When you think of China, one thing that comes up to you maybe the word “fast”. Cities have been expanding fast, infrastructures built up fast. Traffics are fast, passengers fast. The impression of a lot of foreigners is that China is non-stop. Well, we all know time is money and life is short. There is one particular occupation, where people can actually feel that time counts in minutes and direct hooked up with money – It is the express delivery.
E-Commerce has been booming ever since in last decade. In pursuit of convenience, many consumers now do their shopping with few mouse clicks and wait their goods arriving. While saving time for other activities and increasing the productivity of the society, this also created a huge market for delivery.
In big city like Beijing and Shanghai you can for sure encounter a delivery man at residential areas or in front of official buildings. We call them in Chinese “Kuàidì Xiǎogē” (Delivery brother). They use electric roller or van to navigate through every allies and streets of a certain area which is assigned to them exclusively. They often work more than 12 hours per day. If you use delivery services very often, you can get his personal contact. When you want something to be delivered, just give him a early note and he will show up in front of your door with everything prepared – packaging material and delivery notes, saving you from packaging, weighting, filling in address and carrying the package all the way to a store for shipping.
To spare more time and enormously raise the effectivity, the whole delivery system has a lot of partners, who resident in every compound and collect all of the packages that belongs to the people who also live in this compound. You will get a SMS in which informs you that your package has been put in the nearest collect station in your compound. Of course if you only want your packages to be delivered directly to your apartment, you can call and tell them to put your stuff in the hallway of your building, even if you are not at home.
In addition to that, there are also the equipments called “zhìnéng guì” (Intelligent cabinet) that are set up in some compounds. The delivery man would store the package in these cabinets and at the same time you will receive a pickup code on your phone from them, with which you can take your package out of the cabinets within 24 hours. What should we do if we can’t finish the pickup within 24 hours? Don’t worry, contact with the delivery man and you will get new code. You won’t lose your stuff. It is very convenient, right?
This job is definitely hard. They are paid by how many pieces they sent or received. Every minute counts. They work as well whatever the weather might be. They are an irreplaceable part of e-Commerce, increasing productivity and changing our life styles at same time. They also represent the good spirits of Chinese people like hard working, positive thinking.
There are always cliché about China and this could happen to every country in this world. That’s OK. But since you are already here, what you have now is the chance to see and feel everything by yourself. We, Mandarin Inn, can be your friend who would accompany you to find out more about China. Come and Join us, we hope you’ll fit in and have lovely time in China.
