Soup, Love, and a Helping Hand: Social Relations and Support in Guangzhou, China 9781785336775

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Soup, Love, and a Helping Hand

Asian Anthropologies General Editors: Xin Liu, University of California, Berkeley Hans Steinmüller, London School of Economics Dolores Martinez, SOAS, University of London Founding Editors: Shinji Yamashita, The University of Tokyo J.S. Eades, Emeritus Professor, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University Volume 1 Globalization in Southeast Asia: Local, National, and Transnational Perspectives Edited by Shinji Yamashita and J.S. Eades Volume 2 Bali and Beyond: Case Studies in the Anthropology of Tourism Shinji Yamashita Volume 3 The Making of Anthropology in East and Southeast Asia Edited by Shinji Yamashita, Joseph Bosco, and J.S. Eades Volume 4 Centering the Margin: Agency and Narrative in Southeast Asian Borderlands Edited by Alexander Horstmann and Reed L. Wadley Volume 5 Engaging the Spirit World in Modern Southeast Asia Edited by Andrea Lauser and Kirsten W. Endres Volume 6 Multiculturalism in New Japan: Crossing the Boundaries Within Edited by Nelson Graburn, John Ertl, and R. Kenji Tierney Volume 7 Ogata-Mura: Sowing Dissent and Reclaiming Identity in a Japanese Farming Village Donald C. Wood Volume 8 Soup, Love, and a Helping Hand: Social Relations and Support in Guangzhou, China Friederike Fleischer

SOUP, LOVE, AND A HELPING HAND Social Relations and Support in Guangzhou, China

 Friederike Fleischer

berghahn NEW YORK • OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com

First published in 2018 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2018 Friederike Fleischer

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Fleischer, Friederike, editor. Title: Soup, Love, and a Helping Hand: Social Relations and Support in Guangzhou, China / edited by Friederike Fleischer. Description: New York: Berghahn Books, 2018. | Series: Asian Anthropologies; volume 8 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017051490 (print) | LCCN 2017059195 (ebook) | ISBN 9781785336775 (eBook) | ISBN 9781785336553 (hardback: alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Guangzhou (China)—Social conditions. | Interpersonal relations— China—Guangzhou. | Social service—China—Guangzhou. Classification: LCC HN740.G837 (ebook) | LCC HN740.G837 S68 2018 (print) | DDC 306.09512/75--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017051490

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78533-655-3 hardback ISBN 978-1-78533-677-5 ebook

To my mother, Rosemarie Fleischer, 1932–2016

CONTENTS

 List of Illustrations

ix

Acknowledgements

x

Map

xiii

List of Main Interlocutors

xiv

Introduction

1 Part I: Soup

1. “If not his child, who will pay for his living?”: Household and Kin-Based Support

27

2. Neighbors and Friends

46

3. Support and Reciprocity

63 Part II: Love

4. Religious Revival

79

5. The Church: Social and Religious Services

87

6. Love: A Community of Believers

101

Part III: A Helping Hand 7. Philanthropy, Charity, and Volunteerism

113

8. Inspirations and Motivations to Volunteer

126

9. Volunteering: Governmentality and Agency

139

viii | Contents

Conclusion: Soup, Love, and a Helping Hand: Urban Transformations and the Ethics of Social Support

150

Bibliography

163

Index

173

ILLUSTRATIONS

 Figures 0.1. Contamination. © Author

4

0.2. Guangzhou City Center: Old and New Buildings. © Author

5

0.3. Old Danwei Apartment Block. © Author

7

0.4. New Commercially Sold Apartment Blocks. © Author

8

1.1. Grandparents Provide Vital Support Taking Care of Grandchildren. © Author

28

2.1. New (Reform Period) Danwei Housing. © Author

48

5.1. Church Neighborhood. © Author

89

5.2. Church Neighborhood. © Author

90

5.3. “Love Never Ceases.” © Author

91

8.1. Volunteer Event. © Author

132 Tables

5.1. Church Services and Projects.

96

8.1. Initial and Continuing Motivations to Volunteer.

131

Map 0.1. China and Guangzhou, the Research Site. © Jutta Turner

xiii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

 Writing is often a solitary process and only one author is named on the cover of this book. It is, however, the work of many. Indeed, I could not have completed this project without the contributions and invaluable input of numerous people at different stages of the process. Here I can only name a few. The research for Soup, Love, and a Helping Hand was funded by the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany. I would like to thank the director, Chris Hann, for his guidance, critical comments, and suggestions throughout my postdoctoral studies. Keebet and the late Franz von Benda-Beckmann as well as Stephen Gudeman generously shared their scholarship during the time. The “Social Support in East Asia” group of researchers gave honor to its name and provided invaluable advice and friendship during my time in Germany and China. I benefited particularly from the critical insights by, and discussions with, my MPI colleagues Helena Obendiek, Ayxem Eli, Sarah Schefold, Wu Xiujie, Detelina Tocheva, Irene Becci, Markus Schlecker, and Friedrich Binder. At the institute, Anke Meyer and Berit Westwood provided vital administrative and logistical help. I am indebted to the interlocutors in China, who so willing shared their experiences and grievances with me. I would like to especially thank the Wang and Chen families for opening their homes to me. The Xiatian church community’s welcome and the volunteers’ readiness to talk about their ideas and aspirations provided unique insights into contemporary China. Yet, I could have never completed the research without my two research assistants, who helped me gain access to people and institutions and who patiently explained their world to me. Ma Guoqing, at the Department of Anthropology, Sun Yat-sen University, was my host during fieldwork in 2006–2007 and kindly helped with overcoming all the bureaucratic hurdles involved in doing anthropological research in China. My thanks go to Guo Yuhua and Wu Xiujie for establishing the contact. During a short revisit to Guangzhou in the summer of 2010, I was affiliated with the Department

Acknowledgments | xi

of Geography at Sun Yat-sen University. My special thanks go to Luigi Tomba for putting me in touch with my host at the time, Werner Breitung. Most of the manuscript was written after I joined the Department of Anthropology, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia. I would like to thank my home institution for the financial support I received to return to the field in 2010. In addition, I would like to thank my colleagues in the department who accommodated the travels necessary for my research and writing. Yet, the book would never have been finished without my semester as a visiting scholar at the Department of Anthropology, University of California, Irvine. I am extremely grateful to my host, Mei Zhan, who made this possible, and to Wang Feng, who kindly put us in touch. Thanks to George Marcus for letting me use his office space and to the Institute for Money, Technology & Financial Inclusion (IMTFI) team for their inspiring company and friendship during the time. Last revisions to the book were made during a visiting scholarship at the HafenCity University, Hamburg, Germany, in the summer of 2017, which was partially funded by a travel grant from the Universidad de los Andes. I would like to thank Jörg Knieling and Kathrin Wildner for hosting and sharing their research with me. During the time, I also greatly benefited from exchange and discussions with Gesa Ziemer, Alexa Färber, and Monika Grubbauer. Thanks to Monika Berghahn, Burke Gerstenschlager, Amanda Horn, and the production team at Berghahn Books for accepting this project for publication and their careful and patient guidance throughout the process. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their thorough reading and suggestions on how to improve the manuscript. All errors remain, of course, my responsibility. Apart from the people and institutions who contributed directly to the research and writing of this book, my work on China has been shaped by, and greatly benefited from, the work of and discussion with important scholars in the China field of studies. I would like to especially thank (in alphabetical order) Arianne Gaetano, Lisa Hoffmann, Andrew Kipnis, Anru Lee, Ellen Oxford, Gonçalo Santos, Alan and Josie Smart, Luigi Tomba, Danning Wang, Yan Yunxiang, and Li Zhang for their interest in my work over the years. Beyond the China field of studies, I would like to thank my family and friends in Germany, Colombia, China, and the United States for their encouragement, support, and patience during all these years. Friederike Brockmann enthusiastically took it upon herself to shoot the cover photo. Andrés Páez accompanied me for part of the research to Guangzhou and subsequently in Germany as well as during the semester in Irvine. Thank you for your love and companionship and your belief in me. Finally, it fills me with great sadness that my mother, Rosemarie Fleischer, passed away before the completion of this book. Her determination to follow her dreams and her curiosity about the world were, and will remain, a true inspiration.

xii | Acknowledgments

Parts of this book were previously published as Friederike Fleischer, “Young Chinese Volunteers: Self/Interest, Altruism, and Moral Models,” in Ethnographies of Social Support, edited by Markus Schlecker and Friederike Fleischer (New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2013), 121–40, and have been reproduced with the permission of Palgrave Macmillan.

MAP OF CHINA



Map 0.1. China and Guangzhou, the Research Site.

MAIN INTERLOCUTORS AND THEIR FAMILIES

 Chen Family Chen Yiping, father Wei Lan, mother Chen Lili, daughter Chen Yiping’s birth family Mother (passed away in 2010) Chen Wan, older (half) brother Chen Zhong, first brother Chen Hong, second brother Chen Yiping Chen Yuhua, younger sister Wei Lan’s birth family Mother Wei Zixiong, older (half) brother; wife, two sons Wei Xianghua, older sister; Lin Feng (husband), Lin Rui (son) Wei Hong, second sister; husband, son, daughter-in-law Wei Lan Wei Fang, younger brother; wife, son Wei Xiaobo, second brother; wife, son Wei Xiaoli (“Xiao Mei”), younger sister; Su Yong (husband), Su Lin (daughter) Neighbors and colleagues of Chen family Mr. Peng (former colleague of Wei Lan) Mr. Li (former colleague of Wei Lan)

Main Interlocutors and Their Families | xv

Wang Family Wang Feng, father Li Xiaolei, mother Wang Xiaofei, daughter Wang Feng’s birth family Mother Wang Song, older brother Wang Feng Wang Peng, third brother Wang Lijun, first sister Wang Xiangqun, second sister Wang Mei, younger sister (widow); two daughters Li Xiaolei’s birth family Father and mother (living with oldest brother) Li Peng, older brother; wife, son Li Song, second brother; wife, son Li Hualun, older sister; husband, daughter Li Qiuxin, second sister (widow; no children); caretaker of father and mother Li Yi, third sister; husband (in New Zealand), son Li Xiaolei

INTRODUCTION The God of Wealth, as Ikels wrote almost two decades ago, has indeed returned to Guangzhou.1 Residents are without doubt better off than during the Maoist period; their incomes are higher, their living standards better, their life expectancy longer. At the same time, these advances are also significantly more unevenly distributed than before the reform period.2 As elsewhere in urban China, wealthy Guangzhou residents today buy apartments at prices that could compete with metropolises such as Hong Kong and New York. They own luxury cars, travel internationally, and buy high-end consumer articles. There is also a growing middle class, owners of home(s) and, more and more often, cars who, favored by government policies targeted at increasing this group, lead a comfortable life. Yet, despite growing affluence, a large number of urban Chinese do not fall in either one of these categories. These are low-qualified laborers, the self-employed, laid off, elderly, and disabled people who often live precarious lives. The combined social, economic, and political transformations of the last thirty-five plus years since the beginning of the reform period has not only improved peoples’ livelihoods but also caused strain and new challenges. As a result, significant numbers of urban residents have problems making ends meet or live in potentially precarious conditions. This study started as an inquiry into what has happened to the laobaixing, the “common people,” under the economic, social, and political transformations. More precisely, I examine the issue of social support among Guangzhou residents. This topic is prompted by the transformation of the social contract since the beginning of the reform period. Whereas Maoism offered urban residents a complex net of social welfare that effectively resulted in their state dependency, the last three decades have been marked by the continuous curtailing of public provisioning. When the “iron rice bowl” was smashed, the cradle-to-tomb social security vanished and urban residents had to organize their own social welfare, at least much more than before.3 At first, social support might not appear to be a very innovative concept or concern.4 Yet, turning the issue into a question—who helps whom, how, when, and why—shows its fundamental scope and importance. Inquiring into social Endnotes for this chapter begin on page 20.

2 | Soup, Love, and a Helping Hand

support means examining the social contract of a given society, that is, ideologies and practices of social interaction and relations. Thus, the aim of this book is to examine how China’s dramatic urban transformations have affected urban residents’ social relations and networks of support. The focus is on the “common people,” though this is a slippery term. Here it is used to refer to urban residents who are on the lower rungs of, or just below, the much discussed “new middle classes.”5 My interlocutors were lower rank white-collar employees, workers, or self-employed. Almost all were homeowners and referred to themselves as “just in the middle”—neither poor nor wealthy. What distinguished them from the upper ranks was mostly their disposable income and (sociopolitical) connections or social capital. Thus, they managed to get by, but an unexpected turn of life—unemployment or illness, for example—posed a serious challenge to their household economy. In this context the question arises of how people deal with uncertainty. How do they ensure their own and others’ well-being in the present and future? More specifically, what forms and possibilities of support exist on the level of family (household and kin), neighborhood/ community, and larger society? How do people justify and/or explain their ideas and practices regarding help? And what are the challenges that arise individually and collectively in the context of support practices and expectations? I began this study focusing on two extended families and determined to follow their interactions, interchanges, and ideas as practiced and articulated in their everyday lives. Yet it became quickly evident that focusing narrowly on the kin group excluded a number of significant social relations and domains of people’s everyday lives. While the two extended families remained at the center of the project, I expanded the scope of analysis to include religion/church and volunteerism. Other institutions certainly also played a role, yet these two domains were by far the most common and significant to interlocutors. Thus, what might appear from the outset as a scattered focus in fact is a “classical” anthropological study in that it follows leads from the field. Soup, Love, and a Helping Hand provides an in-depth analysis of a society in the midst of a massive generational, social, and economic transformation. Based on participant observation, formal and informal interviewing, surveys, and mapping I examined different modes and ideologies of help/support, as well as the related issues of reciprocity, relatedness (kinship), and changing state-society relations in contemporary China. Importantly, the picture presented here is not based on economic indicators; “hard” data on the support that people receive or provide is impossible to obtain. Favors, goodwill gestures, and even in-kind support are impossible to objectively measure. While interlocutors constantly assign value to gifts and favors—money or time spent, status or debt acquired—this is highly subjective and cause for major disagreements. Moreover, articulating this measuring process commonly caused discomfort or embarrassment.

Introduction | 3

Thus, even though throughout my research I frequently asked people about the amount of money they earned and how much time and money they spent on others, there was no reliable means to confirm and probe my interlocutors’ answers. In effect, the picture I present here is based on the subjective experiences and reflections of the people at the center of my investigation in combination with my own observations and conclusions. Throughout the study I foreground interlocutors’ thoughts, including their fears, anxieties, and worries, as much as their ideas about (moral) obligations, social expectations, and visions of contemporary (urban) Chinese society revealed in conversations and observations. By putting this ethnographic and local data into conversation with other studies and theoretical reflections, I hope to contribute to a general debate about the interrelation between social support, morality, and kinship in contemporary China and beyond. Before outlining the themes and domains that feature prominently in my research, let me briefly introduce the city of Guangzhou and its surrounding province Guangdong.

Guangzhou Guangzhou, located about 120 kilometers inland on the Pearl River, is the capital of Guangdong province on China’s southeastern coast. Naturally hot and humid in summer and cool and humid in winter, climatic conditions are worsened by environmental pollution. Thick gray smog produced by increasing traffic and the large number of factories throughout the Pearl River Delta covers the sky practically year round (Figure 0.1). Looking back on more than 2,000 years of history, we see that Guangzhou has a long tradition as an international trade center and port. The “southern gateway to China” was the beginning of the Silk Road of the Sea that brought Arab and Indian traders to the city in the second century AD. The city was also one of the first trading posts for European powers in the sixteenth century and declared a “treaty port” after the Opium Wars. Guangdong province (and neighboring Fujian), furthermore, was the origin of most eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Chinese emigrants, a fact that gave the region a competitive advantage in the reform period. Since its pacification in the twelfth century, its geographic distance from the political power center in China’s north guaranteed that the province maintained its distinct character and culture, which is expressed in language, diet, and an alleged “receptiveness to influences from outside China.”6 After the Communist Revolution in 1949, Guangzhou’s history as a center for trade and commerce came to haunt the city. The new Communist government was suspicious of city life in general, and especially of the treaty ports with their foreign-influenced culture. Located at the coastal “front line,” Guangzhou had a very low priority in receiving state investments and effectively went into decline.7

4 | Soup, Love, and a Helping Hand

Figure 0.1. Contamination. © Author

With the reform period, however, the region’s distinct history turned into an advantage: in 1980 three of the first four special economic zones were opened in the province with the intention of attracting the investments of the overseas Chinese who had local connections. When the city of Guangzhou was granted special economic zone status in 1984, the municipal authorities decided on a set of prefer-

Introduction | 5

ential regulations. Again these were intended to encourage overseas Chinese and Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao “compatriots” to invest in the city. The strategy was successful: joint ventures and foreign-owned enterprises’ share of total value of industrial goods and service rose from 1.9% in 1985 to 23.0% in 1991 (Figure 0.2). Notwithstanding its well-established status as the commercial, business, and administrative center of southern China, in more recent years Guangzhou has been facing increasing economic competition from nearby cities in the Pearl River Delta, especially Shenzhen and Hong Kong, which is reflected in indicators like its gross domestic product (GDP) share in the province, GDP per capita, export, and economic growth rate. Moreover, with the handover of Hong Kong in 1997 and Macao in 1999, Guangzhou lost its gateway role. Finally, the Pearl River Delta as an economic region faces increasing competition from Shanghai and the Yangtze River Delta, snatching investment and human capital.8

General Social and Economic Situation of Guangzhou Residents Beginning in the 1990s, the national government gradually reformed the iron rice bowl, transforming the system of guaranteed and subsidized employment, housing, healthcare, and pensions into a social security system based on individuals’

Figure 0.2. Guangzhou City Center: Old and New Buildings. © Author

6 | Soup, Love, and a Helping Hand

and employers’ contributions. A series of laws and stipulations, such as the 1994 Labor Law and the 2008 Labor Contract Law, initiated the reform period social security system. A comprehensive new social security law was, however, issued only as recently as 2011. Generally speaking, under the new system, registered urban residents of Guangzhou (i.e., those with Guangzhou urban hukou)9 have some form of social insurance, which is either provided by their employer or (if they are self-employed) bought from the government, which covers basic medical expenses and provides a pension.10 In addition, almost all interlocutors owned their house, which ranged from commercially constructed, Western-style apartments of eighty square meters and larger to barren, concrete floor, forty square meters flats in buildings from the Maoist period that were occupied by three or more persons. The majority of people had bought discounted apartments from their work units when these were required to sell off their housing stock to occupants at highly subsidized prices beginning in 1989.11 These typically six- to ten-story buildings, built in the early 1990s, offer modest comforts, such as tiled floors, a private kitchen, and a bathroom, but usually have no elevator. A few of the older people in my study lived in Guangzhou-style houses (zhutongwu or qilou) that date from the beginning of the twentieth century (or older). Some of these narrow but deep three- to four-story buildings have a receding first floor used as a store with living quarters above. In both types, bathroom and cooking facilities are minimal (Figures 0.3 and 0.4).12 The majority of interlocutors did not feel that their basic livelihood was in jeopardy. Their overall living situation was comparably much more secure than that of China’s rural population. Problems and hardship could occur, however, in the following situations: medical expenses in case of illness; frail elderly people needing practical and financial support; and unemployment. Other factors contributing to financial strain and insecurity were a child’s education; the purchase of a new house13; and rising costs of living.14 All of these factors had an effect on urban residents either directly or, if they applied to kin, indirectly. As a result, despite their basic living provision, there was a general sense of insecurity and of having to look after oneself—a need to plan ahead and to be prepared. Even the poorest of my interlocutors tried to save money. Wealthier people bought commercial insurance (most often, however, for their children) and/or government bonds and stocks. Yet as the recent (August 2015) stock crash shows, the latter is certainly not a foolproof investment.15 Thus, one of the most important economic assets is the ownership of more than one flat, with rent producing additional income. Access to this asset is, however, far from equal; state policies clearly favor certain population groups over others.16 Bankruptcy of a company, being laid off, or voluntarily leaving the public for the private sector can (further) jeopardize households’ economic situation. Due to the general pattern of the economic reforms, all three of these possibilities have

Introduction | 7

Figure 0.3. Old Danwei Apartment Block. © Author

disproportionately affected less-skilled, middle-aged persons. Even if their companies thrived and they could withstand the competition from younger colleagues, especially in the mid-1980s when wages stagnated and the danger of being laid off loomed large, better trained workers gave up the apparently waning security of state sector employment.

8 | Soup, Love, and a Helping Hand

Figure 0.4. New Commercially Sold Apartment Blocks. © Author

After they ventured into the private sector, severing their connection with the state sector and giving up the remaining privileges this brings, many had to realize that “doing business” (zuo shenyi) was not as easy as they might have initially thought. Even more, especially the Cultural Revolution generation’s general lack of education eventually caught up with them, putting them at a competitive disadvantage in the open labor and economic market.17 While the government offers insurance schemes for people who are not connected to the public sector, these are less encompassing; they pay less for medical expenses and do not provide a pension. Moreover, monthly contributions present a financial challenge. Thus, several of my interlocutors who had either left or never entered the public sector did not have any such provision. Illness and loss of work were therefore the most imminent threats to their well-being. In sum, even if not living in precarious circumstances, there were numerous occasions when interlocutors needed material or practical or emotional support from others. Research in the 1980s and 1990s examined the effect of Chinese urban transformations on social relations and family life.18 These studies showed, for example, that greater economic opportunities and the greater availability of housing units allowed young married couples to set up their own households earlier than before. Nevertheless, this did not result in less close relations between adult children and elderly parents. On the contrary, the two generations remained emotionally and physically close, commonly interacting on a daily basis. Since then, the

Introduction | 9

deepening of reforms, especially in the new millennium, has continued to transform cities and urban social networks. More economic opportunities in combination with more curtailing of stateprovided benefits only increased socioeconomic and spatial differentiations. In addition, the first generation of only children has reached adulthood. New ideas and ideologies of how to lead a meaningful life have taken hold. What does all this mean in terms of social support? In the radically transformed urban environment, who do people turn to for help? Why and how is support extended?

Studying Social Support Social support is most commonly defined as “various types of support (i.e., assistance/help) that people receive from others and is generally classified into two (sometimes three) major categories: emotional, instrumental (and sometimes informational) support.”19 This focus on “purposive action,” however, is somewhat limited in that it focuses on functions or strategic conduct. Yet, whether a transaction and its consequences are considered support and who is recognized as supporter and supported is open to negotiation and subject to a host of factors.20 Thus, Schlecker suggests the notion of “encounters” to conceive of social support as “continuously redefined in interactions.”21 While I second the move to broaden our approach, this conception runs the risk of diluting social support to the extent that it becomes mere chance. Therefore, here I highlight the wider field through and within which social support is constituted. This includes ideologies and practices of social relations, kinship, and morality, as well as the larger politicoeconomic context. At the same time, I emphasize the general uncertainty and risk implicated in social support. My approach is inspired by recent writings on sociality. As Long and Moore elaborate in their introduction to the edited volume Sociality, the concept highlights the processual nature of social relations; human sociality is open to (conscious or unconscious) manipulation and transformation on the part of social actors.22 Sociality in this view is understood as “a dynamic matrix within which subjects are constantly interacting in ways that are co-productive, and continually plastic and malleable.”23 This approach builds on thoughts about sociality by Strathern and Toren.24 The importance of sociality, say Strathern and Toren, is that it highlights “dynamic social processes in which any person is inevitably engaged, rather than a set of rules or customs or structures or even meanings that exist as a system independently of the individual who is to be socialized.”25 Similarly, to study who helps whom, when, and how, we cannot simply look at acts of support in and of themselves. Individuals are enmeshed in complex webs of meaning that affect not only their own practices and how they relate to others but also their interpretation of the world. Moreover, moral imperatives compete with

10 | Soup, Love, and a Helping Hand

personal desires in shaping social relationships, as do (shared) experiences over time. Social support, I thus suggest, is not a fixed set of rules and practices that exist independently of persons and specific sociohistorical contexts. Instead, it is a social process between two or more locally embedded and socially positioned actors. It is informed but not determined by, and at the same time influences, changing practices and ideas about morality, kinship, and social relations more generally. This approach highlights not only the situatedness of social support but also its inherent uncertainty and incalculability. It redirects us from purposive action, from material and economic indicators—money and time spent and given—toward the larger context, the matrix within which social agents are interacting. Thus, instead of reifying or even fetishizing social support by focusing on (material) exchanges, here I will examine how it emerges in and through changing social relations and in dialogue with practices and ideologies of kinship and morality. This approach is supported by numerous studies that have shown how in China kinship, reciprocal exchanges, and feelings are indeed intimately tied together.26 Important organizing moral principles such as renqing (human feelings) and liangxin (conscience) guide reciprocal exchanges of favors and resources. Good feelings between people are expressed through material exchanges. At the same time, these exchanges can create, maintain, or intensify good feelings since gifts “embody the desired closeness of a relationship, which they help to construct.”27 Kinship or relatedness, in turn, it has recently been argued is less guided by ideology as was previously assumed but intimately linked to practiced relations of exchange.28 Thus, Jankowiak suggests that “kinship is a form of relatedness or connectiveness most saliently revealed through its transactions or social flows that always extend beyond a community’s formal genealogy.”29 The author, moreover, draws attention to the link between kinship, exchange, and morality when he notes that in order to make such interchanges more than ephemeral, individuals “have to recognize sharing a common identity that always involves some form of ethical entanglement.”30 Soup, Love, and a Helping Hand explores practices and ideologies of social support as constituted within and through kinship/relatedness and changing moral orders. Moreover, the research sheds light on the larger themes of individualization, disembedding, and the search for meaning in contemporary urban China. The project thus contributes not only to the study of contemporary urban life in China but also to more theoretical debates in the social sciences about morality and relatedness in the context of economic transformations.

Morality/Ethics Morality or ethics, that is, the question of how people should act in contemporary society, is an ongoing debate in China. It has become fairly common to diagnose a

Introduction | 11

“moral vacuum,” a lack of mores or civility.31 The Internet is filled with examples exposing both officials and common citizens’ transgressions. Both party-state and society call for a renewal of the social contract and for more solidarity. That something is amiss also finds expression in the government’s campaign for a Confucian-inspired code of ethics as well as the explosion of religious activities and the growth of the nongovernmental organization (NGO) sector in the recent decades. Yet, what is behind the apparent lack of ethics or civility? The anthropology of morality (or the study of ethics) has exponentially grown in the past ten years. Historically not an explicit focus of anthropological research, the questions addressed under this label have implicitly been present all along. Kinship and social organization, religion, norms, and beliefs all relate to questions of morality or ethics. The recent emphasis, however, puts morality at the center and addresses larger issues of comparability and difference between different societies or cultures. At the same time, there remains much debate about how to define ethics/morality and how to investigate the issue. In the much cited introduction to the edited volume Ordinary Ethics: Anthropology, Language, and Action, Lambek defines ethics as practices and culturally legible frames for assessing and indexing the “goodness” or “rightness” of human conduct.32 It is a “property of speech and action, as mind is a property of body.”33 Beneath every action lie ethic sensibilities. Yet, ethics is so thoroughly implicated in the social nature of human beings that it cannot be delimited as an ethnographic object in its own right. Thus, inspired by Aristotle, Lambek proposes a practice-centered approach that focuses on performative acts, including utterances. He calls for a study of “ordinary ethics,” emphasizing that ethics is “relatively tacit, grounded in agreement rather than rule, in practice rather than knowledge or belief, and happening without calling undue attention to itself.”34 Only a focus on such ordinary ethics allows us to understand that morality is not simply a question of “moral breakdowns.”35 Morality, Lambek says, is something somewhat implicit, “not necessarily requiring much reflection or even articulation.” Moreover, morality is not a prescription; individuals seek to act according to moral norms through their own volition and/or to conform to expectations and obligations. Judgments about one’s own and others’ actions, finally, are a central element of morality.36 This practice-oriented approach toward ethics/morality has gained traction in the China field of studies. Thus, Stafford and collaborators in Ordinary Ethics in China also put emphasis on the everyday and practice in their inquiry of ethics in contemporary China.37 Similar to Lambek, the authors of the volume highlight that there is often a gap between “how things should be and how they really are.”38 The setting of a moral standard, and making it “real” through material means, does not ensure that people will live up to it, or even want to do

12 | Soup, Love, and a Helping Hand

so. They may actively challenge and contest the way things are. Along the way, complex emotional ties to others help shape their actions, thus playing a central roles in the production of given ethical outcomes.39 Yet, in contrast to Lambek’s more implicit and practiced approach to ethics, Stafford emphasizes explicit and conscious deliberations. Here he draws on philosopher Peter Strawson, who suggests that the tension between laying blame and being generous and forgiving is a crucial one in everyday ethical experience.40 Stafford observes that in China the lack of compliance with moral standards is a subject of much debate and ethical comment.41 Santos, in the same volume, expands on these ideas. He emphasizes that collective ethical imagination is highly mutable, since broader sociocultural and politicoeconomic transformations cause moral frictions. Moral reasoning, Santos suggests, is a constructive imaginative activity that is importantly influenced and shaped by specific contexts. Individuals are not mere “slaves to custom” in their ethical engagements. But while individuals have some degree of choice these are neither unconstrained not without consequences.42 In her monograph Drink Water, but Remember the Source, about moral culture in rural Guangdong, Oxfeld emphasizes the multiplicity of moral orders.43 According to the traditional “hermeneutic order,” society and polity are seen as a cosmically ordained hierarchy and a person’s behavior is supposed to reinforce this hierarchy. Maoist morality, in contrast, pretended to overturn traditional hierarchies and to install a new socioeconomic organization that would address people’s needs. In practice, however, Oxfeld points out, these very different moral orders were not mutually exclusive; older notions continued to be relevant during Maoism. With the reform period, this has become even more complicated, with some researchers suggesting that certain traditional notions of morality have been revived, whereas others suggest that both older and Maoist moralities have lost importance.44 To account for the uncertainties apparently inherent to morality, Oxfeld, inspired by Bakhtin, conceives of morality as “dialogic.” That is, far from having a fixed meaning, morality instead is based on a common language for arguing about values. Similar to Stafford, Oxfeld emphasizes how villagers constantly argue and disagree about right and wrong. Yet they share common terms, some traditional, some Maoist, and some more recent. Importantly, however, the interpretation and practice of these terms has changed over time and continues to be influenced by competing moral discourses. The challenges and contradictions related to ethics in contemporary China come clearly to the fore in the present discussion of social support in Guangzhou. Interlocutors’ practices and discourses were shot through with moral concepts and ethical considerations. Discussing and often disagreeing about who should help

Introduction | 13

whom, and why and how, social support became a practice in ethics. Indeed, social support is one of the domains in and through which ordinary ethics—in practice as well as in private and public debates—is articulated and lived. Whether kin, friends, neighbors, church visitors, or volunteers, helping behavior was explained or justified through reference to different moral orders and concepts. The traditional notions of, for example, renqing and xiao feature prominently in interlocutors’ discourse, as do ideas associated with Maoism, such as thrift, egalitarianism, and selflessness. Yet such concepts do not determine interlocutors’ actions. On the contrary, as will become apparent, influenced by personal circumstances and subjectivities these concepts are creatively applied or rejected. They are also differently interpreted, especially by different generations.45 While often cited, they are in fact subject to debate—both with others and with oneself. These deliberations, in turn, importantly influence the judgment of others’ actions. Thus, this study shows that what some observers interpret as a lack of ethics actually is a lack of correspondence, or divergent approaches and interpretations of moral concepts and moral orders. In contrast to other studies on morality, which have been largely based in the rural context, here we will see how the ethics of social support plays out in the urban realm. Greater anonymity, high residential fluctuation, and spatial obstacles all affect practices of social support and become important factors in the negotiation of the ethics of helping behavior. As we will see, one of the biggest challenges or reasons for concern and complaint is what Yan has called “the rise of the individual.”46

Individualization Intimately connected with social support and the ethics implicated in and expressed through the practice is the issue of individualization. Theorists such as Beck, Beck-Gernsheim, Giddens, and Bauman have described individualization as the structural transformation of social institutions and concomitant changes in the relationship between individual and society.47 These include the dissolution of traditional social ties, contexts, meanings, and collective structures. As Mills notes, “The implicit assumption is that the detachment from traditional ideas, values, norms, beliefs, and ideologies generates greater individual autonomy and freedom of choice for individuals to shape their lives.”48 It is evident how the transition from Maoism to the reform period, with the concomitant release of the masses from previous forms of social organization, could be interpreted in these terms. During Maoism, people were organized in communes or work units. Living and working closely together, these close-knit institutions were life-worlds that defined individuals’ identity and social position. With the dissolution of these collectives in the reform period, people have much

14 | Soup, Love, and a Helping Hand

more freedom and choice as regards their personal lives, including their norms and beliefs. Yet, while Chinese today undoubtedly have greater autonomy and freedom of choice to shape their lives, there is also something decidedly distinct about transformation processes in China, namely the continued role of the state. Thus, Zhang and Ong suggest that even though the individual has taken new importance in post-Mao China, there are limits to liberalization.49 According to the authors, individuals in China today are caught between neoliberal competition and socialist state control. “Governing from a distance,” the Chinese Communist Party is always present and maintains a tight grip on power. Similarly, Yan argues that Chinese society is being transformed by the “negotiation and contestation between the rising individual and the various forms of collectivity, including the Chinese state.”50 But he also emphasizes the differences to European individualization processes, highlighting that individualization in China remains underdeveloped, as the individual is perceived as a means to an end both by the state and society, and often even by itself. Yan argues, moreover, that the seeds of the nascent individualization were already planted during the collectivism of the Maoist period.51 Individualization is thus not simply a by-product of economic restructuring or “neoliberalism,” as suggested by some, despite being tightly connected to the language of market economy and privatization. In fact, today there are two parallel processes going on, according to Yan: the rise of the individual on the one hand and the individualization of the social structure on the other. “Whereas the rise of the individual is primarily reflected in the changing patterns of individual biographies, the structural changes mostly result from institutional reforms, policy changes, and the impact of the market economy.”52 While generally agreeing on the processes described as “individualization,” observers differ in how to frame or interpret them. The main contention is between those who, like Yunxiang Yan, apply Western individualization theory and those who argue that despite similarities what is happening in China is distinctly different.53 Among the latter is Andrew Kipnis, who rejects sociologists’ equation of individualization and modernity.54 Kipnis draws attention to the role of the individual in premodern times as well as the long trajectory of the state in China, which distinguishes the country from Western nations on which individualization theory is modeled. In addition, the author emphasizes the modernity of Maoism itself. Instead of relying on theories about individualization in late modernity, Kipnis suggests that insights from classical social theorists about Western modernization might offer more important insights as to how to understand what is happening in China. After all, industrialization, urbanization, and nation building—cornerstones of Western modernization—are happening in China on an unprecedented scale. What distinguishes China, however, is that it is simultaneously undergoing processes associated by

Introduction | 15

theorists with “second” (liquid or high) modernity, namely, globalization, the Internet, space-time compression, postindustrial societies, heightened reflexivity, the dismantling of the welfare state, neoliberalism, and so on.55 Kipnis contends that there always exists a tension between the individual and society; this is not something exclusive to modernity. The individualization of modernity, the author suggests, must be seen as “a myth, or a structure of feeling, or a problematic.”56 “What changes are particular social relationships, discourses, and tensions that constitute the social environment and, consequently, the structures of the individual psyche that are immersed therein.”57 Thus, “it is not the arrival of a Western, capitalist modernity alone that explains the structures of feeling around the individual psyche in contemporary China. Legacies of China’s premodern and socialist modernity remain important and China’s capitalist modernity leads not only to individuation.”58 The liberation of the individual is simultaneously his or her enslavement to wider social forces; differentiation is often accompanied by conformity, and estrangement or alienation by freedom. Premodern people were individuals as well and modern people remain socially constructed. In short, the . . . “rise” of individualism [is] more of a psychological problematic than an absolute fact. The attention paid to the individual psyche by governments, by educational and medical institutions, and by factories may increase and people may feel increasingly alienated, liberated, lonely, isolated, and free, but that does not mean that human beings have become social isolates.59 Similarly, while acknowledging processes of individualization, here I would like to draw attention to the emotional and social effects of transformation processes as experienced by my Guangzhou interlocutors. They certainly enjoyed more personal choices and expressed individual concerns and desires. Yet, especially for the generation of 50 to 70-year-olds, these new liberties could be confusing. Interlocutors sometimes felt tremendous stress trying to juggle personal desires with a strong sense of obligation to adhere to older notions of social group responsibility. But even the postreform generation, who grew up in a more individualistic world and follows its personal agenda, was not untouched by more social concerns and considerations. They still felt value in, or obliged by, traditional notions such as filial piety—even if they might interpret these concepts differently from their parents. Moreover, as especially exemplified by believers and volunteers, interlocutors keenly sought to construct and engage in new socialities exactly because they experienced their individualistic existence as lacking. Against the feeling of disembedding and anomie, they engaged in a continuous weaving of social relations and a search for meaning.

16 | Soup, Love, and a Helping Hand

Disembedding, Anomie, and the Search for Meaning The dissolution of previous collectives such as the commune and the danwei as a sociospatial entity, together with the 1990s housing reforms, the flexibilization of the labor market, and easing of migration restrictions, have disembedded Chinese individuals. Before the reforms, urban Chinese residents lived, worked, and politically rallied in the close living quarters of their work units. The danwei functioned as a quasiparent institution, distributing not only all basic necessities but even functioning as matchmakers. Workers identified not so much by their last name but by their profession and work unit. Since then, growing socioeconomic stratifications, greater availability of residential space, and changed lifestyles have dramatically transformed the urban living experience. This disembedding has spatial and emotional dimensions: people might feel close to others who live far away while not even knowing their neighbors. Individuals today define themselves and secure their livelihoods in wider, non–face-to-face networks.60 Combined with the alleged moral crisis—often exemplified by the supposed cult of money (baijinzhuyi), selfishness (jian yi wang li), private desires placed before the common good (sun gong fei si), and growing distrust61—what characterized the lives of interlocutors was a general disquiet, a sense of loss, and a retreat into the private—all of which are reminiscent of Durkheim’s notion of “anomie.” Durkheim coined the term “anomie” in his study Suicide to describe a psychological state in members of societies in which common values and common meanings are no longer understood or accepted and new values and meaning have not developed.62 As a result, individuals in such a social system feel a sense of futility, a lack of purpose, emotional emptiness, and despair.63 While there was also a sense of pride in China’s recent rise and confidence in the government to keep the economy growing, anomie describes quite well how interlocutors felt in their private lives. A much repeated comment, for example, was “today renqing [human feelings] is as thin as paper.” Older people lamented that today nobody offered them a seat on the bus, that they did not know their neighbors any longer, and that nobody had time anymore. They also emphasized how they had been educated to share and to help one another, values that had apparently been abandoned in the present. Independent of the veracity of such claims, this nostalgia for a supposedly better past clearly expressed the older generation’s sense of loss in the present. Yet even younger people felt alienated by extreme competition, high expectations, and a lack of purpose. They were aware of their responsibilities toward their parents, while also experiencing a disconnect from the older generation: “They don’t understand.” Kleinman suggests that as a result of the contradictions between entrepreneurial freedom and continued political control, Chinese have developed a “divided self,” that is, a self that suppresses sufferings and opinions in order to allow the

Introduction | 17

entrepreneurial self to succeed.64 Yet, Guangzhou interlocutors actually continuously worked against their alienation, their sense of anomie, at least in their private lives. In an effort to reembed they engaged in a continuous weaving of new, and maintenance of already existing, social relationships with kin, neighbors, and beyond. Similarly, Ma observes that “‘the self’ is often managed in tandem with ‘intimate relationality,’ despite popular rhetoric on the so-called ‘self-reliant’ timbre of modernity.”65 Importantly, this intimate relationality, the weaving of connections, happens through exchanges of material and immaterial support. Disembedded from previous social contexts and webs of meaning, interlocutors, moreover, aspired to new metanarratives and trusted relations. It is in this search for meaning that new socialities acquire heightened importance: a hiking club, a taiqiquan group, the church community, or a volunteer association provided not only community but also purpose. Interlocutors sought ideational connections, communities in spirit. Family and kin relations were increasingly strained by conflicts and competition, and neighbors were becoming strangers one could not trust because one did not know who they were. The church family or the volunteer community offered new sociality, that is, trustworthy social relations because they were based on similar convictions and ethics. This sentiment is maybe best described by the desire to belong. Disembedded and not content with previous and prescribed identities and social contexts, interlocutors continuously worked on creating new nests, new moorings in the sea of an individualized, privatized, and morally undone society. Indeed, as the present study will show, social support in all its different forms and meanings—soup, love, or a helping hand—was the means and practice through which social relations, communities, and meanings were established and maintained.

