美联社 许多中国人不关心党代会

本周，当中国共产党领导聚首一个重要的会议，艾帕罗·温（音译，April Wen）却忙得没功夫留意。这位会计师在找工作，看盗版DVD《绝望主妇（Desperate Housewives）》来磨练自己的英语。

　　曾经，中国的生活为重大政治事件而停步。但二十年惊人的经济增长令中国人的私人生活不那么容易受政治法令和控制的影响。他们可以追求富裕，关注职业，而不担心与党步伐一致的问题。

　　27岁的温觉得良好的英语（而不是党）可以帮助她找到一份好待遇工作。她站在中国最大的交易会外面，试图和外国买家沟通。私人生活是温的父母可能想都不曾想过的事情。不到二十年前，党官员可以决定人们在哪里工作，生活，有时还决定他们和谁结婚。城市的工作大多数和政府机关或僵硬的国家工厂相关——一个提供终生就业和社会服务保障的“铁饭碗”，报酬少，挑战也少。

　　在胡锦涛发表十七大开幕式讲话的第二天，中国国营报纸在头版刊登胡锦涛的照片，以大红标题宣布党代会的开始。在广州一家便利店里，29岁的建材推销员曾金荣（音译，Zeng Jinrong）无视一大叠报道“有中国特色的社会主义”的《南方都市报》。当被问及这个流行的短语是什么意思，曾摇摇头，笑了笑，拿出一根双喜牌香烟，停顿了一会。“我说不上来。可能就是说用中国的方式去搞经济。”他说他一年的收入大约是4万美元。“我们有很多发展自己的空间。在过去10年，发生了很多变化。”

　　这种空间并不是无限制的。但对于那些识事务的人们来说，生活提供了新的可能性。

　　温表示，“我有很多选择。跟我父亲的生活不同。”温的父亲讨厌他的巴士站经理工作，但他没有离职，因为没有多少选择。

　　新发现的自由不仅在城市延伸，而且在庞大的农村人口当中延伸。政府政策一度令农村人口不能进入更繁荣的城市冒险。如今，曾经的农民们为工厂提供动力，让中国成为世界工厂。他们离开菜地，生产iPod和耐克运动鞋。

　　从15岁开始就到汽车零件工厂打工的冯小奇（音译，Feng Xiaoqi）表示，生活比以前好多了，只有不反对党，就可以做任何想做的事。他表示他看了一小段电视上播放的主席讲话，但他无法总结要点。“我们只是小人物，党的事跟我们没有多大关系。”（作者 WILLIAM FOREMAN）

Hu? Many Chinese Ignore Party Congress

By WILLIAM FOREMAN – 22 hours ago

GUANGZHOU, China (AP) — While China's Communist Party leaders gathered for a major conclave this week, April Wen was too busy to notice. The accountant was searching for a job and polishing her English by watching "Desperate Housewives" on pirated DVD.

All life in China once stopped for major political events. But two decades of juggernaut economic growth have given Chinese private lives far less vulnerable to political edicts and control. They can pursue riches, focus on careers and not worry about marching in lockstep with the party.

Wen, 27, felt better English — not the party — would help her find a rewarding job.

"The show is my favorite because the women talk a lot. You can learn so much when they argue," Wen said of "Desperate Housewives" as she stood outside China's biggest trade show trying to pick up freelance interpreting work with foreign buyers. She held a sign handwritten in red letters: "Business Experience! Expert Bargainer."

A private life is something Wen's parents could scarcely have imagined. Less than 20 years ago, communist officials decided where people worked, lived and sometimes whom they married. Most urban jobs were with creaky government bureaucracies or rusty state factories — an "iron rice bowl" that provided lifetime job security and social services but little pay or challenge.

A speech like the one President Hu Jintao gave Monday outlining political priorities would have been mandatory reading in obligatory political study sessions held once a week, if not more often.

The day after Hu's speech, China's state-run newspapers plastered the president on the front page with big red headlines announcing the start of the congress, which is held every five years to endorse policy directions and leadership appointments.

At a convenience store in Guangzhou, a bustling metropolis at the heart of China's industrial boom, 29-year-old fabric salesman Zeng Jinrong ignored a stack of Southern Metropolis Daily with Hu's picture and its lead story about "socialism with Chinese characteristics."

Asked what the popular party catch-phrase meant, Zeng shook his head, grinned, took a drag on his Double Happiness brand cigarette and paused.

"I really can't explain this. Maybe it just means using a Chinese way to deal with the economy," said Zeng, who said he earns a yuppie salary of about $40,000 a year.

"We have a lot of space to develop ourselves. In the last 10 years, there's been so much change," he said.

That space is far from unrestricted. The party brooks no challenge to its political monopoly. It monitors the Internet and employs an array of police forces to quash any organized groups or individuals deemed a threat. But for those who steer clear of the party's turf, life offers new possibilities.

"I have many choices," said Wen, whose father hated his bus-station manager's job but could not leave it for lack of options. "It's different from my father's life," she said.

Like many young workers, Wen has spent most of her career working for private companies that scarcely existed a generation ago but are now the most vibrant part of the economy. She last worked as an accountant at a company that made electric fans.

"I thought the work was so boring, so I quit. I'm a people person. I like to talk to people, not numbers," said Wen, as she waited outside the Canton Fair trade show.

Newfound freedoms not only extend to the urban privileged but to the huge rural population, once forced by government policies to remain in the countryside and not venture into the more prosperous cities. The factories that have made China the world's workshop are powered by former farmers who have left their cabbage patches to make iPods and Nike sneakers.

Feng Xiaoqi said he grew up in a village in southern Hunan province and left home to work in an auto parts factory 12 years ago when he was 15. Now, he said he bounces back and forth from jobs in Guangzhou and Shanghai — the country's commercial capital.

"Life is much better than before. As long as you don't oppose the party, you can do whatever you want," said Feng. A slender man, he wore a crewcut, faded jeans and fake Italian loafers as he waited for a train at the Guangzhou station, where ruddy-cheeked farmers stream into the city lugging bed rolls and suitcases.

Feng said he watched a bit of the Chinese president's speech on television but he could not summarize the major points.

"We're just little people," Feng said as he peeled a tangerine with a yellowish, overgrown thumbnail. "The party matters don't really have much to do with us."