Migrant workers in China
Historical Overview
At the end of 1970s and the begging of 1980s, with the start of Opening and Reform, peasants in China got autonomy on their own fields. Productivity thus has been raised and there are more and more surplus-labor. This is the start of “migrant workers”. In the mid 1980s, the focus of the reform was moved from rural areas to urban areas. As a result, urban economy developed faster and more labor was needed in urban areas. In 1989, the first tide of migrant workers broke out. With the further reforms and marketization, from 1989 to 1993, number of migrant workers continued to grow at a rate of around 25%. Then number of migrant workers has been growing steadily with the process of urbanization and globalization.
Now there are almost 200 million migrant workers and an average of 5 million is added every year. According to a research, in all migrant workers, male takes up a proportion of 63.4%. 79.1% of all migrant workers are younger than 35 years old. These people are well known for both their contributions to the development of the country and their underprivileged social status, and other relevant social issues brought up by this phenomenon.
Coming Onto The Screen
Probably since as early as the beginning of the phenomenon, attention has been paid to migrant workers from policy makers, scholars and writers. But these discourses about migrant workers were so limited that they were out of the sight of the public. Interestingly, at about the same time the first tide of migrant workers broke out, another phenomenon was shaping which was named by Lu Xinyu, the New Documentary Movement (NDM). Not only documentaries, other visual forms including Special Topics, TV series and feature films all began to introduce this group of people. Migrant workers have come onto the screen. In the NDM, film makers fashion to document the group of people called by them “the floating urban subjects”. “It’s hardly surprising that the portrayal of this group of floating new urban subjects was to become one of the defining features of the new urban cinema…” and “The salience of the floating urban subjects, particularly the figure of the migrant worker or mingong (literally, “peasant worker”), registers the scale and intensity of the urbanizing process and acknowledges the labor of migrant workers in the building of the new Chinese city.” (Zhang Zhen, 2007)
This new presentation differs from old ones which provide merely a bunch of cold numbers and statistics or theoretical analysis only reached and understood by a few intellectuals. Various images can document directly the lives of these people and tell their stories in a superior way.
Migrant workers on screen (Houjie & Last Train Home)
Houjie by Zhou Hao and Last Train Home by Fan Lixin are two of those films that depict the life of hundreds of millions of migrant workers. To be specific, the stories both took place in Guangdong Province, one of the most attractive places for migrant workers. Houjie (a.k.a Houjie Township) basically filmed whatever happened around a rental house in Houjie, a small town 40 km away from Guangzhou and 80 km from Hong Kong. Capital from Taiwan, Hong Kong and other areas around the world and cheap labor from impoverished areas in mainland China gather here, making this place one of the biggest manufacturing base in the world. In that rental house, migrant workers from various provinces lived together and became the subjects of the film. Last Train Home is a story of a migrant worker family. It was filmed from 2006 to 2009 and documented stories happened within the family in the 3 years. These two documentaries differ from each other in their approaches to this subject. By juxtaposing them, I want to have a careful look at how migrant workers are shown on screen.
Film Techniques
The two films really have quite different styles. The most obvious difference in film techniques is probably the quality of images. To put it in a simple way, Houjie seems to be amateur while Last Train Home is professional. The image of Houjie is rough, shaky and unpolished, while the image of Last Train Home is no worse than some feature films. This difference came from the different budgets and equipments they used. Zhou Hao filmed Houjie with a little DV; Fan Lixin’s camera is more advanced.
In spite of images, the sound track of Houjie is also far more unpolished than Last Train Home. Obviously, sound in Houjie was recorded by the inherent microphone on the DV. But Last Train Home has more advanced recording equipments. In an interview, Fan Lixin pointed out that every major character in his documentary was equipped with a portable microphone, which even helped them to find each other when the crew and the subjects got separated in the train station. Moreover, Fan used non-diegetic music while Zhou didn’t. In Last Train Home, non-diegetic music are used four times altogether. The first time takes place on Zhang Changhua and Chen Suqin’s way back home in 2006. After 2100 km’s journey and a confession by the couple of how difficult it was to make the choice to leave their kids and became migrant workers, the slow paced and sorrowful music lingered along the still river and dusty road. Music is used again when Zhang Qin looked at the vast valley alone, after the portrayal of her life in Sichuan Province with her brother and grandma. The third time is different from the others. It happens when Zhang Qin had a new fashionable hairstyle and walked confidently in the street. The last use of music is when Chen Suqin is burning joss sticks and praying. This happens after a fierce fight between Zhang Qin and her father. The use of music is quite emotional, each suggesting the inner feelings of the characters. They also work well as the punctuations of the film.
