Hebei Day 2 and 3: Pingxiang province

We rose early in the morning at Baoding and hopped on the van to the first county we’ll visit: Pingxiang (平乡）. Three and a half hours later, we finally arrived. After checking into the hotel and having some quick lunch, we set off for a visit at the exhibition of Goodbaby (好孩子), a company that manufactures child products including strollers, bikes, scooters and even children cars and pet carriers. I was fascinated when I learned that Goodbaby’s products take up 50% of the Chinese market and 40% of the international market. Perhaps the bikes I had when I was younger were manufactured by this company! We entered an area filled with samples of each product, each with a price label and number sold per year labelled. To my surprise, the baby carriers cost over 2500 rmb, while the big children cars only cost 800-1200 rmb. We even went to the factory to see how the products are made.

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Later, we visited the building for Goodbaby’s live broadcasting. Inside there were multiple rooms with broadcasting going on, typically on platforms like Douyin or Taobao. For dinner, we had stew in an iron pot （铁锅炖）. Interestingly, we realized how barely any restaurants serve anything other than hotpot (or food in a pot).

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The next day, we rose early to get to the local Pingxiang farm. We visited the dragonfruit farm, chili farm, and eggplant farm. Unlike the eggplants in my hometown which are long, these eggplants are circular. The lady at the farm was eager to talk to me and said that she earns 6000 rmb per month, which is surprisingly quite a lot. Her husband works at the railway station and she has two kids, one who just finished Gaokao and the other going into their last year of high school. Rent for the farm is 1200 rmb per year per 666m squared.

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Later, we visited the Meihuaquan (梅花拳）place and watched a live performance. A lot of the movements looked similar to Wushu (武术）that is a required class at my school in Hong Kong. In the afternoon, we interviewed the CCP party chief, who told us that in Pingxiang, the elderly rely a lot on their kids. The government pension is only about 100 rmb per month (another 100 rmb is added for each next age level of 80/90/100). If the elderly don’t get enough support from their kids, there are multiple services. When I was entering a bathroom, I saw a sign with multiple washing machines next to it—the sign outlines an activity that helps wash, dry and fold clothes for the elderly. We also went to the train and highspeed railway factory shortly after.

We arrived at our next destination, Julu county at night and ended with some delicious noodles near our hotel. Our meal costed about 28 rmb (less than 4 dollars) per person.