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In recent days, while I was walking on the streets, recently I saw a lot of workers of Meituan or Eleme, they were adverting for their new online market service, which is pretty similar to the delivery service. People can use the app to purchase the fresh food or fruit through the apps. Before Meituan, there already are Dingdong and Hema, which are supplying the same service, now there are more. And it is at the same time, I saw a lot people in the online forum Zhihu, which is Chinese edition of Quora. Also, many people notice such phenomenon. But I think it is different from the delivery war happened in the past years, which happened in the year 2016. It is same that, those big companies had flowed to the supermarket industry, what make it different is that, now we notice it and worry about it.
Though it is true that, we can receive a lot bonus and benefits from purchasing the food or fruit while these big companies are competing for the supermarket delivery service, we also always know is that, there will be many supermarkets or wet markets around our living areas will disappear recently. Eventually, as more and more people begin using the apps to have daily supplies, we would rely on the apps more, and then the industry then, like food delivery industry, becomes oligopoly.
Some people in the forum mock that, now all Chinese’s lives cannot be separated from the two “Ma”, which represents Huateng Ma and Yun Ma. It is true that all these businesses are ran in a formal way, and it is also true that, such services make the city more efficient. However, it makes us feel so powerless that, we actually cannot make the selection of the changes. We cannot decide it even though we ourselves are the residents of the cities. City formalities are decided by the big companies, but not us. But what they have done is so reasonable and formal.

The city can feel our sentiment and realize us. Actually, sometimes, I think we might not know ourselves more than the city or the technology do. Everything of us can be transferred into data or number or be categorized. Our information is stored and analyzed. This is how the city feel us. Actually, we also know that the city is sensing/feeling us, the connection is everywhere but we can choose to neglect it.
Last month, I purchased a product in a store in the mall. And in the following weeks, I can see the ads of the brands in many different websites. All these ads surround me, it is horrible. But it is not the first time that such thing happened in my life, and I am used to it, so then I think I neglect what was happening. It is the communication between us and the technological society, where we cannot escape from.
The information of us is the stimulation that contribute the sensorium. Now in my daily life, for my biological body, I also deal with it with the information. I think myself is editable. Last week, I could not fall in sleep, then I took a melatonin. The ingredients of the pills began the talks with my biological body, the ingredient then is the information carried. Then my biological body received the order and functioned like a machine and made me feel sleepy, then I could go to sleep.
It is the sensibility that enable the city to modify itself, which makes itself sustainable. It is the same as how we utilize pills to adjust our own bodies’ status. You have to admit that it is pretty efficient, and safe. While we are taking the pills, we are like the city. However, what we are when we are in the city. We are countless cells that hold together to shape such a huge life entity.
In the movie Matrix, there are two pills, one is red and the other one is blue, the choice of the pills means whether to know the truth of the matrix world, but it true that, no matter which pill to take, the true would not change, what could be changed is how Neo feels the world, which is similar to the society that we are living in right now. Whether we know how our data is taken, and know how our actions are influence and modified, we still cannot resist.

It feels strange that my parents now also gradually become parts of the modern cities’ life, but I am the one who try to stop them stepping inside and keep reminding them the traps inside the media infrastructure.

The new generations are easier to handle the technological products and utilize them while compared with the elder generations. Cell phones and laptops had become the essential tools for me to gather information and learning. What my parents did in the past was keeping saying that, “please don’t be obsessed with the technology.” Here were the divide and gap at that time, the gap between us was the ability of using technology, and daily habits.

With the improvement and development of the media infrastructures. Cell phones now are easier for using. My parents also beginning using smart cell phones. I now become the one who keep saying that “please don’t be obsessed with the technology.” Compared with my parents, I know more about the existence of the algorithms and how those apps might trick. My mon was surprised that the news app could also push the news that she was interested at. However, actually most the “news” for my mon actually not “news”, but marketing.

It now becomes a dilemma, on one side, knowing how to use smart phones let the elder generations to be parts of the modern society, on the other side, they become the targets of the online tricking.

We are all parts of the society, but all these changes cannot be actually decided by us, though the grass roots are the majority in number, but are the minority in rights.

The development of the internet and computation has played an important role in the information infrastructure. One essential characteristics of the information infrastructure is the networking. Networked information infrastructure is built on the huge volumes of nodes, we the users, are the nodes. The bigger the platform is, the power is bigger. It feels like a unstoppable and unescapable social changes for each person in the society. The infrastructure gets more and more people involve, and it would eventually change the function way of the society, and our daily behaviors without notice. If people want to be out of the infrastructure, it means that they need to get rid of parts of the society’s function. The society then is not functioning and working for them.

 

There is a bias between the ordinary people and the infrastructure. Overall the building of the infrastructure highly increases the efficiency of the society. However, for the ordinary people, in most conditions, they do not have the choice to decide that whether the infrastructure could be parts of their lives. What’s more, though the application of the infrastructure is so close to our lives, we do not know the how the function of it is. People can only play a passively receiver of the changes of the society.

