Letters from China No 15

1st November 2008

Things are now getting back to normal, whatever that is, as the legacy of the Olympic Games disappears over the horizon. The X-ray machines at the subway stations have been slid away, out of use, but not forgotten, so, that’s one hassle less. There seems to have been absolutely no change to the country as a result of the hullabaloo, but, perhaps Beijing is now heaving with tourists and entrepreneurs as was intended. We see no evidence of it all here, only the news that even more workers are being laid off and factories closed as a result of the global economic crisis. Guangdong Province, where we live is called the World’s Factory as most of the manufacturing for the export markets happens here, but for the last year or so, increasing rents and wages have sent many of the factory owners further inland seeking cheaper premises and workers, not that the salaries of the workers are high in any way at all – usually about US $ 5-6 a day. What makes the Chinese goods so cheap is not only the low wages, but the fact that all the workers live in dormitory conditions with communal eating in school-type restaurants, their food not being of the highest quality and neither their living conditions. Most of them will be migrants working far from home, hundreds, if not a thousand or so miles away from their families. The only time they have to see their wives/husbands/children is at the coming Spring Festival or Chinese New Year as we westerners call it. Traditionally, several hundred million people will take to the trains and long-distance buses travelling for up to a week to have a few days respite, only to repeat the journey back to the misery of their jobs. Most will be sending their wages back home, saving for their children’s college education.

We see the end result in our classrooms.

This year some of our students are from very far-flung places like Mongolia and Heilongjiang in the northeast of the country. (Heilongjiang means literally “Black Dragon River” – place names here fascinate me – our usual route out of Guangzhou is along Dong Feng Lu or, in English, East Wind Street – visions of easterly Typhoon winds driving you along come to mind.)

We have decided to return to full-time campus living and giving up our city apartment. The college have very kindly offered us our old villa by our “Lake”, so it will be a bit like returning home again. Cat-sitters are becoming more difficult to find and carting her and us back and forwards every week-end is a bit of a drag. Back to the snakes and frogs and rural China living! The movers will be here next weekend, so another stage of our living here comes to an end.

BUT, the house is bigger, so we’ll start accumulating even more Chinese bits and pieces……… HELP!!!!!!!