 Migrant Workers Unite! .
Shanghai – With the fundamental economic, societal, and political changes that the country is going through, one starts to spot somewhat atypical faces speckled into the cosmopolitan crowds. These are the faces of the poor: their clothing often ragged, their faces often grimy. Most come from the nation’s eastern countryside and many belong to ethnic minority groups that the Western media has largely ignored. These so-called “migrant workers” are most visible in the city during late evening hours and at bus and train stations, when most people are returning home from a day’s work. Their conditions outside of the workplace are of little comfort, either. Often finding shelter in old abandoned buildings or cramming an entire family into a single dormitory room, these workers are the ones being left behind by China’s rapidly growing economy. “When we first moved into this building, the road below was still under construction,” Steve recalls as he points outside the living room window of his 30th floor apartment. Together with his wife Michelle and two children, he set out for China from the United States just under two years ago on a Chinese language, culture, and politics fellowship that funds his stay. “For the first few months we would see the migrants down there, and see the lights shed by the small fires they lit up to try warming up,” he adds. Steve and Michelle live in a large apartment in a newly build high-rise in the development area of Pudong on the East side of the Hangpu in Central Shanghai. Their flat sports a beautiful view of the opposite side of the river and its European-style façades. The American couple remembers the shock in first seeing the line of lean-tos adjacent to base of their upscale apartment building. “A few times we saw trucks coming at night, forcing the workers on them, and driving them away. Hard to say who it was, but the government is very afraid of slums growing in China and it tries its best to prevent that from happening.” “I was a little uncomfortable seeing what was going on,” Michelle admits. “I had just moved here, and I didn’t want to get in trouble. At the same time I felt like I should have done something.” Soon enough, Michelle put together small kits containing toothbrushes, toothpaste, and towels and distributed them to her migrant neighbors below. “I wasn’t sure of how they would react but I just went downstairs and handed out some of my kits to the very surprised looks of these men.” Although the term “migrant worker” now spans a larger spectrum to any person who has left their native homes for work, it is more widely used to refer to those who have left their countryside villages for large cities in seek of work. Some even bring their families with them and settle in their newly adopted urban settings. The majority, however, are seasonal workers who migrate between eight and ten months, return home for the Chinese New Year, and then continue their migratory cycle at year’s end by moving onto yet another city for yet another job. According to China’s official Xinhua news agency, the number of migrant workers has already topped 200 million. 120 million of those are said to be working in large cities. With Sino metropolises booming, the workers provide much of the labor that is put into creating infrastructure and expanding city boundaries. The All-China Federation of Trade Unions estimates that migrant workers constitute up to 71% of the country’s entire construction industry. For many of the workers, the prospects of big-city life go past a better paying job. Compared with the amenities of small rural villages, Chinese cities inevitably have infinitely more to offer. Shirley, an elementary school teacher friend of Michelle, has witnessed the juxtaposition between the two ways of Chinese life firsthand. “When she first arrived in Shanghai during the 1980’s, she [would tell] me how overwhelmed she was by all the possibilities Shanghai had to offer. Most of all, she was thrilled that she could finally eat chocolate, which she had never tasted before.” Zhao Juin, a 27 year-old from the northeastern Hubei province, proclaims “Shanghai is big, Shanghai is beautiful!” Zhao, who works in a massage parlor in the outskirts of the city, is enthralled with the educational opportunities that are afforded to him in Shanghai—opportunities nonexistent in the rural parts of the country. As he explains in his broken but self-taught English, “I only went to school up until 8th grade.” Originally from the semi-autonomous island of Macau (where he first started as a masseuse), Zhao came to Shanghai only four years ago when his former teacher introduced him to his current employer. Though “it is very easy to make money in Shanghai,” the posted hours of the parlor that Zhao works at (11am to 2am) is indicative of how hard migrant workers toil for their extra pay. Zhao, for instance, works twelve hours a day, seven days a week. Vacations days are also for naught, as Zhao’s work is under the table, disabling him from claiming any government-mandated days off. As is so typical with migrant workers, housing is an issue for Zhao. Like all his coworkers, he lives in an all-male dormitory provided by his employer; his girlfriend, also a migrant, lives in a similar female-only dormitory around the block. Perhaps it is this concrete aura of unfamiliarity that has Zhao occasionally longing for home.
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