Reddit reviews Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China

It's becoming a real issue in China now as there is a shortage of women to marry. On top of that, many women are leaving their parents' houses and going to work in the factories. They're earning their own money, which is giving them economic power and giving them more control on when or if they get married. There's a great book about it called Factory Girls

Kind of tough to pick just one, as China is vast and there are so many differect aspects of the society worthy of being explored.

I really enjoyed Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside, which was a pretty solid caricature of just about every type of foreigner you meet in China, and a well written story as well, a bit like a more modern, more dynamic River Town.

I think the two most common answers to this question are River Town, by Peter Hessler, and Factory Girls by his wife Leslie Chang. Both are excellent but tackle very different parts of contemporary Chiense culture.

A touch of sin was already mentioned, and it's a very, very good movie. So I'm mentioning it again. If you haven't seen it, go watch it.

I think this is a very interesting move from the Chinese government. Along with their recent shift on child birth restrictions I hope that rural citizens will have a better life there.

A couple years ago in my degree program we read a book on migrant workers from rural China (our teacher was from China and really great!) and it was very eye-opening. I believe the book was [Factory Girls] (http://www.amazon.com/Factory-Girls-Village-Changing-China/dp/0385520182)

Can you please elaborate on what specifically you're referring to as sweatshop labour? If you're talking about factory work like that in Shenzhen (Foxconn et al), I'm not sure I'd call that "sweatshop conditions", but I can at least answer your question if that's the context. So, assuming that's what you're referring to:

Let's start by looking at Shenzhen, which is a Special Economic Zone set up under the Reform and Opening (改革開放) period. Shenzhen was established as such at the end of the 1970s, and developed so rapidly from that time that it gained the nickname "the Overnight City". There are other factors such as geography which have contributed to its success, but the biggest factor is that the Central Government took a different free-market based approach. Shenzhen is home to many of the Taiwanese and Chinese factories that make your stuff. If you have an iPhone or a Galaxy, it probably came out of Shenzhen.

Shenzhen also has the reputation of the Overnight City for how quickly the population skyrocketed. Suddenly people from places like Sichuan and Anhui moved in to the city to find work, having fewer opportunities back home, and seeing the promises of economic success in the SEZs.

> What were migrant workers doing in China before these factories?

For starters, there were far fewer migrant workers in the past, and certainly before the 1980s, you didn't have people flocking to factories in other cities like you see in Shenzhen. Moving to other cities to find work was difficult and for many it would be impossible. But beyond that, the majority of migrant workers still don't end up in these Shenzhen-style factories. They go to places like Beijing to help on construction projects for the Olympics, or to Shanghai to help with the World's Fair, or to anywhere really to build roads and work in other industries. The Chinese New Year is the worlds largest human migration, and it happens every year, and it covers all of China. Here's a map of the migration. They're doing jobs all over the country in all areas of nonspecialised labour. Every major city has construction going on, and on every site, you'll hear dialects from all over the country. This is much of what the migrant workers are doing outside these places.

> What factors lead to them accepting these conditions?

In the news you sometimes hear about issues at Foxconn, the Taiwanese multinational most known for making Apple devices. You hear about terrible work conditions and suicides, which may be what prompted you to think of sweatshops. It's well known that workers in these factories typically have 6-day work weeks (itself not too uncommon in Asia) and long hours each day (again, not terribly uncommon, even for white collar workers).

The first thing to note is that for most of these workers, the worst entry-level job that you hear about most often in the news are only held by most workers for one or two years. After that, many try to find other jobs in the company, in other companies, or they move to another city and do something else entirely. The worst jobs are seen as just paying your dues to get your foot in the door. After that you have more opportunities to find work elsewhere. Many workers just come for one or two years anyway. In the pictures that come out of the factories, you'll notice many of the workers are in their late teens for these reasons. The populations in these places is constantly shifting, and no one stays in one place for very long.

There's a common phrase in Chinese: "For those that cannot endure suffering, suffering will last a lifetime; For those who are able to endure it, it is just a passing phase." The ability to endure suffering is highly regarded. If you know that your job of shining iPhone screens is just for a year and then you'll seek out a better situation, it's easier to put up with that year.

If you are interested in the topic of migrant workers and their conditions in South China, you should read Factory Girls by Leslie Chang. It follows the stories of a number of such workers, giving their personal accounts.

There are also a number of fantastic documentaries that follow the lives of migrant workers.

This post is a little rushed because I'm about just about on the way out the door. If anything is unclear, let me know and I can clear it up.

If you are really interesting in all this i recommend reading "Factory Girls"
http://www.amazon.com/Factory-Girls-Village-Changing-China/dp/0385520182

• Workers are not "married to their company", it the opposite it probably closer to the truth. At the time the book was written (and for sure this film was shot) it was a sellers market. Workers jump between factories as they please, looking for the best conditions and pay. As this documentary mentioned a few time the initiatives taken by the factory to keep workers from leaving, like cheap accommodation, pretty good looking food, sport facilities, paid wedding festivities etc. Now this might have changed with the economic downturn.
  
