A Migrant Worker's Monthly Account Book
His wages are less than one-twentieth of those white-collar workers sitting in the high-rises built by people like him.
They have never lived in the houses they piled up with their own sweat.
In the city where I live there are many migrant workers. The great majority of them came from rural areas on the outskirts of this city into the urban area, in order to earn money to feed themselves and support their families. They have made a huge contribution to the city's prosperity, and at the same time, they are also the people most easily ignored. For a long time they have suffered discrimination from most city people. Of course, there are also people who care about them, but mostly it is only for appearances or out of some degree of need. No one has ever truly cared about their rights as citizens, much less their lives. Perhaps everyone has forgotten that they are all farmers, a group that makes up 80% of this country's population, the foundation on which this country was built, and also one of its pillars.
In the city where I am, there are probably 2 million migrant workers, and they take on more than 90% of this city's manual labor. There is one kind of migrant worker locally called "bangbang." Their tool for making a living is a shoulder pole and two lengths of rope, and their means of making a living is helping so-called city people like me carry heavy things. The same goes for companies: when employees don't want to move heavy things, they call these migrant workers. The older sister in our company's administration department, for convenience, got fixed on one migrant worker who had a pager, about 35 or 36 years old. Whenever that office phone paged him, he would come right away. If he was too far away to make it in time, he would call back. After a while, everybody got familiar with his face, and when we had something that needed doing, we would call him too. Because getting reimbursed was troublesome, most of the time he helped for free. In his words, strength doesn't cost anything anyway. The older sister in charge of administration noticed this, so when settling accounts each week she would give him a bit extra, and she often lectured us too, saying even his hard-earned money you people want to skimp on.
Yesterday at noon, after he moved some things at our company, he squatted at the company entrance writing something down. I saw that it looked tiring for him to write while squatting, so I asked him to sit at my desk and write. By chance I noticed he was keeping accounts. That immediately aroused my interest (I absolutely did not mean to pry into his privacy, it was purely curiosity), so I took a look. The way he kept accounts was like a running tally (actually just adding each item one by one). I roughly calculated it in my head and organized it a bit, and everyone can take a look. At the same time, I added some explanations of my own, which I wrote down after asking him.
These are his total earnings for May: about 770 yuan (roughly, but not more than 800)
Rent: 50 yuan (4 people sharing one room)
Management fee: 20 yuan (collected by the neighborhood office, including 10 yuan temporary residence fee)
Meal expenses: 140 yuan (1 yuan for breakfast, 4 yuan for lunch, the kind where you get enough but not anything good)
Vegetables: 27 yuan (4 people take turns buying vegetables each day, then cook and eat together)
Rice: 15 yuan (his family originally had rice, but the round-trip fare would cost more than buying rice)
Daily necessities: 30 yuan (including oil, salt, paper, etc.)
Cigarettes: 20 yuan (the 2-yuan-a-pack kind, one pack every 3 days)
Communication fee: 17 yuan (including 10 yuan service fee for the CALL station)
Transportation: 3 yuan (for everyday transportation he basically just walks)
Living expenses for his son: 200 yuan (his son studies at a county high school)
Bought his wife one item of clothing: 20 yuan (probably bought from a street stall; "I haven't bought her new clothes in half a year," he said, full of guilt)
Sent home: 150 yuan (saved up for his son's schooling)
Sent 50 yuan for his mother's medical treatment (the mother's medicine costs are split among 3 siblings)
Unexpected expenses: 60 yuan (once he crossed the road against traffic to grab a job and was fined 10 yuan; once while carrying something he bumped into a young guy and was extorted for 50 yuan in laundry fees)
Looking at his expenses, I felt very miserable. He said the people at our company are all very good to him. They often give him things that can be sold for money (old newspapers, unwanted cartons, and expired promotional materials). Once a girl even gave him a piece of clothing (an advertising T-shirt used for promotion). The older sister in the administration department even let him use our office phone to make long-distance calls home, though he felt embarrassed about it. And every time he did work here, there was always water to drink, and sometimes even good cigarettes to smoke (I had no words; after we had him do some work, sometimes we would give him a cigarette).
What he fears most is getting sick, even something like a cold or a fever. What he wants most is for his son to get into college, for his mother's health to improve. What he least wants is for township cadres to go to his home—if they go, they go to ask for money (anyway there are all kinds of taxes now, and plenty of arbitrary levies too).
