ABSTRACT

FOR a good many reasons Chinese like to work forforeign firms. The pay is usually better than that of Chinese firms, there are shorter hours, more frequent holidays, and greater opportunities for advancement. Although the observance ofSunday as a day of rest is growing as a business rather than as a religious custom, and is practically universal in Chinese banks and big' concerns in Shanghai, it is by no means common; more than nine tenths of the business houses of China never close their doors except for the annual New Year holiday, and in many of them the ten or twelve hours' day is the general rule. On the other hand, foreign concerns in Shanghai take two hours off for the midday tiffin, close their doors at noon on Saturdays, and observe Sunday and many national holidays in addition to a two weeks' summer vacation. A computation of the working hours of foreign and Chinese firms shows that the former aggregates less than 1,800 a year, while the latter is more than

3,000.1 Short hours, ho\vever, do not provide the most compelling attraction. In a Chinese concern, the relatives of the owner or manager have first opportunities for prolTIotion and the richer rewards of labour, and they are usually so numerous that, by the time they are served, there is little or nothing left for the other employees. In a foreign company the ability of an office boy to sharpen pencils and answer the telephone intelligently may lead to promotion, without the aid of powerful family influence. Also, although in these hard times there is little contemporary evidence to support the idea, there is a strong and popular belief that the biggest and easiest of fortunes is to be made in foreign trade and that the ambitious boy should learn the import and export business. The result is that Chinese boys in Shanghai try to break into offices of foreign firms just as ardently as American boys in Los Angeles try to break into the Hollywood studios.