20110528

Standard of Living

As a foreign worker in China, my standard of living is quite high.  Compared to the average Chinese person, I make a very good salary.  I also don't need to worry about housing costs, which is one of the major growing issues in China.  I have what seems to be all of the benefits of living here with none of the shortcomings.


  • Fancy Dinners:  Whether it's going to Pizza Hut, which costs the same as eating four days of normal food, or going to an all you can eat and drink Japanese restaurant, which costs twice as much as Pizza Hut, it's within my means to do this about once each week.
  • Foot Massages:  According to my understanding, the masseuses/masseurs at these places earn about 16 RMB per hour.  If you specifically request the number of a particular masseur, then they earn an extra 5 RMB during the time they spend with you.  To put this into perspective, a foreigner teaching English can anticipate approximately 125 each hour.  About six to seven times more than the masseur!


I wonder if I should feel bad about circumstances here.  I like my job.  It certainly provides me a level of comfort that I really appreciate, but is it really fair?  It's not like the qualifications for the job are astronomical, but it does take a certain kind of person to do this job.  Just something I've been thinking about recently.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous6/26/2011

    In our factory, an ordinary worker is 8 yuan/hour for man, and 6 yuan/hour for woman...
    Really hard work with low salary paid

    ReplyDelete