The Copenhagen Journal of Asian
Studies 32(1) 2014
Kai Chen
Post-doctoral Research Fellow
Center for Non-Traditional Security and Peaceful Development Studies
College of Public Administration, Zhejiang University, China
Gerard Lemos, The End
of the Chinese Dream: Why Chinese People Fear the Future, New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2012, 301 pp. ISBN 9780300169249 (hardback).
In the early
twenty-first century, China is undergoing a historic transformation. The
'Chinese dream', which emerged as the times required, has also undergone
change. What is the Chinese dream? Is it attainable? What are ordinary Chinese
people's expectations for the future? Different people have different views. The
End of the Chinese Dream by Gerard Lemos concerns ordinary Chinese people
in Chongqing and Beijing, and gives thought-provoking answers to these
questions.
As a senior scholar in social policy, Lemos was the former
chairman of the board of the British Council (2008-2010). In this
thought-provoking book, Lemos develops a creative field survey approach called
'wish tree'. From 2006 to 2010, as a visiting professor at Chongqing Technology
and Business University, Lemos conducted an independent survey of Chongqing and
Beijing residents in selected neighbourhoods. In specified public places,
Chinese residents pasted postcards with a leaf design on the wish tree. Each
postcard had four questions: Who are you? What event changed your life? What is
your biggest worry? What do you wish for? In contrast to straightforward
questionnaires, the unique approach of the wish tree succeeded at collecting
'large amounts of reliable information' and exploring ordinary Chinese
citizens' concerns and expectations for the future (p. 15).
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