Oil and Water by Tom Cliff;

Author:Tom Cliff; [Cliff, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780226360270
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2016-05-12T05:00:00+00:00

The Necessity of Guanxi

Guanxi is considered a practical necessity in Korla. This statement holds true even among those low-status people who would appear to possess very little of the commodity, and also among those midstatus people who deny that they themselves engage in the exchange of face and favor. A few examples serve to illustrate this point.

The first example shows how guanxi is used to work around the contradictory local manifestations of policies that can be traced back to the central government. In early September 2009, I was riding on the motorized tricycle of a young migrant entrepreneur who sells live fish in the free market. Tensions were running particularly high that day due to rumors of attacks with hypodermic syringes in Urumchi, so when somebody coming the other way warned us that there were police up ahead, I offered to get off. A foreigner and a migrant fishmonger heading for the Uyghur part of town could only attract the wrong type of attention. The driver, however, was relaxed. He said,

It is no problem. The problem is that we don’t have driver’s licenses for these motorbikes. Originally, licenses were not needed, or at least not checked, but now they have started to check them. As people with hukou from outside Korla, we are unable to apply for three wheeled motorcycle licenses. But don’t you worry about it. This is totally normal, we are used to it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.