Up the River of Alterity, Diaspora, and Hegemony

Up the Yangtze is a film about the people of China who are being affected and forced to relocate their homes due to the building of the Three Gorges Dam across the Yangtze River. This film talks about how parts of China are now transitioning from a peasant based economy where most of the people farm for a living and how its expansion of rural areas and falling of tradition is rapidly affecting many of the locals and their families. While watching this film I started to think about the terms we have learned about in this unit and found many instances in the movie where these three concepts are depicted: Alterity, Diaspora, and Hegemony. 

Alterity can be seen widely throughout the movie when we recognize the “otherness” that the Chinese farmers depict, specifically Cindy’s family. Cindy’s father is a typical, poor, Chinese farmer that is alienated from the rest of society because he is uneducated and does not have the proper skills to work what is considered a “real” job in China. The rest of the country is benefiting from the Three Gorges Dam; meanwhile, the Chinese farmers are losing everything they have and are being forced to relocate their homes when their life on the Yangtze River is basically the only life they've ever known. A scene that I think shows alterity perfectly is the heartbreaking scene where a working man starts talking about how he and his people got beaten and dragged away from their homes because they could not afford to bribe the officials’ to  let them stay. This scene proved that they are not only considered different than the upper class, but treated differently as well. They are not cared about nor respected by officials as the upper class are. It is easy to distinguish the lower class from the upper class in this film because of their alterity. The lower class is talked down to and are claimed to know nothing about the dam or about anything else for that matter. To the upper class, the lower class is considered to be unwanted, uneducated outcasts who can be talked to or treated in any manner as they see fit. Their “otherness” essentially defines who they are to society.

The most interesting thing about alterity in this film is the fact that the Chinese farmers aren't the only ones that are dealing with “otherness.” Alterity can be seen from both sides in the way that the upper class tourists on the boat are treated as well. The tourists are considered to be spoiled, ignorant people. As stated in the film, foreigners long ago were considered “foreign devils” to the Chinese. Through out the movie we constantly see the boat staff being trained on how to interact and speak to the boat tourists. They are told to not discuss political issues, issues with the dam, and other subjects such as monarchies or royal families with the boat tourists. In a sense, the Chinese boat staff is basically told to be proper at all times with the tourists and to essentially hide many things that are going on with the dam. These tourists aren’t necessarily aware that poor people in China are not necessarily happy about having to relocate because of the damn. The Chinese boat staff are essentially putting up a front for the tourists; making them feel like outsiders because everything bad is hidden from them. I recall a scene in which a tour guide is giving tours of the poor people’s new homes and he can’t even say that everything is okay with a straight face. He awkwardly tells the tourists that “everyone is happy” and laughs while saying it. Obviously the relocation's are making the poor people far from happy, but to the tour guides, the tourists don’t need to know the truth because they are essentially “outsiders.” The boat staff believes they can tell the tourists anything to make them happy because the tourists don’t know any better.

Diaspora is a concept that is most definitely seen widely through out this film as well. In fact, the whole film’s theme essentially is the concept of diaspora. Chang centers Cindy’s family for the concept of diaspora. Cindy’s family has always lived on the river. They have all grown up on the river and learned the lifestyle, but now are being forced to relocate in to the city. Cindy’s family is being affected in many ways by this relocation. Cindy is now forced to go to work because her parents grew up with no education or proper skills to work. The skills Cindy’s father does have, which is farming, will be of no use once they move because their will be no income for farming due to the fact that when the water from the dam rises, the farmland will flood. Therefore, the family needs money for Cindy to be able to go to school and also to be able to pay for food and water now. While living on the river, Cindy’s family was able to just pick the vegetables that grew close to the river for food purposes and they were also able to get water from the river to drink and to bathe with. Now that they are being forced to relocate to the city, Cindy’s family will have to pay for their vegetables and water and hope that they can afford to live just like everyone else does. Every group that has to relocate is essentially going through diaspora. They all must relocate, leave the lifestyle and memories they once knew behind and try to create a new life for themselves which is going to be very hard for them to get use to.

Hegemony is a concept that means leadership or dominance. In this film, there are clearly cases in which one social group is dominant over the other. The first example is the relationship between the two different groups of workers. You have the workers that act like Cindy, and then you have the workers that act like Jerry. Although Cindy has a breakdown about having to work on the boat, she is humble and takes orders without really questioning them or complaining to the manager’s face about them. Jerry on the other hand, is arrogant and does not believe that he should have to work at all. He admits that he is too arrogant for the job and that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He is convinced that it is his parent’s responsibility to support him throughout life. Cindy on the other hand is the one having to support her parents. The lifestyles are switched and obviously Jerry thinks he is better than everyone else. Everyone else is considered lower class in his mind. He constantly brags about how he and his family make more money than everyone else and that the boat staff hired him because he is “good looking and can speak proper English.” The second example of Hegemony is obviously the fact that the Chinese government has such dominance over the poor people of China that they can force them to move out of their homes. There were many fights through out this film about resettlement and compensation for moving, but all in all, the government gets to decide what happens with the dam and they also get to decide who gets relocated and where they get relocated to. Cindy’s father makes this all clear when he calls himself a poor “peasant” that no one cares about. A tour guide talks down to Cindy’s father right in front of him. The tour guide asks Cindy’s father questions about the dam and then quickly claims that Cindy’s father obviously knows nothing about the dam and its construction because he’s a poor, old, uneducated farmer.  He lets people talk down to him though because the upper class has basically drilled it in to his mind that he is just a poor farmer that doesn't contribute anything to society.

--Dina Kratzer