China Speakers Bureau: China: a white collar nation

Paul French by Fantake via Flickr

Urbanization is one of the major trends in China, tells Paul French, author of the upcoming book "Fat China" to PBS's newshour.

The great trend in China is urbanization. People are moving into the cities. They're moving away from the countryside, 10 million, 12 million people a year. And that's projected to go on for at least another decade. And those people are coming into the cities.

Increasingly, they're getting white-collar office jobs, and they're getting up in the morning. They're getting the subway to work. They're getting the elevator to the office. They're sitting in a cubicle all day. Then they're getting the elevator downstairs. They're getting the subway home, and then they're sitting in front of television at night and ordering in food.

So, they're leading a much more sedentary lifestyle than they used to. And, of course, you know, many more people are driving around in cars, where they used to ride bicycles. And, also, particularly for children, sport is not a major part of the school curriculum, you know, because of the concentration on passing exams and so on.