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散沙: 中國農民工的故事
「散沙」，是中國人對農民工的稱呼；而農民工們通常也以此形容自己。他們常常說自己就像一盤散沙，哪裡有工，就往哪裡流；沒有組織，也因此少有力量。
每一年，來自中國龐大內陸農村地區的工人，為了尋求工作機會，在不同的城市和省分之間移動。根據《中國勞工通訊》估計，有兩億的中國農民離家工作，而其中有一億三千萬人，離開自己成長的省分，可說是歷史上最大的人口遷徙。這群來自內陸農村的勞工大軍主要從事建築業、服務業和製造業，他們是中國都會的重要工作力，貢獻了中國一半的國民生產毛額。一般人習慣稱呼他們為「農民工」，但這個不準確的稱呼其實反映了中國根深蒂固的意識形態，他們依然具有「農民」的身分，由於未被納入工人階級，所以他們沒有工會組織，飽嚐體制上的歧視與社會上的孤立。他們的存在令人無法忽視，但社會結構使得這群人無法、也不可能與國家、私人企業相抗衡；在組織巨獸面前，他們潰不成軍，可以說是中國最邊緣和最貧窮的一群勞動工作者。
「他們建造著這城市的光采，卻過著一點也不光彩的生活。他們是現代中國最大的勞力軍，卻是一群沒有權利、沒有聲音的二等公民──確確實實是『大中國』的隱形人口。」
英國衛報記者白曉紅從2004年開始調查英國非法中國工人的生活境況。期間，這些移民的來處引起了她的好奇：是怎樣的動力驅使他們漂流遷徙？為什麼明知會遭到剝削，還是要離鄉工作？丈夫死於異鄉的中國寡婦，為何還要借貸兩萬英鎊，只為將她年輕的女兒送往英國？《散沙》是白曉紅繼《中國耳語》（Chinese Whispers），第二本描寫中國農民工作品。她花費兩年時間穿越整個中國，從北京奧運的建築工地、黃河流域的煤礦坑和磚窯廠，到珠三角的工廠，她追溯移工的路線，訪問在這些地方工作的移工，也探訪留在家鄉的移工家屬；她從彝族移工的不公待遇、2009年新疆暴動討論少數民族的困境；也藉著陪同母親一趟「歸鄉」之旅，親觸階級問題對農工境況造成的影響。她更記錄在全球不景氣造成的失業和欠薪風潮下，移工如何為爭取權益而抗爭。
白曉紅匯集大量的新聞報導、官方／非官方數據，以及最重要的，她寫下了每一個移工最真實的故事；對於那些在中國劇烈的社會經濟進程中被遠遠拋在後頭的一群人，精細地描繪出他們的身影；對於在全球化經濟脈絡下、背景更廣泛的「移工」，白曉紅也更具體化了他們最真切的樣貌。
每一年，來自中國龐大內陸農村地區的工人，為了尋求工作機會，在不同的城市和省分之間移動。根據《中國勞工通訊》估計，有兩億的中國農民離家工作，而其中有一億三千萬人，離開自己成長的省分，可說是歷史上最大的人口遷徙。這群來自內陸農村的勞工大軍主要從事建築業、服務業和製造業，他們是中國都會的重要工作力，貢獻了中國一半的國民生產毛額。一般人習慣稱呼他們為「農民工」，但這個不準確的稱呼其實反映了中國根深蒂固的意識形態，他們依然具有「農民」的身分，由於未被納入工人階級，所以他們沒有工會組織，飽嚐體制上的歧視與社會上的孤立。他們的存在令人無法忽視，但社會結構使得這群人無法、也不可能與國家、私人企業相抗衡；在組織巨獸面前，他們潰不成軍，可以說是中國最邊緣和最貧窮的一群勞動工作者。
「他們建造著這城市的光采，卻過著一點也不光彩的生活。他們是現代中國最大的勞力軍，卻是一群沒有權利、沒有聲音的二等公民──確確實實是『大中國』的隱形人口。」
英國衛報記者白曉紅從2004年開始調查英國非法中國工人的生活境況。期間，這些移民的來處引起了她的好奇：是怎樣的動力驅使他們漂流遷徙？為什麼明知會遭到剝削，還是要離鄉工作？丈夫死於異鄉的中國寡婦，為何還要借貸兩萬英鎊，只為將她年輕的女兒送往英國？《散沙》是白曉紅繼《中國耳語》（Chinese Whispers），第二本描寫中國農民工作品。她花費兩年時間穿越整個中國，從北京奧運的建築工地、黃河流域的煤礦坑和磚窯廠，到珠三角的工廠，她追溯移工的路線，訪問在這些地方工作的移工，也探訪留在家鄉的移工家屬；她從彝族移工的不公待遇、2009年新疆暴動討論少數民族的困境；也藉著陪同母親一趟「歸鄉」之旅，親觸階級問題對農工境況造成的影響。她更記錄在全球不景氣造成的失業和欠薪風潮下，移工如何為爭取權益而抗爭。
白曉紅匯集大量的新聞報導、官方／非官方數據，以及最重要的，她寫下了每一個移工最真實的故事；對於那些在中國劇烈的社會經濟進程中被遠遠拋在後頭的一群人，精細地描繪出他們的身影；對於在全球化經濟脈絡下、背景更廣泛的「移工」，白曉紅也更具體化了他們最真切的樣貌。
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First published January 1, 2012
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About the author
Hsiao-Hung Pai
10 books29 followersHsiao-Hung Pai is a journalist and author of Chinese Whispers: The True Story Behind Britain’s Hidden Army of Labour (2008), shortlisted for the Orwell Book Prize 2009; Scattered Sand: The Story of China’s Rural Migrants, (2012), winner of the Bread and Roses Award 2013, Invisible (2013), Angry White People (2016), Bordered Lives (2018) and Ciao Ousmane (2021). She has written for the Guardian and many Chinese publications worldwide.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 17, 2012
The immigrant debate in the developed countries of the global north often seems dominated by the view that the system is cluttered up with chancers and freeloaders looking for an easy life in countries far away. It helps maintain the tone of moral superiority of those judging the people they regard as feckless migrants, clearing the way for them all to be dealt with pre-emptively – arrested detained, and deported.
