중국의 스노우벨트와 선벨트

 

 

# 1

 

중국을 갈때마다 느끼는 건데

도시지역만 비교해보면

우리나라 노인보다 중국의 노인들이 훨씬 행복해 보인다는 것이다.

 

종로의 파고다 공원과 상하이나 베이징 도심속 공원을 비교하면

직관적으로 느낄 수 있을 것이다.

 

토지의 사유화가 불가능한 중국의 장점은

가장 지대가 비싼 중심가라 할지라도 대규모의 공원이 자리잡고 있고

공원을 이용하는 사람들이 많다는 점이다.

 

눈치를 보지 않는 중국인들의 특성상

자유롭게 춤을 추고, 노래를 하고, 마작을 하면서

큰 소리를 내고 마음껏 웃는 노년의 사람들을 쉽게 찾아볼 수 있다.

 

 

 

# 2

 

나와 내 사촌동생이 가장 좋아하는 나라 태국.

98년 IMF때 처음 방문한 태국.

7월 한여름, 2400원짜리 여인숙에서 윙윙 돌아가는 선풍기 아래에 누워

혹, 찜통이 더 낫지 않을까? 하는 상상을 했다.

 

하지만, 에어컨이란 현대 문명의 이기를 사용해보니

태국은 내겐 천국이였고,

자유가 무엇인지를 알게 해줬다.

 

건설업하는 동생에게 만날 때마다 졸라댄다.

이번 프로젝트 잘만 풀리면 태국에 리조트 하나 사라.

은퇴후, 겨울엔 형이랑 두달씩만 보내고 오자.

 

 

 

 

 

 

앞의 포스팅에서 이미 소개했던 지도입니다.

Foreign Policy가 제작한 '중국인들이 생각하는 중국 각 지역에 대한 고정관념'이라는 지도입니다.

 

맨 아래 Hainan (하이난, 해남도)는

Undeveloped입니다.

 

하지만, 이 지도도 조금 있으면 바뀔 듯 합니다.

 

 

작년에 우리나라에서도 지가 상승률이 가장 높았던 곳이 제주도라고 하죠?

 

아래 The Economist를 보면

2000년~2013년 사이 중국 전체 경제가 2배 정도 성장하였는데

하이난은 10배 정도 성장하였다고 합니다.

 

성장의 원동력은 무엇인지

이코노미스트는 그 원인을 이번 기사 제목에서 찾고 있습니다.

 

바로 China's Florida 라는 것입니다.

 

 

하이난 성장의 가장 중요한 요인은

'위도'입니다.

 

 

 

하이난의 Sanya 시정부에 의하면

매년 400,000~500,000명의 연금생활자가 하이난으로 몰려오는데

(참고로, 산야市 거주 인구가 75만정도)

 

그중의 절반 정도가 동북 3성 (요녕, 길림, 흑룡강성) 에서 오는 사람들입니다.

사실 요녕까지는 겨울을 어떻게 버텨내겠지만, 흑룡강성은 추울때 최저기온 -40도는 우습게 찍는 곳입니다.

 

하이난을 방문하는 동북 3성 2/3정도 사람들의 평균 수입은 2,000~3,000위안 (5,60만원) 정도인 사람들로

 매우 부유한 사람들도 아닙니다.

그러다 보니 Full time으로 이 지역에 머무는 것이 아니고

겨울 한철만(길면 반년정도) 지내러 오는 사람들이 대부분입니다.

 

 

초기에, 하이난을 찾아 겨울철만 버티고 돌아가던 사람들이

이제는 에어컨을 방패막삼아 연중 이곳에 거주하려는 움직임들을 보이고 있습니다.

 

이미, 대략 100,000명 이하의 사람들은 연중 거주를 하고 있습니다.

100,000명중 절반 정도는 이미 재산까지 이 지역으로 옮기고 있어,

이 곳에서 완전한 은퇴생활을 고려하고 있는 것으로 보입니다.

