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

46 CultureShock! China

Among the poor are much

of the floating population, who

support their family back in

the villages out of their meagre

urban wages. Many xiagang

workers, many of them middle-

aged or older, after sweating all

day in the labour markets and

caring for their family in the evening, still struggle in night-

schools to learn English, or how to use computers, so they

too can join the ranks of more sophisticated workers. And

more villagers leave the farms and join the floating population

every day.

From the perspective of Western businesspeople, it is

worth appreciating the dignity of the struggles of China’s

poorest. Many effective corporate philanthropy or corporate

social responsibility (CSR) activities in China are aimed at

helping to ease those struggles. Building schools and hospitals

in rural areas, supporting educational programmes, providing

scholarships, funding worker retraining programmes and

the like can help China’s poor in meaningful ways, and also

help position companies as partners of choice for China,

more likely than others to receive coveted permits or project

selection preferences.

Even from a marketing perspective, China’s poorest

should not be wholly forgotten. Consumer products firms,

for instance, do very well selling shiny little single-use foil

packs of shampoos or face creams in China. These ‘affordable

luxuries’ have become popular gifts among China’s poorest

when they want to offer each other a special-occasion

alternative to hand-made lye soaps. Similarly, banks wanting

to offer Rmb savings services have gotten a foot in the door

offering low-cost ways for floating population migrants

in the cities to safely transfer funds to their families back

home. Pharmaceutical firms have gotten permits to sell

higher-end medications in China’s boomtowns only after

agreeing to sell more basic or near-generic products at-cost

in the countryside. Similar examples abound. Even China’s

poorest seek to be part of the new economy, and to bring

Of course, even the poorest
aspire to more than mere survival.
They still dream and hope, and
appreciate beauty (‘Even beggars
can look at the moon’ goes one
traditional Chinese saying). They
fall in love and have children,
seek self-respect and the respect
of others.