China, as any other big country, has many contrasting social phenomena. One of these can be observed in coastal cities between postmodern, steel-glass high-rises and improvised urban villages. The latter were built by villagers several decades ago to rent out houses for small workshops and dormitories to migrant workers who poured into the newly developing industrial centers on the coast. The villagers are organized in village committees which have a high degree of autonomy from the municipal governments, so no municipal bureau of urban planning could interfere with the villagers’ improvised architecture, and no firefighter could enforce fire safety preparations. The results are houses built so close to each other that you can literally shake hands across alleyways. Hardly any sunlight reaches the ground floor or street corners. These villages still offer the cheapest rents. They were built by village households, and are populated by working class people. In the evening, when people return from work, the small streets and alleys become bustling and cramped with BBQ, noodles, soup and numerous other food stands. The same agility, creativity and talent for improvisation that drove the construction of these villages and the rapid industrialization is still alive since the nineties.
In many coastal cities, urban villages are being knocked down to make room for new high-rise and high-price residential complexes that are planned by powerful government bodies and built by giant real estate developers and state owned enterprises with massive machinery and capital. The apartments are very expensive. The restaurants around these office towers and condominiums are dominated by chains and often the only shop within close vicinity is a franchised convenience store such as 7/11. Here, everything must follow – or at least pretends to follow – the Standard Operation Procedure.
Many young people live in urban villages. They might work in supermarkets, as cleaners, office assistants, delivery workers, accountants, graphic designers or programmers. They cannot or prefer not to afford other lifestyles– not because they want to save money and buy a modern apartment, but since they will never be able to afford one in the city center, they hope to buy one in the outskirts of a smaller or bigger city. But since housing prices keep rising faster than wages, the dream of owning a flat is for many a carrot dangling in front of them, but forever out of reach.
This is what people started to call Neijuan, or involution: no matter how hard you try, you’ll never be able to grab the dangling carrot. Neijuan is used to describe a social phenomenon. People suffer from it, but all consider themselves too powerless to do anything about it. One may work many evenings and overtime, without achieving a promotion or job security, since everyone else does the same. Or one might study hard and do extra homework until well after midnight, still being average because others are haunted by the same fear of losing out. Everybody pushes themselves to run faster only to not fall behind. And even when winning a prize, then it’s just another off-the-shelve merchandise from a chain store or franchise restaurant: nothing special. Neijuan in China is broadly acknowledged and a common topic of complaint, like the weather or the taxman. Parents often complain about Neijuan in the educational rat race only to disguise their boasting about the extra-curriculum ballet, piano, oil-painting and karate classes of their 3 year old daughter;: the only thing that is worse than Neijuan is to underperform in the Neijuan society.
Prickly Paper, 2022, Yifei Chen and Feihong Ou at Synnika, Frankfurt am Main, Foto: Günzel/Reademacher.
Tangping, on the contrary, is a verb that defines the activity of intentionally not participating in the never ending competition of Neijuan society. Tangping is a withdrawal, not a rebellion. It means to individually avoid stress and pressure as well as to make free time and hang out with others, find like-minded friends and create space for thoughts beyond the treadmill of Neijuan.
The government, to no one’s surprise, hates Tangping. Like any other government, it wants its people to work hard, pay tax, have babies and grow the economy and the population. But the secret behind Neijuan and Tangping is that one is the enabler of the other due to social inequality.
In a highly unequal society such as the Chinese, poor people have to make due with very little income and they rely on cheap housing, food and ways to meddle through. If they could not find cheap housing affordable with their low wages, they would demand higher wages or withdraw their labor from the expensive coastal cities. In order to maintain the lucrative cheap labor market, the government tolerates and protects the cheap living spaces for low-paid workers such as the urban villages or the even much cheaper villages in the countryside. As long as social discontent expresses itself only as Tangping and not as an open rebellion, little can challenge the Neijuan order.
It is in these urban and rural villages where it is quite easy for young people from better educated strata and cities to stop working for some time and get by on little money, stretch their savings and stay out of work. So, for the sake of low-paid labor, the same government also provides the living environment to Tangping.
We have seen how the postmodern steel-glass skyscraper symbolizes the treadmill of Neijuan compared to the bustling life of improvisation in the urban villages. But economically, the dearth of space inside the urban villages is itself involution. Here, small workshops are squeezed in tiny rooms or under low ceilings. Lack of space makes work harder and less efficient, and this is made up for with additional low paid workers. Instead of widening the roads for trucks, goods and heavy material is transported on motorbikes or rusty old tricycles. This also leads to more work accidents.
The urban village contrasts with the Neijuan urbanism of steel-glass skyscrapers, it bears much resemblance with the agrarian involution Geertz [see side note on Agricultural Involution] describes for Indonesia. There, land was limited and in order to increase yield for the growing society, more labor was spent on the small fields. The yield per unit of land increased, but the yield per unit of labor did not or even declined.
