Scattered Sand. Hsiao-Hung Pai

Sichuanese accent, told me that he worked as a security guard in a company called Yin Yu Lights, the largest manufacturing firm in Heshan city, in the Gonghe township in Guangzhou. The company is part of the Hong Kong Zhen Ming Li Group, with a head office based in Hong Kong, and it employs over 10,000 people from all over China, including a large number from Jintang and Jianyang in Sichuan.

      Zhong had moved to Guangzhou in 1997, the year of the hand­over of Hong Kong. At that time, people felt that things were looking better down south and many were heading that way, and more than a hundred visas were issued each day for travel to Hong Kong. (These visas were still required to control migration from the interior.) Zhong was young and willing to take low-paid work, but for the next ten years, he earned only 700–800 yuan (£64–73.5, $111–127) a month while working twelve to thirteen hours a day, seven days a week, with only two days off each month. His requests for a wage increase were turned down repeatedly until early 2009, when his pay was raised to 1,360 yuan (£124.9, $215). Workers also had the cost of food and accommodation deducted from their wages, though these were supposed to be covered. There were then no written rules to protect the workers, so the company could change terms as they liked, and often did.

      In 1999, Zhong became depressed by these conditions, and many of his colleagues felt the same. They resented being treated like another race. They wanted a raise, and discussed among themselves what they should do to get one. One of them broached the idea of a strike, and people became excited. They knew that it would be illegal, but they also knew that stopping work was the only way to put pressure on the management to implement changes. At the same time, they had no clear idea exactly how it should be done. After all, they’d never had the experience.