Why are rural people still a byword for backwardness?

A survey recently conducted by the Social Survey Center of China Youth Daily shows that over these years, 51.2% of respondents have changed their impression of “rural people” a great deal, yet 40.3% of respondents believe the term “rural people” is still ambiguous, and 53.9% of respondents believe the gap between “rural people” and “city people” is still very large. (China Youth Daily, July 27)

Very often, whether a person comes from a rural or an urban background is not merely a matter of geography; it is often directly labeled with the value tag of progressive or backward. For people of rural origin, even if they achieve great success later in life, they always seem to drag an invisible long tail behind them, consciously or unconsciously performing acts of “habitual concealment.” “Rural people” are still struggling in the mire of discrimination and of perceiving themselves as discriminated against.

Although the survey also shows that 51.2% of respondents have changed their impression of “rural people” a great deal, such change often has a limit, namely that it is only on moral and emotional grounds that rural people should not be discriminated against. Among this there may be active sympathy and understanding born of moral self-awareness, as well as a gradual shift in attitudes after more interaction between urban and rural areas. It is like the shock those university students mentioned in the report felt deep in their hearts after coming into contact with and learning about the real living conditions of migrant workers.

However, at least judging from the current situation, the impression of “rural people” in the public eye is still very hard to improve immediately, and it is no easier for this group to win respect than for farmers to increase their incomes.

First, the farmer group is still huge and heterogeneous, entangled with and swept up in many complex issues, and cannot be clearly explained by place of residence alone. All kinds of troubles and difficulties in real society, such as the problem of urbanization, food safety problems, the problem of damaged rights and interests, the problem of lacking public services, and so on, can all find their reference point in “rural people.” Even if one cannot say that rural people are all ultimately the victims, their powerlessness in all this is obvious. Living at the bottom, when evaluating and positioning themselves, they also tend to feel inferior, and it is very hard for them to have the confidence of other social groups.

Second, the excessively single and rigid standard of value judgment in today's society also makes it impossible for “rural people” to truly become a group worthy of envy in society. The rich and those who control power resources fit this standard of judgment. Yet the diligence, simplicity, and kindness with which “rural people” once consoled themselves are often worth nothing in the new context of wealth and status. On the surface, the huge number of rural people seems to receive attention from all sides, but in fact they have neither enough cohesion nor loyal spokespeople. Very often, their only bargaining chips in dealing with powerful groups are their meager land and homestead plots.

Although the government keeps increasing investment in rural areas, overall, in investment in transportation, communications, education, health, elderly care, culture, and so on, the public financial support rural areas receive is still very insufficient. This has also, to a certain extent, intensified the estrangement between rural areas and modern civilization, and the huge rift thus produced is destined to tear at Chinese people's emotions for a long time.

As early as 2011, the proportion of China's urban population in the total population exceeded half for the first time, reaching 51.27%. For a country traditionally based on agriculture, such “population urbanization” is of course gratifying and worthy of celebration, but a change in population proportion alone does not necessarily mean an elevation in the value of “rural people,” still less can it fundamentally change the situation in which this group is widely discriminated against. Apart from continuing to increase public service investment in rural areas, the key is still to change the current situation of unfair rights, unequal opportunities, and an excessively single set of values. Only by first solving the problem of people can the problem of “rural people” be fundamentally solved.