When I first arrived in China in 2008 I found a nation in the grips of a
mania. There was an obsession with western TV shows, Hollywood movies, and
above all, learning English.
In those early days it wasn’t uncommon for strangers to walk up to me and say: “Hello. I speak English. Let’s be friends.” It was jarring (and a little creepy). China was in the mist of being westernized, there was no doubt about it, I could see it everywhere. Basketball was the national sport. Premiership football was all over the TV. When I was invited to dinner Chinese friends took me to Pizza Hut so they could impress me with their knife and fork skills.
When I moved back home, a little over 10 years later, China had become a different place. The west had lost its appeal. Curiosity in all things western had waned. Even foreign TV shows held little interest for a China more preoccupied with embracing its own culture again.
While journalists and experts are quick to blame government’s patriotic policies for this change, I believe this is only part of the story. To me, the Chinese people have grown confident of the country’s accomplishments on the world’s stage. They have also grown weary of western countries attitude towards their homeland, believing it to be unfair and downright hypocritical. In short, the Chinese believe the time has come to promote and elevate their own culture and their own ways of doing things.
Being a teacher back in 2008 was a fascinating time. I could easily fill a two hour class with nothing more than allowing students to ask me questions. They had a curiosity about me and my hometown that I had never experienced before. At first I thought it was a time wasting technique, but their excited tone told me otherwise. They asked many questions, from how much money to do make, to do foreigners get headaches?
On occasion I got to turn the tide and ask some questions myself. I always asked why they were learning English. Answers fell into three categories: to travel abroad, to study abroad, to work in an international company (and possibly go abroad.) It wasn’t difficult to spot the common tread in these responses. To them English wasn’t a hobby, it was a key to a door they had never been behind, it was a pathway to a better or more interesting future.
At the that time many of the students didn’t have passports. Instead, they viewed the world through the window of the internet and American and western tv shows. Friends. Sex and the City. These shows depicted lifestyles completely alien to the common Chinese person. Not just in a physical way, but in a psychological way too. These shows had characters with strong individualistic tendencies; they did their own thing and rarely conformed. For the students I taught this was radial and attractive. The adults I taught worked sixty-hour weeks and teenagers I taught were up each night to 1am doing homework. And none of this was by choice. It was forced upon them by bosses, parents, and society itself. Learning English just might be a ticket to a better way of living.
Of course, I wasn’t the only one noticing this growing obsession with English and western ideas. The government were paying close attention too. They had previously stamped out a infestation of western thinking back in 1989 but the memory still loomed large. While the Chinese government always maintained it was dedicated to providing better options for its people - better job options, better healthcare options, better housing options - it drew the line at offering ideology options. There was only one way of thinking: the communist party way.
At the time the party still had absolute control on society. Their power was felt in all corners of life, from the education to business. You couldn’t go for a walk without passing government slogans on a wall or browse the web without the great firewall telling you the site was not found. Even at the school where I worked, we felt the ever-watchful eye of the government. On the first day all teachers were lectured on what topics we couldn’t mention to students. The three Ts were off limits. Tibet, Taiwan, and Tiananmen. Punishment for mentioning these subject matters was deportation or possible imprisonment.
But the government’s power worked more like a deterrent. Their perceived reach was much longer than reality. None of these policies were policed or enforced. In the foreign community we never heard of anyone being deported and students were more than happy to talk about these topics.
But all of that was about to change.
When President Xi came to power in 2012 he immediately implemented sweeping changes. The economy, the military, schools and universities were all hit with heavy reform policies. He also introduced an all encompassing Chinese ideology. In order for this to succeed it was clear western ideas needed to be expunged. What followed was typical totalitarian behavior. Overnight books were removed from libraries and stores, TV shows were taken down from the most popular platforms. It was done with great fanfare. Party members who were reprimanded for having affairs or taking drugs came forward to apologize for being corrupted by ideals inadvertently picked up from western movies. It was ridiculous but it worked and soon trickled down to the masses.
The phrase. 崇洋媚外, which roughly translates to person crazy about foreign things had always been part of the Chinese vernacular. I had mostly heard people use it as a joke, however, after 2015 I noticed that it was being used more and more, especially online. Now it was used as a harsh insult and directed anyone who spoke favorably about western culture or products. Around this time also I noticed some push back regarding speaking English. On a few occasions while outside at speaking events myself and students were told: This is China. Speak Chinese.
I had hoped these episodes were nothing more than unfortunate interactions but after discussions with other foreign friends I could tell this was becoming more frequent. It was nothing we couldn’t handle but we felt a shift in attitude toward us. Something had changed.
It was hard to know whether this was the result of the government polices or the result of what was happening in the world. This all coincided with Western governments taking a hard stance against Beijing and China was becoming more assertive on the world stage.
I agreed to a certain extent with their woes. China and its citizens were growing tired of countries that dropped bombs on poor people talking about human right abuses. It was comical. Furthermore, many of the students I had taught had got their passports and travel to western countries. They had been sorely let down. They saw filthy, expensive cities riddled with crime and they started to consider the idea that the west was not worthy or praise or admiration.
China has grown a lot over the last 30 years. It has incorporated some western ideas into its society but has also rejected many more. This doesn’t always have to be a negative thing. While their political system can be cruel and totalitarian, it has also lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and crime is almost non-existent. Could it be time for western governments to finally start incorporating at little bit of Chinese culture.