For the Chinese government, “development” is key. It is front and center of any story of propaganda, justification and legitimacy. Economic involution must be avoided. But since the Great Financial Crisis in 2008/09 the government has been substituting organic or demand driven economic growth with large scale infrastructure projects and real estate bubbles. Almost half of China’s GDP is spent as investment compared to less than one fifth in most other countries. And most of this investment is directed by the state or state banks. Private consumption as a share of GDP is the share of economic output which Chinese receive as wages and other incomes and decide on their own on how they want to spend it, is just over one third compared to well over half or up to two thirds in most countries. Both numbers, the extremely high share of investment and the extremely low share of private consumption explain why most of the economic development in China is directed by state entities and giant private companies and not by private consumption preferences.
This also applies to gentrification. The overarching force behind gentrification which makes urban space more expensive and drives out low-wage workers are government development programs. These would designate an area or an entire urban village to be knocked down and redeveloped with high-rises, shopping malls and residential complexes. Private consumption from higher wage earners moving into poor areas and driving up prices can also be observed in some areas, but plays a much, much smaller role and is itself often linked to larger government projects. Without such links, I have observed little of this private consumption driven gentrification so often talked about in European Western cities.
Involution, fear of falling behind, skyrocketing housing costs, education rat race… this will sound familiar to readers outside of China. But there may be a different level of involution in China. Just to point out two aspects: average housing prices as compared to average annual salaries are three to four times higher in big Chinese cities compared to pretty much all the rest of the world including expensive cities like London, New York and Sidney. The cost of raising a child as compared to GDP is similarly three times higher compared to the global average.
Now coming to the artists from Guangzhou whom we invited to Frankfurt. They live in Xiaozhou, which is one of these many urban villages in the coastal industrial center of Guangzhou. It experienced a little gentrification ten years ago, but then gentrification stagnated and did not cause significant rent increases or changes to the appearance of the village. Like other urban villages it is by no means an utopian land outside of the Neijuan society. But the rents are cheap and so the pressure is much lower. Many friends and young artists find and create space for collective activities, among which one has recently been to reflect and discuss the social pressures of the Neijuan society.
Prickly Paper, 2022, Yifei Chen and Feihong Ou at Synnika, Frankfurt am Main, Foto: Günzel/Reademacher.
*
内卷化的城市景观
