Work It

There is a strange phenomenon that takes place in China. It is called hard labor. I am constantly shocked by the speed with which seemingly monumental construction projects are completed and with the most rudimentary of tools.
For example, there is a long walk way that crosses the campus. It is about 600 yards long and 10 yards wide. When I arrived workers had already began laying cobblestones and repaving the entire stretch. On August 27th they had completed 1/10th of the first day of school on the 4th of September the entire project was completed.
This is especially amazing considering not one electric or motorized tool was used. All the concrete was mixed by hand; stones were laid by hand with out the aid of a level. The old concrete was removed not by jackhammer or air hammer but by pick axe. I am no engineer but the finished product looks beautiful. Only time will tell us about the quality of their work.
Most of the workers are imported from rural areas. They are provided with at large tent which they set up on a corner of the campus. There they lived for the duration of the project. Once the project was completed a large bus came and took them all away.
Last weekend some of us were returning from a night out on the town in Beijing by taxi. Our car was diverted from the main highway due to construction. Construction! At 2:30 a.m. there were about 100 workers welding, pouring concrete, and doing whatever else it took to build an extra level to the highway.
All around China this scene is replicated on a daily basis. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week people are working to prepare this place for the future, not just the Olympics, but for China's entry into the pantheon of world powers. There is a general sense of pride in all of the things these people do. Even the guy who massaged my back while I was urinating was proud to be doing it and was giving his best effort.
There are many jobs that seem unnecessary to us in the States. There is a lady who has a microphone and a loud speaker and sits at the front of the bus. All she does is tell people to be careful when exiting the bus. She also tells people to back away from it as it slides into the bus stops. This is the extent of her job. That’s all she does. There are ladies at the subway station who tear tickets. They have machines that do the same job in the same station but only 2 of them, not enough to handle all the traffic. I've seen these ladies eyeing these machines. Looking at them and possibly wondering how long they will keep their jobs.
I saw something amazing the other day. If only I had my camera. I saw a homeless man, lying on his pad of colleted cardboard with his sheet of tattered cloths, talking on his cell phone. His cell phone! This is the kind of stark contrast and inconceivable incongruence that is extremely common here.