Self-service versus Full service

[david_dawei]

I think they have so many people hanging around becuase of job security and over population. It just seems like a bit much to have 15 people standing around in an empty restaurant and watch you eat.

 

Like Syl said I also find it really annoying when saleswomen follow me around in the store and try to get me to buy the absolute ugliest thing they have. But then again it's nice to have them there to ask the price of everything since usually the price isn't on the clothes.

I wonder though if part of the difference is that we 'think' about it too much and get annoyed, and they're so used to it that it is not in their minds... But I'm guessing, on some level, they like all the people around since it reinforces (to them) their cultural approach to service.

 

After all, when your in a restaurant and you want something, I got a kick out of being able to yell 'fuwuren' !! and see them running to the table.. I'm still trying to build up the courage to do this in the US ...

[david_dawei]

I myself do not expect China to change as quick. The Government will do something to keep the employment up.  This is one reson you see men with wheel barrows in place of backhoes. We also fix many cars and homes by ourselves. In China, because of the amount of people available to help, you would not even consider such a thing. China has too many people to keep busy, employed and fed. I think They will always do things different while there is such a large disparity between China and the rest of the world's population.

I completely agree...

 

Here was their method of 'Recycling' plastics in Baoding section I was in:

 

A person would go around to all the dumpsters and pull out ALL the trash onto the street or sidewalk... then pull apart ALL the bags and take them out, leaving the food on the street or sidewalk. Then someone else would come along in a bike cart and fill up their cart. Repeating every day.

 

I told Zixuan, they should just skip the trash can part and dump straight into the street .. she laughed very hard..

 

I saw street cleaners 24 hours a day working .. to clean up all the crap that people are allowed to 'litter' on streets and sidewalks... I think there must be a law to litter, so that the workers have something to do...

[BuffaloPaul]

I myself do not expect China to change as quick. The Government will do something to keep the employment up.  This is one reson you see men with wheel barrows in place of backhoes. We also fix many cars and homes by ourselves. In China, because of the amount of people available to help, you would not even consider such a thing. China has too many people to keep busy, employed and fed. I think They will always do things different while there is such a large disparity between China and the rest of the world's population.

I completely agree...

 

Here was their method of 'Recycling' plastics in Baoding section I was in:

 

A person would go around to all the dumpsters and pull out ALL the trash onto the street or sidewalk... then pull apart ALL the bags and take them out, leaving the food on the street or sidewalk. Then someone else would come along in a bike cart and fill up their cart. Repeating every day.

 

I told Zixuan, they should just skip the trash can part and dump straight into the street .. she laughed very hard..

 

I saw street cleaners 24 hours a day working .. to clean up all the crap that people are allowed to 'litter' on streets and sidewalks... I think there must be a law to litter, so that the workers have something to do...

I disagree with this. China has already changed so dramatically in the last 15 years. I work for a large multi-national company that is pouring money into China and we're way behind many other companies. Bet China has more cranes per capita than any other place in the world. The Internet and cable TV have made the world too small a place for an ambitious, proud people like the Chinese to stay third world for too long. Nearly 40% of Chinese are getting engineering and science degrees (compared to 5% in US), Their economy is growing twice as fast as ours. It won't take them longer than the Japanese or Koreans to catch up.

[david_dawei]

I disagree with this. China has already changed so dramatically in the last 15 years. I work for a large multi-national company that is pouring money into China and we're way behind many other companies. Bet China has more cranes per capita than any other place in the world. The Internet and cable TV have made the world too small a place for an ambitious, proud people like the Chinese to stay third world for too long. Nearly 40% of Chinese are getting engineering and science degrees (compared to 5% in US), Their economy is growing twice as fast as ours. It won't take them longer than the Japanese or Koreans to catch up.

We may only disagree on timelines.. You said, "won't take them long"

 

I saw as many buildings going down as up in Baoding.. yes, construction going on all around there as well.

 

Yes, infrastructure will go up, and probably be first impact... but we are also mentioned the lower levels in the society which are doing things manually...

 

So the people using wheelbarrows, and the people sorting trash by hand.. what's your timeline say when China will be convered head to toe ?

[C4Racer]

I myself do not expect China to change as quick. The Government will do something to keep the employment up.  This is one reson you see men with wheel barrows in place of backhoes. We also fix many cars and homes by ourselves. In China, because of the amount of people available to help, you would not even consider such a thing. China has too many people to keep busy, employed and fed. I think They will always do things different while there is such a large disparity between China and the rest of the world's population.

I completely agree...

 

Here was their method of 'Recycling' plastics in Baoding section I was in:

 

A person would go around to all the dumpsters and pull out ALL the trash onto the street or sidewalk... then pull apart ALL the bags and take them out, leaving the food on the street or sidewalk. Then someone else would come along in a bike cart and fill up their cart. Repeating every day.

 

I told Zixuan, they should just skip the trash can part and dump straight into the street .. she laughed very hard..

