Economy
Map
East Asia
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Ni hao! I’m Ping and this is my best friend Xiongmao. Let’s tour East Asia, our home.
The economies of some East Asian countries are growing really quickly. My country, China, is the fastest growing economy in the world.
China has become a destination for the manufacturing and technology industries, which means that lots of factories are being built all over the place and lots of people are being hired to work in them. I’ve heard that some of these factories are so big that if you stand at one end, you can barely see the other side.
These urban poor people work under very bad conditions, for long hours, with little pay.
Even though China is getting richer, the average person is still poor. Many people are leaving my village in Gansu province, a poor western part of China. They are going to the cities to try to find work in a factory and send money back to their families. These urban poor work under very bad conditions, for long hours, with little pay.
The cities are growing quickly because of the economic boom, but rural areas like the village where I live aren’t benefiting at all from China’s strong economy. We survive through subsistence farming, which means that each family grows enough food to feed themselves.
It’s strange to go from the rural countryside, with rice fields, simple homes and a lot of poverty, to the bustling city centers with parking lots, modern houses and factories as long as the eye can see.