The main character finds work at an American-owned fried chicken restaurant in a Chinese city. When it came to Chinese based work, it revolved around giving everyone work and a secure wage. Since the restaurant is owned by an American, the owner operates his business differently paying his workers an hourly wage instead of a wage. \u00a0The main character finds his work makes him a lot of money as opposed to others, such as his father, who has worked for 30 years and still hasn\u2019t had a paycheck close to that of his sons.<\/p>\n
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There were many cultural differences especially when it came down to the business, especially the relationship between the business and its workers. Mr. Shapiro, the owner, would scold and even tax his own employee\u2019s for not following the rules, but would then turn around and give extra food or deals to customers or others. When a customer had eaten half of his food, then demanded a refund because it hadn\u2019t been to his liking, Mr. Shapiro refunded half his money saying, \u201cThe customer is always right\u2026\u201d. \u00a0Mr. Shapiro would favor the customers over the workers, something that the Chinese workers had not experienced in such a way before.<\/p>\n
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Another cultural difference when it came to business was how drastic the pay disparity was between the workers and owner, and manager. After the workers had found out that they worked all day just to be denied leftover food so it could be thrown away, they found out how much the manager had been making since his paycheck got mixed in with theirs. In business profits are looked at as the main focus but, when it comes down to it, profits are how much someone can make off of another\u2019s cheap labor. When the workers found out that Peter (the manager) had been making around 1700 dollars for every 700 yuan they made (20x more), they were infuriated. They then went on strike and demanded Peter be fired, hoping for pay raises, but instead Mr. Shapiro turned around and fired the workers letting them know they\u2019re dispensable.<\/p>\n
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In the end, the main character longed for work that was secure and one where he wasn\u2019t easily replaceable, a job like the one his father had. But, throughout the story his father expresses how he wished he could work and make as much as his son. \u00a0\u201cThe grass is always greener on the other side\u201d is something that comes to mind while reading Cowboy Chicken.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The main character finds work at an American-owned fried chicken restaurant in a Chinese city. When it came to Chinese based work, it revolved around giving everyone work and a secure wage. Since the restaurant is owned by an American, the owner operates his business differently paying his workers an hourly wage instead of a… Continue reading Cowboy Chicken<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9196816,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9196816"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions\/160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/ghs208fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}