Country Driving [200]
MASTER LUO NEVER WROTE any slogans on the wall of his dormitory room. He didn’t read self-help books, and he had no interest in religion. He disliked Mao Zedong, believing that the leader had caused China to waste thirty years, but he admired Deng Xiaoping for his pragmatism. After more than two decades in factory towns, Master Luo’s life philosophy could be summed up in a single sentence: “If you have a problem, you have to take care of it yourself.” It’s common to hear people talk like this in development zones. The ones who succeed generally do so through their own talent and effort, and they neither expect nor receive support from the government, labor unions, or anybody else. A worker on the rise is rarely inspired to join the Communist Party, because such status is irrelevant in the factory world. There is one legal labor group, the government-run All-China Federation of Trade Unions, but in Lishui I never met a worker who had turned to this organization for support. In fact, the only evidence I saw of union activity consisted of streetside entertainments. Once a month, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions showed a movie on a portable screen in Suisong Road, free for everybody, and each year they hosted a big karaoke contest for workers. Apart from that, I never encountered the union during my trips to Lishui.
In factory towns, the most common attitudes toward the government range from scorn to complete disinterest. Many people complain about official corruption, but they tend to do so in abstract terms, because they have little direct contact with cadres. It’s similar to the speeding tickets on the expressway: if drivers were pulled over and hassled by cops, or extorted in some heavy-handed way, they might be infuriated. But the authorities know better, and usually they find strategies to earn money without making it too personal. For the most part, citizens tolerate it; sometimes they’re even patronizing. One factory boss described his bribes in terms of public service. “You need to make them feel like they’re important,” he told me. “You need to give them cigarettes, give them banquets—give them a little face. If they don’t have these things to do, they’ll just sit in an office all day long. Think about what it’s like for them; they don’t get to start businesses or do interesting things. Their lives are so boring!”
When people do turn to the government for assistance, it’s usually a sign of desperation. During my drives along the expressway, the dam relocation towns were the only places where residents sometimes spoke hopefully of getting something from cadres. And these were by far the most depressing settlements I ever saw in Zhejiang. Most were located on lonely sites near some highway exit, and they had all the dusty feel of a new boomtown without the energy. In these construction sites, nothing ever seemed to get finished: I visited Shifan, the exit town south of Lishui, over a period of more than two years and never saw the main street completed. It began the same way as every other new town, with the same pioneer shops—China Mobile, construction supplies, home furnishings. They sold floor tiles and faucets, and there were plenty of goods for finishing an apartment. But over time the main street never reached the next stage of growth, where restaurants flourish and street-side entertainments appear. Shifan didn’t have a chance to come to life, because there wasn’t any major industry nearby.
It was a drive-by town, and it received nothing but drive-by work. Occasionally some big-city factory owner came in on the expressway and offered locals a chance to earn some extra money. Once, I stopped by and dozens of older women were sitting in the street, chatting idly while they sewed plastic beads onto strips of cloth. The work had been commissioned by a Wenzhou shoe factory, which paid twelve and a half cents per embroidered strip. Eventually they would be attached to the tops of children’s shoes. A couple of