’t often venture out to Chongqing or Urumuqi. They tend to stay where the living is easy and the shopping diverse.

Way back in the day I read The eXile book: Sex, Drugs and Lies in the New Russia , founded by Mark Ames and Matt Taibbi and they mentioned a phenomenon known as “expatella,” which refers to Western women trying to live in places like China and Russia.

Western women tend to lose out to local girls in one-on-one confrontations over men, for a variety of reasons that I don’t really care to get into right now. So, in order to distinguish themselves from local girls, Western women tend to adapt a somewhat bitter, perhaps wary attitude towards Western men, maybe they go ahead and give local guys a shot, maybe they go all out and try and be the party girl, but basically, they change a bit in order to compete with local girls. No disrespect, I’m just calling it how I see it (and others have seen it as well).

Now in Shanghai there is a Western woman population with some confidence and some style — they might still display a few expatella traits, but its not the same as the Western girls out in Chengdu. Its interesting and merits further investigation.

Shanghai's cityscape is like a sprawling labrynth of new construction and development

Shanghai has a bit of Gotham to it, with all of the high rises that block the views for most people, but at the same time there are shopping districts like Xintiandi and the like where you can watch trophy ladies strut their stuff in high heels, swinging tiny little brand name shopping bags as they saunter by. Off the boat Europeans and rich Middle Eastern families are on display.

There are a lot of hot, nice cars cruising up and down the French Concession and you can hear them revving up and down the boulevards late at night, no doubt filled with laughing harlots in Daisy Dukes and ketamine addled rich kids who just don’t give a damn.

Every morning when I head to work, I take the subway (Line 10 to Line 2) and the 9-5 crowd really trips me out. I feel like a lurid observer, but then i look down at my key card dangling from my neck and realize separation is an illusion. I remember laughing haughtily at tales of stuffed subway cars and bobbin’ my head to Del’s Bob Dobalina (Youtube blocked? Freedur has the key!) track and now I find myself elbowing fat sweaty dudes out of my way so I can get to the escalator 2 seconds quicker.

Its just one of those types of towns: up and coming, flush with office workers, fast cash and loose women. The city feels like it is trying to prove to itself and to everyone else that it truly deserves to be mentioned along with New York and London and Tokyo by doing all the things expected of an up and coming city. Whatever I might think about offices and suits, you gotta give propers where propers are due: Shanghai is goin’ global and doing it in style.

Urban Analysis

Now, Hong Kong has a similar environment — riches, hard dialect, good shopping — but the vital difference here is history. Shanghai has the French Concession and a history of being the Pearl and such, but the Hai is constantly re-inventing itself. It lives in the trendy moment, just a hair’s breadth behind Tokyo and a length or two behind Paris or New York.

But Shanghai tries so hard to be those cities and that smacks of fakery and pretender-ism. Hong Kong has an elegance that permeates the trendiness of this Fall’s coming fashion, whereas Shanghai seems to be constantly  re-designing its own identity. It’s a fashion-money-sex city in many ways, but its the fashion of the 20-something sex kitten, constantly changing her hairstyle, not the more mature diva, whose honed style influences the kitten.

What is the Hai Exactly?

I am not sure yet. I go on the impressions I built in my many stays here. I have friends here that can fit in anywhere and will be my friends for life, transcending any No Coast – East Coast rivalry that really only exists in my head anyway. It is one heck of a leap, from down low country living to a 9 to 5 in the big city, but I remain adaptable and life here will most likely proceed according to Sascha Time as it always seems to.

I hope that over the next few months I discard my “Chengdu Spy in the Belly of the Beast” mentality and just be a missionary of Southwest culture out here or — which is much more likely — just accept the fact that repping your spot stems from fear and enjoy this new chapter of my life: Dirty ‘Du Veteran Chillin’ in the Hai.

Two weeks ago I was contacted by Dries, a Dutch entrepreneur who’s been living in Chengdu for years, about the architectural visualization production company which he’s employed by. His inquery turned into a tour of the massive office he works at, which is the latest addition to the company’s 12 other locations in China. In the words of Lifang, the gargantuan industrial visualizations company:

LiFang International Digital is one of the largest architectural computer graphics producing company’s in Asia. LiFang International Digital Technology Group was formed in 2001 in Shenzhen. Now its headquarters is located in Shanghai. LiFang offers high end 3D computer graphics; visualizations, multimedia, 3D animation, virtual reality (VR), film and video editing and interactive applications, powered by more than 700 3D professionals in house and 10 years of experience. LiFang works successfully with architects, project developers, engineers and entrepreneurs to create professional presentations.

Recently I’ve been in touch with an unusually large number of architects, especially after this post on Chengdu Living about Adam Mayer, local friend and architect. I’m just now learning more about the concept and design backend to the countless construction cranes dotting Chengdu’s horizon and what role foreigners and foreign enterprise plays into that.

