For most who visit this site without having extensive prior knowledge of China, an explanation of the title is in order. LBX is an abbreviation for laobaixing (pronounced roughly lao-by-shing), the Chinese term for “the old one hundred surnames” – that is, “commoners” or “the common people.” Although the Chinese word has existed for centuries, the nickname LBX has, in our circle of foreigners living in China, come to designate the poor, low-class, uneducated (in the Western sense) subsection of Chinese society. We will readily admit to, on occasion, using the term in exasperation at some of the uncouth habits exhibited by this particular group of people – the spitting, smoking, frequently stinking and always surprising habits sometimes offensive to Westerners more acclimated to a more delicate way of life.
The genesis of the term, however, was simply a need to quickly describe a group of people we encounter frequently and often wish to discuss*. The word “Chinese” didn’t suffice for quick distinction since it can describe the nationality of a billion and a half people and the ethnicity of an even greater number of people who are now scattered across the globe. There are rich Chinese, bureaucratic Chinese, sophisticated and refined Chinese, minority Chinese, American Chinese, Hong Kong and Taiwan Chinese – and then there are LBX’es.
LBXes are decidedly the products of 5,000 glorious years of Chinese history, forty glorious years of Communist China turning the previous 5,000 on its head, twenty glorious years of market reforms completely undoing the previous 5,040, birth into the caste of 800 million Chinese referred to casually as “peasants,” little to no formal education, lives that in many cases might be called “cold,” “brutish,” or “short,” and stupefying uncertainty about where the next glorious set of years is going to take them. Any geologist can tell you that all it takes to produce some of the world’s true gems – or oddities – is time and pressure. LBXes have certainly been subjected to enough of both to achieve stunning effects, making LBXes into an extraordinarily curious lot from the perspective of an American, and hence a group of people very much worth describing. They are, as a result of pure circumstance, extremely different from their more affluent or overseas cousins.
LBXes are everywhere in China. Most of them live their lives on the farm and comprise the some 70% of China’s population engaged in agriculture. A horrible many of them are of late engaged in manufacturing. Been to Wal-Mart lately? (more…)
