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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 reason for the forced deviation of the city poor from the city public space, which is basically the street here, is usually attributed to the aesthetic of the modern cities and city diseases such as congestion. “A consuming concern with bringing the panoramas of their cities and also their pavements up to what they believed to be world aesthetic standards” is adopted by officialdom, aiming for “attracting the eye of the investor, along with his/her capital” (Sollinger, 2013, p. 16). More investments, higher economy, that is the logic of officialdom. For that reason, these city managers are “putting a very high premium upon ‘modernizing’ and ‘beautifying’ its visage” to fit to the city aesthetic standards. And in this case, the city poor has been forcedly sacrificed. In addition, the city disease in terms of the congestion is also the reason for limiting the function of pavements and streets. Whether the former or the latter, the the appeal to returning the right to use the streets to the city poor is on schedule, but the reason behind may be rooted more deeply.

A Chinese documentary recording the combat between chengguan (city managers) and a family who owned a street stall is in a hot discussion (link is here). The family includes a 70-year-old guy, his wife who had a cancer, disabled son and the young granddaughter who is in senior school. They occupied a large area of the street, selling from fruits to clothes to earn a living. This behavior is learned by those shop owners, Though they have their stores, they also occupy the street to sore their goods and they announced they will not move the goods until the family is moved. There are a lot of combats between them and chengguan, and they insist in taking actions against chengguan such as lying down on the middle of the road with a traffic. The family is so aggressive and so sympathetic. In the end, chengguan seek a store for them to make a living. Both the supporters of family and the chengguan exist. For the former, they concentrated on the difficulties of the peripheral groups, pointing out the ridiculousness of the so-called “beautifying the city”, while the latter sees the conflict between the stall owners and other citizens. The reason for their support is the harm to their rights that the stall owners bring to them. Congestion due to their occupation does harm to their rights to use the streets. It is a big city disease and there is no solution. Because of the city development, more and more migrants rush to the cities and lead the cities to extremely dense. It is not merely the problem of public transportation infrastructure or the wrong city planning, in fact, the cities are overloaded. In addition, street stalls are often accused by citizens of making the environment dirty, full of trash, loud voice and unpleasant smell. Considering the Community gates are often the locations of those stalls, this does disturb other citizens. Moreover, one situation does exist. Even if stores can be provided to those stall owners, they refuse to move in because they do not have to pay the rent and there is no greater flow of people than intersections and community gates. Consequently, the contradictions are irreconcilable.

Inequality would be at least one of the reasons. The inequality between the rural area and cities caused the urban overload. The inequality made periphery groups less educated and no culture, which forces them on the one hand, to struggle for a living with every effort, while on the other, less care about others’ rights out of their families. The protection of right of the poor to the city should be started by diminishing inequality, yet it might never be solved.

The conflicts between “chengguan” and street vendors have erupted one after another, revealing a cruel reality: even when street stalls are banned in various places, many “chengguan” and street vendors still have not found a way to coexist harmoniously.

In the eyes of many city managers, street vendors are all the objects that need to be “eliminated”, rather than individuals who need to be “protected”. Conflicts are almost inevitable in the process of “law enforcement” between “chengguan” and street vendors. “Chengguan”‘s law enforcement has been criticized not only for its “bullying” image, but also because it ignores the actual needs of citizens.

When it comes to the conflict between “chengguan” and street vendors, people are used to considering street vendors as “weak” since this group of people are usually poor migrants whose life depends on the small street stall that they own. In fact, stripped of their professional identity, “chengguan” are just “weak” in real life, and on-the-spot law enforcement is just a way of working in exchange for survival. The problem is that there is a real contradiction between the two “weak” ways of living: if the “chengguan” are active in their duties, the street vendors cannot survive; If the street vendors occupy the road at will, it means that the “chengguan” are neglecting their duties.

I have seen an interview with a “chengguan,” he tole the reporter that he would allow the street vendors to set up their stalls after his work is done so that he would have no duty to execute his power to ask them to go away. When he was asked if he would buy food from the street stalls, surprisingly, his answer was no because he could not afford them. It is unbelievable that the individual who seems to hold power in their hand, was actually an even more vulnerable one.

Why “chengguan” are facing this kind of issue?

Firstly, there are some problems left from history. The earliest urban management team was established in 1997. Before the establishment of urban management, the departments like city image  were in charge. Also, the supervision of the society in that period ability is weak, for instance, the actions they took were very rough, which makes hitting things is often seen on the streets. As a descendant of these departments, the way of law enforcement was old as well. After the strengthening of social supervision, lots of the departments were not willing to continue this tiring and dirty job, which caused the “chengguan” to take over all the negative aspects in city management.

