great essay.

Modernization
Where did we go wrong in this world?
Why was I born as who I am,
Why was I born into this family?
You ask me how much I can give
But you forget about all the other things you demand
I want to run away into the field,*
I’m hoping that all my tracks will be concealed *
So I can get away,
emerge into a new life without all the pressures
you weigh on me.

I have made all the mistakes,
All I have done has created you
And me.
There’s not really anywhere to go
And all I need is time,
Something forgotten as we drive
Towards McDonald’s
And drown our sorrows in their fat.

*Red Hot Chili Peppers Lyrics
 
Introduction by a cousin
This isn’t about my experiences with Chinese culture; neither is it about me. These are stories about my cousin’s experiences and the pressure that she lives with everyday as a teenager growing up in China. To begin with, Yiyi (一依) my only cousin, daughter of my only aunt on my mom’s side. They live together in a small apartment in Wuxi, China, a two-hour train trip from Shanghai, China, half a world from my home and over 1500 km from our grandparents. Her father, a migrant worker, is the descendant of a line of farmers-turned-migrant-workers who helped my cousin’s mom when she first moved to Wuxi.
During the course of Yiyi’s life, her parents pressured her to study as hard as possible so she could succeed. The stories below describe the turmoil that she and people around her felt as they influenced her and she influenced them. While I am an outsider in this situation, having grown up in America, my experiences and correspondence with Yiyi have persuaded me to describe her experiences in a series of short vignettes that introduce the effect of modernization on her family. While some of these characters are fictional, they are based on real events or people that I have encountered in China. While they obviously aren’t an exact representation of the effects of modernization on China, this is an attempt to describe one situation where modernization drastically changed a group of people.


My Normal Family
1
I am the only daughter of a regular Chinese family in the late 21st century. My life is normal. I have a dad. I have a mom. I go to school, play with friends, and study just about as much as every other student in China, quite a lot. Because of the one-child policy, which pays for the majority of my education since I am the first child, my parents do not have to worry about money when it comes to raising me. . Also, since I am the only child, their future depends on my success Because of this I am always being told that hard work in class will lead to success and happiness. For them, success and happiness means getting high marks in the high school entrance exam. Getting into a high school will decide my life, they tell me. I truly believe this. In my eyes, my mom and dad are the happiest and happiest people alive. Even though they aren’t ‘successful’ in their own eyes, they are my parents and I want to be like them, happy. My mom showers me with love and tell all of her friends how successful I will be whenever I score in the top of the class. My mom works at Jiangnan Da Xue (Jiangnan Univeristy) as a Japanese Professor. Whenever a coworker of my mom, talks about me, she always goes on about how I am such a hard worker and how she doesn’t need to push me to do any work because I push myself to study. Whenever her colleagues talk about me, she’s always so happy that she pampers me with delicious food and refuses to let me do any chores.
My mom and dad push me a lot to study. Even more so than school or my classmates, my parents pressure me to do well in school. They always try to push me to study, giving me treats whenever I do well to encourage me to study more and punishing me when my grades drop. My parents are using McDonald’s now to push me to study. My parents first took me to McDonald’s after my relatives had told them that McDonalds is really cheap and exists everywhere in America. Since it is a symbol of America and thus a symbol of modernization in China my parents must have thought that bringing me to McDonald’s would encourage me to work harder and do even better in school because it would show me what is possible if you are successful. It did. Well, at least initially. After the first time I was introduced to the clean, welcoming atmosphere of McDonalds, I always wanted to go back. To me, McDonalds was a place where I could relax without being burdened by the pressures of school and my parents. Whenever I walked in, I could see people from all walks of life, families, teenagers hanging out, businessmen, and, most especially, waiguoren (foreigners). I enjoyed seeing the happiness on McDonald’s customers and I began to crave this happiness away from studying. Nowadays, I crave McDonald’s. I only want to eat the Beijing Cao Ya Wrap. I love lounging around while eating French fries and watching people shuffle in and out of McDonald’s.
I entered Junior High one year before being introduced to McDonald’s. In order to encourage me to do well in school, my parents told me that I could go to McDonald’s whenever I do well on a test. But all I can do is think about the happiness in the people at McDonald’s. Didn’t my parents want me to find happiness? Why can’t I just work at McDonald’s? I would be happy! The cleanliness, the success, and the happiness refuse to let me study. McDonald’s is making me more modern. Parental pressure, pressure from my mom’s colleagues, and pressure from my friends all bear down upon me as I slip from the top of the class. I My parents always tell me that life isn’t worth it if you can’t get into high school. With my grades, is my life not worth living? How can I improve? What is happening to me?




