Before I start with this writing, let me say that from the bottom of my heart, I never mean to hurt or be racist to anyone, especially the Chinese, whom I mention a lot in this posting.

I will only write on what I've heard from my own closest family member's experiences, and link them to the phenomenon of Chinese economic and industrial boom.

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Ok, here the story is...

In a hope to earn better payments, a few months ago my 28-year-old elder sister decided to leave her job as a researcher at a state-owned biotechnological research center and started a new career as a quality control manager at an animal food manufacturer in the Jakarta suburb of Tangerang.

Some businessmen, coming straightly from the People's Republic of China, had just established the manufacturer, so my sister was their first ever head of QC lab.

My sister had been promised with Rp 3.5 million (approximately US$380)of monthly payment, around three times her previous salary. But, as she was introduced to the animal food firm by a recruitment company, she had to give away around a half of her salary to the latter for the first three months.
Only recently has she finally received full payment.

Better payment (though still too little, too, actually) doesn't always mean better job. This is obvious on my sister's case. As a QC lab, she is supposed to be responsible only on planning and managing the duties of her division while directing and supervising her staff.

But, as the Chinese firm has no cleaning service staff, my sister and her analyst staffers are, too, in charge of cleaning up the floors, the walls, the desks and everything in the QC lab.
The worst thing in this extra job stuff is that one of her staffer even received an order to massage an ailing Chinese boss! Can u imagine that? Hello...they are scientists, not massagers! (By the way, I dunno if the analyst finally massaged the boss, as I dunno is it he or she).

But, the extra jobs are, to my sister, not as frustrating as her "highly demanding" and "stingy" Chinese-citizen bosses.

These bosses told her to buy laboratory equipment according to their maximum price standards, which are very very low and caused my sister big difficulties to meet the demand, as no lab equipment available here in our country (Indonesia) is as cheap as the maximum price standard the bosses have set.
But, the bosses insisted, and they finally told her to order the equipment directly from China. As we all know how competitive prices of Chinese goods can be, my sister finally got what her bosses wanted.
Unfairly, and maddeningly (!), they blame her for the lateness of equipment procurement, while it is obvious that their very strict and stingy policy is the one causing the prolonged procurement (you know shipment and licensing stuff, right? They're also the issue here).

Now, said my sisters, many of those equipment sent directly from China have broken or got out of order, even though the workers have only used them for a very few month.

...?

Any question here? If no, shall we continue?

Similar things have often happened, and they always blame my sister for the delays etc. Worse, they have frequently cut her salaries in a quite significant amount for the so-called mistakes of her! They said she did not deserve "such high salary" for her "slow" job. Gimme a break! Are they out of their mind?

These stingy bosses, too, cut her salary when she couldn't go to work because she gets ill, while giving her not even a slight of extra money when she has to work overtime, which is often. Don't you think it is so fair?

My sister doesn't get a computer to make her reports, so as the entire QC division. She and her staffer have to borrow computers of other people from other divisions, who seem to very mind lending them the machines as if afraid they would break them anytime. One of her staffer received a praise from the bosses because she decided to buy a laptop with her own money so that she can do her job at the office.
Excuse me...? Don't you think there's something weird here?

I won't generalize. I also work at a Chinese-owned company, but these Indonesian Chinese bosses of mine are still quite generous to me. They give me higher-than-average monthly payment, and provide me with a number of facilities enabling me to do my best job.

The Chinese bosses my sister is currently working with (of course, she's now searching for a new job) are not Indonesian citizens; they come directly from China, whose economic growth is the most rapid in the world.

Now I've begun to understand how China can produce so cheap stuff that drives its competitors mad. Their secret of success, as I have also read in some articles, is very likely the amazingly low production costs.
And how they suppress the costs?
I think you can learn one of the techniques from my sister's experience.