Secondly, the law enforcement environment of “chengguan” is poor, and there is still no progress in developing the means of law enforcement up to now. “Chengguan” have no other means of law enforcement to restrain illegal traders, for instance, they can neither revoke their licenses like the industry and commerce department, nor have personal control like the police. In the process of imposing a fine, there is a great chance to encounter resistance and non-cooperation. This would led them into fight. What is more, during their work of law enforcement, the crowd would gather to see what is happening. The preconceived stereotypes of “chengguan” would hinder their proper work.

In conclusion, most “chengguan” are normal people who earn their living by maintaining the city image. People should not just simply consider them as the “strong” and “evil” ones.

The term “Low-end Population” appears in Chinese state media around 2010 where it was used to refer to the migrant workers who work in lower income jobs in major cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Since then the term was used in official documents issued to restrict migration and control population in cities. Overpopulation in China’s major cities has always been a social problem for the CCP. Because of hukou system, people receive their benefits, health cares and social security according to the location they register their hukou. While such system was established to better allocate resources and manage population, it also create barriers for migrant workers. Most of the low-end population that the official documents refer to are those to do not own the certificate of registration in these major cities. That is why they are not secured by the government. Even for a lot of people who are not considered to be “low-end”, acquiring a hukou in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen also takes a long time and certain amount of capital (e.g. you have to own an apartment in the city). Migrant workers who works in lower income jobs usually live in small units that are divided by landlords which often does not comply with safety protocols. On Nov. 18, a fire broke out in a building in Beijing’s southern Daxing suburb, killing 19 people including eight children. Most of the victims were migrants who had come to Beijing from other parts of the country. According to local authorities, around 400 people lived in cramped conditions in the two-story structure, which also served as a workshop and refrigerated warehouse for local vendors. Nearly 20 people including managers and electricians of the building have been detained over the fire. In response to the tragedy, the Beijing government kicked off  a 40-day citywide safety inspections, with a particular focus on warehouses, rental compounds, wholesale markets, and other constructions on the rural-urban fringes across Beijing. The campaign aims to demolish illegal dwellings on short notice, effectively leaving thousands of people living in Beijing’s outskirts homeless overnight. Chinese Netizens on Weibo and WeChat started to use the term low-end population on these platforms and generated a trending hashtag. Some of them think that the government should regulate the migrant population into the cities, other think that what the government did was inhumane. The platforms, under the pressure of the Administration of Cyberspace, deleted the hashtag and censored the post that contain the term. 

There is a scene in the Hong Kong movie “Swordsman III” where a foreigner asks a local Chinese “where is Jianghu?” and asks to be taken to Jianghu. It’s an interesting question: can anyone tell us where Jianghu is?

 

It is always difficult to translate this Chinese word “Jianghu” into English. It first appeared in 《Zhuangzi》, and was further extended in meaning by martial arts novels. Nowadays, “Jianghu” conveys much more meanings, like brotherhood, all corners of the country, underworld or a world filled with love, hatred, passion and revenge, etc..One has to look deeper into the Chinese to see that there have always been two “societies”, one in which the state makes the rules, and in which official laws and advocated morals govern the way people behave, and the other in which the people spontaneously develop certain rules that are not necessarily systematically regulated. The latter may not always be in conflict with official rules, but they are certainly different in nature from each other.

 

Streets are essential components of “Jianghu”, even the stages of it. We can see in martial arts novels that spy and killers are most likely to go to a teahouse (Chaguan in Chinese) to pry into their targets’ affairs. Sometimes not only the tea house, but also food or grocery stalls along the street, are main spots to spy out secrets needed. In wangdi’s book, he singles out the tea house, since tea houses are associated with commercial operations whereas streets are mainly about daily life. The amount of tea house in chengdu appears phenomenal that worth a seperate story, but in many other cities of china, especially ancient china, tea house was more like a stall set up on the street, open to the public without a confined space, living with the streets.

 

It’s an interesting phenomenon, and why does that happen?

 

In wangdi’s book, he mentioned a very unique architectural development model in chengdu, which can be applied to most Chinese cities, that houses develop in parallel, with people’s homes and storefronts separated by a single threshold in most cases. In my perspective, this parallel structure in architecture is to some extent a microcosm of Chinese collective values. This model helps build a intimately connected atmosphere among streets. Streets are places for daily life and interactions with neighborhood.

