Life and Travel in China

I wonder how the pension system works in Poland? People pay their whole lives, month after month, year after year, for 40-45 years, and at the end they don't even have money for life, for medicine, for private care, etc. My Chinese in-laws receive a pension, although no pension system existed before. 10 years ago, with the help of their children, they paid PLN 3,000 ONCE to the pension fund, and now they receive about PLN 1,000 EVERY MONTH (for two people). Considering the Chinese reality, a simple life in the countryside is quite decent money, because they even save it! They have been farmers all their lives, so they also have income from selling vegetables. Of course, such solutions do not apply to the whole of China, it depends on the specifications of a given region. However, considering that there was no pension system at all and old people were simply taken care of by their children; in return, grandparents took care of their grandchildren. Nowadays, the reality is slightly different, because people no longer only farm, but also gain education, work in companies and corporations, and do not live in a multi-generational house in the countryside as before. The Middle Kingdom has simply become richer rapidly, and although the specter of crisis is now looming, certain aspects of life have been largely improved: the above-mentioned pension system, education, health care, housing availability, and general quality of life. I am not writing this under the influence of propaganda, because it is known that the system is not perfect, but I have been personally observing these changes for 12 years and I am impressed. I see that the communist authorities simply do something for people and give something in return. We will all pay for this 500+ program in Poland, not the government. They will give with one hand and take with the other in the form of various taxes, fuel prices, fees, social security benefits, etc. This program will probably fail anyway, because there will be an increasing deficit in the budget. In a few years, the authorities will simply declare that the idea was good, but people were not ready and did not manage the money well.

The Chinese are always surprised that during Easter we basically have one day off, and at Christmas we have 2-3 days off. It seems to them that throughout Europe and America such holidays last a week or longer. Some people probably have such feelings based on American movies where the whole family spends several days or even several weeks together, starting from Thanksgiving, through Christmas, ending on New Year's Day. Unfortunately, the reality is different and people are also increasingly busier and busier. Although we still have winter breaks, holidays and vacations. In China, children have Christmas breaks and holidays, but adults usually work all year round except for the Chinese New Year period, which, as you know, lasts 2-3 weeks. They celebrate once and for all. There are also other holidays, anniversaries, etc. The balance of days off is similar. In the Middle Kingdom, the biggest disadvantage is that the whole of China has holidays at the same time and all tourist attractions are simply crowded.

Uber Taxi has clearly taken jobs away from traditional taxis in China. As I observe, in Shenzhen, catching a taxi on the street is no problem - regardless of whether it is evening or weekend. I remember the times when you had to walk in the city center for up to 20-30 minutes to find a free taxi driver. In Shanghai, we had to look for a chauffeur for over an hour, and finally we accidentally got in front of a hotel - only because another customer (a hotel guest) canceled the ride. Now many of our friends use the Uber application and they usually pay 30-50% less for the ride compared to a regular taxi.

Today we were picked up by a hired Chinese driver in Hunan Province. As standard, there is a tag with a portrait of leader Mao under the mirror (it's quite typical in Hunan, I think I wrote about it back in 2005). After some time, he turned on some disco Chinese music. There would be nothing strange about it, if it weren't for the DVD video clip that was displayed on his monitor. A group of white people in summer clothes, some holiday fun, a DJ on stage, I thought maybe something from Russia?! After a while, the RMF Maxx logo appears at the bottom of the screen ;-). It turned out that the video came from an event in Poland. I just don't know what connection it had with Chinese music? Either someone edited it this way, and in the Middle Kingdom this is very likely, or the music was separated from the film. As you can see, we have more and more in common.

I need to verify another stereotype about China. The average Pole thinks that in China people live on a bowl of rice, buy crappy toys, and consumer electronics are at the level of Africa. Well, electronics in China is very advanced now. In every subway you can see hundreds of people using the latest Apple and Samsung phones. There are also many Chinese brands that are very advanced, such as XiaoMi, which is desirable in Poland, and Vivo phones, which are very popular in the Middle Kingdom, also work quite well. My wife now uses XiaoMi Redmi 3, which we bought for about PLN 500. It saddens me to see how quickly this phone works. At similar prices in Poland we have some Nokia and Samsung models, which in my opinion are half as slow and have frequent 'lags', for example when watching movies or opening more demanding websites. I would also like to point out that the average Chinese person doesn't even use a tablet. A good phone is sufficient for work, entertainment and browsing. Of course, the most popular application that is open on every phone in China is WeChat (free online calls, video calls, money transfer, payments, friend search and Facebook-like functions). It may be hard to believe, but even Chinese farmers use phones with 4G Internet. Some even run online stores offering their vegetables. Incredible technological progress. Maybe not Japan yet, but almost there ;-).