[act-ma] 10/20 Factory Girls: Rural to Urban and a Changing China

[Meredith Gray]

On Monday, October 20 at Porter Square Books, author Leslie Chang will
address globalization and its impact on the labor economy.  Do you know who
makes your sneakers, that snazzy luxury handbag you've been coveting, and
the mobile phone that you just can't leave home without? By and large, this
work is done by young women in China who leave their homes to work in
sprawling factory cities.  Though we rely on cheap goods made in China, few
Westerners have been inside the factories that provide us with the products
we depend upon, and even fewer have penetrated the lives of the young women
who leave their homes to work in China's sprawling factory cities.

In *Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China*, former Wall
Street Journal Beijing correspondent and first-generation Chinese-American
Leslie T. Chang tells the story of these workers who labor countless hours
to provide us with the material goods we take for granted. *Factory Girls *is
told primarily through the lives of two young women, whom Chang follows over
the course of three years as they attempt to rise from the assembly lines of
Dongguan, a sweltering industrial city in the Pearl River Delta. Chang
explores what these young women who leave their homes and families
experience in the city: twelve-hour work days, seedy living conditions,
business scams, and a total break from one's family and past. Chang vividly
portrays a world where lying about your age, your education, and your work
experience is often a requisite for getting ahead; where a few computer or
English lessons can catapult you into a completely different social class.
Join <a href=http://www.centerfornewwords.org/>The Center for New Words</a>
to discuss the urban/rural divide, labor justice, and China's emergence in
the neoliberal market.

Monday, October 20 @ 7:00PM

Porter Square Books, 25 White Street, Cambridge, MA

Contact: Ally Day, Center for New Words (617-876-5310)
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