Lifestyle / Hot Pot Column

Rural-urban semantic divide

By Raymond Zhou ( China Daily ) Updated: 2007-04-03 09:43:50

If you look up the words "urban", "suburban" or "rural" in English and Chinese dictionaries, they list definitions that are essentially the same. No, not that "urban" and "rural" mean the same, but "urban" and its Chinese equivalent mean the Well, you get the point.

But mind you, these terms for clusters of population may conjure up different images in each language. When you mention "suburban" in English, it's an endless expanse of subdivisions with manicured lawns and single-detached houses. In Chinese, it often refers to "urban villages" with density so high that a fly has difficulty squeezing in between two buildings, and neighborhoods that are so dirty they are sometimes mistaken for junkyards.

On the other hand, "urban" denotes gleaming skyscrapers that house well-paid suits in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. But a New Yorker or Chicagoan may think of 'hoods and projects?

I can't imagine why government-subsidized housing complexes should take on such featureless names. Why not "welfare houses for the poor"? We have "welfare houses" for public servants here, which, if you ponder it hard enough, is more descriptive and accurate. And we'll relocate urban poor to the surrounding provinces, keeping our downtowns as postcard picturesque as tourist sites.

"Small town" can be a misnomer when translated literally. A town like Sausalito in San Francisco Bay Area has its quaint charm, with its galleries on hillside and coffee houses by the bay. A typical small town in China has streets that look like they haven't been swept in a decade and a sewage system that is very 19th century, if it exists.

Things usually get worse when it grows into a small city. Now, city officials will pour as much money as cement into building white elephants, like the ubiquitous square. And they will install along the thoroughfare lampposts so ornate they belong in a rococo palace. Each post uses so many exquisitely shaped bulbs that, to save electricity, they are turned on only when big shots come to visit.

Of course, we have enchanting little towns like Yunnan's Lijiang and Zhejiang's Wuzhen. But some of them charge a hefty entrance fee. And once you get there, stay put. If you venture outside, your eyes will be polluted with row after row of white-tiled buildings and non-descript shops that are the hallmark of the supercharged economic locomotive.

You'll be excused if you believe that China's urban planners have an obsession with size. They all want to build their cities into "international metropolises" and some have started by cloning the White House, but much enlarged.

Taking over the task of putting together livable communities are real-estate developers, whose projects are sometimes as far-flung and inclusive as sizeable towns. So, how do you call these gated enclaves of the nation's burgeoning middle class? "Suburban" would correspond to the Western concept, but that would mix up the shantytowns that dot the outskirts of downtowns.

Maybe anthropologists 1,000 years from now will write: It has the gentility of days gone by and a laid-back charm. Let's make it a tourist destination.

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(China Daily 04/03/2007 page20)