Stories that connect us.

In January of 2004, I conducted some research in shoe and garment factories in China. As I'm now writing my travel memoirs, I've been thumbing through anything to jot my memory - photos, old blog entries, and other writings. This was something I wrote back then after my factory research experience. I post it because I like the theme about knowing people's stories, even though I don't agree with the way I wrote about sweatshops and exploitation.

Imagine a gated campus of 10,000. There’s a pond with a quaint bridge across it, perfect for romantic walks for two. The pond is circled by restaurants and shops. A group of people gather at the corner of the walkway as they take turns singing karaoke songs. The campus is complete with a library, dance studio, basketball courts, a ping pong room, karaoke room, computer room, and enough dorms to house all 10,000. There are various clubs, events like monthly birthday parties, and even a newsletter complete with news items and personal ads. It all sounds like the quintessential traits of a university, right?
Well apparently the quintessential traits of a university can also be shared by a factory in China that manufactures shoes for a big brand-name American corporation. Surprised? Were you expecting a dimly lit room where there are no windows, where the walls and floors have worn or crumbling paint, and the bathroom is a tiny one-stall room in the corner of the factory floor obstructed by broken chairs and tables, and loose trash on the floor? This dismally painted image is what most Americans think a Chinese factory looks like; not surprising, given all the anti-sweatshop fliers, documentaries, and other forms of media I’ve come across depicting horrible pay statistics, desperate work conditions, and extreme cases of worker abuse. But this is not what I saw when I was in China. I don’t mean to say that these kinds of factories don’t exist; what I mean to say is that there’s more to this than the story of the “sweatshop.” My point is that we can’t just take to the streets and yell out profanities against the WTO with our arms up in the air clenched in fists. It’s not enough. Sometimes it can even hurt those we claim to fight for. We need to also understand the unique local context of what we’re protesting about. We need to know the story.
I was just that kind of protester before I went to China and saw for the very first time with my own eyes what it was I used to protest about. Within the short period of a couple days I began to realize that it was not my purpose to search in every nook and cranny for proof of worker exploitation and say “ah hah!” with an accusatory finger. Instead, it was to see the human face behind the worker; it was to learn about the “floating population” of migrants finding jobs in the city and sending their hard-earned money back to their rural families; it was to hear the stories – the heart and soul – that is too often untold and forgotten underneath the debate about capitalist production as worker exploitation or economic success. Don’t get me wrong, it is exploitative, extremely exploitative. I got a glimpse of huge halls of workers doing the most boring repetitive tasks, sometimes working with potentially dangerous machinery or toxic chemicals. Hours were long, vacations almost non-existent. And another consideration was that this 10,000 worker factory I’m describing was the best of the best. Of course! What sweatshop would let in a bunch of US students to take a tour of their factory?
So I admit that my cheery portrayal of a Chinese factory at the beginning of this article was a bit of a selective choice, and admittedly, such conditions are not representative of the average. Yet I also had the privilege of seeing an “average” Chinese factory which, although it lacked the birthday parties, dance studios, and campus pond, still didn’t fit the stereotypical image of sweatshop. As a side-note I should mention that we worked with a non-profit labor rights group called Verite that worked with many different factories with conditions ranging from “sweatshop” to cream of the crop like the one we saw. It is according to their standards that I refer to this factory as “average.”
So what is the story I found left untold amongst the debate about exploitation? It seemed that the workers accepted the difficult working conditions because it was still better than the monotony of their old rural lifestyles. A job in the city was their ticket to the outside world, a wonderland to them in many ways. A young woman new to the city is amazed by the choice and vast quantity of foods at a supermarket: fruits and vegetables that would have taken a season to grow and harvest are lying there in the supermarket for just anybody to pick up and buy. The newest and most advanced commodity items like computers, TVs, cell phones, and mp3 players are available. But the story is not just about new material commodities; it’s also about an urban culture and lifestyle. Among the workers, the most popular Verite training classes are not the labor rights classes, it’s the social etiquette class. Workers learn how to walk, like how much space there should be in between steps; how to sit, should you cross your legs? Sit up straight and keep your feet flat on the floor. When you meet people, shake their hands, not too lightly, but not too strongly. It’s all a part of presenting a civilized urban individual, and the workers loved it. But culture and lifestyle in the city is not just about professional presentation, bars and clubs offer social spaces for urban fun and/or sexual intrigue. And in the city one can encounter not just people from other villages, but from other provinces from all over the country, and even foreigners from all over the world. In the end, the point I mean to stress here is that a factory job is exploitative yes, but in the Chinese context it can also be liberating. One of the workers I interviewed said that her experience at the factory and in the city provided her with an opportunity to explore her identity and grow personally. I wouldn’t be surprised if many other workers felt this way as well.
So who are we to decide what’s exploitative for Chinese factory workers? They have stories to tell. We should listen. Some of those stories speak of exploitation, so yes, we should stand in solidarity with them fighting for better wages and conditions. In fact, according to Verite, the non-profit group we worked with, the better factories in China tend to be the ones working for big multi-national corporations (Walmart being the exception). This was due largely in part because of anti-sweatshop activists in the West putting pressure on their country’s companies. But behind the fight for better wages and conditions is a story of excitement as well as pain, intrigue as well as exploitation, personal growth, and liberation in addition to the anxiety, and fear. If we listen, we can hear their stories and see their faces behind all the chatter and debate.