Outline of Chapters The book is structured as follows. Part I, “Soup,” focuses on household, kin, and neighborly relations. Chapter 1 offers the portrait of the extended Chen and Wang families with additional information from other interlocutors. My focus is on their household composition as well as more general kin relations. I describe their personal backgrounds, their social networks, and the implications of the recent demographic shifts. I ask, how do these affect urban Guangzhou residents in their everyday lives? Further, I examine the issue of solidarity and conflict as it occurs in the household and among kin and how this is interconnected with the question of support. As we will see, to a great extent my Guangzhou interlocutors relied on kin for social, economic, and emotional support. Yet, these relations have become increasingly distressed, because of, for example, greater distances between residences and more traffic, time constraints, socioeconomic stratifications, and changing notions of propriety and lifestyle—

18 | Soup, Love, and a Helping Hand

all of which affect support. I show that help and support were actually practices through which the very nature of social relations was negotiated. Conflicts and emotional strain have become increasingly more common and sometimes resulted in the breaking of kin relations and thus the most common channels of support. The second chapter, “Neighbors and Friends,” discusses changes interlocutors experienced in their neighborhood and in their relations with friends. The emphasis is on people’s subjective experience and reflection upon these transformations. I begin by outlining the living environment and neighborly relations. In the following section I discuss the importance of friends and how friendship relations are established, maintained, and also broken. We will see how the social, political, and economic transformations of the reform period are reflected in the built urban environment and how people’s lives are significantly affected by these interlinking factors. The close-knit work unit community of the Maoist period is slowly dissolving or opening up. New residents move into danwei compounds; old residents move out. Newly constructed residential neighborhoods are marked by anonymity and very limited if any interaction between residents. In addition, relations with the state have become more distant and depend more on personal relations or initiative. As before the reforms, interlocutors work on establishing and maintaining a circle of family and friends within which people exchange help and support. Yet, with growing social and physical distances this circle has contracted; at least, the maintenance of these social relations has been affected by socioeconomic stratification and the changing urban landscape. An important practice in the establishing and maintaining of social relations remains the sharing of substance, to bring soup or to go out and have tea. In Chapter 3, “Support and Reciprocity,” I discuss the changing notions and practices of reciprocity in interlocutors’ lives and the conflicts that these transformations have given rise to. I highlight how the social, spatial, and economic transformations of the past thirty-five years have affected and complicated reciprocal social relationships. Guangzhou interlocutors’ social relations play out within the complicated web of multiple economic realities, social contexts, ideological concepts, and personal desires. While interlocutors frequently refer to traditional notions of propriety and moral conduct, today these are quite differently interpreted and applied. Moreover, in the contemporary urban context, different moral orders compete. Differences are greatest between the Maoist and post-Maoist generation, but conflicts and misunderstandings also happen among peers and between kin. What is more, individuals themselves are not always clear about how to behave and what to consider right and wrong. As residential communities break apart or grow more anonymous, new forms of sociality emerge. Numerous new social institutions become the focus or center of social relations, replacing old networks of colleagues who reside together. Among these are sport clubs, community centers, and religious communities. In

Introduction | 19

Part II of the book, “Love,” I discuss these new forms of sociality with the example of a Protestant church community in an old part of Guangzhou. The focus on religion in this part also highlights the spiritual aspect of interlocutors’ reform period living experiences, an important addition to recent studies emphasizing privatization, individualization, and morality.66 Chapter 4, “Religious Revival,” explores the attraction of religion and its various forms in the reform period. Chapter 5, “The Church: Social and Religious Services,” zooms in on the Xiatian church, where I conducted research, and introduces its different services. Here we will see how the combination of religious and social activities attracts a large and diverse audience. Chapter 6, “Love: A Community of Believers,” examines the practices and ideologies related to the church community in more detail. I show how the church works through different modes or realms—as a community center, a place of religious worship, a social service center, and a source of practical and financial support. As will become apparent, it is exactly this multifariousness and ideological openness that attracted interlocutors. Together they envisioned and practiced an alternative community based on love and general acceptance and markedly distinguished from contemporary urban society. In Part III of the book, “A Helping Hand,” I examine the Chinese “volunteer phenomenon” as another important area in and through which contemporary social relations, ethics, and aspirations are renegotiated in the post-Mao period. Chapter 7, “Philanthropy, Charity, and Volunteerism,” begins with a short history of philanthropy and charity in China, highlighting cultural specificities and challenges. The second section introduces volunteerism in the reform period, its organizational structure, and the party-state’s efforts to promote the practice. Following this, I offer some numbers on volunteering on the national level and related to my own study in Guangzhou. The chapter closes with an introduction of the two organizations the majority of my interlocutors were involved with. As will become evident, the volunteer phenomenon is a reflection of larger social, economic, and political processes in contemporary China. Only if we understand volunteerism as an embedded phenomenon can we fully comprehend its popularity in the post-Mao period. In Chapter 8, “Inspirations and Motivations to Volunteer,” I discuss inspirations and motivations of volunteers. As will become evident, volunteerism in Guangzhou (and more generally in China) is so broadly defined that it allows greatly varying projections and gratifications. This vagueness is volunteerism’s strength but, I argue, also its major limitation. Chapter 9, “Volunteering: Governmentality and Agency,” contrasts the party-state’s project to promote prosocial practices with the desires of young volunteers and shows the limits of the government scheme. As will become apparent, without being adversaries to the political system, interlocutors had their own ideas about volunteerism; their practices did not square neatly with the government’s expectations. The chapter shows that vol-

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unteerism is both a technology of self and a technology of power, a phenomenon deeply connected to present-day urban realities. Yet none of these technologies has predictable outcomes. Instead, volunteerism is a realm in which agency and governmentality are continuously negotiated. Finally, in the general conclusion to the book, I summarize the findings of my study and show the interconnection between the different parts. Social support, I argue, is at the very center of society making, connecting kinship, morality, and the individual while concomitantly shaping the very conception of these realms. Morality and relatedness are the domains within and through which social support practices and ideologies are enacted and envisioned and at the same time continuously remade. The picture that emerges is of an urban society marked by growing differentiation, socioeconomic stratification, and a generational divide. As a result, interlocutors of all ages feel a certain anomie and uncertainty regarding their future. Against this, they continuously knit new relations and cultivate old ones, not only to guarantee their own and dependents’ well-being but also to fulfill their desire for meaning.

Notes 1. Ikels 1996. 2. Wang 2008. 3. The “iron rice bowl” refers to the Maoist system of guaranteed lifetime employment and benefits for urban workers. 4. But see Schlecker and Fleischer 2013. 5. Opinions about the use of the term “class” and how exactly to define it are divided. Yet, most commentators agree that Chinese society is increasingly divided between rapidly growing and increasingly wealthy and self-conscious middle and upper classes and various working- and lower middle-class groups (Pieke 2014; see also Tomba 2004; Zhang 2010). 6. Ikels 1996: 8. See also Tsin 1999. 7. Vogel 1969. 8. Xu and Yeh 2005. 9. The hukou, or family registration system, issued at birth, divides the Chinese population into rural and urban populations. Introduced in the late 1950s, it was a measure to control population movement from the countryside to the city, where residents enjoyed substantial social benefits. After its introduction, a rural resident could only move to an urban area with official approval. In the reform period, rural hukou holders are allowed to “temporarily” reside in cities, yet remain excluded from an array of urban social service, including access to subsidized housing and medical services. 10. The new pension system was introduced in 1997 and is based on both workers’ and employers’ contributions. Workers pay about 8 percent of their wage into an individual account. When they retire, this money is divided into 120 installments that are paid out monthly over a ten-year period. Employers contribute around 20 percent of the total wages paid to their workforce to a general pension fund. This provides retired workers with an additional pension payment. The amount of the payment is calculated based on the length of employment, the average local wage, and life expectancy. Employees are

Introduction | 21

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17.

eligible for pension payment when they reach the legal retirement age (sixty for men and fifty/fifty-five for women) and if they paid contributions for at least fifteen years. If they fall short of contributing years, employees can delay retirement. Alternatively, they can pay the remaining contributions, transfer to a pension plan for nonemployed urban residents, or opt to receive the money they contributed to their individual account with interests in a lump-sum payment. The new medical insurance scheme, in turn, came into effect in 1998. Again, employees and employers both contribute to the insurance that also combines individual and pooled funds. Contributions vary according to locality, but usually 2 percent of an employee’s wage is paid into the individual account. Employers contribute 6 to 12 percent of their workforce average salary. Roughly 30 percent of this sum goes to the employees’ individual account and the rest is pooled in a public fund. Individual accounts cover medical costs that amount to a maximum of 10 percent of the local average annual wage. Medical costs beyond that are covered by the pooled funds but are limited to five times the average annual wage. Employees have to pay for medical costs that are higher than that. Experts point out that especially low-income workers struggle to reach the 10 percent threshold. See “China’s Social Security System” 2017. As a result of the reforms, Ringen and Ngok (2013) report that whereas urban households had 40 percent or more of their income made up of social benefits at the beginning of the reform period, in 2007 this share was down to 20 percent. The bulk of the remaining benefits were made up by social insurance. The already low prices were further lowered by discounts that employees received for length of employment and for paying the full sum, Ikels 2004. Yang and Jia 2010; Zhang 2015. Necessary, for example, to accommodate elderly parents moving in. During the last months of my research in Guangzhou, pork prices rose steeply, almost doubling from one day to another, seriously worrying some of the less well situated of my interlocutors. In the year before the crash, small investors, apparently encouraged by the state-owned media, inflated the stock market and caused a bubble that exploded in August 2015. See Osnos 2015; Zarolli 2015. Housing is one of the realms in which the uneven role of the state in current stratification processes is especially notable. During the Maoist era, people’s housing situation reflected their political status: cadres, party members, and employees of centrally administered units received more living space. Housing reforms, which were based on the actual living situation of an employee, only perpetuated these inequalities. Thus, the sale of undervalued apartments at the beginning of the housing reforms already favored certain employees over others. The introduction of housing provident funds in the 1990s, in turn, especially benefitted employees with high-level economic stability and prestige in financially and economically sound enterprises. Collective and private enterprises largely did not participate in the scheme, thereby excluding most of the non–state sector urban employees, numbering about 45 million, Tomba 2004. More recently, government policies restricting the purchase of housing—supposedly to prevent a housing bubble—favor young, married, heterosexual couples. In some cities single women or homosexual couples are excluded from the property market, as Hong-Fincher (2016) explains. Urban residents born in the mid-1950s and into the 1960s were affected by the political campaign’s anti-intellectual fervor that led to the closing of schools. Students were sent into factories or to the countryside to learn from workers and peasants. Not a few ended up working in the countryside for up to ten years. See, for example, Whyte 2003.

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18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

52. 53.

54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

See, for example, Jankowiak 1993; Ikels 1996. Seeman 2008. “Social Support and Kinship in China and Vietnam Research Group” 2015. Schlecker 2013: 1–2. Long and Moore 2013. Ibid.: 4. Strathern and Toren 1990. Ibid.: 74. Obendiek 2016; Oxfeld 2010; Yan 1996. Kipnis 1997: 67. Santos 2006; Brandtstädter 2009. Jankowiak 2009: 68. Ibid. Wang 2002; Zhuo 2001. Lambek 2010. Ibid.: 61. Ibid.: 2. Zigon 2007. Lambek 2010: 156. Stafford 2013. Ibid.: 15. Ibid.: 17–18. Strawson 2008. Stafford 2013: 17–18. Santos 2013. Oxfeld 2010. Ibid.: 48. See Yan 2011. Yan 2010b. Beck 1992; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002; Giddens 1991; Bauman 2001. Mills 2007: 65. Zhang and Ong 2008. Yan 2010b: 14. Sun (forthcoming: 8) points to an even longer trajectory of individualization in China. Whereas “authenticity” in Western societies is linked to modernization processes such as individualization and urbanization, in China the notion of an “authentic inner self” had already arisen in the late imperial era as a counterweight against Confucian ideas of propriety. Yan 2010a: 495. It is important to note, however, that Yan does not equate what is happening in China with Western individualization processes as described by Beck and others. On the contrary, Yan uses the comparison to highlight how Chinese individualization differs from the classical European case. Kipnis 2012. Ibid.: 5. Ibid.: 7. Ibid.: 8. Ibid.: 10. Ibid.: 7. Henning 2007; Kipnis 2011.

Introduction | 23

61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

Billioud and Thoraval 2015. Durkheim 1951. “Anomie” 2014. Kleinman et al. 2011. Zhiying Ma 2012: 224. See Zhang and Ong (2008) on privatization; Yan (e.g., 2009b), Kipnis (2012) on individualization; Oxfeld (2010) on morality.

PART I

Soup

1 “IF NOT HIS CHILD, WHO WILL PAY FOR HIS LIVING?” Household and Kin-Based Support “If not his child, who will pay for his living?” This is how Wei Lan described the situation of her husband Chen Yiping when I asked how he would support himself in old age. Self-employed, without medical insurance or pension, Chen would depend on others for his well-being once age or health kept him from working any longer. Wei Lan’s pension was hardly enough for one person to live on. Medical bills or larger expenses already were beyond her means. Since Chen Yiping’s relation with his siblings was strained to the extent of nonexistence, it was his daughter Lili whose support he counted on. The result was a latent future dependency of father (or parents) on the child. While Lili was quite aware of this pending responsibility and said she was willing to take it on, there was no certainty that she would actually be able to do so. She would need to find a well-paying job that allowed her to financially contribute to her parents’ well-being. Moreover, if she married, her spouse would have to agree to the arrangement. In addition, it was likely that her partner would have to support his own parents. This meant that the young couple would face the economic challenge of supporting four elderly persons while thinking about their own future. China is in the middle of a dramatic and expansive population shift. Especially in urban areas, extended kin groups have been replaced by nuclear families with one child. Obviously, in the Republican and Maoist period, cities saw changes in household composition and size. Nonetheless, it is the strictly enforced one-child policy in combination with reform period rising costs of living that have resulted in today’s sharp reduction of family size. Thus, the birth rate in the city of Guangzhou dropped from 18.3 in 1978 to 10.9 per thousand in 1992. In 2007 the birthrate in Guangzhou was 9.3 percent.1 Whereas my informants in their late fifties and early sixties had on average four siblings, they themselves only had one child.2 Endnotes for this chapter begin on page 44.

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Multiple challenges arise as a result of this changing population dynamic. Among the most pressing is the one-child generation’s legal and moral obligation to support two sets of elderly parents. Yet, today’s generation of 50- to 70-yearolds is confronted with a very real challenge too: they support surviving parents while concomitantly being responsible for the upbringing of their child. Even after these grow up, many parents remain closely involved in their adult child’s life and often provide important financial and practical support (Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1. Grandparents Provide Vital Support Taking Care of Grandchildren. © Author

“If not his child, who will pay for his living?” | 29

Parents play, for example, a vital role in contributing to the down payment for an apartment, widely considered an essential (pre)requisite to marriage and/or childbirth.3 In addition, siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles may demand financial or practical help. Finally, the 50- to 70-year-old generation are keenly aware that one day they might need their own child’s support, which has important effects on present-day relations. For many interlocutors this sandwiched position is not an easy one. Those who lack education and work in menial jobs, or those who have been laid off, especially struggle to make ends meet and to fulfill multiple expectations and obligations toward kin. In addition, changing living conditions within the radically transformed urban landscape impact the daily organization of life and pose new challenges to the maintenance of social relations. Jankowiak and Ikels examined the challenging effects the reforms had on intergenerational relations in the 1980s and 1990s.4 Since then, the resulting dependencies, expectations, but also frustrations have only grown. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, material and emotional insecurity was a dominant sentiment among interlocutors. Discussions of social relations in China have commonly analyzed these through the institution of guanxi (social networks), Confucian ethics that emphasize relational selves and moral imperatives such as xiao (filial piety), renqing (human feelings), and the quasiobligatory reciprocity of (economic) gains or gifts. In my view, this has produced a very instrumental, economistic, and structural understanding of Chinese social relations.5 What is lacking in this picture are the flexibility, agency, and contradictions in people’s ideas and actions—even more so in the contemporary period, with its proliferation of new ideologies and lifestyles. Examining the issue of support puts ethics and real-life practices of social relations at center stage. After all, social ties are a vital resource for the provision of help and care. The nature and extent of support, however, is contingent on the type of relationships that people have. Social relationships and the associated behaviors are both culturally specific and influenced by structural conditions in which social actors are situated. Yet in any given society, there exist multiple, and at times contradictory, organizational norms and ideologies. Moreover, these rules do not determine behavior but rather form webs of meaning or guiding principles; they have to be interpreted and translated into everyday practice. But they can also be ignored or challenged. Kinship can be understood as one historically and locally specific principle of support, that is, an organizational ideology that defines social ties and associated practices. Yet, kin relations are not necessarily positive. They can be invested with sentiments and motivate empathic behavior. But they can also be selfishly exploited, maintained as an obligation yet void of feelings, or neglected and— consciously or not—broken. Principles of social organization such as kinship do not work automatically; they are no guarantee for desired behavior. Instead, social

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relations are always precarious; they have to be actively maintained, and support has to be continuously mobilized. In this chapter I discuss family and household composition, as well as more generally kin relations among my informants in Guangzhou. My focus is on the Chen and the Wang families with additional information from other interlocutors.6 I provide details of their personal stories and their kin networks and discuss the implications of the recent demographic shifts. I ask, How do these affect urban Guangzhou residents in their everyday lives? Further, I examine the issue of solidarity and conflict as it occurs in the household and among kin and how this is interconnected with the question of support. As we will see, to a great extent my Guangzhou informants relied on kin for social, economic, and emotional support. Yet, these relations have come under growing distress, stemming, for example, from greater distances between residences and more traffic, time constraints, and socioeconomic stratifications, but also changing notions of propriety and lifestyle—all of which affect support. I show that help and support were actually practices through which the very nature of social relations was negotiated. Conflicts and emotional strain have become increasingly more common, and sometimes resulted in the breaking of kin relations and thus the most common channels of support.

Two Guangzhou Families I met Chen Yiping and his wife Wei Lan through their daughter Chen Lili, who was a university student at the time. Both in their fifties, Chen Yiping and Wei Lan were officially retired but continued to work different jobs to improve their household economy. They had four and five siblings, respectively, and their mothers were still alive. In many ways they were typical of the lower middle-class and working-class families I talked to in Guangzhou, which is why I will introduce their specific circumstances in more detail. Wei Lan was born in 1955. Both her parents were Hakka from Meizhou, in the east of Guangdong, but had moved to Guangzhou as children.7 Like many of her generation, including her husband, Wei Lan’s education was severely affected by the Cultural Revolution. At the beginning of the movement in the mid-1960s, many schools closed. When they reopened during the later phase of the Cultural Revolution, students were considered “educated youth” (zhiqing) and either had to work in factories or were sent to the countryside (shangshan xiaxiang) to “learn from the peasants.” Wei Lan was deprived of the last years of primary school and spent middle school between the classroom and stints at a local factory. Upon graduation, at age sixteen Wei Lan was hired full-time by a pharmaceutical company. There she worked on the shop floor until she reached the legal retirement age of fifty.

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After retiring, to improve the household economy, Wei Lan began working as household help for one of her neighbors.8 This was a couple of white-collar workers in their forties with a small son. Monday to Friday mornings, Wei Lan prepared breakfast, cleaned the house, dropped off the son at primary school, and did some shopping for them. Then she returned home to prepare lunch for Chen Yiping and herself. In the afternoon she picked up the boy from school and supervised his homework. She came home between 8 and 9 p.m. after she had prepared the neighbor’s dinner and cleaned up. In early 2007, Wei Lan quit this job when the neighborhood committee offered her a position supervising “women’s issues.”9 For about the same money she earned at her neighbors she would work far fewer hours and have a more convenient schedule. Wei Lan’s father had passed away in 2003, but her mother was still alive. Eighty-eight years old in 2006, she lived by herself in her husband’s family’s old house, which was a ten-minute bicycle ride from Wei Lan’s home. Wei Lan’s younger brother used the ground floor of the building to run a small shop. Sometimes he and his wife slept in the house. Every day, one of the sisters went to see the mother and helped her run errands, took her on excursions, or simply stayed with her for some time. Since the youngest sister was still working, and the second one lived far away, it was mainly Wei Lan and her oldest sister Wei Xianghua who took on this task. Wei Lan, her three sisters, and two brothers saw each other quite regularly. None of the siblings was rich, yet there existed significant economic differences. The youngest sister, Xiao Mei, had been least affected in her education by the political movements of the Maoist period. Both she and her husband held whitecollar jobs. Her household’s comparatively better financial standing was reflected in their more sophisticated and bigger apartment. Wei Lan’s second older sister, Wei Hong, was the economically least well positioned; she was retired and her husband had been laid off. He now worked occasionally as a nighttime security guard, but this was a low-paid position that did not include social benefits. Their son had finished middle school and worked as a shop assistant while living with his unemployed and pregnant girlfriend in his parents’ house. The siblings’ economic circumstances were never explicitly discussed, yet small remarks and gestures hinted at them, notable even to me as an outsider. As notable, however, was the bond and solidarity among the siblings. Wei Lan’s relationship with her mother and siblings stood in sharp contrast to that of Chen Yiping and his relatives. Whereas Wei Lan frequently mentioned her siblings and mother when talking about her present and past life, in Chen Yiping’s recollections there was never much mention of family. Chen Yiping’s father, also from the Hakka minority, had passed away many years before, but his ailing mother was still alive when we met. Chen had two older brothers and one younger sister, as well as an older half-brother from his father’s

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first marriage. But he was not close with any of them, although he had a courteous relation with his half-brother and younger sister. He was not close with his mother either and visited only on Chinese holidays. Chinese New Year and Qingming festival were the only occasions he saw his estranged brothers at his mother’s house.10 Similar to his wife, Chen Yiping’s education was interrupted by the Cultural Revolution and included periods spent at a local factory. Once he had graduated from middle school he started to work full-time in the factory, but in contrast to Wei Lan he left after a little over ten years. By that time, China had embarked on the “reform and opening up” ( gaige kaifang), and “business fever” (jingshangre) was a widespread phenomenon. So Chen Yiping decided to give it a try. He began with piecemeal work at home, assembling for example Christmas light chains. Then he drove a taxi for several years. For some time, he worked for his brother and brother-in-law, who had started their own businesses. Later he tried other things, among them dealing at the local stock market. But he was never successful in any of these endeavors, and as he was getting older the family economy was not very stable. His daughter Lili thought, “My family is never going to be rich. I think it is very bitter.” Similar to his wife, when we met, Chen Yiping was employed by neighbors. He brought their son to school and picked him up afterward, and if the parents were not home he supervised him during the afternoon. Wei Lan, who had worked until retirement in the same state-owned company, received basic health insurance and a pension from her former employer. Chen Yiping, however, left his factory, which later went bankrupt. Because he had voluntarily severed his relation with the company, he could not claim any benefits and only received government-issued basic social insurance. When we met he had no health insurance. Thus, the possibility of him getting sick was a serious concern for the family; the same was true of his aging, as indicated in the introduction to this chapter. Without financial security and without the prospect of support from his brothers and sisters, Chen Yiping and Wei Lan would definitely depend on their daughter Lili. Lili was born in 1986. In 2006, she studied social sciences at a university in Guangzhou. She received a small scholarship that counted toward her tuition, but the cost of education was a major challenge for her parents given their financial circumstances. Lili’s basic health insurance was provided by the university. In addition, her parents bought commercial insurance for her. She was, thus, the most well insured in the family, a rather typical situation among the Guangzhou residents I talked to. Lili’s university roommate and friend was Wang Shufei. Her family was in many ways similar to the Chens, yet there also existed important differences between the two families. A look at these illustrates some of the important factors that affect middle-aged urban residents’ socioeconomic situation today.

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Li Xiaolei, Shufei’s mother, was born in 1957, and when we met she had just retired. She had three older sisters and two older brothers. Her parents lived with the oldest brother. The Cultural Revolution broke out when Li Xiaolei was still in primary school. During grades 3 and 4 her school was closed and she “just played for two years.” But it was not just her education that was affected: her mother was sent to a special training school in the countryside and came back only once a month. Thus, besides her father, it was her oldest brother who took care of Li Xiaolei. Upon graduation from middle school Li Xiaolei was sent to a village in Guangdong province to work in the fields and stayed for four years. During this time, she visited her parents every other month. With an annual salary of about 90 yuan, she was glad that her mother was able to give her an additional 10 yuan every month to get by. At the end of the Cultural Revolution, it was not clear what would happen to the rusticated “educated youth.” Usually their hukou (household registration) had been moved to the rural locations, and they could not simply return to the city. There were no clear policies, but one way to leave the countryside was to find urban employment. Li Xiaolei managed to return to Guangzhou when she was hired by a local bank. Her second sister Li Qiuxin, in turn, benefited from the dingti (replacement) policy: she took the position of their mother who retired from a weaving factory in Guangzhou.11 Others, however, had more problems finding a job in the city. Li Xiaolei’s brother eventually gave up and slipped across the border to Hong Kong, where he lives today. Friends introduced Li Xiaolei to her husband Wang Feng; they married in 1983. Afterward, the couple lived with Wang Feng’s mother in an old apartment that belonged to the danwei (work unit) of her late husband. Later, as is common practice among elderly urban residents, Wang Feng’s mother took turns living with one of her children for certain periods of time depending on their financial situation and needs.12 For the ten years before we met, however, she had principally lived with her daughter Wang Mei, Wang Feng’s youngest sister, who was a widow and—in a very exceptional case—had two daughters. Wang Feng was born in 1953. He had one older brother, one younger brother, and three younger sisters. In 1970, after finishing middle school, he was sent to do farmwork on Hainan Island, from where he returned in 1978. During this period he could visit his parents only about four times; the first time after he had been away for three years. Similar to Li Xiaolei’s sister, Wang Feng was able to finally return to Guangzhou when his father retired and he took his position at a machine factory. Working his way up to department manager, Wang Feng stayed at his father’s factory until 1988. Then he transferred to a different company, where he hoped for better career opportunities. Yet, when that company was taken over by a Japanese firm in 2001, he was offered a lower paying position and therefore resigned. Since

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then he has been self-employed, selling air conditioners for cars. With his technical knowledge and good personal connections, in the beginning he was quite successful. Growing competition, however, made it increasingly harder to earn a profit. When Wang Feng quit his job at the company, he was paid a cash compensation. Since then, he received no income or benefits from his previous employers. The family thus relied on Li Xiaolei’s pension and the money Wang Feng could make from his own business. Although they also paid for Shufei’s education, they were in a better economic position than the Chens. This was mainly due to Li Xiaolei’s luck in getting a white-collar job with a higher salary and pension. In addition, Wang Feng had continuously improved his position and salary while he worked at his company, and he received certain benefits such as a discounted apartment before he left. After they bought the commercial apartment in which they lived with the help of Li Xiaolei’s employer, the Wang family rented out their old house and thus received additional income. But their better economic position might also have been connected to their kin, and especially sibling relations. Both the Chen and the Wang family held contact with aunts and uncles, who played a role in their support networks. More important, however, was the mutual support extended among siblings, which appeared vital to all my Guangzhou interlocutors’ well-being. In contrast to the Chens, both Li Xiaolei and Wang Feng were close with their siblings. They saw each other regularly, inviting each other for tea or sharing meals. As in the case of Wei Lan, economic differences existed among siblings on both sides, but they had not ruptured their relationship. On the contrary, both Li Xiaolei and Wang Feng’s siblings occasionally helped each other out with money. As has been observed by Obendiek (2016) in the rural context, siblings featured importantly in the support networks of urban residents.

Sibling Relations Siblings are rarely discussed in the literature about Chinese social relations.13 Yet in my conversations with Guangzhou middle-aged interlocutors, it was evident that brothers and sisters played a vital role for the individual’s economic and social well-being, positively as well as negatively. Siblings were the first to be mentioned when asked who informants would turn to for help. Both financial and emotional support were claimed to come from siblings. These assertions were corroborated both by de facto money contributions, for example to apartment purchases, and by the frequency of social contacts. Yet, brothers and sisters could also be a source of stress and negative sentiments. Help expected, received, or denied among siblings was at the root of many conflicts and tensions. Importantly, solidarity and conflict among siblings had a history; many issues linked back to

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informants’ youth. Present-day socioeconomic differentiations, however, often exacerbated or nurtured previously suppressed problems while they also created new ones. As mentioned above, growing up during the Cultural Revolution, middle-aged interlocutors were affected by the “send down to the countryside” movement. The policy regarding the reeducation and rustication program of “knowledge youth” (zhishi qingnian) changed several times and also depended on students’ age. Some students only went periodically to the factory or the countryside. Others, however, lived and worked in a village for many years.14 Generally, in a family with several children at least one sibling had to become a farmer while another was assigned to be a worker in the city. The decision of who went to the countryside and who stayed in the city seriously affected sibling relations, resulting in strong social bonds as well as prolonged conflicts.15 Even though the assignments were government-made and mostly beyond the influence of my informants, some families faced important decisions. Thus, in Li Xiaolei’s family it should have been the eldest daughter, Li Qiuxin, who went to the countryside but because her health was not good her younger sister Li Yi went instead. In another case, inspired by the period’s revolutionary fervor, Wang Feng’s sister Wang Lijun dropped out of school at the earliest possible time and became a worker. Taking on the farmer’s role in the family therefore fell on their younger brother Wang Pei. One effect of the movement was a mutual dependence and sense of responsibility among families. Not only did older siblings take care of younger ones, but children also had to assume adults’ responsibilities in the household. Thus, it was Li Xiaolei’s older brother Li Peng and her sister Li Qiuxin who cared for her while their mother was in the countryside and their father at work. The modest support that parents could give children sent to the countryside was received by my interlocutors with great gratitude for the sacrifice. In return, they tried to bring foodstuffs lacking in the city on their occasional visits. Especially at the end of the movement, interlocutors who had remained in the city felt responsible toward their returning siblings to help them find a job and housing. In Li Xiaolei’s family, after Li Yi, who had gone to the countryside, finally returned to the city, Li Qiuxin, who should have gone instead, helped her in whatever way she could; there appeared to exist a special bond between them. While she claimed this was “only natural” among siblings, it was clear that Li Qiuxin made an extra effort to specifically help Li Yi, who had taken her place in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. Certainly there also existed problems and tensions among siblings in the past. Yet interlocutors insisted that the generation of today’s 60-year-olds entered the reform period with a strong sense of networked family connections and mutual responsibility.16 At the same time, they emphasized the harm that the Cultural

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Revolution did in terms of values and ethics; to them, the social fabric had been severely damaged.17 In these terms there was surprising coherence or correspondence in interlocutors’ accounts. Yet, in the reform period, informants’ experiences began to notably change and diverge. Social relations are affected by changing work schedules and lifestyles. “Nobody has time anymore,” was one of the most frequent laments people had when asked about how often they saw relatives and friends. In addition, notions of reciprocity, previously expressed mostly through gestures and goodwill, are more and more connected to material gifts and contributions. Networked sibling relations, finally, are increasingly affected by diverging economic success.18 The negotiation of these changes is closely linked to an individual’s well-being; support, social relations, and money have become closely intertwined. Li Xiaolei and her siblings appeared to manage the transition into the reform period quite well. They visited each other frequently, met for tea, or ran errands together. Especially after Li Xiaolei had moved to a new apartment in a central city location, her sisters dropped by regularly on their way to and from other places.19 As is customary practice, they also all regularly visited their parents, who lived with the oldest brother, Li Peng, who was the wealthiest among the siblings and had the biggest house. Li Xiaolei went there most days. Since Li Peng lived in a suburban location, the trip took at least sixty minutes. She usually stayed for a couple of hours, chatting with her parents or helping with things they needed to be done. Yet, it was the oldest sister, Li Qiuxin, who was the principal caretaker for their parents. Retired and without children, every day she went to Li Peng’s house, where she saw to the needs of the older couple. In addition, she helped her brother and sister-in-law with the housework. Li Xiaolei and her siblings negotiated their respective economic and social positions to effectively create a network of mutual support and help, with special attention to their elderly parents’ needs. They relied on each other in terms of social, emotional, and at times economic support. The siblings contributed, for example, to Li Qiuxin’s apartment down payment, each according to his or her own economic situation and without expecting payback at a set time. All siblings were especially concerned about and attentive to Li Yi, whose husband worked in New Zealand and had not returned for more than ten years. At the same time, I gathered that there were also tensions, for example, between Li Qiuxin and Li Peng, for whom she effectively served as a household employee. Nonetheless, the siblings apparently managed to negotiate these issues without seriously affecting, that is, breaking, their relations. Good sibling relationships, however, do not come, or better, do not continue automatically even if grounded in a shared experience of hardship and solidarity in the past. The bonds between brothers and sister have to be maintained. Visiting each other or, at least, making regular phone calls played an important role in the

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cultivation of social bonds. The frequency of visits and calls was often referred to when I asked about the importance of a specific relationship: “We see each other every other day” meant siblings were close, whereas “We see each other once a year during spring festival” was an obvious indicator that the relationship was not close or not considered very important. Another way to determine the degree of separation was to ask, “Who do you turn to when you have an emotional problem/ for advice?” After the spouse, most often it was siblings who were mentioned. But when I requested a more specific answer, it was usually one or two specific siblings and also often old friends who took on the role of confidante. Maintaining close relations in today’s urban environment is significantly impaired by physical distances and challenging timetables. This is an important factor to consider when examining sibling relations based on the frequency of contacts. Nonetheless, as mentioned above, emotionally close siblings had ways to circumvent these hurdles. If distances were too great to overcome within the available time, close siblings resorted to frequent phone calls and weekend get-togethers in central locations, for example. They also tried to combine errands with visiting out-of-the-way brothers and sisters. Finally, a number of siblings purchased housing close to each other, sometimes even in the same building. Studies from the 1980s and 1990s show that urban families tried to acquire housing that enabled married children to be close to their parents’ home and that these families tended to interact like stem or extended families. These “networked families” (wangluo jiating) apparently became more common during the period when state-provided social services were cut back.20 There has been no evidence thus far, however, of siblings aspiring to the same physical closeness. Yet, Wang Feng’s oldest brother and his sister lived in the same building. Even his nephew, the son of his brother, had purchased a unit in the same apartment block when he found a job and moved in with his girlfriend. Given the number of options in the housing market, it seems safe to say that they would not have done so if there was no interest in close contact. An interesting aspect of the maintenance and nurturing of such emotional bonds between siblings (and friends, as I will discuss blow) was the connection with the financial situation of a person. This issue emerged when I began to better understand the relationship between Wei Lan and her siblings, especially her sisters. Some time into our acquaintance, I realized that Wei Lan was actually not equally connected to all her siblings. The bond appeared especially strong with her oldest and her youngest sisters, Wei Xianghua and Wei Xiaoli. These three saw each other most regularly, often every day. This was certainly helped by living close to each other. In addition, Xianghua and Wei Lan took turns to care for their elderly mother. Their youngest sister still worked, and the other sister, Wei Hong, lived far away. Yet, as Lili pointed out one day, it was also Wei Hong’s financially dire situation that affected the relation between her and Wei Lan. Since

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Wei Hong and her family were in a similar economic situation as Wei Lan and Chen Yiping, they could not help each other financially as much as did other family members. Lili attributed lesser (emotional) closeness to lack of help, more specifically lack of money contributions to each other’s household economy. Besides social visits and phone calls, the exchange of money apparently created and/ or reinforced social (and emotional) bonds. How easily sibling relations can be affected by socioeconomic differentiation and (failed) expectations of support is illustrated by Chen Yiping and his siblings. Indeed, Chen Yiping had broken off all contact with his brothers; their economic success and apparent change of attitude had interfered. Chen Yiping explained: At the beginning of the reforms my younger brother started a business. My younger sister’s husband, my older sister’s son and I helped him. We were in the same boat. But after he got rich, [he behaved like] he is the boss; the relationship between us changed from one between family to one between master and subordinates. Passing through a series of jobs, from driving a taxi to piecework at home, as well as periods of unemployment, Chen’s relation with the other siblings also deteriorated. He felt looked down upon and not respected by his siblings; and he clearly thought that they should have helped him with either money or finding a job. Diverging economic standing and the refusal to exchange money interfered with or terminated Chen Yiping’s connection with his siblings. Yet, while Chen Yiping was also at odds with his mother, he kept a modicum of propriety and continued to uphold at least the appearance of the ideal of a respectful son. Other interlocutors adhered to the same practice. Even if they had fallen out with their families and cut relations with their siblings, they usually kept a minimum of contact with their parents. The horizontal sibling relationship was subject to a different scrutiny and moral standard than the vertical relationship with parents; it depended more on actual performance than on norms.21

Parents and Children Xiao, “filial piety,” is a widely recognized notion in China even today.22 Many interlocutors, independent of their age, referred to this concept when we discussed the relation with their parents. Chen Yiping called xiao “the soul of Chinese society.” Interestingly, he also related the notion to the existence of social insurance, suggesting that if China had a better social insurance system, xiao would lose importance: “We would not emphasize it as strongly.”23 Yet, how to practice xiao is debated. What does the concept mean today? That this might not be universally agreed upon was reflected by the 2012 government

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campaign to legally define the duties pertaining to filial piety (e.g., explaining the Internet to one’s parents) and making noncompliance punishable.24 Thus the government decidedly puts the responsibility for the elderly into their children’s hands. Increasing job and social obligations, or distance to parents’ house, however, can make this responsibility hard to fulfill, even for the most filial of sons and daughters. At the same time, Chinese social transformations have also contributed to a growing separation between ethics and emotions; people in China today often struggle to align their (moral) obligations with their individual desires.25 A good example of conflicting feelings of obligation and personal desires was Chen Yiping’s relation with his mother. Recall that Chen visited his mother only during Chinese holidays, thus upholding the appearance of the Chinese notion of filial piety. Yet he made no effort to see or keep in touch with his siblings. When I asked Chen Yiping directly about his strained family relations, he suggested that historical circumstances and lack of education had made them drift apart: It dates back to my grandma’s generation. When Japan invaded China, my family was separated. My grandma’s siblings fled to different places. My third uncle went to Guangxi province, the forth uncle to Guangdong [province], and my aunt to Guangzhou. Another aunt also went to Guangzhou, but a different area. My mother suffered under the separation from her family members. She was raised by one of her father’s sister who did not have enough money to support her education. With this [poor educational] background, my mother neglected to tell us that we should be united and help each other in any case. At first I considered this an odd, rather evasive answer to my question. But later I realized what Chen Yiping was trying to say: family should stay and stick together, but this is something that has to be learned. Implicitly he criticized his mother for failing to teach him and his siblings the important lesson of sibling solidarity. Yet instead of openly condemning her, he blamed her own difficult upbringing and lack of education. The negligence he refers to, that is, “we should be united and help each other in any case,” hints at the conflicts he had with his brothers. This quotation is therefore interesting not only because it expressed Chen Yiping’s view of proper sibling relations and behavior but also because of the way he expressed his critique. He avoided directly accusing his mother of failing to properly educate her children. This way he could hold up his own moral standard of being a filial son who respects and honors his mother. That is also why, even though he felt hurt by his family, he kept visiting his mother during the holidays. He reduced contact to a minimum by which he still fulfilled—or at least complied with the façade of—filial piety. Yet, this minimal contact clearly expressed

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his discontent.26 The moral lesson conveyed in our conversation became even stronger when Wei Lan, who was present during the exchange, took the chance to emphasize how close she was with her siblings because “My mother always told us that the old ones should take care of the young ones, that the young ones should follow the old ones’ example. That is a valuable point I gained from my parents and passed down to my child.” The way Chen Yiping and Wei Lan emphasized the learned nature of solidary behavior among siblings challenges the frequently naturalized close nature of the Chinese kin relation in the literature. They conveyed that it is much more a question of family education and choice and that these ties can be broken.27 At the same time, there appeared a clear distinction between the obligations toward the mother and toward siblings. Whereas Chen Yiping discontinued direct contact with his brothers, he did not break completely with his mother. Practice trumped ideology among siblings, yet between the generations transmitted social norms of respect still held true. Mostly, that is, because there were also the cases where relations between parents and (adult) child had obviously suffered.28 Throughout my research, I was generally impressed by the continued importance that my younger interlocutors attributed to xiao. Nonetheless, in conversations they also revealed the contemporary challenges of xiao. Peter and Tina, two students at the Agricultural University in Guangzhou with a rural background, explained their understanding of xiao in the following way: “American children feel entitled to their parents’ help. But for us, our parents’ bringing us up is a present we are incredibly grateful for. And this gift we will have to return.” Peter continued, “As a boy of course I have to take care of my parents in old age.” This was even more an obligation because he was their only child. “But Tina,” he went on, “she will not be able to live with her parents. Once she is married, she and her husband will live with his parents.” For now, though, they had to focus on their studies to make sure that they would find good jobs after graduating from university. Both were aware of the financial challenges that lay ahead of them.29 Another kind of challenge to the contemporary use of xiao came from divergent interpretations and intergenerational misunderstandings. This issue was driven home by the conflict between Wei Lan’s oldest sister Wei Xianghua, her husband Lin Feng, and their 29-year-old son Lin Rui. Lin Feng and Wei Xianghua were retired workers in their sixties when we met. Together with their son, they lived in a small ground-floor apartment of an old danwei compound. When I first asked Wei Xianghua about their son, she did not really want to talk about him and simply changed the subject of our conversation. Instead she told me about the important (emotional) role her taijiquan group took in her life. She and her husband exercised every morning, sometimes past lunchtime. Members of the group, Wei Xianghua said, were her closest social relations, the ones

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who gave her emotional support: “They listen to my worries.” But she did not really want to elaborate on her worries. Later I had the chance to get to know Lin Rui. Talking to him it became evident that the relation with his parents was a bit strained. The parents apparently were not happy with Lin Rui’s career choices and plans for life. He had dropped out of junior college and was self-employed. After going through several low-qualification and low-income jobs, he now organized outdoor sales events for companies. His parents were disappointed that he had not pursued higher education. They were actually embarrassed about his unstable job and income situation. Lin Rui, in turn, felt his parents did not respect him and his decisions. He held very different ideas about what he wanted from life, what was important to him, what he was striving for. He made it very clear that he did not care about having a highflying career, earning a lot of money, getting married, and staying put. Instead, he dreamed of traveling, and he planned to work for periods of time only to finance his adventures. Lin Rui admitted that he had arguments with his parents because they could not accept his ideas. They would “insist and insist on their view” until he would eventually “vent his emotions.” While one could take this simply as a case of intergenerational misunderstanding, a case of growing individualization in Chinese society, the relationship between parents and son was more complex.30 Lin Rui lived with his parents rentfree. While he claimed he could afford to rent a room or small house, he admitted that it would put him under great pressure to earn enough money every month. Being self-employed, his income was never guaranteed. Whenever possible, he gave some money to his parents, but not regularly. His only security for the future was the government-issued insurance scheme he bought, and another—commercial one—which his mother had been paying for since he was ten years old. In effect, to a large extent Lin Rui depended on his parents’ support. While he also had friends, the help they could offer was limited to providing business opportunities and advice. At the same time, despite the disagreements over his lifestyle, Lin Rui expressed strong views about the continued importance and validity of xiao. He was very emphatic that he would support and take care of his parents once they were old and frail. Yet, how he would do this given his economic situation and plans for life he left unanswered. For now he directed his filial piety mainly toward his grandmother, who had taken care of him when he was a small boy. He brought her small gifts and made “her feel good and respected” by spending time with her. Besides the attention to his grandmother, he stressed how he participated in all events involving the extended family. Also, he made a conscious effort to engage in conversations with his parents about topics “they care about” to “make them happy.” Nonetheless, rejecting his parents’ ideal projection for his life, Lin Rui clearly rebelled against them,

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questioning their authority and rejecting their guidance. Moreover, his uncertain job situation denied his parents the certainty that one day he could support them financially if needed. Lin Rui’s lifestyle put yanglao into jeopardy, that is, adult children’s responsibility for their parents’ well-being during old age in return for their sacrifices while bringing them up. Lin Rui and his parents’ relationship and their conflicts, together with the contemporary challenges to xiao that Peter and Tina laid open, highlight the contradictions, diverging expectations, and disagreements that characterize social relations in the radically transformed urban environment. The importance of the mutual parent-child relationship is reinforced on the one hand by the role parents play in their child’s start into adult life (education and financial support, especially for housing) and on the other by adult children’s vital contribution to elderly parents’ well-being; the latter even legally underwritten by government regulations. Nonetheless, the nature and details of the relation are very much up for negotiation. Even if referring to the traditional notion of xiao, increasingly this appears to have diverging meanings to different people and different generations; notions of support and reciprocity might not converge, as Yan has also shown in the rural context.31 Yet we cannot simply diagnose growing individualization or rising egotism and self-centeredness in the younger generation. Instead, what we see is how in the context of radically transformed (and continuously transforming) social, political, and economic circumstances, different moral notions compete with each other. At the same time, they are being defined and redefined in the ongoing negotiation between individual and collective necessities and desires.

