Stereotype is sometimes defined as a negative exaggeration with a basis in fact. No more applicable definition could be applied to Philippe Massonet's The New China: Money, Sex, and Power, which, while in places is an excellent account of life in fin-de-siecle China, often becomes too embroiled in negative exaggeration to make for solid reading.
In his book "China Wakes," former New York Times Beijing bureau chief Nicholas Kristof notes that if he wrote all of his reports about the average Chinese person, then most of his articles would have been written about a farmer guiding his ox through the field. That, in a way, is meant to apologize for choosing subjects such as the young entrepreneur whom Kristof, with the journalistic equivalent of a straight face, tells the reader started his own airline. In China. His own airline. Yeah, okay.
In many ways, Massonet's work is similar. Most of his characters, albeit real live Chinese citizens, are money-grubbing manipulators.
Obvious Fracture
Interweaved with copious hyperbole and vitriol, (of the sort that can be produced only by someone who has spent too much time in a frustrating cultural situation), Massonet's writing proves that his four years at Agence France Presse (AFP) were fruitful.
Massonet's tenure in Beijing clearly ave him some insight into the real social issues facing China in the years between Deng Xiaoping's passage from a true leadership position to his death in February, 1997.
One particularly powerful behind the scenes moment lies in Massonet's description of one man's encounter with China's health care system. This is one country, clearly, where you don't want to break your leg.
"In spite of an obvious fracture in the lower part of his leg, Professor Yao was thrown into a little taxi by a taxi driver and the driver of the car that had knocked him over. They chucked him in with about the same amount of care a garbage collector takes in throwing garbage into the back of his truck. At moments like this, one can see the extent of the damage wrought by one of the most collectivist and authoritarian systems in the world. It has created generations of self-centered individuals for whom solicitude is possible only when it's obligatory."
The section goes on to describe how the hospital staff -apparently one of the best in Beijing- is so overworked and undertrained that they must beg Professor Yao's children to help hoist Yao up so he can be x-rayed and then further enlist them to mix and apply plaster to their father's leg.
As an account of "de-Maoization," to use the author's phrase, it shows how Chinese society has gone from socialist lock-step to capitalist chaos in two decades.
China in Madness
This process of de-Maoization is the heart of Massonet's book, a point that comes across vividly in the original French title: "China in madness: The Heritage of Deng Xiaoping" (La Chine en folie: l'heritage de Deng Xiaoping). Certainly, the English title is titillating but it's not very accurate. Post-Deng China has in many ways focused on money, sex, and power (especially the former and the latter), but as a sweeping generalization the description, and the book itself, fall short.
The book over-emphasizes its four main figures as archetypes for most Chinese: "a postal clerk turned millionaire...a frustrated professor...an ambitious concubine...and an uprooted peasant woman." While these people are interesting because they were rare animals two decades ago (except perhaps the frustrated professor), they represent neither rural or urban dwellers as a whole.
Also lacking in the book is proper translation. Originally published in French in 1997, the book contains glaring errors such as "The Chinese could care less." It would really mean something if they "couldn't" care less. Mistakes such as this undermine the authority of the book and detract from what, in French, is probably a delightfully cynical and readable text.
As a snapshot of China's development in the 1990s, "The New China" presents a fresher perspective than many other works, but it still falls short of being an objective look at the big picture.
