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Invisible Inequalities: The Status of Subei People in Contemporary Shanghai

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Emily Honig
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Extract

The way in which to analyse and subsequently eliminate the vast inequalities that structured Chinese society was a major concern of Communist Party officials when they took power in 1949. During the 1950s and 1960s a number of political campaigns were launched which sought to reduce class differences as well as to eradicate the discriminatory practices of the Han Chinese towards peoples identified as national minorities, such as Tibetans and Uighurs. The successes and failures of these campaigns have been the subject of numerous studies by western scholars, who have described and attempted to analyse the persistence of social inequality in the decades since 1949. Yet the analyses of Chinese officials and western scholars alike, focusing on class and ethnicity, have overlooked a form of inequality that is perhaps most basic to China's largest urban centre, Shanghai, namely that based on native-place identification.

Throughout the 20th century, social inequality, discriminatory practices and popular prejudice in Shanghai have been largely based on or correlate to a distinction between people of different local origins. Sometimes local origins have coincided with class, as people from one district tended to dominate the elite while natives of another area constituted the majority of the poor. But often native-place identity has itself been the basis of prejudice and inequality. This pattern has persisted in the decades since 1949, not because government campaigns attacked the problem and failed, but rather because the problem has largely been ignored, neither fitting the officially recognized categories of class nor of ethnicity.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 122 , June 1990 , pp. 273 - 292
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1990

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References

1 See, e.g. Davis-Friedmann, Deborah, “Intergenerational inequality and the Chinese Revolution,” Modern China (April 1985), 177–201;Google ScholarDavis, Deborah, “The impact of Post-Mao reforms on job mobility in Chinese cities: the Shanghai experience,” (unpublished paper prepared for “The Social Consequences of the Post-Mao Reforms,” Harvard University, May 1988);Google ScholarWalder, Andrew, Communist Neotraditionalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986);Google ScholarWhite, Lynn, Policies of Chaos: The Organizational Causes of Violence in China's Cultural Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988).Google Scholar

2 Yiren, Zou, Jiu Shanghai renkou bianqiande yanjiu (Research on the Population of Old Shanghai) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1980), pp. 112–13.Google Scholar From 1885 to 1935, Shanghai natives accounted for an average of only 19% of the population of the International Concession, and 26% of the Chinese-owned parts of the city. It is impossible to know the exact percentage of the Shanghai population that was composed of people from Subei, since currently available population statistics which indicate native place specify only the province. Shanghai residents listed as being from Jiangsu were as likely to have come from southern Jiangsu as from the northern part of the province. According to the only available statistic, there were 1,500,000 people from Subei in Shanghai in 1949. The entire population of Shanghai at that time was 5,062,878. Subei people thus accounted for nearly one-fifth of the population. See Junmei, Xie, “Shanghai lishishang renkou de bianqian” (“Historical changes in the population of Shanghai“) Shehui kexue (Social Sciences), No. 3 (1980), p. 112.Google Scholar It should also be noted that no standard definition of Subei exists. For a discussion of the problem of contradictory definitions of Subei, see Emily Honig, “Creating ethnicity: Subei people in Shanghai” (unpub. paper).

3 Binsun, Luo, Subei zhenxiang (The True Condition of Subei) (n.p., 1947), p. 2.Google Scholar

4 For a more extensive discussion of employment patterns see Emily Honig, “Native place hierarchy and labour market segmentation: the case of Subei people in Shanghai” in Thomas Rawski and Lillian Li (eds.), Chinese History in Economic Perspective (University of California Press, forthcoming).

5 For a description of the shack settlements, see Kexueyuan, Shanghai Shehui, Yanjiusuo, Jingji, Shanghai penghuqude bianqian (Changes in the Shanghai Shack Settlements) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1965).Google Scholar

6 For an excellent history of the Okies in California see James Gregory, American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and the Development of an Okie Subculture in California, 1920–1950 (Oxford University Press, forthcoming). For a discussion of migrants from Appalachia see William, W. Philliber and McCoy, Clyde B. (eds.), with Harry, Dillengham, The Invisible Minority: Urban Appalachians (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1981).Google Scholar

7 This interpretation, held by Xingmin, Yu, is summarized in Xinmin wanbao (New People's Evening News), 12 March 1987.Google Scholar

8 See, e.g., Shen bao (The Huangpu Daily), 6 April 1932; 7 April 1932; 13 April 1932; 19 April 1932; and 11 May 1932.

9 Zhang Yuanjun, “Subei qiang Shanghaihuade yuyin tezheng” (“The particular nature of Subei-accented Shanghai dialect”), Wuyu lun cong (Collected Essays on Wu Dialect) (Shanghai: Shanghai jiaoyu chubanshe, forthcoming).

