But being in a touristy place also brings the usual dose of scams, especially directed against foreigners who don’t speak Chinese. I suspect that on the whole, the return on investment in the job market for learning Chinese is not huge (despite insistence to the contrary of neighbors and mothers “back home”). But here in Sanya, being able to read a menu in Chinese has saved our group a small fortune, my most solid return on investment to date.

Our hotel is in Dadonghai, a very touristy area, and virtually every restaurant here has one menu in Chinese, with prices that are higher than in Wuhan (but still reasonable), and then another menu that’s fancier, has pictures, lists dishes not only in Chinese but also in Russian and sometimes in English, and has much higher prices than the simpler Chinese-language menu. At some places, the dishes on the two menus seem to be different, and if asked the restaurant would probably say something along the lines of that those dishes use more expensive ingredients or are better quality. But at some restaurants, most of the dishes are the same, and Chinese guests only get one menu while foreigners only get the other. It’s simple price discrimination, an effective way to get more money from the people who point and order.

The restaurant just below our hotel has gone even farther — they have pictures with prices outside the restaurant, and then a menu inside with the same dishes, same pictures, but higher prices. So step one is noticing the price difference and making sure that you’re paying the lower of the two prices. Then they add lots of little extras to the bill — extra charges for rice, napkins, and dishware — which are included in the final charge but not listed on the bill. Things like Coca cola or beer are much more expensive than customers expect, making the bill grow even more. And then at the very end, they round the amount up to add on a little extra, banking on that the customer won’t check the math (and if the final amount hadn’t been twice as much as the cost of the dishes, we probably wouldn’t have noticed). The Chinese group ahead of us apparently had a similar experience (this particular restaurant scammed all tourists equally)… I guess in a place with so many tourists, it pays more to get as much as possible out of every transaction rather than winning over loyal customers.

But for the most part, people have been friendly, the food has been delicious (and much cheaper than in Europe, even with the occasional scam prices), and the weather has been perfect. I still think Wuhan is an ideal place to study Chinese, but for anyone who wants to perfect their Chinese and Russian at the same time and then leave some time in the afternoon for the beach, this is the place to be!

According to the book, this “ant generation” makes up a fourth disadvantaged group in society, in addition to farmers, migrant workers, an laid-off workers. Although they have a high level of education, they can only find low-paid and usually temporary work (with no contracts or insurance), or spend their time traveling to different parts of the city for job interviews. Like ants, they’re intelligent, they live in groups, and although they’re weak individually, collectively they can wreak havoc. They’re also hardworking, and they always seem to manage to find ways around any obstacles placed in their way.

The plight of the “ant generation” seems to have stricken a chord, especially among people my age, who either know people in this situation or know that this could easily be them if they’re unlucky when the time comes to find a job. To see more on what their lives are like, take a look at these youku clips (in Chinese) here, here (where you’ll see Happy Farmer being played on a computer in a tiny apartment) and here (to see how it’s possible to eat in Beijing for just 10 yuan a day).

If lots of university graduates are working low-paid and relatively low-skilled jobs, that seems to imply that there’s probably an oversupply of university graduates. (At the same time, there’s often talk about China’s talent shortage, especially at the highest levels, but this probably has more to do with the quality of university education than the number of people with degrees). In a country that places such an incredibly high value on education, it makes sense that more people might pursue advanced degrees than the market needs, and reducing the number of degree spots would probably be incredibly unpopular.

But even if more people getting university degrees than the economy right now needs is one factor, there’s probably more at play that just that. Another possible factor is that too many people are moving to big cities after graduation, maybe because of unrealistic expectations of job opportunities in places like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and people who are the first in their family or village to get a university education probably feel a lot of pressure to make full use of that degree. And the high cost of living in big cities is due in large part to high house prices, made worse by a possible housing bubble that has been partly fueled by government politics and the way in which the stimulus package was spent. Or maybe, like people here would likely say, 中国人太多了, and this kind of situation is inevitable in a country that has so many people.

Either way, I have nothing but respect for how hardworking Chinese people of my generation are, and I’m very grateful that I don’t need to buy an apartment in a Chinese mega-city just yet.

Starbucks mooncakes

I read an interesting blogpost that described the informal “mooncake exchange” that springs up every year in Shanghai in the weeks leading up to the holiday. Many employees apparently receive mooncake vouchers from their companies, which brokers then offer to buy at discounted prices, and in turn sell on to others who would like to give mooncakes as gifts but don’t want to pay the ridiculous prices that the major brands charge. The broker might buy the vouchers for 50% of their face value and then sell them on for 70% of the face value, for example, and the buy and sell prices probably fluctuate as the holiday approaches, after which the mooncakes lose their gift value.

Mooncake prices in themselves are an interesting phenomenon. Here in Wuhan, the cheapest cost just a few yuan, or are sold by weight at 9 or 12 yuan a 斤 (jin, equivalent to 500 g). The most  expensive, fancy boxes of four or five mooncakes from famous brands, can easily cost several hundred yuan per box (I believe the Starbucks mooncake set, with four small mooncakes, costs 328 yuan — the picture on the right is from their website). Some of the price difference might be justified by better quality and taste, but most of the price is supported by the fact that everyone knows the cost of mooncakes from the major brands and the gift is valued accordingly.

And as for the taste? Maybe not worth Starbucks prices, but the “Sushi” flavored mooncakes my boyfriend got from his co-teacher were actually surprisingly good, and without even a hint of fish (Sushi was probably the bakery’s attempt to write 苏式 in English, which in this case I assume would mean Suzhou style, or possible Su family style). Definitely a tradition worth keeping.

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