labor - Visiting Gongfu Xincun

Apologies for being low on blogging but a visiting trade union delegations from the Netherlands took most of my time and I have been mostly on the road, without internet connection. I was responsible for yesterday's trip through Shanghai and I must admit I had been a bit too enthusiastic in my planning. We made the whole trip, but it was quite a distance, as we first started in Lujiazui and then walked to Xintiandi. But it does give an fast overview of the enormous differences in the city and added to the confusion of the dozen delegates, who had seen daily life only from air conditioned buses.
The additional trip to the northern terminal of subway no.1, Gongfu Xincun, worked out better than expected. I brought them through the shopping area and the wet markets to a cross road where different markets literally come together. I knew the this was a point where you could hire waiting trucks, but yesterday a part of another section was used as an informal labor market, where men offer their services. Quite a challenge to see all those things, but fortunately I had a very motivated group.
I will write more for their publications about the trip, but most will be in Dutch, because they belonged to the FNV, the largest Dutch trade union. The trip proved to be very useful, because many of the assumption they had about China were challenged. Well, they were prepared to get confused and that helped a bit.