Country Driving [216]
In Lishui, these strategies seemed to work, at least initially. During the middle of 2009, Director Wang Lijiong told me that he expected the city’s GDP to grow by at least 10 percent for the year. It was the same story across the country—Chinese exports were down by 20 percent, but the national economy was still growing at a rate of about 8 percent. China had traded overseas consumers for the ones at home; the sheer size of the nation made it possible. Even the car market did well, especially after the government reduced taxes on new vehicles. In the first quarter of 2009, for the first time ever, Chinese consumers bought more motor vehicles than people in the United States.
During the heart of the economic crisis Luo Shouyun finally made the transition from Big Master to Boss. For a quarter century, nearly the entire span of the Reform period, he had worked for other people. Having started out as an illiterate assembly-line boy, he had bounced across the country, from city to city, factory to factory, rising at last to become a skilled technician. He had dealt with unreliable bosses and broken contracts, and he had manufactured so many bra rings that he dreamed of them at night. But in 2009 he left all of that behind. He started his own company, partnering with his nephew, and they set up operations in the southern city of Foshan. They recycled—they purchased trash from overseas and converted it into raw materials for Chinese factories. The company specialized in high-grade plastic, and they relied on Luo’s technical skills to set up the machinery. By the middle of the year they had a dozen employees, and Luo was making more money than he ever had with bra rings. His wife worked with him, and their son remained in Guizhou, living with relatives and attending nursery school.
He laughed when I referred to him by the new name: Boss Luo. “We get trash from your country,” he said. They received regular shipments from the United States, Europe, and Australia, and most of it arrived in good condition; he could recognize refrigerators and televisions and even parts of cars. They separated the materials, processed the plastic, and sold it to Chinese manufacturers. “Some of them use it to make toys,” Boss Luo said. “But we also have a lot of customers who make refrigerators, televisions—the same things we get from the foreigners. It’s all the same stuff, basically.”
IN ZHEJIANG, THE TAO sisters and Ren Jing left the bra ring factory not long after the move to the Wenzhou region. That turned out to be another aspect of Mr. Tao’s plan: he negotiated hard for a higher salary before the holiday, and then, once the bonus and the red envelopes were in hand, he pulled out the girls. All of them came back to Lishui, where together they found jobs in a factory that produced ashtrays. After Yufeng turned sixteen, and it was easier to find work at a big plant, they jumped to Huadu pleather, where they worked in quality control. They inspected the finished product, checking for defects, and with their approval the rolls of pleather were sent out to the great wide world.
During my last visit, I stopped at the Taos’ one-room shack. Yufeng had just gotten off work, and she chattered happily about the job. “They pay overtime!” she said. “I make nine hundred a month, but with the extra hours it