Pai’s book isn’t directly concerned with the task of challenging these sorts of ideas, but the account she offers of the pressure to migrate which builds up in the villages and rural provinces in China ought really to force people in the developed world to think again about this complex issue. She eschews conscious theorising about the nature of the economy which has emerged since Deng’s opening up (kaifeng) to global markets back in the 1970a and 80s, but the links are there to be traced of how a development path intent on exploiting the country’s comparative advantage in cheap labour meant that the Chinese working class effectively subsidised many of the gains in living standards which accrued for people in the developed world during these critical years.
The book gives us the outline of industrialisation during the period of opening up. State sponsored investment in infrastructure and the promise of low tax and minimal regulation regimes for western business interests brought about rapid growth in the big cities. Meanwhile the peasant class, branded by that status at birth and locked out of many of the benefits of social security, saw their chance to improve living standards on the land arrested by laws which limited the size of their farms to a few small fields, and practices which set the price of produce at levels which scarcely compensated for the labour they had expended.
The structure of the peasant family, binding adult children to support their parents to the end of their lives, was an additional factor that compelled the surplus population of under-employed your farm labourers into the fast developing cities.
Here the yoke of peasant birth reasserted itself once again. China’s system of residence registration requires people moving between towns and provinces to register with the police. This is an expensive business which s open to abuse from corrupt officials taking advantage of the vulnerability of the incomers. For the many thousands unable to pay the fees and bribes the only way to find work is the labour markets which exist in every city. Pai’s book is largely structure around her pitching up in these places in the cities and towns she visited and finding ways to enter into conversation with the people looking for work. As a Taiwanese she had the advantage of generating curiosity amongst the people she encounters who see her as a ‘sister’ coming from a heavenly, fortunate island. Initial contact leads to more substantial relationships, with visits to the workplaces and homes of her acquaintances, and ongoing news exchanges by long-distance phone calls.
