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.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Michael who?
Though Michael Jordan still regularly appears on Gatorade bottles (a recent picture I took), posters, and top of the line basketball shoes, the future of American dominance of the Chinese basketball market is in jeopardy. Already with recent stars of Yao Ming on the Houston Rockets and rookie Yi Jian Lian on the Milwaukee Bucks, Chinese basketball's popularity and talent is rapidly increasing.
Given not all Chinese have the natural build for basketball. Case in point, I have always been a shooting guard growing up. But now that I have grown a little to 6'1' and live in China, I am always the big center that gets many of the rebounds (needless to say my inside game is a little rough given I've never played in the post before). But though the average Chinese is definitely shorter than the average
American, I have played against, and seen many more, people who are definitely taller than me.
I've heard on order of 400 million basketball enthusiasts here (and I'd believe it given the amount of streetball I see everywhere!), So with a number of followers like that, well more than the American population, why isn't China turning out more Yao MIngs? My answer is threefold:
-Its Youth: I was struck when playing basketball with a college student recently and he told me he has been playing for 3 years, to which I had to be honest and say, I'd been playing for 18!
-Its Organization: I almost never see organized teams or coaches to have athletes play together. It always pickup streetball, which hurts their understanding of "team ball"
-Its Model: NBA. That's all people here watch! Their fundamentals suffer for it! Television now shows 4 games a week and recently, much to my delight, even been adding an NCAA game in the mix!
The latest in the growth of the Chinese basketball market, the takeover of Chinese Basketball Association by NBA just two months ago. Sure to be the first step before the NBA as was the case for Yao Ming and Yi Jin Lian, the CBA has almost no following among Chinese and could use a big boost! (Article: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/2008-01-14-698984466_x.htm)
So, even Yao Ming's injury last week, possibly keeping him out of the Olympics, may not be such a catastrophe after all. Maybe its just the opportunity for many future Yaos to step up and give Chinese basketball a name for themselves! There's one thing Americans still have: I still haven't seen any Chinese that can match Shaq's frame inside! Keep bringin the McD's!
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Wat?
The first person we met on our 16-hour hard-seat overnight train ride
was a young Thai man in his mid-20s named Wat. He seemed to be as high
and out of touch with reality as anyone I've met. Wat incessantly
spoke the simple English words he knew and offered my friend and me all
of his goodies. Wat warmly welcomed my friend and me onto our 16-hour
overnight train ride where we quickly learned that he had no home
(since he's lived so many lives), no parents, and appeared to have
nothing to turn to except for his 5 bottles of beer and whiskey and the
bowl from which he smoked numerous substances. ("Wat" we later learned is
the Thai word for a Buddhist temple.)
When I looked into Wat, I saw what looked on the outside so much like
one of my friends from home, probably with the same desires, motivations, and fears. But I couldn't help but be saddened by the lies he believes that have penetrated his heart to bring him into the situation that he is in today. Alone, confused, disillusioned, and filling that void with all that he knew could: alcohol.
In the middle of the night I noticed Wat disappeared, along with the 5
bottles. And after a thorough search of the train in the morning, we
concluded he had been removed by train authorities from the car. The
question will always remain: What became of Wat?
was a young Thai man in his mid-20s named Wat. He seemed to be as high
and out of touch with reality as anyone I've met. Wat incessantly
spoke the simple English words he knew and offered my friend and me all
of his goodies. Wat warmly welcomed my friend and me onto our 16-hour
overnight train ride where we quickly learned that he had no home
(since he's lived so many lives), no parents, and appeared to have
nothing to turn to except for his 5 bottles of beer and whiskey and the
bowl from which he smoked numerous substances. ("Wat" we later learned is
the Thai word for a Buddhist temple.)
When I looked into Wat, I saw what looked on the outside so much like
one of my friends from home, probably with the same desires, motivations, and fears. But I couldn't help but be saddened by the lies he believes that have penetrated his heart to bring him into the situation that he is in today. Alone, confused, disillusioned, and filling that void with all that he knew could: alcohol.
