蚁族 (Ant Tribe) is a term coined by the authors to refer to the masses of young university graduates from the provinces that struggle to survive in the Chinese big cities, living in cramped “Ant nests” in the outskirts, and taking unstable and underpaid jobs that are often not related to their studies.

This social group has sometimes caught international attention, especially during the 2009 crisis, when many papers sent their correspondents to interview jobless students, and pundits even saw there the seeds of a new Tiananmen. But it is Beijing Uni doctorate Lian Si who directed in 2008/09 the first comprehensive study, and “Ant Tribe” is a collection of some of his most interesting results, repackaged for the big public.

I have quite strong opinions on this book that I want to write about. In particular these opinions are two, and they are opposite, so I will divide the review in two parts: First Sociology, then the Chinese characteristics.

1- Sociology: A great piece of pop science

For any non-specialist [1] interested in Chinese social problems, this book does a great job of explaining the phenomenon of the Ant Tribes. Lian Si is a talented researcher, able to push an original idea through the minefield of Chinese academia, and to motivate a team of 15 odd postgrads of different disciplines to work for him for free, performing an impressive research effort spanning various cities.

The book has two clearly differentiated parts. The first chapter is the scientific one, where Lian Si presents and analyzes the main data obtained in the visits to the Ant Nests. Although it is only a summarized version of his study, it goes quite deep into details, including the internet surfing habits or even stats on how much sex the Ants actually have (if you need to know, the answer is not enough!)

That first part is conveniently brief and light, and starting in Chapter 2 “Tales of the Ant Tribe” the book goes on to tell the life of a few selected Ants, including some touching anecdotes. The next chapters follow in the same spirit, telling the adventures of the team during the research and explaining the backstage process of the book. I suspect it is these chapters that are making the book so popular among Chinese post-80s, although it hardly contains anything that students here don’t know.

The anecdotes included are relatively tame, and the impression we get is that it is indeed a vulnerable group that we should watch, but it is still better off than the migrant workers or the miners. Most of the students live in relatively OK apartments and have jobs, some even have a room of their own. The only slightly scary anecdote is the one about thugs regularly asking for the “water fee” in Tangjialing, and beating anyone who refuses to pay 10 RMB. Lian even shows some pictures of the receipts issued by those thugs, which, believe you me, come with cute little pictures of the Fuwas and of Mickey Mouse!

The weak point here is that all the stories are taken from the Beijing “Ant Nests” like Xiaoyuehe and Tangjialing, in spite of the prologue announcing research in other major cities. From what I have seen, this phenomenon is not really restricted to the Nests, and in Shanghai there are Ants living in crammed apartments and old houses all over the place, like my old neighbours in Beijing Road. As a Shanghai resident, I was disappointed that the book didn’t cover those Ants.

The problem of the Graduate Students

The book gives more comprehensive explanations for the origin of the Ants problem, but a main point seems to be the state policy of popularizing higher education.  This 扩招 process started in 1998 and it pushed the proportion of university graduates from an exclusive minority to 21% in just a few years. The final objective is set at 40% , taken from statistics of some developed countries.

Ant Tribe mostly sticks to the field of sociology, and I missed some wider conclusions from a political and economic perspective. It seems clear that at the root there is an economic problem: a country selling cheap labour and imitation electronics will never need 40% of higher graduates in its work force. Unless China manages to move its products one step up the ladder and develop some international creative companies, the problem of the Ants can only get worse in the years to come.

In fact, many in the West may be familiar with this problem because in its source it is not unique to China: a similar phenomenon of university graduates exceeding demand happens in Western countries, where history graduates end up working as office receptionists. The main difference between the Chinese and Western situation is due to cultural factors, related to traditional family values and the immense prestige traditionally attached in China to university studies, especially in the less developed countryside where most of the Ants come from.

In this respect, some anecdotes in the book are telling, like the guy who got highest marks in his hometown and gave lots of face to his parents by going to Uni in Beijing, only to find that 5 years later his small brother is thriving with business back home and he is stuck with low-paying menial jobs: how can he have face to go back to his hometown?