 

I saw street cleaners 24 hours a day working .. to clean up all the crap that people are allowed to 'litter' on streets and sidewalks... I think there must be a law to litter, so that the workers have something to do...

I disagree with this. China has already changed so dramatically in the last 15 years. I work for a large multi-national company that is pouring money into China and we're way behind many other companies. Bet China has more cranes per capita than any other place in the world. The Internet and cable TV have made the world too small a place for an ambitious, proud people like the Chinese to stay third world for too long. Nearly 40% of Chinese are getting engineering and science degrees (compared to 5% in US), Their economy is growing twice as fast as ours. It won't take them longer than the Japanese or Koreans to catch up.

Yes, many companies are pouring money into China. This does not mean they must eliminate the manual labor and starve their people. They are going about this growth in very smart way. There will always be things that needs to be done by crane, like lift a steel girder to the top of a high rise. The point I was making was, I observed that when it can be done by manual labor, it is accomplished this way on even the newest of buildings I saw being built in Guangzhou.

I think it is hard to compare numbers to other countries like US. Say you have an industry like constuction who employs 10 percent of the population. In the US we have 295 million people so this industry would employ 29 million. In China with 1.3 billion ten percent would be 130 million. China is roughly the same size geographically as the US, but it needs to keep 100 million more people working in the same industry!! The percentage was just for discussion sake. I have no idea how much of the population is employed in construction. But do you see my point of need to keep more people working so they can earn a living?

[Dan R]

That is why they focus on developing high tech better life better pay jobs like India has done. The big difference between China and the U.S. is they have a larger number of poorly educated poor people to continue drawing on before they need to import labor. All industrial nations have depended on the farm boys for a labor pool as the country shifts from rural farm to city industry. Once the supply dwindles (as it already did in U.S., Japan and Western Europe) you must import workers from countries that are still agricultural or failed to provide employment for large numbers.

 

China will need to balance increased education to supply a better educated population for upward mobility while keeping an adequate labor pool and not leaving behind a large peasant class or muslim minority that could be the next revolutionaries.

 

This must all be done while securing resources in competition with the U.S., Europe and Japan/South Korea or developing a whole new industry of renewable resources.

 

TTHe next 10 years should be fascinating!

[frank1538]

I think it was Andy Young, a former mayor of Atlanta, who related this story. While he was mayor, he got a phone call from an irate constituent asking why Atlanta needed six road workers just to fill one pothole. Incredulous, he went to the jobsite to see for himself. When he got back to his office, he called the constituent and told her she was wrong. There weren't six workers fixing the pothole. There was only one worker actually fixing the pothole. The other five were supervisors.

[C4Racer]

That is why they focus on developing high tech better life better pay jobs like India has done.

 

Once they catch up they will have the same problem we have here in the US with IT jobs. It will cause many jobs to be paid less, highly skilled workers to work outside of their choosen field and some will be unemployed until they can develop different set of skills.

 

China will need to balance increased education to supply a better educated population for upward mobility while keeping an adequate labor pool and not leaving behind a large peasant class or muslim minority that could be the next revolutionaries.

 

This must all be done while securing resources in competition with the U.S., Europe and Japan/South Korea or developing a whole new industry of renewable resources.

 

TTHe next 10 years should be fascinating!

 

I quite agree!! It has already been facinating to see what the COMMUNIST government has done to keep it's people happy while other communist nations like Russia and those in Eastern Europe have fallen to democratic style of government.

 

I think it was Andy Young, a former mayor of Atlanta, who related this story. While he was mayor, he got a phone call from an irate constituent asking why Atlanta needed six road workers just to fill one pothole. Incredulous, he went to the jobsite to see for himself. When he got back to his office, he called the constituent and told her she was wrong. There weren't six workers fixing the pothole. There was only one worker actually fixing the pothole. The other five were supervisors

 

I think this is one reason they continue (for now) to do things by manual labor. It is very important they keep their population happy. They want to insure they squell any revolution by not making it necessary. China has a longer history of revolutions and overthrow off the government than any other country if I remember my history correct. The most recent was during WWII. We supported the side that lost as Mao took power. The style of government he put in remains even if he is long past. They are developing a free market system, becoming more open and highly educated.

 

I am looking forward to seeing how they develop over the next ten years.

[Ron Frank]

Two things that I saw on my first visit really started me thinking.

 

1 The drive from Harbin City to the airport is probably about 20 - 30 miles.

About 1/2 way to the airpoort there was an elderly woman with orange vest and stick broom sweeping the road. This was the middle of nowhere, not a building in sight and about -10 degrees. My first impression was "how cruel and inefficient"

 

2 In a huge department store I went to the tobaco counter and bought a pack of cigarettes. The cigarettes, cash and reciept passed through 3 clerks before the transaction was complete and the cigarettes and reciept iwere in my hand. Again I thought "How inefficient"

 

Well, maybe my first impresssion was valid..... until I thought about the population of China. In case 1 the woman was employed and chose to support herself and her family. Enduring whatever hardship involved.

 

In case 2, there were 3 low paid employees doing the work of 1. BUT 3 people were earning a living for themselves and their family.

