Eating bitter in China

[GeneChing]

I swear - Chinese deliverers are some of the toughest mofos on the planet.

Jaw-dropping photos show a rubbish collector carrying an insane number of boxes with his tricycle

The man was reportedly on his way to a recycling plant in Shenyang, China
The images emerged today on Chinese media and have trended online
Internet users have criticised the man for putting other people in danger

By SOPHIE WILLIAMS FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 06:22 EST, 30 March 2016 | UPDATED: 07:46 EST, 30 March 2016

Hilarious images have emerged today of a man riding a tricycle overloaded with boxes in northern China.

The man who is thought to be a rubbish collector has been referred to as 'the most expert cyclist' on Chinese internet.

He was on his way to a garbage recycling transfer station in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, when the photos were taken, reported Huanqiu, an affiliation with the People's Daily Online.


Shocking: A man has been pictured riding an overloaded tricycle in Shenyang, north China's Liaoning province


Dangerous driving! The man is said to be a recycler and was taking the items to a rubbish transfer station

The tricycle is packed high with white polystyrene boxes set for the recycling point.

The man has ensured that he can see the traffic by making a hole through the boxes which were tied together using string and tape.

Its thought that the boxes were piled as high as 11 feet.

According to reports, motorists swerved to avoid the unidentified man.

Onlookers said the man was making a risky move by trying to carry so many boxes.

The photos have caused debate online about whether he should have put other people at risk by carrying so much.

On Wenxuecity.com, one user wrote: 'Not only does it affect the traffic, it's not safe!'

While another said: 'Where are the police? This man can't even see the road!'

According to China's Ministry of Public Security, the country has more than 169 million car owners.

It warned drivers of 'distracted driving,' which it said caused 21,570 deaths in 2014, in an effort to encourage more sensible driving habits across the nation.

Back in 2013, Chinese authorities confirmed that over 80 per cent of trucks on the roads were overloaded, largely down to extortionate toll bridge fees.


Crazy! The man was pictured carrying boxes eleven feet high in the streets of Shenyang, Liaoning province


'The most expert cyclist' Internet users have criticised the man for putting other motorists at risk

[GeneChing]

There's an embedded vid on the original article, but the pix give you the idea...

Think your boss is tough? Chinese employees are forced to CRAWL on the street for missing their sales targets

Footage shows over 10 men forced to crawl on their knees in Jilin, China
The company trades auto and financial loans but didn't reach their goals
Management reportedly wanted to motivate their staff with the punishment

By SOPHIE WILLIAMS FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 05:25 EST, 8 April 2016 | UPDATED: 05:34 EST, 8 April 2016

Shocking footage has emerged of more than 10 people forced to crawl on all fours in public last week in a Chinese city.

The group of people, all employees of one company, were reportedly being punished by their boss because they hadn't hit their sales targets. Local media say that management wanted them to be more motivated.

The incident was filmed in Baishan City, northern China's Jilin province on April 2, Huanqiu, affiliated with the People's Daily Online reports.


Harsh punishment: The employees were forced to crawl around after they missed their sales targets in China


Kind: According to the company, they wanted to punish the manager but the employees also volunteered

The footage shows the unidentified employees, most of whom were suited, standing in lines before they are told to get on their knees.

They then appear to crawl on an evidently wet floor for a considerable amount of time.

If things weren't bad enough for the group, they were filmed by several passersby.

A man can be heard shouting at the men and women to 'fulfill their commitments'.

The incident took place outside a shopping mall in Baishan City.


The company trades auto and financial loans and is based in Baishan City, northern China's Jilin province


The group crawled on the floor outside a shopping small in the city while passersby caught it on camera

According to Chinese media, the company did not meet their sales targets.

On April 7, the company spoke out about the video. The company's spokesman confirmed that they trade car and financial loans.


The spokesman said that as the company had not met the sales target, they asked the manager to crawl on his knees to motivate him.

However, all of the staff allegedly volunteered to follow their manager and do the exercise.

The company says that the group crawled nearly 700 feet.

This isn't the first case of interesting ways of companies punishing their employees.

Last October, another company based in Zhangzhou forced their employees to crawl after missing sales targets.

