03.29.09

From the Delta to the Backwoods: Two weeks in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui

Posted in Announcements, Travel at 10:09 am by Benjamin Ross

Recently I returned from a month-long stint in China during which I was consulting for PacEth for two and a half weeks, and then traveling independently for another two.  At exactly 30 days, it was the shortest duration I have even stayed in the Middle Kingdom, but probably the most efficient in terms of both work, and play.

Downtown Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, one of the more affluent major and modernized cities in the Middle Kingdom

My first two and a half weeks were spent working in Shanghai.  Located at the mouth of the Yangtze River Delta, Shanghai is the center of one of Mainland China’s two most prominent economic regions.  (The other being the Pearl River Delta).  Shanghai, Northern Zhejiang and Southern Jiangsu provinces collectively form a hyper-economic zone which has emerged as one of the wealthiest regions of modern China, representing the benefactors of Deng Xiaoping’s Reform and Opening Up policy.

However, right in the backyard of the Yangtze River Delta lies a province which bares little in common with the glamour and glitz of the Shanghai, Zhejiang and Jiangsu.  With soil and farmland far inferior to the fertile Yangtze River Delta and no port access, Anhui is one of the poorest provinces in China.  Unlike Shanghai with its youngsters touting PSPs and its businessmen chatting on iPhones, its café culture and western markets with organic produce, Anhui remains stuck somewhere between the economic woes of the 60s and 70s, and the economic miracle of the past 30 years.  Public infrastructure is poorly maintained, expendable income is low, and its inhabitants live in constant knowledge that their brothers and sisters, just an overnight train ride away, are sipping lattes and updating their Facebook statuses on mobile wifi.

A city road in Taihe, located in Northwestern Anhui, one of China’s most economically lagging provinces

What Anhui does have though is people.  With a population slightly larger than that of the UK, Anhui is the source of millions of laborers who make the short journey east to Shanghai to work as housekeepers, construction workers, vegetable vendors, and a multitude of other occupations undesirable to Shanghai locals.  Within Shanghai, Anhui people comprise the rapidly expanding urban lower class, needed to support Shanghai’s growing urban elite.  As the dominant element in Shanghai’s working class, Anhui people have developed a reputation as the shysters, sneaks, and beggars which populate the city and draw the ire of its locals.  In the eyes of most Chinese, Anhui is a destitute land from which people come out, but nobody ever (willingly) goes in.

This is exactly why I wanted to spend a week of my vacation exploring Anhui.  Embarking from Shanghai, my two week excursion took me in a clockwise direction through the prosperous Yangtze River Delta, to the backwoods of Anhui, back through the Yangtze River Delta and returning to Shanghai from where I flew back to Chicago on March 19.

The following series explores my recent trip from one of China’s wealthiest regions, through one of its economic backwaters, and back.  In all, my journey took me to eight different cities, and there is a corresponding blog post, with images, for each of them.

Part 1  Suzhou: Ancient Capital of the Wu

Part 2  Linan: Stomping Grounds of the Chinese Small Town Upper-Middle Class

Part 3  Huang Shan: The Famous Yellow Mountain

Part 4: Anhui: Industrial Capital on the Plain

Part 5: Fuyang:  Into the Backwoods

Part 6: Taihe: Rural Anhui in all its Glory and Grit

Part 7: Nanjing:  Cultural Oasis of the South

Part 8:  Yangzhou: Home of the World’s Most Famous Fried Rice…and Jiang Zemin

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