The Chinese Dream At 18, Min Finds A Path to Success In Migration Wave
DONGGUAN, China -- For one year, Lu Qingmin did almost nothing but work.
She worked on an assembly line at a factory in China's Pearl River Delta, testing hand-held games, digital clocks and electronic calendars. Her workday stretched 14 hours and ran seven days a week; a rare Saturday afternoon without overtime was the only break, she says. Dinner was rice, a meat or vegetable dish and watery soup. Workers slept 12 to a room, their beds crowded near the toilets. She made $50 to $80 a month, depending on overtime.
After six months, Lu Qingmin -- known as Min to her friends -- wanted to leave. Her boss refused. The company withheld two months of every worker's pay, a common tactic to keep employees from leaving without permission. Min couldn't afford to walk away from that.
Then Min did something migrant workers do more often than might be expected: She fought back. She walked off the production line for a day in protest, incurring a $12 fine, equal to a week's wages. She returned to work the next day, but fought often with her boss after that. "Your factory is not worth my wasting my youth here!" Min says she told her boss, a man in his 20s. Eventually, the boss relented, she says, and gave her back pay and her liberty.
Min took another gamble. She bought a $1.20 ticket to this city's largest "Talent Market," an ongoing job fair where thousands come every day. Although she had no computer skills and no high school diploma, Min talked her way into a clerk's position in an electronics factory. On Feb. 6 of this year, she started her new job, crossing the divide between those who work with their heads and those who work with their hands.
Three weeks later, Min was chatty and elated. "God is still fair. He let me be so tired for a year, but now he lets me have a new beginning." Min has a round face, curly hair and big eyes. She had just turned 18, and new beginnings were already something of a specialty for her.
* * *
Min is one of China's 114 million migrant workers, the largest migration in human history in terms of sheer numbers, labor experts say. Her experiences over the past year and a half show the dramatic impact of this migration on China and its rural people, who make up the bulk of these migrant workers. They are moving from the most traditional part of China to its most modern. And most of them are young, torn between the expectations of the traditional village and the promise of the big city.
Many employers pay less than the minimum wage, which ranges from around $50 to $70 a month in factories along the coast, and require more than the 49 hours of work a week permitted by law. Workers who are injured, get sick or become pregnant are generally on their own. Enforcement of labor laws is lax, since companies and local governments share a common goal: to attract more investment. Local officials say they lack the resources to comprehensively police the thousands of factories under their watch.
But suffering in silence isn't how some workers see themselves. To come out from home and work in a factory, say Min and many others, is the hardest thing they've ever done. It's also an enormous adventure. What keeps them working, they say, isn't fear, but pride: To go home early is to admit defeat. To stay outside the village in the wider world is the chance to change your fate.
Their very name -- liudong renkou -- or "floating population" -- implies an aimlessness that isn't borne out by facts. A survey of 700 migrant laborers done in the mid-1990s by a Chinese government think tank found 87% left home with a work objective in mind, either a confirmed job or an acquaintance in the city to help them get one. In the city, migrants rely on relatives, fellow villagers and others from their home province to act as a safety net.
Migrants are the rural elite. They are younger and better educated than those who stay behind. The gap is especially wide among women: A study in the mid-1990s by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences found 78% of female migrants in the Pearl River Delta had a junior-high-school education, while among rural women nationwide it was only 43%.
Remittances sent home by migrants are already the biggest source of wealth accumulation in rural China, economists say. Yet earning money isn't the only reason people leave. In surveys, migrant workers rank "seeing the world" and "learning new skills" as important as earning cash for the family. In many cases, it isn't grinding poverty that drives them out from home, but idleness. Plots of land are small and easily farmed by parents. When migrant workers tell of why they left home, their narratives often begin the same way: "There was nothing to do at home, so I came out."
* * *
Min comes from a village in central Hubei province with a lyrical name: Liemahuitou Levee, which translates as "Fierce Horse Turning Its Head." The village has 60 households. Her family grows rice, rape and watermelon on a third of an acre. She is the second of five children, an uncommonly large family in China. Growing up, she fished and swam in the river, climbed trees to steal the neighbors' plums, and one summer rode in a truck with her father selling watermelons.
"As a child I was very naughty," she says. "But my father liked me a lot, because I was more like a boy than a girl." Min told her story in conversations and visits over the course of seven months. Relatives and co-workers provided some corroborating details.
Almost all the young people in her village left home to find work. At 16, Min left too. She quit vocational high school a semester before graduation to save her family the tuition fee and get a jump on the job hunt. Her older sister, Guimin, worked in a factory in Dongguan, about 500 miles away. In January 2003, Guimin returned home for the Chinese New Year's holiday and took Min with her when she left.
At a bus station in Dongguan, Min saw an ad for factory quality-control workers. She took a three-hour bus ride to the factory, filled out a form, and was hired on the spot. Only then did she walk in and see the cramped dorms, the dirty floors, the smelly toilets crammed next to the beds. Because of her age, only the poorly managed or "black factories," as she called them, would hire her. The factory employed more than 1,000 workers.
Her first week at work, Min turned 17. She took a half-day off on her birthday and walked the streets alone. She hadn't made friends in the factory yet, and her friends from home didn't know where she was. It is common among migrant workers to drop out of sight after they leave home. They often wait until they have landed good jobs before reconnecting with friends. Min was too proud to tell anyone she was working in a dirty factory, which made electronic gadgets, for $50 a month.
Min wasn't a model worker. She chatted with her neighbors on the production line, risking a 60-cent fine for talking. She ran to the bathroom every hour, she says, just to gaze out the window at the mountains. Eventually the factory passed a rule limiting workers to one bathroom break per four-hour shift. "I thought it would be fun to work on the assembly line," she said. "I thought it would be a lot of people working together, talking and playing. But everything was the opposite of what I imagined it would be."
Workers were required to stay six months. At the end of that period, Min told her supervisor she wanted to leave. He refused and tried to shame her into staying, Min says, by telling her the work on her part of the assembly line wasn't good. "Are you blind?" she recalls her supervisor saying.
Min replied, "Even if I were blind, I would not work under such an ungrateful person as you."
