The voices of China's workers
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0:01 - 0:03Hi. So I'd like to talk a little bit about the people
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0:03 - 0:06who make the things we use every day:
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0:06 - 0:09our shoes, our handbags, our computers and cell phones.
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0:09 - 0:14Now, this is a conversation that often calls up a lot of guilt.
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0:14 - 0:18Imagine the teenage farm girl who makes less than
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0:18 - 0:20a dollar an hour stitching your running shoes,
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0:20 - 0:23or the young Chinese man who jumps off a rooftop
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0:23 - 0:27after working overtime assembling your iPad.
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0:27 - 0:31We, the beneficiaries of globalization, seem to exploit
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0:31 - 0:33these victims with every purchase we make,
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0:33 - 0:35and the injustice
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0:35 - 0:38feels embedded in the products themselves.
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0:38 - 0:41After all, what's wrong with a world in which a worker
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0:41 - 0:44on an iPhone assembly line can't even afford to buy one?
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0:44 - 0:47It's taken for granted that Chinese factories are oppressive,
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0:47 - 0:50and that it's our desire for cheap goods
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0:50 - 0:52that makes them so.
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0:52 - 0:56So, this simple narrative equating Western demand
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0:56 - 0:59and Chinese suffering is appealing,
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0:59 - 1:02especially at a time when many of us already feel guilty
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1:02 - 1:04about our impact on the world,
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1:04 - 1:08but it's also inaccurate and disrespectful.
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1:08 - 1:11We must be peculiarly self-obsessed to imagine that we
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1:11 - 1:14have the power to drive tens of millions of people
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1:14 - 1:17on the other side of the world to migrate and suffer
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1:17 - 1:20in such terrible ways.
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1:20 - 1:22In fact, China makes goods for markets all over the world,
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1:22 - 1:26including its own, thanks to a combination of factors:
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1:26 - 1:29its low costs, its large and educated workforce,
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1:29 - 1:32and a flexible manufacturing system
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1:32 - 1:35that responds quickly to market demands.
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1:35 - 1:38By focusing so much on ourselves and our gadgets,
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1:38 - 1:40we have rendered the individuals on the other end
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1:40 - 1:44into invisibility, as tiny and interchangeable
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1:44 - 1:47as the parts of a mobile phone.
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1:47 - 1:50Chinese workers are not forced into factories
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1:50 - 1:52because of our insatiable desire for iPods.
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1:52 - 1:55They choose to leave their homes in order to earn money,
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1:55 - 1:59to learn new skills, and to see the world.
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1:59 - 2:01In the ongoing debate about globalization, what's
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2:01 - 2:05been missing is the voices of the workers themselves.
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2:05 - 2:07Here are a few.
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2:07 - 2:11Bao Yongxiu: "My mother tells me to come home
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2:11 - 2:15and get married, but if I marry now, before I have fully
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2:15 - 2:19developed myself, I can only marry an ordinary worker,
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2:19 - 2:21so I'm not in a rush."
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2:21 - 2:24Chen Ying: "When I went home for the new year,
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2:24 - 2:28everyone said I had changed. They asked me,
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2:28 - 2:31what did you do that you have changed so much?
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2:31 - 2:34I told them that I studied and worked hard. If you tell them
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2:34 - 2:37more, they won't understand anyway."
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2:37 - 2:41Wu Chunming: "Even if I make a lot of money,
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2:41 - 2:43it won't satisfy me.
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2:43 - 2:47Just to make money is not enough meaning in life."
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2:47 - 2:52Xiao Jin: "Now, after I get off work, I study English,
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2:52 - 2:54because in the future, our customers won't
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2:54 - 2:58be only Chinese, so we must learn more languages."
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2:58 - 3:00All of these speakers, by the way, are young women,
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3:00 - 3:0318 or 19 years old.
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3:03 - 3:06So I spent two years getting to know assembly line workers
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3:06 - 3:10like these in the south China factory city called Dongguan.
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3:10 - 3:13Certain subjects came up over and over:
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3:13 - 3:15how much money they made,
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3:15 - 3:17what kind of husband they hoped to marry,
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3:17 - 3:19whether they should jump to another factory
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3:19 - 3:21or stay where they were.
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3:21 - 3:24Other subjects came up almost never, including
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3:24 - 3:27living conditions that to me looked close to prison life:
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3:27 - 3:2910 or 15 workers in one room,
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3:29 - 3:3350 people sharing a single bathroom,
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3:33 - 3:36days and nights ruled by the factory clock.
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3:36 - 3:40Everyone they knew lived in similar circumstances,
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3:40 - 3:42and it was still better than the dormitories and homes
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3:42 - 3:45of rural China.
