Wednesday, January 8, 2020

China Blog #80

China Blog #80

Did someone drop their dentures in the salad bowl? 

Stopping in a small hotel for the night in 
Cuijiajizhen town I got talking to some of the residents there. They were bio-agricultural engineers working on a project and staying in the hotel for a month. It seemed that they were training quality-control and checking procedures for a big import/export contract for the American Wal-Mart company.
Two of the workers spoke pretty decent English. The boss man confirmed what many people have told me during my travels in China. I have heard that properties can be so expensive and the wages are so low that many people take out 99-year mortgages! He mentioned that this is more so in the large cities, and less so over in the rural areas. Obviously, this long-term mortgage is passed on from generation to generation within the same family.
  One of his employees is a 26-year-old woman who also speaks good English. We had a great chat about some social issues in China. Though she is of that tender age and she is still living at home and pretty much has to follow house rules as she said.."Mam won't allow me to drink alcohol when I'm around boys as so many of them are so bad and they try to take advantage of women! Besides I don't drink beer, I drink whiskey and wine but only at home with my parents. However, I know you are not a bad boy and I could drink with you but you would have to be in my house and in the company of my parents!" 

Lol, Yes, of course, I am a good boy ðŸ˜‚

Then she went on.. "I'm not married because I haven't met the right man yet. I want to get married and just like so many Chinese parents I get constant pressure from mine to hurry up and get married. They keep warning me that 'life is so hard' when you are an unmarried woman. I don't want to have children either as children are too noisy!" 
I felt that the last part of her statement was up for reconsideration. I was surprised when she also mentioned that despite her parent's protective wall that they would have no objection to her living with a man in an unmarried loving relationship.
Work is also difficult and these workers are typical of so many large corporation employees in so far as they work long hours, typically 9-9 with an hour for lunch at noon and an hour at 5 PM for dinner. Meals are provided by the company and they work six days a week. Apparently, their work is intense and there is a lot of pressure due to so much competition from rival contractors for each other's contracts. 
Just imagine the lack of social and family life that entails. Not being able to go to your children sporting or other activities unless they fall on a Sunday. 

  I took a rest day in that hotel and the nice owner kindly took me out to a delicious dinner with his brother, father, uncle and friends. That was a great fun-filled evening and our communications were totally by our translation apps. They all laughed heartily when I asked if someone dropped their dentures on a plate of vegetables! It was, in fact, a small piece of steamed corn cob!
Smartphones continue to knock communication barriers down.
Next day when I was leaving for my 31-kilometre march to Pingdu the hotel owner and his wife generously insisted on giving me a large food bag for the road. On the good boy walked,😂👣🚶

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