Visiting LiFang

After being picked up by a young Chinese driver in front of Lao Ma Tou in a white BMW 7-series, I’m taken far outside of the city, to the West. As I figure out how to adjust the seat in white BMW 7-series, the driver and I chat about the company and his role there. He’s been working there for only 2 months and the car, that of the “big boss”, is on loan while he’s out of town. As we pass the third ring road I appreciate them appropriating the Presidents dapper automobile to pick me up and show me their admittedly impressive office.

The office is spread among 3 floors in a very large office building with a swank lobby that features their logo prominently. The furniture is the expensive looking variety that’s not comfortable. Outside of the elevator, the first room that I’m taken to is the show room.

The Show Room

This is definitely where they take anyone new to their office first. Basically, they’ve built a caverous room and filled it with slick gadgets to eliminate any doubt that they’re a cutting edge company.

The Tabletop Computer

The first gizmo that I’m introduced to is a tabletop computer display (pictured above, on the left) which allows you to flick images and videos around the massive display. In the demonstration I was given, several LiFang promotional reels were playing at once and I could shrink and enlarge them with finger gestures or toss them about the display with a swipe motion. In use it felt a lot like a huge iPhone. I was able to get a peek at the inside of the box from one end and could see how simple the setup actually was: a clear touch sensitive panel sitting above a projector reflecting off a mirror onto the surface.

Giant Google Maps

Just across from the tabletop device was what looked like an ordinary projected image (seen above displaying the world map). This too was a touch screen, though, running Google Maps. Zooming in on Western China was a blast and worked just like I thought it would. Using Google Maps on a device that’s larger than your peripheral vision is quite an experience, although your arms get tired from doing the dramatic movements required to zoom in and out quickly on such a large display. After a minute of zooming around I was ready to move on.

Much Wider Than Widescreen

Unfortunately what might have been the coolest of the showroom gadgets was out of commission during my visit: a 6-projector super widescreen movie display to show off LiFang’s animations. The screen looks so wide that nothing formatted especially for it would display properly, but the slight curve of the screen stretching more than 5 meters wide was impressive even out of operation.

Not Your Average eBook

On the way out I was introduced to “the book”. This is an oversized book on a pedestal with a projected image cast upon it, but of course there’s a special trick: swipe your hand from left to right over the book and the page turns. I flipped through pages of what looked like a LiFang promotional PDF document, admiring the page turning animation and wondering under what circumstances would someone actually stand here to read something.

At some point during my tour of the showroom it dawned on me how Chinese a room such as this actually is. It serves little purpose but to wow prospective clients or business partners with technology that mostly bears little relation to what LiFang actually does. Gotta have a gadget room, though.

Having finished the showroom tour, I was ready to check out the less eye-catching parts of the office and see what what LiFang is all about.

What LiFang Does

As I leave the showroom Dries tells me more about what LiFang does: the bulk their business is in creating 3D images which show property developers what a new construction will look like. Architectural firms based in China and abroad send blueprints and related material to LiFang who puts that data into a three part process:

1. Modelling the three dimensional object in 3D Studio Max: including walls, windows, doors and other building fabrications
2. Adding textures to the 3D models, like glass, brick, concrete and so on. Through the texture process objects are given life and go from computer models into realistic looking objects; and
3. Two-dimensional compositing work done in Photoshop which adds polish to the final images. In this stage, small objects like trees and grass are touched up and made to look as realistic as possible, resulting in a final image with a striking level of detail

The result of this three-step process are images like those below. They’re photo-realistic and give property developers the inspiration they might need to push them over the edge on a decision that leads to a multi-million dollar construction.

Three Floors, Hundreds of Employees

As I walk past the hundreds of people sitting in front of computers across the three-level office, I notice that they’re all divided by the tasks mentioned above. One floor is entirely comprised of 3D modellers making wireframe models and the floor above is all Photoshop post-processing. Few people take mind of me as I walk through the office (Dries is the only foreigner that works at the Chengdu office) but some people smile and offer a friendly “Hello!”. Currently there are over 150 employees at LiFang in Chengdu, but Dries tells me later that the number of employees will eclipse 400 by years end and will surely number in the thousands by 2012. Why?

“As you know, Chengdu is developing very quickly. LiFang knows that, and there’s the added benefit of many local graduates skilled in art, design and architecture. The local Technology University (电子科大) is known all around China and it’s easy for LiFang to recruit recent graduates without having to pay them as much as they would on the east coast. This office is poised to become very important in the grand scheme of LiFang due to its position, geographically and comercially”, Dries tells me in a conference room with 30 empty chairs next to us. “Around the world there aren’t really any companies that operate on this level. Imagine how much it would cost to employ 1,000 skilled workers such as these? This enormous-scale sort of thing only makes sense in China.”

