Culture

Is the Narrative the Message?: Western Reporting on Urban and Rural China

By Sean Nelson

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Perhaps the most ubiquitous, and not coincidentally most annoying, cliché of travel writing is the hackneyed phrase "a land of contradictions." South Africa is "a land of contradictions" because it on the one hand boasts some of the most beautiful cities in the world and is where most of the world's diamonds – that near-universal symbol of wealth, sophistication and status – are mined, yet the nation is struggling to come to grips with its HIV/AIDS epidemic. California is "a land of contradictions" because it contains the glitz and glamour of Rodeo Drive's boutiques and numerous film stars' mansions, but is also home to poverty in locations such as East LA and Compton. In 2005, Tad Friend of the New Yorker noted that even writers for the ever-popular and respected Lonely Planet guides wind down this overly well-tread road:

Even Lonely Planet, however, hasn't figured out a way to market its epiphanies other than by using the impoverished language of travel writing. And so "palm-fringed beaches" and "lush rain forests" and other "sleepy backwaters" are invariably counterpoised against "teeming cities" with their "bustling souks." Every region has a "colorful history" and a "rich cultural tapestry." And every place on earth is a "land of contrasts." As the Arabian Peninsula guide observes, "Bedouin tribesmen park 4WDs alongside goat hair tents; veiled women chat on mobile phones while awaiting laser hair removal," and so on.

While there are undeniably grains of truth in such statements, one should not be surprised this is so. A writer who expects all of the elements of a nation or location to add up to a coherent whole that will sell good copy and not confuse the lesser reader is either just trying to make a quick buck or has a rather limited understanding of history, human nature and the human experience.

 The question then becomes one of how a foreigner avoids falling into this trap. One method is to ignore the possible contradictory information that distorts a narrative. For instance, when reporting on the recent Fendi show that used a section of the Great Wall as a backdrop, Reuters and the Daily Mail chose to run articles that zeroed in on the particular event, noting the glamour of the show and the celebrity guests in attendance. A few years ago major Western news outlets would probably have chosen to balance such an account with references to the poverty in rural areas away from the coasts. Another method is to draw an implicit comparison between different sections of a country within a larger body of work. Numerous "China Watchers" have chosen this path, though often with references to differences between the cities and the countryside.
 
All of this brings up another related question: How does a foreigner write about "the real China?" The idea that the real China does not exist in major cities, but in rural areas, is commonly expressed both within and outside of China. Such a concept is not unique to China, however, as one hears of how New York, London and Paris are not representative of their respective countries. As such, when someone reads the Wall Street Journal's reporting on the day's trading on stock exchanges in New York and London, the writer feels no need to note the fact that there are economic problems in rural Alabama and Bristol. This means that Western reporting on events in urban China may be starting to parallel reporting on similar events in the West in which urban, suburban and rural areas are treating as near-autonomous entities with little connection to each other. A nightly news viewer in central Pennsylvania can passively interact with New York's Fashion Week by watching the event on their television. However, this viewer does not run in the same social circles as the participants nor is part of the immediate geographic environment of the event. As such, Western reporters do not factor this viewer into their final product’s analysis of the event.

At the same time, this can just means that there are two emerging primary narratives in the Western press's reporting on China. One narrative emphasizes glamour and avant-garde culture, such as recent reports in the New York Times about the Beijing music scene that covered the underground popularization of controversial rock music and recent performances by Western rock artists like Trent Reznor and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The other narrative focuses on rural problems in China, especially poverty. This second issue will become even more important in light of a new report by the Asian Development Bank in Manila that estimates for the size of China's economy have long been inflated. Albert Keidel, a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, notes that the revisions mean that the World Bank will likely conclude that China's economy, measured in terms of PPP, is 40 percent smaller and that the number of people in China living on less than US$1 is three times higher than earlier believed. The emergence of two parallel, non-contradictory narratives will help Western observers to note that China is home to both glitz and poverty without having one necessarily cancel the other out. Unfortunately, with two such easy narratives at hand, reporters and travel writers on tight deadlines will feel inclined to use them as an easy framing device that will exclude data that does not fit into either category. Any country, especially a country as large as China with such a long history, is too complex to be properly understood without first understanding China on its own terms, not through the filter of a useful media narrative. Considering that gaining and cultivating a proper understanding of China in the West is important now so that misunderstandings do not lead to unnecessary conflicts in the future, foreign observers, including myself, must strive to be self-critical and question our pre-conceived notions of what China is today.

Cliché:  陈词滥调 chén cí làn diào
Rural China:  中国农村 zhōng guó nóng cūn
Urban China:  中国城市 zhōng guó chéng shì
Avant-garde:  前卫 qián wèi

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