Other differences include focal lengths and shot angle. In Houjie, most shots are shot in very short lengths. The camera (DV) is quite close to the subjects. In Last Train Home, more shots including many close-ups are shot with longer focal length. This stylistic difference creates in my mind two different images of how the filmmakers of each film work with their subjects. In Houjie, cameramen are director Zhou Hao and his wife. With the capacity of their little DV, they are just like a part of the neighborhood. Notably, most shots in Houjie are shot in low angle. We cannot tell whether it’s a strategic choice. My guess is that, when sitting, standing and walking together with the subjects, they put their DV in front of their chest instead of handing it over their eyes, which appears to be more casual and might cause less disturbance to the subjects. As for Last Train Home, the crew is bigger and the equipment is larger. The closeness in Houjie might not be easily realized. No matter whether Fan chose to use more long length intentionally or was compelled to do so, it does convey a feeling of distance between the filmmakers and the subjects.
There are also some shared techniques in the two films. They both abandon voiceover and use subtitles to provide related information. They both contain interviews with the subjects. In Last Train Home, the voice of the filmmaker is totally taken out. However, in Houjie, for example, we can hear the voice behind the camera during the interview with the prostitute Wang, “how did you feel the first day you did that job?” Together with the very short distance between Wang and the camera, the interview turns out just like a close chat between two friends. Audience can strongly feel the existence of the filmmaker. While in Last Train Home, the camera always tries to be invisible.
Narrative
On narrative level, the two films differ even more greatly. Generally speaking, Houjie is a horizontal portrayal of the life of migrant workers with the rental house as its center, while Last Train Home is a vertical follow-up report of all that happened within the family.
In Houjie, subjects are a group of people from different places with various jobs. There are assembly line workers, fortune teller with his ex wife and present lover, hair salon prostitute and her boy friend. Everyone has his or her own story and the rental house is a conjunction of their stories. The film starts in the first New Year after “911” and covers a time of less than a year. Many viewers have been complaining online about the narrative of Houjie, criticizing that so many people and events are filmed that they feel at sea about what on earth the director wants to express. Counter arguments include viewing this narrative strategy as a metaphor for real life itself, which is “non-narrative” and contains many trivial and intermittent events. In the film, workers talk about the influence of 911 and Afghan War on their factories and their working conditions. Two men fight fiercely for debt. Two women give birth to their kids. A couple quarrel and reconcile. People visit the fortune teller. Woman consults about her venereal disease. A fire breaks out in the house. Ex wife, present lover and lover’s old mother quarrel and fight with each other. Other trivial things include buying lotteries, catching a rat and watching a film in the open air. It’s a panorama of an entire community and a window showcasing every aspect of their lives.
Last Train Home is totally different. It’s a story of a family. Different from Houjie, it’s a story one can easily make a summary of. Filming lasted three years from 2006 to 2009. All that happened in the film center around the relationship among the family members, mainly the relationship between parents and the daughter. The conflict between the parents and their daughter adds to the tension of the film and becomes the trigger of audiences’ contemplation of the life of migrant workers and various relevant issues. In a natural way, the film is well structured by the three Spring Festival Travels. It starts with the first travel, during which the life of the parents in Guangdong and the life of grandma and the kids in Sichuan are shown briefly to the audience. Then Zhang Qin left home. The second time they got back home is the tipping point of the complete break-out of their conflict. The film finally ends with the third Spring Festival Travel when Chen Suqin went home, leaving Zhang Changhua alone in Guangdong. Chen decided to stop working in Guangdong and look after their little son back in Sichuan, wishing that he should continue his education and never follow the way his sister and they themselves have followed. To make the story more intriguing, sentimental, and dramatic, various techniques are applied. Like mentioned above, non-diegetic music is used. To build up tension, cross cutting is frequently used. Zhang Qin’s happiness of getting free is followed by the worried look of her parents. Zhang Qin’s noisy night life in disco is juxtaposed with the quiet image of her parents working.
There are also some similarities in narrative. They both tell the story in a chronological order. They both end in a sequence similar to their beginning. Houjie begins with many migrant workers arriving at Houjie Township and crossing the road; it ends with a man trying to cross the same road but jammed by the constant flow of traffic. Last Train Home starts with the Spring Festival Travel and ends with another. This structure suggests that their life shown earlier in the film probably will go on; questions are still unsolved; their future remains uncertain. In both films, there is a TV showing the great events of the country going on. In Houjie, TV programs were celebrating Chinese National football team’s qualifying for the tournament of World Cup. In Last Train Home, Zhang Qin watched the opening ceremony of 2008 Olympics with her co-workers in the bar. The image of China shown on TV in the films is a mediated one. By showing migrant workers watching those images, comparison and criticism are made by the filmmaker. What’s more, both stories have a global event as its background. In Houjie, 911 and Afghan War influenced their life greatly. In Last Train Home, the financial crisis in 2008 also cast shadow on the life of migrant workers. The influence of such global events on these ordinary workers demonstrates, in a sorrowful way, the great importance of Chinese migrant workers and the contributions they have made to the country and the world. Every one of ten sports shoes in the whole world are made in Houjie area. The factory Zhang Qin worked for produces big pants exported to foreign countries. The rapid development of the country and the better way of life in other areas around the world are built upon the sacrifice of these Chinese migrant workers.
