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Yiwei Jia

ENGL 102

Rachel Brown

3 March 2017

Time in Change

When we want to comfort someone is sad, we always say Time can change everything. It

may not be absolute correct, but we can know time really has strong power. You may have this

experience, a person you did not meet for several days, but when you meet him/her, you may

think you talk with a totally different person. This feeling will be amplified when the subject is

country or even the world. On the 1st October 1949, it was the date that the Peoples Republic of

China was founded. In that period, although China has big territory, it has low power of both

economy and politics in the world. However, after sixty eight years, China become one of the

most powerful nation in the world. In this article, I will talk about what China has changed of

economy between different generations from my grandmas experience and my research.

Cuiqing Li is my grandmother. She was born in 1929. She really experienced a lot. At the

year she was born, the Republican period, China was in the Second Chinese Revolutionary Civil

War. Grandma Li experienced troublous period of China, new China was founded and the

development of China. The time really changed, when I recall my life, its just like a dream.

My grandma said. In 1950s, China was founded for a few years and China still in the war like

Korean War from 1950 to 1953(Jung), most people were poor, so the amount of money was

worth more in our period than the same amount of money today. Like 2 yuan in 1950s can be

used to pay school fees for a semester, but now 2 yuan even cannot buy a bread (Li). I really

tasted what my grandma said. Compare with my childhood, the value of Chinese currency also
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changed a lot in 20 years. For example, when I was a child, I will be very happy if I got 20 yuan

because I can buy a lot of snacks, but now, my nephew needs to pay almost 50 yuan of same

amount of snacks. The biggest face value of banknotes in Chinese is 100 yuan, you may think

100 is a big face value, but the fact is if you go outside and buy something, more than 100 yuan

of yours will belong to others.

I think this situation is the same of other countries. When a country developed and connected

with other countries, the value of currency will be impacted. Because peoples life get better, the

value of currency cannot satisfy peoples requirement. So the government needs to print more

money to continue developing economy. China is special compared with others, because it really

developed so fast. People lived in China can feel the change without learning from the history.

Let me give you a specific example to show you how fast Chinese economy developed. About 15

years ago, Chinas GDP was only one-tenth of Americas GDP, but today, Chinas GDP is about a

half of Americas GDP(Chinese Economy 2016 | China Economy in 2016). China developed

fast based on several conditions. Firstly, the time that China was founded is special. The three

industrial revolutions were completed, so China had direction to develop technology and drive

economic development. Secondly, government gave the suited policy to show directions of how

China develop. Thirdly, China had rich manpower resources and natural resources. Of course, a

good relationship with other countries is also important. Due to these conditions, that why we

say Chinas development is unique.

However, Chinas economic development was not always plain sailing. My grandma Li

mentioned her experience in the interview. That was 1960s, the dark period for us. We realized

the most hopeless thing is hungry rather than poor. What my grandma talked about is a disaster

of China from 1959-1961, which we called Three Years of Natural Disasters (G. Li). A lot of
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people were died because people did not have enough food. Experts still cannot figure out the

specific number of deaths. But the estimated number of deaths of these three years in China is

between thirty million and eighty million(Jowett). The main reason of this disaster is human

factor rather than natural factor. The government gave wrong policy, in order to develop factory

and economy, they gave up a lot of agricultural production. So when the disaster was coming,

people did not have enough food to through the disaster. According to my grandmas memory,

when they did not have food to eat, they will find salix leaves or potherb to eat. The economy of

China was also shocked. The agriculture is the base of a country, because food can let people

survive, and people can determine the future of the country. These three years destroyed Chinas

economy a lot. So some experts said if there was no Three Years of Natural Disaster, China can

develop faster in different fields with less time.

There Years of Natural Disaster is just one of the challenges China faced. The rapid

development of the economy must accompany a lot of issues. However, there is no denying that

the life of residents in China become well and the economic status of China become an important

of world economy. After I arrived America, I found there are a lot of goods are made in China.

This is amazing in 70 years ago. And when I traveled to New York, I found there are a lot of

Chinese face everywhere like shopping mall, the Empire State Building, the State of Liberty, etc.

You need to know 1 dollar equals almost 7 yuan. So all of these show the economic capability of

Chinese had improved a lot and China have power to influence the economy of world. But

behind these advantages, the problem also exist.

Today, one of the challenges of Chinas economy is economic transition. An important

reason of China can develop fast is China has abundant resources, such as oil, coal, iron and even

labors. So most goods China exported are raw materials. For example, some parts of airplanes or
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machines are made in China. And you may find most made in China goods are daily

necessities in the malls. Due to these situations, economy transition is very important to China,

because sources are not unlimited. In order to continue developing economy, China must focus

on product features and other fields like electronic products or new energy.

Due to my experience, another problem of Chinas economy is the big gap of wealth and

unbalanced industrial structure. It is not possible that everyone in China is rich with rapid

economic development. The fact is a huge gap of wealth between rural and suburb China. Even

in the same village, a farmer may can earn 10 times wages than other farmers. Gap of wealth

may cause unemployment, animosity to wealth and other problems. It is a big challenge that

China needs to overcome or the economy may be shrink.

According to I mentioned above, you can find how Chinas economy changed during 70

years whatever from peoples life or the challenges China has to face. These changes include the

value of Chinese currency, the economic statue of China and problems like the Three Years of

Natural Disaster in 1930s and the gap of wealth in China today. I also enjoyed the process that

searching the sources and interviewing my grandma Li. I hope you also can get useful

knowledge from my article.

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Bibliography
Li, Cuiqing. What was the Chinese people's life in 1950s Yiwei Jia. 22 February 2017.

Document.

Li, Grand. Why economy of China was shrinked in 1960s Yiwei Jia. 22 February 2017.

Document.

Chinese Economy 2016 | China Economy in 2016. Stock Market Advice | Investment

Newsletters - Profit Confidential. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Mar. 2017.

Jowett, A. J. The Growth of Chinas Population, 1949-1982 (With Special Reference to the

Demographic Disaster of 1960-61). The Geographical Journal 150.2 (1984): 155170.

JSTOR. Web.

Jung, Keun-Sik. Chinas Memory and Commemoration of the Korean War in the Memorial Hall

of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea. Cross-Currents: East Asian

History and Culture Review 4.1 (2015): 1439. Project MUSE. Web.