Other Relatives Uncles, aunts, and cousins all featured in families’ and individuals’ support networks. Yet, similar to what Jankowiak described in his 1993 study in Hohhote, the intensity of these relationships was much more divergent between the families I talked to.32 Here, geographical distance took a greater role than among closer relatives in preventing continued frequent contact and exchanges. Nevertheless, especially with relatives in the countryside, my urban interlocutors usually made an effort to visit at least once a year and bring presents. Interestingly, this gift giving was not necessarily related to necessity but more to the urban-rural divide. More than one interlocutor expressed the notion that independent of their objective economic situation, as a city resident they should bring presents to their rural relatives. Thus, there was an inherent status differentiation between the urban and the rural realm with correspondent economic expectations. In addition, at this level of relatedness there seemed to hardly exist any difference between blood relatives and close friends; both were treated equally in terms

“If not his child, who will pay for his living?” | 43

of help provided and attention given. Among the Cultural Revolution generation who had been sent to the countryside, many of my interlocutors had developed tight relationships not only with their fellow students but also with some of the villagers they had lived and worked with for many years. Several of them continued to visit their rural hosts at least once a year and/or sent small gift to them. The friends they made among fellow students during that time usually belonged to their closest and most trusted relationships. The (at times traumatic) experience of being stranded in the countryside had fostered deep bonds of mutual trust.33 These friends were often talked about as “my brother” or “my sister” and considered to be sources of potential help if needed. An important transformation, however, is occurring among second-generation relatives, that is, Lili, Shufei, and their peers. While the “parent generation” among my interlocutors—Chen Yiping, Wei Lan, Wang Feng, Li Xiaolei, and so on— generally maintained close contact with their siblings, among their children, that is, among cousins, relationships were significantly more distant and strongly influenced by education and personality. Both Lili and Shufei saw their cousins at family events yet maintained no personal contact with them. While they occasionally provided support to a cousin—for example, Lili helped a younger cousin with her studies—this was prompted by their parents’ request or suggestion, not based on their own initiative. Moreover, Lili explained the compliance with her parents’ request by referring to her gratitude toward her aunt, Wei Lan’s youngest sister, who had often helped Wei Lan and her family in economically tough times. Thus, this connection was effectively still one between the sisters, only enacted through the cousins. While we could speculate that at a later stage in life the cousins might become more closely interconnected, this is not certain. Among the younger generation, educational difference and diverging lifestyles appeared to significantly set them apart. Their parents’ generation, while undergoing economic stratification in the reform period, shared the experience of growing up during Maoism, which somehow connected them. The cousins, however, had no such basis for forming a bond. Both Shufei and Lili confessed that they did not really know what to talk about with their cousins who had not attended university and were already working.34 Instead, they both had relatively close relations with at least some of the classmates from middle and high school and/or university.

Conclusion As we have seen in this chapter, and as seen in earlier studies, close kin continues to be an important source of support among urban Chinese residents.35 At the same time, it is the very support extended and received over time that reinforces, and at times conditions, kin relations in the present. Kin relations are not naturally

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given, nor are relatives automatically prone to provide help; to be viable, relations have to be maintained, nourished, and sustained over time through continuous contact and support. Yet, kin relations can equally be the source of grievance and strain. Unfulfilled expectations or excessive neediness weigh down on the quality and continuation of these bonds. Importantly, the combined economic, political, and social changes of the past thirty years have had significant effects on relations of support. Even among the parent generation that entered the reform period with a strong bond of mutual solidarity, the introduction of a market economy has affected ideologies and practices of support. Among their children, the second generation, this has even more dramatic effects, effectively putting the strength and reliability of their kin relations as support networks into question. Not surprisingly, friends are increasingly taking on important roles in the provision of social, emotional, and economic support.

Notes 1. Ikels 1996: 125; Statistics Bureau of Guangzhou City 2006. 2. In my household survey with 157 respondents, about 60 percent had three to five or more siblings. At the same time, about 60 percent of respondents had only one child. 3. See Hong-Fincher (2016) for a detailed study of the process and the ideologies involved. 4. Ikels 1996: 128–29; Jankowiak 1993. Also, Whyte and Parish 1984. 5. But see Obendiek 2016; Santos 2006, 2008; Stafford 2000. 6. Chinese women do not adopt their husbands’ last names upon marriage. Nonetheless, for matters of simplification, in certain places throughout the book I refer to an entire family by the husbands’ last name. When talking about specific persons, however, I call men and women by their proper names. Note that all names are pseudonyms to protect interlocutors’ privacy. 7. Hakka are an officially recognized national minority in southern China. 8. Official retirement age in China is sixty for men and fifty-five for most women. A study by the Population and Labor Economic Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Science in five Chinese cities showed, however, that men retire at an average age of fifty-seven and women at fifty. Given this relatively young age and the overall economic uncertainty, it is not surprising that many able-bodied elderly continue to work after official retirement. See Cai 2006: 317. 9. This mainly refers to keeping track of complying with the one-child policy. 10. Qingming, or Tomb Sweeping Day, on the fifteenth day after spring equinox, is a day for remembering the dead that involves tending to ancestors’ graves. 11. While the dingti policy existed before the reform period, in 1978 it was expanded. In an effort to address youth unemployment, employees were encouraged to retire even before reaching official retirement age, with immediate results. Ikels 1996: 179–80. 12. Danning Wang (2010) suggests that this practice is part of the older generations’ negotiation of power and influence over the younger one in an effort to guarantee being taken care of in the future. See also Whyte 2004. 13. If sibling relations are discussed, it is often only in relation to elderly care and inheritance. Cohen (1976) examined family relations (including siblings) in the Taiwanese

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14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

35.

context. Jankowiak (1993), in his classical study of urban family life in Hohhote, mentions siblings in passing. Obendiek (2016), in contrast, offers a detailed discussion of the crucial role siblings play as educational sponsors among rural students. Santos (2008), in turn, discusses the importance of “same-year siblings,” a special friendship bond. See Ikels 1996: 145–48. Some of the parents were also sent to the countryside to work and some were imprisoned, effectively causing ruptures and difficulties among the remaining members in the urban household. This is supported by studies from the 1980s and 1990s (Davis and Harrell 1993; Ikels 1996; Unger 1993; Whyte 2004) that showed the interconnectedness of Chinese urban families even when living apart. See Whyte and Parish 1984: 345–49. During the Maoist period, society was far from egalitarian. Stratification, however, was mainly based on one’s class background, derived from parents’ political classification and thus shared by siblings. While not specifically referring to sibling relations, Jankowiak (1993: 223–24) observed similar practices among more distant relatives in Hohhote. Davis and Harrell 1993; Unger 1993; Whyte 2004. See also Fleischer 2010. Ikels (1996: 138) similarly hints at the growing conflicts that diverging socioeconomic means have caused in family life. See Ikels 2004. Wang (2010) and Ikels (2004), however, suggest that economic dependency, or at least possible economic benefits, play an important role in motivating xiao, especially as related to inheritance. “Filial Piety as Law,” 2011. Sun (forthcoming) shows how some young adult singletons in Beijing conceive of filial piety in terms of the more individualistic notion of “authenticity.” See also Yan 2011. This behavior corresponds with reports about elderly who complain that while their basic needs are being taken care of they are not paid the respect they felt they deserved. Jankowiak 1993: 227. It is also important to keep in mind that with their statements in conversations with me, Chen Yiping and his wife also tried to somewhat justify his failure to comply with the role of filial son. Similarly, see Wang (2010) and Ikels (1996) for conflicts between parents and adult children. See Obendiek (2016) for a detailed discussion of kin investment into children’s educational aspirations in the countryside and the resulting sense of obligation to return the favor. On individualization, see Yan 2010a, 2010b. Yan Y. 2003. Jankowiak 1993: 223. Similar importance was frequently attributed to fellow army comrades. This apparently contrasts with Jankowiak’s (2009) findings in Hohhote in the 2000s, where siblings who wanted to create a larger family environment actively sought to bring cousins together and used fictive terms of older brother and younger sister to create a sense of expanded family. He is, however, referring to adults with their own children. For example, Ikels 1996; Jankowiak 1993, 2009; Whyte and Parish 1984.

2 NEIGHBORS AND FRIENDS Among the notable and dramatic transformations that today’s generation of those aged 60-plus experienced are changes in the residential neighborhood and relationships with friends. As children, they likely lived through the chaos of war, revolution, and the early years of the communist republic; living conditions were generally poor and crowded. At least in their memory, however, this past was also filled with small acts of solidarity, the feeling of shared hardship, and close neighborly relations. The Maoist period organization of urban society on the basis of the danwei reinforced this communal sense among people who (often) were neighbors and co-workers. Living and working together through the different political movements brought people closer together. The political turmoil and the dislocations of the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,” in contrast, my interlocutors experienced as a radical seizure. Among the most common complaints regarding the movement’s long-term effects were its detrimental impact on social relations and especially the loss of trust. The reform period, with its onset of socioeconomic differentiation and new living arrangements, continued and exacerbated the trend toward nuclear families and the distancing of social relationships. As a result of the Cultural Revolution’s upheavals, many people drew closer to their kin, who they often felt to be more reliable, even if this was not necessarily so since family members also turned on each other during this period. This trend toward (re)emphasizing family was supported by the reform period cuts to social welfare and the legal institution of kin responsibility. To proclaim the high importance of kin when asked about social relationships was thus not really surprising but reflected the combined effects of the political movement and socioeconomic politics. Yet, despite these proclamations, in practice nonkin relations could take precedence over kin in providing support. Endnotes for this chapter begin on page 61.

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As described in the previous chapter, siblings widely suggested that they primarily relied on each other for help. From the outside it could therefore appear as if kin relations were the strongest social ties and most reliable source of support. Yet, as we have seen, conflicts between siblings and between parents and children were not uncommon and were often caused by diverging ideas about the nature, type, and frequency of help extended and/or accepted among kin. At the same time, all interlocutors told me about friends who they could trust and who they would ask for help if needed. Often these were old classmates and frequently people they had spent time with in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. That is, these were relationships that had been established a long time ago and whose strength had been proven repeatedly over time. In effect, regarding social relations, what was more important than a given or “mechanical” connection defined by kinship was organic trust developed and proven over time—trust gained exactly through the practice of giving and receiving support. In this chapter I will discuss the changes that people experienced in their residential neighborhood and in their relations with friends. The emphasis is on people’s experience and reflection upon these transformations. I begin by outlining the changing living environment and neighborly relations and the effect of socioeconomic differentiation on these. In the following section I discuss the importance of friends and how friendship relations are established, maintained, and also broken. The final section examines how relations between residents and the state have become more distant yet at the same time also more personal. Overall, the chapter highlights the contraction of social circles and the growing importance of individual efforts to establish and maintain relationships with friends, neighbors, and the state.

The Changing Living Environment After the national government’s housing reforms, in the 1990s companies frequently purchased housing developed by real estate development corporations that was sold to employees at preferential prices as part of their job benefits.1 This was the case of the pharmaceutical company that Wei Lan worked for. When its old danwei compound was razed to make way for the Guangzhou subway, the company relocated its production facilities to a suburban location and, in collaboration with two other pharmaceutical companies, bought a residential compound in an area south of the Pearl River. Thus, original residents were work colleagues who knew at least one-third of the other inhabitants before the move. In recent years, however, more and more neighbors have moved out to live in better equipped commercial apartments or with their adult children. Renting or selling their old units introduced new residents with no previous personal connections to the compound (Figure 2.1).

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Figure 2.1. New (Reform Period) Danwei Housing. © Author

When I met Chen Yiping and Wei Lan, they lived in the apartment she had received from her employer about ten years earlier, which they had bought at a discounted price after five years. The unit, on the fourth floor of a walk-up building, was about 60 square meters large, had a living room, two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom. It also had a small balcony and tiled floors throughout but none

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of the decorative features that distinguish commercially constructed apartments in China today. The compound was made up of three buildings that formed an uneven U around a barren courtyard with a guarded entrance gate. Mirroring typical Maoist danwei architecture, the buildings had four or five entries with staircases leading up to the six floors and four apartments on each landing. Apart from the groundlevel units, which were smaller, apartments were similar in size and cut but were markedly distinguished by the owners’ own home improvements, such as type of floor, furniture, and wall decoration. All apartment owners had invested in extra security, such as grates for their windows and iron doors with heavy locks. Deteriorating safety was a common complaint among residents and was often connected to comments about original residents moving out and renting their units to newcomers or “outsiders” (waidiren).2 Wang Feng and Li Xiaolei, in contrast, lived in a commercially built, 20-story apartment high-rise in Liwan district, a central city location. On the ground floor toward the street was a small convenience store, but the rest of the building was residential, and there was no private courtyard. Each of the building’s four entrances had an intercom and electrical buzzer as well as a security guard. There were two elevators in each section; hallways were illuminated and tiled throughout. Wang and Li’s apartment was roughly 45 square meters large, with two bedrooms, a living room, a small kitchen, a bathroom, and a balcony. Floors throughout were tiled, and the bathroom had a modern toilet and shower. While the unit was smaller than Chen Yiping and Wei Lan’s, it was of better quality: less damp, warmer, and lighter. The couple had bought the unit with the financial help of Li Xiaolei’s employer, a bank. Yet, none of Li Xiaolei’s colleagues lived in the same building.3 Asked about their neighbors, Wang Feng and Li Xiaolei said that they greeted the people next door when they saw them in the hallway. Beyond this, however, they had no contact with anybody in the building. Instead, they continued to loosely stay in touch with former neighbors in the danwei neighborhood where they lived before. While we should not assume that life in the Maoist work unit compound was harmonious and void of conflicts or tensions, it is notable that all my interlocutors drew a sharp distinction between living conditions today and in the past. They emphasized that today they had more space and better living standards. At the same time, they unanimously drew a contrast between more personal neighborly relations in the past and today’s rather anonymous living experience. Thus, talking about neighbors, Wei Lan said that in her childhood “people were nice to each other, different from now.” “Could you give me an example?” “My family was in a difficult economic situation at that time. There was a neighbor—we called her Aunt Ma—who lived upstairs and whose economic situation was better than ours.

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When she cooked porridge or pachyrhizus (taproots), she used to bring us some.” Today, in contrast, Wei Lan emphasized, neighbors wanted to be left alone. Middle-aged interlocutors distinguished between different urban living scenarios: simple, cramped, and multigenerational housing with a high level of interaction and solidarity among neighbors during the war and Maoist period; nuclear family units in danwei compounds in a state of continuous transformation, including rising housing standards due to home improvements and deteriorating neighborly relations due to changes in residential composition during the reform period; and, increasingly, nuclear family units in commercially constructed apartment complexes with unprecedented amenities as well as previously unknown levels of anonymity. In addition, some of my informants knew rural living conditions, either because their family had originally been from the countryside or, more likely, because they had lived in villages during the Cultural Revolution. There was thus a shared narration of improving living conditions and deteriorating neighborly relations as well as greater residential anonymity. The rationalization behind these transformations, however, was not unanimous. Some people attributed the changes to the moving in of outsiders, who they tended to blame for rising crime rates and the resulting diminishing overall trust. Others suggested that it was rather the transformation of lifestyle that negatively affected neighborhoods. Mr. Peng, a colleague of Wei Lan, observed, “Today people just don’t have time anymore. Everybody is busy with work, the education of their child, and they also have more entertainment possibilities in the house.” There was also a different level of regret about these changes, from nostalgic reminiscences to a more profound sense of loss of communal values. Maybe unsurprisingly, the better the socioeconomic position of my interlocutors the fewer the regrets. The above were favorable living conditions. Yet, several of my interlocutors experienced significantly more hardship as regards their housing situation, which—unchangeably—had to do with their employment/employer situation. Wei Lan’s oldest half-brother, Wei Zixiong, and his wife, for example, lived in a single room of a shared apartment. His difficult situation stemmed from his problems during the Maoist period: during the Cultural Revolution he was accused of being a counterrevolutionary and punished. While he did not want to explain in detail, he hinted at imprisonment and beatings. The effect was severe; for some time afterward he said he had a “mental disease.” Until 1986, he and his wife lived with his mother but moved out after their first son was born because there was not enough space for all of them. Due to his political status and health condition, he did not have a good job and did not receive housing from his employer. In consequence, between 1986 and 1990 the family lived in a series of small rented places and for some time even in a former pigsty. With the reform period, however, it has become increasingly more difficult to find affordable housing, partly also because migrants who work in the city and do

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not have access to public housing occupy the limited available options. To make things worse, Wei Zixiong’s wife, who was from the countryside, never managed to have her hukou transferred to the city. As a result, she had problems finding work and relied on part-time and noncontractual positions, which were generally poorly paid and offered no benefits. In 1990, the company that employed Wei Zixiong finally offered them their current lodgings, a room of about 5 by 5 meters in size. This room was part of an apartment that had been split up into four units; all residents shared the bathroom and kitchen. To make the most of their living space, Wei Zixiong and his wife had installed a platform below the ceiling on which the entire family slept. The space remaining below was hardly of standing height. When we met, the couple lived alone. Yet until recently, they had shared the space with their two sons, who now worked in a nearby factory town. One of them still came to stay with them occasionally. Since Wei Zixiong’s company had gone bankrupt in recent years, the family’s residential situation was actually more insecure. There was nobody to collect the money, and they did not pay rent. At the same time, nobody was responsible for the building, so no one took care of repairs or general maintenance. Residents had taken charge of the immediate tasks, but they knew that they could lose their housing any day if the building or land was sold in the course of their old company’s liquidation. Another example of residential hardship was that of the elderly Mrs. Xu. When we met, she lived in a small room in an old and dilapidated danwei building. Her woes were due to a legal dispute between her and her sister-in-law. After Mrs. Xu’s husband passed away, his sister had claimed and eventually sold the apartment that Mr. Xu had received from his danwei. After a prolonged legal battle, Mrs. Xu was given the right to live in one room of her former house, but she said that the new owners “cannot wait for me to die” so they can occupy the entire unit. Her dire situation was exacerbated by the fact that due to her poor health she had not worked long enough to have qualified for benefits from her employer. In addition, her only daughter had died at a young age. With no other relatives, Mrs. Xu was completely dependent on the state’s poor subsidy for her household economy. For her social well-being she had to rely on the benevolence of well-meaning individuals. Some of the neighbors, who she had known for a long time, offered help with small daily chores, like airing her bedding. Nonetheless, Mrs. Xu did not feel comfortable simply receiving their goodwill since she could not offer anything in return. So she gave them a small amount of money for their help. There were more connections between a person’s living conditions and their employment status or history. Wei Lan’s superior at the company (her “leader”), for example, had retired about six years before her. Because he had been higher up in the hierarchy he had received an apartment before Wei Lan. Yet this was old

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housing, constructed at the very beginning of the reform period and before the company had become economically more successful. The difference in standards was clearly visible even from the outside. Whereas Wei Lan’s building was covered with white tiles, her former boss’ building had a simple cement façade that had suffered from the climatic conditions. Inside there were only cement floors, the light in the hallways was broken, and the apartments suffered from damp. If companies do well during the reform period, they often invest in the improvement of their employees’ living quarters. Yet many cannot afford to do so. Thus, even after retirement, people’s residential circumstances are importantly affected by the fate of their former employers’ economic success or failure—even more so because the former employer also pays their pension. Again, retirees’ financial situation appeared quite arbitrary. Another colleague of Wei Lan who lived in her building had retired only a few years before her. Even though he had worked longer and in a higher position than Wei Lan, her pension was higher since the company had improved its profits after the colleague retired. On the other hand, if a company goes bankrupt, payroll for employees and retirees is transferred to the government; wages and pensions are reduced to the minimum living allowance. In sum, individuals’ living situation was influenced by a variety of factors, only a few of which my interlocutors had control over. The economic performance of their employer in the reform period, the time they started working at the company, and when they reached retirement age all linked in with their housing and financial circumstances. All of my interlocutors relied at certain times on the help of relatives, friends, or neighbors. The direr an individual’s economic situation, the more necessary became social connections that could provide help. One might assume that in older residential complexes, built by companies for their employees, residents could rely on a net of helpful neighborly relations that resulted from long-term proximity. Yet, as I will discuss in more detail in the next section, this was impeded both by increasing rates of newcomers without personal connections and by growing socioeconomic differentiations in the neighborhood.

“There is no door to make friends with you.” The Social Economy of Neighborly Relations An important element of the transformed living experience is the social changes interlocutors experienced. Wei Lan, as indicated above, felt that social relations had changed quite radically since the Maoist period. “People used to help each other,” she said, “even if they were not family.” She elaborated: Chairman Mao appealed to the people to treat others like family; that was the idea of communism. A typical example was “Learn from Lei Feng.”4

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We grew up in this atmosphere. We thought we ought to let old people take our seat in the bus, for example. When we saw an old person carrying something heavy, we would go and help him or her. In contrast, today many people don’t extend their hand anymore when they see someone falling. [In the past] people were encouraged to help each other; it became a widespread movement. We lived in that atmosphere, so people had a sense of doing good deeds. Society focused on thought education; you were taught to do that [good deeds]. When I asked what she attributed these changes to, she responded: Chairman Mao said we endeavored to fight for the ideal of communism. So the gap between rich and poor was not as wide as now. Now people take money first while [during Maoism] they would help each other simply for the honor. [Today] the rich grow richer, but the poor are still poor, and this distances the relationship. Even though Wang Feng and Li Xiaolei were in a relatively better economic situation than Chen Yiping and Wei Lan and had chosen to live in a commercial apartment block, Wang Feng made a similar observation regarding the socioeconomic stratification of society: In the past, people were equal. Their income was more or less the same, they lived close to each other, and therefore, they could communicate better. When there were conflicts or problems, the danwei or others might help. The living condition is better now, but people are under much more pressure. People are competing fiercely and social relationships are tense. Now people can’t make friends with each other easily. These recollections of the past were clearly tinted by nostalgia. They have to be understood less as objective descriptions of the Maoist period than as comments on the present-day living experience. And this present, characterized by growing competition, socioeconomic pressure, and differentiation bewildered many of the middle-aged and older interlocutors, who attributed social distancing to these changes. Within danwei neighborhoods this played out in slightly more subtle ways than in society in general, since the housing market tends to stratify residential neighborhoods. Yet, even here differentiations are notable. In contrast to the Maoist period, when wages increased almost exclusively due to age, today state-owned companies employ wage differentials based on skill and performance level. Beyond this, people who left the company and ventured into the private sector have had divergent success. While some benefit from the new opportunities, others have not been able to find a footing in the market economy.

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In addition, one of the most decisive factor in socioeconomic differentiation among the working class is whether both husband, and wife received housing at preferential prices from their employer. This obviously depended on their contract and the economic well-being of the company they worked for. Yet, generally, this was (and continues to be in the form of housing subsidies) one of the advantages of working in the public sector in the reform period. Living in one unit, the couple can rent out the other and thus receive a steady monthly income. As numerous studies have shown, the majority of working-class families who buy commercial housing are able to do so because they capitalize on these housing policies.5 This was exactly the case of Wang Feng and Li Xiaolei: Li had bought their current apartment with financial help from her employer while they rented out the unit they had occupied before, which Wang had bought at a preferential price from his former employer. Chen Yiping and Wei Lan, in contrast, were in a more difficult economic situation because Chen had left his public sector company without receiving housing and thus lacked this additional source of income. As a result of the transformations in the urban housing market, long-term residents who bought their houses at preferential prices from their employer now live side by side with people who either rent the units or purchased them from the original owners at higher (market-driven) prices. The majority of these newcomers are young to middle-aged working couples with small children. Some are out-of-towners6 sharing an apartment, living alone or with their young family. Others are the adult children of original homeowners who moved in after their parent passed away or needed continuous care and went to live with another child or in a senior citizen home.7 In Chen Yiping and Wei Lan’s residential compound, according to my household survey (n = 157) 48.5% of residents lived there since its construction in 1995. Another 9.4% of the residents took up residency in the years until 1999. Yet 35.6% of residents at the time of research had only moved in between the year 2000 and 2007. It was this unprecedented turnover rate in residential occupancy that contributed to the original residents’ feeling of a radically changing living environment. New socioeconomic differentiations, no matter how subtle they effectively are, are especially noted by the disadvantaged and those who have lost their socialist status. Workers like Chen Yiping, Wei Lan, and Wang Feng, whose social position during Maoism was one of proletarian pride, now often felt depreciated and left out. Previously they were valued for contributing to the socialist revolution. Today, social status and prestige is principally linked to wealth, ostentatious wealth that is.8 Unsurprisingly, then, Chen Yiping and others in the same position were extremely sensitive to the way they were treated by others. Chen repeatedly commented on how the richer people in the community looked down upon the poorer

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residents. He himself had felt thus abused: “They feel superior to others. When you ask them something, they do not like to answer, or they answer in an unfriendly way. If you want to visit them, they do not like to open the door.” Mr. Li, a neighbor, similarly commented on the growing distancing in the residential compound: “There is no door to make friends with you.” The people Chen Yiping and Wei Lan would visit were those who they “had worked with and have common ground with. If we both have time, we can chat in each other’s house.” Chen Yiping specified that it would be someone “whose identity is similar to ours.” The sensation of change in the living environment, however, cannot be solely attributed to growing socioeconomic differentiations. As some of my interlocutors remarked, changing lifestyles also contributed to the social transformation of the residential compound. During Maoism, after hours were usually spent in political meetings and special rallies. The time left was taken up mainly by housework and child-rearing. There existed little private entertainment possibilities: movies, dance halls, bars—all these were considered bourgeois. Pleasurable distractions were either mass organized or limited to walking, playing sports, and talking to neighbors and colleagues in the danwei compound. The shared experience of both political rallying and lack of private distractions, in turn, contributed to the communal sense of close relations that my interlocutors recalled from Maoist times. With the reform period, possibilities of private entertainment have exploded. Restaurants, karaoke bars, dance halls, movies, theaters, museums, opera, galleries, entertainment parks, not to talk of the zillions of shops and stores—every day there seems to be a new venue luring customers to pass their time and spend their money. Even in the privacy of the home, the possibilities to spend one’s spare time find no end. TV sets, CD and DVD players, and karaoke machines are relatively cheap and therefore widespread consumer goods. Computers, mobile phones, and related games have become quite common too. Even in the most dilapidated houses of migrant factory workers, I regularly found TV sets and sometimes computers. At the same time, working hours are long, traffic increasingly heavy, and commuting tedious. Adding child and elderly care, it is apparent why residents spend ever less time in the communal spaces. This, however, is only part of the picture. During participant observation in residential compounds in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai, the number of people who used the public spaces never ceased to impress me. Yet it was principally the elderly who one could see in the morning doing exercises. Later they enjoyed the sun while often tending to a small child before disappearing around lunchtime. In the afternoon, the elderly came out again, frequently sitting together in small groups to play cards, chess, or mahjong, or they danced or played ping pong or badminton. Such activities were notably more common in commercial housing complexes with extensive and nicely designed green spaces or in old, but refurbished danwei compounds.

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In other, less splendid compounds people tended to seek out public parks and squares for their after-hour social activities. Thus there is no lack of activities out in the public. Yet, in contrast to what my interlocutors remembered from the past, it appears that the tendency is for groups to form around specific activities. That is, instead of neighbors hanging out in the communal space and chatting, today people join groups to pursue specific interests and activities. Indeed, time and again interlocutors told me about the growing importance of interest-based groups in their lives, as I will discuss further below.

Soup and Tea: The Art of Neighbor and Friend Relations As mentioned above, in the new commercial housing complex where Wang Feng and Li Xiaolei lived, they did not know or interact with anyone. Residents surveyed in Wei Lan and Chen Yiping’s residential complex, in contrast, reported to have contact with between two and four neighbors. Yet even this contact was often limited in its extent. Moreover, the relations were usually based on knowing each other for a long time, from both living in the same compound and working together. In Chen’s words, “The relationship with neighbors is not so close. It is rare that we visit the neighbors’ house regularly. Among neighbors, we keep in touch with those who are co-workers more frequently.” And Wei Lan added, “Because co-workers have worked together for a long time, they know each other’s personality better. We say hello to neighbors in general, but I don’t really know what kind of people they are. Everyone shuts the doors after they arrive at home.” That is, it appeared that few of my interlocutors made new contacts in their residential environment. At the same time, people regularly singled out a few individuals they would “bring soup if they are sick.” Soup, it turned out, was a good indicator for the quality of neighborly relations. Thus, when I asked Wei Lan if she would turn to her neighbors for help, she responded: Recently my neighbor broke her leg, so I visited her, gave some present or cooked soup for her. I think I ought to care about my neighbor without thinking of repayment or gratitude. Once I know something like this happened, I would feel ashamed if I would not do anything. I just want to help others, whereas if they thank me or not doesn’t matter. If others help me, I would also try to help them in need. Neighbors who brought each other soup usually also gave “red envelope” money (hong bao) to each other’s child on Chinese New Year.9 Furthermore, they were also likely to be part of a more general money exchange, as I will elaborate in the next chapter. Thus, the gift of soup circumscribed a circle of mutual support

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and help among neighbors. This was a feature that appeared to continue from the past. Recall that Wei Lan exemplified her description of good neighborly relations during the Maoist period with Aunty Ma’s sharing of food. When describing relations with the next-door neighbors today, she also referred to food: “In the beginning there was a problem. It had to do with our apartment entrance door. But then we resolved it [the issue]. Now our relations are good; I bring them soup when they are sick, and they do the same.” Besides playing an important role in establishing and maintaining good neighborly relations, food was also at the heart of friendship. In this case, however, people usually said they went to “drink tea” (yum cha), which in Guangzhou means eating dim sum. On average my interlocutors said that they had between three and five close friends. Only very few had none. Yet, as with close neighborly relations, and similar to what Jankowiak describes in his research in Hohhote, friendships do not simply happen: they have to be built and maintained.10 This involved helping and receiving support as well as being in touch on a relatively frequent basis. The majority of my middle-aged interlocutors said that they saw or called their friends at least once a week, the same as family. Yet, among the most common practices to cultivate friendship was “to go and have tea.” In the expansive urban environment, with people’s busy schedules, taking the time to meet, chat, and mutually invite each other was an important ritual to reinforce and strengthen the social links. Shared food was an indicator as well as a means of reproducing closeness. Carsten (2000), in revisiting kinship, suggests that “relatedness” is a more appropriate and less ethnocentric concept to capture the nature of certain social relations. These are, she suggests, commonly characterized by the sharing of substance and a certain solidarity behavior. The substances shared in the ethnographic studies in her edited volume range from food to milk, water, blood, and other things; the solidarity behavior, in turn, implies help and support in times of need and, importantly, distinguishes between groups of people: us and them. In Guangzhou, interlocutors certainly distinguished between kin and other social relations. In practice, however, these distinctions were more muddled. Close friends were often referred to as “my brother” or “my sister,” effectively underlining the importance of their bond. Indeed, neighbors, friends, and acquaintances all form an important circle of social relations, laiwang, which Stafford (2000) suggests exists parallel to patriarchal kinship organization in China.11 Laiwang, literally “come and go,” describes the reciprocal movement, back and forth, between people who have a relationship of mutual assistance. . . . The point is that the cycle of laiwang, which often consists of seemingly minor or “ceremonial” transactions, is a crucial element in the building up of relatedness between those who are not related (or not closely related) by kinship. (46–47)

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While sharing food played an important role, at the heart of close social relations was helping behavior. That is, less important than soup or tea itself was the gesture of bringing food to a sick person or inviting someone to eat. It was the practice of assistance that transcended kinship and friendship and formed the basis of the deepest social relationships. This became apparent one day when I asked Chen Yiping and Wei Lan whether they had friends who were neither family nor neighbors. Chen said he knew some people at the stock market and Wei Lan some people at the Protestant church she attended. I thought it was curious that Chen said he “knew” (renshi) some people, and therefore I probed: “Would you call them friends?” “Just so-so,” he responded, “there is only one who likes to help people.” What called my attention was that they had few, if any, friends who were not family or neighbors/colleagues and the emphasis on “helping” as the decisive criteria for friendship. That is, friendship was only partially a question of sympathy and importantly one of demonstrated benevolence. At times, friendship and helping behavior appeared almost synonymous. That is, people did not simply assume that their friends would help them when in need, but only after experiencing acts of support would a person be considered a friend. This, however, was not cold calculation on the part of my interlocutors. Instead, helping one another was the very essence of what it meant to be friends.12 Indeed, to have close neighbors, colleagues, and friends was an important factor in individual’s well-being. Time and again, when I asked about their living situation my interlocutors told stories of how friends had helped them. Thus, Wei Xianghua emphasized the importance of her taijiquan group: “They listen to my worries.” This support has become especially important for her to overcome the disappointment she felt over her son’s life choices. Similarly, after Wang Feng left his company to start his own business, friends played a vital role. They helped him pay lower prices, get greater credit, and so on while getting his business up and running. The lack of friends or, more generally, the lack of a functioning circle of laiwang could have a notable negative impact on a person’s well-being. Thus, Chen Yiping relied on his brothers to help him when he started out in the private sector, but they had apparently not responded in the way Chen hoped for. Moreover, as became apparent from his answer to my question above, he appeared not to have friends he could rely on for help. Wang Feng’s relatively more successful career in the private sector could thus also be seen as linked to his personal net of helpful relations that included kin, friends, and neighbors. In conclusion, interlocutors continuously worked on establishing and maintaining relationships with family, neighbors, colleagues, and friends that were part of an important web of exchange and support. During the Maoist period, this web often overlapped with their danwei neighborhood and/or workplace. In the reform

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period, however, the transformations of the urban environment interlink with social and economic stratification and changes in lifestyle to shrink and/or delocalize these webs of support. The art of relationship building has become more complicated due to the socioeconomically and spatially more diverse urban landscape.

State Support through Personalized Relations An important layer of change as well as context to the transformations described above is the reformed relation between the state and society. Often described as a shift from state regulation (and surveillance) to privatization, the changes are really more subtle, as becomes evident on the neighborhood level. During the Maoist period, every danwei neighborhood had a government office, the juweihui. Above this were street offices responsible for the administration of several danwei. Especially in the danwei residential complexes, juweihui cadres exerted close supervision and regulation but could also provide help and assistance. While certainly they were often intrusive and conflictual, close personal relations prevented residents’ neglect and loneliness.13 Today, juweihui continue to have offices in compounds such as the one Chen Yiping and Wei Lan live in. More recently constructed commercial buildings, such as the one Wang Feng and Li Xiaolei lived in, are part of a shequ (neighborhood/community), which depend on the participation and voluntary contribution of its residents. Thus, the urban organizational structure of local government offices continues, albeit in an adjusted form. Yet, the nature of interaction between these institutions and residents, as well as the specific tasks they are in charge of, has significantly changed. In Chen and Wei’s compound the local government office occupies two rooms on the ground floor of one of the buildings. Yet, cadres do not live in the community. As Ms. Li, the leader of this juweihui explained, the office’s personal interaction with, and knowledge of, residents is minimal. Their main task is to disseminate government information to residents. This is done by distributing flyers or putting up posters on the neighborhood’s bulletin boards. Beyond this, they have various administrative responsibilities, such as issuing documents and certificates related to marriage, divorce, childbirth, and so on. Another important role is the administration of the state’s poor household assistance (Minimal Living Standard Scheme, MLSS).14 In addition, residents who are over seventy years old and need practical help can request assistance from Chinese Youth League volunteers through the juweihui. Several of the elderly interlocutors, however, indicated that they were too ashamed to ask for either financial or practical help. In sum, since cadres are no longer residents of the community, their personal contact is limited; they do not know the living conditions of residents. In commercial residences, which are generally bigger, the distance between local government offices and residents is even more profound. This stands

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in stark contrast to the past, when the state distributional system interlinked with officials’ intimate knowledge of residents’ private lives. There are, however, persons who have more direct and personal contact with residents both in danwei and in commercial complexes. These are the representatives of elected residents’ committees who volunteer for the position and are paid a small compensation for their work. The representatives’ specific duties, however, depend on the residential community. In Chen and Wei’s complex, the representative collected water and electricity fees, took care of the compounds’ environment, and looked to residents’ security concerns. In commercial compounds, such tasks are usually taken on by the administrations’ employees. The residents’ committee’s activities, in turn, depend on the members themselves.15 In old and generally smaller danwei compounds representatives usually know residents by name and also know about their personal circumstances. Depending on their personal involvement and commitment, they can therefore facilitate the relation between residents and local government offices. Yet the extent of this personal involvement is completely dependent on the individual’s disposition. Mrs. Wu was the residents’ committee representative in Chen Yiping and Wei Lan’s compound. A lively 60-something-year-old, she belonged to the first generation of residents of the newly constructed complex. Going from apartment to apartment once a month to collect water fees, she knew the community well. She could tell me which apartments had been sold, which were rented out, and which ones were still occupied by the original residents. When I accompanied her on one of her monthly rounds to collect the fee, I witnessed how she greeted people by name and took the time to inquire about their health, children, or general situation. Especially with some of the elderly she made an effort to see that they were well. Mrs. Wu emphasized that her job was strictly managerial but that it was her nature to help people when in need. While for the time being there were no elderly without relatives in the compound, she was aware that the community was aging since the young generation tended to move out. Mrs. Zhang was the resident of another old danwei compound, built in the early years of the reform period and suffering from bad construction quality. Contamination and humidity had badly damaged the barren walls of the buildings. Concrete floors in the hallways and apartments were in no better state. Single lightbulbs barely illuminated the hallways of the six-story walk-up. When Mrs. Zhang had become unemployed years earlier, she was offered the position of residents’ committee representative.16 Even though she had retired when we met, she knew well about the various different services that the government provided. Yet, she was very emphatic that it all depended on the community representative: “Most people [in the neighborhood] don’t know about the services [available], especially if the representative is not conscientious.” She made it clear that the current representative in her neighborhood was not.

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In sum, in contrast to the social living situation in the work unit compound during Maoism and shortly after, when everybody knew each other and everybody’s personal and economic situation, the growing privacy of transformed residential quarters and living arrangements, as well as less neighborly contact, is paralleled by greater difficulties in accessing state-provided support.

Conclusion The social, political, and economic transformations of the reform period are reflected in the built urban environment, and people’s lives are significantly affected by these interlinking factors. During the Maoist period, people tended to live in the close quarters of the danwei neighborhood or in housing close to their workplace. Within the encompassing state redistributional system, urban residents’ lives centered on their workplace. The result was a close-knit community of work colleagues and neighbors. In the reform period, these communities are slowly dissolving or opening up. New residents move into danwei compounds; old residents move out. Newly constructed residential neighborhoods are marked by anonymity and very limited, if any, interaction between residents. In addition, relations with the state have become more distant and dependent on personal relations or initiative. As before the reforms, interlocutors work on establishing and maintaining a circle of family and friends, laiwang, within which people exchange help and support. Yet, with growing social and physical distances this circle has contracted; at least, the maintenance of these social relations has been affected by socioeconomic stratification and the changing urban landscape. An important practice in the establishing and maintaining of social relations remains the sharing of substance, to bring soup or to go and have tea. Even more important for social relationships, however, is reciprocity, as I will discuss in the next chapter.

