A Tale of Two Families

Westerners cannot fail to be fascinated by the living standards of the Chinese; many Chi nese in turn are almost as curious about details of mei-kuo -- American -- life. In the People's Republic, cash earnings are minuscule, but its people pay no income taxes, housing costs are nominal or nonexistent, medical care and education are virtually free.

And there is minimal inflation. Profiles of two Chinese families: the one factory workers, the other peasants on a People's Commune:

Four of the five Ts'ao family members are factory employees. Ts'ao Hung-ch'i and his wife Ch'en Su-ch'ing, both 42, and their oldest daughter, Ts'ao Su-wing, 24, work in Kweilin's Measuring Equipment Factory (micrometers, T squares, etc.). A younger daughter works at another plant, and their son is in school. As a factory worker's son, the boy has a good chance of being accepted at a university -- if he can pass his exams and shows a "good attitude." The Ts'aos' combined monthly income is about $117. They pay $2.40 a month, including electricity for four bulbs, for a pleasant, three-room apartment in an eight-year-old block of flats for factory workers. It has no kitchen (they eat in can teens), but the Ts'aos have cookouts on their balcony. They have no running water and share a toilet with several other families. The Ts'aos probably would not be encouraged to have three children today.

Ch'en Ho-kuang, 39, and his wife Wang Yen-liu, 36, are field hands on the Ta Li People's Commune near Canton. Country people fare quite well, at least in fertile farming areas. Like all the other peasants in Hao Mei village, the Ch'ens own their own house, a fairly new whitewashed brick building in a row of ten attached tile-roofed dwellings on a narrow lane. Their home, which they share with three daughters, 11, 9 and 4, consists of a small entry hall, large liv ing room and sizable bedroom, small kitchen and back court with privy; they bathe in a communal facility. The tile-floored, high-ceilinged rooms are hot in summer, but they have an electric fan. Among other coveted "things that go round," as the rural Chi nese put it, they have an electric clock, a sewing machine and two bi cycles. The rooms are adequately furnished: three beds, a desk, a large table, rune chairs, fluorescent-light tube, two big jars for storage of rice and a small glass-topped dresser on which sits a bowl of fruit. After deductions for then-semiannual oil and rice allotments, the Ch'ens earn around $29 a month, though this depends on "work points," earned on performance in the field. They also raise some food -- and possibly ex tra cash -- on a small private plot.

They do not keep up with the Wus next door, a family of nine with five working members, who bring home more than twice as much income and have a two-story house. Nonetheless, the Ch'ens have a savings account earning 2.5%.

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