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Lixin Fan, Trailing Chinese Migrant Workers
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The documentary "Last Train Home," directed by Lixin Fan, shows the life of migrant workers and their families in China. Fan sporadically spent 3 years with one family, Zhang Changhua and Cheng Suqin, to capture glimpses of this family's life as one of China's 130 million migrant workers. The family left a village in Sichuan province, to work in a factory in Guangzhou, which manufactures denim jeans. For 7 days a week -once working 15 hours a day for 29 days straight- the Zhang family works continuously, just to send money back home to the grandmother who raises 17 year old Qin and another child. The daughter is rebellious as she is resentful of the parent's absence. This is the story of migrant families throughout China, the quiet hidden ordeal, that is behind the cheap products available in western countries. And Fan documents this well with scenes at the railway station, as the family catches the last trains back to Sichuan, for the yearly trip back to the village. There is a whole society in transition, and there are many sides to this story, this is the human one of families caught up in this transition. Lack of farm subsidies and taking over of farmland for building and construction has hurt life in agricultural areas. The Communist party has made dissent difficult. And the imposition of a decades old registration system that denies education and social services to migrant workers from the villages, creates huge strains on family life. Fan says- before the showing of this film at the IFC Center in Greenwich Village- that he hopes to raise questions in the minds of viewers. Does the blame for this go to the government, the factory owners and companies, or the West, something Fan says he is not able to answer. That there is little official opposition to the film- in the same manner that the suicides at Hon Hai, and the factory conditions there and in other factories across China, are being freely reported- suggests that China is coming to terms with the different angles from which to view the economic transition that has taken place over the last two decades. It is also a belated recogniton of the whole range of questions raised by a singleminded policy of manufacturing for western markets, especially when these markets with debt-laden consumers may present huge uncertainty in the future.
Barboza's profile of Yuan Yandong, a worker at a Foxconn factory in China- changing working conditions and aspirations of China's young migrant workers in 2010-2014
02/03/2009
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Changes in China's factories in 2010-2013. Changing manufacturing.
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Conditions at Hon Hai and a strike at Honda are part of a changing picture of worker dissatisfaction with wages and discipline at Chinese factories. The period of low prices and worker discipline of the kind that prevailed for several decades of industrialization appears to be closing. The Chinese government is also having second thoughts as America and Europe are no longer the growing markets they used to be, and as it weighs a policy shift to domestic consumption.
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The story behind China's manufacturing- the sacrifices and lives of migrant workers working far from home, leaving young children with grandparents, and working extraordinarily long hours.
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Hon Hai to Add Robotics in China
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Worker conditions at factories of suppliers in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, China and other developing countries
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Wage increases of 20% at Hon Hai and upto 100% at Honda factories in China from wages that were kept low for the export market, are now the trend in China. The government policy is shifting to encourage such wage increases to promote domestic consumption and reduce an overreliance on export markets for growth. This is happening just as trade tensions are increasing with the USA.
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The huge strains on families of 130 million migrant workers in China.
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The visible strains in the lives of migrant workers employed in China's factories.
Linked Articles
A Night at the Electronics Factory
New York Times 06/18/2010
Lixin Fan, Trailing Chinese Migrant Workers
New York Times 08/27/2010
Lixin Fan's documentary "Last Train Home" and the poetry of China's migrant workers- a society in transition and the price being paid
08/27/2010
Linked Articles
Poetry of a former Foxconn Worker Vividly Evokes Alienation of Factory Life
BusinessWeek 11/04/2014
Lixin Fan, Trailing Chinese Migrant Workers
New York Times 08/27/2010
The 61 million children of migrant workers left behind in China- 75% visited only once a year and 70% under the age of 11
08/27/2010
The price of rapid industrialization in China being paid by children of migrant workers and their parents- about 200 million people or close to 20% of the population. Government policy requires migrant workers leaving rural areas to work in factories to leave behind their children.
Linked Articles
Left-Behind Children of China's Migrant Workers Bear Grown-Up Burdens
Wall Street Journal 01/17/2014
Lixin Fan, Trailing Chinese Migrant Workers
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The faces of the 61 million migrant workers away from parents, and of the 150 million children in single child families doted on by parents
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Linked Articles
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Lixin Fan, Trailing Chinese Migrant Workers
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