Notes 1. See Ikels 1996: 83–85. 2. Jankowiak (1993) already reported in his 1990s study on Hohhote about the growing crime rate and its negative impact on the urban living experience. 3. In order to facilitate a housing market, in 1994 the government decided on major reforms, including a housing provision system for different income groups. Middleand lower-income households would purchase subsidized affordable housing units; high-income families would purchase regular market housing. In addition, a dual housing finance system, composed of social and public saving, was established. Homebuyers could get subsidized mortgage loans through the compulsory housing saving program (Housing Provident Fund) as well as by applying for commercial mortgage loans offered by financial institutions. While the reform sparked a major construction boom, most new units were purchased by work units that resold them at deeply dis-

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4. 5. 6.

7.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13.

14. 15. 16.

counted prices to their employees. To limit the work units’ involvement in housing provision, in 1998 the government prohibited work units from building or buying new housing units for employees. Instead they would have to provide monetary subsidies to employees to help them buy homes on the market. For a summary and review of Chinese housing policies over the years, see Deng et al. 2009. Lei Feng was a young soldier who died in an accident. When it was discovered that he had anonymously carried out good deeds in the name of Maoist ideal, the CCP stylized him into a moral model for people to follow. For more on Lei Feng, see Chapter 7. See, for example, Tomba 2004. I use this term to refer to nonlocal people, including those who work in white-collar jobs, who have purchased residency cards and are quite permanently settled in the new locale as well as rural to urban migrants who work in low-qualified jobs, do not necessarily hold residency cards, and are also more likely to frequently change work and residency. It is still a widely proclaimed ideal that elderly parents reside with their adult child (preferably their oldest son) once they cannot live by themselves any longer. Nonetheless, in my research quite a number of elderly people claimed they would prefer to live in a senior citizen home than move in with one of their children. This might be due to growing intergenerational conflicts. Bian (2002) discusses Chinese social stratification and mobility in the reform period. In Chinese and other Asian societies, a red envelope is a monetary gift given during holidays or special occasions, such as weddings, the birth of a baby, or graduation. Jankowiak 2009: 72–73. In addition, Stafford (2000) highlights the cycle of yang, or parent-child relationships. Santos (2008: 549) discusses the friendship of “same-year siblings” in rural Guangdong and similarly suggests conceiving of it as “a key mode of individual and/or collective alliance,” closer to marriage and affinity than to consanguinity, despite the kinship terminology used to describe the relation. See Li and Wang 1996. Choate (1998: 8) reports that “the municipal administrative structure of today was first put in place in 1949. Residents’ Committees emerged beginning about 1952. Their primary functions at that time were largely to provide social control, political education, and the ‘rooting out of class enemies.’ Residents’ Committees as informal voluntary groups were meant to be adjuncts and auxiliaries to the Street Offices, which are the first tier of formal municipal government and to which are attached local police stations.” The minimum living allowance is the difference between the average family income and the local minimum standard of living. See “Minimum Standard of Living System in China: An Interview”; Wu et al. 2010. Various studies (e.g., Tomba 2005) have shown the activism of such committees in the context of housing disputes. This is a common practice to ease the economic difficulties of the unemployed on the neighborhood level.

3 SUPPORT AND RECIPROCITY As described in the previous chapters, interlocutors, friends, and neighbors were part of an intricate net of mutual help, assistance, and exchange. Establishing and maintaining these relations involved careful maneuvering; more important than mere sympathy was mutual assistance and disregard of socioeconomic differences. These practices in turn nourished a sense of trust. Social relations in China have been commonly conceptualized through the concept of guanxi, or social networks.1 Both Kipnis and Yan conceive of guanxi as a total social phenomenon in the Maussian sense because it “incorporates economic, political, social and recreational activities.”2 In the city, however, the importance of guanxi has notably diminished. Guangzhou interlocutors were generally rather surprised when I asked about guanxi and talked about the practice like something from the past. While some also linked it to the rich and powerful, they mainly related guanxi to the strategic networking of the Maoist and early reform period, when consumer goods and services were hard to come by and personal connections could help to procure them. In 2006–2007, interlocutors emphasized instead the everyday importance of personal relations based on feelings ( ganqing), which included relatives and friends. The emphasis interlocutors put on these social relationships refutes the popular idea that contemporary Chinese (urban) society is becoming more egocentric. Readily acknowledged and easily observable, social relationships remain important in Guangzhou, maybe even more so than before the reforms. What has changed, however, is the more individualized nature of meaningful social relations; they are based less on membership in the same collectives and more on shared interests and personal preferences.3 Yet even in these individualized relationships, interlocutors emphasized the (traditional) notion of reciprocity (bao). Efforts and emotional and material support had to be balanced and reciprocal to keep the relationship alive. Endnotes for this chapter begin on page 75.

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In this chapter, I discuss in more detail the practices and principles involved in establishing and maintaining reciprocal relations with neighbors, friends, and kin. I follow interlocutors’ terminology and conceive social relationship in their terms, not in terms of the extensive guanxi literature. The chapter starts with a description of the considerations and deliberations that go into choosing gifts, the complicated ritual of offering and accepting gifts, and the rationalities behind these practices. Furthermore, I show how reciprocity can be complicated by kin relations and that what ultimately counts to sustain relations over time are practices not ideologies. An important focus is on the changes and transformations that support networks and reciprocal practices have undergone and how interlocutors experience these. As will become evident, Guangzhou interlocutors’ social relations play out within the complicated web of multiple economic realities, social contexts, ideological concepts, and personal desires.

Gift Giving Social relationships are not simply given; they have to be established and maintained. Fiske (2016) calls them “patterns of coordination” because in social relationships “two or more people coordinate with each other so that their action, affect, evaluation, or thought are complementary.” This also applies to kinship, even if interlocutors understood kinship as “natural” and—at least verbally—attributed great importance to it. The art of weaving social relationships—guanxi—has been described in detail before.4 At the heart of the practice is gift giving. Importantly, Yang distinguishes between gift giving in strategic guanxi relations and gift giving between relatives and friends.5 The latter is a form of social etiquette and expression of respect, affection, and social prestige. Yet, I would add, it is also important in the coordination of the relationship, last but not least as an expression of feelings and interest in continuing the relationship. Here it is the details and intricacies involved in this kind of gift giving that interests me. How difficult and sensitive the issue is I learned in my very own interactions with locals. One day I asked one of my research assistants to help me buy a small present for a woman who had helped me get access to a residential neighborhood. A box of cookies would be fine, my assistant suggested. So we went to a supermarket to buy them. Yet what I had expected to be a relatively quick affair turned into a lengthy evaluation and weighing of options. My assistant quickly focused on cookie boxes that were red or golden/yellow colored, which she called “good colors.” But then she brooded over price, size, and type of the baked goods for a long time. I repeatedly suggested one type of cookie or another that I knew and liked. Yet, my own considerations based on subjective taste and the money I wanted to spend

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were quite different from my assistant’s decision-making process. She explained that the box should be a good size, that it should be a popular type of confection, and that it should cost not too much and not too little. It took about thirty minutes of careful consideration before my assistant finally decided on the box she thought appropriate for the occasion: a medium-priced, medium-sized, red and golden tin box of popular egg rolls. This was neither too little a gift to make me lose face nor too big to shame the recipient. Obviously, my choice would have been a very different one. In previous research projects I had given chocolate or small gifts (such as a picture frame) as signs of appreciation to key informants. In Guangzhou, however, my assistants advised me to bring apples or peaches instead. These auspicious red and gold colored fruits have symbolic meaning. Apples stand for peace and peaches are considered a symbol of long life, associated with immortality, and seen as the divine fruit of gods. But the fruit had to be perfect—without any dents or brown spots. In addition, I could not buy just any number. Six or eight would be good since the number 6 in Cantonese is a homophone for lok, or “wealth.” The number 8, baat, in turn, sounds similar to faat, which means “fortune.” Even more complex than choosing a gift, was presenting it. When I offered my gift, there usually ensued a back-and-forth of not wanting to receive it, my insistence, and finally acceptance by my hosts. The gift was never inspected, offered, or publicly displayed but put away. In return, during my visits I was offered not only water or tea but also various kinds of snacks, which hosts repeatedly pressed upon me. What fascinated me was the formality of it all: the back-and-forth of accepting and rejecting the gift, the continued offer of snacks and refreshments, and the repeated affirmation that “we are all friends.” It all appeared to follow an underlying script, yet a script I could not quite decipher. Why did some people take the gift I had brought quite quickly with a simple “you should not have brought anything” whereas others insisted and insisted that they could not possibly accept the gift? With time it became apparent that all these interactions were part of a larger, more complex process of weaving social relationships.

Reciprocity As described in the previous chapter, to bring soup or to have tea were important practices in the relation with neighbors, colleagues, friends, and the extended family. Through the sharing of such “substances,”6 my interlocutors established, maintained, and expanded their circle of laiwang relations. Yet, as with other reciprocal practices, to bring soup or to go to have tea involved a complex negotiation of inviting and counterinviting each other. This too was closely connected to feelings and the notion of indebtedness. A friend who had been helped would make an effort to invite the other. This, however, was not a repayment of the

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“debt” but a means to express his or her gratitude. To invite and to accept an invitation also expressed the wish to continue a relation, while failure to do so terminated it. Chen Yiping gave me an example of the complex nature of reciprocal relations with a neighbor: There is a [former] colleague who offered to lend us money when we needed it. [In the past] she had asked a colleague for 7000 Yuan, but they said they did not have that much money because they wanted to buy a new house. Eventually we gave [the money] to her. [After that] she often asked us whether we needed money. We borrowed and returned money several times and so did she. She knows our family’s economic situation, and sometimes we go to have tea and refer to our problems, and she would say we could take some money to meet the emergency. Therefore, when she recently was in hospital, we visited and helped to take care of her as much as we could. Here we can see how the interaction between the two parties involved repeated exchanges of social and material support over time. In a situation of need, Chen and Wei offered to lend the colleague money when another colleague was unable to do so. In return, the recipient repeatedly offered to help Chen and Wei. Importantly, this was not a simple return of the original sum she had been given but a continuous concern and awareness for the other’s needs. Yet their relation was not limited to, or necessarily based on, money exchange. When their neighbor was in the hospital, Chen and Wei visited and took care of her. That is, reciprocity importantly also included nonmonetary acts. Interlocutors pointed out that the monetary value of help exchanged was rarely accounted for. Only if one wished to sever a relationship would one would return the exact amount of money originally received and as soon as possible after receiving it. In that case, one was no longer indebted to the other person and the continuous reciprocal relationship was severed. As I came to understand the exchange of money, small favors, and substance as tokens of gratitude and as the basis of establishing and continuously renewing social relations with friends and neighbors, I wondered if kinship made any difference in these practices and transactions. How were relations between siblings and other kin maintained over time, what role did reciprocity play in them, and how had they been affected by growing socioeconomic stratifications? As laid out in the first chapter, siblings usually supported each other in multiple ways. In fact, siblings frequently were the most important source of support. Especially when buying an apartment, siblings almost always chipped in part of the money. But they also helped each other in more practical terms, for example,

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finding a good deal when buying something, suggesting good insurance or business opportunities, or job options, and so on. Since my interlocutors were generally not wealthy, I expected that money would be quite rapidly and completely returned. After all, few of them had money to spare. But quite to the contrary, interlocutors emphasized time and again that they did not expect anything in return and that it did not matter whether their sibling returned the money received. “They’ll return it if they can. But I don’t pay attention to it.” Help, interlocutors said, should not be measured. Yet despite these assertions, they actually were keenly aware of the exchanges that had happened—or not. Moreover, a return was usually made, even if only after a long period of time and/or in kind, not money. By downplaying the reciprocal nature of help, donors avoided appearing expectant, calculating, or, worse, greedy. Recipients of help, in turn, could not be conceived of as ungrateful or not complying with social expectations. Indeed, deemphasis of “repayment” only highlighted the importance of the practice or gesture as opposed to the content (or amount/value) of help. In this way, mutual assistance, the tangible and intangible exchanges given, received, and returned formed an ever stronger bond between siblings over time. Juggling or downplaying the help extended, the obligation to repay, and the concomitant acknowledgment of indebtedness in sibling relations emerged clearly in a small episode one day when Lili and I visited Wei Lan’s youngest sister, Wei Xiaoli (Xiao Mei). Before our visit, Lili had told me that I “could or could not” bring some fruit, and I bought eight beautiful golden apples. At Wei Xiaoli’s house we sat and chatted animatedly for over two hours. Finally, it was time to leave and I presented the fruit to Wei Xiaoli as a thank you for the invitation. But Xiao Mei steadfastly refused to accept. Never had I met such resistance to my thank you gift. After an initial friendly but decisive refusal to me directly, Xiao Mei quickly started talking to Lili in Cantonese; she seemed annoyed and to almost be scolding Lili. Lili, however, insisted and insisted until Wei Xiaoli almost grudgingly took the apples and told her daughter to bring the fruit into the kitchen. She quickly laughed and said in Mandarin, “Lili should have told you. One only brings gifts to people one is not close to. But we are family! One does not bring gifts to family!” After we left, I apologized to Lili. I had apparently put her into an uncomfortable situation. But Lili replied, “No worries. My mother also brings small presents when we visit Xiao Mei. Sometimes she accepts, but most often she does not. But my mother taught me, it is the gesture that counts. What is important is to try to give a present. It doesn’t matter whether it’s accepted or not.” But Wei Xiaoli had argued that among kin there should be no exchange of gifts. If so, why did Wei Lan try to give her something? And did Wei Xiaoli also offer gifts to Wei Lan and her family? “It’s a bit complicated,” explained Lili. Over the years, Wei Xiaoli had repeatedly helped Wei Lan and Chen Yiping financially when they were hard

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up for money. But given their continuously difficult economic situation, they would probably never be able to repay that money. It was for this reason that Wei Lan, Chen Yiping, and Lili expressed their gratitude through small presents. Wei Xiaoli, in turn, rejected the gifts to emphasize that Wei Lan’s economic debt to her did not matter and that she expected neither repayment nor gratitude for her help. This was the essence of a good relationship: even though Xiaoli helped Wei Lan financially more than the other way round, she did not make her “pay” for it, that is, did not change her attitude, did not remind her sister of her debt, and did not expect any return. The delicate negotiation of giving, receiving, repaying—this ritual yet individual exchange— was important to make both Wei Lan and Wei Xiaoli feel at ease in what was a lopsided “balance sheet.” Yet, the balance sheet was only lopsided if we think in economic terms of debt.7 In interlocutors’ reciprocal relationships, however, exchange meant the complex whole of interactions that only sometimes included material contributions.8 Yet other siblings did not have good relations and did not manage to successfully negotiate these exchanges. In fact, often it was precisely the lack of help extended and/or frustrated expectations that led to the strain in sibling relations. More often than not, and this is where I think the economic transformations have most dramatically affected social relations, it was lack of financial support or disagreements of an economic nature that led to conflicts. That is, today’s monetarized society is negatively impacting the delicate nature of reciprocal relationships. We saw this above in the case of Chen Yiping and his brothers, and there were many more examples. Mutual support among siblings thus worked in two ways. Between amicably interacting siblings the practice confirmed and deepened the relation. Lack of support, however, could put the bond in jeopardy. Strained sibling relations were not conducive to exchanges. Help might still be extended out of a sense of sibling responsibility, but this support was likely rejected or rapidly and entirely repaid. To be “indebted” to someone meant to feel at ease with the other person and to be willing to continue the relationship; this was no different between siblings and friends. With kin, however, interlocutors often struggled with a sense of obligation to help and be cordial, even if they felt they had been wronged and their sibling had not acted according to their expectations. In the increasingly socioeconomically stratified urban context, the ideology of kin support conflicted with the notion of reciprocity, at least in its negative form. Despite downplaying the importance of returns, when siblings failed to pay back a favor—in whatever form—they put the donor in a double bind: continuing the relationship despite its negative balance or offending rules of kinship.9 The continued importance of reciprocity and renqing notwithstanding, interlocutors took on different roles in their support network and also remained differ-

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ently satisfied by the exchanges. Different ideologies, but also divergent practices and/or interpretations of appropriate behavior, as well as individual necessities and desires all impacted the everyday negotiation of social relations. Kinship provided a degree of upfront credit; a sense of obligation toward relatives allowed a certain level of unevenness, or dissatisfaction, in the relationship. At the same time, however, kinship was often the very basis of conflict. Thus, in the everyday it was an organic, that is, practiced and proven solidarity, that took precedence over the mechanical solidarity supposed by kinship. In fact, in the close networks of everyday social relations and support that people formed over time the distinction between kin and nonkin blurred.

What Goes around Comes around: The Kula of Money As we have seen, financial contributions were one important aspect of interlocutors’ exchange networks both with kin and with friends. This is a relatively new phenomenon: during the Maoist period money had minor value in everyday life; the principal currency of exchange was political status. With the economic reforms, however, society quickly became monetized. Today, money in combination with good social relations will put a person at a definite advantage. It might therefore not be surprising that money also assumed a more symbolic role in the complex process of weaving social networks over time, as I found out when Lili took me one day to visit Mr. Yao.10 Talking with Mr. Yao, a retired colleague of Wei Lan, and his wife about social relations and their networks of support, they reiterated something almost all interlocutors said, namely that they felt closest to “family” and that it was “kin” (qin ren) who they would turn to for help. Other interlocutors similarly told me that one did not ask for or take money from anybody but family. I was therefore quite surprised when we left Mr. Yao’s house and he quickly and covertly pushed some money into Lili’s hand. She tried to give it back several times before she finally accepted the bundle of notes and said, “Thank you, uncle” (shushu). When I asked about this exchange, Lili explained that the Yaos actually gave her money quite often as a contribution to her tuition and/or studies. I pointed out that the Yaos were not family, but she laughed and said, “But they are very close; they are like family.” Time and again, closer inspection revealed that when people referred to “family” ( jia ren) or “kin” (qin ren) as sources of support, in fact, they did not necessarily refer to blood relations. Including nonkin into the category “family” turned this designation into a characterization of the quality or type of relation. The case of the money Lili received from Mr. Yao, however, revealed more details about the complexity of social relations and support and the importance of feelings (ganqing) in social relations in contemporary Guangzhou.

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The next time I saw Lili, I half-jokingly asked her if she had told her mother about the money. “Of course!” she exclaimed a bit indignant. She had given the money to her mother, who would decide how much of it they would keep. “How much of it you keep?!” I repeated in surprise. As it turned out, and was later confirmed by other interlocutors, kin and close friends engaged in a continuous exchange of money somewhat reminiscent of the kula ring of exchange in the Trobriand Islands. As described by Bronislaw Malinowski in Argonauts of the Pacific, the kula involved biannual voyages by canoe from one island to the next to exchange gifts and local specialties for barter.11 The main purpose of these journeys, however, was not barter but the acquisition of special armbands and necklaces made from shells that had no monetary value but brought prestige. These symbolic shells, formally transferred between specific kula partners, were kept for a while before they were passed on; the time lapse between gift and countergift was an expression of confidence between participants. According to Malinowski, the shells were gifts in a moral framework, a means through which social relations were established and maintained over time. The kula thus vividly demonstrates how the economy is embedded in social relations. In the kula ring that I observed among Guangzhou interlocutors, money given could be kept or returned at a later occasion, according to one’s needs and feelings. The relation between recipient and donor was decisive in this: with certain people, recipients did not feel comfortable and—no matter whether they were kin or not and no matter how much they could use the money—they returned the exact amount to the donor at the next possible occasion. In other cases, however, depending on their relation with the donor and the donor’s and one’s own economic necessities, people would keep all or a certain percentage of the money they had received and return part of the sum that was originally given. Thus, like the shell necklaces of the kula ring, money moved back and forth within this circle of kin and friends. Despite its potential usefulness, if immediately returned the money remained in the realm of “symbolic value.” It was a gesture—an offer—that was, however, rejected. In contrast to the Trobriand kula, where the exchanged necklaces cannot be converted into consumer goods, among Guangzhou interlocutors certain social relations allowed money to be converted into “use value.” The decision to accept the help, and thus make use of the money, depended on the type or nature of the relation. Various criteria were involved in this evaluative process. On the one hand, as elaborated above, people referred to notions such as “they do not look down on us” or “they are like us” (as regards the importance paid to economic status), again hinting at growing socioeconomic differentiations and resulting conflicts. On the other, they usually explained that this depended on the feelings

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(ganqing) between them. The closer, or more at ease people felt, the less important immediate and equal return was. What caused or contributed to this sense of closeness and ease? Apparently, it derived from a mix of length of acquaintance, proven reliability, shared values, and feelings. An important part of building and maintaining such close relationships was to show that one cared. This included such mundane actions as keeping in touch, that is, calling regularly, showing interest in somebody’s affairs, and listening to them. It also involved emotional support when a person was in distress, as well as the—unsolicited—offer to help, which could be practical, material, or emotional. In this aspect there exists an interesting gender aspect: the day-to-day of social connections—the calls, invitations, exchanges of soup and small amounts of money—are considered women’s work, whereas the larger money contributions are more the men’s domain. Thus, social networks of support, and especially the practices which produce closeness—ganqing—importantly hinge on women.12 Only when it came to their personal friends, often colleagues and former classmates, did men engage in “emotional work,” that is, call and visit them. In the social circle of support, money given, as in the case of Mr. Yao to Lili, was principally an expression of care and a form of maintaining the relationship. To be able to convert the money into economic value, it had to be integrated or embedded into the complex whole of social relations. Otherwise it would be detrimental to the connection between two parties. This is how Mrs. Deng, a retired worker in her fifties, explained the practice: If you repay a person who is close to you [with money], it will make him/ her feel like you want to keep your distance. If I really want to do something for him/her in return, we usually repay them in another way; for instance, provide mental support when they are in need. Sometimes, even though maybe you cannot help them practically, they can at least receive your care and support, which is also important to them. People have the common idea that if A helps B and B repays A with money, both think they do not owe each other anything. But if B repays A by helping A, even though this time their direct interaction is over, the feeling of laiwang [coming and going] continues in both minds. To repay somebody who helped you with money indicates that you want to end the relationship of continuously helping each other. Mrs. Deng described the continuous relation between parties A and B by means of the feeling xinyi (regard, kindly feeling). Thus, the apparent contradiction—that money was a key element in maintaining a relationship, as in Lili’s case, and that

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money could end a relationship, as explained by Mrs. Deng—highlights the importance of the feelings involved in the process: money exchanged among people who felt close to one another was “invested,” that is, charged with feelings and thus sustained relationships. The kula of money, thus, blurs not only the distinctions between the economic and social domains but also the lines between kin and nonkin relations. It was not a supposedly natural connection based on kinship that allowed people to accept and use money, but the feelings invested in the relationship.

“Renqing Is as Thin as Paper” As outlined above, while money was an important element of, and contribution to, the maintenance of social (support) relations, it could also be detrimental to them. Indeed, interlocutors frequently commented that today “money gets in the way of social relations,” that “people have become calculating,” or that they are “only interested in their own advantage.” Apparently conflicts and tensions have arisen from different attitudes toward money, which in turn influenced people’s feelings and thus their social relations. Interlocutors thought that the ethics of reciprocal help was waning. “Some people like to help others and some don’t,” one woman commented. Her husband chimed in, “I think it depends on the education people get and what principles they value.” Interlocutors were acutely aware that people adhered to different moral orders and would not agree on the proper way to behave. In conversations about social relations and the feeling of (in)security in the current socioeconomic climate, Guangzhou residents thus frequently commented, “Today renqing [human feelings] is as thin as paper” (renqing bao bu zhi). As we have seen above, renqing is an important concept involved in establishing and maintaining social relationships of support. Indeed, “owing” renqing, that is, being indebted to another person, was an important indicator that a person wanted to continue a relation. It meant to trust a person, trust not to be taken advantage of or be treated differently for owing something to the other person. Renqing moreover stands for the social contract that the donor and recipient have sealed, that is, the silent agreement that someday and somehow the debt is being repaid. Commenting that renqing had worn thin in the reform period, interlocutors expressed their fading trust in this silent agreement. Apparently not everybody adhered to the moral order of which renqing was an important part. Indeed almost all interlocutors had experiences of such moral betrayal. Thus, Wei Lan’s former superior at her factory commented that after he retired many of his former colleagues did not visit him any longer. Both he and Wei Lan took this as an example of renqing wearing thin. In addition to different moral principles that inhibited or complicated help and reciprocity, it was social standing or status that appeared to play an increasingly

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important role. Thus, interlocutors suggested that they had mutual helping relationships with people “who are like us.” To be connected in a reciprocal support network with someone of higher social standing was considered an exception, as was the case of Wei Lan and her former superior. She explained, “Like my former leader in the factory; he is retired already. He doesn’t put on airs, and he helped me a lot in the past, so I keep in touch with him now.” Here we can see the importance of attitude in social relations, which is an aspect of the feelings (ganqing) involved. Yet, more and more interlocutors connected attitude and feelings between people with economic success. This was among the most common complaints about neighbors: “Oh, he is rich so he’s putting on airs,” “They feel better than us because they have money,” or “He is wealthy, so he doesn’t have time to talk to me.” This does not mean that interlocutors did not have social relationships with people who were economically better off, but that antisocial, “immoral” behavior was linked to economic success. Money and morality apparently did not mix well in interlocutors’ imagination.

Elderly Care The changing social environment, including divergent interpretations of moral norms, in combination with growing socioeconomic stratification also affect the relation between children and parents. Traditionally, this relation is also one defined by reciprocity: in return for the gift of life, for the effort of bringing them up, children not only owe their parents respect and reverence—xiao—but are also (morally) obliged to care for them once they are old and dependent. This is the “cycle of yang” (to care for, to feed, to raise, to nurture). Yet, increasing numbers of reports about the elderly suing their children for support shows not only that this moral concept and social contract is weakening but also that—if relatives go to such extremes— there is heightened need. In Guangzhou, elderly interlocutors almost all assured me that they had no expectations regarding future support from their children. On the contrary, it was notable how many emphasized the enormous pressure their children experienced in today’s labor environment and that they would move into a senior citizen home once they could no longer live on their own. This is remarkable because historically it was considered shameful if old parents resided alone; parents were expected to live with their oldest son.13 Ikels, Yan, Zhang, Fong, Watson, and others discuss what happened to filial piety in the reform period.14 The authors agree that there appear to be significant differences between generations about the meaning and practice of xiao. Sun’s study about Beijing singletons’ interpretation of filial piety is especially interesting: some of the young adults, says the author, conceive of the notion in terms of self-realization or “authenticity.”15 Importantly, the diverging interpre-

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tations acquire heightened importance in the present day because enforced early retirement and the prevalence of only children have made the urban elderly much more dependent on the support of their adult children and created a great deal of insecurity.16 In Guangzhou, the relation between elderly parents and their adult children was also quite volatile and precarious. Support, interlocutors felt, could not be demanded; the emotional stake was too high. Similar to what Szawarska reports about elderly Sakhalin Koreans who move away from their children in an attempt to maintain a loving relationship with their children, we can interpret the elderly’s attitude as a social strategy.17 In the context of conflicting moral orders and more volatile social relations, elderly interlocutors in Guangzhou tried to avoid burdening their children with expectations. They commonly assured me that they were fine, did not need and did not expect any help, and would be perfectly happy to live in a senior citizen home because their children did “not have the time or money to take care of me.” Instead, the elderly creatively employed various strategies to get their children’s continued attention. Wang Feng’s mother, for example, frequently cooked elaborate meals and called to invite her children when the food was already prepared, effectively forcing them to attend. Following the invitation, in turn, morally obliged the children to reciprocate at a later point, at least according to the moral concept of renqing. The middle-aged generation (Chen Yiping, Wei Lan, Wang Feng, Li Xiaolei, and others), however, was literally “stuck in the middle.” With some exceptions, they continued to feel obliged by, or a strong moral pressure to adhere to, moral concepts such as renqing and xiao. At the same time, they knew that they could not count on receiving support themselves—not only because they were parents to a single child (with the connected difficulties of providing care) but also because of the emerging new moral economy, one that is defined by the importance to make and save money and to take care of oneself. Importantly, it is also a negative evaluation of (moral) debt. Growing up with a strong sense of networked social relations and mutual responsibility, this realization was harsh—all the more so as it was fed daily by negative experiences: the economically better off brother who treated his sister like an employee; a brother who looked down upon his sibling once he had gained better economic standing; a son who did not support his mother and left his sisters to make up for his neglect. In sum, whereas the elderly used various strategies to receive support, their adult children felt strongly caught between contradictory and competing moral concepts or systems, between diverging desires, expectations, and (moral) obligations. Thus, what my middle-aged informants expressed when saying “reciprocity is as thin as paper” was their confusion about, or the perceived mismatch between, a continued sense of obligation to provide support and the experience of failing

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to receive care themselves. The saying reflected a deep distrust in the social environment, a lack of confidence in being able to expect and even less to rely on the support of others. It is therefore not surprising that the middle-aged generation of interlocutors were looking for support—and especially emotional support—elsewhere. Besides dance and taijiquan groups, religion took on a special role in their lives, as I will further discuss in Part II.

Notes 1. For example, Yang 1994; Kipnis 1997; Yan 1996, 2003. 2. Yan 2009b: 90; Kipnis 1997. As Yan (2009b) notes, other scholars have either emphasized the normative social character of guanxi (e.g., King 1991; Huang 1987) or understood the practice in more instrumental terms as a means for advancing specific personal interests (e.g., Walder 1986; Yang 1994). 3. Jankowiak (2009) makes a similar observation in his research in Hohhot. 4. See Yang 1994; Yan 1996; Kipnis 1997; Gold et al. 2002; Chang 2010. 5. Yang 1994: 127. 6. Carsten 2000. 7. For an in-depth discussion of debt and its social functions, see Graeber 2011. 8. This is of course Mauss’s (2000 [1950]) point about reciprocal gift exchange in “archaic societies,” which is at the heart of building social relationships. 9. Somewhat similar, Jankowiak (2009) found in his 1980s research in Hohhote that people hid from cousins but sought out friends. Yet, interestingly, in 2000 he found that siblings actively sought to bring in cousins when they considered it beneficial to expand their social network. These cousins were then referred to in fictive sibling terms in order to create a sense of expanded family. 10. In the beginning of the reform period it was cookie boxes and cigarettes (among other things) that played a central role in demonstrating or objectifying social relationships. See, for example, Kipnis 2004. 11. Malinowski 1978. 12. Brandtstädter (2009) makes a similar point, but this gender dimension is certainly not exclusive to China. 13. In cities (but apparently also in some rural areas; see Yan Y. 2003), this notion has become more flexible in the reform period, allowing older parents to live with the economically best positioned child, including daughters. 14. Ikels 2004; Yan Y. 2003; Zhang 2004; Fong 2004; Watson 2004. 15. Sun, forthcoming. 16. Ikels 2004; Fong 2004. 17. Szawarska 2013. See also Wang (2010) on the elderly’s strategies in negotiating relations with adult children and care.

PART II

Love One day Wei Lan remarked, “It’s only because of the church that I have been able to forgive my mother-in-law.” This is how I found out that she was a believer and regularly attended service in the nearby Protestant Xiatian church. The importance she attributed to the church in her life made me curious. I became even more interested when Lili told me that her mother’s church ran a social service center catering to people in the church’s neighborhood. Once alerted to this aspect of contemporary urban life, I slowly became aware that quite a number of interlocutors attended churches or temples; religious beliefs and practices played an important part in their lives. During the Maoist period, and especially during the Cultural Revolution, religion was attacked as bourgeois and antirevolutionary. It was thus surprising how quickly and widely religious activities (re)emerged in the reform period. The religious boom is especially strong in the countryside.1 Yet, urban areas also experienced a rapid rise in religious interest, including among the new middle classes as well as intellectuals. Religious beliefs and practices are officially sanctioned today. At the same time, they remain highly regulated. Any practices outside of the legally defined realm are (at times brutally) persecuted. Various questions therefore arise: Why are people attracted to religion, and more specifically to Christianity? What role does religious belief and the church play in people’s everyday lives? In this part I will discuss these questions, arguing that the popularity of Christianity in China is linked to what Yan has called the “rise of the individual.”2 At the same time, the case study of the Xiatian church also illustrates how in the changing social environment Chinese urban residents continuously seek to form new socialities. The focus on religion in this part highlights the spiritual aspect of interlocutors’ reform period living experiences, an important addition to recent studies emphasizing “privatization,” “individualization,” and “morality.”3 I begin

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this part by discussing the revival of religion in China and the growth of Christianity (Protestantism) in particular. In Chapter 2, I introduce Xiatian, the church where I conducted part of the research, including its setting, history, and particular features. Rather than offering a detailed study of this specific church, however, my discussion centers on my interlocutors’ faith and its role in their lives. In the final chapter of Part II, I engage in a deeper analysis of the social processes that are highlighted by, and involved in, religious practice in China today. As will become apparent, Xiatian with its local embeddedness through efforts in social service is in many ways special, yet at the same time emblematic of many of my interlocutors’ needs and desires.

Notes 1. Chau 2010; Kipnis 2001; Lim 2012. 2. Yan 2008, 2009b, 2010a, 2010b. 3. On privatization, see Zhang and Ong 2008; on individualization, see Yan 2008, 2009b, 2010a, 2010b; Kipnis 2012; on morality, see Oxfeld 2010.

4 RELIGIOUS REVIVAL After years of religious austerity, since the 1980s religious activities have steadily grown. The range and scope of religious practices is indeed astounding and include qigong and divination practices, ancestor worship, consultation of spirit mediums, exorcisms, pilgrimages, sectarianism, sutra chanting, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Islam, and Christianity.1 Some of this is new, but other practices are old or reinterpreted revivals. Apparently, Maoist efforts to eradicate the “opium for the people” were not successful. But what makes for this new attraction of religion and how do we understand the revival of religious practices? Reviewing the literature on religious revival in China, Lai identifies three principal factors contributing to the phenomenon: the state’s lifting of its ban on religious worship; the economic and social uncertainties that the reforms have brought about; and the enduring nature of religious belief.2 Indeed, the changing political atmosphere was one of the most important factors, if not the condition sine qua non, for the revival of religious practices. After embarking on the economic reforms in 1978, the Deng Xiaoping regime also embraced a more lenient stance on religion. The important “Central Committee Document 19” from 1982 scorned the “ultraleftist” (i.e., Cultural Revolution) attempts to destroy religion. It also recognized that religious belief and practice would be hard to eradicate and that religion could serve constructive social purposes. Yet the document also affirmed that religious belief was essentially mistaken.3 In effect, the government replaced suppression with cooperation and control. Since then, officially recognized religious organizations receive financial and organizational support but have to report all their activities to the authorities. Religious activities outside of the officially recognized framework, in contrast, continue to be ruthlessly suppressed.

Endnotes for this chapter begin on page 84.

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Taking a supply and demand approach to understanding the religious phenomenon, Yang suggests the existence of three realms of religious practice or “three-colored religious markets”: the officially sanctioned “red market,” the prohibited “black market,” and the “gray market,” an ambiguous zone between the red and black markets.4 Religious activities grow fastest in the latter two realms because of the party-state’s unwillingness to expand the boundaries of the red market.5 At the same time, today the Chinese government actively uses religion to promote its own interests and agenda. Thus, to contribute building a “harmonious society,” traditional Confucian values are promoted, including the restaging of Confucian rites at temples or the dissemination of Confucian classical learning. This campaign falls on fruitful ground, as many urban residents seek a native and cultured form of religion.6 Within this changed political and legal environment, the revival of religious practice is said to have been sparked by the economic and social uncertainties of the reform period. More specifically, rampant corruption and disillusionment with the official ideology let people seek alternative beliefs to fill the spiritual and moral vacuum.7 In addition, Lai suggests that religion responds to people’s psychological needs of comfort and fulfillment in the context of “modernization’s effects,” such as stress and ruptures, social and economic dislocations, and alienation.8 Similarly, Feuchtwang observes: The intensity of material incentives and of engagement in global economic competition has brought about a ruthless cynicism on the one hand and a search for spiritual healing and justification on the other. Senses of moral regeneration in a chaotic and corrupt world are sought as before in local temples from responsive deities. But beside them, on the mainland millenarian teachings and leaders thrive, attracting those who have a sense of failure or of having been excluded from material advancement.9 It is important, however, to note that not all religious practice is new. On the contrary, contributing to the rise of religion in the reform period is actually the persistence of beliefs.10 Indeed, the effect Maoism had on religiosity should not be exaggerated. While significant material culture was destroyed and religious personnel persecuted or forced into laicism, the most severe restrictions lasted only ten years. Enough memories and organizational knowledge survived to nurture the recent revival.11 The rise and suppression of the Falun Gong (also Falun Dafa) movement is in many ways illustrative of the revival and limitations of religious practice in the reform period. Falun Gong was part of the 1980s and 1990s “qigong fever.” Palmer shows, however, that qigong, a breathing control technique, was not a new practice but in fact “launched within socialist state institutions in the 1950s.”12

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The Communist Party employed the practice in its modern state-building process. To this end, the practice was taken out of its religious context and integrated into the organization of a national health system. After religious policies were relaxed in the 1980s, qigong quickly became a means for advancing individual empowerment, freedom, and subjective capabilities within a market of physical health and spiritual development.13 That is, disembedded from previous social collectives and disillusioned with the party-state due to rampant corruption, qigong filled the void left by the withdrawal of the state and responded to the necessities and desires of (urban) Chinese in the reform period. Yet, the practices were not completely independent of the state apparatus: sometimes they were linked to state-sponsored campaigns concerning public health, sports, science, or national defense and often backed by high government officials. After being part of a scientistic movement, in the second half of the 1980s traditional practices and symbols were (re)introduced into the originally secular qigong concept. This is when the practice became a means of religious expression outside of state regulations and sites. It is in this context that Palmer speaks of a “fever,” that is, a “form of collective effervescence” typical of post-totalitarian China.14 One of the major qigong “denominations”—Falun Gong—was first taught by Li Hongzhi in 1992 in the northeast of China. Li combined meditation and qigong exercises with a moral philosophy centered on the tenets of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. Falun Gong quickly gained followers throughout the country. By the end of the 1990s, the Chinese government estimated that there were 70 million Falun Gong practitioners. What apparently attracted many people was the mix of moral rectitude and meditation through which practitioners aspire to better health and, ultimately, spiritual enlightenment. Moreover, without daily rituals of worship, and with no fees or formal membership, the practice was easily accessible.15 Yet growing numbers of followers combined with increasing public qigong events led by charismatic leaders began to alert the authorities in the 1990s and eventually led to the suppression of the qigong movement at the end of the decade. In April of 1999, ten thousand Falun Gong followers gathered for a peaceful demonstration outside the Zhongnanhai compound. This was an open challenge to the Communist Party, even more so because Falun Gong had broken with the official state-sanctioned qigong organization in the mid-1990s. In consequence the government launched a brutal eradication campaign against the “deviant teaching” (xiejiao) of Falun Gong and other qigong movements. At the beginning of the century these were largely dispersed.16 Without diving into more details, the Falun Gong example vividly illustrates the attraction this kind of spiritual yet loosely organized movement held for Chinese people who had recently been “liberated” from state-organized forms of col-

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lectivism. At the same time, it shows the party-state’s limitations to, and clamp down on, religious practices that are perceived as a challenge to the central state authority. Importantly, at various times qigong was promoted and adopted as a “native” or indigenous practice, as part of an anti-Western scientism, and the valorization of Chinese culture. It is thus all the more remarkable that among the different religious activities of the reform period the “foreign” religion of Christianity and especially Protestantism are the most rapidly growing practices in China today. In the following I will examine this phenomenon in more detail.

