Beyond Tears and Laughter: Gender, Migration, and the Service Sector in China

229 Pages·2019·3.58 MB·English

by  Yang Shen

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON
CHINESE POLITICS AND SOCIETY
Beyond Tears
and Laughter
Gender, Migration, and
the Service Sector in China
Yang Shen
New Perspectives on Chinese Politics and Society
Series Editor
Yang Zhong
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Shanghai, China
Rapid growth has posed new challenges for sustainable political and eco-
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Yang Shen
Beyond Tears and
Laughter
Gender, Migration, and the Service Sector in China
Yang Shen
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Shanghai, China
New Perspectives on Chinese Politics and Society
ISBN 978-981-13-5816-6 ISBN 978-981-13-5817-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-5817-3
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P
reface
I was born in Shanghai seven years after the establishment of the Reform
and Opening-up policy in China. In the year I was born, the country still
operated as a planned economy in which food was rationed and purchased
by food stamps. In the early 1990s, my parents started a small business. My
father resigned from his job at a state-owned enterprise (SOE), which was
an extraordinarily risky and unusual decision to make at that time because
SOE jobs were regarded as an ‘iron rice bowl’ (tie fanwan): a permanent job
with sufficient social benefits (Whyte, 2012). The reform of SOEs com-
menced in the mid-1990s and as a result, 28.18 million workers were laid
off from 1998 to 2003; by 2003, only 68.76 million workers remained
employed in SOEs (SCIO, 2004). Several years after my father’s resignation,
the factory where he had worked was closed down and all the workers were
laid off; by that time, my father had invested in the Chinese stock market
and become one of the most financially successful people from that factory.
My family benefitted from my father’s risky decision, and we have been
relatively well off ever since. Yet, I could not take my family’s wealth for
granted. Individuals’ life chances can take different turns during the dra-
matic social transformations in China. By contrast, many of my father’s
former colleagues lost their jobs during the massive layoffs, and they are
living rather difficult lives like millions of city dwellers.
I became aware of the rural-urban disparity thanks to a television docu-
mentary and through people I encountered in China. In 2007, I watched
‘The rich and the poor’, a documentary made by the Japanese media group
NHK. It displayed the drastic differences between the newly rich and
migrant workers in China. I was sentimental to see a middle-aged rich man
v
vi PREFACE
decorate his house like a palace, whereas a middle-aged male migrant
worker in Guangdong province searched for the cheapest toy for his child,
who still lived in a rural area, in the hope of taking the toy back to his vil-
lage during the Spring Festival.1 It echoed a case I came across around
11 pm on a midsummer night in 2010. Some women were waiting by the
roadside in an attempt to make a living by carrying passengers by scooter.
Planning to take the ‘scooter taxi’ home, I agreed upon a price with one of
these women. Before leaving, she spoke to a little girl, three or four years
old, who was sleeping on the cold concrete floor: ‘Mum has to leave for a
while. Please stay here and don’t move around.’ Her child was half awake
and remained lying on the floor. On the way to my home, the woman told
me that local Shanghainese children went to bed earlier, whereas her child
had to be there until late at night. She worked during the day in a super-
market and as a scooter driver during the night, and her husband worked
as a scooter driver full-time. She had to bring the child with her because
there was no one at home. I felt great compassion for them.
The interaction with my roommate Xiuxiu during my M.A. studies
from 2007 to 2010 reinforced my resolution to do something for deprived
people. She came from rural Shanxi province, where coalmine explosions
occurred frequently. During late-night chats, she told me a lot about her
hometown. Although coal mining is risky work, it is more profitable than
farming. As a result, many men choose to be miners. My roommate was
the first person in her village to complete a master’s programme. She
wanted to do something to help her fellow villagers, but as a migrant who
was new to Shanghai, her schedule was dominated by career development,
such as doing internships and searching for a job in order to find a footing
in this metropolis. This did not leave much time and energy for focusing
on the development of her village. She was the first person from rural areas
I have come to know, and meeting her made me realise how different life
trajectories could be. The encounter with Xiuxiu reinforced my belief that
those who do not need to worry about their own financial wellbeing are
more likely to have the ability to help others, so they should take more
