Popular New Entry to Migrant Worker Genre

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Title: Chinese-style Migrant Workers (中国式民工)
Language: Chinese
Author: Zhou Shuheng (周述恒)
Publisher: World Affairs Press (世界知识出版社)
Book Launch: March 2010
Contact: Zhou Shuheng

If you’ve been following the Foxconn suicide saga in Shenzhen—the sub-contractor for Apple that’s run like an army barracks where nine factory workers have taken their own lives—you might be interested in this novel by a real-life míngōng.

Chinese-style Migrant Workers by Zhou Shuheng began its life online, and reportedly attracted over 500,000 clicks at Yanyu Hongchen. The choice of title reflects the popularity of the phrase that began a while back with the book and TV series entitled Divorce—China-style (中国式离婚).

At just 17, Xiaofan leaves his rural hometown for big city life in Fuzhou, along with his brother and sister. At first, he works in a plastics factory while his brother runs a peddle cab and hawks goods on the street. But the much-reviled chéngguǎn or city law "enforcers" clamp down on his brother’s business, and Xiaofan’s factory lays him off in an economic downturn.

Then it’s off to freewheeling Shenzhen, the Special Economic Zone just north of Hong Kong. Xiaofan begins a new career as a construction material salesman, learns how to use a computer and eventually opens his own PC training center.

Along the way we get a vivid snapshot of the migrant experience, China style: delayed salary payments, sometimes violent conflicts between hawkers and chéngguǎn stooges, black-market ticket vendors, outrageous medical fees and more.

Writing about the gritty migrant lifestyle is hardly a new phenomenon in 21st century China. A few years ago, there was Wang Lili’s semi-autobiographical novel of a young Henan woman being exploited in a factory outside Shenzhen, I Shall Shed No Tears, and even a full-length novel in French, La promesse de Shanghai, by Stéphane Fière, both reviewed in Migrant Workers: Who Cares?. Then there was Factory Girls by Leslie Chang, featuring details such as the diary entries and SMS of two Dongguan "factory girls" (打工妹) . More recently, migrant Wang Shiyue’s Big Brother (大哥) has won acclaim. By comparison to the latter, Chinese-style Migrant Workers is written in a simpler and more direct style.