Hacker News Reader

Comment by droithomme | Hacker News Reader

"charged customers 19 yuan ($2.90 USD) per umbrella deposit and an additional half yuan ($0.07 USD) per 30 minutes"

That is a lot of money for a working class Chinese person. For some its more than a day's wages. They might have thought they were buying the umbrella. Or if not, they might have felt entitled to keep it because of the price. It could sound like 19 yuan to keep it and 1 yuan an hour to rent. Since they already spent the 19 yuan it made sense to just keep it for many.

View on HN

That is absolutely not true. The minimum HOURLY wage in the lowest paid city in any province in the country is above 10 RMB / hour.

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

How many hours is a standard work week in china?

According to to this source, monthly minimum wage is as low as 1000RMB

https://www.minimum-wage.org/international/china

If you're not known enough about China, you should not claim "That is a lot of money for a working class Chinese person." Actually, 19 yuan is ignorable for working class Chinese person. You can only buy about 1 hamburger in McDonalds, or buy 0.5 kilogram pork, or buy a bowl of noodle by using 19 yuan (delicious noodle costs at least double). China has changed a lot. If you have time, you can visit Shanghai, Beijing, and many other cities. You'll find they're all modern and safe cities, and you'll find your claim is totally wrong.

So, I know nothing much about China, but the story certainly backs this up. The 19 yuan is a deposit. If it really is a day's wages, then that would provide an incredibly strong incentive to return the umbrella and reclaim the deposit.

You both likely have different definitions of "working class."

I'm friends with a "working class" translator (4 year Business English degree) in Shanghai who lives in a 6000 RMB/month apartment and drives a 1-year-old VW. That's one working class. 15 years ago, though, as a child of subsistence farmers in rural China, though, she was happy to sweep the town streets with a bamboo-shoot broom for the princely sum of 10 RMB/hour.

There's a huge level of income disparity between rural and urban Chinese - even more than SF vs flyover USA.

19 kuai is almost a lunch at a xiaochi.

To a lot of people, however, 19 kuai is still a lot, especially a migrant worker or an old ayi. Also, I wouldn't call Beijing a modern safe city, Shanghai sure, but Beijing is definitely 3rd tier pretending to be 1st.

In Shenzhen the hourly minimum wage is 19.5 yuan, I don't think it's less than 10 anywhere else. From what I can tell from pictures, I think the umbrella's they're using would cost 40 yuan or more in store. It seems like the issue is that they're using a similar deposit strategy as the bike-sharing companies ($50 - $100 USD), but failed to make the umbrellas difficult enough to steal.

http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2017/06/05/minimum-wage-i...

http://www.wageindicator.org/main/salary/minimum-wage/china-...

You can rent a bike for 1 RMB. An umbrella should not rent for more than a bike.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com