Grameen Foundation Field Trip Wrap-Up
In the lounge of the Langzhong Holiday Inn, our group of 9 visitors from Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Los Angeles, 2 Grameen Foundation staff, 3 ARDPAS Chengdu and 2 ARDPAS Langzhong staff got together for a Monday morning trip debrief.
When Kate asked us for our reflections on the trip, what its meant for us personally, my biggest take-away was that I gained an appreciation for travelling in China, in particular the rural parts of China. Of course, one has to forgo certain comforts such as clean toilets, but the raw beauty and inspiration are worth the minor discomforts. And in fact, my main fear, losing connectivity, was never realized. China Mobile has done a great job with coverage. So even when my hotel in Pingle did not have internet connection, I was still able to check emails via GPRS on iPhone.
Wang Zhuo, the deputy director of ARDPAS as well as a Professor at Sichuan University, thought it amusing that I kept asking ARDPAS clients and their children about mobile phone and computer usage. When I spotted 37-year-old Mr Hu, the second client we visited in Guanshan village, taking a call to arrange a pig pick-up. I was interested to see whether he used his phone only for calls or used text messages and internet access as well. Mr Hu replied that he only used it for calls. On the other hand, in Jingxi town, we met 36-year-old Mr Yang who owned 3 electronics shops and 1 medical supplies shop. Mr Yang's electronics shops are actually official China Mobile distribution points. He said he used all the functions on his phone including text and internet access. I also asked the two boys I met (one 11, the other 12 years old) whether they used computers in school. Both did and enjoyed playing games on them. It was great to see that there actually isn't too much of a technology gap, and although towns are still ahead of the curve than villages, children get the exposure when they attend schools.
Lina Tang, Grameen Foundation's Hong Kong staff, raised the point that media images of poverty and the poor are often ones of suffering and helplessness, which are meant to induce viewer reactions of pity or sympathy. The real picture is something quite the opposite. We all agreed that meeting the ARDPAS clients, our picture of poverty is one of resourcefulness, making the best of whatever resources they have access to. A case in point is 42-year-old Mr Cao who only took on his first microcredit loan for RMB5,000 last year to buy rice, wheat and feed processing machinery when faced with his father's medical and funeral bills. His wife and 19-year-old daughter went to Shanghai to work for a garment factory to earn more money. But he was happy that they would be able to return soon, because his business was doing well. In fact, he had managed to grab market share from an existing processer by offering better service at lower prices. He was looking forward to taking on a second loan to raise pigs as well. He hoped that he could pass on a good business to his daughter and that she would get married to someone from Langzhong so that she would be close by to take care of them.
When we asked whether microcredit had improved their lives, the clients all pointed to the fact that they could now eat much better. Previously, they could only eat rice and vegetables. Now, they can pretty much eat whatever they like. This was somewhat in contrast to the Jingxi town clients, where microcredit serves more as an insufficient small business loan. Mr Yang, who had used RMB300,000 of his own capital felt that the RMB10,000 loans, while welcome and useful, weren't actually sufficient for him to really expand his business. When asked if he could get a loan from a commercial bank or the Rural Credit Cooperative, he said he probably could, but that the procedures were very troublesome and that he felt the city bankers he had to deal with often looked down on him. He felt much more comfortable dealing with his ARDPAS loan officer, because it was more a peer relationship where he felt respected. This actually highlights one of the challenges facing the microcredit industry in China. Because SME (small medium enterprise) loans are not a common loan product of commercial banks, small businesses sometimes use microcredit to fill that gap. For microcredit, these small businesses are good credit risks when they have to consider how they balance their lending portfolio, which means that microcredit doesn't necessarily get to the poorest of the poor. Grameen Trust, which sets up Grameen Bank-modelled MFIs outside of Bangladesh using a BOT (build-operate-transfer) model (Grameen Foundation, on the other hand, was set-up to help of existing MFIs scale to the level of success of a Grameen Bank by offering training and finance), is in the process of setting up operations in Sichuan. It will be interesting to see how they manage their loan portfolio and whether they will be able to reach the poorest of the poor, which was Yunus' vision.
Andy, who owns a tannery in China, said the trip made him question whether we (those living the city life) had strayed too far from the simple values of rural communities, something as simple as neighbors speaking to each other, connecting and supporting each other. In fact, a group of us had looked on as we watched farmers on one side of the river yelling a whole conversation to farmers on the other side as they headed towards their fields. It seemed to be our equivalent of a facebook message or an sms. Nick, who works in finance in Los Angeles, said that the trip, more than anything, gave him a sense of hope -- coming from the States and a sector that's been battered by crises, he was hopeful to see people so removed still able to enjoy growth and prosperity. Citing one of the clients he visited who used the loan to buy chickens, he said the trip confirmed that microfinance was an efficient use of capital to make a difference. From just being able to make ends meet, this client now owns two karaoke machines with pride.
While the clients probably saw us as potential benefactors, I think we all walked away from this trip with a lot. As nearly all of us in the group are American, we all echoed a renewed sense of hope and confidence that we, as Americans, can pull together to tackle the challenges ahead and grasp the opportunities that arise. It goes without saying that we were a solid block of Obama supporters. Before the trip, Ellen had commented that we needed someone like Obama, in whom we could trust and believe in, and who could give us a sense of confidence that things would be OK. After the visits, most of us walked away believing once again in our own resourcefulness and resilience. That is the true source of hope and confidence. Obama, as he so aptly put it in one of his early speeches, is simply the vessel.
