You guys have to realize that many chinese earn barely enough yuan to live by. Wo ye hui yi dian han yu pin yin. Taxi drivers in China only earn about 3,000 yuan a month, in bigger cities. Compared with the income of a peasant, that's considered pretty good. Many people there don't even have houses, or built them out of their own hands, i.e. brick houses, tiny, one room. The living conditions there are horrible, and apartments prices are skyrocketing. For example, to live in a major city, one square METER costs more than 5,000 yuan in some cases, and as much as 10,000 yuan in more upscale neighborhoods. Imagine trying to buy a house in the city in order to work efficiently in the city: nightmare. And actually the exchange rate for the yuan/dollar went down, because of the weakening dollar. the yuan is about 7.5 per dollar.