No more "$1 a day"....the lowest wages I have seen in the industrialized parts of China is about is about $300 per month. These factory workers manage and do not lack for food, clothing, medical attention and shelter.
(Several years ago, I had a kidney stone attack. My office manager took me to the Shenzhen hospital - 5,000 beds - where I was treated by the head of urology or whatever doctor handles kidneys, a couple ultra-sounds, treatment, ultra-sonic baths, medication,over 24 hours to be cured, released, sent on my way with pain-killers in hand, all for $0.16!)
Of course, non-industrialized China does lag behind...but, again proportionatly comparing China to other "developing, developed or industrialized" nations, China does not have as much poverty, homeless, and destitutes as do many other nations.
As for "government seized land...sold", in most cases, if a person is willing to invest in his community or his village, the government will give the land, for free, supported by the promise that the factory owner will hire local people to work in that factory. The greater the committment to the village; the greater the government support of that business.
The days of subsidies are, fast, disappearing. A business has to stand on its own two feet, or two thousand feet or, in the case of some very large factories, twenty thousand feet!
But we are not here to discuss the socio-economic poliicies of a country regarded, by many ill-informed, as primitive, backward and and repressive.
It very difficult to impose one's own moral and ethical values on another culture.
There is quite a bit of good in China while the bad is, very quickly, dissipating.
If you would want to join Mission Hills today, a full membership to all 12 golf courses, you would have to pay an initiation fee of about $US275,000. Monthly dues are about $400. In addition, we pay cart and caddy fees, that are about $35 per round...we have to take both cart and caddy.
MH is my home away from home. As I find myself getting older and my children spreading themselves around the world, my wife and I spend much more time in China and MH makes those stays much more pleasureable thanks the kindness, generosity and warmth of the Chinese people.
I genuinely wish more of you, especially those who have drawn their own negative conclusions of what they think China is like, would have the opportunity to visit.
If you watch tonight/early morning, I hope you enjoy what you see of Mission Hills. It is not "real" China and it is a very very special place in a country that is changing so dramatically...for the better.
GRW
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