Migrant Worker Blogger
While twitter has made blogging so 2008, a blogger has been attracting attention in China. Wan Xiaodao, 万小刀 the blogger in question is a migrant worker born in 1980’s ( 80后民工). His age gives him a new sensibility and set of skills vastly different from his predecessors. He is individualistic, outspoken and web savvy, all of which are prominent traits that define his urban counterparts. But Wan’s blog did not get noticed for these reasons, rather it’s for his backlash against China’s urban population/城里人. His posts are strident mockery and attack on city people. Titles like ‘never marry city girls’, ‘we sell labor not heart’ and ‘media only serves people in the city’ are clear display of his ideological stance. Although largely emotive and inflammatory, Wan’s posts do showcase the very real inequality between China’s rural and urban population.
Migrant workers have been a key force in China’s economic boom. More than 100 million of men and women of all ages flood to cities in search of a better life. Most of them do make more money than compared to farming, but it comes at a price that often involves poor labor condition, wage delay, lack of social benefits and separation from family. A deep sense of inequality is also overwhelming and widespread. That’s why the central government has concentrated efforts to speed up rural development and building welfare system. Gestures of respect and attention to migrant workers are also frequently given by the media.
But how do migrant workers and city dwellers see each other? The best description is a love and hate relationship based on mutual dependence and disdain. China’s cities and affluent urbanites can’t function without migrant workers who build roads, deliver drinking water and clean apartments. Many migrant workers also adapt to and thrive on life in the city. Some make the city their permanent home where their kids are born and educated. But although the two groups coexist, they don’t mix. There is a clear demarkcation of territory and class, although daily encounters are often polite and civil. The result is that migrant workers are everywhere in cities but invisible. That’s why Wan Xiaodao’s blog is newsworthy. By being a 80后 (born in 80’s) and a blogger, identities that have been almost exclusively associated with urban youngsters, Wan is touching a part of the urban nerve that has turned a blind eye to the migrant workers. It is ironic that with a massive rural populaion living in cities, the distance between rural and urban life has actually been further crystallised.
What would the effects of this polarisation be on the society? Can we smoothly transition to a stage where migrant workers can happily use the internet (as many young ones already do,but mostly playing games) and many other urban amenities without being seen as a shock?
Tags: blogging, equality, migrant workers, rural, urban
This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 at 5:09 pm and is filed under China, society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
7:16 pm on June 23rd, 2009
Another really interesting post.
I think one of the themes that crops up in Western reporting about China is that of “simmering tensions” - tensions between the peasantry and local officials, tension between the cities and rural areas, tension between residents and migrant workers. There seems to be a lot of truth to this, and I’m tempted in my ignorance to see a connection between this and the central government’s continued (almost Confucian) obsession with “harmony”. What do you think?
The urban disdain for the mingong is not hard to understand. It can be witnessed in any country where populations and economic inequality mix. Do the residents of Beverley Hills feel any contempt for the illiterate Mexican watering their lawns than a Shanghainese might feel for the Anhui labourer carting away their trash? This isn’t only a Chinese problem, but it’s on a much larger scale. The stakes are certainly higher.
Only question, how representative of this underclass can a web-savvy blogger actually be?
7:57 pm on June 23rd, 2009
So… his name is Wan Xiao Dong but the blog you posted is Wan Renping… but it goes to his blog. Strange.
Could you post a specific link to those articles where he says, DON’T MARRY A CITY GIRL… etc. That would be helpful since reading Chinese would take me…. FOREVER!
Jenny, seriously do a series of these CHINESE BLOGGERS. This is really interesting to all of us I’m sure.
ps. blogging is still important. You could write all you did above in a tweet…
8:09 pm on June 24th, 2009
Does anyone think that this is also connected to the ingrained hukou system? Where - perhaps even though instituted with good intentions - the line is institutionally drawn between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’, which has led to this ‘us’ versus ‘them’ kind of action and outlook in Chinese society?
3:28 pm on June 25th, 2009
@pketh,
Hukou (residential registration) certainly contributes to the division of ‘outsiders’ and ‘insiders’, especially during periods of planned economy where people could not move freely. Therefore, being able to move and obtain hukou in a city like Beijing or Shanghai had enormous status value. But now, the rules have been considerably loosened. Many people who live and thrive in big cities don’t have the local hukou. I would say that now hukou carries less status than it used to. What draws the line is a combination of where one was born and his current socio-economic status.
12:21 pm on June 26th, 2009
omg - Michael Jackson has died
6:55 am on June 29th, 2009
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