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Hoping to fix a dying trade
By Shi Xiaohan |
September 7, 2011, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
REPAIRMEN figure their trade is slowly becoming extinct as people nowadays have higher incomes and prefer to simply replace broken items. Shi Xiaohan reports.
A person who identifies himself online as Layang Yinqiang, a resident in suburban Hangzhou, traveled half a day to downtown to have his electric fan repaired by the experienced repairman Lu Huizhen.
Layang later posted the experience on his microblog (or weibo, Chinese equivalent of Twitter) last Friday and received more than 100 replies. People are curious about the repairman, who insists on doing this seemingly outdated job.
Lu says he understands the curiosity.
"The business of small appliance repairing peaked in the 1980s," he says. "People then were so short of money that they would rather repair than replace. Nowadays with higher income and more affordable appliances, more people choose to replace rather than to repair their malfunctioning appliances. The repair business is getting harder to continue."
Lu says he was among the first group of professionally trained repairmen in Hangzhou. He graduated from technical school majoring in appliance repairs in 1984 and he later took a two-month training course for radio and recorder repairs at Zhejiang University.
"The training was quite professional at the time. It was a time when repairmen were respected as the ultimate problem solver," Lu says. "We received tons of business everyday and had higher than average incomes."
Lu attributes his survival in the business mostly to the low rent offered by the university, not his professional skills and affordable services.
"I am lucky as I opened this repair store in the university 30 years ago. The university management decided to keep my store so that teachers and students could save some money by having their appliances repaired," Lu says.
Lu has kept prices low to keep the business. He charges no more than 20 yuan (US$3) for most repairs. The price list has remained the same for more than a decade.
However, Ran Deming, a 57-year-old watch repairman who opened his store in the city's fashion hub Wulin Road 17 years ago, has seen an uptick in business through the years.
Ran has been working as a professional watch repairman since the 1980s. Except for a brief decline in business when cell phones emerged, Ran has seen his customers increase.
"The number of people wearing watches is growing," he says. "Also my customers have become more diversified. Older people over 40 are my regular customers, and there are also more young people coming to my store to replace watch bands that are more fashionable. That is the plus of opening the store in the fashion district," Ran says.
Despite his current strong business, Ran figures it will shrink in the long term since he has found it impossible to find an apprentice. At the same time, professional watch-repair training is no longer provided in schools.
"I have been working alone for more than a decade now. However, I used to have dozens of apprentices in the 80s and 90s. Young people today are no longer willing to work hard for the relatively mediocre income of a repairman. The repair business will decline with less repairmen working," Ran says.
However, for the moment, there are still many people who rely on this shrinking line of business for livelihood. On the other hand, there are still people who miss the convenience brought about by the repairmen on the streets.
A woman surnamed Fang still likes getting her shoes repaired at a street stand.
"Now that I buy shoes from department stores, I can have them repaired using the warranty services offered by the brands," she says. "But that takes so long. It is more convenient to let a repairman do it."
Fang was getting her shoes fixed at a street stand on Wushan Road, traditionally known as "repair street."
However, most of the repair shops were torn down in the 1990s, forcing the repairmen to relocate.
In 2007, the Wushan Road Community Management Office decided to preserve the tradition of Wushan Road and bring the repairmen back for the convenience of the residents. Since then, the office has started providing unified street stands to repairmen for free.
Now there are more than 50 street stands run by repairmen on Wushan Road.
They fix everything from bicycles to zippers.
Most of the repairmen are over 40 years old and have been practicing the business for more than two decades.
As it proved successful, other downtown communities have followed suit and brought back repairmen.
But how long these repair shops can remain in business is anybody's guess.
A person who identifies himself online as Layang Yinqiang, a resident in suburban Hangzhou, traveled half a day to downtown to have his electric fan repaired by the experienced repairman Lu Huizhen.
Layang later posted the experience on his microblog (or weibo, Chinese equivalent of Twitter) last Friday and received more than 100 replies. People are curious about the repairman, who insists on doing this seemingly outdated job.
Lu says he understands the curiosity.
"The business of small appliance repairing peaked in the 1980s," he says. "People then were so short of money that they would rather repair than replace. Nowadays with higher income and more affordable appliances, more people choose to replace rather than to repair their malfunctioning appliances. The repair business is getting harder to continue."
Lu says he was among the first group of professionally trained repairmen in Hangzhou. He graduated from technical school majoring in appliance repairs in 1984 and he later took a two-month training course for radio and recorder repairs at Zhejiang University.
"The training was quite professional at the time. It was a time when repairmen were respected as the ultimate problem solver," Lu says. "We received tons of business everyday and had higher than average incomes."
Lu attributes his survival in the business mostly to the low rent offered by the university, not his professional skills and affordable services.
"I am lucky as I opened this repair store in the university 30 years ago. The university management decided to keep my store so that teachers and students could save some money by having their appliances repaired," Lu says.
Lu has kept prices low to keep the business. He charges no more than 20 yuan (US$3) for most repairs. The price list has remained the same for more than a decade.
However, Ran Deming, a 57-year-old watch repairman who opened his store in the city's fashion hub Wulin Road 17 years ago, has seen an uptick in business through the years.
Ran has been working as a professional watch repairman since the 1980s. Except for a brief decline in business when cell phones emerged, Ran has seen his customers increase.
"The number of people wearing watches is growing," he says. "Also my customers have become more diversified. Older people over 40 are my regular customers, and there are also more young people coming to my store to replace watch bands that are more fashionable. That is the plus of opening the store in the fashion district," Ran says.
Despite his current strong business, Ran figures it will shrink in the long term since he has found it impossible to find an apprentice. At the same time, professional watch-repair training is no longer provided in schools.
"I have been working alone for more than a decade now. However, I used to have dozens of apprentices in the 80s and 90s. Young people today are no longer willing to work hard for the relatively mediocre income of a repairman. The repair business will decline with less repairmen working," Ran says.
However, for the moment, there are still many people who rely on this shrinking line of business for livelihood. On the other hand, there are still people who miss the convenience brought about by the repairmen on the streets.
A woman surnamed Fang still likes getting her shoes repaired at a street stand.
"Now that I buy shoes from department stores, I can have them repaired using the warranty services offered by the brands," she says. "But that takes so long. It is more convenient to let a repairman do it."
Fang was getting her shoes fixed at a street stand on Wushan Road, traditionally known as "repair street."
However, most of the repair shops were torn down in the 1990s, forcing the repairmen to relocate.
In 2007, the Wushan Road Community Management Office decided to preserve the tradition of Wushan Road and bring the repairmen back for the convenience of the residents. Since then, the office has started providing unified street stands to repairmen for free.
Now there are more than 50 street stands run by repairmen on Wushan Road.
They fix everything from bicycles to zippers.
Most of the repairmen are over 40 years old and have been practicing the business for more than two decades.
As it proved successful, other downtown communities have followed suit and brought back repairmen.
But how long these repair shops can remain in business is anybody's guess.
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