shenzhen

I think the stats are similar to the ones regarding number of prosititutes in China --- they are all over the map and depends on how you define "killed under ...". The numbers I see have 78MM on the high side with 20MM on the low side. Take the average ... 49MM

The Cultural Revolution... But seriously if I stick just to the facts I may not be elected Mr Cultural Sensitivity... so I'll just tell y'all what Thomas Jefferson said to me one day... When the people fear the government there is tyranny...When the government fears the people there is freedom... And I see China and the USA moving in the opposite directions on this statement....

I owe you a BIG thanks for all your help!!!!! Can we send in all the doc's at the same time? I-864, financial records, tax info etc, DS-230, birth cert, marriage cert etc. Steve I sent two seperate emails. One with the AOS coversheet and documentation and the other with the IV cover sheet/documentation. You can send it all in one email I guess but I thought it was better to separate them. I don't think it matters but the scanned documentation should be seperated (i.e. separate PDF file for all AOS aand IV documents).

Glad to hear. It was long ordeal but now you made it.

Only half? I don't think you will find "hard core" estimates. But if the govt estimated 4MM in 1997 via an offical report then I would assume 6MM may be a little low.

That is good news for the both of you!!

On what do you base this observation on? Prehaps it was based on the comment in the article itself: The newspaper said six million Chinese women were believed involved in the sex trade, but other independent estimates have put the figure twice as high. I'd like to see these other independent estimates. Smells a little like those WMDs in Iraq. I don't know the exact number but there seem to be a hell of a lot of them .... this past weekend they even called my hotel room at 10pm and asked if I wanted a "massageeee" WITH my wife in the room. They never found any WMD but I don't think anyone has ever been in China and never seen with their eyes a prosititute unless they are naive or blind. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2010-...ent_9909738.htm It is not certain how many prostitutes are there in the country - the number ranges from 3-4 million to more than 10 million. http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemi...amp;subcatid=76 The sex industry is growing rapidly. Even small cities have their own entertainment districts. Estimates of the numbers of prostitutes in China range from 3 million according to officials estimates by the government to 10 million by the U.S. State Department to 20 million by one Chinese economist. By one count there around 1 million full-time prostitutes in China and perhaps 8 to 10 million more that sometimes accept money and gifts for sex. One marker of the booming sex industry in Shenzhen¡ªboth in terms of prostitutes and misstresses¡ªis the high number of children born out-of-wedlock. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_...public_of_China http://news.asianstudies.dk/2009/07/prostitution-in-china/ The number of prostitutes in China was estimated to be 4 million in an official Chinese report from 1997. A less conservative, but perhaps more realistic number of prostitutes in China is estimated to be roughly 20 million. http://middlekingdomlife.com/guide/prostitution-in-china.htm Some researchers have conservatively estimated that there are as many as 10 million active prostitutes in China at any given time who contribute as much as five percent to the country¡¯s annual GDP as most of the earned income, although not taxed, goes back into the economy through consumption. (Dougherty, 2006). http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/6984685.html There are between 4 million and 10 million female sex workers on the Chinesemainland catering regularly to more than 6 percent of the male population aged 20 to 64, according to a paper published in 2009 by Wan Shaoping, a professor at the Sichuan Institute of Dermatology and STD Prevention in Chengdu, and Professor Joseph T.F. Lau, director of the Chinese University of Hong Kong's center for epidemiology and biostatistics.

On what do you base this observation on? Prehaps it was based on the comment in the article itself: The newspaper said six million Chinese women were believed involved in the sex trade, but other independent estimates have put the figure twice as high.

Not sure about all cities, but it is legal in Beijing and Guangzhou. I'm pretty sure it is, although the DL test questions didn't cover - it seems to be more of a given, than an actual law. I'm guessing that it falls under a more general category. I have yet to see a policeman engaged in any actual traffic enforcement or direction, other than for schools. I also did not have it in the DL questions and our shuttle bus driver said it was against the law. I've seen him break a lot of US driving laws but he has never turned right at a red light. Then again it is not very often the traffic allows it since we are riding during rush hour traffic. What I could find on the internet said it was legal unless there was a specific red arrow light. So I guess it is legal ... not that it seems to matter what the rules are when it comes to actual driving conditions. I have never seen a policeman engaged in actual traffice enforcement except for drunk driving checks. I have however seen policemen (with the nice clean new white gloves) directing traffic at some major intersections. Traffic seems to flow much smoother when they are not around ...

Gotta give the lady points for creativity. And for at least not parking in the middle of the sidewalk. Of the very few things that piss me off in China, near the top must be the way people park. And don't even get me started about "right on red after stop". Is "right on red" even legal in China? I thought it was not even allowed by the law ... though that means nothing in regards to driving in China.

