My Experiance While China Visit. Its Worth Visiting Place

[kshah 452]

Usually I am not the type who speaks too much about my experiances but with RIMWEB I think there are many members who are sensible enough to share my experiances with them.

One need not to give any introduction of this asian dragon as globally we are compared with china for its size, population and calibre, also for social and economic problems.

Ofcourse I visited only 3 cities in China and it can never give any one a total idea of what they are and why they are so. What we might be knowing a bit but why is largely unknown due to various reason few of them are that we think that we are far ahead of china or may be we do not want to accept the fact that they are far ahead of us.

Aparently china is just a country with far superior infrastructure. Indeed they have infrastructure we are no where nearer.

Just to give an example, I saw total 3 airports (Guanzhou, Beijing, Shanghai) , all of them were so huge that our bombay or Delhi airports are not even 1/4th of them. If you see quality of work and work culture, they have reached far.

I travelled by train (Beijing to Shanghai), 1600 KMS, in just 12 hours. It was non stop train departing at 1919 PM and reaching 0721 AM. Both times were within minute variations. While travelling I saw that they have trains like us too. Wooden berths, over crowded etc. But over all station management was far superior than us. Only passengers are allowed on platform. Thats why they can manage it better.

Over all cost of living in China is much higher than us. FOr example 600 ml wate bottle in super market will cost about 1.5 RMB (1 RMB = Rs. 6 , Approx) and same bottle will cost between 5 to 10 RMB outside. Beer was cheaper than water.

Average minimum salary is about 80 RMB / Day. This is government regulation and it is followed atleast in urban areas. I dont know about rural areas. I visited 2 factories and saw that their factories are much cleaner (Over all its very clean country), well organized and people with high productivity.

Places I visited, I saw that of total work force atleast 35-45% were women. Overall women participation in economic activities is much higher. On other hand they have male-female ratio as adverse as ours 937 female against 1000 male. This figure is told by guide so I dont know how genuine it is. They too prefer baby boy over girl child.

But chinese people are very beautiful. Atleast as per them people who are origially chinese. People with mongol blood are not so beautiful. They got excellent dressing sense and are very professional. Best part is even if they cheat you, they will be very point blank, they will not tell you why fellow business person is cheaper or will never rundown competetor. This is one thing we need to learn. TO give you an example, I bought 1 MP4 player of 1 GB. Usually cheap chinese players have hacked memory and when they say 1 GB. It is usually 1 Giga bit. not 1 gigabyte. I met manufacturer who quoted me US $ 35 for 1 GB (Genuine memory size) but in market it was available for US $ 30 (Hacked memory) nbut genuine manufacturer will only say we cant be so cheap because our quality is different. THey will not utter a single word why they cant go so low. BEAWARE WHILE BUYING IT IN INDIA TOO.

Cellular services there are just superb but atleast 4-5 times expensive than India. Even incoming is charged in CHina. Prepaid incoming in home city (not circle) could be around Rs.3-5 per minute so for out going. Roaming charges are almost twice as much. Two companies which are there in China, china unicom and china mobile.

China Mobile is government company with GSM network and China Unicom is privately owned company with CDMA and now GSM network too. China Unicom is more expensive than Mobile and now they too emphasise on GSM rather than CDMA. Their CDMA network was as good as GSM, because I was roaming on CDMA network and had China Mobile Prepaid GSM sim, given by my tour operator with 30 RMB balance. China mobile seems to be too big then China Unicom. I was surprised to see China Mobiles "MOBILE NETWORK WAN" nearer to exhibition ground, when I inquired they said, incase of emergencies of when there is crowd, they setup temporary network cells so that network is not congested. I asked about the same for CDMA network, they said they have not seen.

