Reading major newspapers around the world, optimism for the developments in the so-called "developing countries" have become increasingly common in the past few years. The stories of newly wealthy middle and upper class families in places like China, India, and Southeast Asia excites businessmen and commoners alike. The sheer numbers of people who are now living a modern "Western lifestyles" and the rise of major cities as international metropolises continue to entice people from the developed world to set foot upon these previously impoverished lands.
Even besides the obvious "White Man's Burden" way of thinking with "Westernization=modernization," the stories still strikes any careful reader with the sheer biases in the description. Of course, it is good to present the "developing countries" as "not that different" places where people from the developed world can visit, but by entirely ignoring the continued plight of the massive numbers of poor lower classes, the media, and the people who subscribe to them, are doing no favors for a more balanced development in the said countries.
The most obvious imbalance being ignored here is the one between urban and rural areas. Any foreign visitor can say that cities like Beijing and Mumbai are already approaching the levels of New York and Tokyo. Surely, with rapid development from scratch, these cities can easily invest in the best and newest buildings and infrastructure, allowing them to quickly surpass their more slowly changing developed world counterparts in hardware.
However, just getting out even a little bit from the cities would allow the visitors to see a completely different phenomenon. While the suburbs of New York and Tokyo are just similar residential extensions of the main cities, with similar infrastructure and residents, the same cannot be said in the developing world. The so-called suburbanites in places like Beijing are little more than ordinary small-plot farmers who just happened to live near a major city.
Such rural residents, despite being near the cities, receive little benefits from the cities, and indeed, carry on a life totally different from the bustling metropolis nearby. Especially in places where communication and transportation is still lacking, the rural residents cannot even indirectly improve their own livelihood by absorbing new ideas and new wealth trickled down from the increasingly cosmopolitan and financially stable urban residents.
Certainly, it is not to say that nobody in the developed world realize the enormous wealth gap in the developing countries. There have been many documentaries and news articles highlighting the two different sides of any fast developing lower-income country Yet, the reality is that, most people from both the developing and the developed world, tend to ignore the very existence of the continuously impoverished, often for the simple reason that they are living an entire different life that makes communication and support so much harder and costlier.
Indeed, for the business and cultural community, there is little incentive to actually communicate with the rural poor. With little exposure to Western ideas and culture as well as the "modern" way of life, there is little demand for the products and services the outsiders can offer. And even if certain demand exists, the local level of income is just too low for any sort of profitable sales. It simply makes all economic and cultural sense for focus to be exclusively given to the urban areas. Given the massive and increasing number of urban residents, it is not particularly difficult to make that exclusive focus happen.
With the powerful businesses and media focused on the urban, the rural residents become even less empowered. They have few channels to communicate with the outside world already, and the condescending "we feel sorry for you" attitude toward them shown by foreigners and urban countrymen alike only make them more humiliated and socially isolated from the rapid development in the cities. Until all the phenomena associated with such obvious gap between urban and rural areas can be evened out, a rapidly developing country is always a rapidly developing country, but not heading down the right road to finally be recognized as a truly developed place.
Even besides the obvious "White Man's Burden" way of thinking with "Westernization=modernization," the stories still strikes any careful reader with the sheer biases in the description. Of course, it is good to present the "developing countries" as "not that different" places where people from the developed world can visit, but by entirely ignoring the continued plight of the massive numbers of poor lower classes, the media, and the people who subscribe to them, are doing no favors for a more balanced development in the said countries.
The most obvious imbalance being ignored here is the one between urban and rural areas. Any foreign visitor can say that cities like Beijing and Mumbai are already approaching the levels of New York and Tokyo. Surely, with rapid development from scratch, these cities can easily invest in the best and newest buildings and infrastructure, allowing them to quickly surpass their more slowly changing developed world counterparts in hardware.
However, just getting out even a little bit from the cities would allow the visitors to see a completely different phenomenon. While the suburbs of New York and Tokyo are just similar residential extensions of the main cities, with similar infrastructure and residents, the same cannot be said in the developing world. The so-called suburbanites in places like Beijing are little more than ordinary small-plot farmers who just happened to live near a major city.
Such rural residents, despite being near the cities, receive little benefits from the cities, and indeed, carry on a life totally different from the bustling metropolis nearby. Especially in places where communication and transportation is still lacking, the rural residents cannot even indirectly improve their own livelihood by absorbing new ideas and new wealth trickled down from the increasingly cosmopolitan and financially stable urban residents.
Certainly, it is not to say that nobody in the developed world realize the enormous wealth gap in the developing countries. There have been many documentaries and news articles highlighting the two different sides of any fast developing lower-income country Yet, the reality is that, most people from both the developing and the developed world, tend to ignore the very existence of the continuously impoverished, often for the simple reason that they are living an entire different life that makes communication and support so much harder and costlier.
Indeed, for the business and cultural community, there is little incentive to actually communicate with the rural poor. With little exposure to Western ideas and culture as well as the "modern" way of life, there is little demand for the products and services the outsiders can offer. And even if certain demand exists, the local level of income is just too low for any sort of profitable sales. It simply makes all economic and cultural sense for focus to be exclusively given to the urban areas. Given the massive and increasing number of urban residents, it is not particularly difficult to make that exclusive focus happen.
With the powerful businesses and media focused on the urban, the rural residents become even less empowered. They have few channels to communicate with the outside world already, and the condescending "we feel sorry for you" attitude toward them shown by foreigners and urban countrymen alike only make them more humiliated and socially isolated from the rapid development in the cities. Until all the phenomena associated with such obvious gap between urban and rural areas can be evened out, a rapidly developing country is always a rapidly developing country, but not heading down the right road to finally be recognized as a truly developed place.
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