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College grads looking to smaller cities for better lives
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s that time of the year again, when university and college students are graduating and having to make decisions about where they are going to live and work. In Yueyang, this almost always means that the best and brightest pack up their things and head for the ‘greener pastures’ of China’s big urban areas (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou). According to recent surveys, that trend may be starting to change.
(Xinhua) According to Beijing Evening News, an online survey found that 86 percent of college graduates would like to work in second-tier cities. Responding to the question of what would make them “flee” first-tier big cities, some 67 percent put the blame squarely on excessive living costs. Other factors included cut-throat competition in employment, high pressure in work and life, and hukou issues. In another survey, targeting the happiness index of middle-income families, those living in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, displayed below average levels of happiness. Contributing factors included high housing prices, heavy workload, poor traffic situation, and less time with their families. Among those surveyed, about 67 percent believed they might be happier in smaller cities.
Please pray for the college graduates of Yueyang. Many are about to enter into the hopeless chase of materialism that China has embraced enthusiastically in the past couple of decades. Ask that many of these students would find real hope and real fulfillment that is only found in Christ – not money, power or influence!
Cab Driver Strike
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There is a strike going on right now in Yueyang, it seems that cab drivers are unhappy about the amount of money they are making after they pay their parent company the fee required to drive for that company. While most protests that occur here in Yueyang are peaceful, this one has had a few moments of chaos over the weekend. Some drivers were even arrested;
Eleven persons were detained because of rioting amid a strike involving thousand taxi drivers in Yueyang City in central China’s Hunan Province, police said on Saturday.
The strike began on Friday when dozens of drivers parked their taxies in front of the Yueyang municipal government’s building, demanding to reduce the amount of money they should pay to their taxi companies monthly, police said.
More drivers joined the strike on Saturday, police said.
Some people rioted during the strike as they stopped some taxis and forced the drivers to join the strike, police said.
The rioters smashed some cabs and hit the drivers, police said.
Police detained eight rioters on Friday and three on Saturday.
A special investigation team had been founded by the municipal government to solve the problem, said Han Jianguo, vice mayor of Yueyang.
Please pray for the people of Yueyang. Most do not have much worldly wealth, but almost all are consumed in the pursuit of it! Pray that people all across the city will hear the Good News of Jesus’ FREE gift of salvation and that a movement of people sharing this simple truth will spread rapidly across the entire city and province!
Economic Crisis Hitting the Heart of China
Posted by: | CommentsHunan for years has sent waves of migrant workers to the cities in search of a better life and an escape from tough farm labor.
But now there are as many as two million Hunanese searching for work, the majority laid off from seaboard factories as the impact of the global economic crisis creeps into China’s rural heartland.
Hunan province once sent a million new farmers a year to work in China’s booming cities. Now the financial crisis means it is scrabbling to keep two million unemployed off the streets, a senior official said.
Beijing fears joblessness could lead to destabilizing unrest and has ordered local governments to throw their energy into keeping their citizens in some kind of employment.
Please pray for the people of Yueyang, many of whom are feeling the effects of the global economic slowdown in much more tangible ways than those of us living in more ‘affluent’ countries. Pray that food and housing needs are met and that this crisis would create a new openness to hearing the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Giving Sacrificially During the Economic Crisis
Posted by: | CommentsDuring the Great Depression, George Beverly Shea was offered a career in popular music. But an inner voice whispered a greater purpose. The answer came in a poem Shea later set to music, I’d Rather Have Jesus. As we face one of the most difficult economic challenges since the Depression, this hymn reminds us that choosing Christ “rather … than silver or gold” is the most reliable investment advice we will ever find. As markets fluctuate, Christ is a solid rock.
Another line sings of favoring “His dear cause” over worldliness. Just as Shea has stayed faithful to glorify God in song around the globe, Southern Baptists have long been faithful to give time and money to help accomplish the worldwide missionary task.
Economic uncertainty affects your families and your church. It also affects every missionary family on the field. Their work cannot go forward without your continued sacrificial giving.
May God bless you in your ever-faithful obedience to our Great Commission task.
Jerry Rankin, president
International Mission Board
Local governments give migrant workers a new name
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Rural laborers who come to China’s cities find a household registration system that denies them many of the benefits that established city residents enjoy – and often widespread discrimination against bumpkin outsiders. To address the latter problem, some cities in China, such as Wuxi, Changchun and Xi’an, have chosen to replace the common name for migrant workers, nongmingong (“peasant laborer”) withxinshimin, or “new urban citizen.”
But a name change alone is not enough, says a commentator in the Huashang Morning Post:
It must be said that under a system whose policies do not provide them with urban residency, describing the migrant worker population as “new urban citizens” is a step forward, the first step toward including migrant workers among the ranks of a city’s residents.
