Leslie Chang, the author of “Factory Girls” write about young women who work in the factories. The author wanted to look at the china point of view. She tell stories about their working conditions, lives, their hopes, their dreams and their whole emotional world (Chang, 2008). What is it like for these young girls who work for these factories? They are not thinking eight-hour shift or how much they make like people in the United States would think of when having a job. Factory girls are thinking “I want to work to make money”. They want to prove themselves. From their perspective their life is very different from us. Their goals are more about trying to achieve something at a young age and being more than what they are. Dongguan is an important …show more content…
“We start work at seven in the morning and get off work at 9pm, afterwards we shower and wash our clothes. Those with money go out for midnight snacks and those without money go to sleep. We sleep until 6:30 in the morning. No one want to get out of bed but we must work at seven. 20 minutes to go, crawl outta bed rub swollen eyes, wash your face. “With 10 minutes to go, those who want breakfast eat but I’ve seen many people not eat” (Chang, 2008). This literally sounds like my life when it comes to work. Working crazy hours, not eating just to make money. They just like us in a …show more content…
This type of subject that people can relate to. The ways they deal with their friends or the way they make boyfriend and girlfriends or what kind of conflicts they have with their parents as they are growing up. The struggleWe can all relate to that at one point in our life even though we have different cultural background. That’s why topics like those in book carry universal emotions and ideas have lasting value because they are not things that can change. Even the working condition or the wages in Dongguan can change year to year but larger things are always
“My very ability to work tirelessly hour after hour is a product of decades of better-than-average medical care, a high-protein diet, and workouts in gyms that charge $400 or $500 a year. If I am now a productive fake member of the working class, it’s because I haven’t been working, in any hard physical sense, long enough to have
The author demonstrates a personal example of how communication became a barrier because of the way Tan had to assist when her mother would speak. Tan would often have to relay the meaning of her mother’s message, because her mother’s “broken English” was difficult for others to comprehend. When Amy was younger, she remembers having to act as her mother on the phone, so that people on the other end would treat her mother with the respect she deserved. On one occasion, when her mother went to the doctor to get her CAT scan results on a benign brain tumor, her mother claimed that “the hospital did not apologize when they said they had lost the CAT scan and she had come for nothing” (Tan, 544 ). It was not until Tan had talked to the doctor that the medical staff seemed to care about any of her mother’s complications. Tan seems to come to the conclusion that a language barrier affects both sides. Not only does it affect Tan, but it also appears to affect the people around her. For instance, this happens when Tan changes her major from the stereotypical “Asian’s become doctors” to an English teacher. She eventually learns to write fiction and other writings that she was constantly told she would never be successful at.
... mother wanted to be in school (Pai 45). She instilled a hard work ethic and a desire for education in her children. In addition to parenting, she provided her husband with assistance and labor in his upholstery business. A small Korean business, such as Kwon’s upholstery company, could not have survived without the unpaid, long hour labor provided by the wife (Parrenas 363). This gendered hierarchy that demands Asian women to undertake the unrecognized, monotonous tasks is not only a survival tactic for small businesses but also the leading cause for women to have a “double day,” contributing to long hours in the family business and providing most, if not all, of the parenting and housework (Parrenas 364). Parallel to this gendered hierarchy concept, Lee worked full time as a seamstress, secretary, and overseer of the employees while Kwon went out on calls (78).
Previous generations have a strong belief of keeping work and home life separate; that work is for work and home is for play (Rampell, 2011, para 21). Today’s professionals do not seem to abide by similar beliefs, constantly crossing the borders of one into the other. While many recognize this as an issue that could result in employees being less productive, it has actually resulted in them accepting that their work may run late into the evening or even into the weekend. I agree with this completely in that I grew up being taught that business is business and personal is personal; you leave your home life at the door. But now times have changed, and my weekends are no longer dedicated to my home life, but for work, because I attend classes during the week. Also, in my line of work in the Allied Health industry, it is a requirement to work off hours. Long gone are the days of working nine to five, Monday through Friday; technology and the demand of wanting affairs done and done as soon as possible, has made it so the “work week” is now 24-7. “Jon Della Volpe, the director of polling at Harvard Institute of Politics, said, ‘Some experts also believe that today’s young people are better at quickly switching from one task to another, given their exposure to so many stimuli during their childhood and adolescence’” (Rampbell,
Some women come to the US and take any job that is available even if it means doing long hours and not getting paid a lot of money. Corporations travel over to third-world countries and hire women to do small jobs in large factories for little to no pay. They only hire a certain type of woman. In “Introduction: Disposable Women and Other Myths of Global Capitalism” the author touches on the subject of the treatment of the third-world woman and what companies expect from her: “This woman turns into a form of industrial waste, at which point she is discarded and replaced.” (Wright, 6) Once this woman has become old and no longer able to perform the task that she was hired for originally, the company throws her out and simply replaces her with another woman. The third world woman has a sad destiny of coming to the US and dealing with the unfair treatment of companies that do not even appreciate their work.
