Jiao Wars: Simplified Case Study of Symbolic Capital

In China, the currency is the renminbi (人民币), abbreviated RMB. It is literally translated to “the people’s money”—no doubt a fitting name. The renminbi can also be called the yuan (元) or the Chinese yuan, abbreviated CNY. And, colloquially, it is know as the kuai.

In relation to the US dollar, the exchange rate generally lingers just below seven, usually 6.7-6.8 something. To make things simple, we’ll call it seven. One US dollar is equal to seven kuai. For cost of living reference; a can of Coca-Cola is about 2.30 kuai, a hamburger at McDonald’s is about 7 kuai, a decent city bike costs about 250-300kaui, and, in Shanghai, the starting fare for a taxi is 12 kuai.

The most basic denomination is one kuai (yuan, RMB, CNY, etc.). Here in Shanghai, one kuai most frequently takes the form of a silver coin; areas further from the mint still use paper for the one-kuai denomination. One kuai is equal to approximately one dime and a nickel.

The smallest denomination is the Fen (分-pronounced fun, how nice). It’s worth .01 kuai; it takes 100 fen to make one kuai! Up from the Fen you have the Jiao, which is worth one tenth of a kuai—basically the dimes of China. Then you have the wu jiao (five jiao) coin, similar to a fifty-cent piece. And then you have the kuai. The mighty, mighty kuai. ATMs only dispense 100-kuai notes: the largest denomination available and equal to approximately fourteen USD. Other paper denominations of kuai include; five, ten, twenty, and fifty.

The wu jiao and the kuai have relative buying power. You can get a baozi (叉燒包, steamed meat bun) for nine jiao and street breakfast bread for seven jiao. Let’s just say that if I drop a kuai coin or a wu jiao coin on the street, I have the motivation necessary to bend over and pick it up. Not as much can be said for the jiao, and certainly not the fen. A dropped jiao is an abandoned one. A dropped fen is a blessing.

As interesting as Chinese currency is, this is not a critical history of money in China. This is about war. A dirty, scheming war currently being played out in the Zhong Xing building of Shanghai High School International Division. Yes, in the depths of these dark winter months we have diverted ourselves with the duplicity of “jiao wars.”

It began quietly and without warning. A jiao left here, a jiao slipped there. But in the confines of our, well, extremely confined offices, tension are swift to escalate. Already the methods of warfare have advanced. Everyone is hoarding ammunition (collecting those useless jiao) and plotting the next big strike.

Jiao wars arise from the frustration of an accumulating currency that has no worth. Imagine this; you go to buy a coke at Lawson or All Days or Kedi or any countless convenient store chain scattered throughout the city. It costs roughly 2.30 kuai. You pay with three kuai, or perhaps five kuai—ten kuai if you are unfortunate and a poor planner. Your change will include jiao (two, most likely) a wu jiao, and maybe some kuai coins. The change is carelessly thrown into a pocket or a purse, and off you go to conquer the rest of your day.

Throughout the day, the composition of change in your pocket varies, but you will certainly favor the use of, well, useful coins. A kuai here, a wu jiao there. The jiao and the most unfortunate fen will be ignored, perhaps even avoided. When you retreat to the comforts of home after a day in the city and empty your pockets on the kitchen counter, the damage clearly presents itself. You have amassed perhaps ten or fifteen jiao without realizing.

What to do? Use them? But when? And how? For what? Throw them away? No, it’s money—even if slightly worthless. And so begins your unintended collection of jiao and fen. Mine resides in a tin Ritz cracker can, which is now almost full. What to do with all that useless money? Spread it among the poor in Shanghai? Use intention and financial planning to actually spend it over some many months? No, too helpful, too practical. Of course, use that annoying for highly evolved pranks and scheming in sterility of cubical life.

And so the war has been waged.

