Way of Life - China
We spent around 10days in mainland China, visited various places like Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Zhong Shan, Shun De, Foshan, Dong Guan, and Zhuhai. Some of the places mentioned above are developing rapidly, while some were reserved as greenery areas, and a few are still developing despite of the support given by the local authority and the Central Government. I believe in some way or another, the development of the cities will affect the way of life of the people living in the cities, the behaviour and the attitudes.
The city of Shenzhen has an aura of "modernisation". Everywhere we see, there are bound to be high rise office buildings and skyscrapers. The rapid development of the city has brought various effects to the way Shenzhen people live. For example, by walking on the streets, we see many people clad in office wear, talking into their handphones, walking in very fast pace to their next destination. It is unlike the way we think of China cities in Singapore. It is far more developed than we thought. Efficient public transportation can be found in the modern city.
Guangzhou is a developed city of the Guangdong province, yet we are able to see different types of people around the city. The meaning of different, is that there are various classes of people living and working in the city itself. The more educated Guangzhou people are normally the ones clad in office/branded wear, driving posh cars like Ferrari and Bentley around the city, going into high end restaurants for their meals. They normally work in offices or have their own businesses.
Another part of the people in Guangzhou belongs to the lower class. These people came from all other parts of Guangdong province, for example Dong Guan. They have lower educational degrees, hence they came to Guangzhou to look for work. They fill the spaces of blue collar workers like working as waiters and waitresses, factory workers and so forth. Since their older generation normally work in farms, they are willing to settle for odd jobs in Guangzhou, for a mere wage of 800RMB per month, better than having no wages back in their hometown.
Foshan people seem to be leading a less hectic lifestyle as of the Guangzhou people. The streets are cleaner and there is lesser pollution. Although motorcycles are banned in the main streets of Guangzhou, it does not seem to help in the pollution problem. We see motorcycles in Foshan, yet the pollution level is much lesser than Guangzhou.
People living in Zhuhai is more language oriented. They speak fluent Mandarin, as compared to certain states where the people speak broken Mandarin. Furthermore, the people in Zhuhai tend to be more mixed, as in the people come from all over places, Macau, Hong Kong, and the mainland China. The GongBei Underground Mall is the heart of Zhuhai, with more than 4000 shops located within. The people tend to support the "fake" branded goods, and there are plenty of shops doing very well based on these fake goods. Everyday there are thousands of people crossing the borders of Macau and Zhuhai. Most of these people are from Macau, they came over to Zhuhai, bought their groceries and things back to Macau, as due to the living standards and prices of Zhuhai.
YYY
:.:andrea penned:.:-
9:50 AM