 

Streets, apart from burdening the city’s traffic, serves as a carrier for daily life and economic behavior. It is thought that outsiders can distinguish one city from another by observing features such as city walls, shop fronts and hawker stalls. For example, you can easily differentiate Hongkong from many other Chinese cities, since streets and billboards there are so cyberpunk. Another city, Chengdu, as I observed before, shows its slow-pace in life by numerous public benches under the trees along roads. If you get tired of walking, you can just sit down and enjoy the view. And food stalls, as this city is famous for its food, are all along the roads a few steps away. Here, I noticed that street hawkers are closely linked to public spaces,especially transport systems. In the past, hawkers were at city walls, bridges, along river banks, temples, etc. Now, similarly, you can find them at subway entrances, under overpasses , at train or bus stations, etc. The hawkers seem to be closely connected to the transport system.

 

Back to the main points ——“ Jianghu”, a highly socialized world, is able to be experienced through streets as night falls. I do not want to name it as night markets which gives a sense of gathering, since the food stalls I talk about are often separated and scattered. We could see people drinking and laughing in the stalls at night, most of whom are from the lower class.

Several people sit at tables, as you walked by, you could even hear them talking about national events, such as US-China relations, even though these things seemed far away from them. People spend their evenings socializing at the stalls expressing their boredom and stresses of their work and lives.

The stall is a “Jianghu” that strips people of their original class. Here, no elitism, no authorities, no ruling ideologies, everyone is equal —— waiting for the call from the food stall owner, “ Here, yours!”

Sollinger reviewed the economic development policies adopted by CCP since the establishment of China in 1949, and the corresponding management policies on the streets, focusing on the embarrassing and terrible living conditions of the urban poor especially. Personally speaking, I have always regarded vendors on the Chinese streets as a symbol, of which people’s opinions can reflect a fragmentation of value systems in the current society. Sollinger gave such phenomenon a great description: “For Western societies can hardly be seen to exclude those misfits more decisively than better-off Chinese urbanites and their political elite scorn older and unskilled, discarded workers who are victims of the scourge of poverty.” (Pp. 18) The views on street vendors on social media platforms are always polarized: Some people sympathize with their situation and reflect on the roots of their tragedies; While others condemn them for not striving hard enough to learn knowledge and skills, so they deserve to be abandoned by the high-quality job market. Obviously, the latter’s mental model is not innate, but a product under the influence of economic environment and the governing model. Therefore, the authority should be the object of blame for the urban poor’s long-term tragedy.

It’s intriguing to read the author’s discussion about the “Right to the City “of the urban poor. Actually, I’m wondering who is the “master” of the city? Do we really have a say in the management of urban streets? In recent years, a majority of cities in China have launched actions to unify street shop signs. We gradually discovered that the distinctive shop signs on the street have become exactly the same reproductions, and they are completely indistinguishable without looking closer. In the discussion on this topic, the public showed an amazing consistency: the vast majority of people are criticizing this one-size-fits-all policy, believing that it harms the diverse and vitality of the streets. What is confusing is – how can such an important measure that is closely related to the lives of urban residents be carried out on a large scale without soliciting public opinions? Earlier, an anonymous netizen took a photo of a shop sign after the unification on Changde Road in Shanghai, the black-and-white color schemes of which were particularly lifeless and ugly. After causing a wide range of public opinion discussions, the relevant government departments immediately covered up all signs and stated that they would renovate them. However, why don’t they conduct a public opinion survey before the implementation of the project, and how can such a poor design pass the approval?

Black and white shop signs on the Changde Road in Shanghai

Moreover, the problem about “chengguan” shows a deeper separation between the upper authorities and the grassroots people. Just as Solinger said, chengguan had a period of violent law enforcement in history, and their behavior is typically painted as “beating an unlicensed hawker or smashing a street vendor’s stand”. (Pp. 19) But a post on Zhi Hu (a famous virtual social community for various discussion in China) changed my view several years ago. (Read the post here) Responding to a question about the street food, the user described his experience as a grassroots staff, chengguan, in detail. According to him, this group was stigmatized and misunderstand by the mass in China for a long time. They need to rush to check the stalls in various places with harsh environments every day, and his team has just discovered two street stalls with severely unqualified sanitation, from which they have confiscated illegal raw materials such as gutter oil. Consequently, he offered suggestion for people to eat less street food and expressed being aggrieved by such stigmatization. Indeed, media reports and political propaganda in this era should not continue to intensify the contradiction between chengguan and vendors. We all know that this is essentially a contradiction between the social system/city management and the urban poor. To solve this problem, we may still have a long way to go.