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Q: What happens in China that you would consider to be efficient practice?
Not a joke question.
Just because I haven't experienced anything efficient in my 4 years and 10 months here doesn't necessarily mean efficiency is a foreign concept for China.
What can you report in the way of efficiency in this country of such rich history and.....?
Capital Punishment
royceH:
Sure, they get it done...but how efficiently do they do it? Based on other gov't bodies, bureaucracies I see in action I would guess that every execution is a clusterfuck.
Someone should do a survey.
China has been ruthlessly efficient at:
- Suppressing dissent and uprising
- Manufacturing output
- Developing infrastructure
- Managing misinformation and distortion
- Executions
- Attainment of intellectual property from the rightful owners
- Blaming others for this, that and anything else
- Reducing product quality and safety to record lows
- Recovering from natural disasters
- Destroying meritocracy
Efficient Practices:
The Chinese are undeniably adept at the mass manufacturing concept albeit they need considerable foreign influence at R & D and process management stages.
The infrastructure in the developed areas of China has changed beyond all recognition in an incredibly short period of time. Praise should be given for the rate of development even if safety has often been compromised to achieve it.
Rate of recovery after various natural disasters is also certainly worthy of praise. The one thing that China can do with great efficiency is create manpower and human resources when needed.
Scandinavian:
manufacturing output.... yes high, but per factory worker not so much. the next couple of years you will see big manufacturers get rid of thousands of migrant workers and replace them with a few highly skilled workers and some robots.
Capital Punishment
royceH:
Sure, they get it done...but how efficiently do they do it? Based on other gov't bodies, bureaucracies I see in action I would guess that every execution is a clusterfuck.
Someone should do a survey.
Hear me out on this before calling me crazy - First of all, I am not praising the Chinese healthcare system. It is well-known that most doctors are unqualified (I work for a medical school and my boss estimates that 90% of doctors in the mainland are unqualified). Doctors regularly engage in overtreatment while running unnecessary tests and prescribing useless medicine. Antibiotics are grossly overprescribed and the the number of patients given unnecessary IV's is laughable.
These criticisms acknowledged, there is a certain efficiency in the system. When you need to see a doctor, there's no need to make an appointment. You go to the hospital, line up and within 20-30 minutes you can usually be seen by a doc. If tests are needed, you can quickly have the tests right then and there. Compare that to the systems in may western countries where you often have to wait lengthy periods of time to see a doctor. Then, when the doctor prescribes a test you have to wait an additional time for that, it often takes longer to get the results and many doctors aren't even taking new patients in America due to the shortage of primary care physicians and certain specialists. I'm not saying the healthcare system in China is exemplary but it is efficient and generally meets the basic needs of a massive and mostly poor population in spite of its major shortcomings. It would be nice if doctors were more accessible in America at least.
RiriRiri:
Not convinced.
I'd rather wait and see a qualified doctor than seeking an operating technician/sales agent right away.
dongbeiren:
@ Riri
So would I. I"m not saying the Chinese system is superior, just that it is efficient. I would never get major medical care here unless I had no choice.
RiriRiri:
But how can it be "efficient" if there is simply nothing delivered in the end.
If you have an output of a thousand defect items a day, then to me you're no more efficient than he with an output of one good item a day.
royceH:
Most of the people who visit a hospital in China do so unnecessarily. 90%, I would guesstimate.
(This based on previous experience with a system that allows/encourages unfettered use of the medical facility.)
So, Dongbeiren's point that the hospitals here who do see a massive number of patients on a daily basis, do so efficiently, is not without merit.
But as per Riri's point, I pity those poor individuals who fall into the 10% who genuinely need medical help.
Every time I cough or sneeze or grimace at some obscure pain in my back and I'm told I must go to the hospital immediately I reply that, as much as I would enjoy a visit to Hong Kong, I don't have the time or money.
DrMonkey:
An efficient system : the neighborhood doctor, with a fixed fee to visit him... You visit the doctor when you have a small problem, he have the power to prescribe medication. You go to the hospital only for serious stuffs : broken arm, birth, or if the doctor tells you to go see whatever specialist. Of course, the number of doctors in an area is proportional to the population density, and there are quotas and licenses for doctors. Works well back home, for decades... Bonus : the state reimburse part of the costs for health, it's supposed to be socialist, here.
RiriRiri:
Are you crazy?!
You mean people trusted with some degree of autonomy to do a job... unsupervised by an administration of hundreds?!
This could save everyone so much time! People would not have to run half a dozen offices to pay, sign stuff, get examined, get medicine and the like.
This is pure madness! It might end up with the supreme taboo: having one person only taking responsibility for something!
'Cleaning of the snow covered roads in Heilongjiang'.
They don't plow the snow on the side of the road, but they pile it with construction digger on the front-loader trucks, and unloading it somewhere out of the roads.
That matter is very organized: snow plow is making piles of snow with only one pick-up truck present. When pick-up truck is full, and drove away, another empty pick-up approach the snow plow, and repeat.
In Heiliongjiang, roads are covered with 5cm thick ice layer with snow on the top, what came difficult to remove, because plow usually slides on the top of the ice. However, if plow is lowered too low, it will start to dig and remove the asphalt.
Whole matter looks very impressive.
