Customer Reviews

GAO VILLAGE - Rural Life in Modern China

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There are many excellent village studies available for those looking to understand how 70% of the population lives, but this one, of a Jiangxi Province (South-Central China) village, is especially good because it is written by someone who actually grew up in the village, then returned as a scholar years later. While the educational opportunities of urbanites were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, primary and secondary opportunities increased substantially in the countryside during these years, and Mobo Gao was one of the beneficiaries, eventually going all the way to a PhD in the US.

He makes many interesting points.

-That commericialization was meaningless to the Gao village peasants until a grain surplus was attained. That the lack of specialized knowledge holds many peasants back from taking advantage of the opportunities of commericialization, and a failure to address this problem is leading to polarization and some disillusionment with the reforms (corruption and increased crime also factors).

-The ever increasing population pressure on the land is causing social as well as economic changes in the village, as people migrate to find work, and remittances become a key source of income. The social bonds that sustained collective endeavors in the past are breaking down as the village becomes as much or more connected to the outside than with each other. A potential worry because local public action is still a major way growth can be attained in rural China, and the richest villages tend to be the ones that have success in this area.

-Clan rivalry and even violence, kept under wraps in the tightly controlled Mao years, increased substantially in the 1980s and 1990s.

-Abysmally low agricultural prices were the main reason for slowly increasing incomes in the Mao years, not lack of work incentives. And the concept of the "People's Commune" meant nothing to the Gaos, it was just seen as an upper level of government.

There's plenty more in this insightful glimpse into the Chinese countryside by an insider.

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