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Q: where I work
Over the summer vacation the kindergarten where I work was being re decorated,new paint all the class rooms have been re done.
I looked at some of the walls that were painted and some of the work that was done and its bad,from a distance it looks ok but when you get up close it just looks like shit.
why dont builders take pride in the work they do?why dont painters take pride in the work they do?and people just except this and put up with shit work.
You know where you come from that a "tradesperson" usually performs a 3 or 4 year apprenticeship and will go to college a few times a year so that when they finish said apprenticeship they have all the chops?
Yeah, well, here in Harmony Guo, you just buy a paintbrush or a hammer or a pair of pliers and you are the tradie of your choice. Presto! Changeo!
Local people tend to accept shonky workmanship as par of the course.
And of course price. The cheapest will always get the job.
Not forgetting that it would be wrong to complain about the shoddy work done by the village Shifu because it would cause him to lose face (and you will have a screaming mob of family members banging down your door trying to get that face back)
Did I miss anything?
Stiggs:
You pretty much covered it I reckon.
I will add a couple of things though, and one is the perception of quality. It's just different in China and not just in work done by tradespeople, it's everywhere.
Shite quality is considered mediocre and mediocre is good, so where Rob or I would look at the job and say what the hell is this crap, there's paint on the floor and all over the skirting board and they missed a bit there the Chinese would probably consider it a good job.
The other thing - sort of related is the fact that someone was able to get product X for price Y. The quality of product X doesn't matter as much as the fact that you now have it and it only cost you ... however much. You must be really clever to be able to swing that deal... you spent three days going everywhere comparing prices in order to save 60 RMB The fact that it's junk is less important.
Scandinavian:
iWolf hit the nail... he must been to vocational school
On top of that. Because it it shitty cheap work, then it doesn't matter if it has to be redone once in a while. We've had similar size apartments painted "professional" in both backhomecountry and China. There was a 30x price difference in total cost. The paint used back home was Nordic Ecolabel paint, the paint used in China has probably lined the apartment well enough with led to make it safe in a nuclear war.
The result in Zhuhai was actually OK, at first, but the building is from the 80ies and the walls are more alive than they need to be, so mold quickly forms from within, which it wouldn't have it a proper painter had done stuff to it before applying the top layer.
seansarto:
It is obviously communist
...mama huhu takes care of you...if you excel, mama huhu will cut you downYou know where you come from that a "tradesperson" usually performs a 3 or 4 year apprenticeship and will go to college a few times a year so that when they finish said apprenticeship they have all the chops?
Yeah, well, here in Harmony Guo, you just buy a paintbrush or a hammer or a pair of pliers and you are the tradie of your choice. Presto! Changeo!
Local people tend to accept shonky workmanship as par of the course.
And of course price. The cheapest will always get the job.
Not forgetting that it would be wrong to complain about the shoddy work done by the village Shifu because it would cause him to lose face (and you will have a screaming mob of family members banging down your door trying to get that face back)
Did I miss anything?
Stiggs:
You pretty much covered it I reckon.
I will add a couple of things though, and one is the perception of quality. It's just different in China and not just in work done by tradespeople, it's everywhere.
Shite quality is considered mediocre and mediocre is good, so where Rob or I would look at the job and say what the hell is this crap, there's paint on the floor and all over the skirting board and they missed a bit there the Chinese would probably consider it a good job.
The other thing - sort of related is the fact that someone was able to get product X for price Y. The quality of product X doesn't matter as much as the fact that you now have it and it only cost you ... however much. You must be really clever to be able to swing that deal... you spent three days going everywhere comparing prices in order to save 60 RMB The fact that it's junk is less important.
Scandinavian:
iWolf hit the nail... he must been to vocational school
On top of that. Because it it shitty cheap work, then it doesn't matter if it has to be redone once in a while. We've had similar size apartments painted "professional" in both backhomecountry and China. There was a 30x price difference in total cost. The paint used back home was Nordic Ecolabel paint, the paint used in China has probably lined the apartment well enough with led to make it safe in a nuclear war.
The result in Zhuhai was actually OK, at first, but the building is from the 80ies and the walls are more alive than they need to be, so mold quickly forms from within, which it wouldn't have it a proper painter had done stuff to it before applying the top layer.
seansarto:
It is obviously communist
...mama huhu takes care of you...if you excel, mama huhu will cut you down
OP: "........from a distance it looks ok but when you get up close it just looks like shit."
This applies to many other areas including products and people. Face job, face road, face meals, fake steak, water melons, ........ 
"why dont builders take pride in the work they do?"
a). they can only see money, how much does it take to block your two pupils from seeing anything else? two one-dollar coins (one covering each pupil)
b). no sense of personal responsibility for one's work,
c). "face" --- not much "face" as a builder or painter, everyone especially "pretty" girls know those jobs (not career) doesn't pay much, well....unless you use garbage, sub-standard fake material, make tons of money out of it which also may explain "close look is shit" observation.
Pretty sure they don't get paid that great and have a real lack of training. Pretty naive question.
Englteachted:
Really? A naive question? I'm underpaid but you know what I'm doing and have been doing for the last two weeks? I've been making my lesson plans and reviewing them, then altering them. You know why? I have pride in my work. I sometimes tutor students for free, I spend time carefully going over what I will teach them.
My parents taught me to take pride in my work whether big or small.
Also there is a false belief that all of these workers are paid shit. You'd be surprised how often that's not the case.
Your answer is naive but I get it. 'How dare any of you critique China!'.
Timtimtim:
If I was them I wouldn't care too. I know many 'English Teachers' with no pride in their work too. It's not exclusive to cultural differences. I could use the same rhetoric as you... You might be surprised at how little they get paid and what they get instructed to do.
Look how far that got you. So blunt. What the hell is up with you.
It was a naive question and you're just xenophobic get over it. Plenty of Chinese people are fantastic at their job. Next time I see something positive here I might shit myself because you're all losers.
retiredinchina:
I gave up on the painting from Chinese workers, I buy Japanese paint and have it shipped to me from Japan so I know its not fake and paint the place myself. I wait to the middle of summer to dry out the concrete walls that they don't use a vapor barrier on to save money and lower cost and quality, coat it 3 times with an oil based undercoat and then put the paint on. Some workers may do a good job but the supplies they get, tools that rust or break, plastic instead of metal, watered down paint, they don't know any better, to them this is normal.
The redecorating was possibly a way to embezzle money. The person connected with the school most likely used a friend's company.
Is your school privately owned?
RobRocks:
have you heard of Manha company in Shenzhen,Manha owns the kindergarten
Englteachted:
But it's not directly managed by the company. I mean they appoint the headmaster. They usually find ways to embezzle money. A school I worked with the new headmaster hired 20 'consultants' they all were being paid about 8000rmb but most never even showed up. It took the investors (owners) 3 months to catch on.
No real training and the ability/apathy of most Chinese who will put up with any old crap provided it is cheap. My wife used to say, "This is China, what can you do", but I have gradually bought her around to accepting that if you pay crap prices do not be surprise if that is exactly what you buy. The big problem here is even when you pay higher prices, sometimes you still buy crap.
retiredinchina:
yes, I told a neighbor once who said he knew a good painter, I will pay the painter 50000 rmb up front for a good job and if the paint falls off or peels in 2 years, he can save some of the 50 thousand to pay his medical bills when I try to break every bone in his body. The neighbor does not speak to me anymore. The exterior walls of this 2 year old building looks like a faded worn chalkboard already.
