The Life of an Ordinary Person in Different Period

The Life of an Ordinary Person in Different Period
Name
University
Course
Date
Meyer’s depiction of life in China’s Northeast
Introduction
The author of the book Depiction of Life in China’s northeast famously known as Manchuria was set within the context Patagonia and Great Plains. This book is a mixture of historical research, memoir and contemporary reporting. This book represents a peculiar profile of ancient history in the northeast territory of China. Meyer spent three years in a home that he rented in a Wasteland where the major economic activity was rice farming. This place happened to be his wife’s family hometown. According to Meyer, the personal lives or saga of his in-laws is a reflection of the tremendous changes that China as a country was going through in the 21st century. The changes that are taking place in this town were coming in from privately owned rice company that was fulfilling the social responsibilities by engaging in the construction of roads, introduction of organic farming and construction of high-rise apartments to accommodate its workers in the rural areas of the northeast territory of China. It is important to note that rice farmers could only move to the high-rise apartments only after they had agreed to give out their lands. Before arrival of this privately owned company in this area, the lands there were owned communally. The Wasteland has completely transformed into an industrial area with many companies are now available in this area.[Meyer, Michael. In Manchuria: A Village Called Wasteland and the Transformation of Rural China. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2015.]
This essay examines the analysis of Michael Meyer’s book Manchuria to describe the lives of at least three different Chinese people that have been introduced in the book by the author.
Detailed Description of Lives of Three Different People Introduced in Meyer’s Manchuria
For a start, In Manchuria is the second book that has been authored by Michael Meyer. This book follows The Last Days of Old Beijing. In Manchuria, the author is using colorful local people of the Wasteland community to be the anchor of his story and eventually and meticulously capture the flavor of colloquial Chinese people. The author depicts the two residents that seem noteworthy and these residents are Auntie Yi, who was a retired cadre of Communist and her brother San Jiu, who is depicted by the author as a quintessential peasant. San Jiu was presented by the author as a being canny and very much attuned to the cycles and interrelated nature which are weather and rice farming. It is important to note that more often than not, the author would astray from his main subject to compensate for the deficiencies that might come up when focusing on the tiny village of Wasteland. Communist party leaders seem to have been compromised by the company owners to convince the peasant rice farmers to give up their lands and homes to move into the high-rise apartments that were built by the Company owners. San Jiu has been used by the author in this book to analyze the current situation of the Wasteland society. San Jiu is depicted as someone who is unhappy about their lifestyles that have been disorganized by the establishment of the rice company in the area. San Jiu is being disgusted by the fact that they are now being ordered around by the general manager of the company. They were tricked into forfeiting their lands to the Company owners and now they are working for them in their company. The authors being well conversant of how the life used to be for the people in this area, seems to be surprised by the chronology of events. For instance, the author is trying to recall how things used to be during feudal times when it was the landlords that used to order the locals around. They were later followed by the cadres of the Communist party, and now it is the managers that make life difficult for the local people like San Jiu. The general manager of the Eastern Fortune Rice Company is determined to drive out the locals out of their lands and accommodate them in the apartments that they had constructed. The other character that has been brought out in this book is the general manger that seems to be cunning in his management style. He ensured that the government and the leaders of the Communist party were on his side by tricking them into accepting for the village to be turned into town. In addition to that, the general manager is dictatorial and this has been brought when San Jiu complained about being ordered around by him.[Waswo, Ann, and Nishida Yoshiaki. Farmers and village life in twentieth-century Japan. Psychology Press, 2003.]
Another Chinese that has been described in this book is called Meng Zhaoguo who is said to have impregnated a girl who was an alien. According to Meyer, Meng impregnated the alien girl at a logging that is located along commune lane. This was evident from the conversation that Meng had over the cell phone that also lost the signal due to the poor quality of the network of the area. Meng is a perfect example of the poverty level that was in the area. Meng was living in a framed woodened house that he had built on his own. When Meyer visited him in his tiny house, yellow-bulb dropped down from the ceiling, in that house there was no proper signal reception for the cell phone. Another poverty situation that has come out of this Wasteland village was when Meng’s friend from Malaysia had brought him a cow and decided to sell that cow because it was costly to keep it.
Another Chinese that Meyer has mentioned in the book Manchuria is Auntie Yi, which was used by the author to show that those who refused to sell their lands to the investors that came with the rice in company in Manchuria community to be living under abject poverty. The investor had a good intention of developing the village that had got no even cell phone signal. But people like Auntie Yi were ant-development in this area...