The gig economy:
A way of working that is based on people having temporary jobs or doing separate pieces of work, each paid separately, rather than working for an employer.
Cambridge Dictionary
Hu Anyan was born in Guangzhou, China, in 1979. After leaving secondary school he joined the workforce, moving between cities and odd jobs to make a living.
He was one of China’s vast army of internal migrants, moving between cities in pursuit of work. He did 19 jobs – shop assistant, hotel waiter, petrol attendant and security guard, among other things – in six cities. Then, during Covid, he wrote a blog about his night shifts in a logistics warehouse, and it went viral. The blog expanded and became the book I Deliver Parcels in Beijing. It became a bestseller in China and is now available in Jack Hargreaves’s English translation.
The book’s longest section narrates Hu’s time as a courier in Beijing, delivering parcels ordered online to workplaces or gated residential developments. On the busiest days, even with an unreliable battery-operated bicycle to get around, he walks 30,000 steps. He works out that he must earn 0.5 yuan a minute (about 5p) so as not to run his life at a loss, which means completing a delivery every four minutes. The 20 minutes he takes for lunch costs 10 yuan. Urination costs 1 yuan – provided the toilet is free and he only takes two minutes – so he avoids drinking too much water on his shifts.
The bicycle phenomenon in Beijing became clear to us immediately – see Day 6 blog The number of delivery drivers did not escape our attention, although most appeared to be on scooters, dressed in distinctive livery. In Shanghai this cranks up several notches.
Dodging the silent (electric) scooters is a life skill over here. It put us in mind of the playground game, British Bulldog.
How to Play
- The Call: The bulldogs in the middle shout out, “British Bulldog!” (or “One, two, three, British Bulldog!”).
- The Run: On that signal, all runners must sprint across the open area to reach the safe zone on the opposite side. Runners cannot linger at the starting line.
- Getting Caught: As runners cross, the bulldogs try to stop them. Anyone who is caught joins the middle as a bulldog for the next round.
- Winning: The back-and-forth rounds continue until only one runner is left. That final survivor wins the game and usually becomes the first bulldog for the next game
It is notable that the game is now banned in schools, if not technically illegal according to the laws of the land.
Clearly, vestiges of our collective British Bulldog instincts have risen back to the surface as we negotiate the streets and walkways of China. It is really difficult to take a video that does the madness of it all justice, without being knocked akimbo, but this offers some hint…
With a little bit of help from TimeOut Shanghai we identified one of the places to be in Shanghai – certainly as far as we are concerned – Huangpu’s literary district, as described on the Shanghai government’s website
First stop, the Foreign Language Bookstore on Fuzhou Road.
Just as we were about to enter, someone’s lunch was delivered. He was in and out in 5 seconds flat!
Top floor devoted to the Manga genre
On to another area we identified as promising, Anfu Road…
We stopped off for coffee and cake. Meanwhile, someone, somewhere, had ordered something too. Only, they, whoever they were, and wherever they hung out, were having it picked up and delivered.
Two more machines were on standby outside…
Someone else, elsewhere, felt peckish too…
Seriously, the constant swarm of worker bees really is a sight to behold, and not a little disturbing. Watching them scurry on by, more so in the many opulent malls selling the latest ‘designer’ gear, makes for a jarring mismatch.
After all, this is the country of Chairman Mao, where worker equality was declared and robustly expounded – see Day 3 blog
Having been up Tokyo Skytree, last year (see blog here), at 734m, and Saigon Skydeck, the previous year (see blog here), a mere 178m up, we felt compelled to get ourselves up the mighty Shanghai Tower…
Initial views, as we awaited sunset (over a beer)…
Also, some interesting insight into residential districts close by…
Not so noticeable from the ground, it is clear from up here that Shanghai Tower does actually dwarf its two main competitors…
We ordered another beer, awaited nightfall and…
On the way out of the building. Still at it, poor guy…
Wanting to do the whole 360, we then headed back across the river to take the view from the other side…
The end of another full day in sensational Shanghai.
Alas, still not the end of his day…
Once you’ve seen them you cannot unsee them!
Previous China daily blog posts here
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