No Way Out (Afterword: Q&A)

July 6th, 2024:

Q: I noticed you barely ate your dinner and threw most of it away. Is lunch they offer here as bad as dinner?

A: It's the heat. It’s just too hot, I’ve got no appetite. Lunch is somewhat better, but we have to pay for lunch ourselves. If we work overtime until 10 pm, we get a free dinner. The meal budget is something like six or seven yuan per meal. Sometimes, when you stay late enough, they give us “eight-treasure congee” at night. But if we only work overtime until 7 or 8 in the evening, then there's no free meal.

Q: Your day ends at 5:30 in the afternoon right. That’s almost 5 hours away from 10 PM.

A: Yeah, we work long overtime. But our base salary is not high – you don’t earn nearly enough if you don’t work overtime.

Q: What part of the assembly line exactly do you work on in this factory? Is your pay based on how many hours you work or how many items you produce?

A: I work on sewing, both knit and woven fabrics. My wage is based on the number of pieces I complete. I haven’t been doing this for long. Some people here have been at it for over ten, even twenty, years, or more. They’re skilled, much faster than I am, so they earn more than me.

Q: Wow, some people have been here for decades? It sounds like the factory treats its employees fairly well, for those people to keep working here.

A: Yeah, there are quite a lot of long-term workers here. There are over 300 of us working here now, and most of them are older workers. The majority are in their 40s.

Q: Does the factory pay for your social security plan? Do you get time off during regular holidays?

A: Yes, they pay into our social security. We get time off for all national holidays, otherwise, they have to pay us three times our usual wage – that’s required by law. We often work overtime on weekends, but I’m not really sure how they calculate our overtime pay here. It’s all based on piecework anyway. Everyone wants to work overtime – and work longer overtime – so we can earn more. But it all depends on how many orders the factory has. They don’t pay you to produce unless they can sell what you produce. This year, orders are getting fewer and fewer.

Q: Do you live in the dorms here too? (I pointed to the dormitory building across from the canteen.)

A: Yes. The factory provides housing. No rent, and we don’t have to pay for water fees either. We only have to cover the electricity bill. If we meet our production quotas, they’ll even waive the electricity bill. But there are no private bathrooms, so we have to line up to shower. It’s not very convenient, which is why many workers here rent rooms outside on their own.

Q: Do you have any plans or hopes for the future?

A: I’ll keep working as long as I can. One day at a time, I guess. I don’t have any expectations – no real hopes. I mean, when even your own kids don’t like you, what else is there to hope for?

Q: Maybe it’s just a misunderstanding. I’m sure deep down, your children do love you.

A: No, they don’t. No one in this world loves me—not even my parents.

Q: Do you think the way you’re feeling now has something to do with how you grew up?

A: Maybe. I’ve always been the least liked in my family since I was little.

Q: Would you mind sharing some of those experiences from your childhood?

A: I’ve got two older sisters and two younger brothers. I was always the one my parents ignored, the one they liked the least. My eldest sister was the firstborn, and she was beautiful. My second eldest sister was tall and outgoing. Both of them were likable. As for my two younger brothers, they were always the apples of my grandparents’ eyes. They liked the boys the most. But me? I didn’t talk much, I was very quiet, I was slow at doing things, and I wasn’t cute at all. No one liked me.

I remember when we had watermelon at home. My grandparents would make sure my brothers ate the watermelon first. They always took the best parts of the melon. You know, the watermelon’s the sweetest towards its middle part, so when you split it in two, the part on top is the best – whoever ate first got the best. My second sister would cut three slices of the watermelon, bring two of them to my parents, and then she would take the remaining slice for herself. My parents would save the two slices they got from my second sister, for my eldest sister. By the time the watermelon was all gone, no one even noticed me. No one remembered I was there. Do you see what I’m getting at? Don’t you think I felt like an extra one, uninvited, in the family?

I was the extra, unnecessary person in my family. Once, my eldest sister and I were watering the vegetable garden, and I accidentally stepped on some seedlings and broke them. My parents yelled at me without holding back but didn’t say a single word to my sister. Then in middle school, my grades were better than my younger brother’s, but my parents told me they couldn’t afford to keep both my brother and I in school, so they had to make me drop out. All the while my brother got to keep going in the school.

Q: Did you ever talk to your parents about how unfair that was?

A: I’ve argued with them about it many many times, but it never helped. Nothing changed. They always thought they were being the fairer judge. They said listening to me is going to school to an ignorant girl who never went to high school herself.

Q: I’m really sorry to hear that. That unfairness you had to go through really hurts to hear. Maybe there’s some misunderstanding that hasn’t been cleared up. I’ve had misunderstandings with my own parents too. For a while, I thought they favored my brother. But after talking to them, I realized it wasn’t like that at all. They love us both equally.

A: [Sigh] You don’t understand. It’s just the way things are in rural families. In the countryside, boys are always more valued by their parents. The firstborn, too. They are always given more importance, more attention.

Q: I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through. But I truly believe that everyone who comes into this world is unique and deserving of love. Like you—you’re unique, there’s only one of you in this world, and you belong here. You’re a part of it, and there are people who love you, even if you don’t know it yet.

A: Thank you, little brother.

At this moment, Sister Mann suddenly lifted her head, and for the first time, I think I saw in her tear-filled, reddened eyes a faint glimmer of light.

I handed her a tissue.