Language is very big issue for foreigners, when you go to hotel, every hotel has their card in chinese language, which passenger must pick up and keep with them, else there is no way one can reach back hotel by taxi. Unless if you are too lucky and find someone knowing and understanding our english, who translate and explain it to taxi driver. But at the same time there is no social devide due to english. We have created big social devide due to language. I mean we think that one who knows english is superior to one who does not. Infact due to this type of attitude I have seen many people who do not prefer to communicate with people who does not know english. In china they too have 3 language and 20 dialect. Not as many as us. Also due to lack of english knowledge brain drain from china is far less than us. Here I am not intend to underestimate importance of English in our country but brains are not only with english sopeken people. It is that our systems gives more opportunities to english spoken people and that is the reason )Probably) there are many innovative and capable people could not reach to main stream easily. Here mainstream is people who can influence over all system decisions.

Another thing which was great to learn from them was they were not ashamed of their limited or no english knowledge. I met a CEO of small company (as per them) of about 500 crore turn over, that gentleman took 3 minutes to tell me that they are using magnet in their product. He took out his PDA, type it in chinese and then will show me tranlation "MAGNET". Even in exhibition wwhich is named as CHINA EXPORT COMODITY TRADE FARE" where no localites are allowed to enter. Foreign visitors with passports are only allowed, there you dont find many people who can speak english as good as us.

I think this is my longest post till now on RIMWEB. WIll continue further if members are interested to know more and ofcourse what I write here is my point of view. Differrences are inevitable.

I welcome your questions and querries, I will try to reply if I have seen or observed.

Edited November 11, 2006 by kshah

[prathod 3]

Beautiful!

You have given us a good review about your China visit,I almost felt like I myself had gone to China

I am just keen to know what type of food did you eat there and what is the recipe available for a vegetarian.

Also would be interested to know more of your experiences there,

Wish there would be "Mobile Network Vans"here also .

Regards

Pankaj.

[amtrag 20]

Beautiful!

You have given us a good review about your China visit,I almost felt like I myself had gone to China

I am just keen to know what type of food did you eat there and what is the recipe available for a vegetarian.

Also would be interested to know more of your experiences there,

Wish there would be "Mobile Network Vans"here also .

Regards

Pankaj.

There are such vans in India too. I have seen at least one in Mumbai.

[GSV13 0]

Shaah Bhai Continue soon!! Interesting one

[Greens 21]

Interesting and Informative.

Any other members visited foreign countries do can share their experience.

[supernova 47]

yes very interesting . like as if watching some live travel serial on tv

[Nirvana 4]

Yeah, great Travelogue ! China does have the edge over India, and English language is catching up too there right ? Have you seen much outsourcing companies there ? Thanks again for sharing your experiences !

[kshah 452]

Beautiful!

You have given us a good review about your China visit,I almost felt like I myself had gone to China

I am just keen to know what type of food did you eat there and what is the recipe available for a vegetarian.

Also would be interested to know more of your experiences there,

Wish there would be "Mobile Network Vans"here also .

Regards

Pankaj.

About Foods in CHina

Just like any other country of the world, china does not have concept of vagetarian and non vegetarian food. They eat food with meat, fish, eggs etc. I heard that there are people who do not eat meat products and foods are available for them too. But it was very difficult to find and know because of language.

I visited 2 McDonalds and there they were not having menu in English. In Pizza hut they had one pizza which was vegetarian.

While coming back from great wall of china, there is government restaurant, which serves free lunch to all visitors to great wall. There I could request veg food and they served.

What we eat in India as chinese food is Indian Chinese. Original chinese food is very plain and because of spices they use, it smells very different. We find it stinking, the way they find our food stinking.

There are Indian restaurants and there you get real good Indian food. They serve even veg food.

First time visitors, I think better they go with some travel agency rather than going on their own.

We have a myth that chinese eat everything including insects, snakes etc. Infact in China only cantonese people eat all such stuff. Non cantonese do not eat even dog, they eat chicken, mutton, fish, beef etc. Cantonese are mainly in Hong Kong and regions closer to hang kong in CHina.

Since I am from Industrial back ground my interest for outsourcing and IT was very limited. So I never bothered to inquire about it.

