Blog 7 : Poverty in China

This article discusses poverty in Henan Province, where there are many villages living in very harsh conditions. Many families are living without running water and are unable to heat their homes during the winter due to the lack of money. Li Enlan, 78 picks herbs from woods nearby in order to heal her sickness, instead of buying medicine. This isn't something that she willingly does, she like many other residents of Henan Province cannot afford the care of or even being seen by a doctor.

China has moved the most people out of poverty over the last few decades, however through the finding of the World Bank there are still over 300 million living in poverty. Henan has the largest population of any province in China and this poses a big problem because the land isn't able to accommodate the amount of people living there. But where are they to go? If the residents are hardly able to supply food for their families how are they supposed to just up and move? Henan, like a few other provinces have been excluded from financial support. And the measures to end poverty in the residencies has not been enough. Some local have claimed that the money that is for them and intended to help them out a little is usually pocketed or used for bettering businesses. Wang Xiaolu, deputy director of the National Research Institute a nongovernmental organization, expects the people of Henan to be able to live off of $94 dollars a year. He expects that this should be enough to cover basic needs including maintaing a diet of only 2000 calories per day. Here in the United States the daily intake of calories on average is close to 3500 a day. Many villagers are very willing to tell visitors that the highly publicized measures that the government is taking to improve the livelihoods of these people is having a very minimal effect. They have taken away taxes for the people in these poor villages, but most of them don't come in contact with money very often so the effort is irrelevant. Some people of the families that are still able-bodies workers have migrated east for work but still remain in poverty. This article opened my eyes about the useless efforts that the Chinese government is making to subside poverty amongst their people. They are making changes publicly to make it seem like they care but in reality they know what they're doing is not and will never be effective. Something as simple as running water and heat during the winter, things that we take for granted can't even be accessed if they tried. And that is a really disgusting and selfish act on the governments part.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/world/asia/13iht-poverty.1.9172195.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Enyea Parks
3/22/13 4:39 PM