 

그래서 The Economist에서는 이를 미국의

Snowbelt에서 Sunbelt로 찾아오는 현상에 비유하고 있습니다.

 

 

 

특히, 2010년부터 은퇴자 러쉬 현상이 뚜렷해지기 시작했습니다.

2010년에는 미국 스타일의 Residential care home이 등장하는 등

본격적인 호화 은퇴자를 위한 시설들이 들어서기 시작합니다.

 

 

 

 

이런 현상은 하이난에 어떤 영향을 불러일으켰을까요?

 

1. 산야시 주변 임대료가 싼 주택에 거주하던 winter pensioner들이 곤란을 겪게 되었습니다.

왜냐하면 rent비가 오르기 시작했기 때문이죠.

 

2. 산야 시내에 동북 식당들 개업이 잦아지기 시작했습니다.

이 지역의 물주들은 동북 3성 사람들이기 때문이죠.

 

3. 동네 약국의 구비 약품의 종류가 변화하기 시작했습니다.

노인들이 주로 찾는 관절염약, 고혈압 약을 쌓아두기 시작했죠.

 

4. 최근 중국의 경제 성장률이 낮아지자, 가장 큰 타격을 받는 지역이 동북3성 입니다.

그래서 The Economist는 이 지역을 Rustbelt에 비유한 듯 합니다.

대신 동북3성의 은퇴자들이 찾는 하이난은 매우 빠른 성장을 구가하게 됩니다.

미국의 Snowbelt 은퇴자들이 Sunbelt인 Florida를 찾은 것처럼 말이죠.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Retirement

China’s Florida

 

People used to retire where they lived and worked. That is beginning to change

May 28th 2016 | SANYA | From the print edition

 

 

 

THE cheongsam modelling contest starts at 7pm; at 8pm it is group dances in the style of ethnic Uighurs from China’s far west, and of fan-waving north-easterners from provinces adjoining Russia and North Korea. Participants and spectators alike are pensioners: retired miners, teachers and industrial workers. They sit in the evening cool, gossiping and applauding. A man in a Hawaiian shirt keeps the beat with castanets. Fei Liyue, a former construction manager, says that he and his relatives come every evening. He is 3,200km (2,000 miles) from his home in the bleak oil city of Daqing.

 

Almost everyone is, like Mr Fei, from the rust belt of the north-east, a region that is gripped in winter by an Arctic chill. But the scene here is by the beach in the subtropical city of Sanya in Hainan, an island province as far south from their native region as it is possible to go without leaving the country (see map). Palm fronds and bougainvillea rustle in the breeze. Bikini-clad tourists dash by. The crowds of elderly visitors (some are pictured) are something new in Sanya. They may herald a profound social change.

 

Chinese people used to live, work, retire and die where they were born. The country’s filial traditions reflect this: children are supposed to look after their parents. The bureaucracy enforces it: everyone has a hukou (household registration) which provides subsidised health and education, almost always in a person’s place of birth.

 

Thanks to the migration of workers, however, 260m people, about one-fifth of the population, now live somewhere other than their birthplace. In the past five years, the pattern of retirement has also begun to change. Increasing numbers spend some or all of their pensionable years away from where they used to work. Neither filial tradition nor the hukou system have proved strong enough to prevent this.

 

In the 1950s and 1960s Americans flocked from cold industrial cities, such as New York and Chicago, to subtropical Florida. Now Chinese people are moving from the industrial heartland of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning (the three north-eastern provinces) to Hainan. And just as movement to America’s sunbelt helped transform a backward region, so the same thing could happen in China.

 

Fifty years ago Sanya was a small fishing village. Ye Yaer, who was born there in 1961, survived on discarded ends of sugar cane and did not get a pair of shoes until he was 12. Every day his mother walked 25km to the nearest market town, carrying those of her children too young to walk as well as 20 kilos of fish to sell. Now Mr Ye is a successful fish-dealer whose business extends across southern China; Sanya is full of five-star resorts. And as happened in Florida, a retirement business is being built on the back of Hainan’s tourism.

