Introduction
When we think of cutting-edge technology and innovation, our minds often wander to places like Silicon Valley, bustling urban centers, or sleek research laboratories. However, Xiaowei Wang's book "Blockchain Chicken Farm" challenges these preconceptions by taking us on a journey through rural China, where unexpected technological revolutions are quietly unfolding.
This eye-opening exploration delves into the complex interplay between China's urban and rural landscapes, revealing how digital technologies are reshaping daily life in the world's most populous country. From blockchain-powered chicken farms to e-commerce villages, Wang paints a vivid picture of a nation grappling with rapid change, innovation, and the challenges that come with it.
The Urban-Rural Dynamic in China
The Great Migration
Every year, as winter gives way to spring, China witnesses a remarkable phenomenon known as Chunyun, or the Spring Festival. During this time, over 300 million people embark on a massive migration from China's sprawling cities to their ancestral homes in the countryside. This annual pilgrimage allows urban workers to reconnect with their roots and visit older generations who still reside in smaller towns and villages.
However, these rural areas are far more than just places of respite for city dwellers. They play a crucial role in China's economic, political, and social development, forming a complex relationship with the country's urban centers.
The Rural Foundation of Modern China
While the Western world often envisions China through the lens of its crowded megacities like Shanghai, Beijing, and Shenzhen, it's important to remember that when the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, the country was predominantly rural and agrarian. In fact, Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party rose to power by mobilizing the vast peasant population against the cities.
After establishing the People's Republic, the communist government embarked on an ambitious plan to develop and industrialize the nation. This initiative, known as the Great Leap Forward, heavily relied on rural communities and resources. The state attempted to boost agricultural production through the collectivization of farming and even encouraged villages to build their own small-scale factories. Unfortunately, these disruptive policies led to widespread famine and suffering.
The Rise of Rural Enterprises
Despite the initial setbacks, China persevered and eventually found its economic footing. During the 1980s and 1990s, the country experienced a significant economic boom, fueled in part by small rural businesses called Town and Village Enterprises (TVEs). These enterprises proved more flexible and responsive to changing economic demands compared to large state-owned companies. By 1995, TVEs were responsible for about a quarter of China's GDP, highlighting the importance of rural areas in the nation's economic growth.
The Current Landscape
Today, while many young people migrate to China's largest cities in search of work and opportunities, a substantial 40 percent of the population still resides in the countryside. Recognizing the importance of these rural communities, the government has plans to further industrialize agricultural centers and connect far-flung regions through extensive IT infrastructure. The goal is to create a symbiotic relationship between urban and rural areas, working together for the nation's success.
Technological Innovation in Food Safety
The Challenge of Food Safety in China
China faces significant challenges when it comes to safely producing food for its massive population. With 22 percent of the world's people but only 7 percent of Earth's arable land, the country struggles to meet the growing demand for food. Additionally, China's agricultural industry is largely decentralized, consisting of a complex network of millions of small farmers and traders, making it difficult to enforce safety standards consistently.
This combination of high demand and a chaotic supply system has led to several food safety scandals over the years. One notable incident occurred in 2008 when several children died from milk tainted with melamine, a dangerous chemical added by dairy producers to meet high production goals. As a result, China has a poor food safety rating compared to countries with similar GDP per capita, such as Mexico and Turkey.
Enter the Blockchain Chicken Farm
To address these food safety concerns, the Chinese government and entrepreneurs are turning to innovative technologies. One such example is the blockchain chicken farm in the remote village of Sanqiao, located in the poor mountainous region of Guizhou.
This pioneering company raises high-quality, free-range chickens that are sold at premium prices to wealthy diners in coastal cities. To establish trust with consumers who want assurance about the authenticity of their purchase, each chicken is tracked and monitored from birth to table using blockchain technology.
Blockchain, a distributed record-keeping system, makes it extremely difficult to falsify information. When customers buy a blockchain chicken, they can scan a code and view the bird's entire life history on a special website. This level of transparency provides consumers with unprecedented insight into the food they're about to eat, helping to rebuild trust in the food supply chain.
The Transformation of Rural Education Through Online Learning
Sun Wei's Story
The story of Sun Wei illustrates the transformative power of online learning in rural China. Born in Anhui, a rural region in central China, Wei was expected to follow in his father's footsteps and become a mechanic for the local state-owned railway company. However, his fascination with model planes led him to discover an online community of enthusiasts and eventually take online classes to become a drone pilot.
Now 25 years old, Wei is a licensed drone operator working in the emerging field of precision agriculture. His journey demonstrates how online education can open up new life paths for rural residents who might otherwise have limited opportunities.
