Ownership As The Door To Success
From generation to generation, many cultures have defined success as being economically stabilized, living in luxury, being wealthy, and securing a stable position in the economy. When I was young, I was told by my parents that ownership is the representation of success. By ownership, it means owning your career, education, house, properties, or land. I grew up with the goal of owning my own house and car in the future. My culture has taught me that ownership gives you the freedom to your successes, rather than relying on someone else. Achieving ownership takes commitment, investment, effort, and personal characteristics. Ownership creates success because it shows others that you are seeking success for yourself, which sets yourself apart from others. Ownership means delivering continuous improvements and advancements within your role, as opposed to sticking to the same old place. Ownership cause people to feel that they are successful because ownership comes together with heavy responsibilities. Achieving ownership has always driven individuals forward and never backward. Achieving ownership is the door to success because it shows that you are able to afford a lifestyle that belongs to you only.
The people in China in the 1950s clearly see that the door to the success from ownership could be achieved through extreme efforts and the characteristic of hard working. The people’s beliefs of achieving success from ownership aligns well with the promise of CCP of equal distribution of land through the land reform movement. This promise give the people hope and faith, especially peasants, thinking that private ownership could be easily achieved. In Li Shunda Builds a House by Gao Xiaosheng, after the land reform movement, Li Shunda begins to have faith and the spirit of “eating thin gruel fir three years to buy an ox,” (Xiaosheng 25) to build a three-room house. To him, a life without owning your own house is just wasteful. Xiaosheng emphasizes that Li Shunda’s father, mother, and one-year old brother had all died without owning a real home (Xiaosheng 26). This particular promise of the Manifesto creates the success from ownership as it promotes the foundation of prosperity, and ended up motivating many individuals to work hard. Onward, Li Shunda works extremely hard with the concept of conservation. Private ownership pushes Li Shunda’s family to use soybean instead of oil, raise chicken without saving any eggs, and eat two meals instead of three meals a day (Xiaosheng 31). He is motivated to the point that he has to revolve his entire family completely in order to build a house of his own. Success is priceless because you own it and there’s no place to buy success.
With the CCP giving Li Shunda the faith he was lacking, he got influenced by the Party significantly because he believes that the Party would help him achieve his goal. For example, at one point he felt living in a multi-story apartment is better than a one-story home. He is lost in the beliefs of the CCP. Until in 1958, when he is able to buy the building materials, the government’s compensation policy took all of that away from him. In the mid 1960s, when he learns his lesson and keeps his savings as cash, now he is unable to find anything in stock except hopelessness. When he successfully obtains a deal of 217 yuan for 10,000 bricks, he ends up exchanging that money for the chairman of the brick factory to help him when he is called in to the commune’s organ of dictatorship. After a second attempt, still no bricks. Third time around, when he is ready to buy the bricks again, he needs get a certificate, and after wasting 6 months to get a certificate, there is no single brick in stock. In the end, Li Shunda actually feels fortunate that he didn’t build his home at the time when other house owners have to watch their houses get teared down and put into “the village” apartment. As he attempts to construct his own home, he is constantly faced with many last-minute disappointments from sudden political changes in the government system. After 20 plus years, the promises of the Manifesto didn't at all help Shunda to achieve success. This is because his belief of achieving the success of ownership through hard work is completely wrong. In my culture, success is so hard to achieve because it is worth so much money at the end. However, in such an unjust economy, success could not be achieved through only hard-work. Even in today’s society, you need connections and networking to achieve the highest rank of success. You deserve success, but success doesn't always deserve you.
Furthermore, the people of China in the 1950s believe the door to success was through the characteristic of hard-working, but realistically it could’ve been achieved more easily through connections and act of bribery. For example, Li Shunda have to become great friends with Party Secretary Liu Qing for him to order the chairman of the brick factory to sell 10,000 bricks to Li Shunda and approve his request for eighteen concrete beams. But his connection with the secretary is not enough. The factory refused to transfer the bricks to the boat until Li Shunda hands over a pack of quality cigarettes. And after many years of challenges, Li Shunda finally is able to secure his own bricks with just one pack of cigarettes to get his bricks docked and another pack to obtain his rafters. He finally comes to the realization that he would’ve spent much less effort if he used bribery to obtain his bricks instead of using his strong motivation and hard-working characteristic. Connections are important, but bribery is more important, especially in Asian countries. Growing up in the U. S, I never saw bribery was a way to achieve goals or to get away from trouble. But bribery was a big thing in my culture to the point that you need to bribe others if you want an easy life. For example, my parents recall giving the nurse $5 to bathe my sister, people bribing police officers with money to avoid illegal convictions, and people handing cash directly to the motor department for a license without any form of testing. Although achieving success through bribery is inappropriate, it works. This clearly shows that China officials were abusing their power for individual benefits and it is very wrong. Everyone should get the same opportunity to reach success.
