"China Inside Out" Chapter 3

According to Bill Dodson in chapter 3 of his book, “China Inside Out”, there is a rift in the Chinese population regarding the difference between the urban population of people living in the cities and the rural population of people living in the countryside. The two populations largely regard that other as different and a lot of the time, rural citizens are harassed by urban citizens, and they are considered less than worthy by their city dwelling counterparts. Despite their differences, the urban people need the rural, as the government uses rural migrant workers to build the urban environment in which the city people live. This work is not as good as it used to be, however. Factory jobs that used to be a ticket to a better life often turn out to be dead ends these days, with operators taking their money, shutting down the factory, and fleeing. Another problem with the rural versus urban situation is the Chinese policy of 户口 (pīnyīn: Hùkǒu). The policy simply makes it so that a family can only have one residence. It makes it so that rural citizens cannot migrate from their villages to urban cities hunting for work. It literally makes it so that rural workers in China are to their urban counterparts as illegal immigrants are to the native United States workforce. Even though they are in the same country and are of the same nationality, rural migrants are barred from moving to the city. This almost makes China seem like two different countries, as the chapter title, “A Tale of Two Countries”, suggests (Dodson 47-65).

My opinion of Dodson’s description of this property transfer and Hùkǒu is that this policy is difficult and should not exist. It damages the potential hopes and dreams of people born in rural China. The government explains it off as preventing cities from being “ringed by… shantytowns… [seen] in India and Africa…”, but I see as a way for the higher classes to maintain their positions as that higher class and shove the poor out of the way (Dodson 56).