馬金馨 Ma Jinxin

今晚见了格格，话题自然离不开当年旧浪潮的人们。至今想来，那些人都是很神奇的，并且至今都各自不走寻常路的生活着。翻看旧文，下面这篇是三年前为旧浪潮供稿的文章。文字稚嫩而情绪化，但值得庆幸的是其中的关怀至今没有泯灭。当时最初的标题并不是《失却悲悯的大地》，而是《除了柔韧我一无所有》，九个字中有很多的无奈与失望。三年过去了，或许成长的意义就在于，现在的我除了柔韧，至少还有让自己踏踏实实踩着粗砺的大地往前走的能力和勇气。

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港大是一个热闹的地方，迎来送往。关注“好人”的贾樟柯来过了，关注艾滋病的艾晓明、Ruby Yang来过了，关注血泪中国的胡杰来过了，关注边缘病人的无国界医生驻香港代表来过了 ……他们每一个人的身上，都带着一种令人肃然起敬的气质——那是一种关注底层的坚韧，一份直面现实的顽强，以及一片刚硬背后的心底的柔软。然而，在这热闹当中，我却记得了本港独立制片人张虹导演在胡杰见面会之后失望的一句”香港的学生没有希望了”，让人心头一凉。

让张导发此感慨的原因十分之简单：数十人的见面会上，只有“一个半”的香港同学。想必她必定十分的困惑——香港的学生，都在关注些什么呢？这个问题并不好回答，但希望不仅仅是不好意思回答。然而能知道不好意思毕竟也还是好事。记得上学期的Stand Up Against Poverty活动中，一名打扮入时的所谓港大毕业生，对着很多的摄像机，微笑并且自豪地说了一句，我们很高兴，因为香港没有贫穷。可惜，我不能替她脸红。底层的不幸，若是被这社会所遗忘，那才是这个社会真正的不幸。

上周跟随着SWSAS*之下的SSST（Social Service Support Team）小组，在基督教关怀无家者协会的同工一起去探访了香港的露宿者。那夜风雨交加，我见到某位露宿者黑黝黝的床垫已经湿了大半，下面倏然地钻出一只蟑螂，而周围不曾散去的，是狗粪的味道。我无言并且心酸，而他们毕竟也是香港的合法居民，是和港大的莘莘学子一样，行走在这个“世界城市”的土地上的。罗素在其自传的序言《我为何而生》中深沉地说过，“对爱情的渴望，对知识的追求，对人类苦难不可遏制的同情，是支配我一生的单纯而强烈的三种感情”。当港大的精英们轻易获得了前两者的时候，是否还能想起那第三种宽容而博大的情怀。

然而，同情，若仅仅是同情，却极易变质。我偶尔会怀念那样的一道风景：整整一长排光着膀子坐在路边乘凉的”进城务工者”（民工），他们在淡淡的灯光下捧着我递上的问卷答题，面朝夕阳。这是去年的夏天，当我在江苏南京民工村做社会调查之后，留在脑海里的一个画面。我不得不承认，当我最初开始这个课题的时候，不可避免的带着一种”俯视”的姿态，那是一种作为一个受过高等教育的自小成长于城市的大学生，对于那些在生活的边缘挣命的满身是汗的人群的俯视。这种俯视的目光，由同情开始，中间夹杂着各种各样复杂的感情——理智、尊重、理解、爱，但又以同情结束——因为我无力承担那许多，或者说没有胆量去承担。然而，我明白自己的错误——它是”遗忘”之外的另一种错误，两者同样致命——它混杂着高傲与胆怯，最终勒令自己置身事外，以一个站在高处的旁观者的角度去看那苦难。

