Oracle Bones: A History of China’s Checkered Past

Alfred Henley

HIS-168

Word Count: 1349

12/11/2017

Oracle Bones: A history of China’s checkered past

Does China care about violating human rights, or just being a powerful country?

China is more diverse than I originally thought. There are many different groups of people who live in China, like Polat. Polat was Uighur, Uighur were members of a Muslim group and originated from the western region of Xingjiang. It was one of the most ethnically diverse part of the country. In the media, we don’t see China as being very diverse. When you think of China you only think of Chinese people living there, because of its history of closing its borders. There are thirteen non-Chinese ethnicities native to the region and Uighers numbered around 8 million (Hessler 23). There are 13 non-Chinese ethnicities native to the region of Xinjiang. There were more non-Chinese people living in China than I originally thought. China has a rich history with countless artifacts and documents about their history, and the people are proud. When you see China in movies or the media, it looks like there are only Han Chinese people from the country who live there. There were Koreans from the North and South located in China as well. Koreans who were adopted and forgot their native tongue, Russian money changers, Turkish traders, and ethnic Chinese who owned most of the shops.

 Another thing that I noticed was when the Chinese embassy bombing happened, there were protesters screaming “Don’t buy Kentucky!” and “Don’t eat McDonalds” (Hessler 17) which was located outside of Nanjing University, it shows that American influence reached China long ago, and not everyone expressed enthusiasm.

Another stereotype is that China and North Korea have excellent relations and open borders. Both countries are communist-run and do trade together so it was always assumed. When Peter Hessler took a research trip to a Chinese city called Dandong, across the Yalu River from North Korea, all that Hessler could see was children swimming and armed guards (Hessler 16), which was a sign to me that North Korea is closed off to all countries, even the one nation that backed them in the Korean War. North Korea knows it needs China, so there is a unique relationship. North Korea had an embassy located in China and Hessler sometimes would see North Korean diplomats walking on the street. The Chinese showed North Koreans respect by trying not to insult them in any way.  

I was also surprised to find that Chinese students were obsessed with American culture. Willy was one of Hessler’s students who was very intelligent. He was obsessed with the English language. There were different types, like special English and restaurant English offered at Willy’s school. He was always trying out some new phrase and loved the word “yahoo”. Nothing was more exciting to him than learning new English phrases (Hessler 44). Willy would also listen to a radio show called “The Voice of America” (Hessler 51). Americans would rarely ever listen to it. The station was a wartime creation of the American government back in World War II and had been expanded to provide programming for over fifty-five languages. Though the show was technically not American, because they were worried about other government’s promoting propaganda, the show was widely popular in China and pulled in 90 million weekly viewers. Willy would listen to the special English program nightly.

There were intense ties to localities and everyone was very proud. Chinese were raised at a young age to respect the family hierarchy, and do what your parents told you to do. Emily migrated so she could find work, she didn’t do so lightly. The Chinese people want to work, if there is no work for the younger generation, they move. People didn’t have to migrate back in the day, but with Opening and Reform people started to move south. Nancy’s parents were upset with her for abandoning them to go work in a Special Economic Zone (Hessler 87). You were to help the family to the best of your ability. Young people were starting to move to the coast and to work in factories like Shenzhen because capitalism thrived there (Hessler 77).

Arranged marriages were very common and people would marry into a family that would financially benefit their own family. Most Chinese tended to marry early. Chinese were also taught to look after their parents when they got old. When Hessler asked his students “would you rather have a long life with normal ups and downs or, or an extremely happy life with that ends in only anther twenty years? Most students answered yes to the first part. During Willy’s time at school he developed a crush on Nancy. Once they both finished school they would have to go back to their respective hometowns and work at jobs assigned by the school. Willy and Nancy had to bribe their way to a new city so they wouldn’t have to live incredibly far apart. When Willy and Nancy moved to their new city, Nancy’s parents would call her and guilt trip her all the time into moving back home. It was considered rare for a Chinese to leave their areas but this changed after 1978 when Deng introduced Reform and Opening. Factory towns sprung up like all over the place. It took guts to leave, but migrant workers were considered more capable than those who stuck around their villages.