A few days ago, I returned from class to find the book I am currently reading filled (painstakingly, no doubt) page by page with jiao. One jiao every five or six pages. It’s a five-hundred page book. It took time. It took dedication. Another time, I went to put my hood on and sent jiao flying all over my apartment. Apparently, someone had managed to sneak a handful of jiao into my hood as I said my goodbyes in the office at the end of the day. Jiao have been hidden in desks and dropped in teacups—how atrociously unsanitary! I know as the war continues and as we develop more advanced jiao technologies to keep up with other jiao warriors, the casualties will cumulate and prisoners will be taken.

Although the Jiao Wars are a fun distraction from bleak office life, a few of us began asking rather interesting questions about the social implications of our actions. What does it mean when money is treated with such frivolity? If were in the states and someone loaded a book with dimes, I would certainly keep them and use them throughout consumer interaction. Why not with jiao? Why do we so quickly discard them? Why is our valuation of them so low?

The Jiao Wars represent one of the many areas where I feel slightly imperialist in my interactions with this society and culture. Devaluing money, an important aspect of cultural identity, because you come from another culture where the money is more valuable has distinct implications of power imbalance and social inequality. To make a game out of what we consider useless money (useless only because we live at a standard higher than the vast percentage of Chinese) has great symbolic power resulting from the accumulated symbolic capital, to use Bourdieu's terms, of being a laowai (foreigner) in China.

Of course, as a sociologist, I cannot let a simple office ‘game’ remain simple. It is my job and my passion to investigate all of my social interactions and interpretations with the sociological lens, pulling forth otherwise unnoticed imbalances and systems of inequality. Even in Jiao Wars.

From the depths

Winter has come on mighty strong here in Shanghai. The freeze of mid-January requires masochistic tendency; forcing oneself to venture out into it, to go about necessary errands that would otherwise be quite leisurely and pleasurable. The inescapable demands of city life do not allow for the hibernation permitted in rural areas during these months when life really should be nothing more than suspended animation. In this dead winter, the sun rises later and disappears into the horizon far too soon. Fewer people linger on sidewalks, at bus stops, outside cafes. There is set determination on the faces of those passing by. Determined to escape from the cold. A hopeless determination because the cold in Shanghai permeates everything.

I am sitting at my kitchen window, drinking a hot cup of tea while watching a stray cat hunt birds on the roof ledge of the neighboring building. Its ragged white fur feigning warmth and survival. Even I can feel the cold air seeping through poorly insulated windows.

Everyone seems to have lost energy. Seems to have lost that essential life force. Seems to have lost the rosy optimism that warm weather brings. A bleakness has surrounded life in the city. Like watching someone scream through a soundproof window. As if there were a mute button for this metropolis. Everything is more lethargic and more urgent, simultaneously.

For me, each day passes with contentment and melancholy in equal parts. I am contented and thankful to have the life I have here in Shanghai, and it is precisely that happiness that makes me sad. It’s a happiness tinged with sadness emanating from transience. I know that I will not live here forever; I know that this life on the other side must end eventually. The spectrum of lives more fulfilling than the one I live now is so narrow, I assume it to be an impossibility to actually achieve.

Each bike or taxi ride into the city—from the depths of the south where I live, to the commercial heaven that is Xujiahue, to the quaint meanderings of French Concession alleys, to the Communist glory that is People’s Square—takes on a new nostalgia, as I recall all the wonderful times I’ve had in this city, all of the life it has given back to me. And the imaginings of future nostalgia, too, as envision what it will feel like in the final few weeks, few days, before I leave Shanghai behind. Perhaps it will feel like betrayal, and I the betrayer, to so simply move on. To so simply accept another city into my life when this one has given me everything I’ve asked for (except, buttermilk biscuits and Dr. Pepper, of course).

But then, I realize, this is a city. A city is no more than the buildings that comprise it, the stone and mortar that comprise those buildings. People come and go and the city makes no protest, feels no sadness, makes no pleads for fidelity. Really, I am dependent on something that has no use for me, and this makes me even sadder than thinking I will, one day, betray it. And, here, I am stuck—feeling that this reticent city is both callous and compassionate. Both heartfelt and heartless.

And, here, I am stuck in the cold days of January, thinking too much about nothing at all. But to share it with you is my pleasure.