Today in China however, these two contradictory identities are amalgamating into one. The everyday migrant worker is making full use of technological convenience to present his extraordinary flair for writing, even though society stigmatises him to be lacking the necessary capability and competence necessary for the indulgence of such revered forms of art. Worker poetry can be found on online websites and forums personally uploaded by migrant workers themselves. Even unconventional platforms like public walls (Yiping 2017) have been used to display their poems, signifying their creativity to source for channels of exhibition. Poems written by migrant workers are presented in its rawest forms, devoid of any pretentious subjectivity or feign exaggeration. Instead, these poems convey the true experiences and emotions of what a migrant worker has to endure; physical, mental and spiritual sufferings. Nonetheless, these poems have also propelled many workers into temporary fame as their writings become overnight sensations, singling out a few prominent writers as representatives for the entire migrant worker community. A trip to the library would grant you access to countless of published work about migrant workers. Yet, not much materials, especially in English, have been written on this specific group of poetry-writing migrant workers. Nonetheless, one of the most significant works produced specifically on worker poets is the 2015 internationally acclaimed documentary film (also compiled into an anthology of poetry) titled “Iron Moon”. Iron Moon focuses on the lives of five migrant workers who also happened to be excellent writers, their respective experiences and relation to poetry. Also, since 2010, a spade of suicides has taken place at the Foxconn factory situated Shenzhen for a multitude of reasons. Notably, one of the casualties was a renowned worker poet, and the international media had a field day covering his story (Rauhala 2015), his poems and how telling they were of the brutal experience a socially disadvantaged individual has to undergo.
According to Liu Dongwu (2012, p123), “what you write belongs to everyone, but how you write belongs to yourself”. Worker poets often stand out from their fellow peers as they bestow upon themselves a dual identity. On one hand, they continue to retain an association with any other ordinary workers on the assembly line. On the other hand, they simultaneously consider themselves to be the voice of the rural migrant group and a “cut above other factory workers” (Sun 2014, p189), given that they are now self-entitled with the right to speak on behalf of the entire community. Nevertheless, this newfound self entitlement comes with a weighted responsibility of painting an accurate collective picture through their writing, so that their poems, and eventually their skills, will in turn be validated by the rest. Fortunately, Liu adds that worker poets have an ability to “process realistic matters into poetic fashion” (Liu 2012, p124), whereby they tap on personal encounters and sufferings commonly experienced throughout the whole community and textualise them into short relatable verses.
My tiny relatives are far away under at the foot of Mt Shang;
They are sick, their bodies are covered in dust;
Whatever is taken from my middle-aged years
Extends the tunnel of their old age.
My body carries three tons of dynamite;
They are the fuse.
And last night,
Like rock, I exploded.
- Chen Nianxi, born in 1970, Shaanxi (Yang, 2016)
Through poems such as this poignant one written by Chen, worker poets are able to vividly document feelings of homesickness, longingness, hunger, starvation, weariness. While their sufferings may be unbearable, workers are left with little choice but to persevere and “chi ku”, which means to swallow their bitterness. This is mostly because they are not only responsible for feeding themselves, but also their families back home who may be entirely dependent on their meagre pay-check. Having to deal with the volatility of their next meal, plus the added weight of familial responsibility, migrant workers shoulder multiple burdens on top of their sufferings that we often overlook. Furthermore, most of these workers have travelled far from their hometowns into the coastal cities in search for work. If they are lucky, they get to return home once a year during the Lunar New Year break, but most choose to stay behind due to insufficient transport tickets or simply funds to finance their long trip home. As a result, workers would never see their family and kin that they have left behind in their rural birthplace for a long time, sometimes ever again. Once they are in the cities, they face yet another challenge of attempting to adapt to hostile environments which degrades their identity, and overwhelming physical exhaustion which cripples their bodies.