The portraits of her subjects are vivid and engage the reader both at the intellectual and emotional level. We find out that it is not unknown for migrant workers to wait months for the wages due to them, and for particularly unscrupulous bosses to decline to pay what is due on the termination of employment. The worker might be without the residence papers needed to make their employment contract legal, so seeking the support of the authorities will be futile. Even when they do have the required papers, corrupt relations between factory owners and the police will often mean that complaints will be dismisses out of hand.
This is not a description of marginal practices that take place on the delinquent fringe of society. Pai explains that fully one-half of China’s rural labour force of 400 million people became superfluous after the disbandment of the village commune system in 1981. Of this group, 100 million began to circulate as internal migrants, making their labour available to the manufacturing enterprises which were dominating the economies of the cities. Inequality, measured by the growing income gap between the towns and the countryside, which moved from a ratio of 2.49 in 1980 to 3.3 in 2009, was also a factor producing displacement and driving rural to city migration.
Pai gives accounts of what this has meant for the family life of ordinary Chinese. Marriages are frequently between partners who are obliged to live far distances apart. Children see their parents perhaps once a year. The loss of a precious job in a turbulent and insecure labour market can put unbearable pressure on couples which produce estrangement and breakdowns. Tensions build between relatives who have lent money to assist in the migration of one member, but who have yet to be repaid even years later. Family life is often presented as full of resentments and mistrust, and with a tremendous burden of guilt on the shoulders of workers who feel a sense of failure over their inability to repay debts and support dependants.
How is all this possible in a country which officially describes itself as socialist? Pai is illuminating on this point. Her argument is that the historical development of socialism in China in the early 20th century emphasised a nationalistic component and placed it far above Marxist conceptions of class struggle and the emancipation of labour. But her account of contemporary life is threaded with the idea that the new realities of life in China might be moving towards the transcendence of this historical limitation, as the proletarian portion of the population grows ever larger and more conscious of its position as a brutally exploited social group.
The pages describing the growth of industrial protests and the first sign that victories can be won in the struggle to advance the rights of workers are the most hopefully in this book. The question is whether these tentative advances will require the Chinese working class to move from its phase of migration towns more settlement and the formation of communities before further progress is made.
If this is the case then we can expect a long protraction of the class struggle, extending far into the future. The structure of Chinese society and the nation, covering vast distances, huge populations and great ethnic diversity – all considered by Pai – as well as the continuing and growing inequalities in the country, suggest that migration will be the fate of millions for the foreseeable future. Indeed, as she discusses in a chapter that takes her workers beyond the boundaries of China to follow efforts to reach the United States, Japan, Korea and Europe, the further integration of the country into global markets point to more migration rather than a gradual reduction.
What will become of China’s ‘scattered sand’ in the meantime? We have to hope that Pai will continue to chronicle their lives in the way she has done in this brilliant book, and its equally riveting predecessor ‘Chinese Whispers’. For those of us who continue to see the emancipation of the working class as the real driving force for progress across all of humanity, we will read her works to see what is emerging in terms of leadership and organisation amongst these labouring millions. Whether the sense of tragic resignation can be replaced by a strategic sense of place in the modern world, and the role which Chinese working people might yet play in leading us towards a socialism worthy of the name.
Pai’s book isn’t directly concerned with the task of challenging these sorts of ideas, but the account she offers of the pressure to migrate which builds up in the villages and rural provinces in China ought really to force people in the developed world to think again about this complex issue. She eschews conscious theorising about the nature of the economy which has emerged since Deng’s opening up (kaifeng) to global markets back in the 1970a and 80s, but the links are there to be traced of how a development path intent on exploiting the country’s comparative advantage in cheap labour meant that the Chinese working class effectively subsidised many of the gains in living standards which accrued for people in the developed world during these critical years.
The book gives us the outline of industrialisation during the period of opening up. State sponsored investment in infrastructure and the promise of low tax and minimal regulation regimes for western business interests brought about rapid growth in the big cities. Meanwhile the peasant class, branded by that status at birth and locked out of many of the benefits of social security, saw their chance to improve living standards on the land arrested by laws which limited the size of their farms to a few small fields, and practices which set the price of produce at levels which scarcely compensated for the labour they had expended.
The structure of the peasant family, binding adult children to support their parents to the end of their lives, was an additional factor that compelled the surplus population of under-employed your farm labourers into the fast developing cities.
