Chinese Peasantry: a Survey 中国农民调查 by Chen Guide

[roddy]

The Caijing articles I mention above are here, here and here - they're all in Chinese, involve lots of complicated numbers and you need to register (free) to read them though. Very interesting stuff, if this is the kind of stuff you are interested in. I'll try and summarise them at some point, but at the moment it's bedtime.

Roddy

[wushijiao]

Thanks for providing the Caijing articles. It's the best magazine in China, they say. Their articles take me forever to read though.

Here's another article from the Economist:

http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2492860[/url]

[roddy]

I spent most of the weekend working through those Caijing articles and the Southern Weekend, both of which had huge coverage of the 三农问题. Worth it though, I feel like I've got a better grasp of the issues now. I'd love to try and recap them here, but to be honest they're just such long complicated articles I would be hard-pressed to do them justice. I really should take notes when I'm reading this kind of thing - I always feel like I've understood it, but if someone asks me about it two hours later I quite often realise I didn't . . .

Roddy

[roddy]

Some more stuff for you (I'm interested, don't know if anyone else is). Pheonix TV have what looks like a transcript of their show on the book (haven't read this) and if you are interested in how an overall restructuring of administration might help, there's another Caijing article here, which analyses the problems in terms of the administrative structure (local cities administer the counties, and suck the life out of them) and compares it with a different system in Zhejiang (province administer cities and counties). Again you need to register, and again, it's not exactly elementary reading material . . .

Roddy

[889]

中国农民调查 has just been published in English as Will the Boat Sink the Water? by PublicAffairs Books.

The New York Times reviewed it this week (registration required).

http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/publicaffairsbooks-cgi-bin/display?book=1586483587

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/books/07kahn.html

[Guest realmayo]

I'm half way through and have found the book extremely readable -- I was anticipating something very dry and survey-like, but it's not: so far it is a series of interesting narratives (with corruption, injustice, poverty, violence etc). Good stuff.

The English title, "Will the boat sink the water", apparently plays on an old Chinese saying:

according to according to ESWN ( http://www.zonaeuropa.com/200606.brief.htm ) :

<< “水能載舟，亦能覆舟” (translated: Water holds up the boat, water can also sink the boat." The Tang Emperor used this phrase to mark the relationship between the ruler (=the boat) and the people (=the water), for the people can support the ruler and they can also overthrow him. The book title here turns everything upside down -- Will the ruler destroy its people? >>

[roddy]

Wow, had forgotten about this thread. Good to see it finally translated into English. Any comments on quality of the translation from those who've seen it?

[gato]

According to Joseph Kahn, the translation is serviceable.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/books/07kahn.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1155121562-Y/WUvnf1Q2pxAuhw0k/nHQ

Painting the Peasants Into the Portrait of China’s Economic Boom

By JOSEPH KAHN

Published: August 7, 2006

But their greater contribution is the evidence they gather that the one-party political system itself is the real issue. Even in the 1990’s, which they describe as the worst of times for those depending on the land, Chinese leaders were always trying to do something about the rural problem. Ultimately, the authors argue, they will have to do something about themselves.

Rural government has grown much faster than agricultural output. In the Former Han Dynasty (206 B.C. to A.D. 8 ) China had 8,000 people working the land for every official living off the public purse. In 1987 the ratio was 67-1. In 1998 it was 40-1, according to statistics Ms. Wu and Mr. Chen collected.

The book makes for compelling reading in parts but has not been, or perhaps cannot be, smoothly translated into English. The Chinese text is full of idiomatic phrases that have been cumbersomely rendered into clichés like “calling a spade a spade” and “see the light at the end of the tunnel” that are not redolent of Chinese culture.

[[欧阳江]]

Does anyone know where to get a hold of this book in China (Chinese)?

[gato]

You can find copies of it on the web. They seem to be accessible within China, too. I guess it's not banned, anymore.

http://www.bupt.edu.cn/news/book/jsh/032/

http://www.google.com/search?q=%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E5%86%9C%E6%B0%91%E8%B0%83%E6%9F%A5+&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official