She took the day off work in protest. The next day, she returned and again asked to leave. Her supervisor said he would allow Min to leave after Chinese New Year. It was a calculated bet that Min would stay: New migrants flood Dongguan after the new year holiday, and finding a job then isn't easy.
Min's parents disapproved of her desire to move to a new job. During weekly calls home, Min says her father would lecture her that girls should be stable and save money. Min was getting impatient with such talk: "They always treat me like a child," she says. "I don't think I've been a child for a long time."
She was still a dutiful daughter. In her first year out, she sent $360 home, she says, more than the yearly per capita income in the part of China where her family lived. The money helped pay for school fees for her siblings and fertilizer for the farm. In her plans, her parents played a key part: She would work as a migrant until she turned 23, sending money home all the while. After that, her life and earnings would be her own. "I would like to work outside for seven years for them, then go home and start looking to set up a family of my own," she says. Her mother didn't want her to find a boyfriend away from home, and Min said she didn't want one.
Meanwhile, she put into motion other plans for the future. She paid $12 to take a computer course. She would sometimes skip dinner and go to the class. Two good friends in the factory washed her clothes to help her save time. Many other workers lacked faith in such self-improvement plans. "A lot of workers feel they don't have much learning, so it isn't any use for them to try to learn something new," Min said. "But I think to learn is better than not to learn."
In February, after the Chinese New Year, Min again went to her boss, who finally approved her departure. She left the same day with only her clothes and the money the factory had owed her -- about $100 -- in her pocket. Her two friends cried when she left, but Min says she didn't shed a tear. She promised she would come back for a visit after finding a new job. Her friends, Min says, didn't see the point in moving because they believed conditions would be just as bad anywhere else. "It's not that they dare not leave," she says. "It's that they feel to leave or to stay is the same thing."
But Min could imagine a different life. After a week of rest at the apartment of a cousin, she bought a ticket to the Zhitong Talent Market, the city's largest job fair. She was scared: The market is intended for technicians and managers, not ordinary workers like Min. She was shorter than most of the others and pushed around by the crowds. She interviewed at half a dozen companies, careful not to aim too high and lose her nerve.
At the booth of a factory that made parts for mobile phones and other electronic products, she interviewed for a clerk's job. She didn't have a high school diploma. She didn't have significant computer skills. She didn't even have a pen to write out her resume. The woman at the booth lent her one.
At the factory, a manager named Li Pengjie saw her application and noticed Min's good handwriting. Since records are kept by hand, penmanship is a valued skill. "I saw that she wrote well and asked the company to call her on her cousin's mobile phone and come in for an interview," recalls Mr. Li.
During a three-hour interview, he asked Min to detail her work experience. "I haven't done this work. I don't have any experience," Min recalls replying. Mr. Li corroborates Min's account of the interview, though he says he doesn't recall all the details. When he said he would hire her, it seemed such a miracle that she couldn't help asking, "So many people wanted this job. Why did you choose me? I don't know anything." Min says he told her it was because she was more honest than the others.
* * *
Dongguan is an unfinished city, a place imagining itself into something else. Towering bank headquarters of mirrored glass rise next to shops selling motorcycle parts, plastic pipes and dental services. Long stretches of factories, each with a narrow strip of window and a guard at the gate, sit next to vegetable fields and duck farms. Migrant workers walk along highways, pulling suitcases or carrying their bedding, with trucks and buses passing them at high speed. The streets are well paved but often lack crosswalks and pedestrian lights. The city is built for machines, not people.
Half of all female migrants in the country come to this province, most to the factories of the Pearl River Delta with Dongguan at its heart. Employers generally prefer young women for the repetitive tasks of the assembly line. Dongguan city has 1.5 million local residents and more than five million migrants. Locals estimate 70% of the population is female.
On weekends, teenagers take over the city, giving its parks and squares the feel of an open-air high school. Girls roam in packs, dressed in frilly tops and tight jeans, their hair pulled back in ponytails; boys travel in smaller groups. Far from the traditional life of the village, they are raising and reinventing themselves in one of China's most chaotic cities. Here are talent markets to talk one's way into a better job, commercial schools to make up for a lost education and photo studios at which to pose for "glamour shots" in a borrowed costume against a painted backdrop of picket fences or formal gardens.
It is a city of striving, and not everyone survives. In the industrial zones, plastered on walls alongside job listings and ads for syphilis clinics, are "Missing Person" notices. "He left home five years ago, dark-skinned, with a pockmarked face, speaks rather fast, likes to play video games," reads one. The notices are posted by family members, searching for loved ones who disappeared into the great maw of the city.
* * *
In her new job, Min kept track of the condition and maintenance of machines. Every machine had its own bound book. Her new boss, Mr. Li, taught her how to draft documents and took her around the factory.
Her work day was shortened to 10 hours. She got every other Sunday off. Dinner was rice, three meat or vegetable dishes and soup, and workers slept eight to a room. As a clerk, she now made $100 a month, plus room and board, a big step up from her previous assembly-line job.
But in a city of frantic mobility, impermanence was a fact of life. Mr. Li soon decamped for a new job in Beijing. His replacement, a classmate of the owner's, had been booted from the factory last year for keeping a mistress, Min says. Outside of work, she called him "Old Fogey Liu." On the job, she was different. "I am very well-behaved when I am in the factory," she said.
Her jump into the white-collar class had landed her in a lonely spot. She was more like the young women on the assembly line, but she was no longer of their world. Her office colleagues were older and kept their distance, she says, cutting conversations short when she approached. Min was discovering the office hierarchy is complex. "In the office, they may be very friendly to you, but then they say things behind your back," she said. "You can't have a single friend."
On a hazy day in March, Min climbed a hill to the city's television tower with her cousin. The view from the summit was of low-rise factories and high-rise workers' dorms. "Whenever there is a mountain, I want to climb it," said Min. "But when I climb to the top, I realize there's nothing to see." Disillusionment colored her thoughts that day. She wondered if her new job was worth the price she paid in loneliness. "In the old factory, I had friends but no money. Now I have more money, but no friends."
Her cousin, 21-year-old Liu Shengwei, agreed with her. "It is hard to make friends in Dongguan," he said. "Everyone is thinking only of himself."
