[The New Chinese] a girl told him her family was "poor" because they had only AU$16 million.

Updated Jul 28 2017

Barry Li on the new Chinese changing Australia

http://www.afr.com/lifestyle/arts-a...alian-take-on-the-new-chinese-20170724-gxi0gx

Li interviewed dozens of people for the book, which took a challenging six months to write given English is his second language. He says the most surprising story came from a girl he met from the wealthy Chinese city of Wenzhou who told him her family was "poor" because they had only $16 million.

AU$16 million!


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenzhou

From 1978 through 2016, the GDP of Wenzhou, a third-tier city in China, has increased from 1.32 billion RMB to 504.54 billion RMB with the gross fiscal revenue increasing from 0.135 billion RMB to 72.4 billion RMB, and the disposalbe net per capita income for rural residents increasing from 113.5 RMB to 22,985 RMB. The per capita disposable income for urban residents increased from 422.6 RMB in 1981 to 47,785 RMB in 2016, which is the among the highest in China.
 
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AU$16 million!

Context is missing there, and ime a lot gets lost in translation, especially while a story gets passed along several people and one might be inclined to retell it in a way they find more saleable. Yet one's perception of wealth depends quite a bit on their surrounding.
12.75 mil USD might feel wealthy for a small family in midwest US or where I grew up for that matter, but way unsatisfactory if one hang out with migrant chinese kids of wealthy urban families. Plus one's income on top of one's wealth is important, it's possible some migrant families find less oportunities in Australia than they had back home, which must increase the feeling of beeing on a modest budget ( which is probably why many families keep business ties with the mainland, with at least the father still working and spending a lot of time there - in Canada there is a name for kids of chinese immigrant families who end up living alone in Canada while their parents still work full time in China, forgot the name).
Besides the author is an auditor for Australia NSW government it appears, those youngsters should be careful with what they tell him, it might hurt them and their families down the line.
 
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Understanding China's wealthy | McKinsey & Company
http://www.mckinsey.com/business-fu...les/our-insights/understanding-chinas-wealthy
- Cached
China will soon be home to the world's fourth-largest population of wealthy ... has more wealthy consumers than Detroit, and Wenzhou has as many as Atlanta, .... for about 10 percent of the wealth held by wealthy families, than in other cities, ...


Why are Wenzhou people unusually rich in China? How did they ...
https://www.quora.com/Why-are-Wenzh...y-become-richer-than-the-other-parts-of-China - Similar
Generally, Wenzhou people are deemed to be Jew of Chinese. This two type of people have a ... Chinese Ethnicity and People · Wealthy People and Families.


The untold story: Wenzhou people, Jews of China | the slitty eye
https://theslittyeye.wordpress.com/.../the-untold-story-wenzhou-people-jews-of-china/ - Cached - Similar
25 Nov 2011 ... The amount of work increased and that Chinese family were also ... care and many of them soon became the first people to get rich in China.


The Boss Christians of Wenzhou | The Diplomat
www.thediplomat.com/2015/03/the-boss-christians-of-wenzhou/ - Cached - Similar
6 Mar 2015 ... Wenzhou is also one of the nation's wealthiest cities and for Wenzhou Christians, these two facts are not unrelated. More importantly, they may ...


ZHEJIANG PROVINCE (Hangzhou, Yiwu, Wenzhou) | Facts and ...
http://factsanddetails.com/china/cat15/sub97/item464.html
- Cached - Similar
Zhejiang, is China's richest province. Both its rural .... Most of the companies in Wenzhou are family-owned and were started without government help. The city ...
 
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The untold story: Wenzhou people, Jews of China | the slitty eye
https://theslittyeye.wordpress.com/.../the-untold-story-wenzhou-people-jews-of-china/ - Cached - Similar
25 Nov 2011 ... The amount of work increased and that Chinese family were also ... care and many of them soon became the first people to get rich in China.

