The unknown hero of China’s modernization
When people think of Chin’a modernization, they think of the Shanghai Oriental Pearl Tower and the Pudong financial district, they think of Beijing’s upcoming hosting of 2008 Olympics Games, they think of the world’s highest railway of Tibet at 5000m altitudes, they think of the Three Gorges Dam, they think of the booming construction industry that has been persisted over the past 20 years, they might also think of China’s recent Chang’e lunar orbiter, but I suspect few of them think of the people who actually built those projects, I mean with their hands and sweat and blood.
Obviously all these mega-projects, as well as the tiniest projects, require capital backing, political guidance and approval, but more importantly require the man power to execute them. But most of the time, the people who gave up so much for so little are barely noticed by the society and history. For instance among the millions people who participated in, and died at, the construction of the Great Wall of China, how many famous names remain in popular culture today? I can’t think of one. We only know which emperors ordered the building or rebuilding of it, and which generals were major contributor to the project, but none of the workers actually made it into history, unfortunately.
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Ironically, as invisible as they are in history, in real life they’re everywhere in the country, in every corner of every city, on every street, you can easily spot them, but mostly people just ignore them. In China, they are called migrant workers [民工]. They’re like a special segment of population in the society. They’re treated differently by the local government and the police, coz they don’t have an official status at the places where they work (and live temporary), but they also lost their status at their home town for being absent for so long time. They have next to nothing in terms of life conform and social protection, but yet they work really hard, 7 days per week, hot or cold, dry or rain, day and night, in order to raise their family at home.
They hop from city to city depending on the projects, most of the time they literally live in shelters within the construction project they’re working on. They only go home once or twice a year to visit their family, by train. Trains in China have 4 classes of ticket: hard seat, soft seat, hard sleep and soft sleep. I don’t need to explain each class, but most of them consider hard seat quite expensive already, let alone soft seat or soft sleep. Sometime there are stand-up ticket as well, for short distance itineray such as between Shanghai and Suzhou (30 min).
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The other day I took the train to Hangzhou, at the train station, I saw many of them running to catch their train while others sitting and sleeping at the station waiting for their train. Sometime I took the metro line 1 and see many of them too, because line 1 connects the two train stations of Shanghai, the old and the new station. To be honest, it’s quite unconfortable standing close to them, they stink, they’re unpolite, they talk loud and they’re always with big bags around them (luggage is a luxury).
But at second thought, these people contribute their life for our comfort: they build our roads, our apartments, our subways, our highways, our bridges, our tunnels, our dams, etc. They dig mines, cut forests, run cables, in order for us to have electricity and the materials for the manufacturing industries. Without them, any of these would not be possible. Without their hands, China would have to import huge amount of industrial equipments from western countries or Japan, and thus forever falling under their control for modernization.
So, I think these migrant workers deserve to be honored as the hero of China’s modernization. They should be honored the same way as their parent’s generation who defended western and Japanese occupancies, or the same way as their grand parent’s generation who fought for bringing down imperial rules and corruption. I think we should build a monument or statute to the unknown migrant workers who have given up blood and life for bringing China yet to a higher level of prosperity and peace, and to some extend, for making comfortable life much more affordable at every corner of the world!