Previously I still did not know, that there are thousands upon thousands of others just like me
We run in the direction of the railway tracks
And entered a place called the city
Betraying our youths, betraying our capacity for physical labour
Betraying here and there, only to realise that there is only a sound of cough left in our bodies
A skeleton that nobody wants
- Xu Lizhi, born in 1990, Guangdong (Xu 2015, p39)
Originally from Jieyang, Guangdong, Xu Lizhi was an exemplary migrant worker who rose to fame as a worker poet. Xu’s life trajectory took him to Shenzhen in search of a job at the mere age of 20, after realising that he did not perform too well for his high school examination, which essentially diminished many future opportunities. It was in Shenzhen that he ended up on the assembly lines of the Foxconn factory, an electronics manufacturing company producing global products such as the likes of iPhones. Although he attempted to move away, Shenzhen was the one place he truly felt attached to as it allowed him unlimited access to bookstores and to freely indulge in reading (Nao 2014). Subsequently, Xu struggled to apply for jobs related to his love for books but did not find success in that aspect mostly due to his status as a temporary worker and his lack of an appropriate permit. Xu reluctantly returned to Foxconn on a renewed contract in 2014, eventually jumping to his death on September 30th that very year. Although his death was but one of many that made up the notorious spade of Foxconn suicides since 2010, Xu’s case stands out due to his work as a poet. China Youth Daily (Gao 2014) states that Xu had previously been acknowledged as a “successor of worker’s literature” and a “worker poet”, which can be considered as the “most direct acclaim” for anyone from lower strata communities. With most of his works taking on the theme of death (ibid.), Xu’s case truly embodied the notion that “to die is the only way to testify that [they] ever lived” (Walsh 2017).
Just like Xu, many young workers head to the cities in search for jobs after leaving school and are quickly planted along the assembly lines where they start their career, enduring hardships and humiliation. Although some of them have utilised their accumulated skills and experience to progress in terms of job mobility, many workers still lack adequate education and expertise to take the next step. Instead, they are trained to be competent at repetitive tasks, and handcuffed to a timetable (Pun 2016, p93) which guides their everyday life habits and practices while they are at the factory. Outside the working environment, even if workers do have some spare time for leisure, they are restricted from fully enjoying their time off (Lü 2014, p180) due to a multitude of reasons. Being stuck in mundane work and deprived from leisure undertakings, workers therefore start to feel nostalgic for a life not fully lived, questioning their sacrifice and the true worth (ibid., p35) of their lives, efforts and time.
One morning I get up
Two feet start running
Three Oceans is my factory [‘three oceans’ refers to Sanyo factory]
Four corners of the world I make my home
Five p.m. I clock off
Six steps make me dizzy
Seven drops of tears
Eight bouts of nasal discharge
Nine more days like this and I’m bound to die
Sure. [shi 是]
- Anonymous scribbling taken from a public toilet wall in Shekou Industrial Zone (Sun 2014, p185)
It is striking how remarkably witty some of these poems produced by worker poets can be. Taking this anonymous poem for example, the author had cleverly initiated each line in a numeral chronological order. Although migrant workers are stigmatised to be uneducated, surviving on their brawns rather than brains; the Chinese government had made it a point to provide at least nine years of compulsory education since 1986, rendering the younger population with the fundamentals of literacy. Many worker poems have been praised for their ability to resonate with the everyday ordinary worker. With the use of simple and sincere words or relating their writings directly to their line of work, these poems provide perfect resonation of struggles and hopes shared by the fellow workers who undergo the same experiences. As self-fulfilling as it is for those with a voice, it is the same too for those without a voice who are about to counter their detachment from humanity by vicariously living through these poems.
Walking around industrial cities like Shenzhen today, you will see sights of piling skyscrapers being built arduously by the thousands of migrant workers buoying their country’s economy. But while so many of us are taking an interest in the city’s skyline and impressive architectures, too little of us are paying attention to the individual stories of the workers beneath the buildings, toiling away in the dirt. Yet, these workers have miraculously found a way to make themselves heard despite the lack of a voice. Poetry, although revered as one of “China’s most treasured and esteemed classical art form”, is today being used by these very workers to “counter the brutalising experience of modernity” that haunts them (Walsh 2017). Although there are instances where their poetry has been subjected to criticisms for being too raw and lacking “literary sophistication and aesthetic finesse” (Sun 2014, p204), it is important to acknowledge that this absence of literary expertise is the very defining feature which gives their poems its own unique colour, one that also bestows unto them their much-deserved recognition.
For more information on migrant worker poets and their stories, do check out http://www.ironmoonmovie.com/.
Originating from Singapore, Abigial Lim is a Master student from the University of Freiburg, having spent a semester on exchange at UIO's Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages in the fall of 2018. She takes a strong interest in studying entrenched social issues within China, particularly pertaining to Chinese migrant workers. Her final Master thesis is an expansion of this blog post, and went on to receive the highest possible academic grade.