I’m writing this post from a former NATO air force base near Rome – academic conferences tend to coincidentally be held at pleasant places. Because of this conference, my first stint in Beijing only lasted 5 days. I’ll be back for the next two months once this conference is over.
Because of the short period of time, it didn’t make sense to rent an apartment for the entire month, so I just did the Chinese equivalent of AirBnB.[1] My father was there while I was booking it, and berated me for paying the deposit.
“NO ONE IN CHINA PAYS A DEPOSIT! YOU’LL NEVER GET IT BACK!”
“But dad this is a trustworthy site and you can’t book without paying a deposit…”
“This is China, everything is negotiable![2] Get their contact and arrange things while you’re there! People in the North will cheat you out of everything!”
I previously said my father was the epitome of cognitive dissonance. He always said that Southerners (i.e. me) are cheap and money-loving, while Northerners are generous and ‘more human’. Yet there he was, worrying about those generous Northerners cheating him out of his money – having your own money on the line is a potent truth serum.
I paid the deposit anyway, and got it back the day I checked out. Through mobile payment, no less. My father was surprised, but was obviously too proud to admit it. In a way, I am beginning to understand his tortured relationship with China. His vision of China, at least the one he wants to believe in, is a China that is unified, law (norm)-abiding,[3] communal.[4] It is hard to reconcile this image of China with his experiences and deeply buried prejudices. There lies the root of his angst.
The real China, I suspect, is somewhere in between. One recent incident stuck with me – I was on the Beijing metro going to work, and a busker was singing and asking for money. I reached out to give him my cash but he gestured towards a small piece of cardboard on his guitar and said, “scan me”. It was a QR code for mobile payments. Buskers don’t take cash.
The rise of mobile payment platforms such as WeChat and Alipay has been astronomical. They have been further reinforced onto the social fabric after the real-identity laws introduced a few years ago. Basically, you had to register your national ID number/passport number with your account. Privacy issues aside,[5] its rising popularity shows a fundamental contradiction in contemporary China.
Apart from convenience, a major reason for its popularity is that counterfeit bills were everywhere. Mobile payments solved this problem, and now you could buy those date cakes I was talking about from a hawker without worrying about getting counterfeit bills in your change.
There is a beautiful contradiction here – progress is driven by the necessity engendered by unethical practices. Progress, that left me awkwardly pocketing my notes, and reaching for my phone as the busker repeats, “scan me”.
[1] There is an actual Chinese AirBnB, but it suffered a PR disaster in its launch. Their chosen Chinese name made them sound like a love hotel- hourly hotels that are used for sex in many parts of Asia. If there was ever evidence that there is a chronic lack of private spaces in Asia, this is it. There is a curious divide between the taboo of talking about sex openly, and the matter-of-fact frankness of people going in and out of love hotels. Everybody knows everybody else is there for one purpose. Imagine waiting in line with ten other people and knowing everyone is there for sex.
[2] I believe this is one of the most popular phrases for Chinese dads. Everything is negotiable. Ergo if you do things the ‘normal’ way it means you’re getting ripped off.
[3] I sense an emphasis on norms over laws in China. This eerily echoes the popular refrain of the Slavophiles about Russia – we had norms and traditions, ergo we had no need for laws.
[4] Interestingly, this was the imagined Russia that the Slavophiles envisioned in the 1830s. I remember feeling a sense of strange déjà vu when I read about the communal, spiritual Russia of Kireevsky.
[5] Since people use these platforms from everything ranging from buying groceries to paying bills, the government now has access to a comprehensive set of data.
Life on the Wall 