While Li Shunda trades sugar for useable scraps in the village, such an inexpensive good, but his son was never exposed to the taste of sugar. Li Shunda’s goal of ownership has transformed his son into an iron child. His son was raised like a warrior whose task was to win the war by getting recognized for “building your own house”. Unlike any other child, his son was exposed to realism before he should. Growing up as an iron child impacted him a significant amount and changed his perspective in ownership. His son believes that house ownership could be achieved through easier ways instead of working hard. In fact, he is often described as “good-for-nothing”. Unlike Shunda, his son chooses to marry Xinlai who has a house instead of a beggar like his mom. Basically, as an iron child, he was able to recognize if something is worth the result and adapt to reality instead of getting trapped under the hardships and influence of the Party.
A representation of iron child was portrayed in Iron Child by Mo Yan. “What are you crying for, is your daddy dead? ” (Yan 103), this shows that an iron child is supposed to adapt to hardships without any problems, even if it is the most painful thing. It’s very normal for kids to cry, but it is not normal for an iron child to cry. The iron boys eat iron in order to survive as it represents the hardships that they go through. The eating of iron shows that the iron boys were in the process of achieving the success from ownership. It shows their determination to own their own lives without any assistance from his parents. Yan bring out the theme of hardship and suffering by portraying that kids have to eat iron while their parents works for the state. This shows that with the promise of an even distribution of jobs, the government is able to provide people with work in the construction rail way, but with unreasonable compensation. The workers couldn’t afford food for their kids and have to leave their children under harsh care in nursery school. During the Great Leap, people faced extremely challenging conditions to the point that kids have to find survival by eating iron. As you can see, iron children have a greater chance of pursuing success than regular kids. I can definitely say that I am an iron kid and as an iron kid, I am more than halfway to success. I believe that as an iron child, you experience harder and painful things which ultimately gives you strength to always stand up when you fall. Learning to eat iron means you’re also at the success-finish-line because you are adapting and still working towards it.
Following Li Shunda’s case of gaining faith of obtaining private ownership through the land reform movements. I see that land reform was clearly not equivalent to land ownership. Although land was equally distributed to most people and the landlord class was eliminated, the motivation of a lifestyle with prosperity and success do not match up with the Party’s beliefs and policies. How is possible to earn the success of ownership when “Communism means eliminating all private property” (Jisheng 203)? The land reform movement aims to end the uneven distribution of landownership, but all private ownership is completely destroyed as well. For example, food, fuels, cook utensils, chopsticks, clothes, and personal assets and belongings are taken away from people. If such simple every day’s assets are taken away, how is it possible to believe in a better future? I believe that the objective of the promise of land reform is to promote the abuse of power by the Party’s officials rather than to improve the conditions in China at that time. Furthermore, the promises and political policies of the Party play a bigger part in the causes of the famine than the environment. The Party never allowed commune members to raise pigs, cultivate extra land, I feel like the Party aims to gain profit from the people through the movement. It’s like I give you one small piece of land and now you give me everything that you own. All of the strict regulations of seeding areas, fertilizers, and depth of seedling cause production to go down and eventually turns the whole situation into a famine.
The promise of the CCP of providing land to peasants have destroyed humanity entirely instead of improving humanity through the foundation of motivation, prosperity, and achievement of success through hard work. There are several cases of cannibalism, flesh eating, and food thieves. The Party’s policies have turned people wild for survival. During the famine, people were also infected with illnesses from eating food that are not sanitized and edible such as clay. Then we have cadres over here just eating rice while peasants eat vegetables, and eating meat while peasants starve on several days without food (Jisheng 221). The Party uses the land reform movement during the famine to their personal benefit to gain wealth. For instance, the state establishes penalties for stealing food which includes withholding meals, seizing properties, fines, and get beaten (Jiseng 226).
The success of gaining ownership to your own land, house, and other properties in the 1950s in China using the concept of effort and having the characteristic of hard-working was definitely a reach during the 1950s. The foundation of achieving prosperity and success from the promises of the CCP and during the land reform movements gave much faith and spirit to individuals. But the Party’s actions and policies didn't align with what they said. In fact, the promises they made was just a strategy for them to gain personal benefits from the people. How is it possible to gain success if the Party owns your success? In the 1950s, working hard is necessary, but after making enough money, none of that money could be conserved or placed at the right place. Therefore, in any (unjust) economy, I see success as something that you have to work hard for, but also need insincere techniques like bribing and taking advantages of others.