The Memoir of the Mother
2
Yiyi, this is my story:
When I met your dad, he was living in a small apartment next to mine. Whenever I needed help, he helped me out and got me familiar with the Wuxi traditions. It was a small town when I first moved there and he knew more than me about Wuxi, even though he was a migrant worker. I was young then, and he was the only one who was always there for me. I guess I was blinded by the idealism of my youth and all the western stories of true love and marriages of love rather than the traditional Chinese marriage. Even though he was a migrant worker and I was working at Jiangsu University, I loved him
We married rather untraditionally at the time, as your grandparents didn’t approve of the marriage. We didn’t take marriage pictures as many of his friends in the countryside had done when they took their marriage trip to the city. We didn’t hold a traditional marriage celebration or even a Western ceremony as most of my friends had done, we were just too poor. My job as a teacher did not pay that much, and his migrant worker job was unstable and his paycheck often arrived late.
When you were born, we shared the joy that was you in our life. I went to work all in the end goal of supporting you until you could support yourself. We were poor, but we were happy. As you grew older and emerged as the top of your class, we couldn’t help but express our happiness. It was like all we wanted to do was praise our ancestors and keep on encouraging you. You were everything to us. You were our only joy. Even with the difficulties in our life, everything was okay because you would get into a good high school. Once, when you were in fourth grade, I was enjoying some tea at work with some coworkers during break when one of my colleagues, Professor Wang who taught English, approached me and pleaded to me for advice in how his son could work as hard as you did. I was so surprised by this statement and I pondered for a moment.
My daughter? More successful than the English professor’s son? That can’t be, I thought, Professor Wang must be joking. When I laughed, however, Professor Wang just looked at me curiously and asked me if I thought he was jokingThat night when I came home, I was so happy that you were the best in class that I felt that I could splurge a little and spend some money on better food for our family. It was our daughter, the daughter of a migrant worker and a low-wage college employee that was most successful in class.
A couple years after you were born, your cousins in America came to see you. While they were here, your aunt and uncle told me all the wondrous stories of America. They told me of the wonderful food there, the great economy, and the culture. It was all so different from China, where everything was ‘opened’ up, but not as open as America. In America, you could read the news without censorship. You could speak out your thoughts without fear of retribution. Another thing they talked about was the food. They especially talked about McDonald’s and how they were everywhere in America. With the car they owned, they went to McDonald’s every week. . So when Wuxi opened their first McDonalds, your dad and I felt that all the good fortune that had come to us in the past few years had accumulated to this moment, the moment when we would become more modernized. If we ate at McDonald’s, we would be like your relatives in America. And just like they were going to college, you would to. Walking into McDonalds for the first time with you holding my hand, with the red and yellow sign above us and the greeting servers all around us, I was immediately hit by the cleanliness. The toilets didn’t smell, the tabletops and the floor glistened in the summer heat. What could be better than this? I mean, yeah the food tasted strange, but you seemed to like it. If this was how modernized people ate, then you should get to eat like this everyday. I guess you could say that this is why I pushed you so hard after I first took you to McDonalds. I wanted to see you obtain this life where you could eat at McDonald’s whenever you wanted. I wanted you to have something that I never hadAfter your grades started dropping, our family began suffering. This isn’t your fault, it was our fault. Our marriage relied on you. Since you were born, you were the one thing that connected us. After being married for so long, I think we both knew that you were the only reason we were staying together. And when you stopped doing so well in school, we fell apart. We started getting into fights about you. We constantly argued about everything whenever you weren’t there. When you were there, we kept on pressuring you more and more to do well.
Our marriage was unconventional, and I guess our divorce was also unconventional at the time. But by then, all I really had left was you.

