Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
water, and precious birds, the more signifi cant factors for Dongtan and its
ecological development are the possible benefi ts to the residents' economic
lives, changes to their stigmatized image, and possibilities for increased
social capital.
In general, the emerging consensus on the Chongming Club is that the
local economic development planning process is too slow and largely inef-
fective. h ey criticize government o' cials for not knowing how to develop
Chongming adequately. One laments, “I heard about the Chongming plan
when I was in primary school, but I am more than thirty years old now and
Chongming still does not have a clear plan of development. I don't know
whether I would be lucky enough to see the day when Chongming people
can go outside conveniently and won't need to worry about [their fi nancial
problems] when they are old. Chongming is like a poor child without par-
ents' and grandparents' love and care. [I] am very disappointed with the
leaders of Chongming county who [hardly] fi ght for Chongming; I am also
disappointed with some leaders from the city too, and I am angry with the
interest groups [who took advantage of Chongming].”
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h ey attribute these
problems in part to political and historical factors (including competition
with other localities and regions) and not mere incompetence. In many
ways, the island's slow development is also attributed to the lack of political
sophistication of the islanders, who are cowed in the face of all the attention
on them in the past decade. One Chongming development watcher com-
mented that “the island people who have been enslaved for thousands of
years are already used to isolation and scolding.”
My own extended relatives who still live on the island share this mix of
deep local pride and profound skepticism about Chongming's development
schemes in general and about Dongtan in particular. Wu Jia, the eighty-
three-year-old family matriarch (she is the niece of my step-grandmother)
is a case in point. Born and bred on Chongming, she is a proud woman,
incredibly strong and bossy, yet friendly, befi tting the school principal she
