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No exaggeration needed. The stats you are throwing up are definitely atypical. Let's see the average. For Beijing, it will be well over 100. It REGULARLY exceeds 300 and was recently as high as 700. Same for other Chinese cities. It is beyond dispute that China has the worst overall pollution in the world. You can bury your head in the sand all you want. But don't keep it there too long--the dirt is contaminated too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by botticelli
you are exaggerating. No area in the country that is not seriously polluted?
Right now 3pm, March 4, the Air Quality Index as follows (the lower the better).
FWIW it rained in GZ yesterday and last night; after it rains, the count goes down because it reduces the number of particulates in the air. On a warmer day, it will get up past the 100's and closer to the 200's.
Botticelli is right. The average college grad now makes anywhere from $500-$1000 a month fresh out of college. The amount living in poverty has fallen drastically over the past 20 years, and the amount of people who can afford to buy Apple products, cars, houses, and travel internationally has grown exponentially. Were not just talking about children of government officials here. The highest influx of tourists to Australia are from China.
To be fair technological products are much cheaper today than they were in 1994 all over the world. Even many Americans couldn't afford computers back then when a basic one was something like $1400 in today's money, and only a fraction as useful as a $250 laptop today.
Today even a pretty poor person could afford to own a computer or cell phone so I don't see the adoption of such technology as being great evidence of a leap in prosperity. And something like half of the people in China still don't own a PC.
I think China has gotten quite far, of course I didn't live in China 20 years ago but I have heard many stories.
Back then you had to save up for a year to get a new bike, now you don't even need one month.
Back then most people have not traveled outside their city , now people travel all over China. It is still not too common to travel abroad.
Back then even middle class people live in cramped apartments where they had to share bathroom and kitchen. Also the floors didn't have titles and the walls are not painted. Today many middle class people live in 100 square meter apartments that would make westerners proud. Chinese still got a little bit to learn to take care of their apartment building , but at least today it is more common. Also now all houses have central heating, but back then all homes heated their homes with coal.
Back then McDonald's cost more than today, but wages were much lower. Going to McDonald's back then would be like an American spending 200 dollars for a meal.
The best signal for Chinese growth is that I am sitting here writing on a Xiaomi cellphone and its way better than western phones in the same price class. Back then anything Chinese would be a knock off and not work well.
But has China paid for it with pollution. A little bit, but it's getting better than before. The worst time was 10 years ago, people just didn't know it because the government told them it is just fog. And that brings us to the last point, back then the government could easily do whatever they want, now they have to listen to social media.
I think China has gotten quite far, of course I didn't live in China 20 years ago but I have heard many stories.
Back then you had to save up for a year to get a new bike, now you don't even need one month.
Back then most people have not traveled outside their city , now people travel all over China. It is still not too common to travel abroad.
Back then even middle class people live in cramped apartments where they had to share bathroom and kitchen. Also the floors didn't have titles and the walls are not painted. Today many middle class people live in 100 square meter apartments that would make westerners proud. Chinese still got a little bit to learn to take care of their apartment building , but at least today it is more common. Also now all houses have central heating, but back then all homes heated their homes with coal.
Back then McDonald's cost more than today, but wages were much lower. Going to McDonald's back then would be like an American spending 200 dollars for a meal.
The best signal for Chinese growth is that I am sitting here writing on a Xiaomi cellphone and its way better than western phones in the same price class. Back then anything Chinese would be a knock off and not work well.
But has China paid for it with pollution. A little bit, but it's getting better than before. The worst time was 10 years ago, people just didn't know it because the government told them it is just fog. And that brings us to the last point, back then the government could easily do whatever they want, now they have to listen to social media.
Yeah the 'Great Firewall of China' won't hold. Plus with the foreign media and Chinese going abroad, they're not just going to swallow the CCP propaganda.
The average big city cleaning lady doesn't make 4 to 5 usd per hour, nor do a large portion of construction workers make 1k usd per month in China. domestic helpers or cleaning ladies (ayi) make about 350 to 500 usd per month, and slightly more per month for construction workers.
The average big city cleaning lady doesn't make 4 to 5 usd per hour, nor do a large portion of construction workers make 1k usd per month in China. domestic helpers or cleaning ladies (ayi) make about 350 to 500 usd per month, and slightly more per month for construction workers.
$4-5 an hour is first-hand information. It will be very difficult to find an ayi that is willing to work for under RMB 20 an hour in Shanghai nowadays.
as to construction worker
"The entry-level jobs at construction sites now pay about 5,000 yuan (US$793) a month at our company," Guo Daohua, a worksite supervisor with Shanghai Road and Bridge Group, told Shanghai Daily. "But it's still difficult to attract the young migrant workers born after 1985."
Young workers demand a lot more than their older generations. In Chinese cities, every 3 years makes a big difference in everything.
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