A man has face like a tree has a bark, the old phrase goes, and indeed these people don’t want to live without honour. I can only admire the pride and determination of the young village Chinese who go through the harsh competitive system of Chinese education, and still find energies afterwards to continue the struggle in the “Ants Nests”. I can’t avoid comparing with many in my own country who would just happily go back to live on their parents and enjoy a life of beach and clubbing.

Next time I hear a China expert ramble about the spoilt post-80s generation I will point him to this book for some seriously needed clue.

2- The Chinese characteristics

I leave this part for the end because I liked the book and I didn’t want to pollute the review with the same old political discussion. But a review cannot be complete without mentioning this point that Western media have ignored.

Brave and determined as Lian Si sounds, from very early on he has counted with the support of the Beijing Political Committee and the central organs of the party, which explain why he is getting so much coverage in official media, or why he was was even granted authorization in the first place to publish on this thorny subject. A large part of Ant Tribe’s success in China is unquestionably due to this support.

What really bothers me here is not the support of the party, but the absurdly smug stance that Lian adopts from the beginning. In fact, a single phrase in the prologue spoilt the book for me. When he was looking for initial funding for his research, some  colleagues suggested that Lian apply for some of the wealthy Western programs, but he rejected them because it was “very clear for him that foreign funds have ulterior motives”. This phrase echoes the classic CCP line applied to all democracy movements, “别有用心”, and speaks clearly of how comfy Lian is with the establishment.

To be completely fair, I agree with Lian that many of the Western funds are given as much for the political content of the research as for its intrinsically  scientific value. But what I find inacceptable is that he so proudly declares his independence from foreign funding, only to openly show its complete subservience to party interests. Is admirable to be independent, Lian Si, but this only works when you are independent from both sides.

Indeed, the shadow of the party is heavy along the book. All anecdotes are devoid of any disharmonious content, the Ants have no political opinions, and there is no serious questioning of party policies that might have lead to the situation. Perhaps the most obvious is the section about  the internet behaviour of the Ants, stating that internet users tend to show a loss of personality and responsibility (去个性化与责任分散), and focusing on the risks to stability from these groups that may be prone to “believe internet rumours” and “stir trouble”.

Fortunately, most of the content in the book is not directly related to politics, so it can be consumed safely.  But when you compare Lian’s accommodating work with the brave investigations of Xu Zhiyong on the Black Jails, which went unknown to the Chinese post-80s public, it is difficult to avoid the feeling that there is something very wrong with the Chinese publishing system.

The problem here is not with Ant Tribe, which is a fine piece of work, but rather with the dozens of other books that should have been published and never made it through the party’s filter. Many of those books would have reached an ever larger success and significance among the Chinese public than this party supported, politically neutered work.

If government control affects so seriously a scientific book, how can it not affect other branches of literature? I will leave this discussion for some other day, but Ant Tribe has just reconfirmed my initial idea: that we will not see any great work of literature coming from China until the country gets rid of the absurd CCP surveillance.

1. I am not a sociologist, and I am not evaluating the methods used for the research, although they look good enough. I would suggest any serious sociologist to get a copy of the original study instead of this science popularization book, and give me a break in comments.

He is absolutely right in the main thesis of the article, as copied below from the lede. And he is also right to say that Han Han messed it up in the interview with Time, and his reaction to that in the Youth Weekend was an embarrassing tantrum that didn’t fix the situation at all.

Frankly speaking, I was not surprised by the article, Han Han has made many enemies in China over the years, and he should expect them to come at him with the axe the minute he has a faux pas. But he continues to be as arrogant as usual. He knows that inside China, with his post 80s public, he is still invulnerable. Which is probably why Mr. Zhou writes this in English in a paper for foreigners, where he is safe from the Han Han fans.

But back to the point that interests us: the image of Chinese writers in the West. We have already criticized the part of Western opinion in this affair, but I think there is a lot to be said about Han Han as well. He acts like he couldn’t care less how the Media sees him. If he was a teenage punk I wouldn’t be surprised, but he is already pushing thirty and judging by his writing, he is not “without a cause”. On the contrary, he has a clear notion of justice and he uses his pen to hit where it hurts in the powers that be.

