A Father Who Refused Leave His Daughter Behind (Part 2)

August 26th, 2023:

Mr. Fu (Fu Xiong), first from the right, carrying his dinner to his home

When Fu Xiong first entered the factory, everything was new and exciting to him. He wanted to try his hand at every position, at every type of job. But with no experience, he had to start by working on auxiliary tasks such as distributing materials, cleaning work areas, and cleaning equipment. Three months into his new job, his naturally restless personality grew weary of factory life. “It felt like a prison, you know. You can imagine it: working from dawn till dusk for a meager salary, going back home, sleeping, waking up, and going back to work. You stay at the same place, stuck in the factory, with no hope of advancement. I wanted to switch jobs, at least temporarily. I didn’t know what else I could do. My cousin and co-workers told me that Zhaowen was considered one of the better factories in Shenzhen. They said it had decent pay and working conditions, compared with other ones.” The turnover rate in Zhaowen was quite low; most workers stayed for years. After much deliberation, Fu Xiong decided to stick it out for a bit longer. Nineteen years later, he was still there.

Fu Xiong’s love for tailoring grew during his first year. Through observation, learning, and hard work, he gradually transitioned from an auxiliary worker trimming threads to an official fabric cutter. His job involved taking design blueprints or samples and using semi-automated machines or handheld scissors to cut fabric into the required shapes and sizes. This included inspecting the fabric for flaws or color discrepancies and then cutting them according to the markings on the blueprints.

Fu Xiong’s face lit up with excitement when we talked about fabric cutting. “Fabric cutting involves precise measurements and markings to ensure the shapes and sizes are accurate. You also need to master the technique of operating cutting machines and scissors to improve efficiency. And, of course, you have to understand the fabric's characteristics and the intricacies of the cutting process. Sometimes the job is tedious, exhausting, but when you see the final, beautifully crafted garments, there’s a huge sense of accomplishment.” The pride on his smiling face was unmistakable and unmistaken. Zhaowen factory produced clothing items for major brands and big retailers like ARMANI, MICHAEL KORS, CABI, BODEN, BOGNER, FC, SEED, MOCO, and coincidentally, they’ve also manufactured clothes for a brand I had worked with during my freshman summer internship, Shenzhen Winner.

Fu Xiong’s work and life in the factory were relatively stable. In his third year at the factory, he met a girl from Hubei named Xiao Ling (a pseudonym). Xiao Ling was from Huanggang, Hubei, the same province Fu Xiong came from. She joined the factory as a warehouse manager in 2007. Her job involved checking, counting, and updating the inventory of fabric rolls and other materials in the warehouse, keeping records and reporting to the purchasing team and sales staff. She also handled the receiving, accounting, and distribution of inventory. The role required immense attention to detail and patience. Working in the same factory, Fu Xiong and Xiao Ling met each other often when cloth and other raw materials were distributed. They fell in love and eventually got married.

After their wedding, they rented a single-room dormitory in the factory’s residential building. This is the building in front of which Fu and I sat and talked. In 2008, when Xiao Ling was nine months pregnant, Fu Xiong sent her back to his hometown in Hubei. In Chinese culture, women go through a postpartum recovery of one month (for normal delivery) or 42 days (for cesarean section) after giving birth, a practice called “sitting the month.” Cared for by family or hired caregivers, women sitting the month stay indoors with their newborn baby, feeding them while following a healthy and nutritional diet according to traditional Chinese medicine. Dating over 2,000 years, the tradition of “sitting the month” can be traced back to the ancient practice of “Yuenei,” documented in Western Han Dynasty’s (202 BC – 9 AD) Book of Rites. From the perspective of traditional Chinese sociology and medicine, this period of postpartum confinement is a critical transitional phase for new mothers to smoothly navigate the physiology and psychological changes to their lives. The reason Fu Xiong sent his wife back home for childbirth was simple: “in Shenzhen, there’s no one to take care of her, and our income couldn’t cover the cost of childbirth and childcare. Back home, my parents could look after her, and costs of living were much lower.”