在沿海城市，其中一种尤为容易注意到的现象是摩登的高楼大厦和混杂凌乱的城中村的对比。这些城中村是由本地村民在一二十年、甚至是三十年前建造的，用于为涌入沿海新兴工业城市的农民工提供小作坊和宿舍。村民组织成村委会，村委会拥有高度的自治权，故此，没有任何一座城市的市规划局能够干涉村民的简易建筑，消防安全准备工作也无法得到执行。楼与楼之间距离如此之近，人们甚至可以隔着小巷握到彼此的手。低层或是角落里的房屋采光不足，几乎见不到阳光。这些城中村的房子的租金仍然是最便宜的。它们由本地村民兴建，租给打工者居住。到了夜晚，人们下班回来，琳琅满目的小吃档——烧烤、面食、炖汤——令街道和小巷变得熙熙攘攘。在这样的时刻，那些自九十年代起推动城中村建设起来的特质——灵敏、创造力和即兴创造的天赋——仍旧清晰可见，正是这样的特质使得第一批作坊得以发展起来，并加快了其产业化的速度。
在城市另一端，你会发现截然不同的景观：现代化的、钢筋水泥的大厦和高雅的住宅建筑群。它们由强大的政府机构规划，由大型房地产开发商和拥有大量设备及资本的国有企业建造起来，看上去摩登，完善，优雅。这些住宅相当昂贵。办公大楼和住房附近的餐厅都以连锁为主。通常，附近唯一的商店是像7/11这样的便利店。一切都必须遵循——或者至少假装遵循——标准作业程序。在许多沿海城市，城中村正被拆除，以便为新的高楼大厦腾出空间。
许许多多的年轻人在城中村租住房子。他们可能在超市工作，他们的职业或许是清洁工、办公室助理、快递员、会计、平面设计师或者程序员；他们无法或不愿意负担在别的地方租房子的费用——因为他们想要省下钱来去购置一套现代化的公寓。由于永远负担不起市中心的住房，他们只能希望在更小或是更大城市的郊区买房。但房价的上涨速度永远快于工资。对许多人来说，拥有自己的房子这一梦想就像是高悬在头顶的胡萝卜：一臂之遥，却遥不可及。
人们把这种现象称之为“内卷”：无论你有多努力，都够不到悬在自己面前的胡萝卜。你常常加班，但并没有得到晋升或是工作上的保障，因为其他人和你一样。你努力学习，熬夜做完额外的作业，但你的成绩只是中等，因为其他人也在担心失败。你强迫自己跑得更快，只为了不落在后面。即便你获得了一份奖赏，你拿到的也只是从连锁商店或餐厅买来的现成品：既不特别，也不具有原创性。
在中国，人们常常抱怨内卷，内卷这一话题具有广泛的认受性，正如天气和税收一样。时常，父母抱怨内卷，只是为了掩饰自己对3岁的女儿那些额外课程——芭蕾舞、钢琴、油画和空手道——的吹嘘。只有一样事情比内卷更糟糕，那就是在内卷社会中表现不佳。
内卷被用于描述一种社会现象。人们深受其苦，却无能为力。
与内卷相反，躺平是一个动词，它指的是刻意不参与内卷社会永无休止的竞争。躺平是撤退而不是反叛，是自发地避免压力，也是腾出时间与他人共处，找到志同道合的朋友，为内卷以外的思考创造空间。
无疑，政府敌视躺平。正如所有的政府一样，它希望人民努力工作，交税，生子，发展经济和人口。
一个存在于内卷和躺平背后的秘密是它们互相推动着彼此。躺平最大的敌人——政府——本身就是其最大的推动力。其原因是社会的不平等。在中国这样一个高度不平等的社会中，穷人不得不用极少的收入来应付生活，依靠廉价的住房、食物和生活方式勉力支撑下去。如果找不到低廉工资所能负担得起的廉价住房，劳动力就会要求更高的工资，或是离开昂贵的沿海城市。为了维持廉价劳动力市场，政府容忍并保护低薪工人的廉价生存空间，比如城中村或城郊更便宜的村庄。
正是在这些城中村和城乡结合部的村庄里，受教育程度较高的，城市的年轻人能轻易地去停止工作一段时间，靠一点钱过日子，将存款累积起来，而不至于失业。所以，政府在为廉价劳动力提供保障的同时，也为躺平提供了生存空间。
在你的允许之下，亲爱的读者，我将谈到城市主义内卷化的又一次转折。我们已经看到，与城中村热闹的简易生活相比，现代摩登的高楼大厦是如何成为了内卷化的象征。然而，在经济上，城中村内空间的匮乏本身就是一种内卷。在城中村，小作坊被挤在狭小的房间或低矮的天花板下。空间的匮乏让工作变得更难，让效率变得更低，这些都是由额外的廉价劳动力去弥补的。在城中村，道路没有因为对运输卡车的需求而拓宽，人们只能用摩托车或生锈的旧三轮来运输货物和重物。这也导致了更多的工伤事故。
虽然城中村与高楼大厦内卷的城市主义形成对比，但它与Geertz[见BOX关于Geertz]所描述的印尼的农业内卷有很多相似之处。在印尼，土地是有限的。为了增加产量，满足不断增长的社会需求，更多的劳动力被消耗在小田地上。每亩土地的产量增加了，但每单位劳动力的产量却没有增加，甚至反而下降了。
对政府来说，"发展"是关键，是一切宣传、辩解和合法化叙事的门面和中心。经济内卷化必须被避免。但自从2008/9年的大金融危机以来，政府一直在用大规模的基础设施项目和房地产泡沫去取代有机的或由需求驱动的经济增长。大多数其它国家用于投资的GDP只有不到五分之一，中国却将近一半的GDP用于投资。这些投资大部分是由国家或国有银行指导的。私人消费占GDP的份额，即作为工资和其他收入获得的，并由中国人自己决定如何消费的经济产出的份额，仅超过三分之一，而在大多数国家，这一份额远超出一半或高达三分之二。这两个数字，即投资的极高份额和私人消费的极低份额，解释了为什么中国的大部分经济发展是由国家实体和大型私人企业指导的，而不是由私人消费偏好指导的。
士绅化也是同样的道理。使得城市空间更加昂贵、现代和花哨，并且驱逐了低工资工人的士绅化，背后的首要推动力是政府的发展项目。这些项目对一个地区或一座城中村进行拆迁，重新开发为高层建筑、购物中心和住宅区。在一些地区，来自高收入者的私人消费的确可以推动价格的上涨，但所起的作用小得可以忽略不计，而且往往与大型的政府项目有关。没有了这种关联，这种在欧洲城市常见的现象，我在中国几乎没有观察到。
内卷、对落后的恐惧、高涨的住房成本、教育竞争……对于不在中国的读者来说，这些现象听起来很熟悉。但在中国，或许存在着一种不同程度的内卷化。我不会宣称中国的内卷与其他地方所经历的完全不同，也不会进行深入的比较。我只想指出两个方面：与平均年收入作比较，中国大城市的平均房价比平均几乎是世界上所有地区的三到四倍，这里面包括了伦敦、纽约和悉尼等昂贵的城市。与GDP作比较，在中国养育一个孩子的成本也比全球平均水平要高出三倍。
小洲村是沿海工业中心城市广州的众多城中村之一。十年前左右，它经历了一点士绅化，但后来士绅化停滞不前，并未导致租金大幅上涨或村庄外观的改变。和其他城中村一样，它绝非置身于内卷社会之外的乌托邦。但小洲村的租金便宜，所以压力也小得多。许多朋友和年轻艺术家在小洲找到了空间，创造了集体活动，在其中，他们能够反思社会的压力和内卷。
*
This article is part of Escaping Involution, a collaboration between HB Station, Guangzhou (CHN) and Synnika, Frankfurt/Main. Synnika is the official pick-up station for Arts of the Working Class in the central station district of Frankfurt/Main. For more information visit www.escapinginvolution.com and www.synnika.space
//
Banner: Prickly Paper by Yifei Chen and Feihong Ou currently on display at Synnika in Frankfurt/Main until July 8, 2022
