Country Driving [167]
The Taos came to Lishui after hearing about the new development zone from other villagers. Over time, more relatives appeared, and periodically a cousin or a nephew showed up in the bra ring factory. Sometimes a full third of the workforce consisted of Taos. The bosses often needed part-time labor, because they were still in the start-up phase, and there was always a Tao willing to work for a few hours. They were the Snopes of Lishui—once the family had a foothold, other members kept coming.
It had been a stroke of genius to initially send the youngest. If Mr. Tao had been the first to walk through the factory doors, he never would have been hired because of his age—bosses don’t want workers in their forties and fifties. Even if Mr. Tao had been given a job, it would have put him in the awkward position of asking for a favor each time he introduced another daughter or cousin. Instead, the youngest showed up with her sister’s ID, which was essentially a two-for-one; and then it was only natural that the father follow, because he was willing to work for cheap. Once he was ensconced in the factory, Mr. Tao monitored his daughters and made sure they were paid fairly. He collected their salaries every month—neither girl ever touched the money.
Yufeng, the younger daughter, had left school after seventh grade. She told me that she had never been a good student, and the fees had cost roughly one hundred dollars per year. “When I was in school, I felt like it was a burden for my family,” she said. “I was happy to leave.” Even if she had stayed, she only would have watched her peers vanish one by one, so she figured it was better to get an early start on her factory career. In Lishui the girl hoped to find a better job when she turned eighteen—at that point her age wouldn’t be held against her, and she could work in a big plant, the kind of place that checked IDs carefully and had real uniforms. She liked the idea of a shoe factory; maybe she’d learn something about the business and start a company of her own. “If I could, I’d make a lot of money and go home and build a house,” she told me. “A real house, two or three stories. My grandparents could live there.” The grandparents had cared for the girl during the initial period of the family’s migration, when she had been too young to accompany her parents. These elderly people were now her only link to the village. Once, I asked Yufeng what her grandparents were like, and the girl fell silent and her eyes filled with tears; and after that I didn’t ask about them anymore.
At the factory she handled underwire. Her job was to take the U-shaped bands of steel, one by one, and place them between the coils of a long tight spring. Fifty-seven wires could fit on each spring, and then the wire tips were dipped into nylon powder and passed through an industrial heater. Yufeng’s job was one of the few in the factory that didn’t depend on the clock. It was piecework: she was paid for each wire she handled. More precisely, she was paid by the pair—after all, the wires represent brassieres. In the factory world, piecework is considered to be the lowest form of assembly-line labor, and it’s often where underage workers end up.
For each pair of wires, Yufeng made the equivalent of one-twentieth of an American