social responsibility.
In the summer of 2008, motivated by Xiuxiu’s story, my friends and I
organised a volunteering group to help children in rural Guizhou province.
1 Spring Festival is the biggest celebration in China. It begins on January 1 of each year
according to the lunar calendar, which is different from the Gregorian calendar. The Chinese
New Year holiday usually lasts for one week. It is a festival in which families gather together,
so millions of migrant workers are on the move during this period.
PREFACE vii
It was the first time I had visited rural China. Through teaching and home
interviewing, I gained a glimpse of life there. I was frustrated to witness
poverty there, but was unable to think of any solutions. During the global
economic recession in 2008, many rural workers went back to their villages,
so this gave me my first opportunity to talk to people who had experienced
migration. As a result, I observed that hukou can help explain the deprived
situation of rural migrants before pursuing my PhD studies.
In summer 2010, a friend and I made a documentary about an 82-year-
old Shanghainese woman who collected used newspapers in order to sell
them to recyclers. She narrated her life experience of leaving Shanghai to
support the construction of inner China in the Mao era. Her hukou was
transferred from Shanghai to Sichuan province, and she was not able to
transfer it back to Shanghai even after she came back. At that time, living
in Shanghai without Shanghai hukou made it impossible for her to apply
for permission to use gas, a property ownership certificate and even a TV
licence. Seeing how obsessed she was with her hukou status, I came to
realise what it meant to more marginalised people.
After this, the suicides committed by migrant workers in Foxconn made
me decide to focus on migrants. I felt sad about the tragedy, but it also
made me feel that I had a duty to do something to change their situation.
I felt compassion for pupils who lack sufficient educational resources and
for people who are destitute because they were born in rural areas and live
a hard life. The compassion for the less fortunate was one of the motiva-
tions for me to carry out this research.
When I was writing about reflexivity, I recalled George Orwell, one of
my favourite writers, who worked as a casual worker in restaurants in Paris
and wrote a book called ‘Down and out in Paris and London’. His vivid
account of working in restaurants and experiencing poverty was a great
inspiration to me.
‘In the face of difficulties, people should maintain their own integrity.
In times of success, they should do favours to the world’, is a famous say-
ing by Mencius (372–289 BC). It is one of my favourite mottos, guiding
and reflecting my principles. Rural/urban disparity, persisting gender
inequality, the growing gap between rich and poor: China has many
problems waiting to be solved. It is my hope to devote myself to making
China a better country.
Shanghai, China Yang Shen
viii PREFACE
references
SCIO. (2004, April). Zhongguo de jiuye zhuangkuang he zhengce [The current situ-
ation of the labour market and its related policies in China]. Retrieved June 10,
2014, from http://www.scio.gov.cn/zt2008/gxb2zn/06/200812/t249382.
htm
Whyte, M. K. (2012). China’s post-socialist inequality. Current History, 111(746),
229.
a
cknowledgements
The process of carrying out this research and writing this book for me has
been one of constant self-exploration. It has been an interactive process
that has reshaped my intellectual orientation and made me adapt my life-
style choices. It has been a project that has transcended the book-writing
itself, and may foster some life-long transformations.
I am greatly indebted to my previous teachers and colleagues at the
London School of Economics, especially Professor Diane Perrons. She
provided invaluable critical feedback at every stage in the writing of this
book. I am much indebted to Professor Rachel Murphy, Dr Hyun Shin,
Dr Ye Liu, Dr Ania Polemia, Professor Charles Stafford, Dr Hans
Steinmüller, Dr Bo Hu, Dr Yingqin Zheng for reading earlier drafts of the
book and to Dr Bingqin Li, Dr Kalpana Wilson and Dr Marsha Henry, Dr
Amanda Conroy, Dr Alessandro Ribu and Dr Nicole Shephard for reading
chapters at various stages. All of them provided invaluable comments.
Also, I indebted to my current colleagues at Shanghai Jiao Tong University,
especially Professor Yang Zhong, who encouraged me to keep on revising
the book during the time I was preoccupied with teaching, paper-writing
and extra-academic life. I am also grateful to Dr Yang Hu and anonymous
reviewers for providing constructive feedback for the book proposal. My
gratitude for my partner Dr Fan Yang is combined with a guilty sense of
indulging in romantic love. The emotional and intellectual support he has
provided is beyond my expectation. But without his company the book
could have been published significantly earlier.
Lastly, special thanks to all the fieldwork informants who shared their
bittersweet stories with me. Our encounters have enriched my life. I hope
ix