 

In the USA people in the same situation would be on public subsistance of some sort.

 

Inciderntly I live in a very upscale area of Southern California but found many things in better condition in China than in the USA. Roads were in better condition and have less litter. Urban streets, in most areas were cleaner than in the US. Yes, many orange vested street cleaners.

 

I wonder about the percentage of Chinese citizens on public subsistance versus the U.S.?????

 

Just some rambling thoughts............

[Trigg]

In a truly communist country there is little need for efficiency. As china slowly but surely progresses deeper into capitalism, they will indeed become more efficient. Costs of doing business and competing on the international market will demand this.

 

Predicting huge amounts of unemployment would seem obvious-Although, the Chinese have a dogmatic approach to things and seem to be planning this well.

 

Russia had missed the renaissance period and actually had no word in their language for efficiency. My wife assures me that the Chinese do-though she isn't efficient enough to tell me what it is???

[david_dawei]

Two things that I saw on my first visit really started me thinking.

 

1 The drive from Harbin City to the airport is probably about 20 - 30 miles.

About 1/2 way to the airpoort there was an elderly woman with orange vest and stick broom sweeping the road. This was the middle of nowhere, not a building in sight and about -10 degrees. My first impression was "how cruel and inefficient"

 

2 In a huge department store I went to the tobaco counter and bought a pack of cigarettes. The cigarettes, cash and reciept passed through 3 clerks before the transaction was complete and the cigarettes and reciept iwere in my hand. Again I thought "How inefficient"

 

Well, maybe my first impresssion was valid..... until I thought about the population of China. In case 1 the woman was employed and chose to support herself and her family. Enduring whatever hardship involved.

 

In case 2,  there were 3 low paid employees doing the work of 1. BUT  3 people were earning a living for themselves and their family.

 

In the USA people in the same situation would be on public subsistance of some sort.

 

Inciderntly I live in a very upscale area of Southern California but found many things in better condition in China than in the USA. Roads were in better condition and have less litter.  Urban streets, in most areas were cleaner than in the US. Yes, many orange vested street cleaners.

 

I wonder about the percentage of Chinese citizens on public subsistance versus the U.S.?????

 

Just some rambling thoughts............

In well known book, The Road less Traveled", the opening sentence : LIFE IS DIFFICULT stuck me as the essence of life in China on my first visit.

 

The work, the living conditions, the traffic, the sanitation issues, even the fruit or nuts they are happy to eat were quite difficult for me to munch on. I finally declined to eat any more of those ant size nuts saying, "It just takes too much work for that little piece of meat"... Those tiny fish with even extremely tiny bones were just too much work to separate from the fish meat in my mouth. (Even though I was told by one person, 'the bones are too small to be a problem for your stomach, just eat them').

 

Upon my second trip, I got to think about these issues again and walked away with some of the same thoughts concerning the employment, streets, etc.

 

The one other thought was that, they did not grumble about all this hard work. It was a way of life to them. There didn't seem to be strong distinctions of 'being a victim', 'working too hard', 'this is unfair'... for a country which deserves so much more I never heard fewer complaints. In the US, where people are demainding their say and rights, complaining about everything under the sun, and the ever present lawsuits, I say, go to China for a year and come back.

[Dan R]

I guess it would be easier to go to China than to go back in time to pre 1960s America. Here it started changing post WWII then the attitudes changed drastically in the 60s. It was related to prosperity and developing a service economy rather than manufacture based on hard labor and long hours. Also the high per capita ratio of lawyers to population changed much in the U.S. These factors are also now at work in China. Each country that does this changes quicker than the one before. I am hoping China finds an alternative but only time will tell.

 

The times they are a changing..........

[hayuesen]

In a truly communist country there is little need for efficiency. As china slowly but surely progresses deeper into capitalism, they will indeed become more efficient. Costs of doing business and competing on the international market will demand this.

 

Predicting huge amounts of unemployment would seem obvious-Although, the Chinese have a dogmatic approach to things and seem to be planning this well.

 

Russia had missed the renaissance period and actually had no word in their language for efficiency. My wife assures me that the Chinese do-though she isn't efficient enough to tell me what it is???

I believe the word for efficient is "you3 xiao4" meaning "has effect", is effective

[hayuesen]

I have to admit, I really dont think of China as a "Communist" country. As a matter of fact, I dont think anyplace has been really communist for more than a year or two.

 

I think China has basically had the same kind of fuedalist government it has had for thousands of years.

 

China has a couple things working against it: A huge population problem and ensuing pollution problem. Beyond this, however, is a tradition which completely quashes any original thinking and enforces a rigid hierarchy which forbids any true delegation of authority. This is the true obstacle which will keep China from fulfilling its potential.

 

I worked at a Chinese company as the only westerner, conducting all business in Mandarin and it was maddening to see how all decisions, no matter how small, ultimately would be made by the president.

 

This is what the younger generations need to overcome to reach for the stars. If they do manage to get their way around that....watch out world.