【按语】

在全球物价水平最高的大都市中，伦敦作为欧洲最大的城市，与美国纽约并列为世界上最大的金融中心；

作为中国历史文化名城、优秀旅游城市，广州与北京、上海被定义为中国综合实力最强的城市之一；

两个分别在各自国家经济水平遥遥领先的城市，他们之间在不同商品、工资、住房、娱乐上的物价水平是什么样的呢？

    广州市黄广中学立足于自身的经验和见闻，就上述疑问作出详细解答。

作者简介：

张晗，毕业于英国华威大学(2017年QS世界排名57)，主修数学、运筹学、统计学和经济学。具有丰富的辅导学生经济学专业学习的工作经验，现回国在广州市黄广中学教师。

As a Londoner I’ve had the privilege of living and working in various boroughs and industries within the city ranging from the trendy and hipster areas in Shoreditch to the elite and affluent Mayfair district. 

(I also lived close to Sherlock Holmes in Marylebone.)

Coming to China

The decision to come to China was to gain a greater appreciation for my heritage and understand more about the Chinese economy. However as an economist I still had to consider the cost of living.

Whilst I’ve only been here for barely half a year I’ve already noticed how the lifestyles for the average person in Guangzhou can vary and mirror with the average Londoner. The results may surprise you too!

I shall first introduce a website that is useful for getting a picture of the living expenses in various cities around the world: ‘Numbeo.com’. We will pay attention to Net Salary and Rent as the most important factors and then other expenditure items such as Leisure.

Net Salary

Average net salaries per month in London hover around 20,000 CNY compared to Guangzhou’s 7,000 CNY. The London figure itself may be shocking to readers already. UK citizens do not earn as much as you may expect. But what importance does salary hold without spending?

Rent

Rent for a 3 bedroom apartment in the City Centre for London and Guangzhou is 28,000 CNY and 8,000 CNY respectively. Sharing with friends works out to be roughly 9,000 CNY and 3,000 CNY on average.

This is assumed to be biggest expense for most people and since both groups spend the same proportion of income on rent then we have a framework for fair comparisons of the average resident in both cities.

From anecdotal evidence jobs are hard to get in the UK and housing is as equally hard to secure as it is in China so we ‘millenials’ are quite similar after all.

Leisure

I was surprised to find that the gym nearest to the apartment actually costs more than my old 24 hour gym in London! I struggle to think how most Chinese people cough up the fees for this leisure activity. Maybe that’s why the大妈 will forever occupy the plazas.

There is scope for further comparisons on other items of expenditure such as food and more expensive items such as cars which show drastic differences in price levels. Whether this influences or is influenced by culture and or economics will be interesting to discover.