Competition for Mental Real Estate

The battle for Chinese mental real estate: Tradition versus “new ideas”

Chinese relationships a different kind of loving. It’s obsessive and raw. It’s reminiscing of a 1950’s household, except with more domestic abuse. The level of domestic abuse is high basically being hit with anything big than a thumb. Let’s consider that a slap or smack isn’t considered assault and although it doesn’t happen much outside the household it isn’t uncommon. Think  Al Pacino in Raging Bull.  These problems aren’t something that is secured only to the older generations they are still thriving with what is known as the Post 80 generation. When I see the looks on some of these boys faces as they attempt to act masculine abusing what little power as a man that they have I see the one child generation reflected in all that surrounds me. Around the schools “the little emperors” are branded as spoiled, egotistical, aloof and rebellious.

Now, I don’t claim to be a psychologist or have achieved higher than a B- in consumer behavior 101 but what I can tell you about is marketing. So when you receive a marketing message the level that it manipulates your needs and wants is based on your beliefs, morals, and values. Chinese society places a large emphasis on the collective societal norms and when doing social research it rarely goes past a spoken word from a teacher, elder, or close friend. By social research I mean for example “How do you know smoking is bad?” how did you learn that? Did you go out and do the research yourself or did you trust the word of some authority? In most house holds you are not allowed to question the word of an elder. So in a society based on rote memorization, not questioning authority, and achieving social norms what are the affects of marketing on the post 80’s generation?

Even in the US we have had comparable average growth over the years following WWII. Although our values are a bit skued compared to our father’s generation our laws are not girded to tight and freedom to pursue our life’s goals is something we are familiar with. I would hesitantly agree with some of the ideas that people making the argument that marketing is destroying America. But that’s a whole other post.

Will I can’t tell you anything I haven’t experienced myself so from what I know it is a troubled generation, brought up fully exposed to commercialized society, accustomed to “western” style food (KFC, McD’s), a mild to full blown internet addiction, and many more options for luxury than any other generation before them. They are living in an atmosphere where hot competition for less jobs and the effects of education inflation has been combined with unprecedented marketing messages promising one way out, consume. A lost generation trying to find their way through all the marketing messages tossed at them everyday. Where do they belong? Fully exposed to commercialization it seems they have found themselves torn between the ways of the old and the comforts of a new generation. Imagine for a moment that your standard of living has doubled twice over the past half century and arguable since the early 1930’s.  As the only-child in the family, you can now be referred to as the "sun" in the family: the center kept fat, happy, and over-protected.

Now here in lies the problem for parents when dealing with “new ideas” for their children. Which are considered children until they graduate from college. Not having travelled very much and with no money they must return back to mom and dad. In China there is no state run retirement plans or insurance plans this is all privatized for the most part (which is part of the reason that the reformation privatization succeed here and not in Russia), traditionally and Ideally what happens in China is that when your old ass finally breaks a hip and can’t work anymore you can expect to live with your son or your other son or god forbid one of your daughters and live out the rest of your days doing Tai Chi, walking extremely slow, and being served by the females of the family. So the problem with “new ideas” deals with an already damaged retirement system. Basically what happened when the one child policy went into action is that this pyramid scheme of retirement planning began to fail. All the sudden you had 4 grand parents still kicking around, 4 parents, and you and your wife/husband trying to support them all.  When your golden years rely almost solely on your children’s success your going to watch out and make sure they aren’t travelling and your battle for mental real estate has been planned for some time.  Will the old folks are losing at this game even though they are spoiling the shit out of the “little emperors.” They are saying “tradition isn’t good enough anymore peace out grandpa.” So the future is looking a bit bleak the state is instituting a pension plan but this is years away from being complete and will wind up bankrupt like ours in the US is becoming (Thanks dad).  Also children of two parents that where only children are allowed to have two children, celebration time.

But who knows maybe these crazy kids will figure it all out, that marketing is just a bubble that they must pop on their own time.

This entry hand crafted by Benton

The realization

The alley way echoes sounds of car horns, electric motorcycles, and bicycles, creeping up the walls each distinct in its own; beep, squeal, honk, meep, all ricocheting like bullets in an old western off the gritty concrete walls. The rain started to plunk onto the apartment windows, droplet after droplet tumbling down the cracked glass pooling on the sill. Flecks of grit and dead mosquitoes floating on a river of polluted rain water dripping onto the concrete floor next to my head. I popped out of my stale sleep and thought to myself that I had better check my car windows, that feeling, the “oh shit feeling,” “Did I leave them down?”

 It’s at that moment that it hit me like a pimp hits a hoe, a loving tap of correction. I don’t have a car and if I did it was thousands of miles away and an ocean over.  It’s this moment in particular I realized I was in China for the next year…“oh shit self what have you gotten into this time?” The ambience of the settings are what I imagine a newly released hostage might feel like; the smell of sulfured water and burnt hair; sticky humidity on my skin like duct tape combined with saliva, my nose plugged from attempting to filter heavy pollutants out of the air, and I knew nothing would ever be the same and although it hurt for right now it hurt like hell to give up all that I knew, all that I had built, it was time to ­­start living this life.

It was time to give up being comfortable and start living. Now, I am no “pain tourist” by any means I am not tending to the lepers or saving kids from a Ghana refugee camp to make myself feel better for being born “suburban middle class and white.” It’s that any major change worth doing requires a period of discomfort. It is the level that we perceive this discomfort to be at that holds us back from making severe life altering decisions on a moments notice. Fortunately this primal reaction is something I was born with out and I have moved freely between different communities across the US making friends and enemies where ever I have gone. Bouncing around the Northwest and California was fun and setting up a new life experiment wherever I went couldn’t prepare me for truly immersing myself in China. I don’t know what you would call a person like me... I go somewhere for a year or two and setup a life and then when I think I have learned everything I can from the people I have surrounded myself with I tear it all down and rebuild somewhere new.

A life that is a little rough around the edges is comfortable for me. A life where it’s okay for the paint to run into one another and to enjoy the outcome as just that the outcome or the hodge podge of culture overlapping one another with lessons learned from each is essential. A life where you can’t count on everything to work out. A life free of status anxiety, just do what you want when you want depending on the weather outside.

A nomadic life is preferable to me.

This post has been handcrafted by Benton