Poverty alleviation has been a hot topic in China in recent years. A documentary about the Daliang Mountains where some poor communities live made young Chinese comic artist Bai Yi reflect on the suffering and helplessness of poverty. While China’s poverty alleviation programme has helped ease the situation, how many children in the mountain areas fail to get adequate help for various reasons, and generations continue to suffer the same fate? A kite with a broken string is difficult to retrieve; one can only pray that some kind soul will pick it up.
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Chinese comic artist Bai Yi observes that most of us, the masses, are but tiny pawns fighting to survive in this immense and turbulent world. Lives are spent living in obscurity and dullness, often voiceless and unnoticed, coming and going in the crevices of life and society. No one really wants to live such a life forever, but before the crevices are exposed under the light, can we contemplate our lives in the safety of the shadows?
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Change takes awakening, courage and love. And it is painful. The sacrifices of the nameless will not be missed by those around them, and may even seem foolish. In the end, the nameless fall silent. But others will step up in their turn.
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"Studying abroad for many years, for a long time I never came into contact with 'real' young Chinese, so I was shocked and stunned when I did. Education and the system can really change a person. We have gradually drifted apart. Recently, a friend who was originally from China and now has Singaporean citizenship confided in me that she was always bothered by the issue of national identity. To Singaporeans, it seemed she was still that good student from China, but to the Chinese, she was no longer a Chinese. My friend asked: 'So who are we?' I teased her: 'We might be products of a mixed culture.' A traditional Chinese upbringing, an elite Singaporean education, plus the influence of other cultures thrown in. We can no longer define ourselves by nationality. A Western education would tell us to be ourselves, but the contradiction is that we need national identity to give us a sense of belonging and identity. Sadly, we often identify with other cultures, and when I meet young Chinese of today, that sense of unfamiliarity proves that we are no longer the same type of people. I don't have to pity you, nor you me. And we come back to the question: what are we?" - Bai Yi