Christianity in China Christianity first entered China in the seventh century Tang Dynasty. Yet it was only in the late nineteenth-century context of Western imperialism and under military protection that missionary activities dramatically increased. As a result, Christian, and especially Protestant, conversion became more widespread.17 During this time, mission compounds, including residences, hospitals, and schools, were built in many locations. In thousands more towns and villages Chinese evangelists established preaching chapels.18 The golden age of Protestant missions, however, came only in the first decades of the twentieth century and in the context of the Qing Dynasty’s modernization efforts. Considered a crucial factor in Europe’s power and dominance, Protestantism now held a modern and progressive appeal. Foreign missionaries provided welcome input on institutional reforms and political constitutionalism, and mission schools gained new popularity since the Confucian educational system was widely considered an obstacle to China’s progress.19 It was precisely at this time that the parents of several interlocutors converted to Christianity. Many of them lived in very poor conditions and had little chance to improve their lot. The new faith gave them hope as well as purpose. Protestantism responded to people’s experience of suffering and pain. At the same time, the new faith made interlocutors feel more modern and advanced.20 In 1919, however, the tides turned. The May Fourth Movement promoted strong nationalistic sentiments and political campaigns against the foreign oppression in China. At the time, prominent political leaders, such as Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek, were Christians. Yet, because of its Western doctrine and ritual, together with control by foreign authorities, the religion was now considered “foreign” (yangjiao) and associated with Western imperialism.21 When the antiforeign atmosphere grew, mission budgets were cut, and the civil war expanded, the growth of the Protestant church in China was effectively halted.22 Yet for the families of my interlocutors not much changed. At least in their memories, a rupture in their religious practice came only with the arrival of the Communist

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regime. Indeed, in contrast to many other places, the Xiatian church in Guangzhou managed to survive and actually prospered during the early twentieth century.23 The Communist Revolution had an even more radical effect on Christianity’s development in China than previous campaigns.24 The new government quickly embarked on an aggressive antiforeign offensive and forced Chinese Christian communities to sever all ties with foreign authorities.25 In addition, the regime expelled or jailed foreign missionaries as counterrevolutionaries. Meanwhile, the Communist Party pushed for the unification of the Protestant movement and put it under state supervision. To this end, between 1950 and 1954 the government defined the framework within which Protestantism would be permitted to exist. According to this, all Protestants had to denounce foreign imperialism and capitalism and pledge loyalty to the new regime. The state took over Protestant-run institutions, such as schools and medical/social service facilities. In addition, the government created the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM; i.e., self-supporting, self-governing, self-propagating), a politically dependable organization, to facilitate interfacing between the political regime, the Religious Affairs Bureau (RAB), and all Protestant entities. In 1954, finally, all individual denominations were abolished.26 Besides these institutional controls, the government introduced other means to discourage religious practice. While the new constitution guaranteed freedom of religious belief, it did not grant freedom of religious association. Thus, worship was now only permitted in official institutions that were restricted in numbers. In addition, worshippers were subjected to surveillance, and sermons were politicized. Church leaders who did not cooperate with the new government were jailed. Religious seminars and public churches, moreover, were merged and reduced in number; most pastors and religious personnel were put into the workforce. As a result, church attendance steadily declined. Yet it was the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in 1966 that brought the most divisive break: the few remaining churches and all other places of religious worship or activity were closed; religious personnel were imprisoned; and all religious practices were denounced.27 This was the time when interlocutors said belief became a private or internal matter. That is, they did not completely give up their faith but abstained from proclaiming their allegiances.28 In the reform period, Christian churches remain under the direction and supervision of the reconstituted Three Autonomies Movement and the Catholic Patriotic Association. Generally, the relaxation of religious policies resulted in more theological and liturgical independence for both Protestant and Catholic church leaders. In everyday practice, however, a sharp line is drawn between cooperative and uncooperative religious communities. Official churches are (materially) rewarded; the government pays the salaries of reliable church leaders and offers

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funds for the rebuilding of houses of worship. Unauthorized churches and congregations, in contrast, are the target of severe crackdowns, during which religious leaders are fined or imprisoned and their meeting places are destroyed.29 These limits to worship notwithstanding, the numbers of believers in China are rising. Christianity, and especially Protestantism, is increasingly popular. Depending on the source, there are said to be between 5 million and 100 million Protestants in China today.30 Before the Communist Revolution in 1949 the less than one million Protestants were predominantly urban. In theology and ritual, congregations resembled American and British congregations from which the majority of missionaries had come. In the recent decades, in contrast, Protestantism has grown especially in the countryside. It is driven by local evangelists who preach a spirit-filled gospel. There are also a significant number of illegal or underground churches. Many rural Chinese Protestants are, in fact, said to have only minimal knowledge of the Christian doctrines and ritual behavior. Officially recognized churches under the Three Autonomies Movement, in contrast, continue to resemble the forms of organization and worship of slightly old-fashioned, middle-class Western congregations.31 Although the greatest growth of Protestantism is found in the poorer sectors of rural China, there is a significant movement toward Christianity on the part of intellectuals. In addition, a growing number of “culture Christians,” university scholars, have been drawn to Christianity through study of its role in the ascendancy of the West.32 Despite the growing attraction of Protestantism to younger and also more educated urban residents, however, the majority of believers both in cities and the countryside are female, are over the age of sixty, and have a low educational level.33 While I could not get official statistics, judging from my observational evidence, this pattern also applied to the Xiatian church.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

See Chau 2010. Lai 2003. MacInnis 1989. Yang 2006. Chau 2010: 6. Ibid.: 8. Hunter and Chan 1993. Lai 2003: 57–58. This reverberates with social processes in the former Soviet Union. Writing about the post-Soviet era, Pelkmans (2009) relates the rise of new religious movements there to the uncertainties and hardships in people’s lives after the “implosion of communism.” 9. Feuchtwang 2001: 237.

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10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

24.

25.

26. 27.

28. 29. 30.

Lai 2003. Chau 2010: 5. Palmer 2007: 4. Favraud 2009. Palmer 2007: 22. Ibid. Ibid.; Favraud 2009. Only in 1582, when the Jesuit Matteo Ricci arrived in southern China, Christian missionaries were able to establish a presence in the Chinese empire. In order to advance their cause, initially they adopted a tolerant attitude toward native religions. This changed in the eighteenth century, when the church suggested that Confucianism and Christianity were incompatible. In reaction to this, in 1724 Emperor Yongzheng banned the religion in China. This prohibition lasted until the last decades of the Qing Dynasty, when Western powers militarily forced the opening of China to trade and missionary activities. See Yip 2006. Bays 1999, 2011. Bays 1999, 2011; Yip 2006. See Gao (2003a, 2003b) for a discussion of the connection between modernization and Christianity’s growing popularity in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century China. Madsen 2003. Bays 1999, 2011; Hunter and Chan 1993. Overall, however, it was especially in the countryside that small Protestant groups continued to thrive. These were led by independent, theologically conservative evangelists. Effective revival speakers, they emphasized repentance, personal salvation, and miracles. With their millenarian doomsday conviction, they attracted tens of thousands Chinese who suffered from the war, political upheavals, and the appalling living conditions of the time. See Bays 1999, 2011; Hunter and Chan 1993. After the Japanese occupation, the Chinese Civil War, and the Communist Revolution in 1949, Protestantism in China was very different from what it had been at the beginning of the century. Independent churches and evangelical sects made it much more diverse. It had also become more Chinese and more independent in terms of its resources. Yet, Protestantism continued to be relatively small in numbers with about 800,000 to 1 million adherents. See Bays 1999, 2011; Madsen 2003. Chinese Protestants were considered suspicious because of the foreign connection of their missionaries. The Catholic Church, in contrast, was seen as dangerous as a whole because of its organizational structure and the importance of papal authority. It did not help that Pope Pius XII was adamantly anticommunist. See Madsen 2003. Bays 1999, 2011; MacInnis 1989. Ashiwa and Wank 2006; Madsen 2003. Nevertheless, Bays (1999, 2011) reports that small groups of believers continued to secretly meet in “house churches,” especially in the countryside. These groups have been important for the resurgence of religious practice in recent years. Fleischer 2011a. Madsen 2003. Statistics issued by the China Christian Council in 1987 report 4,044 churches (1,067 newly built) and 16,868 meeting points as well as 151,062 newly baptized adult Christians, 4,575 professional church workers, 26,336 lay church workers, and 594 theological students enrolled in seminaries. See Yip 2006. Three provinces lead all others in total numbers of Protestant Christians: Henan with 830,000; Zhejiang, 800,000; and

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Fujian, 600,000. Between 1982 and 1987, the church in Fujian, for example, ordained fifty-seven pastors and performed 400,000 baptisms; 500 churches were reopened or newly built. See MacInnis 1989. 31. Madsen 2003; Yip 2006. 32. Bays 2003; Madsen 2003; Yip 2006. 33. Bays 2003; Yip 2006.

5 THE CHURCH Social and Religious Services Today, Protestantism is the fastest-growing religion in China. In Guangzhou, at present there are eight registered churches, five of which are Protestant. The Xiatian church, where I conducted my research, claimed to have baptized 631 people every year between reopening in 1981 and 2006. In this chapter I zoom in on the church, its social services, and its religious activities. I begin by describing the Xiatian church, its setting, and its history. In the following section, we will follow a typical Sunday morning and service at the church. The chapter closes with a description of the service center and social programs offered by Xiatian church. The detailed descriptions in this chapter highlight several characteristics and aspects that I will explore in more detail in following chapters, namely the emphasis on social support and community.

Xiatian Church: Setting and History Xiatian church lies at the heart of one of Guangzhou’s old neighborhoods. Encircled by large avenues, today the area feels like a somewhat anachronistic remnant of the past amid the frenzy of construction that has marked Guangzhou in recent years. The closest bus station lies in front of a new shopping mall dominated by a Carrefour department store. Here a steep pedestrian bridge crosses the dividing highway. To reach the church, one has to turn into the narrow lanes leading deep into the neighborhood. Halfway into my research, iron gates were installed at these entrances in an apparent effort to provide more security to residents. To my knowledge, however, the gates were never closed and thus had a rather symbolic importance. Endnotes for this chapter begin on page 100.

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The neighborhood is markedly distinct in its building style and overall layout, even compared to other old neighborhoods of Guangzhou. It is completely pedestrian; the narrow alleyways between the usually three-story high buildings are too small for cars to drive through. In some, two people can hardly pass each other. The buildings are narrow and deep, built one attached to the other. The ground floor is typically slightly set back from the alley. The protruding upper floors shelter the entrance from the frequent tropical rainfalls in Guangzhou. Wooden screens in front of the windows remain closed during the summer heat. Balconies with plants and birdcages and potted gardens on rooftop terraces add some greenery to the neighborhood. Lines of clothes span across alleyways, along balconies, and in the porches. Occasionally, the lanes between the buildings open into a small square or corner, many with old trees and benches beneath. Here, as in front of the buildings, old people sit, chat, and watch the passersby (Figures 5.1 and 5.2). The church is located in one of the few wider alleys, almost in the middle of the area. Founded in 1890 by European missionaries, interlocutors proudly told me how the church made itself a name through its medical services. In the early twentieth century it ran a hospital in the neighborhood. As mentioned above, several older interlocutors’ parents converted to Protestantism and visited the church during this time. Most of them were residents of the neighborhood, but a few also came from other parts of the city to attend services. This local embeddedness and long trajectory is, I suggest, an important factor contributing to the church’s popularity, as I will further explore below. During the turmoil of the Japanese invasion and civil war in China, Xiatian had to close its doors, but believers secretly met in private residences until the church offered services again in 1945. Yet, the revival was short-lived. The Communist Revolution and subsequent government campaigns against religious practice and foreign influence in the country led to rapidly declining numbers of believers here as elsewhere in the country. The antireligious climate came to its height during the Cultural Revolution, when religious institutions were closed and/or repurposed. Thus, the Xiatian church building was converted into a middle school, which was attended by several of the older believers who lived in the area. With widespread persecution of religious personnel and condemnation of religious practices, one would imagine that religious practices would succumb.1 Yet, interlocutors insisted that they did not renounce their religion. Instead, older believers explained how faith became “internal,” a “private matter”; they could neither talk about nor practice their belief. Neighbors and friends, however, would have known about their religious biographies, which put them at risk, especially during the Cultural Revolution’s revolutionary frenzy. The experience of not being denounced surely contributed to the sense of solidarity and “community” that many interlocutors associated with the Maoist period.

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Figure 5.1. Church Neighborhood. © Author

Reopened in 1981, today the church is squeezed between a middle school and residential buildings. As with other churches, Xiatian’s visitor numbers are growing. At the time of my research, weekend services in Cantonese and Mandarin together drew around four hundred believers. Yet, government controls of churches and limitations on their activities remain considerable. Xiatian’s pastor

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Figure 5.2. Church Neighborhood. © Author

spent a lot of her time liaising with the authorities, especially the China Christian Council, to get the required approval for church activities, including the content of her sermons. At the same time, the church does not limit itself to the spiritual but also took on social functions, which is in fact encouraged by the regime. Today the national government recognizes that religion can contribute to social stability

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and welcomes religious institutions taking on previously state-provided services. It might therefore not be surprising that Xiatian church has not only become a place for religious worship but also turned into an important social center, attracting people from the immediate vicinity and from all over the city. The main church building has three entrance doors on the ground floor; the middle one is wide open from 6 a.m. until 11 p.m. During my research, inside, just opposite the entrance, a screen with the image of two angels—cherubs with blond hair and blue eyes—greeted visitors with the slogan “Love never ceases” in Chinese (Figure 5.3). Behind the screen, the large entrance hall holds haphazardly arranged tables and chairs pushed against the walls. In the back are several rooms, including a small prayer room with television sets to transmit the service from the main prayer room on the second floor, an office for the church leader/main priest, and several smaller rooms used for storage and meetings. On one side along the main entrance hall, a library/bookstore offered religious publications and paraphernalia. Whenever I visited the church, no matter what time of day, there were at least a few people hanging out. I was always warmly greeted, but nobody ever asked me what I was doing there. The church was indeed an open house, and “love” (ai) was its central message—a word repeated by believers over and over again, as I will further explore in Chapter 6.

Figure 5.3. “Love Never Ceases.” © Author

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The Service Center The Xiatian Service Center was founded in the year 2000 with donations from an overseas Chinese individual who wanted to offer medical/health services to local people. The center was open every day from 8 a.m. until 12 p.m. but was closed in the afternoon and evening, when the rooms were used for various classes offered by the church. The small, about 10 by 10 meters space, was divided into three areas. The entrance door led into a small vestibule crammed with old furniture and boxes. In a small room to the left, every Sunday one of two volunteer doctors sat at a small desk under the window and provided basic medical examinations for free. In one corner of the room stood a locked medicine cabinet, and pushed against the walls was a number of chairs. To the right of the entrance, an equally sized room held exercise machines donated by church members or bought through donations. They looked old-fashioned but worked. In the middle of the space stood a large table with chairs grouped around it. On the table always lay a local daily newspaper that the elderly visitors to the center took turns flipping through. Usually there were also snacks for people to share, which were brought in by one of the volunteers. During my research, three church volunteers, two women and one man, took turns supervising the center. In addition, the husband of one of the women stopped by occasionally and took care of necessary repairs. The volunteer of the day had to open the door, make sure everything was in order, and collect the small service fee for usage of the electronic apparatuses. Apart from that, volunteers just hung out and chatted with the visitors. Most of the visitors came to the center between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m., but some arrived later, and four or five stayed the entire time. The mornings I spent at the center I counted on average fifteen visitors. Almost without exception, they were retired and in their late sixties or seventies. In addition, there were a few unemployed people in their fifties. The vast majority of visitors were women. Most lived in the vicinity, but there were also visitors who came by bus, usually from two to three stops away, and a few from further away—up to one hour by bus. People usually started their routine with a machine that massages the back and continued with the qi-machine, which produces a vibrating motion that supposedly stimulates the muscles. Visitors also measured their blood pressure, but I never saw anybody lifting weights. The majority of apparatuses were free of charge. Only for those that needed electricity were users charged between 1 and 2 yuan per hour. The church volunteers dutifully wrote down the use and fees paid. While waiting for their turn, or after they finished a round, visitors sat around the table, watched TV, read newspapers, chatted, and shared snacks with one another. The atmosphere in the small room usually was very calm and personal, although

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at its busiest time it could become quite noisy. Sometimes the pastor, the vicar, or other employees and volunteers came over from the church, sat down, and chatted for a while with the visitors, but generally this was a nonreligious space. Nobody asked about one’s faith; the service center was open to everybody. On weekends, a volunteer medical doctor arrived at 8:00 a.m. and tended to people until 12:00 p.m. At that time, the service center was taken over by the believers who attended special classes, such as painting, calligraphy, or Bible study. The visitors who came to see the doctor took seat on the chairs in the room to the left of the entrance and waited for their turn. The doctor asked about their general well-being, took their blood pressure, and administered a few other simple exams. At times, the doctor handed out medication. These were over-the-counter drugs that the church bought with money from donations and gave to people with financial difficulties. According to the short surveys I conducted with the service center’s visitors, the main motivation for people to visit was to use the medicinal and exercise machines. In addition, they liked to meet other people and chat or watch TV (in that order of importance). The reason they sought the services at the center and not in other places was first because of the low costs and second because they liked the atmosphere in the center and/or because they knew somebody who frequented the place. The ten most regular visitors to the center said they had been coming there for more than five years. Two of them had previously (before the center opened) attended other irregular health care activities held by the church. About half of the visitors of the center that I talked to were believers. Of the ten people I saw regularly at the center, only three said that they met each other outside of the center—they would go for tea occasionally. Others said they were not friends with the people who visited the center. Nonetheless, I repeatedly witnessed how visitors shared their worries and problems with another. They talked about quarrels with children or their worries about health and finances, and people offered each other advice and good words. Asked about her motivations to visit the service center at least three to four times a week, one female believer in her seventies explained, “It’s something for me to do. My children work, my neighbors are busy. Many [of my neighbors] I don’t even know. Here I can spend some time, use the machines, and chat [with people]. I like the atmosphere.” The service center also ran a social program tending to the elderly without relatives in the neighborhood. To join, one had to pay an annual fee of ten yuan and fill out a short form with basic personal information. This form was kept on file in the center, and as one volunteer explained, “We will then pay attention to their [the elderly’s] situation.” At the time of my research, volunteers took care of seven elderly persons without immediate family. It used to be more, but some had moved, joined a retirement home, or passed away. Usually a person who had signed up for the service was matched with one of the ten regular volunteers, who

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would then be responsible for the visits. But the church also had one employee in charge of supervising the service and making sure that everything ran smoothly. To publicize the center’s activities and services, they handed out printed leaflets. The main means of publication, however, was word of mouth. In sum, the service center functioned like a community center for the locality and beyond. The offer of exercise/medical machines, activities, and social interaction attracted especially, but not only, older Guangzhou residents, who often experience loneliness in today’s transformed urban landscape.

Sunday Morning at the Church Whenever I attended Sunday service at Xiatian church, I was impressed by the lively and sociable atmosphere.2 People began to arrive at around 8:00 a.m. even though the first service in Mandarin Chinese did not start until 9:30 a.m. The early birds were mostly older women and a few older men who sat in the lobby on the ground floor, chatted, or just observed what was going on around them. A celebratory expectation filled the hall. Church volunteers bustled around preparing for the day. They organized the tables and chairs, handed out pastries to a few elderly persons, and greeted new people arriving. Slowly the level of noise rose. At some point, the priest and the vicar of the church appeared, greeted people, and gave instructions to the volunteers. Shortly before 9:30 a.m., the choir, dressed in white and purple gowns, gathered with songbooks in their hands. This was the sign for visitors to scramble up the staircases on both sides of the lobby to the prayer room on the second floor. Volunteers and believers gave older people a hand, and there were always some disabled people who had to be carried up in their wheelchairs. On top of the stairs, two volunteers handed out songbooks and the program of the day. Believers quickly filled the simple wooden benches, arranged in three blocks facing the southern wall. Here, above the white altar, hung a wooden cross with an almost life-size figure of Christ. To the altar’s right and left hung two large religious paintings, the only other adornments of the space. Large windows on three sides of the roughly 25- by 17-meter large and about five-meter-high prayer room filled it with light and sunshine. Usual Sunday attendance was around two hundred people per service.3 In fact, visitors’ numbers exceeded the prayer hall’s capacity, and the service was transmitted via television in a room on the ground floor. On my visits, roughly between half and two thirds of the believers were gray haired and thus presumably above age sixty; the same proportion were women. The rest of the attendees were middle aged, and there were a few families and teenagers. Service was accompanied by piano music and choir singing and had a generally festive atmosphere. Throughout, people got up and walked around, greeted

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others, and chitchatted with one another. At times it became so noisy that it was difficult to follow the service, especially in the back of the prayer room; this was even more true because this is also where people made their donations into the offertory. Throughout the service, believers got up, put money into small envelopes, wrote their names and the amount given on it, and slipped it into the wooden donation box that stood on a small table. The day’s program listed the donations from the previous week together with donor’s names and amount given.4 After the choir finished its last song, with the piano still playing, animatedly talking people walked downstairs to the lobby, where most hung out for some time. Since visitors for the next service in Cantonese had already arrived; this was the most crowded and lively moment of the day. People stood alone or in groups or sat in plastic chairs along the walls and around a table in the middle to the entrance hall. They chatted and laughed and inquired about each other’s health and families, while sharing snacks and drinking water from a fountain. Some believers walked over to the service center to see the medical doctor or attend one of the free classes held in the back and on the second floor of the building. Singing, painting, and calligraphy for children; a youth group; Bible studies and religious singing for adults—all of these activities would last throughout the day.

Church Services As described above, from its inception Xiatian church distinguished itself by the medical assistance it offered to Guangzhou residents. This tradition is somewhat continued in the present day by the service center described above. Yet Xiatian church provides even more services to believers and people living in the vicinity. These are, however, much smaller in scope and less professionalized than in the past, when the church ran a well-functioning hospital. All of the present-day activities are decided by the church committee and have to be approved by the government; some services and projects involve cooperation with the local street office neighborhood committee ( jiedao weiyuanwei, the most local level of government), and some also involve the local Buddhist temple. In addition to special campaigns and specific social initiatives, in 2007 the church engaged in the following services and/or projects (Table 5.1). The first three initiatives did not target the church community or neighborhood itself and/or were not completely self-organized. Thus, the “compassion” project (1), realized several times a year by young church volunteers, delivered donations to poor people in different villages in Guangdong province.5 The natural disaster relief (2) consisted in church donations for victims of calamities that were handed to the government for distribution. The tree planting initiative (3), finally, was a Guangzhou government–organized campaign that the church joined.

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Table 5.1. Church Services and Projects.

Name

Content/Purpose

Location/Target Date/Frequency

1 Compassion (aixin)

Donations to poor people

Guangdong

Several times per year

2 Natural disaster support

Donations to victims

Guangdong

Occasionally

3 Planting of Trees Day Planting of trees

Guangzhou

March 12

4 Disabled Day (zhucanri)

Celebration

Neighborhood

Disabled Day

5 Home visits

Believers/ Help and assistance to believers, their relatives, neighborhood the elderly, and the disabled

All year

6 Special occasion visits

Social visits and presents to believers and families

Believers/ neighborhood

All year

7 Excursions

Tourism/entertainment

Believers/ neighborhood

At least once per year

8 Benevolent Fraternal Love Group (cishan youai zu)

Donations and practical support

Local people in need

All year

The other activities, in contrast, were self-organized and managed by the church; they focused on the church’s members, their relatives, and people living in the vicinity. Whereas Disabled Day (4) involved music and social activities, the next two programs were more hands-on, continuous outreach, and support initiatives: home visits (5) included regular calls on people to pray, sing, and chat. In addition, (6) church volunteers brought presents on special occasions such as marriage and childbirth or sat with the afflicted during sickness or death. Finally, (7) every year the church organized at least one excursion for believers and local residents to a place of interest in Guangdong province. As we can see, none of these church activities were very substantial in terms of their economic value or contribution. The first four were also not very sustained but rather were occasional, one-time efforts, of which only the Disabled Day celebration was related to, or involved, people living in the area. The largest part of the church’s social programs happened indeed on the local community level and through personal outreach or interaction. This local and personal outreach of the church was further supported by an additional service, the “benevolent fraternal love group” (cishan youai zu; 8). The group, established in the mid-1980s, collected donations and supported “people in need.” This included persons who had a hard time paying for their child’s education, single old people, people who did not receive a pension, or people who could not afford medical expenses. The church distributed among

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them donations of food and daily necessities. These were mostly small rations of staples (oil, rice, flour) on special holidays but also little breakfast treats on Sundays when people came to church. Most of these funds went to believers but also to residents of the neighborhood who the church knew to be in need. The character of the church’s social programs was backed by its philosophy or rationale. Thus, when I asked about the motivation behind the activities and donations, a long-time church volunteer suggested, “If religion does not influence, or impact on society, it will decline. That is why we provide services especially to the children’s education, the old, and to disaster areas. That way religion is kept alive.” What is the difference with government provided services and funds? The volunteer elaborated: The ideal behind it [the assistance] is different. Of course, the government has more power; it’s more effective, partly because we [the church] don’t have that many people. But one cannot really compare the two, the things they do. Government activities are sometimes quite superficial. But we [the church] do things on a personal level; we are in touch with the people [qinmin]. As we can see, the church offered a variety of social services to believers and nonbelievers from the neighborhood and beyond. In terms of material support, the church’s efforts remained small, a fact nobody had illusions about. Nevertheless, the programs and services, and especially the service center, were tremendously popular and attracted a small but steady number of visitors every day. It is this role as a community center, a locale rooted in its urban context, an institution reaching out to—“touching”—disembedded urbanites that contributed to the church’s importance, I suggest.

Believers As we have seen in the previous section, Christianity, and more specifically Protestantism, while mirroring many of the other religions’ history, has also held a special position in China’s past and present. Thus the question arises, who were the believers? How did they become Christians? And, what attracted them to the faith? Discussing the growing popularity of Protestant churches especially among women in rural Shandong, Kipnis suggests that it is importantly related to the lack of social support they receive in the reform period, which adds burden to their already weak emotional and social position.6 Similarly, Mobo Gao links Christianity’s growing popularity in a Jiangxi village to the decline of public health services since 1978 and the resulting feeling of vulnerability and neglect.7 Bays, in turn,

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suggests that Protestantism “provides an explanation of suffering, an ethical code and a promise of salvation.”8 He discusses conversion to Christianity among the “disillusioned” generation. In the late 1970s, these people who had lived through radical Maoism experienced san xin weiji, a crisis of confidence, trust, and faith that left them hungry for “spiritual nutrition.”9 The experience of hardship and uncertainty, weak social position and lack of social support, the lack of services, a moral vacuum, disillusionment, and spiritual seeking—all these were factors that also influenced the religious trajectories of interlocutors in this study. Believers differed, however, in the way they had encountered faith and the church. At the same time, religious careers showed certain patterns or regularities, and believers shared some characteristics.10 A number of older believers such as Mrs. Wang, for example, had grown up in Christian families before the Communist Revolution. Born in 1939, her parents converted in the early twentieth century after they met an evangelist. In other cases, it was the grandparents who had become Christians. Several of these old believers recalled how they felt special or different from their neighbors when they grew up. This was because Christianity was widely associated with modernity and considered a more advanced belief than Chinese religions. Moreover, Mrs. Wang claimed, Christians were thought to be better people because they did not gamble, take drugs, or see prostitutes. Early believers attended church as children and a few of them, such as Mrs. Wang, actually went to the Xiatian church. After the revolution, however, religious practice came increasingly under attack. Especially during the radical frenzy of the Cultural Revolution, people had to renounce or at least hide their belief. Yet interlocutors claimed they secretly held on to it. As an elderly believer put it, “it [belief] became something internal, a personal matter [sishi].” Thus, in the early 1980s, when religious activities became possible again, for many “it was only natural [ziran]” to return to the church. Mrs. Wang and her husband, who was also from an old Christian family, came back as soon as Xiatian opened its doors again. Despite the interruption during Maoism, long-time Christians such as Mrs. Wang and her husband claimed that their neighbors who knew of their faith respected and trusted them more than other (non-Christian) people. The majority of believers were, however, more recent—reform period—converts. For many it was the experience of personal trouble, including illness, unemployment, or marital problems that led them to turn to religion. One of them was Mrs. Wu, who was born in the 1950s. After she was laid off a few years earlier she became depressed, and this negatively affected her family. Yet when she converted and became a church volunteer she felt much better. Mr. Ho (born in 1950), in contrast, simply went along with his wife, who had converted. He did not consider himself a believer but had become a church volunteer nonetheless and thought it had a positive impact on his state of mind. Finally, there was Mrs.

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Fang (born in 1947). After a friend introduced her to the church, she converted in 1999 at a time when she had problems with her husband. She claimed that her faith had saved her marriage because especially attending Bible study class made her more patient and forgiving. As we can see, people had diverse individual reasons to feel attracted to the church and to convert. Yet what they shared was the desire to find some new meaning and/or moral guidance. This became especially evident in interlocutors who I have called “socialist converts.”11 These were people who made a direct connection between their Maoist socialization and their conversion to Christianity. This was the case of one of the volunteer doctors in the service center. She explained that the generation born in the 1940s and 1950s grew up under communism and were taught the values of community, solidarity, and family. What made them happy were devotion, sacrifice, and dedication to society. “But devotion,” she thought, “is not so particular; it does not matter so much what one is devoted to.” As teenagers (in the 1960s) “we were taught about Lei Feng12; and now I am a Christian. . . . In a way, communism and Christianity are not that different.” More generally, “spiritual seekers” were often upset about personal circumstances or felt discontent with contemporary social conditions. Some lamented a lack of moral values and/or sought answers to transcendental questions. Corruption and the abuse of power among party members and government officials was, for example, what preoccupied Mrs. Wen (born in the 1940s), a former businesswoman. After her son—not a believer—told her about the Bible and Christian teachings she began to attend a Catholic church. But Mrs. Wen was quickly put off by the quantity of rules to follow. Then she tried out a Protestant church, which she found open and less complicated. She emphasized how instead of relying on the priest here she could directly communicate with God. Moreover, “everybody is guilty [a sinner], but [in the Protestant church] they teach us how to become a better person.” Mrs. Wen thought relations between believers were very good, and she felt inspired by how they helped others with donations and good deeds. In the past she had been interested only in making more and more money. But after converting, she gave up her business and felt it had made her a better person. In addition, God watching over her kept her from “doing bad things.” A similar spiritual need also brought the comparatively few younger people (age thirty and below) to the church. These were mostly single children who felt the tremendous exigencies first from the competitive educational system and later the equally, or even more competitive, labor market. Now they were looking for something meaningful to do and/or add purpose to their lives. They volunteered in different church activities and attended weekend classes, which they thought gave them a new direction in life. Finally, a group of believers had found the church “accidentally” or “coincidentally.” At times, a friend had taken them along, or they had heard or read about

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the church. Others learned about the Bible or Protestant faith and searched for where to find out more. Not a few happened upon one of the church’s activities and were drawn by the communal atmosphere at the church. For many, it was a combination of such factors that brought them to the church. Believers clearly differed in their religious trajectories, that is, how they had become believers. They also differed in what they sought in the church. In this sense, faith and conversion comprised a quite individualistic project. At the same time, believers all talked about others as their “fellow brothers and sisters” and evoked the notion of a “community.” Yet some believers took this more literally than others. To them, the communal aspect of the church was a prime attraction, as I will elaborate on in Chapter 6.

Notes 1. Ashiwa and Wank 2006; Madsen 2003. 2. See Fleischer 2011a. 3. On a given Sunday, there were 220 visitors for the Mandarin language service and 170 for the service in Cantonese according to the numbers listed in the program for the previous week. 4. This public naming of donors is an interesting local aspect of religiosity. Writing about rural Guangdong, Santos argues that this practice is linked to old traditions of religious fundraising, ritual accountancy, and memory inscription. He notes, however, that in the present the “concern with the symbolic recognition of acts of monetary donation has reached unprecedented dimensions and levels of commercialization.” See Santos 2013: 201. 5. Such urban to rural philanthropic endeavors have become more common in recent years and are often organized through urban institutions such as a social or professional club. See, for example, Santos and Zhang (forthcoming). 6. Kipnis 2001. 7. Gao 1999. 8. Bays 2003: 502. 9. He 2003: 43. 10. Fleischer 2011a. 11. Ibid. Gao (2003b: 59) speaks of “communist faith.” 12. Lei Feng was a Maoist moral model. See Chapter 7.

6 LOVE A Community of Believers In this chapter, I examine practices and ideologies related to the church community in more detail. I show how the church works through different modes or realms— as a community center, a place of religious worship, a social service center, and a source of practical and financial support. As will become apparent, it is exactly this multifariousness and ideological openness that attracted interlocutors. Together they envisioned and practiced an alternative community based on love and general acceptance and markedly distinguished from contemporary urban society.

The Imagined Community As we have seen from the short characterizations in the previous section, believers were highly diverse—in not only demographic terms but also how they had encountered the faith, when and why they had converted, and what faith meant in their lives. Moreover, believers differed in their commitment to the church: some interlocutors considered their faith a personal matter, something of one’s “inner being” (neixin) that helped them deal with everyday problems. They went to church to attend Sunday service or even spent a few hours at the service center, but they did not necessarily participate in any of the other church activities, form lasting relationships, or meet with fellow believers outside church. Others, however, spent a lot of time at the church, either simply hanging out or engaging in one of the numerous classes and other activities. They became volunteers and donated to the church’s social projects; they were friends with other believers who they met outside of the church for tea. Their lives effectively centered on Xiatian. It was similar with public proclamations of faith: those who thought belief was something private often did not really want to talk much about Endnotes for this chapter begin on page 108.

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it. Others, however, wore religious adornments and/or displayed a cross on the walls of their homes. They talked quite frankly about their faith and were also very curious about my own religious views. Finally, believers had very different levels of knowledge of the Bible and Christian or Protestant liturgy. Some cited Bible verses and clearly attributed high importance to the teachings. Others, however, demonstrated a rather vague understanding of their faith and/or appeared to care more about the social, communal aspects of the church. While Weller argues that participation in a type of religious activity does not guarantee a unified form of religious interpretation, the extremely different believers and interests necessarily affected the character of the church.1 Referring to a similarly “fuzzy” Protestant church community in rural Shandong, Kipnis speaks of “symbolic participation” to describe believers’ attitude2: Vibrant arenas of symbolic participation accommodate all [kinds] of . . . motivations. Addressing questions of a general order of existence speaks to diverse desires, while attracting a significant following provides a basis for pursuing larger social, political, or economic goals. Symbolic participation can always be seen as both an end in itself and as a means to other ends.3 Similarly, Xiatian did not impose a strict mold, a one for all model of religious practice, and thus offered something for a large number of quite different people and desires. This openness was, in fact, part of its attraction and its success. At the same time something united believers: interlocutors spoke of fellow believers as their “brothers and sisters”; shared faith connected them, if not directly then at least in spirit. Believers in the Xiatian church effectively formed an imagined community. Benedict Anderson proposed the concept of “imagined community” to think about the modern nation-state, a community in which members will never know all others personally, yet feel somehow connected at a deep, horizontal, and emotional level.4 Similarly, interlocutors felt they belonged to the community of believers, not only at the Xiatian church but in the city, the province, the nation, and beyond. In this imagined community they were equal and somehow connected. Importantly, the imagined community generated a sense of security and trust, something that interlocutors had a hard time to find outside of the church. Mrs. Ho, for example, commented, “Here [at the church], it’s a place where I feel safe. I can come here and talk to people. We are all brothers and sisters here. It’s not like with your neighbors. With them you never know who they are!” Thus, even though she actually did not know who fellow believers were, the fact that they shared the same faith gave her more confidence than the changing residents of her residential neighborhood. She considered someone who shared her belief a “good person,” that is, trustworthy and reliable even if she had never talked to her.

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Yet, church was not simply a “projection screen” for everything believers wanted to see or find in it; it was not only an “imagined” community. In the everyday, the church also worked in very real ways through (demonstrative) acts of benevolence and support, as I will elaborate in the next section.

Making Community One way the church’s imagined community became real to believers was through the different services it offered: the donations and practical help to elderly in need, the service center with its facilities, the special activities, the classes, and so on. Even more important than these official services and programs, I contend, were spontaneous, informal, and personal acts of benevolence, that is, the making or enacting of community among believers. Formal and informal meetings and get-togethers in the church always served as occasions to talk about interlocutors’ problems and grievances. Mrs. Hou, for example, complained about her mother-in-law, who she felt criticized her unjustly. The elderly Mrs. Lu, in turn, was unhappy about her son’s lifestyle. Mrs. Fan was worried about her family’s financial situation after being laid off. When these people poured out their hearts to others, believers tried to console them and offered advice on how to deal with the different issues. Whereas the pastor usually responded with reference to the Bible when interlocutors shared their worries, fellow believers had more practical suggestions that transcended the spiritual religious domain. Maybe even more important, beyond such compassion and advice, believers also organized practical support for others through their individual social networks. Thus, when the husband of a church volunteer lost his job, it was through other believers that he found occasional work. Another volunteer, moreover, informed the street office of the neighborhood about the problem and they repeatedly hired him for day jobs. Believers also shared tips about where best to buy certain products or how to get (better) access to certain services. Finally, interlocutors collected money and organized practical help for a person in need. This is what happened to old Mrs. Xu, who we already met in Part I when I discussed her difficult housing situation. Hunched over and bowlegged from osteoporosis, her eyes almost blind from cataracts, Mrs. Xu was among the many elderly women who spent their days at the church. Happy to indulge in a distraction, she willingly told me about her life. And what a life it had been. Born before the Communist Revolution, she was sold by her father, a notorious gambler, into servitude to a rich family. Unable to bear the maltreatment and exploitation that a female servant—among the lowest ranks in the imperial social hierarchy—suffered, she ran away and wanted to commit suicide.

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Yet, Mrs. Xu continued telling me, a kind woman passing by talked her out of it and subsequently adopted and took care of her. Nonetheless, with no education and given her low social standing, Mrs. Xu had few options regarding her future. Lacking exceptional beauty and grace, she could not hope to climb the social ladder by marriage. Indeed, the man she eventually married was kind, she said, but poor. They had one daughter, who died young, and after a miscarriage she was not able to have more children. Thus, when her husband died in the mid-1980s, she was left alone. Recall that Mrs. Xu had no living relatives. Due to health problems she had not worked long enough to receive benefits from her former employer and thus, when we met, she relied on the government’s Minimum Living Standard Scheme (MLSS, or dibao).5 Yet Mrs. Xu insisted that she had no physical needs. Every Chinese New Year the church gave her a ration of cooking oil as well as some essentials such as shampoo. “It’s much more than I need,” she sighed. On Sunday mornings, when Mrs. Xu went to attend the service at the church, she was given a breakfast pastry. When I visited her at her home, she still had some from the week before. Yet Mrs. Xu was full of gratitude toward the church—not because of these contributions to her daily life, which she clearly thought were exaggerated. It was because she felt she could rely on the community of believers to support her when she really needed help. This was proven when Mrs. Xu had to have an operation and the costs exceeded her meager savings. At the time, without Mrs. Xu asking for help, people at the church collected money for her and organized visits to attend to her after the procedure. Mrs. Xu was convinced that “they saved my life; I would not be here without them.” Kleinman speaks of Chinese people’s present-day “quests for meaning”— including the quest for happiness, justice, religious meaning, respect, status, to do good, and stability and order.6 To this I would add the quest for community or sociality. Yunxiang Yan and others have recently emphasized the growing individualization of Chinese society.7 A number of factors, including the greater availability of housing as well as changing values, contribute to the weakening importance of intergenerational ties. Instead, family relations are increasingly centered on the conjugal unit.8 Young people pursue conjugal intimacy, freedom, independence, and personal development. They leave their homes and seek employment elsewhere. And even if they stay, they more and more often choose not to live with parents after marriage. Yan describes this process as a “disembedding” of individuals from their former encompassing social categories and a lag in “reembedding.”9 In the church, I suggest, it was the many smaller and greater practices of (religious) support that contributed to creating meaning and sociality and through this to reembedding. While often fleeting and impermanent, the practices were repeated over time and thus assumed greater weight. Hence, all the different acts

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and gestures related to Sunday service, for example, the personal welcome, the handing out of pastries, and the chitchat and interaction before, during, and after, were what broke through the standard of church routine and made the occasion special. It was similar for the service center: while not all visitors were believers, the openness, the charity, and the “ritualized” interaction transformed the service center into a personalized space. Through their repeated actions, interlocutors created and shared communitas.10 Importantly, however, while believers felt connected to other believers (in Guangzhou, China, and even beyond) because of their shared faith, the communitas created in the church was specific to Xiatian: it was here and not in other churches that people found what they were looking for. This became clear from accounts of interlocutors who had come to Xiatian after being dissatisfied with other church communities. Mrs. Wang attended different churches, both Protestant and Catholic, all over the city for about two years before she finally discovered Xiatian. While there was a church close to her house, she regularly traveled for more than an hour across town because she liked the Xiatian community. Several believers told me how they continued to visit Xiatian after they moved, even though it was far away from their new residences. Yet another interlocutor had changed from visiting a “house church” in her neighborhood to Xiatian because she preferred this community. This latter case is especially interesting because for some believers the officially sanctioned churches lack legitimacy; support by the antireligious Communist Party and control over its functions in their eyes delegitimizes a religious institution. The attraction of illegal house churches, in contrast, for these believers lies in their alleged greater “authenticity” that comes with escaping government control.11 Thus, when an interlocutor left a house church to change to the official church of Xiatian, it clearly showed that the person was more interested in the specific communal aspects of this church than in the possibilities of religious freedom. In sum, the community associated with the Xiatian church was more than merely a “spiritual realm” or an imagined community. Above and beyond that, it was a network of social relations that were continuously mobilized to the benefit of others. This support, the practice and concrete application of their teachings, was an important reassurance to the members of this fluid community. It was proof that at the heart of the imagined community of Christians existed a network of helpful social relations that grew out of a distinct value system, an ethic that set believers apart.

A Separate Realm of Love Interlocutors often talked about how faith had made them more “warmhearted” (rexinchang), “happy” (yukuai, gaoxing), “forgiving” (kuanshu), and “kind” (heai).

