Economic changes create more 'bike men' in China PRINT FRIENDLY EMAIL STORY
Correspondents Report - Sunday, 9 November , 2003
Reporter: John Taylor
HAMISH ROBERTSON: They've been a fixture in China for decades ?men who make their living alongside the roads and streets of the country repairing the hundreds of millions of bicycles in daily use. A flat tyre, a broken chain, a buckled wheel ?the bike men will quickly try to fix any problem on the spot, for usually less than one Australian dollar.
China is undergoing a remarkable economic transformation, and life for many is now much better than it was a decade ago. But millions of people are losing their jobs, and in increasing numbers, men are turning to repairing bicycles to support their families.
Here's our China Correspondent John Taylor reports.
(sound of cars rushing past)
JOHN TAYLOR: On a side street parallel to Beijing's main artery, the Avenue of Eternal Peace, 51-year-old Mr Zhang works as a roadside bicycle repairman. His equipment lies on the footpath, with an illegal hand-painted wooden sign hanging on a nearby wall.
A 30-something-year-old woman wearing expensive sneakers and a tracksuit rolls up on her upmarket bicycle, wanting the tyres pumped up. Mr Zhang hands her the pump while he attends to another customer with a snapped chain. But the pump flummoxes the woman.
"How do you use it?" she wails.
After a few minutes Mr Zhang helps out, inflating her tyres.
(sound of bicycle pump)
"Why is it so difficult to use the pump? Is it difficult to pump?" he asks.
"Oh it is so difficult," she says.
Once he's finished, she hands him the equivalent of three cents Australian, and rides away. Then Mr Zhang turns to another customer who’s arrived, wanting her bike seat raised.
"That's as high as it goes," he says.
They're small jobs for small money. In an average month, Mr Zhang says he earns between $85 and $100 Australian.
On that he supports an elderly parent with diabetes, his wife, and a 25-year-old daughter, all of whom are unemployed.
"It's not so difficult. I do it to provide a convenience for others, while making a living for myself at the same time," he says.
He works on the footpath near his home.
For 10 years Mr Zhang has been a bicycle repairman because, he says, he has no other choice.
"It's because of China's general trend of laid-off workers. After I was laid off, I began doing this job. I used to do the same work at the work unit. I used to fix parts and components for construction carts."
He works everyday, starting around 8am and finishing about 5pm, depending on the seasons.
It's no a question of whether he likes it or not, he has to do it, he says.
But his work life is getting harder. There were only three or four repairmen near him when he started. Now there are eight in less than a 200-metre stretch of road.
"Why is it so difficult? Because on the one hand there are more laid off workers. On the other, there are more migrants in Beijing looking for work.
Mr Zhang doesn't have any plans for the future. He intends to keep working just as long as he can.
"I will wait until that time. When I can no longer eat meat, I will eat vegetables."
But now he works, and waits for customers.
"Whether it's hot in the summer or cold in the winter, I have to sit here waiting. I have to wait for customers. If there is business, the time goes faster and I can also make some money. Otherwise I have to suffer summer's heat, and winter's cold without any income."
(sound of bicycle pump)
This is John Taylor in Beijing, for Correspondents Report.
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