Factory Girls : From Village to City in a Changing China

An eye-opening and previously untold story, __Factory Girls__ is the first look into the everyday lives of the migrant factory population in China. China has 130 million migrant workers—the largest migration in human history. In __Factory Girls__, Leslie T. Chang, a former correspondent for the __Wall Street Journal__ in Beijing, tells the story of these workers primarily through the lives of two young women, whom she follows over the course of three years as they attempt to rise from the assembly lines of Dongguan, an industrial city in China’s Pearl River Delta. As she tracks their lives, Chang paints a never-before-seen picture of migrant life—a world where nearly everyone is under thirty; where you can lose your boyfriend and your friends with the loss of a mobile phone; where a few computer or English lessons can catapult you into a completely different social class. Chang takes us inside a sneaker factory so large that it has its own hospital, movie theater, and fire department; to posh karaoke bars that are fronts for prostitution; to makeshift English classes where students shave their heads in monklike devotion and sit day after day in front of machines watching English words flash by; and back to a farming village for the Chinese New Year, revealing the poverty and idleness of rural life that drive young girls to leave home in the first place. Throughout this riveting portrait, Chang also interweaves the story of her own family’s migrations, within China and to the West, providing historical and personal frames of reference for her investigation. A book of global significance that provides new insight into China, __Factory Girls__ demonstrates howthe mass movement from rural villages to cities is remaking individual lives and transforming Chinese society, much as immigration to America’s shores remade our own country a century ago. An eye-opening and previously untold story, Factory Girls is the first look into the everyday lives of the migrant factory population in China.China has 130 million migrant workers--the largest migration in human history. In Factory Girls, Leslie T. Chang, a former correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Beijing, tells the story of these workers primarily through the lives of two young women, whom she follows over the course of three years as they attempt to rise from the assembly lines of Dongguan, an industrial city in China's Pearl River Delta.As she tracks their lives, Chang paints a never-before-seen picture of migrant life--a world where nearly everyone is under thirty; where you can lose your boyfriend and your friends with the loss of a mobile phone; where a few computer or English lessons can catapult you into a completely different social class. Chang takes us inside a sneaker factory so large that it has its own hospital, movie theater, and fire department; to posh karaoke bars that are fronts for prostitution; to makeshift English classes where students shave their heads in monklike devotion and sit day after day in front of machines watching English words flash by; and back to a farming village for the Chinese New Year, revealing the poverty and idleness of rural life that drive young girls to leave home in the first place. Throughout this riveting portrait, Chang also interweaves the story of her own family's migrations, within China and to the West, providing historical and personal frames of reference for her investigation.A book of global significance that provides new insight into China, Factory Girls demonstrates how the mass movement from rural villages to cities is remaking individual lives and transforming Chinese society, much as immigration to America's shores remade our own country a century ago. An eye-opening and previously untold story, Factory Girls is the first look into the everyday lives of the migrant factory population in China. China has 130 million migrant workersthe largest migration in human history. In Factory Girls , Leslie T. Chang, a former correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Beijing, tells the story of these workers primarily through the lives of two young women, whom she follows over the course of three years as they attempt to rise from the assembly lines of Dongguan, an industrial city in Chinas Pearl River Delta. As she tracks their lives, Chang paints a never-before-seen picture of migrant lifea world where nearly everyone is under thirty; where you can lose your boyfriend and your friends with the loss of a mobile phone; where a few computer or English lessons can catapult you into a completely different social class. Chang takes us inside a sneaker factory so large that it has its own hospital, movie theater, and fire department; to posh karaoke bars that are fronts for prostitution; to makeshift English classes where students shave their heads in monklike devotion and sit day after day in front of machines watching English words flash by; and back to a farming village for the Chinese New Year, revealing the poverty and idleness of rural life that drive young girls to leave home in the first place. Throughout this riveting portrait, Chang also interweaves the story of her own familys migrations, within China and to the West, providing historical and personal frames of reference for her investigation. A book of global significance that provides new insight into China, Factory Girls demonstrates how the mass movement from rural villages to cities is remaking individual lives and transforming Chinese society, much as immigration to Americas shores remade our own country a century ago.

an Eye-opening And Previously Untold Story, Factory Girls Is The First Look Into The Everyday Lives Of The Migrant Factory Population In China.

the New York Times Book Review - Patrick Radden Keefe

chang's Extraordinary Reportorial Feat Is The Intimacy With Which She Presents The Stories Of These Two Women. Min And Chunming Lack The Reserve Of Some Of Their Colleagues. They Share Their Diary Entries And Their Text Messages, Their Romantic Entanglements And Their Sometimes Strained Relationships With The Families They Left Behind. The Result Is An Exceptionally Vivid And Compassionate Depiction Of The Day-to-day Dramas, And The Fears And Aspirations, Of The Real People Who Are Powering China's Economic Boom. By Delving So Deeply Into The Lives Of Her Subjects, Chang Succeeds In Exploring The Degree To Which China's Factory Girls Are Exploited—working Grueling Hours In Sometimes Poor Conditions For Meager Wages With Little Job Security—without Allowing The Book To Degenerate Into A Diatribe.

"An eye-opening and previously untold story, Factory Girls is the first look into the everyday lives of the migrant factory population in China." "China has 130 million migrant workers - the largest migration in human history. In Factory Girls, Leslie T. Chang, a former correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Beijing, tells the story of these workers primarily through the lives of two young women, whom she follows over the course of three years as they attempt to rise from the assembly lines of Dongguan, an industrial city in China's Pearl River Delta." "Factory Girls demonstrates how the mass movement from rural villages to cities is remaking individual lives and transforming Chinese society, much as emigration to America's shores remade our own country a century ago."--Jacket Going out The city To die poor is a sin The talent market Factory girls The stele with no name Square and round Eight-minute date Assembly-line English The village The historian in my family The South China mall Love and money The tomb of the emperor Perfect health. Explores the world of the millions of female Chinese migrant workers who have left their homes in rural towns to find jobs in China's cities, as revealed through a two-year study of the lives of two young women.