Here the yoke of peasant birth reasserted itself once again. China’s system of residence registration requires people moving between towns and provinces to register with the police. This is an expensive business which s open to abuse from corrupt officials taking advantage of the vulnerability of the incomers. For the many thousands unable to pay the fees and bribes the only way to find work is the labour markets which exist in every city. Pai’s book is largely structure around her pitching up in these places in the cities and towns she visited and finding ways to enter into conversation with the people looking for work. As a Taiwanese she had the advantage of generating curiosity amongst the people she encounters who see her as a ‘sister’ coming from a heavenly, fortunate island. Initial contact leads to more substantial relationships, with visits to the workplaces and homes of her acquaintances, and ongoing news exchanges by long-distance phone calls.
The portraits of her subjects are vivid and engage the reader both at the intellectual and emotional level. We find out that it is not unknown for migrant workers to wait months for the wages due to them, and for particularly unscrupulous bosses to decline to pay what is due on the termination of employment. The worker might be without the residence papers needed to make their employment contract legal, so seeking the support of the authorities will be futile. Even when they do have the required papers, corrupt relations between factory owners and the police will often mean that complaints will be dismisses out of hand.
This is not a description of marginal practices that take place on the delinquent fringe of society. Pai explains that fully one-half of China’s rural labour force of 400 million people became superfluous after the disbandment of the village commune system in 1981. Of this group, 100 million began to circulate as internal migrants, making their labour available to the manufacturing enterprises which were dominating the economies of the cities. Inequality, measured by the growing income gap between the towns and the countryside, which moved from a ratio of 2.49 in 1980 to 3.3 in 2009, was also a factor producing displacement and driving rural to city migration.
Pai gives accounts of what this has meant for the family life of ordinary Chinese. Marriages are frequently between partners who are obliged to live far distances apart. Children see their parents perhaps once a year. The loss of a precious job in a turbulent and insecure labour market can put unbearable pressure on couples which produce estrangement and breakdowns. Tensions build between relatives who have lent money to assist in the migration of one member, but who have yet to be repaid even years later. Family life is often presented as full of resentments and mistrust, and with a tremendous burden of guilt on the shoulders of workers who feel a sense of failure over their inability to repay debts and support dependants.
How is all this possible in a country which officially describes itself as socialist? Pai is illuminating on this point. Her argument is that the historical development of socialism in China in the early 20th century emphasised a nationalistic component and placed it far above Marxist conceptions of class struggle and the emancipation of labour. But her account of contemporary life is threaded with the idea that the new realities of life in China might be moving towards the transcendence of this historical limitation, as the proletarian portion of the population grows ever larger and more conscious of its position as a brutally exploited social group.
The pages describing the growth of industrial protests and the first sign that victories can be won in the struggle to advance the rights of workers are the most hopefully in this book. The question is whether these tentative advances will require the Chinese working class to move from its phase of migration towns more settlement and the formation of communities before further progress is made.
If this is the case then we can expect a long protraction of the class struggle, extending far into the future. The structure of Chinese society and the nation, covering vast distances, huge populations and great ethnic diversity – all considered by Pai – as well as the continuing and growing inequalities in the country, suggest that migration will be the fate of millions for the foreseeable future. Indeed, as she discusses in a chapter that takes her workers beyond the boundaries of China to follow efforts to reach the United States, Japan, Korea and Europe, the further integration of the country into global markets point to more migration rather than a gradual reduction.
What will become of China’s ‘scattered sand’ in the meantime? We have to hope that Pai will continue to chronicle their lives in the way she has done in this brilliant book, and its equally riveting predecessor ‘Chinese Whispers’. For those of us who continue to see the emancipation of the working class as the real driving force for progress across all of humanity, we will read her works to see what is emerging in terms of leadership and organisation amongst these labouring millions. Whether the sense of tragic resignation can be replaced by a strategic sense of place in the modern world, and the role which Chinese working people might yet play in leading us towards a socialism worthy of the name.