Funny how many chinese groups dispute the appellation "Jews of China"

Teochew, Hokkien and Hakka in Southern China also are proud of this appellation, you can google the issue. Not sure how the insulting bloke who wrote the article about Jews of China is representative of mainstream chinese, his statements wouldn't stand well in Southern China. I guess he wants to get or got a southern european passport and take on the money despising mainstrean mentality there. Sounds more french than chinese to me.
Not sure how it is now but 10 years back there were plenty of inspirational books in China along the lines of "Doing business like a jew" etc... Never noticed beeing called Jew of China has a negative connotation, in contrary several groups argue to be called just that - all southern groups afaik, which indeed have been early to join the mainland china gravy train, and even earlier to write overseas chinese success stories.
Fwiw i've heard more than once in Europe snides of Whenzhou populated chinese migrant areas, but the issue had more to do with the areas beeing seedy and the Wenzhou folks coming through illegal means than the whenzhou people beeing particulary money hungry, those other southern groups beeing also very keen on banking a coin or 100 million. It did appear at least that Whenzhou and immigrants of more southern parts of China, both very present there, didn't mingle too much with each other.


Considering the superrich population in China, it's easy to understand in some districts of Shanghai or Shenzhen, and probably in Beijing and Hanzhou which i don't know, how a family would feel modest with a net worth of hardly a bit more than 10mil USD, although "Poor" sounds a bit too extreme.
I suspect it would feel the same among rich chinese in Sydney, London, Vancouver or San francisco
 
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'Poor' girl! :D

wenzhou-china-motorcade-supercars-01.jpg



Wenzhou Wedding Motorcade Worth Hundreds Of Millions RMB

by Fauna
Sunday, April 24, 2011

https://www.chinasmack.com/wenzhou-wedding-motorcade-worth-hundreds-of-millions-rmb

Wenzhou rich people once again gather together to show off their wealth, appearing as a super luxury car wedding motorcade worth over a hundred million

soultison:

Wenzhou is city built out of money… Rich people have entire warehouses of luxury cars… And I can’t even afford a 50 sqm home…
 
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Context is missing there, and ime a lot gets lost in translation, especially while a story gets passed along several people and one might be inclined to retell it in a way they find more saleable. Yet one's perception of wealth depends quite a bit on their surrounding.
12.75 mil USD might feel wealthy for a small family in midwest US or where I grew up for that matter, but way unsatisfactory if one hang out with migrant chinese kids of wealthy urban families. Plus one's income on top of one's wealth is important, it's possible some migrant families find less oportunities in Australia than they had back home, which must increase the feeling of beeing on a modest budget ( which is probably why many families keep business ties with the mainland, with at least the father still working and spending a lot of time there - in Canada there is a name for kids of chinese immigrant families who end up living alone in Canada while their parents still work full time in China, forgot the name).
Besides the author is an auditor for Australia NSW government it appears, those youngsters should be careful with what they tell him, it might hurt them and their families down the line.
Is it b/c some people have very narrow perspective of the world?
 
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Wenzhou’s economy

It once was lost

A city renowned for its business acumen battles to recover from a financial crisis

https://www.economist.com/news/chin...les-recover-financial-crisis-it-once-was-lost


In this eastern city, home to some of China’s boldest risk-takers, such tales are almost banal. Virtually everyone in business in Wenzhou, which is to say almost everyone in Wenzhou, has a horror story about the financial crisis that struck in mid-2011. Dozens of investors, big and small, fled their debts. The most desperate jumped off buildings. Large, unlicensed underground banks collapsed, as did hundreds of firms. By official (very conservative) reckoning property prices fell some 25% over the next few years (see chart).
 
19china-jumbo.jpg

China’s Rich Try to Fly Around Red Tape

By MICHAEL WINESMAY 18, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/world/asia/19china.html

WENZHOU, China — Here in this smoggy coastal metropolis, the nouveau-riche heart of entrepreneurial China, the latest sign that one has really made it is not a Benz, or even a Bentley. It is a helicopter. Perhaps 10 of Wenzhou’s super-rich have one.

Guan Hongsheng has three. Although, really, who’s counting?

“For us, a workweek is 80 hours or more. So you know what we need? Fast,” said Mr. Guan, a gold-necklaced, yacht-sailing titan who made a fortune as a trader. To relieve the stress of making vast sums of money, he said, there is nothing like zipping around in a copter.

“Only then can I truly relax,” he said. “It’s that simple.”

If only it were legal, too.

 
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