In a country of 1.6 billion people, one rarely experiences a shortage of labor. I regularly see scores of young women in fields, manually extracting weeds from grass, and construction sites boast armies of workers, clearing, stacking, and hammering.
In our tony Beijing complex of 800 or so homes, all gardening is done manually: once a week the gardeners come into the yard, hook up the hose and stand there, watering the lawn. When we recently moved out of our house in Beijing, I counted no fewer than 13 people assisting.
So it is always surprising when driving on the highways of China to see the plastic policemen along the roadsides. Even if their role is only to remind one to be more careful or courteous while motoring between cities, they always cause me to pause and wonder about this job, deemed inappropriate for living, breathing, citizens.