In April, Min got her first paycheck -- $35 for 15 days' work -- and went to visit her friends in the old factory. She bought new clothes for the occasion: A black shirt with pearlized buttons and cropped pants, and wore open-toe, high-heel shoes. They were a switch from the plain cotton factory clothes and sneakers she usually wore. She had been in the mall until midnight the night before picking them out. Her old factory was a two-hour bus ride to the southeastern tip of Dongguan, and Min started to get excited as she approached. "I feel like it's already changed a lot since I left. Since my friends are here, it feels like home."
Her two friends were waiting on an overpass. Liang Rong was taller, with a pretty face. Huang Jiao'e was short and plump. Both were a year older than Min. They looked her up and down. "You've gotten skinnier!" "You've gotten taller!" they said at once. They walked to a nearby park to talk. They admired Min's new clothes and she told them how much each item cost.
Min couldn't help bad-mouthing the factory where they still worked. "The people at the factory here are very low-quality. At my new factory if you say something coarse, people will criticize you." She played up the status of her factory's top boss, although she had never met him. "My factory now, it's much better. The boss has a lot of money." Her friends nodded, listening closely. Min continued, "From the outside it doesn't look very big, but inside there are a lot of departments. The work is divided very finely."
Min added, "You come visit me and I'll introduce boyfriends to you. There are many boys in my factory," she added in an offhand way. Her two friends, impressed at her daring, squealed "Ooh!" in unison. Min confided later she thought they wouldn't come. They rarely had a day off and they were too timid to travel to a strange place, she said.
Min walked with them back to their factory. It was on a long dirt road with young men shooting pool at tables outside. Teenage boys and girls called out to her like a returning hero: "When did you get back? Where are you now?" They looked impressed when she said she was working near downtown Dongguan.
Min's recent change in fortune had an effect on her friend Huang Jiao'e. She had enrolled in computer classes. She said she wanted to study, then quit her job in the summer and land a better job, as Min had done. Later, as they walked in another park, Min spoke encouragingly with Huang Jiao'e about her class.
"Do you know how to go online yet?" Min asked. She often went online to chat with friends during downtimes in the office.
Her friend shook her head. "I haven't been online yet."
Min promised to teach her next time. It was getting late and the girls parted with quick goodbyes. On the bus ride home, Min was in a muddle. She had seen her old life and knew it was past. Yet her new life, too, was somehow wanting. Night fell outside the bus window. "If I only go to school, come out and do migrant work for a few years," she said, "then go home, marry and have children, then I might as well not have lived my whole life."
* * *
Min quickly tired of things she had recently wanted. She turned increasingly sour on the job she had been so thrilled to have, bewildered by the complexities of the workplace and beset by loneliness. As the youngest person in her department, Min felt ordered around by colleagues. Production pressures in the factory were also picking up. Three more workers were added to her dorm room. Two new workers lost fingers on the single-punch machine, she says. With the rush of orders to fill, she adds, no one had time to train them properly.
In late April, an opportunity fell into her lap: Her former boss, Mr. Li, wanted her to come to Beijing to work for him. He assembled computer parts for sale in the provinces, and he needed someone to mind the store. She had worked with him only two weeks, yet felt that was enough for her to decide: She trusted him. She would go.
But in a place with no moorings, no history, and her parents a world away, Min was prone to wild changes of mood. She brooded over the offer and decided it wouldn't be proper for her to go alone. It was better to stay in the south, close to her cousin and her sister, who was working in a factory in a nearby city. "Here I have both of them to rely on. There I would have only one person to rely on, and he is not of my blood." Yet on a walk in the park in May she said, almost in passing, that she had asked to resign. Her boss would decide if he would approve her departure in a month.
Min was changing in other ways. She straightened her hair. It was sleek now, cut on a stylish slant, and it made her look older. It cost $12 and took three hours. She had just gotten her first full month's pay of $100. No month passed without some dramatic turn of fortune. In June, Min was transferred to the human-resources department, charged with recruiting and running orientation sessions. She spent four hot days standing on the sidewalk, trying to persuade migrants to come to the factory. Where she once had kept track of machines, now she was keeping track of people. She realized it was a better fit. "If I learn human resources well, I can easily find work in other places," she said.
One new recruit was Huang Jiao'e, her friend from the old factory, who arrived with a suitcase on an evening in late June. The two girls sipped sugary milk tea at a stand near the factory. Min talked about how hard it was to persuade factory hands to stay. "I tell them: 'To jump here and there is tiring. Save some money, get some experience, and then decide what you want to do.' "
Huang Jiao'e challenged her. "I have never heard you speak in such an exaggerated way!"
Min was defensive. "This is my responsibility. You would do the same if you were in my place."
Though the words were teasing, there was an edge to their conversation. Once they had been equals, now they weren't. Min tried to play down the imbalance. She said, "Our salary is not high either. If you have overtime you may make more than me."
Her friend retorted, "But I would be tired to death!"
Min said to her, "There are different ways of being tired. In my job now, my body is tired and my heart is tired."
She was moving up in the factory world. She poured tea for foreign clients -- an honor for someone lately of the factory floor. She enrolled in a weekly English class for managers. "Do you know what 'pardon' means?" she asked Huang Jiao'e, saying the single word in English. She looked disappointed when her friend said yes.
And she had a budding romance. A boy from home, a former classmate, had come out to Dongguan to work in a factory. He came to visit and they spent the day together. She stuck to the traditional woman's role: At lunch in a restaurant, she poured his tea as carefully as if it were for a foreign client. But afterward, Min called him on the phone. "Do you think we have a future together?" she wanted to know. He told her he needed three days to think about it.
"Whichever way he answers is fine with me," Min said. Yet she was already building fantasies around him: He had some training as a chef. "We could go home and start a small restaurant," she said. "This migrant work, there is no future in it."
* * *
The Zhitong Talent Market, one of China's largest, occupies four floors of a pink office building. It stretches a full city block and on weekends can draw 7,000 people. By 9 a.m. Saturday, there is a stream of people, most of them young. The elite carry laptops and resumes printed out by computer. Others carry their papers in a shopping bag and huddle over counters filling out forms by hand. Their country accents might be a bar to employment elsewhere, but here they are the norm.
Min hated the talent market, even though her luck had been so good there. She said it made her feel replaceable. But in late June, four months after she had first come and landed her job as a clerk, she returned. Her request to leave the factory had been approved. She still didn't have a diploma and she still wrote out her resume by hand. But everything else had changed.