During this time, women had limited options as far as work was concerned. As time went on, more and more women were forced to work, because they had no husband and no other means of building up a dowry for a husband. By 1910 the wage labor force was made up of about 20% of women as young as fourteen. The wages these women earned were unbelievably low, and at times as much as 80% lower than the wages men earned. Possible job opportunities for the women included options such as a textile factory, which consisted of clothing and fabric production. In these factories, the women ran high risks to their health. More wealthy people would hire these women for domestic services such as nannies, or house servants. These jobs sometimes required the woman to live at that residence, and the women ran the constant risk of being molested by a higher-class ranking individual. Department stores were also willing to hire women. However, the set-back to this type of work was that the women were sometimes expected to purchase expensive dress up clothing that most of the time they couldn’t afford. The women were advised to “round out their meager salaries by finding a ‘”gentleman friend”’ to purchase clothing and pleasures”(Peiss, 79).
In a village left behind as the rest of the China is progressing, the fate of women remains in the hands of men. Old customs and traditions reign supreme, not because it is believed such ways of life are best, but rather because they have worked for many years despite harsh conditions. In response to Brother Gu’s suggestion of joining communist South China’s progress, Cuiqiao’s widower father put it best: “Farmer’s have their own rules.”
The men in the factories looked at the women coming in as just an extra pair of hands. They were mostly indifferent. Even so, the women could not date the men. This rule was more of a control effort and a bit of the women not being seeing as respectable women. Yet, the bosses were at a lost because they were not used to women working. The bosses tried to enforce rules; when they were broken, the bosses did not know how to punish the women because they were women. The women had to wear hats, even if their hair was longer than the men. The women did not like this because they felt as though they were being discriminated against. They would wear slacks and carry tools because the men had to, but the men did not wear head coverings. Also, everyone that worked in the factories, besides the factory women, viewed them as girls because a true woman would be at home taking care of the house. They had to trade in their smooth soft hands for rough hands filled with
Girl Time is a book written by Maisha T. Winn who is a former public elementary school and high school teacher. She has worked extensively with youth inside and outside urban schools throughout the United States. Winn provides information in the book about girls incarcerated in juvenile detention centers and girls who have been previously incarcerated.
The girls that worked in the textile mills enjoyed new freedoms but also faced many challenges. Per Feller, the mill girls found “a blend of independence, conviviality, respectability, and reward” (120). These new experiences for the young women of New England came with many rules and harsh conditions but provided them with a sense of purpose and unique liberties.
High workloads, high stress and low wages are the norm, (Greenhouse, 2008) which translates into a lack of work/life balance. Consequently, the largest job growth sector in America is the low wage retail and food service sector. (Draut, 2005) Chain stores are everywhere, making jobs at places like Starbucks and Best Buy plentiful. Unfortunately, these types of jobs pay little above minimum wage. This puts the debt-strapped college grad in the impossible situation of having an income, but not earning enough to cover the basics. Further still, working in food service and retail guarantees an unpredictable schedule. Some retailers will post work schedules only a few days to a week in advance, (Draut, 2005) while others will call their employees at the last minute to fill shifts, thus making it difficult to plan or have a social life. And considering that many college grads work in these industries, it is understandable how this kind of work-stress coupled with financial stress is a recipe for disaster. In addition, employees often risk losing their jobs when they need to miss work to care for sick children. (Greenhouse,
Firstly, the relationship expectations in Chinese customs and traditions were strongly held onto. The daughters of the Chinese family were considered as a shame for the family. The sons of the family were given more honour than the daughters. In addition, some daughters were even discriminated. “If you want a place in this world ... do not be born as a girl child” (Choy 27). The girls from the Chinese family were considered useless. They were always looked down upon in a family; they felt as if the girls cannot provide a family with wealth. Chinese society is throwing away its little girls at an astounding rate. For every 100 girls registered at birth, there are 118 little boys in other words, nearly one seventh of Chinese girl babies are going missing (Baldwin 40). The parents from Chinese family had a preference for boys as they thought; boys could work and provide the family income. Due to Chinese culture preference to having boys, girls often did not have the right to live. In the Chinese ethnicity, the family always obeyed the elder’s decision. When the family was trying to adapt to the new country and they were tryin...
The early part of the novel shows women’s place in Chinese culture. Women had no say or position in society. They were viewed as objects, and were used as concubines and treated with disparagement in society. The status of women’s social rank in the 20th century in China is a definite positive change. As the development of Communism continued, women were allowed to be involved in not only protests, but attended universities and more opportunities outside “house” work. Communism established gender equality and legimated free marriage, instead of concunbinage. Mao’s slogan, “Women hold half of the sky”, became extremely popular. Women did almost any job a man performed. Women were victims by being compared to objects and treated as sex slaves. This was compared to the human acts right, because it was an issue of inhumane treatment.
...t states, “Nearly all the workers were teenaged girls who did not speak English, working 12 hours a day, every day” (“The Triangle factory”). They dedicated plenty of time to work in a dirty unsafe factory just to help their parents bring in money.
“Factory Girls” by Leslie T. Chang provides an inside look on migration in the inner cities of China. The book follows the lives of women who have left their home villages to work in factories. Primarily, Chang focuses on the lives of two women, Min and Chunming. Min left her village at the age of sixteen with her older sister to chuqu, or to go out, and see the world. She often changed jobs while in Dongguan because she is never satisfied with her position. Chang met Chunming at a dating agency where men and women could mingle with one another. Chunming began her career at a toy factory. In her diary, she often wrote out the goals she wanted to accomplish and how to accomplish them. She was very determined to become successful. Her persistence