Understanding China and the World Through the Lens of Self as Method

Angebote / Angebote:

Xiang Biao's*1 Self as Method is an unusual book. It was published in China in 2020 by Dandu, a newish publishing house that promises to "unite a new generation of authors and readers through text, audio, video, and multimedia platforms."2 The project originated with Dandu editor Luo Danni*, based on her observation that many Chinese people appear not to be very happy as "China's century" dawns. At first glance, this may seem strange because, after a century and a half of humiliation, crisis, and struggle, China in the early twenty-first century seems poised to reestablish its historical position as a (if not the) center of the world. Reform and opening have succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of those who initially conceived the policies, and China in 2020 is vastly richer and more powerful than China in 1980. Yet despite China's rise, many Chinese people, and particularly Chinese young people-while patriotic and proud of China's rise-are anxious and dissatisfied, at least with their individual lives and life chances. If the policy of reform and opening has transformed the Chinese economy, it has also brought intense competitiveness, sky-rocketing real estate prices, China's mega-cities like Beijing and Shanghai, young people often feel like they are running in place-and running hard-as China's period of high-speed growth threatens to sputter out. Luo Danni recruited Dandu journalist Wu Qi* to work on the project, and decided to address this issue in a volume that targets younger readers, which surely made good sense. In addition to their economic anxieties, young people in China might be forgiven for feeling somewhat lost in general. Change in China has been blindingly rapid over the past few decades, to the point that Chinese authors often speak of generational groups of as few as five years (i.e., the "1995-2000 generation"). This might be an exaggeration, but it is nonetheless true that while in 1980 there were almost no private phones in China, today everyone lives on their smart phone, while in 1980, everyone rode their identical Flying Pigeon bicycle (if they could get one) to and from work or school, now they take a Didi* (China's Uber) to...the airport and hence the world (at least in pre-pandemic times)