Where are you from? In America this can sometimes be answered quickly and other times takes people 10 minutes to explain all the places they have lived and why they could call several of them "home".
Not so in China. The dozens of times I've asked people where they are from, they give me an answer without any hesitation. Though they might be going to a university in a different city than which they grew up, they will undoubtedly tell you that where their parents and extended family live is their home.
Why is that? Its not just because that's where one is most comfortable living, but it all comes down to your hukou. A hukou is like a residence permit that allows people to live, work and study in a specific city, but makes living in another city difficult. Furthermore hukous are required for most companie's housing stipends, insurance, medical coverage, and school attendance. To give you an idea of how important it is to obtain a hukou in the right area, a recent survey asked 3000 graduates whether they would rather have a salary of $14,000 USD/year (very high by Chinese standards) or have a Beijing hukou. Over 2/3rds of them answered they'd rather have the Beijing hukou.
Considerations for applying for a hukou in another province include:
1. College major and grades
2. Where one finds a job in a given city
3. Age (one province made it mandatory the person be under 45 in order to apply)
4. Amount of taxes a certain business has paid in the last 3 years
Like any system of this nature, there are of course a number of other details that I have not come to fully grasp. For example, there are ways to obtain temporary residence permits (necessary for a person or business to come somewhere in the first place and reside for 3 years).
Furthermore, anyone with an understanding of the kind of mass migration that is taking place in China right now is right in assuming all of the people moving from the rural areas to the cities don't necessarily have registered hukous. Just like immigration in the US from other countries, there are certain economic considerations that make the immigration of people who are willing to work for low wages desirable for a city. Jobs of street cleaner, construction worker, and trash man are some of the most common. Its no surprise to me as I look down any street and see people doing these jobs that the number of non-hukou residents in China is in the range of 120 million and continuing to rise.
Of course like anything in life, there are very good reasons why the systems in place are there. The reason I am often given is that if the migration of people in China isn't controlled, the problem will only get worse. This problem of overpopulation didn't truly make sense to me until living here and trying to go anywhere at 5:00 in the evening. Now I understand the magnitude of the problem.
And what does the system result in? Among other things, one positive result is in people who stay more closely connected to and a greater appreciation of the saying, "There's no place like home." A concept that, due to the freedom and economic opportunities in other places, is becoming more and more foreign to the Western mind.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Intellectual Property and Pirating
Despite an article I recently read in a scholarly economic magazine
about there being more of a crackdown on protecting business'
intellectual property, I see a very high degree of apathy towards the
subject, especially here in China.
As example, I bought a fairly expensive program for my Palm Treo that
has A Chinese Dictionary and character recognizer on it. After showing
the program to a few of my Chinese friends, the obvious question was
(like always), "How much did it cost?" Of course, I told them home
much it was and they promptly were taken aback by its cost and told me:
"Chinese don't have enough money to buy that program." Then, my
more tech-savvy friend responded: "I could find that same thing
online for free!" To which, he went online and sure enough, 5 minutes
later showed me a program with similar features downloaded all for
free! He then said that everything on his phone was also free programs!
Then just a few days later, I was talking with another friend who had a
friend in an African country that had a great idea for export! He could
take an electronic device from a brand-name company, not put the
trademark on it, and sell it in this country for much cheaper. Of
course the big advantage for him was that because it would be imported
as a "no name" brand, it would avoid all of the larger import
duties on name-brand products!
Whether its iPods, Nike Swooshes, or DVDs, SO many things in this
country are pirated. Its even hard to find shops in this country that
sell anything BUT pirated DVDs. That has led me to not buy anything
pirated, therefore any DVDs at all. But even not buying any DVDs
doesn't prevent me from watching the dozens of pirated DVDs my
roommates own.
Sure, I understand the vast majority of people in this country don't
have the money to pay for the kind of software program I just bought
(often the justification I hear). But does that justify every
occurrence of successfully pirated product? Is that just the way this
country works and I shouldn't feel guilty about it because everyone
does it?
Or in the macro sense is the incessant duplication of anything good
actually bad for the economy since it discourages that entrepreneurial
spirit one has to come up with something new? Why don't you just wait
for the "first movers" to make thousands of mistakes in order to
come up with a few dozen things that work. Then, just copy those
products that have proved to be successful and avoid all that trouble
of trying to see if a new product will be successful or not? I don't
know if there is a black and white answer, because even in the US
you've got illegal burning of CDs going on in everyone's CD burner.
Its just another one of those considerations to go into when we
actually look at what we are consuming, its legally, and what effects
it has on the economy. There is one thing that is for sure, most
everyone who is reading this article does have enough means to buy the
real thing and should think a few moments before we just always buy
whats best on our pocket books in the short-term. And I'll join you
in asking those questions a little more honestly of myself too.
about there being more of a crackdown on protecting business'
intellectual property, I see a very high degree of apathy towards the
subject, especially here in China.
As example, I bought a fairly expensive program for my Palm Treo that
has A Chinese Dictionary and character recognizer on it. After showing
the program to a few of my Chinese friends, the obvious question was
(like always), "How much did it cost?" Of course, I told them home
much it was and they promptly were taken aback by its cost and told me:
"Chinese don't have enough money to buy that program." Then, my
more tech-savvy friend responded: "I could find that same thing
online for free!" To which, he went online and sure enough, 5 minutes
later showed me a program with similar features downloaded all for
free! He then said that everything on his phone was also free programs!
Then just a few days later, I was talking with another friend who had a
friend in an African country that had a great idea for export! He could
take an electronic device from a brand-name company, not put the
trademark on it, and sell it in this country for much cheaper. Of
course the big advantage for him was that because it would be imported
as a "no name" brand, it would avoid all of the larger import
duties on name-brand products!
Whether its iPods, Nike Swooshes, or DVDs, SO many things in this
country are pirated. Its even hard to find shops in this country that
sell anything BUT pirated DVDs. That has led me to not buy anything
pirated, therefore any DVDs at all. But even not buying any DVDs
doesn't prevent me from watching the dozens of pirated DVDs my
roommates own.
Sure, I understand the vast majority of people in this country don't
have the money to pay for the kind of software program I just bought
(often the justification I hear). But does that justify every
occurrence of successfully pirated product? Is that just the way this
country works and I shouldn't feel guilty about it because everyone
does it?
Or in the macro sense is the incessant duplication of anything good
actually bad for the economy since it discourages that entrepreneurial
spirit one has to come up with something new? Why don't you just wait
for the "first movers" to make thousands of mistakes in order to
come up with a few dozen things that work. Then, just copy those
products that have proved to be successful and avoid all that trouble
of trying to see if a new product will be successful or not? I don't
know if there is a black and white answer, because even in the US
you've got illegal burning of CDs going on in everyone's CD burner.
Its just another one of those considerations to go into when we
actually look at what we are consuming, its legally, and what effects
it has on the economy. There is one thing that is for sure, most
everyone who is reading this article does have enough means to buy the
real thing and should think a few moments before we just always buy
whats best on our pocket books in the short-term. And I'll join you
in asking those questions a little more honestly of myself too.
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