This time, she aimed high. "Clerk is a very low position so I didn't look for that," she said. Instead, she targeted companies seeking human-resource workers. At the booth of a factory that makes rubber parts for electronic products, she had an interview that lasted two hours.
This time, she asked how big the company was and how much employee turnover it had. When the interviewer asked why she had left her old job, Min said it was a personal matter and she would rather not answer, preferring not to go into the office politics and loneliness that had driven her away.
And this time, she wasn't more honest than all the others. Asked how much human-resources experience she had, she says she answered one year. In truth, it was 24 days. "If you say less, they think it's not enough," she said afterward. Companies generally don't check with former employers, except for top executive positions.
The company hired her with a $6 raise above the salary of the person she was replacing, Min says. She made $100 a month plus room and board, the same as her last job, but there was a chance of a raise of as much as $35 if she performed well in the first three months.
In her new job, Min handled employment records: the performance, demerits and salary data of the factory's 400 workers. When workers came to the factory gate, she screened them for hiring with a few no-nonsense questions. "I ask them if they have an ID, what they want to do, how long they plan to stay. If they don't answer well, I say, 'Thank you, we don't have jobs right now.' "
Her workday lasted eight hours. She got every Sunday off. Workers at her level slept four to a room, and her room had its own bathroom and phone.
On the 10th of every month, the Taiwanese wife of the factory owner visited. She would distribute the monthly pay to workers and seek the Buddha's blessing, a fairly common practice for bosses from Taiwan who retained their traditional religious beliefs, but a new experience for Min, who wasn't religious. She would follow the boss's wife to the key places of the factory -- the workers' canteen, the main gate, and before each of the dangerous machines. The two would ask the Buddha to let business prosper and the workers stay safe. Min says she was careful to avoid conflicts with colleagues, and mostly kept her mouth shut. Not long after she arrived, the top boss even called her into his office, she says, and commended her for being a person of few words.
Now she handled her parents more adeptly. She never told them she had quit her job. Instead she waited until she found a new one, wired home $120 as a pre-emptive strike, and then called her parents with all her news at once. "They don't know how things are outside. So I do something, then I tell them about it," she said.
Her older sister, Guimin, was skeptical about Min's job hopping. "Do you think it's good to do things this way?" she lectured Min on a visit shortly after Min landed her new job. Guimin had been away from home for four years and had changed jobs three times. Min changed jobs three times in less than two years.