The Education Gap
Despite success stories like Wei's, many rural residents still face significant barriers to education. While rural individuals can find employment as drone operators or in similar technical roles, the higher-paid positions in companies like XAG (a leader in precision agriculture) are typically filled by city dwellers with prestigious educational backgrounds from institutions like Tsinghua and Peking Universities.
This educational divide is stark: only 10 percent of rural residents continue education after high school, and in some regions, the high school dropout rate exceeds 50 percent. To address this disparity, China has turned to online learning as a potential solution.
The Number 7 High School Experiment
In 2015, an elite urban high school called Number 7 High School began livestreaming classes to students in rural areas of Yunnan and Guangxi. Initially, the experiment faced challenges due to poor internet infrastructure and family obligations that prevented rural students from fully benefiting from the initiative.
However, after three years, the program showed promising results: 88 of these rural students were accepted at Tsinghua and Peking Universities. While it's unclear if this approach will work on a larger scale, the initial success is encouraging and highlights the potential of online learning to bridge the urban-rural education gap.
Innovation Through Sharing and Adaptation
The Legacy of "Made in China"
For decades, China has been associated with the mass production of cheap commodities for Western markets. This flood of discount goods in the 1990s earned the country a reputation for making poor-quality knockoffs. However, this perception may be outdated when considering China's current technology sector.
Shanzhai: From Piracy to Innovation
In China, there's a concept called shanzhai, which originally referred to pirated goods. The term literally translates to "mountain stronghold," reflecting how rural mountain villages sometimes built entire economies around producing imitation products, from pirated DVDs to fake designer handbags.
While shanzhai has been criticized for ignoring intellectual property rights, it has also fostered a unique culture of innovation. The idea that anyone can adapt and repurpose existing ideas for their own ends has opened up a new field of creativity, especially in resource-constrained environments.
The Huaqiangbei Electronics Market
A prime example of this innovative spirit can be found in the Huaqiangbei electronics market in Shenzhen. Here, hundreds of small-scale companies produce a wide array of products, from 3D printers to modular cell phones that users can easily augment and repair.
This bustling marketplace showcases China's culture of swapping, sharing, and DIY manufacturing. It demonstrates that innovation doesn't always have to come in the form of entirely new inventions but can also arise from clever adaptations and improvements of existing technologies.
The Challenges of China's Surveillance State
The Reality of Surveillance in China
While China is often portrayed as an authoritarian state with pervasive surveillance, the reality is more complex. The government does monitor and restrict information in the media and on the internet, but the actual surveillance operation is less sophisticated than many might assume.
The Case of Guiyang
Consider the city of Guiyang, which contains many chengzhongcun, or urban villages. These informal neighborhoods are home to 80 percent of the city's crime. To police these areas, authorities have attempted to catalog all residents in a massive database. However, the transient nature of these communities, largely populated by rural migrants, has made this task challenging. Even after years of effort, the database only includes about 60,000 people.
Technological Solutions and Their Limitations
Companies like Face++, a Beijing-based start-up, offer facial recognition software for private companies and government initiatives like the Sharp Eyes program, which aims to monitor public spaces using surveillance cameras. However, despite the hype surrounding these technologies, their implementation has been slower than expected. Chinese cities still have fewer surveillance cameras than many US cities, and the software isn't always as accurate as advertised, often misidentifying individuals or failing to detect faces altogether.
Ethical Concerns
Even when data collection and surveillance efforts are successful, they raise significant ethical concerns. These programs often disproportionately target poor and minority communities, potentially creating biased crime statistics that unfairly stigmatize these populations. Moreover, once an individual is flagged by the system, their negative data can follow them for life, even as they grow and change as a person.
The Impact of E-commerce on Rural China
The Transformation of Shangdiping
The tiny village of Shangdiping in Guizhou Province serves as a microcosm of the changes occurring in rural China. For centuries, this community of 900 people was only accessible via a winding footpath through the hills. However, in 2018, a new paved road connected the village to the outside world, ushering in a blend of traditional and modern lifestyles.
Today, Shangdiping is a place where farm animals roam the streets alongside a modern internet cafe, and where the local restaurant accepts payments through the smartphone app WeChat. These changes are part of a nationwide effort to integrate China's rural communities into the wider economy, with e-commerce playing a central role.
Alibaba's Rural Taobao Strategy
In 2013, e-commerce giant Alibaba launched its Rural Taobao strategy, aiming to transform rural communities into hubs of online commerce. The company began by opening Rural Taobao Service Centers to help villagers purchase goods from Taobao.com, Alibaba's major shopping platform. Then, it sent officials to teach local residents how to sell their own goods on the website.