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Their faith apparently held transformative power. It is this transformative power, I suggest, that was in fact an important aspect of the religion’s attraction. Conversion in and of itself is of course a transformative process and experience. Critics of the classical Pauline model of conversion, however, highlight that religious adherence is rarely absolute and that conversion seldom involves a complete transformation. Instead, conversion trajectories attest to the fact that “most human beings change incrementally over time.”12 Thus, conversion should not be conceived of as a change from one belief to another but as a project that is never finished.13 At the same time, however, Pelkmans alerts us that conversion is an embedded process, defined by social and political circumstances.14 In reform period China, this social and political context itself is dominated by the discourse of transformation—economic, social, and personal transformation. Especially the latter is actively promoted by the government through the suzhi discourse that aims at improving people’s human capital. Suzhi, or “quality,” as has been pointed out by numerous authors, is a fluid term without fixed meaning. Anagnost thus calls it a “floating signifier” that “traverses the complex terrain of economic, social and political relationships.”15 The content of suzhi, its meaning, is determined by cultural context and the agenda of a particular agent.16 The opposite of “quality,” its contrast, namely, “low quality” (suzhi di), however, is more clearly defined by what it is not: not urban, not modern, not cultured, and not educated. The concept thus underlines, and is popularly employed to emphasize, the deep-running conceptual distinction between countryside and city, between rural and urban residents. Yet even within the religious realm, distinctions based on suzhi are being made. Christian writing is in fact permeated by the concern to raise the quality of congregations, of a pastor, of theological training, and so on. Similar to popular readings of the concept in other sectors, here low suzhi is associated with the overly spiritual and irrational. Wielander explains this with the quest for relative rationality that religions in China engage in today.17 This is, according to the author, a reaction to the government condemnation of “evil cults” such as Falun Gong. Identifying as Protestants, a faith widely considered “modern” and “rational,” thus lends believers a certain status or prestige. Not a few of my interlocutors commented that they like the Protestant faith because it was “clear,” “direct,” and “simple.” Moreover they felt they were respected and trusted by others because of their faith. Thus, the church and believers engage in and reproduce the same divisive discourse as the government, while at the same time through the emphasis on love and acceptance positioning themselves as somewhat of an alternative to dominant culture. This highlights once more that in contemporary China, no social sphere is independent from or exclusive to others; they are malleable, intersecting, and indeed fluid. The church is not a separate sphere, and religion is not opposed to

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“the state” or government.18 Nevertheless, it is important to recognize how believers themselves separated the different realms. To them, the church was a different domain, a community opposed to general society. In his discussion of the term, Turner highlights that in communitas people stand outside of society. And indeed, both in terms of their identity and practices as well as in terms of what the church stood for, for believers it was essential to draw a sharp distinction from nonbelievers. Part of this separation of spheres, the distinction between church and general society, was the emphasis of their own personal transformation. This personal transformation, moreover, they presented—in contrast to what theorists suggest—as a completed process. Becoming believers, joining the church, they had changed. Now they were more loving, understanding, forgiving and so on. This did not imply that there was no room for further improvement, that they should not continue to further work on themselves to become and be better Christians. But believers emphasized that they already were different persons. And importantly, they confided that their “brothers and sisters” were too. Moreover, the church and the network of social relations followed different rules from society at large. Believers were emphatic that within the religious realm the notions of renqing, of indebtedness and guanxi held no value and did not apply. Help extended both through the official church programs and through the informal networks of believers were not conceived of in terms of reciprocity, but as free gifts. Recipients of practical and even financial help were adamant that, in contrast to people outside the church, they were not expected to repay their fellow believers. “Relatives and friends,” one woman explained, “I owe them; it’s a question of ‘renqing.’ I have to pay them back. But believers, that’s different. They help because of spiritual reasons; they are taught to give to others. So it’s not a matter of paying back.” What distinguished religious from nonreligious giving was what drove it: the help, support, and favors extended to other believers was motivated by love. The rule of reciprocity, believers suggested, did not apply among them; the church community was formed around different ethics. With this, they challenged important and still widely held traditional norms of conduct. At the same time, emphasizing that they acted out of disinterested love, believers distanced themselves from present-day consumer society, which interlocutors described as “greedy” and “calculating.” In contrast to the (supposedly) prevailing hedonism, self-interest, and ruthlessness, the community of believers was experienced as a heaven of harmonious Miteinander (togetherness). Thus, one believer, for example, suggested: “It is very important for us to come to the church; we feel more comfortable in the church because of the overall atmosphere. People [here] are friendlier. It’s different from the general society. In the past everybody left their doors open, now

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people compete with each other and focus on money.” Another woman explained: “Most important about the Christian spirit is love. It makes family life harmonious and respectful; there is no jealousy, only support and mutual cherishing. Outside, society is complicated and people are bad [do bad things].” Believers firmly presented themselves as different—transformed through their faith into better persons adhering to and living by a different, by implication better, ethics. In the social and political context of a corrupt, negligent, and unpredictable party-state, a calculating and competitive society, the church and its believers distinguished themselves through their uprightness and honesty. Moreover, as one church volunteer commented, “We show we care. What we give is love.”

Conclusion In conclusion, the church worked through different modes or realms—as a community center for the neighborhood, a place of religious worship, a social service center, and a source of practical and financial support. For many interlocutors, and especially the elderly, who in today’s urban environment felt lonely and lost, the church offered a mooring. For believers and nonbelievers alike, the church was a place where they could go, where they felt welcome, where they found kindness, acceptance, an “open ear,” and various forms of emotional, practical, and even material support. Their belief was not questioned. Those who were believers felt connected to their brothers and sister in spirit, whereas those who were not believers nonetheless felt safe because of the “moral credit” the church and the believers have in society. All of them, however, were especially drawn to the sociality formed through the programs and practices that were specific to the Xiatian church. It was the concrete practices and the support extended to members of this community that turned the imagined community of believers into a real community where people felt at home. Enforcing this sense of community—separate from dominant society—was the emphasis on different norms and ethics and the guiding principle of love. A final factor that apparently attracted believers was the clarity of rules. In the confusing moral landscape of contemporary China, the church’s Ten Commandments, the pastor’s lectures, and the Bible as a source of advice offered definite norms: answers to important life questions and a clear ethics to live by.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4.

Weller 1987. Kipnis 2001. Ibid.: 43. Anderson 1991.

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5. MLSS was introduced in the 1990s and is supposed to cover the difference between per capita household income and the local poverty line; it targets households without stable incomes, the capacity to work, or family support. See Chen and Barrientos 2006. 6. Kleinman et al. 2011. 7. Yan 2008, 2009b. 8. “The Rise of the Individual in China” 2008. 9. Yan 2008, 2009b. 10. Communitas, a concept elaborated by Victor Turner, denotes strong feelings of social togetherness and belonging often in connection with rituals. The concept is in many ways opposite Marx’s alienation and Durkheim’s anomie. Turner used the term to describe the specific state of connectedness and equality that novices experience when undergoing their initiation rites. 11. But see Wielander (2015) for a critique of this distinction. 12. Rambo 2003: 214. 13. Coleman 2003. 14. Pelkmans 2009: 12. 15. Anagnost 2004: 197. 16. Wielander 2015: 14. 17. Ibid. 18. My discussion here refers to the “official” church. Wielander (2015) among others, however, argues that the distinction between the official church under the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) organization and “illegal” house churches is in fact misleading since even the latter are permeated by, or at least not “outside,” the state.

PART III

A Helping Hand To find out about different forms of social support, in my initial interviews I asked about membership in organizations and the kind of social relations people had besides family and close friends. I was surprised that almost every single person under thirty years of age commented that they were volunteers, including Lili and Shufei. Lili started volunteering in different social organizations when she began university studies. She considered it important for her personal growth as well as a contribution to society. Upon graduation in 2008, she found a paid position in a small nongovernmental organization that sponsored rural students’ education. After working for a few years, in 2012 she planned to apply for a master’s degree in social work abroad. Shufei, in turn, volunteered occasionally while she was in university; she tried out different activities and organizations but was never as dedicated to the cause as Lili. When I revisited Guangzhou in 2010, her efforts had petered out. In many countries, volunteering—the free and unconditional spending of time and energy for the benefit of other people—is a common activity. People of all ages engage in numerous unpaid services in different sectors (social, recreational, and environmental, among others), often through a multitude of organizations that coordinate such efforts. In China, however, volunteering is fairly new—during Maoism no independent activities were allowed; “voluntary” work took the form of mass movements organized through the state. The apparent boom of individuals’ voluntary activities in the reform period is thus remarkable—even more so because research has suggested that prosocial behavior in China is limited to family and a close inner circle of friends and not usually extended to strangers.1 In addition, as already discussed, the reform period is said to have led to individualization, excessive materialism, and a moral vacuum. News reports about rampant corruption, widespread scams, and uncivil behavior nurture the sense that something is seriously amiss in contemporary Chinese society, that social solidarity and commitment is absent.2

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Studies in postcommunist Central and Eastern Europe have shown that the process of democratization and the establishment of civil society are crucial factors for the rise of volunteerism.3 China, however, is far from democratizing; the government continues to control—at times tightly—all social initiatives and organizations set up outside of the party-state. At the same time, the party-state actively encourages and promotes volunteer work in an effort to relieve the state of social functions. This includes setting quotas for private companies’ employees’ voluntary contributions and volunteering as part of middle school students’ curriculum. Thus, the classical notion of a third sector between the state and private sector, of an independent civil society, does not hold. This does not mean, however, that we can simply dismiss Chinese people’s contemporary efforts and significant amounts of time dedicated to social projects as socially engineered. In this part, I examine the volunteer phenomenon in contemporary China as it became evident in my Guangzhou research. Analyzing people’s motivations, aspirations, and desires engaging in these types of activities, I highlight the contradictions and tensions that arise throughout the practice and within the institutions and organizations involved. As will become apparent, volunteerism is another important area in and through which contemporary social relations, ethics, and aspirations are renegotiated in the post-Mao period.

Notes 1. Madge 1974; Tang 2005. 2. Wang 2002; Zhuo 2001. 3. Juknevičius and Savicka 2003; Ślęzak 2005.

7 PHILANTHROPY, CHARITY, AND VOLUNTEERISM As we have seen in the previous parts, the socioeconomic transformations in China have led to disembedding and growing individualization. Researchers speak of a “moral vacuum” or at least a lack of civility. At the same time, however, there are ever more examples of Chinese citizens taking on social causes, donating money, and engaging in volunteer activities. According to the Chinese government, more than 100 million people have been involved in volunteer activities in recent years.1 At the time of my research in 2006, Guangdong province—one of the birthplaces of volunteer service in China—had more than one million registered volunteers. Since then, nonprofit organizations have continued to grow rapidly, especially after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, which sparked a national outburst of solidarity and led people all over the country to offer help and money. Whereas there were 4,000 professional and philanthropic organizations, foundations, and special interest groups in 1988, in 1993 numbers grew to 181,000 and surged to more than 430,000 after the earthquake.2 After the total absence of independent social initiatives and organizations during the Maoist period, this is an astonishing rise of benevolence and voluntary activity. Philanthropy, charity, and volunteerism are commonly thought to be Western or Christian concepts.3 China, however, has a long history of such practices, albeit different from Western notions. Thus, I begin this chapter with a short history of philanthropy and charity in China, highlighting cultural specificities and challenges. The second section introduces volunteerism in the reform period, its organizational structure, and the party-state’s efforts to promote the practice. Following this, I offer some numbers on volunteering on the national level as well as related to my own study in Guangzhou. The chapter closes with an introduction of the two organizations the majority of my interlocutors were involved with. As will become evident, the volunteer phenomenon is a reflection of larger social, Endnotes for this chapter begin on page 124.

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economic, and political processes in contemporary China. Only if we understand volunteerism as an embedded phenomenon can we fully comprehend its popularity in the post-Mao period.

Benevolence, Philanthropy, and Charity in Chinese History The literature on prosocial behavior, the “third sector” or “civil society” in China, often falls into one of two camps: those who argue that independent organizations and the agentive individual are absent in Chinese history and culture and those who recognize a notion of the individual that differs from that of the West yet argue that this does not exclude social solidarity beyond the narrow family realm. According to the first view, the Chinese individual is a relational one, impossible to conceive of, and to act as, independent from larger social contexts. The individual’s dominant social reference or frame is the family, followed by the lineage, village, and so on. Thus whatever social solidarity, prosocial behavior—voluntary contributions and charity—was extended fell within these lines, yet could never be conceived of within an independent realm. As elaborated in Chapter 1 of Part I, other authors argue that this portrayal of the binding ties of kin has been exaggerated by anthropologists trained in kinship studies that applied European notions of relatedness to other societies without regard for local meanings. Stafford, for example, emphasizes the importance of neighborly exchange relations in Chinese villages supposedly dominated by patrilineal kinship.4 He suggests that the cycle of laiwang is at least as central as patrilineal descent. Social interaction, help, and regard were practiced beyond the limits of kin and were in fact vital to everyday village life. Supporting this more open or flexible view of Chinese social relations, recent research emphasizes that notions of charity and volunteer work are not new and/or Western imports. Laliberté, Palmer, and Wu explain that cishan, the common translation of “philanthropy,” “charity,” and “benevolence,” connotes an action imbued with “profound ethical and religious significance.”5 While the concept itself appears to be modern, the authors insist that from a religious perspective there is a long history of benevolence, philanthropy, and dedication to the common good. All three major religious traditions—Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism—included charitable ideologies and practices. For the Confucian elite-literati class, benevolence (ren) was an ideal to strive for. “This starts with the cultivation of the benevolent mind in an individual, and then proceeds outward. It begins with filial piety and fraternal obligation, and extends to an ethics of responsibility.”6 During the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), Confucian moral prescriptions had a profound influence on social practices and nurtured expectations of good behavior and philanthropy, including in the newly emerging merchant classes. Daoism, in

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turn, provided free medicine and medical care to those in need. Benevolence is a major element of Buddhist teachings, out of which the movement of humanistic Buddhism, which puts philanthropy at the center of its practice, had developed by the twentieth century.7 Historically such support and welfare was mostly administered within the community, the clan, and kin, entities that in southern China largely coincided. In addition, however, there existed native place organizations and professional guilds that offered support to its members. While the extent of these benevolent practices is still debated, it is important to recognize the long history of charity, voluntary support, and the notion of benevolence in China’s culture and religion.8 In more recent history, during the Qing period (1644–1911), the number of religious charity and philanthropic organizations steadily grew. Foreign missionaries ran many of these, in part because Chinese were denied freedom of association.9 Still, Laliberté, Palmer, and Wu argue that these Christian philanthropic endeavors should not simply be regarded as Western imports.10 After all, such initiatives relied heavily on local resources and people to provide social services. Moreover, the Christian notion of universal love inspiring benevolence actually connected well with the notion of compassion found in the Chinese religious traditions. This became evident in 1908, when the Qing Dynasty government finally reversed the rules about association. Modern volunteer organizations soon appeared that dedicated themselves especially to local relief work with refugees and the poor. Such efforts further expanded during the Nationalist regime (1911–1949), when the government collaborated with privately created third-sector organizations and engaged in public welfare and philanthropic, religious, and other activities. This period, at the end of the Qing Dynasty and during the Nationalist regime, is often considered proof that civil society could develop in China. Local intellectuals actively promoted modernization, including the development of independent social organizations. While inspired by Western theories and thinkers, many of these efforts explicitly sought to develop a distinct Chinese social model.11 After World War II, early twentieth-century efforts in philanthropic work were quickly revived and flourished again. Yet, the Communist Revolution, which started in 1949, brought all this to a halt. The new government considered charity a surreptitious instrument of imperialism. Independent and individual charity and volunteer organizations were highly suspicious, and only a few of them survived.12 Indeed, during Maoism there was no “third sector”; there was nothing between the public and the private, and the two realms frequently merged. To activate revolutionary spirit, the government relied instead on large, politicized, collective campaigns, participation in which was less voluntary than coerced. The most prominent campaign to stir revolutionary spirit was “Learn from Comrade Lei Feng” in the 1960s. Lei, a soldier who died an accidental death at

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age twenty-two years, had dedicated his life to serving the masses. In his posthumously published purported diary, Lei Feng noted numerous anonymous good deeds. Yet he continuously blamed himself for not living up to Maoist ideals. Subsequently, the government stylized Lei Feng as the moral model for all Chinese, and several older interlocutors recalled being taught to emulate Lei Feng. He came to stand for total selflessness and the ideal of completely dissolving the self into the unity of the masses. March 5th was declared “Learn from Lei Feng Day,” which was celebrated with voluntary services to the public by schools and work unit–organized teams.13 Importantly, this was not some lofty ideal, but a real inspiration to some interlocutors, who still remembered how Lei Feng enthused them to help others and strive to do good deeds. Other moral models stylized during the Maoist period to emulate besides Lei Feng were the “model workers.” These were individuals distinguished for having made a significant contribution to the country through their hard work. In fact, “model worker” was one of China’s most prestigious honors. The nationwide selection of model workers began in 1950 and was based on the endurance of hardship and the sacrifice of self-interests. The model worker was expected to inspire the masses and inculcate such virtues as hard work, modesty, and patriotism.14 Through mass campaigns and moral models, the Communist regime aimed at forging new, revolutionary social relations with the strongest allegiance to the party. Individual effort and ambition were subordinate to society, the party, and the greater good of the socialist movement and the nation. In return, the promise was progress and modernity for all.

Volunteerism in the Reform Period With the reform period, state-society relations have significantly changed. To reduce state dependency and nurture more self-reliance, the regime released individuals from their former collectives—peasants from the communes and urban residents from the danwei unit. Along with freedom, this brought new responsibilities for oneself and others. Little did the regime, however, expect individuals to organize and participate in independent social organizations. Yet, as early as 1990—influenced especially by examples from Hong Kong—the first volunteer organization was established in Shenzhen.15 Before long, independent groups and organizations burgeoned all over China. Guangdong province, the center spot for the economic reform program and close to Hong Kong, was at the forefront of this process. At the time, the social and economic reforms were in full swing, and the government was increasingly confronted with the question of how to ease the negative consequences. It quickly realized the role volunteer organizations could assume, especially to take on social security and welfare responsibilities previ-

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ously provided by the state.16 It thus embarked on its “small government, big society” campaign to share (i.e., socialize) social welfare responsibilities. To this end, the party-state shifted responsibilities to “popular” (minjian shetuan) and community-based welfare providers that rely on volunteers to carry out services.17 In cities, the new sociospatial organization of shequ (community), which works through residents’ participation and voluntary contributions, is intended to replace the wide-ranging welfare function that employers (danwei) held during the Maoist period. Moreover, in 1994 the Chinese Youth League established the Chinese Young Volunteers Association, which organizes volunteer programs nationwide through its local offices. At the same time, international volunteer organizations were given permission to launch programs in China, and the United Nations began to send volunteers. In 1999, March 5th, previously the National Day for Learning from Lei Feng, was renamed National Volunteers Day.18 Today, the volunteer sector in China is a complex system that includes party committees, government youth leagues, young volunteers associations, social organizations, community organizations, and nonprofit organizations as well as the philanthropic and business community at both the national and local levels. The broad range of volunteering programs and activities that are available include participation in large-scale events (Olympics, EXPO, etc.); support for the vulnerable, including helping the young, the disabled, the aged, and the poor; environmental and animal protection; community volunteer service; emergency response volunteer service; private sector and corporate volunteering; and international volunteering. The 2008 Sichuan (more specifically Wenchuan) earthquake is widely recognized as a watershed for the development of volunteerism in China. The thousands of volunteers who spontaneously offered their assistance after the tragedy highlighted the importance of the training and coordination of volunteers in emergency response efforts. What is more, they showed the value of volunteer grassroots organizations in reconstruction and long-term development efforts. As in the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) crisis in 2006, volunteer organizations often proved to be more effective than party-state institutions.19 Since then, volunteering has sharply increased. Yet, it is especially the participation in large-scale events that further popularized the practice and contributed to a new appreciation of its value in Chinese society. The 2008 Beijing Olympics attracted 1.7 million volunteers, the 2010 Shanghai Expo had 1.9 million, and the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games involved 600,000 volunteers.20 Importantly, and different from the situation in other countries, in China the party-state continues to exert significant control over volunteerism. Government efforts go toward promoting but also coordinating volunteering activities and organizations; special emphasis is placed on youth. Thus, in 2007 the voluntary service network was established under the supervision of the Chinese Youth League.

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This network includes volunteer associations on all administrative levels, from the province to municipalities and townships. Each level has special voluntary service departments that provide guidance for youth volunteering. In addition, Chinese Youth League organizations in schools, companies, communities, and rural areas have their own youth volunteering groups. In this way, the party-state established a vast organizational network that mobilizes volunteerism on all levels of society and throughout China.21 This is somewhat reminiscent of the Maoist period state organizational structure. Referring to the importance that the party-state maintains, White thus speaks of “postrevolutionary mobilization.”22 At the same time, a wide range of grassroots organizations have emerged and new ones continue to be set up every day by concerned individuals all over the country. These initiatives focus on environmental protection, provide support and assistance to the migrant population, or are dedicated to the health and well-being of women, children, the disabled, and the elderly. Some of these grassroots organizations are supported by international donors, local entrepreneurs, and philanthropists and through public donations. Precise information about their numbers, nature, and organizational structure, however, is difficult to get because many of them do not have legal status.23 The Chinese party-state’s continuous vigilance over potential challenges to its authority results in severe policy and legislative restrictions. Social organizations have only two options to gain legal recognition: to register as a business or to find a “mother-in-law,” that is, a governmental institution or government-organized organization (GONGO) that acts as a legal guarantor. The first option requires a certain amount of capital and involves paying business taxes, an impossible condition for many small grassroots organizations. The second option requires giving up a certain amount of independence and accepting greater bureaucracy. In addition, grassroots organizations’ fields of work become more limited due to government restrictions.24 For these reasons, many (small) social organizations in China operate without official permission. This does not mean, however, that they are clandestine or subversive.25 In fact, “illegal” social organizations almost always have the backing of, or at least well-established personal relations with, local government officials with whom they exchange information and often collaborate on projects. Despite advances in facilitating social organizations’ registration, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 2011 State of Volunteering Report, unofficial collaboration and interaction has grown since a decade ago because independent social organization’s contributions toward national development goals are increasingly being recognized.26 The particular nature of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in China reflects the party-state’s general attitude toward the sector: “For the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] and the government, NGOs should not be the fruit of people

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exercising their rights of association. Rather, they are subject to official approval and regulation, and are desirable only in so far as they deliver what the party-state needs.”27 Frolic speaks of a “dual civil society”: grassroots and community organizations that correspond more to a Western notion of civil society, are poorly developed, depend on the tolerance of the authorities, and lack power and legitimacy to organize and mobilize residents.28 Meanwhile, the dominant authoritarian “state-led civil society” includes a “range of social organizations and quasiadministrative units that are created from the top down or co-opted by the state as a support mechanism to help it manage pressing economic and social problems.”29

Volunteerism Statistics According to one study, in 2001 more than 700 million Chinese individuals aged eighteen and above, that is 85.2 percent of the total population in that age range, volunteered.30 Together they volunteered 19 billion hours, to which each volunteer individually contributed an average of 77 hours. Importantly, however, only 10.9 percent (about 83.9 million) volunteered frequently. Moreover, many individuals in the study did not volunteer entirely as their own decision: 81.3 percent (approximately 625.6 million) said they were required to do so by the leadership of their units or government agencies. In 2001, this was in fact the most common way of becoming a volunteer or participating in “a volunteer activity.”31 The study also shows that volunteering diminishes with age: 18- to 24-yearolds volunteered at a rate of 90.6 percent, 25- to 34-year-olds at 86.4 percent, and 35- to 44-year-olds at 85.2 percent. While women volunteered slightly more than men (85.4 percent vs. 85.2 percent), men contributed more time: ninety-four hours per year for men as opposed to sixty-one hours for women. Volunteer rates and volunteer hours generally increased with level of education; university students/graduates contributed the most. People who had a political background, like members of the CCP (90.2 percent), the Chinese Communist Youth League (91.1 percent), and other parties (89.5 percent), were more likely to volunteer than those who had no political background (78.2 percent). Other reasons to get into volunteering were selfmotivation (16.3 percent), invitation by friends (11.5 percent), and being asked by family members (4.0 percent). Asked what kept them from volunteering, or from volunteering more, respondents answered that they were not asked by an organization (26.1 percent), did not have the time (16.9 percent), or did not know how to get involved (14.0 percent). Other reasons were the lack of recognition (71.5 percent), lack of funds (63.4 percent), and inadequate management (57.0 percent).32 My own survey data roughly reflect the national data above but show certain specificities.33 Importantly, female respondents far outnumbered males, thirty-one

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as opposed to eleven, which reflected a general tendency among interlocutors: more women than men tended to volunteer. Respondents were also quite young: thirty-nine of them were between 20 and 24 years old, one between 15 and 19, and two between 25 and 29. Nobody was married. While thirteen (more than a quarter) had no siblings, fourteen had one, and ten had two siblings. Five had more than two brothers and sisters. This can be explained by their native places: twenty-seven came from Guangdong province, that is, they probably held a rural hukou (registration), which allowed parents to have more than one child. Only nine were from Guangzhou, and six from other provinces. A total of 90.5 percent (38) of the respondents were students in Guangzhou. One respondent worked in a state enterprise or institute, two in private enterprises, and one in part time/odd jobs. Respondents’ father’s occupation was diverse: most were self-employed (35.89 percent) or worked in government enterprises or institutes (17.90 percent). Others worked as private enterprise employees (10.25 percent), in part-time or odd jobs (10.25 percent), or in a foreign or joint venture enterprise (2.60 percent). A total of 5.12 percent had been laid off (xia gang). Combined monthly household income was comparatively high: only 5.12 percent reported incomes below RMB 1,000, whereas 43.58 percent had RMB 1,000 to 3,000, 35.89 percent had RMB 3,000 to 5,000, 10.25 percent RMB 5,000 to 7,000, 2.56 percent RMB 7,000 to 9,000, and 2.56 percent more than RMB 9,000.34 Overall respondents were fairly recent volunteers. 7.14 percent had started less than three months ago, 19.04 percent between one and six months, 38.09 percent between six and twelve months, 9.52 percent one to one and a half years ago, 11.9 percent one and a half to two years, 11.9 percent two to three years ago, and 2.38 percent three years or longer. Thirty-two (or 76.2 percent) of the respondents were active volunteers, while 9.5 percent had volunteered in the past, and 14.3 percent had not yet volunteered but were interested in it. These results are not surprising since the questionnaires were administered to people known as volunteers. Respondents did not dedicate as much time as in the national survey to volunteering: 4.76 percent volunteered once per week, 35.71 percent once per month, 16.66 percent several times a year; 40.47 percent had volunteered once or twice in the past. This more occasional volunteering pattern was reflected in the amount of time respondents spent volunteering per month: 52.37 percent volunteered less than ten hours, 23.8 percent between eleven and twenty hours, 4.76 percent between twenty-six and forty hours. Eight respondents had volunteered one day (7.14 percent), several days (9.52 percent), or less than one week (2.38 percent). In sum, whereas the national survey shows a general trend toward volunteering significant amounts of time by a fairly broad population segment, the small survey I administered showed a much more ephemeral approach: relatively few very dedicated individuals contrasted with a larger number of occasional or short-

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term volunteers. This picture is substantiated by examining the inspirations, motivations, and desires connected with volunteerism as observed in and related by interlocutors, as I will do in Chapter 8. Before going into these details, I introduce the two main institutions that interlocutors were involved in.

Volunteer Organizations The volunteers I met throughout my research project in Guangzhou were primarily involved with one of two organizations, which reflect two models of associations: (1) the Guangzhou Youth Volunteer Association, which is part of the Communist Youth League, and (2) Joy in Action (JIA), a locally self-organized volunteer group. In the following I will briefly describe these associations and their work.35

The Guangzhou Youth Volunteer Association The Guangzhou Youth Volunteer Association (GYVA) was established in 1995 as part of the Communist Youth League of China. It is divided into sections, or teams, that have specific areas of work and a group or team leader: Propaganda and Management Team, Songbai Serving Team for the elderly, Qizhi Serving Team for children, Aiding the Disabled Team, Medical Team (serving patients), Outreach Team (serving those “who do not behave well”), Sports Serving Team, Legal Aid Team, Culture Serving Team, Community Education Serving Team, and Information Technology Professional Team (offering information services). One of the team leaders was Wang He (born in 1975), nickname “Idealist.” He joined GYVA seven years earlier, after he graduated from university, had a lot of time, and felt bored. He signed up to volunteer because he sought to meet new people as well as to gain “social experience.” He was exemplarily dedicated and persistent in his efforts and highly accepted by other volunteers and clients. Thus, after four years the association asked Wang to lead the Qizhi Serving Team. This required managing group activities and liaising with institutions that requested volunteers as well as with other volunteer organizations. Another task was to lead the introductory classes every new volunteer has to (or, at least, should) attend. GYVA’s application process is very straightforward. After submitting the registration form, one has to pay 15 yuan.36 Upon receiving their membership card, volunteers attend an introductory course. The afternoon-long class explains GYVA’s lines of work and lays out some basic rules for volunteering. Interlocutors, however, generally did not hold a high opinion of these sessions. One volunteer, for example, was at odds with the policy that volunteers must always smile even if they were unhappy. Others complained that for more important issues, such as how to deal with difficult clients, they did not get any instructions. In fact,

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GYVA offered additional voluntary training for specific problems. The volunteers I talked to, however, did not attend these classes, mainly due to time constraints or lack of interest. Importantly, in contrast to what Rolandsen describes, interlocutors in Guangzhou did not have to attend any other organizational meetings.37 After attending the introduction, the everyday organization of volunteering is relatively effortless. GYVA’s web portal lists all available projects and tasks to perform. The activities are diverse and include, for example, an afternoon socializing with the elderly in a senior citizens’ home or with children in an orphanage or participating in special events such as a celebration for the disabled. Interlocutors who knew they had time simply went to GYVA’s web page to check the available activities and signed up. In the past, this would have been the end of the selection process. In recent years, however, interest has steeply risen. Wang He claimed that between four hundred and five hundred applied every month to volunteer. Thus, especially at high times like the weekends, upon signing up volunteers have to wait to be chosen by the organizer of the activity. Wang admitted that this new development caused a problem: organizers prefer to receive volunteers they already knew, but the government’s mission is to publicize volunteerism and push for newcomers being given the chance to participate in activities. “If they [volunteers] are not chosen one or two times for an activity, they will lose interest,” Wang He conceded. The government tries to further promote volunteering through recognition of people’s efforts. After they finish their task, the organizer of the event registers the time a volunteer spent on the activity card. These are regularly presented to team leaders, who add up numbers and issue certificates of recognition. Through this bookkeeping, it is also possible for the local government to hand out prizes to especially dedicated individuals. Despite this bookkeeping and the congestion issue, as we can see, volunteers are in complete control over how much time they spend as well as what kind of activities they engage in. Signing up at irregular intervals and for different activities, few interlocutors volunteered continuously in one place with the same people. Interlocutors did not form close relations with clients, nor did they feel committed to specific institutions. Yet, GYVA’s organizational structure and the activities it promoted actually combined well with volunteers’ interests. Indeed, it was exactly this flexibility and the exploratory nature of volunteering that attracted them: “I can try out new and different activities every time, and I learn new things every time,” commented one young woman.38 In sum, GYVA is highly effective in channeling students’ interest in volunteering toward designated social causes. Its organizational structure caters to the young people’s lack of spare time as well as to their desire to learn new skills and have new experiences. In effect, GYVA fulfills the party-state’s principal goal

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of promoting and facilitating prosocial behavior in a large number of (young) people.

JIA JIA was established in August 2004. It is based in China but registered in Hong Kong.39 The acronym JIA means “family” in Chinese, and their motto is “The world as one family through work camps.”40 The group organizes work camps in Chinese villages affected by Hansen’s Disease (HD, leprosy). In the 1950s and 1960s, the Chinese government resettled HD-infected people in remote mountain villages, of which more than six hundred still exist today. Treatment of HD became available in the 1980s. Yet, despite being cured, the stigma attached to the disease prevents people’s reintegration into society. Poor medical treatment, disabilities, poverty, and loneliness afflict HD-affected people in higher than average percentages. JIA’s work camps, thus, aim to alleviate their exclusion and suffering. Campers work “in partnership with the residents of these [HD] villages” “to improve villagers’ spirits, as well as their living conditions and social standing.”41 JIA is organized as a network of locally established, self-sufficient units often located on university campuses. Interested volunteers receive basic information, training, and networking resources from the JIA Work Camp Coordination Center. After the local group is established, they have minimal contact with the larger organization, only to receive information material or in case they need help. Units organize their work camps themselves, which last between one and several days. Work camps are principally of a social nature, although sometimes groups set themselves specific tasks, such as building or improving houses or streets. But the camps always include educational and recreational activities for the children as well as social interaction with adults living in the villages. Since volunteers do not have any technical or professional training, they cannot offer any more specific services. This is reflected in JIA’s mission, which is mainly educational, that is, to teach the general population about HD and the discrimination its sufferers have experienced and to communicate with the people living in the villages to show that they should now be accepted by society. Recently, however, a more specific task has been to tutor children in the HD villages, who lack formal education, in order for them to eventually attend college. In sum, JIA’s activities, while outside of the official state organization, are far from confrontational or challenging to the authorities. The HD villagers’ situation is not a cause high up on the government’s agenda, but volunteers’ activities cause no harm. On the contrary, they offer remedies for the villagers’ social isolation and neglect. Moreover, the social organizations’ activities nurture social responsi-

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bility in the young volunteers, which is very much in the party-state’s interest, as I will further discuss below.

Conclusion As we can see, contrary to popular perception, charity and benevolence has a long history in China. This tradition, however, was interrupted during the Maoist period, when all organizational efforts were subsumed in mass movements under the party-state. With the reform period, individual initiatives sprang up throughout the country and began to grow in larger numbers after the traumatic events of the SARS epidemic and the Wenzhou earthquake. Volunteerism was further popularized during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and other large public events. Since then, volunteerism in China has become increasingly popular, especially among younger people, who can rely on a well-established organizational structure to channel their efforts. In marked contrast to Western notions of civil society, however, in China volunteerism is closely connected to the party-state, which induces, organizes, and supervises (controls) the activities and organizations. Instead of an antagonistic relationship between volunteers and the state or between social organizations and the state apparatus, volunteerism in China is characterized by collaboration. Given this organizational structure and specific characteristics of the volunteer sector, what motivates the mainly young people to give their time and effort to different causes? What do they seek, and what do they gain from the activities? These are the questions I will further explore in the next chapter.

Notes 1. Yuen 2009; “Voice of the NGO” 2016. 2. Huang 2013. 3. There also exist, of course, important Muslim and Buddhist traditions of philanthropy and related practices. 4. Stafford 2000. 5. Laliberté et al. 2011: 141. 6. Ibid.: 142. 7. Ibid.: 143. In addition, popular religion that combines elements of all three of these traditions has its own benevolent practices. See Laliberté et al. 2011. 8. Liang 1997: 30–33, in Xu and Ngai 2011; Stafford 2000; Tang 2005. 9. Asianphilanthropy 2006. 10. Laliberté et al. 2011. 11. Ma 2006. 12. Xu and Ngai 2011. 13. Ding 2005. 14. He 2009. 15. This was the legally registered Volunteer Alliance. Before this, in 1987 Guangzhou had established a hotline for youth volunteering, and in 1989 a community project involv-

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16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34.

35. 36. 37. 38.

39.

40. 41.

ing volunteers was set up in Tianjin to provide assistance to the elderly. See “State of Volunteerism in China” 2011. Saich 2002. Rolandsen 2008, 2010. Ding 2005. “State of Volunteerism in China” 2011. Ibid. Ibid. White 1990. “State of Volunteerism in China” 2011. Hustinx et al. 2012. Ma 2002a, 2002b; Chen 2009. “State of Volunteerism in China” 2011. Ma 2006: 47–48. Frolic 1997. See also, Li 2011; Ma 2006; Simon 2009; Xu 2007. Hustinx et al. 2012: 60–61. Ding and Jiang 2001. Reliable statistics on volunteering are hard to find. These are the same numbers the UNDP report (“State of Volunteerism in China” 2011) cites. Ding and Jiang 2001; Asianphilanthropy 2006. Ministry of Civil Affairs statistics from 2007 counted 270,000 community volunteer organizations and more than 30 million volunteers (5.6 million registered volunteers). According to the same statistics, the China Young Volunteers Association (CYVA) had 30 million registered volunteers nationwide. See “State of Volunteerism in China” 2011. I administered online questionnaires to fifty volunteers in GYVA and an independent social organization, Joy in Action, and received forty-two valid answers. The average monthly household income in the large cities of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou in 2006 was RMB 4,279 (“Marketing to China’s Hinterland” 2006); per capita disposable income was 18,287.24 in 2005 (Statistics Bureau of Guangzhou City 2006). See Fleischer 2011b. In 2006–2007. Rolandsen 2008, 2010. Shortly before my investigation in 2006, however, the Qizhi Serving Team had started a new type of volunteer program that focused on specific communities. In this, the juweihui (neighborhood committee) indicated the kind of activities that would serve the community. Part of the new program was a partnership between volunteers and elderly residents in the community, with the idea that one volunteer would always attend to the same person to foster more personal relations between them. This is a common practice by social organizations that cannot or do not want to register through the official channels on the mainland (see discussion above). Registering in Hong Kong gives them a certain legitimacy and allows them to receive international donations in the Hong Kong bank account. Joy in Action, 2006. Ibid.

8 INSPIRATIONS AND MOTIVATIONS TO VOLUNTEER As we saw in the previous chapter, while there is a long tradition of charity and benevolence in Chinese culture and religion, during the Mao period all such individual efforts and projects were suppressed. With the reform period, volunteerism, charity, and benevolent associations began to reappear, slowly at first but picking up rapidly since 2008, when the Wenchuan earthquake sparked an outburst of empathy and solidarity. But beyond that tragedy, what motivates Chinese people to engage in volunteerism? What do they seek or aspire to in such practices, and how does the experience affect them? Examining the processes and factors behind the recent wave of volunteerism is especially intriguing, as the phenomenon appears to go against the grain of prevailing ideologies and tendencies of contemporary Chinese (urban) society, namely, a lack of mores and the get rich fast mantra. Additionally, many interlocutors held a negative or cautious attitude toward the party-state, which they considered corrupt and often negligent, yet the main volunteer institutions are government organized. How do the volunteers reconcile these apparent contradictions? In this chapter I discuss inspirations and motivations of volunteers as told by Guangzhou interlocutors and supported by a small survey I administered in the field. Where appropriate I will put these microdata in the national context to contextualize and expand the discussion. As will become evident, volunteerism in Guangzhou (and more generally in China) is so broadly defined that it allows greatly varying projections and gratifications. This vagueness is volunteerism’s strength but, I would argue, also its major limitation.

Inspirations The Chinese government today encourages volunteerism in all kinds of ways— through television programs, public events, awards for especially dedicated volEndnotes for this chapter begin on page 137.

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unteers, and so on. Additionally, companies are instructed to have their employees donate time to social projects, and schools are encouraged to facilitate volunteering activities. Indeed, several interlocutors started to volunteer in school. Guangzhou middle and high schools increasingly incorporate volunteer work into their curriculum. Thus, in a combined middle and high school where I explored students’ activities, students were expected to volunteer once per year of middle school and five times per year in high school. The school assigned students tasks such as spending an afternoon in a senior citizen home or administrating basic medical services together with health workers in public events. Supposedly voluntary, the assignments generated credits that counted toward students’ graduation exam. One student confirmed, “Even though it’s voluntary, we have to do some volunteer work to graduate.” Given the general disenchantment, and even contempt, for official government policies, it might not be surprising that such official campaigns appeared to fail inspiring sustained volunteer efforts. Thus, among thirty-five high school students only two had continued to volunteer after complying with curricular expectations. Likewise, university students never cited their experiences in school or their teachers as inspiration to volunteers. Quite the opposite, interlocutors thought of educators’ calls for social responsibility, solidarity, and volunteer spirit as empty phrases; they neither believed nor respected such appeals. The same was true of government slogans: most simply laughed when I mentioned the government campaign in the 2000s to “build a harmonious society.” Indeed, among the students I interacted with, only one, who wanted to become a party member, claimed to follow government appeals. Another young man had been inspired to volunteer by the communist hero Lei Feng. Several volunteers referred to Confucius’s concept of a “good person,” while others cited Mother Teresa as an inspiration. All of these inspirations and models remained, however, rather vague. Yet among volunteering interlocutors some were very dedicated to the cause. What inspired them? What caused them to find out about volunteering opportunities and donate their time? Dai Peng (born in 1985) was inspired by his mother. While she did not know what volunteering was, all her life she had helped neighbors and friends and encouraged Dai to do the same. Thus, could parents have been a general source of inspiration? After all, they had grown up with Maoist campaigns such as “Learning from Lei Feng.” Had they transmitted the ideal to help others and to show solidarity with the less fortunate? To my surprise, Dai turned out to be the exception. Most students actually hid their volunteer activities from their parents and explained this as a generational divide: they “would not understand” or “would worry about my studies.” Educational and sociocultural differences between the generations only made this worse, as Li Na (born in 1985) explained and others confirmed: “My parents are not very educated. They live in the countryside in a small village; they would not

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understand.” Yet even parents from Guangzhou apparently lacked understanding or tolerance for their children’s endeavors. Volunteers reported, “They think it’s a waste of time” or “They do not understand why I work for free.” When I asked Lili’s parents what they thought about her volunteerism and her plans to dedicate her life to social work, they first responded, “That’s how we raised her; to show concern for others.” A little later, however, Chen Yiping revealed a more critical stance: “I think even if you study economy, you can still help society. But it is a more stable field [than social work].” Apparently he was not as happy with his daughter’s plans as initially suggested. Generally, parents often seemed to have different ideas about the importance or value of volunteering. Even if young people did not learn about volunteering at home, it was fairly easy to find out about the practice in daily life. After all, as part of the government campaign to popularize volunteerism, social organizations of all sizes and types hold numerous public activities. Drives for blood donations, play days for the disabled, games for children, dance and singing competitions for elderly, and sport events are all frequently held in in public squares and parks throughout the city, and all involve volunteers. Another way to be introduced to volunteering is through friends. Most students, however, were inspired by television programs, especially those from Hong Kong. Local and national television frequently report on “heroic acts” by volunteers and regularly air special programs about volunteerism. Yet it was the dedication, sincerity, and the efficacy of Hong Kong volunteers’ activities that moved interlocutors to act themselves. To conclude, a number of different social contexts, institutions and public events, and persons and media inspired interlocutors to volunteer. Through these channels they also learned about the different organizations and opportunities to donate time and effort to a social cause. Concrete role models played a lesser role. Instead, interlocutors emphatically claimed they had “always” wanted to volunteer, including before they even knew what this really meant or involved. Noteworthy in interlocutors’ elaboration was their contempt for, and rejection of, official campaigns and slogans in school or on national television that promote volunteerism. Thus, there exists an ideological divide between the government project to promote prosocial behavior and interlocutors’ personal projects. Another ideological divide is generational, apparent in young interlocutors’ conscious hiding of volunteerism from their parents. I will further explore these divides in Chapter 9.