Apples and oranges. The overwhelming majority of industrial workers in China have little to no education and even less real-world skills to bring to the table while those who labor at KFCs are usually university students or those starting to get along in years that have work experience. There's also the time-honored principle of supply and demand. It is extremely difficult to retain quality staff at fast food establishments while staffing in industry is relatively easy. I pay our "aiyi" double what I pay our typical factory worker. If I paid each what they were, relatively speaking, worth the "aiyi" would get 3 or 4 times more than the laborer. Applying Western standards to Chinese reality is often like trying to force a square peg into a round hole. I hear what you are saying but you are are also mixing apples/oranges and missing my point. I am not talking about operators in a garment factory. In the west we usually employ chemical plant operators after extensive training/testing (they maybe only have a HS degree but they have to establish an ability in math/science to even get into the hiring pool) and we have extensive control control/safety systems. Here in China we employ people with less education and training than those at KFC. One of the main reasons for this is because of the low pay the chemical companies want to provide their operators. From a safety standpoint something is amiss here when one compares China to the West. You must be confused or need to have your vision tested. Who is talking about garment workers? -- You said industrial workers not petro-chemical workers. Since my experience differs quite a lot with yours I assumed you must have been talking about the average industrial worker. You should have been more specific. Try just once to lose the attitude and have a discussion when you disagree with what someone writes BASED on their experience. I employ somewhere north of 15k individuals here and approximately 2/3 of them are in petro-chemical factories. An extremely low turnover rate coupled with the fact that our major competitor is a state-owned company means we couldn't find industry experienced new-hires if we wanted to. In spite of that we start pay at the industry average in China of approximately 1.1k RMB basic salary -- and we beat new applicants away with a stick. --- We had 50% turnover in the first year and have had anywhere from 5-15% the succeeding years. Same experience as others in northeast China. We also could not find experienced new hires but mainly because of our location and pay scale. To remain price competitive, labor costs are tightly controlled. Fortunately supply and demand assists in the endeavor. We do not hire university graduates as general plant operators because unless you hire the best and the brightest from quality schools, you basically end up with a moron with an attitude who thinks they are Einstein compared to a HS graduate (or less) who has no attitude and is trainable. Who in their right mind would think to apply this concept to petro-chemical plants in the US? -- I never said we hired university graduates in our chemical plants in the US. I said that "they maybe only have a HS degree but they have to establish an ability in math/science to even get into the hiring pool" ... this means that even though they only have a HS degree with look for people with an ability in math/science. Safety is always a concern, but our safety record here is running far ahead of our plants in the US. Part of the reason is that we break down one job position into three or four (which is extremely common in China) so no one individual works above their capacity. Foremen here have fewer people to supervise than in the States. So your theory of safety suffering because of the disparity in worker quality just flew out the window, too. -- We too have 3-5 people for every one person in the USA and our supervisors also have less people reporting to them. This does not mean that worker quality has no impact on safety. All it takes is one bone-head act (open/close the wrong manual valve) for an incident to occur. Also we have more workers in China than in the US because our plants are less automated including safety automation (you must have missed this part of my theory as you call it). I would love to see the actual stats that prove your safety record in running ahead of the plants in the US and ensure you are actually comparing apples to apples with the safety stats. BTW - it is not my theory but rather my and other expat's in the northeast of China experience. On a side note, the government has started informing companies that we should expect labor costs to increase about 35% over the next few years. We're not too worried about that.

Apple's Steve Jobs says ""Foxconn is not a sweatshop. You go in this place and it's a factory but, my gosh, they've got restaurants and movie theaters and hospitals and swimming pools. For a factory, it's pretty nice." http://news.xin.msn.com/en/sci-tech/articl...umentid=4124640 Two reports on the complex: http://www.cultofmac.com/inside-foxconn-fa...ge-campus/45199 http://www.dailytech.com/Employees+at+Appl...rticle18624.htm

The stand-alone/wholly owned international businesses in China are always held to a different standard. International Joint Ventures may or may not be held to different standard depending upon the status and connections of the JV partner and whether the majority partner is internation or domestic. Also it is politics as usual. Same as the US politicans using Chinese imports/trade imbalance as scapegoat for its problems. However it seems the rise in labor costs will be China-wide but analysts predict it will not cause manufacturing to leave China: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-06...ent_9960302.htm http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-06...ent_9958014.htm

Great News!!

Good to hear from you Robert. Great funny story too. Glad to hear you guys are doing well.....

