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What are the Chinese waiting for?

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-10-06 15:57

Although most people find queues annoying, their life quality has been kept improving amidst anxious waiting in line.

Thirty-three-year old Li Jianmin working in media in Beijing has been planning on buying an apartment for three years. He chose one in a new residential area in the southern suburb of Beijing recently. He went to the housing sales office three hours before the sale began on July 31, one of the hottest days in Beijing.

But to his surprise, nearly 2,000 people, all soaked with sweat, had already queued in an area no larger than a basketball court in front of the housing sales office. Only 400 apartments were available. Soon the two-bedroom and one-bedroom apartments were sold out.

"Not all the houses were sold so quickly. But those affordable one for ordinary people are in critical shortage," Li said.

China's housing prices have skyrocketed in recent years, as many rich people invest in the sector. But those like Li who really need houses have limited choices. China's baby boomers born during 1962 to 1980 entered their golden time of life, and housing has become one of their prime needs.

"The real estate developers should not seek only profits and build houses for wealthy people only. The government should also launch policies encouraging construction of affordable housing for ordinary citizens," Li said.

Among all the queues in China, the most criticized ones are in hospitals and railway stations. In Beijing's large hospitals, it's a common scene that patients or their relatives queue all night to register to see expert doctors.

Zhao Xin, father of a three-year-old girl from Zhangjiakou city in north China's Hebei Province, stayed in a hotel near Beijing Children's Hospital so he could get up at three o'clock in the morning and queue for an appointment with an expert doctor to have his ill daughter examined and cured.

"I believe Beijing's doctors must be better than those in my hometown. But it's too difficult to see an expert. If only there were more experts," said Zhao.

People's need to queue has resulted in a new business emerging in China. Usually called an "errand company" or "domestic services company", they provide "queue for you" services with prices floating along with the market conditions.

An employee from Beijing Feifei Errand Company who declined to give his name said the price is 200 yuan (about 30 U.S. dollars) for one-night queuing in hospitals, and 350 yuan (51.5 U.S. dollars) for queuing for 24 hours.

"Although those 'queuing workers' can bring convenience for some people in exchange of their labor, I still think it's a gray job and improper because it violates the rule of fairness. It also shows that China has a shortage of social service resources," said sociologist professor Xia Xueluan.

"Waiting in lines could cause a sense of pressure. If the waiting time is too long, people will feel anxious, which is unhealthy psychologically and will weaken people's sense of happiness," said Xia.

"The queuing phenomenon exists in every economic system as long as resources are in short supply, and social supplies cannot meet the social demand. If the shortage is caused by insufficient productivity, then accelerating development and increasing supply are the key solution to the problem of queuing," Xia said.

"The solution to the queues at the Shanghai World Expo and the solution to queues for healthcare, education and so on are two entirely different things," said Fudan University professor Ding Chun.

According to economic theories, queues could be solved by increasing supply and improving efficiency. The launch of the "online Expo" is one way of increasing exhibition resources. Employing more ushers, encouraging visits at night and setting up queue guardrails are measures to improve efficiency, said Ding.

"However, the solution to queues in the fields of healthcare, education, transportation and employment are very complicated and is dealt with the formulation of public service policies," Ding said.

Sociologists believe many current queuing problems in the healthcare, housing, education, transportation and financial sectors are caused by insufficient public service resources.

Unbalanced public resources, combined with trade monopolies and a lack of competition and service awareness of governmental departments, make the queuing problem more prominent, said Ma Zhihui, director of the Institute of Economics under the Jiangxi Provincial Academy of Social Sciences.

The problems have caught the attention from the government. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said in this year's government work report that major problems in the areas of healthcare, education, housing, income distribution and public administration urgently require solutions.

He promised the government will vigorously ensure and improve people's well being and will try every means to increase employment, improve the social security system, promote the steady and sound development of the real estate market, and accelerate the reform and development of the pharmaceutical and healthcare fields. Enditem