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April 29, 2020This is a book, I suppose, I should have read when it came out, not years afterwards, but something tells me the fundamentals haven't changed. Granted, it's hard to say because this is journalism, not academic research, filled with stories that call into question China's claim as to quite how many people were brought out of poverty over the past few decades (I really, really need to do some more research into the hard data). The take-home message for me, though, was that this is a global problem – given the brutality of imperial capitalism, hundreds of millions of ordinary lives will be consigned to crushing misery, and while it might be better than feudalism, that's not the point. We shouldn't measure ourselves against where we were, but where we could be given the potentials of labor-saving technology. And any solution is, and has to be, transparency and sane governance (where possible) paired with the power of the strike, which even in a society as oppressive and closed-off as China, can work. And even if it doesn't work, it's a hell of a lot better than waiting for deliverance.
January 14, 2018
incredible on every level: beautiful writing, incredibly brave reporting, deep compassion and neverending help and outreach, and most uniquely, the single best explanation of how our current global economic system came about: how China made itself rich (using these people, their migration and systematic exploitation, above all by the state itself) and changed world trade. This is how China has the money to recolonize Africa from the east, for instance, and grab the whole of south east asia's seas as its personal military outpost. Should be required reading for all students of economics, migration, human rights, China and modern politics and social change. The single book that has changed my understanding the most in the last three years (and i've read a lot of books).
As always, buy direct from Verso, and with every physical book you get a free ebook, and you can re-download your ebook from their website by logging into your account forever. The best publisher to buy direct from!
As always, buy direct from Verso, and with every physical book you get a free ebook, and you can re-download your ebook from their website by logging into your account forever. The best publisher to buy direct from!
February 15, 2019
Hsiao-Hung Pai’s first book, “Chinese Whispers: The True Story Behind Britain’s Army of Labour”, which I read about ten years ago, shook me deeply and impacted the way I saw the world around me. After the event with the author I went to in London and our chat on the way to the station I received from her second book, “Scattered Sand. The Story if China’s Rural Migrants” from her publisher. However, for no apparent reason I only read it now. To be perfectly honest, “Scattered Sand”, moved me slightly less but that’s not because it isn’t a powerful book, but because I was better prepared, more or less knew what to expect and because my knowledge about China’s rural migrant workers has expanded with time.
Pai traveled to Chinese cities and villages - from Fujian and Beijing to Shanxi, to Guangdong and Xinjiang (and many others; I wished the book included a map of China with the author’s journey marked). She spoke to random migrant workers and to the relatives of those she knew from the UK. She discovered injustice, gruesome working conditions in all sorts of industries, exploitation and abuse of basic human rights. The first two chapters seemed to me to be a bit dry, with too much data and figures, as if Pai was looking for her style, but she quickly found it, and I got hooked; I devoured the last 150 pages (half of the book) in one sitting. I was captivated by people’s resilience, strength - physical and mental - and I admired deeply their philosophy of life, which surely helped them survive all that hardship Pai described. I am full of utmost respect for those millions of workers who sacrifice so much for so little, often for mere survival.
I found the distinction between ‘citizens’ and the Chinese term ‘laobaixing’ fascinating and wonder to what extent it influences how people see themselves, as our language determines our outlook:
“The concept of laobaixing has a centuries-old history and it continued to be used, with political implications, by republicans and revolutionaries alike, in the twentieth century and beyond, as it could mean either the law-abiding populace or the leader-worshipping masses. Lu Xun - also a socialist - challenged the idea of laobaixing implicitly in his works in the 1910s and 1920s, when he created caricatures of the passive masses who habitually take life as it us, concerned about their immediate circumstances but uninterested in doing something to change them. His comic character Ah Q dreads bad luck and moans about being mistreated but sneers at the concept of equality. The notions of ‘citizen’ and ‘citizenship’ imply entitlements and responsibility; laobaixing are expected (by those who use the term) to be the passive recipients of rights granted as an act of benevolence by the rulers. That is the fundamental difference: ‘citizens’ are active, while laobaixing are not”.
