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Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city

theguardian.com

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Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city

#51

Post by davidzweig »

devrandomguy wrote: post #27
peterburkimsher wrote: post #12

I went to Shenzhen and worked for Egoman, a Chinese company that made the first batch of Raspberry Pis, before that manufacturing got moved to Wales. The dormitories look typical. I arranged to stay in one through a different friend; mine wasn't arranged by the company. Now I'm in Taiwan, and life is better here. Factories are newer and cleaner, and working hours are more sane. Chinese factories often set long shifts…

Based on your name, I assume that you are not ethnically Asian. Do you find racism / xenophobia to be a significant issue for you in either Shenzhen or Taiwan? As a very white Canadian, if I wanted to explore, work and travel for years on end, and was willing to live at the same financial level as the locals, would that be offensive to them?

China seemed to me like a pretty down-to-earth place, people are pragmatic and generally accepting of foreigners. There are many different ethnic groups. If you stick around a while and work on your Mandarin, I think you can find your place quite ok. Kunming is a nice city, and the surrounding area is very pretty.

Some photos from a trip here: https://goo.gl/photos/FawpURbZweNNQt288

I am working on some electronics and will be back in Shenzhen sometime this year, although I'm not sure if I will stay on much longer afterwards, I don't know if it's that much fun to live there.

Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city

#52

Post by rubidium »

codyb wrote: post #39
tziki wrote: post #38

One thing I always find chilling about stories like these is the description of work - specifically, how easily it can be automated. Very few people in western countries depend on jobs like these, but your average Chinese doesn't have much padding against automation taking away this type of jobs. Articles like these make me feel very lucky to have been born into a country which gives me enough opportunities to pad my…

I wouldn't say very few, driving is a large portion of many breadwinners duties whether they're cab drivers or truck drivers and those jobs will very shortly in the grand scheme of things be automated out. Tellers, and clerks are another big group of people who might be hit pretty hard by automation.

If the automated checkout at the grocery is any indication, truckers will be ok :)

Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city

#53

Post by usaphp »

pm90 wrote: post #18
peterburkimsher wrote: post #12

I went to Shenzhen and worked for Egoman, a Chinese company that made the first batch of Raspberry Pis, before that manufacturing got moved to Wales. The dormitories look typical. I arranged to stay in one through a different friend; mine wasn't arranged by the company. Now I'm in Taiwan, and life is better here. Factories are newer and cleaner, and working hours are more sane. Chinese factories often set long shifts…

Why do people agree to work in such conditions? Please don't be offended by my question, but my impression was that literacy is very high in China, and everyone gets basic education. Are the workers not aware of how they're being exploited? Are they happy with what they do? What's the turnover like?

Why do people agree to work on fish factories in Alaska. Based on my experience the conditions on fish factories are not much better, minimum wage, with 16 hour shifts and small dorms with 4 person per dorm.

Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city

#54

Post by colejohnson66 »

rubidium wrote: post #52
codyb wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say very few, driving is a large portion of many breadwinners duties whether they're cab drivers or truck drivers and those jobs will very shortly in the grand scheme of things be automated out. Tellers, and clerks are another big group of people who might be hit pretty hard by automation.

If the automated checkout at the grocery is any indication, truckers will be ok :)

> truckers

You mean checkers? Because with self driving cars somewhere around the corner, I could see truckers getting replaced with self driving trucks sometime in the future.

Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city

#55

Post by 123e1daAdfafsdf »

tooltalk wrote: post #8
Retric wrote: post #2

It's important to remember employed people normally have a lower suicide rate than average. So Foxcon's rate is similar to the national average, but higher than the national average of employed people.

Let's not forget that the average age of Foxconn worker is only 23. According to (somewhat dated) WHO, that age group has the lowest suicide rate ( http://www.who.int/mental_health/media/chin.pdf ) Number of suicides by age group and gender. CHINA (mainland, selected rural and urban areas*), 1999. Age (years) 5-14 15-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65-74 75+ All Males 83 626 1357 1287 1196 1165 1325 1009 8048 Females 64 9…

Suicide is an especially sensitive death classification, and I would assume even moreso in a place like China. What is your opinion on the validity of these data?

Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city

#56

Post by woutr_be »

devrandomguy wrote: post #27
peterburkimsher wrote: post #12

I went to Shenzhen and worked for Egoman, a Chinese company that made the first batch of Raspberry Pis, before that manufacturing got moved to Wales. The dormitories look typical. I arranged to stay in one through a different friend; mine wasn't arranged by the company. Now I'm in Taiwan, and life is better here. Factories are newer and cleaner, and working hours are more sane. Chinese factories often set long shifts…

Based on your name, I assume that you are not ethnically Asian. Do you find racism / xenophobia to be a significant issue for you in either Shenzhen or Taiwan? As a very white Canadian, if I wanted to explore, work and travel for years on end, and was willing to live at the same financial level as the locals, would that be offensive to them?

As someone who lived in Shenzhen for a bit I can kinda give you my opinions. You'll always feel like an outsider, but people are extremely friendly towards you. If you make the effort to learn some Mandarin, people will greatly appreciate that.

For me, as an introvert, I felt quite uncomfortable sometimes, people will randomly walk up to you and start a conversation, or they'll try to sneak a picture of you. And then you have the usual people who just stare you down. But I assume that's more because they don't see many Western faces. (Although Shenzhen has quite a large expat population)

But I never had anyone being racist to me.

Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city

#57

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jdietrich wrote: post #22
pm90 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people agree to work in such conditions? Please don't be offended by my question, but my impression was that literacy is very high in China, and everyone gets basic education. Are the workers not aware of how they're being exploited? Are they happy with what they do? What's the turnover like?

A very large proportion of workers in technology factories are internal migrants. Many of them will have grown up on subsistence farms in the poorer regions of China. Like most migrant workers, they're working hard and saving money towards a planned future. They overwhelmingly prefer factories with dormitories, because it keeps their living costs down and allows them to save more money. "Exploitation" is a subjective…

Textiles have been priced out of the pearl river delta, but there are plenty of regions in china where it is still going strong (as you say, where the internal migrants come from).

Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city

#59

Post by seanmcdirmid »

rubidium wrote: post #52
codyb wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say very few, driving is a large portion of many breadwinners duties whether they're cab drivers or truck drivers and those jobs will very shortly in the grand scheme of things be automated out. Tellers, and clerks are another big group of people who might be hit pretty hard by automation.

If the automated checkout at the grocery is any indication, truckers will be ok :)

I've been using automated checkout at Ralph's for a year now, couldn't be happier.

Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city

#60

Post by peterburkimsher »

devrandomguy wrote: post #27
peterburkimsher wrote: post #12

I went to Shenzhen and worked for Egoman, a Chinese company that made the first batch of Raspberry Pis, before that manufacturing got moved to Wales. The dormitories look typical. I arranged to stay in one through a different friend; mine wasn't arranged by the company. Now I'm in Taiwan, and life is better here. Factories are newer and cleaner, and working hours are more sane. Chinese factories often set long shifts…

Based on your name, I assume that you are not ethnically Asian. Do you find racism / xenophobia to be a significant issue for you in either Shenzhen or Taiwan? As a very white Canadian, if I wanted to explore, work and travel for years on end, and was willing to live at the same financial level as the locals, would that be offensive to them?

woutr_be and mc32 described it well. You will feel like an outsider, but people are not hostile towards white Westerners. It's very difficult to ever feel truly local though.

My personal experience is that Kaohsiung has more social life than Shenzhen, which is partly government policy (no Facebook in China, segregated churches for foreigners, difficult to get English-teaching visas so fewer foreigners around).

Learning Mandarin is super hard. I'm introverted and can't just pick it up through language exchange like the English teachers seem to do. I spend my days in front of a computer screen, not talking to people.

I wrote https://pingtype.github.io to help with my studies. If you have feedback about that program, please tell me! Also check the blog on there to read more about the ways I've tried and failed to learn.

Living at the same financial level is difficult in Taiwan. The government requires skilled foreigners (tech workers) to be paid 2x the minimum wage. English teachers get paid even more, with fewer hours. There are some digital nomads who work over the internet, but they come illegally on tourist visas (that's common, and the government doesn't really care in Taiwan).

My lifestyle is comparable to local people, though. The extra savings goes towards 1 or 2 intercontinental trips per year when I can visit family. I'm neither rich nor poor - I get paid double what local people do, but half the salary expected by NZ immigration for me to be considered "skilled". (I really hope they will adjust for purchasing power parity). My personal expenses are mostly food, rent, and electronics, and all of those are very cheap here (but delicious).

In short, if you're interested, come to visit! You won't regret it. Or if you're in Canada, I'm going to Vancouver from the 26th August - 2nd September and I can introduce you to some international groups there (CouchSurfing, First Baptist Internationals) where you can make some Taiwanese friends.

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