Around where we live there used to be a real “China Town”. That is to say, wonderful bric-a-brac of small shops selling everything from toilet seats to services such as getting new keys cut, shoe repairs and tailors, from the Chinese version of take-away omelettes wrapped around a stick of dough for breakfast to tiny cubicle-size selling stationery…oh anything from leather-bound notebooks to Christmas wrapping paper in July. (There are a dozen or so photos later in this blog.)
Often, either behind the shop or on top of it, was the family-run business’s living quarters. The business and home are often passed on from generation and you get to live with your neighbours in the same spot from generation to generation. That’s all gone here on Changde Road just off Beijing West Road because of the revamp of Shanghai for Expo 2010. Our road is one example of many in China. “Where did the people go?” I often asked a year ago, and got tangential answers from Chinese friends and nothing — that I could see — from the newspapers.
They were forcibly removed. I wondered about all the dire consequences; from the trauma of being displaced to trying to get a new business going to finding food for sons and daughters’ mouths. All for the sake of the new face of capitalism and world trade.
People never matter, only money does
Now, a year later, some of the ugly truths are being aired. You can surf to this article on China Daily and, perhaps more poignantly and definitely more horrifically, here: “uprooted family of burned man seeks justice”.
To arrive home or wake up one day to find a sign glued to your day saying you have a few weeks or months to get ready to leave for another location would be most traumatic. Of course it reminded me of the hells of apartheid. It would not surprise me that the family — whom I stress again have often been living here for generations along with their intergenerational community — are also informed that they will be told where they are being moved to at a later stage.
I am certain the suicide mentioned above is only one of many tragedies distressed families suffered. Now the roads and little lanes are empty. They no longer peal with the laughter of children. There is just a blank wall surrounding a World Expo 2010 site. Where once teemed endless stalls selling anything from pottery to bracelets is a construction site for an expo platform that will showcase some of the world’s goods, and a bus terminus.
My words cannot do the justice my camera did. Here are about ten or so photos I took about two years ago and I am grateful I did. At the time I had no idea as to what was to transpire. None of these people did either. Many of these people I knew and bought goods from them, played with their children, offered them snacks under mama or grandma’s watchful eye. What you are about to see is all gone. Please take a look, and this blog carries on after the photos.
And all that teeming life has been replaced by this, taken Friday December 18 2009:
How much is changing, how little I want it
I once wrote in a blog about the changing face of Shanghai. I realise the old adage says that “change is the only constant” and we should not resist it. But I find my pictures above most moving as that thriving community vanished all so quickly.
A vibrant district, a kinship, deep and safe in it sense of being there for generations, gone like leaves after a storm. But the main issue I wish to take is the openness of the China Daily in writing about the distress of these displaced people. We are talking about China where censorship is an ancient, time-honoured tradition. I am surprised and impressed by the openness of the articles (see my links above) in a newspaper like the China Daily which is sneered at by us ex-pats as a propaganda rag. Sure, writing and publishing articles about it a year later and only now getting “legal experts” to examine the legislation that does not protect the people is far too late — bitterly so, irresponsibly so.
But the articles are suggesting that China is overcoming her collective denial and her willingness to start dealing with the various truths in a responsible manner. May she at least go from strength to strength in that regard. Looking at these pictures, I was overwhelmed with a sense of nostalgia. All those bright, happy faces, abruptly gone; the smells of cooking, chattering, bartering, all gone; card players at their tables whooping with delight at a won bet, up in smoke; the sound of buckets of dirty water swished into the culverts of streets, swept away.
And grandma hollering after her granddaughter to be careful, xiaoxin, as she rushes out into the lane to play… At the time of those photos, there was the biggest snowfall Shanghai had had in about five decades and the last snowfall shrouding those families’ rooftops and those tiny lanes so steeped with memories. The memory of that huge snowfall shudders through me now like a premonition. At the time I wrote a short, very bare poem about nostalgia for old love which I offer you in closing.
Snow
I used to warm to the light in things,
Even to the way it gave ash to love.
Under my hand was her shoulder;
The other held her head.
Now things like that are still lives:
They are in this snow that has not swept down
This hard in decades, grubby as children’s hands
As in fistfuls they cling to trees, streets, faces.
