[Cookingboy]

One anecdotal story: One summer I went back to Shenzhen and decided to get a PlayStation 2 with a mod chip installed so I can play pirated games (I was a poor student).

Now, there was this one mod chip that was really good but requires a bit of soldering work to get it installed right, and me, being an EE student, was no stranger to a soldering iron, so I planned to do it myself after buying the chip.

So I bought a brand new PS2/mod chip combo from this small electronics store and the shirtless owner actually offered to solder it for me for free. I took up on the offer since I get to test the chip on the spot as well.

He opened up the PS2 case, with one hand took up a soldering iron, while the other hand holding a cigarette, started working. I nervously watched him tapping around my brand new PS2's motherboard with just one hand while paying most of the attention to the live soccer game on TV at the time. 5 minutes later he was finished and 8 years later that PS2 is still working and reads all pirated discs with absolutely no problems.

Throughout college I've never met anyone who's as good at soldering as this shirtless electronics shop owner I met in Shenzhen.

[seanmcdirmid]

You can find these people everywhere in China, even Beijing. Weirdly enough, many of them here are Uighers.

[lovelearning]

One possible conclusion I drew from your anecdote is fascinating me : that if governments formulate the right policies to create powerful new industries and demand for them, even those who aren't formally educated in those industries are capable of making themselves just as skilled, if not more, simply by repeatedly practising those skills and driven by the profit motive (I'm assuming that this shop owner is not formally educated in EE).