Word: worked
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...place of employment for most Chinese, called a work unit, or danwei, is usually responsible for providing housing and other essentials. "We used to get medical care for free too," says Bi, "but my danwei can't afford it now that the economic reforms have let doctors' fees rise...
None of Bi's personal problems are on his mind this day. Instead he is incensed about work. "Meiyou," he says once, and then again. Meiyou (pronounced may-o) means "No, it cannot be done," or "No, we don't have it" -- a word foreigners learn quickly. "Too few primers," says Bi. "One hundred eighty-two students and 15 English books. Bad enough, right? But look at the books. They're about 40 years old, and boring. We can barely get by the first story...
...asks a student who has wandered into the room. "What if the man who owns the fields employs workers so that all he does is give orders? Then the owner could be causing those crops to be < grown in his fields even though he isn't doing the actual work. Then you could use the word grown...
...Wednesday evenings, a quan tuo student lives at his school around the clock, a situation no one seems to think the least bit odd. For despite filial devotion and the supposed centrality of family life, long separation is common in China. It is not rare for spouses to work in different cities and see each other infrequently. Similarly, far from signaling neglect, paying to deposit a three-year-old in another's care for a week away from home is often taken as a sign of affluence. In fact, since the economic reforms have raised the living standards...
Then there are "the girls," about 3,000 of them, who work from 7:30 in the morning until 11 at night six days a week. None I speak with are over 19. Almost all are from Hunan province. Most stay no more than two years and then return home to marry. They earn close to $200 a month, an almost unheard-of wage in China...