I Left
3
Yiyi, this is my apology:
I come from a traditional family. I don’t know much except for farming and construction work. It is hard for me to even write this. Because I have to spend so much time working to support my family, I always assumed that I would work until my family got me an arranged marriage and then I would work at home. Well, that’s what I thought until I met your mom. She was hard-working, she could cook, and she was good-looking. Why shouldn’t I marry her? . She always told me about love, but to me, a good marriage meant supporting the family and providing successful children.
Your mom and I were so close at the beginning. We spent a lot of time together and you were so smart. You were all we had, so we always encouraged you to do your best because we knew you could. Although I had originally wanted a son, after I saw that you were so successful, you were everything that I wanted. Everything I wanted in a son was in you because you were the key to everything
My apology starts from long before you can even imagineI was born into a family where your grandfather truly thought that beating was the only way to control the family. I did not follow this tradition, but your grandparents kept on pushing me to discipline your mom. And when we started going to McDonalds, suddenly everything came to a crash. I married your mom because it was beneficial for both of us. It was an appropriate marriage that aided both of us at the time. When you began struggling in school, worries that I had brushed off before in favor of keeping the marriage reemerged and all the pressure of being a migrant worker suddenly came down upon me
To escape from my doubts, I worked harder at my job Convinced that I was the cause of your drop in grade because I was so stressed with work, I avoided home so that I wouldn’t distract you from studying. After work, I began going out with friends so that I wouldn’t wander aimlessly. Whenever I was at home, all I did was argue with your mom. We were so distant when you weren’t there. Eventually, there was no point in trying to hold our marriage together because it wasn’t benefitting either of us, so we split.

Taking Care
4
The teacher dismisses us 14 minutes after our class officially ends, meaning that I will have to brave the night air and walk home by myself. As I leavethe night school, my best friend Shuyi asks me if I wanted to go to her house and study, but my mom had told me that I needed to clean the house today, so I tell her I that I have chores to do. Ever since dad left, my mom has been reliant on me to help around the house. As I wave goodbye to Shuyi, I smile at her as I think about how she has always been there, supporting me when I was down. All those other students, all they did was study. They only cared for themselves. They would never sacrifice time for that girl who has fallen, that girl who doesn’t study. They don’t know who I am. As I walk further down the street, the smile leaves my face, the dimples from my smiling face only a fading scar from my childhood. My family sacrifices so much to see me succeed; I can’t deal with all the pressure. It’s wearing me down and I am already broken. Each day I remember how much my mom borrowed to send me to junior high school. Even though she hasn’t pressured me to study since dad left, I still feel the pressure in her distant gaze. The pressure from her presence bears down on me more than any yelling that she could possibly use.
I pass a McDonalds on the way home from night school. It’ss bright red and yellow sign, coupled with its clean interior, still calls to me with all of its “modernism.” But when I think about my mom and feel the weight of the books on my back, I force myself to turn away. I choose my family over myself. If only we could live in the cleanliness of McDonald’s. The rest of the walk back is boring, cluttered by Chinese fashion stores and the catcalling of dirty prostitutes hoping to snag their next customer. As I turn left into my street, the familiar bareness of my home cries to me as the stench of the trashcan fills my nostrils.
My house is unkempt from years of gradual decline. Since I have been responsible for the chores, I have to balance my chores with school. Both suffer. If I could live in McDonald’s, I wouldn’t have to clean. My grades have never even caught a glimpse of the shadow what they once were. My house is stained with years of neglect. And until my mom gets home from teaching, I’ll clean. I’ll clean like I do everyday, I’ll clean so that maybe one day my I won’t need to clean

