Skip to main content

CHINA vs USA in WORK, SCHOOL and OTHER MATTERS

Hurricane Ida was as fearsome as predicted, with more than a million in Louisiana without electricity, but, as of this morning, there has been only one person reported killed, by a falling tree.  This number will no doubt increase as the search begins, but Hurricane Katrina had 1833 deaths.

The good news of the day is that some doubt has been cast on the Israeli report that vaccine immunity is waning, maybe dropping to as low as 39% from the original mid-nineties.  While there is no doubt that more vaccinated people are today getting sick from the Delta-variant, that could well be because they are taking more chances through travel and so on, and the actual immunity might still be quite high.  In any case, these individuals who do get sick, all tend to live with mostly mild symptoms.   There is a growing sense that booster shots might not be necessary at this time, and the more sensible policy would be to first vaccinate the world, invoke more vaccine mandates and accelerate the FDA study of vaccines for children.

Do people in the U.S. or China work harder?  It is reported that we are the most overworked developed nation in the world!

  • In 1960 only 20% of mothers worked.  Today, 70% of children live in households where both mom and dad work, although only 75% of women work full time.  86% of males and 67% of females work more than 40 hours/week.
  • The U.S. is the ONLY country without a national paid parental leave benefit.  It is 20 weeks in Europe and 12 weeks almost anywhere else.
  • There is no federal law requiring paid sick days in the U.S.  The ONLY industrialized country.
  • 134 countries have laws setting the maximum length of the work week.  We do not.
  • Americans work more hours/year (number indicates how many more):
    • Japan:  137
    • UK:  260
    • France:  499
  • Vacation?
    • U.S. 13 days/year
    • Canada/Japan:  20 
    • France/Finland:  30

Read that article for more info.

What about China?  I guess it is not a developed country, for:

  • Chinese work long hours
    • Referred to as 996 or a 72 hour work week from 9AM to 9PM six days/week.
    • This is the norm!
    • China with 46.3 hours/week and the USA at 34.4 hours/week.
    • More anecdotal, but in one company, if you don't answer your company cell phone once, that's okay.  The second time will get you a $7 fine.  If you don't reply to a WeChat app, the fine is $15.  You can be fired for not responding to this app.  Meetings are sometimes called for 10PM.
    • Tech giant Huawei currently under fire in the U.S. boasts that employees volunteer to work past 10PM.  Yeah, but at the expense of being fired if you don't?
    • Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma said that to be able to work 12-hours a day was a huge bliss.
World Population Review ranked the countries with the most number of hours worked per year:
  • #1    Mexico (41.3 hours/week)
  • #2    Costa Rica (40.8)
  • #3    South Korea (38.3)
  • #10  USA  (34.3)
  • #25  Switzerland  (30.0)
  • #37  Germany  (26)

No mention of China.  As shown earlier was China at 46.3 hours/week, making it #1 by quite a bit.

Vivian Wang of the New York Times recently had an article entitled: 12-hour days, six days a week.  Another way of saying 996.  If you can read that article, she says that workers are dying.
  • Some companies are reacting by saying okay to go home at 6PM...but only on Wednesdays.
  • The reason why companies require long hours is because of the extreme competition for any high tech job.
  • Labor unions?  Want to go to jail?
Here are a few other noteworthy differences between the USA and China:

  •  It’s illegal for children in China to play video games after 10 p.m. Facial-recognition software aims to enforce that rule.
  • School?
    • In China, September to mid-July, with summer spent studying for entrance exams. 
      • The school day runs from 7:30AM to 5PM with  a 2-hour lunch break.
      • High school not required.
    • U.S.....you know.
    • The USA dominates in any list of best universities:
      • China's Tsinghua University is #28 in the top 40 as their only entry.
  • China has a billion-plus more people than the U.S., but we have about the same geographical area.  However, you can debate which country has more land.  Arguments can be made for both.

Roast pork has to be on any list of worst foods to eat.  However, I like it and here is how a Chinese restaurant makes  this delicacy. 

Have you noticed that China can build things very quickly?  Here is an example of a ten-story building constructed in one day:

Well, it actually took 28 hours and 45 minutes.  The Bailong Elevator in Zhangjiajie National Forest, the tallest in the world at more than a thousand feet:

Why was it even built?  Apparently as a service to visitors.  Has a $21 roundtrip fee.  One more....is this real?

Yes, a DV LED display on the corner of an urban shopping plaza in Chengdu.

-

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota.  Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north.  Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge.  If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic.  Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing.  The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University.  Caught a bus. Was called the  Century 21 Exposition .  Also the Seattle World's Fair.  10 million joined me on a six-month run.  My first. These a...

OSAKA EXPO: Day One

Well, the day finally came for us to go to the Osaka Expo.  We were told ahead of time that the long walks would be fearful, giant lines will need to be tolerated just to get into the Expo, with those ocean breezes, it would really be cold, and so forth. Maybe it was pure luck, but we avoided all the above warnings  We had a grand day, and are looking forward to Sunday, our second day at the Expo.  So come along for an enjoyable ride. Our hotel is adjacent to the Tennoji Station, a very large one with several lines.  We upgraded our Suica card and caught the Misosuji red line towards Umeda. Transferred to the Chuo green line at the Hommachi Station.  This Osaka Metro train took us to the Yumeshima Station at the Expo site.   It was a very large mob leaving the train and heading to the entrance. Took only a few minutes to get to the entrance.  This mob was multiplied by at least a factor of  ten of those already waiting to enter.  However...

THE BULLET TRAIN

Japan had the first bullet train more than 60 years ago.  It was 10October1964, when the opening ceremony was held in Tokyo in anticipation of Japan's first-ever Olympic Games, which began that day. The  Shinkansen,  meaning  new mainline , with a separate track, arrived when normal train traffic had reached the limit for carrying passengers and freight.   A train trip between Osaka and Tokyo dropped from 6 hours and 40 minutes to 4 hours, shortened to 3 hours and 10 minutes by 1964, and is now 2 hours and 30 minutes.  From the Shin-Osaka Station to the Shin-Yokohama Station only takes a little more than 2 hours. In 1964 the track was 320 miles long.  Today, it's up to 1484 miles.  The original itinerary incorporating Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka now carries 159 million passengers/year.  In this 6 decade period, more than 10 billion passengers have been safely handled.  CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT NOT ONE PASSENGER HAS YET BEEN KILLED IN A DERA...