But the entrenched gulf between the “security” of the city and the “insecure” countryside cannot be erased by merely issuing a few documents and changing a few names. Only by truly giving the “new urban citizens” some security, letting them feel the sincerity and warmth of the city, can these practices truly be something more than just a makeover.
In September, Shenyang introduced a more comprehensive package; in addition to the name change, migrant workers were promised free legal services, clinic and cinema admission. Ma Qiao, a poster on the Rednet portal, argues that these measures are both too much and not enough:
While these are things that “new urban citizens” may need or enjoy, there is a bit too much utopianism here in my opinion. More than just a handful of poor Shenyang families rely on the bare minimum to eke out their existence, and they too need these free services from the government. Otherwise, the treatment is inequitable and the government is intentionally caring for one group while losing sight of another.
Can this be done? Unlikely, I think, or at least it can’t last long … Shenyang has over one million laborers; at an average of just five yuan per month in free care, the government has to lay out more than 60 million yuan [per year], and at times possibly more than 100 million. Adding free legal services, free movies and investment in schools for laborers’ children, the figure becomes frighteningly high. We won’t argue for the moment whether the government has the ability to finance this immense handout; even assuming it does, won’t it be loath to fork over the money when the time comes?
No word yet on how migrants, er, new urban citizens have taken to their christening. Perhaps they’re too busy going to the movies to be blogging? Joel Martinsen
Most migrant workers in cities unhappy
Posted by: | CommentsPray for China’s HUGE migrant worker population. Not only are they facing incredibly hard living circumstances, they are also difficult to share the good news with.
Only 7.6 percent of migrant workers eking out a living in the country’s cities are satisfied with their lives, a recent survey by Shanghai’s Fudan University showed.
The survey, which polled 30,000 migrant workers in major Chinese cities, found that 68 percent believed the urbanites did not fully accept the workers – if at all.
There are about 200 million migrant workers across the country, filling up positions in urban areas that urbanites reportedly shun and amid a growing income gap between rich and poor.
The survey also showed that working overtime was common for migrant workers – more than 80 percent worked over eight hours a day and 18 percent labored more than 10 hours. Only 16.4 percent of those polled had more than five days a month off, while 55 percent had less than two days off.
Working overtime with few holidays made migrant workers tire easily and could cause accidents, researchers said.
Exhaustion also meant migrant workers had little time to study and in turn led to fewer job opportunities, the study showed. All these factors made migrant workers dissatisfied with their lives in cities, it concluded.
At the same time, the study showed that migrant workers’ incomes rose. Their average monthly wage reached 1,200 yuan ($165) last year, a year-on-year increase of 200 yuan.
Still, 22.2 percent of migrant workers were unable to save money because their incomes were just enough to cover living expenses. About 44.6 percent said they hoped to continue to work in cities, while 17 percent hoped to find jobs in Beijing or its surrounding areas.
Salary size set for white-collar jobs
Posted by: | CommentsBy Xie Chuanjiao (China Daily)
So how much do you think someone has to make to be categorized a white-collar employee?
Depends on where he or she lives; and the difference can be substantial.
It could be as high as 18,500 yuan ($2,481) per month in Hong Kong or a mere 900 yuan ($120) in Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, with about 5,000 yuan ($670) making the cut in Beijing.
The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) released its findings over the weekend in the 2007 White-collar Workers Salary Standard in Major Chinese Cities – the first of its kind.
The benchmarks in some major cities at the upper end are: 8,900 yuan ($1,194) in Macao, 5,350 yuan ($717) in Shanghai, 5,280 yuan ($708) in Shenzhen of Guangdong Province, 4,980 yuan ($668) in Hangzhou of Zhejiang Province and 4,750 yuan ($637) in Guangzhou of Guangdong Province.
At the lower end are: 1,300 yuan ($174) in Nanning of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, 1,100 yuan ($148) in Yinchuan of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and Xining of Qinghai Province.
The report was based on a comprehensive calculation of many local factors including commodity prices, living expenses, transportation costs and urbanization level.
But for some people, the income levels are only an academic exercise.
“The 5,000-yuan standard is vastly different for people who have to pay monthly mortgages and for those who don’t,” said Liu Meiyu, a 28-year-old architect who works for Beijing Design and Research Institute and bought a two-bedroom apartment a few months ago with bank loans.
“A monthly salary of 10,000 yuan ($1,341) might be just right for a white-collar benchmark,” she told China Daily.
Lhasa’s low figure has also raised some doubts.
“The 900-yuan level is far too low as the cost of living is not low at all,” said Lei Wenzheng, a local tourist guide.
A manager at a local department store can earn an average of 2,000 to 3,000 yuan ($402) a month, while public servants are paid higher there than those in eastern provinces as the central government provides extra subsidies, according to Lei.
Xia Xueluan, a professor in social sciences of Peking University, said income alone is not the determining factor.
“White-collar’ or ‘middle-class’ means a combination of factors such as wealth, power and prestige, not simply income or property, Xia said.