You see an awful lot of this in China these days - unbelievable wealth rubbing shoulders with absolute poverty. Every country has a gap between rich and poor, of course, but it does seem so much wider and more obvious in China. Yesterday, I passed the lady who collects rubbish from our neighbourhood to sell to a recycling plant, with her baby strapped to her back, wearing the same clothes she always wears. I have to say she always has a ready smile for me. Later, one of my students tells me his parents are currently buying an American business (primarily to get US passports) and a huge 6-bedroom mansion in Florida. He's not sure when they will move there, but learning English has suddenly become more important! There's money out there, but only for the lucky (or corrupt?) few. China has over a million US-dollar millionaires! For an interesting related BBC article, click here
5 Comments
Graham
7/11/2012 05:21:37 pm
But, to be fair, if you look at the distribution of wealth during Britain's 19th century Industrial Revolution, you will find that a tiny number of successful entrepreneurs made (and exhibited) vast wealth, while all the 'workers' and the diminishing agricultural classes lived in abject poverty, occupying insanitary hovels, working all hours, scratching a living, just to survive. T'was ever thus.
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Paul (the one)
8/11/2012 12:20:54 am
...I'll point that out to the lady collecting rubbish!
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Paul (the other)
8/11/2012 08:16:45 am
I thought the whole point of communism was the distribution of wealth. Yet I just saw an item on the news showing 2, 15 year old boys. One was working as a labourer as his family could not afford to send him to school and one was a multi-millionaire entrepreneur?
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Steve
11/11/2012 09:49:07 am
Just caught up with the above post and conversation. Interesting stuff - interesting that during the current recession world wide the super rich have become even more .. um... super super rich??? Great thought provoking post and they say a picture speaks a thousand words: great picture - is that one of yours Paul?
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Paul (the one)
12/11/2012 12:28:46 am
Thanks Steve. I confess this is one of the rare occasions when I used a picture that isn't mine, but it seemed to sum up the point very clearly, and I do see similar things here daily (though not always with camera in hand).
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AuthorPaul Hider lives and works in Kunming (SW China) and regularly updates this blog about his life there. Past blog entries
April 2024
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