Tag Archives: migrant workers

lament of generation 80

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Opportunity in the post-Mao era — like all opportunity — has been a question of being in the right place at the right time. Below, I have translated a blog post, lamenting the fact that even if Shenzhen is the right place, it is no longer the right time; the opportunities are going, going, gone and if what remains are wage labor and education, even they are not enough for the poor.

Of note, the author uses the expression “poor second generation (穷二代)”, the direct opposite of the “rich second generation (富二代)”. More interestingly, he refers to “second generation farmers (农二代)”, as if the transition from farmer to urban resident was a natural progression. However, there have been generations of Chinese farmers — in fact, this is one definition of traditional Chinese culture. What then, we might wonder, is it about Shenzhen that gives rise to the expectation that each generation must do economically better than the last?

Shenzhen: Unfortunate Generation 80, Unhappy Workers, and the Hopeless Poor Second Generation

First of all, let me explain that my title refers to me. Perhaps you, who are reading this heading are one of the lucky Generation 80, the happy office workers. Or, maybe you’re one of the poor second generation or a second generation farmer but aren’t hopeless. If so, congratulations. My opinion isn’t going to be yours, its only representative of my thoughts.

Why is Generation 80 unfortunate? Continue reading →

my hope for the new year

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Originally uploaded by maryannodonnell

I have been thinking about the contradictions that shape human lives and how, in turn, those lives are the environment for others – human, animal, vegetable, and mineral.

SZCAT, a part of China’s Animal Lovers Net dedicated to saving feral urban cats announced that on December 26, 2010, a group of animal protectors (as they call themselves) discovered an illegal slaughterhouse and reported it to the Yanshi police as part of a rescue mission in a Hakka area where yes, I ate stewed cat and dog (separate dishes) several years ago.

The Nanfang Daily report on the rescue called it “Stealing Dogs Movement”, emphasizing the human cost of taking the animals. The animal protectors went in to rescue the animals and the local police destroyed several of the shanties that made up the slaughter house. However, as the volunteers were trying to get the animals to safety, many of the residents in the area stopped them because these animals were their livelihood. As a result, the police ended up negotiating a compromise – the volunteers could leave with the animals they already saved, and the rest would be left with their owners, who no longer had a way of processing them.

The results of this negotiation pleased no one. For their part, the migrant workers who make their precarious living by slaughtering and preparing traditional cat and dog dishes took a huge economic hit at the time of the year when they most need to save money for the upcoming Spring Festival. On the other hand, the volunteers felt that inhuman misuse of cats and dogs would continue without any intervention or “respect for law”.

I’m not sure how to think about this situation because I’m sad for all involved. Clearly, migrant workers in Shenzhen resort to all sorts of grayish means to earn a living not only for themselves, but also to support family back in neidi. At the same time, the raising and slaughtering of animals for human consumption is itself the cause of much, unnecessary suffering and inequality; not only do stock animals suffer, but raising cows and pigs and fish and chickens on industrialized ranches and farms damages the environment for other creatures (including humans).

My hope for the New Year is that we find ways of resolving these contradictions in inclusive ways. As long as we frame the debate as a choice between “save the pets” and “save the migrant workers,” we fail to see how all lives – not just the ones we like or agree with or are proud of or believe to be right, but all lives matter and matter beautifully.

Happy, happy 2011. Prosper.

shenzhen hukou update

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On August 3, following the Guangdong Provincial Government’s decision to initiate a point system to determine hukou eligibility, Shenzhen announced that an addition 4,600 household residences would be available for rural migrant workers. Shenzhen has been loosening its requirements for educated and skilled workers from other cities, but allowing rural workers to transfer hukou directly to Shenzhen (rather than first to another city and then to Shenzhen) is new.

I’m interested to see how these 4,600 migrant workers are chosen and a complete list of the point system. Older criteria included gender, age, level of education, hometown, and local sponsorship. The first major change was, of course, allowing individuals to apply themselves, rather than through a work unit. Also, I’ll be interested to see how marital status plays out in the allocation of these hukou. After all, if these hukou are given to married individuals then the actual number of new Shenzhen residents could be over 14,000 people.

And yet. All this counting of people seems oddly ineffective. In Shenzhen, the population continues to burgeon beyond all attempts at urban planning. I don’t think that giving hukou to (even) 14,000 people will change the reality that Shenzhen does not have enough hospitals, schools, and affordable housing because hukou figures woefully under represent the city’s population. Indeed, to the extent that social welfare benefits are based on hukou statistics, Shenzhen’s hukou system will continue to be a negotiation of radical inequality, rather than a way of distributing social justice.

That said,  hukou debates painfully remind me of immigration debates in the United States, where the point too often seems to be cutting up extant pies, rather than attempting new recipes. We all too often forget that simply because we don’t share the same citizenship status it doesn’t mean we live on different planets and therefore don’t need to be accountable to each other. Folks with or without Shenzhen hukou, like those with or without US green cards / citizenship, all breath the same air, drink the same water, and eat the fruits of one earth. The effects of decisions to pollute a stream or educate a child cross all sorts of boundaries. Sustainable justice begins when we acknowledge that our governments need to negotiate forms of connection (across all sorts of difference) rather than merely manage forms of exclusionary privilege.

[For those with a historical bent, it’s worth noting changing boundaries between inside and outside what counts as “Shenzhen”. In September 1995, one of Shenzhen’s reforms was establishing conditions for temporary residence in the “Special Zone”. The “Special Zone”  had only three districts (Luohu, Futian, and Nanshan) and did not include New Baoan County, which was still technically rural. At the time, the boundary between the Special Zone and the rest of China was a second border (二线) that was an internal border. The importance of the second border dissolved in 2003ish around the same time (2004) that the last of Baoan and Longgang Districts had been administratively urbanized and integrated into the Shenzhen Municipal Government.]