A better life

It's 9 am Saturday morning and I am an hour outside of Shanghai on my way to the first factory visit today. It will take about 3 more hours by car to get there.

Shanghai is currently hosting the World Expo 2010. I wasn't sure what this was before yesterday, and unfortunately there is no time for me to visit or explore while here.

From what I've gathered, it is a platform for countries around the world to come together and showcase unique features of their culture and landscape that will make others want to visit that country for tourism or business/economic purposes.

The theme for the Expo is "Better city. Better life." You can see this printed on banners that hang on metal light posts or bridges around Shanghai.

I've been in China just over a month, and every time I turn around the phrase "a better life" comes up again.

Before leaving the USA, I learned that wages are increasing in China. Not just a little here and there, but by leaps and bounds - 20 to 30 percent annually.

30 years ago the country was much poorer, and both men and women would do anything to earn enough money to put food on the table, shelter and clothes on the backs of their children. Working in a factory, or "sweat shop" as we know it, was accepted because it meant that they could provide a better life for their children.
Today, those children are now of working age. They see what the effects of long hours and hard working conditions did to their parents, and they are choosing different paths, or demanding more.

Factories which were once flooded with laborers who worked for next to nothing are now holding job fairs non-stop, working to sign up new workers.

Two weeks ago a factory I visited had a desk set up at the entrance. A few young people were gathered nonchalantly at the table looking at paraphernalia. The owner of the factory told us they were in need of new workers, as their current workers banded together to form a type of union and were demanding a 30% increase in wages.

Good for them! I thought at first. But in reality, it will mean a higher cost for goods, which I might not be so excited about in the future. I just witnessed inflation at its most basic starting point.

In other words, a better life for someone other than me.

I also heard this phrase about a week after arriving in Shenzhen. A coworker was telling me about her friend who bought very little for herself and spent bare bones on meals so that she could afford for her daughter to take English lessons. "She will have a better life!" my coworker exclaimed when describing the situation.
This is not the first time I have heard the equation that speaking English leads to a better life.

While traveling in Costa Rica several years ago Matt and I met a young man called "Maxi" at the surf camp we visited. We practiced our limited Spanish phrases on him, like "Yo quiero Taco Bell". He laughed and told us that he would prefer we speak English to him, because he wanted to learn to speak it fluently.

He told us later that the more fluently he could speak English, the better job he could get and the more money he could make.

Ahhhh - a better life.

Just last week Matt and I had a casual conversation about what we wanted for Dean in the future with regards to who would care for him and where he will go to school when he is older. We both agreed that we want him to speak more than just English. We would love for him to be fluent in several languages - Mandarin Chinese and Spanish topping the list.

We believe that speaking multiple languages will provide Dean more job opportunities when he is and adult.

Matt and I have both been blessed with opportunities to travel for pleasure thanks often to the sacrifices our parents made while raising us, and for work due to the good jobs we have. We realize how small the world really is, and that being able to fully communicate, empathize and understand people from a variety of backgrounds begins at a basic level - verbal communication.

I'll be curious to see how many other ways the phrase "a better life" will pop up in the near future. It's not just a marketing slogan. It's what we all really want.