Week of March 7, 2009
A Reading From 'Factory Girls'
China has a new problem: the global economic meltdown. There's less demand for Chinese exports, and as a result, tens of thousands of small and mid-size factories have closed down. Workers in those factories either return home to the countryside, or stay on in the cities, hoping to find other jobs.
Author Leslie Chang wrote about migrant girls who leave their rural homes and flock to the factories in larger towns. Chang was born in America, but spent a decade in China, working as a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. In her book, Factory Girls, Chang tells the story of Min, a girl who worked in a factory making alarm clocks and calculators. She slept in a cramped dorm with 11 other workers and made about $50 a month. But Min wanted more.
Here's a passage from Leslie Chang's book, Factory Girls, read by reporter Meghan Vigeant.
