诚如《时代》在文中写道的： 『中国今年能成功保八，归功于数以千万计背井离乡的中国工人。“正是这些男男女女，他们过去的奋斗、现在的思考以及对未来的看法，引领着世界经济走向复苏之路。（"some of the people who are leading the world to economic recovery: Chinese men and women, their struggles in the past, their thoughts on the present and their eyes on the future."）』
Deng Tao, 21, from Changde, Hunan With 6 million people, Changde is hardly a small town. But in China, it's decidedly second tier. So after spending his first 18 years there, Deng Tao was ready for something new. "I wanted to go out after staying in one place for so long," Deng says. So after completing vocational school, he left for Shenzhen, the coastal town that has become China's fourth largest city virtually overnight. "I came here with friends," he says. "We thought it was pretty fun." Still, Deng has noticed that things aren't quite normal on the factory floor. "A lot of people have left. Perhaps it has something to with the financial crisis," he says. "Our sales haven't been that great, so wages are pretty low."
Huang Dongyan, 36, from Shaoyang, Hunan For Huang Dongyan, her toughest days as a migrant worker came in 2004. The economy was weak, and she was having trouble finding a job. So she joined up with her brother toopen a smal restaurant. But the restaurant continually lost money, compounding her troubles. "There were several months that I was full of suffering," she says. This spring Huang, 36, found employment at Shenzhen Guangke's LED factory. Her work site is more than a day's journey from her hometown, so she spends months away from her 15-year-old daughter Zhang Juan and 3-year-old son Zhang Yi.The children are taken care of by family members. Huang longs to return home to be with them. But she also knows that she might not find work there, and if she did the wages wouldbe much lower. So Huang stays in Shenzhen to provide for her family's future. "The money I earn, it's forthem," she says.
Li Chunying, 34, from Shaoyang, Hunan Li Chunying started working at a toy factory when she was just 16. She now works as a line manager at Shenzhen Guangke and looks forward to her day off, when she can spend time shopping with friends or eating in the restaurants that serve food from their native Hunan. "When was I happiest? I don't know. There were so many times here that I've been happy," she says. Still, she longs for home, and would go back with her husband and two daughters if she could only be assured of finding a job.
Qiu Xiaoyuan, 26, from Meizhou, Guangdong When Qiu Xiaoyuan was 7, her father left the family, and her mother gave Qiu andher younger brother up to the care of an uncle. "He had his own family to raise aswell," she says. "So our living conditions were really poor." At 16, she left her hometown of Meizhou to head to the boomtown of Shenzhen. Qiu is now a manager, but she has no long-term ambitions of staying in manufacturing. Her husband is also a migrant worker, and their daughter, now 3, lives with her grandparents in Jiangxi province. Qiu hopes to raise enough money to open a small shop so the family can live together. Factory work? "You can't do this for your entire life," she says.
Cao Bin, 20, from Chengdu, Sichuan While most migrant workers long for home, Cao Bin is glad to be gone. He leftChengdu, in Sichuan province, two years ago and hasn't been back. Chengdu is one of the most pleasant cities in China, but Cao thought it was boring. "That town is too lazy," he says. "I wanted to go somewhere where life is faster." In Shenzhen,where the economy grew by an average of 27% annually between 1980 and 2006,he found the furious pace he was looking for.
Peng Qunxia, 21, from Hunan Like tens of millions of other young Chinese women, Peng migrated from the interior for a job in a manufacturing hub on the country's coast. But while her colleagues who arrived in the region a decade earlier tell stories of suffering and sacrifice, to Peng theexperience is much more entertaining. She left home at 17, following her elder sister. "Where we are from, most people leave for work," she says. "I was young, and Ithought it'd be fun to come here." So far, that's proved true. While the job can be taxing — she works six days a week, with only Sunday off — it's far from the rigors endured by earlier generations. "I get tired, but that's O.K.," she says. "There is workto do."
Xiao Hongxia, 31, from Shaoyang, Hunan When Xiao Hongxia began working at a factory making photograph frames at the age of 17, she would end her shift by peeling off a facemask coated with a thick layer ofchoking particles. Xiao feared that if she stayed she would develop a lung ailment. So in 1996 she moved to a factory making electronics. The air was much better, butshe had to stare into a microscope for more than 10 hours a day, often for weeks without a day of rest. When she got off work, she couldn't see clearly for hours. "I knew that wasn't going to work. What could I do? So I began to slowly study, and lift myself up." She learned some management skills, and was eventually able to move off the assembly line. Xiao, 31, is now a manager, and she gets Sundays off.
