sunsun said:
How about Hong Kong , Guang Zhou , Shen Zhen etc ? I have traveled over there and let me tell you when I wanted to buy the sweater and I just " touched " it (again Only Touched it ) and felt the size was bigger and I decided not to buy...You know what ? The lady in that store was so angry and spoke in Cantonese and Mandarin ( I can speak Mandarin and Hokkian and other 2 foreign languages) yelling me " If you don't want to buy , you Can Not Touch it and leave this store now !!!
OMG...Don't they know about Marketing/Sales/Customer Service knowledge ?
When I was in the train from Guang Zhou to Shen Zhen and I asked about the location ( I was afraid took the wrong train ) to the chinese young man politely...He didn't even wanted to look to my face....
When I was in the bus in Shen Zhen.....the lady from bus company asked someone to paid her daughter bus ticket ( her daughter was 10 years old) followed the rule...that person didn't want to pay it and yelling to the lady bus and she just cried because other passengers also yelled to her....
I also had worked in one of the Biggest Pulp and Paper Company which had workers from China.... I just felt many of them were unskilled workers but they told to the HRD that they have high skilled and university graduated but how come they couldn't solve very easy problems in the factory and let local workers solved it even local workers just High School graduated.
Hong Kong is a mix of both good and bad in terms of living standards. The air quality is still revolting in HK. The water is the same as the mainland. The food quality is a lot better, but usually only in the better restaurants (though I would say it is mostly better than the mainland).
As for skilled labour...you have to remember that in China everything is 'top-down'. They have a hard time solving problems without someone telling them how to do it (that's why they steal intellectual property and copy everything). Creativity is basically non-existent. The education system is a failure. They do well on standardized tests because they are good at memorization. This is not consistent with a country that wants to get away from being dependent on exports and shift to innovation and R&D. And like I said, there is no trust, so people learn to lie as a means to get by...that includes everything you can imagine. Buying a degree in China is very easy.
China is a country with a lot of potential, but unfortunately, the communist party is in power and all they seem to care about is the economy, even if that means destroying the environment, neglecting basic human rights, disregarding their own constitution and laws, and on and on...
Rude behaviour can be seen in just about every country on earth, but for one reason or another, the Chinese are better at it than others. To understand why, all you need to do is learn about their history. Mao screwed things up big time...
I consider raising a child here to be irresponsible. When we leave, my son will be almost 2 years old. I can tell you that I feel extremely guilty for not taking him back to Canada sooner. I need to stay to save up more money, so my hands are basically tied. We seldom take him out for walks because the pollution is so bad...not to mention everyone stares and wants to touch him.
I could go on and on about China. I have been here for nearly a decade...I still can't believe I lasted this long or even why I stayed...I guess it was mainly because I had a great job and my lifestyle was good...but now that I have a son, it's definitely time to go. I hate it here, but I only need to last a few short months!!
FS