Pai is a fantastic reporter and a remarkable storyteller and her empathy and non-judgmental attitude are palpable on every page. I was deeply moved by the story of her own family and her and her mother’s journey to visit their relatives (most of whom they had never met before), whose lives are sadly all too similar to the ones of other workers Pai has met. It is so easy to dismiss the reality of millions of people, whose voices are still often unheard, trying to make ends meet against the odds. The media bombard us usually with stories about Chinese wealth and the growing middle class. We see - and often sneer at - Chinese tourists being able to afford to flock to all parts of the world like never before. And yet this is only one of the truths about China. The recent arrest of the terrific Chinese photojournalist Lu Guang, who documented the dark side of China: poverty, industrial pollution, drug addiction and people living with AIDS, is one good example showing that the Chinese authorities want to present only the positive image of China to the world - I bet a lot of Chinese people do not even know about his arrest and do not know his work. “Scattered Sand” probably won’t be widely distributed in China but Pai’s book and her dedication are extremely important in raising awareness of all those who can read it and realise that behind a pretty façade of shiny skyscrapers of Beijing and stores selling designer goods there is a less glossy picture.
Pai traveled to Chinese cities and villages - from Fujian and Beijing to Shanxi, to Guangdong and Xinjiang (and many others; I wished the book included a map of China with the author’s journey marked). She spoke to random migrant workers and to the relatives of those she knew from the UK. She discovered injustice, gruesome working conditions in all sorts of industries, exploitation and abuse of basic human rights. The first two chapters seemed to me to be a bit dry, with too much data and figures, as if Pai was looking for her style, but she quickly found it, and I got hooked; I devoured the last 150 pages (half of the book) in one sitting. I was captivated by people’s resilience, strength - physical and mental - and I admired deeply their philosophy of life, which surely helped them survive all that hardship Pai described. I am full of utmost respect for those millions of workers who sacrifice so much for so little, often for mere survival.
I found the distinction between ‘citizens’ and the Chinese term ‘laobaixing’ fascinating and wonder to what extent it influences how people see themselves, as our language determines our outlook:
“The concept of laobaixing has a centuries-old history and it continued to be used, with political implications, by republicans and revolutionaries alike, in the twentieth century and beyond, as it could mean either the law-abiding populace or the leader-worshipping masses. Lu Xun - also a socialist - challenged the idea of laobaixing implicitly in his works in the 1910s and 1920s, when he created caricatures of the passive masses who habitually take life as it us, concerned about their immediate circumstances but uninterested in doing something to change them. His comic character Ah Q dreads bad luck and moans about being mistreated but sneers at the concept of equality. The notions of ‘citizen’ and ‘citizenship’ imply entitlements and responsibility; laobaixing are expected (by those who use the term) to be the passive recipients of rights granted as an act of benevolence by the rulers. That is the fundamental difference: ‘citizens’ are active, while laobaixing are not”.
Pai is a fantastic reporter and a remarkable storyteller and her empathy and non-judgmental attitude are palpable on every page. I was deeply moved by the story of her own family and her and her mother’s journey to visit their relatives (most of whom they had never met before), whose lives are sadly all too similar to the ones of other workers Pai has met. It is so easy to dismiss the reality of millions of people, whose voices are still often unheard, trying to make ends meet against the odds. The media bombard us usually with stories about Chinese wealth and the growing middle class. We see - and often sneer at - Chinese tourists being able to afford to flock to all parts of the world like never before. And yet this is only one of the truths about China. The recent arrest of the terrific Chinese photojournalist Lu Guang, who documented the dark side of China: poverty, industrial pollution, drug addiction and people living with AIDS, is one good example showing that the Chinese authorities want to present only the positive image of China to the world - I bet a lot of Chinese people do not even know about his arrest and do not know his work. “Scattered Sand” probably won’t be widely distributed in China but Pai’s book and her dedication are extremely important in raising awareness of all those who can read it and realise that behind a pretty façade of shiny skyscrapers of Beijing and stores selling designer goods there is a less glossy picture.
March 5, 2020
As a person living in China for almost eight years, I can say that this book is a good summary of the economic and cultural environment in the country.
Although China became the number one economy in the world and its growth keeps increasing, there are still millions of people living in poverty or making a meager existence.
The book is a colorful collection of real life people’s stories. Going through the pages is a touching, but a dreadful journey as well. The fate of so many people and their hardships provokes so many different feelings – empathy, sadness, frustration, disbelief, righteous indignation, anger.
