People in Beijing - richer or poorer?

I chose to fly back home during the Christmas period mainly because of my mother's severe back pain. It is an old problem that has bothered her for a few years, yet it gets worsen recently. My mother is a tenacious woman. She does not believe in surgery. A friend of our family recommended traditional Chinese massage as an alternative and thus we found her a reputable hospital in Beijing, well-known for its massage techniques and recovery treatments.

For this reason, I need to go to the hospital every Monday and Friday to make an appointment for her. Guess when I woke up? 4.30 am! The hospital sells "numbers" to patients on a first come first serve basis. Its official opening time is 8am. Since there are so many patients and limited medical resources, most "ordinary people" - if you are not as ‘important’ as those government officials or as rich as those celebrities - would have to join a long queue, about 200 people, in the cold winter mornings enduring the temperature hitting below -10 degree Celsius. Believe or not, online booking and telephone booking are totally out of question.



While I stay in London, I hardly pay any attention to the milk that I drink everyday. This is, unfortunately, not the case in China. I was told that one of the largest milk producers once again supplied milk that contained cancer-triggered materials. The media coverage was 'cautiously positive': it was the contractor of the company that 'made the trouble', and the company is still a 'highly responsible' enterprise after all. My friends were joking with me the other day: "next time, they might say, the cows are depressed and crazy, and that's why our milk is contaminated".

Throughout the 15 days of my stay, I experienced 8 days with blue sky or sort of. Everyone says, "you are lucky to be able to enjoy some outdoor activities", as if the US Embassy in Beijing’s report on PM 2.5 (published in December 2011) were only a fiction that could be left behind.

Taking this opportunity of being home, I met a few classmates of mine from college. I have to say, most of them seem to live a decent life: a mortgaged property in Beijing worth 300, 000 - 500, 000 pounds, 6 to 7 figures salaries, new born babies, and a brand new family car, etc. This is clearly the benefit and result of graduating from an 'elite university' and working hard almost 24/7. However, all of them have to breathe the air that is not as fresh as 30 years ago, to drink water that is not as clean as 30 years ago, and to suffer from stress and illnesses much more easily than 30 years ago.

Why 30 years ago? You may wonder. Well, I was born in Beijing 1982. My parents earned less than 10 pounds a month at that time, but pollutions, food security, or medical services had not yet become a prominent social problem. So people in Beijing - richer or poorer? I couldn't help wondering.

About the Author: Ai Yu
Ai works as a Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour at University of Bedfordshire and teaches various units on both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Her research interests include organisational learning, knowledge processes, and change.