As Barack Obama visits China for the first time today, I thought I'd weigh in on my China trip. Being my second trip to China, I did not experience as much culture shock. This was partly due to my experiences from my first trip. This was also partly due to China changing to accommodate foreigners better. It was most evident in Beijing after their recent Olympics.The major thing I noticed was rise of the Chinese middle class. In North America, the middle class is shrinking, but China's middle class is booming. People there are improving their quality of life, living in condos, driving cars, and buying all the comforts of middle class life. The world is hoping that this rising demographic will be the new engine to drive the world economy.
On a global scale, it occurred to me that almost everything is being manufactured in China. Add to that, the fact that most service jobs are being outsourced to India. It left me wondering what type of jobs will be left for the rest of the world? Are Canadians destined to harvest their wood, metal and potash to the rest of the world... and nothing else?
I also noticed that Beijing's subway system is light years better than Toronto's. Not a fair comparison since Beijing's transit system has such high volumes (and ticket sales)... but it is a re-occurring theme when I travel. The TTC is a transit system that seems frozen in time (approx. 1985). The world has moved past paper tickets and dinky tokens. Most places use cash cards with either magnetic strips or RF technology. Subway advertising is done in video, using small flat screens or moving frame animations in subway tunnels. Beijing subways also have interactive route displays that light up the current and upcoming stations (on most of their lines... not all).
My next revelation was about food. There is a vast selection of food from different regions of China. It's delicious and exotic. It's rich and flavourful. When I came back home, I went to a "North American" restaurant. Most menu items were a variation of "steak and potatoes" or "hamburger and fries". This has encouraged me to cook and eat at home more often. In fairness, Toronto is blessed with many ethnic restaurants from around the world... so you can escape the world of hamburger and fries quite easily.
Concerning the environment, recycling in China is spear-headed by grassroots "scrappers" who forage streets and garbage cans for plastic bottles and paper. Now these aren't homeless people. These are organized self-employed individuals that collect these materials and re-sell them directly to recycling companies. It's a strange way to recycle, but it is effective in big cities. When I put a plastic bottle in a public garbage can, I can guarantee that it will be picked up by a scrapper in less than an hour (more like 10 minutes). I also noticed solar panels on houses and buildings. Not a lot, but far more than I've seen in North America. Apparently, China is investing a lot into solar and wind to help meet their energy demands. In households, there were a lot of measures to conserve energy and water. Powerbars have switches to disable each socket, to prevent energy drain from unused devices. Toilets have variable flush settings, so you can choose to flush 40% or 60% of the water. A lot of this stems from the fact that people are charged for water and energy consumption... and people are cheap. So China is still an environmental mess, but there are some positive changes. Keep it up.
After China, I realized how polite Canadians really are. Life is cutthroat in China. When you cross the street, it's everyone for themselves. Drivers don't follow lane lines or traffic lights. Pedestrians and cyclists are no better. Pushing your way to the front of the line is common practice, and I had to break the rules of common etiquette many times to get by. For the most part, people did not take the time to perform the typical acts of generosity that Canadians take for granted. Offering your seat to a senior on the bus/subway in China? Very rare occurrence.
In conclusion, China is changing. It's incorporating more modern comforts for the general population. Since everything is manufactured in China, these goods are becoming more accessible for the Chinese people. As a society, they still have some bad habits, but they have become very adaptive to change. Change is happening all around them. As a North American, I'm worried that we are becoming complacent. We may be slipping into irrelevancy like certain parts of Europe that were once global leaders. I would like to see China's momentum and innovation happening in North America.
5 comments:
I am glad to hear that China is embracing energy saving measures. With the rapidly growing middle class, the energy demands will be crazy so every little bit of conservation counts.
However, I have always been concerned about recycling being relegated to a segment of society as opposed to being a shared responsibility.
While these scrap collectors may not be homeless, they can hardly expect to become prosperous or respected for their work. Someone will always be needed to take out the trash or the recycling but these collectors should enjoy the benefits of being a civic worker instead of suffering from the uncertainty of being self-employed and the stigma of being society's bottom feeders.
While my first instinct is to believe this about scrappers, there is this story that Sophia told me about that has me wondering just how profitable this enterprise is:
A Self-Made Billionaire Wrote Her Ticket On Recycled Cardboard
In China, people are very enterprising. If there's money to be made, they made an impromptu business of it. So I think the scrappers would rather they run the show, than having the government getting a slice of the pie. It's maddening that people want to make a living picking up plastic bottles, but it seems you can make a good living from it over there.
The NY Times highlights this entrepreneur because it is a unusual case. This is not an article about a wide spread trend of scrap collectors becoming a prosperous segment of society. For every Zhang Yin, how many pensioners are scraping by, picking up what others throw away without a second thought?
I have seen these scrap collectors in Hong Kong, where there is little government assistance for those who have fallen on hard times. It is not usually a line of work that people pursue willingly. Even Zhang Yin aspires to be known as "the queen of containerboards" as opposed to her current title, "queen of trash" because there is no glory to be had in picking up society's refuse.
I'm not going to argue with you on this point, because I agree that the life of scrapper is not appealing at all.
I am just saying that scrappers in China don't have this stigma of being bottom-feeders. This is a common theme in China, where the people there are doing the jobs that Western society deems to be "too beneath them". As a result, that is why we are losing jobs to China.
I agree that Asia tends to have a different attitude towards low prestige work than the West. In Japan, those in the service industry do their job with an obvious pride, resulting in some of the best customer service that I have ever received, and I'm talking about convenience stores.
Still, it is a shame when the working poor of China or anywhere else in the world become grist to the mill of a free market in which only the strongest entrepreneurs survive.
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