What about the Chinese Dream?

By Nathanael Rubin

When I was teaching English at Binhai School of Foreign Affairs in Tianjin, China, I used to practice my Chinese with the people making my food in the school cafeteria. But If I wanted to communicate something outside of my basic knowledge of Mandarin, I would have to take a student with me to translate. I noticed that the same staff were there every day serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. They never seemed to have any time off. So one day I asked one of my students to translate, and I asked the girl who makes my Jian Bing (egg and crispy fried noodle wrap) how many hours she works each day. She said she works at least sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. I asked her if she ever has any days off, and she said only during summer break for one month. That’s eleven months straight of virtually non-stop work. I couldn’t bring myself to ask her how much (or rather how little) she was getting paid. I think I was afraid to know.

I always thought it was harsh and unfair that she had to work so many hours, especially for a nineteen-year-old girl. It bothered me every time I went to the cafeteria. I tried not to think about it, but I couldn’t help it. How did it come down to this for her and her workmates? Why couldn’t she just go to school and get a good job like we do in the good ol’ U.S. of A.?

First and foremost, she can’t afford to leave her current job. Her salary is so low that she will probably be living paycheck to paycheck for the rest of her life. Secondly, she is from the countryside. In China, people from the bigger cities, especially Beijing, have certain societal advantages over those from the countryside. It’s called regional discrimination. This is caused by what is now the greatest human migration in recorded history. People from China’s small towns and villages are leaving their homes for urban areas in pursuit of work. Many do so without official permission from their local government, which is a legal requirement to relocate in China. An estimated 220 million people (equivalent to two thirds the population of the U.S.) are part of this colossal migration. The Chinese refer to them as the “floating population.” Lastly, she is not particularly attractive, at least not by traditional Chinese standards—tall, thin, and soft-spoken. In America, that usually doesn’t make any difference—that is, it’s not supposed to—but in China, where potential employers almost always require you to include a photo with your resume, it does.

If she had been from what the Chinese consider to be a “small” city (There are one hundred and sixty cities in China with a population of over one million. The U.S. has nine.), she would have had an entirely new set of challenges.

First, she would have to get through high school (most children from the countryside leave for work after middle school), which in China is designed to get you ready for the college entrance examination, or Gao Kao. This is an enormous amount of pressure for a teenager to deal with, considering that the Gao Kao determines a student’s entire future (unlike our SAT and ACT, which can make a big difference, but are not necessary to succeed academically).

Next, she would have to score high enough on the Gao Kao to get into a decent university. This is not easy. She would likely test into a less distinguished, second-tier college where the quality of education is much lower than at what we might consider a standard university.

Third, if she did get a high enough score on the Gao Kao, she would still not likely be able to choose her own major. In order to do that, she would have to have been at the top of her class. Most university students in China don’t get to choose their major. Instead, they are assigned majors at the discretion of the university. They may request to change their major once assigned, but are often denied their first, second, or even third choice.

Forth, she would have to get through her assigned program even though it’d probably not be what she wanted to study. As a teacher at a second-tier university in China myself, I can say that the majority of my students were generally unmotivated. But where is their incentive? Another foreign teacher who had been teaching at my school for years before I got there told me that if a student fails a class, their parents can pay the school to take a “retesting fee” and take an exam administered by the school rather than the professor, in which they pass, even if they know nothing. Those students are then placed in the next level of her class the following semester, only to fail and “retest” again all the way to a degree without hardly ever even coming to class.

Finally, after graduation, she would have to find a job in the ever-diluted workforce of the most populated nation in the world where competition is fierce. If she could keep her job, then she would probably be working overtime every week for the rest of her life anyway, although for much more money and in a much more comfortable workplace.

The truth is, for someone with her plight, she is actually not doing that bad. She could be doing construction like so many people from the countryside (sometimes girls even younger than she is). You might be asking yourself, What can I do to help people like her towards a better life? The answer is, just keep buying the things you need, most of which are made in China anyway. You will consequently be supporting China’s cheap-labor workforce and those who depend directly upon it. The more people that are employed indirectly through your financial support, the less demand there will ultimately be for work, in turn increasing the quality of jobs available for laborers. Therefore, considering China’s rapid economic growth, the problem will eventually fix itself, although it may take a while for people like the girl who made my egg and crispy fried noodle wraps to feel the effect.