Factory girls - tildebooks

Paperback, 431 pages

English language

Published Sept. 10, 2009 by Spiegel & Grau.

ISBN:: 978-0-385-52018-8
OCLC Number:: 297147883

(1 review)

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 …

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. - Publisher.

1 edition

vilmibm reviewed Factory girls by Leslie T. Chang

Review of 'Factory girls' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This is my favorite kind of non-fiction: easy to read and get sucked into but well researched and neutrally presented. I was happy about the inclusion of Leslie Chang's own personal family history as it really helped put the main subject matter of the book into context.

I picked up this book because I wanted to know about whose hands are making so many of the products that surround me each day. After reading it my frame on the world as a mass-consuming American has changed: I can't look at anything with a "made in china" tag and wonder what kind of factory made this? what are the bosses like? how are people treated? Goods that are generally considered as ubiquitous as they are low quality in America are now for me tangible connections to people who are striving like so many people all around the world have before them, …

This is my favorite kind of non-fiction: easy to read and get sucked into but well researched and neutrally presented. I was happy about the inclusion of Leslie Chang's own personal family history as it really helped put the main subject matter of the book into context.

I picked up this book because I wanted to know about whose hands are making so many of the products that surround me each day. After reading it my frame on the world as a mass-consuming American has changed: I can't look at anything with a "made in china" tag and wonder what kind of factory made this? what are the bosses like? how are people treated? Goods that are generally considered as ubiquitous as they are low quality in America are now for me tangible connections to people who are striving like so many people all around the world have before them, including me--a descendant of farmers who left a rural area to seek comfort in a burgeoning industry.