Flags flying proudly

One thing I did not expect to see today was an American flag flying prominently atop a flagpole.

Actually, I saw two of them.

It started when I got bored of laying around the house. Today is a national holiday in China, so we had the day off of school. Both Rachel and I slept until 10 (it was well-deserved, believe me). But by around 4, I was ready to do something active. Since I did NOT want to do schoolwork (even though grades are due), I chose to call up Zack and go with him to the gym.

So we met outside the gym at 4:30, only to find - it was closed. National holiday, remember? Well, it did not occur to us until that point.

"Oh well," Zack said, as he walked home to continue preparing for his wedding.

I however, was not so eager to return home to more inactivity. So, I took my bike out for a ride through the neighborhood. I bought the bike over the summer from one of the staff who was leaving, but it has been chained up outside our apartment ever since. A few weeks back, I finally put air in the tires to make it road worthy. So I was a little worried about it, and for the first few minutes did not think I would go anywhere. In the first block, I manage to jam up the gearshift, and it was making some bad creaking noises. But I pedaled on, and most of the problems seemed to work themselves out.

So I rode west, out of Xipu. I traveled along one of the new roads near our neighborhood that contains a lot of the new industry. As I rode, I quickly passed the point where I recognized the surroundings. I passed underneath Rao Cheng, the highway that we unofficially call "4th Ring." Once you pass Rao Cheng, you are really in the boonies.

But the industry continued. Chengdu's high-tech industry is booming - lots of Chinese and multinational corporations are relocating operations here, because there is a dearth of well-educated and cheap engineers and technicians to hire here. So I rode on.

I was on a 5-lane road, with sidewalks on either side of the street. Much of the way, there was a median with manicured flowers and shrubs. Streetlights popped overhead at rates that would make Chicago residents jealous. There were regular bus stops, which were serviced every few minutes by the #305. I even saw the orange-clad street sweepers working, despite the fact it is a national holiday!

Yet there was almost no traffic to contend with. Looking on either side of the street, there was the occasional warehouse-sized factory. Every few kilometers, there was a high rise complex being constructed with some absurb name, like "International: Ecology Living in Green." But very, very few people. It was almost eerie.

Which got me thinking - this is so very different than how infracstructure works in America. Here, the roads, the sewers, the lights, the public transit, the land, even the street sweepers are put into place before the business moves in. Yet think about how many developments are already in place in the states when they clamor for the government to provide those things.

So I have long heard that land is at a premium in China. With so many people, I can presume that this prime real estate was not barren before - this had to have been farmland. So where are those people now? This vast, sparsely populated area was surely created by the government at some expense.

So as I rounded the corner to return home, I spotted it - the American flag flying (next to the Chinese flag, of course) outside the offices of Molex, a multinational electronics and communications manufacturer which has a large facility here in Chengdu. It satisfied one curiosity, because I knew this company employed a number of foreigners here. But the gem of the trip (only because it is more recognizable) was just down the street - behind a fence, a service road, and another fence - was the American flag flying in front of Intel, the famous computer chip manufacturer.

So for all it is worth, I can find those companies now. But as I witness the "progress" that is coming to Chengdu in the form of these foreign businesses, I cannot help but think where it will end. Companies began to dump the manufacturing part of their operations to eastern China (Shanghai, Guandong, etc) in the 80s. In recent years, thanks to rising labor costs, complaints of environmental destruction/pollution, and the aggressive work of western provinces, manufacturing has started to relocate to this part of the country. But simply changing the location does not fix the fundamental problems of finding a way to do these jobs without causing so much trouble to the workers and cities that house them. Because the same cycle will repeat itself in western China - and where will these companies go next? Will there always be someplace for them to move?

I'm just thankful that so much of the non-heavy industries are coming to Chengdu, otherwise life here would take a turn for the worse.

-alan