Leaving LiFang

After touring the entire facility I said goodbye, thanked Dries for his time and left LiFang in the same bosses white BMW wondering what else there is within Chengdu’s vicinity.

You can read more about LiFang on their official homepage.

The Twinning Scheme

This very candid look at the reconstruction process from the China Daily mentions a lot of the problems surrounding the process — corrupt officials skimming funds, unorganized distribution of funds and material, slow or delayed construction projects and over-optimistic statements by political figures. These problems have led to a very uneven reconstruction effort that has made Wenchuan, Beichuan and Dujianguyan — darlings of the media in the first few months after the quake — into vastly improved towns, but has left places like Deyang, Shifan, Hanwang and the villages and towns that surround these cities worse off than before the quake. A lot of this uneven re-development has to do with the government’s initial methods for reconstruction.

In 2008, the central government put together an ingenious scheme to help re-build the area: they partnered counties, villages and towns affected by the disaster with affluent provinces from other parts of the nation. So companies from Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Beijing, Shandong and other provinces were seen building temporary housing, re-paving roads, building bridges and taking care of orphans, survivors and the elderly. Some sorely under-developed villages of barely 20,000 people in Sichuan were partnered with fabulously wealthy villages of 100,000 people and larger and the results were fantastic. Some villages in Sichuan were expanded to twice or thrice their initial size and were given control over apartment complexes, water management systems and other new contributions for their partners — high-end gifts that they had never seen before, let alone handled.

As this process was going on, the provincial and central authorities got together and established an international team of city planners and regional infrastructure specialists and drew up a series of plans to not only re-build the area, but take advantage of the tragedy to develop northern Sichuan into a self-sufficient engine of growth. These plans centered on the re-construction of Beichuan and Wenchuan, laying down a proper road network and turning Dujiangyan into a tourism hub with quick, direct connections to Chengdu and to the surrounding towns. The plan included the concept of multiple centers of development that would radiate to lesser developed areas ie Dujiangyan would benefit from Chengdu and QingCheng Mountain would benefit from Dujiangyan.

Uneven Development

In many ways, this scheme has been very successful, but it has also contributed to the very malaise that dogged this region before the quake: pockets of gleaming affluence surrounded by fields of abject poverty.

“There are a lot of areas that are still in need of a lot of attention,” said Peter Goff, one of the founding members of Sichuan Quake Relief (SQR) and a familiar face to residents in the earthquake affected areas. “Housing, health care, education, environment concerns — (the provincial government) is telling Habitat for Humanity to stop building homes now that the mission has been accomplished but their are still thousands and thousands of people living in temporary shelters.”

NGO vs GNGO

SQR has devoted much of their efforts to information gathering, incubating local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civic society and most of all, to a tiny kindergarten in the town of Luo Shui. The group has found it difficult to fund and pursue the many projects that need to be done in the area, so focusing on one kindergarten, where they have strong local support, is the most efficient and rewarding way to help out.

Now that the local, provincial and central authorities have hung a Bush-like “Mission Accomplished” banner over the disaster areas, NGOs like SQR, Habitat for Humanity and the local ones they support and work with are being asked to cease operations because they are no longer needed. The Chinese government is not very keen on NGOs to begin with, making the application process very difficult and throwing up roadblocks any chance they get.

“Even the concept here is called GNGO (Governmental-NGO), which is the total opposite of what civil society should be,” said Goff. “I firmly believe that in any country, the state needs to be backed up by grassroots civil organizations that understand local issues and can support those people trying to solve those issues.”

In Lui Shui, SQR director David Hunt has seen local organizations spring up after the disaster, take control of their own destiny and help to solve pressing issues in the community. Major issues include access to government grants for new housing and other compensation — everything from a new washing machine to replacement livestock. In order to qualify for the grants, an individual must navigate the full court press of China’s formidable bureaucracy. In order to streamline the process and support the members of their community, local organizations such as the Luo Shui Women’s Club and Senior Citizens Club have thrown themselves behind certain applications and helped others gain access to the compensation grants.

A memorial for earthquake victims

Unfortunately, the grants cover anywhere from 20-30% of the actual cost of a house, as housing prices in the affected areas have risen dramatically in the last two years. To help cover these costs, a local must use their own savings, or apply from a loan from a private banking institution. Other issues include long-term health care for survivors — some of them breadwinners for their families — and the consolidation of villages into larger towns that forces farmers to send their children far away to go to school, or to move.

“All of these issues, and countless others, have put a huge financial burden on people who were not well off to begin with,” said Hunt. “There are grassroots organizations that are trying to help .. but they have difficulty registering as official NGOs and with that comes issues with raising required levels of funding. SQR would like to be able to support these grassroots groups by re-granting funding that we receive from donors.”

