I don’t know if it’s the same all over China, but part of the New Year tradition here–and remember, in China, it’s a 15 day festival–is to visit and be visited with great abandon. Over the past few days, I’ve been measuring time in terms of breaks between visitors. Relatives, friends, friends of relatives, relatives of friends, they’ve all been stopping by, more so this year than normal, I reckon, since we’re here for a visit and everyone wants to see our daughters.
When people come to visit, they come into the main sitting room, and after some beseeching and protesting over who will sit in the most comfortable seats (“Please sit here.” “Oh no, you go ahead.” “No, really, it’s for you, I was already sitting comfortably on this tiny stool that’s missing a leg.” “Oh, if you insist, but I really don’t need the comfy chair.”), someone starts to make tea and someone else pulls out the bags and jars of snacks, and the visit begins.
The topics are various; some plain small talk; some seemingly serious exchanges, but as much as I can, I’ve been finding out what people “do,” as this provides the clearest snapshot of what’s going on in China these days.
A few sample visits:
A fellow who made his first fortune selling construction equipment then became the exclusive agent for the Province for a certain brand of motorcycle, one that has now partnered with Honda to create lawnmowers dropped in. The Family knows his Sister better, but he heard we were in town and came by to see if we had any insights into how to get his sons into American Universities. He brought me a tea set branded with his motorcycle company’s logo. Apart from being a multi-millionaire even in U.S. dollars, his house–genuinely a small palace, as I understand it–has Anhai’s only functioning elevator, going from his downstairs up to all four or five floors of his house.
One of my Wife’s Younger Brother’s Classmates, a gal, works in the Provincial tax bureau office (as a co-worker of one of my former students, it turns out). I asked her how the tax system works in China, and it sounds fairly similar to the system in the U.S.: real property is taxed; sales on good are taxed (though when you buy something in China, the store owner is responsible for factoring the tax into the price they charge; there’s no additional sales tax added when you “check out”; and income is taxed, although starting January 1st of this year, the minimum monthly income subject to tax rose from 800 RMB to 1600 RMB. If you make less than 1600 RMB a month, you pay no income tax.
My Wife’s childhood friend who visited previously returned with her husband and their 7-year-old son. They were married a couple weeks before our ceremony in 1997 and therefore–because it’s the local custom–could not attend our wedding & banquet. It’s considered bad luck to attend someone else’s wedding a month before or after your own. She’s now an elementary school math teacher; he designs “control panels for children’s toys” (motorized cars, I think), which are then manufactured in Taiwan.
A trio of female relatives on my Mother-In-Law’s side of the family dropped by. One of them makes her living by traveling to Guangdong Province and bringing back large loads of stone tile that’s considered to be better than most produced here and selling it to the richer locals who are building their dream mansions.
A neighbor whose small family produces children’s school supplies came and invited us to visit their factory again (we went first in 1997). Last time, they were producing solely for the Chinese market. Now, however, they have contracts with a number of foreign buyers, and have even launched their own in-house export division.
My Father-In-Law’s two sisters visited with the daughter and granddaughter of one of them. My Wife got the hint from her Mother that she wanted us to leave the room for awhile. We figured out later that it’s because she wanted to break the news that my Wife’s Elder Sister divorced recently. This still isn’t easy kind of news to break in towns like this, where “face” is to preserved at nearly all cost.
A fellow who was a co-worker of my In-Laws in the same government-run food distribution work unit came by. He’s a bit younger than them, not of the same generation, which makes his visit an even more polite gesture, and for some reason makes me think he’s one of the truest, most honest souls I’ve met in China.
Another of my Wife’s Younger Brother’s former classmates dropped by. He’s gone into business as an agent for a company that sells clothing, primarily name-brand suits and shoes. They’re mostly Chinese brands, but some of these are apparently starting to gain some equity in the market. During this Spring Festival season, he has so far done over $80,000 U.S. dollars’ worth of business in his little storefront in nearby Qingyang. And yes, I double checked to make sure. That’s over $80K in U.S. dollars’ worth of business in less than a month.
This is clear: If you have something to sell that’s in demand with the locals here in the Jinjiang region of Fujian Province, you’re going to make a handsome profit. (Believe me, we’re brainstorming and researching already.) Many of these people have far more disposable income than the typical U.S. middle income family, and many have made their fortunes with small factories that have been _creating_ products destined largely for the U.S. middle income market. “Your Christmas Purchase Dollars at Work,” we might say of many of their homes and cars.
