China Dream Practicum

Leaving for China for what was my third trip to the country had me excited to get back and see what had changed in cities I remembered like Beijing and Shanghai, but also to explore new parts of the country that have captivated me for so long. Mandarin has been my language of study at both my undergraduate university and at MIIS, so there was a fair amount of excitement to also be surrounded by opportunities to hear and use this language. A final bit of background that had an influence on my desire to go, as well as on what my research was geared towards was that I’ve taken three graduate level content courses on China, two of which were in Mandarin, and all of them allowed me to try and get a sense of what was meant by President Xi Jinping’s concept of “the China Dream,” along with the monumental policy decisions he has made in recent years.

Before arriving, I was expecting for many people to produce a similar definition to the China Dream that Xi has put forth—that of cooperation and win-win policies where China becomes stronger in the world along with other nations becoming more prosperous. While we did find that opinion appear across different regions in China, especially along the more developed and economically prosperous Eastern regions, this did not capture the nuances of this Dream for people in different positions in society. For example, many people took the dream very personal and applied it specifically to their life as a student, non-profit incubator, environmental protection advocate, etc., leading to very different dreams that mean something beyond a political slogan. Several people addressed it as just like the American Dream, where they want a good house, stable job to provide for their family, and to overall be comfortable in life with less stress over material concerns. One response that we received in our first interview with a Beijing university professor left an impression on me, and was very distinct from the remainder of our interviews; they said that the slogan of “realize the China Dream” is actually quite interesting itself, because if it is a dream, then can it or should it be realized? He elaborated on the fact that Chinese politics often are intentionally overly ambitious so that it can serve as an inspiration, but also a sign of the ambition of the Chinese Communist Party.

Another aspect of this trip that stood out to me was the propaganda posters and murals all throughout the cities we visited. They were reused so that each airport, subway, and highway had one common theme throughout the country: visibility of “The China Dream” and Chinese socialism characteristics plastered on every available wall. These widespread and unmissable images became a focus of mine themselves, leading me to the idea of one of my contributions coming from this trip to be a photo essay, where I highlight these images in different cities and the complex meaning they hold. This also made me notice very quickly that all of this that I’d seen in mainland China was not to be found when I personally explored Hong Kong when the research trip ended. Spending 5 days exploring Hong Kong in its city center, subways, and various places away from the city, I saw not one of these posters spread throughout the rest of China, and in fact only saw one sign that mentioned “the China Dream” at all. This sign in a side-street in Kowloon district in Hong Kong’s downtown was outside of an activism museum that focused on the protests in Hong Kong in 2014 when China was exerting its control over what were supposed to be democratic elections. Perhaps this means Hong Kong is not included in the China Dream, or maybe it is a reflection of the “one country, two systems” policy that gives Hong Kong much more freedom than the mainland.

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