Definitely, this book won’t leave you unbiased.
I have to say that at some places the statistics came too much for me. It made the writing a little bit too boring. But I can understand it, because that is the only way to grasp the scale of what is happening in China right now.
I can’t say it is a beautifully written book, because the stories inside are not beautiful. They are sad, shocking unsettling, provoking, devastating and shattering. These stories won’t leave you. They will hunt you, even when you finish reading.
I am giving the book 4 stars, because I am well aware there is a dose of the author’s bias underlying the words. But if the reader ignores that and just goes for stories, it will be definitely worth reading it.
Although China became the number one economy in the world and its growth keeps increasing, there are still millions of people living in poverty or making a meager existence.
The book is a colorful collection of real life people’s stories. Going through the pages is a touching, but a dreadful journey as well. The fate of so many people and their hardships provokes so many different feelings – empathy, sadness, frustration, disbelief, righteous indignation, anger.
Definitely, this book won’t leave you unbiased.
I have to say that at some places the statistics came too much for me. It made the writing a little bit too boring. But I can understand it, because that is the only way to grasp the scale of what is happening in China right now.
I can’t say it is a beautifully written book, because the stories inside are not beautiful. They are sad, shocking unsettling, provoking, devastating and shattering. These stories won’t leave you. They will hunt you, even when you finish reading.
I am giving the book 4 stars, because I am well aware there is a dose of the author’s bias underlying the words. But if the reader ignores that and just goes for stories, it will be definitely worth reading it.
January 4, 2014
The story is a unique one since the author is of Chinese descent and can relate to the locals with ease. She carefully pieces together their hardships and challenges while also describing the geopolitical issues as the backdrop to every story. I particularly enjoyed how bold the author was in venturing into not-so-safe areas to interview migrants to hear their stories, which can be very uncomfortable and difficult to read about since desperation and survival at all costs are pervasive. Good read and it kept my attention. I passed it on to my father who was born and raised in China and I'm sure he can relate to the hardships since he suffered greatly as a child before immigrating to Canada.
June 9, 2014
Content and ideas very worthwhile, engaging, and informative--worth four stars; bumped down to three for the book as a whole because I didn't find the writing style as engaging or satisfying as I'd hoped. Definitely worth a read though if you're interested in China's migrant issues.
April 23, 2019
This book is exactly what you would expect, a narrative that paints a picture of a group crushed and marginalized under the weight of a government who is happy to step on their backs to recover from its own mistakes. A forgotten group of poor and underclass people forced to at times make the ultimate sacrifice for the chance to grab at a dangled wealth they will never reach. It’s mostly just sad but paints a stark picture of a rural china not liberated by a policy of “opening up” but destroyed by it.
August 11, 2021
Great book. Wild that the same country with the fancy skyscrapers and high speed rail has such poverty. Makes me appreciate America. Some people work for months and just don't get paid. The work in coal mines or brick kilns is terrible. I have great sympathy for their situation. I am curious whether this sort of poverty still exists though, since the book is nearly a decade old. I presume it does but is just not as widespread.
July 31, 2019
Very very detailed stories about individuals from all around China. Gives very good insight into the conditions of Chinese migrant workers and the material and social pressures which lead them to go to another city or another country for work. The writing style is a little dry, which is why it's not five stars for me. I found it hard to motivate myself to read it sometimes because of that.
July 18, 2018
The appalling suffering and exploitation of desperate rural migrants is unimaginable.
February 15, 2013
This story needs to be told. It is horrifying and filled with despair and current. I believe that the writing, however, is too complicated in making the case for change. I recognize events and conditions because I was in China as they prepared for the Olympic bid. But without any background upon which to build, a reader gets lost in the historical statistics and long-winded details. The time spent telling true events of individual people was well spent, but the stories are too few and hidden in the rhetoric. Also, I miss the Readers' Digest conclusion where a tragic expose' is followed up with hope and suggestions for change. Maybe there is no hope here. That makes me sad.
April 16, 2016
It was interesting enough, but half the book was just quoting numbers. I wanted it to get more personal, more into the whole business and hardship of migration. It did, but not enough. There was way too much town history and numbers. So many numbers. It just left me a bit cold.
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