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.
The lyrics of the anthem struck me as particularly strange. To my surprise, they included the words “obey your superiors.”
I knew the word superior in this sense from old movies. It was similar to the way Communist soldiers addressed their commanders as “Chief” or “Commander.” But having been born and raised under the red flag of the People's Republic, I found the term unfamiliar. In the old films I'd seen, it was more often associated with the Nationalist army.
I wondered what Lijuan and the others felt when they sang that anthem.
Inside, I was a tangle of conflicting emotions.
The timing was precise. As soon as the sounds from the factory grounds died down, the warning bell for the start of the workday rang. Only then did I hurry out and make my way toward the cafeteria.
The dozen or so girls from the previous day's recruitment session were all there. We waited a little longer before Liu Yuan finally arrived, carrying a stack of factory ID badges.
Most of us willingly handed over the 100-yuan deposit. One girl said she couldn't borrow the money and begged Liu Yuan to let her start work first, promising that the deposit could be deducted from her wages later.
Liu Yuan refused outright.
The girl had no choice but to leave in tears.
Those of us who paid received our ID badges and fifteen days' worth of meal tickets.
Unlike Yongxin, Liangguang genuinely provided both meals and accommodation. Food cost four yuan a day: one yuan for breakfast and one yuan fifty each for lunch and dinner. Fifteen days of meal tickets were worth sixty yuan.
I was very pleased.
Finally, a factory where food and lodging were truly provided.
Before she finished, Liu Yuan handed each of us a small booklet about factory rules and discipline. It was about the size of my palm, filled with instructions and lists of penalties.
She gave us a brief explanation of the rules, then told us to look at the factory anthem printed on the first page. Someone from the security department would soon come to give us military-style training.
Sure enough, a security guard soon strode toward us.
He was dark and thin, with prominent cheekbones and a stiff, severe expression. When he introduced himself in a strong Sichuan accent as Li Lianping, I immediately remembered what Lijuan had told me the night before.
So this was Chen Gang's new friend.
That made me feel a little more warmly toward him.
Li Lianping was mainly responsible for our military training and group exercises. He explained that Liangguang operated under a system of military-style management and that we were expected to hold ourselves to the same strict standards as soldiers.
The training consisted of basic movements: standing at attention, standing at ease, turning left, turning right, and so on.
To my astonishment, quite a few people didn't even know how to perform these simple movements.
Thinking about it, I could understand why. Most of the girls had only completed primary or junior high school. I remembered that two of them hadn't even been able to write when we'd filled out our application forms.
One woman was already thirty. Her name was Jin Sanling. She was short and frail, and her clothes looked terribly worn. She had only recently arrived from home and had been suffering from a cold for several days because she hadn't yet adjusted to the local climate. Every so often, she sniffed and wiped her nose.
I knew all the basic movements and could perform them quite skillfully. But I still had to practice alongside everyone else.
Li Lianping was stern and serious. His face grew so dark and forbidding that it seemed as though water could be wrung from it.
Again and again, he barked orders at poor Jin Sanling. The more he shouted, the more confused she became. Before long, she could no longer tell left from right, let alone which direction she was supposed to turn.
She looked so miserable that I thought she might burst into tears.
But Li Lianping showed no mercy. He scolded her even more fiercely.
Every time he reprimanded her, a faint look of satisfaction flickered across his face.
I felt sorry for Jin Sanling. At the same time, I began to feel an inexplicable disgust toward Li Lianping.
At the final assembly, he repeated the rules in his heavily accented Mandarin.
“Whenever you're training or assembled, if you need to do something, you must first call out, ‘Reporting!’ You can only do what you need to do after the instructor has asked what's wrong and given you permission.”
No sooner had he finished speaking than Jin Sanling, who had been sniffing throughout the session, could hold it in no longer.
“Reporting!” she cried urgently.
We all wanted to laugh but didn't dare.
Li Lianping glanced at her with irritation, but still asked gruffly,
“What is it?”