Everyone she knew was in flux, and many were on their way up, too. Her sister had been promoted to executive secretary. Her cousin was in Guangzhou now, a manager. Her two friends from the old factory had scattered. Liang Rong had gone home to marry someone of her parents' choosing. Huang Jiao'e, who had moved over with Min, landed a job as production clerk in a factory elsewhere in the city.
Min's old boss had returned from Beijing to work in a socket factory here. But she was no longer in touch with him.
The boy she liked was also on the move. Three days after she asked him if they had a future together, he sent her a message on her mobile phone at 7 a.m. It said: "I'm here at the factory gate." She didn't believe it and ran down to see. He had worked the night shift at his factory and then come on the bus, a two-hour ride. He waited outside for four hours while she worked, and then they had lunch. He didn't tell her they had a future together. They didn't discuss it. "But because he came," Min said, "I knew."
Shortly after that visit, he moved home to work with his father. He was an only son, and his father wanted him home. Min thought it was a good decision. She said they would stay in touch by phone.
On a cool evening in August, Min took a motorcycle taxi to the Railway Park near her factory, a popular spot for young people and families. She took off her shoes at the artificial beach, next to a man-made pond. She watched migrants learning how to dance in a roped-off square. And she had her picture taken by a photographer in the park, the first one she'd had since she came to the city.
She said she was happier at work than she had ever been. Her younger sister was thinking of coming out to work next spring, and Min said she must stay put to help her when she came. Min's own longer-term plans -- how long to stay in Dongguan or when she might leave -- were unclear. "I didn't imagine that I would ever have this kind of job," she said. "When I came out, I thought I would just be a worker."
Yet she seemed to take it for granted that the more she moved up, the more she would want out of life. She said that now she wanted to learn how to work in sales and she might change jobs again if her raise wasn't good enough. "Desire is eternally unsatisfied," she said, and she laughed. "Don't you think so?"
中国打工妹的追求之路
有一年时间了，卢青敏（音）除了干活，还是干活。
她的工作岗位是珠江三角洲一家工厂的流水线，任务是测试掌上游戏机、电子钟和电子日历。每天工作14个小时，难得有一个星期六下午不用加班。她说，这就是唯一的休息时间。晚餐是米饭、一碟素菜或带肉的菜，还有清汤。工人们12个人一间宿舍，床铺紧靠著厕所。她每个月的工资大约400-600元，具体要看加班费的多少。
在这家工厂干了6个月之后，卢青敏（朋友都叫她“阿敏”）想离开这里。但她的老板不同意。公司对每个工人都扣下了两个月的工钱，这样工人就不会轻易辞职走人了。阿敏也舍不得那两个月工资。
后来，她就像许多外来打工者在类似情况下都会做的那样：反击。有一天她没去上工以示抗议，结果被罚了100块钱，这相当于她一周的工资。第二天她去上班了，但从那以后，她经常跟她的老板──一位20多岁的年轻人发生冲突。有一天，她对他说：你的工厂不值得我在这里浪费青春！最终，老板屈服了，不但同意她离开，还退还了扣她的押金。
阿敏决定再冒一次险。她花了10块钱，到东莞最大的人才市场去碰碰运气，这里每天都有成千上万的人来找工作。虽然她既不会操作电脑，也没有高中文凭，但她居然在一家电子工厂找到了一份办公室职员的工作。今年2月6日，她开始到新单位上班，从此跨越了脑力劳动和体力劳动之间的分界线。
