Construction happens all over the place in China......and much of it does not look very safe. We were on the bus back east to Shanghai after a day trip to Suzhou when I snapped this photo of a makeshift highway-side construction tent. The second photo is just a detail of the first. This appears to me to be a sheltered central work area. I have never seen such a setup in the states so I am not clear on what this was for. The only roadside support facilities I see in the states are temporary roadside cement mixing facilities and completely enclosed, air conditioned, trailers which serve for the office needs of a construction site.Someone more knowledgeable about construction might be able to puzzle out what some of the equipment here is for and what kinds of work are being done. Perhaps all of this work is work which would, in the states, be done off-site and then shipped to location after manufacture. 
The place appears to be slapped together in a very haphazard way with what looks like bedsheets and corrugated metal lain atop some skeletal structure to serve as something like a roof. I can't believe any of this would stand up to much of a breeze. As does most work in China, the work here is proceeding in the open air and not in an interior air conditioned space. A very great deal of work in China happens outside. Restaurants were often missing a wall, and cooking would proceed at the front of the facility, basically on the street. I saw a row of about a dozen florist shops along one street in Shanghai. All were storing flowers in open air spaces, and some were cutting the plants and making flower arrangements right out on the sidewalk, amidst the pedestrians walking by.This roadside construction site is a rare one at which workers were wearing hardhats. Most construction on small buildings and streets which I observed in China was being completed by people wearing street clothes and shoes which might have been loafers or some such. On one site I observed from atop the Xi'an city wall, five people were working on a second story deck. The rebar had been lain, and the cement had not yet been poured. They were standing in different locations atop the structure and appeared to be hammering or fastening the rebar in some way. Four of the workers were men; one was a woman. All were wearing street clothes, and none was wearing anything for foot protection other than regular street shoes. Certainly none were wearing steel toed boots and none was wearing eye protection or a hardhat. As usual the construction site was not marked off and was not secured. Another woman had just climbed up to the rebar deck area and was hanging her laundry to dry up there in that dangerous spot.There seemed to be two kinds of construction areas--one for small projects, such as a several story building, and one for large projects such as road building or skyscraper construction. Smaller construction would happen absent any safety equipment at all. Scaffolding always looked unsafe and the crews were small, often just one or two people who appeared to be puttering. There was never any power equipment in use or visible anywhere near these small sites. Larger construction sites, such as those for the building of skyscrapers looked more like what I am used to seeing in the states, with large crews dressed in protective clothing, and using power equipment. Many construction vehicles could be seen in these jobsites and they would be bustling with activity.
The place appears to be slapped together in a very haphazard way with what looks like bedsheets and corrugated metal lain atop some skeletal structure to serve as something like a roof. I can't believe any of this would stand up to much of a breeze. As does most work in China, the work here is proceeding in the open air and not in an interior air conditioned space. A very great deal of work in China happens outside. Restaurants were often missing a wall, and cooking would proceed at the front of the facility, basically on the street. I saw a row of about a dozen florist shops along one street in Shanghai. All were storing flowers in open air spaces, and some were cutting the plants and making flower arrangements right out on the sidewalk, amidst the pedestrians walking by.This roadside construction site is a rare one at which workers were wearing hardhats. Most construction on small buildings and streets which I observed in China was being completed by people wearing street clothes and shoes which might have been loafers or some such. On one site I observed from atop the Xi'an city wall, five people were working on a second story deck. The rebar had been lain, and the cement had not yet been poured. They were standing in different locations atop the structure and appeared to be hammering or fastening the rebar in some way. Four of the workers were men; one was a woman. All were wearing street clothes, and none was wearing anything for foot protection other than regular street shoes. Certainly none were wearing steel toed boots and none was wearing eye protection or a hardhat. As usual the construction site was not marked off and was not secured. Another woman had just climbed up to the rebar deck area and was hanging her laundry to dry up there in that dangerous spot.There seemed to be two kinds of construction areas--one for small projects, such as a several story building, and one for large projects such as road building or skyscraper construction. Smaller construction would happen absent any safety equipment at all. Scaffolding always looked unsafe and the crews were small, often just one or two people who appeared to be puttering. There was never any power equipment in use or visible anywhere near these small sites. Larger construction sites, such as those for the building of skyscrapers looked more like what I am used to seeing in the states, with large crews dressed in protective clothing, and using power equipment. Many construction vehicles could be seen in these jobsites and they would be bustling with activity.
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