The Communist Party’s national congress is coming up later this month, which must be part of the reason why the word “harmonious” is ubiquitous in China. “Harmonious society” is the catch phrase for the Hu Jintao-Wen Jiabao policy to spread the wealth and eliminate some of the inequities of China’s raging capitalism. It’s a serious policy, but in recent weeks I’ve witnessed “harmonious” used to describe everything from public transportation to getting really drunk. Xiao Qiang of the Berkeley China Internet Project and Rebecca MacKinnon at the University of Hong Kong have pointed out how “harmonization” is now used to describe when a website is blocked or a blog post erased by web censors. Harmonious is also used for more mundane things, like bus service in Tianjin and the shopping experience at Beijing’s Sanlitun Yashou market, a development that people tell me is entirely related to the rise of the “harmonious society” policy. A new ad for China’s Family Planning Association describes a health info website as the answer to living a harmonious life. One blogger has even written about how a harmonious society cannot be built without orgasms. A critical advancement in harmonious thought, but not likely to be on the agenda at the Party conference.
Perhaps the most profound insight into harmony I’ve heard recently came a few weeks ago during a party in the Beijing courtyard where I live. My neighbor Feng, a postal worker with a lazy eye and unerring sense of humor, had consumed an inharmonious amount of baijiu, the official firebrew of China. Late into the evening he stood up and announced: “The Beijing government is always talking about building a harmonious society, but we already have a harmonious society right here in this courtyard!” The assembled guests roared their approval. A few minutes later Feng puked in the corner, and our celebration of harmony was over for the night.