Factory Girls_ From Village to City in a Changing China - Chang, Leslie T_ [34]
“We would put a few watermelons in the fast-rushing river. We’d tie them to the bank with a rope so they wouldn’t float away. When we ate the watermelon, it was really cold.”
I had never heard a migrant speak of the countryside as Min did.
“If I were you, if I had your qualifications and your money,” she said then, “I would work very hard while I was young. But when I was older I would go to the countryside and find someone to marry and live in a small house there. You could live in a hut and raise a few chickens.” She was silent for a while, spinning out in her mind a fantasy that we both knew would never come true.
* * *
In early June, a newly hired worker in Min’s factory lost four fingers of his left hand on the single-punch machine. A week later, the same machine ate the tips of three fingers of another recent hire. Neither employee had been properly trained. On the city’s factory floors, injuries hewed closely to the demands of production. During the slow winter months, factories could afford to train new workers; when orders picked up in the spring, such training was often cut short even as inexperienced people flooded in. Because the assembly line paid by the piece, working faster during busy times meant a bigger paycheck—spending time training others brought nothing. That was the zero-sum logic of the Dongguan factory, where helping someone else meant hurting yourself.
Later that month, Min was unexpectedly promoted to her factory’s human resources department. Her job was to stand on the sidewalk under a scorching sun and convince people who passed by to join her factory; she signed up ten workers her first day. She also ran orientation sessions for the new workers, most of whom were older than she was. Min had no weekends now, so we met one Friday night in late June when her overtime shift ended at nine, at a fruit-drinks shop outside the factory gate. Her friend from the old factory, Huang Jiao’e, arrived just after I did with a small suitcase. She had come to work on the assembly line.
Min told us about her new job. “I stand by the side of the road and convince people to come work at our factory.”
“What do you say to them?” I asked.
“I tell them, ‘You may think that other factories look better. But every factory has its own difficulties that you may not be able to see. Isn’t it better to stay here and be more stable? Save some money, get some experience, and then decide what you want to do.’ ” The words were familiar; this was what her parents always told her.
“But that’s the opposite of what you have done,” I said.
“Yes.” She nodded and smiled. “It goes against what I believe in.”
“I’ve never heard you speak in such an exaggerated way!” Huang Jiao’e said.
“This is my responsibility,” Min said defensively. “You would do the same if you were in my place.” Though the conversation was teasing, there was an edge to it. The two girls had been friends and equals, but now Min worked in the office, far above assembly-line workers like Huang Jiao’e.
Min went to the stall next door to buy me some noodles for dinner. “If it weren’t for Min, I wouldn’t have come here,” Huang Jiao’e confided after she had gone. Two days earlier, she had visited the factory but had not liked the conditions. Originally she was to move over yesterday, but she hesitated; finally today she had left her factory without asking anyone or getting her two months’ back pay. There were many ways to quit a factory. A worker might resign with her boss’s permission and receive all of her back pay. She could take a temporary leave that guaranteed a position upon her return. Some departing workers negotiated with their employers for a portion of the money they were owed. But nothing was worse than kuangli—literally, “crazy leaving”—which was what Huang Jiao’e had done.
I asked her how long she planned to stay.
“We’ll see,” she said. “I am testing them, and they are testing