三个星期后，阿敏变得很爱讲话，而且气色很好。“老天爷还是公平的。他让我受了一年的苦，但现在给了我一个新的开头。“阿敏圆圆的脸、大眼睛，一头卷发。她刚刚18岁，而在一定意义上说，新的开端对她这个年龄的人来说已经有点像家常便饭了。
据劳动力问题专家说，中国现在有1.14亿外来务工人员，从纯粹的数字意义上来说，这是人类历史上最大规模的流动人口群体。他们当中大多数都是从农村到城市打工的人。许多人的薪水还达不到最低工资标准。在东部沿海城市，最低工资标准从400元到600元左右不等。而雇主却要求他们超时工作，实际工作时间经常超过法律允许的每周最多49小时。
工人们如果受伤、生病或怀孕了，通常只能自己照顾自己。劳动法执行得并不严，因为企业和地方政府都有一个共识：尽量吸引更多投资。而当地官员声称，他们缺乏足够的人手去全面监督辖下的数千家工厂。
但一些打工者并不认为他们就该逆来顺受，听之任之。阿敏和其他许多打工者都说，离开家乡到工厂做工是他们平生所做的最艰难的选择，也是他们到目前为止生活中最大的冒险。但支撑他们干下去的原因不是因为害怕，而是为了自豪。早早卷铺盖回家就等于承认失败。如果能在家乡的小村庄以外更广阔的世界扎下根来，就有了改变命运的机会。
从他们的另一个称呼──“流动人口”这个词的字面上看，他们是漫无目标的迁移人群，但事实并非如此。据九十年代中期中国一家政府智囊团对700名流动打工人员的一次调查显示，87%的人离家时心里都有一个工作目标，有些人已经事先找好了工作，有些人在城里有熟人帮他们找工作。在城市里，打工者会依赖亲戚、同村的人和老乡组成一个小团体，这样他们会觉得安全。
打工者在村里都属于能人。他们比较年轻，与那些留在家乡的人相比，他们的教育程度也较高。在女性中间，这种差距更明显。中国社会科学院(Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)九十年代中期进行的研究显示，珠江三角洲地区的打工妹有78%的人具有初中以上文化程度，而全国农村妇女中具有初中以上文化水平的只有43%。
经济学家们说，打工仔和打工妹们汇给家里的钱是中国农村家庭最大的财富积累来源。不过，挣钱并不是他们出去打工的唯一理由。调查发现，打工者认为，“看看外面的世界”和“学点新技术”与给家里挣钱同等重要。有很多人不是因为难以忍受的贫困而出去打工，而是因为空虚。
家里分的田很少，有父母耕种足矣。在打工者讲述他们为何离家外出时，他们经常会以同样的说法开始他们的叙述：家里没活可干，所以我只有出来。
阿敏的老家在华中地区湖北省的一个小村庄，村子有一个名字很有诗意的景点：烈马回头。村里有60户人家。她家有两亩多地，主要以种植水稻、油菜和西瓜为生。她在5个孩子中排行老二。像她这样有这么多兄弟姊妹的家庭在中国已不多见。小时候，她会在河里游泳、捉鱼，会爬树偷邻居家的李子，有一年夏天她还坐著卡车帮父亲卖过西瓜。
“小时候我非常淘气，”她说，“但我父亲还是很喜欢我，因为我更像个男孩。”在我们前后7个月的谈话和采访期间，她讲了很多自己的故事。她的亲戚和工友也讲了一些事情，证实了她自己的说法。
阿敏家这个村子里几乎所有年轻人都离家打工去了。阿敏16岁的时候也走了。当时她正在职业高中念书，还有一个学期就要毕业了，但为了省下学费和挣钱养家，她也急匆匆地踏上了外出打工的征程。她的姐姐桂敏（音）那时在离家800公里的东莞一家工厂做工。2003年1月份，桂敏回家过春节，走的时候带上了阿敏。
阿敏在东莞一家汽车站看到了招收质管工的广告。随后她坐了3个小时的汽车赶到那家工厂，填了表，当场就被录取了。这时她才看到厂里拥挤的宿舍、肮脏的地板、床铺紧挨著臭气熏天的厕所。对于她那样年龄的打工者，只有管理很差的工厂（她称为“黑厂”）才会雇佣。这家工厂有1,000多名工人。
阿敏的17岁生日是在工作后的第一周过的，当天她请了半天假，一个人到街上闲逛。那时她没什么朋友，家乡的朋友也不知道她在哪里。打工的人出去以后很快就会从朋友们的视线里消失，这种现象非常普遍。他们要找到满意的工作后才会重新和朋友们联络。阿敏的虚荣心不允许她告诉任何人她在一家脏兮兮的生产各种电子小产品的工厂里做工，每个月只能挣400块钱。
阿敏不是个模范工人。在生产线上的时候她会跟旁边的工友聊天，不惜冒罚款5块钱的风险讲话。她说，她每个小时都要上一次厕所，只是为了从厕所的窗户里看看远处的青山。后来工厂出了一条规定，要求工人最多每4个小时上一次厕所。她后来说：我原来以为在流水线上干活很好玩，以为会是很多人在一起工作，大家有说有笑的。但现实却跟她的想像大相径庭。
这家工厂规定至少要干6个月。6个月结束时，她对负责她的工头说，她不想干了。但他不同意，还对她说她所在的那个工位活干得很不好，试图以此激她，让她留下。她回忆说，当时那位工头说，“你瞎啦”？
阿敏当时回答说：就算我瞎了，我也不愿意在你这样一个讨厌鬼手下干活。
她旷了一天工以示抗议。第二天回去上班时她又提出辞职，那位工头表示，愿意在春节后放她走。这其时是个花招，他的如意算盘是春节以后会有大批新民工涌入东莞，到时候粥少僧多，工作难找，阿敏自然就会留下。
阿敏的父母也不同意她换工作。阿敏说，每星期给家里打电话时，她父亲总会教育她说，女孩子应该稳定些，学会攒钱，后来她对这样的说教越来越不耐烦。她说：她们总是像对孩子一样对待我，而我自己觉得早就不是小孩了。
不过她还是个有孝心的女儿。她打工的第一年给家里汇了大约3000块钱，比她家乡的人均年收入还多。家里用这些钱给她的弟弟妹妹交了学费，还买了农药。在阿敏的心目中，她的父母有很重的分量。她计划，打工打到23岁，在这期间她会不停地给家里寄钱。
到23岁以后，她就会过自己的生活，挣的钱也要自己花。“我希望在外面打7年工，然后回家，开始考虑自己成家的事”。她妈妈不希望她在外面找男朋友，而阿敏说她不想找男朋友。
就在构筑这些计划的同时，阿敏也在将其他有关未来的计划付诸行动。她花了100块钱参加了一个电脑培训班。有时为了赶著上课她会免掉晚饭。工厂里两位要好的朋友帮她洗衣服，让她节省些时间。阿敏说，许多人觉得没什么好学的，他们想学些什么新东西也没有什么用。但她自己觉得学点总比不学好。
今年2月份春节过后，阿敏又找到她的老板提出离开，老板最后同意了。她当天就离开了，只带著自己的衣服和工厂原来扣留的大约800块钱押金。她离开的时候，她的两位好友忍不住哭了，但阿敏说，她没掉一滴泪。
她答应找到新工作后再来看她们。但她们不相信别处的情况会好多少。她说，她们并不是不敢离开，而是觉得留下来和到别的地方都是一回事。
但阿敏不一样，她梦想著一种不同的人生。在表哥的宿舍里休息了一周后，她买了一张智通人才大市场(Zhitong Talent Market)的门票。进去后，她被吓坏了：市场似乎是专门面向技术人员和管理人员的，而非像她这样的普通工人。个头瘦小的阿敏在人群中被推来搡去。她在6家公司的招聘摊位上进行了面谈希望能谋得一个低职位，同时尽量让自己不要慌张。
在一家生产手机和其他电子产品的工厂设立的招聘摊位上，她和招聘人员交谈了一会儿。既没有高中文凭、又不会电脑的她甚至都没有带笔来填履历表。招聘处的一位女士借给她一根笔。
