As promised, here’s the second of the personal accounts of migrant working originally published in China Youth. Li Yibing is a young man caught between tiring and dangerous jobs as a migrant worker in Guangzhou and pressures from family expectations.

Location: In one of the worker’s dormitories at the Tianyou (‘Heaven’s Blessings’) furniture factory in Guangzhou.
Time: 8pm 6th January 2005
Interviewee: Li Yibing, male, 27 years old, electric saw operator.

I came to work in Dongguan in early 2004.

My first job was a packer at a plastics factory. That job was a right tough beggar – after a day of that I felt like all my limbs were coming disjointed. Even worse, the food the factory provided was too disgusting. My workmates would all wolf it down but I couldn’t stomach it. I stuck it out for less than a fortnight before I left, but there was no way I could get back the 300 yuan deposit I’d paid or my identity card.

There was nothing for it, all I could go was call me Mam and Dad and have then send some money, sort out a temporary ID card and keep on looking for work. After a week of getting nowhere, I took a job at a little privately run chemical factory. My job was to move the raw materials around. That was no easy job either. I reckon the raw materials had sulphuric acid in them. If it splashed on your clothes it would burn a hole; if you got it on your hand it hurt like fury; get it in yours eyes and you’d be blind for sure. I worked there for three months being as careful as I could, but I couldn’t get used to that weird smell so I left there too.

When it came round to the farming busy season I headed home with absolutely nothing. The neighbours were all talking – how so-and-so from such-and-such a family had brought home some amazing thing or other, how someone else’s relative had sent home so much money – but when they saw me they didn’t bother asking. There was just one time when my folks sighed ‘What’s all this though? You’ve graduated high school, but when you go away to work you can’t do better than some lass who dropped out before finishing primary school in the village? Miserable fate!’

My big brother could see this had me agitated so he says I should learn a skill or two before I head off again, motorbike repair, driving or what have you. He also said he’d put up the money for me to study at one of them privately run colleges. I felt like, here I am twenty six going on twenty seven, I can’t even take care of myself, what a joke! When it was coming time to go, I asked for 300 yuan for travelling money. Our dad says ‘I’m not expecting you to make something big of yourself, but maybes you could earn enough to pay for your own ticket home next year?’. Me face were burning red.

If I was going to earn a bit more money I’d have to find a decent job. Right after I got off the train I went and bought a paper to look at the job ads. Clerical workers and journalists on factory newsletters were getting over a thousand a month! In high school my essays always got circulated round the class as examples of good writing – maybe I could give this a try? I went to one job agency after another to queue up for application forms and interviews. I was pulling that high school graduation certificate in and out of me pocket that many times it ended up crumpled right up. One time, I was at one of those factory newsletter’s offices. They asked if I’d ever had anything published? I shook me head. So they ask did I graduate in Chinese? I shake me head again, their expression changes and they says ‘Is this your idea of a joke?’

After running into these brick walls a few times I was feeling right sorry for myself. I wasn’t sleeping properly nights. I hated myself. I hated that I hadn’t graduated university; hated that there wasn’t one skill I could offer. Some mate from back home says ‘If you really can write, get yourself a fake certificate and con your way in there. You can by a fake degree from a famous university for a hundred yuan up on main street’. He also told me some other bloke had done that and he was living it large style nowadays, proper proud of himself.

I’d rather be unemployed than fake it. There were plenty of good jobs in the paper every day right enough, but nothing I could do. It took me a month before I found this furniture factory; I watch one of the cutting machines. You work fourteen hours a day with the cutter making one hell of a noise and wood chips and sawdust flying all over. Your throat’s bunged up so as you want to cough all the time and you’re always hearing how one of your workmates has been injured by one of the electric saws…apart from Sunday afternoons you can’t leave the factory. When it gets to the end of the month and you’re counting your eight or nine hundred yuan it’s hard to feel too happy about it all.

Last National Day holiday I got a call from home saying they’d arranged a girl for me to start courting to marry. The lass were in Guangzhou as well, she also graduated high school, she were a charge-hand. I was none too happy so Dad says ‘Well then bring one back yourself when you come home for New Year!’ I were that irritated I couldn’t speak. I’m the youngest in our family, Mam and Dad are both pushing seventy. The tradition in our village is if a son’s not married then he should be out working in the families’ fields. So I’ve done what they told me and I’ve been to see this lass a couple of times. I’d lost me self-confidence and as time goes on I’m just about giving up on any hopes I once had.