In the middle of the night I noticed Wat disappeared, along with the 5
bottles. And after a thorough search of the train in the morning, we
concluded he had been removed by train authorities from the car. The
question will always remain: What became of Wat?
Tasting Thailand's Tourist Trap
Taste. Starbucks Caramel Macchiatos, Dunkin Donuts Apple Fritters, Tex-Mex restaurents, Burger King Whoopers, Baskin Robbins ice cream, and 7-11 Slurpees (on every corner)! All of which I've never dreamed of the last 6 months were at my finger tips the last few weeks! To top it off, you can actually talk with people in ENGLISH whenever you want (or if you just flat out get lost)! Well, its not central Indiana or southern California. Its Thailand!
Much better than familiar tastes and restaurant signs though, were the
unique sites, including meticulously neat green rice paddies, gracefully
slothful water buffalo, and immensely clean blue water AND skies (both
of which were a sight to sore eyes). I was also warmly welcomed by
kind-hearted Thai men and women that help any group of tourists (no
matter how confused or incompetent).
But the biggest surprise to me was definitely the number of Western
tourists! Whenever I heard about the biggest industries in the country,
the one word I always heard was TOURISM! And tourism it was: riding
elephants, white water rafting, and even renting a motorbike for less
than $5 a day (if you want to know the story on that one ask me
later. Lets just say I have a few wounds that are still healing from
that one).
Now I've been to countries before where there is a mandate that every
business must have a picture of the current president somewhere in the
building. And, though a bit strange, it was quite normal compared to
what I saw with King Bhumipol Adulyadej, who has reigned in Thailand
since 1946. It seemed that literally everywhere I looked there was a
picture of the King! And not just a picture, but usually decorated with
ornamented frame and a shrine-like display. Because it's hard to make
such nice displays everywhere, the place I saw his picture most was on
the light pole banners located every 20 meters on the side of the road.
I guess when you are grateful for the work someone does it's appropriate
to show your appreciation, but this was appreciation on a whole new
level!
Monday, January 28, 2008
Tourists Running Late!
Last week, my 2 college friends and I spent a few days in Xi’an, the ancient capital city of China. On our last day we went to see the most famous landmark in the city, the Terracotta Warriors. The location, where in 215 BC Chinese Emperor “Qin” (from whom “China” got its name) had forced over 700,000 laborers to build this amazing display of individually handicrafted warriors. The purpose: to protect his body after his death. It also helped me realize the great development of society, and pride of man, that has existed for thousands of years.
After getting over the shock and awe of the sight, we hurried back to catch a taxi back to our hotel, since the bus there had taken twice as long as they had told us. The first 30 minutes of our ride went great! Until the taxi driver tried to turn onto the express highway only to realize that it is closed! At that point that taxi driver, fully aware of our deadline, turned to me and asked if we had the phone number of the hotel. He wanted to know if we could have our luggage delivered to the train station because we wouldn’t have enough to go there first before catching our 2:30 train. We not only had to make it to the station on time, but we had to ask our hotel to correctly find our 8 bags in a big luggage room, locate a car big enough to fit them, and make it to the train station to meet us all in the next 20 minutes!! This on top of the fact that train tickets aren’t refundable and who knows when we could find the next ticket to where we wanted to go.
Luckily, my friend had kept the phone number for the hotel and we quickly gave them a call and explained to them the situation. Their reaction, loosely translated into English was: “You’re asking us to do what?” After my friend described all 8 of our bags in fine detail, the taxi driver and van driver of the hotel agreed on a location, and the plans were set.
