Country Driving [168]
One afternoon, I watched Yufeng prepare thousands of wires, all of which were size 75, B-cup. The factory went by European measurements, and often she worked ten hours straight on a single breast size. She could answer my questions without pausing or looking up: clickclickclickclick. She said she was glad to work with underwire instead of bra rings.
“There’s no machine for this,” Yufeng explained. “If you work with a machine, then the machine decides the pace. This way I’m freer. I can work whenever I want, for as long as I want.” The thimble flashed: clickclickclickclick. The girl kept talking. “To be honest, I often have a peaceful feeling. I work alone and there’s nobody to bother me. I don’t think about anything in particular. If I try to think about something specific, then I don’t work as fast. So I just try to keep my mind empty.”
IN THE EARLY MONTHS, after the factories first started producing, there weren’t any formal entertainment options in the development zone. There were no theaters or bars or karaoke parlors, and the government hadn’t built a public park. But the streets essentially served that purpose—traffic was light, so the roads were available to anybody who wanted to put on a makeshift show. At night, on Suisong Road, an entrepreneur usually set up a television and karaoke machine, charging ten cents per song. And often a traveling troupe came in off the expressway and offered some kind of entertainment. Low-end carnivals were common, especially those that featured games of chance, but there were also more elaborate endeavors. Once, a traditional Wu opera troupe erected a wooden stage right in the middle of Suisong Road and performed every night for a week, drawing hundreds of spectators. In the development zone, such large-scale performances are often free, because of corporate sponsors. Companies like China Mobile and China Unicom target the migrant population, which makes for a good entertainment market. The young workers are far from home, with nothing to do at night, and most are earning money for the first time in their lives.
One week the Red Star Acrobatic and Artistic Troupe came to town. They drove a battered Yukang freight truck that had been customized so the side panels folded out into a marquee, which featured color photographs of women in bikinis. The center of the marquee had been cut out to form a makeshift box office, and behind the truck they raised a canvas tent. Electric speakers blasted music into the street. A slogan had been painted around the marquee:
ACROBATIC TROUPE TOURING THE FOUR SEAS
ATTRACTING GUESTS FROM ALL OVER
WE WELCOME EVERYBODY!
They parked next to the Tongfeng Synthetic Leather Company, which is located on Suisong Road, a few blocks from the bra ring factory. Two other pleather plants are nearby: Jinyu and Huadu. The troupe chose this location carefully—they knew the pleather factories hire mostly men, and they set up their marquee with the bikini pictures in late afternoon, around the time that work shifts changed. That’s the witching hour of the development zone, when streets are busy with people, and soon a crowd of fifty gathered to stare at the marquee. A member of the troupe spoke into a microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” he called out. “Bosses and workers! Brothers and sisters! We welcome everybody to our acrobatics show! We know that all of you are hardworking, and you’re tired at the end of the day; we welcome you to relax with our show!”
The barker was dark-skinned and rail-thin, with high cheekbones and narrow eyes. He wore a pinstriped suit with a vest, and a cheap gold-colored chain hung