Wuhan City – night scene
Sorry for the long absence in updating the blog site as I could not access internet easily in this part of China – Jingmen (off Wuhan).
This is the province that I taught English in 2007/08 and it brought back fond memories as I travelled to familiar places again. I also met up with a Singaporean teacher and some local friends whom I acquainted during my stay here.
In small provinces, people are more sincere and friendlier and the fact that I am a foreigner make it the more easier for them to show care and hospitality. This is not the case in big cities whereby people are generally cold and detached. I preferred in small provinces naturally.
Jingmen is home to about 400,000 local Chinese people and it’s weather is cool now with a four – season climate. It is very slow paced here and there are not many tourists due to it’s distance from Wuhan – the main city where people take the trains from. There is also the absence of an airport making the province almost inaccessible to the outside world.
Nevertheless, once you stay too long in a small province devoid of much entertainment and places to go, you can feel bored and it can be a mental torture. The Chinese in this part of the world likes to climb mountain, wash legs, folk dance or play majong. These are stuff that we Singaporeans do not really enjoy. So to be able to immerse solidly into another’s culture, one needs to also take on what they like to do during their past time. Of course, this is easier say than done.
For me, when I was here previously, I had difficulty doing what they like during weekend and thus I developed my own interests such as jogging, strolling and writing/reading. I must be the only one in this province to jog along the road or the track and many people stopped to look at me when I jogged. The Chinese do not like to jog but they prefer to climb mountains or stroll to exercise.
I also took their 3-hour train ride to Wuhan city for the weekend to kill off some previous time. If not, weekend can be tortuous and frightening for many foreigners living on their own here.
The past few days however were cold and wet and temperature plunged to the mid tens (15-19 Deg C). I had difficulty with the weather and could not buy any sweater as during summer all the shops are selling summer wear. I have to weather the cold and rain in short sleeved tee for the past few days and swore that I will buy off anybody’s sweater for one hundred yuan if they offer it to me!
On another note, to use the internet now in public cafes, one needs to scan in their identity cards which is another security monitoring system of the country here. Previously, this was not necessary. It was rumoured that many blogs were started that were deemed anti establishment. The scanning of identity card in public internet cafes is perhaps one way for the authorities to clamp down on the mushrooming of such blogs.
As for a foreigner like me, they simply copied down my name nd identity card number as a way of registration before I could used their internet.
Though China has grown alot economically recently, there is still much room for improvement in both it’s social and business ethics. Like Singapore, it’s people are still very much self centred and short of social graces.
I remembered when I was in a bus in Wuhan, a blind woman came on board the bus. Thinking that the young people will give up their seats to her in the front row, I decided to stay on in my seat which was some way back in the bus. I was shocked to find out that none of the people there give up their seat for her. I have to give mine up and that stirred a young lady besides me to guide her to my seat. If economic progress is achieved without it’s people developing accompanying social graces, I wondered if the country has really progressed much. China’s software, like Singapore, has yet to catch up with it’s economic growth.
There is also the grave issue of a wide wage gap here. People who are rich could almost own anything here whereas those who are poor seem doomed. The class difference here seems more severe than Singapore’s. Business people are often wealthy and they continue to pay low salaries to their workers. As now there are many people who are unemployed, workers continue to work in jobs which pay little. Food and clothes are high expenses items and many could not afford to dress and eat well let alone buy their own apartment or cars.
Just to illustrate my point on how workers suffer from extremely low wages against the high expenses of living here. A small eatery will charge you twenty yuan for two dishes of food with rice. Macdonald costs 25 yuan and KFC around 30. A simple tee shirt will set you back around 40 yuan. A bus trip costs around one yuan and a cup of bubble tea around 3 yuan. It is not surprising thus to find many locals here cook at home and live frugally. An average worker here earns around 1000 yuan a month and they could not afford to eat out daily or buy new clothings.
Business people in China will continue to prosper due to the low wages that they pay to their workers and the high proft margin they make from their businesses. People in transtion back home should seriously consider doing some small businesses here as the business cost could be much lower than back home.
China’s low business cost and dense population are two extremely advantageous business indicators for anyone wanting to do something here. The trick is to get around the tough bureaucratic system and to find a suitable local partner here.
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