10 See, e.g., Shanghaishi shanghui (ed.), Shanghai geye gonghui lilingshi minglu (Directory of Board Members of Business Federations of Each Enterprise in Shanghai) (Shanghai: n.d.). Of the approximately 2,500 individuals listed in this commercial directory, published in the 1940s, only 175 were from Subei.

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13 Wu Liangrong, “Analysis of social mobility,” p. 183.

14 Ibid.

15 Chinese sociologists commonly cite the ding ti policy of the late 1970s to explain the persisting patterns. Through this policy educated youth who had been sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution could return to Shanghai if one parent retired. The child would then be assigned to that parent's work unit. This, however, does not explain the employment patterns of the 1950s, 1960s, and most of the 1970s.

16 Some joint enterprises have been accused of refusing to hire Subei ren. Interview with Xu Ping (reporter for Haitan), 1 September 1988.

17 Wu Liangrong, “An analysis of social mobility,” p. 185. This finding is corroborated in Chen Zhongya et al, “Investigation of discrimination,” p. 25.

18 Hongguang, Wang, “Laizi Shanghai ‘xiazhijiao’ de baogao” (“A report from the lower quarters of Shanghai“), Qingnian yidai (Young Generation), No. 4 (1985), p. 56.Google Scholar

19 Interview with Xu Ping (reporter for Haitan), 1 September 1988.

20 Examining the number of “key schools” relative to the population of each district would be one potential index of structural discrimination. Even this, however, is problematic, as scattered evidence suggests that the existence of a key school in a Subei neighbourhood does not guarantee the admission of Subei ren. For example, only 13.4% of the students graduating in 1981 from the Fudan University Middle School were of Subei origins, even though this is a key school that serves the Yangpu district, where a large number of Subei people live. See Chen Zhongya et al, “Investigation of discrimination”, p. 25. Two key-point middle schools serve the more than 20,000 people who reside in the working-class district of Pudong (across the Huangpu River from downtown Shanghai), yet many of the slots are taken by children from other districts who “commute” to Pudong. Interview with Shouyuan, Zhu, Union head, Shanghai Harbour Coal Handling Co., 1 September 1988.Google Scholar

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24 Interview with members of residence committee, Aiguo cun, Dinghai jiedao, Shanghai. 25 August 1988.

25 Cheng Naishan, “Poor Street,” p. 5.

26 Chen Zhongya et al, “Investigation of discrimination,” p. 25.

27 The continued use of the expression “Jiangbei villages“ in reference to these districts is documented in Wang Hongguang, (“A report from the ‘lower quarters’ of Shanghai”), p. 56.

28 Interview with members of the New Fourth Army Research Institute, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, 13 November 1987.

29 Gaan, Margaret, Last Moments of a World (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1978), pp. 248–49.Google Scholar

30 For a written description of the use of some of these terms, see “‘Jiangnan’ he ‘Jiangbei’” (“‘Jiangnan’ and ‘Jiangbei’”) Zhongguo qingnianbao (China Youth News), 30 March 1982. Another derogatory expression used in reference to Subei people is “liang kuai tou”, lit., a “two-pieced head.” This expression derives from the fact that in Subei dialect the words “here” and “there” are zhekuai and lakuai. Interview with Qian Nairong and Ruan Henghui, Shanghai University, November 1986.

31 Interview with Wenyan, Xiao and Jianmin, Wang, Shanghai Huai Opera Troupe, 30 October 1986.Google Scholar

32 Interview with Zhaodi, Chen, Shanghai Number One Cotton Mill, 11 April 1981.Google Scholar

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36 Wang Xiaoying, “Subei guniang.”

37 Hufeng, Han, “Mama shi ‘Jiangbei ren,’” (“My mother is a Jiangbei person”) Xinmin wanbao (New People's Evening News), 30 November 1986.Google Scholar

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41 Interview with Zhangfu, Yang, Cultural affairs bureau. Zhongxing jiedao weiyuanhui, 4 November 1986.Google Scholar

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43 Interview with Jianmin, Wang, Shanghai Huai Opera Troupe, 30 October 1986.Google Scholar

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50 Han Hufeng.

51 Interview with workers at Jing'an district sanitation bureau, 18 November 1986.

52 Interview with He Zhenghua, 12 November 1986.

53 Interview with Dongrun, Zhu, professor, Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Fudan University, in “Zheshi jianli xinxing shehui guanxi de bianjiaoshi: guanyu qishi Subeirende caifang jiyao” (“This is an obstacle to the establishment of a new form of social relations: record of interviews regarding discrimination against Subei people”), Shehu kexue (Social Sciences) (1983), p. 27.Google Scholar

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