China Taxicab Chronicles 3: Diligent Mr. Wang
Thoughtful lessons from my driver about rural hukous, electric vehicles, and tea cultivation
This essay was originally posted as a Twitter thread on December 1, 2023. The content has been edited lightly to better suit a long essay format.
I’m in Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province (just a bit northwest of Shanghai) traveling from the high-speed rail station to my meeting site - a hotel and conference center near Taihu (Lake Tai). I’ve just gotten into the taxi and settled in for what will be a ride of at least 30 minutes into the deep Wuxi suburbs. Thankfully, my driver is feeling talkative…
The conversation kicks off from a very typical starting point: my language capabilities.
"Hey, your Chinese is good. How long have you been in China?"
"Oh...thanks. 11 years."
"Where are you from?"
"The USA. What about you? From Wuxi?"
"No, I'm from Anhui, Jinzhai County."
"Jinzhai? I don't know it. Which city?"
"Lu'an City"
"Ohhh, Lu'an city. That's the one that looks like ‘Liu'an’ (六安) but is pronounced Lu'an right? I used to always read it incorrectly."
"Yes that's right. Lu'an is how we say it in the local dialect. Jinzhai County is part of Lu'an. It's close to Hubei".
"Okay, what is Jinzhai County famous for?" I am expecting him to name some local dish, a specialty product, or well-known tourist site. I am wrong.
"Generals! Jinzhai County is known as the Home of Generals! We have 59 of of them!"
I do a quick Baidu search. "Wow, that's right. 59 generals..."
"Actually it was 60 generals. But one of them died in fighting in Korea, and he is not counted anymore. So Jinzhai is the county with 59 generals..."
"Okay, it looks like it's quite rural...I see it has some tourist areas. I see the Dabie Mountain Scenic Area. Is that nice?"
"Oh that's very beautiful. But don't go to visit now. There's nothing to see. You could go in the winter, when there's mist in the morning, and it turns into icicles on the trees. It's very pretty."
"I'll definitely check it out someday. So…how long have you been in Wuxi?"
"Me...? I've been here almost 20 years now."
"Oh, so your family is here now? Did you buy a house here?"
“Yeah, many members of my family are here. And my kids. I bought a house here. It's not so expensive if you don't buy in the city center."
"Oh. How old are your kids?"
"My son is in middle school now in Wuxi."
"Is he a good student?”
"He works hard, never cuts class. But Wuxi kids are the most hard-working in the country, you know? It’s hard to compete. Actually he likes art. If he can't go to college, I will support him to pursue art."
"So...did you move your residency to Wuxi?"
"No, I don't have a Wuxi hukou"
Note: This is the part where I’ll supplement for the unfamiliar that the hukou (or huji) system is a residential registration system used in China that identifies and binds a citizen to a certain location (often their birth location). The origins of the hukou system date back to the 50s, when it was considered especially neccessary to restrict population flow from rural areas to urban areas in order to ensure a robust rural workforce and resource sufficiency in the urban areas (this concern is still relevant today too, to a lesser degree). The ability to access social benefits like healthcare or schooling is generally tied to the hukou location, effectively serving to moderate internal migration around the country, but also resulting in some migrant workers being restricted from enjoying the social benefits of the city in which they live. The hukou system is slowly reforming, but progress has been uneven. It is highly unpopular in the Western Sinosphere, where it has even been compared to a kind of caste system (a comparison I personally find highly inappropriate). Chinese people themselves usually have more nuanced opinions about the hukou system, as you will see here. Now…back to the conversation!
"Why not? Is is too difficult to get a Wuxi hukou?"
"It's okay. If you pay taxes and social insurances as a worker in Wuxi for some number years...I don't know how many...you can apply for a Wuxi hukou. I can do that now, if I want. But I don't want to give up my Jinzhai hukou."
"Why don't you want to give up the hukou in your hometown?"
"Ah, let me explain it to you. In China, there are two kinds of hukou...urban hukou and rural hukou. Urban hukou has some good aspects, but actually rural hukou has more benefits, so you shouldn't give it up."
"What kind of benefits?"
"There are some programs for rural hukous only...like loans...special support programs, some government promotions. And you can own land. If you get an urban hukou, you can't own land. Land is valuable…it can be sold someday.”
"Oh, so you still have land back home?"
"Yeah. If you keep your rural hukou, you can keep your land."
"But what can you do with the land? You are here...so there is no one to use the land. Does it have value?"
"Oh you can still grow things on it...Some people there can work on the land while I'm here."
"Oh, I see. For a mountain area in Anhui. I guess you're growing...tea?"
"Yeah exactly, tea. That's the only thing that will grow well in our soil."
"Green tea, right?"
"Yeah, but you know, red tea is the same thing. It's green tea that is fermented, so the flavor is stronger"
(I did not know this. I later checked Wikipedia to find the oxidation process that yields black tea (or what is literally called "red tea" in Chinese) is indeed called “fermentation” in Chinese, albeit erroneously, since no fermentation decay actually takes place).