Chinasmack is not what I would call a trustworthy and well-researched news link but, be that as it may, I would never say that these type of issues, incidents or behavior does not occur with some frequency in China. I think what most of the old-timers who are cast as saying this "never happens in China or with Chinese people" were actually saying that what happens in China is not so different than what one experiences in the USA from ignorant people. I think I could easy start a thread entitled "Replying to Not all Americans welcome Chinese/foreigners" and have similar experiences listed except for maybe the fighting .... but maybe I am wrong.

Apples and oranges. The overwhelming majority of industrial workers in China have little to no education and even less real-world skills to bring to the table while those who labor at KFCs are usually university students or those starting to get along in years that have work experience. There's also the time-honored principle of supply and demand. It is extremely difficult to retain quality staff at fast food establishments while staffing in industry is relatively easy. I pay our "aiyi" double what I pay our typical factory worker. If I paid each what they were, relatively speaking, worth the "aiyi" would get 3 or 4 times more than the laborer. Applying Western standards to Chinese reality is often like trying to force a square peg into a round hole. I hear what you are saying but you are are also mixing apples/oranges and missing my point. I am not talking about operators in a garment factory. In the west we usually employ chemical plant operators after extensive training/testing (they maybe only have a HS degree but they have to establish an ability in math/science to even get into the hiring pool) and we have extensive control control/safety systems. Here in China we employ people with less education and training than those at KFC. One of the main reasons for this is because of the low pay the chemical companies want to provide their operators. From a safety standpoint something is amiss here when one compares China to the West.

Here is some info at KFC wage increase in Liaoning province. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-06...ent_9951707.htm And here is some food for thought of muti-nationals in China: She said the company with 2,000 employees on its payroll has agreed to set a minimum wage at 900 yuan ($131.7) a month instead of the previously offered 700 yuan, and maintain an annual pay raise of 5 percent. It is a shame the world's largest restaurant company insists of the city's minimum wage level of 700 yuan," said Feng, the union official. However in another northeastern china province I know for a fact that one of the world leading speciality chemical companies pays beginning chemical plant operators 900 RMB/month not including overtime. Does anyone here think that in the USA or Europe the chemical operators get paid about the same as the fast food employees? Does anything think they should?

This was the only US link I could find this morning too. As GDBill said it is reported he made threats to burn the school down. From what you read it sounds like the case of a spoiled little brat .... now he can go back to mommy and daddy and play emperor again.

New strikes... http://china.globaltimes.cn/society/2010-06/540046_2.html

Found this story while looking for something else. Another case of PC and 9-11 knee jerk reaction? Or an example of "little emperor" in action? I can also understand the chinese outrage at the treatment and lack of information YET how do they think foreigners are handled in China when they are accused and arrested for a crime? http://www.chinadailyusa.com/news/NewsInfo...=9&id=19133 http://opinion.globaltimes.cn/editorial/20...5/535785_2.html http://szdaily.sznews.com/html/2010-05/28/...ent_1090701.htm Maybe somebody can find some USA media links to the story....I could not find any.

More fallout from the labor strike and the general issue in China regarding worker pay relative to the huge economic gains achieved by the govt. and a few at the top?? http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArt...cleID=225402189 http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArt...cleID=225402189 Foxconn increased pay from 900 to 1200 rmb. Now starting Oct 1 will increase to 2000 rmb assuming the workers pass some performance evaluations. That is a 33% increase and then a 67% increase. Quote from the article: "Chairman Arthur Chiao of the Taiwan Electronics and Electrical Appliances Association said his group is assisting mainland-based Taiwan companies to seek out new manufacturing sites in India, Indonesia and Vietnam in the wake of steadily rising labor costs on the mainland."

Heh, I kinda like Guangzhou. should come visit dalian this time of year, then you will get the idea. Of course Dalian and Qingdao in Jan/Feb are both miserable places to be.

I assume you have some hard statistical evidence that supports your statement about poverty levels? That Foshan has a lower number of people living in poverty has nothing to do with anything other than the cost of living in Foshan can be remarkably lower than it is in GZ -- for now. The original inhabitants of Foshan -- the farmers on small plots -- are still earning far less than the Foshan average salary of under 1,500 RMB -- less than half the GZ average salary. The basic economy in Foshan still relies mainly on local retail sales and housing with a growing industrial presence. http://www.investfoshan.gov.cn/eng/enindustry_1.htm http://www.chinatoday.com.cn/English/e2004/e200410/p54.htm http://special.lifeofguangzhou.com/2008/no...836854858.shtml Nice links. How do you suppose they are relevant to the conversation? The basic economy in Foshan still relies mainly on local retail sales and housing with a growing industrial presence. --- I would disagree with this statement from the links.

Tsap I wish you the best of luck and hope you "knock em dead".