Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia - Jurusan Antropologi ...

218 STRATIFICATION AND MOBILITY IN URBAN CHINA
The largest cleavage within the new rich is between those with middle-class
occupations, who we have concentrated on so far, and the individual business
operators (getihu), who make up a smaller but extremely visible proportion of the
new rich in urban China. Therefore it is necessary to give more attention to this
group of private traders, restaurant and shop proprietors, and small-time
manufacturers, who make up the small-scale private sector in China’s cities.
Along their route to wealth, it also seems that access to political power and
scarce technical skills, as well as entrepreneurial acumen, are important in deciding
who gets ahead. Most private businesses in Beijing have been established by lowstatus
and less-educated manual and non-manual workers, often unemployed or
semi-employed workers from failing state enterprises. Interview and survey
information make it evident that most such businesses remain small. Only a small
proportion of ‘street-level’ individual business operators make it into the ranks of
the ‘new rich’. However, from the late 1980s, increasing numbers of cadres and
professionals began to ‘xia hai’ (‘jump into the sea’): to leave their secure jobs in
state enterprises and institutions, and to use their skills and connections in
entrepreneurial ventures. A nationwide survey of private and individual businesses
conducted in 1992 asked respondents about their previous occupations (Fu et al.
1993). It found that most technicians and administrators went into manufacturing
and technological businesses, whereas the great majority of those formerly
employed in clerical, sales and manual occupations were in service-sector
businesses such as restaurants and repair shops (Fu et al. 1993:127).
My own interviews along Haidian Road–the heart of Beijing’s large computer
and electronics sector–confirmed this general pattern. Many of the proprietors I
interviewed were former researchers, academics or, in a few cases, government
workers. Many of them had ‘jumped into the sea’ during the 1980s, especially after
1989, when the Beijing massacre and subsequent political crackdown had either
placed their careers under a cloud, or convinced them that the risks of the private
sector were more attractive than the bureaucratic encumbrances of work in a
government or university office. When asked about their motives for starting up a
private business, several emphasised that although the attractions of a high income
were important, the freedom and autonomy they enjoyed as individual proprietors
was also an important consideration. One said, ‘of course, making money is
important, but for me it is also important to be making money on my own and not
having to worry about anyone telling me what to do’. These impressions are borne
out in the same 1992 survey of private and individual businesses mentioned above
(Fu et al. 1993). Respondents were asked to describe their motives in going into the
private sector: whereas most former manual and routine non-manual workers
appeared to embrace shortterm objectives–scraping together a livelihood or
making money–most former technicians and administrators stated a desire to
establish an enterprise or undertaking (shiye).
To sum up: urban China’s new rich remain a heterogeneous and ill-defined
group, but members of China’s middle class of cadres and professionals make
up its core. Contrary to the Chinese version of the log cabin myth, in which private