Finding Grace

Grace is the English name of our guide in Beijing during our trip in March 2009. She did her best to herd a flock of middle aged business men and women through the jungle of a twenty million people city and feed us interesting information about China and Beijing. Not an easy task, as even well-educated middle-classers quickly turn into a mob when they do not get what they want.

Grace is 28 years old, but seem much younger. She is always smiling and as sweet as only Chinese girls can be. She is part of the new generation of China that never has experienced the hardship of the early Chinese Communism or the Culture Revolution. She graduated from a College in Beijing with a Bachelor in Tourism in 2002 and has since worked as a guide. A few years from now, she wants to go back to school and pursue a Master in teaching Chinese.

Grace is like all other young of the global revolution, but she is also a practicing Buddhist. She upholds Chinese traditions, including the strong respect for the elders. Hence, she seem slightly more conservative than many other young Chinese who would like to adopt the Western mode of straight forward communication with less focus on Guanxi and Face. There is today a struggle between the wants of the young and the ways of the old in China.

Grace grew up with her grandmother in a hutong in central Beijing. Up until recently, it was common that children lived with and were raised by their grandparents rather than their parents. I know several Chinese in the US who sent their young children back to China to uphold this tradition. Grace and her grandmother had a 120 sqft room that did not contain much more than two beds, a table and a couple of chairs. A kitchen they shared with other families in the courtyard. Numerous bathrooms are spread out through the hutong. I had to use one of those, and it was not particularly luxurious and fresh.

In 2002, when Grace was 22 years old, they had to move out. The hutong was demolished and the area developed. Grace believes that this was because of the upcoming Olympic Games, but more likely it was due to private real estate developers exploiting the emerging Chinese capitalism. Luckily, the destruction of the hutongs have now largely stopped and a walk through the area surrounding the Bell Tower in Northern central Beijing reveals a frenzy of renovation. The central location of these hutongs make them extremely popular and today only the very rich can afford to buy a courtyard. Grace's family got a subsidy from the government to buy a 700 sqft apartment in the outskirts of Beijing, which she currently shares with her grandmother and her parents.

In a couple of months, Grace will move into a new apartment with her husband. Her husband is not a Buddhist, but Grace does not think this is a problem as she is much stronger than him. He works with IT in a Chinese bank and will hopefully not be affected by the recession. They have already gotten the official marriage papers and are hence technically married, but they will wait until after the wedding celebration to move into the new apartment. They have hired a wedding planner to organize the celebration, which will take place at the Holiday Inn. The celebration has to end by noon. An afternoon wedding, according to Chinese tradition, would mean that this is the bride's second marriage. After the wedding, the couple hopes to take a honey moon in Japan. Grace has earlier traveled briefly to Malaysia and South Korea, but like other young Chinese, she would like to see more of the world.