Subway Sketch: Authoritarianism on the cheap

Five cellphones stand between me and the compartment door. It's rush hour, and the compartment is packed. The doors slide open, time and time again, and the people standing out on the platform look in and decide to wait. In a few stops, however, I'll have no choice. I'll have to run the gauntlet.

Until then I bide my time, reading this week's Spectator. I have to say, whenever I read book reviews in the Spectator I feel a tad guilty. I really ought to be reading more, making time for the classics, making the most of the Spectator's advice. Instead, intransigent, I continue scouting on my own accord, trying to discover some gems hidden in the muck.

But that's not what today's sketch is about.

In the morning, on my way to the subway station, I watched as Chengguan (City Management) made their rounds. They were checking storefronts, making sure they weren't spilling out onto the pavement -- as shop owners the world over are prone to do. At every shop, one of the Chengguan stops, pulls out his smart phone, and snaps a picture. They've been doing this for years; it's a thankless job.

In America police departments probably still issue special cameras for this sort of thing. China does it on the cheap. Bring your own tools of oppression, comrade.

A curious detail you might overlook is how the chengguan take their pictures. The one snapping shots waits until his partner is in frame. Then and only then does he snap away. Some chengguan somewhere, I suppose, must have got creative, taking a bunch of snaps of storefronts and doctoring the timestamps and submitting them whenever they claimed to make their rounds.

At the station all our bags are x-rayed, and some of us get worked over with wands. Every ticket entrance down to the platform has an x-ray machines and four security guards. Inside the station, somewhere, a police officer prowls, spot checking IDs. They never check foreigners for passports. They never check women. And they never check the elderly. Instead they limit their spot checks to young men. It seems to work.

The devices the police use to perform these checks are a little bulkier than the typical cellphone but not quite the size of a graphing calculator. In a few years, no doubt, such devices will be relics, and the police will just use their smart phones. Progress of a kind.

Down on the platform, a subway worker stands watch, making sure nothing goes amiss. Nothing does. Balloons are banned, but this rule is breached more often than I like.

On the way back home, I imagine what would happen if the trains kept running but the turnstiles stopped turning. It would take only a few trains, ten minutes worth, before we'd have a huge problem. The station is crowded as it is at the best of times. If a sudden blockage developed, some unfortunate would find themselves crushed.

I suppose that's what I get for living in the suburbs. Yes, rent is cheaper, and we have much more house than before, but rush hour is truly something special.

Maybe I should leave earlier.

Subway Sketch: Sea of Proles

         

Transferring lines at Xujiahui, an old woman, very elderly, jostles me on the stairs. She and her husband offer no apology. This isn’t America, after all. But being American, I do feel a tad annoyed. I get over it quickly, reminding myself how hard her life has been.

Given that they’re strangers, I can’t pin down their age, but I can give a range. This old couple, with their dim black and gray hair, bundled in as many layers as an onion, are in their 70s or 80s. They’re frightfully short. They come up to about my elbow.

When they were young, Mao took his Great Leap Forward. Tens of millions died. The countryside starved.

My mother-in-law and aunts were little back then. There were four of them. When the madness ended, there were only three; the youngest had died. The three sisters that survived also come up to about my elbow.

Their father, a landlord, had been well-off. He had two wives, but neither gave him a son. So he adopted one, which is quite expensive. The villagers envied him. During the Cultural Revolution, they made his daughters suffer.

Today, the son has nothing to do with his adopted family. Doesn't visit. Doesn't call. He gives his birth family his undivided attention. I wonder if they hate him for it. After all, they went half-starved and their sister died so he might live.

Whatever the case, it’s not his fault. He’s had a hard life, too; his wife has been in a coma for twenty some years.

The train stops. A pair of construction workers come on. Their burnt red skin is hidden under a layer of dust, giving them a faded look. They seem happy, dignified even.

One of them wears a red hardhat with China Construction printed on the side. They must be lucky. China Construction has a habit of not paying their workers. They can go months without pay, receiving nothing but food, a cot, and a shipping container for a dorm. Chinese New Year has only just ended. Maybe that explains their contended looks.

I think it must be the work itself. Unlike factory workers, construction workers get to think on their feet, tackling different problems, working in different environments. They get exercise both body and mind. They’re not like factory workers or the pale wraithlike mind-workers that surround them.

Around eight years ago, I lived in the Pearl River Delta. The school was surrounded by factories, mostly garment factories. It was a very gloomy place, where the young workers looked exhausted and depressed.

The train stops. The compartment doors slide open. A wave a people push on. A lot of them with luggage. Chinese New Year is over. Back from their holiday’s or trips home, they embrace the hurly-burly of city life by pulling out their cellphones and quickly zoning out.

I wonder if they’re happy. Is their infatuation with images and illusions freely chosen or fostered by the state? In Animal Farm, the pigs distract the sheep with slogans and campaigns. In 1984, the Party distracts the proles with pop culture, sport, and smut. 1984, that’s the world I’m living in.

But look on the bright side, at least no one’s starving.