Leslie T. Chang > Quotes

“The past has been there all along, reminding us: This time--maybe, hopefully, against all odds, we will get it right.”
― Leslie T. Chang

“A person cannot grow up through happiness. Happiness makes a person shallow. It is only through suffering that we grow up, transform, and come to a better understanding of life.”
― Leslie T. Chang, Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China

“In China, people from such humble backgrounds rarely spoke in public. But here they were, each person unapologetic and full of faith that her personal story was interesting.”
― Leslie T. Chang, Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China

“I would like a child to grow up to have a happy life and make a contribution to society. I don't mean to be a big scientist or something like that. How many people can do that? I think if you live a happy life and are a good person, that is a contribution to society.”
― Leslie T. Chang

“The binders hinted at the reasons past relationships had gone sour. SEEKING A 28- TO 34-YEAR-OLD WITH AN OPEN PERSONALITY WHO DOESN'T GAMBLE. SEEKING A CULTIVATED PERSON NOT ADDICTED TO WINE AND WOMEN. An occasional brave soul would throw caution to the winds: SEEKING A 35- TO 45-YEAR-OLD. THE REST IS UP TO DESTINY.”
― Leslie T. Chang, Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China

“SALES SPECIALIST. CAN EAT BITTERNESS AND ENDURE HARDSHIP.”
― Leslie T. Chang, Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China

“Workers were required to stay six months, and even then permission to quit was not always granted. The factory held the first two months of every worker's pay; leaving without approval meant losing that money and starting over somewhere else. That was a fact of factory life you couldn't know from the outside: Getting into a factory was easy. The hard part was getting out.”
― Leslie T. Chang

“My grandfather came back, and his death bought the house at no. 6; half a century later it was turned into yet another journey to America. And that was fitting, because the history of a family begins when a person leaves home.”
― Leslie T. Chang, Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China

“If I only go to school, come out and do migrant work for a few years, then go home, marry and have children," Min said, "I might as well not have lived this whole life.”
― Leslie T. Chang, Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China

“No one wanted to date a man who was only five feet three inches tall.”
― Leslie T. Chang, Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China

“It isn’t very interesting,” my father said. “He just writes things like, ‘Today the Japanese army is closing in around the city.’ Stuff like that.”
― Leslie T. Chang, Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China

“When I thought about my grandfather's life, it was mostly with sadness at the lost opportunity. As a young man, he had left home—for Beijing, for America— to pursue his studies and to serve his country. He had lived in foreign environments, and he had struggled to find his purpose, but always he had worked hard. It was his sense of duty that drove him to visit Fushun mine against all warnings. On that last winter night, when armed men boarded his train and stabbed him with bayonets, all that learning and effort was rendered useless. It had been the crudest type of force; against such weapons, a man's idealism meant nothing.”
― Leslie T. Chang, Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China

“If it was an ugly world, at least it was their own.”
― Leslie T. Chang, Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China

“All the books in China just take their ideas from the outside,” he said. “China really has no original ideas.”
― Leslie T. Chang, Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China