后来，这家工厂一个名叫李鹏杰(音)的经理看到了她的申请表，注意到阿敏写得一手好字。由于很多文件都需要手写，因此写字也是一项很重要的技巧。“我看到她字写得不错，就要求公司给她往她的表哥手机上打电话， 让她来面试一次，”李鹏杰回忆起当时的情形时说。
在3个小时的面试中，他要求阿敏详细地描述一下她的工作经验。“我从未做过这种工作，没有任何经验，”阿敏记得自己当时是这样回答的。李鹏杰证实了阿敏对当时面试的描述，但说自已已记不清所有细节了。当他告诉阿敏她已被录用时，感觉非常难以置信的阿敏不禁问到：“有这么多人想得到这份工作，你为什么选了我？我什么都不懂。”阿敏说，李鹏杰当时就告诉她，因为她比其他人更诚实。
东莞作为一个现代城市在很多方面仍有欠缺。在这里，安著玻璃幕墙的银行总部大楼旁边就是出售摩托车配件、塑料管的小店以及牙医诊所。紧靠著菜地和养鸭场是大片大片的工厂，厂区门口都有保安把守。公路上走著拖著行李箱或背著铺盖的外来工，卡车和公共汽车从他们身边呼啸而过。马路修得很平整，但经常没有斑马线或人行道路灯。这个城市是为机器建造的，不是为人。
中国可能有一半的打工妹都到了广东省，大多数是在以东莞为中心的珠江三角洲的工厂里工作。招工方大都喜欢招收年轻女工来承担流水线上的重复劳动。东莞市有150万当地居民，却有500多万外来人口。当地人估计东莞市70%的人口都是女性。
每到周末，东莞到处可以看到十六、七岁仍带著几分稚气的年轻人。公园和广场给人的感觉就像是高中学校的校园开放日。成群结队漫步在街头的女孩子们穿著带褶边的上衣、紧身牛仔裤，头上扎著马尾辫；男孩子聚集的人相对少些。这些远离农村传统生活的这些年轻人正在中国最喧闹的一个城市里努力挣钱，为自己的未来而奋斗。这里有人才市场，在人才市场上通过面谈他们可能获得更好的工作，有商业学校可以让他们弥补缺失的教育，还有照相馆。他们会在照相馆画有木栅栏或花园的布景前面穿上租来的服装，拍上几张明星照过过瘾。
这是一个蓬勃发展的城市，但不是所有的人都能留下来。在许多工业区，告示栏里与招工广告、梅毒诊所广告并列的还有寻人启事，其中一则是这样写的：“5年前离开家，肤黑，麻脸，说话很快，喜欢玩电子游戏。”这些寻人启事都是失踪人员的亲戚贴的，他们希望藉此能找到被吞没在茫茫人海中的亲人。
阿敏的新工作是负责记录设备的状况和维修情况。每台机器都配有记录本。新上司李鹏杰教她如何起草文件，并带她熟悉了厂区。
阿敏的工作日从以前的14个小时缩短到了10个小时，每隔一周逢周日休息。午餐和晚餐工厂提供米饭、三份荤素菜和汤，住宿是8个人一个房间。作为文员的她月工资涨到了100美元，外加工厂提供的住宿和用餐，这个待遇相比她以前在流水线工作的时候有了极大的改善。
但在一个高速变动的城市中，变化是生活的常态。李鹏杰不久就到北京接受新工作去了。他的继任者是工厂老板的同学，去年因为外养情人的事情曝光，被单位开除了，阿敏说。在私下里，她称这个继任者是个老古板，但在工作中，“我是非常尊重他的”，阿敏说。
但步入白领行业也使她陷入了孤立。虽然她仍和流水线上的年轻女工脾气相投，但她已不再属于那个世界。而办公室里的同事年龄又都比她大，与她不远不近地保持著距离。阿敏发现办公室政治非常复杂。“在办公室里，他们当面可能对你非常友好，但背后就会说你坏话，”她说，“你根本不可能有一个朋友。”
3月份一个雾蒙蒙的日子，阿敏和表哥爬上一座山，山上竖著东莞市的电视塔。从山顶看，这个城市布满低矮的大厂房和高高的住宅楼。“只要有山，我都想去爬一爬，”阿敏说，“但当我爬到山顶时，就意识到根本没什么可看。”那一天，幻灭的感觉淹没了她。她开始怀疑是否值得为新工作付出孤独的代价。“在老厂里，我有朋友但没有钱。现在我的钱多了一些，但没有朋友了。”
她的表哥、今年21岁的刘胜伟（音）也是这样的结论。“在东莞交朋友很难，”他说，“每个人都只会为自己著想。”
4月份，阿敏拿得了第一张工资单，当月工作15天工资总计35美元。她打算去原先的厂子看望朋友，并为此买了一套新衣服：一件带珍珠色扣子的黑T恤，一条七分裤以及一双露趾高跟鞋。这和她以前常穿的工作服和球鞋相比可谓是天差地别。阿敏在一个大型购物中心徘徊到半夜才选定了这身打扮。她以前工作的厂子距东莞东南角有两小时的车程，随著汽车越来越接近目的地，她也越来越感到激动。“我感觉那个地方自从我离开后已改变了很多。因为我的朋友们在那里，我感觉那里就像我的家。”
她的两个朋友在天桥上等她。梁蓉（音）个子高一些，面容秀丽。黄娇娥（音）小个子，有点胖。她们都比阿敏大一岁，两人上下一打量阿敏，不禁发出“瘦了！”“长高了！”的惊叹。三个人来到附近的一个公园坐下来闲谈。两个朋友对阿敏的一身行头赞不绝口，她就细细说来每样花了多少钱。
不一会儿，阿敏就忍不住开始对原先的这家工厂大加批判起来，“这个厂里的人素质太低了。我现在的厂子里如果你说粗话就会被别人议论的。”阿敏夸大了新工厂大老板的实力，虽然她从来没见过他，“我新到的这个厂好多了，老板很有钱。”两个朋友频频点头，仔细地听著。“从外面看好像并不是很大，但里面有很多部门。分工非常清楚。”
说著说著，她突然冒出来一句：“如果你们来看我，我还可以给你们介绍男朋友。我们厂里有很多男孩子。”两个朋友不时的报以欢呼。阿敏后来承认，她觉得这两个朋友是不会来看她的，因为她们很少有放假的日子，而且也不敢坐车去一个陌生的地方。
阿敏和她们一起走回了原来的工厂。这是一条长长的土路，路的两旁有很多年轻人在玩桌球。这些十六、七岁的男孩女孩们认出了阿敏，他们像欢迎凯旋的英雄一样和她打招呼：“什么时候回来的？现在在哪里？”当她说到自己现在在临近东莞市中心的地方工作时，他们都投来羡慕的目光。但以阿敏现在对人性的认识，她已不再盲目相信他们表现出来的友好了。“事实上，我和他们的关系现在很淡了，”她说，“我们已没那么亲密了。”
阿敏命运的转变影响了她的朋友黄娇娥。黄娇娥报名参加了电脑培训班，希望能多学点东西，到夏天时找一个好一点的工作，就像阿敏那样。后来，当她们在另一个公园散步时，阿敏对黄娇娥参加电脑班的事给了很多鼓励。
“你现在知道怎么上网了么？”阿敏问。她现在经常在下班后与朋友们在网上聊天。
黄娇娥摇了摇头，“我还从来没有上过网。”
阿敏许诺下次教她。天色晚了，三个朋友很快就分手了。在坐车回家的路上，阿敏感觉脑子里一片混乱。她看到了以前的生活，知道这一切已经过去。但她的新生活似乎仍有欠缺。车窗外夜幕降临了。“如果我只是上学，然后出来打几年工，”她说，“然后回家结婚，生孩子，那样我可能也无法获得完全的人生。”
阿敏很快就厌倦了新的生活。她对这份当初曾让她激动不已的工作越来越失望，在复杂的办公室环境中她常常感觉困惑，孤独也让她倍感压抑。作为所在部门中最年轻的员工，阿敏常感觉自己在被同事呼来唤去。工厂的生产压力也加大了。她所在的宿舍里从6个人增加到了9个人。有两个新工人因工伤断了手指。由于有很多订单要赶，没人有时间给他们好好的培训。
4月末，一个机会降临到她身上：她以前的上司李鹏杰希望她到北京为他工作。李鹏杰现在从事电脑元件组装业务，销售遍及国内多个省份，他需要有人为他管理店铺。阿敏虽然和他只一起工作过两周，但感觉到这已足以让她作出决定：她信任他。阿敏打算北上。
