15 - Women and Social Change along the Vietnam-Guangxi Border

Summary

The year 1989 saw the opening of Guangxi province in China to the outside world, and in particular to Vietnam via the townships along the southern border of the province. Since then there has been a growing number of people from the frontier regions participating in various trading activities. They have grasped this chance to flex their business muscles and intelligence, and although they have had to overcome all sorts of difficulties, they have profited considerably from the China-Vietnam trading business. This chapter focuses on the border township of Dongxing situated on the eastern seaboard.

Dongxing is a small town with a population of about 50,000. The following figures give us a rough idea of how many of its residents are actually involved in this type of frontier trade. There are eighty-five families living on Heping Road, one of the main roads in Dongxing, of which eighty-one — that is, over 90 per cent of the total number of families (25 per cent of Dongxing's population living on this road) — participate in some form of business or other. As for the other main road, Xinghua Road, there are altogether ninety-five families, of which ninety are in various types of businesses — that is, more than 90 per cent of the total number of families (also 25 per cent of Dongxing's population living on this road). The three Beijiao villages in the rural areas of Dongxing house more than 200 families, of which more than 160 families are involved in business activities — that is, some 80 to 85 per cent of the total number of families. These villages have more than 1,000 people, of which more than 300 are businesspeople, that is, over 30 per cent of the total number of the villagers. From these figures, we know that around 20 per cent of the population in Dongxing (including those in the rural areas) are involved in various business activities. This works out to be about 10,000 out of 50,000 businesspeople in Dongxing.