Forced removals have taken place since time immemorial and are still taking place in many countries on all kind of pretexes. The apartheid government removed people on the basis of their skin colour. One of my friends who lived in district 6 Cape Town at the time was forcebly moved from that area to the cape flats. Hard as it was for him and his family he admitted that distrct 6 was for a great part a slum area which needed clearing in any case. I am saying this lest people may think that forced removals were a thing peculiar to the apartheid regime. It was not and the reference to it in the title is therefore somewhat misleading. The mistreatment of the ‘natives’ in America and Australia happened on at least, if not on a greater scale than in SA.
What a shame. A real case of money being more important than people. Sad indeed.
It’s called urban renewal in the US where areas of town are torn down to build bridges of roads. The people that are moved get paid for their homes and businesses. However, in China there are whole ethic groups being removed for political reasons in China in different areas.
Every country has the right to expropriate – but it looks like the Chinese Government, like the ANC, tried to get away with not paying “market value” but their intellectuals are resisting this.
This is the same Bull***t the ANC keeps on about that “willing buyer/ willing seller ” does not work because they can’t afford market value.
Good article – I like the photos!
South Africas forced removals are far more evil
As a south african chinese person we were not only
removed by force but we were forced to stay in certain areas,we were forced to be not educated,
we were forced to be restricted to the transvaal,
we were forced not to socialise with other races,
we were forced to have no religion,we were forced
to not to have entertainment,we were forced to be
disadvantaged,we were forced to feel inferior,
we were forced to be underpaid and under valued,
we were forced to have our actions be unfair scrutinised and be approved by the local government and even your evil neighbour.
All of this was done without notice and made law
to modernise the whiteman and degrade people of
colour…..It was the perfect form of ethnic
degeneration that has caused so much damage
to generations of law abiding citizens.
Makes me think that the change in South Africa
is still “fake”……………
As a south african chinese person (i cannot with
honestly and proudly call myself a citizen as my fellow south africans only recently accepted me to be a fellow south african)we were forced to live in certain
areas,we were forced to be not educated fairly,
we were forced to not socialise with other races,
we were forced to not do business,we were forced to
not have any religion we chose,we were forced to
not to have dignity nor to be valued….
It certainly not a memory but a fact that needs addressing with our new government
I am afraid many south africans,black and white,
have fong kong memory banks made in south africa
that break down and loose data from time to time.
mjs,
I’m surprised at your statements ! I was aware at the time that chinese were discriminated against, but – speaking personally – many chinese attended my school in East London, had shops there, lived in the “white” areas, attended my church and many other churches…
@peter win
Permission had to be seeked before any of the
actions you mentioned could be done.
East London is a small town.Locals did not feel threatened BUT nearby Port Elizabeth our fellow
south africans did feel ” threatened ” with the
“yellow peril” because the authorities of the day
brainwashed us to believe and assume people of colour are unequal and their actions had to be demonized.
mjs
Just be glad you did not suffer Japanese “apartheid” durng their occupation of Manchuria.
The Chinese had to grow the rice but were not allowed to eat it – for Japanese only.
The state paid for schools for Japanese, but not for Chinese who had to found private schools (where they had to teach in Japanese).
Young Chinese children from age of about 12 were forced to watch other Chinese children being tortured and killed for “defying” Japanese rule.
mjs,
I’m sorry you had that experience (I’m sorry for anyone who experiences discrimination…).
I’m still surprised though. I lived in PE for a number of years over that time period and had chinese friends from there. No white that I am aware of, felt threatened by the “yellow peril”. If anything, my experience was that people admired the work and study ethic of the local chinese…
Peter Win, MJS – I am in agreement with Peter Win’s assessment. I despise discrimination but the Chinese I knew in Joburg seemed perfectly happy and undiscrimated against. Heck, my boss was Chinese (SA born and bred) and had a huge home in Weltevreden Park with a tennis court.I am talking about apartheid days, when De Klerk was president. My Chinese boss drove a BMW and was MD of our company. He disliked his schooling and the apartheid he experienced there, yes, and understandably resented that, but he and his siblings definitely just got on with life.