I was fascinated by older people in China - it's stunning to think of the history they have lived through, and interesting to wonder how they're adapting to new, ultra-consumerist, high technology modern China given the radically different political ideologies they have lived with, and often the great poverty and deprivation as well. Many work far into their old age, due to poor pension provision, and in lots of cases pressure from local officials to carry out 'voluntary' community work in exchange for the benefits they are entitled to; so in China you see pensioners sweeping the streets, patrolling them in uniform and selling snacks on street corners. Millions are also bringing up their grandchildren, especially in smaller towns where all the young people have emigrated to cities to work; in some smaller towns we visited we saw no local people aged between about 20 and 50. That generation has become the labour force that makes 'made in China' goods, leaving the country towns for pensioners and children. We talked to as many of these older people as we could, and heard a lot of similar views - China's younger generation have too much material comfort, are too caught up with consumer culture, and can't understand the poverty and deprivation their parents went through. Lots of them were nostalgic for an era when the state provided homes and healthcare, and said they were proud to keep serving their communities - even a street sweeper in her eighties - complaining that young people are too individualistic. I was shocked that people who had lived through the Cultural Revolution, and endless purges before that, where neighbours denounced one another for tiny or imaginary ideological offences and former friends meted out violent punishments, could still have such faith in community and belief in working for the good of society. I couldn't go into these complex political and psychological issues with the people we met, but I did read an extraordinary book that does, China Witness by Xinran. It's a collection of first person life stories of Chinese people in their seventies and eighties, helping you see how a policeman who jailed hundreds in the 1950s because going to high school had put them in a bourgeois social class, or because they had listened to foriegn radio, could still believe he had stuck to fair moral principles, as far as the orders given him allowed; how a lantern maker banned from practising his craft after it was labelled too old-fashioned for Communist China still supported Mao Zedong because his regime improved housing for the poorest; and how a couple of soldiers forced to separate because love was considered sentimental and Western rekindled their relationship 40 years later, amongst other moving stories. A mix of survival instinct, near blind faith in the Communist party (partly explained by the great hardship many suffered under previous governments, and partly by real rises in living standards), a cultural tendency not to question authority and fear for their lives seems to have let her subjects pull through with their sanity intact - interesting to think about when you meet older Chinese people now.
Passing the secrets of Chinese traditional music down a generation, in this case to my sister - the man she is talking to was playing in the street with the fiddle player pictured above, they both complained young Chinese aren't interested in learning their old instruments.
We often saw older people sleeping in the street...
and collecting rubbish.
Many make crafts to sell - this lady is selling shoes.
They do still have some fun though - mostly having very long games of go on street corners, often with an appreciative audience.
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