The People’s Republic of Desire

28 One Dollar

Sometimes, while driving the roads in big cities such as Shenzhen and Beijing, I see so many luxury cars pass by that I can't help but wonder how wealthy the Chinese have become compared to twenty years ago. Take a friend of mine as an example. She came to Beijing ten years ago for schooling from a town so small and isolated that most of the people living there had never even heard of BMWs, let alone seen one. Nowadays, she works for a Beijing newspaper, drives a European car, and has just bought a condominium costing 800,000 yuan. But according to her college classmates, she is considered "just so-so." As a returnee who lived in the United States for some years, I see that young urban Chinese are finally catching up with the middle-class life of the West. And the effects of this change are both positive and negative.

Today in China, to get rich is glorious. But does a higher standard of living make people better human beings? Are the rich more generous than the poor? What about the tension between the rich and the poor? Can money buy satisfaction? These are serious questions that I think need to be thought about more by the Chinese people.

One Saturday night, I was waiting in a line of cars to exit a crowded outdoor public parking lot. There were five cars ahead of me. For ten minutes, the line didn't move. I soon discovered that the owner of a BMW SUV, a man in his thirties, was refusing to pay the one yuan parking fee because he objected to the parking lot attendant knocking on his car in a heavy-handed manner. No damage was done to his car, but the driver remained defiant. The parking lot attendant, wearing cotton-padded clothes and looking to be at least fifty years old, insisted that the driver pay the fee. He stopped the car and gathered four buddies who work in the nearby food stand to block the BMW from exiting the lot. Then, he threatened to beat the driver if he did n't pay.

I didn't know if I should get out of my car to offer my help or just stay in the car for my own safety in case a fight broke out. At a crucial moment, a man riding a bicycle approached the group on the brink of an altercation. This passerby carried a ragged bag. He pulled out one yuan from his pocket and offered to pay the fee for the driver.

"It's not about money. I have money!" The BMW driver proudly showed the cyclist a thick stack of one-hundred-dollar bills he carried in his wallet.

The cyclist waved his hand at the BMW driver and said, "Go on, then. Drive safely."

I became curious about the cyclist. Four drivers of fancy cars behind the BMW offered no help. A policeman who witnessed the entire incident did nothing. But the poor bicyclist intervened and solved the problem. I followed him until he stopped at the bicycle repair shop next to the parking lot.

"I need my bike to be aligned and my tire to be fixed," he said to the three men working at the sh op.

"We all watched you!" said one of the men. "At first, we thought you worked for that guy in the BMW – but now we see that you are not with him. You're by yourself!"

"Yes," the cyclist nodded nonchalantly.

"So, you're just a man with a good heart. We can't believe we've met such a good man tonight! We will fix everything on your bike and give you a 60 percent discount. You only need to pay six yuan!" says another shop attendant.

The bicyclist searched through his wallet, and said, "I'm sorry, I only have three yuan left." I felt moved at the thought of this poor man stepping in to help a rich man in a BMW. How can poor people be so giving? I walked toward them with three one-dollar coins. "Let me pay for him."

"Oh, another stranger that turns out to be a good person!" another repairman said with a wide grin.

I walk back to my car, feeling good about myself.

"Hey, wait a minute, is that you, Niuniu?" the cyclist called.

I turned around, again looking at the bicyclist, this time recognizing him as my grandfather. Under the dim lights of the parking lot, I had not been able to see him clearly. I am at once happy to see my grandfather and embarrassed that I didn't do anything to help sooner. What's more unnerving is that my grandfather isn't even close to being poor.

"I love you, Grandpa!" I give my grandpa a big hug and a kiss, before saying good-bye. As I walked back to my car, another thought crossed my mind. Maybe getting rich is glorious, but the combination of looking poor and offering help is so much more glorious than looking rich and acting petty. The new generation of Chinese might be getting wealthier, but are we getting any wiser? We could all take a few lessons from my grandfather.