Construction work Chinese style

When I am looking at construction sites here in China, I ask myself sometimes how it is possible that new buildings arise so quickly. The working methods and equipment certainly do not seem to be very efficient. And many workers are hanging around more than they are actually doing something.

In our neighbourhood, I can observe it from up close these days. For some reason, supposedly because of upcoming changes of regulations, many Chinese are digging basements underneath their houses here. This is done only shortly after the houses had been finished (makes me wonder why they did not include basements from the beginning). Our neighbours are also doing this. Their gigantic house is now standing on a few concrete poles only, surrounded by a huge pit.

Observing the work in progress, I started to get some understanding of how the Chinese build so quickly. It is because they build almost non stop, seven days per week, from the early morning until late at night, with a seemingly endless workforce supply. It's not the efficiency but the quantity that does the trick.