Culture Shock! China - A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette, 2nd Edition

The Chinese 39

workers than China’s floating population, but that aspect of
globalisation is another story...

The New Working Class

Meantime in China’s boomtowns, while the floating
population handles bottom-tier jobs, official residents are
moving quickly up the value chain in job skills and quality
of life. In offices and factories owned by foreign-invested
enterprises and by the better-run SOEs and private Chinese-
owned companies, new generation Chinese workers are
learning skills their forebears never dreamed of. Many
(especially among office workers) are fluent in English,
German or Japanese. Many are computer whizzes, or expert
technicians, or are familiar with every nuance of ISO 140001
environmental quality controls.
Increasingly, these skills are commanding salaries their
forebears never dreamed of either. This is the bulk of that 300-
million-strong middle class the UN writes about. Most live in
decent apartments, with heaters, running hot water and other
amenities their parents rarely and their grandparents never
experienced. Ever-increasing numbers aspire to own their own
apartments and cars. The following table, following a local
penchant for numbering systems, outlines what the Chinese
working class have, with more than a grain of truth, called:

The Three Most Desired Items in

Decades of Chinese Daydreams

1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s

Sewing

machine

Colour TV Private

apartment

Luxury home

Rice cooker Refrigerator Car Sports car

Bicycle

Washing

machine Computer

Home

entertainment

system

Struggles still abound—even in the best-run companies
in China’s wealthiest cities, most workers still commute
very long distances (sometimes hours each way) on public