Jin Sanling's face turned bright red. She stammered,
“I need to blow my nose.”
We struggled to contain ourselves, but someone finally burst out laughing.
Since Li Lianping had just laid down the rule himself, he had no choice but to wave her away impatiently.
“Go on, then. Go.”
Jin Sanling went over to a nearby trash bin, blew her nose, and returned.
Li Lianping continued lecturing us about the rules and precautions for training.
Just then, in the otherwise empty courtyard, I noticed a short, heavyset man in his fifties watching us from a distance.
“That's Boss Lin,” Li Lianping whispered. “You'd better take this seriously.”
His expression grew even more solemn.
I noticed that Jin Sanling, standing to my left, was sniffing faster and faster. She looked pleadingly at Li Lianping, clearly wanting to call out “Reporting!” again.
But he deliberately refused to look at her.
Without his attention, she had no chance to ask permission to blow her nose.
We were all growing concerned for her when I saw her lower her head and raise one hand.
When she lowered it again, there was unmistakably something in her palm.
At the same time, her sniffing stopped.
I understood immediately.
I was so disgusted I nearly threw up.
At last, the end-of-shift bell rang. But I had completely lost my appetite.
I couldn't tell whether I was disgusted by Jin Sanling, by Li Lianping, or by this so-called military-style management.
We still had to bring our own bowls and chopsticks to the cafeteria.
It was crowded. There were two serving counters: one for ordinary workers and one for staff.
The staff counter had hardly any queue, while two long lines stretched out in front of the workers' counter.
Even so, we weren't allowed to get our food from the workers' counter.
The dishes were the same, but the meal tickets were different. Staff could use two yuan's worth of tickets for two meat dishes and one vegetable dish. We ordinary workers had only one yuan fifty to spend, which bought us one meat dish and two vegetable dishes.
Lijuan had explained all this to me.
Now that we worked in the same factory, we could sit together at mealtimes. That alone was enough to lift my spirits after the unpleasant morning.
We could choose whichever one meat dish and two vegetables we wanted, much like ordering from a fast-food counter.
The rice had no moldy smell, though it was coarse. Every now and then, I even bit down on a grain of sand or some other bit of debris.
Still, I was delighted.
The food here was far better than what we'd had in Yongxin's cafeteria. It was even better than what I ate back home.
I chose chicken giblets stir-fried with Chinese chives. There wasn't much meat, but the flavor was excellent, and it went wonderfully with rice. For vegetables, I picked mung bean sprouts and baby bok choy. My bowl was piled high, and with the rice beside it, I had the most filling and delicious meal I'd eaten since arriving in Dongguan.
Thinking that I could eat food this good every day filled me with affection for this factory, Liangguang.
From now on, I thought, this place would be the source of my livelihood.
As I wolfed down my food, I kept sighing with delight.
“If only my mother and brother could eat meals like this every day back home.”
Lijuan didn't share my enthusiasm.
“When I first started here, I thought the food was delicious too. Now I can barely stomach it. It's awful.”
I looked up in surprise.
Her bowl was nearly empty.
I laughed at her.
“You say you can barely eat it, but you've almost finished everything.”
She pulled a miserable face.
“What else can I do? If I don't eat, I'll be hungry all day. How am I supposed to work?”
I didn't take her complaint seriously. I thought she was just being too fussy.
Although the factory rules explicitly forbade taking food back to the dormitory, I kept noticing workers secretly putting rice into their metal mugs instead of getting any vegetables. They would then sneak out of the cafeteria, looking around as if they were doing something wrong.
When I asked Lijuan about it, she explained that they were trying to save money.
The cafeteria required everyone to take at least one yuan fifty worth of vegetables with their meal. Some workers preferred to save that money and spend it at the little shop next door, where they could buy daily necessities.
So they would take enough vegetables for two meals at once, or sometimes eat plain rice with pickled mustard greens.
My eyes lit up.
So the meal tickets could be used that way too.
That meant I could save even more money each month and send more of it home.
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