We arrived near the train station at 2:10, waited a few minutes and then found the hotel van which had every one of our pieces of luggage. By 2:20 we had driven closer to the entrance, grabbed our luggage, and run 5 minutes behind a short hotel employee. All this while stealthy dodging hundreds of Chinese bystanders on our way to the train station. I thought with 10 minutes to spare we had plenty of time to get through the train station and onto our train, that is, if this station had been like all the others I had been to. It wasn’t. As I gazed towards the entrance I realized an inordinately large number of people were standing idle in a wide, tightly-packed line with railings on either side. I thought to myself, “That’s it!” We came all this way just to wait in a line and miss our train!
Then, my determined mind took over. Without checking with my two friends behind me, I took off. I pushed through (I mean “politely making my way through”) person after person with my train ticket raised high attempting to politely say, “2:30 train ticket!” Next, I had no choice but to move a crowd barracade out of the way and receive a glassy stare from a policemen, who didn’t seem to know what to do or think. We finally got to the door, up the escalator and into the lounge.
Unfortunately, the train station was very crowded and hard to figure out, so I didn’t know where to go! I ran to a policeman to give him a look at my ticket. He gave me a confused expression and then blew his whistle to have a train station employee come show us where to go. The train hadn’t left, but what used to be the line had turned into a mob of lounging people waiting for the future trains. After pushing many more people, I gave the clerk my ticket. Knowing time was short and ground still to cover, I told one of my friends that I would “stop the train” (whatever that meant) while we waited for my other friend who was caught in Chinese traffic (a common theme in this story and many others in this country). When I finally ran down to the train platform I saw people still boarding the train so I knew we had made it! We ran past 11 more train cars and finally boarded the train with a whooping 3 minutes to spare!
Not exactly an experience I would like to have repeat, especially with several hundred dollars on the line. Not to mention that we fit the model of the most stereotypical tourists to a "T". Tall, white, long-nosed foreigner with North Face pack, seemingly no manners, and little knowledge of his surroundings or why he was taking so many bags with him. Never an image I like to present. But, a decent story for a blog and one I’ll probably never forget.
After getting over the shock and awe of the sight, we hurried back to catch a taxi back to our hotel, since the bus there had taken twice as long as they had told us. The first 30 minutes of our ride went great! Until the taxi driver tried to turn onto the express highway only to realize that it is closed! At that point that taxi driver, fully aware of our deadline, turned to me and asked if we had the phone number of the hotel. He wanted to know if we could have our luggage delivered to the train station because we wouldn’t have enough to go there first before catching our 2:30 train. We not only had to make it to the station on time, but we had to ask our hotel to correctly find our 8 bags in a big luggage room, locate a car big enough to fit them, and make it to the train station to meet us all in the next 20 minutes!! This on top of the fact that train tickets aren’t refundable and who knows when we could find the next ticket to where we wanted to go.
Luckily, my friend had kept the phone number for the hotel and we quickly gave them a call and explained to them the situation. Their reaction, loosely translated into English was: “You’re asking us to do what?” After my friend described all 8 of our bags in fine detail, the taxi driver and van driver of the hotel agreed on a location, and the plans were set.
We arrived near the train station at 2:10, waited a few minutes and then found the hotel van which had every one of our pieces of luggage. By 2:20 we had driven closer to the entrance, grabbed our luggage, and run 5 minutes behind a short hotel employee. All this while stealthy dodging hundreds of Chinese bystanders on our way to the train station. I thought with 10 minutes to spare we had plenty of time to get through the train station and onto our train, that is, if this station had been like all the others I had been to. It wasn’t. As I gazed towards the entrance I realized an inordinately large number of people were standing idle in a wide, tightly-packed line with railings on either side. I thought to myself, “That’s it!” We came all this way just to wait in a line and miss our train!
Then, my determined mind took over. Without checking with my two friends behind me, I took off. I pushed through (I mean “politely making my way through”) person after person with my train ticket raised high attempting to politely say, “2:30 train ticket!” Next, I had no choice but to move a crowd barracade out of the way and receive a glassy stare from a policemen, who didn’t seem to know what to do or think. We finally got to the door, up the escalator and into the lounge.
