Conversation with two rural migrant workers

February 22nd, 2011 Filed under English entries, Opinion, Work

I was working at the hotel room when the house keeper knocked my door. I opened the door and found two house keepers, one elder women at her 40s who seems like a veteran and a men at his early 20s who seems quite young. I let them in and when they are cleaning my room I had a short conversation with them.

Who are they and their situation in the city

The lady comes from Sichuan province and has been at Shenzhen for over 10 years. She is the house keeper of my floor. From her looking I can tell that she has been working here for several years. Her husband is also in the city working at property management company. They have a child at hometown but they didn’t go back to hometown for five years.

The young man is a part-time worker. He comes from Henan province and just came to this city early this year to join his wife who probably working at a factory. He told me that he didn’t go back to hometown during this Chinese New Year. This is his firm time not at home with the his family during CNY. He feels said for that. He is paid by working hours at price of 9RMB/hour.

Why they leave their hometown

I asked them why they come to Shenzhen instead of staying at hometown growing corps.The young man told me that because there are not much to do in the field. So there are excessive labor in the rural area.

On the other hand, the elder lady told me another more important reason. It’s because they can hardly make money through farming. The only situation that farming can bring some decent income is in the “good years”. Good years means that there’s no flood, no drought and no plant disease. In this good years, they don’t have to invest much on irrigation or pesticide and can still harvest. However, “good year” is a kind of rarity in recent years. They have to invest much on irrigation, pesticide and chemical fertilizer. These extra investments make it hard to earn some money by selling grains. So she had rent out his several acres of land to others at a price of 300RMB/year.

Their future choice

I finally asked a question about their future. Do you plan to stay in the city? How?

The young man told me that he is considering going to a factory as soon as possible because he now earns too little. He heard that Foxconn could pay about 2000RMB/month (1500 base salary + overtime working compensation) for new workers. However, he feels that in these high inflation years and in such a high price city, 2000RMB is too little. Sometimes, he considering go back to hometown city. But there offers even lower salary. He is obliviously in a delima.

On the contrary, the women has made up her mind to stay in the city. She believes there’s no hope in the rural area. She and her husband would try their best to dwell at Shenzhen what ever efforts it may take. In fact, they have brought a house in the suburb area of the city. This house solved the biggest Hukou issue. She told me that they are going to bring their son to the city next year.

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