Appoppanthaadi- 20

Haven’t you pulled your socks up yet? If not, look at the picture below. No one can lay back and relax anymore. The writing on the wall or rather on this plaque is very clear. China is not only invading India territorially but economically also. The entire corridor of the large office building of this Generator Turbine manufacturing unit in Harbin city of China has several plaques like this. Most of the personnel manning this office are exclusively looking after the ever expanding Indian power sector market.

There are vice directors, general managers and managers who look after only Indian customers. Indian Electric Power manufacturers make a bee-line to buy China made Generators, Turbines and Boilers. The manufacturing facilities in India that can cater to the huge volume of demand for large capacity equipment like Alternators, Boilers and Turbine are very limited. The major player in this sector is BHEL and they are flooded with huge orders. So, the private power manufacturing firms are forced to look toward China. There is more convincing reason for the look towards China- the cost!

In China, Indian power merchants get these equipment at a cheaper rate and within a lesser time frame. Suppliers from western countries demand higher prices and the delivery schedule for them will be too long. These factors leave customers from countries like India with no other choice.

Harbin Electric Machinery Company, Harbin Turbine company and Harbin Boiler Company are the three major manufacturing units in this city. All these three large scale industries are owned by the government of China. At present Indian power manufactures like Essar, Lanco, Moser Baer and Madhucon have large orders placed on these units.

There are so many engineers from India posted in China to carry out inspections on these products and also to expedite the manufacturing and delivery process. These Indian engineers are drawing high salaries. Anything upwards of 12 to 14 Thousand USD for an engineer with a minimum of 15 to20 years experience in power sector is very common here. A five years experienced engineer can easily draw a salary in the range of 5000 USDs. The hiring company provides even family accommdation too. So, dear friends, stop looking towards Gulf and USA. Train your eyes to China. Make hay while the sun shines. In a hushed voice I say this much too : China Government is impossing tax on income upto 30 per cent.

China is a place where the line between tradition and alien culture virtually does not exist. Well, this is just a wild aligation in many ways. Like the westerners, a majority of the people do not follow any religion. They too eat beef and pork and drink a lot of beer like the westerners do. They smoke a lot. Cigarette wielding men and to some extend, women are a common sight here. 

They wear all western cloths. Men, like in our country, always wear pants/jeans and shirts/tees. Women, unlike their Indian counterparts, are more westernized. In summer most of the women wear mini -skirts, tight T-shirts and high heeled shoes. The length of the skirts these girls wear made one of my colleagues caustically comment that his underwear is longer than these skirts!

But the comparison with western culture ends there, almost. They eat food with chop sticks. They pick every food item with two tiny sticks. Even rice they eat with sticks! They look after their old ones well. We can see old and infirm chinese men and women being escorted by younger ones with good care. They observe their special days in traditional ways. Just last month, they celebrated moon day. On that occassion they eat Moon Cake.


They have a week long National Day holidays. Then during spring, they observe a week's spring festival and new year day. The Chinese New Year day is welcomed with day long fire works. Fire crackers and sperklers go up in flame for the entire day and night. The entire localityt will look like the 'poora parambu' in Thrissur. They decorate their houses with red coloured papers and flowers to welcome new year.

While talking about China we have to first talk about food. As we all commonly believe, they eat meat a lot. Perhaps meat of every living thing including, snakes worms and grass hoppers. They eat monkeys, crocodiles and dogs . Even then, the main meat they eat is that of pork and beef besides chicken. Once, while walking along a busy market place, I could see a few dead snakes kept on the roadside for sale. I wanted to take a photograph with the seller’s permission, but he refused it. Snake is considered to be a good delicacy but is expensive.

Almost all vegetables are available in the market. Tomattos, Onions, Pumpkins, potatos, palak… what not? Except Ladies’ finger and drum stick, I could see every vegetables here. There are so many wayside markets all over the city. People shop in these market like we do in our country. Though the market place looks similar to ours, here they do not throw thrash carelessly and allow it to stink. The garbage clearing system is very efficient here, rather we should say, people who are assigned to this job, do their job.

Though it is very difficult to have food from restaurants for the vegetarians, it is easy for the non vegetarians. Chinese food is made using less oil and masala. They use more sausages than masalas and oil. Instead of frying vegetables and meat, they cook them either in water or direct over the fire. Non vegetarians may never find it difficult as chinese food items are not so bad in taste. Though i do not eat meat based food, this is what I could infer from my 'carnivorous' colleagues here.

This is supposedly made for vegetarians!

For vegetarians, food is a major concern if they do not cook their own food. Many times I ended up gulping pieces of prawn and chicken mistaking them as vegetables! Though it tasted well, I never wanted to eat meat knowingly. Selecting an exclusive vegetable based dish in China is extremely difficult. Even if we seek help from the waiters to help find a purely vegetarian food, it is of no use.



They think even fish and egg are vegetables! We have to specifically ask for a dish that contains No Meat, No Fish and No Egg. By the time we pronounced our demand, the face becomes pale. They may simply smile in confusion. They may be trying to figure out what type of a dish it will be that contains none of the above!



Even if we manage to find out a pure vegetarian dish, in all probablity this dish would have been mixed with animal fat. No escape, dear 'herbivorous' friends, eat raw vegetables in China to be on the sage side

Here are a few more photos of the road side views in Harbin : https://picasaweb.google.com/116557619258339510895/ImagesFromTheRoadSides?authkey=Gv1sRgCK-c3o2F7Y_ziAE&feat=email

All in a row...

Chinese cities and towns are dotted with several KFCs, MC Donalds and Pizza Huts. In Mc Donalds there is one pure Vegetable Burger available and in Pizza Hut we get one pure vegetable Pizza. Though these names along with Coca Cola and Pepsi are the relics from the imperialist facist ideologies, the food they serve tastes nice!!

Let us not tell this matter to our hardcore desi Mao Followers. Let us not disturb them. They are very busy distroying primary health centers and Primary Schools in those God foresaken villages of Chattisgarh....

Natesan