A glimpse of the other China

• Source: The Global Times
• [08:50 May 07 2009]
• Comments

By Chen Chenchen

The Yunnan provincial government recently publicized a regulation to invest 18 million yuan ($2.6 million) to improve a public cultural service system in rural areas. Specifically, the money is to ensure that on average each farmer reads one book annually, watches one drama per quarter and participates in one cultural activity twice a month by 2010.

People in metropolitan areas may be hard pressed to imagine what a poor cultural life people have in rural places. Critics who understand rural China have lampooned the goal of “one book per capita per year” as another “Great Leap Forward Movement,” since even this moderate goal is too great a luxury for people there and can hardly be realized.

Ninety percent of China’s illiterate population lives in rural areas, making up one fifth of the rural population. Even those who have had some education rarely read. Men play cards, women get together to chat, and kids eagerly scribble in their textbooks. Simply providing them books will not guarantee them reading.

Foreign visitors often leave China with puzzling impressions. Drive any direction from the center of Beijing, and within one hour you will see a completely different world.

Instead of endless skyscrapers, bars and fashionable ladies, there are shabby houses, scraggly trees, and shirtless men walking on dusty roads.

That’s another true picture of China. Behind shabby clothes and destitute housing, the poor cultural life is much more dreadful.