No Way Out (Chapter 3)

July 6th, 2024:

After wandering for a month, Sister Mann, who wasn’t great with words, managed to land a job as a supermarket saleswoman. Her task was simple: stand at a supermarket entrance and hand out flyers advertising cosmetics. “I’ve always believed that, I mean, I suspected that I got the job because no one else wanted it. I’m pretty sure that’s what it was.” The base salary was only 300 yuan a month, and if someone bought the products on the flyers, she’d earn a commission. “300 was very far from enough. Most of my income had to come from the commissions. So I worked from 9:30 in the morning to 9:30 in the evening at the supermarket – 12 hours a day, only getting the chance to sit and rest during brief meal breaks. The rest of the time, I had to stand. By the end of each day, my legs, my feets, they were all swollen.”

Her earnings in the first month were only 750 yuan, half of what she could make on the construction site. “I looked at my wage, and later on, I realized that I had to become bolder, more assertive in advertising, and learn how to talk to people, to promote the benefits of the cosmetics products so that I can sell more.” Slowly, she improved, becoming more confident and proactive. “I learned to read faces and identify potential customers.” Her monthly salary began to increase. Her year working at the supermarket was one of the most formative in her life. She grew from a timid, shy girl into someone more confident and outgoing, someone who could stand her ground.

But then, an incident shattered the confidence she had worked so hard to build. That day, as usual, she stood at the supermarket entrance, promoting her products. “It was a tall man dragging a woman behind him. He and the woman, his wife, stormed over and up to me without giving a single word. He yanked and ripped all the flyers, a whole stack, from my hand. A whole stack. He took a very short glance at the flyers, then he…uh…he shouted something like, ‘You’re the one who ruined my wife’s face! Do you yourself even use the cosmetics you’re selling?’ And then…and then he kept going on: ‘Look at you. Someone as short and ugly as you, standing out here and ruining the lives of others with your garbage!’ His wife, even his wife, chimed in, ‘yeah I know right – her face isn’t suited for selling makeup. It’s a waste for her, with that face of hers, to use it, let alone sell it. She probably doesn’t even bother."

Sister Mann was stunned. It was the first time she had faced such aggression, and she “didn’t know how to respond. My mind was…just a white sheet of paper…entirely blank. I stuttered. I didn’t know what to say. Then staff from the supermarket heard the sound, and came and stepped in.” The supermarket staff tried to help her calm the couple down. With her help, Sister Mann stammered an apology. “After she came, I started apologizing repeatedly, again and again. I started reciting the product ingredients that I memorized and reviewed everyday after work. And I even promised to talk to the cosmetics company, to see if they can offer to test the wife’s skin reactions or allergy or some other conditions – if the company can cover the fees, basically.” The crowd dispersed, and the confrontation ended, once the couple left. “But no one, um…no one other than the supermarket staff, no one said a single word in defense of the products, let alone standing up for me. But they all knew…they all saw how unreasonable, how hurtful those two aggressors have been.” The looks people gave her as the crowd dispersed – sympathetic, disdainful, or hateful, even – all blurred together. From that day forward, Sister Mann never worked as a saleswoman again.

After leaving the supermarket, she looked everywhere for new job opportunities but no longer wanted a job where she had to deal with people face-to-face. Factory seemed like a better option. “I thought that jobs involved in factories would be less public, more suited to my personality. I imagined, you know, they stay with the same group of co-workers in a building all day long, and they don’t even have to talk to each other – let alone strangers – during work.” She went to Longhua district, where many of Shenzhen’s industrial parks were located. “I went on the streets on my own, and read every job posting I could find. Eventually, I got hired at a small garment factory, starting as a thread trimmer. I was told that speaking with coworkers was not only not required for my job – in fact, it was prohibited by factory rules. Prohibited during working hours, of course.” For the next 25 years, she drifted from one garment factory to another, and here she was now, still at it. She went through marriage, childbirth, and separation from her husband during over these two and a half decades.

When Sister Mann was 22, her parents decided it was time for her to settle down and marry. Through family connections, she met a young man named Li Gang (a pseudonym) from a nearby village. Li’s family ran a small grocery store in town. “At first, when we first met, I didn’t feel particularly fond or repelled by him, if that makes sense. I guess it was the same for him. Neither of us liked or disliked each other, but, you know, under our parents’ urging – forceful urging – we dated for a year. If that could be called dating. Over that year, I thought he was – I mean, he appeared – hardworking and free of bad habits. He saw me as kind and diligent. So we got married."