Factory Girls_ From Village to City in a Changing China - Chang, Leslie T_ [30]
Min talked the entire two-hour ride. She was hoping to convince her friends to jump factories, as she had done. She kept up a running commentary on the places we passed.
Zhangmutou: “They call this Little Hong Kong. It is very luxurious here. I came here many times looking for jobs but couldn’t find one.”
Qingxi: “There are a lot of computer factories here, but you need more skills to get in.”
Fenggang: “This isn’t as developed as the place I am now, right?”
To me, every town looked the same. Construction sites and cheap restaurants. Factories, factories, factories, the metal lattices of their gates drawn shut like nets. Min saw the city through different eyes: Every town was the possibility of a more desirable job than the one she had. Her mental map of Dongguan traced all the bus journeys she had made in search of a better life.
MIN’S FRIENDS WAITED for us at the bottom of a highway overpass, looking anxiously in the wrong direction. Liang Rong was tall with a pretty face; Huang Jiao’e was short and plump, with bright eyes and cheeks still soft with baby fat. Both were a year older than Min. The three girls held hands and squealed and jumped up and down, like game-show contestants who had just won a big prize.
“Wow! You lost weight!”
“You’ve grown taller!”
“You cut your hair!”
“I just bought these clothes,” Min said urgently. “Are they pretty?” Her friends agreed that they were.
Next to the highway was a small park with a concrete plaza. Its stone benches had baked white in the sun, like ancient tombs; they were shaded by a few skinny saplings that looked like they were drawing their final breaths. The girls found a vacant bench and sat down and played with one another’s hair. They admired Min’s new clothes and she told them what each item cost.
“So, have I changed?” Min demanded. She had been gone exactly two months.
“Yes, you’ve changed,” Huang Jiao’e said.
“How have I changed?”
“You look more mature.”
Liang Rong and Huang Jiao’e shared the news from the factory: who had found a new job, who had cut her hair. This was their first day off in a month, because the factory’s power had been cut. The pay was still the same and often late, depending on the boss’s mood.
Min couldn’t help boasting a little about the place where she worked now. “The people in this factory are really low-quality,” she said. “My factory now is much better. The boss has a lot of money.
“Come on over to where I am,” Min said suddenly. “I’ll invite you out to dinner. When will you come?”
“But if we come,” said Liang Rong, “you might not have a day off.”
“You come visit me and I’ll introduce boyfriends to you,” Min said boldly. “There are many boys in my factory.”
The two girls’ eyes opened wide. They said “Ooh!” at the same time, and then all three of them laughed.
A beggar with a cane walked up, and the girls stopped talking. Liang Rong hesitated and then gently placed an apple in the old man’s bowl, like a scene out of a fairy tale. Dongguan was a hard place to live in, and maybe because of that people could be surprisingly kind to one another. I saw more charity toward beggars in Dongguan than I ever saw in another Chinese city. The factory workers had compassion for the elderly or anyone with a physical handicap, but toward people their own age they showed no pity. If you were young and healthy, there was no excuse for not working.
MIN’S OLD FACTORY was a half hour’s walk from town, where industrial China broadened into open farmland. A stream flowed sluggish and shiny black, like a river of gasoline. The road turned from pavement to packed dirt, a dusty strip lined with noodle stalls and pool tables set out in the open air. Knots of young men in factory shirts and slippers shot pool. Min walked along with a friend on either side, her head held high like a centurion returning from battle. Teenage boys and girls called out to her: “When did you get back?” “Where are you now?” They were impressed that she was working in downtown Dongguan.
“Have I changed?” Min asked of everyone who came up to her.
“You’re thinner and