• Workers are incredibly motivated to get a better life. It often just takes them weeks on the factory floor to move up in ranks. They do all they can in evening courses to make up for missing computer and english language skills. If you read the book that i mentioned you often hear their stories and think "ah okay that was a year later when she moved up" but in fact it's only been weeks.
  
• You hear about overtime and all those hard conditions (okay not in this doc but in general), but you forget that workers want to hustle hard. They want to make the most in the shortest possible time, to be able to move up the ladder. Million have made it out of poverty into a middle class in the last decades.
  
  So yeah this documentary is interesting in the visual parts, showing the dimensions of things and how integrated those factories are but it failed to make the viewer understand what truly drives the workers.

There is a huge difference between labour practices and conditions in China today compared to what went on there in the 1970s and 1980s. An awful lot of opinion of conditions in Chinese factories comes from these early decades, with many people assuming that what went on then is still going on.

While it's true that there are bad factories, this is not the norm. While it's also true that many if not most factories in China would fall foul of some US labour laws, it's just as true that virtually every US factory and work place would fall just as foul of EU labour laws. Different countries, different rules and expectations.

I've visited many small factories in China, and I've placed many orders with these factories. I wouldn't like to work in them myself, but they are not the slave labour camps that some people suggest.

Are there exceptions and outlying cases? Of course. But China is a country with a population of over 1,000 million people, and a massive proportion of these work in factories, so the number of factories with poor working conditions is going to be high. If you want to get a true picture of what it's like to work in these factories, I suggest you read this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Factory-Girls-Village-Changing-China/dp/0385520182/

Of all the books I've read on China, this one comes closest to the reality that I've seen on the ground.

> secondo te, perché - nonostante il "boom" - lo stesso benessere non si osserva in Cina o in India

Lo si osserva eccome! Il problema e' che entrambi i paesi oltre a essere enormi sono partiti con molto ma molto svantaggio. In Cina durante la rivoluzione culturale milioni di persone sono morte (fra carestia e violenze); la stessa cosa in India, durante le carestie degli anni 70.

Un libro interessante che ho letto di recente: Factory Girls. Fa vedere molto bene quanto gli squallidi lavori in fabbrica siano di fatto un progresso sostanziale per un popolo che letteralmente moriva di fame..

Per quanto riguarda l'India, le cause sono diverse; ma io credo che sara' l'India e non la Cina la potenza emergente di questo millennio.

Last Train Home. It follows a young girl who leaves home to find work in a factory, as well as her parents who have already done so. It has some truly heartbreaking scenes, but it's also beautiful, and it paints a picture of migrant workers and their situation that is much more nuanced and personal than any I've seen outside of the book Factory Girls (which everyone should read). Easily one of my favourite documentaries ever.

How to Win Friends and Influence people simple tips on how to be a better human being

The Richest Man in Babylon Simple tips to keep and grow the money you have

Factory Girls true stories of the modern Chinese migration of young women from rural farm areas to cites to work in factories

Hyperspace "Wil Wheaton recommended" blow your mind with science!

Only going off your citation, I'm pretty sure that is comparing private industry wages and the wages at non-private industry, which are the Stated Owned Enterprises. It is reasonable the SOEs pay more, but the SOEs are widely regarded as not being sustainable - they take in more than they output, and only survive off of government subsidies. I do not believe the quote is comparing private manufacturing to agricultural work.

So even if the citation is true, which I dont contend it is, it is not an argument against private manufacturing.

I agree there is unacceptable exploitation (such as places that dont let their workers leave or do things like in-debt them), but I do not believe it is the majority. A great book on the matter is Factory Girls, by Leslie Chang, which explains that, on average, conditons in the factories are worse than we have in the US or Europe, but they are better than what the alternative village life is and people willingly go, not out of necessity but out of idleness. In fact, the largest human migration in history is currently happening between Chinese villagers and the coastal cities.

http://www.amazon.com/Factory-Girls-Village-Changing-China/dp/0385520182/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427836139&sr=1-1&keywords=factory+girls

An interesting view point I had been blind to: https://www.ted.com/talks/leslie_t_chang_the_voices_of_china_s_workers?language=en

She (Leslie T. Chang) also has a book about her experiences: http://www.amazon.com/Factory-Girls-Village-Changing-China/dp/0385520182

This is a great book to find out more about women in factories in China.

They're not terrible, and they're not slaves. Would I give up being a middle class American to work in a factory? No, but they're not terrible. educate yourself before speaking next time

Check out the book factory girls, interesting read on this subject. Seems to be voluntary from the factory workers point of view.

https://www.amazon.com/Factory-Girls-Village-Changing-China/dp/0385520182

It’s complicated.

Leslie Chang wrote a great book about this world called Factory Girls: https://www.amazon.com/Factory-Girls-Village-Changing-China/dp/0385520182

This one wasn't written by a mainlander but it's about modern girls who work in factories. Factory Girls I also have The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices in my reading list, I believe it's supposed to be a collection of stories from women around the country. Unfortunately my chinese is elementary at best, so I can't recommend any chinese language books other than the wuxia stuff that got fan-translated.