By Wang Wei
I was born in 1978, the year China implemented the policy of reform and opening up. Recalling all that I have experienced as I have grown, I feel that great changes have occurred over these 30 years. It seems to me that China's reform and opening up has gone through four identifiable phases:
1978 to the early 1980s: The early stages of reform and opening-up
After crushing the "Gang of Four", China entered a five year transitional period, also known as the "Post-Mao Era", ruled by Hua Guofeng. I was not conscious of these major events since at the time I was just 10 months old. However, in my childhood memory I can still recollect some "old things" – for example, strong impressions of the military and paramilitary. Today really is a “paradise” compared with the past.
Late 1980s: The second revolution begins in rural areas
In the autumn of 1985 I enrolled in a village-run primary school. I have an impression that the village has changed steadily since these days, although at that time I did not understand the significance of these changes for my future life. Changes in my father’s career brought a steady improvement in our standard of living.
My father returned to the farm from his demobilized military unit on the eve of the implementation of the reform and opening-up policy. I had to look after my little brother when I was four, my mother and father seeming to spend their whole day working in the fields. In the early 1980s, together with a partner, my father's comrade-in-arms founded the first collective enterprise, where my parents worked when free. In due course he began to get rich, with an income of over ten thousand yuan – a rare achievement in our community. As well as earning a wage, my family enjoyed some extras for the first time, such as an electronic watch and clothing from the village-run factories, items that were previously unthinkable.
The desire to escape poverty and live in prosperity inspired my father to make a bold decision – to leave the village with a small number of other farmers in pursuit of laboring work – which launched his 20-year career as a migrant worker. At first he worked on the railways, later as a construction worker in road building. On the first occasion that we ate green plastic-packaged instant noodles at home, not seeing the instructions on this new type of food we put 10 bags in the pot, but the resulting taste was an unheard-of delight. In due course we were able to buy furniture and other items: cabinet, double bed, sofa, television sets, tap recorders and so on. Father was promoted from laborer to supervisor and day by day our life improved.
After 1997: China’s transient population
China's reform and opening-up policy was a major decision of Chinese decision makers. One of its results was the creation of a floating population.
I played with other village children at elementary school; like farmers going to a town fair I got along with children from the whole town at my junior high school; at high school I associated with children from the whole county, like attending a county-level market fair. It was not until I enrolled at university in 1997 that I experienced city life, communicating with other students from the whole country. I also felt the embarrassment of sitting on a toilet for the first time in my classmate’s home.
It seems to me that the salient characteristic of this period was fluidity – on one level through people like migrant workers and students, on another level through exchanges of goods and information. Only by breaking through the boundaries of urban and rural areas and administrative divisions, could there be a real reform and opening-up.
In the new century: reflections and choices
I graduated from college and joined adult society in 2001, now ready to start to make my own decisions. I was one of the first batches of graduates following the implementation of "dual track" – where the state no longer took responsibility for providing students with jobs. At first I could not find work, in spite of many a visit to the job-hunting market. But finally I found employment in my home town of Zhangjiakou, through China's special policy of supporting poverty-stricken areas.
Marriage followed smoothly and soon I had a daughter, but her health was a headache for me. She needed an antibiotic drip for the first time when she was 10 months old – now she is two and a half years old and has been through the process three or four times, costing almost 1,000 yuan on each occasion. Gradually I realized that this was not just a personal issue, but that our society was exposed to epidemics – the outbreak of SARS in 2003 being a turning point. While we were acutely aware that this was a crisis, we understood that we were also being exposed to issues of changing ideas and practices. The pressure of our environment and our developing prospects forced us to reflect, and this reflection in due course provided the context for such ideas as the concept of scientific development.
(China.org.cn translated by Jessica Zhang, October 29, 2008)