Every day he comes out at 6 o'clock to look for work, and only goes back at 8 o'clock. His happiest time is after eating, when he runs to a small shop to watch TV. I asked him why he didn't contract a fish pond or orchard back in his hometown. He smiled with simple honesty and said those were not things people like them could contract for; all the good places had been taken by people with connections. He doesn't know what citizens' rights are. Growing up, he has never seen a ballot. He knows about the WTO, because the news talks about it often, but he understands neither politics nor economics. He only wants to earn 10 yuan more each day, so that each month he can have a little more money to buy better medicine for his mother, send a little more living money to his son, and buy his wife one more nice piece of clothing. He is very afraid of death, because he has to struggle on for this family. His mother, wife, and son all depend on him to live. His greatest wish is to save some money and start a small business, so his finances can be a little easier.
This is the monthly account book and confession of an ordinary migrant worker. There are 700 million people like this in the whole country. Among that group he probably counts as average. They have no lofty ideals. They live at the bottom of this country. They are the cornerstone of this country. They have received no support from this country, enjoyed none of its welfare, and at critical moments they are also the group most easily forgotten and oppressed. We are even unwilling to regard them as a part of this civilization of ours with its several thousand years of history.
It seems we have thought too little about them. Everyone can ask himself honestly: have you paid attention to them, have you ever thought about them? When an ordinary migrant worker stands beside you and the smell of his sweat drifts into your nostrils, do you cover your mouth and nose? I used to, but I don't know whether I will in the future. I used to think of myself as very patriotic, but now I think before I was only shouting slogans. I cannot help them. The most I can do is run over to one of those "Love 1-to-1" activities and donate a little money to help a child who has dropped out of school. I think what they need is not this kind of help. What they need is progress in the whole society, progress for the whole class. All at once I deeply admire those volunteers who go to the countryside (including those foreigners who travel from far away to help villagers in our country's rural areas). They brought the very things these people need most, but I cannot do that. In fact, I simply am unwilling to do it. I am a petty person, a patriot in theory, a parasite who has learned worldliness, learned emptiness, and is fit to curl up in a warm environment.
His wages are less than one-twentieth of those white-collar workers sitting in the high-rises built by people like him.
They have never lived in the houses they piled up with their own sweat.
In the city where I live there are many migrant workers. The great majority of them came from rural areas on the outskirts of this city into the urban area, in order to earn money to feed themselves and support their families. They have made a huge contribution to the city's prosperity, and at the same time, they are also the people most easily ignored. For a long time they have suffered discrimination from most city people. Of course, there are also people who care about them, but mostly it is only for appearances or out of some degree of need. No one has ever truly cared about their rights as citizens, much less their lives. Perhaps everyone has forgotten that they are all farmers, a group that makes up 80% of this country's population, the foundation on which this country was built, and also one of its pillars.
In the city where I am, there are probably 2 million migrant workers, and they take on more than 90% of this city's manual labor. There is one kind of migrant worker locally called "bangbang." Their tool for making a living is a shoulder pole and two lengths of rope, and their means of making a living is helping so-called city people like me carry heavy things. The same goes for companies: when employees don't want to move heavy things, they call these migrant workers. The older sister in our company's administration department, for convenience, got fixed on one migrant worker who had a pager, about 35 or 36 years old. Whenever that office phone paged him, he would come right away. If he was too far away to make it in time, he would call back. After a while, everybody got familiar with his face, and when we had something that needed doing, we would call him too. Because getting reimbursed was troublesome, most of the time he helped for free. In his words, strength doesn't cost anything anyway. The older sister in charge of administration noticed this, so when settling accounts each week she would give him a bit extra, and she often lectured us too, saying even his hard-earned money you people want to skimp on.
Yesterday at noon, after he moved some things at our company, he squatted at the company entrance writing something down. I saw that it looked tiring for him to write while squatting, so I asked him to sit at my desk and write. By chance I noticed he was keeping accounts. That immediately aroused my interest (I absolutely did not mean to pry into his privacy, it was purely curiosity), so I took a look. The way he kept accounts was like a running tally (actually just adding each item one by one). I roughly calculated it in my head and organized it a bit, and everyone can take a look. At the same time, I added some explanations of my own, which I wrote down after asking him.