[GeneChing]

I have another article on coffin houses that I've been meaning to post, but it's like 20 pix. Maybe coffin houses needs it's own thread. This one is old, but it'll do until I post that other one.

Crowded Overhead View of Tiny Hong Kong Apartments
By Katie Hosmer on February 20, 2013



Many people who live in New York City might believe that they have a ‘small' apartment. But, after seeing this photo series of cramped apartments, you might reconsider. And that's exactly what the human rights organization Society for Community Organization (SoCo) was going for when they commissioned the project.

In the middle of 2012, Hong Kong was ranked as one of the world's most livable cities. But, the issue with these types of glamorous rankings is that, often times, a city's major problems are pushed aside. In an effort to raise awareness about the inadequate housing concerns in Hong Kong, and about the percentage of people who survive in extremely tiny living quarters, SoCo developed this photo campaign that features an aerial view of incredibly crowded apartments.

Often no bigger than a large cubicle, the apartments average about 40 square feet and are the result of dividing already small spaces into smaller, partitioned rentals. Each wide-angle photograph, shot from overhead, highlights individuals and families, along with their belongings, surviving in these very crammed and extreme conditions.

[GeneChing]

Subterranean home for 400 found in Beijing basement
20 June 2017


AFP/GETTY IMAGES
It is common to see basements in Beijing converted into housing units, such as this one photographed in 2014

The recent discovery of around 400 people living underneath an upscale Beijing apartment complex has shone fresh light on the Chinese capital's housing crunch.
On Saturday, a state radio report highlighted the existence of an underground warren of windowless rooms - with only one emergency exit - at Julong Gardens, located in the north-east of the city and popular with wealthy expatriates.
The tenants are among an estimated one million people known as shuzu - or rat tribe - who live in subdivided bomb shelters and bunkers built under Beijing in the 1970s and 1980s.

Stark contrast

The China National Radio report (in Chinese) said that homeowners at Julong Gardens became suspicious when they began noticing more unfamiliar faces in their complex.
They eventually discovered the warren of hidden rooms behind a door in the basement of one of the complex's towers.
An underground space had been subdivided into worker dormitories - complete with kitchens and even a "smoking room" - and cramped single rooms.
The tenants were migrant workers, their living conditions a stark contrast to that of the aboveground residents of Julong Gardens, a spacious compound with several apartment blocks.
It is unclear whether the underground homes were legal - authorities are reportedly investigating. China National Radio said the basement space was owned by the local government but was likely to have been subleased.
Authorities used to encourage the use of such spaces for housing and other purposes, but in recent years have cracked down and stopped granting permits as units proliferated and sparked safety concerns.
In 2015 officials embarked on a massive eviction exercise with more than 120,000 shuzu kicked out for security reasons.

Relentless climb in rents

Many migrant workers and students turn to underground housing because of its cost, which according to some estimates can be as low as $20 (£16) a month for a space in a dormitory room.
The trend comes amid a relentless climb in rental prices in Beijing, which was found to have the least affordable rental housing in the world last year.
One recent survey (in Chinese) found the average monthly rent in Beijing last year had climbed to about 4,550 RMB ($666; £523), about 60% more than the 2010 figure.


AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Many of these units are tiny and windowless

But it is also because of China's household registration system called hukou, which ties a person's government benefits, including access to affordable housing, to their hometown.
Many migrant workers find it difficult and costly to transfer their hukou to another city.
On microblogging network Sina Weibo, the Julong Gardens case sparked a mixture of resignation and exasperation.
"So why come to Beijing to squeeze in like this? I really don't understand," said one user.
"Beijing welcomes you (but get out if you don't have money)," joked another.

Is this better or worse than coffin houses?

[GeneChing]

Coffin homes deserve an indie thread now, separate from Eating bitter in China.

Hong Kong cage homes for hipster tourists: ‘poverty tourism’, or a way to show visitors unique side of city?
After social media outburst over cage-home beds at Sham Shui Po hostel and withdrawal of Airbnb listing, owner defends it as giving guests a different picture of Hong Kong and says cages celebrate the ingenuity of city’s poor
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 30 August, 2017, 4:47pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 30 August, 2017, 4:52pm
Lauren James
lauren.james@scmp.com
http://twitter.com/Lauren_YP



“Even starving artists need a place to rest their heads,” reads the blurb on Wontonmeen’s website. “We like to think of Wontonmeen as the hub where Hong Kong’s creative scene starts its day; a unique, diverse living space in the heart of Sham Shui Po.”