So WHY doesn’t he give a damn? Any foreign writer, no matter how successful at home, knows that an interview on Time is pure gold to project an image outside the country. It is many $$$ that Han Han could make outside China, many race cars he could pay for, way more than in the Chinese market where he is selling books at 20RMB, and even then losing business to pirates. No, I can’t believe he doesn’t give a damn. He does, and at this moment he is still regretting the day he met Time.

And that’s where I wanted to get. It’s hard to believe that Han Han isn’t smart enough to give the Time journalists the meat they are hungry for. He could have prepared a couple of slogans, some Polar bears and Justice in the World, without necessarily going into details. But he is suffering from the same problem as most Chinese at all levels, from Hu JinTao to the last of the provincial spokesmen: they do not understand how to use Western media. They consistently lose at this game, they don’t even want to learn it, and then they turn into a matter of national pride what was just a matter of technique.

It has to be a consequence of living so long with Xinhua and the People’s Daily, the Chinese were not bad at it before.

Or do you have another explanation?

UPDATE:  See comments below for the reaction on Hecaitou blog (h/t FOARP)

UPDATE2: I just find that the whole thing was translated yesterday by ESWN. There is also some more material, including an interview in 1510, check it out.

Whatever we make of the phrase, the fact is that it comes up every time, whether we are speaking of language, media or politics,  all seems to point in that direction.  The pictures below are my attempt to draw a World Map of the Internet to illustrate this insularity, using the data from the site Internet World Stats.

Here is the first idea I had: I got the statistics of all countries with more than 10 Million internet users, that makes 32 in total, from China to Morocco. Then I did an Excel chart where each bubble has an area proportional to the internet users of the country, and crucially, I filled the bubbles with code from the Matrix. Result: the World Map of the Matrix:

The World Map of the Internet Matrix

One interesting thing in the map above is that Asia is already the largest internet area in the World. Amazing—but not really, after all, it has by far the largest population. And this is nothing compared to what is coming: with the growth of India and China the internet is going to be an Asian joint in the next few years. No hit will be really global on the net without them. Up to now, most people on the net were from developed countries, from now on the majority will be from developing ones. The close contact between our societies will have important consequences online and off. That is, supposing we really manage to connect.

But when we speak of the internet, it doesn’t make much sense to look at political boundaries. There is no such a thing as border controls online, what really unites or divides the peoples is culture. An in particular, the most important parameter is language: regardless of your national origin, what defines you as an user is the language you surf in. That is the reason why my browsing habits look more like this blogger’s than like anyone in my country: ESWN and I have completely different backgrounds, but we have in common our surfing languages.

So I looked up the statistics of the 10 most used languages on the internet, from English to Korean. This time I coloured the bubbles with flags, and I placed them roughly on the center of gravity of their community of speakers. The result is the map of Surfing Languages:

The World Map of the Surfing Languages

Still, the map is not great. Many of the speakers in the massive English bubble are actually Indians, Spanish should be both in America and in Europe, and Australia is completely out of the picture. Physical distance has no meaning on the net, even less than political boundaries. It becomes clear that geography is of little use for my purpose, so we might as well dump  Gmaps and stick to the bubbles.

My new diagram looks like this, where all the major internet communities are represented together in a Cloud. We are all interconnected, and the only solid differentiator is language. Two people might share a hobby, like soccer , but they don’t go to the same websites if they surf in different languages. Most of the media and resources on the internet are not translated into other languages, but rather re-written and re-interpreted by native bloggers/journalists, who function as border control among the communities.

Improved World Map of the Internet: the Cloud

One of the things we see on the Cloud is that all the communities are touching each other. But I’m afraid this is not a very precise picture. Normally Russians don’t translate Japanese content, neither do Portuguese translate Arabic. The English language has a crucial role on the internet today, because in most cases it is through English that the rest of the languages communicate: Most content is translated first to English and from there to the other communities. The English bubble, including users from all over the World, is the Center of the Internet.