但在一个没有落脚点、没有根基、远离父母的地方，阿敏很容易变得非常脆弱。她思前想后，还是觉得一个人前往不合适，不如留在南方，这样离表哥和姐姐也近一些，阿敏的姐姐当时正在附近一个城市的工厂里做工。“在这里，我还有他们两个可以指靠，如果到北京就只能指靠一个人，况且他和我又没有血缘关系。”但到了5月份，阿敏在公园里与笔者的一次会面中似乎是随口而出地说起已提出辞职，老板将在1个月内决定是否批准她离职。
阿敏有了很多变化。她拉直了头发，剪了一个时髦的发型，这使得她看起来要比实际年龄大些。阿敏在拿到第一个全月的800块工资后不久，就进了理发店掏100块钱花了3个小时让自己改头换面。
几乎每个月她的命运都会出现戏剧性的转变。6月份，阿敏被调到了人力资源部，负责新人招聘和培训。在炎热的夏日，曾经有4天时间，她都站在人行道上宣讲，希望能吸引外来工到她们厂里工作。在这个工厂，她已经从为机器做记录转为人们做记录。阿敏感觉这是一份更好的工作，“如果我了解人力资源，我就可以轻松地在其他地方找到工作。”
阿敏的工厂新招的工人中就有黄娇娥，就是她在以前那家工厂的好朋友。6月末的一个傍晚，黄娇娥拉著衣箱就来报到了。两个女孩儿到工厂附近的一个排档喝了甜奶茶。其间，阿敏谈到要留住熟练工人是多么困难，“我告诉他们，跳来跳去很累的。不如攒点钱，积累一些经验后再决定自己想要做什么。”
黄娇娥叫起来，“你现在说话怎么这么一本正经的！”
阿敏为自己辩解，“这是我的工作。如果你在我的位置，你也会这样做的。”
尽管有点半开玩笑，但谈话还是不像以前那么融洽了。以前两个人是平等的，但现在不是了。阿敏试图淡化这种不平等的感觉，她说，“我俩工资都不高，如果你加班的话，还会比我挣得多。”
但黄娇娥反讥道，“那样我就要累得半死！”
阿敏回答说，“这是两种不同的累。我现在的工作不仅费体力，也很费神。”
阿敏在工厂中的地位正在一点点上升。她为外国客户倒茶，这对于一个进厂不久的人来说是被赏识的标志。她参加了一个每周都上课的经理人员英语课程。“你知道pardon是什么意思么？”她问黄娇娥。当她的朋友说知道时，阿敏看上去有些失望。
此外，阿敏有了一场萌动的爱情。一个来自家乡的男孩（以前的同学）也来到了东莞一家工厂工作。他来看过阿敏一次，两个人聊了一天。阿敏是一个传统的女孩，举止乖巧。两人在一家饭馆吃午饭时，阿敏为那个男孩倒茶时就像面对外国客户那样小心翼翼。后来，阿敏给他打电话时问到：“你觉得我们有未来么？”她希望知道。男孩告诉阿敏，给他三天时间考虑考虑。
“不管他怎么回答都可以，”阿敏说。但她早已开始编织两个人共同生活的梦想了：他接受过厨师的培训。“我们将来可以回到家乡开一家小饭馆，”她说，“在这里打工是没有未来的。”
智通人才大市场在一栋粉红色的写字楼里占了4层，每逢周末，这里会吸引约7,000人前来求职。每周六早上9点，这里就拥满了人，大多数都是年轻人。精英们带著笔记本电脑和打印好的简历。其他人则用购物带装著材料，弓腰在桌上填写表格。他们说著来自全国各地的口音，这在其他地方可能会成为一个障碍，但在东莞太普遍了。
阿敏讨厌这个人才市场，虽然她的好运也来自这儿。她说，这里让她感觉自己随时可以被取代。6月末，也就是她首次获得文员工作4个月后，阿敏的辞职请求被批准了。她依然没有文凭，她依然需要拿笔填写履历，但其他的都变了。
这次，阿敏的眼光高了，“文员是很低的职位，我可不打算再找这样的工作。”她瞄准了那些在为人力资源部门招聘的公司。在一家生产电子产品橡胶件的工厂摊位上，她接受了一次长达两个小时的面试。
这次，阿敏问到公司的规模有多大，人员流动率有多高。当面试人员问她为什么放弃原来的工作时，阿敏说这是一个个人问题。她没有提到真正让她决定辞职的“办公室政治”方面的原因。
这次，她也并不比其他人更诚实。当被问到她在人力资源工作方面有多少经验时，阿敏说“一年”，而事实上只有24天。“如果你说少了，他们会认为不够，”她后来说。招聘公司通常不会和以前的公司进行核对，除非是高层管理人员的招聘。这家公司聘用了她，据阿敏说，而且工资也比她的前任高了50块钱。
在新岗位上，阿敏负责处理用工记录：全厂400名工人的绩效、过失以及工资数据。当工人们前来应聘时，她会问一些非常简单的问题进行筛选，“（比如）有没有身份证？打算做什么？打算呆多久？如果他们回答得不好，我就会说，谢谢你，我们现在没有职位空缺。”
她的工作日是8个小时，每周日休息。像她这样级别的员工每4个人一间宿舍，她的宿舍里还有电话和独立的卫生间。她每个月的收入是100美元，外加工厂承担的食宿，和以前的工作一样，但如果前3个月表现好的话，她可能获得35美元的加薪。
每个月的10号，工厂老板的台湾老婆就会到厂里来。她会给工人们发工资，求菩萨保佑，这在那些保留了传统宗教信仰的台湾老板中很常见，但对阿敏来说很新鲜，因为她并不信佛。她会跟著老板娘到工人们的食堂、工厂大门口以及一些危险的设备前，乞求菩萨保佑，让他们的厂子兴旺发达，工人们出入平安。阿敏说，她很小心地防止与同事起冲突，口风很紧。她到这个厂不久后，大老板还曾经专门召她到办公室，建议她作一个少言寡语的人。
她也开始老练地处理起与父母的关系。她一直没有告诉父母辞职的事情，直到找到新工作后给家里突然邮了120美元，才打电话和父母说了她的近况。“他们不了解外面的事情。所以，我要做好后，再告诉他们，”她说。
她的姐姐桂敏对阿敏的跳槽持怀疑态度。“你认为这样做好么？”姐姐曾在阿敏获得新工作后不久来看阿敏时这样教训她。桂敏离开家已有四年，换过三次工作。而阿敏在不到两年的时间里换了3次工作。
阿敏认识的每个人也都在不断地换工作，而且许多人也是在日渐往上走。姐姐桂敏已被升为行政秘书，表哥现在到了广州做了经理。以前厂子的两个朋友也已天各一方，梁蓉回了家，和父母选定的一个人结了婚，而黄娇娥在东莞的另一家工厂觅得了一份生产文员的工作。
阿敏喜欢的那个男孩的生活也在变换中。就在阿敏问两个人是否有未来后的第三天，早上7点他给阿敏的手机发了一条短消息“我在你工厂的大门口”。阿敏不信，就跑下去看。男孩是在自己的厂里下了夜班后，坐了两个小时的公共汽车来的。等阿敏上了4个小时的班后，两个人一起吃了午饭。男孩没有说两个人是否有未来，阿敏也没有再提。“但他来了，”阿敏说，“我就知道了。”
那次见面后不久，男孩就回家了。他是独生子，父亲希望他在身边。阿敏觉得这是一个好决定。她说，他们将保持电话联系。
8月份一个凉爽的夜晚，阿敏坐了一辆出租摩托车来到工厂附近热闹的铁路公园。她在一个人造湖旁脱了鞋，光脚走在人造沙滩上。她看著外来打工仔打工妹们在广场上学跳舞。她在公园里的摄影摊上拍了一张照片，这还是她来到这个城市后的第一张照片。
阿敏说，现在工作时比以前开心多了。她的妹妹也在考虑明年春天来这儿找份工作，阿敏说，她得留在现在这个职位上，以便在妹妹初来乍到时给她一些帮助。“我做梦都想不到自己会获得这样的工作，”阿敏说，“我从家乡出来的时候，以为自己只能做一名工人。”
但随著她的职业道路越走越好，她已习惯了这些，并希望能从生活中获得更多的东西。阿敏说，现在她希望能学学销售，如果加薪加得不多，她可能还会换工作，“人的欲望总是难以满足的，”她笑著说，“你不觉得么？”