SQR’s efforts and the efforts of the grassroots groups to fill the gaps in government aid to the affected areas might be hampered by the politically-motivated declaration by Sichuan’s governor that “all rural and urban reconstruction will be finished by September 2010.”

Another issue that compounds the problems of re-construction is the unavailability of reliable information. Government ministries routinely refuse to release any information they might have concerning housing, education, health care or any other issue. The only effective way, so far, to gain any idea of what is actually happening in the affected areas is to take a pencil and paper and ask the locals. When SQR did to this — in a limited way — the result was a mob of angry Sichuanese demanding support from their government.

The key to addressing local issues is a grassroots network of organizations. But as long as politicians choose to strangle these seeds before they grow and pose for cameras beneath a Mission Accomplished banner, these local issues will continue to fester.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll take take a closer look at some of the achievements and obstacles of re-construction in Sichuan such as housing, health care, environmental concerns and the concept of NGO vs GNGO in China. Stay Tuned.

The remnants of that southern Taiping rebel army scattered to the hills and according to local legend, helped develop a martial arts culture that fused with and influenced the nearby Emei Mountain Gong Fu style. To this day, Hanyuan has a disproportionate number of traditional martial arts schools which help man the police forces and mafias of Sichuan Province. Hanyuan people drink hard, play hard and fight hard and for the past 10 years, they have been fighting a losing battle with the government’s plans to develop the region. The long struggle was renewed recently when farmers and migrant workers once again violently challenged the government’s re-location scheme last week.

Pubu Gorge Dam

The Pubu Gorge Dam is one of the nation’s bigger hydroelectric projects and upon completion will generate 3,300 megawatts of power annually and is key to the Sichuan Provincial government’s goal of 15,000 megawatts of total output from the Da Du River by 2020. In contrast, the Three Gorges Dam alone is expected to have an installed capacity of 18,200 megawatts. The Pubu Dam project is part of the central government’s 15-year plan to develop energy resources for the entire country under the “electricity from the West, money from the East” program, referring to the vastly untapped energy resources in China’s poorer Western regions and the wealthier and electricity starved benefactors along the eastern seaboard

The reservoir created by the dam will leave most of Hanyuan Town underneath a lake. The local government has a re-settlement plan for the locals who are affected by the Pubu Gorge Dam, but as with most such plans in China, corruption robs the re-settlement fund of the required cash and promises made by officials are never kept. The apartment buildings meant to house the farmers who have lost their land are shoddy and will not last more than a few years, according to Hanyuan residents. The money that was supposed to last until 2008 — when the Dam was scheduled to be completed — has run out and the Dam is far from completed.

In 2004, farmers rose up against the local government, surrounding the local Party office and demanding appropriate compensation for lands, homes and crops they lost when the government forced them to relocate. The stand-off in 2004 forced newly appointed CPC Boss Hu Jintao to send in the military to quell this most recent rebellion — this translation of an essay by He Qinglian is a good analysis of the political scene at the time. What exactly happened is unclear — foreign media were thrown out, domestic media were brought to heel and the locals adhere to a code of silence. According to some eyewitness reports that made it out of Hanyuan, the soldiers massacred the rebels and their leaders. Whatever the truth is, the protests in Hanyuan went silent and the central government temporarily halted construction on the Pubu Gorge Dam to wait for everything to blow over.

The relocation process was again delayed by the earthquake in 2008, but is rumbling back to life this week over the trampled bodies of locals fighting for their livelihoods.

The Most Difficult Highway in the World

The last leg of the trunk highway from Kunming to Beijing runs right passed Hanyuan. This part of the highway, called the Yalu Highway, is more than 50% bridges and tunnels including one tunnel more than 3 miles long — one of the longest in the world. The elevation of the bridges, the depth and length of the tunnels and the fact that more than half of the Yalu must be dug out of or span the peaks of western Sichuan makes it the most difficult highway in the world to design and build.

Just like with the dam, the highway also requires a mass relocation of poverty stricken locals. These people have been bullied, cheated and lied to by the government and have repeatedly sued and marched for justice. All to no avail; the Hanyuan authorities are as brutal as they are corrupt and after Hu Jintao ordered the military to quell riots in 2004, the government has the green light for violent dispersal of all rebels and protesters. The long-term plan is to use modernization, relocation, repression and a bit of wealth generation to stomp out the rebel streak. In the short-term, local crooked politicians and their allies pocket relocation money, construction money and anything else that isn’t tied down and then appeal to the Provincial and Central governments for more money and more resources to complete the relocation process and to quell any riots that ensue. Its a dirty business and towns like Hanyuan are fighing (and losing) this type of battle all across the nation.

For a glimpse of this town’s character, check out this video clip made by local B-Boys days after the 2008 earthquake ravaged parts of the town: