News of plans to raise China’s retirement age, found in documents issued after the recently concluded Third Plenum, have ignited a social media firestorm. The text of the plenum’s “resolution,” published to Xinhua, held:...
Premier Li Keqiang has urged Chinese workers to emulate the hard-working ‘stick stick...
As companies from Wal-Mart to the world’s largest shoe-maker, Yue Yuen Industrial Holdings,...
The Chinese government will be giving small cash gifts to some 74 million citizens before Chinese New Year. From Reuters, via MSNBC: China will give its neediest citizens hand-outs of up to 180 yuan ($26) to brighten their mood...
From the International Herald Tribune: As a result of the global economic downturn, the province of Guangdong may set up a fund to help newly unemployed factory workers. The proposal is believed to be in response to fears about...
Hong Kong-listed toymaking company Smart Union was forced to close its massive factory in Dongguan, Guangdong province down last week, laying off 7,000 workers in the process. The BBC reports: A Chinese toymaker which supplied...
Beijing-based poet and folk singer Zhou Funpeng, 周云蓬, 38, has penned the following song, The Unemployed (失业者), a mournful ballad representing the people left behind in urban China’s sprint towards prosperity. Listen here...
Here are two poems written by Tianjin based poet Li Wei (translated by M.J.): Like a factory worker I cut off my long hair Short to the roots Mali Zhe saw it Patted me and said Oh my, your head is truly ugly Like that of a...
Here is another poem written by Li Wei (translated by M.J.): Me, or a Monkey (我，或一只猴子) To lessen the burden Of the nation, of the people I An average man A completely inconspicuous person A person of no contribution whatsoever...
From The New York Times: When Zhang Feifei lost her job in this booming Chinese factory town, she was not terribly concerned. Jobs had always been plentiful in Shenzhen’s flourishing economy. …Few cities anywhere have created wealth faster than Shenzhen, but the costs of its phenomenal success stare out from every corner: environmental destruction, soaring […]
From BBC News: With a final flourish, Dr Wang Waihong dishes out glistening choy sum, or Chinese flowering cabbage, and receives an enthusiastic round of applause from her classmates. Made redundant from her job at a local hospital in China’s southern province of Guangdong, she has enrolled in cookery classes at a vocational training centre […]
From Dallas Morning News: In Fushun, a city of 2.3 million, the government workforce has fallen by 380,000 since 2000. Coal mines, construction companies and machinery factories have been pushed into the private sector, where they have shed employees or closed down. Song Xiuling, who sells raw fish and vegetables in an unheated warehouse market, […]
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