 

While Neil Postman talked about the technological changes in the society, he said that, all the technological changes would bring advantages and disadvantages toward the society. In most conditions, we can only see the positive sides. And the advantages and disadvantages of the technological changes are not distributed evenly. It is obvious that, the ordinary people do not have power to push the change or evolvement of the infrastructure, then who are the ones to make the changes, and who are the ones can take the control over the infrastructure.

 

Delivery platform is an existing way of infrastructure. It has been part of the social service and part of the modernity. However, while we consider the words of Neil Postman, some people are actually pay for it and some are getting the benefits. In China, now Elema and Meituan are taking about 95% of the market share of the delivery market. They are the main forces of such infrastructure. The percentage of the commission fee has been increasing in the past few years, and millions of the owners of restaurants are the ones who pay for the fees. Of course, all the customers like you and me also contribute to it, just less than the owners of restaurants. This link has introduced how Eleme and Meituan made money through such infrastructure.

 

Overall, infrastructure actually does promote the development of the society. However, the application and evolvement of the infrastructure cannot be separated from the ordinary people. The problem is that, how the make sure that, we, the ordinary ones can are not the ones who need to pay for it.

The contradiction between vendors and chengguans was “heated” in Chinses social media, when I was in middle school. At that time, social medias were highly developed in China, especially QQ of Tencent, and Weibo of Sina. And the time is also when Chinese cities were quickly developing and expanding, many cities in China were on the way of modernity. Vendors, which were viewed as representation of informal economics, were standing on the opposite side of the city development, which requires organized regulation and efficiency.

Chengguan, which means city guardians in English, then were the employees of the government to help regulate the city. In such conditions, it was easy for me, at that time, to see many reporting of the contrast between chengguan and vendors, and it would always create huge responses in social media.

Below are the links about the events of chengguan.

https://baike.baidu.com/item/5%C2%B731%E5%BB%B6%E5%AE%89%E5%9F%8E%E7%AE%A1%E8%B8%A9%E4%BA%BA%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6/5647203?fr=aladdin

https://baike.baidu.com/item/1%C2%B79%E5%B9%BF%E5%B7%9E%E5%9F%8E%E7%AE%A1%E6%89%93%E4%BA%BA%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6/9895451?fr=aladdin

The information spreading in social media was characterized for its segmentation, which means that, the information of the event, in most condition, could not reveal the whole picture of the event. However, it was because of such characteristics, the information was easterly accessed by people and it could resonate with people easily too. Another element that contributed to such huge spreading and influence in social media was that, chengguan represents the power of the government, and vendors represents the migrant workers, who, in most condition, did not have chances to receive good education, and did not have certain skills to enable them to find a decent jobs, so they were usually were viewed as the minority while compared with crhenguan, in this way, the emotion could be easily raised once people saw the reporting, and people would support the vendors in most conditions and condemn the violent actions of chengguan.

In recent years, it became kind of rare to see the reporting of the contradiction between chengguan and vendors. However, it was also difficult to see a vendor on the street. I do not know is whether because of the chengguan, then vendors eventually disappear in the cities, or they just disappeared out of other reasons.

The image of street food eventually fades away while I grew up. It is more and more difficult for me to see a vendor or food pushcart right now. The older I am, more difficult for me to see a vendor. It is difficult for me to recall when it was for the last time, I saw a vendor, and when it is for the last time I bought something from a vendor.

 

Last time I wanted to find a vendor was a few years ago. Few of my best friends wanted to experience culinary culture in my hometown, Shantou. Then I searched online and found out that, there was a street named Changping Road near my home, and there would be night market there around the road. So I took my friends there and found nothing. And it is after that I realized that, the vendors had been expelled because of the policy “construction of civilized city”.

 

The most frequent interaction between me and vendors should be traced back to primary school time. After school, in front of the school’s gate, there were a lot of vendors. We could buy BBQ, or some little toys with pretty low prices.

 

When it came to middle school, it was the time the word “chengguan” become popular. I kept hearing news of contradiction between chengguan and vendors. My brother told me that he once did not pay what he ate at vendor because chengguan was coming, then vendors rushed to escape.

 

However, if mentioned about the disappearance of vendor in cities, chengguan is one of the reasons, but, as for me, it is not the main cause. It is the modernity, the digitalization and the algorithm. The modernity of city requires efficiency. However, it is difficult to have regulation for vendors, which actually would increase the cost of vendor owners, however, but contrary to the requirement of low-cost investment.

Cities themselves supply a lot of chances and job opportunities toward public, however, those vendor owners do not have chance to receive better education or handle certain skills to enable them to have the jobs in the city. They are not the people who benefit from the city’s development.