The hostel’s owner, local designer Patricia Choi, expressed anger over a report this week on “coffin homes” by The Guardian newspaper, which called Wontonmeen “insensitive” and said it “speaks to the complacency that has developed” towards the city’s problems.
Amid the ensuing furore on social media, one of the hostel’s Airbnb listings has been withdrawn, although a second Airbnb listing and another on Booking.com are still active.
Speaking on Wednesday, Choi said the hostel offers non-locals an insight into a uniquely Hong Kong living situation that they wouldn’t gain from staying in a hotel in a more popular tourist area.
“Foreigners come to Hong Kong and go to Lan Kwai Fong to party. They experience the international and glitzy parts. But is that really the whole picture of Hong Kong?” she asks. “We’re locally run and owned ... we work with many NGOs and social enterprises in the neighbourhood to fight poverty.”
The complex is on Lai Chi Kok Road in an area with the highest poverty rate of the city’s 18 districts, and where many live in dire conditions, including subdivided flats and cage homes.

[Cage-home beds designer] Raymond [Chan] discovered an agility and wisdom from people living in these spaces – we didn’t do it purely for aesthetics PATRICIA CHOI

The current dormitory design was completed in late 2015, and has attracted attention online for its layout. Some commentators on social media have said that marketing sleeping in a cage as a quirky option for backpackers romanticises the city’s acute housing crisis, and is insensitive to those who have no choice but to endure cramped living conditions.
Choi started Wontonmeen in 2006, converting an apartment building into a compound that includes studios, a shop, a gallery, an event space and a hostel, which currently sleeps 12 (10 in the dormitory, and two in an adjacent private room).
Decked out with vintage furniture, hammocks, and neon signs in its common areas, Wontonmeen is aimed squarely at the budget-conscious millennial traveller on the hunt for an unusual experience and photogenic lodgings.
Its cage beds costs HK$203 a night, or just over HK$6,000 a month. Most of those who stay at Wontonmeen are Chinese or Asian, while about 10 to 20 per cent of the hostel’s guests are Westerners, Choi says.



The hostel touts its proximity to several of Kowloon’s tourist hotspots, and suggests that prospective guests “experience the night market, street food, accessories shopping and flower/bird market like a real local”.
Choi says Wontonmeen partners with local charities, such as the Christian Concern for the Homeless Association, to run crafting and English language workshops for local children, as well as Chinese-language tours of the local area.
Sham Shui Po has the city’s highest number of homeless people – two-thirds of whom are aged above 50, a 2014 City University study found. An average salary of HK$5,688 a month puts even subdivided housing out of reach of many of the 323 homeless people surveyed, leaving cage housing, which squeezes tenants into 1.4 square metre spaces that cost an average of HK$1,500 a month, the only alternative to sleeping rough.
The cages at Wontonmeen were the idea of Polytechnic University student Raymond Chan, founder of Crevice Design, and formed part of a research project focused on improving the standard living units for Hong Kong’s poor. “We redesigned the well-known cage house unit, aiming to provide better living quality with a limited budget,” Chan says. “We proposed a community living concept ... with enough privacy and clever use of space.”
Choi adds: “Raymond discovered an agility and wisdom from people living in these spaces – we didn’t do it purely for aesthetics.”
However, the cages startle some foreigners, she admits. “The design makes many people scared and they walk away. One girl came in and said she was scared of the cages. It was a big risk for us to use the design, but we believed in it.”
The hostel has been accused of promoting “poverty tourism” – by providing tours of poor areas and glamorising cage sleeping. But Choi disagrees, maintaining that her hostel serves the community and opens tourists’ eyes to the problems the city faces.
To critics, Choi says: “Come and experience it for yourself before you judge.”

[GeneChing]

If this is how China trains its salespeople, imagine how it trains its Kung Fu.

11 Chinese sales staff hospitalised on gruelling boot camp after urine turns brown
Almost a dozen employees from a sales firm taken to hospital and some require kidney treatment during physical training that included carrying heavy logs
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 19 July, 2018, 4:58pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 19 July, 2018, 5:15pm
Zhou Jiaquan



A third of the staff at a sales company in eastern China who took part in a training “boot camp” last week ended up in hospital after their urine turned brown, according to a local newspaper report.

