Bo Chi <chi@vlsi.waterloo.edu> (02/03/91)
* * * C H I N A N E W S D I G E S T * * * (CND Canada Service, Weekend Leisure Readings) Feb. 3, 1991 Table of Contents # of Lines 1. Leaving Behind the Iron Rice Bowl ........................... 147 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Leaving Behind the Iron Rice Bowl -------------------------------------------------------------------- The Globe and Mail, Saturday, February 2, 1990 Entered by Haosheng Zhou at UBC. From: Haosheng Zhou <hszhou@ee.ubc.ca> By Jan Wang China Bureau Beijing YANG Oulin's dream has come true. In one year, he made more money than most Chinese will see in a lifetime. This week, Mr. Yang, 23, boarded a plane for Berkeley, Calif. Zhou Yue's dream is just starting. At the moment, though, it seems a bit nightmarish as she freezes in an unheated hovel and works 70-hour weeks. Both have done what most Chinese would never dare -- quit the cradle-to-grave security of their state job. About 80 per cent of Chinese, mostly peasants, work for themselves. Until recently, their biggest ambition was an iron rice bowl, a state job with health care, subsidized housing with cafeterias and light, undemanding work. Such jobs were so coveted that a steelworker might take early retirement so his offspring could inherit the slot. Indeed, the penultimate punishment short of jail terms for some Tiananmen Square dissidents has been dismissal from the job. But in the past decade the iron rice bowl has grown rusty. Salaries have not matched inflation. And with the opening to the West, ambitions young people have new goals. "That iron rice bowl isn't worth regreting," said Ms. Zhou, 24. Still, the plunge into capitalism has been a shock. Mr. Yang became an enterpreneur and rode a boombust cycle. Ms. Zhou became a receptionist and is learning about the cold, cruel world out- side the state cocoon. Ms. Zhou went to work at a state publishing house three years ago. She soon clashed with her supervisor. A college graduate, she wanted to do more than type. He thought she was not subser- vient enough. In the political witch hunt after the 1989 massacre, Ms. Zhou naively admitted going to Tiananmen square. After all, her com- pany had even supplied the bus. Then she learned her colleagues all denied going, "even the guy who drove the bus." Unable to stand the blistering criticism sessions, Ms. Zhou quit her job last fall. Through friends, she found a job at a joint- venture company answering phones. She tripled her salary, but found herself with new expenses. For instance, she lost her state-as-signed dormitory bed. She moved into a damp, windowless storeroom. It was free, but one day it flooded. So she rented a small room without heat, running water, a toilet or kitchen. A public outhouse is half a block away. She gets a hot lunch at work, but can't affort restaurant meals, so she eats peanuts or bread for supper. In the evenings, she hibernates in bed. By morning, the water in her toothbrush mug has iced over. Last month her manager cut her salary because he considered it too high. For the extra money -- and the heat -- Ms. Zhou took a night secretarial job with a Japanese firm. But her manager, who had introduced her to the Japanese, kept 80 per cent of her salary for his company. Ms. Zhou was outraged but kept her mouth shut. She stays on because another manager has promised her a promotion. "I have no regrets," she says. Like Mr. Yang, her ultimate dream is to study abroad. A decade ago, Mr. Yang, a sofspoken man with a mop of silky hair, failed college entrance exams by two points. At 21, he got a job at a state laboratory. His work, washing test tubes, took an hour a day. In his spare time he read biographies of Henry Kissinger and U.S. industrialist Armand Hammer. Inspired, he hung some calligraphy on his bedroom wall. "The less opportunity there is, the harder I struggle." By 1985, he began planning his departure. First he studied management at night school. Then he looked for the right oppor- tunity. Two years later, he found it: a vacant restaurant at a busy intersection. The rent was exorbitant. But Mr. Yang, a slick dresser who weres Italian tasseled loafers and double-breasted trnch coats, persuaded the landlord, a school, to defer the rent until the end of the year. He gambled that electrical goods were hot. Using a network of friends and contacts, he obtained merchandise on consignment. he could sell first, pay later. "Others couldn't sell the staff. It was the same whether it sat in my store or in their warehouse," Mr. Yang recalls over lunch in a posh French restaurant. "We'd sell anything -- air condi- tioners, copiers, televisions, refrigirators." When he quit his state job in 1987, his parents, both state employees, were horrified. "We fought for three months," says Mr. Yang, spitting a watermelon seed into the plush carpet. But his timing was perfect. Rumours has sparked an epidemic of panic buying. The first year, Mr. Yang made a profit of 90,000 yuan ($19,000). He hired seven staff, leased a chauffeured car and installed a private telephone. He opened a U.S. dollar account at the Bank of China. And he began smoking Marlboros, the quintessential sign of the Beijing nouveau riche in Beijing. The next year, consumers went crazy over video-cassette record- ers. "We raised our prices every three or four days," he says. Net profit soared to 700,000 yuan in 1988. To match that, Mr. Yang would have had to work at his state job for 424 years. "I couldn't believe it was so easy," he exults. It wasn't. The next year was 1989. The economy was edging toward a recession. The Tiananmen Square crackdown in June was the final blow. his business died as quickly as it had flourished. There were other problems. Flush with sucess, he had poured a third of his money into a sourenir shop. But tourism dried up after the June massacre. It was time to activate the second part of his plan: going abroad. Twice ha applied for a U.S. visa and was rejected. The third time, he got it. A job with a trading company and English lessons await him in California. He won't disclose his current net worth, but he prob- ably has at least 500,000 yuan in cash (about 135,000). "I have enough to live on for a few years," says Mr. Yang, who has stayed single despite being one of Beijing's most eligible bachelor. he hopes to return one day, perhaps as a U.S. citizen. "See this ballpoint pen?" he says, grabbing a reporter's cheap Bic import. "Chinese pens are no good. I'd like to bring the technology back and make pens like this in China. **End** +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Send Contribution to cnd-canada@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (news Canada) | | cnd-editor@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (news Global) | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | China News Digest Subscription (Xinmeng Liao): xliao@ccm.umanitoba.ca | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | China News Digest CND-Canada Editor: (Bo Chi) chi@vlsi.uwaterloo.ca | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+