Chapters 5-6

Chapter 5 introduced me to the ridiculous taxing procedures of the Chinese town leaders. They can basically just make up a tax for anything they want, as long as they have a "reason" for it. I know I've used this word a bunch of times in this blog already, but I've got to use it again because it seems to be what everyting boils down to: corruption. And in this case, greed. Anyway, the way that the Chinese peasants are taxed is unbelievably unjust. Like I mentioned earlier, the officials pretty much just make up dumb rules in order to get some more money. Thats basically like a school teacher imposing a punishment of a loss of five points to anyone who accidentally coughs during class for "disrupting the learning environment." And the worst part of it is, because of the corruption, theres almost nothing the peasants can do about it. They could go up to a higher level of authority, but what are the chances of that actually working? Not very high.

One thing that keeps me so surprised with the way the peasants are being treated is that China is a modern country, even when this story is taking place. Just because of the way that the government operates and that the peasants are oppressed makes me keep thinking that these events are happening way back in times like the middle ages. I have to keep reminding myself that most of these events have actually taken place during my lifetime. It makes me think: have things actually improved for the peasants since back in the middle ages? You'd think that things would have improved by now...but I don't see a huge difference between fuedel systems and the government system that China uses in this book. Obviously, the positions have different names, but for the most part it seems like they both function kind of similarly.

One thing that really interested me was the part that listed the ratio of government officials to villagers in different periods of time. During the Western Han Period, it was one official to almost 8,000 commoners. Now, that number is down to one official to every 67 commoners. Now, I'm not real good at analyzing government cause and effect or strategies, but I have a feeling this huge growth in the number of officials is just another way of oppressing the peasants. The smaller that ratio, the less of a voice the people will have.

I didn't really understand the part where the officials were just kind of going around eating at random people's houses. I understand that they were taking advantage of the people (whats new. . .?) by eating at their houses without paying them at all, but why? The section ended with the saying "The revolution is a dinner party!" which is a witty twist on Mao's word's. Based on this saying, I figure these unwelcomed dinner parties were somehow related to the Cultural Revolution, but I wasn't able to make the connection when I was reading.

I liked this book! I'm usually not a big fan of these informational-type nonfiction books, but this one was able to hold my interest really well. I liked how most of the novel was kind of presented in short-story form. The peasants' troubles and oppression was shown through one case, into which the authors dove deeply and explained a lot of details. After this story, he would switch to another, and tell it in a similar manner. I liked it this way. Still, I find some of the treatment that the peasants recieve almsot inhuman. I don't can how the village leaders could be so heartless to go through with what they did. I know one thing for sure--I would have made a terrible Party boss in China, because theres no way I could ever be that mean to those poor peasants.