Contrasting Lifetime Change in UK with CHINA
I often think mine was the lucky generation, missing active involvement in war, gaining in my case from the post war boost in free grammar school education, certainty of employment after school for everyone, university grants which covered not just free tuition but generous living expenses, unearned wealth through massive increase in property values, living through decades during which the standard of living was on an upward trajectory, and even now (by the standards of my youth) a 'wealthy pensioner' being sheltered from the austerity being inflicted on average UK society. (I do not deny the stark comparison with the pensioner who has to seek out a living on little but the State's Old Age Pension)
Strongly contrasted with the economic outlook for my children and even more my grandchildren. Both these generations emerged from education into an era of under employment.
However I continually reflect on the degree to which life has changed and how little feeling today's young have of the much less affluent times of our youth, absent fathers, cold houses - no heating at all in the unused front room, kitchen or bedrooms, home made clothes, little (sometimes nothing) in the way of presents for birthday or Christmas because they couldn't be afforded (Sunday School was more reliable), not much taste in food (you can't do a lot with one egg a week), nothing on credit except a little latitude from the suppliers in paying for basic necessities like groceries and bread.
Yet it was a wonderful time to be young. Freedom to roam and learn by taking risks, self made fun, outdoor games not organised sport and a family group playing board games or singing around the piano in the days before TV, plus superb summer weather! Yes mine has been and remains a lucky life.
My chosen title comes because I have just put down Xinran's China Witness, an oral history of the soon to be lost silent generation of China. That history starts in 1933 just two years before I was born. The Guomingdan ruling nationalists (GMD) attacked with almost one million troops the key rural heartlands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and their Red Army later called The Peoples Liberation Army (PLA). Badly beaten in fixed combat the poverty stricken army of peasants determined to strike on the move, they marched zigzagging 12500 miles across populated near west of China to outflank the nationalist rulers army. But though hundreds of thousands maybe millions perished of exhaustion, starvation, famine, illness and warfare they increasingly gathered support wherever they went.
In 1937 things turned for the worse for China as the mainland was subject to full scale invasion by Japan, who killed 300,000 on the eastern seaboard two years before WW2 broke out in Europe. Chiang-Kai-shek, the Guomingdan leader was 'persuaded' by his closest generals to stop fighting Mao and instead combine with them against the Japanese. It was not until the end of WW2 that the Japanese were defeated and suddenly on 1 October 1949 the GMD accepted defeat by the PLA, now led by Mao and retreated to American backed Taiwan.
(Ironically under the Peace Treaty after the 1914-18 war the Chinese lands Germany had colonised pre-war would have to be handed to the Japanese but, after a Beijing University Student revolt started 4th May 1919, soon joined by Workers in Shanghai, China refused to sign the treaty. Hence the importance of the 4th May which was enshrined as National Youth Day on Liberation in 1949)
The author Xinran was born in Beijing in 1958 but emigrated to London in 1997, the year Deng Xiaoping died. Deng Xiaoping is universally credited with being the architect of the amazingly fast modernisation of China. In 2006 Xinran started interviewing oldies in her homeland by telephone in preparation for this book and in 2007 returned to China to complete the research work.
2006 is the same year Joan and I travelled slowly across China by public transport from Kashi in the far west of Xinjiang province, the border with Russia, before it was broken up, to Beijing in the east.
The book was first published in 2008 and laid unread on my shelves ever since, it highlights ten sets of interviews. Starting with a herb Medicine Woman; then someone who although a dedicated communist was punished for decades as a counter-revolutionary; someone who helped build from 1950 the largest prison in the world (for 500,00 prisoners) in remote Xinjiang from 1950 as part of the plan to develop this uninhabited largely desert/steppe region; one of the first men describes his life prospecting for oil in 1950; a man who made a hard living as a travelling acrobat, the old style tea houses with News from travelling Singers (socially the equivalent of non alcoholic pubs); the vanishing skill of a Chinese lantern maker; a 90 year old survivor of The Long March; a woman of well educated Chinese descent born in America in 1930 who returned to China to join the communist revolution from Liberation in 1949 then the PLA and became a well regarded General; a policeman; a shoe mender and a taxi driver.
The constant themes, incredible suffering, long hard work and privation, the harsh accommodation of migrants; in many cases unjustifiably 'struggled against' two decades later by the Red Guards of the Cultural Revolution 1966 to 76; children from birth handed over to grandparents living far away that the parents never had a chance to know or even see; single minded determination - driven ever onwards by the fact that they were helping build a huge new homeland and a fair society.
I can only vouch for China 2006 but what we saw was unbelievable progress in roads and cities, housing, beautiful new town parks full of art, schools, happy welcoming people, an absence of real poverty as experienced in so much of Asia, an absence too of the flaunted wealth one sees in India. Perhaps we would have different impressions had we seen the most densely populated areas of east coast China the key areas rapidly expanding into the workshop for the developed world, or maybe had we been more exposed to the still poor rural China - the source of migrant labour which is driving their manufacturing industry.
But we did spend over a week discovering Beijing, saw Kashgar (Kashi), Hotan and developing towns in the Taklamakan Desert (each one quarter old, three quarters new) in the far west, beautiful new parks, the Hexi Corridor which physically divides eastern deserts from west China, the old coal, steel and cotton manufacturing in the provinces of Gansu, Shaanxi and Shanxi, and, many wonderful new cities like Korla (the new entrance to the west) and Tianshui, or half newer Muslim and half old Buddhist ones like Xiahe.
