China café: mineworkers unite

The photograph was an overhead shot of a university sports hall in Wuhan, central China. The parents of first-year students had accompanied their children to college, and those mothers and fathers who could not afford hotels were now sleeping on the gym floor under candy-coloured blankets.

The photo inspired an assistant editor at the Telegraph to argue that western countries are now doomed, since our parents can’t be bothered to do that. Apparently we don’t care about education, and the Chinese do. Luckily his article, which heralds the complete supremacy of China in all things, was only published online.

I am used to the misrepresentation, shallowness and outright stupidity of some western media reporting on China. But now I am almost wistful for the days when the reports were either “Mao is turning in his grave” or “would you believe it but the Chinese wear funky clothes/listen to rock music/have sex.” That last one was the best: the “Chinese sexual revolution” of the mid-1990s. How can a country of 1.3bn people have just discovered sex?

The truth is that Chinese parents have to accompany their children to university because their spoilt brats have no idea how to tie a shoelace, let alone boil a dumpling. I know a 17-year-old who sleeps in the same bed as his mother. Admittedly, students have to spend their time doing a staggering amount of rote learning to get into university—but the result is that they can’t think or act for themselves.

THE DARK SIDE OF THE EXPO

The World Expo in Shanghai, which draws to a close on 31st October, will have surpassed all previous such events in attendance numbers. This, of course, is because the city government has incentivised travel agencies, state companies, and so on, to attract visitors from across the country.

The Expo employed many foreign staff—mostly young, good-looking women. Some are language students studying Chinese. Their job was to meet and greet VIPs, be welcoming and helpful to everyone else, and “represent” their country.

A few of them have visited our coffee shop on quiet weekdays, so we had a chance to chat to them. I asked them what they thought of China from their unique viewpoint. They normally began by telling me how sophisticated and modern it is, how the people are so friendly and polite. Then I explained I wasn’t asking about Shanghai. I wanted to know how they had found the visitors to the World Expo.

“Oh my God,” one said, her face darkening. “So aggressive, so rude.” An ethnic Chinese woman from her country had requested a job in the back office. She couldn’t stand the abuse from the crowds, who had called her a traitor. I heard stories of mocking Nazi salutes from the queues outside the German pavilion.

One woman commented how it upset her to see the visitors corralled behind the barriers at opening time, “like animals.” She was just as disturbed that they accepted the treatment without question.

But if you treat someone like an animal, they behave like one. That’s something that China might want to look out for.

THE FRUITS OF THEIR INDUSTRY

There’s a silver mine in the village at the foot of the mountain. It pollutes the local river, but that’s by the by. Recently, there was a crowd of about 250 people milling about outside the mine workers’ dormitory building. It was made up of employees past and present. Some men and women were dressed in smartish clothes, others in tattered “Mao” jackets and trousers.

The county government has sold the mine to a private company. I don’t know the details, but I’m told the price was 20m yuan (about £2m). When the workers heard the news, a few of them saw an opportunity and demanded a share of the proceeds. There’s no way their contracts entitle them to one. But they said they’d make trouble if they weren’t paid off.

The government at all levels is paranoid about “social harmony,” the absence of which might lead to “social instability” and threaten the party’s mandate, so the county agreed to pay 20,000 yuan each (about £2,000) to the troublemakers. But word got out and the other workers threatened to make trouble unless they got the same payoff. In the end, a quarter of the sale proceeds went on keeping the workforce—and anyone else who had a case—happy. Social harmony comes at a price.