Another problem with the Cloud is that it shows all the communities equally interconnected, which is not very realistic. Users who speak European languages are much more likely to read English. The Spanish community, for example, includes many Americans who surf English sites as much as their own language. Actually, most of the language bubbles share a significant part of their pixels with the English bubble, so we can represent the Map as a sort of Venn diagram:

Second Iteration: the Venn Diagram Map

We see the new Map is very different from the previous one. Now there is a cluster of Western languages that share a lot of content with English, two more languages that share a bit, Russian and Arabic, and then the three languages that form the core of the Asian internet today: Chinese, Korean and Japanese. And you may have noticed that I have drawn Chinese at a distance from the rest.

For various reasons that we will see, Chinese don’t use Facebook, or Twitter, or Youtube, or MySpace, or eBay. They don’t read Boing Boing or the Huffington post, and they chat in their own QQ chatrooms. They rarely receive the viral emails that we receive, and instead they get others like this one. They have all the things that we have and some more, but they built them in parallel in their separate parcel of the internet.

Whereas the sizes of the bubbles above are based on quantitative data collected by a respected source, the positions are only decided by semi-informed feeling. Any reader could argue that China should not be so far right. There is Hong Kong,  Chinese-Americans, even mainland Chinese who do surf in English. And I will be forced to admit that the Venn Map is flawed, because it fails to show this.

But in such a fast changing World like the Internet, position really means nothing. What holds today may be different tomorrow. What is really significant is the dynamics: which direction is China going, and how will the internet look in 10 years? Everybody agrees that China’s internet community is growing very fast, and that is natural. The worrying part is that it might also be moving away from the rest.

Third iteration: The Dynamic Map

Because in Western countries internet penetration is already very high and India is still lagging behind, in the next 10 years the Chinese internet will become almost as big as all the rest together. If it continues to diverge, it may grow into a parallel network, like a dark side of the moon, a vast, self-sufficient island that the government can cut out at any moment and most people inside it don’t even notice the difference. This defeats the whole idea of the www.

Whatever the real magnitude of the problem, it is clear to most observers that there is a disconnect between China and the rest of the Internet, and there are powerful forces pulling them further apart. Fortunately, there are also forces working to balance this, and the results in the coming years will very much depend on how those factors play against each other. Here is how my new map looks now:

The Forces of the Internet

As we saw before in this blog,  some of the main factors that keep China separate from the World are the following, shown in red in the chart:

• Linguistic, as we saw in this post, where we proved that Chinese language is beautiful and unique in many ways, but it makes it very difficult for Chinese and foreigners to connect.
• Cultural, in the broad sense of the word, meaning that the communities have so different views and values that they cannot understand each other. This includes the problems with the Media.
• Political, the deliberate actions of the CCP in  multiple forms, including Nannies, the Great Firewall of China (GFW) and directly arresting people, as we saw here.

And in green the main factors that go in the opposite direction. Here they are in detail, for the optimists to rejoice:

• The growing number of bridge bloggers and other internet uses that work to connect the two communities. These include not only the English language Chinablogs, but mainly Chinese people who translate foreign media and other content on the Chinese internet. From this humble blog I also did my bit against the GFW.
• The post 90s and 80s generations that already dominate the Chinese internet. Their personal tastes in arts, music or cinema will probably be more international, and push them to connect with the World. This point is object of debate though, and some Westerners are very skeptical of the post 80s.
• Business is one of most important factors that link China to the World. Since the construction of the EU, it is no secret that commerce can achieve the most ambitious goals in World Peace, so whatever your take is on those business minded Chinese, they are probably the main force that is still keeping the Chinese Island connected and holding the World Wide Web together.

What do you think? 你有什么想法？

Do you think I am exaggerating? Or is the problem even worse than this? Any factor I missed in the Internet Maps? Internet friends: you are the pixels inside the coloured bubbles, you know all about this World because it is your home: comment and help me improve my Map!

你觉得这很夸张吗？还是认为问题写得还不够严重？你知道我在互联网地图里忽略了哪些元素吗？网友们：你们是小圈里面的像素，那里就是你们家，帮助我改进我的地图！  U5KMU63NGPP2