"Can you make a lot of money from planting tea?"
"No. In one year, all of my land back home can produce a total gross of...maybe 100,000 RMB. Then you have to subtract costs like labor, equipment, materials. And it's very tiring work."
"So you prefer life in Wuxi?"
"Yeah."
"What do the people back home in the village think of people like you, that go to other cities to work and chase new opportunities? How do they see you?"
"How they see me...hah...how do I say this? I guess think I'm relatively diligent." (The word he used here is 勤劳, which means hard-working, diligent, industrious, etc.)
"Oh, is it rare for people to leave the village?"
"No, not at all. Most people who are hard-working like me will leave the village. The people that don't want to come out like me are...how to say this...ah….not so diligent...?"
"So if I were to say it more bluntly, your village now is full of lazy people and the elderly?"
"Hahaha, yes, that's right. Lazy people and old people. There are no opportunities for development in my hometown, unless you want to grow tea."
"What about eco-tourism? Does the government encourage you to open homestays?
"Oh, of course. There's even one next to my house. But there are too many. You can't make enough money doing that, I think. There's too much competition. Most people still rely on the income from growing tea."
"Well, I guess they live a more relaxed life compared to you?"
"Oh yeah, it's relaxed. But they also have a lot of financial stress, you know? And it's not because they have high cost of goods, like in the city. The main issue that causes financial stress is the old traditions in the countryside. You need to spend so much money on gifts! Births, birthdays, weddings…just think about it. Even if you aren't so familiar with the person, you should still give them 100 or 200 RMB for a wedding. If it's a close relative, you have to give them 500 to 1000 RMB. That's a lot of money if you only earn 6000-7000 RMB per season...
…but if you just came to visit, I guess you would say it's very relaxed, very comfortable. My niece...she married a foreign guy, like you. Now they live overseas. But when he came to visit our hometown, he said it was so comfortable, he wanted to stay forever".
"Hah, of course he thought it was comfortable. You guys were probably feeding him delicious food all day and treating him like the emperor's son. He didn't have to do anything."
"Hahaha, yes, that's true. You totally understand the Chinese hospitality culture".
"Trust me...I experience it when I go to my wife's hometown. I don't dare to tell anyone that I enjoy a dish, or I will end up eating it every day for the rest of my visit. One time, I said I liked a certain beef dish on the first day I arrived, and they made me that beef dish every day for my whole stay…"
He's cracking up. "Hahahaha we did that too! So…do you live in Wuxi?"
"No I'm just here for work."
"What kind of work?"
"I work in energy, mostly wind and solar. Does Jinzhai County have wind and solar power?"
"No wind...no solar. We have hydropower storage, though. It pumps water at night when the power is cheap and generates power during the day.You know it?"
“Yeah, of course, this is part of my work too. Pumped hydropower storage is very important to make sure you have sufficient power supply.” (I was somewhat surprised he knew the economic principles of pumped storage hydropower…it’s not exactly an everyday topic).
"What do you think of these electric cars?" he gestures at the car in front of us, which was easily identifiable as an electric vehicle because of its green license plate.
"I think they're good. You'll save money on gas, plus you can get a license plate for free."
"Yeah, that part is good, but I think it's bad overall."
"Oh, why?"
"Think about it. In China, we have 400 million cars now. If all of them switch to EVs, that will raise the demand for power. Electricity will become expensive! Maybe we will have to pay 5 yuan per kilowatt hour!"
"Don't worry, I don't think that will happen. The price should stay steady..."
"Ah well, I don't know. But I don't want an electric vehicle. I like hydrogen vehicles. Japan is very strong for cars. I like their hydrogen cars. Their technology is very advanced." (Again, I wonder where he's been learning about Japanese hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to have reached this opinion?)
At this point, 30 mins have flown by, and we are pulling up to the hotel, so I say farewell to Mr. Wang and head into my meetings. Thanks to the chatty and curiously tech-savvy driver, I have gained a new appreciation for tea farming and the details of maximizing the benefits from your rural hukou, while adding a new travel destination too. Not bad for a short taxi ride in Wuxi.
-End
Surprised you didn't know about the red/green tea thing. Furthermore, there's also tea that's "in-between", like tie guan yin if I'm not mistaken.
The British only knew the secret of the red tea and green tea very late after they had been used to drinking it for centuries.
The misnomer "fermentation" is a typical example. Other examples are such as people used to call quicklime as "生石灰" and slaked lime as "熟石灰" or cast iron as 生铁,carbon steel as 熟铁。Always try to borrow daily life concepts to explain everything.
The firm believing of low electricity price is another typical idea, how people here know little about the heavy subsidies the gov pay to daily utilities like water and public transportation cost. But the subsidies, after all, are paid and shared by every tax payer ...