This initiative gave rise to Taobao Villages, communities where more than 10 percent of households manufacture goods to sell on Taobao.com. Villagers have found success selling a wide range of products, from small trinkets and locally grown produce to traditional handicrafts and elaborate shanzhai products. By 2018, there were over 3,000 Taobao Villages across 24 Chinese provinces.
The Mixed Results of Rural E-commerce
While the influx of e-commerce has raised local incomes in many rural areas, it has also introduced new challenges. Families often struggle to balance traditional farming with the demands of Taobao sales, and the sudden increase in unregulated manufacturing can harm local ecosystems.
Despite these drawbacks, the Taobao system continues to expand rapidly, reshaping the economic landscape of rural China. This transformation highlights the complex ways in which internet commerce is tying remote villages to the global economy, bringing both opportunities and challenges to these communities.
The Anxieties and Ambitions of China's Youth
The Rise of Shehui Ren Culture
In China, a curious phenomenon has emerged among the youth: the appropriation of the British cartoon character Peppa Pig as an ironic meme. This reimagined Peppa, often depicted wearing dark sunglasses and smoking cigarettes, has become a mascot for shehui ren, or "society people" – a term used to describe disillusioned youth who feel alienated from mainstream society.
This subculture reflects the struggles of many young Chinese people who find it difficult to achieve the traditional markers of success in a rapidly changing economic and cultural landscape. For these individuals, the internet becomes a space to express discontent and search for meaning.
The Chinese Dream vs. Reality
Similar to the American Dream, China has its own aspirational narrative: the Chinese Dream. This cultural ideal encourages people to work hard in school, secure a good job, and build a stable adult life complete with a family. However, unequal access to opportunities and rising economic inequality have made this dream feel unattainable for many.
In response, younger generations have turned to shehui ren culture. Rather than pursuing traditional success, these youths spend their time on video streaming apps like TikTok and Kuaishou, venting their anxieties and connecting with others who share their experiences. Studies have shown that the typical Kuaishou user is under 25, lacks higher education or high-paying work, and lives in a rural area or less prominent city.
The Digital Hustle
Despite their disillusionment, many young people have found ways to leverage their internet presence to hun shehui, or "hustle and get by." Some Kuaishou users host elaborate livestreams to sell products like cosmetics and food, while others build fanbases through entertaining content and relatable commentary.
This form of online entrepreneurship provides both economic sustenance and social connection for many youths. However, it has raised concerns among government officials, who worry about the potential for social and economic instability that could arise from a large population of anxious and alienated young people.
In 2017, the state even began censoring nihilistic Peppa Pig memes in an attempt to curb the spread of shehui ren culture. However, these feelings of discontent are likely to persist until more young people feel confident in their ability to achieve a stable and prosperous future.
Conclusion: The Complex Tapestry of China's Technological Future
Xiaowei Wang's "Blockchain Chicken Farm" paints a nuanced picture of a China that is far more complex than many outsiders might imagine. The book reveals a nation where bustling megacities exist alongside millions of far-flung rural communities, each playing a crucial role in shaping the country's future.
As new technologies continue to transform life in the countryside, we see a fascinating interplay between tradition and innovation. The internet is connecting small villages to the global economy, creating new opportunities for rural residents to participate in e-commerce and access education. At the same time, these changes are introducing new challenges, from environmental concerns to social anxieties.
The book highlights how China's approach to innovation often differs from Western models. Rather than focusing solely on creating entirely new technologies, Chinese innovators frequently adapt and improve existing ideas, as seen in the shanzhai culture and the bustling electronics markets of Shenzhen.
Wang also draws attention to the ethical considerations that arise with the implementation of new technologies, particularly in the realm of surveillance and data collection. As China grapples with these issues, it serves as a case study for the rest of the world on the potential benefits and pitfalls of widespread technological adoption.
Perhaps most poignantly, "Blockchain Chicken Farm" reveals the human stories behind China's technological revolution. From drone operators finding new career paths to young people navigating an uncertain future through online communities, these personal narratives provide insight into how ordinary Chinese citizens are experiencing and shaping their country's rapid transformation.
As we look to the future, it's clear that China's technological development will continue to be shaped by the unique interplay between its urban and rural landscapes. The country's ability to balance innovation with tradition, address growing inequalities, and navigate the challenges of the digital age will be crucial in determining its path forward.
Ultimately, "Blockchain Chicken Farm" invites readers to look beyond stereotypes and simplistic narratives about China. It presents a country that is simultaneously ancient and modern, traditional and innovative, facing both immense challenges and exciting opportunities. As the rest of the world grapples with similar issues of technological change and economic transformation, there is much to be learned from China's ongoing experiment in rural development and digital innovation.