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3:45 - 3:48The workers rarely spoke about the products they made,
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3:48 - 3:50and they often had great difficulty explaining
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3:50 - 3:52what exactly they did.
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3:52 - 3:54When I asked Lu Qingmin,
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3:54 - 3:56the young woman I got to know best,
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3:56 - 3:59what exactly she did on the factory floor,
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3:59 - 4:01she said something to me in Chinese that sounded like
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4:01 - 4:03"qiu xi."
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4:03 - 4:06Only much later did I realize that she had been saying
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4:06 - 4:09"QC," or quality control.
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4:09 - 4:13She couldn't even tell me what she did on the factory floor.
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4:13 - 4:15All she could do was parrot a garbled abbreviation
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4:15 - 4:19in a language she didn't even understand.
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4:19 - 4:23Karl Marx saw this as the tragedy of capitalism,
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4:23 - 4:27the alienation of the worker from the product of his labor.
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4:27 - 4:31Unlike, say, a traditional maker of shoes or cabinets,
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4:31 - 4:34the worker in an industrial factory has no control,
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4:34 - 4:37no pleasure, and no true satisfaction or understanding
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4:37 - 4:39in her own work.
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4:39 - 4:42But like so many theories that Marx arrived at
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4:42 - 4:45sitting in the reading room of the British Museum,
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4:45 - 4:47he got this one wrong.
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4:47 - 4:50Just because a person spends her time
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4:50 - 4:52making a piece of something does not mean
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4:52 - 4:55that she becomes that, a piece of something.
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4:55 - 4:58What she does with the money she earns,
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4:58 - 5:02what she learns in that place, and how it changes her,
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5:02 - 5:04these are the things that matter.
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5:04 - 5:07What a factory makes is never the point, and
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5:07 - 5:11the workers could not care less who buys their products.
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5:11 - 5:13Journalistic coverage of Chinese factories,
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5:13 - 5:15on the other hand, plays up this relationship
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5:15 - 5:18between the workers and the products they make.
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5:18 - 5:21Many articles calculate: How long would it take
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5:21 - 5:24for this worker to work in order to earn enough money
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5:24 - 5:27to buy what he's making?
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5:27 - 5:29For example, an entry-level-line assembly line worker
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5:29 - 5:32in China in an iPhone plant would have to shell out
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5:32 - 5:36two and a half months' wages for an iPhone.
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5:36 - 5:39But how meaningful is this calculation, really?
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5:39 - 5:41For example, I recently wrote an article
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5:41 - 5:42in The New Yorker magazine,
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5:42 - 5:45but I can't afford to buy an ad in it.
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5:45 - 5:47But, who cares? I don't want an ad in The New Yorker,
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5:47 - 5:50and most of these workers don't really want iPhones.
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5:50 - 5:53Their calculations are different.
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5:53 - 5:55How long should I stay in this factory?
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5:55 - 5:57How much money can I save?
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5:57 - 6:00How much will it take to buy an apartment or a car,
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6:00 - 6:05to get married, or to put my child through school?
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6:05 - 6:07The workers I got to know had a curiously abstract
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6:07 - 6:11relationship with the product of their labor.
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6:11 - 6:14About a year after I met Lu Qingmin, or Min,
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6:14 - 6:16she invited me home to her family village
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6:16 - 6:18for the Chinese New Year.
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6:18 - 6:21On the train home, she gave me a present:
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6:21 - 6:25a Coach brand change purse with brown leather trim.
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6:25 - 6:27I thanked her, assuming it was fake,
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6:27 - 6:30like almost everything else for sale in Dongguan.
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6:30 - 6:34After we got home, Min gave her mother another present:
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6:34 - 6:36a pink Dooney & Bourke handbag,
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6:36 - 6:39and a few nights later, her sister was showing off
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6:39 - 6:42a maroon LeSportsac shoulder bag.
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6:42 - 6:46Slowly it was dawning on me that these handbags
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6:46 - 6:48were made by their factory,
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6:48 - 6:51and every single one of them was authentic.
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6:51 - 6:54Min's sister said to her parents,
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6:54 - 6:57"In America, this bag sells for 320 dollars."
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6:57 - 7:00Her parents, who are both farmers, looked on, speechless.
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7:00 - 7:03"And that's not all -- Coach is coming out with a new line,
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7:03 - 7:072191," she said. "One bag will sell for 6,000."
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7:07 - 7:12She paused and said, "I don't know if that's 6,000 yuan or
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7:12 - 7:176,000 American dollars, but anyway, it's 6,000." (Laughter)
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7:17 - 7:20Min's sister's boyfriend, who had traveled home with her
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7:20 - 7:22for the new year, said,
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7:22 - 7:25"It doesn't look like it's worth that much."