Unfortunately, the train station was very crowded and hard to figure out, so I didn’t know where to go! I ran to a policeman to give him a look at my ticket. He gave me a confused expression and then blew his whistle to have a train station employee come show us where to go. The train hadn’t left, but what used to be the line had turned into a mob of lounging people waiting for the future trains. After pushing many more people, I gave the clerk my ticket. Knowing time was short and ground still to cover, I told one of my friends that I would “stop the train” (whatever that meant) while we waited for my other friend who was caught in Chinese traffic (a common theme in this story and many others in this country). When I finally ran down to the train platform I saw people still boarding the train so I knew we had made it! We ran past 11 more train cars and finally boarded the train with a whooping 3 minutes to spare!
Not exactly an experience I would like to have repeat, especially with several hundred dollars on the line. Not to mention that we fit the model of the most stereotypical tourists to a "T". Tall, white, long-nosed foreigner with North Face pack, seemingly no manners, and little knowledge of his surroundings or why he was taking so many bags with him. Never an image I like to present. But, a decent story for a blog and one I’ll probably never forget.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Ho ho ho! CounterStrike invades Christmas!
So, it's been a while since I was a crazy about playing video games like Counterstrike for hours on end, and you wouldn’t think that I’d pick up that habit while I’m here. But I have to confess that I spent a couple hours of my Christmas day playing CounterStrike! But before you make too many assumptions, let me clarify that it was actually an indoor laser tag facility that they called Counterstrike! And it was an absolute blast!
Chances are, if you are a guy who likes video games, or you know someone who does, you have probably played laser tag some time in your life. Two teams – running around and shooting each other – Trying to get as many kills – using any technique possible to avoid being shot -- when the buzzer sounds, whoever has the most points will be the next James Bond! Great! Right?
That’s fun but, this laser tag adventure was a little unique, due to the fact that we had army camouflage vests, headphones providing real-time combat sound effects, only three lives rather than an unlimited number (headshots were twice as lethal as chest shots) and a real filthy concrete facility! The best part of it all was that when you got shot, you didn’t just hear something or see yourself blink (how realistic is that!), but you for sure when you were hit because you got a little (notice I said little) electronic shock when you are hit. It made for quite the effect and gave a little more of a feeling of paintball where you work a little harder not to get hit because of the slight discomfort of the occurrence. I’m not sure it would fly in the US, but its great fun and though I’d much prefer spending time with the family during this season, it at least gave me short term high!
*Note I was not hired by any laser tag company to post this blog entry, will receive no commission on laser tag visits from viewers, but honestly just wanted to share with you what I consider to be a freakin fun adventure for the whole family (well, as long as your kids know the difference between a real gun and a fake gun. Then it might be scary!)
Chances are, if you are a guy who likes video games, or you know someone who does, you have probably played laser tag some time in your life. Two teams – running around and shooting each other – Trying to get as many kills – using any technique possible to avoid being shot -- when the buzzer sounds, whoever has the most points will be the next James Bond! Great! Right?
That’s fun but, this laser tag adventure was a little unique, due to the fact that we had army camouflage vests, headphones providing real-time combat sound effects, only three lives rather than an unlimited number (headshots were twice as lethal as chest shots) and a real filthy concrete facility! The best part of it all was that when you got shot, you didn’t just hear something or see yourself blink (how realistic is that!), but you for sure when you were hit because you got a little (notice I said little) electronic shock when you are hit. It made for quite the effect and gave a little more of a feeling of paintball where you work a little harder not to get hit because of the slight discomfort of the occurrence. I’m not sure it would fly in the US, but its great fun and though I’d much prefer spending time with the family during this season, it at least gave me short term high!
*Note I was not hired by any laser tag company to post this blog entry, will receive no commission on laser tag visits from viewers, but honestly just wanted to share with you what I consider to be a freakin fun adventure for the whole family (well, as long as your kids know the difference between a real gun and a fake gun. Then it might be scary!)
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