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Published: December 4th 2013
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Some thoughts about working and workers in China today.
To begin with, when we tried to buy tickets to Vietnam at the railway station two days ago, we were told by a clerk at a wicket that there wasn't a train any more to Vietnam. This surprised me and I searched Google when I got home to see if other travellers had posted anything about his. They hadn't. We checked with the Vietnamese embassy, who appeared baffled and confirmed that were daily trains in both directions. So we went back to the station to try again yesterday, and when I tried to buy tickets a young man sent me to wicket 16, the one that was labeled "English Language/" I wondered if I was about to be told in English that there was indeed no train. It turned out that the worker the day before had been wrong (I think she'd also been creative because she'd mentioned something about the train being cancelled two months earlier) because I had excellent service from an incredibly hard working young woman who, once she got past the idea that she didn't have to speak English with me, raced through the transaction and sold me tickets for Friday's evening train to Hanoi. I'd been watching her deal with the previous few clients in a long line-up at the "English Language" booth (which I can infer actually meant "international travel" booth as well): she'd been flying through each transaction--really busting it. She seemed to be about 20 and was the kind of worker that many Canadian businesses would love to have.
Putting aside the woman who somehow got the Vietnam train derailed, what a complete turnaround from the "iron rice bowl" of the 1980's, when workers were guaranteed incomes more or less for showing up each day. Some people worked hard back then, but in many businesses and public institutions it was common to see clerks slumped against walls and chatting while customers were ignored, or sleeping on their desks in places like banks or post-offices. I've seen none of that on this trip. The cities are up early and working and this continues until late at night. Service has been as good or better as I get in North America, and it seems like there is a new generation of young, educated employees with clear service motives. Even on the trains, where I was used to sour-faced, dour women being the service attendants (any service job, from store clerks to hotel cleaners had low status), I've had good service from young, bright women who are patient with my bad Chinese.
None of this comes without a cost though, and in the new China the social safety net is in tatters. If you are lucky enough to have a basic medical plan through your company, you can be sure to pay big bucks for anything extra, anything major. The same is true for education: if you perform well, you get your high school fees (and room and board) covered by the government. If you don't, your parents can pay around $15,000 for three years of secondary school that give you a second chance at getting a grade high enough for admission to a university. And all of this is dreamland for the peasants in Haike village that we visited. They literally live hand to mouth, with the occasional pig roast thrown in. They are left out and hungry, trying to subsist on poor land and low prices for their potatoes and other crops. Their kids leave school early and leave the village itself in order to earn money to eat.
On the working conditions front, many city workers are left behind by the booming middle class wealth here. I'll post a photo of a bus-driver, sleeping at an intersection, who likely receives low pay and works a long day. (There are ads asking for drivers to apply to the bus company on many buses: an indication of the wage structure here in the city. The driver in the photo did manage to wake up when the light changed and traffic started moving.) Taxi drivers also barely grind out a living: they pay a huge amount to the company each day for leasing their cab before they earn anything; two days ago, we had a driver at 5:30 pm who had earned $10 for twelve hours work so far that day. He'd only started paying himself around 5 pm because the first earning went to the company. Small family businesses often are open 15 or more hours a day, seven days a week.
So amid all the prosperity and vast, new cityscapes filled with expensive cars and Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises, there are tensions here surrounding who gets what and how much, and there's deep anger and cynicism about wealth at the top. But that deserves another chapter, another conversation.
Scooters:
I'm seeing more helmeted drivers now: it's just that the helmets seem to be cheap versions of our construction safety helmets and offer only the most rudimentary head-injury protection--several drivers also wear them without straps. I'm getting better at walking steadily and not looking at the killer hordes moving toward me, trusting they will swerve in time if I keep a steady and predictable pace. On to Vietnam tomorrow: another day here washing clothes and packing, maybe a trip to the art academy if there is time. Weather continues to be amazing, low twenties in the daytime, nine or ten at night.
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