看，看！这目光，可否不要那样的冰冷？这目光，可否带上一丝热血的温度？余世存在《十月诗草之五：歌拟奥登》中有这样的一段“听说学者们的忧愁就像富人的富有，就像我们的匮乏 / 他们反抗现代性的异化，听说他们比我们活得光荣伟大 / 他们在绝望里令人感动，弟兄们，我们在绝望里无所适从”，而这里的“我们”，便是那些流离在大陆城乡之间的民工们——中国社会底层的一部分。当学者们在窗明几净的办公室里与着抽象的概念博弈之时，当教授们在人数寥寥的课堂上对着打盹的学生lecturing之时，那概念与授课中的主角，或许正在无奈、痛楚、泪水、梦魇、尖叫之中彷徨无路。记得胡杰导演在拍摄以时刻出没在生死边缘的矿工为主角的《远山》中，有意将那些满身满脸炭黑的矿工们拍得高大——胡导明言，这是为了尊重。那一种平视，乃至仰视的眼光，才是针对“精英式旁观”的药方。

以上所述的两者——遗忘与旁观，恰恰是如今面对底层的最普遍的两种态度。若还有第三种，那么猪年的春晚为此做了最好的注脚——当观众的眼泪成功的被《心里话》煽动出了眼眶的时候，导演或许十分满意于此动情点的成功，然而——痛苦之被公开而艺术化，正是让痛苦再度加倍；而不幸之被展示而博取同情，正是让不幸二次受难。廉价的“催情”，在这个社会中，不存在任何的现实意义。中国的社会，正如同一个巨大的螺旋，飞速的旋转着。把它当作一个“金字塔型”，倒不如换置为另一个“倒金字塔”的可怕情景——极少数的精英群体，作为这个崛起中的大国的支点，而上面背负着的是数亿弱势群体，在挣扎，在呼喊，或者在沉默中绝望。

划笔致此，脑中浮现出了一幅带有“玩世现实主义”的画面，充斥着夸张的表情，仿佛能从中听到贪婪的狂笑以及碎心的哭嚎——这荒诞令人欲哭无泪，而这样的一幕新喜剧，恰恰正在我们的眼前上演。少一些无知，少一些冰冷，少一些煽情，或许这个螺旋才能不致于转到太快，以致那些无能为力的人们，在晕眩之余，不被抛甩出去，甚至在整个螺旋的爆炸中灰飞烟灭——就这样吧，我的愿望。

* SWSAS：Social Wok & Social Administration Society, SSS, HKUSU

YoL

4.20, 2007 凌晨2时

One of the major issues will be how to ensure that the money loaned to the poor can be paid back. Yunus’ system in Bangladesh is organizing groups and having the group members meet every week and monitor within themselves. But this model may not be duplicable to China.

China is diversified and fragmented in local culture. Microfinance is in theory a workable and sustainable model, but in practice varies very much. The trust mechanism is one of the top issues that very dependable on local culture. Microfinance offers loans on a non-mortgage basis, which means that the risk of running such programs is very high, which puts the trust mechanism at the very core of promising the success of any microfinance projects. Only with a proper mechanism can a loan officer collect all kinds of decentralized information the people asking for a loan and therefore truly understand him or her.

Take Taizhou as an example. Taizhou is a city located in Zhejiang Province, one of the prosperous provinces on the Southeastern seaside. In 2008, Taizhou achieved a GDP at 196.53 billion RMB. Taizhou’s City Commercial Bank has been running microfinance program for 30 years, and its non-performing assets is kept under 2%, while loan offered has reached RMB 50 million. On average each family/individual gets RMB 46,000. Up till now, the loans offered are all paid back on time.

The bank offers microcredit from RMB 2000 to three millions, with a time limit from one to three years. The annual interest rate is 14%, and the loans targeted mainly at individual businesses and small enterprises that have experience of more than three months and assets less than RMB 30 million. Farmers who have lost their land composed a large group of their clients. Most of their clients are for the first time dealing with the banks, and even never thought of getting loans from the banks. Debtors do not have to provide sophisticated documents, and no business plans or feasibility reports are required.

Here is how Taizhou model of trust mechanism works: loan officers from the City Commercial Bank of Taizhou are all local people who can speak Taizhou dialect. They make use of their own personal network to gather information about the debtor on his or her personal financial status and business operations. The officers understand local culture and have the say on offering the loan or not. The president of the bank phrases the loan management system as ‘soft information’, which is one of the most fundamental ways of solving the information asymmetric problem in microfinance.