They say they are catching up with English, but I wonder how true it is. Because when I was in beijing, where there will be Olympics in 2008, just about 600-700 days left, I could not find people who can speak english. Even in 4 star hotels there will be may be 1 or two person who really can communicate in english. That too if that person is in India, we will say he does not know english. They speak english like newbie.

Infact they do not seems to be in need of learning english. They seems to be very confident about the fact that world needs them more than they need world. They have created might which is endorsed and realized by world. They are pround of their country, language etc.

They have adopted western professionalism. Just to give an example, they will have shop and coffee shop temple in next rooms of buddha rooms. Even they will demonstrate you say how pearl or silk is porduced (When you go to factory outlets) and then sell stuffs atleast 2-3 times expensive than other shops. But htis way they generate confidence that you get only genuine stuffs.

Average chinese has good respect for Indians, they are greatful to India for Buddhism and martial arts. They say Indians are our brothers. I dont know how true it is. But I spoke to 3 people who said the same thing. Though they have more connections with westerners and they understand importance of westerners, they do not respect westerners as much as they respect Indian. They seems to have learnt good things from westerners like cleanliness, punctuality (Very punctual in time), productivity etc. At the same time they have larger faith in their own religion, arts and crafts.

Their clothing absolutely westrnized but not food. I saw most people prefered fruit juice or tea or coffee over pepsi and coke even in McDDonalds or pizza huts. On road side shop, pepsi and coke is available but juices and water is sold more than them.

We Indian has a notion that Chinese produce cheap stuff at cheaper prices. Thats not true, for example, I got quotes for particular vacuum cleaner model from US $ 14 to US $ 41. Same model same specs.

Europeans and american will show more interest in higher end companies, who gives what they specify and Sounth asian people will show interest and still bargain them down to may be $ 12. So they get such product. If you see US $ 41 vacuum cleaner, similar spec vacuum cleaner is sold in India for 4.5-6K under Indian brandname and cheap stuffs are sold in tele marketing.

I believe that India can compete china in manufacturing segment too. India too can produce quality stuff at comparable prices (Except electronic stuff).. Provided keep volumes and global market in mind.

[KumaarShah 143]

great travelogue, mate. keep it up. continue with the info.

Thanks.

[rEdshiFt 1]

Nice discussion here...

Two things that strike me when thinking about china are Communism and Himalayas

Communism as the form of governance has a ruthless efficiency in getting things done. This has augered well for china in a lot of ways ... industrial productivity, population control etc

The thing about himalaya is this - historicaly, Himalayas has been the ' Great Barrier' (physical, cultural and otherwise) between the two cultures. . Two Great cultures with rich histories - so close yet so unconnected... all credit to the Great Himalayas.

I think those fahian(?) and the other chinese guy in our history book had to come by sea routes. IF there had been a easier land route, i beleive there would have been so much more cultural exchange between us over the past 6000 yrs or so

Keep this topic going

Edited November 12, 2006 by rEdshiFt

[kshah 452]

Yes communism has its advantages too. Say for example, when I spoke to guide about the way they are changing shanghai for world expo in 2010, they removed many old buildings to widen roads and beutifying city. He said once government decides and gives you package (150 mtr house for 100 mtr ouse in some other area) you have no option but to accept it. If you refuse you loose that package too.

As far as productivity is concern, politics has a role to play. But politics alone can not change mindset. It is desire to grow can only change. That is the reason if we look at mumbaikars, they have desire to grow and they have better productivity than any other city.

While talking to people there they even do not remember comminism. Even mao is not remembered so much. There are few photos of him.

Taxation in china icome tax is from 10% to 45%.

Domestic economy too is so big, atleast in urban areas, which I have seen. They have huge disposible incomes due to 1 child policy and female participation in economic activities. In shanghai, there was a street few 100 meters away from my hotel, it was like linking road of mumbai. On sunday, morning 1030, most shops and malls were full of people and shopping. Even on week days, at 930 night, shops were full. 20% foregners rest localites.

[Sadikk 301]

Impressed. I wonder is there any product/stuff in which they would be interested to import from india??