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7:25 - 7:28Min's sister turned to him and said, "Some people actually
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7:28 - 7:31understand these things. You don't understand shit."
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7:31 - 7:36(Laughter) (Applause)
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7:36 - 7:40In Min's world, the Coach bags had a curious currency.
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7:40 - 7:42They weren't exactly worthless, but they were nothing
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7:42 - 7:45close to the actual value, because almost no one they knew
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7:45 - 7:49wanted to buy one, or knew how much it was worth.
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7:49 - 7:52Once, when Min's older sister's friend got married,
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7:52 - 7:55she brought a handbag along as a wedding present.
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7:55 - 7:57Another time, after Min had already left
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7:57 - 8:00the handbag factory, her younger sister came to visit,
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8:00 - 8:04bringing two Coach Signature handbags as gifts.
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8:04 - 8:07I looked in the zippered pocket of one,
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8:07 - 8:11and I found a printed card in English, which read,
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8:11 - 8:14"An American classic.
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8:14 - 8:17In 1941, the burnished patina
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8:17 - 8:19of an all-American baseball glove
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8:19 - 8:21inspired the founder of Coach to create
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8:21 - 8:24a new collection of handbags from the same
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8:24 - 8:27luxuriously soft gloved-hand leather.
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8:27 - 8:31Six skilled leatherworkers crafted 12 Signature handbags
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8:31 - 8:35with perfect proportions and a timeless flair.
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8:35 - 8:37They were fresh, functional, and women everywhere
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8:37 - 8:43adored them. A new American classic was born."
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8:43 - 8:45I wonder what Karl Marx would have made of Min
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8:45 - 8:47and her sisters.
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8:47 - 8:50Their relationship with the product of their labor
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8:50 - 8:52was more complicated, surprising and funny
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8:52 - 8:54than he could have imagined.
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8:54 - 8:57And yet, his view of the world persists, and our tendency
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8:57 - 9:00to see the workers as faceless masses,
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9:00 - 9:03to imagine that we can know what they're really thinking.
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9:03 - 9:07The first time I met Min, she had just turned 18
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9:07 - 9:09and quit her first job on the assembly line
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9:09 - 9:12of an electronics factory.
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9:12 - 9:14Over the next two years, I watched as she switched jobs
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9:14 - 9:17five times, eventually landing a lucrative post
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9:17 - 9:21in the purchasing department of a hardware factory.
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9:21 - 9:24Later, she married a fellow migrant worker,
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9:24 - 9:26moved with him to his village,
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9:26 - 9:28gave birth to two daughters,
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9:28 - 9:30and saved enough money to buy a secondhand Buick
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9:30 - 9:35for herself and an apartment for her parents.
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9:35 - 9:38She recently returned to Dongguan on her own
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9:38 - 9:41to take a job in a factory that makes construction cranes,
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9:41 - 9:43temporarily leaving her husband and children
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9:43 - 9:45back in the village.
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9:45 - 9:48In a recent email to me, she explained,
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9:48 - 9:52"A person should have some ambition while she is young
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9:52 - 9:55so that in old age she can look back on her life
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9:55 - 10:00and feel that it was not lived to no purpose."
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10:00 - 10:04Across China, there are 150 million workers like her,
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10:04 - 10:07one third of them women, who have left their villages
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10:07 - 10:10to work in the factories, the hotels, the restaurants
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10:10 - 10:13and the construction sites of the big cities.
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10:13 - 10:17Together, they make up the largest migration in history,
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10:17 - 10:20and it is globalization, this chain that begins
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10:20 - 10:22in a Chinese farming village
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10:22 - 10:26and ends with iPhones in our pockets and Nikes on our feet
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10:26 - 10:28and Coach handbags on our arms
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10:28 - 10:31that has changed the way these millions of people
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10:31 - 10:35work and marry and live and think.
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10:35 - 10:37Very few of them would want to go back
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10:37 - 10:40to the way things used to be.
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10:40 - 10:43When I first went to Dongguan, I worried that
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10:43 - 10:48it would be depressing to spend so much time with workers.
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10:48 - 10:50I also worried that nothing would ever happen to them,
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10:50 - 10:53or that they would have nothing to say to me.
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10:53 - 10:56Instead, I found young women who were smart and funny
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10:56 - 10:58and brave and generous.
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10:58 - 11:01By opening up their lives to me,
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11:01 - 11:03they taught me so much about factories
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11:03 - 11:07and about China and about how to live in the world.
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11:09 - 11:12This is the Coach purse that Min gave me
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11:12 - 11:15on the train home to visit her family.