Motivations We have seen how interlocutors came to learn about, and what inspired them to engage in, volunteerism. Yet, beyond the initial introduction and inspiration, what

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motivated them to continue donating their time and efforts? The question has to be seen in the context of today’s general atmosphere of industriousness. After all, a common complaint by interlocutors of all ages up until retirement was “I don’t have any spare time.”1 Students especially are caught up with school, homework, and exam preparations. Employees in private companies in turn often have to do overtime; others work two jobs. In addition, almost all urban residents today spend much time on their travels to and from work. Familial obligations and extracurricular activities, finally, minimize people’s leisure time.2 Given this general lack of time and sense of being overworked, the decision to volunteer clearly requires strong motivation. The first impetus to volunteer was usually quite straightforward: interlocutors were discontented and wanted to break out of the strict routine of their studies or work life, hoped to get to know more people, sought to learn new and/or social skills, or simply felt the desire to help others. Yet, when interlocutors talked in more detail about their volunteering experiences more complex factors and reasons playing into their involvement became apparent. These included something akin to defiance, the feeling of loneliness, a (spiritual) search for meaning, nationalism, and the desire to change and improve oneself. All of these personal reasons were intermixed. Moreover, they are intricately connected to larger issues and questions in contemporary Chinese society. Vanessa Fong argues in her study of single children in Dalian, China, that it is a combination of social, political, and economic factors that puts increasing pressure on Chinese students in contemporary China.3 She offers a different view on the supposedly spoiled singletons, as expressed by this statement of a little girl in her study: We face great pressure to get into good colleges so we can get good jobs to support our parents when they are old. We’ll have to make a lot of money to support our parents all by ourselves! So parents are always nagging us to study harder. How can we be spoiled when we’re always being scolded for not studying hard enough?4 Interlocutors in Guangzhou echoed this sentiment. Confronted with a highly competitive job market and conscious of parental expectations to find a well-paying and secure job, students felt great pressure to excel in school and university. Thus, in high school, students dedicate their last year of classes to prepare for the all-important college entrance examination. Yet this is not enough: often pushed by their parents, they even sacrifice part of their vacations and enroll in special preparation courses on the weekend. Performance in the exams is vital, since it opens the door to key universities and thus significantly improves an applicants’ chances in landing a job.

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Only after they started college did the pressure slightly subside, and students could then find more free time. Moreover, living in dormitories, they also had more freedom from parental supervision. Especially on the weekends, they could find time for other activities. Yet when the end of the term neared, they had to dedicate themselves once again fully to their studies. Even during the holidays, students had study assignments or took extra classes. Students who declared they felt bored when they became volunteers thus clearly did not imply that they had too much free time and nothing to do. Instead, their boredom was related to the pressure, tight schedules, and monotony of student life. Thus, we can understand students’ volunteer activities as an act of defiance, a strategy to escape the routine and competitiveness they were subjected to. In addition, students treasured volunteering because it was something they chose to do, the act of which gave them a certain sense of liberty. For once they felt they had decision-making power over their own lives, which were otherwise so dominated by societal and parental expectations. This interpretation is further supported by the importance attributed to sociability and entertainment as elements of volunteering. Students clearly sought emotional elevation as expressed in my survey with forty-two respondents. The second most frequent reason to continue volunteering after the first experiences was “It makes me happy”; personal satisfaction was also high on the list (see Table 8.1 below). “Happiness” or “satisfaction” appear to be straightforward answers. Yet again, these categories are placeholders for a convoluted mix of emotions and experiences. Interviews revealed that interlocutors commonly associated these sensations with socializing. Recall that the volunteer activities organized by Joy in Action (JIA; see Chapter 7) mainly took the form of spending social time with the Hansen’s Disease (HD) villagers. The outings, moreover, were organized like camps, as evidenced on the organization’s web page.5 Volunteering with JIA was clearly promoted as fun, social, and playful, which particularly appealed to young people. Volunteers’ dedication and good intentions are beyond doubt. Yet the importance that pleasure played as an element of their engagement is undeniable and recognized by long-term volunteers and organizers (Figure 8.1). A further important aspect of volunteering that was also connected to the experience of happiness, satisfaction, and socializing was the wish to “meet more people.” Again, strict and regulated schedules offered little opportunities to interact with different people and to expand one’s social network. Yet this was high on the agenda for respondents in my survey and generally young urbanites. The majority of interlocutors were single children. They talked about their lack of communication skills, thus hinting at social isolation. Unsurprisingly, these interlocutors expressed a strong desire to build new, meaningful relationships with people other than kin.6

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Table 8.1. Initial and Continuing Motivations to Volunteer (Multiple Answers Possible).

Initial

Continuing

Get to know more people

22

15

Help people

36

27

I was bored / to kill time

5

0

Wish to change society

6

4

Repay society

13

7

For my own satisfaction

14

14

It makes me happy

0

24

19

14

0

1

To acquire new skills

13

11

To set a good example

4

5

It’s a responsibility

0

9

It’s a question of morals/ethics

0

5

To learn new things

17

16

To gain social experiences

24

0

2

0

To strengthen my social responsibility To not feel lonely

It will help me find a job Someone close to me volunteered, so I wanted to try it myself

1

0

Others persuaded or introduced me to volunteering

0

0

To gain other people’s appreciation/praise

0

5

School or work unit request

0

0

School or work unit award volunteer work

2

1

Other

1

0

Volunteering was generally considered a great means to acquire new skills, which was ranked important among motivations to engage in such activities. Others wanted to improve on certain aspects, especially their social interaction and communication. Apparently, they were successful: “It increased my personal skills” was among the most frequent answers to the question on how volunteering had affected them. In addition, interlocutors thought that the practice had “enriched my life.” Apart from the successful acquisition and refinement of social skills, these answers hint at a widespread feeling of lack in interlocutors’ lives or personality, as I elaborate further below. A final consideration in examining what is behind interlocutors’ volunteer efforts is nationalism or, to put it more concretely, their urge to help the country. In the aftermath of the Wenzhou earthquake in 2008, this notion became an im-

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Figure 8.1. Volunteer Event. © Author

portant element in the enormous wave of volunteerism. Yet the nationalistically tinged motif was also already present in my research in 2006–2007: volunteers frequently expressed the idea that by helping the disadvantaged they would improve society and thus contribute to China’s development. Even if they were simply hanging out with HD villagers, interlocutors wanted to give back to society. That is, interlocutors with poorer and/or rural backgrounds, especially, were often quite conscious about their own relative advancement in life. They had passed the difficult university entrance exam, acquired a job, and now lived in the city. In return, they wanted to help others who were in less favorable circumstances. As we can see, volunteers’ motivations are tightly interwoven with the realities of today’s urban environment and social processes. The demanding, competitive, and somewhat lonely life of young adults, the urge to acquire new skills, the desire for entertainment and sociality, the wish to add meaning to the routinized life, the responsibility to contribute to the development of China all factor into the volunteer phenomenon.7 At the same time, however, volunteerism is a complex mix reflecting personal desires and life histories. The volunteer phenomenon is thus a key domain within which the relation between the individual and society, as discussed by Yan and Kipnis among others, is (re)negotiated in contemporary China.8 To illustrate the different approaches to, and ideas about, volunteer-

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ism in contemporary China, in the next section I introduce two volunteers more specifically.

Producing Harmony or Changing Society: Two Models of Volunteering China’s specific political circumstances define volunteerism, as regards both the organizational structure and volunteers’ motivations. Volunteering opportunities mostly arise out of party-state–connected or –associated organizations, and volunteering activities are typically the result of pronounced government promotion.9 I have already described the different types of organizations that exist, especially the two groups that my interlocutors were mostly involved with. To illustrate the different motivations and how this connects to, and is impacted on by, these different organizations, here I will introduce two volunteers, Zhang Guiren and Max. Both extremely dedicated to and serious about their involvement, the two young men represent two very different approaches toward volunteerism: one follows the official party-state line of “producing harmonious society,” while the other has aspirations to change society, thus conforming more to a Western notion of an agent of civil society.10

Zhang Guiren When we met in 2006, Zhang Guiren had been a volunteer for more than ten years. Born in 1977, Zhang grew up in Guangzhou. When he was young, Zhang went to nightclubs and bars, got into fights, and became friends with “some bad guys.” His best friend got involved in crime and violently died in 1998. This death led Zhang to reflect on his life and realize that it was up to him to make it meaningful. When none of the old buddies showed up at the friend’s funeral, Zhang understood that they were not true friends and that he had to leave that life behind. This is when he began to volunteer, although in the beginning he was simply helping people in the street. Eventually Zhang saw a TV program by the Guangzhou Youth Volunteer Association (GYVA) that promoted volunteerism and joined the organization. Zhang initially volunteered by attending to the disabled and the elderly. Yet, because of his personal experiences, his real interest lay in helping troubled youth. Through his lobbying, GYVA eventually started a new team under Zhang’s leadership that focused on teenagers’ problems. In 2001, in order to have more time to volunteer, Zhang Guiren changed his job to work for a state company as a janitor in an old housing complex with only a few older residents. With no fixed office hours, he had plenty of time to volunteer and also pursue a public relations degree at a junior college. Yet, this was not enough. In 2004, Zhang published his mobile phone number in newspapers, on

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TV, and on the Internet and thus established the “Hotline of Life,” which people can call to talk about their problems. Zhang had developed his own philosophy that inspired him, which he called the san xin er yi principle. San xin (three hearts) refers to love, passion, and persistence: love for others, passion so as to never be afraid, and persistent voluntary work devoted to society. Er yi (two yi) refers to meaning and affection: helping those in need find meaning and helping them pursue their goals and helping others with a true heart and true love. Zhang’s efforts were relentless, so much so that his family worried about him. Yet he felt he had to be a “pioneer” and show people that volunteer work is “our responsibility as citizens”; “volunteers can play an important role in the harmonious society.” At the same time, he remained modest about his efforts: “A volunteer is just a person, but not God. I think it’s enough that one tries his or her best to do volunteer work.” Zhang also had no doubts that the benefits of volunteerism were at least as great for him as for those he served. He, for one, had profited “spiritually” from volunteering, which had “changed my life.” Given Zhang Guiren’s dedication and enthusiasm, maybe it is not surprising that the GYVA published a book about him. The Spirit of Zhang Guiren tells Zhang’s personal journey and documents his good deeds, lauding him as a moral model for society to emulate. While Zhang’s dedication truly is noteworthy, his example also dramatically reflects the break with moral models of the Maoist past and is, in fact, emblematic of the transformation of state-society relations in the reform period.

Max Born in 1982, Max was originally from Meizhou, a town in Guangdong province. When we met in Guangzhou in 2007, he had worked for JIA for two years. Max became a volunteer in his third year of university when he felt unhappy about the strenuous routine of student life. At the time, he met a Hong Kong professor who talked about JIA and encouraged him to volunteer, promising it would change his life. He signed up for one of JIA’s camps and was immediately hooked. Yet he was not content with simply visiting the HD villagers but wanted to provide more practical help. Thus he spent one and a half years taking courses with a Hong Kong–based nongovermental organization (NGO) to study the special medical skills needed to treat the effects of HD. During his first year as a volunteer, Max joined JIA’s activities whenever he had time, usually two weekends per month. Yet, he also had to work, since his parents could not offer him any financial support. Even though he was extremely busy, he did not mind. His parents, however, did not agree: “Some people think if you don’t have much time, money and energy, you should not do volunteer work.

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That’s what my parents think. . . . Since I have to support myself, my parents don’t understand why I am so interested in volunteering.” Despite his parents’ disapproval, Max was so convinced of the purpose and importance of volunteer work that he became a paid staff member of JIA after he graduated in June 2006. He enjoyed working with different people: “I love this work. People with different ideas can work together as friends because they have the same aim, even if they might not be close personal friends.” The organization also appealed to Max for its nonhierarchical structure. “Volunteers are equal in their work. There is no ‘boss’ and no ‘staff.’ No one is in charge of the others.” As with Zhang, volunteering and work with JIA had a profound effect on Max: Before [volunteering] I always felt lonely even among people. Once I began to volunteer I had many friends who share their lives with me, we have parties and travel together. I began to think more widely and deeply, to think of both myself and others. I realized that I am a member of society, and that I would like to do something for other people in society. Similar to Zhang Guiren, Max was quite clear about the benefits that volunteers derive from their efforts: Many people think we are offering help. Actually what I can do for the villagers is little. They actually help me. Other volunteers also teach me things based on their experience. It is all of them, including the villagers, who help me a lot. People who don’t volunteer cannot understand this. They always ask me why I go to the HD village to help. But even with children, I enjoy myself in spite of the experience [of their suffering]. I am happy when I am with them instead of feeling uninspired when staying at home. Yet beyond the apparent personal benefits that Max saw volunteers derive from their work, he also had a strong sense of social responsibility, of people’s civic duties: Some people who have money and abilities don’t fulfill their social responsibility. In fact, many people don’t help others. It’s not always a problem of money. Because, for example, during Spring Festival [Chinese New Year], people visit each other, no matter whether they are rich or poor. It does not matter if you give money or not, the point is that you visit each other. It means to care in your heart (xinde guanhuai; guanai). Another thing is to help each other (xianghu fuchi). For example, good students can assist those who have lower scores. Thus it does not matter if people are rich or

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poor; they all can live together harmoniously. They do not need to envy each other. Now the problem is getting better, but I hope that more and more people can reach out [and help others]. In fact, Max saw volunteer work as the beginning of a greater social change or movement. “Now there are only ten thousand students who do volunteer work, but in the future their children will also join. And so it continues. We are the pioneers. But if there are no pioneers, there will be no followers.” Moreover, Max was convinced that with time the Chinese government would accept the importance of NGOs: The Chinese government does not support NGOs. They worry about the growth of NGOs because they think it might have drawbacks for society. That some people will abuse them [for other purposes]. But I believe this will change in the future. The government will realize that NGOs can do a lot of things that the government cannot concern itself with. . . . NGOs will play an important role in China. Despite his deep-seated conviction and dedication, just a couple of days before we met Max had quit his job with JIA. This was because of conflicts with other staff members who he felt were too dominant, trying to impose their point of view. A few weeks later, however, he had found a new project: to help children from the HD villages pass the entrance examination to attend school in Guangzhou. To begin with, he and a former colleague from JIA had brought an 8-year-old boy from the village to Guangzhou with the intention of getting him into school. At the time, the boy lived with the colleague. Together with five university friends, Max tutored the boy to prepare him for the exams. Each of the students chose a subject and taught the boy one afternoon per week during the following months. Max planned to continue this type of volunteer work and establish his own organization to this end. When asked why he felt so strongly about volunteering, he explained that he wanted to give back to society, that he wanted to reciprocate for the help and support he had received in the past. But then, why did he not just help his relatives and neighbors in his hometown or his relatives who did not have much money? Max explained that for people in his hometown and his relatives, what would help them most would be money, but that was beyond his means. In turn, the situation of the HD villagers is different. For them money is not so important. They just want people to come and visit, and to talk with them. They are lonely because their relatives abandoned them after they became sick. No one has visited them for a long time; they really want attention.

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When we visit them, they tell us lots of stories. That way they find hope again; feel encouraged to live. I know some of them lose hope and commit suicide. [So] I hope my visits can give them hope, even if we are only chatting and keeping them company. . . . In my hometown, in contrast, at least villagers can help each other. Even though I cannot give back to those who helped me [in the past], I can do something for others in society. Maybe it’s not enough, but it’s at least something. Max expressed a strong sense of social justice, but also of his responsibility as a member of society to contribute to the well-being of others. In contrast to Zhang Guiren, Max considered his volunteer activities to have much more importance and impact. Indeed, for him it was the beginning of a social movement to change society from the bottom up. In general, we could describe Max as more independent and political than Zhang Guiren, an attitude that expressed itself in his rejection of government slogans and initiatives. He was convinced that an independent third sector was necessary to improve the life and living conditions of underprivileged Chinese people. Accordingly, Max’s sources of inspiration were more clearly grounded in democratic ideals, which he found in Hong Kong–based and foreign-inspired NGOs and models of volunteer work.

Conclusion Diverse motivations and desires brought young interlocutors to volunteer. Volunteerism’s particular organizational structure in China apparently does not inhibit their involvement. On the contrary, the highly flexible and purposefully diverse opportunities spoke to interlocutors’ needs. At the same time, as we have seen, volunteering’s popularity is intimately related to contemporary social and economic conditions in China. Yet, beyond this, long-term interaction with the volunteers revealed another, more personal driving force and effect behind the practice: their own personal change. This is what I will explore in the next chapter.

Notes 1. Rolandsen (2011:xii) makes the same point. 2. A 2011 survey of more than 1,000 people found that over 70 percent said they were overworked and unsatisfied with the amount of leisure time they have. More than 40 percent said they work forty to fifty hours a week, with 1.3 percent saying they work more than eighty hours a week. Only 30 percent of those polled said they work forty hours a week, the statutory working hours stipulated by Chinese law. The survey found that more than 40 percent spend less than ten hours a week on leisure, and only 8 percent have more than thirty hours a week for leisure. See Chen 2012. 3. Fong 2004.

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4. 5. 6. 7.

Ibid.: 1. Joy in Action 2006. See also Rolandsen (2008) on this point. Jankowiak (2004, 2008) suggests a sociological explanation for the rise of philanthropy and civic engagement, namely, that being set free from previous organizational institutions, such as the danwei, Chinese people have become more aware of belonging to the larger social entity, the Chinese nation-state, as well as their responsibility in contributing to the well-being of others. 8. Yan 2008, 2009b, 2010a, 2010b, 2011; Kipnis 2012. 9. Hustinx et al. 2012. 10. I have described these two volunteers in more detail in Fleischer 2013.

9 VOLUNTEERING Governmentality and Agency As we saw in the previous chapter, volunteers had different inspirations and motivations to volunteer. The way volunteerism in China today is conceived of and organized allows the accommodation of a wide range of personal desires and understandings. This openness comes with the government’s interest in promoting the practice, an important mechanism to transfer social responsibilities from the public sector to the individual. The party-state’s promotion of volunteerism has also resulted in an organizational infrastructure that makes initial contact/ exposure easy. With organizations present at all levels, including on university campuses, the threshold for joining volunteer activities is significantly lowered. Yet, are students simply following party-state guidelines? Is volunteerism a social engineering feat in support of the system? In this chapter I will contrast the party-state’s project to promote prosocial practices with the desires of young volunteers and show the limits of the government scheme. As will become apparent, without being adversaries to the political system, interlocutors had their own ideas about volunteerism; their practices did not just neatly square with the government’s expectations.

Volunteerism as State Project With the reform period, the party-state set its citizens free from Maoist collectives. While the state is still involved in some of the most intimate questions of citizens’ lives (i.e., the one-child, now two-child policy), people today undoubtedly have more freedoms and decision-making power over their lives. In fact, as we have seen in Part I, they have to take responsibility, not only for themselves Endnotes for this chapter begin on page 149.

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but also for their next of kin. In support of the new state-society relation, one based on self-responsible individuals, in the 1990s party-state discourse began to promote renkou suzhi (population quality). Suzhi, however, is not a very precise concept. Chinese scholars offer definitions alluding to embodied, cultural, and psychological dimensions. Pieke suggests that the concept “deliberately conflates many different dimensions and explanations of success (education, wealth, health, genetic makeup, occupation, and residence, to name just a few).”1 In practice, Yan Hairong observes, the concept marks the “sense and sensibility of the self’s value in the market economy.”2 Most commonly, the term is used negatively, that is, in terms of lack and in relation to the notion of “development.”3 Anagnost concludes, “The body [has become] a site of investment through an entrepreneurialization of the self. The politics of suzhi is the local form in which neoliberal technologies of selfhood take shape in the Chinese context.”4 In sum, despite the fuzziness of the concept, the suzhi discourse distinguishes between those considered successful and advanced and those who are not. The latter are exhorted to develop and improve themselves or else be left behind. The “parental” socialist welfare state has been dismantled; responsibility for one’s fate lies squarely with the individual.5 Volunteerism plays a crucial role in this project: social organizations and individual volunteering efforts provide services and address some of the contemporary and potentially disruptive social issues. Often these smaller, local, and issue-focused organizations actually work more effectively than the government apparatus. Moreover, volunteerism has been recognized for its potential to generate, change, and popularize prosocial behavior, practices, and values—values and attitudes deemed necessary to support the new social contract and building of “harmonious society.” Thus, social organizations are (largely) considered to contribute to a “superior type of morality and respectable social behavior.”6 This is also why they are condoned even without official registration; moral value generation and concrete social contributions are considered more important than strict rule enforcement in the day to day of local government. Interestingly, in marked difference to the Maoist period, and tying in with the suzhi discourse of self-responsibility, government efforts to popularize volunteering present the practice as working for the common good while acquiring cultural competence. Volunteerism is effectively promoted as a means of self-realization. This understanding finds expression in Chinese terminology: Maoism’s volunteering as “obligation, duty” (yiwu) has been replaced by today’s “aspiration, wish, ideal” (zhiyuan); that is, notions of selfless sacrifice and duty gave way to an emphasis on personal choice. Correspondingly, today volunteers are simply referred to as “those who volunteer” (zhiyuanzhe) and their work is considered a “service” (zhiyuan fuwu).7

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Nevertheless, while volunteerism is presented as an individual act, the sector has been largely appropriated by the party-state: as elaborated above, not only is volunteerism promoted by the government, but most volunteer efforts are directly or indirectly initiated and funded by the party-state. Essentially, the Chinese government seeks to stimulate prosocial behavior through a dual strategy: on the one hand, through concrete policies and incentives such as the inclusion of volunteer service into middle and high school curricula, programs that offer university tuition for students volunteering to work in remote areas upon graduation (the “go west campaign”), campaigns encouraging companies to donate employees’ time, promotional activities, and awards8; and, on the other hand, through appealing to citizens’ ethic of self-development. Together, the strategy reflects the new governmentality of the post-Mao partystate: instead of an omnipotent state apparatus providing and controlling the masses, today citizens govern and control themselves. Volunteerism is promoted as a technology of power in the state project to nurture socially responsible individuals. Yet, how effective is this strategy? In the previous chapter, I discussed interlocutors’ diverse motivations to volunteer and how these are connected to larger processes characterizing urban China in the reform period. Generally, volunteering appealed to the young people mainly as a means to enrich their lives and learn new things. However, what called my attention in interlocutors’ narratives was that they phrased this desire not in terms of curiosity about new things but in terms of “lack”—their perceived lack of certain qualities such as experience, skills, or confidence. In this we can hear an echo of the suzhi discourse. Growing up in the competitive urban environment, and exhorted from a very early age to strive to be better, always aware of who among their peers is ahead,9 young people strongly felt that they had to work on their selves lest they fell behind. Jian Xiaoting (woman, age twenty-two), for example, recounted: In the beginning, I just wanted to help others. However, after doing volunteer work several times, I found I could only help very little, but it helped me more instead. It made me make new friends. And since I am an introvert, it made me become more active and I know better how to communicate with others. Besides, by doing volunteer work, I realized that I lack much knowledge and it makes me study harder. Volunteerism permitted interlocutors to develop or improve their skills. They thus appeared to have effectively internalized the official rationale behind the volunteering drive. Working for the common good while simultaneously working on their selves, volunteers became the modern subjects that the party-state project wanted to engineer; they embodied the transformed subject identity desired by the

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state and necessary in the transformed labor regime. In this manner, volunteerism has become an important aspect of governmentality in the reform period. Evidently, in China the notion of “civil society” in the sense of a “third sector,” an independent sphere between the private and public, does not hold. Instead, social organizations and the state project are in a hegemonic relationship; any contrarian aspect of volunteerism is eradicated and it aligns squarely with the state. Hustinx at al. therefore suggest, “In a population that is used to taking instructions from government on many aspects of its social life, volunteering may be seen as yet another response to government initiatives rather than one that is purely voluntary.”10 But can we really reduce volunteerism in contemporary China to a technology of power in a new governmentality? Are volunteers merely subjects to the state, or are they also historical agents? As I will discuss in the following section, the state project is not absolute; the government cannot completely control what is happening. Volunteers are pushing against the straightjacket of the state.

The Limits of Governmentality As Foucault noted, “Where there is a power relation, there is resistance.”11 While I would not speak of resistance in the context of this discussion of volunteerism in China, I suggest that volunteerism as a technology of power is not without contradictions. At the interstices of the party-state’s efforts to control and manage the sector, grassroots social organizations and Chinese volunteers’ individual desires continue to grow. While the party-state seeks to coopt these, this process is never complete. As mentioned above, students predominantly began to volunteer through the Guangzhou Youth Volunteer Association (GYVA) or other government-organized institutions because they considered it “safe.” GYVA’s setup and the ease of signing up for different tasks at one’s own convenience was also attractive to young people with busy schedules and only occasional windows of time to volunteer. Through the ever new activities and institutions they participated in, volunteers fulfilled their desire to acquire new knowledge and skills and meet new people. Conversations with interlocutors, however, revealed that their excitement quickly wore off. As a secondary effect of GYVA’s organizational structure, volunteers seldom formed personal relationships with the people they helped. For the same reason, it was also difficult to become more acquainted with other volunteers. Only very occasionally did one meet the same volunteers in different activities. Not a few interlocutors, moreover, realized that the nature of their volunteering resulted in very little effect. “I cannot change anything” was a repeated statement when I asked about the efficacy of their efforts. Thus, while GYVA successfully promoted volunteerism as a practice, in the long run interlocutors often could not get the satisfaction they were looking for. Yet, what were they looking for?

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In conversations, time and again volunteers alluded to the feeling of emptiness that had induced them to seek something meaningful to do. As indicated, young people’s lives are tightly regulated between curricular activities and competitive exigencies. Middle and high school students’ time is completely dedicated to improving their chances of entering university. Once they succeed they have a little more time and freedom, yet the overall ambitious and competitive atmosphere continues. These exigencies of contemporary urban life left interlocutors emotionally and spiritually unsatisfied, and thus many began their quests. Several younger people related how they read philosophy and psychology books and how they contemplated their role in society, what it meant to be a person. Mother Teresa was a name that repeatedly came up in this context. Interlocutors admired her selflessness and attributed their volunteerism to her inspiring example. Tong Li, a young woman (born in 1985), commented, “I wish I was like Mother Teresa. That would be the greatest thing!” Other interlocutors offered quite sophisticated philosophies to describe their convictions. Zhang Peng (born in 1982) from Sichuan, for example, offered the view that a person only existed in the world if she established and maintained meaningful relations with other people: When I first became a volunteer I wanted to meet more people. Besides, I wanted to fulfill my life. I read a book, Love and Will by an American psychologist, who says that being is the essence of life. Things exist not only objectively but also subjectively in people’s subjective notions. For example, I am a person in the world. But if I did not meet you today, I am nothing to you and I do not exist in your life. So to really “be” I have to develop relations with people. That’s why I volunteer. I don’t do it with the purpose of making friends. I want others to feel my existence. For example if I did not join this organization, other volunteers would not know that I exist and therefore I do not exist in their minds. A person’s existence is not only objective, it’s also subjective [through others]. Some people say that one is living for oneself, but in my opinion everybody is living for others. I want to make people feel my existence. For my part, if I cannot exist in others’ mind, my life is meaningless. Interlocutors’ searching clearly reflected the high expectations, competition, and rigid schedules that characterized their daily lives. Yet, beyond looking for ways to break out of their routines, interlocutors’ reflections spoke to deeper, ethical concerns. As discussed, Chinese society is said to lack ethics, or clear codes of conduct, and social solidarity.12 What is more, modes through which values are transmitted have been interrupted; gaps emerge between sectors, groups, and generations.

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Most interlocutors, and even more explicitly younger people, expressed their lack of respect or even contempt for the government, especially as regards meaning and values. They generally considered influential government officials to be corrupt and detached from the concerns of the laobaixing, the common people; official government campaigns and slogans to improve public mores were empty propaganda to them. Yet, neither did they see eye to eye with their parents when it came to social values and the meaning of life. As we saw in Part I, conflicts between parents and their adolescent to young adult children are on the rise, with many of these concerning the younger people’s attitudes toward studying and plans for life. Confirming this apparent gap between generations is the fact that the majority of young interlocutors did not tell their parents about their volunteerism. Thus, whereas social values are usually transmitted from parents and other authoritarian figures in the offsprings’ life, in reform period China the younger generation is left without, or at least highly skeptical toward such guidance/influence.13 Neither parents, nor teachers, nor official slogans offered virtues that spoke to young people or answered their necessities. It is therefore not surprising that especially younger interlocutors, those in their late teens and twenties, were looking for meaning and searching for alternatives to prescribed life paths. Volunteering through the official channels for many became just another activity in their busy schedules, yet one void of the more profound meaning that they had actually been looking for. Thus, it might not come as a surprise that quite a number of interlocutors stopped volunteering with GYVA after a relatively short time, as did Shufei. Others, in contrast, continued their quest for meaningful involvement and eventually turned to smaller, grassroots social organizations dedicated to a more specific cause. That is, while the state managed to induce and facilitate initial volunteerism, it apparently largely failed in keeping volunteers committed. Even an extremely dedicated volunteer such as Zhang Guiren eventually started his own organization, the telephone hotline, through which he could do the kind of work he wished to. In a way, Max also showed the limits of the Chinese party-state’s technology of power, even though he broke out of the official structure much earlier than Zhang and joined Joy in Action (JIA). Yet, as stated above, even this social organization did not address his desires, and he left with the plan to start his own social initiative. Lili was another example of the limits or contradictions that have emerged in the context of the state project promoting volunteerism as a technology of power. She too had started out volunteering in GYVA but quickly changed to JIA, where she felt she could influence the course of action more. Besides this, at some point during my research, together with a group of three friends, she began to tutor a young student from one of the Hansen’s Disease villages who had started attending technical school in Guangzhou and had difficulty keeping up with his urban

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classmates. Lili and her friends set up a study plan and organized teaching the student every day in a different subject for three months. This was entirely her and her friends’ initiative and had nothing to do with the party-state; it was a social cause of their own choice, and not necessarily one that the government sought to promote. Lili’s independent social streak continued: when I returned to Guangzhou in 2010, Lili had graduated from university and worked for a social organization that sponsored rural students to attend technical college in Guangzhou. The organization, set up in 2002 by a wealthy Chinese entrepreneur, started with helping two students from his hometown and had slowly expanded its scope. In 2010, they sponsored twenty students from different parts in Guangdong province. Besides providing the funds for the students’ higher education, the organization also paired them with urban residents. These “guardians” helped the students in their transition from rural to urban life and accompanied them during their studies while they were away from home. While this was not a controversial project, the founder felt it was better to register the organization in Hong Kong to avoid the organizational straightjacket and bureaucracy that comes with official registration on the mainland. The organization thus had legitimacy yet could not receive local donations. Overhead costs, however, were kept as low as possible by almost exclusively relying on volunteers both in Guangzhou and in Hong Kong. In 2010, according to Lili, the organization had around four thousand members, of which probably only about two hundred were active.14 Lili was the only paid staff in Guangzhou. She was responsible for coordinating events and communication with the founder, who had moved to Shanghai, where he focused on getting donations15 and sponsors for students. The tasks necessary to sponsor students were divided among different groups of volunteers, who traveled to the villages and selected the students who would be sponsored, organized training programs for students and volunteers, or were responsible for the web page. These groups of volunteers met individually according to need. Other volunteers took on the role of guardians to the selected students and accompanied them throughout their studies in Guangzhou. As we can see, this social organization—similar to JIA—functioned outside the more tightly controlled state system that GYVA is subjected to. It focused on a specific task and at its core was a deep connection between volunteers and between guardians and rural students. The organization thus offered a much more personal experience to its members and likely also made it a more meaningful one. At the same time, in its day-to-day organization it was as flexible as GYVA, accommodating volunteers’ busy schedules and keeping time commitment as low as possible. Because it did not have a conflictual mission and did not directly challenge the government’s authority, we can interpret the organization’s foundation and the

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involvement of its volunteers as yet another example of the successful party-state governmentality. Yet, the social initiative of its founder and the volunteers and the subjective choice of their field of action also point to grassroots social organizations’ potential to push the government’s agenda. Moreover, as became more evident in one of the social organization’s public events, the activities of grassroots organizations such as this one speak to and have an effect on Chinese citizens beyond the absolute control of the state.

Straight Talk In June 2010, I attended a public event held by the social organization for which Lili worked. Officially a volunteer training program, the event had been publicized on the Internet with the topic of youth communication. About one third of the eleven male and nineteen female attendees were not volunteers with the organization but had been attracted by this topic. The main speaker was a Hong Kong professional specializing in communication and a volunteer with the organization. After a short introduction of the social organization, the speaker gave a PowerPoint presentation on how to talk with teenagers and young adults. He described teenagers as self-centered and explained how during puberty teenagers are confused about life and what they want. He also emphasized that they often did not have the stamina to reach their goals. Furthermore, according to the speaker, teenagers do not like to be told what to do: when grown-ups tell them something, they just say “yes” to get them off their back. Following the presentation, the speaker initiated a discussion in small groups about how to deal with teenagers who fall in love and the reasons behind a student stealing. For about thirty minutes, participants had heated discussions while the speaker walked from group to group to listen to and join in the exchanges. In a second PowerPoint presentation, the speaker talked about building value standards. To introduce the topic, the speaker told a story: A man is very sick and the wife goes out to find a doctor. To get to the doctor she has to cross a river. But the ferryman will only take her across if she has sex with him. The speaker asked, should she or not? Fifteen of the attendees thought she should. Then the story continued: The wife has sex with the ferryman, who takes her across the river, and she finds a doctor who cures her husband. But the husband finds out about the ferryman, asks for a divorce, and kills the ferryman. Should the wife call the police, the speaker asked the audience. Ten people said “yes.” In another exercise, the speaker asked us to form a square with two finger and look at something. He encouraged us to walk around in the room while doing this to realize how things look from different perspectives. Then, in yet another exer-

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cise two people practiced how to ask a student a question while being observed by a third person, who gave feedback and advice on how to improve the exchange. While this might not sound like very much, attendees appeared genuinely interested and satisfied at the end of the event, which was free. Throughout, people took notes, attentively followed the speaker’s presentations, and participated animatedly in the exercises. Finally, the story introducing the value standard formation sparked serious discussions among participants. Apparently the event, and especially the topic, spoke to attendees’ interests. Again, while not contradictory, these discussions were markedly different, or distinguished, from the state project. Moreover they spoke to the search for meaning that many of my interlocutors in the field expressed. This was highlighted by some of the conversations I had during the event with attendees. Mr. Ho, a middle-aged high school teacher, for example, was not a volunteer with the organization and had come to the event because he was interested in the topic. He wanted to learn how to better communicate with students, which he considered important for his profession. Mr. Ho explained that “today everything is about knowledge learning” but that the school was not interested in communication. To him, however, it was important to teach his students not just knowledge but values. “People today are only interested in money, but they lack values,” Mr. Ho lamented. When I pointed to government campaigns aimed at teaching values and civil behavior, Mr. Ho just snorted, “That’s just advertisement [propaganda]! Nobody pays attention or takes that seriously!” Tommy, an accountant in a Hong Kong stock market company and one of the social organization’s volunteers, further underlined the gap between the state and his personal ideals. Originally from a small village in rural Guangdong province, Tommy began to volunteer when he was in technical college. His first experience was with the student union, which organized students to visit a senior citizen home close to their school. After he graduated, he volunteered for about one year with GYVA, attending to people with mental problems. Volunteers worked in small groups visiting mental patients in their homes and organizing activities for patients and their families. When I asked why he left GYVA, he simply said, “It’s government organized. Their ideas are different. I did not like working with them very much.” Later he expanded on this, explaining: One point is the structure of the organization. It is similar to a company or government office, with a head, or boss, like my work in the company. The team leaders are like bosses who manage the volunteer work. It made me feel like I went from my company to another company. This kind of structure does not leave enough space to do what I want to do, and not enough space for divergent voices. Second, they do something very superficial.

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The team works to do something but you do not really make an impact or change something; it’s a waste [of time]. In 2004, he learned about the social organization through emails he received at his company, which actually is a donor. At the time, Tommy suggested, there were not many organizations and activities outside of the government-sponsored ones. So the grassroots initiative sparked his interest, and after he found out more about it he became involved. The organization’s mission reminded him of his own childhood in the countryside, and he wanted to help other rural students to advance. He became involved in organizational aspects and served as a guardian to students. To him, his most important task as a guardian was to help the students learn to think for themselves, to be independent. Tommy was very content with the organization; his involvement and interaction with other volunteers made him very happy. He also thought that in contrast to GYVA, [the organization] does not really have a boss or leader. Mr. O. [the founder] has a lot of experience, skills, and ability, so we volunteers like to listen to him, but we are never told what to do. Instead, volunteers all cooperate. Second, the organization really accomplishes something. We affect the students’ lives; the work has real results. Third, a lot of the volunteers are, or have become my friends. I have warm feelings for them; they are nice people. [Chuckles] I even invited them to my wedding last month! As we can see, social organizations such as this one not only promote their own social agenda but also contribute to value formation. While both these enterprises are part of the party-state’s own project, here we can see how these projects do not necessarily converge; social organizations and their volunteers follow their own agendas. Without being oppositional, interlocutors had personal ideas about their transformation of self, their social involvement, and what they deemed important in life.

Conclusion Volunteerism serves a double function in China today. It provides students with a means to pursue individualistic purposes, such as having fun, making friends, learning new skills, and transforming themselves. For the state, it is a means to nurture responsible, modern citizens who take on social responsibilities within certain established limits. At the same time, it is a practice that gives meaning, creates happiness, and establishes social relationships beyond such “functionalist” frames. Volunteerism is both a technology of self and a technology of power—a

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phenomenon deeply connected to present-day urban realities. Yet none of these technologies has predictable outcomes. Instead, volunteerism is a realm in which agency and governmentality are continuously negotiated.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Pieke 2014: 128. Yan H. 2003a: 494–96. Ibid. Anagnost 2008: 512. In a new measure to encourage self-responsibility, the government is currently piloting a “social credit” project that will generate a numerical rating system based on people’s financial standing, criminal record, and social media behavior. See Hatton 2015. Xu and Ngai 2011; see also Hustinx et al. 2012. Rolandsen 2008, 2010. Hustinx et al. (2012) report that in the future student volunteering will count toward the all-important gaokao, the national university entrance examination. Students in school are publicly ranked according to performance. Hustinx at al. 2012: 57. Foucault 1990: 95. Wang 2002; Yan Y. 2003, 2011; Zhuo 2001. Min et al. 2012. See also Swader and Yuan 2010. Membership is achieved simply by signing up on the Internet; there is no membership fee. These would have to be paid into the organization’s Hong Kong bank account due to its registration status.

CONCLUSION Soup, Love, and a Helping Hand Urban Transformations and the Ethics of Social Support

Soup, love, and a helping hand—this is what interlocutors offered to others, be it kin, neighbors, friends, believers, or strangers in need. Through these practices, they extended help and support and concomitantly established and maintained their networks of significant social relations. While people have done this in the past and will continue to do so in the future, establishing and maintaining close relationships in the present-day urban context presents new challenges. These include diverging values and growing socioeconomic differentiation. In addition, as we have seen in this study, support practices are deeply interconnected with other domains such as kinship, morality/ethics, and the overall household economy. Yet all of these have been dramatically affected by China’s transformations over the last thirty-plus years—transformations that reflect and contribute to the present-day living experience. As a result, establishing and maintaining social relationships in contemporary urban China has undergone important changes. In this concluding chapter I summarize my research findings and highlight the interrelation between the different realms of inquiry.

From Maoism to the Reform Period The majority of interlocutors grew up in, came of age, and passed the greater part of their working lives during Maoism. Despite its deprivations, from today’s vantage point interlocutors associated this period with the importance placed on kin but also with close neighborly relations within the danwei and with a general solidarity expressed in mutual support. Although interlocutors were critical of the ideological zeal of the time, many still cited Lei Feng, the soldier doing anonymous good deeds, as their inspiration and moral model. At the same time, while suppressed and derided as bourgeois or old-fashioned, traditional notions such as reciprocity (bao) and human feelings (renqing) were never completely eradicated. Endnotes for this chapter begin on page 161.

