Construction Work

Since we have been in Shekou, just over two months, I have seen lots of building and changes. It is pretty incredible, I have actually seen buildings constructed in under two weeks, only to be torn down for some reason less than two weeks later. "Why?" You just have to say "It's China" . It is what everyone says here when we see things that seem to make almost no sense at all. Building is happening everywhere and with what seems to be few codes to follow and lots of workers large buildings appear very quickly.

Saftey considerations for workers are pretty non-existent. Also as a pedestrian you must alway be aware of where you walk, it may be right through a construction site. Something that in the US would be walled off keeping pedestrians at least 40 or 50 feet away. Not in China. Sometimes they will use a line of plastic caution tape but not always!

Here are some examples, I know my son-n-law Sean will be amazed to see some of these. I have rarely seen saftey ropes, safety glasses, gloves, hearing protection etc. You routinely see welding everywhere. It seems that welding goes on 24 hours a day, seven days a week, gogles are very rare.

Light pants, short sleeve t-shirts, and plastic flip-flops, with a straw hat our the clothes of choice for the construction trade. There seems to be few rules with as many workers as there are available, someone is always waiting to get your job. Shenzhen has people coming to the city at a rate of over 600,000 per year!

Tools! The main tool of choice is a heavy metal bar or rod. It can be used to do almost anything. Power tools if used are usually surrounded by 4-6 men. I saw a sledge hammer being used from afar. What was amazing was that evey time it when above the worker' head that was swinging it, it seemed to bow backwards. I couldn't figure out why I was seeing this optical illusion, until I got closer and saw that the handle had been replaced with a piece of bamboo! Somebody may be headed for a splitting headache.

The man above that was painting had on street shoes and no rope or safety gear of any kind. He was doing touch-up four stories above an all concrete sidewalk! If he refused to do this job someone else would have his job.

One think that is very amazing is that the materials used are absolutely wonderful. Lots of marble and granite everywhere. Otherwise the construction material of choice is a low grade cement block, that will later be covered with stucco, or tile. I have observed eight foot walls that are 100 yards long built in one or two days. Sometimes parts of them fall down a few weeks later! I saw a sidewalk torn up and built to completion only to be torn-up again the next week rebuilt and yes it happened a third time, in a three week time frame. We could only guess that the buses wanted a little more road on that section of the street and needed the sidewalk trimmed down. Where are the engineers?