The City Commercial Bank of Taizhou’s success in running microfinance is based on the local knowledge of its loan officers. But not every other local bank can duplicate this model. The means to get all the ‘soft information’ needed to insure the minimum level of risk are informal and rely heavily on social network. It will only happen when a community is inter-related and where individuals care about their reputation in the community.

Local challenges vary from place to place, and also depend on the main purpose of the programs. In Taizhou, where the economic development is comparatively booming, the microfinance project is more emphasized on incubating more self-sufficient individuals/families that can help local economy. Therefore, Taizhou model is more commercialized, and the risk is more under control. However, in some other rural areas or countryside, some microfinance projects aim at assisting the poor, which makes the projects more close to charity.

In Taizhou, three major local banks are all competing for microfinance business, while in counties such as Haidong in Qinghai Province, most of the organizations running microfinance are registered under Civil Administration Department. Their status of being non-professional-financial-organization puts them at a disadvantaged place: they cannot legally accept savings from citizens, neither can they finance themselves from the banks. Lack of relevant legal protection is also limiting the development of microfinance in China.

Even other than that, many more blocks are on the road, including overly restrictive government regulations, complex logistical challenges, lack of expertise and insufficient funding.

World Microfinance Forum in Geneva, Switzerland, recently presented a report, stating that there were only about 100 poverty-alleviation-focused microfinance non-governmental organizations in China, serving an estimated 150,000 clients, while only about 10 NGOs can independently cover the costs of their loans.

Hans Rosling, the Swedish academic made famous by his lively talks at TED, made clear with his visualization on the rise of Asia. He graphs global economic growth since 1858 and predicts that India and China will outstrip the United States. China is indeed making great efforts on fighting against poverty, but honestly, microfinance has yet to really impact a significant amount of Chinese people to a capacity that it truly can.

Inviting Yunus to China cannot solve the problem. Microfinance in China still has a long way to go: on the uncertain ground.

* Special thanks to SHI Ce (史册), a graduate from UIUC and who has done a field study at Taizhou, Zhejiang, on its microfinance system.

Jaquiline Novogratz‘s social enterprise is working fine in Africa. Her Acumen Fund, incorporated on April 1, 2001, currently manages more than $30 million in investments in South Asia and East Africa, all focused on delivering affordable healthcare, water, housing and energy to the poor.

Novogratz believes that neither charity nor marketplace alone will solve the problem of poverty, and that is why she comes up with the idea “patient capitalism” that serves low-income people. The model uses philanthropic capital to make disciplined investments – loans or equity, not grants – that yield both financial and social returns.

However, this model, though experimented in Bangladesh, Africa and many other developing areas, is yet unfamiliar to the vast numbers of the poor in China.

“The development of microfinance in China lags far, far behind the rest of the world,” said Bai Chengyu, chairman of the China Association of Microfinance.

October 27 and 28, 2009, China Microfinance Summit was held in Beijing, with a theme “Innovation and Development”. Muhammad Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank and the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, who developed the concept of microcredit, attended the Summit and delivered a speech. He emphasized that microfinance projects in China should be social enterprises that aiming at helping the poor, instead of pursing maximization of profits.

Yunus suggested that there should be policy supports from the government for running microfinance, and the deliverables should be not only financial outcomes, but also fundamental infrastructures such as healthcare: it is exactly what Novogratz’s Acumen Fund is doing.

But similar cases are rarely seen in China. Most of the infrastructure development projects are carried out by either government or non-government organizations such as World Vision, which narrows down the space left for microfinance.

“Even if Yunus comes to China, he cannot make it,” said Mao Yushi, the pioneer of microfinance in China. He has been experimental microfinance project in Shanxi Province since 1985. However, his efforts are categorized as illegal financing.

And Yunus is coming to China: with his bank, expecting to run a microfinance program in Sichuan as well as Inner Mongolia. Many obstacles are ahead of him.

(To be continued)