Only one week to go...
When Kate asked us for our reflections on the trip, what its meant for us personally, my biggest take-away was that I gained an appreciation for travelling in China, in particular the rural parts of China. Of course, one has to forgo certain comforts such as clean toilets, but the raw beauty and inspiration are worth the minor discomforts. And in fact, my main fear, losing connectivity, was never realized. China Mobile has done a great job with coverage. So even when my hotel in Pingle did not have internet connection, I was still able to check emails via GPRS on iPhone.
Wang Zhuo, the deputy director of ARDPAS as well as a Professor at Sichuan University, thought it amusing that I kept asking ARDPAS clients and their children about mobile phone and computer usage. When I spotted 37-year-old Mr Hu, the second client we visited in Guanshan village, taking a call to arrange a pig pick-up. I was interested to see whether he used his phone only for calls or used text messages and internet access as well. Mr Hu replied that he only used it for calls. On the other hand, in Jingxi town, we met 36-year-old Mr Yang who owned 3 electronics shops and 1 medical supplies shop. Mr Yang's electronics shops are actually official China Mobile distribution points. He said he used all the functions on his phone including text and internet access. I also asked the two boys I met (one 11, the other 12 years old) whether they used computers in school. Both did and enjoyed playing games on them. It was great to see that there actually isn't too much of a technology gap, and although towns are still ahead of the curve than villages, children get the exposure when they attend schools.
Lina Tang, Grameen Foundation's Hong Kong staff, raised the point that media images of poverty and the poor are often ones of suffering and helplessness, which are meant to induce viewer reactions of pity or sympathy. The real picture is something quite the opposite. We all agreed that meeting the ARDPAS clients, our picture of poverty is one of resourcefulness, making the best of whatever resources they have access to. A case in point is 42-year-old Mr Cao who only took on his first microcredit loan for RMB5,000 last year to buy rice, wheat and feed processing machinery when faced with his father's medical and funeral bills. His wife and 19-year-old daughter went to Shanghai to work for a garment factory to earn more money. But he was happy that they would be able to return soon, because his business was doing well. In fact, he had managed to grab market share from an existing processer by offering better service at lower prices. He was looking forward to taking on a second loan to raise pigs as well. He hoped that he could pass on a good business to his daughter and that she would get married to someone from Langzhong so that she would be close by to take care of them.
When we asked whether microcredit had improved their lives, the clients all pointed to the fact that they could now eat much better. Previously, they could only eat rice and vegetables. Now, they can pretty much eat whatever they like. This was somewhat in contrast to the Jingxi town clients, where microcredit serves more as an insufficient small business loan. Mr Yang, who had used RMB300,000 of his own capital felt that the RMB10,000 loans, while welcome and useful, weren't actually sufficient for him to really expand his business. When asked if he could get a loan from a commercial bank or the Rural Credit Cooperative, he said he probably could, but that the procedures were very troublesome and that he felt the city bankers he had to deal with often looked down on him. He felt much more comfortable dealing with his ARDPAS loan officer, because it was more a peer relationship where he felt respected. This actually highlights one of the challenges facing the microcredit industry in China. Because SME (small medium enterprise) loans are not a common loan product of commercial banks, small businesses sometimes use microcredit to fill that gap. For microcredit, these small businesses are good credit risks when they have to consider how they balance their lending portfolio, which means that microcredit doesn't necessarily get to the poorest of the poor. Grameen Trust, which sets up Grameen Bank-modelled MFIs outside of Bangladesh using a BOT (build-operate-transfer) model (Grameen Foundation, on the other hand, was set-up to help of existing MFIs scale to the level of success of a Grameen Bank by offering training and finance), is in the process of setting up operations in Sichuan. It will be interesting to see how they manage their loan portfolio and whether they will be able to reach the poorest of the poor, which was Yunus' vision.
Andy, who owns a tannery in China, said the trip made him question whether we (those living the city life) had strayed too far from the simple values of rural communities, something as simple as neighbors speaking to each other, connecting and supporting each other. In fact, a group of us had looked on as we watched farmers on one side of the river yelling a whole conversation to farmers on the other side as they headed towards their fields. It seemed to be our equivalent of a facebook message or an sms. Nick, who works in finance in Los Angeles, said that the trip, more than anything, gave him a sense of hope -- coming from the States and a sector that's been battered by crises, he was hopeful to see people so removed still able to enjoy growth and prosperity. Citing one of the clients he visited who used the loan to buy chickens, he said the trip confirmed that microfinance was an efficient use of capital to make a difference. From just being able to make ends meet, this client now owns two karaoke machines with pride.
While the clients probably saw us as potential benefactors, I think we all walked away from this trip with a lot. As nearly all of us in the group are American, we all echoed a renewed sense of hope and confidence that we, as Americans, can pull together to tackle the challenges ahead and grasp the opportunities that arise. It goes without saying that we were a solid block of Obama supporters. Before the trip, Ellen had commented that we needed someone like Obama, in whom we could trust and believe in, and who could give us a sense of confidence that things would be OK. After the visits, most of us walked away believing once again in our own resourcefulness and resilience. That is the true source of hope and confidence. Obama, as he so aptly put it in one of his early speeches, is simply the vessel.
Only one week to go...
Labels: China, microfinance, Sichuan
posted by 10000miles at 10:17
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