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| The Great Wall |
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| Beijing by night - The dark area probably has a ready made sky scraper already. |
We all know that China is a great country. For example
the Forbidden city and The great wall – interesting historical places to visit,
but also huge national achievements. If you think that everything is big in the
USA, everything is even bigger in China. Once they decide to implement a
change, they will do it big way.
The difference between the rich and poor people is
huge. One example of the Chinese luxury is the Shunjing spa in Beijing, the
biggest in the world according to Guiness World Record. The complex was so big
that it was difficult to see the wood from the trees. My friends told me about
a pool where you can swim together with fishes and enjoy the small fishes
biting your skin. I wanted to visit that pool, but never found it among the 90+
other pools. It is easy to get lost in such a spa area.
In Finland we are used to enjoy luxury of a spa where you have three pools; one
for adults, one for children, and maybe an additional hot water pool. Imagine
if you multiply all that by 30 and increase the temperature of all the pools by
ten degrees. That is the Chinese way and it keeps the world economy growing.
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Peak into luxury -
Tiny and modest entrance of the Shunjing spa hotel, the biggest spa in the world. |
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| Protection on to wall |
The other side of the coin is the majority of Chinese
people. I cannot even understand the poor conditions, but I had once
opportunity to see the daily living of a Chinese middle class. One of the
highlights of that trip was an excursion to Chinese school and family. It was
an eye opening experience. We were visiting a school and couple of families at an industrial area outside Beijing.
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| Chinese school girls and boys playing |
The school was really like a kindergarten to me,
except the tight education process. High stonewall with pieces of broken class
on top of the wall were protecting the children against unexpected visitors. Classroom
had very tiny beds, some toys, whiteboards, and books. The headmaster told us
that the children started to study Chinese, English, and Math as soon as they
started the school (i.e. kindergarten at the age of one or two years). They had monthly test in order to
verify the progress. They also slept daily naps, as well as played outside.
That’s a tough competition in which the best get good education and well paid
profession, the average get their job at the factory and the worst have to be
innovative to survive. However, Chinese face the same kind of competition
everywhere, e.g. traffic and sports.
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| Home of a middle class family |
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| Preparing food for a family |
I was lucky to visit an average income middle class Chinese
family. I do not know how could they have two children, despite of
the republic’s one children policy (i.e. you have to pay a lot in order to have
two children in the family). Only the husband of the family was employed. He
was working at the factory close by and the monthly income was about 200 €. The
family was very lucky. They were living in a house without any rent, because
they were taking care of the old man who owned the house. In addition to their
one room, they had also permission to use the washing room of the house. Next
to their bed there was a stove that was heating the room, as well as their food.
They had also a very innovative system to heat their double bed, i.e. a long
copper pipe that conducted hot air from the stove to the bed. It should be warm
to sleep under the blanket even if they did not have afford to keep the room very
warm. Big portion of the monthly salary was used to buy their mobile telephone,
as well as their monthly telephony bills. They needed to use mobile Internet in
addition to speech calls in order to stay in touch with relatives. They were
originally coming from countryside, but they did not have afford to visit every
year their families. One tiny room for a double bed, stove, small TV, and a
mobile phone. That’s where the mother, husband, and two children of an average
income Chinese family lived happily.
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| Innovation against cold winter nights |
Lessons learnt:
Customer insights - Seeing gives more than reading.
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