To Love a Friend
5
I am Yiyi’s only remaining friend. I have seen her highest and lowest moments. I am the only daughter of a wealthy family. No matter whether I score really well or below the mark for even a vocational school, I will still be sent to a boarding school in America. I only need to score high enough in English to leave the country, and my parents have hired excellent tutors to train me since I started speaking. Without any drive to work, all I worry about is my friend, Yiyi. I guess I’m a rich low-achieving girl who has too much time on her hands to do anything else.
I tried to see if she wanted to study with me today, but she had to do chores again. . So, once again, I leave the night school alone and walk home by myself. As I turn from Yiyi, my ever-present smile drops and I run away down the street, hoping to reach the safety of my room, no, my cage, as soon as possibleI have always been able to see her mask, but she has always refused help. No matter how I try, she always tells me that she has to support her mother so she can’t study with me. If only she would allow me to lend her our maid, she would be able to study for school. But she’s too stubborn for that, to unwillingly to except outside help I hope she never finds out where her parents got the money to send her to school. Or finds out more about me.
Oh, I guess I should tell you, I have my own unique problems to deal with. I’m a lesbian. In China, people would call me a lala. Like my family and my friends if I ever told them. I sometimes feel so angry at the world for denying me my own identity. In China, being a lesbian means you have a mental problem and you will probably be sent to a mental institute. If I ‘come out,’ I’ll lose my sanity? I won’t be natural? I’ll be shunned by everyone. I don’t want to be called a tongzhi. I guess that’s why I’ve been trying so hard to support Yiyi. I have gotten into arguments with my parents about supporting her family behind her back. They’ve probably guessed by now or at least thought that maybe I’m a lala. I wish I could speak to them about it, but I really can’t, they wouldn’t understand. At my home I always feel trapped. Safe, but I am trapped by the constraints of Chinese society.
I don’t really know where my place in society is anymore. I know my family will at the very least shun me if I don’t marry a guy and support the family when they grow up. And I know I can’t enter into a lala community when I get older, I can’t stand their culture of drinking and smoking. It’s just not who I am.
Who am I?


The Future
6
I knew I couldn’t do it. I mean really? I shouldn’t have thought it was ever really possible really. There was no hope, only too much pressure, too much fucking pressure from my mom. From my friends. From my cousin. Even from my cousin’s other cousins! Rì 日! I am not successful. I failed my entrance exam.
Dark clouds seem to follow me as I leave the test center on the last day of the exam and take the bus home. I couldn’t really help it. Really. No really! There’s a lot of things I could’ve done but none if it would have diminished the unbearable pressure that kept on pulling me down, deeper and deeper. Pressure from my American cousins because they were already in high school and college, pressure from my cousin’s other cousins cause they had succeeded where I knew I would fail, and pressure from my family because they had invested so much into my success. .
Stop, I need to stop thinking about this weight on my shoulders. Just get up, walk off the bus, ignore the cloud of anguish and despair that’s following me. Why couldn’t I just do what I loved to do! Why can’t I relax! Why can’t I just go out and travel to America and not be trapped by my mom? But I can’t. She needs me probably even more than she realizes. She needs me to be there for her because she is reliant on me. But oh how I wish to take a journey, escape from life and find something new! How I wish to travel, to see the world for how it really is, not through learning the language that is forcibly stuffed down our throats In class, but by speaking the language to Americans.
Maybe I wanted it to be this way. Maybe I built this cloud of despair. Maybe everyday as I walked home like I do, I added another little bit of darkness. Maybe I didn’t work as hard because I knew that if I succeeded I’d still be trapped in the never-ending spiral of drowning pressure and whirlwind pain. And tears. But for now, I know I’m free. At least for a time. I’ll be able to smile and sing like the waiters that I pass. I’ll be able to greet and sell like those people working at the Baleno Store. Maybe I’m being ignorant, I know it’s hard for people if they go to technical school to get a job. A job, man I love my job. I wish I could do it everyday for the rest of my life. Can I really help it? This is what I want to do! I want to work, to wake up everyday and know I’m getting somewhere in life, I don’t want to just sit in a room hearing people talk to you about something I’ll never understand. I can’t do it! I need that environment of production, where I know I’m getting something done on my own terms, on my own skills. Anything to escape from the pressure, even if it means cleaning for the rest of my life.
I guess this is my life. I am the only daughter of a modern family in the early 22nd century. My life is full of pressure. I have a mom that relies on me to support her. I work at a clothing store on a crowded street 15 minutes from the local McDonald’s and everyday I go home to clean my house so my mom won’t complain. Because of the one-child policy, which forced my parents to invest their all in one child to support them when they grew older, I was treated like a child-empress as a child and now I am not successful.