Chinese are not known for their efficiency, it's just that there are so many people here so things always end up being done by one or another.
At my office it usually takes 3 locals and 2 hours to do what I (or anyone in my country) can do alone in 15 minutes.
Chinese are not known for their efficiency, it's just that there are so many people here so things always end up being done by one or another.
At my office it usually takes 3 locals and 2 hours to do what I (or anyone in my country) can do alone in 15 minutes.
I think the issue is that most of us were brought up in industrialised capatalist syystems, so we have been indoctrinated to believe efficiency is tied to value for money, output and payback per buck invested.
I have not figured out yet how efficiency is defined here, but it seems to be more complex than bang for buck. To be honest, I hope China does not rush too fast towards the western concept of efficiency 
RiriRiri:
But efficiency is tied to value for money. That's the whole concept of the "western" capitalist vision (and communism is just the same, just not for the same pockets). "We" do tend to seek for the best output at the least cost and in the swiftest manner. We optimize, we upgrade, etc.
China and the Chinese are by tradition fit to a hedonistic lifestyle and society, inherently unproductive and disorganized. This is no criticism, I did not mean those two words in their derogatory sense. What I mean is that they just aim at enjoying life and following the traditions they set up for themselves. Which is no healthier nor worse way to conceive life or society. Actually it surely is more respectful to the environment.
And here's the contradiction that is killing this country these days. They have been dumped in this environment of productivity and efficiency, that is ontologically hostile to everything they, as a people, ever stood for through history.
And this is not my observation. Read anything from two, three or more centuries ago, travelers were already saying this exact same thing.
ScotsAlan:
Very well put RiriRiri.
Most people on our site were brought up with capitalism, and I for one assumed it was a system that worked. But after Reagan and Thatcher deregulated the system, as per the bankers requests, the system evolved into a beast. Millions of people lost their jobs in the drive for efficiency,and the whole system toppled in 2008.
The Chinese system has not been proven yet. It might just work without the efficiency drive. Inefficiency of the labour force seems to be more inclusive when it comes to employment. The drive for efficiency in the west put lots of people on the scrap heap. In China, the inefficiency is actually helping to lift people from destitution into poverty and then onto having a comfortable life.
So long as they don't get sick of course.
I was surprised how fast and cheap it was to get my Chinese driver's license. The whole process took me a week including taking the test. However it is completely inefficient that all of the bearocratic offices to provide me with the documents for said process are not open on the weekends or after 5 when normal working people have time.
I was surprised how fast and cheap it was to get my Chinese driver's license. The whole process took me a week including taking the test. However it is completely inefficient that all of the bearocratic offices to provide me with the documents for said process are not open on the weekends or after 5 when normal working people have time.
When I was in Guangzhou they had those water tank truck things.
They would come along and smash the ground with water! Even if people were walking there...
Seems it was pretty quick but only in the rich areas.
Also not as efficient as keeping the place clean to begin with.
ScotsAlan:
Perverse logic. Throwing rubbish on the ground keeps people in jobs to pick it up. It's more efficient to employ 1000 people on a low wage to pick it up than it is to employ 2 people on a high wage to educate others not to toss crap on the ground.
The 2 smart people can go get jobs in factories.
The 1000 street cleaners can't do that.
So, a few smart people could put lots of people out of a job.... with no safety net to catch them from destitution.
It's easier to deal with a few disgruntled "smart people" than it is to deal with millions of unemployed street cleaners.
It's called socialisim..... with Chinese characteristics 
sunderlandt:
Considering that anywhere but the rich area is filthy I'd say this is a poor plan.
Education is always the best answer not mass producing idiots for a job that shouldn't exist.
ambivalentmace:
many smart people, college grads, are living with mom and dad in japan, korea, america, etc. whoever thinks education cures the problems of a society and grows the economy is full of crap. we are teaching english in china because the fools believe this but soon these grads will be living with mom and dad and we will be teaching english in another undeveloped country were they preach this crap and making a living.
i dont make the rules, i just adjust and make a living, mom and dad are dead and being homeless and sleeping in a car really sucks.
welcome to the new corporate world order, the good news is china is slow to change and we probably have a half a generation to go before the english makes me great gravy train dries up, the rich kids coming back with western degrees would lose face to teach english, so the culture will keep us in the game a little longer, before demographics makes the place a wasteland for filming zombie movies.
I been watching a highrise construction project off my balcony for over 2 years. I must admit they get things done rapidly. the structures go up fast. like a fine tuned machine they are.
Now the little stuff has been happening, you know, we all know that the little fine tuning takes some time and precision.
Placing concrete is a one time thing, isn't it? good for 50-100 years and more.
Nope, not here, I have never seen so many jackhammers and masses of laborers. They get it done!! It's just that they do it 3 or 4 times. Workers don't mind, could not care less where they work, or what they are doing.
Could be we have an issue with management, engineers, architects and bankers, but without a doubt the "workers" get things done promptly and "quietly".
I question the number of "smart" people,( or maybe it is "people with a voice") per capita, I guess, to the numbers required to MANAGE the large volume of construction in my neighborhood and I am sure in many neighborhoods throughout this glorious nation.
SAFETY
QUALITY
ON TIME
ON BUDGET
