Of Course, That’s Without A Pool
link Chinese workers build 15-story hotel in just six days – Yahoo! Canada News.
Consider that the area of the World Trade Centre has been a construction site for almost 10 years now and the contrast to China is alarming. If you were a Chinese construction worker, you wouldn’t have time to go to the bathroom or have a smoke break. By the time you’re done, 3 floors would have gone up in your absence. Contrast this with the 6 days it also took to create the world according to The Bible and the hotel may seem trite, but to be fair, at the beginning of time, He didn’t have to deal with unions.
For perspective, I list some of the event times for a few mundane things that I have had first hand experience with recently, none of which are exxagerations:
-2 months and counting to get a muffler for car
-8 days for a book ordered from publisher
-less than 10 seconds to order Kindle book via Amazon
-40 minutes to get through security checkpoint at Ohare airport
-2 months to have paperwork vetted by lawyers
-2 hours to cross the Canadian/US border by car
-17 hours to cross the Pacific from Asia to North America
-3 months for a sofa
-2 weeks for Canadian cheque to clear at a US bank
Out of curiosity, a search was made to determine how long it takes to produce some of the common things we take for granted. Some facts were quite interesting. According to the website www.answers.ask.com, it can take only 24 hours to assemble a complete car. In fact, they claim that some highly efficient factories can produce up to 100 cars per hour! No wonder sometimes the Nav system doesn’t work. It apparently takes a little over 3 weeks to build a Boeing 747 airliner. The “average” time it takes to build a one-off 2800 sq ft house is 3 to 4 months. Oddly, the average time for a reno is the same.
We hear stories of bespoke suits at Saville Row taking months to make, requiring numerous trials and fittings. On the other hand, we know that in Hong Kong, you can have a complete suit made in one day, or even in a few hours, from measurement to walking out the door.
In this part of the world, we are conditioned to long wait times for all kinds of mundane things. Since expectations are low because of this conditioning, few complain and nothing really improves. When exposed to the incredible feat performed by these Chinese construction workers, maybe our complacency will be given a long overdue shake. In the case of the hotel construction, wouldn’t this same feat be possible here if not for bureaucratic impediments? My guess is that long wait times for most things has more to do with bureaucracy and wasted time than logistic restrictions. For instance, anything involving due process of law is doomed for indeterminable wait times. Someone should set up an effective free trade program to bring the Chinese economy more in line with Western economies. The use of currency differentials is a losing strategy. We should get to import Chinese workers and in turn, we get to export lawyers. In a very short time, the efficiency rates will swing noticeably and much of the trade imbalances can be resolved. Sadly, I think the Chinese would prefer a plague of locusts.