Perhaps you associate rationing with wartime, like I generally do. Did you know that in China they still do it? Well, at least in terms of the [centralized] heating supply. Every year, as fall fades away, the citizens await the day that their heating will get turned on. It’s earliest in the northern cities (like my hometown of Shenyang) and later in areas like Beijing. For those in the south – forget about it. No matter how cold it gets, they have no heat unless you purchase a special air conditioning/heating unit for your home. Then, as spring approaches, as soon as the government deems it warm enough, the heat is taken away again. And so year after year, the Chinese get to deal with bundling up in their homes because they don’t have enough heat.
Maybe that’s why winter wear looks like this and usually includes 5-7 layers, even indoors.
Back when I was born in the 1980’s, there was a lot of food rationing too. My mom always told me how eggs were a valued commodity in the cities and when she was pregnant, she got to enjoy the one egg per household (per month I think, though maybe it was per week). I had a cousin who was a year older than me and when I was born, I turned out to be a big eater. Or drinker, I guess. I gobbled up milk like nobody’s business (which meant that my cousin’s milk rations often went to me too). Maybe that’s why I grew up so big and strong.
Even housing in the old days was “rationed” – you were given a place to live and that was that, pretty much. If you wanted to move (within the same city), you could apply to be “given” a different apartment that might be newer and/or in a better location. I believe there was some sort of lottery system to help determine who got to live where. Certainly unlike the American buying experience I’m used to, where any house anywhere is fair game if it’s in your price range.
And then there’s the One Child Policy, which is kind of like rationing children to families. Except in this case, rather than waiting to be given what you want, you have what you want (once) and that’s it. Still, it’s similar to getting handed rations since you are allowed a limited supply, which has nothing to do with your personal situation. Rather, it’s an “everybody gets the same restriction” kind of thing.
Each of these in their own ways take control away from you the individual. You do not have the power to decide that you want to heat your home earlier in the year, or that you want to eat half a dozen eggs in one sitting, or that you want to move clear across town to that beautiful new complex, or that you want to have another child. Granted, things have eased up over the years and many of these rules have gone away or at least become more flexible. Still, sometimes it amazes me what sort of uber-controlling environment some cultures grow up in. And how the act of rationing itself is a rationing of control: Here, this is how much control we’ll give you over your own life. All’s fair in communism, right?
