China's Peasants Gamble on the Future

By Ullrich Fichtner | | SPIEGEL online (Deutschland)
April 26, 2006

Each day, tens of thousands of communist Chinese peasants stream into Macau, the Las Vegas of Asia, to bet their entire lifesavings in the hope of a better future. But the monetary blessings of capitalism they dream of are at best elusive.

After spending five days in Macau and with only 230 yuan (€23) left in her purse, Chen Xi Mei decides she's had enough of the former Portuguese colony and Asian gambling Mecca. So she sets out for her dusty rural Chinese village, which is a 16-hour bus ride and one-hour walk away. The cloth-covered, wheeled suitcase she's pulling along as she makes her way to the border terminal for buses heading to Zhuhai contains a few articles of clothing, a mobile phone, paper tissues -- in short, everything she owns. Nothing remains of all the hard-earned money she had saved, and yet nothing has become of her dream of a better life.

Chen walks through Macau like someone crossing a fairground in broad daylight, past the Tsai Shen Casino, where peasants play baccarat 24-7 and past the dark temple of the Lisboa Casino, its portals crowned with light bulbs like some jester's cap. She sees the brand-new, shimmering, copper-clad Wynn Casino building, and she sees the mirrored, gold-colored walls of the Sands out by the docks for ferries to Hong Kong. The colorful imitation ruins on the beach, images of antiquity and the wealth of pharaohs -- all things anyone can have -- with a little luck, that is.

Her route takes her through streets lined with jewelers and pawn shops, where winners show off and losers go begging, where bleach-blonde Ukrainian women saunter from one pimp to the next and young girls from all over China take their new breasts, recently enlarged for 4,500 yuan (€450) a piece, for a walk.

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