Translation: “Why Do Urban Chinese Have So Many Misconceptions About the Countryside?” (Part One)

Translation: “Why Do Urban Chinese Have So Many Misconceptions About the Countryside?” (Part One)

Despite huge leaps in recent decades, rural living standards remain an issue of widespread popular concern in China. A heating crisis in Hebei last winter, for example, became the focus of intense online discussion and subsequent censorship as the withdrawal of natural gas subsidies and a ban on traditional coal heating left many rural pensioners shivering. These concerns are not confined to the countryside: recently deplatformed influencer Hu C…