Dirt

How do you describe someone from the countryside in China? Dirt. The universal catagory that fits just about any creature that crawls from the "plain village" It also pretty much describes the general social class system that describes China. Those from the city and those from the farms.

Why is the social class so vague and simple as opposed to the multi rung social class present in the United States? My idea is because of communism. China, before it became the economic powerhouse that it is now, used to only have two jobs avaliable. 1) you could either work in the factories in the city 2) you could work in the farms in the outer villages. Everyone recieved the same amount of pay in the factories so generally there wasn't much competition. Therefore there was no seperate classes for people, everyone was the same, all under one class. All the farmers were generally poor so very rarely did they compete against one another either. The only distinction that could be clearly made between the people of China were those that were city dwellers and the farmers. And that social class carries over to today.

My dad was from a peasant village, and my mom was from the city. Had my father not been educated my mom's parents would have surely objected to their marriage. Even though my mom's parents accept my father, they dont accept his parents. When ever there would be a family reunion, an awkward silence would always accompany the clanking of chopsticks and rice bowls. The families just wouldn't be able to talk about anything that interested both of them. The silence doens't only attribute to a lack of common interest but also a lack of respect for the village people.

Thats common in China. It's very common to see the village people being discriminated against in the cities of China. They had a hard time finding jobs beside labor jobs. They had a hard time finding housing because there is this generalized assumption that the farmers dont understand the social values of the city. Merchants would very rarely sell to the village people, and the countryside men would often just find themselves on the streets and soon return home empty handed when they sought out riches in the city.

This discrimination would continue to lead the widening gap of the rich and the poor in China. As globlization and world commerace hits the busy streets of Shanghai and Beijing, the rural communities will be left alone to wither out and soon die. As the saying goes... the rich will only keep getting richer.