 days of the Chinese sweatshop are numbered, thanks to rising living standards, improved education, and international labor regulations. Demand for skilled workers outstrips supply, and any worker with a mobile phone can spread news of any mistreatment. “Workers are much more aware of the law and their rights these days,” laments Wei Fang, a factory owner friend of Huang. “You can’t force them to work long hours, you can’t force them to stay. If you hit them, they would go straight to the police and you would be in big trouble.”
Despite the hardships, workers do stay. Dou Yongwen, 24, punched a button maker through his finger recently as his concentration lapsed late into his shift. He’s punched nearly 10,000 buttons a day, every day, for eight years. “It’s not life I’m living, punching buttons day and night,” says Dou. “But I’m trying to learn the trade and, hopefully, in a couple of years I will save enough money to open a button workshop.
Huang Yaohong, owner of the factory that distresses jeans, achieved Dou’s dream. He grew up in the distant Sichuan province in western China, son of a poor farmer. He came here two decades ago, just as leader Deng Xiaoping began to reverse the excesses of Mao’s hard-line regime by targeting a few regions in southern China for capitalist experimentation. Huang, then 16 years old and penniless, left his village.
“When I came to Guangdong, I was just another peasant and my dream was to have a warm stomach after every meal,” Huang recalls. With two shirts to his name, he took on exhausting, menial jobs, toiling through nights to earn a place to sleep. Through hard work, courage, and the sheer luck of being in China’s economic gold coast at a time of unprecedented industrial expansion, Huang became a business owner. He brought some family members to work with him, and soon, relative-by-relative, grew his workforce to some 80 people.
Most orders come in at midnight and are collected at dawn. Huang’s factory can rough up 10,000 jeans per day, mainly for the domestic market. Revenue in a small factory such as his can reach 100,000 – 150,000 euros per year, with about 20 percent profit. “I never thought life could be as good as this. In China, if you have a million yuan (100,000 euros) you wouldn’t need to work the rest of your life,” says Huang.
With disposable cash for the first time, the bosses can take time off to play cards, sing karaoke, enjoy a foot massage, or seek other pleasures. Indeed, theirs is a men’s world. Inside the restaurant, men talk business while their wives and children sit at an adjacent table. Rice spirit, beer, Red Bull and cigarettes are passed around endlessly, and it is anti-social to refuse. Huang’s mood runs high. “I’m on a lucky streak,” he whispers.
Junior colleagues who spotted Huang from across the street flock to join him in the restaurant. Seated next to him is Wei Fang, a swaggering 40-year-old with a crew cut who owns a profitable, mid-sized jeans factory. Tonight, drunk on rice spirit and success, he shares his mantra with those eager to follow his path.
“Invest, invest, invest,” says Wei, his index finger chopping the air with each word.
When the New Year comes, traditionally the most important dates of the calendar, Huang shuts down his factory and sends his workers to join 200 million migrants returning to distant provinces on overloaded trains and buses. They carry with them things they did not have before – televisions, toys, and mobile phone accessories – giving their families a taste of urban glamor.
Unlike his employees, Huang will not return to his ancestral village for the annual family reunion. He opts to celebrate his prosperous new reality. “We’ve come a long way, we’ve created our own destiny, and we’ve created wealth,” he says. “We dare to dream and we dare to do.”