So you’ve hardly stopped to think and we’re coming up to New Year again. I’m twenty seven; where I come from I’m not a young man any more. If I think back over last year, I feel like I’ve let my folks down, I haven’t earned money to look after them now they’re old and I haven’t found a wife so I can give them a grandson…I want to go home but I don’t know as I dare.

Original Chinese text follows below. Not too many technical difficulties translating this but catching the mood of some of the colloquialisms can be hard. Where his father bemoans Yibing’s ‘Miserable fate!’ in paragraph four I don’t know if I’ve caught all the disappointment expressed in the Chinese ‘背运啊’.

民工李一兵的2004年

地点：广州天佑家具厂职工宿舍内
时间：2005年1月6日晚8点
人物：李一兵，男，27岁，电锯工

　　我2004年初来到东莞打工。
我的第一份工作是替一家塑胶厂打包。这活儿贼苦，一天下来，我浑身像散了架。更糟糕的是，厂子伙食太差，工友们狼吞虎咽，我就是咽不下。没熬到半个月，我就走了，可事先交的300元押金和身份证，怎么都要不回来。
没办法，我只有打电话让父母寄钱，又办了临时身份证，继续找工作。折腾了一周，我进了个私人办的小化工厂，负责搬运原材料，这活儿也不轻松。原材料里 好像有硫酸，溅到衣服上就烧个洞，溅到手上疼得钻心，溅到眼睛里，那肯定成瞎子。我提心吊胆地干了三个月，又不习惯那股怪气味儿，还是走了。
农忙的时候，我双手空空回家了。邻居们都议论呢，谁家的谁带回多少稀罕东西、寄回多少钱，见到我，他们都不问。只有一回，爸妈叹着气说：“咋回事？你一个高中毕业生，打工还打不过村里小学初中都没念完的娃？背运啊。”
哥哥见我着急，说先学好一两门技术活儿再出去，学摩托修理、驾驶什么的，还说，愿意出钱让我读个民办大学。我觉得自己都二十六七了，连自己都养活不了，大笑话！临走时，我要了300元做路费。爸说，也不指望你有多大出息，明年车票能自个儿买就成。我的脸烧得慌。
要多挣钱，就得找份像样儿的工作。一挤下火车，我就买来报纸翻看招聘广告。公司文员、厂报编辑的工资一般都超过千元！读中学时我的作文都是范文，这活 儿我能接下来吧？我到一家家职业介绍所排队领表、面试，那张高中文凭掏出掏进，弄得皱巴巴的。有回，我找到一家厂报编辑部。对方问，你发表过文章？我摇 头。对方又问，你中文系毕业？我还是摇头。对方变脸了，你开什么玩笑！
接连碰壁，我的心情糟糕透了，每晚都睡不好，特恨自己：恨自己没有大学文凭，恨自己没有一技之长。同乡劝我，你要真能写，弄张假文凭混进去再说！名牌大学的文凭在大街上就卖100块！又说，某某也是这么弄，现在混得人模狗样的，神气得很。
我宁愿失业，也不能作假。每天报纸登的好工作很多，可是不属于我。一个月后，我才找到这家家具厂，守机床。每天14小时的工作，车床轰隆隆地响，木屑 粉末满天飞，堵得嗓子眼儿老要咳嗽，还常听说有工友被电锯伤到……除了周日下午，都得待在厂里。到月底数着那八九百块，心里真是高兴不起来。
国庆节的时候，家里给我打电话，说给我张罗了个对象。那女孩也在广州打工，也有高中文凭，还是主管。我不乐意，爸就说，那你今年过年带个回来！呛得我 说不出话。我在家中最小，爸妈都快70了。按村里乡俗：儿子一天不结婚，他们就还得下地种田。我按他们的吩咐找过那女孩两次，没什么自信，渐渐死了心。
一晃又到年底。27岁，在我们老家已是大龄青年。回想这一年，觉得挺对不住爸妈：没挣到钱给他们养老，也没找到媳妇给他们添孙……想回家，不敢回。

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