Issues Covered
Due to the different approaches to this subject, the two documentaries focus on different aspects of migrant workers’ life.
Houjie is not particularly interested in some certain aspects; but it covers many relevant issues. Housing condition is definitely one of them. As shown on the screen, the place they live in is rather shabby, which is typical among migrant workers. The house is divided into many small rooms by some kind of self-built wall. In one shot, the filmmaker stood (or sat) at a high position from which he could film all the rooms below him only by a simple panning. The house once caught fire and they tried to put it out with water in the basin. A man awkwardly tried to catch a rat hidden in a pipe. A man got snubbed by the landlord when bargaining for lower rent. Gender role is another issue. It’s not obvious but it seems to me more attention is paid to female in Houjie. More interviews are with female. They disclose in front of the camera their experiences, their thoughts about their men and opinions on prostitution. The relationship between migrant workers and localite are also mentioned. A man is beaten up by policemen for stealing a cell phone. From the comment of a passerby, we know this is a migrant worker. A woman said, “It is fine you guys come and make money here. But why do you always have to do such shitty things?” This comment from a local reveals two facts: migrant workers tend to do illegal things; locals do have some prejudice against migrant workers. On the other hand, the film is mostly limited to this house and no more communication between migrant workers and localite are filmed. This also reflects the limited communication between the two groups. Health and medical service conditions of migrant workers have always been a major concern. In this film, the way two women gave birth adds to such discourse. Two migrant workers gave birth to their babies in the rented house. A midwife said no examination was needed until the 7th month of pregnancy, suggesting they could not afford such medical care. After the baby was born, they borrowed the scales to weigh the new born baby. Other issues like Family Planning policy are also roughly mentioned.
Last Train Home is mainly concentrated on two major issues: migrant family problems and Spring Festival Travel. The problem of Spring Festival Travel emerged along with the increasing of migrant workers in late 1980s. Although there are also students, travelers in the traveling crowd, migrant workers are the largest group. Spring Festival Travel is vividly shown in this film. We see Zhang and his family forced their way onto the train, we also see others arguing with policemen and complaining about everything. In Last Train Home, the Spring Festival Travel sequences are where audience realizes that Zhang Changhua’s family is not alone. There are hundreds of thousands of migrant worker families just like them. Migrant worker family problem has many ramifications: Children Left Behind, family pattern, family relationship, etc. Zhang Changhua’s family turns out to be a combination of these issues. At first, the couple left home, leaving behind two kids and grandma. Problems well illustrated include the distance between parents and children, and children being tired of school. What happened in Zhang’s family is no individual case. Later, Qin also became a migrant worker. People like Qin form a group called “Second Generation Migrant Workers”. They are different from the former generation, more willing to blend into city life. At last Chen Suqin went back home. She said, “I worry about you (Zhang Changhua), but I have to look after Yang and he shall never follow his sister… the whole burden of the family is now on you alone, but everyone has his own dilemma. I have to go back.” After a long time of silence, Zhang just replied “Don’t do too much farm work.” The family pattern of Zhang’s family kept changing, trying to resolve contradictions and get away from dilemmas. But new problems await them and they are just moving from one dilemma to another.
Migrant workers in the center of the age of transformation
In the first decade of 21st century, migrant workers have been shown on screen frequently. Not only documentaries, a number of feature films are made about them. News reports and TV special topics are also increasing. But taking into consideration the huge number of them, the great contributions they have made and the many uncovered aspects of their life, they are still a vulnerable group in media representation.
Interestingly, the directors of the two documentaries analyzed above, Zhou Hao and Fan Lixin were both journalists in mainland China. They have always been sensitive to social hot spots and have the intention to follow them. Globalization is now a good background for the presentation of migrant workers. As Fan confessed in an interview, “Chinese migrant workers have been making contributions to people all over the world. One goal of this film is to make people around the world aware of this group of people and appreciate their contributions and sacrifice, and then think about how we can make the world a fairer one.”
Migrant workers are the foundation of and the booster to China’s last 30 years’ rapid development. How to solve their problems and improve their lives is essential in the transformation period. Visual presentations of them work not only as a recording of history, but more as a window showing them to the world and a claim for a better life. Houjie shows us the milieu they live in and either important or trivial events they are engaged in. Last Train Home tells a moving and thought-provoking family story which is quite sensational and dramatic. Various images of migrant workers in Chinese documentaries have gained the capacity that no other media has reached. These films, owing to the direct and easily understood audio-visual language, travel around the world and provoke discussions.
Bibliography:
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