Eleven out of 38 staff from the firm in Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, had to be hospitalised during the four-day “development training” trip last Tuesday to Friday, Qianjiang Evening News reported on Monday.

There were still eight employees in Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine by Sunday evening, it reported.

One of the employees, surnamed Song, told the newspaper the sales company – which was not named but based in Xiasha district – sent new staff for “pre-employment development training”, arranged by an unnamed training organisation.

The second day of the training was more strenuous than the first, and involved teams of staff carrying logs, according to the report.

“Those who failed to complete 300 squats were required to carry the log while running around the site for 10 laps, 200 metres per lap,” Song was quoted as saying.

On the second night, the report said, Song noticed his urine had turned darker. Later, he could not bend his knees and arms, and was taken to hospital for tests, after which he and others were referred for kidney treatment.

“The doctor said the training is extremely intensive, and generally at least eight people are needed for the log training and we only had half,” Song was quoted as saying.

The training organisation told Qianjiang Evening News the training was carried out according to regulations and participants had been notified of its intensity beforehand.

“Participants can ask to abstain,” an unnamed staff member at the training organisation told the newspaper. “We were just being entrusted to organise the training by that sales company.”

The sales company had yet to comment, the report stated.

Wonder what they were selling...?

[GeneChing]

I've eaten bugs. They are salty. But I don't know about cockroaches.

Man, reviewing this thread, maybe I need to make an indie thread on Chinese Sales Motivation Strategies.

A Chinese firm forced its employees to eat insects and drink urine when they didn't meet sales targets
Zoe Low, South China Morning Post 18h


A propaganda poster that promotes the killing of rats, cockroaches, and civet cats as a 'patriotic' act, is attached to a wall in China. Getty Images

Three managers of a home improvement firm in southern China have been jailed after they forced staff to drink urine, eat insects, and flogged them with belts because they did not meet sales targets.

"If the sales goal has not been met by the end of this month, the team leader will have to eat three cockroaches for each failed sale," one text message read.

Other punishments involved drinking vinegar or toilet water, selling condoms and sanitary pads on the street, and having their head shaved.

Two of the company managers have been jailed for 10 days, while a third manager will spend five days in jail.

Three managers of a home improvement firm in southern China have been jailed after they forced staff to drink urine, eat insects, and flogged them with belts because they did not meet sales targets, local media reported on Monday.

They were arrested after an employee of the company in Zunyi, Guizhou province claimed staff had been subjected to extreme punishments in a post on social media site Weibo last week. The hashtag "employees who failed to meet their goals forced to drink urine" has since been viewed almost 540,000 times.

The post included a video showing a man standing topless in the centre of a room being whipped by another man with a belt, with other people gathered around watching. It also shows people drinking cups of yellow liquid.

It was later deleted, but screenshots carried by news website Zunyi Yaowen showed text messages apparently sent by managers threatening staff with various punishments if they did not meet sales targets set by the company.

"If the sales goal has not been met by the end of this month, the team leader will have to eat three cockroaches for each failed sale," one text message read.

Other punishments involved drinking vinegar or toilet water, selling condoms and sanitary pads on the street, and having their head shaved, according to other text messages in the post.

Two of the company managers have been jailed for 10 days, while a third manager will spend five days in jail, Zunyi police said in a statement on Weibo.

Many people on social media have asked why the employees did not quit their jobs, but one staff member told Pear Video that they were owed two months' pay by the company. The person also alleged that the company had threatened to reduce their severance pay if they quit.

As economic growth slows in China, labour unrest has been growing and reports of ill-treatment of workers have become more common. Apple, Amazon, and Samsung supplier HEG Technology have all been accused of child labour, forced overtime, and low wages in the past, according to New York-based China Labour Watch.

Beijing bans independent labour organising, trade unions and workers from going on strike. In August, labour activists that included students were arrested for supporting factory workers from welding machinery company Jasic International who were seeking to form a labour union after they were subjected to inhumane working conditions and later dismissed.

[GeneChing]

Training hard? READ Eating Bitterness: The Taste of Training by Justin L. Ford.