Lavane

This is going to take me some time to answer but I will do my best because it is a great post.

To truly understand China you must learn about China's history. I don't think any other country's people have worked so hard together for so long to create better lives for themselves, including the government. Again and again they have tried different methods of quickly building a modern society to catch up with the west and failed, only to rise again.

Most of the stories you hear about China, or the quality issues you see are not out of ill will or corruption but rather inexperience or different values. For example due to how restrained resources have been for past generations, wasting materials or food can be seen as something very immoral and for that reason they will rather ship what they regard as "decent" quality than to throw away units and reproduce them. Then you have the fact that the typical factory worker in say Sweden and Ningbo have very different past experiences, they will therefore have very different perspectives on what constitutes "decent".

The different perspectives aspect also plays in to happiness and wages. For example in some industries a worker may earn 500USD per month but due to the costs of living that may very well reflect a wage of 10 or 15 times that depending on where in the west you live.

It used to be in China that the government would strive for everyone to work and live in communes rather than privately. This was very common about 50 years ago and lives on in parts of Chinese industry today. Whereas whole villages would live and work together to feed the whole village back then, today it is common to have residential housing in connection to the factory where all the workers live.

Yes there are many factories where workers might work 12 hours per day or more, but I used to run my own company and I probably worked more than the average Chinese factory worker and I loved it, because I was happy with what I was doing. The same way supporting yourself and/or your family brings the same satisfaction to many in China.

The main reason quality is often poor in the government run factories is because these factories are mainly not run to make money but to employ as many as possible. They will hire just about anyone and as many as possible, and to them if a product is so poor that it required new units to produce, it simply means more work and is therefore not a concern.

We stay away from those factories and the ones we do work with sign agreements on ethics and working environments. In my experience the typical Chinese factory worker lives 50 meters from the factory together with his or her family and coworkers in a typical 5 story apartment building. They have breakfast together in the factory kitchen, work from 8 to 11 and have a 2 hour break, work to 4pm and have a 15min break, then work to 6 and have a 1 hour break after which they will either not work at all or work up until 9pm if something needs to ship out the same day. There are many aspects apart from work that makes up if a person is happy with their lives of course, but I think I meet more westerners who complain about their working hours than Chinese people.

There are many horrible things to see in China just as in any other country of course, and I am amazed on a daily basis by some of the cultural differences. Just last week a woman let her son urinate on my travel charger on the floor of the train carriage we were in and no one found it odd because of course the kid can't help that he needs to go. There are horrible factories stories as well, I think one company many have heard about is FOXCONN, although I learned just the other day that one is actually Taiwan owned, which is interesting if that is true given the relationship between Taiwan and China.

Oh and one more thing thing, a lot of the quality issues you see in the west are due to purchasers going for to China to find the lowest price possible. If you go to the cheapest market n the world looking for the cheapest price in that market, you're gonna have a bad time.

While I do not personally no anyone who has been, there are stories of quality controllers who have been held hostage for final balance payment when they inform the factories that the goods are in too poor condition to be paid for.

I have had two close calls, once as a purchaser and once as an inspector. First one was a factory that refused to drive us back to the train station until they had proven that their goods were of good quality since we told them we were not interested. This place was out in the middle of nowhere so we could not take a taxi. They kept driving us around from building to building for about 4 hours in this industrial area, showing us all their different product lines until eventually we pretended we liked what we saw, at which point they happily took us back.

Second one as an inspector was easier, I just told them I was done and made sure to not mention the result while appearing pleased, as soon as I was back at HQ we informed them about the inspection result.

This question seems easy enough when you read it but it is actually quite complex, there are after all over a billion Chinese. To give you an as easy answer as I can, think of it as perspective. What you consider up to par is based on your previosu experiences growing up in the west, and what a typical Chinese factory worker sees as up to par is based on his or her experiences growing up during the cultural revolution, starving in a shed in a village or commune. This is why they will not see the scratches that you spot from 10 meters away on that new iPhone case you were approaching to buy in the store.

For the field see here: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1gnvxs/i_am_a_quality_controller_in_china_i_visit/cam0n36

They mostly will not approach you directly with that sort of thing, they will instead try to be hospitable to a level where you will rather be their longterm friend than reject their production. One factory manager hinted once at getting me a woman but mainly they will take you out to dinner, drinking, try to get you as drunk as possible so you'll be too hung over to do a good job, go to KTV (karaoke) etc etc. Luckily they seem to always get drunk on 2 beers so I've managed to stay professional. Relationships are important in China so you cannot really reject their attempts either.

Thanks, and by the way I just read your other comment regarding workers lying about their working hours and such. It is true that some people in China work 6 or 7 days a week, I work 6 days a week myself. However China has a lot of public holidays, and they also have the lunar moon and Chinese new years festivals which basically shuts the whole country down throughout February where they all go for 2-4 weeks of vacation, which every purchaser in the west hates by the way as you can imagine. ;)

Regarding working hours I am sure it sadly happens, but what I described in my reply is the common case, not the exception, and this I have seen with my own eyes. Funniest thing a factory has tried to trick me into believing must've been when they tried to tell me they had the same secure working environment rules as Sweden, and that any worker was allowed to shut down the factory at any point if they felt something was dangerous. Not even true in Sweden, haha, but I guess that only proves that Sales managers will say anything regardless which continent you are on.