Word: yuan
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...this particular commune, the pay of a peasant is 30 yuan a month -roughly $12. But the farmer pays only 1 yuan a month in rent, 60 to 80 for cigarettes and, as likely as not, nothing at all for books or magazines; despite the massive literacy campaigns, the majority of peasants are still functionally illiterate. The farmer's children, though, attend the commune school, where elementary math is taught in concrete, even ominous terms. A typical question: "How many guns have four militiamen each armed with two guns...
...worker is single, he may share a flat with a factory colleague, and pay perhaps 5 yuan a month in rent. The apartment will be heated with a coal stove, if at all; the privy is outside. If he has a wife and child, a worker is eligible to move into one of the vast new government-built apartment complexes, complete with gardens and nearby day nurseries. Largely because the government controls migration to the cities, China does not have an acute urban housing shortage. A newly married couple, for example, can obtain a place to live in three...
Many big stores stay open for business until late in the evening; some are open all night. As a rule, a worker's first luxury purchase after the necessary bicycle is a radio (218 yuan, or $92), perhaps a wristwatch...
Career Diplomat Fu Hao is an expert in Asian affairs. An Chih-yuan was Peking's chargé in Moscow when Sino-Soviet relations were descending to their invective-filled worst. Garrulous Tang Ming-chao got a degree from the University of California and edited a small pro-Communist daily in New York City before returning to China in 1949; he has been a greeter of foreign VIPs in Peking and a traveling agitator, plugging the Communist line at one "youth conference" or antiwar rally after another despite his age (he is now 61). Hsiung Hsiang-hui, 52, picked...
Salaries begin at around 24.5 yuan or $10 a month for a peasant on a commune-an amount that varies by a system of "work points" awarded according to the work he does, his political zeal, and the harvest. The upper range is around $100 a month for a young army general or experienced technician. But rents are low, from $1 to $3 for a typical one-or two-room apartment. Vegetables in season cost only 1½? to 2? per lb., rice 7? per lb., and meat from 20? to 40? per lb. Milk is higher...