What surprised author Xinran, and humbled me, was that in spite of what was for me an unbelievably hard life all those interviewed said it was worth while, though they wished their grandchildren could stop seeking western wealth for a minute and try to understand that the current prosperity was built on their suffering and their deprivations, and their determination to build a better future for all in China.
SEXUALITY
Same sex homosexuality is perhaps the only topic on which my view has changed radically in recent years. Even the word is not included in my son's Chambers Compact dictionary of 1974, though I do find it in my own Pocket Oxford version of 1984!
I remember setting out enthusiastically for London in 1953, thrilled by the thought of the chance to live in such an exciting cosmopolitan town after the boring lifestyle of small West Midland towns, but worried about two imagined risks, being forced into buggery or tricked into addictive drugs, neither of which I had encountered at boy only Grammar Schools in Warwick and then Rugby.
In those days I needn't have worried for almost no-one attempted to force anything, if drugs or homosexuality were pushed in those days in London then it never happened to me. However I did become aware of homosexuality if only because the president of the Imperial College student Union was whispered to be one. I assumed at that time that it was a perversion adopted as a result of the distortion of boarding in a boy only Public School. On later reflexion I now know there were cases at our school which were hushed up in the caring fashion of the early 50's.
In reality the only things which worried me were occassional gangs of bicyle chain swinging youths, always kept on the opposite side of the street, fast bowlers and dirty play on the Rugby pitch. Well I was picked up at the tender age of nineteen by a homosexual well after midnight on a freezing Stockholm street at a sandwich bar, hoping for a little warm shelter whilst waiting for the morning train back to my workplace in Sodertalje. He didn't force either but invited me home, I simply walked out and presume he was just disapointed that I wouldn't play ball.
Gradually over the years I have been convinced of the natural spread across the whole of nature, it's not just size, strength, colour of eyes hair skin, temper and intelligence which vary, but absolutely everything including sexuality, degree of male-ness or femininity or even same sex attraction.
As more and more men and women, who I can but admire, 'come out', it slowly dawns that it is part of human nature, which seems respectable in mature relationships, but understandable in more transistory relationships, - for which of us men hasn't sown a few wild oats.
As a atheist one can but be amused by the pickle the Christian Church is getting into. No to women Bishops, yes to Gay Ministers so long as homosexuality is no longer for real, no to single sex marriage, as though the Christian Church owned the sacrement of marriage which is found across the world and across the cultures.
My mother wouldn't dream of going to church without a hat, a headpiece rarely as attractive as a Muslim woman's headscarf, but identical in purpose.
Surely it's a sign of the origin of all religions Christian, Moslem, Hindu, Whatever, founded in alpha-male dominated societies.
VOTING AGE and RIGHTS (Politics & Citizenship Group)
I must post a comment about our last meeting before overtaken on by Delyth Rees who is leading a discussion tomorrow on 'What happened to the Caring Society?', second Tuesday 8th Jan at 2.15 in the West Cross Community Centre.
John Buckman led December's meeting on Voting age and Voting Rights. Although a newcomer to the group he got it just about right, I say this because it was my initial opinion that he had said too little before opening the topic to discussion but in practise more than ever took part, and he had researched well so that when facts or figures were needed he had them at his fingertips. No doubt it helped that everyone felt at ease with their own views on this important subject. The issue arose chiefly because of Alex Salmond's proposal that the vote on Scotland's Independence should be given to anyone over 16. John also noted in his introduction that in some South American countries the vote was withdrawn from those over 70!
There seemed to be a widespread opinion that today's 16 year olds were more mature than our generation was at the same age, surprisingly the many ex-teachers held that view but feared that they tended to be concerned only about single issues, typically Green or Environment related. Nobody bothered to defend the right of our age group to have right to vote, that much was apparently taken for granted!
The discussion on rights was mainly centred on whether convicted criminals should lose their right to vote whilst they were in jail. This being in response to the European legal ruling that the UK needed a formal policy on this issue. A large proportion took the commonly held view that criminals had forfeited the right to vote.
We learnt that although under European Law nationals of individuals were free to seek work and live in another European Community country but they did not have a vote in national parliamentary elections unless they had adopted dual nationality. Jim our eldest son, who has lived in France for over 20 years, felt it unfair that he could not vote in their governmental elections although bringing up a family there. But John clarified that it was universal across Europe, not just a the French quirk we all thought. Ironically Jim had lost his birth certificate and had to apply to the UK authorities for an authorised copy, but when it came we observed the replica came from an address in France and was published in France. Do we make nothing in this country any longer, not even replacement Birth Certificates?
In general citizens of Commonwealth countries living in Britain have the same voting rights as UK citizens.
A further quirk is that Jim's daughters who were born of a French mother and educated in France and obviously have French as their most fluent language are never the less UK citizens with British Passports because they have a British father. They can apply for dual nationality, that is to add French nationality, from the age of 18.
For the first time I can remember the group voted. This must be the first time ever that Joan and I have voted the same way on a political matter, in the day's of Thatcher we inevitably cancelled each others vote out! But from different approaches to these issues we were both included in the tiny minority of three view on both main issues. I was surprised so few voted for the lowering the age of voting. This being a typical biased U3A audience I was naughtily tempted to remind them it wasn't so long ago that women were not thought safe with the vote! Joan's very valid point was that both young adults and jailbirds should be encouraged to take part in the political process. Mine as many times said in this blog that I feel the young are having to bear the brunt of the current policies, be it education, jobs or poverty, and should must urgently be given, encouraged and helped to use their voice. Otherwise it will the OAP's, the age group most probable to vote, who will continue to have the biggest say!
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