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11:15 - 11:17I keep it with me to remind me of the ties that tie me
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11:17 - 11:20to the young women I wrote about,
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11:20 - 11:24ties that are not economic but personal in nature,
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11:24 - 11:28measured not in money but in memories.
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11:28 - 11:31This purse is also a reminder that the things that you imagine,
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11:31 - 11:35sitting in your office or in the library,
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11:35 - 11:37are not how you find them when you actually go out
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11:37 - 11:39into the world.
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11:39 - 11:41Thank you. (Applause)
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11:41 - 11:47(Applause)
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11:47 - 11:49Chris Anderson: Thank you, Leslie, that was an insight
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11:49 - 11:52that a lot of us haven't had before.
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11:52 - 11:55But I'm curious. If you had a minute, say,
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11:55 - 11:59with Apple's head of manufacturing,
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11:59 - 12:02what would you say?
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12:02 - 12:03Leslie Chang: One minute?
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12:03 - 12:04CA: One minute. (Laughter)
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12:04 - 12:06LC: You know, what really impressed me about the workers
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12:06 - 12:09is how much they're self-motivated, self-driven,
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12:09 - 12:12resourceful, and the thing that struck me,
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12:12 - 12:15what they want most is education, to learn,
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12:15 - 12:16because most of them come from very poor backgrounds.
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12:16 - 12:19They usually left school when they were in 7th or 8th grade.
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12:19 - 12:22Their parents are often illiterate,
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12:22 - 12:24and then they come to the city, and they, on their own,
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12:24 - 12:26at night, during the weekends, they'll take a computer class,
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12:26 - 12:29they'll take an English class, and learn
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12:29 - 12:31really, really rudimentary things, you know,
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12:31 - 12:33like how to type a document in Word,
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12:33 - 12:35or how to say really simple things in English.
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12:35 - 12:37So, if you really want to help these workers,
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12:37 - 12:41start these small, very focused, very pragmatic classes
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12:41 - 12:44in these schools, and what's going to happen is,
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12:44 - 12:45all your workers are going to move on,
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12:45 - 12:49but hopefully they'll move on into higher jobs within Apple,
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12:49 - 12:51and you can help their social mobility
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12:51 - 12:52and their self-improvement.
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12:52 - 12:54When you talk to workers, that's what they want.
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12:54 - 12:57They do not say, "I want better hot water in the showers.
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12:57 - 12:59I want a nicer room. I want a TV set."
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12:59 - 13:01I mean, it would be nice to have those things,
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13:01 - 13:02but that's not why they're in the city,
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13:02 - 13:04and that's not what they care about.
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13:04 - 13:07CA: Was there a sense from them of a narrative that
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13:07 - 13:11things were kind of tough and bad, or was there a narrative
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13:11 - 13:14of some kind of level of growth, that things over time
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13:14 - 13:15were getting better?
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13:15 - 13:17LC: Oh definitely, definitely. I mean, you know,
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13:17 - 13:20it was interesting, because I spent basically two years
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13:20 - 13:22hanging out in this city, Dongguan,
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13:22 - 13:24and over that time, you could see immense change
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13:24 - 13:27in every person's life: upward, downward, sideways,
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13:27 - 13:28but generally upward.
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13:28 - 13:30If you spend enough time, it's upward, and I met people
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13:30 - 13:32who had moved to the city 10 years ago, and who are now
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13:32 - 13:35basically urban middle class people,
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13:35 - 13:37so the trajectory is definitely upward.
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13:37 - 13:39It's just hard to see when you're suddenly
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13:39 - 13:41sucked into the city. It looks like everyone's poor and
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13:41 - 13:42desperate, but that's not really how it is.
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13:42 - 13:45Certainly, the factory conditions are really tough,
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13:45 - 13:47and it's nothing you or I would want to do,
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13:47 - 13:50but from their perspective, where they're coming from
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13:50 - 13:52is much worse, and where they're going
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13:52 - 13:54is hopefully much better, and I just wanted to give
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13:54 - 13:56that context of what's going on in their minds,
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13:56 - 13:59not what necessarily is going on in yours.
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13:59 - 14:00CA: Thanks so much for your talk.
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14:00 - 14:05Thank you very much. (Applause)
- Title:
- The voices of China's workers
- Speaker:
- Leslie T. Chang
- Description:
-
In the ongoing debate about globalization, what's been missing is the voices of workers -- the millions of people who migrate to factories in China and other emerging countries to make goods sold all over the world. Reporter Leslie T. Chang sought out women who work in one of China's booming megacities, and tells their stories.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 14:25
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for The voices of China's workers | ||
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Steven Kim edited English subtitles for The voices of China's workers | ||
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Retired user edited English subtitles for The voices of China's workers | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for The voices of China's workers | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for The voices of China's workers |