Changing Dreams

The Chinese Dream， pursued by 1.3 billion Chinese people， is the object of much study today. If youre talking about China and you dont mention the Chinese Dream， it even seems a little strange.

Mentioning the Chinese Dream to people in their 50s or older， many will naturally think back to dreams of their childhood. These dreams may have been realized， or shattered， or enriched by the passing of time.

Do you remember your childhood dream？ Ive forgotten； maybe I didnt have one. But I still remember my fathers dream for us. For as long as I can remember， he had been saying to us kids：“Work hard on your studies. If you can get a good job， youll have soy sauce to mix with your rice.”At that time， there were few literate people around me， and no one knew what banks or publishing houses were. The Chinese character for“bank” in Chairman Maos handwritten “The Peoples Bank of China” on RMB bills would be confused with another similar character and read as “The Chinese People Are Very Capable，” and the words “Peoples Publishing House” printed on picture-story books would often be misread as “Peoples Fire Rice House.” These tidbits have metamorphosized into gags for stand-up comedians these days. But back then illiteracy was not a joke.

At around the same time peoples communes were set up throughout the countryside. J ust as we started out in junior middle school we had to head out and work the land with our parents. The food provided by the communes was never enough. Even in normal times we didnt have enough to eat. In spring we usually ran out of food. Its only fitting， then， that my father always dreamt of his childrens bellies being full when they grew up. Soy sauce was available as a condiment to some， but rarely seen on our dining table. It would only show up at the Spring Festival or for entertaining important guests. A modern-day comparison would be sea slugs， or abalone.

Bai Yansong， a renowned anchor at the China Central Television （CCTV）， gave a speech at Yale in March 2009. He talked candidly about the 1960s and 1970s when he， and many Chinese， found it strange to dream of bigger things. “Even when I was 10 years old， ‘dream for me was a very strange word，” he said. “I never thought of it. I only cared about feeding myself the next day.”

In the same year a large-scale survey was carried out in China on “dreams” and “dreaming.”The results showed that before the reform and opening-up of 1978， the dream the Chinese people cherished most of all was to have enough food and clothing. “Ah，” I thought， when I saw the results，“so it turns out my father was pretty normal back then.”

Bai Yansong is four years younger than me. Bai was a lucky guy growing up； hes from a small city in northern China， which meant he could read newspapers from Beijing， though not every day. I was born in a small village down south， and saw the thing they called a “newspaper” for the first time in 1976， the year Mao passed away. Despite the lack of news and the cultural vacuum， this never led me to give up the “studying hard” spirit. In China， study has been the key for millions of people to change their fates and chase dreams over the last thousand years.

Bai later enrolled in a college in a big city. He saw the world and started to meet people who not only dreamed dreams， but also set about striving to turn them to reality. Bai also began to have dreams. He would tell us his dreams， and the aspirations that lay behind them.

Time flies， and after 30 years of reform， opening-up and fast development， there have been big changes in the Chinese dream. Media surveys show that Chinese dreams vary. They include starting ones own business， becoming “suave，” maintaining good health， living to 120 years old and traveling the world. Many foreigners now call China home； they too enter the Chinese dreamscape and are free to envisage whatever they like. This gets to the true essence of the Chinese Dream： everyone has the right to his or her own dream， and everyone has the opportunity to realize it.