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Instead, these transmitted values were integrated into the new socialist ideology. Even during the most radical phases of Maoism, interlocutors related to others in these terms. The upheavals of the Cultural Revolution threw the existing social order into disarray. The political movement negatively impacted the middle generation’s schooling when classes were suspended and students assigned to work in factories. Others were sent to the countryside, where they experienced hardship but also boredom. In addition, not a few of them had difficulties returning to the city. Nonetheless, interlocutors remembered the movement as a time that generated even closer ties with kin and with classmates who shared the fate of wasting away in the countryside or in factories. These were formative years: lasting friendships were built and relations between siblings redefined according to the roles brothers and sisters played in the household economy. Interlocutors clearly recalled who had stood by them during the years of turmoil and who had betrayed their confidence or disappointed their expectations. As a result, social relations became inscribed with feelings of gratitude, debt, and mutual responsibility but also resentment; all of these notions were carried over into the reform period.1 The movement, moreover, disillusioned most interlocutors, disenchanting them with any lofty socialist ideals they held and affecting their ability to trust. At the same time, the experience of the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution and more generally the Maoist period instilled interlocutors with a desire to advance and to improve their lives once the opportunity occurred. Meanwhile, the steep seniority system of wages and housing reinforced family ties, both economically and ideologically. The introduction of the dingti system at the end of the 1970s, in which parents gave up their workplace for the benefit of the adult child, only buttressed this trend. As a result, on the eve of the reform period, interlocutors were part of tightly woven networks of social support that hinged on kinship but included a circle of a few close friends. The economic and political reforms that started at the end of the 1970s promised a normalization of societal relations but also left people confused: Who should they trust in the changing neighborhood? Which rules and norms should they follow after Maoism had been discarded? How should they handle growing economic differences? Today, the urban living experience is characterized by larger distances and new mobilities; unprecedented levels of choices in consumption, entertainment, and housing; greater residential fluctuation and interaction with strangers; increasing competition, corruption, and crime rates; and—as a result of all this—greater uncertainties. Underlining the sense of insecurity are the structural transformations to the social security system—from the parental state to a system of market-based services. While the government provides a basic security net (e.g., the Minimum Standard of Living scheme), interlocutors were all too aware that ultimately they

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had to be prepared to rely on themselves. Health and old age thus were a major concern, especially in the context of the one-child policy—the middle generation knew it would be hard for their child to offer support. The transition from Maoism to the reform period can be described as one from strong integration into social entities and contexts to liberation (which does not mean the absence of the state, though). This includes the self and its position in society. Whereas Maoism conceived of the individual as part of the masses and positioned according to political pedigree, in the reform period the individual has been set free but is increasingly inserted into hierarchies of social and economic value. What is more, no longer a supplicant to the state, the individual has to be self-responsible. This is what Yan has called the “rise of the individual.” It is a process of profound disembedding, both in terms of belonging and rationalities or explanatory models.2 Maoism offered not only a social, economic, and political policy but in fact an entire worldview, including the understanding of self. With the reform period, however, the ideology—even if officially still adhered to—has been put into question. Importantly, and in contrast to the postsocialist societies of Eastern Europe, Maoism was not discarded in its entirety but rather was transformed or eroded. It is this hollowing out without a clear sense of what will, or what can, replace its value system that has led to the sense of feeling lost, disembedded, and without compass. Each individual has to find or construct her own new understanding of life, society, and self. Kinship and friendship offer some social context and bonds in this confusing new social environment. Yet at the same time, it is exactly in the private domain where the social and economic transformations cause increased tensions and conflicts. In response, interlocutors either withdraw into the extreme privacy of the nuclear family or seek new groups and institutions that provide footing and guidance. Some interlocutors find answers in religion or religious communities. Others seek to fill the void left by the erosion of Maoism by consciously acting in ways they consider exemplary, such as volunteering and practicing philanthropy. Through all of these practices, interlocutors create new socialities and foster new values in society. Yet, as every person engages in her own project and the state—far from being absent—promotes its own discourse and agenda, at best all of these efforts result in separate realms—with the concomitant effect on the individual. At worst, tensions run high and conflicts erupt over what is appropriate, right, or desirable behavior.3 Differences exist between all three generations discussed in this study, but are especially pronounced between the middle and younger ones due to their dramatically transformed social and economic positioning and socialization.

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Generations As we have seen in this study, each of the three generations of interlocutors is differently affected by, and differently positioned vis-à-vis, the new living environment with its social and economic challenges. The oldest generation of interlocutors is often dependent on their adult children for support—help in everyday life and finances. The increasing number of reports about elderly abuse and neglect are thus all the more worrisome. Most of the older interlocutors in this study, however, had several children, which increased their chance of receiving support from at least one child. Alternatively, as we have seen in the case of Wei Lan, Wang Feng, and Li Xiaolei, siblings shared the responsibility of tending to their elderly parents. Nevertheless, the elderly were quite aware of the difficulties their middle-aged children faced in today’s competitive urban environment. Not a few of them thus strategized to stay in their children’s favor. They remained self-sufficient and independent as long as possible, held back with explicit demands of being taken care of, and/or offered—or suggested—to live in old people’s home when they would not be able to take care of themselves any longer. Thus, avoiding being a burden, they hoped to be taken care of by their children.4 In addition, the elderly looked for alternative means of support and sociality. Both with neighbors and with friends, they cultivated social relations by going out for tea or regularly talking on the phone. In addition, they sought new forums for social contacts and meaning, such as dance and taijiquan groups5 or, as discussed in more detail in this study, the church. Often feeling lonely or indeed lost in today’s changed environment, in the church they encountered a place to hang out and socialize. Importantly, here they felt accepted, respected, and understood—something that has increasingly become more difficult in the interaction with the younger generations due to differing norms and values. In effect, despite the continued importance attributed to kin, new socialities often offer greater understanding and therefore embedding because they are based on shared interests and values. Interlocutors belonging to the middle generation, in turn, are in an especially challenging position. They are obliged by law to support their elderly parents, not only financially but in their daily life. At the same time, the majority of interlocutors proclaimed the importance of the Confucian moral order; they practiced filial piety showing respect and honoring their elders. Yet the transformation of the urban landscape means that parents and children do not necessarily live close to one another. Increasing traffic and growing cities requires more time spent traveling from one place to another, despite more and more comfortable means of transportation in contrast to the Maoist period. Thus adhering to the Confucian ideal

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and following the law often meant a concerted effort to organize one’s daily life, especially for those in this group of interlocutors who still worked. Good sibling relations could, thus, effectively ease the burden for the individual when brothers and sisters shared the responsibility. Besides time, however, elderly support can also add to the financial burden that this generation faces, especially when the old fall sick. But not all of the elderly were in such dire situation that they needed their children’s financial support. Some could actually use part of their pension to support their children or give presents to grandchildren. The elderly’s most important asset in the present-day economic context, however, is ownership of a danwei apartment. If they moved in with (one of) their children, the rent earned by the unit was a substantial contribution to the household economy. At the same time, which of the children would benefit from this income or inherit the unit was also often a prime source of tension and conflict among siblings. The middle generation’s sandwiched position was only exacerbated by the fact that they have young adult children who depend on their continued support—for education but often even after beginning their work lives. The present-day competitive labor market and rising costs of living, combined with little benefits in the private sector, make financial independence difficult for the young. Both Lili and Shufei, for example, who in 2010 had graduated and begun to work, continued to live with their parents. With their income, neither of them could afford to rent a house and live on her own—unless in the far suburbs. In fact, none of the young adult interlocutors had set out on their own; they all still lived with their parents or parents-in-law.6 The one exception, a cousin of Shufei, lived with his girlfriend in an apartment that his father—Shufei’s uncle—had bought in the same building where he lived. The middle-aged generation, moreover, commonly paid for private insurance for their child. This could be health insurance or life insurance plans. In the latter case, the benefactor could choose when to take out the money and depending on the length of payment would receive a different sum of money. As Li Xiaolei explained: We paid about 2000 yuan a year, and we had to pay for six years. . . . When Shufei reached 19 years, she could have received 1000 yuan for four years. When she waits until she is 23, she would get about 2500 yuan. She could use the money to start a business or something else. She would get 4800 yuan when she waits until she is 25 years old, for her wedding. Finally, if she waits until she is 60 years old, she would get about 60,000 yuan. Another living expense for the middle generation was health insurance for themselves, at least those who were self-employed. In addition, they all tried to save

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money for future emergencies, especially health-related costs. A number of interlocutors also invested in the stock market.7 Yet, at least in the past two years, this has become a risky undertaking; in the 2015 stock market crash, a large number of small investors lost significant amounts of money.8 This underlines the precarious financial situation interlocutors were in. Given their average to low incomes, the middle generation could manage their multiple financial obligations only by living extremely frugally. Apart from occasional restaurant visits that still remain a relatively low-cost form of entertainment, interlocutors spent very little money. Very few had a car. Those who did belonged to the lower middle classes; they were often employees or retired from the public sector and had profited from the benefits this brings—foremost of all, subsidized housing. But besides their frugality and thrift, and despite their often busy lives, what distinguished the middle generation was the special effort they put into maintaining and expanding their social networks, not only with kin but also with close friends and neighbors. They practiced and strongly upheld notions of reciprocity, human kindness, and filial piety. With this circle of trusted relationships they engaged in the exchange of money—as a symbolic means to reinforce their connection and an economic means in times of need. This networking and reciprocal exchange, however, was a coping mechanism to confront their multiple obligations and provided “ontological security”9—a web of social relations that gave meaning as well as emotional and financial support. The youngest generation of interlocutors, in turn, grew up in the reform period. With improved educational opportunities and a—still—growing economy, their prospects are comparatively much better than those of their parents. Extreme competition and the resulting exigencies, however, start early on: only the best are able to get into high school and university,10 and even the field of study depends on a student’s scores in the university entrance exams. Once they managed to enter university they had a bit more spare time, yet societal and parental expectations continued to weigh heavily on them. Younger interlocutors were mostly aware that one day they would have to support their elderly parents and parents-in-law. They thus felt strongly that they needed to find a well-paying position. At the same time, quite a few of them looked for personal fulfillment, a life beyond the hamster wheel of hard work and financial obligations. Some found these alternative paths in religion, others, as discussed here, in volunteering and becoming socially active. It was, however, notable that the majority of the so inclined were university students and graduates. Young people with middle school education were notably absent in the social initiatives depending on volunteers. This might be, on the one hand, because university graduates had been subjected to the exigencies of rigid school schedules longer and, on the other, because the middle school graduates who worked felt

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even more competitive pressure. They also had to work longer and more irregular hours. While young interlocutors were not outright defiant of their elders, their desires and practices revealed different values and dreams. Mostly single children, they also felt a strong sense of lack and a need to improve themselves, both in terms of knowledge and in terms of social skills. In essence a very individualistic enterprise, working on the self played into their volunteering activities and interests.11 At the same time, however, they usually had not completely abandoned traditional notions of filial piety, and some were even inspired by Maoist ideals. Yet in everyday life, their behavior could cause misunderstandings and upset their elders. Their parents, the middle generation interlocutors, were left in a difficult position. They were aware that one day they might depend on their offspring for (financial) support. In addition, as outlined above, they were often heavily financially invested in their child’s life. Not surprisingly, thus, they hoped that their children would study hard and find well-paying jobs and did not have much understanding of other activities or ideals. In sum, the three generations of interlocutors at the center of this study were quite differently affected by and positioned in relation to present-day urban life’s economic and social realities. Socialized in different (political) periods and with their specific generational experiences, they also had different values and aspirations. These, in turn, translated into their social relations, both with kin and beyond.

Relatedness As outlined above, at the beginning of the reform period, interlocutors were part of tightly woven networks dominated by kinship relations. During the Maoist period, for lack of residential space, frequently several generations lived under one roof. Out of sheer necessity, parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, and uncles formed a network of support. In addition, people worked and lived together in the work unit compound, forming a quasigroup in which colleagues and neighbors pertained to the extended social network.12 Today, in contrast, greater availability of residential space in combination with changed lifestyles has led to the predominance of nuclear family households in residential quarters with significantly diminished neighborly relations. New, affordable housing is usually located in suburban areas, where real estate prices are lower. Siblings and parents, therefore, often live geographically quite distant from each other. Growing traffic and lack of time make private visits less frequent than in the past. Combined with growing socioeconomic differentiation, kinship ties appear to be under growing strain. At the same time, as we have seen in the present study, relatives continue to provide an important network of social support. Especially the middle generation, who usually have multiple siblings, relied on these in times of need. Individuals

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who were in difficult socioeconomic circumstance often had no siblings, or their relationship with them was strained. Between generations, relatives also continued to play an important role in an individual’s well-being. While such intergenerational support worked up and down, the middle generation shouldered the greatest burden, since they were responsible for their elderly parents and for their children who needed their support often even after they had started their working lives. As we have seen, however, ultimately it was not kinship per se but practiced kinship that counted. Recent discussions on kinship have greatly contributed to reframing the debate. Notably, Janet Carsten’s concept of “relatedness” opened new paths to conceptualize social relations beyond narrow ethnocentric notions of the bonds of blood.13 In the China field of studies, this rethinking has led to a rediscovery of the work of Chinese anthropologist Fei Xiaotong.14 In contrast to the rigid models that dominated Chinese studies of kinship for a long time, Fei envisioned Chinese society as being made up of overlapping and intersecting ego-centered networks of hierarchically structured relationships that are characterized by prescribed obligations. Importantly, Fei also emphasized that these networks have to be skillfully managed; they could be expanded and contracted according to need. That is, he highlighted practice over structure. Along the same lines, more recent research by Stafford emphasized that while patrilineal decent was (or is) an important ideological concept, in practice laiwang, the coming and going of neighbors and friends, takes on at least as much importance in everyday life.15 These findings are only supported by the present research. While people often professed the ideological norms, in practice what counted was what others did. It is here where social support shows its vital importance: offering and practicing support—economically, practically, or emotionally—was actually a means to establish and maintain social relations. It was, indeed, a measure of closeness between interlocutors: kin who did not practice support were less important than a friend or neighbor who did. Indeed, generally spouses considered each other the most important and trusted relation. Beyond that was a sphere of close relatives—mostly brothers and sisters—as well as long-term friends and colleagues and/or neighbors with whom they had “good feelings” (ganqing hao). These relatives and friends called each other often and visited or met regularly to spend time together (most often for meals on the weekend). Apart from the spouse, these were the people interlocutors said they felt close to and with whom they would share personal thoughts. Intriguingly, this sphere was often converted into the kinship network when interlocutors referred to these friends with terms such as “brother” or “sister” and considered them part of the family. Increasingly, however, interlocutors also sought sociality in social groups and institutions based on shared interests and values, such as the dance and taiji-

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quan groups, the church, and volunteer organizations. Maybe due to the growing physical and emotional distance with kin, these new socialities take on increasing importance in interlocutors’ lives. Indeed, these new socialities often represent “emotional communities” that offer less tangible support but new forms and possibilities of embedding to urban residents. Brought together by choice—not blood ties or accidental vicinity—over time members of these groups could form meaningful relationships. Thus, new forms of relatedness emerge that often also represent alternative moral orders.

Changing Moral Orders Analyzing surveys conducted in 2006 and 2013, Hao concludes that polarization and corruption have become the “‘crux’ of ‘problems with reform and opening up’ and thus a major reason for the difficulty of establishing and consolidating a value consensus.”16 Moreover, he detects an “ethical helplessness or even partial sympathy” in respondents because they are not sure how they would behave if the group they belonged to (e.g., employer) engaged in acts that were beneficial to them but harmful to society. Indeed, respondents considered “individualism resulting from the market economy” and “the collapse of traditional culture” as the most negative factors in ethical relations and morality in the country. Yet, according to respondents, the problem was not one of lack of value but a lack of correspondence between actions and value: they felt that “people’s moral knowledge is not reflected in their actions” as the major problem of individual moral character in Chinese society. The remedy to the ethical crisis, according to these surveys’ respondents, was “traditional Chinese morality.”17 Numerous studies have addressed this moral crisis in China and variously identify nihilism, hedonism, and individualization as reasons behind the lack of morals.18 Yet, Oxfeld suggests that while people might “not agree on what obligates them, they do seem to agree on the concept of obligation itself, and on the ultimate responsibility of individuals in fulfilling their moral debts.”19 Indeed, as we have seen in this study as well, the notion of interrelation with others and mutual responsibility was strong. What was amiss, however, was the interpretation of this imperative, the form and extent this mutual responsibility should take. Thus, the usually strong bond between siblings in the middle generation became strained when somebody did not live up to expectations or someone felt slighted or disrespected by relatives. The same was true with the close friends and acquaintances that formed part of interlocutors’ social support networks. Thus, interlocutors lamented, “Renqing is as thin as paper.” Beyond bemoaning the fading of moral standards, the thinning of renqing apparently also referred to a sense of loss of social relations. Far from a negative concept (at least if one had good feelings), “owing renqing” to

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interlocutors meant to have a network of social relations that gave them security. Yet, the introduction of money into the moral economy of support has profoundly transformed existing systems of social relations and turned indebtedness, and thus a balanced uncertainty, increasingly into something negative that should be overcome. It was exactly the frustration and anger over diverging norms and expectations that contributed to the attractiveness of Christianity and volunteering. Importantly, these alternative socialities were usually distinguished from relatedness through practiced support. The church community was conceived of as a separate realm from the consumption and striving that dominates contemporary society. It was also distinguished from the traditional notion of reciprocity. What counted among believers was shared faith and love, that is, unconditional benevolence that is not based on expectations of future returns. Volunteers, in turn, practiced benevolence on the basis of generating a social transformation, starting with themselves. At the same time, through their practices they felt like part of a larger community in spirit, people who shared their values and the (implicit) project to transform the present-day (urban) living environment. It would be wrong, however, to conceive of these moral orders as separate realms, bounded entities, or systems. Moral orders are temporal and local consensuses about how to behave, or what is considered right and wrong. Yet, they are far from consistent.20 On the contrary, while possibly backed by an ideological model, in practice these orders are most commonly fuzzy. There are always diverging interpretations not only of the norms themselves but also of what is coherent with a moral order presumed to correspond to a certain context. In addition, no moral order is without challenges. Moral orders and practices are constantly negotiated or discussed. Thus, every act and every comment on every act is part of the moral discourse; morality permeates all social domains. It is exactly for this reason, I argue, that practices of support take on special meaning. The decision to help and support another person is a conscious decision informed by and impacting the ethics of everyday life. If and how someone extends a hand is morality enacted.

Individualization versus Creating Sociality Yan argues that China is experiencing growing individualization in a way similar to what theorists such as Bauman, Beck, and Giddens have described for Western modernity: “Detraditionalization, disembedment, the creation of a life of one’s own by DIY biographic work, and the irresistible pressure to be more independent and individualistic are all indicators of individualization in Western Europe that have also occurred to Chinese individuals.”21 Yet, Yan acknowledges that there are also important differences between Western European processes and what is

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happening in China. The main difference, according to Yan, is the absence of democracy and a welfare state that impact the individualization process. However, as Kipnis notes, Yan’s focus on individualization processes neglects new forms of control and socialization that have emerged in the reform period.22 [The authors] see no simple linear relation between modernity and individuality whereby humans become more and more individualized as their societies become more and more modern. Rather, the “individualization” of modernity must be seen as a myth, or a structure of feeling, or a problematic. The liberation of the individual is simultaneously his or her enslavement to wider social forces; differentiation is often accompanied by conformity, and estrangement or alienation by freedom. . . . In short, [the authors] see the “rise” of individualism as more of a psychological problematic than an absolute fact. The attention paid to the individual psyche by governments, by educational and medical institutions, and by factories may increase and people may feel increasingly alienated, liberated, lonely, isolated, and free, but that does not mean that human beings have become social isolates. The political, social, and collective projects of cultivating and subjugating the individual are more powerful than ever.23 As I have shown in this study, the principal technology of power that subjectifies Chinese citizens today is the imperative of self-responsibility—with far-reaching consequences. It is in relation to these individuation processes that social support takes on its special meaning. Even the oldest generation of interlocutors, socialized during the collective period and no longer part of the productive workforce, are confronted with the realities of a new political regime that requires the individual to rely on herself. Since the elderly need, or will need at some point, support in their everyday lives (be it practically or financially), the present selfresponsibility regime compels them to strategically maneuver their social relations. Without falling into simplistic functionalist explanations, the elderly’s efforts to remain independent while concomitantly building and maintaining relations with children, friends, and neighbors and seeking new socialities in taijiquan groups and religious communities have to be seen in this light. This is similar for their adult children (the middle generation): while they pursued more individual choices and projects than ever before, the extent of their individualism was severely circumscribed by the—real or perceived—necessity to provide for the future and deal with the negative effects of the reform period transformations in their everyday lives. Thus even in the potentially subversive realm of religious practice, the sociality many interlocutors sought could be found in the officially sanctioned church. Their individual pursuits were far from oppositional. In fact, the very practice of the church community—mutual support and

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help—was rather conformist; it played directly into the state’ project of stimulating self-reliance and fostering prosocial behavior. Even the youngest generation, who grew up during the reform period and could be expected to show the greatest individualistic streak, appear to have internalized the official discourse of self-improvement. Moreover, young interlocutors’ life projects as described here—their volunteering and philanthropic pursuits—while at times stretching the limits of officialdom still fall within the state project of creating a civil society, a civil society under the control of the state, that is. As this study shows, the breaking up of previous collectives, the setting free of the Chinese individual in the reform period, has actually given much less rise to individualism than to the pursuit of new forms of and contexts for creating social bonds. Thus, kinship, or more generally relatedness, continues to play an important role in the transformed urban social landscape. Enforced by the lack of a clear moral order and divergent ethics, the (forcefully) liberated urban individual seeks to reembed and create new socialities.

Notes 1. Oxfeld (2010) discusses this memory of past favors and help under the concept of liangxin. 2. Yan 2008, 2009b, 2010a, 2010b. 3. Hao (2016) makes a similar point. 4. See Szawarska 2013. 5. See Richaud (2016), who analyzes Beijing retirees’ collective activities in public parks that create familiarity and friendship. 6. See Hong-Fincher (2016) for a discussion of the important role elderly parents play in financing the purchase of housing for adult children, especially sons. 7. In China, around 80 percent of investors are individuals; investment in stocks is a common, government-encouraged practice to improve one’s finances. Yet, many of these small-scale investors are quite inexperienced. See Hertz 1998. 8. Sudworth 2015. 9. Giddens 1991. 10. In fact, there are multiple reports about the high pressure and competition to enter the best kindergartens, at least in the great metropolises. Toddler and primary school children are enrolled in extracurricular classes to amp up their CVs and thus increase their chances of being accepted in the most prestigious middle and high schools. 11. Kipnis (2012: 12) emphasizes the role of the national educational system in the present-day nation-building process. Students are immersed in a “nation-wide public sphere . . . in which Chinese citizens, imagined as individuated persons, engage in interactions with other citizens who they previously did not know.” 12. Boissevain 1968: 550 in Yan 1996: 224. 13. Carsten 2000. 14. Obendiek 2016; Santos 2006. 15. Stafford 2000. 16. Hao 2016: 44. 17. Ibid.: 47–54.

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18. On nihilism, see Liu 2000; hedonism, Wang 2002 and Ci 1994; and individualization, Yan 2008, 2009b, 2010a, 2010b. 19. Oxfeld 2010: 51. 20. Keane (2015) speaks of multiple and competing cultural worlds, both past and present. See also Gorski 2016. 21. Yan 2009b: 287; also Yan 2010a, 2010b. 22. Kipnis 2012. 23. Ibid.: 7.

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INDEX

A Anagnost, Ann, 140 Anderson, Benedict, 102 anomie (disembedding), 15–17, 20, 81, 104, 109n10, 152 Durkheim, 16, 109n10 and renqing, 16, 72, 158 B Bauman, Zygmunt, 13. See also individualization Beck, Ulrich, 13. See also individualization believers. See church; religion C Carsten, Janet, 57, 157. See also kinship; relatedness; substance charity. See volunteers Chinese Youth League, 59, 117–18 Christianity. See religion church (Xiatian), 77–100. See also religion; support believers, 97–100 church community, 17, 101–3, 103–5, 107–8, 153, 158, 160 embeddedness of, 91, 93–94, 96–97, 104 and guanxi, 107 history of, 88–91 and love, 77, 91, 105–8 neighborhood, 87–90 and reciprocity, 107 relation with state/ authorities, 83–84, 85n25, 89–91, 95 religious services, 94–95 and renqing, 107

as separate realm, 105–8, 159 service center, 92–94 social services, 95–97 and support, 103–5 class, 1, 2, 20n5, 30, 45n18, 54–55. See also laobaixing; stratification middle class(es), 1, 2 communication, 131. See also young people problems with (lack of skills), 130, 146–48 competition (competiveness), 5, 7, 14, 16, 17, 34, 53, 80, 108, 130, 143, 151, 155, 161n10 Cultural Revolution, 46, 151 effect on middle generation, 8, 30, 32, 33, 35, 43, 47, 50 and religion, 77, 83, 88, 98 D danwei (work unit), 16, 18, 33, 40, 46, 47, 49, 51, 53, 55, 58, 59–61, 117, 138n7, 150, 154 dingti policy. See retirement F faith. See church; religion family, 2, 8, 18, 27, 31–34, 43, 50, 52, 54, 69, 104, 111, 114, 151, 152, 156. See also friends; kinship; morality/ethics; siblings; support and conflicts, 17, 38–40, 45n21, 45n34 and Cultural Revolution, 35, 46 friends treated as, 57, 58, 67, 69, 75n9, 157 networked, 8, 151

174 | Index

feelings (emotions), 10, 29, 39, 41, 64, 65, 72, 109n10, 130, 148, 151, 157, 158. See also kinship; reciprocity; renqing; support ganjing, 63, 69, 73 and kula of money, 70–72 Feuchtwang, Stephen, 80. See also religion Fiske, Alan, 64 Fong, Vanessa, 73, 129. See also onechild policy; xiao Foucault, Michel, 142 friends, 18, 36, 37, 42–43, 44, 46–47, 53, 55, 57–59, 63, 75n9, 151, 153, 155, 157, 158, 160. See also church; feelings; friendship; kinship; morality/ethics; support and church, 93, 101 and gift-giving (guanxi), 64–65 and kula of money, 69–72 and reciprocity, 65–66, 107 same as kin, 68 and volunteering, 135, 141, 143, 148 friendship, 152 and money, 69–72 as practice, 57 “same-year siblings,” 44n13, 62n12 and substance (food), 57 and support, 58, 69–72 Frolic, Michael B., 119 G Gao, Mobo, 97 generations, 153–56 disillusioned, 98 elderly, 153, 160 gap between, 16, 18, 144 middle (sandwiched), 15, 28–29, 35, 43, 44, 46, 74–75, 99, 152, 153–55, 156–57, 158, 160 young (only child), 15, 42, 43, 44, 144, 155–56, 161 Giddens, Anthony, 13. See also individualization gifts (gift giving), 10, 36, 41, 70. See also guanxi; kula; morality/ethics; reciprocity; support art of, 64–65, 67–68 free, 107 Guangdong, 3, 12, 95–96, 113, 116, 145. See also Guangzhou

Guangzhou, 1, 3–5, 6, 27, 57, 65, 87–88, 95–96, 121–22, 124n15, 145 Guangzhou Youth Volunteer Association (GYVA), 121–23, 133, 134, 142, 144, 145, 147–48. See also volunteers guanxi (social networks), 29, 63, 64, 75n2, 107 and gift-giving, 64–65 as total social phenomenon, 63 H Hao, Fan, 158 He, Guanghu, 98 help. See support homeownership, 6, 154 housing, 50, 61 and employment, 50–52 housing reform, 6, 8, 16, 21n16, 47–48, 61n3 and kin, 37, 42, 151, 156, 161n6 precarious conditions, 50–51 and socioeconomic stratification, 54, 155 hukou, 6, 20n9, 33, 51, 120 I Ikels, Charlotte, 1, 29, 45n21, 45n23, 45n28, 73. See also Guangzhou; xiao individualization (rise of the individual), 10, 13–15, 41, 42, 63, 159–61. See also Bauman, Zygmunt; Beck, Ulrich; church; Giddens, Anthony; Kipnis, Andy; support; volunteers; Yan, Yunxiang and authenticity, 22n51 in China, 14–15, 22n53, 104, 111, 158 as myth, 15 and reciprocity, 63 and religion, 77, 104 rise of the individual, 14 insurance, 6, 8, 27, 32, 38, 41, 154 medical, 20n10 iron rice bowl, 1, 5, 20n3

J Jankowiak, William, 10, 29, 42, 44n13, 45n19, 45n26, 45n34, 57, 61n2, 75n3, 75n9, 138n7. See also kinship; social relationships

Index | 175

Joy-in-Action (JIA), 121, 123–124, 134– 36, 144, 145. See also volunteers K kinship, 57, 68–69, 72, 114, 150, 152, 156. See also family; friends; laiwang; morality/ethics; relatedness; siblings; support and morality/ethics, 11, 68 as “pattern of coordination,” 64 and reciprocity, 66–69 and support, 9–10, 29, 47, 58, 64, 69–72, 151, 157, 161 Kipnis, Andy, 14–15, 63, 75n2, 75n10, 97, 102, 132, 160, 161n11. See also individualization; morality/ethics; religion Kleinman, Arthur, 16, 104. See also morality/ethics; self kula, 69–72. See also feelings; support L Lai, Hongyi Harry, 79–80 laiwang (come and go), 57–58, 61, 65, 71, 114, 157. See also kinship; relatedness Laliberté, André, 114–15 Lambek, Michael, 11. See also morality/ ethics laobaixing (common people), 1, 144 lay-off (unemployment), 1, 2, 6, 7, 29, 31, 38, 44n11, 60, 62n16, 92, 98, 103, 120. See also church; friends; kinship; support Lei Feng, 52–53, 62n4, 99, 115–116, 117, 127, 150. See also Maoism; support; volunteers living conditions (general), 5–9, 29, 46, 49, 50, 51, 59, 85n23, 137 Long, Nicholas J., 9 love. See church; religion M Ma, Zhiying, 17 Malinowski, Bronislaw, 70. See also kula; money; support Maoism, 1, 13–14, 54, 55, 61 and morality/ethics, 12, 13 and religion, 80, 98 and social relations, 43, 53, 150–52

and volunteering, 111, 115 Minimum Living Standard Scheme (MLSS), 59, 62n14, 104, 109n5, 151. See also state; support money, 2–3, 6, 56, 74, 129, 154, 155. See also friends; kinship; kula; morality/ ethics; red envelope; siblings; support and church, 95, 99, 103, 104 and friends and neighbors, 66–68, 69–72 and kin, 34, 36, 38, 41, 69–72 and values (morality), 16, 41, 53, 64, 72–73, 74, 99, 108, 147, 155, 159 and volunteering (philanthropy), 113, 134, 135, 136 Moore, Henrietta L., 9 morality/ethics, 9, 10–11, 13, 18, 29, 38, 39–40, 70, 161. See also church; individualization; religion; Santos, Stafford; support; volunteers anthropology of, 11 Confucian, 29, 114 dialogic, 12 Michael Lambek on, 11 and Maoism, 12, 36, 150 and money, 73, 159 moral models, 62n4, 116, 134, 150 moral orders, 12, 18, 42, 72–73, 74, 153, 158–59, 161 moral reasoning, 12 moral vacuum (crisis), 11, 13, 16, 80, 98, 111, 113, 143, 158, 161 ordinary ethics, 11 Ellen Oxfeld on, 12 and religion, 17, 80, 98, 99, 104, 107, 108 and support, 9–10, 12–13, 28, 29, 72, 150, 153, 159 and volunteering (philanthropy), 112, 113, 114, 116, 131, 134, 140 N neighborhood committee (juweihui), 31, 59, 95, 125n38 neighbors, 46–62. See also danwei; relatedness; residential compound; support and Maoism, 46, 49–50, 52–53 relations with, 16–17, 49–50, 53–56, 56–57, 61, 66, 73, 93, 98, 102, 153, 155, 156, 157

176 | Index

soup and tea, 56–57, 65, 153 and support, 51, 52, 56–57, 58, 63, 65, 150 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs; also GONGOs), 11, 118–19, 136, 137. See also volunteers O Obendiek, Helena, 34, 44n13, 45n29. See also siblings one-child policy (singletons), 27–28, 45n25, 73, 129, 139, 152 Ong, Aihwa, 14 Oxfeld, Ellen, 10, 12, 158, 161n1. See also morality/ethics P Palmer, David, 80–81, 114, 115. See also religion parents. See also family; generations; kinship; support; xiao and close relations, 8, 31, 36, 37, 43, 104, 151, 154, 156 and conflicts, 16, 32, 41–42, 45n28, 47, 62n7, 74, 144 and conversion, 82, 88, 98 and morality/ethics (values), 15, 40, 129, 144 and support, 21n13, 27, 28, 29, 31, 33, 35, 37, 38–42, 43, 74, 129, 153–54, 155, 156, 161n6 and volunteering, 127–28, 129, 134–35, 144 and xiao, 38–40, 42, 73–75, 75n13 Pelkmans, Mathijs, 84n8, 106 pension, 5, 6, 8, 27, 34, 52, 96, 154. See also retirement reform, 20n10 philanthropy. See volunteers Pieke, Frank, 20n5, 140 R reciprocity (bao), 29, 36, 42, 63, 150. See also friends; kinship; morality/ethics; neighbors; support conflicts (failure of), 68, 73–74 and church, 107, 159 and money, 66 and siblings, 66–67

and support, 63–75, 150, 155 red envelope (hong bao), 56, 62n9. See also soup; support relatedness, 10, 57, 114, 156–58, 161. See also kinship; substance; support and laiwang, 57 and morality/ethics, 157–58 and support, 20, 42, 57, 159, 161 relatives, 42–43. See also kinship; relatedness; siblings; support relations with, 31, 36, 42–44, 45n19, 63, 69, 158 and support, 51, 52, 64, 73, 93, 136, 156–57 religion, 77–109. See also church; morality/ethics; reciprocity; support and anomie (disembedding), 80, 98, 152, 155 Christianity, 82–84, 85n17 Falun Gong, 80–82 and Maoism, 79, 82–83, 88 and morality/ethics (values), 11, 82, 97, 115, 124n7 Protestantism, 82–84, 87 and reform period, 79–80, 83–84, 90 revival, 79–82 state and, 79, 106 and suzhi, 106 renqing (human feelings), 29, 74, 107. See also church; friends; kinship; morality/ethics; neighbors; support and morality/ethics (values), 10, 13, 74, 107, 150 and support, 13, 68, 158 “as thin as paper,” 16, 72–73, 158 and trust, 72 residential compound, 47–52. See also danwei; housing; neighbors and changing lifestyles, 50, 54, 55 commercially built, 49 and green space, 55 safety (perception of), 49 transformations of, 47–52, 54 and waidiren (outsiders), 49 retirement, 30, 32, 36, 51–52, 72, 74, 92, 155. See also pension age, 44n8 dingti policy, 33, 44n11, 151 working after, 30, 31

Index | 177

S Santos, Gonçalo D., 12, 44n13, 62n12, 100n4, 100n5. See also friendship; morality/ethics; volunteers search for meaning, 10, 15, 16–17, 129, 144, 147. See also church; morality/ ethics; religion; volunteers self, 22n51, 73, 116. See also anomie; individualization conversion and, 106, 107 divided, 16–17 position in society, 152 self-development, 140, 141 self-responsibility, 116, 140, 149n5, 152, 160, 161 transformation of, 106, 148, 152, 156, 161 siblings, 27, 29, 30, 34–38, 44n2, 44n13, 45n34, 120. See also family; kinship; money; Obendiek, Helena; support importance of, 34, 40 relations with, 31–32, 34–38, 39, 40, 43, 75n9, 151, 153, 154, 158 and support, 34, 35, 36, 37–38, 66–67, 68, 153, 156–57 social contract, 1, 2, 11, 72, 73, 140. See also individualization; morality/ ethics; volunteers sociality, 9, 17, 18, 104, 108, 132, 153, 157, 159–161. See also church; individualization; volunteers social relationships (networks), 9, 10, 15, 29, 46, 53, 58, 63, 64, 69, 71, 73, 75n8, 75n10, 103, 148, 150, 155. See also guanxi; individualization; kinship; reciprocity; support soup, 56–59, 61, 65, 71. See also kinship; neighbors; reciprocity; substance; support; tea Stafford, Charles, 11–12, 57, 62n11, 114, 157. See also kinship; laiwang state, 6, 21n16, 37, 80–81, 83. See also housing; support and Maoism, 1, 3 MLSS, 59 personnel (role of), 59–60 sector, 7–8, 53 social welfare, 1, 15, 46, 115, 116–17, 140, 160

and society relations, 2, 11, 14, 15, 18, 81, 107, 108, 126, 151, 152, 160, 161 and support, 37, 59–61, 91, 116–17, 151 and volunteering, 111–12, 116, 118, 119, 123, 124, 126, 133–34, 139–142, 142–46, 147, 148, 161 Strathern, Marilyn, 9 stratification (differentiation) socioeconomic, 1–2, 5–9, 15, 20, 38, 42, 46, 53, 54–55, 73, 150, 156, 160 substance, 57–58, 61, 66. See also friends; kinship; neighbors; relatedness; tea; soup; support Sun, Yuezhu, 22n51, 45n25, 73. See also one-child policy; xiao support (help), 6, 8, 150, 155, 161. See also church; friends; individualization; kinship; morality/ ethics; neighbors; siblings; state; volunteers; xiao and anomie, 17, 97–98 and church, 95–97, 98, 101, 103–105, 107–8 definition, 9 and emotions, 40–41, 58, 69–72, 72–73, 103, 104, 107, 157–58 (see also feelings) and friends (friendship), 43, 46, 47, 58–59, 69–72, 157–58 and individualization, 13–14, 52–53, 129, 160 and kinship (relatedness), 27, 29–30, 32, 34–44, 47, 57, 58–59, 66, 69, 73–75, 129, 152, 153, 155, 156–58 legal obligation, 28, 129, 153 and money, 29, 36, 56, 66, 68, 69–72, 154 and morality/ethics, 12–13, 16, 42, 52–53, 72–73, 74, 107–8, 116, 127, 131, 132, 135–37, 150–51, 158–59, 160–1 neighbors, 51, 52–57, 58–59, 157–58 parents’ role, 28, 42, 154 as practice/process, 10, 29, 47, 58, 61, 68–69, 103, 104–5, 150, 159 and reciprocity, 51, 63, 66–68, 69–72, 73, 107, 136, 158–59 and situatedness, 10

178 | Index

reform period, 111–12, 116–19 and search for meaning, 129–130, 133–37, 142–44, 161 social aspects of, 130, 144, 148 and state, 117, 141–42, 148 statistics, 113, 119–21, 125n32 and suzhi, 140 as technology of power, 139–142, 144, 149n8, 160 as technology of self, 131, 142–46, 148–49, 156, 161 Wenchuan earthquake, 117

and social relationships, 18, 29–30, 34–35, 38, 42–43, 52, 57, 60–61, 114 and soup, 56 and state, 59–61 study of, 1–3, 9–10 and uncertainty, 10, 27, 30, 42, 74–75, 152–53 and volunteering (philanthropy), 113, 115, 117–19, 127, 128, 129, 131, 132, 135–37, 141, 148 and xiao, 73–75 suzhi, 106, 140–1 Szawarska, Dorota, 74 T tea (drink), 34, 36, 57–58, 61, 65–66, 93, 101, 153. See also feelings; friends; kinship; soup; substance; support Toren, Christina, 9 Turner, Victor, 107, 109n10 U urban living experience (urban life), 1, 5–9, 16, 61n2, 143, 151–52, 156 V volunteers (volunteering), 59, 111–49. See also Guangzhou Youth Volunteer Association; Joy-in-Action; morality/ ethics; support and anomie (disembedding), 15, 129–130, 134–37, 152, 155 charity, 113–16 and church, 92, 93, 94, 95–96, 101 and civil society, 111–12, 114–15, 119, 124, 133, 142, 161 events, 146–48 and governmentality, 139–146, 149 history of, 111–12, 114–17 and individualization (singletons), 15, 129–130, 132, 155, 156, 161 and morality/ethics, 13, 127–28, 132, 133–134, 134–37, 159, 161 NGOs (GONGOs), 118–19, 145–48 organization of, 117–19, 121–24, 125n38, 126–27, 147–48 philanthropy, 113–16, 124n3, 138n7, 152 reasons to volunteer, 126–33, 133–37

W Weller, Robert, 102 Wielander, Gerda, 106, 109n18 work unit. See danwei Wu, Keping, 114–15 X xiao (filial piety), 13, 38–39, 73–75. See also kinship; morality/ethics; parents; support conflicts over, 40, 41–42 interpretation of, 40, 45n25, 73 and morality, 13, 40, 73–74 and social relations, 29, 45n23 yang, 73–75 Y Yan, Hairong, 140 Yan, Yunxiang, 42, 75n13, 132. See also guanxi; individualization; volunteers on guanxi, 63, 75n2 individualization (rise of the individual), 13–14, 22n53, 77, 104, 152, 159–60 on xiao, 73 Yang, Fenggang, 80 Yang, Mayfair Mei-hui, 64. See also guanxi young people, 104, 123, 128, 130, 141, 142, 144, 155. See also one-child policy; volunteers and communication skills, 146–48 Z Zhang, Li, 14