 

According to Sanya’s government, 400,000-500,000 pensioners head to the city each year, perhaps half of them from the north-east. That compares with the city’s total population (those resident for six months or longer) of 749,000. The incomers are not the new rich. Huang Cheng of Sanya University says one-third of the sun-seeking pensioners have a monthly income of 2,000-3,000 yuan ($305-460), about the average for a working person. A quarter receive only 1,000-2,000 yuan a month. Most come for six months and return to the north-east in summer. “It’s too hot here then,” says Mr Fei, the oil-city man, though he admits he is thinking of settling in Sanya full-time. Rather like Florida’s “snowbirds”, many rent an apartment just for the winter.

 

Fewer than 100,000 migrant pensioners live on the island year round, thinks Mr Huang. But there are signs that more are settling. Half of those he interviewed said they had bought property in Sanya. The number staying permanently started to soar in 2010 when the city’s retirement boom began. Hua Hong Investments, a local property company, is about to open the city’s first American-style residential care home, with medical services, an indoor golf driving-range and calligraphy classes.

 

The winter pensioners are “awesome”, enthuses Wu Qifa, a farmer in Danzhou, a village on the edge of Sanya, who rents out rooms to them. “We couldn’t survive without them.” The village pharmacy is unusually well stocked with heart medicines, blood-pressure pills and pain relief for knee and hip joints.

 

Li Wen, from Heilongjiang, followed the seniors down to Sanya and opened a restaurant there offering north-eastern cuisine. It has been doing a roaring trade, he says, though this year business has slackened, reflecting an economic slowdown in the north-east. Thanks to tourism and the retirees, Sanya’s economy grew more than tenfold between 2000 and 2013, almost twice as fast as the country as a whole.

 

But with so many moving in, problems are inevitable. Medical services—poor at the best of times—are overwhelmed in winter. Doctors among the retired visitors have been drafted in to help. Everyone complains about traffic. In winter the price of vegetables typically doubles, and that of seafood triples, says Mr Huang. In summer most pensioners go home, hurting firms that cater to them.

 

Not surprisingly, given the pressure on public services, relations between locals and the newcomers are “sensitive”, say volunteers at the Sanya Association for Resettling Retirees. “I would as soon befriend an Iraqi as a north-easterner,” fumes one Sanya resident. It did not help when in 2014 Li Boqing, a deputy mayor who is himself from the north-east, said that: “If immigrants left the city, Sanya would become a ghost town overnight.”

 

The city government, however, does not want its hospitals and roads clogged up, and so is trying to control the flood of incomers. One method is requiring that new apartments be 80 square metres or larger. Typically, pensioners rent spaces far smaller than that. There are other factors that may curb the influx. Huang Huang of the China Tourism Academy in Beijing says that those in early retirement (which usually begins at the age of 60 for men, 55 for female civil servants and 50 for other women) will normally be well enough to seek a cleaner, warmer environment away from their children. As they become less active, however, many will migrate back to be near their families. At the last stage, when they need frequent medical assistance, they will probably enter old-age institutions. It is unclear whether the government will build these in big population centres or in places like Sanya.

 

Pensioners themselves are looking beyond Sanya’s overcrowded streets. Some are moving to villages along the coast, or hill towns in Yunnan, a subtropical province on the mainland. In Guangxi province, bordering on Yunnan, the village of Bama attracts those keen to learn the secret of longevity—it is said to have an unusually large population of centenarians.

 

China has about 220m people over 60. If they prove as mobile as American retirees (1.1% of whom move from one state to another each year), that would mean over 2m pensioners upping sticks annually, potentially making a huge difference to the economies and social structures of their destinations. To judge by the experience of Sanya, few places are ready for it.

 

From the print edition: China