Perceptions of Chinese Life

Abstract

The reader will not find a documented treatise here. The book is, without apology, personal — eclectic, discursive, impressionistic. There exist plenty of methodical treatises on topics discussed in it — on the rural industries of China, for example, or on recondite and controversial subjects such as industrial relations in Hong Kong or the Chinese share of the retail trade in Indonesia. One recent treatise sounds close to my theme — Value Change in Chinese Society,¹ by a team of American professors; I have benefited from some of the facts it brings to light, but it only deals with small parts of my chosen field. An insight both deeper and broader is to be had from The China Diifference² by another team of American professors (edited by Ross Terrill), but its focus is the mainland at the present time and the ways in which life differs there from life in America. I know of no comparative overview of the quality of Chinese life as it has been lived, during the last few decades, under the variety of political, economic and social regimes that have imposed themselves on different communities of the Chinese people. My attempt at an overview brings together matter usually deemed proper for separate genres; it can explore none of them thoroughly and comes to few conclusions — it is one man’s view.

‘… at thirty, one’s attitude is self-confident … at sixty, one is more discriminating’

(Analects of Confucius)