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Chapter 26— A Chance to Prove Myself |A Flower Adrift in the Wind

In that sense, I was standing on the same starting line as those college graduates, wasn’t I? Just as I was thinking this, Section Chief Ma came into the room. He wanted to take a batch of lenses I had just sorted out to the senior manager in charge of production for inspection. As he had instructed, I had arranged the lenses neatly on a sheet of white paper about the size of an A4 sheet. The problem now was how to carry that sheet of paper to the manager without disturbing the arrangement of the lenses. I had long known that Section Chief Ma had earned his position through eight or nine years of experience operating injection-molding machines. In fact, he had never even finished junior middle school. Now, faced with the sheet of paper covered with neatly arranged lenses, he was clearly at a loss. He tried several different methods, but none worked, so he began asking Xiang Li for advice. Xiang Li was even more clumsy. At one point, she nearly scattered the lenses and ruined their care...
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Chapter 25— The Night Shift |A Flower Adrift in the Wind

I asked her quietly, “Um… he’s not going to spend the night here, is he?” Luo Xiaohua gave me a suggestive smile. “He’s already here. What do you think? Of course he’s staying the night. Besides, whenever he’s on the day shift, he spends the night here.” Whenever? The thought of having a man and a woman sleeping in the bunk below me whenever I was on the day shift made me miserable. “Aren’t male workers forbidden from entering the women’s dormitory? It says so in the factory rules.” Luo Xiaohua gave me a cold look. “Rules are dead. People are alive. Besides, she’s not the only one in this dorm who brings a male worker in for the night.” At that, I remembered that Luo Xiaohua was married too. Her husband worked at the factory as a cleaner. I immediately fell silent. That night, lying in bed, I could not stop thinking about the young couple below me. The whole situation was unbearably awkward. I tried not to turn over. Whenever I moved, the bed below moved with me. The bed was poorly mad...
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Chapter 24— The Price of a Factory Job|A Flower Adrift in the Wind

That scare drove every trace of sleepiness out of me. But I had no desire to speak to Wu Shaofen again. I felt deeply hurt. I had never imagined that someone who had been so warm and friendly to me during the first half of the night could turn so cold in the second. She had changed her attitude faster than the pages of a book could turn. I wanted to cry. I knew I was in the wrong for sneaking off to the toilet so often, but she could have simply reminded me. There was no need to lose her temper like that, let alone go running to the team leader to complain about me. The more I thought about it, the more aggrieved I felt. Then, in a moment of carelessness, I felt a sharp pain in the ring finger of my left hand. I had accidentally sliced it with the blade. I stared blankly as the blood began to flow faster and faster, not knowing what to do. Just then, Wu Shaofen handed me a piece of medical adhesive tape. I looked at her in disbelief. She said softly, “Put this on it.” Remembering how s...
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Chapter 23— The First Night Shift |A Flower Adrift in the Wind

That afternoon, Li Lianping taught us the factory's broadcast exercises, the same kind of routine performed by middle-school students today. Anyone who had attended middle school knew how to do them. But Jin Sanling and several others who had only finished primary school—or couldn't read or write at all—had no idea how to follow the movements. Teaching them proved surprisingly difficult. Even when the workday ended, they still hadn't learned the routine. I heard that from then on, all new employees who had been at the factory for less than a month would have to undergo military-style training and do these exercises every morning. As long as they weren't completely hopeless, everyone would eventually learn. When the afternoon shift-ending bell rang, everyone let out a long sigh of relief. My first day at Liangguang Factory was over. Tomorrow, I would officially begin work. I had no idea what awaited me. Of the sixteen girls recruited that day, the production department n...
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Chapter 22— A New Life at Liangguang |A Flower Adrift in the Wind

Although the workday at Liangguang Factory began at eight, everyone had to assemble for roll call at seven-thirty. Most workers got up at 6:50, while a few especially diligent ones were already awake by 6:30. Another day was beginning in the factory dormitory compound. People hurried out of their rooms carrying their washbasins and toiletries, rushing toward the bathrooms as if being a minute late would mean disaster. Once they had washed up, they dashed off to breakfast at a sprinter’s pace. I heard that they also had to do group exercises, sing the factory anthem, and shout slogans. All of this was completely new to me. Since Liu Yuan had told us to report to the cafeteria at eight that morning, I had no reason to hurry. Without a factory ID badge or uniform, I didn't dare leave the dormitory. Even so, I could clearly hear the sounds coming from the factory grounds: the rhythmic command to “March in quick time!” followed by a stirring factory anthem and loud, forceful slogans. Th...
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Chapter 21— Finally Settled|A Flower Adrift in the Wind

Only then did I learn that Liu Yuan was also a high-school graduate. The difference was that her family lived in the county town. She could have repeated her final year of high school and tried again for university, but she had never liked studying. So her family paid to send her to a computer-training center in the county town. After completing the course, she came to Dongguan. Although she had no experience as an office clerk, her high-school diploma was enough to get her into a factory as a clerk without much trouble. Later, dissatisfied with that factory, she changed jobs and came to Liangguang. As I listened to her, a tiny ray of hope flickered inside me. When Lijuan and I had been looking for work, I had seen computer-training centers too. If I could make some money, couldn't I go learn computers as well and become an office clerk like Liu Yuan? I was just about to ask Liu Yuan about computer training when several of the girls finished their tests. She had to stop talking to ...
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Chapter 20— A Second Chance|A Flower Adrift in the Wind

I quickly went with her to a small breakfast stall nearby and bought her a one-yuan serving of stir-fried rice noodles. Watching Lijuan wolf down her food, I felt like crying myself. The moment she heard that our factory usually worked overtime only until ten at night, she was filled with envy. I, on the other hand, envied her. She might be exhausted, but at least the pay was better. “Our department is just the production floor,” Lijuan explained. “The monthly wage is only three or four hundred yuan. But if you can get into the injection-molding section or the painting section, the pay is better. The smell in those two departments is awful, but they give you an extra health allowance. And if you work in injection molding, there’s also a night-shift allowance. Altogether, you can make five or six hundred yuan a month.” Five or six hundred yuan a month? I immediately became interested. It wasn't a huge amount of money, but if I lived frugally, I could send five hundred yuan home ever...
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