What People’s Growing Reluctance to Answer the Phone Says About KangAi Commune’s Trust Challenge

More and more people have noticed an interesting phenomenon: today, a growing number of Chinese people are unwilling to answer calls from strangers.

In the past, when the phone rang, people tended to wonder who was looking for them; now, when they see an unfamiliar number, many people’s first reaction is: A scam? A sales pitch? Harassment? Are they trying to get money out of me again?

This may look like a change in habits, but it reflects a social phenomenon worth guarding against: trust between people is becoming increasingly scarce.

Of course, there are also reasons such as changes in communication methods and greater privacy awareness. But it cannot be denied that when people encounter deception, harassment, and tricks time and again, they gradually develop a habit of self-protection: don’t answer anyone you don’t know, don’t trust anything you’re not familiar with, don’t take part in anything you’re unsure about.

This is a profound warning for a mutual aid organization like KangAi Commune.

The essence of mutual aid is that a group of people who were once strangers to one another trust each other and share risks based on common rules. I help others today, and when I encounter difficulties in the future, I also expect to receive help from everyone.

But we must recognize a reality: although KangAi Commune is a relatively independent small mutual aid circle, it cannot isolate itself from the trust environment of the whole society.

If the whole society were filled with trust, and people were willing to trust strangers, trust rules, and trust long-term cooperation, then building a mutual aid organization would be relatively easy. Conversely, if trust is generally lacking in society, and people are accustomed to suspicion, defensiveness, and short-term calculation, then maintaining a small mutual aid circle of mutual trust and long-term cooperation in this larger environment would in fact be more difficult.

As trust in the larger environment is continually depleted, our small circle has to pay a higher cost to build and maintain trust.

Even more alarming is that a lack of trust may also trigger a vicious cycle in mutual aid.

If young, healthy members withdraw or are unwilling to join because of suspicion, and the average risk of the remaining group becomes higher and higher, per capita cost-sharing pressure may increase; rising cost-sharing may in turn prompt more people to withdraw. In such a cycle, even the best mutual aid system may be undermined.

This reminds us that KangAi Commune must not take members’ trust for granted, and certainly must not assume that simply because it has persisted for fifteen years, it naturally deserves everyone’s trust.

In recent years, the Commune has insisted on public disclosure of all cases to members, open rules, and oversight by members, and has continued to advance the development of governance mechanisms such as the Community Adjudication Panel. The purpose is to use institutions to make up for the lack of social trust as much as possible.

Moreover, we ensure that every cost-sharing item is documented, subject every rule adjustment to oversight, make the risk burden across different age groups as fair as possible, ensure that members are clear about their rights and obligations, and make the Commune’s operations rely less and less on personal reputation and more and more on institutional safeguards.

We cannot change the trust environment of the whole society, but we can strive to make KangAi Commune a small community with clear rules, fairness and transparency, and trustworthiness.

However, this is by no means an easy task. A larger environment lacking trust will continue to affect the judgment and choices of each of the members, and will constantly test the cohesion of our small mutual aid circle.

Therefore, upholding KangAi Commune is not just about upholding a critical illness mutual aid mechanism; it is about safeguarding a form of social trust that is becoming increasingly precious.

The more trust is lacking in the larger environment, the harder it is to sustain our small circle; and precisely for this reason, this perseverance is all the more precious, and all the more in need of every one of the members cherishing and protecting it together.