Many who come to China are first struck by is how modern its Tier I cities are -- new subways, highways, shiny buildings, etc. Today's China is built on the migrant worker. Unable to make enough money in the fields or find work at home, they come to the rapidly developing cities looking for work. They build the apartments, office buildings and overabundance of five-star hotels where we live, work and bargain down the rates when our parents come into town because someone built too many five-star hotels for the Olympics. Most of these LBXes from the countryside have few skills except for a determination to do whatever it takes to help their families back home live a better life through the paltry sums they are able to send home each month. Last year about this time I took a bike ride to the still-incomplete Olympic Park in Beijing. I stopped for a chat with this migrant worker from Hebei province as he was taking a break for lunch. At the time, he had been working on the Bird's Nest for about a year, eleven hours a day. He made it home for four days for Chinese New Year, but then he was right back at it. Indeed, the eleven-hour days paid off -- at least for the rest of us. The Olympic venues were all completed with time to spare and we all enjoyed the spectacle.