These are his total earnings for May: about 770 yuan (roughly, but not more than 800)
Rent: 50 yuan (4 people sharing one room)
Management fee: 20 yuan (collected by the neighborhood office, including 10 yuan temporary residence fee)
Meal expenses: 140 yuan (1 yuan for breakfast, 4 yuan for lunch, the kind where you get enough but not anything good)
Vegetables: 27 yuan (4 people take turns buying vegetables each day, then cook and eat together)
Rice: 15 yuan (his family originally had rice, but the round-trip fare would cost more than buying rice)
Daily necessities: 30 yuan (including oil, salt, paper, etc.)
Cigarettes: 20 yuan (the 2-yuan-a-pack kind, one pack every 3 days)
Communication fee: 17 yuan (including 10 yuan service fee for the CALL station)
Transportation: 3 yuan (for everyday transportation he basically just walks)
Living expenses for his son: 200 yuan (his son studies at a county high school)
Bought his wife one item of clothing: 20 yuan (probably bought from a street stall; "I haven't bought her new clothes in half a year," he said, full of guilt)
Sent home: 150 yuan (saved up for his son's schooling)
Sent 50 yuan for his mother's medical treatment (the mother's medicine costs are split among 3 siblings)
Unexpected expenses: 60 yuan (once he crossed the road against traffic to grab a job and was fined 10 yuan; once while carrying something he bumped into a young guy and was extorted for 50 yuan in laundry fees)
Looking at his expenses, I felt very miserable. He said the people at our company are all very good to him. They often give him things that can be sold for money (old newspapers, unwanted cartons, and expired promotional materials). Once a girl even gave him a piece of clothing (an advertising T-shirt used for promotion). The older sister in the administration department even let him use our office phone to make long-distance calls home, though he felt embarrassed about it. And every time he did work here, there was always water to drink, and sometimes even good cigarettes to smoke (I had no words; after we had him do some work, sometimes we would give him a cigarette).
What he fears most is getting sick, even something like a cold or a fever. What he wants most is for his son to get into college, for his mother's health to improve. What he least wants is for township cadres to go to his home—if they go, they go to ask for money (anyway there are all kinds of taxes now, and plenty of arbitrary levies too).
Every day he comes out at 6 o'clock to look for work, and only goes back at 8 o'clock. His happiest time is after eating, when he runs to a small shop to watch TV. I asked him why he didn't contract a fish pond or orchard back in his hometown. He smiled with simple honesty and said those were not things people like them could contract for; all the good places had been taken by people with connections. He doesn't know what citizens' rights are. Growing up, he has never seen a ballot. He knows about the WTO, because the news talks about it often, but he understands neither politics nor economics. He only wants to earn 10 yuan more each day, so that each month he can have a little more money to buy better medicine for his mother, send a little more living money to his son, and buy his wife one more nice piece of clothing. He is very afraid of death, because he has to struggle on for this family. His mother, wife, and son all depend on him to live. His greatest wish is to save some money and start a small business, so his finances can be a little easier.
This is the monthly account book and confession of an ordinary migrant worker. There are 700 million people like this in the whole country. Among that group he probably counts as average. They have no lofty ideals. They live at the bottom of this country. They are the cornerstone of this country. They have received no support from this country, enjoyed none of its welfare, and at critical moments they are also the group most easily forgotten and oppressed. We are even unwilling to regard them as a part of this civilization of ours with its several thousand years of history.
It seems we have thought too little about them. Everyone can ask himself honestly: have you paid attention to them, have you ever thought about them? When an ordinary migrant worker stands beside you and the smell of his sweat drifts into your nostrils, do you cover your mouth and nose? I used to, but I don't know whether I will in the future. I used to think of myself as very patriotic, but now I think before I was only shouting slogans. I cannot help them. The most I can do is run over to one of those "Love 1-to-1" activities and donate a little money to help a child who has dropped out of school. I think what they need is not this kind of help. What they need is progress in the whole society, progress for the whole class. All at once I deeply admire those volunteers who go to the countryside (including those foreigners who travel from far away to help villagers in our country's rural areas). They brought the very things these people need most, but I cannot do that. In fact, I simply am unwilling to do it. I am a petty person, a patriot in theory, a parasite who has learned worldliness, learned emptiness, and is fit to curl up in a warm environment.
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firststep.qjwm.com
fsmys.ys168.com
ssmys.ys168.com
www.brsbox.com/fsmys
www.brsbox.com/ssmys
www.brsbox.com/ccdos
